Story is a motif in my life. I have stories of my childhood, stories of dysfunction. Stories of family, striving parents, fun cousins, so many siblings, faithful husband and delightful daughters. The stories continue on generation after generation, as the older generation leaves us.

I have stories of students and my life with students in California, Iowa, Michigan, Arizona, Bahrain. Stories I am profoundly proud of and stories I am so ashamed of.

I have stories from the Bible that have transformed me and helped me understand life. Mary breathing in deeply of the stories of Jesus, finding the most important thing. Zacchaeus on the wrong side most of his life, gets a new start. Bartimaeus given his sight and a choice to go on his way. He chose the Jesus road.

Jim Carrey said, “I act because I’m broken in a lot of pieces and acting gives me a chance to reconfigure those pieces into 1,000 different things that are positive for people to watch.” Stories are the way for me to reconfigure my broken pieces and help my life fit back together.

Today is Tuesday, Day 126 in Bahrain’s coronavirus time, day 91 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. Today’s prompt is by Michelle Ross. Her  lovely music accompanying today’s prompt is Bach’s Ciaccona, a theme of eight measures followed by sixty-four variations. The prompt is about considering, as Milan Kundera puts it, the “infinitude hidden within all things.” Thinking of a motif or question in your life and write about it, “considering the question of whether you find meaning through repetition, or if the journey takes you farther away.”