content notice for this issue: anti-trans legislation, anti-abortion legislation, Black maternal mortality, unconsented intersex surgery
This week, my feminism professor began class by asking us to do some creative free-writing. The prompt: “when do you do your best writing?” Here’s some of what I wrote.
i do my best writing when
all the laundry is done
the dogs are fed
there's an eight hour time block
i'm first awake in the morning, still laying in bed, before any other thought has occurred to me
i'm in the shower, with no way to write down what i thought, so i immediately forget it, but it was the best writing of my life
the paper is due in 4 hours
i'm getting married in 2 hours
i can picture someone i love reading it
there's no deadline
i don't know what i want to say yet
i say my thoughts out loud before getting tangled in sentence structure
with my best friend across the table or next to me on the cough
it’s raining, loudly
it’s snowing, softly
i can mix references to fiction, nonfiction, poetry, news, and social media
there’s no grade
my wife’s downstairs, bustling around making dinner
anonymized in airports, surrounded in noisy coffee shops, quiet corners at busy conferences
I’m quoting friends’ work, even better if in the epigraph
I’m uplifting others’ passionate pleas for liberation alongside my own
my framing isn’t solely focused on recent loss of rights, or recent harms, or ongoing violence with no known resolution
my family’s safety isn’t constantly at stake
patients’ ability to self-define health isn’t pre-foreclosed upon
the words that I might be illegal to read in some places
the books I am quoting aren’t being banned
I do not worry that my words will risk my personal or professional future
I can imagine already achieving everything that has been taken away so I can envision what might be next
I can just… write.
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