Am I a Writer? ft. Sondheim
Identity and such.
Hello, lovely readers. Thank you for believing in me. I’d like to talk about me now.
It’s been a hard couple of weeks/months, but when hasn’t it been? I reach this feeling a little ways into a project; it starts strong, all possibilities before me, then it becomes a manageable routine. Then doubt creeps in. I think: what I write isn’t worth anything. Just look around at all the better writers, with better things to write about. I’m no professional. I have no work ethic. My self-perception in this regard changes many times a year: I am a writer/I am not a writer. I am nothing/I am worthy. I could do this/I am incapable. Anyone can do this including me/Anyone can do this, so why bother?
And yet, I know I will gain another gust of inspiration to propel me into trying again. Not just trying to be a writer, but trying to be… someone. I don’t mean famous, but much more simply, to have an identity. I long for a named identity that I can point to when someone asks what I am. I like the catch-all “writer” because it’s so ambiguous, and it’s sometimes true. I’m still waiting for the part when I believe in myself as A Person. And if I’m being ambitious, a creator.
But I suppose no one is anything all of the time. There are fixed things that I know I am, things I value: friend, family, appreciator, listener, enjoyer, partner, thinker, observer. I suppose I always have the capacity to alchemize these identities into writing. Does this a writer make?
My favorite song from Into the Woods is “Moments In the Woods,” sung by the Baker’s Wife at a time of uncertainty in her life. Something has happened to her that makes her remember her choices. She wonders how she could change her identity, and how she should proceed. It’s a great song that expands on indecision.
“Oh, if life were made of moments
Even now and then a bad one!
But if life were only moments
Then you'd never know you had one”
Life is not comprised of significant Moments, as she acknowledges, but memory is. And those moments can come together to comprise who you are; they shape your identity. The moments make you pause and reconnect with yourself.
You can decide what moments to keep, what moments inform who you are. I don’t know if I need to have an identity that describes what I do. It gives me anxiety to be in this nebulous space, especially with another year gone and no clarity about a career. I cannot know what will be the moment that shapes my future. But maybe it doesn’t matter. I can be a writer without being a Writer. Maybe I have to keep trying until something comes along and makes me take stock of my Moments all over again.
Happy new year,
Rebecca