"The minute I let myself write, everything else falls into balance. If I get a dose of writing in my day, then I can actually socialize with a clear conscience."
I've fancied myself as a writer since I could piece together words and doodle around the edges of my "poetry" as a young child. While I've never pursued any professional writing career, the ability to connect my critical thinking to writing has always been an asset whether as a student, an employee, or for my own personal reflection.-Julia Cameron, from The Artist's Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living
When we moved last summer, I found myself on an odyssey of purging useless junk from my life that I'd toted around for years. Among the boxes that took the longest to sort through, where piles and piles of letters and journals. Mostly dating from late elementary school, through high school, I have thousands of pages, now somewhat more organized than before. While I don't know if I'll ever revisit those parts of my life by rereading those notes, I cherish them. At least in as far as it's possible to cherish something you keep in a box in the attic.
My earliest letter writing started when my friend Kelly moved to Texas with her family. The loss of a friendship in this way was unlike anything I'd ever experienced, with the possible exception of my parent's divorce. It was difficult for me to process the idea that I might never see my friend again, or at least not for a very long time. And so, we wrote letters. This went on for several years, decreasing in frequency as life moved on. I've been lucky enough to reconnect with Kelly through Facebook, and once again, am happy to feel that sense of friendship, if even from far away, and in tiny glimpses.
Later, in elementary school, maybe fourth or fifth grade language arts, we were matched up with pin pals in other parts of the country. I suspect the initial point of this activity was to teach us about the proper way to form a friendly letter, address an envelope, etc. What happened instead is a years long friendship with a girl named Krista from Minnesota. Our lives were fairly different, but our struggles mirrored each other as time went by. We lost touch as we got busy with high school, and boys, oh the boys, and our lives went down different roads. I also recently found her on Facebook, and though our connection was not the same as that early friendship with Kelly, I feel a certain comfort in knowing that she's still out there.
In high school French, I was given the opportunity to participate in a pin pal program. For a few dollars, you were provided with the name and address of a student living in a foreign country. I remembered a few of these as I poured through my boxes of letters. One was a girl in France. Her handwriting was so strange and pretty. I was lucky that her English was far better than my French. Another was a boy in Australia. He was a wild one. In some ways he fit what I think of as the stereotypical bad-boy Aussie. He liked to party, and brag about it. He liked punk and hardcore music. He drank and got into fights. You know, typical teenage stuff...HAR! A third was a young man from Egypt, who, for obvious reasons, has been on my mind lately. I'm also lucky that his English was passable, as I"m not sure where I could have found an Egyptian translator in Frankfort, Kentucky. I remember this weird feeling like he was looking for a wife. This made me uneasy, and we didn't correspond long. Given his age though, I've wondered if he was among the throngs of anti-Mubarak protesters.
There were others too. One in Canada, another in France. Seriously, do kids still do this? Write letters to foreign pen pals? With social media, the idea itself seems foreign. Why write letters in broken French, when you could skype and practice conversation? Do kids still pass notes at school? I also have a box full of notes from my friends dating back to as early as fifth grade, when we all were obsessed with folding our notes to each other in an assortment of shapes, and apparently, ignoring whatever was going on in class.
In recent years, I've engaged in an on-again, off-again letter writing with my friend Kristen. I think we both find the process quaint, but also like we're upholding an important tradition. It's also a form of therapy for both of us. I bare my soul to her, as I would any close friend face to face. But sometimes I'm able to think through things and risk things I might not in person. Other times, I allow myself to be shallow and silly in ways I might not find time for in conversation. In turn, she graces me with her clarity, and lets me take a glimpse into her very essence.
Journal writing serves a similar purpose to me, and to many writers. I used to be quite diligent about the practice. Dumping my feelings and accounts of my days onto spiral notebooks, or decorative, lined books. I've tried to get back into the practice this year, and find myself struggling with it. The problem is some combination of not wanting to open myself up and the constant interruptions that are Motherhood, in all it's glory.
Journal writing was critical to my early experiences as someone who identified as a "writer". My eighth grade language arts teacher, Mrs. Hoehner (whom I've written about previously on this blog sometime last year), made it a requirement in her class. She opened me to the possibilities of writing styles, and pushed my creative boundaries. I think she also kept me in check as I confided in my daily journal in her class. I remember this one requirement that she had for open writing times in her class; You had to keep your pen moving. No matter what. So, even if you were scribbling a hole through the paper, you were forcing yourself to push through. To create. Something. Anything. This is one of the crucial principles of the "Artist's Way" book I quoted at the beginning.
Over time I've moved away from writing a journal because of a general paranoia about my thoughts being seen by others, or because, perhaps much worse, revisiting my own thoughts and the feelings that come with seeing one's own vulnerability in hindsight.
And so on to blogging. I've been enjoying this lately. If I get a little creative inspiration, hurry to my computer, and ignore the world around me for an hour or so, I can blast out something for all the world to see. And as an added bonus, I get a reprieve from a few of the thoughts spinning in my head. At least till the next thing comes along.
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