I wrote Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tiger Rising and The Tale of Despereaux on a desk made of pieces of wood from an old fence. The fence had been in the backyard of the house that I grew up in in Florida. The desk meant a lot to me even though it was wobbly and splintery and poorly constructed.
Yesterday, I went to clear out a shed in the backyard and there was the old fence-desk. I had forgotten about it. And I had forgotten, too, the words that I had taped to it, the words I read every morning before I sat down to write.
“Your concern is with a gift and the service of it. Given the ready ear, the open eye, the purpose and the stamina, you will not be safe, because nobody can be safe, but you will be armed.”
The quote is attributed to Pamela Frankau. I don’t remember where I found it. I only know that it still rings to true to me, and that the words I love best are “the ready ear, the open eye.” I would add to that list “the astonished heart.”
Above the Frankau quote is a piece of a Franz Wright poem that ends “I can hardly bear the beauty of this world.”

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