"We're all reaching for beauty, and that brings on a solitary sadness that we must learn to live with."
With that statement, Dr. Benilda Santos--or as we know her, Ma'am Beni--closed the last session of the creative writing seniors' public conference. I sat there, watching and listening, surrounded by people, and wondered at the weight of such simple truths.
Last week, the chapbook launch made us feel as though we were on top of the world. I said in a previous blog post that seeing your work in other people's hands is one of the most surreal experiences a writer could ever have. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, at least in my opinion, even winning an award can't compare to the rush of simple joy when you see a stranger reading and enjoying your work.
This week, the public conference hung over our heads and hearts, like the proverbial Sword of Damocles. The last few months have forced me to think about a lot of things, but first and foremost, I have had to consider why I even bother writing. I don't think there are words for the fear we collectively labored under over the last few days. Seeing a grade is one thing; defending that grade is another matter entirely.
I spent nine hours in a small cafe along Esteban Abada Street with my three best friends on Wednesday--the day before the defense. We huddled over our laptops, eyes swollen from lack of sleep, bodies slouched under the weight of multiple papers and projects. We had written our essays and been criticized and lauded alternately, but this defense added another dimension to the project: how do we speak about our poetics? How do we condense a fifteen-page essay into less than ten slides on a Powerpoint presentation and a fifteen-minute speech?
We cried. I'm not going to mince words. I'll tell you that we pulled at our hair and wrung our hands. My mom said we were treading the line into melodrama. My roommates looked terrified when I burst into tears yesterday morning, three hours before my defense. In that small cafe, my three best friends and I leaned on each other's shoulders, begged each other to read the changes we'd made to our speeches--infintesimal as they were at times--and generally wallowed in self-recrimination.
Why did we write about this issue? What if Dr. Brion or Sir Glenn or even Martin decided to ask why we chose to quote from a particular text or author? What if Ma'am Beni said that we'd misread and misunderstood Sartre's theory of criticism? What if we stuttered or stumbled or God forbid, couldn't answer the question posed to us by the panel? As I (apparently) told Ace and Jamie that evening, "The academic essay is not just a written explanation of why we write, what we write, and of our poetics and stands, it’s who we are as writers and as persons (it has become difficult to separate the two concepts, they have become one as far as we are concerned)."
I'm pretty sure it was the four of us who single-handedly finished the one Swiss Chocolate Caramel cake that the cafe offered.
There were moments during that long afternoon where our gazes would meet over the glare of our laptops. Ace would offer a grim half-smile, shrugging her shoulders and sighing. Jamie's eyes grew wider each time I saw them, rimmed with pink as she tried not to cry. Miggy would pull at my hair, laughing nervously and teasing me each time my iTunes went to a Darren song. It's a different kind of friendship that makes this easy comfort possible. We were terrified. But Mal Cobb had it right the first time:
You're on a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter. How can it not matter to you where this train will take you?
Because you'll be together.
I would be lying if I said that everything went better than expected. Over the past year, I developed scars deeper than I believed possible, and there were days when I didn't think I had it in me to keep going. The thought of the darkness I lived in during September and October and December makes me shudder. But I have amazing friends who stuck with me the whole time.
The last 72 hours have been nervewracking and frustrating and frankly, indescribable. I gave all that I had, and when that wasn't enough, I tore open new parts of myself that I didn't even know existed. Writing is a solitary activity. Speaking about writing is a risk, and one that doesn't always pay back. But God, there are no words for how rewarding it is to know that YOU know why you write. I understand things about myself that I never thought I needed to know, and even if they are raw and scabby and painful, they are mine.
Ma'am Beni asked us where we see ourselves going after graduation. Did we plan to write or teach or just bum around for a few months? I'm afraid of the future, and the uncertainty that always seems to loom over my head. But I refuse to be discouraged. So when Ace passed me the microphone, I looked straight at the audience and said, "I'm going to write. I'm working on a novel, and I'd like to devote the summer to finishing and revising it. I want to spend the rest of my life writing." Nothing else could ever compare.
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