On Writing
On Writing
I use the letters on my keyboard to dry my tears and calm my fears and remind me that all is well and that I will be fine. I write letters to God and he doesn’t write back – he leaves messages for me in my head to tell me he’s reading and can see how I feel. Sometimes I see a picture outside of my window. I wish I could paint this picture on a canvas, but I do not wish for this too badly because over time I have come to appreciate that my words can create shade and colour and shadow and form as well as any painting on the wall could. Even though right now, these words are still like crayons that have drawn a circle-and-triangles shaped sun with straight-line rays intruding the double u’s of my waves. It is not that I cannot see the complexity of the world; I just do not yet know how to paint it so well.
I cherish the times I read something I have written in the past and I am transported to Guadeloupe, the butterfly island, where I swam with the fish and slept on a boat in a storm. I saw the moon make diamonds on the dark sea and wished I could ask them for a pair of earrings, to take the sparkle home with me. Other times I describe the clouds that sometimes descend over my head and the rays of sunshine that drive them away and the storm that rages in my heart in the meantime. I feel and I write. I think and I write. I pray and I write and then I pray again and then I think and then I feel some more. And then, I write.
Sometimes, words fail me. Like the time last year my grandfather died and the words I was able to write did not have the weight with which I could effectively express the heaviness in my heart, or the sadness that was mixed with intense pride and joy when I thought about all I had lost and all he had gained. I could not explain how his mortality made him great in my eyes. So I have to live with my measly words, while I moisturize myself with the coconut oil that I hesitantly pour out of the last bottle he had sent me months before. It is filled with scents of my grandmother and memories of him- grandpa, the most thoughtful. I use it at night after my mandatory shower and I sleep covered in love. Words are not enough to paint his picture. I have accepted that some things are too precious to leave the heart, even as they threaten to buckle under the pressure of my raging emotions.
I want to write about my mother one day. I do not mean one day far, far away, I mean one day like tomorrow or next week or perhaps when she turns sixty, in five years time. I want to tell her how much she means to me, but not in a way that will make my father feel left out, because he means a lot to me too. But I am my mother’s first born and her baby of two. She pushes me with the same strength she used on the day I was born, willing me to come out of my comfort and be great, begging me not to rest in my talents, but to ride on the wings of hard work and aggression, soaring to the sky where she firmly believes I belong. Phew! My mother, the force behind my developing wings. I want to paint her magnificent portrait for the world to see and be in awe of my great mother, for whom I am very grateful.
I feel just as strongly about writing down the voices in my head, the ones that sound like me, but different. Almost as though there is a wise version of me trying to tell me the truth and reveal the un-secret secrets of life that I already know but always ignore. Like the voice that came last night before bedtime as I wrote down the sketches of my life. It said, and I wrote, “your diamond is in the dirt and not in the window of the shiny stores with the perfect lighting, dazzling for all the world to see and admire. You have to bend down and look for it, rub off the dust and treasure this diamond that no one thought you could ever find in the dark, brown earth.” It said, “be humble, for in your humility you will be exalted and the ones that jeer and jest will come and ask- how? And in this your God will be glorified.” It said, “fear not, for it is well. Worry not, for your victory is certain, just watch, pray and love. Think of what you can give not what you can get and let the wonder that is your life unfold before you.” This is how the voice speaks to me, trying to make me wiser than the world around me. And so I listen and I write it down on paper or on the screen, etching the words into my heart, as though it is the trunk of a tree under which young lovers meet and declare they will be “...2getha 4eva”, forgetting that the future is as fickle as their feelings.
I use the letters on my keyboard to dry my tears and calm my fears and remind me that all is well and that I will be fine. The pictures they paint are beautiful and ugly and deep and shallow and selfish and wise and calming and peaceful, but never enough …