I’ve been reading Margaret Atwood’s Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts. (She’s the author of Handmaid’s Tale) I heard an interview with her talking about the book before it came out and I thought I would really enjoy it. At about 30% (isn’t it weird how the Libby app gets us talking about books in percentages?) into the book, I’m not so sure I love the book (I just noticed it is 600 pages long!), but it does have me thinking about some things.

In the book she starts with her childhood and kind of plods along describing her parents, her less than typical living situations, early jobs she held… I’m getting to where she says things like that all the buildings in Handmaid’s Tale are actual buildings near Harvard (where she went to graduate school).

Today was warm again…beach weather in March. So after school instead of a sweaty walk around the neighborhood, we headed to the beach for a much more refreshing walk. Even though the tide was rising, we headed south (our most favorite direction). There’s a place about 2/3 of the way to our turn around point that we call “the corner.” Before all the sand refurbishing work, this used to be a place that was hard to get around unless the tide was super low–maybe that’s why we call it the corner. Anyway, this corner is the place where we often see an osprey perched, looking over the ocean. But the more interesting part of this “corner” is that there is a face in the cliff.

She’s always there. Her face has changed some over the years–I guess she is aging like the rest of us. And with Margaret Atwood in my head, now I’m thinking that maybe I should write her story. I don’t have all the mythology and old English cannon of books under my belt like Margaret Atwood. But I do have years of working with kids and endless walks on the beach to draw on.

I’ve never been an aspiring novelist dreaming of writing great works of fiction…but maybe I can let my years of photos of this face in the cliff inspire her story along with her friend the osprey who spends lots of time perched in her hair.

What do you notice about this face in the cliff? What are you wondering?