Response On 'Finding Time to Write'

I grew up in a safe, predominately middle class neighborhood in the heart of Portland, Oregon. I attended a uniquely progressive pre-school that stressed the importance of art and diversity. I came to understand foreign concepts such as moon tides and marimba instruments before I really understood my own community. I could count to one hundred in Spanish before I knew the English word for 'thirty-seven'; I built paper-mâché wigwams and baked loaves of challah bread when I was five. By the time I was seven, these skills felt completely useless outside of the classroom. I existed in a world that involved boyish hobbies and girly dreams.

I walked everywhere and spent as much time outside as the rainy weather permitted. I played and loved every sport imaginable. I became a very competitive basketball player thanks to pick up games with the neighborhood boys. We idolized Michael Jordan and Scotti Pippin. To us, they were incorruptible heros (with impressive stats.) There were no female basketball players I looked up to. I remember a boy telling me, "The WNBA sucks because girls can't dunk." And I believed him.

Nevertheless, I spent a significant amount of time playing dress-up and collecting Beanie Babies. At night, I dreamt of becoming a movie star. Years before I was born, my mom attended the Academy Awards, and when I was ten, she gave me the program bill from the spectacle, which I dutifully displayed on my night stand as a kind of good luck charm.

I would often sit in front of my mirror and apply various shades of lipstick. I really admired Gwenyth Paltrow because she was the "It" girl as my body entered physiological maturity. If there's anything my extensive collection of fashion magazines taught me, it was there's value in beauty and grace in and of itself. To me, Paltrow possessed so much charm, and I think that was enough.

In middle school, I became incredibly self-aware, proscribed to trends and carefully cultivated a practical identity. I equated a certain amount of popularity with happiness because that's what movies and magazines held as a universal truth.

This identity became an arduous task, however, as my own disgruntledness essentially led to the realization that the person I was on the surface was a superficial concoction. I felt like the woman in the painting above.

I eventually realized that the only way I will ever be happy in life is through writing. It is a career, a hobby, a passion that not only demands reflection, but writing, a dialectical tool and mode of self-expression, is unfaltering. Yes, good writing is bulletproof.

I just took the time to write all of this. Weird huh? It seems that in modern times, people overlook the mere importance of writing as a reflective exercise. I didn't necessarily know what to write. But it came to. The point is, writing is good for the soul. And that's a very important thing.



The importance of writing is also what Martha Retallick conveys on her blogpost, "Finding Time To Write." As Retallick says, "Finding time to write seems to be the Holy Grail for many would-be scribes." And I couldn't agree more. I do realize, however, that I spend the bulk of my day writing: texting, emailing, jotting down notes or typing up assignments. My world evolves around the written word.

And just as those skills and traits I learned as a pre-schooler seemed useless at one point in time, they did become very precious later down the road--especially when exercising my creative muscle. I know that the writing skills I employ on a day-to-day basis will forever be invaluable.



Painting: Vilhelm Hammershøi, 'Interior, Strandgade 30' (1901).