Much like how Samuel Hamilton can read Cathy Trask’s true persona, a reader can see into the characters of East of Eden without knowing the exact make-up of their faces. Of course, there are, like in any good book, at least basic descriptions that give us a platform on which to build our own image of each character in our heads. I know that Samuel Hamilton has a beard. His face is creased with laugh lines. He is short and graying and has a weathered countenance. But these traits could describe a number of people who, when you get right down to it, still look very different from one other. My mind has to supply the physical details of Sam’s face to make him utterly unique. But what strikes me is how much it doesn’t really matter; the physical image, which is always shifting and being rearranged in my imagination, is secondary to the man’s character, which remains, throughout the book, rock solid. What I remember most about Mr. Hamilton is his character, the goodness of his person, his persevering spirit, his compassion for others, his unassuming confidence and wisdom.

Steinbeck causes me to know the man without seeing him with my eyes, to feel affection for he whom I’ve never met. This marks a great writer, the ability to make a fictional man come to life. And physical descriptions just don’t do the job. Some writers tell me everything about a character’s exterior looks, even their facial expression while they’re talking. But this is all they do, and I come to realize that even if I know a man’s eye color, hairstyle, clothing, or that a muscle jerks in his jaw every time he’s anxious, it doesn’t make me care. The character’s image flares up in my mind but disappears just as quickly. But if a man’s spirit, his essence, is described and his appearance and/or actions serve only to bring that out, then the sense of the person rather than the image is what stays with me long after I close the book.

For a man who’s been consumed with physical appearances his whole life (the product of a self-hatred that’s taken the love of God to overcome), this realization is significant. Who am I becoming: a man of character, whose spirit stays with others long after I’ve left them, or a man of external appearance, whose image dissipates as soon as he does? If it’s true that God is the author of our lives, then I know what He wants from me: a good, well-developed character. All the external trappings about me find their significance only in as much as they help me become the man I was meant to be.

It’s funny. I’ve thought about all this not at church but from reading Steinbeck, from fiction – modern day parables that give us windows facing inward.

I’ve realized the emotions that rear up while I’m traveling, reading, or writing are one and the same: an overwhelming sense of passing time and the details slipping through my mind’s fingers. It’s sad, really. All good places visited, whether fictional or real, must sink below the surface of time and disappear.

Take my visit to The Breakers. As soon as I turned my back upon the Breakers it was gone, leaving behind only an overarching melancholy, a sensation built upon a foundation of exquisite detail, each one with its own accompanying emotion, usually awe. But eventually each detail disappears within the magnitude of the whole. I wish I could have stayed in each room and basked in the glow of every detail, but that would have proved impossible, of course. I needed to see the whole mansion. And now, it’s as if I never even went. The memory’s already faded, like a dream. I wasn’t really there, because I’m here, at present, and the present is so much more real than the past.

Yet if I hadn’t gone, I would have lacked something. I would have lacked a certain spirit, the changes to my heart that occurred while I was at the Breakers, and this is more important than the retention of physical memory. The house, metaphorically speaking, stayed with me. It added to my imagination and sense of wonder, to my dreams and my sense of who I am in a world where such a house can exist. It made me contemplate and yearn for beauty and peace and escape from toil. All this I gained at the expense of all the little details.

So it is with books. It came to me as I read The Reader by Berhard Schmidt, a quick but powerful read that can be completed in a day if need be. Books like this give me a feeling of loss, because I want to dwell on each page, indulge in every expertly chosen word, beautifully written phrase, and meticulously arranged sentence. This so I can better understand the author’s intent and learn from him or her how best to turn a phrase. I feel guilty at times, turning a page too soon, having to rush through it for the sake of time. And inevitably, all too quickly, I reach the novel’s end and wonder if I missed something in my haste, forgetting the words and scenes even as they disappear beneath the next page. But despite the evanescence of words, despite the loss of its details, a good book stays with me. And one which haunts me does so by its ephemeral spirit, that amorphous sense of what it was trying to “say” about life, that comes from beyond the words used to create it. Behind the author’s individual words is the author’s spirit.

