Note to new readers: This post is part of my 52 Weeks Of Writing Practice. I am allowing blocks of 10, 20 or 30 minutes of my day solely to putting my swirling thoughts on paper. My writing buddy Kat and I (Wruddy for short), follow the strategies outlined by Natalie Goldberg’s in Writing Down the Bones. We let the stream of consciousness flow without stopping to think.
“The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world. And why not finally carry out this secret out of our bodies into the living rooms, porches and backyards and grocery stores. ” – Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down The Bones, Chapter titled “Why Do I Write?”
Why Do I Write? Natalie asks and naturally I have to post a response. I am going to let it rip right here right now. And remember this is merely writing practice!
Get set, and go!
I write because I like reading myself. Yes I do. Reading myself gives me so much clarity and gravity and sanity it fills me with pride to be able to express my thoughts down. Written words. It occupies space and has weight. It has mass and energy.
I write because I don’t have much time left and I feel that I need to leave something behind for my kids to read. I want my kids to get into my head, get to know how my mind and my heart work together and how fiercely and unconditionally I love them.
I write because I want my friends to know me well. Better. Deeper. Clearer. The real inner workings. Of Charina. The person sitting in front of you sipping coffee or walking beside you or eating lunch with you or laughing with you or watching a movie with you, is not the whole of me. I am more than that. Those are just parts of me. And i want you to see the sum of ME!
I write because I can. I write because I am. I write because I am in love with writing. Darn. I am in love with my whole life, right now. Writing completes me. It truly does. It completes my day. Words come out of my loins and up my torso, onto my arms, and onto my fingers. I am a mindless non thinking all feeling kind of mess.
Memories. Fleeting, vivid, vague all wanting to see the light of day. I write because I want to reach you. I want to connect with you. I want you to hear me and listen to what I have to say. I want you to read what I am feeling right now. I write because I am lonely, I am happy, I am in torment, I am ecstatic, I am entranced, I am pining, I am silly, I am ruined. I am trying to find myself. Somehow.
Love. I am in love. A friend remarked, “There is something in you that’s different. You are beaming Charina.” Yes I am beaming like a flashlight. I am so in love with the world. With songs, with Sia, with Natalie Goldberg, with Norah Jones, with Evernote. I don’t walk I glide. I don’t see I zoom in with a spotlight. My senses are heightened. My emotions are highly strung. I feel electric. I am so alive and kicking and bouncing up and down.
I write to see to smell to feel to hear to taste. To chew to savour to swallow and to digest every morsel. Mindfully. To capture to wrap my head around and to bottle a moment in space and time. I write because the pull is too good too hard too irresistible. I write to make a wish to make things happen to visualize and to make my own dreams come true.
I write because the sky is blue grass is green roses are red violets are blue sugar is sweet as sweet as me and YOU. I write because Evernote’s blank page is stark white and it beckons me urges me to be dirty gritty bloody and messy. I can write crap and say **** and all kinds of junk.
Dying and writing. It’s all the same to me. I jump off a cliff. Headlong. Face down. And I die a little bit. Every time I write. I let go. I gasp my last breathe. In letting go something inside me dies. I jump into the unknown dark murky ravine with snakes and sharks and all kinds of scary…readers. But I trust in you. What else can I do. Once published I get another rush, a shot in the arm, a breath of fresh air. A gulp of sweet nectar. And around the mountain I go again. Raring to jump off the cliff again. It’s exciting. It’s obsessive. It’s a drug this writing whoring kind of life.
Heck I am crazy. I know I am crazy. So why are you reading this again? Because you love me. I know you do. Else you wouldn’t have read this far and stayed with me this long. Let’s make love. Make love share love spread love and be loved. Because LOVE is what makes the world go around.
I write because I am learning and evolving and exploring this life! MY.LIFE.
Much love always,
Cha R-g
PS: Before you go, please savour this delicious extract from Writing Down the Bones’ “Writing Marathons” chapter.
“Writing marathons are very opening experiences. Right after one there is a tendency to feel naked, out of control…It is as though some big hole had been blasted in the belly of your self-defence and suddenly you are standing naked as who you really are…You feel as though you just lost your face. Don’t worry, the state does pass and you become guarded and ornery again.”
Jon Salud says
This is great, Cha. I’d like to encourage you to re-post this to a site called Medium:
https://medium.com/
Cha says
Hi Jon. I just signed up for Medium. It looks very interesting. Another adventure for me. Many thanks, Cha.