this is just something that i wrote last semester. it was an in-class assignment: 40 minutes to tell my professor why i write (like george and joan did). this is what happened--
11/25/08
Why I Write
This morning, my grandfather came to me in my dream, just before my eyes opened at the sound of my alarm. He told me to keep dancing, I cried, I was so happy to see him. He does that a lot, my Dada-- he comes to me in my dreams; he laughs in my dreams; he makes me cry in my dreams. He looked younger than I remember him-- the last time I saw him back in April, he was in a casket, covered in flowers, a newspaper rested at his side. I always hated that that was the last look I ever got of him. So this morning, as soon as I got out of bed, I pulled out my journal and wrote what I had seen just moments before, what I had felt just moments before: my Dada, with his silver hair and straight-toothed smile, embracing me, telling me to keep dancing.
The journal I wrote it all down in is this beautiful Italian notebook with turquoise, white, and fuchsia print all around it. I saw it for the first time last December, in Kate’s Paperie just 2 weeks before my birthday. My friend Nami and I had been browsing for wrapping paper when I saw it on the shelf. I don’t know why I was so struck by it—the brilliant colors in a paisley design crawling like a vine across the little book. It was so beautiful, I was afraid to touch it. When I finally did, in order to sift through the soft, lined pages, I held it like a little egg with both my hands. I turned it over, and I saw the price tag: $40. I quickly put it back on the shelf. I was used to writing in old school notebooks and on stray pieces of paper that eventually wound up in the abyss of my desk, charred with black and blue ink. There was not a shot in hell I was about to throw away $40 away on a notebook when I could barely afford groceries.
Nami had been admiring the notebook with me, as I cooed over its leather binding. When she saw me put it back on the shelf. She suggested that I splurge a little, treat myself to something I really liked. I laughed, and told her, “I could never write something beautiful enough to scribble into a $40 notebook…” And we went on shopping.
Two weeks later, at dinner with my closest friends (The Core, we call ourselves), after tapas, drinks, and dessert, Nami placed on the table a box wrapped in lovely purple printed paper with a bow on top. I smiled at my friends in the candlelight. The box was big enough to hold any number of things—a sweater, maybe, or a scarf? No, a book—I couldn’t wait to see what was inside. As I slowly peeled away the wrapping paper, I discovered exactly what I had expected—a scarf! A lovely scarf, the most beautiful, sparkly, my-name-all-over-it scarf I’d ever seen. I smiled, thanked my friends and began to put the box away, when I noticed that there was something else tucked underneath the lavender tissue paper. I looked up at Nami, she smiled back. Before I could even take the notebook out of the box, I began to cry—no, weep. Blubber. Sob. We were all surprised by my reaction. As they comforted me, and I gathered myself, I told them why this gesture meant so much to me. This was Nami—this was all of The Core—telling me that even though I didn’t believe I could write anything beautiful enough to scribble into a $40 notebook, they did. And they knew that this was my first step in writing beautiful things.
I think of that night every time I go to write in my notebook. I only open it up if I know I am ready to write; if I am moved, if I know my body is only a husk and that something inside me needs to find its way out. When I wrote about Dada today, it had been over 3 months since I had put a single word in that journal. I only want to put beautiful things in that journal. I still write in my old notebooks and on scraps of paper—in them, I write thoughtless, silly things; I write angry, doubtful things; I write curious, confusing things. I know that even these words help me grow and keep my fingers dancing on paper. Keep dancing, like Dada said. That’s why I write, and write, and keep on writing: so that one day I can write beautiful things that last.
