Writer Meets Photographer
A Journalist’s Diary
Now I sit on a woody chair in a pretty nice atmosphere in the Courtyard of Pierson College. It’s late in the evening. The hot sunshine is over. It’s dark and much cooler as in the afternoon. I feel a little breeze around me. I see all these nice buildings and the wonderful tree on the lawn. I compare this with the campus of my university. No, I can’t compare it. My university is a place you enter, to have your classes and leave it after you have done. Yale is a place to study and live at the same time. Ah, what a nice evening! I enjoy this so much. A little smile comes up on my face.
Next to me talk two people about there classes today. At the next table there are some Spanish speaking people. I don’t understand what they talk about, but it’s very full of life, a quick conversation. The two people at my table talk about their homework — ”Oh, it’s too much! And what will tell me this word? I’m so confused…”
In the room next to this table sits a woman and plays the piano; the same I heard yesterday. The group of Spanish speaking people expands and talks louder and louder. One of the people next to me: ”I really want to cry…”. ”I better go to the library.”
But I don’t just only hear this two groups and the piano. It is amazing for me. Severell people walk around the courtyard, a wonderful evening in a wonderful area here at Pierson. I like this area. This is what I ever expected under being a student.
What you just read is a small fragment of an experience that changed me and my writing.
I arrived in New Haven, Connecticut, as an academic writer: analytical, factual, uninspiring. I left the holy halls of Yale University’s summer program obsessed with the English language and a big task: balancing my needs for academic writing with my newfound love for bone writing as I like to refer to the descriptive writing my summer studies exposed me to.
I explain that style and what it did to me below. That experience, however, dates back to 2007. Life happened. Things have changed. Visual desires have enriched my life.
My goal for today is to explore the writer identity by reliving moments from my Yale summer. To that end, I’ve gathered a few writing samples from that experience and share them here — unedited and with all the little errors intact — paired with thoughts on how my relationship with writing has changed.
And then I want to use those insights to align the writer with the photographer in me. The photographic roots surely deserve a similar treatment, but I save that exploration for another essay. A quick glance has to suffice because I never wrote about that before.
I go through the door of the Pierson Dining-Hall. The white walls are direct in my eye-sight. Photos of different classes or some important people interrupt the clean whiteness; like little colored spots. I see a lot of people.
I give my Yale-ID-Card to the friendly woman at the cash-box. ”Hi, how are you doing?” ”Fine, thanks and you?” ”Fine, thanks a lot.”
With the accompanying sound of hundred voices I enter the Dining-Hall. Dark, black chairs and wooden-brown tables are in the Hall. I see a classmate and go to his table. I pass the first table. A few people sit there. They eat, drink and talk to each other. I see a smile on the face of a man and hear his laugh. His arms go up in the air. The woman at the cash-box laughs very loud. A friendly and very happy sounding laugh.
I continue my way to my classmate. I pass the place with all the trays, knifes, forks and spoons; they glint in the shine of the lights. I have two tables left til I meet my classmate.
At the next table all seats are taken by Asian people; Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean, I guess. There dishes brim over with food and they eat fast. At the same time they have a loud conversation in Chinese or another Asian language.
I continue my way. The next table is not so crowded. Only a few people have a seat there. Two guys eat and don’t have a conversation. Four other guys eat and have a conversation in Spanish.
Then, I see my classmate. He has his tray with two dishes and a can of Coke on the table and eats. He looks up and a smile comes up on his face. ”Hi, how are you?” ”Hi, fine and you?” ”Fine, thanks.” I put my personal-stuff on the table and go back to the place with the trays, the knifes, forks and the spoons.
This second writing sample from my past brings me to the first book I read that summer, and the book I would recommend to any writer: Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down The Bones.”
Paired with the fascinating study experience, Goldberg’s advice added a new layer to my writing. Instead of being analytical, I learned to be descriptive. Instead of being factual, I adopted the art of observational writing. Instead of being uninspiring, I suddenly saw my writing spring to life.
I sit on a bank inside the New Haven Green. Two people are having a dispute. I can’t exactly understand what they are saying. Involved is a woman, black and a person of size. She’s sitting on the lawn. What I can understand is ”Go away!” and ”Shut up!”. One can hear it in a wide area of the park, really loud.
Her opponent is a man, black and a thin person. He is standing in front of her, listening to her and looking frightend. He’s listening to her high pitched voice and then he goes away. I can’t see him any longer. The woman is still sitting on the grass.
I hear the car noise around me, but more quiet than outside the park. Busses are standing around the street. It’s so peaceful quiet here inside the park. I can hear the birds and the sun is shining. A little breeze makes it comfortable. Families are walking through the park. They are talking to each other and playing games.
A flag of the United States flutters in the wind. It’s at a house on the other side of the street. Some people are crossing the street, although the traffic lights are showing red.
