Inspired by the “Why I Write” column in Poets and Writer’s magazine, essayist Sandra Hurtes examined her answer to that question, which is in the title of the following essay that appeared on October 9, 2011 in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Those of us who write, especially those of us who came late to allowing writing a serious place in our lives, will resonate with Sandra’s insights and her delight in writing successes.

Writing for My Life
by Sandra Hurtes

I hadn’t planned on becoming a writer. When I did, there was something naïve and wonderful about discovering I could put words together in a way that lit me up—and I would discover— others wanted to read.  I was forty-four then—no stranger to searching for some form of creative expression to satisfy a deep need to prove myself.

Let me take you back in time: Samuel J. Tilden High School, Brooklyn, New York, circa 1967.   I’m sixteen; hair in a perfect flip (picture Mary Tyler Moore), dressed in the popular girl ensemble of navy A-line skirt, pale blue crew neck sweater, gold circle pin (we called them virgin pins) at the throat of my pink starched collar, navy tights, cordovan loafers without the penny. I’m doing OK popularity-wise. That’s because the other students don’t know who I really am. And who I really am is a Commercial student who studies shorthand, typing and accounting. Academic students think Commercial girls are dumb, gum popping, bleached blond  tramps.  I’m neither gum popping, bleached, or a tramp; but I am dumb.  Unlike my friends, I have no college aspirations. My parents are Holocaust survivors. They’ve learned in America that a girl who can type will get married; a girl with a college degree will not.

In low-income Crown Heights, where we lived until I was fourteen, many of my friends, too, expected to be secretaries. There were the few girls who wished to be teachers, in fact, my friend Rochelle, who I’ve known since I was five, reminds me often that when we played “grown up,” she had a makeshift roll book and I had a steno pad.  But pretending to be a teacher didn’t compute in my mind as Rochelle planning on attending college.

Just before freshman year of high school, my family moved to middle-income Flatlands. I loved the suburban Brooklyn neighborhood with front lawns and girls who played squash instead of handball. On a sunny summer day, I took my racquet to the schoolyard to play with my new friend Laurie, a girl who’d skipped a grade in Junior High.

Maybe I’d asked between hitting the ball against the wall about her high school program; all I recall is feeling shock when she said she would be Academic, as if it were obvious. The world and all my beliefs turned upside down; in an instant I understood that Commercial meant that I was a certain kind of girl.

On the first day of school, I went to the guidance office to change my course of study. I don’t recall if I spoke with a counselor. I only remember the blue 4” x 6” Program Change card. I didn’t tell my parents I was switching to Academic; likely they would have been as perplexed as I.

 Classes started. In Algebra, I felt alienated from the first fourteen years of my life. I had no vocabulary for phrases I would one day toss around, like “identity crisis” and “fear of success.” After one week, back I went for another 4” x 6” blue card. I checked the Commercial box and settled into who I was supposed to be. I kept my program a secret for four years from all but my closest friends.

To this day, it’s painful to remember myself, walking down the high school hallway and stopping just before turning toward the typing rooms. I looked over my shoulder to see if the popular kids were in the hall. If they were, I waited them out, looked at notices on the bulletin board, fiddled with a textbook, anything. Not until the hallway was one hundred percent clear did I turn left and slide into my seat in front of a typewriter.

My shame was a layer so thick, I could have taken soap and water to it, but it wouldn’t wash off for almost thirty years.  And what cut through the shame—well, I’d like to say it was a heavy dose of self-esteem that arrived with my first paycheck, a breakthrough therapy session after two years of hard time on the couch, or the B+ I ultimately received in Algebra, when at 29, I went to a liberal arts college to earn a Bachelor’s Degree.

But it was much later than that. I was forty-four and earning a living through a patchwork of temporary secretarial jobs. My college degree had helped me feel smarter, but my work life had not come together. I had an interest in psychology, and so I applied to a graduate counseling program. Right around that time, the world was paying tribute to Holocaust Survivors on the fiftieth anniversary of their liberation. It was an exciting time for everyone with a connection, and it seemed so many had one: An aunt who had hidden for two years in a church, a distant cousin smuggled to safety in the back of a truck, and my own deep tie.

At my temp job, I began an essay about being the daughter of survivors. I had written poetry and prose years before. I recall my surprise at how articulate I was on the page. But I lacked confidence and didn’t continue with the hard work it took to complete those pieces. I told myself “the writer’s club” wasn’t open to me.

But the year the world paid tribute to Holocaust victims, my need to contribute was so strong, it broke through all self doubt. At the keyboard, I expressed feelings I’d repressed for a lifetime. Friends who read my work said I was talented. That set me on fire! My material was so accessible I felt as if I was cheating. Writers I met talked about the frustration of the blank page, writer’s block, trials of revision. I didn’t have those feelings.

My essay, “A Daughter’s Legacy,” was published in August 1995 in The Jewish Press. I’d also been accepted into the counseling program, and registration began right then. But I knew that was not right for me.

I loosened up at the keyboard and tried everything. Essays, short stories, and self-help service articles fell out of the tips of my fingers. Who knew I had so much to say about how to save a marriage (I was divorced and had been single for 20 years), start a small business, and avoid office gossip?

That first year of writing, I could hardly do anything but write. I loved the process, although I didn’t yet realize why writing had become so integral. My second essay about my obsession with dieting appeared in The Washington Post “Outlook” Section.  The day of publication I headed early to Times Square where I purchased five newspapers. I thought of the Clintons, who were then in the White House, reading my words.  I imagined all the Washington honchos, the smart, educated people. And I thought, too, about a Commercial student I once knew who hid in her typing room hoping no one would find her out. Holding the newspaper in my hand, I sat on the floor, stared at the words Washington Post and cried.

That was a long time ago. Many of my essays and features have been published. Most of my memoir work—the bulk of my writing—has not.  I began drafting a memoir in 1997. When it took a direction I believed would hurt my family, I rerouted it—therein setting my manuscript up to fail. I was aware of that in a murky sort of way, but not enough to stop my impulse to write personal essays which were sometimes about my family, and also to peck away intermittently at the memoir.

Publication was important as it had provided me with a gorgeous new mirror in which to view myself. But it wasn’t my only motivation to write; the process itself helped me to freeze-frame my life experiences and make sense of them.  Words dove into the center of things helping me mature and learn about the world.

I’ve taken breaks to pursue other goals, including pursuing an MFA, which led to a career teaching college English.  Lesson plans occupy me for hours each week; I attend workshops on how to capture the attention of twenty-eight freshmen. But the most direct route to a good writing agenda is writing one word and then another and another. This laying down of words is akin to turning a key and entering a room called “Knowledge.”

I’m no longer the shamed-faced girl I was in high school. But were I to step into her penny loafers today, I’d wear her aspirations proudly. I’d let everyone see her as I now do:  A teenager carrying an insatiable need to grow as a human being and the ability to do that, as a writer.