Why the West

People ask why do you live in the west. I answer, why not. In reality that is a true, simple answer, but it does not really go to the heart of why. Perhaps as a child the westerns I watched on TV became a part of my folklore. Maybe. I have to admit I did not read westerns until arriving in this area. My first novel was a Louis L'Amour I read while working in a psychiatric hospital. I was working the graveyard shift, things were quiet and I was bored. The book was lying around and I started reading. I finished about three hours later. That is a story of the past. How about the future?

I arrived here with some friends from college. They insisited they had to live in the west. With nothing better to do I came with them. They are all gone and I am still here. I am still here because I do not want to be anywhere else. There is something about the mountains, their firmess, the sense of timelessness. The sky is so open and clear. You can watch the weather and go a few miles and it has changed, or stay in one place and still have it change. The west seems to always be changing and yet remain the same mystery. There are 'ghost' that haunt the region, they seem to be asking that they not be forgotten. Those are the stories I want to tell. Starting out with a one woman show and moving on to recreating historic characters, I tell their stories. I need to keep the history, mystery and myth of the west alive. I have the feeling that those of us who love the west will be the ghost of the future, asking that our stories not be forgotten. Like the picture, the sunset, the past is brilliant. May ours be just as brilliant.

So why the west? Why not?