I write my own poems and novels seeking to invoke a spirit, whether it be God’s or my own or the spirit of authors gone by. I am always a bit saddened to think that the details, into which I’ve put so much effort and thought, will be lost in the end. They will sacrifice themselves, these words and phrases, for the greater good and, having done their part to cut to a reader’s heart and effect change, they expire. Until, that is, the book is picked up a second time, if it should be so lucky. Sometimes, for the greater good, sacrifices must be made. In The Breakers, I had to leave each room to see the mansion as a whole and experience its grandeur. I have to turn the pages of a book to experience the whole story and not be held back by the beauty of its words. I mustn’t let the words step beyond the role for which they were made and usurp the novel’s spirit and sweeping plot line. And I must write the book, no matter how good a scene or word-choice made. I can’t linger where I’m secure in the genius of a word. I must finish, knowing that the details over which I’ve labored will fade in the end but will leave in their wake that sense of accomplishment, the satisfaction of having finished.

I’ve returned from The Breakers, a mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, where I felt like royalty. Each room left me breathless, and my soul rose to the painted ceilings sweeping overhead. The opulence rivaled the palaces of Europe. I was transported, once again, to the 19th century, wishing I was there among the guests who had reveled in each room, unrestrained by ropes and guards. I wanted to soak in, through all my senses, the art that is its architecture, but it would take months to do such justice to every room. Christmas trees lit the halls, and I imagined how the holidays must have been with the Vanderbilts, how joyous the parties, how gilded. I could have been a guest, rather than a shadow cast upon the walls of their revelry.

One forgets, in the melancholic throes of imagination, the hardships that existed during those times, the evil that was the system of high-born/low-born, determining the fates of individuals from the womb. Momentarily a privileged guest, I forget that in the upper rooms were servants struggling to survive yet were unseen and forgotten. What was it like to live your whole life looking on as the world as it should have been passed you by in a waltz, its satin dresses leaving you in the breeze of their wakes? How difficult to turn from the gaiety of music and laughter back to the cramped darkness of the servants’ quarters.

The truth is that the gilded age of America was just that: gilded. Decaying wood preserved only by the thinnest layer of gold-leaf. The whole term for the age was derogatory, mocking the excessive use of wealth for nothing more than show, ignoring the social problems of the day. Their wealth didn’t undo the inner hurts, the insecurities, the sin common to us all. They appeared different, more complete, having arrived at some elusive Eden regained, where the only work was play. But they were not different. The servant, peering out from the shadows, longing to attend a dance even for one night, shared the same heart as those who glided across the ball room floors. Those Christmas feasts must not have been so joyful after all.

I realized I feel just like a servant in that house. I feel this almost all the time, as if I’m looking out from some hidden door to the ball taking place upon the grand floor, overshadowed and uninvited by the guests who have everything and seem to have arrived. Whatever world it is, whatever world I want to be a part of, I can never get in; I only look on as it passes me by. The worlds of writers, family, youth, virility, wealth, all seem unattainable, just outside of reach, whether or not it’s true. This is why I’m so easily drawn into the opulent worlds of the past: the Newport mansions, the castles, the ancient churches. They reflect a romanticized vision of somewhere I want to be, anywhere other than here. Maybe in those worlds I’d be significant. Of course, that’s close to madness. At the end of the day, I must go back to my studio apartment, my humble automobile, my dead-end job, my struggle with sin, my battle to become a writer. I must go back, still a servant.

But I must also remember, now more than ever, that whatever world I long to be in is gilded, and more so even than the buildings I admire now with awe. Every world, every country, every age has its evils that cannot be ignored, that will always demand justice. And they will demand action, which means suffering, which means we must resign ourselves, if we mean to live nobly, to forsaking those gilded worlds for the life of a servant, to come and work and rectify whatever evil is in our power to rectify.

Therein lies my faith, the faith that gives enough meaning to me and to the world, so that a promise remains of justice served and evils remedied in my own life and the world to come. One day there will be a golden age–golden, not gilded: gold through and through, with all that makes it imperishable: its feasts and dances and all the singing that will take place and be truly joyful, on the outside and in. There is my mansion, promised to those who trust in creation’s king, and who, in that promise, remove their hopes from earthly things and place them in the one man who deserved a mansion more than anyone on earth, and yet received a cross.

