Purpose

Something my mom always used to say: “If I wanted to be a CEO, I would’ve been a CEO.” It wasn’t an arrogant statement; it was an acknowledgement that nothing about the life of a CEO appealed to her. She wanted to be a mom, and she was quite proud of telling anyone who would listen that they could do whatever they wanted, but for her, mom-hood was it.

So I’ve been thinking about why I write. In this hyperlinked world, it’s easy to lose track — or it’s easy for me to lose track. But it’s important to remember what writing feels like, and how that feeling has motivated every twist and turn of my life.

It’s not me. It’s the words. It’s the way words flow together, connecting and building and becoming things. I’m sure other writers have had this experience, when you go to change one line of a poem/essay/letter of recommendation and find yourself having to change other lines because to pull on one thread means something else becomes misshapen and you want it to be beautiful so you work and work to make it that way. I imagine it’s like painting, or like Bob Ross’ paintings. He’d always want to add a tree to what I thought was a finished picture. I’d yell at the screen Don’t. I’d get physically agitated. But it always worked out, and that’s not the point anyway. He worked the painting until it was done. Until it was done.

That’s the way I feel when I’m working on a story. I’m not thinking about publication, or what the story might do for me. I’m thinking about how I can make it flow. When I get lost in that desire — to create something whole, as even violent stories and poems can be — when I’m secondary, serving the lines rather than them serving me, that is where I feel at home, and have for as long as I can remember. It’s the words, the piece, spoken or written. I’ve been blessed with credit, but the only thing I’ve ever cared about was whether I did the words justice. “Did you like it?”

That and when the desire to promote myself rises, bad shit happens.

Journal, 16 January 2020