7/17/2003 Some Days

I wrote this in July of 2003, shortly before I started my sophmore year of high school.



Some Days
Some days I say I'm going to be a writer. Not the kind who wears sloppy buns with hairsticks and a beaded eyeglass chain around her neck, and sits and types all day with a cat on her lap. I want to be the writer who travels to Namibia, West Africa, and lives in a village for a few months and writes about life there so the rest of the world can glimpse this hidden place. I want to be the writer who listens to the grief of Afghani women who wonder why no one ever asks them what they want. I want to hear beautiful and tragic stories and tell the world what we are doing right and what needs to change. I want to write words that impact people; make them cry or laugh or shudder. Some days, though, I just want to curl up under a blanket with a bowl of popcorn and watch the latest Brad Pitt movie. Some days I want to be an artist. Maybe the kind who lives in a studio on the fourth floor in a Manhattan apartment building with only a mattress and a refrigerator with pears and peanut butter. Or maybe one who sits on a sunny porch filled with exotic plants, listening to New Age music and dirtying her hands at a pottery wheel. I want to lay canvases out on the floor and splatter blues and reds and yellows across it, but not before meticulously planning where each splatter should go and its size and shape and color. I want to draw bitter women and fearful men, and let my portraits tell their stories. I want people to look at what I create and remember it for an hour, a week, or forever. Most days I want to be the lead singer in a rock band, wear halter-tops and baggy pants, and dye my hair pink. But then I remember I can't sing. And then I want to be a writer again, because by using my own words I can become an artist or a rock 'n' roll chick, or anything else I wish to be. And in my own words I can leave this world for a moment if it becomes too noisy or crowded or scary. I can fall in love when I'm lonely or be loved when I'm forgotten. I can talk to that someone I miss or change a part of the past I regret. I think maybe it's freedom I want above all else. And I think that writing is a good place to start.