what emotion do you write from?
on life motifs, self-reflection, and getting tattoos
I saw a post somewhere once that all authors write from a certain emotion. This emotion is the underlying theme of their works. It’s the motif that their life, their story, their journey revolves around. A common thread, if you will. Often you’ll find that authors write variations on the same stories, same characters, same feelings over and over again. Sometimes they do this in order to better understand the things that haunt them, sometimes they do this because it’s all they know. I think it’s fascinating to see what each individual artist fixates on because each of us is so different. We’re all shaped by our own sociology, by the intersection of biography and history in our lives, and that means each of our experiences shape us into unique artists.
The post suggested that Mary Oliver writes from hope and Richard Siken writes from panic. I’d guess that someone like Taylor Swift writes from love and Sarah J Maas writes from determination. I’m sure these could be debated, but I’m not really here to talk about other writers. I just love the concept that we carry threads with us that bind our artwork together. I love that there are motifs that follow us like shadows, that haunt our lives for better or for worse.
A motif is any distinctive feature or idea that recurs across a story; often, it helps develop other narrative elements such as theme or mood.
— Wikipedia
As I’ve navigated my twenties, I’ve decided that the best way to partition my life in the years after college graduation is through symbols. These symbols aren’t necessarily things I’ve actively embraced or things that I chose in the moment to embody. Rather, they’re common threads I’ve noticed in looking back. The symbols represent a bigger motif that has defined each era of my life. They’re an easy way to sum up the things I’ve experienced and learned, and the person I became over a period of time.
I’m twenty-eight now, been out of college for almost seven years, and I feel like I’ve lived through, am living through, two of these life motifs. I may or may not still be in the second one. In some ways, I think these motifs compound, they never really go away. Even though the journey may seemingly end, or take a new direction, that path will always be within you. The effects of the journey never dissipate, they just embed themselves in your soul, playing off of any and all things that come after.
While I don’t know that these motifs are actually the emotions I write from, I think they factor into the question and they are the first step in determining the common thread of my story and my storytelling.
Five years ago, I was listening to Lover after it had just released, and the image of a sunrise rose to the front of my mind. I was listening to “Daylight” for the dozenth time, fixated on the lyric, “Threw out our cloaks and our daggers because it’s morning now, it’s brighter now.” I remember sitting up in bed, obsessed with the vision and convicted by it. It felt like the perfect way to describe where I was at during that moment of my life. It was so vivid, so compelling, I immediately knew I was meant to have it as a tattoo. (At the time I had no tattoos. I was and am terrified of needles, convinced I could and would never ever get a tattoo out of fear.)
For those wondering, a sunrise symbolizes rebirth, new beginnings, resurrection, a renewed sense of purpose, awakening. While I generally explain my sunrise tattoo by saying, “Oh, it’s just a Taylor Swift reference,” it’s actually so much deeper than that. (I cannot be casual about anything ever.) Sure, it was inspired by that moment and that song, but I sat on that idea for nearly nine months before I had it inked on my body and the feelings surrounding that image were building long before Lover was released.
Note, this was at the tail end of 2019 going into 2020. I got my tattoo in May of 2020, in the heart of the early days of the pandemic. Talk about a new beginning.
I believe this era of my life spans from the fall of 2017 through early 2021. (As I said above, this part of me hasn’t disappeared, it’s still in there, but it was most prevalent during those years.) It began when my grandmother passed away and followed me through a dark depression, loneliness, a lot of internal struggles and self-loathing, friendship problems, and the onset of a global pandemic.
Ultimately, the best way to explain it is through Tower of Dawn by Sarah J Maas. It starts with the idea that there is an inner darkness, a monster that is made of your own thoughts and the internalized voices of others shaming you and berating you and turning you into some version of yourself that you no longer recognize and are no longer proud of. Chaol goes on a journey to love himself and forgive himself and to allow himself to be loved as he atones for his past mistakes, and in the end he learns how to make peace with that darkness. It will always be apart of him, but he knows now that it is under his control and he can keep it at bay. It is about forgiveness and starting over and letting love in no matter how hopeless it feels. I spent years of my life hating myself and feeling unlovable, and while I know I’ll always have that, I also know that every day is a new day and it’s always darkest just before the dawn.
There is a list of media and references that connect me with the sunrise. In the weeks leading up to my first tattoo appointment, I was astonished at the things I could come up with that aligned with that symbol. Obviously Tower of Dawn by Sarah J Maas. “Out of the Woods” by Taylor Swift. “Goodmorning” by Bleachers. “In the Mourning” by Paramore. There’s a line from The King’s Men by Nora Sakavic - “Sunrise, Abram, Death.” “Truce” by Twenty One Pilots. A passage from Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey Mcquiston - “He called Henry the North Star. That wasn’t bright enough.” Multiple Florence + the Machine songs. The cover of one of my favorite albums The Human Condition by Jon Bellion. “Any Dream Will Do” from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. “C.S. Lewis Song” by Brooke Fraser. Les Miserables. And now, most recently, the song “Making It Through” by Angie McMahon.
