Where I Feel at Home

What do you think it is about the act of writing? Why do we feel the need to communicate our thoughts and feelings in this crude way? The slow and quiet assembly of letters, one after the other, for the purpose of… what, exactly?

There are easier ways to communicate. More efficient. Quicker. Methods of crafting messages more likely to be received than in this most archaic of forms. But a certain number of us persist in the printed word, and a certain number of us persist in consuming the printed word because we find it offers a unique pleasure.

We read in different ways. Some of us are plodders, some skimmers. Some of us daydream while we read so that we find ourselves flipping back to the page we just consumed because none of it penetrated our eyeballs. We read for pleasure, some of us, or to learn. Sometimes both at the same time. Some of us approach reading the way we do a trip to the DMV, as something to be endured. And yet, ironically, some of us bring a book to the DMV in order that the errand may be endured more pleasantly.

The book itself is an object of wonder. Think of it. Innumerable minds preserved in old paperbacks and scrolls and cuneiform tablets. The vast panoply of our human experience put down in ink for any opposable-thumbed-creature to examine. This simple technology has never been bested. I’ve always loved words. I still remember the intense pride I felt after spelling out the word “brontosaurus” for my mom when I was in kindergarten. And the deep embarrassment I felt when a classmate in second grade knew that the word “whale” contained an “h” whereas I did not. (Also, I’m told, the word “dumb” has a “b” in it. A lot of people don’t know that.)

Books provided escape from the tense house in which I grew up. When the arguments started, I could go to Narnia or hang out with Ramona the Brave. I read The Hardy Boys and The Great Brain and all the Oz books. I read from the adult book collection we had at home – I don’t mean erotica – I just mean books written for adults. And erotica. I read Hemingway and John Dos Passos and Nicolas and Alexandra, a lengthy biography of the last Russian tzar. I read because words fascinated me and stories enchanted me and because we didn’t have cable.

And I wrote. Little short stories. When I got older, embarrassing poems. I wrote little pieces of comedy and ideas for comic books. I didn’t like or dislike writing. I just wrote. Never, though, did I ever think I would make at least some of my income from writing. The thought never occurred to me. Besides, why would one ever become a writer when one could just as easily become a professional baseball player, which was my intention. Both ideas seemed equally plausible.

It took decades for me to even understand that my entire professional life has been devoted to the written word. More than anything – more than actor or comedian or whatever else – I am a writer and always have been. I just didn’t know. I thought I wrote to give myself the opportunity to do those other things, but the older I get, the more I wonder if I’ve had it exactly backwards the whole time.

I write for the same reason you suck on a snake bite – to get it out. Physicians are commanded to heal themselves. It’s the same for writers. Writing is an act of imagination, confession, liberation. It’s the private made public. But it’s also physical. People don’t think of writing as a muscular endeavor but that’s exactly what it is. The muscles we’re exercising exist above our shoulders, and you might not be able to admire them when we writers take off our shirts, but I wouldn’t trade the results of my daily work-outs for washboard abs.

(Who am I kidding? Yes I would.)

When I don’t write for a few days, I start to feel atrophied in probably the same way gym rats miss the pull-up bar if they don’t get in their training. I write primarily for myself, but I would be lying if I denied the gratification I get from people enjoying my words. When somebody tells me they enjoyed one of my books, that means so much more than when they tell me they enjoyed a performance.

Writing has its teeth for me for reasons this writer can’t articulate. And the more I try to expel its venom, the more of it I find. Which is ok by me. Writing is where I feel at home. Never on a movie set. Never on stage. Here. On a chair. Maybe in front of a window. Maybe not. Maybe where I live. Maybe somewhere else. Writing is where I go to be my most authentic self. It’s the private made public. It’s a way of scrawling “I was here.” It’s the best I can do.

AFTERWORD: I was trying to answer the question, “How would you describe your writing style?” and I was about to answer (to myself because nobody actually asked): “I try to write the way I speak.” But something about that felt wrong and I was trying to figure out why. Then realized I don’t write the way I speak. I actually speak the way I write.