To Read And Write

Posted by Brooke | August 5, 2009 | 20 Comments

Perhaps it is my turn to be just a reader, to lose myself in words—to sink and to let myself sink, to surface only when naturally I’d find myself floating upwards toward light and bubbles, a surface with more clarity:

Toward my own writing.

I’ve had a very silent couple of weeks. The scratches of my fine tipped ballpoint along lined pages have been few. I sit down with an open page in Word and find that the words—my words—aren’t coming so easily. I’m okay with it but for one thing:

Perhaps I am growing right out of progress, of knowing how to write.

Without my words what am I? What becomes my identity? My mark on the world? Without words what is my story? And how will it be told? And if it’s never immortalized in words, will it disappear?

How will I figure it out—without words? Do thoughts have assignations all their own, sometimes wordless? I can’t form my mouth around them; the thoughts seem more like colors with no bottom, long and vast. And not until I write them, name them and place them neatly on a page do I even understand what I feel, think or chose.

But I can’t. It’s true that my sentences start with questions, but today I’m stuck on the questions that seem a wide plain that vanishes into a gray horizon, or like a dark blue ocean that scares me by it’s depth. Maybe I don’t write because I don’t have words; maybe I’m afraid.

Until then, I read. I drink words in—a thirsty traveler—and I reread the things that comfort me most, that at one point were delicious buttery epiphany, but today are just enough—and I like them both, the epiphany and the quiet comfort, and I like to think of where I’ve been, where I am. Why.

“I would like to beg you… as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an especially blessed and pure way of living; … but take whatever comes, with great trust… and don’t hate anything.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

Elder Uchtdorf says it simply: “The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create.”

Which means I will write again. I will create—the hollow that carves itself inside of me unwanted will again be full.

And it just might be with words.

Because they have been my comfort and guide, my way out and my way through as they remind me and they suggest, full of memory and of my future knowing. Words tease and enchant, they solve my way to solve. They stay. They confuse sometimes, but they stay. And I’m grateful for them.

That is what words are to me. I wonder what they are to you?

Why do you read? Why do you write?

Category: Slice of Life

Comments

20 Responses to “To Read And Write”

mmiles
August 5th, 2009 @ 9:40 am

Wow! Brooke this is perfect!
Jennie
August 5th, 2009 @ 9:47 am

I love that Rilke quote. Be patient with yourself, Brooke. It will come back. Writing is in your soul.
Michelle L.
August 5th, 2009 @ 10:00 am

you’ve managed to write this just beautifully.

My words flow until I have a deadline and then they just stop and stutter and grow trite.

Like you, I read when I can’t write. Today I’d like to stay in bed all day with books and chocolate.
Paula
August 5th, 2009 @ 10:06 am

I don’t know a lot about writing, but if part of the process is staying in bed all day with books and chocolate, sign me up!
Melissa M.
August 5th, 2009 @ 11:00 am

For me, the words ebb and flow depending on how busy and stressed I am. When I can find pockets of quiet time to think and contemplate, I feel more creative and I can write. But it’s much more difficult to write when I’m preoccupied and frazzled, although those are the times when I need to write the most.

When my children were small I went months, even years, without writing anything substantial. Sometimes all I could do was jot down notes to remind myself of my thoughts so I could come back and write a proper essay later. I still have pages and pages of notes that I will probably never form into essays, but I’m glad that I at least have those jottings.

Whenever I’m starting to feel depressed, I realize it’s been awhile since I’ve taken the time to write. For me, writing is like oxygen.
Kay
August 5th, 2009 @ 11:43 am

Quite simply I read to escape to another world, always have. As a child I inhabited my books, I really was Anne of Green Gables and to this day do not understand why I did not marry Gilbert Blythe in real life. If I am not reading then there is something wrong in my life. When life goes downhill i find it hard to concentrate and reading becomes impossible to focus on. If I do not have seveal books near me, and I am not wearing make up and perfume it is a sure sign life has fallen apart.
Carina
August 5th, 2009 @ 2:52 pm

I write because I can say what I really mean, instead of saying words out loud that can’t arrange themselves.
jendoop
August 5th, 2009 @ 3:15 pm

Great quote. Its hard to be in this state in the midst of summer when everything is so alive and growing. You feel like you’ve missed the note from mother nature. I guess its a good reason to run through the sprinklers and eat popsicles with the kids.
Adri
August 5th, 2009 @ 3:24 pm

Brooke, if this is you NOT writing, it is no wonder I adore everything to ever leave your pen (or typewriter). Your beauty shines through your words. Thank you for sharing today.
dalene
August 5th, 2009 @ 8:18 pm

i love (and miss) you (and your writing) brooke

i just realized this past week that sometimes i annoy people because while i can’t always take people at face value, i always expect words to mean what they are supposed to mean. that said, my favorite words are those that can have many meanings (as long as whoever is using them is deliberate and true in whatever meaning(s) he or she intends).

i read to escape. i read to be entertained. i read to get inside someone else’s head and have empathy. i read to see the world, someone else’s life and even my own from another point of view. i read good stuff because i want to be, live and write better.

i write because there is stuff inside my head and if i don’t let it out it will drive me a little crazy. if i go crazy it will drive the rest of my family crazy.

maybe i should have used the word “crazier.”
Selwyn
August 6th, 2009 @ 12:05 am

Words are my friends!

I read to glimpse into the thoughts and hearts of others, to gain inspiration, and for the resultant quotes that adorn my walls as art.

I write to purge the storm from my head, to identify what I’m feeling and why, and to communicate my thoughts and heart to others.

I read and write to live, to escape, to explore, to laugh, to cry and to reflect, and would choose words over so many other objects.

And Brooke, you always know how to write, sometimes it’s just that the words haven’t arrived yet. I think of it like an intergalactic journey. The words are coming to you but have been stuck at customs, or missed a connecting flight, but when they meet you again – oh the stories you’ll tell!
m&m
August 6th, 2009 @ 1:06 am

Brooke, if this is you NOT writing, it is no wonder I adore everything to ever leave your pen (or typewriter). Your beauty shines through your words.

Amen.

I also loved that quote.

And one thought I just had is that sometimes I experience the journey in a way that is in a different sphere (or something…don’t know the right word) than language. For all the power of words, sometimes our language is limited. Sometimes my questions are deeper than what I can articulate, and the answers will sometimes distill somewhere beyond just the language center of my brain.

It’s why one of my fave scriptures is Rom. 8:26:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

I write when I can, but truth be told, most of the words that swim in my mind and my spirit are written deep somewhere where I can’t get them. And I just hope that will be some of what rises with me in the resurrection; the mortal limits of time, energy, etc. just leave me only writing about a hundredth part of what I want to write. (Just had this conversation with a friend yesterday, actually.)

Hm. That reminds me. A hundredth part. Maybe that’s pretty normal.

(Words. I love them. I ramble too much with them.)
Leslie
August 6th, 2009 @ 7:23 am

I find different times different mediums express my thoughts best- sometimes it’s words, sometimes its art, sometimes it’s emotion. Often when one is in flow the others are not. I love how our words can capture things, mark places and thoughts in our lives. I read to think, to appreciate the complexity and depth of human experience, to find art in words.
queenscarlett
August 7th, 2009 @ 11:26 pm

Beautiful quote…and post.

I love words. Ever since I lost myself in a book as a child…I’ve been fascinated. Amazed that a bunch of letters could transport me into another time, another place, another view point.

I find that writing organizes the jumbled thoughts that reside in my head, my heart and sometimes my mouth. It’s like an appendage… an instinct…a need. It’s just part of who I am, what I do… I feel blessed to have the ability to love reading and enjoy writing.
Sage
August 8th, 2009 @ 12:11 pm

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Sage
August 8th, 2009 @ 12:15 pm

What I really mean is that I want to be as eloquent as you. And I’m trying not to let my lack of words right now draw me down in some kind of postpartum sadness when I am fully blessed with a rich life. So, I will intentionally wait for the words to come as you have suggested.
Thank you.
Brooke
August 8th, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

sage, it will come. i know it. for both of us.
Merry Michelle
August 8th, 2009 @ 6:52 pm

Lovely.
Sage
August 8th, 2009 @ 8:15 pm

Thanks Brooke!
Blue
September 12th, 2009 @ 12:49 am

i wish there was a device that could take my thoughts straight from my brain and put them down on paper (or Word). i get derailed in my attempt to capture them so often that it’s frustrating. i’m sure i’m not alone in this wish. but if it were possible, i’d probably feel hyper-deficient compared to the great thoughts that others would produce. so probably best.