Three Things

Daily writing prompt

What do you enjoy most about writing?

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I write not to remember but to reclaim. I also write for the pleasure. And I write to maintain my memory and mental capabilities.

I write to reclaim. Simple enough. At a point in my life, I walked away from years of who I had been and sealed it off so I could pursue other adventures and a career. At one point, in the 1980s, it was also politically expedient for me to evade. The people I was working with wouldn’t have believed who I was, and wouldn’t have coped well with it. I still can’t write about it because it’s too raw. But writing these past years has helped me reclaim a more complete me; no longer cut off from the older me’s.

That also leads to my writing for therapy. I can write about those long trips in the rainfall, as a Pious Itinerant. Or the days playing guitar on the stoop in Baltimore, for dollars. And the long walks on pavement between rides in the hot sun.

Given that so many of my associates had multiple bad habits, they are gone. Writing is not just an exorcism, it’s a celebration. I knew some unique individuals, had some wild times, and revisiting them is therapeutic. Sometimes I feel as though I get to be their voice, and a way of keeping their escapades alive.

One last thing. I’m no longer a young man. I write to keep my wits sharp. I’ve do believe in the truism that you either use it, or you’ll lose it.