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I was born in North Carolina, lived an unextraordinary life, much like yours, I imagine. I like to imagine the lives of others, their thoughts, secret hopes and public failures. I suppose you could call me a voyeur, but that is only part of the story. No matter how many fragments a story has, how many roundabouts and detours and dead-ends, somewhere there is a whole. But that whole is different for different people. You participate in the creation of the story, make it unique, unimagined by anyone else. You are important. You matter. No matter how much events, people, and television will seem to add up to you being a cog, a little person, joe schmoe, jane doe. Go home at night and, lying in bed, whisper to yourself that you matter. I only give this advice because I care, because I have been there myself. And I promised I would tell you about myself.

It was a grey afternoon when I was born; mother was napping. It was before Thanksgiving. The house was quiet, no preparations yet in progress. Cypress trees watched over her from the swamp. Brown leaves gathered to muffle sounds, to protect us. I was born and I was loved, like we all hope to be. But there is the way things should be, and the way things are. And it’s not always easy to tell which is which. So I am on guard, watchful for indications that things are not what they seem.