For
those of us who write - and I don't mean just writing for publication - our
writing encompasses the ebb and flow of our lives. It is not only a means of
self-expression, it is an avenue of self-discovery, processing and clarifying,
that at times reveals more than we ever knowingly intended.
Currently
I write, type and muse from the hinterlands of extreme rural northeastern
Montana, just south of the Canadian border and not far from the Bakken oil
fields.
I
invite us on this blog site to share our writing journeys - whether that be from
our own journaling or poetic creativity...or the more gritty process of writing
to effect change, to publish, to be heard or to entertain.
Recently
I stumbled upon the tiny tattered pages of a spiral notebook roughly stapled
together. Scrawled diagonally across the first page was the word
"Diary". Concealed in the pages was the world of an 11-year old. What
was it like to be that 11-year old girl? How did she see, understand,
act? Was that really me?
As
I read, most of the pages were taken up by the birth and growth of a batch of
kittens, multi-colored, black, gray and white; obviously an important event.
The frequent words that Dad wasn't home from Miles City yet were scattered in
different entries. Why was he in Miles City? A hernia operation at the VA?
Finally, after a week and a half, there is the notation that Dad is home. No
mention of why he was gone, how he was doing or if it was surgery. Hard to
believe that's how I thought then - as now my curiosity and interest in things
medical and health-oriented is almost insatiable.
A
few pages later, the wonder of finding an inflatable canoe, although flattened,
on the banks of the Yellowstone River, brought to mind my yearning to cross to
the mysterious islands in the middle of the river. I could almost taste the
disappointment, when the entry a few days later noted that the young girl had
inflated the canoe and realized only baby could fit in it.
The
words reminded me of the desire to explore the islands of the Yellowstone that regularly
tugged at me throughout my childhood and teen years. I did swim to an island
once; I wouldn't recommend it. And a few hairy crossings as the strong currents
swirled around my knees and thighs and my feet slid over moss-covered rocks also
were a little nervy. The impatience of waiting for the flood waters to recede
each year added to the appeal of the isolated, darkened cottonwood forests,
meadows and stands of willows far across the turbulent river.
Writing
is our opportunity to explore, learn, express and create. The reading is the
remembering, reliving, feeling and discovering.
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