First Sight

I was eleven years old when I first knew. My sixth grade teacher assigned me the task of writing an original screenplay of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex in September. By the time it was due in October, I was head over heels.

It was love at first read, love at first write. I stalked Sophocles—got my hands on any and all translations, researched his biography, studied his contemporaries. I wrote and wrote and wrote—in the morning, at night, during lunch, after class. No one needed to tell me that I had found it. I knew because I knew.

Perhaps it was the language that did it, the perfect blend of poetry and plot. Perhaps it was the characters, the depth of Oedipus’ psychological destruction. Whatever it was, this thing—this thing that made me invincible, able to bend and manipulate meanings, metaphors and my own imagination—had me at hello. For the first time in my life I felt what it was like to salivate at the beauty that is a line of epic poetry. For the first time in my life I became deaf to the annoying humdrum of suburban civilization, of my constant anxiety; and I heard only music—sweet music.

It is one thing to fall in love with a man or woman, but it is another thing entirely to fall for a vocation—and one so elusive as the written word. If I knew what I know now, I would have taken one look at Sophocles and run in the opposite direction. I would have put my pen and that blank of piece of paper down and tried my hand at other things—softball, maybe, or flute. But there is no going back. Writing will forever be my first love. For better or for worse, Sophocles still makes me drool.

Cora Charis is a writer from the United States who is currently finishing her first book of expiremental poetry while teaching English as a Second Language to refugees in Tucson, AZ.