why I write (from November 2011)

If you haven’t felt it for yourself, I’m not sure that you can fully understand. Its presence is not unlike a sixth sense. An unexplained yet apparent awareness of things that simply occurs, sometimes. It’s like that, in the sense that it is temporary, fleeting, and impossible to predict. But, it is also more than that. If you’ve never felt it,  you might relate if I connect it to the feeling  that comes with seeing someone whom you love…unexpectedly, across the room. You glance, and there that person is. Did you feel it? That leap? That flutter? That momentary discombobulation and uneasiness until your mind has time to process that this occurrence is in fact welcome and in fact good. That, that is the feeling, in part. 

And then there is something else. This is where I fear I may lose you, but it is this which motivates my fingers on these keys. Let’s see. Have you ever pondered something…just considered, ‘what if?’ long enough to let your heart believe for a second that all things are probable? Have you ever said, “God, I know this sounds crazy. God, I KNOW this sounds CRAZY, but maybe if You are allowing me to think it then maybe it isn’t so crazy after all….” Have you ever felt such isolation, such desperation, such inner destitution that you surrendered all to God and said, “Please guide me and help me to do Your will.” I have. I think I’ve only lived in that state a few days, perhaps weeks, of my entire lifetime, but I have prayed those words countlessly. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs 3: 5-6 That verse has lived in my memory and fired my heart for thirteen years….and that’s how long I’ve experienced it, the pull.

Sometimes I’m in the car. Sometimes the bathtub. I do a lot of thinking in both places. In both places I’m often alone, physically, at least. Sometimes I ask my grandmother if she’s with me. I ask in my head. Not out loud, because I’m not brave enough to do that. Sometimes now it is my Uncle Joey. If I’m in my home I look at something that was theirs and I ask, but then I become scared and look away. I don’t think that they could answer me anyway—not in that way. And if they could; they both know I’d be frightened by a reply.  I know that talking to the dead inside one’s own head is maybe a little crazy, but I don’t think I’m the only one who does it, and like I said, I’ve never received that reply. But sometimes, when I’m alone and my mind and heart are free in thought, I surrender to God’s will—because I want with all of my being to live the life intended for me….and in so many ways I have so much making up to do. And when I do, well, I can’t explain it. I just have to tell you. I get the pull. 

I’d call it a push, only it must not be. What I mean is that it is gentler than that. It is my belief that if God or the universe wanted to give me a push, I’d feel it—pronouncedly. The pull I feel, but it comes as a subtle, gentle wash like wave, a friendly tug at the wrist, an adamant, reassuring, nod. There you go. Yes, that’s it. You are doing fine. Keep going. That’s right. The pull.

I don’t talk about it. Not really. Jason knows, my husband. If he thinks that it is anything other than what it is, he’s never told me. He listens. He doesn’t comment unless to say, “Well, that’s good. I’ve always told you that.” The pull doesn’t sound like that though. The pull understands weakness, insecurity, uncertainty. The pull, like the husband, offers little commentary. All is stated matter of factly. All simply is.

If you aren’t quite sure just what I’m trying to say, well, then maybe you do understand. In part, I want to express why I write. I love to write, but I also love to sing. I don’t know if I’ll ever publish a book—I hope to—I feel compelled to try, but I know this much for sure, the pull never comes when I’m singing backup for Adele on my morning commute. The pull comes when I am quiet and contemplative, when I’m writing in my head.

Last night Chris Crutcher spoke to me. He did, when we shook hands and he signed my copy of HIS book, but before that, for an hour, in a room with hundreds of people, Chris Crutcher spoke to me. As he addressed the crowd, he told me that I understood some things about writing that he too observed. Scout Finch talks to us. He said, “I read To Kill a Mockingbird three times before I realized that Harper Lee wrote it. I always thought that Scout wrote it.” I nodded and smiled, and the tears came. Someone else understood. Because it isn’t just that Scout talks to us, it’s that we have an innate need to do the same. When I shook his hand I thanked him for the voice he gives our children—the adolescents of our world who struggle and suffer in silence from countless abuses—despite censorship and criticism Chris Crutcher pickets their cause in his writing….and the pull comes.

“Do you think other people feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The way I feel when I hear them speak?”

“Hear who speak?”

“The authors? Do you think other people hear them and think, ‘I can do that. I need to do that?’”

“Sure.”

“They do?”

“Sure. Of course people hear authors speak and they get inspired. Everyone gets inspired. I thought I’d like to do that. Everyone likes to tell stories.”

“So I’m not unique. I’m not different? It doesn’t make me different that I feel pulled to do that too…like I could just do it?”

“No.”

Silence.

This is not the pull. The pull occurred last night. This is pride…or the fleeting thing that was pride. This is an attempt at self-preservation.

“So I’m just like the people who go on those shows—like American Idol—those people who think they can sing but they can’t. That’s me. I just think I can write, but I can’t. I want it, but I’m like the people who can’t sing. Or I’m okay, but just okay. But not enough to really do it for real. Just a hobby.”

 

“What? No.”

“You just said that everyone gets inspired. So clearly, you don’t think that I really CAN do it. That the pull I feel is anything other than something in my head. Like people who hear Beyonce and say, ‘I can do that.’ Only I’m like that about Chris Crutcher and Carmen Agra Deedy.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“Is WHAT what I believe?”

“That you are like those people.”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking YOU!”

“If that’s what you think, then that’s what you’ll be.”

I THINK I’m FRUSTRATED and HURT, so I guess THAT’S what I’ll be.

SO much for trying to talk about it. But then the pull comes. Do those people, when Simon Cowell delivers his condemnation, do they feel a pull too? Oh God,  I hope not.

Copyright © 2011. Carrie Ellen Campbell. All Rights Reserved. http://carriellencampbell.blogspot.com. Please respect Carrie's intellectual property. Sharing blog posts is permitted, but no part of this material may be copied, downloaded, reproduced, or printed without express written consent. Contact Carrie at: carrieellencampbell@icloud.com.