Brooke Gale LouvieR

In class today we had 7 minutes to free write, starting with the words “When I write  I..”

When I write I am transformed to another place and time completely. I just begin, I let go. I find myself floating over where I have been. I can see the past, I can maybe even see bits of the future.

Yet, the most clear thing is the present. It sharpens in front of me, like I am adjusting a camera lens. Click! The flash goes off. I study the framed photo, zoom in, eye the details. I see the way the colors of the moment bleed into each other, the hues pop out, the shapes become what they we not before- not just the ordinary thing in front of me, but more.

Layers peel off one by one. I see now, what I didn’t before. All that has been my life, all that I think and feel, all that brings joy or pain or confusion makes sense for a moment. Or maybe it’s not always that it makes sense,  I can’t read my life like a dictionary definition, I am just ok with it being abstract. I can stare at the painting in front of me and soak in the beauty without trying to find all this meaning. In the beauty I find meaning.

When I write, I am ok with the world around me. I am ok with myself. I stop judging myself, stop pretending and finally become honest. I am split wide open. I used to fear this so much, so I would just scratch the surface, just say things that I thought others wanted to hear. I realize more and more, when I do that I cheat myself. I cheat the world from this God-given gift- to bleed on paper.

We all want to know we are not crazy. We all want to read something and think “Wow, I am not the only one!” We read to know we are not alone, and we write to feel sane, to learn to be human.

When I write I know this.