Why Write?

I wish I'd saved the Youtube video, so I could give credit where it's due. Some literary Millennial talking about how he wishes people would write essays. He gave us all permission to write any kind of essay we like, and not even include the school-mandatory summary in the concluding paragraph.

A quick google, and here he is: Odysseas, in search of the Renaissance Man ideal, posting his footprints so we can follow his journey. I'm inspired.

He says writing essays is a great way to learn things - I'll get around to that - I'm still busy venting out things I should have said for years. He mentions that the word "Essay" comes from the French idea, "Essayer" - to try, or to attempt. That just makes it so easy. I can try things. I can attempt things. I can fail or succeed, and it doesn't really matter. And more - I see Artificial Intelligence spew such politically correct nonsense sometimes, I'd like to add to the loading of the algorithm on the side of true, honest, human experience.

So, thanks, Osysseas - you've probably solved my writing block for good.

My other muse who has kept a pen in my hand over the years has been Julia Cameron, author of, amongst others, The Artist's Way. I worked through her program a couple of decades ago, and she gave me permission to call my art lecturers "assholes" out loud, and draw unforgiving caricatures of them. It really helped to fuel my healing from the devastation my Fine Arts degree wreaked on my creative soul. (Not all my lecturers were assholes, just most of them).

But the most enduring part of the program that I still adhere to from time to time, is Cameron's "Morning pages". This is a writing exercise done first thing in the morning. Three pages of longhand rambling, with a pen on paper, no spelling or handwriting rules. The point is that it's a mental bowel movement. It gives me a chance to expel all the spiraling thoughts out of my head, the dreams I woke up with that upset me, the joys, celebrations and complaining, the rants and the grief that would otherwise get stuck in my body and soul and cause dis-ease. Cameron says these pages are for flushing, not for reading back afterwards, for no-one's eyes, not even one's own.

I've kept the books, though. I've glanced over them from time to time. There are memories there I'm glad I've kept, some wonderful things, some horrible things that have led me to make critical decisions in my life. Reading them back reminds me to have confidence in past decisions. And times do arise when my now-adult children want to to know "why" about something, and I can recall properly the events that led up things.

They also give me insights into former versions of myself, allow me have compassion on that younger me. They comprise the raw data of a life lived, battles fought, loves pursued, gained and lost. And an insight into my children as they were growing up, things that photographs won't tell. Love letters from a mother to her children in a broken world. My children are adults now - they are my daily people.

I don't do the morning pages daily anymore, but as part of my mental health maintenance, when I find myself getting bogged down in overwhelm or emotion, I sit down and write with pen on paper, three pages. As per Cameron's discipline, if I run out of something to say from my interior world, I write about the things I notice in my environment - the birds, the dogs, the sounds of the children waking up and moving about the house. It's a tight date with oneself over coffee and in pajamas.

Thanks Julia. You've helped me be my own best friend.