{"id":4208,"date":"2012-07-24T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4208"},"modified":"2012-07-24T06:00:07","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T11:00:07","slug":"i-have-seen-wonders-untold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=4208","title":{"rendered":"I Have Seen Wonders Untold"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Comet<\/a>
Comet Hale-Bopp as it appeared over Boulder, Colorado in 1997. Image borrowed from here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I was about six or seven years old, I was obsessed with space. I wanted to be an astronaut and travel out of the Earth’s atmosphere to go to the Moon, to Mars, to Jupiter, or beyond. I wanted to go “out there,” where no one else had been. Because it would mean seeing wonders untold.<\/p>\n

But for a boy born with brittle bones, the reality of traveling on a rocket would mean being crushed by G-forces my body couldn’t bear. Becoming an astronaut would never be in the cards for me.<\/p>\n

I could never go to space. I would never see a Martian sunset or watch as Jupiter filled the sky from Titan. I would never travel to the stars.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So I read. I read books about rockets and the men who rode them to glory. I turned to science fiction and read about aliens who visited our world and ships who sang. I moved on to fantasy and read of times and worlds never-before imagined, where dragons lived in peace with man, or where magicians conjured the forces of nature. I read horror and discovered Elder Ones who turned men mad, ghosts that tortured the living, and monsters that devoured flesh.<\/p>\n

And somewhere along the way, I decided I could tell those stories too. Not because I was a better writer than those who came before me. But because I had seen things no one else had seen.<\/p>\n

I saw horrible monsters in the basement and heard unspeakable terrors from the attic. I listened as a devil whispered in my ear in the dead of night.\u00a0I was visited by beings that watched over me as I slept, then faded into shadows when I awoke.<\/p>\n

I watched unexplained lights in the night sky, splitting apart and flying in different directions. I viewed a total lunar eclipse, comet Hale-Bopp, the\u00a0aurora borealis<\/em>, and meteor showers.\u00a0I caught sight of a green fireball shooting through the heavens over Lawrence, Kansas.<\/p>\n

I followed a rotating storm cloud as it passed over my apartment building. I smelled ocean breezes from the Atlantic and the Pacific. I tasted the best bacon-wrapped shrimp, so buttery it seemed to melt in my mouth. I touched the St. Louis Arch on a hot day.\u00a0I beheld the beauty of a sunrise, and heard a city come to life.<\/p>\n

And I found true love.<\/p>\n

I didn’t have to leave Earth to see the universe. I only had to open my eyes and see the world for its amazing beauty and the wonders it holds.<\/p>\n

This is why I am a writer. Because I have seen wonders untold, and I need to share them with you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was about six or seven years old, I was obsessed with space. I wanted to be an astronaut and travel out of the Earth’s atmosphere to go to the Moon, to Mars, to Jupiter, or beyond. I wanted to go “out there,” where no one else had been. Because it would mean seeing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1251],"class_list":["post-4208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-life","tag-why-i-write"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}