I don’t know where I learned that birds fly out of necessity rather than desire; probably from experience. It takes much more energy for birds to fly than it does for them to hop. Ironically, wings are as detrimental as they are defining. Yet, to be a bird is to have wings and in most cases, to fly. It’s an existence that is verbal as much as it is nominative.
Sometimes I feel that my relationship with writing is comparable to a bird’s relationship with their wings. I have learned to define myself as a writer because writing is something I have done from an early age. Something that teachers and adults around me proclaimed I am good at. Perhaps some days I am.
But it’s not writing that comes easy to me; it’s thinking. It takes effort to house my thoughts in words, especially when I want to be understood.
Somedays I wake up wondering if I have lost my craft. If I have lost the niche that defines me as ‘a writer’ but other days I feel like I have wings. What I want to be involves constantly telling myself that I am.
…
Like the bird, I strive to inhabit the space between noun and verb. In grammatology, we refer to the linguistic objects that occupy this space as participles. Though curiously named, they can be recognized by their distinct ending: -ing.
Breathing. Living. Writing.
To be participle is to be both ‘thing’ and ‘thinging’. To both have wings and to use them. I think that’s what I’m trying to do here.
Welcome.