Every few years, I like to revisit books from my childhood. These are the ones that have stood the test of time and are just as enjoyable now as the day that I first discovered them, with an added dash of nostalgia and the comforting feeling of returning home. I recently began rereading the Time Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle (though, truthfully, I still consider it a trilogy). I said a warm hello to old friends Meg Murry, Calvin O’Keefe, and of course precocious, intuitive Charles Wallace as I settled in for the journey that had imprinted itself so resolutely on my young self.

Instead of picking up my original and worn copies, I opened the Commemorative Edition Box Set that I found at a used book sale awhile back, figuring it needed a little reading love. I was pleasantly surprised to find an introduction written by Ms. L’Engle herself, from which the above quote came. Here is a condensed version of that text:

Many of us ask [big] questions as we’re growing up, but we tend to let them go because there’s so much else to do. I write the books I do because I’m still asking the questions [emphasis added]. One physicist says that the big question is: Are we alone in the universe or not? I go out at night and look at the stars, hundreds of billions of stars, and think that there are surely other galaxies whose solar systems include planets with thinking life. I don’t believe that we are alone, and that brings up more questions. When I look at the night sky I’m looking at time as well as space, looking at a star seven light-years away, and a star seventy light-years away, or seven hundred or seven thousand or…

It’s so exciting that it makes me want to write, to write about what goes on in the great macrocosm outside us, and in the equally great microcosm of the very small. […] Some of these questions don’t have finite answers, but the questions themselves are important. Don’t stop asking, and don’t let anybody tell you the questions aren’t worth it. They are.

[…]

Story always tells us more than the mere words, and that is why we love to write it, and to read it.

I could have written this, word for word. This exactly describes my life perspective and writerly aspirations. What’s amazing to me is that I wasn’t aware of any of her personal writings when I was young; I just knew her books.

Obviously, writers put themselves in their work; there’s no question about that. Their thoughts, experiences and personal outlooks are why they have that particular story to tell. What’s fascinating, though, is how much of this outlook gets translated to the reader, even when it goes directly unstated in the story.

Thank you, Madeleine L’Engle, for helping me become the writer and woman I’ve grown to be. Though you are no longer able to gift the world with your incredible stories, I hope that I and the many others you’ve influenced with your thoughts and ideas will carry on your legacy with honor, intelligence, and–above all else–imagination.

What about you? Do you have any writers (or directors, artists, etc.) who you feel you resonate with to the core of their message? What big questions do you ask and wonder about?