2 February 2020
I need to sit here and write myself back to where I started….
It’s not enough to poke around with pen and paper and stare out the icy window. I need to down the coffee and dig in. Prod the earth beneath the life I say I’ve lived. I need to mine the cave. Ford the rivers—all those streams and creeks and beds of running water I say mean so much.
What comes floating? What forever finds the bottom? What started so far in the mountains and now drifts into the sea?
Depth finders, flashlights, field guides, maps. These are the tools of a lived life.
I want to investigate the smallest rock walls that point to some place in history long before I was born. The smallest runnels. The deepest pocket of forest that still holds legends long told.
I won’t discount or distrust a word. The story shouldn’t be an anomaly or mystery but the deep down, rock-bottom heart of where I am. What I’ve done. Who I’ve become. By heir, by luck. Or by simply passing through a place where stories still permeate the air.
This is how a life is lived, and this is where I’ll start.
Writing from Here 