I am writing. I have written. I will write. I will have written.

I write because it is, for me, the clearest distillation of the human experience. I write to tell the truth.

For me, writing is unlike anything else I do. When I move through the world I am a bit lost, a bit discombobulated, a bit out of my element. I am as parched and oxygen-starved as a fish far from the sea. I bungle, I bump, I crowd, I dodge, I cringe.

When I sit down to write, a space opens up. I slip into it. I glide. I breathe, expand, remember, and love.

Words are not chosen with care (that happens during the revision process), rules are not remembered, and the Editor is silent. Time and everything else falls away…

what to do what to eat what to say what to exercise what to clean what to dress what to change what to cook what to buy what to believe

Everything. Every thing. Falls. Away.

The experts call this “flow.” It’s what elite athletes and musicians achieve. It’s what leaves us breathless and spellbound. I don’t call this flow. I call this life.

I write to create artifacts. Each word, each sentence, each idea and phrase is an artifact. They are my sculptures. When you enter my writing you enter the museum of my mind.

When I was a child I stood looking at the mummified form of a kitten that an ancient Egyptian had taken with him to the grave. There was an x-ray of it next to the display. It was delicate, shadowy, beautiful. It took my breath away. I thought to myself, “Finally, this is something I understand.”

That is why I write.