I just took a long walk on the beach. I spent most of that time thinking about how to describe that walk. Which, I realized, is how I spend much of my life–instead of experiencing it, I write about. Or, at least, I think about how I would write about it. Luckily for my readers, most of what I write in my head never makes it out my fingertips.
My 11-year-old daughter has the same habit. She carries around a journal that she writes in obsessively. At the same time, she complains that she has nothing to write about. She came home from the school the other day excited about a pending field trip, because, she said, “It’ll give me something to write about.”
Did I train her to think this way or was she born this way? What do y’all think?
But back to my walk. I saw deer tracks on the beach. Unless they were satyr tracks. But I think goat hooves are smaller than deer hooves, although a satyr’s hooves would have to be large enough to support the upper half of a man. So they could’ve been satyr tracks. I’ve always wanted to meet a satyr. The tracks were at least four inches long, which according to a chart on HuntingNet.com, means they could be the tracks of a yearling doe. Or a large satyr.
(By the way, if you Google “goat tracks,” you get a magazine called “Goat Tracks: Journal of the Working Goat.” Which may be the best magazine title ever.)
I think you really do experience the walk, even though you are writing about it in your head. Otherwise you would not have been able to describe it. In a way, I think the writing forces you to experience things on a deeper level. As for your daughter, probably a combination of genes (from you) and nurture (from you).
Huh. A female wanting to meet a satyr. Hmmm.