"Reflective" Writing to Express... and Sometimes to NOT Express
Perhaps one of the most difficult task a writer faces is that of translating mood into words... in such a way that a reader far away, with completely different experiences, feels that mood.
What I call "reflective writing" — that strange free-form, flow of consciousness prose that describes the essence of simply being alive in a given moment and time — relies heavily on mood for its effectiveness.
I tend to use certain kinds of music as a writing "prop" to set the right framework. But even then, I end up scrapping a lot of pieces because I get half-way through and recognize that what I am trying to say is so much about my personal feelings/mood at the time I experienced something that I could never hope to translate it to the present moment.
Consider what we experience when we return to visit a place that was deeply meaningful to us, during some part of our life, many years previously.
After my mother died — more than a decade ago — I returned to the place where we lived when I was a teenager, and I stood in a small grove of trees and looked at the view I would see every day, as I walked to and from the school bus, which would pick us up by the main road.
I expected to feel something; nostalgia perhaps; a recollection of how it felt to be there, all those years ago. I expected to be transported, in some fashion.
Instead? I just saw parts of a gold course and mountains in the distance that looked vaguely familiar. But no actual "emotional time traveling" happened. I felt... pretty much... NOTHING.
I drove away from that place — knowing I would likely never see it again — on one hand feeling strangely empty and mildly disappointed, on the other recognizing that I was perhaps done there, and didn't need to re-live anything; to re-experience any moods.
It was many months later before it struck me that the place was still exactly the same as it had been, 35 years previously... what had changed was myself. The eyes looking at that familiar view was no longer that of a somewhat angsty 16-year old, but of a grown man knocking on 50 years of age.
In retrospect, that is exactly as it should be! As we age, we shouldn't still be trapped in our old emotions; we should be living in our current emotions.
Reflective writing — which often involves sharing a "vignette" from some point in our pasts — is challenging because we really want to convey the feelings/mood of the original time, but we are doing so through our current lenses of perception.
The human mind can be a baffling and wonderful thing... particularly in terms of how — particularly as we age — we often look at the past through increasingly rose colored mists of time; perhaps remembering things as we wished them to have been, rather than as how they actually were. We see the sweet moments of "shelter" but increasingly forget that they happened in the middle of a huge storm.
Perhaps some things are meant purely to be felt and experienced, but not to be shared in writing. Hence the "sometimes to NOT express." Some snippets of our existence may feel as familiar as a pair of well-worn shoes; yet it is impossible to share that with anyone else... so we sit by the window and simply remember.
And maybe that's OK!
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!
Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
Greetings bloggers and social content creators! This article was created via PeakD, a blogging application that's part of the Hive Social Content Experience. If you're a blogger, writer, poet, artist, vlogger, musician or other creative content wizard, come join us! Hive is a little "different" because it's not run by a "company;" it operates via the consensus of its users and your content can't be banned, censored, taken down or demonetized. And that COUNTS for something, in these uncertain times! So if you're ready for the next generation of social content where YOU retain ownership and control, come by and learn about Hive and make an account!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT cross posted anywhere else!)
Created at 20220615 23:15 PDT
0593/1839