Under the Sun

It’s hard to distinguish the ways in which my writing has been influenced by others. As they say, there’s nothing new under the sun. My writing is a patch of grass sitting under that sun, made up of grammar lectures, English teachers, mentors, friends, and a handful of spicy language I have acquired from who knows where. 

At some point I decided we need phrases like “let’s girl boss this shit” when mustering up the strength to grocery shop after a long day or getting yourself to swim early in the morning. And I have somehow acquired the phrases “babe” and “Queeeen!” even though when it was trendy to say them I cringed so hard at the sound of them. I'm pretty sure a youth leader or my high school swim team sparked the phrase "hydrate or diedrate" but it has morphed into my personality trait. "Hydrate or DIEDRATE BabYYYY!!!"

Some of this language came from middle school friends who rubbed off on me at a time when all I wanted to do was be cool like them. But the words have transformed themselves in my own little language, taking on new meaning and intonation. They became my own, but they started from other places.

It is not just my language that has been formed by others around me. 

I write forever long sentences because I have my Mama’s external processor genes. 

I had a mentor who journaled a lot. We bonded over a love of multi-colored pens for Sunday service note-taking and I desperately wanted to be like her when I grew up. 

I rarely reference science or sports in my writing (though if I did it would come from her)...but I think my love of analogies in writing and life came from conversations with Becky. 

My dad is an analytical thinker…and from him I get my desire to think critically (sometimes to a fault). We think deeply about politics and theology and worldviews. Our conversations stretch my mind and help me view the world a little differently. He points me to Jesus and encourages me to live steadfastly. This seeps into my writing because it seeps into my thinking. After all, what is writing if not thinking.

My mama helps me move from my heart and she places in me a deep seed of empathy.

She would sing me the book I’ll Love You for Always when I was growing up. She made me fall in love with stories. 

She sings silly songs and makes funny voices. She praises the King on High with her whole being and writes with an edited, concise, yet almost stream of consciousness voice (if one's stream of consciousness can be wonderfully articulate and witty). 

My mom has the first blog I ever read. “Lil-daisies” it was called. (Still is, I guess…I look back at it from time to time.) Lil daisies is what she called us–her four beautiful little daisies. 

She stopped writing her blog when I was approaching middle school. I have looked back at it for school projects to find specific old photos, and every time am enraptured by the witty, entertaining stories of her life as a mom to me and my crazy sisters. 

Now, as I am older, I see the blog through a slightly different lens. Woah…my mom was a twenty to thirty-something year old raising kids. She was a mom for the first time and making mistakes and learning new things. She was learning how to cook and dealing with an auto-immune disease. 

She was creating community in new places and connecting with church. 

She traveled and took us with her! ( I’ve technically been to Mexico! )

Delightful stories capturing moments in time, and the voice of my mom in the words. 

Looking back, this has deeply inspired my writing. 

I want to be like my mom. Not a carbon copy or anything, but she is a pretty wonderful human. 

She writes with clarity and passion. Above all, she tells stories and is utterly herself in her writing. 

I want to write like that too. 

And thus, you probably get a bit more chaos and imperfection in these blogs than you bargained for. 

But it's me. 

It's me and my mom and my English teachers and my middle school "friends" and all the other droplets of sun forming themselves into my pool of writing under the sun. Nothing entirely new but maybe a little bit different. 

Sincerely,

Sophi