And so, I write...

There are people out there in the "great unknown" who look at me with a toxic cocktail expression, one part aghast horror / one part extreme hilarity, when they find I ghost write for extra money and I'm an aspiring novelist.

"You write? Really?"

It's not their fault. They've heard me speak. They know my disjointed thoughts and strange, off the cuff references, strange only because they're not part of my thought processes. They don't know what point "B" or "C", which they were on, and point "F" could possible have in common. (I'm also one of those horrible people who starts laughing before the punchline's given.)

My Rick, God bless that man's heart, is a verbal genius. He could converse with a mute! He is an entertainer at heart too and boy does he love an audience. And what's more, the audience loves him.

But me? Not so much. (referring to audience, not my husband!)

I've learned at gatherings to not say to much, to listen well and keep on the subject at hand, so my social skills have greatly improved, likely from daily exposure to my hubby.

So...why DO I write?

Aside from a firm belief that there are good works set aside by the Lord for me to accomplish for him, through him, from him, I will try to explain the other compelling reasons from a "what makes me tick" vantage point.

First, I believe writing encompasses all the arts. It is theatrical to the extreme. Not only do I get to create characters, but I get to be them, live in their lives for a short time. I love, hate, witness, win and lose not with them, but as them!

For me, writing is an entire ballet performance in a body of one.
The orchestra is my mind,
The music ~ my heart,
My fingers ~ the cast and crew,
The keyboard ~ my stage.

Also, there have been moments when, as I'm writing, I feel as though I'm composing a symphony, the computer becomes an extension of my body and letters, choreographed to a score known only in my heart, leap out onto the display, falling perfectly in time and place to every whisper of a note and every commanding crescendo.

Not only that, I've realized over the years, my mind races EVERYWHERE! I firmly believe this is a result of disorganized, illogical, patterns of thought. I don't mean I'm hyperactive or ADHD or anything, but it seems like my mind thinks to much, to fast and doesn't really settle down on a topic. Like a rabbit jumping from hole to hole to hole to hole, sometimes back and forth, but always moving. Ironically, there are so many different directions to take with this point, spiritually especially, that I will say only this: the act of writing commands me like a general and marches my chaotic thoughts into something resembling order.

Finally, I write to know what I feel, to feel it thoroughly, and then...to let it go.

For this point I have an example from my life. The first five years of my marriage I, like most young married women, wanted a baby. Being in the young married couples at church didn't help. It seemed everyone was winning the baby lottery; everyone except me. To my knowledge, I never bent towards covetousness...until then. That sin fueled my craving for a child of my own. So when I finally got pregnant in my fifth year of marriage, I felt I'd arrived! I was one of the chosen ones! I was finally except by God to be a mother of a little bundle of perfect and complete joy. (I was so very wrong about so many things...God is good and faithful and just to not leave me in my state of ignorance, which was a complete and utter self-centered existence!)

I knew the length of the moments of every day. Being pregnant, for me, was like watching the grass grow. I was a laser technician for refractive surgery at the time and a tiny but crucial part of the assisting tech's job is to watch the clock, to the second, to give the surgeon the "go ahead" to finish up, medicate and moisturize the eye.

I remember cleaning up after a long surgical day, I glanced up at the clock I'd been watching all day for the health of others, thinking I'm still watching the clock...ticking past the seconds till my twelfth week begins. I paused in what I was doing and as one hand touched my belly, the other touched the white bean I had tucked away in my pocket. The approximate size of my hidden, precious treasure.

The day before we planned to tell everyone about our joy...I miscarried. The wonder I witnessed, the thriving heartbeat and tiny winking wings of a child in an ultrasound I'd had only a week prior, was no longer with me.

The fabric of my very being fell away. I was less than naked. I was skinned and torn. I walked, I talked, I functioned, but for a while I stopped feeling. I would look at the sun on my arm and marvel in a distracted, detached sort of way, that I should feel the warmth, but I didn't.

It seemed "breathing" was on my "to do" list.

This zombie like trance went on for a few weeks. At the time I was meeting with a group of ladies and since I had invited them together initially and suddenly stopped coming to the gathering, I felt I owed them an explanation. So, I wrote a note.

Immediately, I began to feel again, even though I was a long way from "feeling better". In time, by God's grace, I healed, I did feel better, but I found writing became the catalyst by which I discovered my feelings again.

And so, I write...