I used to tell Struggle Stories all of the time, but my spiritual work had made me conscious of their destructiveness and narcissistic roots. Books tours were one of my annual struggle stories. Fighting with the publisher. They didn’t understand a tour, they weren’t used to the road, they were always cutting back, were clueless, unsympathetic. I hated airline travel, my feet hurt, couldn’t do my work, blah-blah-friggin-blah.

I don’t tell those stories any more and I see now that they weren’t even true. They were a way of my seeking sympathy. But for what? My good and lucky life? The fact that I can do what I love?

Someone at the reading in Colonie asked me if I would miss the farm and the dogs, and I was about to break into an old habit – saying the book tour was tough and draining and tiring, but I caught myself.

No, I said, I don’t miss the farm.  I don’t miss the dogs. I love traveling to other cities, talking to readers, dog and animal lovers, followers of the blog. Some people have been following my Hero’s Journey for years, and I love seeing them, talking with them. How I would shrink and shrivel if I never left the farm, spent all of my days walking dogs, talking to donkeys, trekking to the Studio Barn to bother Maria.

Dogs are great, but they can also be boring. They aren’t stimulating to talk to, unless you are strange (I sometimes am),  want to talk about food and rabbits all day.

Book tours are intense, tiring, disruptive. I love them. Once a year, I get to go out into the country at someone else’s expense, talk about my work, listen to people who read my books and follow my life. Their questions and interest defines me, allows me to see myself, to grow

We all want sympathy I think, even whining writers living on their hills. And maybe people grieving animals.

But I find that struggle stories usually fail. People are absorbed in their own problems, and aren’t interested in my struggles. And too much sympathy can be crippling. I don’t miss my struggle stories.