In Fifth grade I realized that I don’t think in sentences. My thoughts have
associations that are not restricted to sentences. When I was young
our assignment as a journal perplexed me until one day
instead of writing what I had done I wrote about my
parent’s neighborhood… manicured lawns and leathered faces,
calloused flowers in winter’s dead hands. And at that moment
I realized that words had texture and meaning on their own.
And I began to learn how to talk between the sentences.
I started reading Robert Browning and his advice on writing.
I learned to create an echo reminding the reader of an earlier point
that I wanted to stress by using meter and vowel sounds creating
consonance and dissonance, a waning of stress and release.
And eventually syncopation. I was studying how to hear.
How to be alive.
September 