I’ve been writing. And I’ve come to understand the importance of writing every day. You risk losing the flow of writing in the absence of the daily current.

In re-reading this script, well, it, the story feels choppy, kind of like riding through river rapids. It can be exhilarating, but you can also get off course, capsize, hit your head on the rocks, drown. I digress. I suppose it is part of the journey.  I know eventually it’ll smooth out, but right now it feels choppy.

Why does this story keep haunting me? I don’t know.  Sometimes I can’t stand it. I have to open the basement door, step through and hear the world evaporate, leaving me to face the unknown alone. I inch forward  grasping for the unseen string to pull the light.  My eyes bulge as if that will somehow illuminate the dark. It doesn’t. Eventually I feel the solitary string swaying to and fro above me, hopefully before I stumble and fall and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I stumble and fall.  Let’s not confuse curiosity with courage. They are definitely not the same thing.

It was necessary, this re-writing. I’m in search of a truth. And as this draft unfolds, I discover the question was completely different than what I once thought. Perhaps what changed is me and that is now reflected in the story. Or maybe what has occurred in my life has opened up my mind to realize what the story really was about all along. I don’t know. All I know is that it feels better. The question feels right.

What is the question? I think it is about courage. Does she have it? Does she have the courage to do what her heart tells her to do or accept the fact that she won’t and live with it.  Either way is painful. Either way she has to let go of something that she is or thought she was. Either way, she feels alone in it all.

The main character gave up her country, her extended family, her comforts and her security to obtain the freedom to live in the wilderness among others of like mind. It all seemed so liberating, but soon she was imprisoned literally and figuratively for following her conscience. She considered succumbing. She really did. But would she deny the lie or live the lie? She finally chose. She knew herself and she knew her answer. She found what she was searching for all along, peace.

It did not end well.

As a result of her courage, we live in the land of the free and home of the brave.

Ironic, isn’t it?