thoughts from the well...
milking this whole hate-comment thing & some thoughts on writing recently!
The comment that compelled me to write from the perspective of the bottom of a well this Thursday evening:
…
Hello, up there!
I'd like to start this tale from the bottom of a well. Let me set the scene.
Imagine with me: the well is made of stone, the floor gritty and damp. I hate sitting in mild dampness, so I’m complaining a lot already.
The air is stale — a musty, earthy, smell. There’s a faint scent of pee, the kind of sour scent that’s lingered in the air for decades. I don’t want to think about the insects and creatures that have likely made homes in the cracked stone around me. I prefer to abide by the idea that if I can't see it, it's not there.
I’m alone down here. As much as I’d like to imagine my fellow disabled friends getting tossed down here to hang out with me — this feels like something I’ve got to do solo.
The space is tight, and I don't always do great in small spaces. My first move is to feel the walls around me — either with the arm “mother nature gave me” or with the robot hand that supposedly only men can build. I trace the grooves between the smooth stones, straining my neck to look up at the faraway circle of sky.
I have a lot of time to reflect down here — time to reflect without the exposure from above. Maybe this is a good thing — it actually feels pretty safe at the bottom of my well.
I know what you're thinking—Is she really going to maintain this well bit the entire time? You'll just have to wait and see. I'm having fun with this, and maybe it'll let me say things I’m currently hesitant to say. It's been a while since I’ve written, and if it takes an "In the old days, you’d be thrown down a well" comment to get me to pull out my laptop and start typing, then so be it.
My claim to fame (tabling the well-thing for a moment):
The first piece of writing I ever wrote that got attention was a story called "If You Give a Boy a Ball."
It was a short picture book I illustrated, inspired by my brother and the endless ball-related games he came up with to occupy his time. It was a complete spin-off of the children’s story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” I thought it was absolute genius.
Ms. R, my kindergarten teacher, submitted the story to a local competition, and it won some sort of award. One day, the author of the Mouse book came to our school and read my version aloud to the class.
It was a great moment: She praised it enthusiastically. The other kids in class looked at me with admiration and jealousy. The boy I had a crush on told me I needed to become a writer when I grew up.
I was sure this was one of the best days of my life.
At the ripe age of six, I understood immediately the all-too-seductive catnip of recognition. This primal verification: I am perceived, therefore I am.
In middle school, I spent an entire summer writing a short story about a girl riddled with shame and growing up in a dystopian world. She lived in a society where social status and success were determined by one’s bioluminescent glow, made possible by a genetic modification everyone underwent at birth.
The protagonist of my story was a 16-year-old girl who got into a terrible accident that altered her genes —leaving her with a dim, flickering glow (a physical disability?! Who would have thought!). This was a huge deal — something she had to hide at all costs. The story centered on her intense shame and insecurity, and her constant fear of being exposed and ostracized.
Clearly, there were plenty of plot holes, but this was a theme I was itching to express. I just wasn’t confident enough to write it about myself, especially not publicly.
I poured my entire summer into this story. It was terrible. After that, I stopped writing for a while.
Now, for the past few years, my writing has gone something like this:
I write some terrible, terrible stories, and a few okay ones. I journal a lot. My Notes app has a staggering list of essay ideas that grows almost daily. I write things that feel true at the time, only to look back later and realize I got it all wrong. I’m careful about offending people in my life — men, women, and especially the disabled communities.
Most of the time (public or not!), writing feels hard. It’s very infrequent when I feel like it flows and it’s good. Most of the time when I try to write, I am overwhelmingly bored. I pull up a doc and stare at the time on my phone. I try to quiet my mind. Often I am distracted by the voice of things that I’m convinced must be done at that exact moment —the appointment I must schedule now, the text I must respond to, the thing I must buy before I forget. That I should get up and stretch. That I should make more coffee or go back to sleep. That I should check that notification on my phone.
And then, just like that, on a Thanksgiving evening, I get the desperate urge to write a little entry from the POV of a well. And suddenly, writing is easy again; it’s endless. But up until this blog (and aside from my claim to fame in kindergarten), this writing has all been for myself.
That all-seductive catnip of recognition:
The most interesting part of writing publicly is the thrill of being seen. Writing that demands of readers: Encounter me, Witness me, Remember me. I often wonder if this desire comes from hiding myself for so long — like I need to throw up all these words on paper now that I’ve finally begun. Maybe that’s why I’ve noticed many of my disabled friends go to the extreme, becoming teachers of public speaking, doing stand-up, or getting into burlesque.
Knowing that you (whoever you are) are reading my words and forming an opinion about me or my writing is both exhilarating and sometimes debilitating.
The more I write here, the more conscious I am of how I write. The more I post, the more I worry about how my writing comes off.
But it’s also good for me.
Pressure often makes me do better —write better. When I can write well, it’s because I want to write well, sure! But it’s also because I want to be someone who writes well.
Is that bad to admit? Is it inevitable? Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Wanting to write a good piece, or wanting to be the person who wrote a good piece?
I’m not perfect down here (close to it… but as you pointed out, I only have one arm). I know I’ll write some bad stories, some okay ones, and miss the mark somtimes. But despite everything, I can sometimes clear a space for my writing voice. To hopefully tell you stories of truth, disability, sickness, love, adaptive communities, movement, chickens, and eggs, damp wells (hopefully, this is the last you hear from me on wells) — stories I am desperate to communicate, to entertain, to construct, to preserve.
After a long break, I’m reminded that I enjoy it—the incredible, often annoying, awful, tedious practice of it —and yes, also the element of being noticed when I share it. Finding the right words —finding the true words —and maybe enjoying the element of being seen down here.
gah gorgeous and funny and poignant as always 🥲🥲 keeep writing!!
Well-written well writings! 👌