酷我-北美枫

[ericcoliu]

Reading, Writing, and Life on the Page

Life Writing in English as a Migratory Process

Since my emigration to Canada five years ago, I have both wrestled and been despaired with learning English, and I eventually came to a conclusion two years ago: I, a non-English speaking person aged over forty, had no way of mastering two languages at the same time; therefore, I needed to break with my Chinese self and to re-build a new English self in order to achieve my goal -- becoming a writer.

Generally speaking, writing is hard; writing in a foreign language is harder than I ever thought it would be. It is always an ongoing struggle to bridge the gap between what I think, what I'm going to write, and what I'm able to write. Writing, sometimes, seems to me as displaced on the broken line between the promised and lost way of thinking. Worse, the awareness of and concern about my intended readers may distract me from expressing my own thoughts. Writing is, as it has always been, a toiling act of expressing myself.

During the past two years, I have done nothing important to achieve my goal except so-called “life writing,” which helps keep my mind calm and focused. One thing I've learned from the writing process in my adopted language is to focus my mind and fully experience the moment of being-in-the-process-of-some-kind; over time, writing becomes a kind of concentration meditation.

However, rendering the events of one’s life in a conscious manner cannot create literary works. Virginia Woolf did not reproduce her life in a written form as it was in Moments of Being, but as she remembered it. The life which one lives is limited, but the life as one remembers it is infinite, boundless, unlimited, because the recaptured moment is only a key to everything that has happened before it and after it. The day unravels what the night was woven. When we awake each morning, we hold in our hands, usually weakly and loosely, but a few fringes of the tapestry of lived life, as loomed for us by remembering.

Two years have passed in my short life, swiftly and silently. One big question left unanswered is: what have I actually created? All I do is take those little details of my life that are lacking and add a little of something else; I take event A that occurred during time B at place C to person D, or maybe myself, and rewrite it in time E at place F to person G, or possibly myself. Then I add a bit of H or remove a part of K -- did I forget I and J? Oh, I am saving them so that myself or the reader like you will have the space to exercise his/her imagination.

For me, life writing is like a migratory process of moving out, coming in, going back, moving on, and staying put over the spacio-tempo territory of my encounters with the inner self, significant others, and life events; these encounters might be relevant to me at the time of my writing and eventually could be nothing important in retrospect.

Nonetheless, life writing in English is the key to help chart my journey of immigration. After having practised English writing for two year, with no slightest doubt in my mind, I will continue my English writing; after all, it seems to be one of the possible ways, sometimes even the only way, to work through my inner turmoil caused by my displaced experiences, and to reach out to the bigger society around me. Maybe the end of my writing will arrive where I started, and I will know what life writing in English means to me for the first time. Now, for me,

To write is to grow the words inside your heart,
To reap the sentences matured by the muse of desire.
To write is to take your clothes off with words,
To expose yourself in the rhythm of the stanzas.
To write in English is to cross borders of the words,
To emigrate from the ideographic to the alphabetic.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Reading, Writing, and Life on the Page

Life Writing in English as a Migratory Process

Since my emigration to Canada five years ago, I have both wrestled and been despaired with learning English, and I eventually came to a conclusion two years ago: I, a non-English speaking person aged over forty, had no way of mastering two languages at the same time; therefore, I needed to break with my Chinese self and to re-build a new English self in order to achieve my goal -- becoming a writer.

Generally speaking, writing is hard; writing in a foreign language is harder than I ever thought it would be. It is always an ongoing struggle to bridge the gap between what I think, what I'm going to write, and what I'm able to write. Writing, sometimes, seems to me as displaced on the broken line between the promised and lost way of thinking. Worse, the awareness of and concern about my intended readers may distract me from expressing my own thoughts. Writing is, as it has always been, a toiling act of expressing myself.

During the past two years, I have done nothing important to achieve my goal except so-called “life writing,” which helps keep my mind calm and focused. One thing I've learned from the writing process in my adopted language is to focus my mind and fully experience the moment of being-in-the-process-of-some-kind; over time, writing becomes a kind of concentration meditation.

However, rendering the events of one’s life in a conscious manner cannot create literary works. Virginia Woolf did not reproduce her life in a written form as it was in Moments of Being, but as she remembered it. The life which one lives is limited, but the life as one remembers it is infinite, boundless, unlimited, because the recaptured moment is only a key to everything that has happened before it and after it. The day unravels what the night was woven. When we awake each morning, we hold in our hands, usually weakly and loosely, but a few fringes of the tapestry of lived life, as loomed for us by remembering.

