Other People's Stories

DeAnn Louise Daigle AWW 1/27/10

They do interest me, like a good film offers me a great escape from my own paranoia. I find other people’s stories can be wonderful life lessons for me. I find other people’s stories inform me of my own story. I’m not ashamed anymore like I used to be. I’m not as timid and scared of risk-taking as I used to be. I’m not so wrapped up about what other people will think or say about me like I was when I was fifteen and shy, shy, shy – seemingly afraid of my own shadow.

Now, there’s an interesting phrase – afraid of my own shadow. And well I should be. What lurks in the shadow is a fearsome thing. Writing assists me in meeting my shadow head-on; my envy, my jealousy, my longings and selfish pre-occupations, my guilty delights.

Writing is a pressure-release-valve that allows me an exploring debit card by which I’m not permitted to take out and put on paper more than what’s in the bank. It’s my bank of life experience. I’m not allowed to write other people’s stories and pass them off as my own. I could hardly do this, since I cannot know first-hand other people’s experiences from the inside – and for me what’s inside is all that really matters.