We Are Not Alone
A guest post by Ashley W. Cundiff
My favorite moments as a reader are those when I feel acknowledged, when a line jumps out at me and I think, yes, that, someone sees me. I do read to explore experiences and perspectives different from my own, but when an author can also spark within me an unexpected sense of familiarity it’s about as close as my mind gets to transcendence.
This flows in both directions, of course. Anyone who writes with the intention of sharing their words with another person, through whatever medium—novel, memoir, essay, poem, letter, tweet—desires a certain level of connection and understanding. I am convinced that both reading and writing cure loneliness, if only within the moments spent reading and writing. There is a reciprocity—an understanding between reader and writer that we’re in this together. It is what makes reading so comforting to readers and writing so comforting to writers—they provide a sense of mutual acknowledgement that we are not alone.
Of course, as a writer, I can’t assume everything I write will be acknowledged the way I hope it will, that someone reading my work is going to have that rare feeling of self-recognition. Writers are lucky to receive confirmation from their readers that their work has been read at all, let alone appreciated in any meaningful way.
This especially applies to all the writing that goes into getting unpublished work published—the cover letters, the queries, the manuscripts —all are launched into a vast void, one whose life-sustaining capabilities are not necessarily apparent. I persist anyway, sending my carefully chosen words off into the cloud, trusting through blind faith that they will be seen by a solid, real human. It’s likely I’ll receive a form rejection for my trouble, or no response at all. But still, sometimes I like to look at my long lists of active submissions and think about the someone who could be out there reading my words right now. I am very aware that this reader could detest my words, or worse, be skimming them, having already identified them as dismissible, but at least the first step has been completed—the words are seen. And who knows? Maybe, somewhere out there, someone is reading my words and is having that moment of recognition. Maybe, in this moment, I am not alone.
About the author:
Ashley W. Cundiff is a freelance musician, college music instructor, writer by night, and mother of three. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry South, Mom Egg Review, and Little Patuxent Review, and she recently completed a debut novel. She blogs at www.thedomesticwilds.com.