Thinking Aloud Blog

 

At age eleven a cousin gave me my first diary, bright pink with a little girl’s face on the cover, and a lock to ensure my secrets would be kept safe.
It didn’t seem like something that would change my life. But it did. I had a place to express my dreams, needs and angst. Words swimming in my mind, desperately needing a place to settle.
When I browse through my early diaries, I laugh and cry reliving my childhood, especially at age twelve when I became a stranger in a strange world, having moved from an orphanage in which I grew up to the outside world.
When you were young, did you hide in your room with pen or pencil and scrawl your exciting or painful experiences in a diary?
I now have two large drawers full of journals. During challenging shifts in my life I consumed days on the couch reading for hours, gleaning the causeways of my mind, grasping their inexplicable meanings, hopefully to discern some wisdom in the process.
Do you journal to express and release your soulful joy and angst?
Now and then I write with my non-dominant hand to remember the child within. An enlightening experience.
Writing is like therapy – a helpful tool to understand oneself, especially for me as I near the end of my memoir manuscript.
May the following words energize you to write.

I Write Because

I want to inspire – myself and others.
Sometimes my spirit demands attention, and I sit with spirit and wait for the lessons of my soul.
Other times I write to release the tension of the day, as a meditation, to reconnect with spirit.
I write my history, in case I age in loss of memory.
I write for the delight of playing with my inner child; writing a fantasy of silly names and mysterious places, the world of lost dreams.
Frequently I write spontaneously, without thought, to see what is hidden behind my comfort zone.
I write to simply tell a story; share an idea; see how my mind functions, or what’s left of it after a hard day’s work.
In my journals I write letters to my mother, who died too young to express her thoughts.
I write for my father, now deceased, who worked too hard to find time to express himself.
I write poems for my spouse and friends, to share my experience of them, to see their smiles, to see their hearts open knowing they are loved.
So I guess I write for love –  the love of laughter, the love of giving, the love of sharing.
Please don’t hesitate to comment or share your joy and experiences of writing.
2020 © Roberta S. Kuriloff