OTHER
WORK
Feel free to explore this collection of my other work. Whether that me creative essays, short stories, or business reports, you can find an odd assortment of all things 'me' down below.
We were asked to write a paper entitled "Why I Write."
The purpose of the paper seemed pretty self-explanatory, but as I started to unfold the reason that I started writing and why I have continued it, my relationship with myself and the words that come pouring out of my pen seemed to change in front of me. This is an exploration of that journey.
When give the prompt of either writing a "portrait" of someone else or painting the image of a "landscape" in no specific terms, the rememberings of a not-forgotten Girl Scout camping trip came to mind.
This essay explores the forgotten, the remembered, and the lost through the use of descriptive imagery and an exploration of the edge of child and adult that we all find ourselves tittering over.
My freshman year of college, I was asked to do something I had never done before and write an essay about the experience. So I went vegan.
This is essay is part-research, part-experience as I recount my week as a freshly-minted vegan eating in college dining halls.
Interestingly, after I reviewed the paper a year later, I decided to make the switch permanent.
I wish I had some big reason for writing. Like if my grandpa journaled every day of his life and upon his death I discovered his bookshelf full of thoughts and was inspired. Or if I had something really important to say—that only I could say. But the simple fact of the matter is, I write because I have to. Seems weird but it’s always been that way. My head gets too full of thoughts and sometimes it makes me physically antsy. I stay up at night trying to catch the flying thoughts like a little kid wildly swinging a butterfly catcher. And when I finally get to the point where my feet and hands are shaking—I start writing. The words spill out in a tumble and twist and the feeling of release is amazing. After a good session, where my hands cramp up and my eyes are sore from holding my nose barely above the page, a satisfactory sleepiness sometimes overtake me and for the first time in weeks I can fall into a dreamless sleep. I write because I have too.
Writing feels so inexplicably good that I have realized I could chase that release even when I didn’t necessarily need it—just for pleasure. And that’s when I started writing pretty much every day. Whether it’s a tweet or a long Facebook post or a journal entry or a blog post somewhere on the interwebs that no one I know will ever see, I write because it feels good to have something to say sometimes. Because it tumbles out of my already too full head.
On some level, I have started to recognize why my thoughts feel so full that I need to share them with a piece of paper. Partly because I like to read. I love to look back and read my work—to remember what it felt like in that moment but also to just enjoy the experience of reading it. I have spent hours lazily perusing old academic papers and journal entries, laughing at old jokes and cringing at my embarrassing stories. This love for reading more than a passion—it’s my life. I’m a lifer.
As a quiet kid with a debilitating speech impediment, for a long time, it was all that I really had. Initially, I had a horrible experience even learning to read, teachers afraid that my speech impediment was more than just an unfortunate turn of fate but also a signal of a learning disability. But after hours of private lessons with my mother after school, I was unstoppable. I started reading high school level books by the end of first grade. When I ran out of things that were interesting to me, I would pick up a twisty crayon and write out my own words—poems, books, scripts, biographies of historical figures. I would write what I wanted to read.
Writing was good. It was good to learn how to say what I was thinking. I could plan out my thoughts and responses to situations. I was more eloquent and understandable on paper until I finished speech therapy in 4th grade. By then, spilling my thoughts on paper had been such a constant habit that it was nearly impossible to kick. I think though, as I get older, writing becomes useful for others. For my family and friends, they have been able to see a glimpse into a part of myself that I usually reserve for only my eyes. I use it to communicate with people who are far away physically or emotionally. I still use it to communicate because it always sounds better to read written than I could ever hope it would in the moment.
In the same way that the words I was pouring out started to change, so did what I was using writing to do. Originally, it was just a way to empty out the contents of my brain. Words would come pouring out. But I began to realize that those words weren’t just a transcription of my internal monologue. I began to use journaling and creative writing to figure out the world around me and the world within as well. In some ways, this was probably spurred by everything that I read so painstakingly. Those novels and poems were making me think differently, and writing became my way to figure those differences out. Even now, I’ve continue to use writing as a method to alter.
I was told to write about something I either desired or regretted. After going through a tumultuous break-up a few weeks previous to the assignment, I decided to explore the desire and regret I had felt to end the relationship.
This essay uses experiences to explore the complexities of my relationship to others and to myself.
Because of this, writing has grown with me. I don’t think I’ll ever have my fill because I’ll never be done figuring out my mind and the world around me. I won’t just get up one day and say, “Oh! That’s everything that’s in my brain—all done.” Instead, I find myself continuing to grow and develop as a person through the vehicle of written word. Whether that be my own or the words that I read on a page or hear in a song, I’m not sure it matters. It still pushes me to keep doing it—to keep altering myself.
I would love to say that my writing makes a broader impact—that it does something for people outside my immediate circle. That it means anything to anyone besides my mom and me. But I’m not really sure I’m at that point in my life, or that I ever will be. That thought kind of perturbs me though. I want others to get the same release and pleasure that I get from reading the words I’ve so painstakingly poured over. But so far, that hasn’t happened. It probably never will.
I recognize though that others have that power. They can make people care with their words on paper. They make me care all the time. My boyfriend’s bandmate writes all the lyrics for their band. He does the music part and she writes the words. And when I listen to them, I get simultaneously excited and upset. Excited because in five words, she’ll capture a sentiment that has tangled itself on my tongue my entire life, never spilling out exactly how I wanted it to. Upset because she did it and not me. She can claim those words, and I never can. But there’s something so magical about that too. That you can create something from yourself and it can resonate with someone else that shares nothing with you.
Recently I went to a weird musical performance that was meant to honor women in music and sound engineering.
Besides several girls I knew performing, the main attraction was a San Francisco based female artist names Pamela Z. Her work was provocative, full of looping and interactive electronic music. At one point she held a piece of bubble wrap up to the microphone and starting popping it to make a crackling loop backdrop with such conviction that none of us dared laughed. Her use of words was sparse, making their presence more impactful with each utterance. At one point she said a line that’s been echoing in my brain and on my tongue ever since.
Like dove’s footprints.
Edith Wharton is one of my favorite authors. Her novels break my heart and make me feel things. But besides being women, there is virtually nothing similar about us. She was raised in the height of high society in New York in the 1870s. I played Webkinz growing up and can’t find pants that fit me right even after being on this planet for 20 years. But still, her words resonate. It affects. That’s why writing matters, I guess. You have the power, whether you can harness it or not, to make it matter. You can make people feel things. You can make them want to do what you’ve done. Make you do something based off purely words. Like my journals full of tweenage hyperbole that still make me feel like I’m wandering the halls of my junior high school again. Or how my boyfriend’s ex can make me feel drawn to her words, despite my need to pull away from her on an almost constant basis—listening to their music and singing along on my way to the grocery store. Or like Pamela Z’s simple and haunting words. Words that have struck me in their plethora of meaning, but also in their simple and poignant imagery. Whatever the case may be, words and writing seem to matter, at least to me.
It affects.