Making Mountains Out of Coffee Mills...

I'm in Salem, Virginia, sitting at a local coffee house called Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea. Out the window I can see the people of this small town go about their day before Thanksgiving business, and the people inside talk and read newspapers. Dana struggles to do the Roanoke Times crossword puzzle.

After eating my raisin bran muffin, and as I sit here drinking my coffee and feeling a bit weighted by the stress of major papers and PhD applications, it occurs to me that I could live in a town like this for the rest of my life. Get up early in the morning, come down here for coffee in the morning, read and write, and minister at a small local church. Know the people, know myself, know peace and life in a way I never have. And never be known outside the bounds of this little town. Never to be famous or have any form of notoriety.

At least until my blockbuster, Pulitzer Prize winning novel is published, which starts a movement in the lives of people, and eventually accounts for my receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, and being called the greatest writer of the 21st century.

Then I'd probably be famous.