Those heaven-high rooms in The Breakers should have been painted just for Him. The murals should have been painted just for Him, the tapestries sown and hung to His liking, the lawns expansive as the sea, filled with billowing gardens and marble fountains, existing for no one else, for there has never been a man as deserving, as humble, as golden through and through as He. But the true master of the house gave it up, didn’t He? that world He longed for, and chose to face life as a servant. Then they crucified the master, and the world went on with its dancing.

But when that lord returns, having doffed his servant’s garb, come to finally build a world of gold worthy of Him, where will I be? Will I still be looking at the gilded world, longing to get in, to rise up and touch the heights of its society? Will I be one of them? Or will I be a servant like He was and content for now, patiently waiting for the master to return with the fulfillment of His promise, to raise me up to dwell in an indestructible manor built upon a new earth? For if I don’t believe, I’ll always be a romantic, adrift but never reaching shore, and I’ll have traded in a golden manor for a gilded one.

Men should give true and ultimate worship to the source of all that is good, the one who deserves the greatest response for benefits received: the Creator god. But there are lesser gods in our lives, objects and beings vying for our attention. Those who refuse to worship the true god still worship with an ardent devotion. It is in our nature to worship something. Every relationship, every purchase, every work of art can demand—through its perfection in the eye of the beholder—to be the sole object of praise. And every vow to love, every poem completed, every property attained without the recognition of the one who has given it is the construction of yet another idol, the ascension of another god.

Often when I write, I do not worship the Creator god. I worship art itself: the allure of a story, the unfolding narrative, the emotional drives, the breathtaking climax I see in my head. I feel it deserves to be told because it is that good, that beautiful, that intriguing. It is the idea of literature, the love of picking up this very pen, feeling it comfortable between my fingers, hearing its scratch against the pages of my journal. I am a writer. Writing itself is worthy to receive my time and my efforts. So I resurrect the muses.

But if—on those rare occasions—I sense the Spirit who is the great Artist, the most skilled teller of stories, the writer whose drama—unfolded throughout history—is unrivaled in all of literature, and I write to his glory, then I worship well. If I love a woman, and it is to his glory, I worship well. If I create a masterpiece of art for His sake, I worship well. If I give of myself to friends because I recognize the one who gave them, I worship well. If I erect a castle, live within marble walls, and thank Him who built it through me, I worship well.

Even in our churches we delegate a period of time to sing and call this singing worship while all the rest is treated like a task that must be done to make our Sundays complete. The schedule might go something like worship, announcements, teaching, and prayer. But if we see worship not as songs but as an emotional response, then even our tears of grief are received to God as worship—and so too all our other works in ministry if done from our heart. We may have our buildings for service. We may appoint leaders and—without testing their hearts—put them to work. We may organize and execute our plans. We may pray because it says to do so in the Bible. We may have everything we need except the Spirit who unifies everything under our one true purpose as the Church: to worship God through Christ and lead others to do the same. If we do this, we will worship well.

….

My greatest lesson learned: I have it in me to write a novel, and I’ve realized the immensity of that lesson. I’m an idealist by nature: head in the clouds, feet walking on water. Most artists are. They need that idealism to elevate them above their lives to see a “bigger picture” and bring it down into the mundane reality of their audiences. But if artists are to grow into their craft, they have to deal with the reality that not everyone will paint a great masterpiece their first go at a paintbrush or write that chart-topping song without years of discipline and drudgery. Not everyone is a J.K. Rowling. So I’ve grown in realism. My dreams of writing a great American novel (which I never intended Mariner’s Hollow to be, that classification being saved for a more experienced me sometime in the not-too-distant future) have bowed to the waking reality of hours of work with not too much guarantee. And it has never escaped me that the greatest writers in the English language have often waited year upon year before receiving their first publisher’s acceptance. Sometimes they fill their desks with manuscripts, dozens of which go unpublished before they receive their first book deal. That may be in store for me. While God, in His wisdom, could make me a Rowling, he might just make me a Poe or a Melville. So while Mariner’s Hollow might be relegated to the status of stepping stone, at least it’s there, at least I know I can take that step. I dreaded entering my forties still talking about writing that novel I’ve been planning my whole life.

….

