Preface
The stories in this volume are something of an eclectic mix. The common themes that run through them though are bodies, nature, identity and acceptance. Through our bodies we meet the world and through our bodies we meet each other. These two are related but not the same. One thing they have in common is how visceral our responses are — both to the world and to other people. Think for a moment about how some people respond to creatures such as spiders, snakes and mice. Then think how just the appearance of some other people can make us instantly love or hate them! In both cases, the body is very much leading us in how we behave, although of course we are usually quick in covering up our feelings about other people! We can add here that we often have very strong reactions to our own bodies — both positive and negative — and these reactions can dominate our lives and colour everything we do.
All of the above leads me to wonder how our feelings about our own bodies and the physicality of other people relate to our responses to nature. It would be a very neat solution to say that if we love our own bodies — our own naked bodies — then we could be more accepting of other people’s bodies and of all the differences between people and also more accepting and loving towards nature. And by he same token, if we feel awkward and embarrassed about our bodies then we’ll be less accepting of others and have less concern for nature. I have no evidence to back this up, I just want it to be true! Many of the stories in this book address these notions, either directly or indirectly.
I hope readers will be interested in the stories just for those reasons that I have given above. But there is a wider reason for exploring these ideas and this relates to our current climate emergency. A variety of ‘solutions’ to this emergency are put forward by society — reducing consumption, renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, geo-engineering. The reader may favour one or more of these over others, or the reader might just not believe there is a climate emergency. One thing though that I think is more important than any of these solutions (or debates over whether they are needed or not) is our attitude to nature. So all of us can think back to times spent on the beach or in a forest or on a mountain and realise that for whatever reason things are not the same. Those encounters with nature are changing and often the opportunities to be in nature are diminishing. I think we can set aside all our different opinions by acknowledging this. And then perhaps we can find common ground by seeking to protect and enhance nature wherever we can. So I hope these quirky tales will point the way towards this.
All the stories were initially published individually on the website www.booksie.com. and subsequently on www.storywrite.com.
I regard this book as a ‘commons’ and am happy for it to be shared, in any format, on any platform, provided that an acknowledgement is given to the author and links provided back to where I have posted the manuscript.
This revised edition of the book includes one new story and sees a non-fiction piece moved to another book.
