welcome to my first book

It is history, it is heart rending, it is the story of my search for happiness, a search that woke up the happiness, and when I didn’t find it, it found me!

Human nature has her own form of welcoming us to an understanding. It is as quiet as the small quiet voice of reason (or is it beyond reason?) that murmurs deep within us, even though we sometimes shut it out. There are many deep truths in nature, and the flow of nature itself is an even deeper, wordless truth. I know that this is the foundation for the story, but putting that into words is the trick.

The stories in The Entertainer is the Charm are what I remember from that time in my life.  Most of them were started the day they happened.  I kept a journal.  I have filled the book with those stories and massaged them, describing and lingering over them in a way similar to the way I lived them then, trying to tease as much out of them as I can. The stories are fun to tell, even if they focus only on that part of those times that can be put into words. If they also reflect those bigger, wordless truths, they are more valuable to me.

The poetic nuance counts, and the pictures created for the words to describe are important, as are the action, the sound of the dialog and all the other parts of the experience of reading the book. But there needs to be something more.

Stories have to change a reader, or they aren’t worth much. The change can be sneaky, like gossiping with friends who change your mood quicker than anyone can believe it and long before you realize it, though sometimes with warmth and comradeship and softening of the sourness of idea.

A good book is full stories. Even if they are all true stories, they are just stories. My stories are of learning how to deal with kids, to deal with an unfamiliar culture, to deal with responsibilities that that were personal from the start, personal in the crunch when I was challenged beyond my ability, and personal at the parting, the sad parting.

I hope you like the stories. I dove into them with all I could muster.  That’s the way to wright, and how could there be any other way to live?

dancing stage at Highland Gale