The second lesson picked up during the book’s completion might not ring true for every author. My rather idiosyncratic nature—to which my friends can attest—makes it so for me. When you develop a character over the course of two years, it feels—at least superficially—a lot like having a child. I’d like to write more about that in a future entry, but for now, suffice it to say that it’s such an investment as to be psychologically staggering. The level at which I’ve cared for and nurtured my protagonist from his conception in a journal to his completion of the ninth grade is at once marvelous and a little creepy. What I want most is for him to do well and succeed at his purpose: to be loved, to entertain and, more importantly, to reflect the author’s mind and cause his audience to see life from a different—and, hopefully—enlightening perspective. So in that regard, at least, not too much different from a real person. Maybe I’m not so weird.

….

I’m certainly not prepared to change my name to his, but neither can I escape the connection I feel to what I’ve created. I don’t know what I’ll do if the book isn’t published and I have to relegate the manuscript to the trash bin or, at best, the bottom drawer of my desk. But it will be an experience much like grieving the loss of someone loved, and once I grieve, I’ll have to let him go to create again.

….

To visit Justice Worth’s online webspace, go to www.myspace.com/justiceworth

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To read the prologue to Mariner’s Hollow visit the Contents page of my website at www.fgcapitanio.com/id27.html.

Books have always been important to me. More engaging than television, I have devoured them more readily than I have the often disappointing shows or stagnant reruns that try to temp me during leisure time. From theological works to detective fiction, my taste in literature is eclectic and more unusual–I would venture to guess–than the average Joe’s.

Like any occupation, practice makes perfect, so one might think writing is the best way to practice at becoming a writer. I would beg to differ, however, and say that to become a better writer, one must not only write but read and read often. From the styles of varying authors, the emerging writer can pick and choose techniques that suit him or her best, developing a unique style by building on what has been accomplished beforehand. A writer can also learn what he or she does or doesn’t like about certain books and can use the “why” in those observations to better improve their own work. Most importantly, reading develops one’s “inner narrator”. A writer can learn how the narration of a good story should “sound” to their inner ear and look to do the same with his or her own story.

With all the events, surprises, meetings, and work that life throws at me now, these are the main reasons I still choose to read far beyond the days when reading lists were mandatory. It’s why I believe it’s as important as my one hour a day spent writing. The greatness of my dependence might border on the edge of plagiarism in some people’s minds, but the truth is, “there is nothing new under the sun” and writers build on the work of other writers. No man–and no author–is an island. My work isn’t solely my own but is founded on the work of countless other masters and muses who have influenced me and my creations and have helped me develop my own unique brand of literary art. As long as I recognize those those men and women who have persevered to express what was on their heart and succeeded in influencing at least one other human being to dream and dream big.

Now I’ve begun to read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, another literary master, though a good fifty years after James. Her writing is also superb, with an innovative style for its time, the plot being moved by the characters’ thoughts rather than actions.  I should like to write like this, cause my characters to come alive by placing the reader into their minds and not just their surroundings. Woolf recounted once that she had to think about how she thought in order to accurately portray the pattern of thinking displayed by any one of her characters. It is an extremely complex pattern, done flawlessly, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to match it.

Reading all of these great works is a double-edged sword, at once instructive and discouraging. It needs to be done, like the pounding of waves upon a boat’s bow: a necessary exercise; the more often done–and the higher the waves–the more sure I will be that the ship is sea worthy, that I can match by imitation and exceed by innovation those who have come before me, a daunting goal. But it is discouraging to read their words and think, It can never be done. The world will never see such words again.

This is not the kind of publicity I need: telling potential future readers of my books not to hold their breath for my work because I’ll never be a Wordsworth or a Dickens or a Woolf. I mean, in all honesty, can one really improve upon the statue of David or the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel? And if one could, why would one want to? There is no room in the world for two Davids, two Sistene Chapels, two Henry James’. Yet I can’t rid myself of the need to try and scale the wall, to develop and improve, step by inexorable step, on the climb which gives no guarantee that I will ever see the other side, but affords, at least, the possibility.

It is that possibility that keeps me climbing over the remains of our past novelist-philosophers, who have written not just to write but to put a dent in the collective consciousness of the world, and once at the top to add my own stones to the wall. If I don’t try, despite the astonishing height of my insistent mission, then I will surely never reach it. If I do, then there is still a chance.

A chance. What a small thing to expend such energy on; small yet powerful, like Tolkien’s ring, dragging me to an unspecified end.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t that hard on the muses, but the war between inspiration and discipline, the struggle to bring form to creative function has always been a sore point for me. Why? Because I’m as undisciplined as they come, and I know I need to bring it on: when I don’t feel like writing, then write and when I don’t feel like revising, then revise. I struggled so hard with not depending on esoteric revelations, that I often downplayed them and, like a stuffy scientific scholar to a mystic, looked down on them with contemptuous and dismissive eyes. If inspiration is the mother of creation, then discipline is creation’s hard-ass father beating it into submission and the model of a perfect son.

But as I was perusing my journal entries, written during a period of two weeks out to sea, I was reminded that in my soul I thrive on inspiring moments and they, dappled through months of monotony and the drudgery of life, remind me that there is something in my bones that longs for more, that believes there is more: a purpose behind the form of my every day existence.

So this post is an ode to Inspiration. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about the importance of discipline in the future and why we need more of it, but I hope I’ll also say more about the importance of the inspired.

While I was at sea I wrote quite a bit more than usual: mostly poems, but also the beginnings of a couple short stories. My completed works at the end of my journey were just a few paragraphs, but they were spewed out in fits of passion that, if sexualized, would have no doubt given those scenes an X rating. What prompted these orgiastic literary revelries? The absence, for 14 days, of cell phones, an email account, or any body in my life who demands anything from me. In short, two weeks of introspection and communion with the sea and sky.

I want to include an excerpt from a journal entry written about one such inspiring moment that ended up leading to a few poems. As I pondered what I had seen and drew on the elation I had felt, each thought and image played off of one another, creating more and more until, like the dolphins described below, my words became a testimony to something deeper, more meaningful, just below the surface of the page.

“There’s nothing quite like stepping out onto the bow and witnessing, in a state of awe, the limitless expanse of blue water stretching out around you, with the horizon and the equally blue sky its only boundaries. Even then they are not true boundaries at all, only the appearance thereof. The rhythmic push and pull of each swell on the boat, the breeze–refreshing and comforting as it caresses my face, the unequivocal view before us births in me a sense of freedom as I have never felt it. I can smell freedom here, in the salted cool, touched with the smell of brine. It’s in the potential of new underwater discoveries and unseen phenomena.

“Last night I saw freedom. I was gazing up at the stars while standing at the tip of the bow when I heard irregular splashes below me. Dolphins were careening through the sea, black and thick as licorice, underneath the bow as we were speeding north. They danced in and out among the waves produced by our propulsion forward, surfacing every few seconds and then descending with a splash, creating their own wake of bubbles which frothed on the water’s surface and beneath it. Within the tumult thousands of phosphorescent creatures whirled and tumbled like so many neon lights.

“I heard the dolphins squeaking. The high-pitched communication between them met my ears after traveling through the elements and the thick metal of the hull, surprising me with its clarity. What were they saying to one another? For a moment, I imagined they said something to me, attempting to cross that interspecial barrier set in place at Eden and leaving us gazing longingly at the animal world with an air of defeat and regret at our lost understanding.

“I couldn’t see the creatures clearly in the night. They were only shadows within the greater shadow of the sea. But their forms appeared through the froth cast up when their bodies broke the surface, and through it I could just make out their fickle outlines.

“It was the most awe-inspiring moment I’ve experienced thus far during my days on the Atlantic. If it had occured in the day, and I had seen their smiling faces, with all the mystery of darkness set aside, I don’t think I would have reveled in the experience as I did then. The night created for me a moment of numinous revelation, a truly magical inspiration.”

Their collective scent permeated the air, a conglomeration of cologne, aftershave, and the faint trace of sweat. Now painfully self conscious of my own smell, I wondered if it measured up to those around me and whether I could nonchalantly lower my face to check my underarm.

The guys who passed me (at least, those I noticed with a sense of hopeless admiration) were conspicuously handsome, athletic, and popular. Many of them held a host of admirers gravitating in orbit around their bodies. The girls were unattainably beautiful, laughing as if without a care in the world. They chit-chatted with their entourage as well, and smiled at neighboring football players. All demanded the attention of those around them, of the very environment in which they seemed to fit in so well.
As I witnessed the scene that had opened up before me, I couldn’t help but feel the claim of each new article of clothing, each frivolous conversation, each flirtatious glance. It seemed there was no one here I should not be. It took a grip upon my personality, and a chimerical image of who I was expected to become etched itself into my mind.

