For at least twenty years, I have enjoyed walking labyrinths. Labyrinths are maze-like structures that have been used as spiritual tools for centuries. For the past nine years, I’ve been walking labyrinths throughout the northeastern United States, and blogging about them. To learn more about labyrinths, check out this page at the Labyrinth Society. To find labyrinths near you, try the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator.

It was a Wednesday, and I was walking labyrinths. I was exploring southeastern New York State, while also exploring how I might be able to kindle a fire from the ashes of my creativity. At my previous labyrinth, I considered the fears I have right now, which are connected to upcoming changes in my life, and the lives of my children and parents. I fear that I won’t be able to do what I know I should, and I fear that I will have regrets. I wanted to find a way to talk about how this fear feels, but I didn’t want to just blog about it directly, because they involve other people. It’s one thing for me to reveal things about myself, which I often do freely, but it’s another to reveal things about others. I want to respect their privacy and agency.

I arrived at Mariandale Retreat Center in Ossining, where there is a seven-circuit classical labyrinth. The path is crushed stone, and the walls are inlaid red bricks. The question I brought into the labyrinth was this: How can I get my fearful feelings out without revealing what I don’t want to reveal?

My first thought as I walked was to write something like The Lepers in Your Head, a novella I wrote a few years ago and published on my blog. That story began as an autobiographical fantasy, a daydream about some dark thoughts I was having. After writing the whole thing, I went through and changed lots of names and details, to make it appear that it wasn’t about me, but was simply a work of fiction. (Not sure I fooled anybody anyway.) So I thought perhaps I could do something like that again with my current fears. But that didn’t feel quite right.

Then, I thought about writing a science fiction story. Science fiction (or at least the science fiction I like) uses SF tropes to explore universal emotions. I certainly have enough experience reading and watching sci-fi to create something, and perhaps I could write something dealing with premonitions of change, death, and regret. I have never thought of myself as a fiction writer, but that’s fine. It doesn’t need to be a good story, and it can be as trite and derivative as you like (as I’m sure it would be), because I’m not trying to sell it. I’m not trying to develop a new skill to be a fiction writer. I’d just be trying to make it a true story, emotionally. I wonder if I could write something that would show my true feelings, my true fears, within characters undergoing very different things, and explore where those feelings go.