On Things Going Well

I recently have gotten back into reading, a habit that I have always enjoyed, but as I began writing my own poetry books, found myself becoming more and more selective about the titles I picked up. This selectivity happened naturally, and was also sometimes a conscious decision. On the one hand, I did not wanted to be unduly influenced by certain works. And simultaneously, I began refining my taste in prose, literature, poetry, and even non-fiction works. I cultivated a catalogue of books that belonged to my own genre, not defined by any standard other than being a book I enjoyed, or enjoyed having on my bookshelf.

Together, these two strategies filtered a small collective of authors and works that I treasured, and would occasionally add to, especially as I was exposed to new authors through my travels and friendships. My two years in university necessitated prioritizing academic literature, but I am very glad that I again am able to liberate my mind through reading for pleasure, exposing me to new ideas and perspectives, and broadening my horizons.

One book I picked up recently is titled, “i want to die but i want to eat tteokbokki,” by Baek Sehee. I was intrigued by the amusing cover art and by the title, which contains probably the only Korean word I would be able to recognize. Tteokbokki are type of rice cake, and while I only usually have the opportunity to eat them about once a year, I could probably eat a whole serving of them. My friend and I like to cook them in when making hot pot, where you cook broth at home and add in other raw ingredients throughout the meal to cook in the broth. My top choices for hot pot include tteokbokki, tofu puffs, and mushrooms. So that was the first reason I picked up the book, but the reason that I decided to purchase it was due to its description: an autobiographical journal of the author, a young female writer like myself, in conversation with her therapist. Surely I had never heard of such a concept before.

Now I haven’t finished the book yet, (no spoilers, please!), but I had to stop and ponder a line from one of the first chapters. Certainly, this is a maxim I have heard before, one that has perplexed writers throughout time, espeically those whose writing is tinged by difficult circumstances. Even though I have thought about it before, reading this line hit me in a significant way. Sehee’s puts her thoughts together as follows:

“I was once told that you had to be able to write even when everything was all right, and I wonder if that takes practice as well. I only write when the weather, my body or my mind is dark. I want to write well while thinking well. I hate being full of heaviness and darkness and excuses.”

I had to pause and think about this, and then I had to come here and write about it. Writing for me has been an outlet, often when processing stress, or sadness, heartbreak, or uncertainty. Often, my poetry reflects hope, an inner hope I have, but usually because I myself am looking for a reason to hope when a situation seems without it. For many years, I wondered if I would find love, find purpose, find my place in the world. I wondered if things would end up okay. As far as I have learned that there is never a final answer to those questions, a final destination to those quests, I have come to understand that we are never fully settled in every aspect of our lives. We are always in flux. Writing has been my way to cope with that uncertainty and precariousness and space of vulnerability that we all must exist in.

But I did wonder, once some things did settle into place: would I be able to write when I was happy? My creative outlet seems to have peaked during the times when I was under the stress of what on the outside appears to be heartbreak, and certainly heartbreak has something to do with it, but beyond that I can also see now a deep lack of self-confidence, and of knowing oneself that exacerbated the already turbulent emotions I was experiencing.

In reviewing my past work I don’t, in fact, usually turn to writing to express joy, or happiness. I am too busy experiencing it, of living in the moment. It’s when things get hard, when things seems impossible, that I return here to try to find a way to straighten them. To give myself hope that I will find a way.

As the scales have shifted for now, where on balance I am finding more ease and joy in my day-to-day life, I find that I miss writing. It is an integral part of me, and it is what I feel I should be doing, and what I am supposed to do. When I share writing about hope, about getting through difficult times, I feel a greater purpose knowing that someone out there may benefit to hear what I am saying. In fact, it is usually me who needs to hear whatever it is that I am saying. So I wonder, but who needs to hear about when things are going well? Who needs to hear that things do sometimes work out: you do fall in love; you can live a life you once only dreamed of?

Now I think that, maybe, that could be exactly what someone may need to hear today.

love,

greer