By: Sarah K. 7A CW
Typical "All About Me" essays start something like this: "My name is Sarah K.. I am twelve years old. I have a sister named Mia.” But this—this isn't a typical "All About Me" essay. In fact, this isn't an “All About Me” essay at all. This isn't one of those cliché compositions that always seem to end with the words, “I am proud to be the person I am today.” This is an essay about who I am. I believe these two are very different. "All About Me" is describing yourself with meaningless statistics: your age, your siblings, your pets. "Who Am I" essays, on the other hand, dare you to journey deep into your own soul and dig through all your cobweb-cloaked, mental attic-bound qualities to find your purpose, to find the roots of your existence. This, dear reader, isn't an "All About Me" essay. This is a "Who Am I" essay.
My readers say I am a writer, but I don't write. I think. I think in the language of the pen, in the world of the paper. I think on white, in black ink (and sometimes in blue, or red, or pencil, or, occasionally, highlighter.) I entwine meaningless words and make a written harmony—for this is all that a poem, or a book, or one of Mark Twain’s or even Shakespeare’s works is: a meaningless collaboration of words, arranged into beautiful, complex harmony, so that they all complement each other. I can close my eyes and scribble my unimportant thoughts onto a beautiful, yet empty, landscape, and watch them take shape; watch them morph into something more than I had ever imagined. My scribbled thoughts turn into snow-tipped mountains, color-changing clouds, purple forests, floating cities.... For I do not write. I think.
My music teacher calls me a singer, but I do not sing. I spill. I spill my worries, my troubles, my joys, my sorrows, into beautiful, beautiful music. I spill my Whispers, my elusive Whispers that lurk in the back of my mind all day, and the Whispers choose to exit through my mouth. The result, everyone tells me, is amazing, but I don't know; I don't hear myself. I am deafened and blinded while I sing, while my voice flows from my mouth but passion flows from my every pore, from every last piece of my being. For I do not sing. I spill.
People say I am talented. They say that I am a singer and a writer; I say I am a thinker and a spiller. They nod and smile, pretending to understand. They think writing is just putting words onto paper. They think singing is just making pretty music with your voice. But they do not understand the feelings of an author, of a singer. To write and to sing is to create art. Black and white lines emerge from under the pencil, outlining the promise of a beautiful figure; music notes become delicate paintbrush strokes. I am a singer. I am a writer. I am a painter, though my canvasses are covered with crossing-outs and X-marks; I am a painter.
What do I say of myself, you ask? I say that I am an artist of the pen and the note, the song and the stanza. I am a conqueror of the monsters they call Writer's Block and Off-Key. I am a receiver of praise for something I did not do, for both my words and my songs emerge from my subconscious. Most people mistake me and it (it being my subconscious mind) for the same thing, however, and praise me; and they cannot understand, or do not wish to, that we are, in fact, not equal. And I am the writer of a meaningless collection of words that have punctuation in the right places
