What writing is to me

In a room at the farthest corner of the house, light is as dim and creamy coming through the paleness of the curtain as sunlight covered in a million water droplets of a misty dawn. A girl comes into the room, sits on a chair and faces away from the window. The silence, except for the steady wheezing of her breath, is complete. The chair with a pair of unfriendly iron side bars, one of which was pressing too hard on her leaning waist, and everything else in the room didn’t seem to catch her attention as she was immersed in the magical silence of the dawn.

The girl is, of course, me. Although it may seem pitiful to some readers that I am using myself as a model, it was fun, as always, to depict a moment of my life in words. The experiences that I jot down in words stay in my memory for a long time. As in the poem “Flower” by Kim Chunsu, it is when I write that pieces of my life ‘come to me and become flowers’.

To me, writing is an attempt to hold a moment of life, to learn to love it, and to remember it. I start writing from silence and dimness. Then I search for words that will open the curtains and bring in the light. I had, no, I still have, a fear that I might open the wrong curtain; that I might not see the dark room of the dawn as it is. Yet morning comes as naturally as any day, and light will come in no matter how crudely I open the curtain. When I overcome my fears, my writing will be more complete.

#chaewonlim #essay