Writing is what I know.

I grew up in two separate households: my mother's and my father's. And although the two homes couldn't have been more opposite in terms of tone and temperament, there was one shared trait: the background noise of a clacking typewriter or a scratching pen. Every morning, and often times as early as 3:00am, my professor father would be in his study clacking away at his old typewriter, working on any one of his many scholarly books or articles. As my bedroom shared a wall with his study, the sound of the keys greeted my first waking moments and, rather than acting as a sensory irritant, felt very much like a soothing salve. The rhythmic clacking was akin to an ocean tide; I was at home in my father's house, and I was beloved.  

My mother, on the other hand, was a dreamer. She turned to her journals on a daily basis to record her thoughts, her inspiration, her pain and her joy. Often times she could be found propped up in bed scratching away in the blank pages of her journals, always writing with her favored felt-tip pen. She would stop her scratching as she felt my presence enter the room and greet me with a wide smile and loving quip. "Hello, Schatzi," she would croon (a German term-of-endearment that means Dear or Treasure; we are not German, I have no idea where she picked up this expression). She was at peace while she was writing and, even as a young child, I could sense that her writing provided her with the opportunity to unload and gain clarity.

I am very much a product of my environment. I love to write because that is what I know. As a child, writing was an integral part of the day, like prayer or meditation or even morning stretches. I took to it as my father and mother took to it, and I found fluidity there. I can bend in writing. Writing is where I dance. It serves as my creative expression - as my voice and as the synthesis of my thoughts. As Flannery O'Connor so succinctly said,"I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say." That is very much a truth for me, too. It is in writing that I hold up a mirror - to the world, to myself. Writing brings me to a place where my vision sharpens.