Two years have passed in my short life, swiftly and silently. One big question left unanswered is: what have I actually created? All I do is take those little details of my life that are lacking and add a little of something else; I take event A that occurred during time B at place C to person D, or maybe myself, and rewrite it in time E at place F to person G, or possibly myself. Then I add a bit of H or remove a part of K -- did I forget I and J? Oh, I am saving them so that myself or the reader like you will have the space to exercise his/her imagination.

For me, life writing is like a migratory process of moving out, coming in, going back, moving on, and staying put over the spacio-tempo territory of my encounters with the inner self, significant others, and life events; these encounters might be relevant to me at the time of my writing and eventually could be nothing important in retrospect.

Nonetheless, life writing in English is the key to help chart my journey of immigration. After having practised English writing for two year, with no slightest doubt in my mind, I will continue my English writing; after all, it seems to be one of the possible ways, sometimes even the only way, to work through my inner turmoil caused by my displaced experiences, and to reach out to the bigger society around me. Maybe the end of my writing will arrive where I started, and I will know what life writing in English means to me for the first time. Now, for me,

To write is to grow the words inside your heart,
To reap the sentences matured by the muse of desire.
To write is to take your clothes off with words,
To expose yourself in the rhythm of the stanzas.
To write in English is to cross borders of the words,
To emigrate from the ideographic to the alphabetic.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[星子]

However, rendering the events of one’s life in a conscious manner cannot create literary works.

Agree. Literary is deep from the soul and the heart. It arouses as plearsure of writing. It summons the passion.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

However, rendering the events of one’s life in a conscious manner cannot create literary works.

Agree. Literary is deep from the soul and the heart. It arouses as plearsure of writing. It summons the passion.
_________________

[星子]

The life which one lives is limited, but the life as one remembers it is infinite, boundless, unlimited, because the recaptured moment is only a key to everything that has happened before it and after it.

I prefer to reading short sentence. Some long and complex lines distract me.

Two years have passed in my short life, quietly and yet reluctantly.

(I guess if you give the number here for your short life, more impact)

I am reading "Some Instructions on writing and life" by Anne Lamott. I like it. You may take a look.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

The life which one lives is limited, but the life as one remembers it is infinite, boundless, unlimited, because the recaptured moment is only a key to everything that has happened before it and after it.

I prefer to reading short sentence. Some long and complex lines distract me.

Two years have passed in my short life, quietly and yet reluctantly.

(I guess if you give the number here for your short life, more impact)

I am reading "Some Instructions on writing and life" by Anne Lamott. I like it. You may take a look.
_________________

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[fanfan]

[[FAFAFA]]

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[maybe]

good.
should have more people like you, embark on such journey,
i presume you are a writer, wish to read your works in the future.
_________________
could be

[[maybe]]

good.
should have more people like you, embark on such journey,
i presume you are a writer, wish to read your works in the future.
_________________
could be

[ericcoliu]

Thanks for reading my piece.

To write in this language is to be alone,
to live on the margin where
loneliness ripens into solitude.

-- Ha Jin, A Free Life
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Thanks for reading my piece.

To write in this language is to be alone,
to live on the margin where
loneliness ripens into solitude.

-- Ha Jin, A Free Life
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[ericcoliu]

Dare to Write *

"Trust the writing,” you said
"Trust the writing? But, how?" I thought
"Trust the writing itself," you emphasized
As if 'itself' clarified the matter
I trusted you
And started to write
In the middle of a life in transition
At the margin of a racialized identity
In between two linguistic realities
"Trust the writing,” I confirmed


Note:

This poem is dedicated to my friend, Mary, who has persistently challenged and encouraged me to writing in English for the past two years.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Dare to Write *

"Trust the writing,” you said
"Trust the writing? But, how?" I thought
"Trust the writing itself," you emphasized
As if 'itself' clarified the matter
I trusted you
And started to write
In the middle of a life in transition
At the margin of a racialized identity
In between two linguistic realities
"Trust the writing,” I confirmed


Note:

This poem is dedicated to my friend, Mary, who has persistently challenged and encouraged me to writing in English for the past two years.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul