A Process of Writing

Choosing to sit at the end of the table, I have always felt like the outsider. My sense of humor is, well, weird. I can come across as off-putting to many, something outside their norm. And that’s the key. It’s their norm, not mine. I don’t fit in their preconceived notion of normal. A square peg in a round hole. However, I’m more of a trapezoid, really.

I often feel the eyes of people staring at me, judging me, as if I were a cow at the county fair. What criteria do they use? Is there a list of items that must be checked off to be deemed part of the normies? I don’t know if I’d like to live in that world; it seems too constraining. I would much rather spread my wings and fly to whatever concept is in my vision at the time.

In high school, I tried my hardest to fit in, to be like like the others, or at least not stick out. The older I got, the more I thought that was strange. When I taught English in my own classroom, I was the one in control. There wasn’t anyone I was trying to be, except me. It’s true that students thought I was a wee bit off-kilter, but that’s on them. This rebellious streak has spilled out into other parts of my life.

For instance, the music I listen to wanders all over the place. I’ve asked my students this question before: do they listen to music to change their disposition, or to match it? Should I listen to music that mirrors what I’m feeling at the moment? For me, the answer is a little of both. If I feel I need a little push to finish cleaning the house or raking the yard, I have specific playlists to make that happen. However, when the melancholia sets in, I steer it away with something else, like music or writing.

Writing has always been there for me. From the very first time I wrote something coherent in middle school, my writings have stood the test of time. I can do it with my eyes closed, as I am right now like Stevie Wonder composing at his keyboard. At this writing retreat I know there are a few other writers watching me, writing with my eyes closed and my headset on. I’m sitting at an empty picnic table and feeling the very cool breeze touching my neck and making strands of my hair fly around. I can feel a sunbeam on one arm as I type with my fingers on this tiny keyboard. I can correct any errors later.

Right now it’s all about capturing this second, living in the moment. Many of us have forgotten what that’s like. We’re tied to our cellphones or video games, and we forget there’s a world around us we need to explore. Or at least write about. My idea of sharing is not by texting or sending emails. It’s publishing. That way the whole world can see what specks of light are creeping about in my imagination. I take these specks and turn them into stories, poems, details in larger pieces. Words are my colors, and the blank page is my canvas I could do this all day long.

When I was a student in school, I often heard people saying how much they hate to write. What? How? It’s easier than talking, I find. I hate the sound of my voice, but the words splashed across the page bring me peace. In my conversations, I often say the wrong things or mispronounce common words in an effort to get my point across before I forget it. That doesn’t happen when I type. Just like I can play flute with any musician and find the right key or harmonize with singers – it just happens.

As I write, I am looking out at the giant oak trees and palms, watching them dance in the wind. It’s winter in Florida, and one of the rare days that we feel less warm. Pine needles settle on the ground, and the smell of burn pits are around me. This place sustained a lot of damage from Helene and Milton. It’s a shame; so many acres of wilderness and inspiration lost.

As I was saying, writing is as natural to me as running is to an athlete, math to an engineer, or cooking to Julia Child. Now that I’ve retired from teaching, I have enough time to write whenever I want. In between episodes of Supernatural, between loads of laundry, or while company is over. It doesn’t matter where I am; I can find scraps of papers or old receipts and scribble a phrase or two, or a single word. Of course, later I’m wondering what I wrote but I keep going. They serve as a springboard to something else I can commit to paper.

Getting things down on paper is not difficult. My paper might be a photograph, a scribble on a table, or even my own skin. I am never without a pen. At this last writing retreat, I have no fewer than 15 pens in my purse and backpack. Do I really need this many pens? Of course I do. Any writer worth her salt knows that certain things must be expressed with a certain color or feel. The feel of a good pen is like being around a fire on a cold night or a cool swig of water on a hot day.

That desire, that need to write is inborn in some. I once hastily arranged a getaway in a small Air B&B room near the beach. My husband thought it was foolhardy; I’m sharing a house with the unknown people who live there. But the need to write pulled me harder than the need for safety. I had to go. I wrote as many as ten pieces that weekend; I forget the exact number because a little alcohol was involved at times. It was super chilly, and no one was by the pool. No one in their right mind, of course, but I was there. Drink in hand, paper and pens, sunglasses, a towel. In the lounge chair I just sat and let the fragments of sentences enter and exit my brain through my hand onto the paper. That’s how the process of writing begins.

Throwing up thoughts on paper. It’s soothing, it’s freeing. The burdens of the world dribble off my shoulders as I write one word after another, letting my mind do what it wants, giving it free rein. “I hate writing.” How absurd. Where else can you be alone with your thoughts and let them run wild all over the landscape?

After retreating back inside, I can feel the eyes upon me again. I wonder if the music in my headphones is too loud. Or are they wondering why I’m using the keyboard like a musician playing a piano? It’s very similar, but I don’t have to press the sustain pedal with my foot. Instead, I just let the words drop down like blood from an open wound. In middle school I called this automatic writing; with pencil on paper, I’d just write as fast as I can, letting anything fall on the paper. I wouldn’t read it until the next morning, and I was often surprised by repeated words or tropes from the night before. Things I never realized were bothering me.

I envision a girl running through a meadow of yellow and orange blooms, sunlight leading her way as she dances among the flowers. There is no one to judge her there. No one with expectations or judgy looks. Just complete freedom and loss of control. Loss of control from outside influences. No one can dictate to me what they want of me. I can write whatever I want. I can share, but I don’t have follow their directives. Words deserve a chance to be written, to be read, to be heard.