Why I Write!

 

Looking forward to next weekend's Why We Sing III concert!   And it got me pondering a similar but different thought - Why I Write.

Because I write.  A lot.  Three - Dream Reweaver, older2elder, o2e Bookshelf - on regular basis, one (The Velveteen Grammie) a reposting of Mom's 2000-01 e-mails, and a couple simply when the mood moves me. 

Why the outpouring?  Writing helps me think, get clarity.  Including feelings.  Especially feelings.

 

The first bit of writing I did of special note was a letter to a high school classmate, written the summer after graduation.  She was my first honest-to-goodness friend friend.  Ever.  We were chums for junior year - a wonderful experience.  But it changed in senior year - 1969-70 - as she was relatively radicalized (well, radical for my little hometown) while I stayed as is.  I wrote thanking her for her friendship, recognizing how our relationship had taken us on different paths, but the friendship remained & someday those paths might reconnect or at least intersect.  It was my honoring of someone & something that mattered to me.

In college, my Psych 101 lab paper examined - me.  Let's face it - everyone's life is worth a special ponder.  I felt cursed but ultimately blessed to have an above average funky childhood, with what felt at times like more than my fair share of unusual people, challenging situations, life-pausing moments.  At nineteen, took the opportunity to step back, look at what I saw, write about it.  Got an A.  It was my honoring of a time & people - especially younger versions of yours truly - that mattered to me.
 

Writing has always kept me balanced. Writing things out helps me see the possible other side.  Seeing Roshomon - at a ridiculously young ten years old -  clued me into there always being Another Side.   

Writing kept me balanced in a family where I was the only verbal one, at least after Ian died.  Writing helped me understand why being non-verbal gave the others the edge in any dust up or disagreement.  Became fascinated, seeing how the studies about verbal v. non-verbal communication is reflected in writing as well as speech.  It helps me stay patient in the craziness of today's world, having learned long ago that mute emotion will always hold sway over reasoned talk.

Dad was verbal, but limited by being typical of his age - at-home communicating was left to Mom.  My former sister-in-law nailed Mom - "For someone who praises communication, you do damn little of it."  Praise be, I could see myself in Dad.  And that on the rare occasions we actually talked, what he said made an immense difference in my life, to this day.

 

Writing was my sanity valve.  

Now, it gets to be more, much more.  

 Instead of just keeping me balanced, it lets me voice ME.  

Writing lets me freely share all I know about aging expansively, to contribute to my beloved hometown & birth church, to let me spread & flutter my wings, lifting up & away from my cocoon.

Writing is liberation & joy, useful & fun, lets me see the incredible steps & people who got me here while zooming me up & up & up.

I write because I have not other choice.