Yesterday I saw a quote from Toni Morrison circling with lots of reposts and a steady mix of people agreeing with it and people pushing back against it.

I don’t know much about Toni Morrison. I searched her and felt simultaneously impressed and intimidated. I tend to flinch at quotes like this because they feel like a direct indictment of what I do: write about my little life. I make observations, I run away with stories about other people (mostly strangers), and I am all about the personal. But do I travel inside the creative realm of building a story that’s bigger than my experiences? Not really, no.

The exploration of anything beyond my little life is mostly born from fear. I don’t love admitting that, but it’s true. I didn’t have the personality or support system to come out of being habitually bullied through middle school and high school feeling brave. After high school, I went to work. I learned how to be competent and contained. I can be brave in the shadows, but when it comes to something like enrolling in a creative writing course, tolerating critique of the thing I love most? I stall.

So I kept writing privately. On personal websites like this one. In diaries. I poured through classic literature and poetry. I built a life that fed my inner world but didn’t really risk it.

Recently, in my return to school, one of my professors sent me a private message that said: “If you’re interested in exploring your writing more, I run a writing club at x. You are a natural talent.”

And what did my brave heart, the keeper of my little life, do?

I ignored her.

This morning, I had the urge to write about my little life again. Specifically, my little dog. Gigi circled the couch with her toy, set it down, then walked over and looked at me in that way that says: “Enough screens. I exist. Pay attention.”

What a safe and lovely topic: a dog. Mary Oliver did it well enough, didn’t she?

But that quote flashed in my brain.

I don’t think Toni Morrison was saying that personal writing is small or unworthy. I think she was speaking to writers who want to hone their craft seriously, who want their work to move beyond self-soothing and into something that has weight. I think she was warning against mistaking intimacy for depth, or familiarity for significance.

And that’s the part that hits.

Because in the light, I tell myself I’m content here, writing my little life into tidy, lyrical shapes. But in the shadows, it’s all I secretly want… to stretch, to risk, to write something bigger.

I’ll continue to write about my little life (this is Chrissy.city after all), but maybe I ought to stretch a bit.

…

_{A quick edit!}

_{I found more from another interview.
Thought it was important to include:}