Why I Write

I started with stones. Smooth stones heavy to my eight-year-old hands and shining black with the cold water of Lake Huron still dripping through my fingers. Wet, the stones gave up their fossil-secrets more easily- back home dry and dull, in bushel baskets stacked behind the furnace, they mumbled and murmured, mysterious and vague, until I spit on them and brought to life those ancient fragments of shell and half-remembered fern. Rubbing my saliva on the stones I would feel sad, for although I loved keeping these stone treasures I didn't know what to do with them. I simply needed to have them.