Ever since I knew I would write—and way before, when I began to write—writing has been an absolute. Absolute in the sense that it is extremely difficult for me to imagine myself without the written word. Writing is not simply an expression or voice, but is what keeps me in life. I cannot go as far to say writing is life for I could exist without it; but I do not want to.
Descriptedlines is a place to “publish” some writings: a solution to my paper problem. Most pieces tend to musing, literary or whatever, while others I’ve designated as “Reading Notes”: my version of the Book Review (God forbid!).
Me
I’m Amber Ruth Paulen, grown on a farm in Howard City, Michigan. There the fields spread wide and the forests are enough to get lost in. An idyllic childhood! From then my story lends to complications, wrinkles I work on ironing through my writing.
So then the facts: 1) when I was 20 I went to India and with the risk of ringing cliche, I was enlightened, went back to MI, dropped out of university and saved money to 2) flee to Europe. On a one-way ticket. I travelled until I landed in Rome, where eventually I 3) met Simon. 4) After a time we conquered the USA three-times driving. We lived in Oakland. Though me, always pining for the “cultured” across the Atlantic: 5) we moved to Italy, Bracciano, now Rome.
Somewhere in (2) but before (3) I began “seriously” writing. When I write serious I mean: I was willing to be homeless for it, starve for it, broke for it. I bought an Olivetti Lettera 22 and began to write. I am autodidact, which means I stubbornly insist on learning the right way i.e. among one’s thoughts come to surface through living, observing and reflecting. What I began then, I’m nearly finished with: Yipee!
and…
Certain writers’ works are sown into my life’s fabric: Henry Miller, above all and beyond, Simone de Beauvoir’s autobiography The Prime of Life, Dostoevsky and more Dostoevsky and more recently John Cowper Powys, Annie Dillard and Leo Tolstoy. Here is a selection of past writings I like: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a Reading Note; Free Shots!, about drunk girls studying abroad in Rome; Camping Trip, in the Andaman Sea, Thailand; or if not, please browse the archive.
Thank you for reading and reading
Amber