Who Wrote This?

Last night was our last meeting of this term of Women Writing for a Change.  Here is what I wrote for our "read a round."  It is my attempt to try to express the question that is always under my writing.

Who wrote this?

I sat down  to write with half an outline,  and a vague plan in my mind

Letting my fingers move quickly all over the keyboard

Writing fast, getting it down

Then the slowdown, the pauses

some erasing and rewording

Moving  sentences around

Looking  up synonyms

Sitting  in silence for a long  while

Chasing quotations and favorite authors

Listening for the rhythm of this piece

Re reading  and rearranging a few lines

Substituting this word for that

                Then the break from it all

                 Playing  spider solitaire

                 Doing laundry

                 Getting  more coffee

I Came back and deleted a sentence and then put it back again

Added a new idea and an illustration

Read everything one more time

Finally Clicked the X in the corner and went away.

I open it today and read it again and wonder

Who wrote this?    Where did these ideas come from?   

                               These  images?

                              These particular words strung together?

I take all these words and speak them out loud

Finding more power in them than I knew

An insight I had not even seen

And when I tell one story I find myself almost in tears

Who wrote this?

People  sit in silence

Watching me,  listening, sometimes nodding, occasionally sleeping, responding

To these words of mine

Afterwards, they give me  their words

          Thank you pastor, You spoke to me today,

           And sometimes I know that is true

So, I wonder again – Who wrote this?

I was the one who spent time with a pen in hand or typing on a computer keyboard

I was the one who deleted sentences, substituted words, cut and pasted whole passages

I was the one who strained  in the evening with self doubt and was  surprised in the morning with new insights

And yet when it is finished and printed or published or spoken

There is a deep awareness that there is more here than my limited efforts

I savor the  mystery and wonder and awe of creativity and

celebrate  the gift and the art and the struggle of writing