It’s always about the maiden in these tales, isn’t it? The one with the shining hair and the thin waist. No mercy is given if the breasts have begun to sag a bit, or the beauty mark has sprouted a hair or two. That thickness around the middle comes from bringing new life into the world, you know? The flesh bouncing around the triceps is from kneading the bread and feeding the fire year after year. You’d think there’d be a little more gratitude, a little more respect. It would have been nice if at least one of my children wasn’t so eager to move to a big house in the village the minute he got married. Three sons I raised in this little hut in the forest and all of them left for fancy jobs in town. Not one thought for their old widowed mama, alone but for the crows and the cobwebs. Not one wanted to keep up the family traditions. “Best if it ends with you,” they said.

I’d have died of fever or starvation or plain loneliness long before “the incident” if it weren’t for my granddaughter, Brigid. There’s a one who didn’t deserve her fate. All that blood on her nice red riding cloak. What was anyone thinking, sending that wisp of a girl alone through the woods? I suppose living in the village makes one soft. First, the oil lamps seem such a luxury. Then, they become a habit. Then, a necessity. Eventually, no one in the village remembers to keep track of when the moon is full.

I’m certainly not the one at fault. I’m the same as I ever was. I don’t remember hearing any complaints when there was venison to last through the long winter. If I had a bonny step and a bright new coat, I am sure I would not be cast as the villain. And the stories you all tell! My stars, what imaginations! “What big teeth you have?” Ridiculous. My Bridie would never say anything so stupid. There was no conversation. Wolves don’t talk.

But wolves do hunt. They must. Or have you forgotten what it is to live by your wits in the deep woods? The butcher’s work is a mystery to you now. And your fingernails are never crusted with blood. No, you make your killings in other ways. But you make them still, mind you– I’ve seen your double masted ships in the harbor, your debtor’s prisons, your logging camps. Don’t look on me as though you’ve never seen cruelty before.

But I digress.

I am sorry for it. Should never have happened. All these years, and never a problem. You villagers had one duty: stay out of the forest on the night of the full moon. This tragedy could have been prevented if only you’d remembered, while praying aloud in your falsely lit sitting rooms, what dangers remain out in the dark.

There are many others like it, but this one is mine.

I decided to be a writer and I guess that means I have to write. I was told that writers need to have a social media presence and that I have to have a platform. Initially, I assumed this was a dig at my shortish stature, but it turns out they mean it metaphorically. Like, I have to generate traffic on this blog site so that people will buy my books. I mean– sure, maybe. How else will they find me?

But, I argued, I don’t actually have any books to sell.

Doesn’t matter. If I am writing a book, I should have a blog. Maybe people who make their money with words think everyone should have a blog. As though people care what some rando in Ohio thinks.

Truth: having a blog scares me. I’m not afraid of trolls or other internet monsters. I have filters and admin settings for that. No, mine is more existential. Here I am sounding my little inconsequential “yop” into the great invincible void. A tiny drop in a roiling, raging sea. It’s hard to imagine how this “platform” could mean anything at all.

And yet. It is my little “yop.” My only “yop.” The only way most of you will know I was here at all. Maybe, one day, someone– you– will come along and see this blog. Probably you will have clicked on the wrong button, or misspelled a word you typed into a search engine, and you will arrive here, on this rickety little platform. Maybe, out of charity, or loneliness, or boredom, you will leave a comment. And then, we will have connected. Two droplets in the roaring ocean of humanity bouncing off each other and spinning back into the flow.

Maybe that’s all there is. The constant crushing current pushing us through the time space continuum at a dizzying speed. And those fleeting moments where, in the rush of motion, we catch each other’s eye.

If you are reading this blog at anything close to its publication date, then you probably know me personally. And you probably know that this is not my first blog, or my second. You probably know that this post represents either a colossal lack of insight into my own character or a testimony to the undying nature of hope. I hear it springs eternal. Regardless, here I am again, trying to organize the vast mystery that is me into a series of 0s and 1s for the sake of posterity and/or future book sales.

May the force be with us, may the odds be ever in our favor, and may we be in the halls of our ancestors long before the devil knows we’re dead. Have a great day!