Why I Write?
Denver E. Torres
“In short, I began to write in order to get even on death. I have continued to write for many reasons. A long time ago I said I write because it is the only way I am willing to survive. Mainly, though, I write because I want to.”
-from Why I Write? by William Saroyan
Unlike the Pulitzer Prize winner, William Saroyan, I began to write because as a child I was like a prisoner similar to a man in a house arrest. I was told by my father to hate things and people especially his brothers and sisters whom he had some umbrage because of a sibling disagreement which I do not have any idea on what about and when it really started. That being his imposition, it meant that I should not go out and play outside our house. That I should not because I will be playing with my cousins and to him that was not appropriate. And so, I played with my memory and imagination instead.
I was forced to go back to the very few moments and experiences of happiness (such as playing with other kids) that I was able to taste from playing with my schoolmates during the lunchbreak at school. I have some few moments as well with my neighbor-kids and cousins as well. Yes, I did, despite the explicit decree of Papa. Sometimes, I would sneak out from our house-cell when he was at work. But it would be a less-than-an-hour bliss as my yaya (nanny) would look for me. Yaya would drag me back home pinching-hooking her fingers into my ears so I could not escape. I understand her being a warden to me though as she would repetitively say that my father would fire her if I did not obey.
And so I started writing instead. The restrictions I have had forced me to leave the house not by really, physically stepping outside anymore but by imagining, accessing the past memories, observing from the door or window the kids playing the patentero or tumba lata or the dakop-dakop or the bulan-bulan and listening intently to what my Mama and Papa talk or argue about at the dinner table. I want to keep them as they are few and unique. I have to write them down or write about them. This process of treasuring, remembering, recording moments of memory became my habit. Later on, it became my happiness. There is pleasure I cannot even explain but it is there when I am doing such process. And I feel so alive. It makes me want to go on.
The glee is special really. When I was young, I am happy when I receive pasalubong (bring home gifts) from Mama or Papa or when Lola or Lolo gives me P 500 pesos cash. But later, I realized that I was more pleased when I wrote about my fear or inhibitions in the classroom and to speaking to my Crushes like Alfred or Ryan in the grade school.
And as of this writing, I can distinguish more clearly what makes me happier. I am happiest when I write as when I do so, I feel a sense of magic different really from the jollity I get when cooking pasta or hosting a small party for my friends. I am more elated by it more than the aroma of coffee. In fact, fucking does not equal the pleasure I get from it.
The years of living alone made me realized further that the world is sad. This world we live in is full of sadness. And happiness, I came to know is but momentary and fleeting as a bubble vanishing in the thin air, very limited especially to gays like me. Happiness is a state that we cannot really be on all the time. It comes and goes like the rain and like the rain it follows the natural fate on when to come and when to go. It is beyond the control of any human hands.
But with writing, it seems that I have the control over happiness. So when the twinges start to crawl from my stomach to my heart and penetrate my soul and finally make me gloomy, I write, write and write. Writing is like an Ibuprofen that eats out the invisible pain. I shall tell you as well that this essay is a son of pain. Writing makes me blissful and gives me a certain peace that cannot be found in my routines. And its produces are joys that take away any sadness. In fact, many people, known writers or not, take refuge in the act of writing, after death or a great tribulation they write to whisk away that great sadness just what Elie Wiesel or Anne Frank did. Writing is the way to coping, surviving, living, and being inspired again, being happy.
I thank God so much for introducing me my non-corporal lover that is Writing and thus, I have never been fully sad and alone since.
