How many hours have I spent penning these essays, clearing my thoughts in lines of words, winding and weaving until I know what I know?
And knowing, too, that what I now know is not what I might believe as the story continues later, as my journey teaches me new truths—and I pray that I will never close my heart off to such insights.
For that is what this is: a story. I think of my life as a story I am writing. It is in my control. I am the author, for only I can be the author of this story.
As it is for all of us. Just as I am the author of my story, so you are the author of your own story. And while I know it’s presumptuous to think anyone would care to read what I write, I can hope, at least, my daughter might one day find these words. So, for the first time, I write to you, my imaginary reader—and what an absurd notion this is to me!—but I feel it helps frame what I’ve always tried to tell myself. Namely, whatever twist, whatever station, whatever circumstance, the story remains yours to write, yours to feel, yours to make. There are, of course, so many things that cannot be controlled, but regardless of those, the outlook, the emotions, the handling of the offered journey is the lifebook that is written.
The journey. For me, from my earliest days, my earliest memories, the journey has always been more important than the goal. Learning to fight and to navigate the drow academy was more important than becoming a great warrior, as the former would lead to the latter, to whatever level I might elevate.
I cannot determine if the sunrise will be brilliant or one dulled by clouds too heavy, but I can always control my own reaction to it. I can always find the hope in those early rays or misty glow. I can always smile in response and remind myself that I am blessed to witness whatever the dawn has shown to me. That, I know, is better than lamenting the clouds, after all.
Too, I cannot control the clouds. As I cannot control so much regarding the circumstances around me.
But my reactions to them, and my choices because of them . . . those are my own, and mine alone. That is my journey and no one else’s.
I rarely, very rarely, go back and read these essays I have penned. Or perhaps I should call them “sorts,” for that is what they are: a sorting, an unwinding of the complicated and tangled threads that block my path through my journey. One might think—I might think—that perhaps I would refer to them often. But no. Such a read is rare, and never for more than one sort at a time. On those infrequent visits to the epiphanies of my past, it is simple curiosity, I know, which takes me there. Curiosity and not some re-realization of an insight as I seek answers to any knots in the life-threads currently before me. Perhaps I might measure some growth with any new perspectives that I bring to the read, as my experiences have thickened.
But always on those occasions, I read with great care and decided detachment, for I do not wish this chapter of my lifebook to be determined consciously—or worse, completely—by any former insight. Not in that way. The experiences are there, settling in my heart and soul, but my guidepost must be that which is now before me, the present. To do otherwise would be to catch myself up in those very fears of change that I have recently noted as one of the driving inspirations of our enemies in Menzoberranzan.
Now, though, with the dramatic changes that have swirled about me—the discovery of Callidae, the raging war in Menzoberranzan, the birth of my daughter and seeing her grow—I have changed the play. I have given myself permission to go back and read these essays, all.
Perhaps it is because of my training with Grandmaster Kane.
Perhaps because of once transcending this mortal body.
Perhaps it is because of Callidae and the aevendrow, for in learning of them, the world has changed for me so suddenly and in so many ways.
Perhaps it is because of Brie—aye, that possibility rings most true. I will want her to read these, and hope that we will speak of them, both so that she can know me—can know her father more completely—and because any help these might give her in finding ways to unwind her own threads would bring to me great joy.
To teach what we have learned, to share what we have come to believe, to pass on the stories that taught us . . .
That is immortality.
That is a good and comforting thought when war rages all around me, when I place my hopes against a seemingly impossible army of demons and powerful zealots.
Whatever the case, this is my life, my story, my journey . . . and mine alone. And perhaps it is nearing the end—the fighting is all around me, ferocious and formidable.
But no, I cannot think that way, else I stop writing this tale!
So much has changed, and yet, so much has remained the same. I stayed true to that which was in my heart. Yea, I have clarified my feelings repeatedly, but the core of it all, the hopes, the desires, the truths, have remained solidly and inextricably a part of the heart of Drizzt Do’Urden.
This is my story. This is my journey.
Is that story fully told?
I think not!
There remains too much possibility, too much joy—joy that I alone can create within this life I am living, within this personal book, this lifebook, my story and mine alone that I am writing.
I will see the next sunrise until . . .
—Drizzt Do’Urden