The world puzzles me, it always has and I'm certainly not alone in this. 

 

Generations down the ages, maybe since we stood up on two feet, have utilized storytelling as a way to understand the world.  There are tales that explain cycles of rain and drought, that tell of where fire came from and what happens when it's left to its own devices. They explore, (and wildly anthropomorphize) the character of one animal or another and maybe what lessons humans can learn from the way they are with each other.

 

Our ancestors asked about the things immediately around them; who formed the lakes and mountains, what lay at the bottom of the sea, why the wind blew west instead of east, when lion started eating zebra, and where the sun went after it sank below the horizon. You can find a story (or maybe ten) that answers all of this and more.  Creation myths from so many different cultures offer reasons for how any of us even got here.

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Today, the questions seem more complex, infinitely more perplexing, maybe because our view of the world is so much broader than it was in our great, great grandcestors' time. But this is our world, our time along with every other human and non-human that inhabits it. So, it feels a natural thing for me to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, even the occasional brush to canvas, to sometimes find compassion in what often appears an unfeeling crowd, to try to make sense of things that seem senseless... and maybe to locate a path through.  

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It's true, I also just love words, love their ability to paint vivid landscapes, close companionships, and adventures that take us far away from here.  And I do revel in the invoking of a deep sense-experience simply with a well-wrought sentence or two.

 

But the truth of the matter is that I make stories for the same reasons the old ones did, speaking and writing so that I can learn to navigate this place, so that I can craft a life here, so that I can understand and, maybe, so that you can too.