Finding Who You Are

"I write from within a family, a community, and a landscape, concentric rings of duty and possibility." After close reading again both Dillard and Sanders, Sanders and his understanding of writing from his center stuck out the most because he explained what all writers are trying to say or want to say. Throughout Sanders, "Writing From The Center" he describes many of times when he was confused as a writer and when he was strong as a writer. For example, in the beginning of the reading Sanders talks about how he is lost at Cambridge, but when he is home he is writing beautiful pieces because he knows who he is there. Writers want us to know that writing is not some romantic project where you sit down with a cup of coffee and classical music playing in the backround, it is a hard and dirty job but worth it in the end.
Sanders says, "The goal of the writers practice is the same as anyone else's: to seek understanding of who and where and what we are, to come fully awake."(pg 156) What he is saying here is that everyone is lost at one point of their life. Some people call it a mid-life crisis but writers call it, writing block. They will write sentences, metaphors and short stories that may be an interest to some people but to the writer is not perfection. A writer lives through his pieces instead of living through day to day. When we see imperfection in our daily routine we change it, when an author sees a grammar error they change it.
If you read Dillard's piece and then read this quote on page 156 by Sanders you understand Dillard. She wasn't depressed, or trying to be negative. She was working out who she really is, trying to find her true identity. Some people go out and travel aboard for a year or others just try and find a hobby they truly love. Some people lose friends other gain some, writers rip apart pages and add new ones. Writing is a stage of finding one's self and when they finaly find it they become awake and realize who they are.