What I Write

I was so excited when I found out that October 19-20 are designated for celebrating the National Day on Writing! (Which is technically tomorrow, but making it an extra day....I mean, why not?) I love to write. I've loved writing since I was a little girl. I love poetry, stories, articles, essays, screenplays. I even love term papers in this twisted way, for the immense satisfaction of utilizing the perfect word with the most precise meaning in order to covey the most intentional thought. It's exhilarating, really. Some people jump out of airplanes. I put pen to paper. 

Writing, I think, is one of the most meaningful ways to engage in the media. It is thought and expansion. It is risk and discovery. It is facing the truth, it is creation. I don't know exactly how to convey this, but I have discovered more about myself through my writing (both the process and the product) than almost any other endeavor I have ever engaged in. 

Benjamin Franklin said, "Either write something worth reading, or do something worth writing." Is it just me, or does that make it sound like writing is both a means and an end to the fulfillment of the life's purposes? I mean, we write all the time. Every day. Food for thought...

This year the theme of the National Day on Writing is: What I Write. I'm not on twitter, but apparently it's a thing this weekend for everyone to share what they write. I found one random twitter post where a girl said, "I couldn't shine without the rapid sound of graphite on paper." Lovely.

My contribution to the day is a poem I wrote last November (where had the time gone?): 

These Hills 

These hills are darkened by the deep night
Quieted by country slumber
Penetrated by a November ice. 

Driving through them in the late hours,
I can almost pretend that the point where hill meets sky
Is the horizon I know so well from home,
The point where sky meets water. 

The gentle roll of mountain wave
Lulls the little farm house porch lights
Through the dark sea of grassy shrubs,
Like small fishing boats awaiting the palest pink of morning.

 So everybody celebrate today and tomorrow! And everyday for the rest of forever. What do you write?