Go to your favorite place and get comfortable.  Come join me as I dump my busy high school student stress onto a page. Join me as I dump the frazzled screeching voices pounding in my head onto a fresh and smooth page of my soft leather journal: new beginnings, hope, and freedom. Strong ambition, dreams, and doubt. Vivid images of that starburst sunrise from this morning or that thing you forgot to say, the bitter-sweet aftertaste of a hectic day swirling in circles around you like a tornado. Ring out your brain like a wet dishtowel as you’re rescued from the abyss of anxiety that resides in your brain and move your hand to keep up with your racing thoughts. With a piercing pen, write. Feel the weight of everything fall off your shoulders and onto a page. Let the ink run and slip as it pleases, down the page, onto the sides of your tired hands if it wants. Let’s take a deep breath and as we exhale let our hands fly and soar through an endless sky filled with freedom and endless possibility. Join me as I let my brain shatter and scatter, reveal pieces of itself that I didn’t realize were there, as I ruminate on the hurricane of a day.  

Although it usually emerges from spirals of anxious thoughts, writing doesn’t always need to be prompted by struggle and stress, but it can also come from a place of contentment, from a place of hope. As my world crumbles and shatters beneath my feet, writing is the one thing that keeps my feet on the ground, and it’s the one forever reliable piece of my world. Writing is an escape from the screeching tires in my brain and the pounding motors in my heart. It’s a sanctuary, an oasis only you and I know about. Writing is the cozy cushioned corner of the school library. It’s the creaky but reliable backyard hammock and my mother's warm arms as they squeeze me tight. Writing is strong coffee and strong ocean waves, even stronger thoughts. I can dive into a journal page or hop into a Word Document headfirst to be greeted by a miscellany of scattered pieces of myself. Once inside my secret magical world filled with tight hugs, crisp rain, and the lost but luminous moon, I find pure bliss. I transport myself into my own little nook of the universe. I dive into a sinkhole of the deepest, darkest parts of my brain. 

 
The first time I encountered this secret world of writing I was sitting at the end of the dinner-bound kitchen, my feet dangling off a little chair. Familiar 6 PM school night smells of garlic and broccoli swam into my nostrils each time I took a breath, and a cloud of humidity drifted from the stove to my side of the kitchen. Mommy was wearing her magenta and black sweater and smelled like a mix of the musty courtroom and sweet lavender soap when I hugged her. She stood, weight shifted onto her right leg, cooking and chopping with ease in the narrow kitchen. A light-yellow spiral notebook from my Kindergarten class stared me down from the small table in front of me. I carefully let my fingers run over the smooth but harsh spirals before I peeled the book open. As I naturally picked up a pen, there was something so innate about the feeling of the writing utensil in my bony hand; it was an extension of my fingers that simply belonged tucked between my thumb and pointer finger. When I closed my eyes, I saw oceans of stories and characters. I saw what I wanted to write. I asked Mommy how to spell each word that made the world in my brain into reality before I slowly and carefully etched out each messy and blocky letter. Before I knew it, I found myself in a sort of flow. Think. Ask. Write. Repeat. I did this countless times until it became a habit: sit at the small chair and write as Mommy made dinner each night. As I came back to this routine night after night, I began to find patterns and do more and more on my own.  

One night was different from the rest. Mommy was carefully slicing raw chicken tenders while balancing a phone between her shoulder and ear, nodding her head with a furrowed brow and seeming deep in conversation. So not to interrupt, I figured I’d try writing myself. With a deep breath and a determined scrunched-up freckled nose, I wrote. I wrote carefully as I had for the past weeks for a few minutes, but after starting my short and shallow story about horses and pigs and chickens, I felt a shift. I wanted more. I soared out of the snug kitchen and into a part of my brain in which I hadn’t been before. I uncertainly stumbled upon a massive stairwell and noticed it led to the very highest floor of my brain. Once I made my way to the top, I sauntered through narrow halls for what seemed like days. Then, it was as though I came across giant double doors: a great realization, an epiphany. I took a breath and entered this new part of my brain until endless creativity was unleashed, and I couldn’t get enough. My hand struggled to keep up with my soaring thoughts and ideas and I flew faster and faster until I ended up with a story about mirrors. This deep story turned into many, and the single yellow notebook later turned into two, and two became three, and so on and so forth until I found myself with piles of writing pieces and homemade magazines scattered throughout my pink bedroom. 

To this day writing allows me to go up into the musty attic of my brain through the aching or light steps of my thoughts. I take the familiar stairs up one step higher every time I pay a visit and saunter down the thousands of narrow and spiraling halls. Once I arrive at the large double doors, I’m greeted by a sun’s worth of light that makes me squint at first. I march down the insulated floors and find the familiar shelves of memories that I pull out like well-loved books. 
I now know the path to this portion of my brain as well as I know myself because after all, it is a piece of me. I burst through those double doors daily and leave a few minutes later feeling a million times lighter. I recommend that you find where these doors are in your brain, and I recommend opening them and leaving them open at least for a while. I urge you to try it, just once, even if it’s a single word. Because one word can turn into two and two into three and three into four, and suddenly you have a sentence. And once you have a sentence you can write one more word. Just one more. I recommend writing because it can be anything to anyone. It can be a world of something that emerges from nothing. If you take this recommendation to heart, writing will become your new favorite place.