I am a writer. There, I said it. It’s taken me years to admit that that is what I truly am. Of course, I am really much more than that. I have a huge creative streak that manifests itself in so many ways, from creating art cars long before there was such a thing to playing in a band, painting a painting or two just to see if I could do it (I can), and building stuff out of recyclables, thinking at one time they were just models but coming to realize that they too are art.
Writing, though, is my first vocation. I love writing and being a writer. And I am lucky to do it not only as a hobby, but as a vocation.
There was a time when I didn’t like to write. Don’t ask me when that was, but I can point to 8th grade as a seminal moment in my writing life. I told Mrs. Heistman, my then language arts teacher, that I would never write a thing again for her.
I didn’t. I got a D that year in English, yes, my native language. A year later, I was in English again, Freshman English, a student of Mr. Mitsui. It was there that I discovered writing. I wasn’t originally a fan of journaling, but I sure wish I had those journals now. My brother had tragically died the week before school and I was working through an awful stuff that year.
Journaling helped me tremendously. We were required to journal every day that year. It was there that I think I found my voice.
Well, I’m still not sure it’s my voice or if there may actually be voices. I always joke about this voice in my head, the narrator who I take dictation for. It’s chugging along right now, even as Kat talks to me about getting a copy of our wedding license so she can change her name. I just keep typing as the voice keeps telling me what to write.
It’s not some disembodied, third party voice, mind you. It’s my voice. I can hear it clearly. It’s an internal monologue that occasionally puts itself to paper. It did this morning – another 3,000 words or so in my Brewster McCabe mystery/comedy. And now it is popping right along, writing about the fact that I finally came to terms with being a writer.
I guess what inspired me this morning was a story on CBS’s Sunday Morning. If you ever want to feel good about this world, watch this show. They don’t do sad stories. It’s really inspirational stuff.
Such was the case in this story about a woman who lives in Hillsboro, Oregon. She’s 64 now and a year ago she began to lose her memory. Doctors still aren’t sure what is causing it, whether it’s the beginnings of dementia or some other malady.
This is where the story takes a turn. A worker at the area Goodwill found a suitcase. She opened it and found all these letters written by a sailor to his then wife in the midst of the Vietnam War. She tracked the woman down, who, as we come to find out, is the woman who is losing her memory.
The letters help her remember her life. No, she didn’t write the letters, but they are as much about her life and her life with her then husband as they are about his life. She reads through them, remembering things she hasn’t remembered in years.
The next story is about Ne-vo, the songwriter/singer. He talked about how many of his best songs come from memories of his dysfunctional childhood when his father left his mom and sister and they moved to Las Vegas. The pages that he journaled back then – the feelings he had – turned into hit songs for Beyonce, Rhianna, and of course, himself.
As I was watching these stories my head was bobbing up and down like one of those bobbleheaded dogs in the back window of a car. I was sucking it all in, agreeing with so much of what was being said.
Writing is damned important stuff. Often, we become a bit lackadaisical in its importance, not practicing it ourselves on a daily basis, and dismissing the works of writers as being something that anyone can do.
Well, they can’t. Expressing ideas of the world around us and about our own journeys is damned hard work. To touch the life of another, you have to be willing to touch yourself deep down. Believe me, there can be a lot of hurt and pain way down there. It can be a very hard road to reach that deep without sinking into the abyss of the despair and rejection you may have felt but buried because it was just too painful to experience again.
As a writer, you touch it time and time again. Whether you’re writing lyrics for a song, a screenplay or a blog, you keep digging up the dead over and over again so that you not only understand yourself, but help others understand him- or herself. This amazing human experience is a journey we must all take, and often it is through the words of others that we can see something in ourselves, and in the process, close a door that needed to be closed on the past or open a window that begged to be opened so that we can move on.
It’s a very special calling, one that I didn’t really value until the last few years. Perhaps it came too easily to me, perhaps I felt anyone can write like I can. They can’t. Even if they could, they can’t see through my eyes and they haven’t walked in my shoes.
I am one lucky guy to have been a professional writer now for 30 years now. Though I once thought I would run out of words to say over the years, I now find that I have more to say than I can ever relay in a lifetime. I only wish that I would have continued to journal, so I could have been a better student of who I was and who I have become. It would make fascinating reading, if only to me.
In the Emerald City, writing my life away,
– Robb