I used to think that beauty was something that could only be seen. I come from a family of visual artists. The walls of the house I grew up in are decorated with sketches and paintings made by the hands of those who came before me, but my favorite of them all is a painting done by my late grandfather in Nigeria. A sunny sky frames the scene. Two women fill their clay jugs along the shore of a wide river, but the star of the show is a woman in the foreground. Her brown skin shines in the sun, warm as chocolate, in contrast to the deep blue water behind her. Her own massive clay jug is expertly perched atop a multi-colored head scarf and, as if she isn’t carrying enough, an infant is wrapped on her back. Talk about girl power, am I right? My grandfather passed this gift on to my mother who passed it on to my older brother Ben. When I was young I used to think that my mom must have run out of artistic magic to pass on to me, because my hands have just about as much magic as a bag of rocks.
I used to think that beauty was something that could only be seen. Then I picked up a pen of my own and instead of trying to draw a picture that people can see, I drew one with my brain, and once I started I couldn’t stop. In the beginning my brother and I joined forces, writing stories about our family with me scribbling the adventures that we came up with. I played the part of the author while he brought our stories to life, weaving illustrations on the pages. As we grew up we stopped imagining adventures and started experiencing them. From school field trips to family vacations and boat rides on the lake at the cabin, we documented it all.
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The older I got, the more I strayed from storytelling. You see, I couldn’t quite get the hang of character development. Instead, all of my characters seemed to resemble one person. Me. So instead of scribbling about the make-believe, I gave into my literary narcissism, and started talking about little old me. I wrote about my first kiss, a painful goodbye, and an angry rant of my worst seventh-grade fight. I wrote to vent, and to express myself when I felt like there was nobody I could talk to. Whatever was happening, writing helped me get it all out. Looking back, I wish I had been more consistent in my writing so I could go back and look at them now, but there is enough over the years for me to have an idea of who I was, and how I have changed.
I write for write for the same reason these days, but with a little more maturity and a lot less narcissism, I promise. I write to think and process, to talk my self down or to build myself up. When my insecurities make me feel like I can’t, I write to give myself courage to say I can. I often find myself at a loss for words, so I use writing to connect to my heart when my voice wants to hold back. More recently I have been writing to teach and to learn. Sometimes I write in hopes of helping other people, to help them see past their own insecurities and see the wonder of themselves. I write to discover things about myself, and to discover things about the world around me. I write when I am searching for God, and when I feel like I have found Him.
When I try to verbalize my thoughts or feelings to anything with a heartbeat, I sound like I am illiterate. So I write to prove that I can in fact read and write, though I would not blame some for thinking otherwise.
I used to think that beauty was something that could only be seen, until I decided to change my definition of beauty. I write to let go of the toxic things that are swimming in my head, because sometimes just seeing them on paper helps me see how ridiculous they are. Writing helps me hold on to the things I want to remember, and the things that make me who I am. I write to see my dreams on paper, because thinking them is never enough, and writing them down shows me that they can come true. I think that in some ways I write to stay sane, and I write because sometimes I feel insane. I write because I have learned that the brain can be get scarier than the harshest realities. Writing brings me peace when both the outside world and the inside of my mind feel like a war zone. Words are my life preserver. I write to survive, and if that is not beautiful, then beauty is not for me.
I write because I used to think that beauty was something that could only be seen, but I was born with hands unable to make that kind of art. Writing helped me to see that beauty is inside of all of us, not just those of us who can capture it with a paintbrush. I write to evoke the shiver of a line so relatable, a paragraph so touching, an adventure so thrilling. I write for love, for hate, and pain, and healing. To hold and to release. I write to make art that my hands aren’t skilled enough to create, but my brain is wonderful enough to conceive. My name is Jane Hughes, and I write.
This essay was inspired by "Why I Write" by Terry Tempest Williams.
