Unfolding

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

I write. I write all the time... And much are things I am reluctant to publish. I am reluctant because I write from a place that imagines all sorts of things. I write things I would never do. I write things I would do in an instant. I write the ugly things, the soft things, the silly things and everything in between.

I am good at what I do. Were I to write you, you would know. Observation and accuracy in description is a honed talent that all writers attempt to perfect. This becomes the dilemma, doesn't it? We write what we know or what we wish we knew. We, as writers, imagine what we would do and say if we could only break free. We write the hard things, the truth of things, because in life we cannot say or do them. In civilized life, we aren't allowed to do certain things, voice certain things, react certain ways. The thing is... Life-real life-isn't civilized. When a writer can capture the underbelly, the shocking rawness of life as it is lived, I am entranced. I love reading books like that.

A book that makes me cringe, that makes me envious, that tears out my heart and makes me watch as the last beat pulses in my bloody hand - THOSE books are the books that I love and that I want to read! They are also the books I want to write. I want you to read the words and be lost beyond all else. I want you to read and forget I wrote it. I want you to put down the pages breathing hard, head spinning, heart beating and want more. I want you to be driven into searching out another story, connecting with another character, desiring another page to turn.

It is very true that we write the stories we want to read. In my twenties I wanted fantasy. In my thirties I wanted nostalgia. Now, in my forties, I want reality. I want gritty, grainy, rawness of word. I want to feel something when I read. I want to learn and renew and regret nothing. If those things make you uncomfortable, if the land you want to explore has no potholes, no cliffs, no bone chilling wind, you should turn back now.

Over the next days I will be publishing some things I have held back. They are writings that will sometimes be erotically charged (I will warn you, but I am also not a porn writer, so breathe easy), they will be wistful and sad, they will be funny. I am not a woman of one singular taste, nor am I easily categorized. That is the nature of being human. It is also the nature of humanity to feel community, to know we are not the only ones who think the thoughts we think, feel the emotions we feel. We want to know that no one is "normal," that everyone is as jacked up as we are, at least for a time. That, I have come to learn, is the most valuable lesson in life: there is no norm for living. It's all a big, messy, twisty journey we are on and I refuse to deny its reality.

I appreciate your willingness to let me stretch from my box. I feel like I have been cooped up too long and need to open my arms, to elongate my spine from the bent and twisted pose I have contorted into. I am looking forward to running across the page... Let's open the door, shall we?