June 17

I could feel my eyes get warm, start to tingle, with that slight burning feeling that comes right before your tears do. I’ll admit I felt silly, stupid even. Maybe it was the faint dizziness from the combination of anti-depressant and sleep medication. Maybe it was the fact that it was well past 3am the day before I left for Ireland and my anxieties were starting to get the best of me. But I pushed those excuses aside and went ahead and admitted to myself that I was honestly moved by what I had just read.

There is something incredibly powerful about feeling completely understood and spoken for (not to mention better articulated than I could ever hope to be) that literally brought tears to my eyes. The irony-- or maybe genius-- hasn’t failed to escape my attention that the passage is (appropriately) about what reading, and writing, and books can mean. The power that these pencil scratches, pen marks, key strokes possess.

The magic of this passage is that it applies to my entire life. My entire struggle to figure out and express just exactly how it is I understand life. How I’ve learned to understand other people’s stories. How I’ve learned to tell mine. My favorite part, though, is the feeling that I’m not the only one that feels this magic. As the clock flirts with 4am, and my neck starts to ache from craning it to read, I can feel my insecurities slowly creep back up. Pressuring me to stop writing. Because it isn’t good enough. Because it isn’t unique enough, profound enough, different enough, new enough, poignant enough. And I think this is when I start to try to write exactly what I want, how I want, as truthfully as possible. (295 words)

“Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us how to live and die. They are full of all the things that you don’t get in real life—wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean. Aren’t you?” –Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird