Vague Notions

I have a girlishly romantic penchant for photographic vignettes of sunshine. When rays are caught blindingly glistening on film, the landscape reveals new potential. Intangible light bisecting, illuminating, cloaking, disguising what is concrete... Something divine is suggested in the way sunlight reveals itself in a particular moment, and I revel in the opportunity to catch it. When the sun announces herself by reaching for the Earth, I immediately experience a sense of renewal; involuntary and perplexing, comforting and cleansing, recognizing that which is bigger than myself.

I realize that by sharing this I run the risk of sounding melodramatic, pretentious, even desperate; a risk I am willing to accept for the sake of giving language to the things I love. What is the use of enjoying these moments and mentally laboring over ways of articulating them if I never take the time to remember? Writing, for me, is the very pulse of reminiscence. I've made a very regrettable mistake in the last few years, I abandoned my own sentimentality.

In second grade I discovered the importance of writing. I was poised to begin my Young Authors book, replete with cliche storybook premise and four word sentence structure. As we, a class of twenty eight respectably intelligent middle class children, set forth to half heartedly toil over our grade school masterpieces, our teacher left us with a simple word of advice, "Always write for detail." It wasn't the words themselves, though to this day I find myself repeating them when I sit down to write, it was the intimation that words are meant to capture, not simply to report. It was in that instant that writing made sense to me, and I fell in love. That same year I received my first diary as a birthday present. It was hard bound and the edges of the pages were lined in faux gold leafing, closed securely by a lock that fastened the front and back covers. It was rose scented, and I christened the first page with descriptions of all the things that scent brought to mind- Grandmommy, funeral homes, and the rose bush next door. I'm fairly certain that from that point I didn't cease to write. I couldn't enjoy something or make sense of things until I'd found a way to make it evident in words, like capturing the rays on film.

Writing cultivated a sentient being in me, one acutely aware, eager for explanation. I grew up keeping everything with the reason that one day I would want to remember, and what I could not keep I wrote about. Sentimentality and nostalgia have been at the forefront of every decision I have ever made, intuition the guide of every judgement. I am convinced that my history with writing has made that so.

And so, it is in writing that I enter this new year, one that promises to be a mile marker in every fathomable regard. My relationship with language has been neglected for long enough. It is no longer practical to settle for journaling that is recorded mentally one minute, and lost in the cerebral shuffle the next. Always write for detail. I've no purpose for opening this blog outside of that; a nagging urge to share everything all of the time, and to remember. That which is so rejuvenating about photographing the sun is so similar in effect to the empowerment I enjoy from capturing something in words.

A hazard of taking a sabbatical from recording things... now everything flows, everything wants out and it manifests with little rhyme or reason. Did any of that rambling make sense? It is my hope that with a little practice and a determined mind I'll find my writer's voice when the one that is God-given fails. I owe an apology to myself for ever granting reconciliation to the petty excuses I gave for putting off the opportunity to sit with my thoughts.

Apology accepted. Here comes the sun...