An Affair with Writing

Joseph Conrad saw his task “by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel-it is, before all, to make you see.” It is a task that requires oneself to have had a long lasting love affair with words. There is an intimacy Conrad wishes to share with others, one I have not fully experienced. I describe my relationship with words at best as…complicated, mostly because I’ve had so few words to say growing up. As in the early stages of dating, there is a lot of getting to know one another and attempting to feel safe to permit self-disclosure, a process I find painfully slow. I’m not too eager to rush in and impregnate words with my soul; the relationship simply is not there yet. This has been the source of my failure to use written word as effectively as Conrad, yet the very motivation to hear, feel and see written word at a more intimate level. It is a journey, one that begins with the past.

Conversations at the dinner table were scarce growing up. Every day as my brother and I would arrive home from school, my mother would be putting on her make-up, racing against time to make it out the door by 4:15 p.m. to get to work. By the time that I would have finished schoolwork, my stepfather would have dinner ready, but would quickly eat and go to bed, attempting to sleep enough hours before having to work his graveyard shifts as a bartender at the Mirage Casino at 1:00. Mi familia was never too apt on conversing in general. There were no “How was school today?” or “How does that make you feel?” or even “What would you like to do?” It was more of “Vas hacer lo que te diga!” (You’re going to do what I tell you!). Very archaic, along the lines of “children are meant to be seen and not heard.” There was less encouragement to be expressive than to be obedient, culturally, a Mexican mentality. Expressing oneself didn’t hold a very high premium. On top of it all, unlike single children who are eager to socialize to make friends, I saw no need given I had a twin brother. I was the classic definition of an introvert. This plays out much into how I would write. The concept of voice in writing was all but foreign to me. What do you mean my writing should have a personality? What does that even mean? There is no opinion, just a stating of facts; I can do facts. Just don’t ask me describe what I think or how it makes me feel. Where it may have been simple to identify a thesis, it was not so much in trying to write a clear concise one and elaborate with paragraphs accepting or rejecting the premise. This is not to say that I didn’t have an opinion or don’t have things to say. I just ascribe it to the equivalent of an infants inability to communicate the need for food, or that they’re tired; resorting to elementary fussing, cries and facial expressions.

But infants develop, as did my relationship with writing. Like a child who learns to read may go on to analyze the internal anguish of Hamlet’s contemplation of suicide in the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Coincidently, it was in reading authors like Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe in my English AP class that I began to develop cravings. It was writing like Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, that my appetite to feast on words grew. In hearing the pleas of Mephistophilis to Faustus, “Think’st thou that I, that saw the face of God, and tasted the eternal joys of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells, in being depriv’d of everlasting bliss? O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, which strike a terror to my fainting soul!” It was in them, that I could hear a soul, I could feel anguish, I could see more than words on a page.

This reality was only solidified by my teacher Ms. Tilden, who herself exemplified Conrad’s heart. To her, words on the page were not black and white ink jottings but voices of the past. They were the brush strokes that captured the zeitgeist. They were words arranged intricately composing beautiful symphonies. I could see to her it was real; it was a passion set ablaze by written word. I knew then, that I wanted to speak! It was a novel idea, to me at least.

An idea that quit frankly scares me even now. I get an unnerving feeling that expressing myself is a shameful act, a sin even. As though the moment I say what I feel, ridicule will soon follow. This fear however, cannot compete with my desire to speak. Even if it’s to say that I really feel naked when I write. What else can I do? Do I succumb to Freud’s theory that I am forever doomed to be fixated on one of the stages of my childhood? Or do I speak? I shared this tension of a deep-rooted passion to speak in a poem I wrote for that English AP class. It was then that I saw a glimpse of hope that perhaps I can write, I can say what I think, that I am capable to articulate what I feel and see. It was a poem that I received a perfect score on voice; the teacher even asked me if she could read it to the class. Underneath the burning red cheeks and my unwavering focus on the floor to avoid eye contact, was an overwhelming joy as she read my poem. Voice has made writing a lot easier. It has given clarity to ideas derived from critical analysis of a subject. It has helped improve stating a thesis concisely and boldly to an audience I am more aware of, making it easier to develop points. Words no longer are throw aways or fillers but valuable diamonds to be cherished and not so easily given away.

Although I see the shortcomings of my writing even now, I do remain optimistic. Why? Because even Conrad had to court written words, to become acquainted with them, testing the boundaries of his relationship with them. Words at one time were unfamiliar to him. The process is long, tedious, uncomfortable, but invigorating. The mistakes made serve as lessons, both of what writing is not and what it could potentially be. My journey is nothing short of a love affair with the writing process, to hear words, feel them and see, with the hopes that in that process others likewise will experience them with me.