It was nearly a quarter century ago, but I really do remember it like it was yesterday. The memories of being curled up with my parents and reading my favorite book are far too vivid for the passage of time to carry out its familiar dirty work. Along with a few select things that have dotted the canvas of my life, the image of troves of "Space Grizzlies" chasing Brother Bear through his dream has a permanent spot in the gallery of my memories. Sitting, listening and following along as my parents read the words to The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Dream, I found my youthful mind falling captive to the world that had unfolded before me. The colors, the illustrations and the characters all grabbed at my attention, but it was really the words and the story that clutched onto my consciousness with a Samson like grip. After my parents read the book to me what feels like at least several thousands of times, I slowly began to pick up the skills necessary to drag the book out myself and let my own eyes do all the work. Suddenly, the world around me appeared limitless. The physical boundaries that permeate this world truthfully didn't hold much significance to me in those days, but any sort of mental barrier that existed in the expanses of my mind came crumbling down in the face of the written word. The feeling that I could step into this little dream world and take it in any direction that I saw fit filled me we a wonder that very few things have been able to since. Why would I let the pressures of this world crush me into smithereens when I could find countless others to escape to and shed the weight of life?
As the years of my life began to pass by, I sought out all these countless worlds and devoured them with the ferocity of a shark at feeding time. I found myself walking along with hobbits as they bravely marched towards what seemed like impending death. I traveled the lonesome dusty roads with migrant workers who only wanted to recapture a tiny piece of the life they once had. I became unstuck in time with a man bouncing back and forth between the unimaginable horrors of World War II and the inconceivable trials of the future. As the number of these worlds that I let myself slip into grew, so did the seed of an idea that I could construct the words on a sheet of paper into a private sanctuary in someone else's mind. From that seed gradually grew a dream and finally from that dream grew a reality.
One day earlier this year, and with the help of the people closest to me, I decided to bring down any physical boundaries and forget any mental barriers that my adult mind had attempted to reconstruct. I sat down in front of a computer and let loose one of the many worlds that had started to clutter my mind. Several months later, in spite of a few trials and tribulations, a book miraculously appeared. My dream, at long last, had finally come to fruition. I sincerely hope that it is entertaining. I hope that it is interesting. More so, I hope that it opens a small little refuge for someone out there to crawl into, take cover from the pressure of reality and explore with a curiosity that leaves them in awe as much as the Berenstain Bears did for me.
If anyone would like to purchase my first book, Means to an Ending, here are a few links where it can be found:
Createspace
Amazon & Kindle
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