I saw pieces of myself reflected across all forms of media, all kinds of stories and characters, and over and over again it came back to the hope of a sunrise, the breaking dawn, if you will. And looking back now, knowing that I got my tattoo at the start of a new decade, right when everything in the world was forced to start over, it feels even more poetic. It was an opportunity for me to forgive myself and become someone new. It gave me a new purpose: to love myself.
This tattoo reminds me daily of my rebirth at 25. I think a major motif in my life and in my work is the concept of redemption. Forgiveness. Starting over. Second chances. Hope. I want my work to remind people that they are good enough, but even if they aren’t, every day they have the chance to become someone new.
After I got my first tattoo, I felt confident that I wouldn’t get anymore. I’m not casual about tattoos, and I saw the “Daylight” thing as a fluke. I also felt naively that I had solved all my internal issues, that I was cured of being mentally ill, that I had done the growing I needed to do and now I just got to live my life! Ha.
This is my way convoluted way of saying I got another tattoo.
About a year after my first tattoo, I went through some significant changes. I ended a full year of freelancing and got a job as a barista. Seems simple, but the aftermath of that decision shaped the course of my life since then. I met people that changed the very core of myself, and went through an internal transformation that echoed the years I spent chasing the sunrise. I was thrown into survival mode while battling some intense grief and even worse self-loathing than I experienced previously. To put it simply, I was in the trenches weathering a storm.
The first idea I had for this new tattoo was a result of Florence Welch posting a design on her Instagram. It was a doodled lightning bolt with a lyric from “Dog Days Are Over.” I loved the idea of a Florence designed tattoo, and lightning bolts in general are pretty cool symbols. But the more I sat with it, I wasn’t sure that was exactly what I wanted. I wasn’t sure quite what a lightning bolt would mean to me in the grand scheme of things.
But over the course of a few months, the concept overcame me. Not for Florence’s doodle, but for a more natural, realistic bolt of lightning. I got the same feelings I did with my sunrise, and I started making connections and noticing a running theme. Lightning symbolizes sudden illumination, the destruction of ignorance, inspiration, truth and honesty and power. For as hard as this season of my life has been - harder in some ways than my previous era - in looking back I see it as a resurgence of power. If the sunrise reminds me that I am good, the lightning reminds me that I am strong.
What compels so much about lightning is that in symbols, it’s generally a good thing. It’s bold and brave and beautiful. And yet lightning is often surrounded by a bigger storm, it can cause intense destruction, it’s followed by boisterous thunder that can terrify the world. It is a contradiction and a paradox, existing as both a blessing and a curse, and I see all of that coiled within me. Much like Fleetwood Mac says, “I have always been a storm,” and I think for a long time I’ve misconstrued my darkness as a destructive thing. I think my selfishness and my honesty is a great power, and I think I’ve spent so long being afraid of myself that I’ve failed to see the beauty within. Similar to my good friend Thor, I was terrified that I was no longer worthy.
I made another long list of media references for lightning and storms and thunder. Episode Six of The Haunting of Hill House (2018), one of the most powerful episodes of the series, takes place during a storm. Thor, the God of Thunder, specifically his journey in Ragnarok (2017) and Love and Thunder (2022). “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift. “Storms” by Fleetwood Mac. “Lightning Fields” by The Killers. “Lightning” by Charli XCX. “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons. “Sky Full of Song” by Florence + the Machine. “Clean” by Taylor Swift. It reminds me of the branches of the timeline in Loki, alluding to his glorious purpose and sacrifice. Captain Shakespeare in Stardust (2007). Ed Teach from Our Flag Means Death, a character who is very special to me, has some of his darkest moments in the middle of lightning storms. And lastly, there is a line I wrote in my WIP (one that I still hope will defy the odds and come to fruition in the future) about how concerts are like lightning.
While I’m still ruminating on what the lightning means to me at this stage of my life, I think this life motif feels worthy, grounded, inspired, strong. It’s about not being afraid of myself. It’s about harnessing my inner strength and trusting that I can use that power for good.
I have found over the years that my writing and the writings I most gravitate towards often revolve around things like guilt, loneliness, grief, friendship, redemption, perseverance, courage, determination. Some of these things apply to me, they are things I feel and deal with on a daily basis. Some of these things are feelings I wish I could embody, things I wish I was better at. I am both the dark storm and the beautiful bolt of lightning illuminating the night sky.
I think ultimately the most prominent emotion I write from is shame, but I also write from joy. I am both of these things. My work seeks out the joy that is only possible by knowing shame - it is the redemption that makes you appreciate the things you have, if only because you almost lost them, because you did lose things and yet you still are allowed to find joy.
I’m not sure what other motifs will show themselves over the course of my life. Maybe this is just a two time thing, I do only have two arms for these tattoos, or maybe I will be haunted for the rest of my life. Is there a word for being haunted in a good way? Perhaps these motifs keep watch over me like God watches over his sheep.
you never fail to write such compelling pieces!!! I am always in awe. I love the rumination on tattoos. I have one that’s a drawing by Keaton Henson whose music & art I adore and was such a huge part of my life years ago. anyways lovely as always thank you for this!!