Why write?

a collection of "morning pages" notebooks & gratitude journals

Facing the blank page can be hard.  It was hard when I wrote an excruciatingly boring PowerPoint presentation about zoonotic diseases.  It was hard when I wrote the heartbreakingly-painful-to-compose eulogy for my dad's funeral.  Yet the power of the written word is so strong – to inform, to tell a story, to entertain, to commiserate or comfort, to express every idea and every emotion.

I have appreciated the written word, and have been a writer, since childhood.  My “official” first publication was The Neighborhood News, written by me, my sister, and – if I remember correctly – a few other neighborhood kids.  It was tapped out on our family’s typewriter and then photocopied by my dad at work.  I’m not sure what breaking news it contained or how widely it was distributed, and I think there was only one issue.  I don’t remember any particular writing assignments from elementary school, but I dabbled in poetry on my own.  There was a rhyming poem about the drudgery of the paper route.  The first lines were:  “The paper route, please don’t pout.  I know you’re sad, this task is bad.”  Or something like that.  (We sure loved our paper routes!)  In high school, I took upper level English courses and worked on the school newspaper.  In college I studied journalism, but I never worked as a journalist. Most of my jobs have required a good bit of writing, and I kept journals and wrote stories, essays and poems sporadically. 

As a young adult, I read the book The Artist’s Way: a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron.  The author recommends a practice called morning pages.  Her description of the process:  “Put simply, the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness…”  I have written morning pages on and off over the years.  My three pages are largely stream-of-consciousness as recommended – recapping events both mundane and exciting, telling stories, complaining, venting, praising, thanking, dumping my brain in whatever way is necessary.  Morning pages are basically writing as therapy.  Full of darkness as well as light, these pages are not meant to be shared or read by others.  My notebooks full of morning pages have been reread or not, pulled apart, shredded or recycled.  Writing morning pages makes me feel better.  Actually, writing in general makes me feel better.  I love the way author Lori Pickert describes this sentiment in one of her blog posts:  “Writing makes me feel happier and less likely to stab someone with a fork, so I’m going to try to do it a little more often.”  I really don't want to stab anyone with a fork or resort to aggression of any kind.  Writing will do.

Another writing practice that keeps me sane and gives me perspective is keeping a gratitude journal.  For the past couple of years, I've tried to remember to open my journal a few times a week and write about the things for which I am thankful.  It has become as important to me as other things I do to stay healthy, like exercise and getting enough sleep.  I have also tried art journaling.  I haven't done a whole lot of it, but I did work through some of the exercises in The Art Journal Workshop:  Break Through, Explore, and Make it Your Own by Traci Bunkers.  Art journaling combines writing with other forms of creative expression - drawings, painting techniques, photos, memorabilia, collage, etc.  Art journaling feels like a gift to myself.  But I really enjoy writing things as gifts for others.

I write silly list poems in handmade cards for my kids' birthdays.  For my sister’s fiftieth birthday, my other sister and I compiled a list of fifty things about her.  I wrote those fifty things into a handmade accordion fold book that was decorated with doodles and photos.  At my parent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary party, I delivered a speech I had written - with my siblings' input - to honor our parents.  It feels good to create and give those personalized gifts of writing.  On the other hand, the most difficult things I've ever written were my dad’s obituary and the eulogy for his funeral.  Together with my mom and siblings, we shared thoughts and ideas.  It was so important, no matter how difficult, to put those thoughts and ideas into the right words as a tribute to the great father, husband and man that he was.  But those words were a gift to me too, and I like to think they were a gift to all of us who loved my dad. 

Each story, essay, article, poem or letter written has the potential to be a gift.  Writing as a gift is expressed eloquently in this quote by young adult author John Green: 

Every single day, I get emails from aspiring writers asking my advice about how to become a writer, and here is the only advice I can give:  Don’t make stuff because you want to make money – it will never make you enough money.  And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous – because you will never feel famous enough.  Make gifts for people – and work hard on making those gifts in the hope that those people will notice and like the gifts.

Maybe they will notice how hard you worked, and maybe they won’t – and if they don’t notice, I know it’s frustrating.  But, ultimately, that doesn’t change anything – because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself.

*****

I think that's really beautiful.  And I hope that the essays that I have written - about parenting or homeschooling or my neighborhood - have been gifts also to those who have read them.  I know that the many, many words I have read over the years - novels and other books, articles and essays and poems, letters and notes from family and friends - all of those words have been gifts to me and shaped my life tremendously.  Here's to the written word!