Why I Write

Why I Write
By Hope VandenAkker

I write to read:
When my car windows are frosted in the morning, I write peace so I can bring it with me everywhere I go. It stays with me until the sun needs to take it back.

I keep the happiness of warm skies and crisp grass tickling the skin of my summer bare feet tattooed on my pages, and folded for the future. The ink becomes artwork, and the black curves of a cursive a dance of which I am a timeless audience.

I write to read the person I was yesterday
last year
when I was five.
An accurate documentation of life characterized by innocent perspectives, unmet goals, and major life events. Hopefully I will follow the upward trend of my progression.

I write to remember names, faces, places, and dates. As each day slips out of present, it consequently falls out of my mind, luckily caught by my pen so paper can save it forever. It’s value is priceless; the preservation of my paper life cannot be traded for printed papers of any sort. (In God we trust. In God, I hope)

I write to read. I read to remember. I remember to relive. I relive by writing.

I write to create a material extension of my mind. The brain simply cannot keep it all. My journal is my mental backpack, a home to hold the things my body cannot.

My writing has no meaning, but it means everything. It is the only access my conscience has to physical reality. Writing keeps me anchored. I sometimes fear I may permanently drift off into an inescapable and incomprehensible daydream. But to think with the pen is much safer; it keeps me here and provides evidence of my existence and past selves.

But despite the years and thoughts and events and perspectives that have gone through me, I am still writing to simple wonder why I write.