DISCOVER
I remember, aged perhaps 6 or 7, pondering whether dragons where real. Were there really scaly creatures that could breathe fire and fly? I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps there was somewhere out there in the mystery of the world where dragons did roam?
My grandfather owned an old atlas – faded and inked with countries and continents, oceans and mountains I knew nothing of. I would explore those tantalising pages and discover exotic place names – Samarkand, the Sahara, Timbuktu, Kathmandu. Over fifty years later, I have been fortunate to have travelled to many of those places, and I still get a thrill stepping into a new country.
As we move past childhood and discover the harder realities of life, many of the magical thoughts we harboured as children fade. We were, perhaps, at our most inventive, creative, and free-thinking in our juvenile years. Yet, the child in me remains – eager to explore through journeys not only of the body but of the mind.
I write to explore – to inhabit unreachable places, to hear the voices of people who do not exist, to witness events that may never come to be. Where would we be without our imagination – that stellar muse and blessing of the artist? In the imagination, the impossible can feel real. Deep inside my imagination, dragons do dwell, in fiery lairs. All we have to do is go and find them.