Inked Paths of Light

by Mary Jane Adams

The path to sanity at many troubling times in my life has been a line coming out of the pen in my hand, filling the page as the fan of a river delta spreads out in tributaries overflowing with ideas and feelings that have rarely surfaced. Sometimes that line formed sentences, and sometimes it did not. Sometimes the line became squiggly doodles in the margins, when words failed to make a connection between thought of mind and pen in hand. In those instances, try as I might, I could not break through the icy block that caused the disconnect between my ideas and their expression. In similar moments, I realized that a darkened light bulb in a lamp would never again shine forth because the fragile filaments inside were no longer making contact with the electrical source. In those moments, my mission was to reconnect with my own divine electrical source so I could once again shine on the page through inked paths of light. Sometimes reconnecting those creative wires required a will to just write and ignore the negative, self-censoring internal voices that kept the icebergs in place through mantras of self-doubt. To continue to write anyway—even while ridiculed by my own defeating inner demons—was the freeing choice that would ultimately bring the thaw and cause the inner rivers to gush forth with a wellspring of expression.

Writing is the greatest gift I have been given in this life. Even when I am not writing, it is a salve for my soul just to know that I can write at any time and in all places. When time and place are less than convenient, I remind myself that soon enough, I can make a safe space in which to pour out my thoughts in prose or poetry or other spontaneous word creations. Comfort is knowing that at any moment, I can pick up pen and notebook, and start transferring the stuff spinning in my head onto paper, where I can take a better look at it.

The process of getting what's inside of me outside and on the page has pulled me into the sunlight and out of the deep well I seem to have fallen in again and again. I first found this truth at age 15. Writing helped a very troubled and withdrawn teenager realize that she was not crazy, and that she had many creative gifts. As she saw her ideas accumulate and distill themselves in the pages and volumes of her journals, this young girl began to claim the gifts she discovered. From journals grew poems, song lyrics, short stories, and creative musings of all sorts. As a high school junior, she went away for six weeks of summer school that fully immersed her in a poetry workshop. Her poems blossomed, and she was thrilled to see them reprinted in the carefully typeset pages of a poetry anthology. There are no higher heights than the elation a writer feels upon first sight of her works in print. Holding that very first book in her hand—even if it was flimsy collection of photocopied pages bound with three left-margin brads—was the greatest moment in this young writer’s life. It also confirmed that an award she had received many years before at age 10—the Kentucky State Poetry Society’s youth award—was won for good reason. She was a poet. She had that voice inside her. And it was alive and thriving.

In college, it didn’t occur to the 18-year-old woman that she might further pursue her writing as a career. She had no idea what she might do to make a living. She listened to the practical parental voices that tried to steer her toward lucrative professions in business or law. It took several years before she realized that she could not live up to the expectations of others. This did not make the fact easy to accept. But by the time she was forced to choose a major, it was clear that she had studied, enjoyed, and excelled in English classes. It only made sense to finish with a degree in English. However, the road ahead had potholes. When she declared her major early in her junior year, she didn’t know she would soon experience a major creative setback.

The student thought she might want to pursue screenwriting, but she needed to acquire some filmmaking experience. She began volunteering through the community access program the local cable company provided. Through this valuable experience, she learned the art of videography—how to take ancient three-quarter inch equipment out on location, set up lights and microphones, and capture the moving sounds and sights of the world. She proposed an independent study course for herself in which she could combine interdisciplinary knowledge and talents to produce a documentary about the theater department’s spring production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. She lugged equipment to rehearsals, interviewed cast members, and made preliminary edits—all before the end of the semester. However, completing the video itself would take more time. A family emergency required her to go home before she finished editing the video, but after the crisis, she returned—only to discover that archivists at the cable company had erased all of her tapes. Like a sand painting of the American Southwest, months of work disappeared without a trace.

The young filmmaker thought she was emulating the ancient Greek Stoics by taking it all in stride, saying to herself, “Well, that’s that! It’s over. Let it go. Move on.” If only it had been that simple. She managed to believe this until the end of the summer and for part of her senior year. However, somewhere just beyond the fall term’s midpoint, she experienced a quiet breakdown. It was a debilitating case of writer’s block. She could not write her papers. She had a growing list of writing assignments due and overdue for courses required to graduate, but she choked. She had many great ideas, but she could not write them on the page. When she sat down at the kitchen table with books and notebooks, she froze.

As the semester progressed toward its end, she finally admitted she needed help and sought therapy sessions with the school counselor. They provided a temporary feeling that things were better, but it didn’t last. Finally, the student took incompletes in her courses. She decided to take the following semester off, knowing that she needed to focus her energies on finishing the work at hand. By the end of January, she managed to crank out some pages of words that did not feel very smart or bright or clever. Nonetheless, they allowed her to pass the courses with closure.

The temporary dropout spent winter and spring in her apartment, depressed and dejected about what seemed to be unforgivable personal failure. Picking up a new notebook, she began to journal again in a prose that had no requirements and no expectations. It did not have to follow any guidelines or manuals of style. It did not have to be spelled or punctuated correctly. And—most important—it did not have to be read by anyone else and then returned with red marks and letters reflecting a measure of its worth. This gave her the freedom to break through the iceberg that kept her frozen in the fall. And slowly, she began to sort out what the hell had happened to her. As the ice melted, winter literally gave way to spring. Freedom returned.

The young woman had to find her own voice. She had to distinguish it from all the other voices she heard so loudly in her head up to that point. Her parents had advice and expectations. Her professors had requirements and rules. Her friends provided peer pressure and sometimes support and good times—very good times. But now she was alone in her apartment and face to face with herself. She had never really been in that place before. And she was terrified. Ironically, writing—which caused her so much anxiety and strain in the fall—is what saved her. She had to write down her fears; see them on the page. She had to grieve the loss of her video. She had to write down all that was on her mind and channel the positive and negative forces within her. She had to see the light and the dark within her, side by side on the page. This was who she was. Never before had she known herself so well.

The writer used time off from one school to take courses elsewhere. The university across town had a film program, so she decided to immerse herself in film classes—including a screenwriting course. She enjoyed them and briefly considered a transfer to pursue a film studies degree. Instead, she returned to complete her English degree because she could do so in little more than one semester. Upon returning, she made the highest grades of her college career and graduated in 1988 with a bachelor of arts in English from Memphis’ Rhodes College. She was very proud to assert her true self when she walked barefoot across the stage to receive her degree.

In the years that followed, she edited books for more than five years at a publishing company and wrote her first magazine articles. She wrote essays on editorial process and the need for teamwork and support at publishing houses. She created copy for Web sites, wrote technical documentation for software projects, and edited video scripts—all the while making a living through her gifts with the written word. She never ceased to fill the pages of her journals, and through that process, she maintained her sanity throughout many of life’s tumults.

Writing has been my greatest teacher. I have learned more about myself from my writing than even those who know me best could ever tell. My writing—and especially my journaling—has been an unending source of self-discovery. By discovering more and more about who I really am, my writing has taught me about the universe, humanity, life’s lessons, and whatever might be the divine purpose for my existence on the planet at this particular time in human history. I hope to return this gift to others in tangible ways before I leave this life.

Mary Jane Adams is a long-distance Writergrrl from Memphis who aspires to live in Seattle. A former book editor for Towery Publishing, she is currently a technical writer at FedEx and a free-lance writer, editor, and information architect.