The Rediscovered Writer
Reclaiming myself as a creative individual and writer
This piece is part of the “Day of the ___ Writer,” an open collaboration created by Trevor Cohen.
A Day in the life of a Rediscovered Writer starts with what I lost and how I lost it.
Like my predecessors and contemporaries, I was born a writer. I wove together fragments of stories I’d heard into patchwork versions of my own while in the bathtub, the back seat of our station wagon, or my bed as I fell asleep at night. Really wherever I was, whether there was an audience or not, I told stories. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. My first memories of telling stories came much later, sometime in high school. I suffered significant trauma as a child and as a result I’ve lost that part of my history. Only stiff-spined, lined journals remain as evidence. Variably spaced poems, analogies, diary entries, and song lyrics fill those pages. Some tightly packed, some written large, pronouncing rage or longing. Some of them are waterlogged, though from tears or a spilled cup of water I’m not sure. All I know is that they were opened, used, and then closed. I haven’t read many of them. I’ve tried; it’s too real. But while I don’t revisit that time, I have sought to redeem it.
I treasure my first real memory of writing, or rather, I treasure how I felt writing it. It was a prompt—a picture given out randomly by my english teacher—that I created a backstory to. I don’t have it anymore, but I’ll always remember how it felt for my mind to retreat into the possibility of story. A reality other than this, an emotion other than what I felt at the moment. I looked at the picture and felt the atmosphere, the mystery of the boat floating through the mist, wondered whether it had a captain or floated rudderless in the bay. I wove together something and in the process felt like I reclaimed a part of myself for that short time. And then I was gone.
My creativity continued to exist thereafter but in a suffocated form. Until recently, I thought it was because I was incapable of freely creating, there was just too much in the way. But I’ve since realized that the barrier that between my desire to create and my ability to create was not an innate quality or personal flaw, it was a culmination of the damage I had suffered, perspectives that were forced upon me, and freedom that I felt was too wrong to claim. I’ve since learned that my inability to freely create had nothing to do with me and everything to do with what had been done to me. I’ve been on a journey of reclaiming what I lost since then.
But patterns are repeated.
I’ve been reading “The War of Art” and resonated with the concept of resistance: that which prevents us from doing the work that expresses our creative genius. I understood the concept of resistance long before I learned the word—I think we all know it well. I had recognized it in myself and made strides to combat it—this was a major reason why I started my Substack—but what I hadn’t realized was that I had made resistance my occupation. I perpetuated the pattern and adopted resistance as what provided meaning in life. I made resistance my occupation. Because of that I’m not interested in bringing my professional life into my creative life. What I do for a living is relevant to who I am as a Rediscovered Writer, but I won’t allow it into this creative space—it’s already taken enough from me. (No more). But it bears mentioning because it is what has resulted in me being a Rediscovered Writer.
And so, a day in the life of a Rediscovered Writer is brief but difficult to describe; it is short in execution but based on decades of life lived. A day in the life of a Rediscovered Writer is one of continual self-discovery and a fight to reject the pattern forced upon me at a young age. It is a day of dualities one. It is an intentional day, one where I must rediscover my identity after a day spent fulfilling occupational duties that I adopted, duties that embody and enable resistance within me.
I love that you linked your feeling of creating....we all know it in different ways. I loved reading this.
Steven pressfield did nail it well in the war of art. It was inspirational. I have spoken to him about it.
I picked up part of a conversation years ago, don't remember details, but what this person said (the jist)hit me: "... how can you complain your not an artist (fill in the word of choice) if you're not working like one?"
I though; a plumber goes to work most days, and gets better, and part of his or her identity is 'I can create and fix issues related to plumbing'.
All that it really meant was, show up and keep doing it, even when you don't want to, most of the time. I should Act like what I want to become.
Holding duality, and a complex identity should also be standard of care for young people, not to mention it creates openness and less internal conflict.