This evening I responded to a call for creative submissions to a writing magazine at the school I work at. I opened up my creative writing archives and read through several pieces. After more than a year of sporadically writing creatively without a real plan or schedule, and realistically, a couple hours a month at the most -- I was saddened. Reading the essays and poems and short stories that were produced in such a short period of time a few years ago, I looked through the documents and when all the senses came back through reading each piece -- the memory of writing it, the memory (for some of the pieces) of living it, of thinking and feeling and remembering, I was overwhelmed and said aloud, "Oh my god, I used to be a good writer." That was the mistake.
It was the instant reaction, the words spoken to an empty apartment that I hadn't even thought before speaking but briefly believed. In that instant, I viewed creativity that once was as creativity that could no longer be. When I began working full time and no longer needed to write for assignments nor was surrounded by a community of friends and mentors that urged me to write, I didn't as often.
What I realized tonight was that I feel more alive when I remember through words. I feel more open to life when I absorb the surroundings and memories and thoughts of our world and believe in something outside of the everyday. And it does me good. I hope it does others good too. If not now, someday. The creativity might be farther away and harder to reach, but it still lives. For each of us. And, the archive will always be there. I found a piece I was proud of, and sent it along, remembering to write another like it.
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