Nightingales usually sing in the dead of the night.
There is a nightingale in a grove near the house I grew up that sings all night long, especially in the end of May and the beginning of summer. For years now, I have been writing with my balcony doors open, with minimal lighting thinking that we are both creating art at the same time.
We tell our stories at the same time.
The writer and the bard.
When I got married, the house I grew up in became the house I’m raising my family in. When I told all about my nightingale to my husband, he loved the idea of us naming the house “The Nightingale House.”
So, officially, I’m the nightingale who tells the stories.
* * * * *
People have been telling stories even before the existence of words.
From drawings on cave walls to Iliad and Odyssey, to hundreds of classic and contemporary masterpieces, mankind has never stopped creating.
We have been using imagination to go beyond reality, dive into our souls and uncover hidden corners of it by testing ourselves too, as fictional characters are tested by their own adventures.
My mentor, James Bonnet, has created the word, “Storymaking.”
In Greek, there is its equivalent, which looks like this: “Μυθοπλασία.”
It sounds like, “Mythoplasia” and, as you see, it contains the word, “Mythos.”
Myth.
There is no place on earth where people haven’t created myths, legends and lore. Local heroes turn into gods and demigods. Beautiful women turn into fairies and mermaids. Shadows of the past in abandoned houses turn into ghosts. Myth is usually born from reality, and sometimes — rare times — it’s hard to tell them apart.
As I open the gate to the secret garden of the most delightful, tragic, weird, otherworldly myths, I hope you are there to witness it with me. There is a colorful pattern behind every reality, and I can’t wait to discover it.
Happy reading,
Maria
The Nightingale 