The woman which had the dispute with the man is now working on her stuff, some blankets and a back pack. It seems she hasn’t got a home. But I can’t identify this from my position.
A second book on the reading list that summer pushed me to explore my identity. So, after this third writing sample from my Yale summer, it’s time to talk about identity.
Amin Maalouf’s “In The Name Of Identity” explores the concept of identity in our globalized reality. Back in 2007, I focused on balancing what he terms horizontal and vertical heritages.
It would take too long to dive into this too deeply here. The bottom line is that our cultural and familial roots need to be aligned with the new experiences we make in life.
Originally, I experienced a double feeling, as I coined my longing for meeting new influences in the unknown of life while not abandoning my roots.
Today’s me adjusts that picture slightly. It is writing that bridges the introverted me with the adventurer me.
The world of writing encompasses literature as a whole. In that 2007 essay, I explored my fascination with the library experience as an environment that allows me to focus. I also detailed how books offered an escape from the real world.
I am a writer.
That’s the number one lesson that still stands from that summer. I’m in love with me being a writer — no matter the hardship it carries.
The following line from “Writing Down The Bones” makes me smile every time I rediscover it. It speaks to the writer aspect of my identity. On page 88 of my edition she writes that “if you want to get high, don’t drink whiskey; read Shakespeare, Tennyson, Keats, Neruda, Hopkins, Millay, Whitman.”
The years between Yale and today have shown me a different part of my identity — the visual storyteller. I’ll probably explore those influences and changes in a future entry into A Journalist’s Diary because I believe in the value this exercise in self-reflection carries for my future. And maybe there’s a soul or two out there that would enjoy that additional look at my why.
I’m impressed and confused. Where should I look at first? I don’t know… A little music group stands on the left side of the street. I hear the music. What a crazy sound; all these cars and busses, the uncountable conversations around me and then the music; so full of life. ”Only” percussions but it creats an atmosphere full of harmony. All these sounds merge together to an unit; that is the feeling of New York City.
So many different people around me. Some are real New Yorker. I can see it; they don’t look impressed; they only go to work or shopping. And so many tourists — as me — taking pictures over pictures; looking up und down, up and down, then left and right, right and left; searching for their sense of direction.
The above passage from a weekend trip to New York City in 2007 is one of those pieces of writing that I see differently today.
It shows the writer in me, of course. I described that day, that exact writing session, in which I recorded my observations of the Big Apple, as the aha moment. It’s the moment where bone writing and I clicked (the entire observation is longer, but I didn’t want to drag this out too much).
But all those years later, it shows me something that it didn’t originally reveal. I’ve made several visual influences since 2007. The most notable is my time pursuing a journalism masters at Quinnipiac University — just a short drive up the road from the campus that transformed me in 2007. Now, I leave that passage with a deep desire to express myself visually.
There’s so much imagery I see, imagery that I wish I had recorded in pictures not words.
The writer will remain forever. When I eventually write about how and why the photographer in my emerged, I’ll naturally explore the hits that the writer took in the process.
Quinnipiac plays a role here. Over the years, my writing gained. I’m shocked at how bad parts of my Yale writing are (and I’m still happy to share it here). The learning continued. I’m a much better writer now. And years from now, I’ll hopefully look back at today’s writing with similar feelings.
But I also lost the ease of writing. The more I distanced myself from the 2007 writer, the less I enjoyed the process because it became harder and harder. Today, I’m more aware of my writing, what goes into writing, and find it harder to let go of the perfectionist in me. I think more (that’s not a bad thing, by the way).
Besides gaining a deep desire to express myself visually, I gained writing quality. But my writing approach lost its effortlessness and often the joy writing used to bring me.
I remember a Quinnipiac classmate once saying he loves having written but not the act of writing. I can sympathize with that assessment. That’s what I’ll definitely pick up on when I’m ready to write about Quinnipiac and the shift from writing to visual.
Daring a quick glance into the future, however, I can already tell you that spending time with my old writing has started the process of bringing that joy back. The goal going forward is to attempt to merge past and present.
My identity includes the writer and the photographer. In the latter role, I never lost the joy in my approach. And I hope I’ll never do, no matter how much it changes as I continue the search for better and better pictures.
Both the photographer and the old writer persona can help me making writing feel better again.
That process takes time. This blog is part of it because it allows me to be playful as a writer. At the same time, it allows me to soak up the value enshrined in my old writing.
I have more work to do, but the process of using my past to inform the present me has begun. That’s a gift from the 2007 writer me that I only rediscovered because I wrote about my experiences back then.
So much for this first look at my old self and what it tells me for the present. Later This week, I’ll continue A Journalist’s Diary with a companion post to the next Fun With Cameras (also coming this weekend) that dives into the fascinating world of photo editing and the importance of metadata. No, it’s not as boring as it sounds, I promise.
