Cavatica
an excerpt

Salutations!

The first word, maybe not the best word, but the most appropriate word for this and all other first meetings. This is my face that I show to all I greet, and this is the song that heralded your beginning. And if it was the first word to spring from your new voice, from any of you, then I feel I have passed on this legacy. Unfortunately, I will never know for certain, but I am filled with faith even as I empty my heart and soul into this, my magnum opus.
Today, as you first read this, you have found a place in this new web of life I have started, a web I wish had caught me as I took my first leap of faith. Touch it, read it, speak it, and when you are ready, add your own voice and heart and soul to it so that the ones who come after you can find their place in turn.
If I accomplished my goal, then you were greeted with joy and family at your birth, and maybe even given names by those who love you. Some of you may have left immediately, but I am sure that a few of you stayed, as I did at first, seeking something that could not be found even if you flew to the far corners of the world. And I can vouch that no matter how far you wander, the answers you seek could be as near as the pigsty outside your barn.
I do not mean to sound self-important, and I hope I do not, but enclosed here is my story, for you to read as you please. I wish that I had known my mother's story, and so I will presume that one of you is curious as I was. And if he is interested, I think that he is mature enough to know my story as well, so you have my permission to read it to him too. I am sure that there will be parts he would not have expected, but true friends bear no shame and no lies between them, and it seems only fair since I have seen him at his most desperate for him to see me when I was at mine.
Grow, learn, speak, love – my motto for life I pass on to you. And a piece of advice: beware boys with sticks.

Sincerely,
Charlotte A. Cavatica