Sunday, July 5, 2009

Handwritten



I love writing.

I write about anything that comes into mind - anything under the sun or beyond it.

I started writing poetry at a very young age. When I was in elementary, I joined the school paper and became part of it until I was in high school. During college, I would frequently contribute feature articles to different publications. I have also been maintaining a blog since I discovered the world of online journals. But more than anything else, I particularly love writing letters.

I looked up the word history of write and I found this:

Every western Indo-European language except English derives its verb for “to write” from Latin scrībere: écrire in French, escribir in Spanish, scrivere in Italian, scribaim in Old Irish, ysgrifennuin Welsh, skriva in Breton, skrifa in Old Norse, skrive in Danish and Norwegian, skriva in Swedish, schreiben in German, schrijven in Dutch. The Old English verb “to write” is wrītan, from a Germanic root *writ– that derives from an Indo-European root *wreid– meaning “to cut, scratch, tear, sketch an outline.” German still retains this meaning in its cognate verb reissen, “to tear.” Only Old English employed wrītan to refer to writing, that is, scratching on parchment with a pen. English shows a similar contrariness in its verb read, being almost the only western European language not to derive its verb for that concept from Latin legere.

To write. To tear. To scratch. To cut.

Ahhh, I see.

Now it makes more sense why whenever I write, I somehow get a glimpse of what it feels like to "dig deep into the soul". Facing a blank page is always a struggle. For me, it takes a lot of effort to make the first mark and get going.

There are times when I find it very difficult to write about the things I want to share (especially in English since it is not my native language). I can't seem to find the right words to use. I can't seem to organize my thoughts into creative and witty paragraphs. With pen and paper at hand, I sometimes appear to have only perfection in mind when I should be asking myself, "What do I want to let my reader/s know and why?". Then I can worry about the rest later.

Pen. Paper. Perfection. Purpose.

Makes more sense to me.

P.S.
About that snail mail, where's that card I bought...

No comments:

Post a Comment


Share your thoughts. :)

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...