I used to be a blogger, but now I’m much more of a storyteller. I was thinking the other day, reflecting on all the things I’ve said (the things I’ve committed to the permanent stone tablet of the internet) and realizing that the only things I’ve really never regretted saying are the things I’ve said in story.
It turns out that’s not actually true. I unearthed drafts of my old blog posts and realized there was so much beauty there. I feel a lot of affection for her, that other me. She spoke with a kind of crackling power that I’d love to have back.
Things have been moving and shaking lately. It all feels tectonic, pieces shifting below the surface. I was talking to a friend the other day. We were discussing the ways the current moment feels pregnant with possibility, as though we’re on the edge of Becoming. Becoming what? I don’t know. I’m quick to say I have no idea what I’m talking about.
The closest I can come to saying what it is, is to say that it feels like staring into a swirling pile of the most dense, ugly shifting mud and beginning to discern patterns in the mire. It’s realizing there’s an egg down at the bottom, and something is growing inside; the mess is hatching, the mess is growth.
I still don’t know what I’m saying.
I’ve been reading a book of essays by Anne Lamott, Hallelujah Anyway. I checked out the book very late last night and fell asleep reading them. I forgot about it in the morning, but at the time it felt like a slow infusion drip of hope and peace in the midst of all this horror. Hallelujah anyway.
I’ve been working on original novels, on short stories and vignettes of my own beloved characters. This too feels like movement and growth. I’ve been trying to stretch my mind to play with the possibilities, considering that there might be another way to share all the things I make with all of you, a way beyond and outside of book sales and the monopoly of Amazon.com. I don’t know if that’s true. The last pieces of the puzzle won’t connect; the thought fizzles out midstream. I am thinking on it, and I have hope that the answer will hit me at some point. Sooner rather than later, with any luck.
Tell me if you have any ideas for me, if there’s a particular way you’d like to read my stories, if you’d like to read my stories at all.