My Relationship to Writing

Thanks Ramona ;)

I have always loved the sound of chalk on the blackboard and the scratching of my fountain pen on my notebooks. I had good grades in calligraphy.

Then I somehow discovered how some famous person had kept a journal in his youth and how valuable that was now, kept in a museum and all that. So I started jotting down what I thought were memorable events of my young life.

From my mom I learned to love books and stationary. She was always reading something, whenever she had a chance. With her brother whom I adored she would discuss the latest novel by some Romanian contemporary writer, occasionally mentioning names of perhaps a French writer and I was SO impressed. I loved the smell of my school library, although now I think it was just the smell of dust and stuffiness, as the windows were not opened very often. There was a bookstore on the ground floor of our apartment building and I think I spent significant amount of time in there. In addition to books they carried stationary and some toys, an oasis in the middle of the otherwise gray, communist ambiance.

My mom also taught me to love poetry. We would read poetry together and memorize whole poems. I still remember many of them today. I loved the sounds and feelings provoked by the words we read aloud, and admired the skill of those who made writing seem like a child’s game.

So my writing is all due to the writings of others, although I am ashamed now of even speaking of my writing, which for the most part it is nonexistent. My teenage years were full of poetry. I had a good friend who also loved poetry and we would share our poems with each other.  We obviously “got” each other and rhyme was our favorite way of communicating.

I subsequently grew up dreaming of being a writer or a journalist or something related to writing. My dream job actually would have been something like architect-slash-journalist-slash- helicopter pilot-slash-Indiana Jones type adventurer. I went to University guided by this dream, studying archaeology and languages. I was very disappointed and turned-off by the scholastic approach to language and literature. The pleasure of picking up a book and just enjoying reading it, forgetting time and space, was drowned by the reading of selected chapters and the over analyzing of every single punctuation mark all the while ensuring a timely production of papers. Surely, even the best and most brilliant of craftsmen with the written word could not possibly have “planned” to put so much meaning into their texts as we give them credit for. 

In my quiet moments, I still write a few lines once in a while, not quite believing they mean much.

But I still have the dream.

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As next topic I would like to suggest: Fire and Water. (I hope that inspires you at least a little bit.)