I want to write.
The more I do in life, the more I see, the greater becomes the yearning to have a pen in my curled fingers, paper smooth beneath my hand, and the more I realize that no matter what I choose to do in life words will always take precedence. It is a recurring conclusion, one that gains clarity in much the same way as a rolling boulder increases its speed as it moves downhill, and there is not much to be done by way of escaping it; there is always the possibility of denying the urge, of returning to the more practical pursuits of science and culture (in this case, midwifery), but there will never be opportunity to throw the same depth of passion into midwifery as comes with literary pursuits.
There is no place I would rather be than in my corner, laptop at my disposal and notebook in my lap, ideas flowing from mind to page and back again. While I am almost ashamed to call myself a writer, knowing that the quality of my craft is so poor as to merit, in many cases, nothing but scorn and the relentless marking of an honest red pen, I cannot help the near-physical longing to be writing, to set words down and hone the thoughts expressed by them until word and thought unite in piercing unity. The urge cannot be repressed. It wells up at the most inopportune times, forcing my attention away from my surroundings and drawing me deep into a world of intense mental stimulation and excitement. After all, what is more exciting than encountering a particularly overwhelming turn of phrase or grasping the appropriate usage of a rare word? What provides more satisfaction than capturing the very essence of life in a graceful progression of letters, those curious building blocks of our written language?
There are no outings more thrilling to me than the ones involving the local library, where I can only stand transfixed before the shelves, poring over book after book, usually in the nonfiction section where there are any number of memoirs, historical tomes, journals, poetic volumes, and witty essays. I have fond memories of browsing the Philosophy and History sections in my old library, of spending hours crouched in the middle of an untrafficked aisle, perusing the contents of dozens of books. Occasionally, lacking time to sufficiently glean from a certain volume and being unable to reserve it through more acceptable channels, I would take the book and conceal it in an obscure cranny, bidding it stay put until the next time I visited. Many times, upon returning, I would discover it there, and book and reader would reconvene with a sort of cheerful camaraderie.
Handling good books, like touching blank notebooks and shopping for journals and stationary, is sheer pleasure. Many a volume is not worth touching, much less reading, but the joy of caressing a book that meets both aesthetic and literary standards is unbelievable in its intensity. While I have not always had the finest taste in reading material, having begun with cheap adventure series like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy mysteries, I cannot remember a time when holding a book in my hands did not send a thrill of delight from my toes to the top of my head. Even as a toddler there were specific books that elicited nothing but happiness (here I recall a small paperback of nursery rhymes, prayers, and songs, beautifully illustrated, a hardcover book of substantial size, filled with small platitudes and stunning pictures and reserved for special occasions and clean hands, and the inestimable Doctor Seuss, permanently imprinted in my memory as the author of the "vug under the rug", an undepicted monster of frightening proportions from the book 'There's a Wocket In My Pocket').
Even though I did not realize that I needed to write until I had already entered high school (unless you take into account my fervent devotion to composing poetry as an eight-year-old brat, a venture that proved quite remunerative as I obtained a twenty-five dollar prize for one such attempt), my life-long love affair with books and their stories, not to mention the technicalities of writing itself, has shoved me squarely into the act. And why not pursue it? As a child, my father told me regularly that he could not imagine me filling any other career than that of a librarian, as I always had a book in hand or a story in my head. However, I could not see why I should play caretaker for a community's books when I could open a notebook and write a tale of my own; I recall informing him more than once that, yes, I would take the librarian's job, but only because I would have plenty of time to sit behind the desk and scribble out literary works between attending to patrons.
Throughout these past two and a half years of midwifery apprenticeship I have worked hard, but in every situation I have found myself disconnected in an odd sort of way, observing the situation, as it were, for translation to paper later; many a time I would quietly fill whatever place I had to fill at a birth only to slip away afterwards and put down the words I had stored in my head while working. There were times when I asked my mother if something was wrong with me, because, while everyone else would be obviously caught up in the emotion of the present experience, I would be calmly surveying the event, steadily transposing life and death into words while the others laughed or wept. Not necessarily good words, of course, because there was -- and is -- much lacking in my wordcraft, but I still saw the world through a lens of ink. Many a postpartum hour I spent in a shadowed corner, scribbling away for dear life on my crumpled little notepad, making life experience fodder for my pen.
Of course, there is not much to be said on matters of career choice: I have invested several years in the more tangible pursuit of midwifery, and I do not expect to give that up at the drop of a hat. Part of growing up, I am discovering, is integrating every aspect of life into one unified whole, which means no part of it excludes the others; however, I know full well that, no matter how hard I try to focus on something else, writing will always draw me back, forcing me to throw all else aside and pour my heart into story, into the art of words. Perhaps someday it will prove a remunerative pursuit; perhaps I shall never get beyond spinning fanciful tales and recording snippets of life for myself and the people closest to me. Does it really matter?
There are many aspects of writing that set my heart to pounding and my fingers to tingling: the physical act of creation, the vibrant explosions of plot and story, the ramrodding power of a well-turned phrase. I love the words, the metaphors, the parallels; I thrill over the characters and the depth and complication of their stories. Tragedy stirs me, hope enlivens me, and words set me fairly to dancing, and when I am holding a blank book in one hand and a pen in the other, I know as I know nothing else that I have no choice but to write.
I want to write.
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