By Elly Mullins
I’ve been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack (and Mixtape) on repeat for the past 2 months of Pandemic Life. My four-year-old son is obsessed with the music, and he has been practicing his beat-boxing like he’s running out of time. One of the key elements from the musical is that Alexander Hamilton was a prolific writer, and in the periods of his life when he was struggling the most, he took to the pen to write his way out of danger and unpredictability.
There are many notable writers, scholars, scientists, and regular folk who have done the same. Henry David Thoreau, Jack Kerouac, and Virginia Woolf are as famous for their journals as they are for their published works. Albert Einstein and Leonardo DiVinci are known for their brilliant scientific minds, and their journals capture their behind the scenes musings and enigmatic genius.
While imprisoned under apartheid in South Africa, Nelson Mandela kept a journal record of his experience, which he buried in the prison garden to keep it hidden from the guards. Anne Frank, concealed behind the walls of a secret room, captured the spirit of early adolescence in the midst of a horrific Nazi occupation.
I want to pause to acknowledge that Pandemic Life is by no means comparable to being Black in apartheid South Africa, or being Jewish in the Netherlands under the Third Reich, or even to war. The suffering today is real and devastating for many people across the globe, but it is not political oppression and genocide. However, the function that writing serves – to help people cope and make sense of an overwhelming reality – is similar.
Writing serves a purpose and that purpose extends beyond communication or documentation. Writing is art in the form of memoirs, novels, poetry, and song. It is self-exploration in the form of diaries, annotations, unsent emails, and graffiti.
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One of the recommended courses of treatment for combat veterans diagnosed with PTSD is called Cognitive Processing Therapy. A staple in this intervention is writing. Clinicians use narrative therapy to guide their work with clients, and the clients learn to tell their stories in ways that make the traumatic episodes less triggering.
Similarly, Herbert Braun, a professor at the University of Virginia, has encouraged his college students to write as a way to process their experiences during the last six months. The mantra he shares with students is “Write it down.” And this refers to all of the ideas, uncertainties, and experiences they have as they navigate their lives during a global pandemic. Feeling good? “Write it down.” Freaking out? “Write it down.”
This may sound familiar to some readers who have taken an English class with a teacher who requires journaling. Or perhaps this sounds akin to a “status update” on social media. But what Braun is describing, and what I myself am learning to embrace, is reflective writing with intentionality. Only have a minute? That’s ok. Make a quick note now, but return later to flesh it out. A moment is all it takes to capture the essence of the thought. But when we return to the thought and construct full sentences, that is how we work through the feelings.
Intention
That is what makes the art of journaling distinct from the art of social media updates. The intention does not have to be to write prose like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, but rather to set aside time devoted to writing honestly and with authenticity. This is perhaps what makes the mantra “Write it down,” specific to journaling, and not tweeting.
During the pandemic, I have developed a relationship to my internal life through writing, and this has given me strength during the most isolating and anxiety-filled weeks of the last several months. I will never write like Hamilton or Mandela or Frank. But I will have a record of this period in our collective experience that reflects all of the fear, some of the joy, and glimpses of unexpected clarity during this incredibly murky time.
Photo by Kat Stokes on Unsplash
