I've always been writing. I feel that it calms me to commit my thoughts on paper, sorting them out and looking back at them later, kind of like my own sort of meditation. It reminds of that scene in Harry Potter where Professor Dumbledore is looking into the Pensieve and tells Harry that taking his thoughts and putting them into that bowl-like structure helps him to think straight. I've been keeping a journal since seventh grade, and I wouldn't be surprised if this assignment turned out like one of those entries. It's almost like there's so much going on in my head that my brain is pushing against my skull, bursting with ideas and thoughts that I just don't think it can handle it.
I don't know why I write. I clutch my pen hard between my thumb and my middle finger with my pointer finger directing it; I hold it so hard that a callus has developed on my middle finger where the pen rests. If I want to be dramatic, I'd say that it's almost like I'm holding onto my pen for dear life - it sorts out my thoughts, my words, and the essence of my being. I love the sound of my pen scraping across the paper, and the way that my letters loop around each other (I can only function when I'm writing in script - in Catholic school they didn't allow us to write in print, so when I got to middle school everyone stared at me like I was a freak when I handed my first assignment in and it was in completely neat cursive, drilled into me from third grade).
I'm glad to say that I'm not one of those people who gnaws on her pen. It might be because I'm a neat freak when it comes to my pen and paper. I freak out whenever I make a mistake and if I'm spazzing out enough, I'll completely rip up the paper and start new. I hate mistakes; I hate making them, I hate correcting them.
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2 comments:
Thanks Arlene. This is interesting, although as you will see when you read my reminder above, it's a little different from what I had in mind, which was a detailed description of the actual experience of writing, the physical experience. In the second paragraph you do this: you say, for example, that you like the sound of the pen on the paper. But what is that sound, exactly? What does it remind you of?
I like the details of this piece like when you say " I hold it so hard that a callus has developed on my middle finger". I think that it really captures the image of writing something.
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