I Write

 

"Time for Sale" at Charmaine's Past and Present

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2014

I write. It's more than what I do; it is who I am on a cellular level. I am a transmitter of stories and poetry. At times, it is as though they already exist and I am simply capturing them from the ether and containing them on the page - unsure as to how much I actually have to do with the process. The characters tell me who they are rather than it being the other way around. They unfold themselves and their lives before me - through my pen on the page or my fingers on the keys. I am a conduit, just as I am in the rest of my life. I am a passage connecting people to people and stories to people. I hear the voices and stories of the many and weave them into another upon the page. I listen to the wind and share the voices I hear upon it. The stories pour from my fingers, unwittingly at times, and I polish and shine them. I understand the sculptor who sees the work within the rock and releases it for the world to see. I cannot explain the how of it all. It just is.

My biggest rival is time and the need to put food on the table and a roof over my head - for it does not matter to the world that I am conduit, a writer. I am a dime a dozen in the eyes of most. 

"Yeah, you write - blah, blah, blah. How is that of any use to me? How will that line my pockets?" 

I have no answer for you. I write. It's what I do. It's who I am, yet I must work at something else for I must eat and and clothe and house myself. I could not do so, I suppose, and continue to write - it only requires pen and paper, but I have softened in my older years and homelessness no longer suits me. I have done it - it's cold and hard and frightening. 

So I wish for more time to write. I have stories to tell you. My writing and my drawings and my love for people are the only inheritance I can leave. I want the ripples to be wonderful when the drop of water that is my life joins the ocean of all. 

I write this today to try to be understood, to let you know that I am here and I write because I must - as I breathe, I must. I hope it warms you, enlivens you, enrages you or sets you free in some small way. I hope it brings you joy and laughter at times and, yes, my ego says that I hope it makes you remember me when I am gone. I hope that, in some way, the words will warm your heart when you feel alone and you can turn to this blog, or my book when it is done, and find a friend there - in a word, a phrase or an image conjured. 

Today, I suppose, I write this for me, hoping you understand. Thank you for indulging me. I am grateful. 

-Gillian Cornwall, c. March 6, 2016

Water to the Shore

Gillian Cornwall, c. 2014