I realized the other day, and I can’t remember why, but I realized that I have not been doing what I love for quite a long time. Sorry, now I realize why.

I was reading a blog I came across (linked to from a Twitter friend’s blog) and it is titled, “StreetRag – An Urban Notebook”. It seems really quite pointless in the best sense of the word, but the author Michael Gravel chronicles his journeys through Edmonton. It isn’t a journal or a diary though, it looks like it’s practice. He takes what he experiences and then describes them to death. His writing is introspective and thoughtful.

I really enjoyed reading his March 8th post, “The Guy With Slippery Eyes“. It reads like a short story almost and it just really made me remember that I love writing, I love reading, and that both have played a very important part in my life. I foolishly thought that their part was already played and that it was no longer a necessity.

When I was younger I wrote poems all the time, short stories when an idea stuck in my head and the words flowed through me. Through my writings I learned a lot about myself. Once you get in that state of “flow” while writing the words just form themselves and you find yourself just an instrument for the words to use to get themselves out. There were many times I would lay back on our sectional hand-me-down couch in the living room and just write. Later I would wake up from my writing state and go over the words that had found their way through me to the page. Many times they surprised me, I didn’t know I had though a certain way about a certain situation until I had read what I wrote.

So thanks to Michael’s site, I re-discovered my love for the written word. I went out immediately and bought two books, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones and The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. Mister Pip attracted me because it is about a girl on an island that learns to love reading and writing and the worlds that can be created through it. I devoured that book as soon as I got home (I’ve always read very fast). The next day I read the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia.

I loved them both. I’ve found my love. I don’t want to neglect it again.

Tags: Reading, Writing

This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.