Why Do I Write?
Why do I write? I write because without it, I would go mad.
Try trapping a badly shaken soda in a bottle; you should be ready for the burst open. Try trapping carefully woven words like cascading waterfalls and steamy geysers. Try catching the air between your fingers or chasing the stormy wind; it simply cannot be stopped, and that’s what this writing is — an unstoppable gift of grace.
I write because it helps me process; process my thoughts and feelings, it helps me tangibly touch and interpret my mind. It allows me breathe that sweet breath of life into my innermost parts and give them tangible form.
I write because it helps me understand myself and others. It helps me to take a minute to dive down into my recesses; dig and dredge deep into the workings of my making and to bring into reality that which has been birthed in the wombs of my consciousness.
Some people smoke, drink and use sex as an escape. Writing is my escape; it is my mad, wild fun. It is both my drunken night of intoxication to stupor and my bright, clarity morning; it is at the very essence of my being.
Writing is a form of my self-expression; to lose it would be to lose a human sense; very much like smell, touch and taste.
I touch and taste my world through my fingertips as they scribble through my impressions of the things around me. I plunge deep into the intricacies of people; sip and savour their essence like a wine tasting; twirled and swirled by the twisting tongue, I make sense of who they are in this world and the beyond.
I write because I do not know any other way to be this woman that I am. I do not know any other way to live. I try to picture a life without writing and I simply cannot; it owns me just as much as I own it. I was born to do this…
I was born to do this; every ounce of whatever this is, I was born to do it…
Writing drives me more than I drive it. There is a method to this madness, the sanity of which only God dispenses and understands…
There are words, phrases, lines, and pieces that I know, that I do not even know that I know. I just know them; no one taught them to me. And they spring up within me whenever they feel they want aliveness; a birthing into this world. Tell me, if this is not methodical madness. How does it make sense? How do you explain it?
I write out of necessity; it is my bond. There is a force that inspires and propels it, much greater than myself, a force much like God — an offering, a duty, a worship, a self giving-away. It is like a raging fire in my bones.
These words, they make themselves in my mind; they bubble up from within my belly and shoot themselves into the realms of my consciousness; they give themselves a voice in my heart and storm out through my fingers like an uprising demonstration on a hot afternoon day.
Writing is my safe space; my happy place; my haven; my sanity; my stress reliever; my opportunity to be heard without interruption; my ministry; myself.
It is the noble footprint that outlives my existence in this world. It is the proof that I lived and did; that I came into this world, took it by the horns and did something spectacular with it.
I write because without it, I would go verifiably mad…
#robbiewrites #radiantrobbie 11.5.22
PS: This is a piece that I randomly wrote today as I sat in the back of my uber on my way home from work in Nairobi. I asked myself, much like on many other days, what my why was for this thing that I have done over the years. Why do I do this writing? Because it is always important to remind yourself about the propellant of your purpose or whatever you choose to be your thing. Why this? Why now? Why me? Do not be afraid to ask yourself questions, as a means of ratifying your internal underpinnings…
