The Story Collector

by Evie Woods

The story of my childhood is etched all over this familiar landscape. Living this close to nature, I feel as though I am part of it; as much as the river flowing through it or the ever-changing clouds passing overhead. We alter together with each season, transforming, yet always staying true to our nature. I can read the weather coming in across the hills like I can read my own moods. Leaving Thornwood would be like leaving a part of myself.

He believes in the poetry of the plough and the soil, the sun and the rain. But my mother would argue that to lose one’s intellect is akin to letting seeds wither and die in the dark ground, and she routinely wins the argument.

A truly creative life demanded a kind of blind faith in signs, hints or nudges towards a certain direction, from which things would inevitably flow organically.

‘If we lose our stories,’ he wrote, ‘we lose ourselves.’

we passed by the graveyard with its crooked headstones like loose teeth. ‘Did you ever wonder at what point those below began to outnumber those above?’

‘You see; I merely observe. I study the facts and I write my field notes, trying to make sense of the things I do not fully understand. But you: you are part of this place and its secrets live within you. You walk through this landscape, as I walk through it, but you are as much a part of it as the leaves on the trees. You don’t need to try to understand because the knowledge is already in you.’

Grief is like a hard lump inside of you,’ she said, tapping her gut. ‘It will stay there, hard like a rock, unless you begin working to soften it.’

‘It will never go away completely, but instead of a hardness, it can become a tenderness. Your heart will make room for your memories and you won’t be afraid of them any more.’

You made your plans, but life had other ideas and somehow you had to make peace with that. Find the meaning in it and let it change you. Fighting to stay the same was the problem.

But reality wasn’t so clear-cut. Life was like a great painting; if you only focused on one part, you would miss the full picture.