This Book Was Born On A Mountaintop
When I was a teenager, I wrote a book for a school assignment about the impact conflict can have on a young person’s life. I spent days creating its cover, a pencil sketch of the legendary fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.
I was proud of that little book.
My teacher asked to keep it for a while to “show people.” She continued to assure me that she would return it soon, but I never saw it again. I was heartbroken, not only because I had lost the writing and artwork, but because I had placed a piece of myself within those pages.
Even then, I was writing from life: experiences I lived, moments I witnessed, questions I carried, and stories unfolding around me. I was drawn to the beauty and pain found in the lives of friends, neighbors, and extended family members.
The writer and artist within me never left.
Years later, high on a mountain outside Jackson Hole, the idea for this collection began to take shape. My son was getting married there, and memories of my daughter’s own mountaintop wedding years earlier came rushing back.
As the wind moved through fields of wildflowers carpeting the mountainside, it felt as though the pages of my life were turning all at once. Stories, images, and emotions began gathering into what would eventually become The Light That Stayed With Me.
In some ways, this collection is the return of that first little book. It is another piece of myself placed into pages, now expressed through narrative poetry, original artwork, color, and a carefully curated musical playlist.
Some poems grew from experiences I lived or observed. Others were born late at night, when memories tend to speak the loudest. Each emerged from love, struggle, gratitude, heartbreak, healing, and Light.
Together, the poetry, artwork, and music became a multi-sensory expression of color, emotion, and sound.
The Light that moves through me.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my work. Creating this book has been joyful, but sharing it with others can still take my breath away.
What carries me through that vulnerability is imagining a reader being comforted, moved, or amused, and perhaps recognizing something of their own life within these pages.
I hope that will be your experience.
Warmly,
Sharon
