To All the Writers of a New Story

Dear Writer of a New Story,

Before anything else — a confession. I haven’t written anything I’ve felt proud of in years. Call it existential writer’s block. Call it old life burned down and new life still rooting. Call it waiting until the words felt worthy of the world.

And then — I was asked to write you a letter.

I come from a lineage of letter writers. My grandfather at the kitchen table before dawn. Birds fed. Clocks wound. A striped Pyrex mug leaving coffee-colored rings on his yellow memo pad. Pen in one hand. A conveyor belt of cigarettes in the other. Writing to his friends like it was the most sacred thing a morning could hold.

My father wrote to me before I was even born, a letter I found just before my eighteenth birthday — his words about the state of the world, the state of the Yankees, and what he hoped to teach me when earthside.

And then me — with a published book of letters to my daughter when motherhood cracked me open in all the right places.

Three generations who knew some things can only be said through this form.

So when this invitation arrived, it carried the right code to bypass every self-inflicted firewall I'd built. Writing to you guided me back to this blank page to ask new existential questions like...

What does it truly mean to write — and rewrite — our own story?

After years of living the question — here's what I found. Every story begins with world-building declarations. The truth underneath the place. The invisible law that governs everything that follows.

When I left my first marriage, I walked away from my old life with nothing but my clothes, plants, and books. I declared in my new story’s world…love moves mountains. Magic is real. Presence is everything. And epic plot twists are most welcome.

No matter the setting, most of us inherit our lead cast without an audition process. Fear got the lead role. Obligation has been a recurring character for years. The inner critic somehow gets the last line of every scene.

Plot twist: you were always allowed to recast. What if love was your protagonist? What if happiness, curiosity, and generosity got top billing?

Once you have your world and your cast — your heart writes the words. Intention punctuates them. Together they become the story.

Maybe your next sentence includes a semi colon. Two complete truths held together. The person you were; the person you’re becoming. Neither erasing the other.

Maybe the phrase ends with a few exclamation marks in unapologetic joy.

Maybe throw in some em dashes – something AI learned from us in the moments our storytelling is most human…in the pause. The pivot. The audacity to shift mid sentence.

And inevitably – a question mark. The only punctuation comfortable with not knowing. The only one that leans forward into the wild unknown.

So, here’s one for you as you begin your second week:

When all the chapters are written and the final page is turned — what will your anthology reflect about the life you chose to live? What stories will you leave behind in the hearts you found along the way?

I've been sitting with my own version of that question.

I have recurring wonderments about the contents of my daughter's future hypothetical memoir. What will she say about me? Will she remember my presence? My mushy gushy heart for all beings? Our shared affinity for Bossa Nova and rainy days?

Will she tell the story of a mother who chose to be fully alive — and the family structure that couldn't survive her unbecoming?

I've had to learn to love all of it. The courage and the cost. Stories have to be lived before they can be told. The wisdom is always in the hindsight. And the parts of us we've outgrown — the choices, the versions, the things we'd do differently — they aren't the villain of the story. They are the story.

Mexican writer Elena Garro titled her novel Los Recuerdos del Porvenir — the recollection of things to come. A memory of the future.

I've been thinking about this phrase ever since I heard it — because that’s exactly what stories do for each other.

They don't just inspire. They awaken. Your story becomes someone else's memory of what's possible before they've even lived it.

The world is yours to declare. The cast is yours to choose. And the next sentence — the only one that matters right now — is yours to write.

Which is how all new stories begin. With everything that came before — and a blank page. Not empty but full. Full of possibilities that haven't been written yet.

The cursor blinks like a heartbeat. Patient and present. It quietly asks: are you ready? What choices will you make today that become tomorrow’s stories?

You don’t need to know the ending. Just the next letter.

With love and gratitude as deep as the universe,

Me