Quotations from A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca 08.02.06

Quotations from A Place to Stand by Jimmy Santiago Baca 08.02.06

Here are a few quotations from Jimmy Santiago Baca, and how they trigger my thinking about writing.

*** “With writing, it seemed, if you opened one faucet of words, a hundred more would come on…” (186)

I love what this says, about the associational power of words, of the way that words and ideas a gather when you write. In a way, part of the challenge in writing is choosing which ideas to write about, identifying what you really want and need to do in this instance, and then trying to accomplish that. When I write, I am usually filled with several ideas and possibilities, each of which interests me in different ways. I find that I have a lot of things that I want to say and think about, and as I write down some of the ideas, the ideas become thicker. Often, I end up writing about some new or different idea, so that my original idea is still sitting around waiting to be explored. This is what I love—how one thing opens to another, and I feel this urge to express my thinking… That is also the attraction and the maddening thing about writing. Earlier this summer I was trying to explain my anger and frustration at a student, to somehow come to terms with my frustration, but as I was writing about this frustration I began to wonder about what he was thinking, what was his point of view of me? Of the frustration we both felt. This also made me thinking more deeply about the nature of learning and my own decisions to become a teacher. One thing led to another and working on both opened up my thinking in ways that I would never have predicted when I first sat down to write.



*** “I had to ground myself in small things or my thoughts scattered everywhere.” (186)

Big thoughts, big ideas, big feelings, captured and communicated through specific details. Details capture a sense of a whole.

Another reason that I love writing is that it does “capture” my thinking. When I am at my wits’ end, when I am frustrated or angry or unable to settle my mind, I write down what I’m thinking. Sometimes that results in tremendous ideas and insights. More often, it simply gets me focused. It legitimizes who I am and where I am, what I’m thinking and feeling. My thoughts slow down and I become more centered.




*** “I would set my dictionary next to me, prop my paper on my knees, sharpen my pencil with my teeth, and begin… I would try to write the thought going through my mind, but they wouldn’t come out right. They lacked reality. A stream of ideas flowed through me but they lost their strength as soon as I put them down. I erased so often and so hared that I made holes in the paper. After hours of plodding word by word to write a clear sentence, I would read it and it didn’t even come close to what I’d meant to say.” (185)

Writing is physical as well as intellectual. Once you begin to care about your writing, about your ideas, about what \you want to say, writing becomes harder. I love writing with a dictionary handy (and a thesaurus), because a dictionary often helps me break through the logjam of ideas. When I first started writing in college, writing was much harder for me. I wanted what I wrote to matter. So I wrote and rewrote sentences, worrying them, scrapping them, forcing them on the page. I had to learn to unclench my head and my hand. To trust what I was thinking and to trust the value of the process of writing. IF I applied myself, I would end up with something thoughtful. Not always perfect, but thoughtful.




*** “I tried to prevent these memories from surfacing, but they refused to be repressed anymore. I wasn’t dreaming, it was all happening in my head as I lay awake.” (174)

Sometimes, writing unlocks memories. I should write: OFTEN/ALWAYS! While Baca here is clearly writing about a period in his life when the repressed memories suddenly over him, I think it’s also possible that he’s suggesting something about how the process of thinking and reading and writing together help us open ourselves up to memory in ways that are similar to those powerful moments in our lives when we finally see ourselves and our pasts more clearly. Language carries ideas and memory. Memory is always buried by language. Memory is always uncovered by language.



*** “I knew why I couldn’t get out of my chair, why I refused to work, why I stayed in my cell—in every muscle and bone in my body a tortured voice cried out that I could never again tolerate the betrayals that had marked my life, stretching back to my earliest years.” (175)


the word that sticks out so powerfully for me here is “betrayals.” How many betrayals do we suffer from in our lives? From others? Friends, family teachers? From school? How often do we betray ourselves? How long do we put up with these before we stand up for ourselves? There is nothing more hurtful than a betrayal. It cuts us deeply. There is nothing like recognizing a betrayal and acting on our own behalf, stepping up to ourselves, taking charge of our lives. Forming ourselves out of a core integrity.




*** “…I knew that, despite this loathing, standing up for myself I had done something completely new, I might have lost the respect of my peers, but I was feeling a sense of my own worth that I had never felt before. I knew I was no longer a twenty-two-year-old illiterate brown man, not just another con with a number who was going to submit to degradation . Something had altered in me. I felt tremendous pride in having taken this one step. I now knew that I had wanted to take it fore a long time.” (168)

Self worth. As a person and as a writer. When you write, you need to have that core sense of who you are, that what you say, and how you say it, matters. And it’s a reciprocal relationship. Writing gives you a sense of core, it reaffirms that core being, who you are. Any time that you take yourself seriously, that you write as well as you can, that you try to express or shape your thinking, or someone else’s thinking, you are reaffirming your core self. If only for a brief period of time, you are coming into your own. I believe that writing gives you a sense of self worth.