When I grew up in East Germany, Václav Havel was known as – what they called at the time – a dissident and as a writer, whose books we were prevented from reading, whose theatre plays I never saw. During the Prague Spring and the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies, he provided an on-air narrative on the radio and was banned from all theatres after the supression of the Prague Spring in 1968. Later he was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic.
I have nothing to add to his quote in the context of his story.
Fridays are different from the other days. I meet up and write just for myself in a group. 45 minutes each week. This less than an hour has become my lens on the remaining 165. In a week of 168 hours, I type for one and hear for two and have kept it up for four months, because the writing and the listening got under my skin. Slowly. I am in text. On Fridays.
On Fridays, I don’t use my words loosely — friends — when I write. I listen to them and get taken away to the within and the without. Gently. I am moved and don’t have to journey alone. Writing with friends, using vocabulary that I uncovered in Webster’s, some yesterday and some 25 years ago. And the words of the friends are finely woven, skillfully thrown, gracefully spun. A poem recited, a story retold, a letter drafted. I listen in awe each Friday.
Each Friday, each writes a piece each. This matters. Writing is jotting down words on paper, hammering them into a machine, scratching the surface of wood, or spraying the grey of concrete, and so much more. Many different ways, and all have one wish in common. The writing longs to be seen and heard and kept. At least once in a while for a while. For that, I am learning to read and to listen and to build. For my writing.
My writing does not make me a writer. It makes me susceptible. Some words get under my skin, and I lay down mine with more care, since I like words more than cheese. And cheese, I love. Luckily, English has more words than any other language I know of. Willingly, it borrowed and kept the spaghettis, the kitsches, the schadenfreudes, the sputniks, and the BBQs of this world for me to choose from for my writing.
My writing does not net me money. I know I am lucky that way, not needing the gain. Instead I use the texts to have a wallet for my understanding and sympathy, so that I can take out words to pay others the respect and give them the delight that I would like to commit freely. In a second language, committing is easier, when I am writing.
My writing does construct me. I am not a writer, but I would not be the same, if I did not craft a text among people who write and listen and speak so eloquently and empathetically about a written word of mine they heard. And then I don’t have words to say how thankful I am to all who help in my construction. So I am writing on Fridays.
Texterium 