Get out of your hide out...

It's a pleasure indeed to sit here again with another delicious cup of coffee some time after I have taken another most exciting dose of anti-depressants. They always make me feel so giddy as if I have to undertake something very adventurous and fun. I can never think of anything better than writing a blog post because deep in my heart I was always meant to be a writer and have all my adventures in my imagination. I have always liked to write from the time I was old enough to hold a pencil.

 

Language has always fascinated me and I'll never forget the moment when I realized that I could read a whole complicated book on my own. The memory of that moment lies fixed in my mind like a photograph and I can recall it instantly. I knew at that very instant what power I possessed. Nothing would ever be a secret to me again. I would be able to read my father's scientific book 'Eureka' and all the novels by the American writers on the bookcase. I proceeded to do so, even when I was too young to understand them. And then I thought I knew everything about America.

 

I had to develop the right kind of handwriting to be able to do a lot of writing and I happened to sit beside a girl in the third grade who had the neatest kind that she had learned in the west of the country where she came from. I decided to copy hers and very quickly made it my own and could write in it clearly and at amazing speed. I was lucky in that I had a knack for language and was very good at spelling. My imagination also had a tendency to run rampant, so I wrote many interesting stories which I wish I still had today. I think my teachers enjoyed them a lot. What I didn't know about reality, I made up.

 

I lived a somewhat sheltered life, but because I read so many books, I knew a lot about a lot of things and I preferred to read modern adult literature. My mother had a preference for American authors, so I read them a lot. I thought I learned everything I needed to know about life in the States from these authors, not realizing that they were a whole unique breed on their own. It turned out later on, that what I learned had nothing to do with the reality I found myself in when I immigrated to California in the early 70's. I met completely different people then were represented in those novels. To say I suffered a culture shock would be to put it mildly. I thought I had gone back in time about 30 years.

 

During most of my adult life my writing career was dormant and I hardly ever wrote anything more than a letter, although I did keep reading. When my kids got bigger, I went back to college and took literature and foreign language classes and had to discuss novels intelligently. That was a god sent. My rate of reading increased and my kids and I made the library our second home. It wasn't until I became a free woman for the first time, that I started writing again and most of that was in the form of free verse, which I thought I excelled at at first, but realized later I was just barely good at.

 

I realized you had to have a tortured soul in order to be a really good writer and I received one of them. I started writing very interesting things, but I did not enjoy having a tortured soul and was willing to turn it in and never write anything again. I stopped writing dramatic and sensational pieces of prose and started working on my psyche. My blog became the place where I wrote, but it was mainly a place to record my thoughts and to be self centered. I never cared a heck of a lot if it was good writing. Now that my psyche seems to have been set free, I care more about what I write and how good it is, but I do not aim for literature.

 

I guess what I am still doing is recording my thoughts, but I want to do it in a prettier way that makes it more interesting to read. I do like to see how many people read my blog on any given day. I am vain enough to care.