Why I Write.
(Photo via Pinterest)
If I close my eyes and sit still, the reasons why I write flood in through the soles of my feet as if the roots are buried deep into the center of this great big earth of ours.
I know that although this list will unravel as long as my too-long arms if I allow her to, it is a gift and a curse to live in a time where I feel it all and my voice is welcome.
For the words (and the times I must go digging deep to search for the place where they form themselves) is a practice and one that must be watered and walked each and every day; and so before I begin, I take a moment to bow to the four directions in gratitude for all I know — and especially for all I have still to learn.
I write because the alchemy of breath and movement forms words that run through my veins.
With the thump thump thump of the beating heart in my chest, there is no choice but to sit down and tap tap tap my fingers, and before my eyes, every secret I’ve stored, every shame I’ve hidden away and all the things that sit perched on my lips, hovering between the now and forever, empty onto the page, and I am set free for this moment and the next.
I write because I am convinced that you and I are long-lost friends.
Although we live wherever we do, and although we may never meet one day (or maybe we will), I want to peel back the layers to see what’s really going on underneath all that skin and bone, because if I’m right and the moon has taught me well, I am not alone with my thoughts and fears (and if I’m wrong, I’m okay to be that, too).
I write because the digging deep into the shadows can be frightening but stitching words into sentences is like a salve on my wounds; writing calms the rush I hear in my ears and allows this body to soften, finally, and in the holding, I find the letting go.
I write because if I didn’t, the days would be gray and as many shades as there are, my heart is full of color and her fire will not be denied. This container I was born into would become a prison, and there is too much of that in the world already.
Without the words, I would not know the sun or the stars or the moon; without the individual letters that marry together so magically some (most) days into sentences, I would not know how much I was missing but certainly I wouldn’t feel whole.
I write because I am a human who is in an ever-evolving relationship with the skin I’m in, and though many days I fight a war to conform to the standards that are dictated to me, the smarter part of me knows that there is no box that I need to fold myself into because I won’t fit — and surprise! I have the power (as we each do) to build my own fort, brick by brick, and I can choose love as the force that moves me.
I write because the words and I like to dance a free-form tango-puzzle, and in my beautiful brain, I can hear a loud click when they fall together just so (and when this happens, the joy that races inside is thrilling and could light up the night sky).
I write because long ago before I landed here on earth, spirit hushed the wise ones and I around a fire, and together we wrote a contract that declared how this life of mine would unfold: my heart, vast and raw, I would agree to expose each day, and my fears I would let spill open, and each time I was knocked down, I would use this voice in my throat to sing my way back to the surface.
I write because I am a dreamer, creator, a builder of breath and body and movement and life. So I bleed through my fingers and fill pages with words just as I spread color on canvas, make pictures with my third eye and watch truth grow into life.
I write because words are medicine, and because there is nothing wrong with me and there is nothing wrong with you. We are just humans with wild hearts, trying to figure how to love each other (and ourselves) bigger and better.
Why would I keep what I learn or what I question a secret when we have the potential to change the world with the stories we tell?
*****
{Why Do You Write?}
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