Oh Write

It's been a rather long journey, but I think I have been on it long enough to finally call myself a writer. Writing holds a very special place in my heart, even though we seldom get along very well. Sometimes, I hate it more than anything, because when I write something, I have to do it my way, which is usually filled with unnecessary words like 'rather' and 'seldom' and I put down too many commas and 'ands' and make extremely long sentences that ramble while I try to get my point across. And sometimes, I can't even begin to describe how much I love writing. I become passionate and I get excited even thinking about it.

At times, I become frustrated because when I read someone elses book, I begin to see how inferior and inexperienced I am at writing. But that will never stop me. I always want to get better even if I get angry with my writer mother when she corrects my grammar and word placing. I get upset because she always has some correction; it is never good enough. And even though it ticks me off Eighty-seven percent of the time, I am grateful for it. It's probably a bad sign if it is ever good enough for her, because she knows that I can always do better. This is exhausting, always trying to please the person you look up to and have your work picked at and dissected down to the very last period. Yet, it pushes me. Makes me better. Work harder.

None the less, I still enjoy every moment of writing. At first, I'm at a loss for what to write, and then I just know. It's like my subconscious is figuring out what to write before I even begin. Once in the flow it, it's like I'm no longer on Earth. I'm drifting through air and space, lost in another world at my own fingertips. The excitement is overwhelming at times and I hate anything that breaks me of my concentration. Nothing else matters. I'm completely gone, enveloped in the task at hand, literally. 

The emotions of my beloved characters, born of song or whim or dream, are the only things I feel. The plot twists and cliff hangers effect me more than anyone reading. These made up people may not really exist to you, but they are very real to me, especially the main character because he or she is made up of parts of me. They help me explore myself, to even more find out who I am.

This isn't a hobby. It's what I was meant to do. What I have to do.

I write, I breathe. I breathe to write.

How Wonderful I Am

As the gentle breeze passed, every little, green leaf on every branch of the pecan tree was affected. There was one leaf in particular on the tree that swayed along with the other leaves that dripped from their petioles and bathed in the melted gold that was sun.

This leaf, in fact, lived on the very edge of one of the branches.

“How wonderful I am, for being a leaf,” thought it.

It was at this moment, when the soft wind ever so lightly grazed the tender, young leaf, its abscission layer gave way, and down, down, down floated the leaf. Very slowly, it floated, that you would think that time had slowed an extreme amount. And the leaf, in all its omniscient beauty, just waited. It thought that maybe it was flying.

“How wonderful I am, that I can fly,” thought the leaf.

But the leaf did not fly up, only deeper down the trunk of the tree that used to be its safe haven. The only sound in that particular moment was a whippoorwill cooing softly in the distance. But never curious was the leaf. In all of its ignorance and in all of its innocence, it did not know that it would land on the ground to decompose along with all of the other fallen leaves. A gave yard it was, below the pecan tree, for leaves who had faced this very same tragedy.

Soon, the floating was coming to a bitter end and the leaf was about to land in the grass where the wind would perhaps become harsher and carry the leaf even farther away from all it has ever known. But the leaf, being a leaf, never thought as much. Its only thought before its midrib end touched a single blade of grass:

“How wonderful I am.”

Paint

Paint.

It covers everything at first. Its fumes fill the air and chokes you.

The color is new and fresh.

Wet and glimmering in the light.

Years later, its color is faded and peeling.

It's time for a new coat.

And such is life.

Leaky Faucets

Drip, drip, goes the leaky faucet sink.

It's times like these when it's midnight and you've just gotten up to pee and everyone in the house is asleep.  The whole world is asleep.

No, not really, but they might as well be.

It’s times like these when you start to realize who you are. And how ironic is it that when you are you and can never be anyone else and you don’t even know who you are? It’s pretty funny that you are born in your own skin and you have to piece the puzzle together of what and who you’re going to be.

Why can’t we just wake up and just know everything? Why is everything so complicated?

And now, as these trips to the bathroom in the midnight hour usually end, I’ve exhausted myself with mind boggling thoughts and will now go back to my soft, warm bed.

Goodnight, June bugs. Goodnight, China.