“ . . . So it was like that, water streaming through my hands. It was also like birth. Whose, I am not entirely sure. Was I birthing or being born? After years of gestation, it was like birthing in that these words had never before been placed in this particular order, and in that, what emerged was of me and yet not entirely created by me. Also, it was hard, possibly harder than capturing droplets of water from a rushing stream. And yet, it was as if I was being born anew as well. There's a palpable and important difference between knowing something and claiming that something. Like this: In a circle of people who've gathered to write together in the Tuscan hills or a Moroccan souk or at the edge of an Arizona desert or in a park in Washington DC, how many of us will raise our hands when the question is asked: Who here is a writer? Regrettably, not so many. . . “