Why I Write

By Andrea Scarpino

Before I could read or write, I would sit my mother down at her typewriter and speak poems to her that she would type. I didn’t really understand what a poem was, but I knew that I had words inside of me that I needed to share with someone else. Almost my entire life, then, I’ve been creating stories, characters, playing with language, listening for moments and words and colors that I needed to record. Words are how I make sense of the world. Writing them down is how I make sense of the world.

I don’t know why I write other than I have to. That I don’t feel whole, complete when I’m not writing. That writing nags at me, the need to write nags at me. I can go weeks, months without really writing a poem, just recording a quick note here or there, listening for words that I want to return to later. But when too long passes, I start to lose my sense of who I am in the world.

Which makes writing sound incredibly narcissistic—it’s all about me, my stories, my needs. And maybe being a writer necessarily entails some narcissism, some fundamental belief that my ideas and words matter enough for me to record. But writing also helps me to experience other lives, feel empathy for other situations. It’s how I dip my toes into a life I can’t experience any other way. Even when I’m not writing about myself or my own experiences, I write myself into a fuller understanding of the world, the world’s working.

Writing is how I make sense of my experience on this earth. Writing is how I feel alive. Writing is how I remember. How I forget.

In truth, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have writing, didn’t have some ability to explore on the page. There’s something about that page, that piece of paper, that matters to me. That necessitates my understanding. My life. I write because there’s no other way. No other possibility. I write myself into existence. Write the world into existence. Day after day.

Poet and essayist Andrea Scarpino is a frequent contributor to Planet of the Blind. Visit her at: http://www.andreascarpino.com

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto