Dear Friend,
Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I hope that very soon you will consider me your friend and consider this place your home. Of course, in the interest of establishing trust, there are some things I should tell you first.
Know that I am a conflicted person. I’m learning that so much of life is about holding contradictory realities at once and accepting that our stories are beautiful and traumatizing at the same time. As Jane Austen writes: “I am half agony, half hope.” Once, I might have found this tension quite miserable, but over the years I have learned to embrace, and almost relish, the complexities of life—the colors between black and white, the wide-open spaces between extremes. After all, who wants their life to be just one thing?
Know that, just like you, I am still becoming. I am growing, evolving, changing my mind and my priorities. I am learning to think less about myself and more about others. I am learning when to speak and when to listen. I am learning to lean into my personhood while pouring out this life that is not my own.
Finally, know that I am a storyteller. It’s how I make sense of the world and how I learn to accept life’s unanswerable questions. This is a place dedicated to storytelling, and I hope very much that you will find solace in the stories I tell. May these stories inspire you to consider the life you inhabit, the unfolding epic of the world that you get to participate in. May they give expression to the chorus of dissonant voices within you and, at the end of the day, inspire you to give hope the lead.
Yours Always,
The Penman
words
It may seem unnecessary to contemplate the obvious relationship between words and storytelling, but everyone’s relationship to language is unique. Some people know words as weapons. Some know them as friends. Some know them as a puzzle they can never seem to solve, and others know them like a favorite song learned long ago. I like to visualize words as paper airplanes, feeble messengers burdened with heavy expectations. And just like the miracle of a folded piece of paper flying from one child to another, somehow our insufficient words can find another soul and lodge right where they’re needed. This is my hope as a writer—that my words will make it to you and that they will make a difference.
images
We tell stories for many reasons, one of the most important being the act of preservation. Stories allow us both individually and collectively to hold onto feelings, experiences, and revelations that might otherwise be lost—to earmark certain moments as worthy of revisiting.
Photographs are special because they help us preserve these moments in even finer detail. Sometimes I find myself taking photos because I can sense the significance of a moment as it’s unfolding. The rhythmic shuttering is a reflex, a response to something undeniably meaningful. Other times, I find myself taking photos of seemingly insignificant things as a means of recalibrating my perspective. I find that walking outdoors with my camera helps me to consider our world anew, to pay closer attention to what is least obvious and most quiet—the veining of a leaf, the undulations of water, the personality of afternoon light.
The camera reminds me that all storytelling is meant to serve two fundamental functions: to capture what is clearly important and to confer importance on what has been overlooked.
wardrobe
Clothes are wearable stories. We use our wardrobes to tell the world who we are and what we value. This is why celebrities have personal stylists to help them craft their public personas and why movie directors hire costume designers to help them build memorable characters. In fact, thanks to Hollywood and social media, certain items of clothing have become so linked with cultural archetypes that we can extrapolate the lives of strangers simply by scanning their outfits. Admit it, this is half the fun of people-watching. But the person wearing the clothes is only a fraction of the narrative.
Every garment we wear is the story of the imagination that designed it, the earth that supplied its materials, the hands that weaved it together, the marketing that convinced us to buy it, and the people who profit from our purchase. And sadly, because of our materialism and because clothing is a multi-billion-dollar industry, so much of what we wear today is made with no consideration for our environment or for the people who labor in fields and factories so we can be well-dressed.
But I want to be part of better stories. I want to buy and wear clothes that have been made responsibly, humanely. I want to be adventurous and experimental without spending frivolously and indiscriminately. And I want to help others consider the stories they are wearing so that we can live in a world where creators, makers, and wearers are all uplifted.
spaces
Man-made spaces serve as the setting for the majority of our lives, and yet we struggle to use our spaces well, let alone consider their storytelling potential. The design of both private residences and commercial properties has become increasingly formulaic and thoughtless, forcing us to function in ineffective spaces that leave us feeling detached from the natural world and detached from each other. The modern design industry has taught us to maximize square footage but not to maximize the value of the square footage we have. And it has convinced us that following a sort of resale-value rubric will help us create spaces we want to live in. But just as every setting is unique and essential to its story, every space should be unique to and livable for the people who inhabit it.
Spaces are more than prefabricated walls—they are reservoirs for life. They are for making memories, extending hospitality, providing refuge, accomplishing work. Consequently, design is about more than choosing paint colors or nailing a certain aesthetic. It’s about creating dynamic spaces that evolve with the people who live in them. It’s about establishing connections to the natural world that promote health and activity. And it’s about imbuing our homes with a sense of story that mirrors our unfolding existence. This approach, I believe, helps us to thwart materialistic inclinations, trend-driven makeovers, and unnecessary stress, allowing us to progressively cultivate spaces we are happy to call home.
canvases
I have loved art since I was a young child coloring very deliberately with my tongue hanging out of my mouth. And I was so blessed to have parents who nurtured my creativity, paid for art lessons, and supported my ambitious artistic endeavors. Those were the things going for me. Not going for me was a crippling perfectionism, visions too grandiose for my means, and a tendency to procrastinate. For these reasons I have started and abandoned many projects over the years. But I have always found that when I strip away layers of pressure and expectation, drawing and painting are a refuge for me. And the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that art does not have to be grandiose—any subject can be worthy, any canvas appropriate, any artist’s vision a gift to the audience. Art is simply about creating beauty, telling stories, and prompting ourselves to reconsider our understanding of the world. And the more time I devote to this practice, the more I find that the world is ready to receive the things artists make, whether they be simple sketches or timeless masterpieces.