Hummingbird 2

One of my favorite parts of Hummingbird (see my last post here for more about this beautiful book by Natalie Lloyd) is when the main character, Olive, is talking to a woman who lives in her town about the woman’s childhood dreams to be a dancer. Olive and her friend Grace are dismayed because the woman never got to go to the city and dance for a career. But the woman says, “I dance every day…I dance anywhere I want…I thought I had to move to a big city to be a dancer. But to be a dancer, girls, all you have to do is dance.”

She says, “I am a dancer anywhere, and everywhere I dance.”

The section gave me chills and made me want to cry. Why do we let ourselves believe we need validation for everything we want to do and be? Why don’t we always let ourselves do the things we adore just for the pure love of them?

For me, my love was always writing. I was wild about dreaming a world and putting words on the page. My middle school teachers taught me the beauty and art in revising, and I fell in love with tinkering with words, with listening to how they sounded and felt together. I had no idea how to do the kind of writing I wanted to do for a living, and as my dad pointed out, I really did like to eat, so I didn’t seriously consider pursuing a writing career for long. 

But still, all these years later, writing is a big part of my life, and I love to do it so much. I still love the act of creation, still love the revising, still love the feel of words on a page and the planning of what to say. I don’t have any novels published, but I have some written. I have loved the act of writing them.

I have this little spot on the Internet, where I write and share, and it has given me more joy than I imagined. I love the connection that has happened because of this site. I love the way it has shaped my writing and the way I think about it. I’m still growing. I’m still writing.

I am a writer, and everywhere I write.