I am sipping my coffee this morning celebrating everyone who is taking a moment today to participate in the act of writing. For several years, I've published the reasons I write, but today I thought it would be great to feature Jennifer von Wahlde, an extraordinary storyteller, thinker and educator at Darien High School who sent me a response for the 2019 'Why Do You Write' prompt. It's all to celebrate the National Day on Writing and the National Writing Project #WriteOut.
I love collecting responses, but I'm super happy to share Jen's. I love Jen!!!
Why write?
Because I have to. Writing is the way I know what I think, how I feel, and what I need to/want to share with others, and what I should keep for myself. Writing is my favorite form of expression. Like dance or art, writing is an illustration of who I am.
What is writing?
Writing is words on a page (or electronic medium). Writing a lengthy Facebook post is often harder than writing an essay. Writing is communication, it is art, it is breath and memory and feeling.
Who writes?
Teachers write. Lesson plans, feedback on student writing, emails to parents and administrators, comments on shared documents with other faculty, and of course, our own creative work. Many teachers I work with write blogs, poetry, memoir, and fiction for both young adults and other adults. My students write. They write in their journals every day, they write in online discussion boards, they write emails upon emails upon emails. They write essays. In my class, they also write poems and personal narratives; short stories and flash fiction. They write comments on each other’s writing.
Why should I write?
For all of the same reasons that I already do write, and also: to communicate with the world.
Where should I write?
Anywhere that I am comfortable, and anywhere that I am not comfortable. Sometimes I write in order to survive the discomfort, to understand it. I love to write outside, listening to the crows cawing and the leaves (what is left of them) rustling in the trees. I love to write in museums, soaking in the colors and textures of the art on the walls, embraced by the silence and hush of the big spaces around me in which I am so small and yet so significant a participant. I write on buses and trains; I write in classrooms and offices. I write in a Moleskine journal and on my computer.
Ubuntu,
Jen
This morning, I'm heading to Weir National Historic Park to share a beautiful space with writers in Connecticut. Tomorrow, we host young people on the property and expand their ways of writing.
For me, writing is survival. Reading is air.
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