I have always held my pencil wrong. In first grade, teachers constantly commented on how I was holding my pencil and showed me how to hold it the “right” way. When I inevitably reverted back to holding it my way, with the index and middle finger wrapped around the pencil, the teachers would come back, like eagles ever watching for their prey to make a fatal error, and force a grip onto my pencil. For a while, I pretended to hold the pencil that way; however, by second grade, the old grip was back and the new teachers just sighed and said, “It’s too late to change it now.” To this day, my grip has not changed. It is certainly not the ideal way to hold a pencil. I hold the pencil so tightly and press down so hard that I cannot use mechanical pencils; I use the old-fashioned No.2’s. As my index and middle fingers wrap around the pencil, my nails often dig into my hand; after writing in-class essays there are two small crescent marks on my palm. If I write with pen instead of pencil, the underside of my right hand rubs along the sentences I’ve previously written, smudging the ink, leaving my hand looking bruised or bloody (depending on the color of the pen). It may be the “wrong” way to write, but it’s the right way for me.
Ever since I learned how to write, I wrote. I wrote stories, poems, plays, and journal entries. I have shelves full of journals with odd thoughts scribbled on random pages. Every journal started. Not a single one finished. The first poem I wrote was based on the creek, Stoney Brook, that ran alongside my grandparents’ house in Princeton, New Jersey. Pulling into the driveway, you could hear the water tumbling violently. When my grandfather died, my family sold the house and, by casualty, the creek. They are both gone, and I will never see them again, but they are still alive in my memory. When I read that poem I wrote years ago, I am transported back to Stoney Brook Creek and I can see, hear, smell, and even taste the moment as though experiencing it for the first time. I write so that I may achieve the impossible, so that I may beat on against the current until I am borne back ceaselessly into the past (The Great Gatsby). Through the magic of words, I am able to relive the past. I am able to take a bath in the emotions of yesterday or a year ago, and be reminded of the intensity of my feelings when broken by heartbreak or other hardships. By keeping a record of life events and how I feel in response, I can track how far I’ve come since then.
I think my love of writing grew in tandem with my love of reading. I litter my favorite novels and poems with marks of pen, highlighter, pencil, post-it notes, whatever I can get my hands on. I’m a sucker for tragic love stories, two of my favorites being Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Love is such a universal feeling; everyone claims to have fallen in love at least once. And yet, there are infinite ways to describe it, infinite metaphors to divulge the pain of unrequited love. There is no correct definition of love just as there is no correct way to write or hold a pencil.
When my physical body is gone, only my words on paper will remain. Thus, I write so that I will live.
I have always held my pencil wrong. In first grade, teachers constantly commented on how I was holding my pencil and showed me how to hold it the “right” way. When I inevitably reverted back to holding it my way, with the index and middle finger wrapped around the pencil, the teachers would come back, like eagles ever watching for their prey to make a fatal error, and force a grip onto my pencil. For a while, I pretended to hold the pencil that way; however, by second grade, the old grip was back and the new teachers just sighed and said, “It’s too late to change it now.” To this day, my grip has not changed. It is certainly not the ideal way to hold a pencil. I hold the pencil so tightly and press down so hard that I cannot use mechanical pencils; I use the old-fashioned No.2’s. As my index and middle fingers wrap around the pencil, my nails often dig into my hand; after writing in-class essays there are two small crescent marks on my palm. If I write with pen instead of pencil, the underside of my right hand rubs along the sentences I’ve previously written, smudging the ink, leaving my hand looking bruised or bloody (depending on the color of the pen). It may be the “wrong” way to write, but it’s the right way for me.
Ever since I learned how to write, I wrote. I wrote stories, poems, plays, and journal entries. I have shelves full of journals with odd thoughts scribbled on random pages. Every journal started. Not a single one finished. The first poem I wrote was based on the creek, Stoney Brook, that ran alongside my grandparents’ house in Princeton, New Jersey. Pulling into the driveway, you could hear the water tumbling violently. When my grandfather died, my family sold the house and, by casualty, the creek. They are both gone, and I will never see them again, but they are still alive in my memory. When I read that poem I wrote years ago, I am transported back to Stoney Brook Creek and I can see, hear, smell, and even taste the moment as though experiencing it for the first time. I write so that I may achieve the impossible, so that I may beat on against the current until I am borne back ceaselessly into the past (The Great Gatsby). Through the magic of words, I am able to relive the past. I am able to take a bath in the emotions of yesterday or a year ago, and be reminded of the intensity of my feelings when broken by heartbreak or other hardships. By keeping a record of life events and how I feel in response, I can track how far I’ve come since then.
I think my love of writing grew in tandem with my love of reading. I litter my favorite novels and poems with marks of pen, highlighter, pencil, post-it notes, whatever I can get my hands on. I’m a sucker for tragic love stories, two of my favorites being Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Ian McEwan’s Atonement. Love is such a universal feeling; everyone claims to have fallen in love at least once. And yet, there are infinite ways to describe it, infinite metaphors to divulge the pain of unrequited love. There is no correct definition of love just as there is no correct way to write or hold a pencil.
When my physical body is gone, only my words on paper will remain. Thus, I write so that I will live.