The Beginning

If you could ask anything in the world, what question would you ask? I remember this being the start of my writer's journey. I wanted to ask everything but, at only five years old, my view of the world was so small. So, I did what any five year old would do, I thought of the biggest thing I could think of, clutched my pencil and wrote, “If you met your heart, what would you ask it?” If only, back then, I'd known how much I’d yearn for an answer to that question. I have met my heart time after time, only to be met with knowing silence. A gnawing and niggling at the back of my brain, that taunts me with the fact that that my vital organs know things about me that I may never uncover; not in this lifetime, and maybe not ever. That still hasn’t stopped me from asking questions, that bold five year old still lives within me. She is my natural curiosity, the impulsive desire to touch things I’m not supposed to, push buttons just to see what they do, surf the most obscure parts of the internet for bits and pieces of information that may never be useful; but I'd know them. Above all, this innate curiosity is born of love, a fervor for knowledge, and the desire to share those things with people.

The first story I ever wrote was about my mom; a retelling of the memory I have of the night she collapsed in front of me. I grew up in the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Tuesday nights were meant for the Meeting. I remember exiting the Kingdom Hall holding my mother's hand, baby blanket draped over my shoulder. As we stepped over the threshold into the cold, I felt a sudden weight at my side. My mom had dropped to the floor, and I couldn’t help her up. At the time I was only 4 years old, I couldn't do anything but cry, tug, and beg her to please get up. My older sisters rushed to her side, one of the Elders of the Kingdom Hall came over and lifted her off the ground; I can still hear her screams of agony. They shattered the illusion most kids have of the world. The unconscious thought that everything would always be okay. I remember a flurry of movement; being ushered into a car, my mom's moans of pain echoing through me, the scent of fear and confusion hanging heavily in the air. After that, my mind goes blank; the next thing I remember is laying in between my sisters on a pullout couch at the Elder’s home, we were neighbors don’t you know. My sisters were lying on either side of me, the three of us wide awake and wondering. I think my sisters knew more than me, to this day I still don’t understand any of it. The memory projected into my adult mind through the eyes of the child I used to be.

Back then, I couldn’t have imagined the life I’ve led so far. It’s the life in your years and not the years in your life, right? And it feels as though I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes. Isn’t life funny that way? There is no rhyme or reason to it and still we eventually convince ourselves that we have it all figured out, and life laughs sending things our way we never could have foreseen or prepared for. Do you know how hard it is to constantly convince yourself you can see the good amidst all the tragedies? Life is “supposed” to be a balance, but I think we’ve just fooled ourselves into believing that the universe is logical. Shit happens, and somehow we continue living as if there aren’t vital parts of our psyche missing.

This has been the theme of my life over the years. I find myself constantly reflecting on that memory, the times I've written it over and over, wondering if I will ever be able to capture the essence of the fear I felt. The fear I still feel at the thought of my mother being in pain, the thought that the world will keep existing when her physical presence no longer does. Will I ever be able to truly explain the changes in my understanding of the world that were born in the time it took to cross a threshold? The awareness that I was cursed with in that moment. Will I ever stop reliving this story through my words? Searching for the line that separates memory and fantasy. The dark walls put up by my brain at the time, a shroud of protection over my childlike mind. But I remember enough, the emotions were imprinted enough.

Have I grown since that moment? Since all of the moments I put pen to paper to recall the dark events of that evening? Maybe, maybe my writing has taken on life because of those instances, where I reach back into my memory to pull out all of the sensory details. The feel of her hand in mine, the sound of her screams, the smell of my yellow blanket billowing around me. Have I grown? I must have; evolved into the next stage of myself that is constantly trying to understand, to learn, to know, to repeat, to teach. Shed the skin of the past authors within and settled into this old seat. Rereading the notes of my counterparts passed, dissecting the sentences and words that once made up who I am. Writing now to who I will be, looking towards the future and that version of me. And how much this one memory has molded us. Has shaped us from pain and recollection, from self awareness and protection.

The themes of my past continue through to my present, continuing stories with new characters, heroines and villains. I have learned to bleed poetry and paint the stars with each spilled verse. Have I changed or have these words changed me? They have lifted me up in times of need, coddled me through the darkest times, raised me in isolation with nothing else to fill me. I am not a literary, I am literature personified, living history, fluid curiosity; I am a story waiting to be told, spilling onto every blank page, using the overrunning ink as the glue to my binding. Have I grown? Have I changed? I hope so, there are still so many stories waiting to unfold.