I have been writing about myself and about my family–and events that have had an effect upon my life: I have been a journal keeper since I was 21.  Then I used the journal for self-awareness and for self-exploration.  Soon I realized that my journals contained so much of my schooling, my reading, my family, and what interested me–throughout my whole life, from my first memory, in 1944, to the present, like the death of a dear pet.  Or being retired.  I began to write: My Memories of A Time.  I needed to get the past into my prose.  Now I have an opportunity to tell stories.  This is what I am about.  “Home is where your story begins,” reads the plaque.  But I like this, too: “Stories don’t end.  They only go their separate ways.  We take leave of them, not knowing what comes after.”  (Narrator, Tulip Fever)