Why write

In the first meeting of my class Writers Workshop on Thursday, Michael Johnson asked us why we write. Now, I answered this question last year in my advanced fiction writing class with the general answer "to find out who I am." Now, that is certainly true. I search for myself in my poems, in my stories, trying to find out what means what to me, but there's more. My answer on Thursday possibly stemmed from the regularity that it has occurred in the recent months, but, for me, is probably the defining reason why I write: because I can't speak it. I have never been good with speaking my mind or carrying on a conversation or defining my opinion on the spot or carrying my weight in an argument. When I am pressured to speak, in a time where I am required to speak, my mind cannot concentrate on the task. Often, in an argument with Jedsen, in my stammering necessity to find the right words to say, a song comes into my head, repeatedly repeating to distract me from my own words. Or I search, almost literally circling my mind with my eyes, for that right statement. But, if I write it down, if I can see that what I write will be remembered and can be built upon, I can usually determine a solution or position.

How do I feel about my dad? He was always working, always distant from me and my brother. We never had any problems with one another. He never yelled at me, and I don't think I ever screamed at him. He fed me. He let me hold his index finger while we walked when I was little. I love my dad, but I don't know him beyond his love for sci fi television and Anchor Inn. I think my feelings for my dad came through in the poem I wrote about his hands. I couldn't define it in my mind, but once I had a spot to wander from, that's when I knew. All he does is work, nights now, and what is his life beyond that? He works while my mom stays home with no one to care for now. He works for little, gets little, gives little.

My parents are not passionate people. My mom has no drive except to be a mother, and my dad's only need when he is home is to watch tv. I always went beyond that. I wanted to go to college, graduate, have a career, travel, be happily in love, live in a stimulating city. Not that I wanted to be better than them--they're good people--but I wanted different. So, here I am, slightly traveled, still being schooled (beyond where I hoped), loved and loving a man, at the age of 22. But where's my passion? There are the goals, the wishes, but what do I get passionate about? While my writing habit is lacking--slap me--in the writing is my passion. In the finding the word, the phrase, or as Michael Johnson (first it was Natalie) perfectly puts it, the SURPRISE. It's in the surprise of finding that I have something to say and can say it well, in a new way. Okay, so there's that, but what are my other passions? Work, the books. I get obsessed over books and their worth, the research, and the surprise of discovering this little 68 page booklet on religion is worth $80. Yes, the surprise again. Passion in the travel, in the new. If only I could go back to Europe and take time in the Alps, in Paris, in Lucerne, in London, on the Seine, on the Metro, on that Swiss lake. Oh, the passion for the there. The there I cannot go to. The there I cannot have.

I always wanted to study abroad. Australia, so that I could see my grandma's family. France, so that I could really learn French. England, so that I could start myself over. Since my oportunities for study abroad are over, my goal is to live in another country for at least a year at some point in my life. I'm not afraid.