On Writing

Writing is the thing I will go to the greatest lengths both to pursue and avoid. Today, for example, it’s a miracle my pen is hitting the page at all. It will be an even bigger miracle if what I write out gets transcribed by my unmanicured fingers, uploaded to my newsletter platform, and sent. I’ve done almost everything possible to avoid this today - even organized the doom pocket of my abused tote bag - and yet, this entire day, it’s all I’ve thought about. I thought about it while I was in Blick buying glue sticks, then while I was in line at the pharmacy, again later while I tried to take an afternoon nap, and even while calling my mom. 

I’m reluctant to call writing my purpose - because I think making any bold claims about purpose is foolhardy and presumptuous (both things I’ve been many times over). I believe purpose is revealed over time, the same way a synchronicity can only gain significance in retrospect. So, I’ll circle back on purpose a little later in life. 

However, I feel it is safe to call writing a calling. This feels appropriate because it’s like most calls these days; 90% of the calls I get from the Angel of Writing are annoying, inconvenient, and spammy. The other 10% are simply unimportant. They’re not intellectual or progressive or even all that unique. Lately, I’ve been fervently pitching The Cut a piece about why I think Diet Coke is the millenial symbol of defiance. Amusing? Yes. Culturally relevant? I suppose. Important? Certainly not. Perhaps importance should be shelved alongside purpose, though. Rarely does importance reveal itself right away, and rarely is it the artist who gets to make that call. 

Recently, in a bookstore, I flipped through an old art magazine. There was a printed essay tucked inside that someone must have forgotten about when donating it. Of course, I found this much more compelling than the magazine's contents. I picked a paragraph from the essay at random and indulged myself in a glimpse of someone else’s studies. There were about ten words I’d never heard of in three sentences. I furrowed my brow, tucked the essay back inside and neatly closed the magazine. 

I will never be the kind of writer who compares the homogeneity of society today with the pedagogical agendas on liberal arts campuses (this was, I think, the gist of that essay). Although maybe I should; I went to a very homogenous liberal arts college. (Neither of these were words I had to Google, BY THE WAY, although I did have to look up the meaning of pedagogical after eavesdropping on a table of Columbia professors at Community Food & Juice earlier this year.) 

The point is: if writing is a “calling,” I’ve been reluctant to pick up the phone for this exact reason. I’m like, y’all, you’ve got the wrong girl. Most of the time, I send the call to voicemail. If I do pick up, I’m quick to remind this caller of the many reasons they should pursue someone else. For example, I studied business, not writing. Surely, they should be tracking down someone born knowing the definition of pedagogy. Not someone who basically started a blog after a tough day at work and somehow, kept up with it. 

Despite my protest, the calls keep coming and coming. The more I avoid them, the more intense they become, like Harry Potter’s Hogwarts letters. This fall, a particularly urgent call came after reading the author’s notes at the end of Pachinko where Min Jin Lee was reflecting on the scrappy writer’s education she got in New York City. She’d gone to a few classes at Gotham, so I signed up for one myself to see if maybe all these calls about writing were legit.

I was nervous; would this writer’s workshop kill my joy or help me sharpen my pencils? I tried to show up with an open mind. Every Wednesday this fall, I walked from my apartment in the Lower East Side all the way to Times Square, munching on Oni Giri from a deli near NYU as I took in the chaos of the city. I loved this walk. 

Once I got to class, it was like a night and day difference from the girl who’d been blocking calls from the Angel of Writing. In class, I savored our writing exercises and was annoyingly, consistently, the first person to raise my hand to share whenever possible. Not because I wanted to, but because something from very deep inside me almost forced my hand into the air. You know that episode of Fleabag where she goes to a Quaker Meeting? She’s like, rolling her eyes at the whole thing, thinking about her crush, then all of the sudden the spirit moves her to say that if she had bigger breasts she wouldn’t be such a good feminist? 

Most of the time, my reflections were like that. My responses to our in-class prompts were, most of the time, so embarrassing. They included musings on what we can learn from the fame trajectory of Justin Bieber, and how one time I stayed on a date I knew I shouldn’t have been on because I thought I saw a sign from God in the bathroom.

It hardly felt important, but I was so happy there, consumed by the writing and glad for a structured place to go and play around. I think finally, the caller who’d been blowing up my phone for the better part of the past few years was finally happy to see me showing up, too.

Every week I’d cringe at myself as I submitted our online assignments to the clunky online portal. Then, when feedback was released, I’d hold my breath like a girl getting a college acceptance letter, taking in my teacher’s feedback with fresh eyes and imagining new ways to work the pieces. I was surrendering to the fact that this was something I really loved. 

Historically, I’d be quick to tell you that I love writing in the way I love singing in the car. I can carry a tune, but I have no aspirations of making it to Broadway. (Although that is a dream for my next lifetime, for sure.) 

But something inside me is shifting.

Going to Tokyo next month for a writing program does not seem to make a ton of sense to a ton of people, even me. Okay, I love writing, but can I make a career out of this? I don’t know. It’s scary not knowing. This seems like a question I should have worked out at 22, not 30. But hey. Haruki Murakami didn’t start writing novels until his 30s. So maybe there’s hope for me. 

Writing is the thing that makes sense right now, even if its role in the broader trajectory of my life has yet to make itself clear. Maybe I’ll be a hobbyist writer forever, maybe Brightsiding will remain my primary output, loaded with meandering personal essays. Maybe if I’ll wear the editors of The Cut down and finally get my Diet Coke piece out in the world. Maybe I’ll write a full-on book, or many. Maybe I’ll go back to work doing corporate comms. Who knows. 

All I know, is that right now, the phone’s ringing, and I’ve got to pick it up.

One thing my closet is missing is a good, white cable knit sweater. I hear it’s better to buy Men’s cashmere, and I am absolutely lusting after this handsome pick. I imagine it keeping me warm in Tokyo, and then on nights on the beach this summer. What do you think?