One day I was trying to explain what writing felt like to me, what it was in my life.  This was during a time when some other very crucial things weren't going so well in my life, so I managed to figure out that writing was this warm, orangey, tasty thing that I carried around inside me.  It was the thing I was able to touch upon during the day, to mull over, to consider--what I could figure out when driving or working out or shopping.  Writing was what I had to give to my imagination, this little warm butternut of life that I gave to myself, and that--thank goodness--other wanted to share in.

Writing has always been there for me, long before anyone else was ever even looking at what I had to say.  But actually, I've always shared it, writing my first novel during algebra in high school and reading it to my friends at lunch, on the phone at night, on the weekends.  Of course, it was a roman a clef of the worst sort, a high school reality tale (I should try to find that thing!) and they were all the stars.  In any case, even without them listening, it helped me make sense of things.

There have been times during past years, where the butternut wore off.  My life was getting worse in some ways and more exciting in others, and writing was truly a job, something I had to do because people were expecting things of me.  While I needed that time in my mind, the organey color was now more of a yellow.

But in the past year or so, the butternut has come back to me, a true orange room of space where I can just be pretty much who I am.  The place where the meaning of life is clear and interesting and, probably most importantly, in and out of my control.  I steer and then let go of the wheel when I can.  It's magic, it's fun, it's divine.

And it is still work.  But it's my work.  It's my little warm butternut.

Jessica