Baba Yaga and the Sack of Stories
You look like someone carrying too many stories.
Come, set them down beside the fire for a while.
The forest grows quieter when the years begin to pile up behind you.
That is when the stories arrive.
Not the grand stories you tell at feasts.
Not the polished stories you share with strangers.
I mean the stubborn ones.
The stories that wake before you do.
The ones that follow you down familiar roads.
The ones you turn over and over in your hands like smooth river stones, wondering if you have finally understood them.
Look at you.
Your sack is nearly bursting.
Inside are the promises.
The laughter.
The misunderstandings.
The moments that broke your heart.
The moments that stitched it back together.
The roads taken.
The roads abandoned.
The words spoken in anger.
The words never spoken at all.
And somewhere, perhaps beneath another patch of stars, another soul sits beside another fire carrying a sack filled with many of the same years.
Strange, isn’t it?
How two people can walk the same road and remember such different landscapes.
One remembers the shelter.
One remembers the storm.
One remembers the warmth.
One remembers the cold.
One remembers being seen.
One remembers feeling invisible.
Neither story is false.
Neither story is complete.
That is the nature of memory.
It is not a ledger.
It is a lantern.
It throws its light where it can and leaves the rest dancing in shadow.
Yet people spend entire lifetimes arguing over whose story is correct.
Who suffered more.
Who tried harder.
Who failed whom.
Who deserves forgiveness.
Who deserves blame.
Bah.
The forest has little patience for such accounting.
The cedar does not keep score.
The river does not choose sides.
The moon does not favor those who stayed over those who left.
The wind carries every story away eventually.
What matters is not who wins the argument.
What matters is what remains when the argument is over.
Did you learn where your wounds lived?
Did you learn where another person’s wounds began?
Did you learn when to speak?
Did you learn when to listen?
Did you learn how easily love can become tangled in fear?
Did you learn how often people hurt one another while desperately trying not to be hurt themselves?
These are the treasures buried beneath the tale.
These are the roots beneath the forest floor.
For every traveler eventually arrives at the same place.
The fire burns low.
The road grows short.
The years become stories.
And the stories become lessons.
So stop trying to decide who was the hero and who was the villain.
Most lives are not fairy tales.
Most hearts are not dragons.
Most people are simply wandering through the dark carrying burdens they do not yet understand.
Baba Yaga knows this.
She has watched generations arrive at her doorstep with sacks full of certainty and leave carrying only wisdom.
That is why she laughs when people argue over who was right.
The forest has heard the debate a thousand thousand times.
It always whispers the same answer:
You were right sometimes.
You were wrong sometimes.
You were wounded.
You were loved.
You were learning.
You were human the entire time.
And if fortune smiles upon you, wanderer,
one day you will set down your sack of stories,
keep the wisdom,
leave the weight,
and continue down the path lighter than when you arrived.
Baba Yaga The Wise 
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