Because I love to read. Because I have fallen so wholly in love with words since I was a little girl, finding solace and secret worlds in them in the quiet darkness of the night, curled up in bed, or on a moving bus, trying to catch the dancing alphabets as they bobbed up and down, teasingly, seemingly in an attempt to evade my sight, but almost always failing. Because I feel compelled to, too, create words that could be fodder for inspiration for others, or gateways to hitherto unknown and clandestine places as they have always been for me.
Because I have a plethora of fluttering ideas and thoughts in my head waiting impatiently to be let out into the world which can find no other form of liberation than this. Because writing feels as natural to me as flight is to birds, as swimming is to orca whales. Because in times of sorrow, helplessness, or anger, writing reveals to me a whole new world in which my everyday worries and stresses fall away, where truth and beauty reign supreme.
Because I am enamoured with the magic of putting words to paper, seeing the cursive of my handwriting appear on a page, sometimes delicately, like a blooming flower in spring, and other times, fiercely, flowing out of my heart onto the pages, with a desire to be released and reunited with the trees to which they had perhaps once belonged, moons ago. Because I adore the sensation of soft keys yielding under the touch of my fingers, sometimes gracefully, akin to a dance, and other times, swiftly, relentlessly, as the thoughts in my head transform into words with each key that depresses beneath my fingertips, while an enchanting cadenza resounds.
Because writing enables me to live life with an unparalleled intensity, not just once, nor twice, but an infinite number of times; I live not only in the moment, but in continuous retrospection, as I immerse myself, again and again, in the significant, defining moments, with my lenses shifting and refocusing as I handle their fragility and vulnerability with an affectionate tenderness that makes me come alive, composing the image of which I would render immortal with my words, through poetry or prose, and reliving them again thereafter, as the words resound in my head and flutter from my lips.
Because you exist. Because writing allows me to discover myself, even parts of me that had previously lay hidden, dormant, that I had never before known existed. Because writing is a medium that knows no boundaries, thereby allowing me room to grow and free rein to explore, unleashing the creativity from deep within. Because writing has helped me to find myself, to validate the crystallising words in my head, and most of all, to become the person I am today.
I write, therefore I am.
from The Desire for Elsewhere.
