Saturday 18 May 2013

A storyteller and a dreamer


What happens, when all that will ever be written has been written, and we have nothing left to write? What shall be written then? Will words become the seasons, the tides, the rising and setting of the sun? Will everything that has been written, be written again, and nothing new shall arise to take its place? Who will drive lessons and stories and thoughts into the future, with change and difference? Are we meant to speak the same things, and never spew forth something new? 

For what am I, if not a teller of tales or a dreamer of dreams? What shall I speak that has not been spoken before? What will make my words stand out, become something fresh and vibrant and grab the attention of a world transfixed in the same pattern, hearing the same story over and over, never leaving the comfort of the known? Am I bound by the code this planet is chained to? 

I am afraid. I am afraid of losing my spark of difference. I am afraid of succumbing to the grievous patterns of stories gone by. I yearn to talk, to listen, to understand, to liken myself to a strange new something. So long as it is new, so long as it breathes and acts unlike anything that is already out there. 

Is this a false dream? Is this an impossible hope? For truly, what am I without my words? Who am I without my dreams? I am not someone to keep this longing inside, I am not someone to cower in the shadows while another fills the space where I am meant to be. I am not a coward, I am not a follower; but neither am I a hero, nor a leader. I am somewhere in-between what is known and what is not known. I am a drifter, a seeker, someone in want. 

I will not succumb to the turning of the tides, I will not have my words become as the seasons, I will not die without being a change, a shift, a chasm in the world’s reality. I am afraid, but this fear is born of the past. This year has been a new chapter, a short story with a strange title, the beginning of the unfamiliar. 

Never have I ventured into these uncharted waters, without the support of family, friends, school, university - predictable reality. I am like a boat without oars, yet I battle against the current. With my hands I beat the waves of the expected. I have no anchor, I find no tether to my previous life. My heart beats with longing and distress. Can I make it? Can I navigate these waters? Can I resist the urge to set sail for home, where certainty and comfort awaits? 

The beginning has come, the tides have changed, where have I to go but forward? 

Am I not a storyteller and a dreamer?  

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