Easing in

Story has been my passion since I was really young. I used to invent tales in the fly to my younger sister, my youngest brother, and my cousin. I guess because I was two years older than my sister, and four years older than my brother, I could enjoy their faithful attention. I was around six. I would have a great time making stories up. Since early I realized that when there was a problem to solve, or a big "conflict" I would say now, the more intrigued my young audience would be. They wanted to know what happened after, what the characters would do. I remember also embellishing the characters, describing their physical features, telling them about their attributes, the more fantastic the better. We would spend hours talking, each session was a journey, sometimes they would give me cues to continue, and then there I would go, really enjoying the creation.

Story was present in almost every activity of my life. If I was going to sleep, I would play with my hands over the quilt, and I had then two dinosaurs running and jumping, or they would by flying horses, or little people talking or fighting or merely playing until I would fall sleep. There was a piano in a second floor (!) --indeed--, I never understood why they wanted it up there. That floor was a chemistry lab, a classroom, a library, and a studio. I would go to the piano and tell stories with the notes, the high ones and the grave ones would have each one something to say, and to fight for. Fights were funny. There were pigeons in the roof, and bats, and there were books of all kinds. It was there where I met with story and drawing: Milton's "Lost Paradise", illustrated by Gustave Doré! I lost my sleep, but I would go back to it over and over and explore avidly each one of the engravings, hypnotized by the epic celestial battles, impressed of the armies of angels, and horrified of the transformation of the fallen angels. From feathers to bat membranes, from clouds to thick swamps, from birds to reptiles. That was my first encounter with the power of merging image and event that I remember.