To realize that image meant forgoing much of who I had been, which didn’t seem like such a problem to me at the time. In my own mind, my childhood could best have been described as lonely. I was raised as an only child. My sister, congenial as she was, exceeded me by eight years, and so we had little in common. It didn’t help that I dreaded making friends and always felt more comfortable around adults, who seemed to appreciate my company more than my contemporaries. Now there are times, however, when I look back fondly at those relatively peaceful years, solitary as they sometimes seemed and when I hold a great appreciation for all I gained. Yet at that vulnerable age, I couldn’t escape the dissatisfaction that came from too easily relating to those outside one’s peer group. It made me feel old before my time, an outcast and a social oddity.

It’s not that as a child I never wanted to get out more and experience all that elementary and middle school had to offer, but the urge to break out of my box never went unchallenged by fear, which usually won out. I remember one summer evening when I climbed up a pine tree by the house I grew up in. The tree had often served as a refuge where I escaped to read. On that day, when I had clambered up its conveniently arranged branches to the top, I set down my backpack full of books on a neighboring branch and settled down expecting nothing more than the usual.

It was muggy out, though, and the air hung thick and close around my body, immersing me in humidity and sweat. I wiped my damp forehead and leaned back against the trunk to catch my breath. Eyes closed, my mind began to daydream and wander to one particular girl in school that I had gained a liking for, a girl too popular to approach, too aloof to be anything other than a daydream. Then I became aware of voices growing louder below. My eyes opened and looked down, past the branches, to where a group of neighborhood kids were congregating and were about to play a game of street hockey.

There was the answer to my problems, I thought ruefully. I didn’t know the boys by name, but I recognized their faces and knew they were somewhat popular. If I only had the guts to join them and learn to be friends with them, I would at least have a lot less trouble hanging out with that girl. My daydreaming about her and the opportunity spread out below was no coincidence.
The impulse to sprint down the tree and run out to them flooded by brain, causing my heart to beat fast with adrenaline and anxiety. It never reached my legs. Ten times I sensed it goading me to go down and ask to play during that game, and ten times I refused. It was crucial, I knew, to take those steps branch by branch into a new and happier existence, but the hockey sticks were collected up, the nets taken down, and I remained, blankly staring at the empty street and wishing they would have played a little longer. Surely then I would have gone down to join them, or so I told myself. Unread book in hand, I climbed down the tree and walked into my house, into another three years of the same old thing.

Books had been my door to other people, to larger possibilities outside of my existence. Story after story projected me into worlds I wished desperately to be a part of. The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the first stories I remember reading, captured me the most as a young boy. The four Pevensie children, swept up into Narnia through the wardrobe, were transported from a gray and stagnant England into an adventure revolutionizing the land claimed by the White Witch. In the end, they took their rightful places on their thrones. I was in my own stagnant England, searching for a Narnia to give me purpose, a journey where I could find my place among the kings and queens of the earth. During a family reunion at my grandfather’s house, when I was about nine years old, I crept into the attic where I found, to my astonishment, an old wardrobe. My heart raced as I neared it wishing with all my might, through bated breath, that there was a purpose to me finding it after just having read those books. I opened the doors and looked inside. There were no open roads to another world, no expanse of snow or gaping plains of another realm, only moth-ridden disenchantment. It typified what I felt every time I closed a book, the disappointing weight of realization. I was reminded once again that the hope of escape lay only in the pages that I turned. Outside those pages, I remained the same.

This presented an obvious problem at any quest for a healthy amount of social interaction, never mind grandiose popularity. My ability to conform to the social norms at school was broken, my discontent with this life gripping, and I couldn’t leave Narnia behind, or any other fantastic world long enough to make my way successfully up the social ladder until, that is, the life-altering walk through the doors of my high school. Not only did I experience new desires for all things cool, but I noticed too, the students who elbowed and ignored me, brushing past in utter disregard of my existence, themselves eagerly enlisted in the task of fitting in. I noticed, and above all, I cared. It was envy mixed with determination that filled my heart that day. I knew coming home to books would no longer be enough. I realized just how much I had missed, and I longed to reclaim it.

