Still Writing
by Rebecca R. Vallerand
Your 57 reasons for writing are close to many reasons of my own.
I write because I answer to no one but myself and I have to tell everyone
who I am (reasons #26, 34, 36, 44, 52, and 53).
I want to excersise the few rights I am born with (reasons #49 and 57)
and unlike reason #14, I try to be different from all who know me.
My writing is unlike anyone else's because it's mine, and it's one of the
few things I have. Like reasons #24 and 27, I am
useless when it comes to talking because the words never seem to sound
the same out loud as they do on paper,
and the school counselor has an amazing ability to render me incapable of speech.
In writing, I can say what I want and I don't have to mince words
(if I hate you, I hate you and I can say it straight out). With writing my tone
can always shout
if that's the way I want it to, and I can disrespect the things that disrespect me,
I can show people the things I want them to see
(the way I see it) and, like reason #43, it just seems like
sacrilege to speak some things out loud. Ears and the mouth just ruin some things.
I don't find journals fun to keep, like you state in reason #32 (but to each her own, of course),
although I find them a necessary thing needed to keep my head on straight and my heart
in the right place. I find that, like stated in reason #19, I am the only one who knows
what's going on in my life and can give a true-to-life recounting
of the soap opera scenes I star in (this show, this "so-called-life" starring me
instead of Claire Daines).
On paper, emotions can be bared without evoking a shared response from others.
As you stated in reasons #44 and 48, when I am old I'll remember how it was to live my life at 16 to whenever
the words dry up in my mind. Until the spring showers that grow the words
springing up on my paper stop.
I find reasons every day that keep me writing.
I write because I have to, I want to, and I need to,
and because I hate being close to people so
the paper becomes my shield. Reason #56 may have summed things up
perfectly for me, because in my life, it never seems that anyone understands.
No one seems to remember being my age, or they never acted as I do,
or they didn't live with my problems and my life or they're too busy
being the same age as me.
It's the only thing that helps me so I take what I can get.
I write to poke through the artificial layer that seems to hold the world
together, and to poke at that layer covering me. I write to
discover myself.
Written January 11, 1998
(© 1998, by RRV)
*Notes: I know you don't have the poem I wrote this in response to, but I'm not sure that's necessary. Now, the part you're all dying for... my teacher's comments! "Some neat observations, and good imagery. Thoughtful, personal response to the original poem. You make her reasons your reasons, but add your own 'touch.' Exactly why each of you write - because you can. You know how to represent yourselves as your selves." Grade A, of course. Sheesh. She didn't like poetry, could you tell...?*
Background still by Moosenugget. Thanks!