In the article “Why I Write”, Joan Didion writes:
“The arrangement of the words matters, and the arrangement you want can be found in the picture in your mind. The picture dictates the arrangement. The picture dictates whether this will be a sentence with or without clauses, a sentence that ends hard or a dyingfall sentence, long or short, active or passive. The picture tells you how to arrange the words and the arrangement of the words tells you, or tells me, what's going on in the picture. “
My writing inspiration – and thoughts in general – come to me in pictures. But it wasn’t until last year that I learned this is not the experience for everyone else on the planet.
It started one day when my fiancée (now husband) and I had an argument. He was telling a story about his mom making Puerto Rican coffee. I had never heard of Puerto Rican coffee, so I asked if it was made the same way Cuban coffee is, or if it is more like American coffee. He insisted it was just Puerto Rican coffee, but I pressed on. As he told his story, a picture developed in my mind; a picture of his mother – who sadly passed nine years before we had ever met – whirling around a small kitchen with yellow cabinets. She was in a pastel yellow dress with a white apron but, without knowing a thing about Puerto Rican coffee, there was a huge black hole in my mental image that I couldn’t see around. Without an answer to this seemingly innocuous question, my brain refused to let me concentrate on any more of the story.
I was stuck trying to see the picture around this black hole in my mind’s eye.
My fiancée became understandably frustrated with me, wanting to continue his sentimental story without having to explain the fundamentals of making a good cup of Puerto Rican coffee.
It was our first argument.
When we reconciled a few minutes later, I tried to explain the picture in my head and the gaping black hole where the coffee should be. I asked him (as I often do), “Get what I mean?”
He didn’t. He doesn’t see pictures when he thinks about things. He doesn’t see pictures when people tell him stories. It was in that moment that I realized I was wired differently than other people; that I was unique.
This article was a revelation that, although I am different, I am not alone.
I am a just writer.
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