That afternoon after school, I stood in front of a mirror in my room and stared for ten minutes at the image I saw reflecting back. There was the boy I hated: chubby and frumpy in a gray sweatshirt and gray sweat pants. I grew angrier by the minute. I wanted to rip off each piece of clothing and burn it together with a past I felt was impossible to evade. At least I had jeans in my bureau, I thought, some semblance of normal attire. After putting them on, I marched downstairs to my sister and declared to her that I needed change. I didn’t fit in where I was going to school and altering how I dressed would help increase my confidence. My sister agreed.

She was a sure door into what was considered cool. She had friends and a real social life, in short, everything I wanted. And her age lent to more experience from which she might help me. She was eager to take me shopping and remove me from my sweatpants mentality. We went out that very night and bought a set of clothes so extensive I swore I could never get through it. But those clothes were, for me, a metaphorical wardrobe I had to get through, into into a world I had never known.

To this day it amazes me and saddens me to think how such a simple change in exterior changes people’s perception and treatment of anyone. Fitting in, starting from the outside, drastically changed my life. I never became one of the more popular students in my school, but I became one of the most social, never being exclusive to any one group and able to talk and relate to the nerds, the jocks, and everyone in between. I had broken out of a shell. For all of this to happen without a hitch, I believed leaving behind my books was not only the way to achieve it but the way to maintain it as well, and I never wanted to be reminded of those lonelier days.

At first I was much happier. The new social butterfly felt like he was living up to exactly who he was meant to be. He was wrong. It was true that I had found a way to gain acceptance, but it had cost me my soul, for lack of a less dramatic way of putting it. I had stopped reading. I refused to converse about literature or science, topics I really wanted to discuss but knew would win me the branding of “nerd”, and I completely avoided indulging my imagination. But I soon began noticing this new world I had discovered had problems of its own, heartaches that came from opening up one’s heart to relationships. It began to rob me of the joy and peace I felt even while alone and hidden within the pages of a book. I had escaped from solitude through Story into worlds I felt a part of, but now that I was not alone, I came across an emptiness I did not expect. There was no longer any magic for me, no mystery or sense of identity. Like a chameleon, I could change my colors to suit my environment and win friends, only to forget the color with which I was created. Through my new found social life, the stories of so many others, crowding in around me and clamoring for my attention, robbed me of my own. There was no middle ground. I was either captivated by creativity yet painfully aware I was alone, or I was surrounded by people yet stifled by the mundane.

It was then that my mother gave me a journal. I was appreciative but unconvinced that it would amount to anything of significance. I had written for school assignments before and had always enjoyed making up stories and writing them down, but a love for the art never struck me. Writing was always superseded by reading, and I most certainly never attempted it on a daily basis. How incorrect I was.

My journal became a window into a past which I had come to forget. It was an exercise in thought and imagination, exercise badly needed, and all the emotions I had when reading those books illumined me again as I used my pen to create my own stories, compose my first poetry, and deal with my struggles and insecurities. I dealt with my new disillusionments as I was sucked up and lost in the amalgam of personality and appearance that was my high school. One day my journal was an artist’s canvas begging me to compose. Another day it was a paper replacement for a psychiatrist’s couch. But however I used it, the more I wrote, the more I was reminded of how much I loved literature, books, and art.

By this time I had already formed some key friendships so that the prospect of falling back into my old love of books and a new love of writing didn’t seem so frightening. Now that I had broken into the social scene and could hold my own, I felt the freedom and urgency to settle down and recollect my old passions, though now in a proper, more well-rounded context.

Since then I have read countless books. I have never again left them aside, nor have I ever stopped writing since I received that first journal, acting in my life as the third wardrobe into a new world previously unimagined and unexplored. In each realm of imagination, relationships, and self-expression, there is something beneficial to the soul to be gained. There need not be war among them, and I have discovered that one can have residency in all three without conflict. I don’t want to stop exploring them, and now that I’ve tasted what they have to offer, I certainly don’t think I have them all figured out. I seek to continually enter their wardrobes not only to be changed by them but to change them as much as possible and leave a trail of footprints in each so that others who may be lost in those mysterious worlds might find their way through.