People who have known me for years have made it here and at least one liked how I write.

What they don’t know is that I’ve been writing for over 30 years, that it was my escape, and that there was plenty of writing I burned rather than have it read.

But then, few people truly know my inner life, my life experiences – it’s not their fault. It’s circumstance; I have been a tumbleweed and few people get to be around me very long. And when people do get to know what rattles around in my head and why, I’m not sure how they will react. Will someone misunderstand what I wrote? Will they understand it and run away screaming?

I suppose I’ve gotten too old to care too much about what people think in that regard. My life has been and continues to be stranger than fiction, and to explain it to people is difficult. How does one convey things beyond their own caves? And what of those that even the allegory of the Cave is too much to read, much less comprehend?

My life, like yours, is fiction. My fiction connects different parts of the world, different societies, different cultures at different times…

A stranger in my own skin.