"Writing" in a diner

How noisy it is in The Blue Bay Diner.  I've been here since 6:30PM.  I had dinner with friends till 8:30PM.  It was VERY noisy, but I hardly noticed.  Then I found myself a spot at the counter so I could relax and read more of The Art of Teaching Writing by Lucy Calkins.  And, I got very engrossed in the reading and hardly noticed the passage of time or that the diner had eventually become quiet.

Suddenly I was jolted out of my reading trance by the cacophony of voices.  So loud that I found myself observing the people in the diner to see where all the noise was coming from.

What had been a faily empty space at 8:30PM or 9PM had become a bustling dining area filled with conversation.  Tables seating at least five people each accounted for the loudest voices.  The booths were occupied by mostly dyads and their voices though close to me were no where as loud as the voices from the more distant dining room.

I don't know that I woudl have paid attention to the sounds had I not been reading Lucy Calkins' book.  Cerainly, writers (as other artists) pay attention to what goes on around them.  But, Lucy Calkins repeats over and over, and in different ways, how the bits and pieces of our lives are important.

"We grow a piece of writing not only by jotting notes and writing rough drafts, but also by noticingk, wondering, remembering, questioning, yearning." (page 4, The Art of Teaching Writing)

Tonight I noticed a heightened sense of the bits and pieces of my life.  Reading does change lives, and is essential to the writing process.