Once upon a time. In a land far, far away.
Castles and dragons, magicians and monsters, musty cellars and dusty attics. A peg-legged captain hunting a great, white whale and a boy who refuses to grow up. A beautiful princess with an ogre alias and a silly bear with honey issues. A spider who can spell, a hobbit with a tale to tell.
Stories.
A combination of words which are magical - sometimes miraculous.
We all like to hear them. Even more, we like to be a part of them. Dressing up in basement pageants and backyard productions, losing ourselves in a great book, movie, play, song. And finding ourselves again.
When stories, no matter their form, connect with our hearts and souls, they pull us in and lift us up, empower and encourage us. See us through dark times, lights at the end of our tunnel. They also link us across time and borders to those who have gone before us, to who we may yet become.
I recall when I first visited worlds created by certain combinations of words and how I struggled to drop back into my own world and to find my own words.
“Stepping out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house...” - S.E. Hinton kidnapped me for an entire weekend and never bothered to leave a note. She did leave me changed, sad and moved - mystified.
How did she do that? Why do I ache for the company of characters who were never real?
Maybe because they were.
The truth contained at the heart of fiction transcends the need for historical verification.
L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time wiggled into the wrinkles of my mind and burrowed down into the recesses of my heart. Cooper's The Dark is Rising swept me up into a battle of darkness and light that shrank my universe while expanding it at the same time.
As the years rolled on, the words did as well. Waves that eroded ignorance and left treasures behind.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road haunted me for weeks. The image of the boy unable to leave the body of his father refused to put me down or maybe let me up.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Those words are still unlocking me and the world in ways I never anticipated.
My personal and professional dream is to create my own combination of words, in many forms, forming many worlds. Unlocking myself and others, moving and mystifying, traveling and transcending together. And better for the journey.
Thanks for visiting,