Ellen Corry

I think my “work”, the little bit there is, revolves around my belief that there is not a right and wrong. We are all just attempting to figure everything out and we never really do. But, we can write and create to mitigate the overwhelming truth of that. My writing is selfish–attempting to solve problems for myself and hoping that it makes others feel a bit less lonely. My reader and I are friends sitting on a porch drinking coffee and watching the sunset, or two teenagers in a parking lot picking apart their questions about the world, or childhood. The tangibility of writing allows me to be embarrassingly vulnerable with my ooey-gooey love of our world, my fear of everything from Everest to ordering lunch, and my internal dialogue that often presents a fight of who I was versus who I am becoming. But overall, my work is just asking questions. 

I have never been sure of any thought I have ever had or any words that have come out of my mouth. A flaw inherited from my dad, I question the roots of everything and never position myself as the authority in issues of life. In the much more eloquent words of August Wilson, I come at the world from “the ground on which I stand.” A highly confused ground full of insecurity and self doubt and a longing to be enveloped by the people I love at all times. My aim is to mirror the dialectic of humor and awfulness that make up our everyday lives in pieces that make us feel more at home in our own minds. I say “our” because, again, my writing is selfish. Anything of mine that has been published or read by another person started from a place of personal anger, frustration, sadness, incompleteness, or longing. Or some positive emotion I cannot recollect at this time, but I’m sure made me feel so grateful that I needed to jot it down. 

I feel, like many others, that I am balancing multiple different lives that ping around in my brain like pinball. I am a daughter, sister, friend, crush, lover, peer, student, roommate, companion, mentee, escape artist, clown, someone to look up to, someone to look down on, an utter mess, someone who has my shit together, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal (those last couple were just the final monologue from The Breakfast Club, but you get the gist). In attempting to balance those roles, I get a little confused in honoring them with the reverence they deserve. The skills those roles ask of me go to war with each other and my writing serves to pick the characteristics I like of each to make the girl I feel comfortable sitting with on the porch in a cabin in the woods at the end of my life. A bit dramatic, but I guess I mean that writing helps me navigate what I believe, who I want to be, and how those roles serve in making us who we are. And, even then, I don’t know if that is all true. My “work” is just thinking. Asking questions of myself and forcing myself to see all the possible answers because I never grew out of the kid building a sandcastle and destroying it just to rebuild a new one. 

I do not need to point out things to hate or things that others are wrong about or redactions that should have been ordered. Those have become foundations that we need to build upon. Acknowledging that they exist, but traversing forward with humility is all that is left. Or something like that. I’m just growing up. Just like everyone else. Let’s be confused and hopeful together. We won’t figure it out, but let’s spend our lives asking questions and trying. We can sit on porches and trade books and memes and recipes and talk about it. I’ll write you letters and you can get back to me in your own time. 

I used to cringe at the description of “artist” for myself. In all honesty, it still feels a bit ill-fitting to me. But, I will claim it if it feels necessary. I create shit because I have to. Not because I think I am saving anyone, but because I am so confused as to why I think the way I think. So creating is the only process that has been offered to me thus far that gives me further understanding of my relationship to the world. I am addicted to asking my friends big questions and listening to smart people answer them in their own way. 

Most of that rambling is true. But, really I keep writing because it makes my Mom and Dad and brother proud. When they read what I write, they cry. And my brother never cries. It reinstills their belief in me. I don’t know why. However, their belief in me is enough to keep me going forever. So, really, that’s what my work is. Just trying to make them proud and honoring all the work they put to get me where I am.