Once upon a time, the strong urge to write poured out of me.
I’d fill up notebooks, scrap papers, diaries, the internet–anything.
I’d read books on how to improve my writing; how to write more eloquently, grammar corrections, dictionaries and thesaurus’.
At some point, something told me to turn my writing into a business (call it my entreprenurial habit).
That, eventually morphed into an e-commerce business which eventually had nothing to do with my writing.
I told myself, I’ll still have time to write.
And maybe I did! But it didn’t feel like it.
It’s been a couple of years since I wrote like I used to.
I just began reading Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Within the first chapter he asks me to question to myself, must I write?
Would I die if I were forbidden to write?
And I wasn’t too hesitant on saying no.
If you were to ask me that question 6, 7 years ago, I’d tell you yes. Absolutely!
But I have lived without writing. These past few years, I’ve lived without writing.
He says if you answer no, you shouldn’t write at all.
Create, I must. Write… must I?
It kind of sounds appaling to me when I say it outloud.
Me? Someone who has “written” for years? Who has wrapped her heart around this idea that her words, thoughts, actions are being strung along into beautiful songs, sonnets, and elegies?
How could I say such a thing?
The thing is, the words escape me anyway.
Whether it be on paper, in my head, to a stranger;
the words find a way to make it out.
I’m not ashamed to say I don’t know how to answer that question.
Ok, maybe a little but it can’t be that black and white.
Rilke, can ya give a girl some grace? Please?
I guess that’s why I’m here now though;
must I write?
I guess we’ll find out.
Matta ne~
–Natalia