Why I Write

...and Draw!

Dear Friend and Fellow Maker…

Beth asked a simple question, two minutes into the Winter Writing Sanctuary she has offered so freely to us all. I have never met Beth Kempton before. But I did as she said, paused the video right there, and touched my pen to the page. It charged off like a racehorse being let out of the gate. What follows is the path the horse took without editing or rearranging. Just words.

Why do I write?

There are many, many words in my head. I write to sort them out, to get them down, to empty the bowl of jumbled words gathered from the previous day so that there’s room for all the new words that will surely tumble in today. Too many words. Lovely golden delicious words. Painful agonizing heart-rending words. Like the strand wizards pull from their temple, so I pull them out with my Bic Pen and lay them into my journal, a pensieve, a bowl to hold them all.

If I do not do this, I go mad. I become very stuck. Rot and decay sets in. They must out. Along with the images in my head and the beauties I see throughout a day. They must have a place to live outside of my wee head. I would not want it to explode.

I write to understand myself, others, and the world around me. I write as if my pen was my finger fumbling around trying to trace the contours of my world, attempting to decipher the braille of living.

I write to remind myself what is true. To discern what is not. To feel the space in-between the two.

I write to tether myself to now, to make sense of yesterday, and to either batten down the hatches or open the windows, depending on the future’s forecast.

I write to know and believe that there is more to this life than the suffering I experience and the hardships all around me. My pen is a link to eternity and I dare not lose this link, this thread that stitches me together, binds the quilt of my life, embroiders over frayed patches.

I write words like crumbs, following and eating each one, hungry with hope for where they (the words) might lead. I write to share the hope I find along the way.

I write to untie what threatens to strangle. I write to make much ado about nothing, which turns out to be everything…all wrapped up in the ball and ink, the swoosh of hand, the curls on paper…like so many shavings from carved wood.

There is an ache inside of me and I cannot know the shape and form of this ache unless I write it out. Sometimes the ache comes out in an ugly jaunty jagged mess. Most times the ache appears as ordinary as pebbles in a tiny river bed. But every now and then the ache comes out the end of my pen as a shimmering stallion, braying and high-stepping, shaking out its sparkling mane, prancing around me, ready to take me for a ride into the sunset.

I climb up by its silver tendrils, lines flowing from a regal head. And off we go, over valleys and hills that take my breath away. At this point I am not in charge…the horse knows the way. I am merely here for the wondrous ride.

But I have to put my pen into the stirrup.

This is why I write.¹

With gratitude,

Jennifer

P.S. These drawings, though made a few years ago about this same time of year, seemed to fit today’s post. Drawing and writing are equal partners in my daily walk through life. I am grateful for them. As I am grateful for you, dear reader! 🙏 May this New Year bring us all words of hope, pictures of love, stories of Light to guide our paths. ❤️

1. I hope you too will put your pen in the stirrup. I know Beth would love for you to join in!