introduction

"My life would have been the poem I would have written. But I could not both utter and live it."
- Henry David Thoureau

It’s either we write or we are written about. One can’t be both. I tried once, twice I guess, but always went back to where I began, back alone to my pen, so to speak.

So here I am on my third or fourth reincarnation as a writer. I don’t exactly know how many times I died and was born again, but at least, with every rebirth is a chance to grow wiser and give back to the giver of talents - to the muse - my efforts with my gift.

One can’t be like the man in Jesus’ story who went out to bury his treasure and returned it to the master a year later nothing less, nothing more. It never pleased the master that he never made anything of it.

But this isn’t exactly about that (although in a runabout kind of way, it is) but of reacquainting or more appropriately, of reconciling. It is a necessary first step, in a first column, for to write is to be true, to be honest and it’s never easy. Going through a broken rib, an aching tooth, a head splitting migraine, is not something anyone would like to experience anytime.

To write is to heal as well. Nothing heals like forgiveness and reconciliation. So here I reestablish ties with an old lover, friend, critic, enemy – my readers whom I may have failed countless times over.

It’s nice to be familiar again with the cadence of your footsteps, the song of your voice, the bright colors of your smile, or the dark clouds of your anger, and the unfathomable stillness of your silence.

But to be present to someone, to make a gift of ourselves, one has to be able to stand a beloved’s absence and silence. For he who can’t stand both would not be much of a presence either. Still, nothing beats a good read. It’s like a refreshing, cold drink that quenches one’s deep, old thirst after a long, long journey.