Our Song

I spent the first eighteen years of my life learning the mythology of my existence. Memorizing the words and tunes, how they were sung and what actions should accompany each set. I knew it was imperative that I get them right. It never occurred to me to ask why.

I have spent the rest of my life figuring out that these were only nursery tales, stories told to children to make them fit, conform, be part of the particular fairy tales they come from. There are no guarantees that anyone else, anywhere else in the world, will understand these, because personal mythologies are not written down anywhere. They are transferred generation to generation blow by blow and word of mouth, sometimes changing in an instant, depending on the singer.

I admit I shared a great many of these with my own children, but little by little I began to see through the symbols and situations and start to write my own stories. It is a hero’s quest, because as the old stories disappear there are not necessarily any new ones waiting to take their place. A great void appears and only the bravest, or the most terrified, step into the void and allow it to have its way.

It was while floating on this great undulating sea that I dared to look over the side one day and saw a whole world reflected there! One great canopy that included every single thing within its magnificent embrace and as much as all of these things were different, they had so much more in common that I was stunned.

Ever since then, I have been looking for the new words, the new actions, the new tunes I need to tell this story.