I write because maybe.

“Why write? As soon ask, why rivet? Because a number of personal accidents drifts us toward the occupation of riveter, which preexists, and, most importantly, the riveting gun exists, and we love it.” —John Updike, “Why Write?”

Why a person writes is something they should consider and, ironically, write about. Every so often, we need to remind ourselves why we need to string our words and dreams into something more.

This is an exercise I have all my students take part in, and, I guess, something I haven’t done in a while. You can see my last attempt here. So here’s my current answer to the question we all need to answer: Why, with all the other options we have, write?

I write because I breathe. When I breathe, I exist. When I exist, I understand that others exist. And when I understand others exist, I want to know them.

Or, maybe, I write because I can’t know them. Not in a way I want to. Not in a way that moves beyond limited interaction. Not in a way that makes them real.

Or, maybe, I write because real is so illusory. It shifts at the exact moment I reach out to grab it. At just the moment I see it clearly. At just the second I’ve chosen the right words.

Or, maybe, I write because it really isn’t a choice. Words are compulsion. Words are affliction. Words are skin, once torn, growing slowly back together.

Or, maybe, I write because living is the wound and stories my salve. My bandages. My scabs before scars destined to be their own stories.

Or, maybe, I write because my scars are not enough. They are just my own. They are just my sins. They are just my fault.

Or, maybe, I write because my faults are not their faults, but their faults make me human when I hold them next to mine. They make me aware of my imperfections. Aware of their human character. Aware of the fact that our humanity is bound up in these.

Or, maybe, I write because humanity is lost on humans until we arrest it in the amber of words. Grab it with the swipes of my pen, the strike of my fingers against the keys, the frozen flat surface of the printed page that captures my heart in ink.

Or, maybe, I write because that capture is the only real metaphor for freedom we have. Illogic as sense. Impossible as practical. Walls as open windows.

Or, maybe, I write on the very walls I want nothing more than to transcend. Maybe those words are my climb. My scale. My ascent.

Or, maybe, I write because there is nothing left to ascend save the holy moment of knowing my unknowing at the moment it ceases to lead only to the unknown. Doubt transubstantiated. Fear crucified. Hope resurrected.

Or, maybe, I write for precisely that maybe. That open question. That expansive possibility. That known unknown.

I write because maybe. Maybe.