March 28th, 2010 – Desire for Writing

March 28th, 2010 – Desire for Writing For some reason, I had thought that my “retiring years” on the farm would allow me a leisure lifestyle, where I could grow the underdeveloped writer that lives inside of me. I would have plenty of silence and inspiration just by looking out my old wooden house window. At that time, I couldn’t imagine a different scenery other than the endless field of a coffee plantation. Even so, I thought that it was beautiful. The view has not changed a thing. The coffee trees are still there, maybe replaced by younger ones. I only changed the reference point, as my parents built a brick house a few yards down the road. If I were to look out my bedroom window, I would see my orchard, then my vegetable garden, part of the pasture, and finally, the coffee trees. As a teenager, I used to handwrite all my poems and stories. I still keep one of the notebooks. Some were typed with carbon copies to distribute among friends. I had a few poems published in a children’s section at a newspaper, and also on a local newspaper. I didn’t really go far with my writing. Most of the time, I lacked experience or even knowledge, and technique for a successful writing career. I used to love poems, but soon I moved into writing short stories. Growing up on a family where repression was the main method of raising children, I couldn’t give way to my imagination. I kept my innocent poems wrapped with a note advising whoever found the package to burn the notebooks in case of my death or mental incapacity. So big were my secrets. The secret was not necessarily the content, but the form. The very act of writing poems revealed the weakness of my spirit.