I Can't Not Write [View all]

I've tried.

When I was a kid, I went up to my father's library and gave him a poem I'd carefully written on red origami paper with a fountain pen. He read it and handed it back to me with the comment that it wasn't very good. As his word on all things to do with arts was gospel and as his best friend was a (to be) Pulitzer prize winning poet, I tried not to write but the compulsion to record what I observed, in one form or another, was too strong. So for years- decades- writing was my secret.

I have well over a thousand pages of journals, poetry, short stories and essays- though I've lost probably twice that. And it's funny, my father died over 13 years ago, but still I rarely showed anything I'd written to.... anyone. But when my mother died in March of this year, something changed. I haven't really analyzed it or figured it out, but I no longer feel a need to keep my writing a secret.

Maybe some of what I've written and continue to write will resonate with others. Maybe it won't, but it's awfully freeing to no longer bury it in file drawers, and it's a lot of fun to go through old notebooks and read it. (I prefer to write on paper with a pen rather than type away on the computer).