Jana Remy
  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching

Jana Remy

  • Writing
    • Disability
    • Making History
    • Digital Humanities
      • dayofDH
    • Canoeing
    • Creative Nonfiction & Essays
    • Feminism
    • Bibliographies
      • Pacific Worlds Bibliography
    • Social Media
      • Mentions/Links
  • Scholarship
    • Awards/Fellowships
    • Conferences & Invited Talks
    • Collaboration
    • Workshops
    • Conference Planning
    • Technical Skills
  • Teaching
    • Blogposts About Teaching
I write…
bookswriting

I write…

written by Jana August 23, 2012

From Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, by Terry Tempest Williams:

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.
I write to create red in a world that often appears black and white.
I write to discover.
I write to uncover.
I write to meet my ghosts.
I write to begin a dialogue.
I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change.
I write to honor beauty.
I write to correspond with my friends.
I write as a daily act of improvisation.
I write because it creates my composure.
I write against power and for democracy.
I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams.
I write in a solitude born out of community.
I write to the questions that shatter my sleep.
I write to the answers that keep me complacent.
I write to remember.
I write to forget.
I write to the music that opens my heart.
I write to forget the pain.
I write to migrating birds and with the hubris of language.
I write as a form of translation.
I write with the patience of melancholy in winter.
I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know.
I write as an act of faith.
I write as an act of slowness.
I write to record what I love in the face of loss.
I write because it makes me less fearful of death.
I write as an exercise of pure joy.
I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt.
I write out of anger and into my passion.
I write from the stillness of night anticipating–always anticipating.
I write to listen.
I write out of silence.
I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around.
I write because of the humor of our condition as humans.
I write because I believe in words.
I write because I do not believe in words.
I write because it is a dance with paradox.
I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in the sand.
I write because it belongs to the force of the moon: high tide, low tide.
I write because it is the way I take long walks.
I write as a bow to wilderness.
I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness.
I write because as a child I spoke a different language.
I write with a knife carving each word through the generosity of trees.
I write as ritual.
I write because I am not employable.
I write out of my inconsistencies.
I write because then I do not have to speak.
I write with the colors of memory.
I write as a witness to what I have seen.
I write as a witness to what I imagine.
I write by grace and grit.
I write out of indigestion.
I write when I am starving.
I write when I am full.
I write to the dead.
I write out of the body.
I write to put food on the table.
I write on the other side of procrastination.
I write for the children we never had.
I write for the love of ideas.
I write for the surprise of a beautiful sentence.
I write with the belief of alchemists.
I write knowing I will always fail.
I write knowing words always fall short.
I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by both understanding and misunderstanding.
I write out of ignorance.
I write by accident.
I write past the embarrassment of exposure…

words are always a gamble, words are splinters of cut glass.

I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient we are.

I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.

Photo above taken on a rambly drizzly walk in Tuscany.  Because I also write to remember where I’ve been…

Share this:

  • Share
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Print
0 comment
0
Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
Jana

previous post
making a fist
next post
Twitter Weekly Digest for @janaremy, 2012-08-24

More Posts Like This One

live a good story

criticism

the influence of women

which book are you? a friday quiz….

Making History with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

sleepless

Blogging Nostalgia

I have never felt the need..

on being a pilgrim…

on wolves, coyotes and gentle men

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

About Me

About Me

Hi there friend, and welcome to my blog. I started writing on the internet two decades ago. Since then I've started and finished a PhD program, left the Mormon church and became a Quaker, got divorced, remarried, found full-time work in academia, took up rock climbing and outrigger canoeing, and traveled across the globe (China! Belgium! Italy! Chicago! Montana! Portland! Gettysburg! and oh-so-many points in-between). This blog is eclectic and random--it has poetry and cooking and books. And cats. And flowers. And the ocean (my ocean). But in that sense it's a good reflection of me and my wide-ranging, far-reaching, magpie curiosity.

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog.

Popular

  • 1

    A Room of My Own

    December 4, 2017
  • 2

    the post-post divorce Christmas celebration

    November 28, 2017
  • 3

    Reader, I married him

    March 22, 2017
  • 4

    open

    December 21, 2017
  • Ellycat

    January 2, 2019

Categories

Archives

Popular Posts

  • 1

    A Room of My Own

    December 4, 2017
  • 2

    the post-post divorce Christmas celebration

    November 28, 2017
  • 3

    Reader, I married him

    March 22, 2017

Calendar

August 2012
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Jul   Sep »
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Flickr

@2017 - PenciDesign. All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign


Back To Top