This morning I had a real jaw-clencher of a dream, in which I found myself backstage. The curtain was rising, and I was being shoved out under the lights.

But what were my lines? What was this I was wearing? Who was I even supposed to be?

That feeling—poised at the brink—is how I felt in the fall of 1985, upon arrival in College Place, Washington. There I stood, squinting out at the grand stage of life, uncertain of nearly everything. 

I gave computer science a try, but it turned out that I was not encoded to code. Nor to engineer, or nurse, or lawyer, or any of the other things my classmates were well on their way to becoming. 

Then my freshman crush dumped me for another. 

It was a sign! No more school for me!

I would finish my summer job at the Beeline gas station, and then light out for the territories. I would see the West, maybe even the world, if I were lucky. “Somewhere never traveled,” as ee cummings enthused. I would read books, meet characters, and figure out how to stay alive.

Then Lori Lewis, my English professor, pulled up for a fill-up.

“What are you doing with your life?” she said as I fumbled with the nozzle.

“Running away,” I said.

“You ever thought about writing?”

So I stayed. I went to work for Lori at the Office of College Relations, penning stories for the Collegian, Mountain Ash, and Westwind. Later would come the Pacific Union Recorder, the Priest River Times, and the Coeur d’Alene Press. I became editor of CdA Magazine, as I am to this day.

But first, more questions followed, from the wise and kind Dan Lamberton, and from fabulous Donnie Rigby.

“Will you try the theater?” 

I joined her productions with equal parts stage fright and delight. I saw firsthand how stories can make life more bearable, less lonely, and sometimes even floodlighted with unexpected joy.

“Want to run off on a sailboat?” Gartly Curtis said.

After graduation, I joined Gartly across the blue immensity of the Pacific Ocean, where salt water filled my blood for good.

Am I glad I stayed in school? With all my heart.

By now, I have roamed much of the West and a bit of the world. I have lived an examined life, had some small adventures, and written as honestly as possible about them. What good are these stories we share? Sean Thomas Dougherty’s poem “Why Bother?” says it best: “Because right now there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.”

In turbulent times like these, we need the liberal arts more than ever. Not to teach us what to think, but how to live. To be the best humans we can possibly be.

In 2001, when WWU named its black box theater in honor of Donnie Rigby, she stood and declared: “To be, or not to be … my answer is TO BE!”

And so, I urge you to find the right questions. And then follow those questions as far as you possibly can.

That is what College Place and its remarkable people did for me.

Years later, I am still reaping the rewards.

David Kilmer is the author of five books, including The Way of the Captain and The Way of the Sailor. He works as a yacht captain in the summers and splits his time between the American Northwest and Pacific Mexico.