Hey Feelers, how’s it going? I forget that were just under ten days until Christmas. It’s sunny and warm and even a little humid down south, and without any snowy cues, it easily feels like March. I’ve got another essay for you, a bit about writing itself. I wish you well and Godspeed for whatever the week ahead holds. I’ll still be here next week, writing away. Enjoy! xo, HW.
Writing in Circles
When I finish with a piece of writing, regardless of style or purpose, I reread and ask myself, emphatically, what am I saying?, or, more accurately, WHAT THE HELL AM I SAYING? I like my writing, otherwise I would not be here, writing it; but I am self critical, I suppose, like most people who make stuff. I furrow my brow and nitpick. I notice patterns about myself as a fledgling writer; recently, I noticed I have a penchant for writing in circles. Writing in circles round and round, mouth over tail, resolving perceived discordance by opening and closing in harmony. I’ll do it and hardly notice until I reread the work and there’s that damn circle again, plainly and predictably spinning on the page. The thing is, I’m not mad at the circle. I like to write in circles for reasons both clear and undiscovered.
I was deeply influenced by songwriting as a youth, many of my kid journals filled with lyrics, assorted hooks, and little rhyming couplets. I’m not a musician (I tried, I did), but I am an audiophile, and trace much of my writing influences to early infatuation with artists like The Smashing Pumpkins, The Police, The Cure, and The Crash Test Dummies (thanks Mom!). Later, Bright Eyes, Modest Mouse, and Coco Rosie among countless others niggled their way into my ears and further cracked open my understanding of writing. Songwriting is often quite circular in nature, even if it isn’t a perfect resolution: some sort of story is being told, something is being learned or understood that wasn’t clear upon opening, a thought is being fleshed out, inspected and neatly presented. In many ways I trace songs as my first exposure to circles, blotting around my head like so many ripples.
I’ve long been a rule-oriented super-student, and it often took (still does) hearing or reading something different and “rule-breaking” to help me understand that there are no limits to this making game. The great e.e. cummings made this abundantly clear to me in middle school, yet I have always hesitated to be as fearless in writing as those I admire. As a girl (and even an adult, we’re learning here, always learning), I felt you could only have one “thing”—one specialty that was yours and all others were effectively off limits. I slotted neatly into the art category, and even though I was writing alongside my drawing and sculpting, I couldn’t call myself a writer. That would be moving into a space that wasn’t mine! Strange, the invisible boundaries and limiting beliefs that we unwittingly develop as kids can tower around us, fortress-like, in adulthood. I am still learning and unlearning, breaking my own little rules, inching deeper into the dark waters of unbounded creativity. Wading into a circle that snakes through my youth, crests in the present, crawls around the bend of the future, and, just out of sight, dips back down into a place of beginning.
We are surrounded and enmeshed in circles. Growing up in the most rural of places, as I did, brings such circles to the fore in brilliant fashion. The circle of seasons, of the ploddingly predictable yet perennially surprising, reveals that we are embedded in the never-ending whirpool and not the other way around. Spring awakens, summer simmers, fall slows, winter sleeps. We hem and haw and exclaim as the light fades in December; gasp and cheer as it lengthens in spring. We witness circles begin with births and conclude with deaths. Some circles, too small. Some circles stretched and aged beyond comprehension. We chase our tails ‘round the circle of the days, mark our ages ‘round the circle of years— not so different from the rings of great trees that do so without clock or calendar prompting. Each inhale and exhale, a great circular release; each squeeze of the pumping heart sends blood racing around a most intricate of circles, circles woven into myriad others, branching, bending, and sprinting back to the start.
The circle is, ultimately, redemption. It is an endless chance. It is a promise of both sunrise and sunset. I examine the circle in my writing critically because I want to be the best writer possible, but when pressed, it is perfectly clear why I default to the shape. Much of my writing to date revolves around nature and family. I recently wrote about my father, and while writing of nature implies a circle, writing about the relationship between my dad and I revealed a circle of its own. It touched on what I understand as the coolest feature of being a human and having an earthly experience: the time we have in such experience and within that time, our incredible capacity for change, growth, and understanding, both personally and otherwise. Most broken things can be mended and if not, can be bridged and understood. We can learn that we don’t have to be the perfect child, nor the perfect parent, to share love and acceptance. That, like a great rotating lazy susan, we will pass events both joyful and painful over and over again, always with the option to step off, reassess, change, and evolve. Step back on again when needed; you’ll see this place again and be presented anew with a chance.
So…what the hell am I saying? Well, what I am saying right now is I see the circle. I see it in everything I write. I caution myself against repeating a pattern into perpetuity, but awareness of such patterns gives great insight into their purpose. To be an artist is to navigate the constant cresting waves of pattern and theme. Let them be examined. Understand that patterns aren’t an enemy but a rivulet of personal truth, an earmark in the book of forever. Let the pattern be teacher. Let the teacher give its lesson. Once you know the rules, break them. Break them until a new pattern emerges. Will it be a line? Will it be a triangle. Will it be the filtering of moonlight through the blinds? Let it be what it is. Because this juncture will present itself again. And again. Maybe I’ll always be writing in circles. Maybe that’s the point.
This resonates so deeply…so many circles in living a life. Some small, others on a grand scale, forever turning. Keep writing, my dear! You are a writer, among many other wonderful traits.