Sometimes I give myself space from writing, sort of as a game. Will I return? The creativity, the obsessive editing, the pages of drafts, is it a phase that'll leave me one of these days? Each time I find the answer is no. It's all at once frustrating and reassuring. It makes it less of a choice and more of a compulsion, and even I find trouble seeing romance in that.
I began university away from home this year. I neglected to write in the bustle of new classes, clubs, and an entirely new life I was trying on for size. In all honesty, I haven't even reflected much. This might not sound significant, but I've always reflected on the life around me just as I breathed. Sometimes in gasps of air, sometimes in thoughtless habit, but every day without fail. Clearly, because how else would I live? Every day I woke up for my afternoon class just early enough to pick out an outfit, brush my teeth, sometimes put on some makeup, and rush over with my tote bag in hand. What reflection does this require? I was living like a liberal arts teenager out of a Pinterest board. It was what I had always wanted, and now it was mine.
My life is different. What else is there to say about it? More importantly, why is there always something to be said? I strayed from writing like a rebellious child and reveled in the distance. Truly: who cares? Everyone I know is starting over now; we're all doing it collectively from different places. My best friend is struggling through engineering, and I couldn't tell you how the girl I sat next to at graduation is doing. Everyone is living a new life, trying on the sweater, noting where it itches, noting where it needs stitches. This mindset is more nihilistic in a specific way that no one who has read my work has heard from me before.
Then one day, I was rushing out of my communications class to my dorm. I was thinking of my plans for that night, that weekend, whatever. The texts in my phone I needed to respond to, the people I should call, and the emails I was waiting on a response for. I looked down at my phone; my eyes passed my scuffed-up air forces and caught on the wooden planks that marked the trail to my dorm. The orange-tinted leaves on the ground. The occasional acorn. I looked up. My whole campus was there. The trees looked nothing like the ones I had back home, with distinct marks in the bark, sturdy trunks, and a sky full of leaves. A whole life I had worked for. If I had spoken to myself from four years ago, or even a year ago, she would have sat in the middle of it all, marveling. Unblinking at this beautiful place she had only imagined in her dreams. I was living a life I had only ever let myself hope for, and I wasn't even looking at it. Writing aside: I wasn't even noticing anymore.
My favorite book as a preteen was 'Savvy' by Ingrid Law. The story follows Mibs (short for Mississippi) as she turns thirteen and gets what her family calls a 'savvy'- a special sort of 'know-how,' as her mom calls it. A super-power that can be powerful, odd, inconsequential, but all together unpredictable. Just like growing up, which is the whole message of the book. It's unsurprising this was a book I returned to so frequently; stories about birthdays and magic powers had always been my favorite. Both themes together in one book? Ingrid Law knew her preteen audience.
On the day of her thirteenth birthday, she sneaks onto a bus to make it to the hospital where her dad is after landing in a bad car accident. She believes her 'savvy' can save him. She takes the trip with two of her brothers and two family friends.
Towards the book's second half, Mibs is in the jelly-beaned pool in a hotel with her teenage travel companions. A conversation she has with Bobbi, the bubble gum-popping sixteen-year-old stereotype of a character, has stuck with me for years.
"Mibs, do you ever feel like your life is just some weird dream and someday you'll wake up and find that you're someone else entirely?"
Cue preteen me and current me having an existential crisis. Mibs says she thinks about the question for a long time. She doesn't answer Bobbi out loud. She feels that "if someone had said those same words to me yesterday, I might have shrugged them off. But a lot can change in a day. A lot."
Page 227 of 'Savvy' was so meaningful to me that here I am, nearly six years later, writing about it. Bobbi is such a compelling character to me. When I was thirteen, I thought sixteen-year-olds must know it all. Coming-of-age, homecoming, bubblegum, and boys, the whole thing seemed too old and unattainable. I had an older sister figure like Bobbi, and I thought she had it all figured out.
A lot can change in a day. What I find so distinct about being a teenager and growing into a young adult is how temporary it is. Adults constantly comment that you'll grow out of your character, shed sentimentality and harden in the face of life's realities. I don't think it's untrue. It takes work to remain soft.
Somedays, I'm afraid I'll wake up and think I did everything wrong. Decisions I made a year ago have decided where I am today. Choices I made only months ago have decided my character. Am I always going to be happy with my convictions? Where I've made lines in the sand? Where I've allowed exceptions? Could I ever forgive myself for this weird dream?
All these years later, I have more perspective on Bobbi's poolside musings. It used to seem so unsettling waking up and being unable to recognize who I had become. Now I'm proud of my different weird dreams, the days that have changed me. People are meant to change. I am unrecognizable to my thirteen-year-old self. She might have thought that I'd have it all figured out. I'd pursue law instead of creative writing. I'd be certain about romance (what a joke) and bubblegum and my future.
Bobbi, Mibs, and I are unsettled by the idea that we could become different people. This is a constant in youth. We want permanence when our character is painfully temporary. Now it is the most beautiful thing I could ever have pictured. My thirteen-year-old self would be proud of my poetry collection, the lessons I've learned, and my choices.
Reading and writing track these different versions of myself. When I was seven, I wrote in a journal that I knew it seemed impossible and wild and unfeasible: but I was going to publish a book before I graduated high school. Some important convictions remain the same; I accomplished my dream.
Here I am, returning to writing. I will always have so much to say, even if it's not compelling. My nature is not something that will leave me one of these days, or it may be. I might wake up tomorrow and find I am someone else entirely. Whether that version of me writes, succeeds, or fails, there will be love for her all the same. I am trying to remain grateful and wide-eyed. I write not to be great or memorable but because staying away from it is a game I will never win. I don’t mind losing anymore.
"When it's time to go and my dramaticisms come as Richard Siken quotes (someone has to leave first, there is no other version of the story) I know you understand I am a poet and that it is the least interesting thing about me." January 19th, 2023
"Cyclones don't sit at streams and pray for love.
That's the trouble in naming yourself after a natural disaster
and making home in wreckage. Someone with a nature
to do a song and dance for affection will grow to
master the routine." February 2nd, 2023
my writing <3
Intentional Time Alone , Personal Essay in Unfiltered Magazine
Meteor Shower, Poem in Hot Pot Magazine
some of my favorite reads
The Crane Wife , Essay on the Paris Review by CJ Hauser
Goldenrod , Poem on Afternoon Visitor by Elijah Rushing Hayes
City as Oracle: On Craft and Transit , Essay on Write or Die Tribe by Emily Marie Passos Duffy
Glacial, Poem on AGNI by Katherine Fallon
books i’ve read: january-now
Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman
A Pho Love Story by Loan Le
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Loveless by Alice Oseman
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
not a cry for help, just a crying out by lily rain.
Complimentary Breakfast by Jessalyn Johnson
Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley
songs
Damage You Still Do by Mikayla Pasterfield
I should hate you by Gracie Abrams
Baby Anymore by Bridal Party
Love Language by Zineadelphia
As always, I haven’t posted a newsletter as frequently as I said I would. I wrote the majority of this essay months ago but only got around to editing recently. I figured National Poetry Month is a great time to post it! I hope you enjoyed my musings on writing, and I hope you read some poetry that makes you cry in your kitchen and go to the post office sometime soon. In the meantime, I’ll still be sharing my writing on Instagram (as always) because as this essay describes, I’ve found I can’t really stop.
-nia mahmud