Brian Doyle Reading

          I listened to a Brian Doyle reading that took place at BYU in 2005. The essays and other writing pieces that Brian Doyle read were very interesting, fun, and inspiring. One of the essays that I enjoyed was where he talked about playing basketball with his three very young children. He first gave some background about his love and obsession with basketball, as well as how he had injured his knee and could no longer play the sport. But he relates this story about when he was playing on a toy basketball hoop with his children and realized that they were all he ever wanted or needed, that they were what made him absolutely happy.
          Through listening to Brian Doyle read some of his work, I realized that you can write about anything and everything. Some of his pieces seemed like absolute nonsense at first, but then the connections became clear and it became art. Some of them seemed like they were just written for fun and weren't meant to be meaningful at all, but then they changed and became representations of what life is about for each of us.
         Another of the essays that I liked most was the one about September 11th. Brian Doyle told the stories of many people in this essay: a teacher, a worker who'd just had a baby, a man who saved a co-worker, and a firefighter who ran into the building even though he knew there was no chance of leaving if he continued. It was a beautiful essay that captured both the ordinary and extraordinary traits of humankind at the same time. Each of us is normal and ordinary, but that doesn't mean that we are not also extraordinary and capable of great things. There is power that comes from living a good life to the best of our ability. Doyle's essay shows this, and makes the listener/reader want to live life to its fullest because we need to carry on what the people in his essay did and how they lived. To honor their passing we need to be the best we can be, even if that means just living a normal life while caring about others.