To tell stories.

To tell stories to try to explain the world, to try to understand it. To tell stories to attempt to create meaning in this unfathomable, frightening universe, when meaning cannot be found. To tell stories to organize, in one’s own way, the fragments of significance we catch, to weave a fabric that is loosely coherent, vaguely warm, and faintly reassuring.

To tell stories to feel less alone, as one might sing a lullaby, because then everything feels alright. To tell stories more beautiful than what we see, so we no longer have to see it.

To tell stories to work over the past, to give oneself a role that is, at times, a little less wretched—without this, nothing… To tell stories to lie to oneself and hold on.

To tell stories to apologize for not knowing how to make them real.

To tell dirty, messy stories to dig deep within oneself and discover what we hide even from ourselves, and to emerge from the depths with a flawed, ugly, dirty stone—but one that shines with honesty. To tell stories as one would lift a cloth from a mirror and see oneself as never before.

To tell stories as one casts a bottle into the sea, or threads the end of a ball of yarn, hoping someone might pull, just a little, to see, to witness the mess of our inner labyrinth. To tell stories to be reached, to be found.

To tell stories to glimpse oneself in these scattered fragments, to try to know oneself, to recognize oneself, and perhaps—even a little—to love oneself. To tell stories as beautiful as the obvious. To tell stories shaped like wings, tall as mountains, green as valleys. To tell stories to summon the torrent, to call forth the whisper. To tell stories to awaken fountains. To tell stories as one delights in advance at the trail of joy that will follow the gift one wraps. To tell stories to offer flowers… and weave them into her angel hair.