Losing the Art from My Words...

Somewhere in the undercurrents of your life the way you express yourself with words changes.

Their beauty and significance can lose their edge, and you can feel constrained by the formalities put upon you.

This is the story of my dance with words that has culminated with my joining HubPages to maybe begin at the beginning again, and explore the diversity within myself

When I was very young I shaped my letters carefully with sturdy tools;

I formed them carefully into simple words.

They were rounded, and filled my mouth as I spoke them aloud.

My words were art.

I crafted them. They came from within me; they were MY words.

I painted word pictures.

Pictures with texture and sensation, with warm breezes and golden sunshine.

Cool freshwater streams virtually wetted my bare ankles.

As I grew my words were required to develop specific behaviour.

They became structured and ordered and punctuated.

They became meaningful and praiseworthy, but only if they followed the rules.

Used well, they gained me house-points and book tokens.

Controlling my words made me feel special and good.

Later, others started to use words as tools to teach me.

I had to read them and remember them.

Copying other people's words was hard.

They seemed cold, they were not of me, they were an invasion of my creativity.

It was hard for me to focus on these forced words.

I tried not to look, but they moved my chair closer until the letters were so big they

overwhelmed me.

I was broken, and yet intrigued.

There was so much to be read, so much to absorb.

People had seen and done so much...had imagined so much...

Other worlds and view-points opened up,

Bringing images of hope and freedom and love.

I stepped into the world of poetry.

I pencilled avidly, in blue-lined notebooks with red lines dividing the margins.

Somehow, it filled a need inside of me to create something beautiful and whole,

And yet still not required to be provable or true.

Poetry conveyed a feeling but not always a meaning.

My teacher humoured me with kind smiles.

As I matured all forms of language and literature were taught to me and my peers.

Shakespeare's work I adored.

Speaking his words out loud conveyed such emotions: anger, fear, love, humour.

I dabbled on the stage trying out different personalities;

Not just speaking their words out loud,

But calibrating my whole body to resonate with my character's being;

Rolling domination and submission out from beneath my tongue.

Intrigued by science, I let it take all my power.

It broke my words down into equations and statements, and cold abstracted observations.

Feelings, they say, affect the judgement of the scientist and were therefore muted.

I was told that to know the workings of the world we must separate ourselves from it,

Observe the world from a distance, or take it apart piece by piece until it becomes ultimately

meaningless.

My flowery language was culled, and summarized, cropped and tabulated,

Until it became truth packaged in dry dullness.

In the laboratory I was free to see and feel, but it was almost in silence,

The awe was all extracted.

We were sworn to secrecy to protect us from those who would compete,

And the promise of success was twisted and bent, by those with the power to spin words.

We must please those who would bet their fortunes on futures that may never happen.

Administration has become my ball and chain.

Words at their most formal; confined to tiny boxes like my own right brain.

Sometimes without even the freedom to choose my own words,

I must now make my selection from lists and drop down menus.

Often the need for words is even eradicated by indifferent check boxes.

Work Instructions come via electronic communications, short and to the point;

Without common courtesies and definitely no time to discuss the weather,

Or the colours of the roses this year.

All art had been lost to me, part of me had withered...

I am now on the path to revealing it again...