After an hour of tossing and turning in bed, I sit up and reach for the light. Nearby, I keep a pen, sheet of paper and notebook, which I collect just for nights like this one.
Sometimes, when I try to relax, traumatic memories resurface, but I have found that expressing pent-up feelings through writing helps me work through the experience. Line after line I write until the page turns into a mass of scrawls and scribbles impossible to decipher.
The writing I do at night, while propped on my pillow, reaches no audience. I never read the sentences aloud at public events. I never revise it to send off to publishers. Instead, I write until I reach a state of calm and promptly tear up the paper. Over weeks and months, my trash can fills with scraps of paper that I cannot assemble into anything that makes sense.
Yet, this writing continues to be useful long after I empty the trash can at my bedside. Paradoxically, the writing I throw away makes possible my life as a working writer. This writing helps me process traumatic experiences, so I can be more present in daily life. Without these nightly free-writes, I relive the past instead of noticing the syrupy sweetness of the lavender bush in spring or the creamy taste of butter melting on banana bread fresh from the oven. When stuck in the past, the world provides only a backdrop to the dramas unfolding internally. When fully present, the world around me springs to life. The details I notice in my surroundings enrich my writing once I do commit to the page.
Nightly writing also allows me to nurture my creativity during the day. I wake feeling rested and can engage in activities that enrich my imagination, broaden my horizons and connect me to artistic communities. When rested, I read more often, my concentration sharp and longer lasting; many times, I close a book feeling inspired. I also feel motivated to check out local art exhibits, most recently, “Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969” at the Hessel Museum of Art on the campus of Bard College, in Annandale-On-Hudson, N.Y. At the end of the day, I may even attend a concert if something appeals to me. One of my fondest memories is stretching out on a blanket to listen to DakhaBrakha chanting and drumming under the stars.
Reading regularly and attending exhibits and concerts provide new aesthetic experiences. I discover artists and often have the energy to reflect further on their work in the journal I keep just for this purpose. Many times, the experience sparks my imagination, and I add to my running list of ideas for projects to complete in the future. These aesthetic experiences also shift my habitual mode of perception and understanding so that when I do return to the page, I often see writing from days before anew.
Along with allowing me to be more present and nurturing my creativity, nightly writing helps me feel less victimized by traumatic experiences. When I write about an experience of bullying or sexual harassment — which so many of us face — I am taking action instead of reliving it internally. Each word I write diminishes the power of the negative experience over me. Invested with more agency, I feel capable of striving towards writing goals, like revising my craft essay on failure and the writing process, since I am no longer stuck in the aftermath of painful events.
Each goal I meet builds my confidence as a writer who has experienced trauma but is not defeated by it.
Nightly writing through trauma makes the writer’s life possible for me. This writing is not useful in the typical sense. It doesn’t evolve over time. I don’t share it with other writers who provide feedback. I don’t set it aside and return to reshape the material into later drafts. Nevertheless, the writing is useful in helping me cope with traumatic experiences when they arise. I return to these experiences at night, expressing difficult emotions and erroneous beliefs informed by them. This allows me to be fully present, nurture my creativity and realize more writing projects during the day. In some of this nightly writing, I explore traumatic experiences from enough distance to grapple with their complexities. At times, I reflect on these experiences; at others, I probe the external factors that gave rise to them. Through the process, I develop a new perspective on these traumas to share with an interested audience.
Moriah Hampton teaches in the Writing and Critical Inquiry Program at SUNY-Albany. Her fiction, poetry, craft essays and photography have appeared in The Coachella Review, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Poetry South, Gargoyle Magazine, Cleaver Magazine and elsewhere. Originally from the southeast, she has Scottish and English ancestry and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is also on the autism spectrum.
