the Story
Once upon a time, there was a little girl with sun-kissed skin, dirt covered hands and salty hair. She’d often spend her long hot days conjuring up fantastic realms featuring magical beings and melodic chants. Her days were filled with small adventures – which obviously seemed epic to her little imaginative mind – exploring the beach, her small backyard and a store room nested in one of the corners of her home. The store room seemed to her a gold mine that inhabited tons of treasures waiting to be found. When the days were too hot to go exploring outside, the little girl would step inside the store room and thrust herself onto the piles and piles of forgotten gems. On such expeditions, she’d find old photographs tinted in sepia tones and nostalgic dust. Other days, she’d find beautifully broken pottery desperately waiting to be found and loved again. Sometimes, by mere luck, chance or perhaps solely due to the pure determination of her spirit, she’d stumbleupon a jewel she’d not recognize or even understand. These were the findings she treasured the most. She’d gathered her most prized possessions and place them in her treasure trove which she hid under her bed.
At night, the little girl would often pretend (believe) she’s a heroin of an epic adventure story and every day of her life is an episode featuring her fabulous escapades. On some nights, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d walk to her window and witness pure, silvery magic of the moon loving down on the mystical ocean. While witnessening such magic, she’d pretend she is some princess warrior just waiting to venture off into the distant worlds full of epic journeys and magical discoveries.
On days when her body couldn’t keep up with her hyperactive personality, the little girl would lock herself in her room, turn on the stereo playing vintage bollywood tunes, and pick up a book from a huge pile of novels scattered around on the floor of her room and escape, once again, embarking off to another fantastic realm.
However, you see, nothing about her escapades or adventures resembled any actual glory. The store room was a forgotten place where her parents abandoned all the things they acquired over the years, not wanting them but not ready to part with just yet. Her backyard was a small piece of land that was more concrete than grass. The trees that grew on her street and around her were barely taller than ten feet and there was scarcely any woods or forests to be found in hundreds of miles. The moon she oh so loved was the same moon that shined on the rest of the world. The tea-stained books she hid herself in were the same books every kid daunted and avoided.
None of this matter to her though, because to her the only thing that mattered was the stories that circled around in her mind. It was the stories she manifested, gathered, and conjured up each time she heard a song, when she saw the sun melting into the scorching water giving way to the silver moon and sparkling stars, when she sat on the passenger seat with the windows down and let the winds whisper onto her skin, that made her life so magical. It was these very stories that nested the sparkles in her eyes. Stories that had nothing and everything to do with her reality. Stories that meant everything to her. Stories that helped her find herself, that introduced her to witness real magic that slumbered within her.
So I guess, it wasn’t such a surprise when this little girl grew up to know that she’s a storyteller at heart and there’s nothing else she’d rather do but spend her life just the way she had as a kid: seeking magic in stories always and forever.
Now, Fatima successfully runs a creative studio where she works with rad clients and helps them elevate their brand by bringing their stories to life. She also runs her own brand and blog, Soul of Orion, where she acts as the creative director and content producer for the brand and its social channels, sharing her own stories and chronicling the magic she discovers in her everyday.
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