I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

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I had been hiding myself, even though I was living a much more public existence.

Jami Attenberg • I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

This is the thing a writer does, we claim everything around us: the wind, the earth, the collapse of a wave in the ocean, the sting of salt on a wound. We claim it and redefine it and turn it into something new.

Jami Attenberg • I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

There are times we just send out messages into the world and hope they are received with the intention they were sent, but we can’t always count on the attitude or the generosity of the recipient.

Jami Attenberg • I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

I felt transformed: I was not just the observer, I was the doer.

Jami Attenberg • I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

I didn’t tell them that I feared at every moment that this new kind of freedom would be taken away from me, that at any moment any of our freedom could be gone.

Jami Attenberg • I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

I cannot alter my basic truths, where I came from, who I am. But I can rearrange their importance in my life. I can alter the hierarchy. I can choose which needs are in charge. What is running the show emotionally. That is perhaps the only thing I can control.