Everything has to start somewhere.

I’m a fan of origin stories.
I love to know where it all began, watch things unfold like a flower in the sunshine until we reach the pinnacle of showy bloom, see our protagonist arrive at a moment wherein our timelines cross and we are sitting across the table from them.
There is a pleasing emptiness to beginnings, a place where anything is possible, there could be anything hidden under that uncarved block, waiting to be set free.
It seems I’ve come full circle to a tabula rasa scenario again. Except I feel like that is when everything has been wiped away so one can start anew. This is different. This is the quiet before the storm.
There is magic in the first moments.

Now and then I have people show up in my head. I don’t know where they were before they arrived, but here they are now and most of the time they quietly, patiently wait for me to tell their story. Other times they are louder, pushier, clamoring for me to focus and allow them to take a breath and set off on the journey ahead.

There is Theo, she never really gave interpersonal relationships a chance, having grown up in a dysfunctional family and pouring all of her energy into work.
There is Lu, and she is a quirky little thing, diminutive and wise. She lost her family when she was quite young, her whole world turned upside down but sometimes it’s best when adventure is thrust upon us.
Laura, who spent so much of her life helping others because she didn’t know how to help herself.
There is Rowan, and her desperate need for revenge, and Amande, who teaches her how to hide in plain sight.
Folderol and Bafflegab, sitting on a bench, watching the world, reflecting on those days gone by.
A blind piano player, who didn’t start out that way.
A group of strangers who find themselves cast as characters in a story they hope will have a happy ending.
A convent of nuns whose mission is to offer absolution to dying men, even if they were the ones who caused the injury.
A dark eyed beauty who sticks to the shadows of Paris alleys, waiting on assignations which may result in love or death, or perhaps both.
A young girl with an old name and cracked teeth, scared to smile.
A matriarch of an ancient organization.
And there is Scheherezade, who, even after all these years, still has stories to tell.

There are others, so many others, who wait in the wings for their moment to shine. It wouldn’t take much, just a firm decision to sit down and do it.

Everything has to start somewhere.