When they look back to the years of exploration and discovery, to the first crush, the first dalliance, the first romance, the first entanglement, they see joy and embarrassment and humor. They see naiveté dance with desire. Yes, those things are there for us too. We, too, were foolish and hopeful. We, too, were hysterical and hysterical. But when we look back, we, too frequently and too acutely remember another emotion as unwanted as it was inappropriate. There it is, interwoven with the memories of laughter and drama, of endless moments passing in an instant and instants that lasted an eternity. There, lurking below the brazenness, the silliness, the joy and the pain is shame. They had the self-doubt born of youth. We had the self-doubt born of ignominy.If it had been different? If we had grown in a world that judged us for what we did rather than what we were? Can such a world be imagined? Such is the stuff of fantasy.Join me, then, in a story of beginnings in this world of fantastic construction, where epithets and slanders have no place, where the natural is unquestioned and the full range of human experience is never denied. It will be a story of discovery and folly and longing and triumph. It will not be a story with shame. Here, instead, is a story set in a world where shame has no footing.Status: Complete