Writing for Freedom

Writing for Freedom

The following is a series of poems I have written in order to explain how creative writing has made me come to terms with my cerebral palsy and more largely, myself.

When I was younger, I dreamt of freedom, and what it meant to me.

It used to mean gaining the ability to run, jump or stand still without shaking and falling.

The idea of living without physical boundaries has always been a lurking dream.

Oftentimes, I would fantasize about what my life would be like had I not developed a disability.

I would picture myself as an athlete running long distances,

Feeling the indescribable glory of sprinting across the finish line,

Catching my breath, while the crowd shouted my name.

Other times, I would see myself as a rising hockey star

Skating and gliding effortlessly down the ice fighting hard for the puck

Sharing one of my dad’s favorite pastimes

As my brother has.

At one time, I pondered these “what ifs” so often

That I began to believe they would become reality.

Now, I know that I will never earn the gift of full mobility.

That is reality.

That is a fact, and it is one I have come to accept.

It is also a fact that we, as humans, breathe.

We inhale, and we exhale.

The breaths that we breathe soon become air, and air is all around us.

This means that parts of us are everywhere, all coming together to form the world.

When I stumbled upon this realization

That everything is connected,

I went to my computer and started typing

Each word that I typed was like an exhalation, easy and necessary.

These words morphed into sentences, and the sentences formed a story.

And the story formed characters, and the characters formed emotions and traits that,

when put all together, given breath, given life, formed a world.

A world in which I, as its creator, was in complete control.

As I grew fond of these characters who were once only little seeds of thought,

something strange happened.

They started to take on a life of their own. They started to make decisions that surprised me,

And I quickly forgot that I was still just putting my thoughts to paper,

because my whole fictional world had become so real to me.

Soon, I had completely forgotten that this world had sprouted

From nothing more than words.

And in my mind, I discovered, there is no limit to what I can do.

Isn’t that what freedom really is?

While writing, I started feeling everything that I made my characters feel.

I felt their joys, pains, sorrows, regrets

and most importantly, their dreams and desires,

like I feel my own.

I know them like I know my best friends,

and love them like a mother loves her child

Nurturing them and then watching in wonder as they break out into

their own person with hopes and aspirations,

that are bigger and more ambitious than I could have ever imagined.

I adored the process of loosening my grip of the reins a little bit,

as I let them shape themselves before me.

That’s when it hit me: writing, creating, events and characters and worlds,

Is my source of freedom.

I can be a sprinter, or hockey player,

If I write about it,

because writing is feeling

and feeling is doing.

I know that I will never earn the gift of full mobility.

That is reality.

That is a fact,

and it is one I have come to accept.

But in my mind,

there is no limit to what I can do,

And isn’t that what freedom really is?

I feel like I’m flying.

My words are not mine anymore,

they are my characters’.

I am watching their thoughts and feelings unfold.

Like my disability, they are a part of me,

But a bigger part.

They use my mind, channeling themselves to life.

I am a medium, and they are my spirits.

I am reminded of them almost everywhere I go,

in almost everything I do.

It's like they were always there, sleeping,

Waiting to wake up, to have their stories told.

It's like I just coaxed them out of bed on a Monday morning,

Breathed life. into them, and they just took it from there.

I move with them, running, jumping.

I feel the wind in my hair; I feel the frigid air of a cold winter’s night.

I stand completely still as their world, my second world, collapses around us.

And then I dance and hop around, in joy,

as we are able to rebuild it again

Because we are able to deal with what we have to deal with, together.

With them, I am able to escape reality whenever I want or need to.

It's like going on a vacation

without leaving my house, or running away.

A fresh start,

where I can be anything, and everything I want to be.

I don't have to change to please others, there is no right or wrong.

Only possibilities await me, await us.

Nothing is out of the question because everything is possible,

Everything.

That is what freedom really is!