We Are Not the Poem

When reading the passage, We Are Not the Poem, in Natalie Goldberg's, Writing Down the Bones, I felt confused, at first. The opening line reads, "The problem is we think we exist." If you think as I do, we now share the same confused faces. The passage speaks of how when we write we are simply writing how we feel about a certain issue at that moment in time. Goldberg stresses for us not to let our writing make us, but to let us make the writing; that's how I took it. She speaks on how we change daily and I agree with this statement. With each day we learn something new, our take on life changes, our perceptions morph and twist into new meanings with each day.

After reading the passage in full, I thought of my own journal. I read back on past events and even dusted off one of my old journals from middle school and read a few entries. I chuckled as I thought about Goldberg's passage, in realization that she was right! A lot of things that I use to complain about and a lot of past pains that I felt to be SUCH a big deal, looking back on it now at an older age, were not.


Our perception changes daily. Let's continue to be freed by writing, but let's not get so wrapped up in our written words that we can not change our spoken word when it needs to be...