September 5th, 2023
Have you ever wanted to run away?
Since I can remember, my natural instinct in any situation is to get away from it as fast and as far as I can.
This is still true.
Over the years, I’ve had to train myself how to stay.
And this is where the story of Theia came from: I wanted to explore why we run.
Who better to learn this from than a dog?
Of course, it wasn’t just one idea that inspired the book. My own Boston Terrier was an inspiration. Other stories (Watership Down in particular) were inspirations.
And, subconsciously through the process of writing it, 2020 was an inspiration.
After I wrote the first draft and started editing and revising it, I realized that I had taken a lot of what we were dealing with in that objectively awful year and was using the animals of the shelter to talk about the time of sheltering in place.
If you’ve followed my writing for a while (and especially during 2020), you’ll know that I have a habit of using metaphor to talk about very real things; it gives you and me distance from the thing, a buffer, and I offer different sources of light to illuminate an idea.
One person’s shadow is another’s truth.
This is true even of the reasons we run.
Most of mine are selfish and born of my anxieties, but that isn’t always the case.
A Pitbull named Sal asks Theia: “What’s out there that you want so bad?”
“Possibilities,” Theia says.
And when someone feels trapped, whether literally or just in their own head, the promise of escape can be our only source of hope. Theia’s journey sees her finding a new hope; not far away, in some abstract, impossible place, but right where she is, in a real place she has to choose to stay.
The Den 