They say we are stories, thousands carried deep in our cells, our genes, our DNA. The story of the earth and how it came into being, the planets too, the stars, the milky galaxies and the silver moon pulling the tides. We are the story of the first human wondering how flowers can be so bright, trees so varied green and where the sun goes at dusk only to rise each morning behind the arc of the hill, dancing the landscape into colours, warming the rock to welcome your sitting. And how about that pungent smell after spring rain, you know the one, arising to stop your breath? We are the story of the people who named us and those who named them, their voices speaking our names in love, in hate, in fear, in longing or indifference. We are the story of each look cast upon us, each hand that guided or didn’t, that fed us or didn’t, that caressed us, or didn’t. Skin on skin, sometimes velvet, sometime dry and cracking. I wait, still and silent so I can hear their sounds. My fingers are poised. Sandra Campbell