For as long as I can remember, I have loved writing. It started out with writing songs in a little black notebook. At the time, I thought I was super! A little child prodigy writing out the lyrics to the next big thing. There was just one problem, well… there were a few – more like several. Okay I’ll admit it, the whole thing was a mess. I didn’t know how to read notes, much less write them. I wasn’t familiar with chords either. I liked to sing (but that doesn’t mean I was good) and I didn’t play an instrument. As if all that wasn’t enough, the lyrics I had written weren't that good either. Looking back at that time through the eyes of an adult, I would say the whole enterprise was doomed from the beginning. However, looking at it through the enthusiasm of a child, that was the beginning of a long-lasting love for writing.
The verses turned into journal entries as time progressed. What else was I going to write about? I was a child dreaming up grand adventures and quests. My brother and I would go off on epic expeditions through fields of tall grass with sharp blades that could cut like a surgeon’s knife. All the while, we had to move slowly and quietly, trying to stay undetected by enemy spies (aka my cousin). The field was really an empty plot of land past our backyard (the tall grass was real enough and the edges really sharp). But through my eyes (with a little imagination mixed in) abandoned houses and undeveloped land turned into countries with their own histories and legends. And so, my accounts of everyday life turned into stories of heroes, monsters, secret tunnels, and other worlds.
C.S. Lewis once said that, “No passion is self preservatory.” Having ideas and a desire to write was not enough. So, even though I was passionate about writing, the amount of writing I actually did did not match my enthusiasm. Writing is tedious work. What seems vivid in the mind often falls flat when the writer fails to grasp the words needed to convey the wonders in one’s own mind to another. I started a lot of stories but finished few. I went back to my daily journals but at times, even that felt tedious. When I was 10 years old, a few months before moving to the U.S., my parents enrolled me in a private school. I met two good friends who also loved stories. We would share our ideas with one another and once I had a story that was somewhat flushed out, I would sit on the school steps after class and tell my story to the younger girls. They were the first to call me, “Teacher Gabrie.”
My family’s visa was soon approved, and I was off to the States. Over the next few years, I went through the cycle of writing lyrics to songs with no music, journaling, and starting stories (completing only a few). I even tried my hand at children’s stories. I enjoyed those but only finished two. When I was 16 years old, my mother introduced me to Calvin Miller’s the Singer Trilogy. That’s when I fell in love with poetry. I had read poems before but not narrative poems like that in The Singer. The Singer is a poetic retelling of the life of Christ, referring to Jesus as the Singer and the gospel as the song. After reading The Singer, I wrote out a poem on the life of John the Baptist. Several months after graduating from high school, I moved to Northern California to attend an intensive four-month health and lifestyle training at Weimar Institute. During one of our group worship sessions, the devotional thought was about the life, ministry, and eventual death of John the Baptist. The Lesson was based on excerpts from the Gospel of Luke and Mark, as well as The Desire of Ages by Ellen G. White. I was taken aback by the descriptions of John’s life and ministry. The following day, I woke up early to do my personal devotions. I read through the chapters on the life of John the Baptist in the Gospels and in The Desire of Ages. I took out the poem I had written more than a year and a half before, rewrote it, and finally felt like it was complete.
About a week after I rewrote my poem, I saw flyers for an event called WeiMic. Students and faculty were invited to participate in an evening of song and poetry. I signed up and for the first time in my life, performed a poem I had written. After the event, people came up to me asking for a copy of my work. They expressed how touched they were by my poem. It felt amazing. It was one thing to write and another to have strangers appreciate your work and be moved by your words. It was at that event that I gained some confidence as a writer and the possibility of being an effective writer for God began to sink in.
I wish I could say that I honed my skill and started to write consistently. I wish I could say I completed a volume of poems and published my work. Unfortunately, I fell into old habits and succumbed to the lull and comfort of laziness. I went back to writing every once in a while, throwing poetry into the mix of writing songs, stories, and journal entries.
Laziness is a quality I hate. I dislike many things but hate very few and laziness is one of them. If you ask the people who know me, most will not attribute that characteristic to me. I am involved in a number of things and do well in most of them. However, those who know me closely know that I am a master of avoidance and procrastination. I have this thing called, “Productive Procrastination,” in which I do the things on my to do list that I like to do. At the end of the day, I still accomplished something. I put off the things I dislike and end up scrambling to complete it at the last possible moment. So, while my public image is intact, I know my private world is not as orderly as it appears. I am currently working on several projects and when my mom asked about my progress, I gave noncommittal answers. Thinking I made a clean getaway, I made ready to go to sleep. Her text to me in response was, “Don’t resort to laziness, procrastination, avoidance, and escapism. I love you very much, good night.” I didn’t respond because I hated those qualities and because she was right. My first reaction was, “Me?? No way.” But when I finally decided to be honest with myself, I knew she was spot on, every single word. She had seen through my veil of busyness and knew my real motivation.
For a very long time, I have wanted to start a blog. However, desire without action doesn’t amount to much. Going on study abroad would be the perfect time to start blogging. I would be in a new place with interesting topics. I wanted to document my journey to Japan, the challenges along the way, how I felt when I arrived, and the process of adjusting to life abroad. However, the week after my final exams last year, I left for Yellowstone. When I got back, I left for a 10-week summer program called Youth Rush. Upon my return, I left for New Jersey and New York then it was off to Japan. When I got to Tokyo, I was busy getting settled. When that was done, school was in full swing, then finals. And so, blogging was once again postponed.
Before coming to Japan, I received the Gilman Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. As part of the scholarship, I am required to do a community service project on my return. However, recipients can opt to volunteer for Reach the World while they’re abroad to satisfy their service requirement. Reach the World is an organization that matches students on exchange with classrooms in the U.S. Students on exchange share their stories and experiences with their classroom over a period of six weeks. I got matched with a pre-K classroom in New York and started writing to them at the beginning of this year. I was able to produce two articles per week even though I was in the middle of exams. About three weeks into the program, I was informed that my class was still not in session. I went down to writing an article per week then went back into the original schedule once they were in session. In effect, my six-week service project turned into 9 weeks.
I learned two main lessons during this experience. The first lesson is I can maintain a writing schedule even under pressure. The second is I don’t always have to stick to the same format. In Reach the World, we published journals, field notes, logbook entries, and albums. Through journal entries, travelers can share personal perspectives with students in a narrative format. Field notes cover topics like nature, food, and culture. Travelers answer a set of questions relating to each of those topics, documenting and describing the sound, sight, flavor, texture, and scent. In a logbook entry, the traveler records their location, weather, temperature, animals they saw, places they went to, games they played, etc. As the weeks progress, students can get a better understanding of what the traveler’s life is like from week to week. In albums, the traveler uploads a set of at least 10 pictures or a video. The set of pictures all relate to a certain theme and captions provide students with fun facts and context.
This now brings us to the present day, March 3, 2020. My goal is to post new content every Monday at 8:00 PM PST. Like my Reach the World Posts, the format of my content will vary. I may post a field note, logbook or journal entry, a picture album, video, poem, short story, or some other format. This year I want to break bad habits and this blog is something I’m trying out to work towards that goal. I don’t want laziness, procrastination, avoidance, or escapism associated with me. I want to do my work to the best of my ability, not for praise or honor, but the simple fact of knowing that I was responsible for my part and that God is pleased with that.
Until next time,
Gabriella Jeane
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