I was a maker from the beginning — that part survived fundamentalism, poverty,

I was a maker from the beginning — that part survived fundamentalism, poverty, grief, debt, confusion, and whatever flavor of adulthood I’ve lived.

What got stripped away wasn’t the creativity. It was the permission to trust it.

Everything I’ve ever built — wagons, puppet shows, worlds, assemblage boxes, archives — comes from that original child who wandered the farmstead and built imaginary realms by hand.

I lost it for a while. I found it again. And now I protect it fiercely.

The Maker-Self is the part of me that knows:

Life is not the cubicle. Life is not the rush. Life is not the fear. Life is not scarcity.

Life is the work of making meaning, one handcrafted world at a time.