Connection

This essay was for my Creative Writing Nonfiction class last spring. I like most of it but there are a few parts that I'd probably change now. As you'll soon find out, it's about why I love to write. :) 

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When my parents picked me up from my fourteen-day hiking expedition, they stood outside of our silver van and gaped at my poison ivy-ridden legs, my puffy face (swollen from bug bites), and my unwashed, matted hair that I tried to disguise with a haphazard bandana. They hugged me—wincing as they did so—and couldn’t wait to hear about the entire trip. Overwhelmed at the daunting task of telling them everything about my trip, I let out a huge sigh and exclaimed that I couldn’t possibly tell them right away, but I’d write about it in the morning.

Twelve hours later, after I had showered twice, washed my face with some Neutrogena, reshaped my eyebrows, put on a few layers of Calamine lotion, and painted my nails a bright shade of pink, I was ready to write. I was ready to tell them about my journey and I planned to write a blog post for every day that I was gone.

A note about my blog: only my mother and a few of my best friends read it. One friend reads it because she bullied me into sharing the link with her. My mom reads it because she likes to know what I’m up to at school. She enjoys the occasional pictures I post along with a short blurb about how I fell off the treadmill at the gym last week or how I was walking back from library when a goose popped out of the grass to hiss at me. It’s in this blogging manner that we keep in touch and she gets a better understanding of what I do all day. While we often talk on the phone and I can sometimes give her a quick story, she prefers when I write out the whole thing on my blog (with pictures, of course).

So, it’s here that I’m cleaned up and ready to start writing. Well… after I go on Facebook one more time—you never know who might need to talk to me! Okay, maybe Twitter too. You never know who’s on Twitter but not on Facebook! Maybe I’ll go on Pinterest. I’m always up for a good craft. Click, click, click. Never mind, crafts are too hard.

I pull out my journal from the trip. It’s smeared with dirt and is smudged with mosquito blood. I flip open to what seems to be halfway into the journey: “Lost my bug net this morning and almost died. My poison ivy looks wretched and I’m wondering if my parents will pay to have the possible scars removed. This backpack makes me feel like a pack mule. I don’t think I’ve felt such utter despair.” Hmm… I struggle to mold my notes into something my mother will enjoy reading. It’s time to check my email again. Mom hollers from the living room:

“Megan, how’s it going? I want to hear how your trip was. I want to know if you survived.”

“Mom. I’m sitting in the kitchen. You know I survived.” Rolling my eyes, I refresh the page.

“I know, but it’s more exciting when you write about it! It’s funnier that way.”

I’m not sure when everyone decided that what I had to say was funny or interesting. I do think it’s because I’ve always been a good observer. Being a writer is like being a constant observer. You have to watch other people, watch yourself, and watch yourself interacting with other people. Part of why I enjoy writing is because I was always the shy, quiet girl in the corner. The girl who chuckles at everyone’s jokes but rarely volunteers any of her own funny lines. The girl who sits near the commotion but never contributes to the conversation. It’s in this part of my childhood that I learned to watch and listen. Sometimes my life is one continuous story of conversations, emotions, and group dynamics. It’s through watching others that I’ve learned how to be perceptive to how people act. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know how to create a character that’s a second grade boy, bullied by the third-grader in the lunchroom. I wouldn’t know how to create a character that’s worried about getting a date for prom, a brother who longs for attention from his older sisters, or any other scenario that requires believable details.

For me, writing is a way to connect. Not only is it a way to sort through my discouraged thoughts on a hiking trip, but it’s also a way to share this snapshot of my life with people who are curious. Just as write about my own life to connect with my friends and family, writing fiction is a way for me to connect with that boy in the lunchroom, for example. When I watch my friend open the birthday card I gave her with a long, scrawled message on the back about that embarrassing time when we met, I’m connecting to her. When I type out a funny email to my parents or grandparents after a crazy week at school, I connect to them. Or even when my mom is sitting at her computer as she wipes away the tears of laughter as she reads my blog post about day number thirteen, we’re somehow connected through that.

Now even if the only two people that are curious about my writing are my best friend and my mom (and I know they’ll always be pestering me to post something new) I’ll have a reason to write something for them. While it may be a struggle to finally discover what I’m trying to say after an hour of logging on and off Pinterest, I know that my mother’s laughter from the living room will always remind me why I love to tell stories: because I love to connect to people.   

Before I left for Gordon in August 2010