I'm not a writer

Hot summer evening, LA

Me answering to Charles Bukowski

I am not a writer. For me, it is not about putting words together, expressing a grand meaning between the lines.

No, I guess not.

It is not about phrases, chapters or books. For me, it is only about stories. In fact, I was born in the wrong century. Had I lived hundreds of years ago, I would have been a minstrel.  I would have travelled roads from town to town, from village to village, telling stories to people. I would have sat by a fireplace, telling tales about kingdoms that rose and fell, about kings and queens that perished, about love that was so great and beautiful that nothing like that had ever – ever – been seen before or after. I would have seen fire burning in the eyes of my listeners and I would have had hundreds of stories to keep that fire going, big and strong. I would have not repeated the same story twice because all other stories captured in my mind would have wanted me to set them free. But really, who am I to say ‘no’. And yet, I am not a writer. It is all about stories that are born to be free. Tales like tiny bluebirds that sit on the edge of my tongue, waiting to fly away. That is how I got the itch that makes me tell stories. In truth, it really doesn’t matter what century it is. And still I write, though I am not a writer.

Who are you then, you may ask.

A teller, I shall answer.