My first writing assignment this year was to write a history of my career as a writer. Here is the result!
Quickly, I scratched my poem down, unabashed by my misspellings and untidy handwriting, only determined to capture the poetry that had just streamed into my head. Somehow, as I sat there, small and tousle-haired with my thick glasses and cotton pajamas, I felt I had peeped into paradise. It had started with an assignment to write a poem for a book club I participated in. Being a fiercely independent creature, I rather begrudged them telling me to be creative, but then suddenly it was there. A rose more beautiful than I could even imagine had taken shape in my head, and words came spilling out. I felt tingly and prickly in my delight. Oh, to be so poetical! As I reread my masterpiece it seemed to sing to me, “you glisten, you glosten, your smell is divine.” Then, suddenly I stopped. Was “glosten” a word? I skipped into my parents’ room to demand the truth. “No,” they said, “glosten” was not a word. Indignant, I challenged them, “Surely it was a word! After all, it worked so perfectly in my poem...” Since then, though my glasses have shrunk (thanks to technology) and my hair is, perhaps, less tousled, I remain just as impassioned about writing.
In many ways I owe my interest in writing to my mom who has taught me through her own appreciation to love this form of expression. Moreover, she has challenged me to go beyond the “call of duty,” to write sincerely and actively, to lace my very soul to the page. So many times over the years we have jointly dissected my papers before I sent them off to my various internet teachers. Mom is leaning over my chair and scrutinizing my paper as I nervously glance around waiting apprehensively for her verdict. When she finally finishes and begins, “It’s really great, but…” I brace myself, knowing that whatever she says will be painful. Once I get over my indignation and can discuss the paper reasonably, we laboriously argue over the “problem” areas and then piece the paper back together. Though I find this process wrenching, I rarely regretted showing her a paper. She has the invaluable ability of seeing those weaknesses that I have neglected to find due to my numbness after reading and rereading. What I find remarkable is how much Mom cares about these papers, about correcting words here and there, about making thoughts more accurate and sincere. She deeply respects the power of the written word, and this respect she has passed on to her daughter.
Writing is a glance in the mirror. It is a glance at the inside, a bearing of the soul. Somehow, when I feel I have nothing to say in an essay, and my fingers are struggling to form words as if swimming upstream against a strong current, my self esteem vanishes as rapidly as my endurance. Each sentence I hesitantly produce seems to stand up against me, proving my inadequacy. Likewise, when I have caught some inspiration and my fingers flow over the keyboard like a stream dancing over pebbles my soul rejoices. Finally, I have found a way to say what I need to say, to express my soul in a way that other people can understand and approve of. Writing has such significance for me because it creates such a reflection. My desperation at feeling myself misrepresented by my writing is akin to the horror I would feel if I glanced in the mirror and found some other face than my own returning my stare.
I had ninety minutes, ninety minutes to prove myself on a midterm. Outside it was spring. The Magnolia tree danced and swirled filling the world with blossoms. As I absently gazed at the blossoms trying to get a grip on the midterm before me, a story took shape in my head. It seemed to come from out of nowhere; perhaps it descended on a blossom. My fingers flew into action as I sketched the tale of a nursing home inmate who remembered dancing in Magnolia blossoms. Rummaging through my memories of our visits to nursing homes, I found myself walking the hall with that inmate and suffering her dejection. When the timer finally rang, I paused to revel in the world I had created on paper. My story gave me such a sense of fulfillment, a sense that deep down somewhere I had the ability to create beauty, that deep down somewhere, I was beautiful. For this feeling I write. For the possibility of capturing such beauty, I deem writing worthwhile.
My ability to write has grown a great deal since that night when I felt poetry in the shape of a rose, but in many ways, I have not changed since then. As I sit here slouched in my chair glaring almost fiercely at the screen, my fingers crouched in readiness over the keyboard, I feel quite close to that long ago self in cotton pajamas. Still there is that passion, that almost painful intensity, and complete involvement in my work. My mom nurtured that passion for writing and tamed it sufficiently so that it might express my thoughts reasonably and persuasively. Moreover, I have discovered that writing is, in many ways, a direct reflection of myself. Indeed, the words I place on the page offer the reader a glance into my heart—perhaps even more revealing than if we met in person. That power to reach out to others through the written word is a gift worthy of full appreciation because it offers the author so much satisfaction, and the reader, a window into other peoples’ hearts.