Monday, March 21, 2016

Activator

My writer has been stuck inside a biologist. She has been invaded by microbes, bacteria, viruses. Left stifling for breath by TB, HIV leaving her unable to recover. The biologist asks for her help sometimes, and she squeals with excitement at the chance to write seven pages. Even if it is on genetic linkages, it is still linking words.

It's interesting all the ways biology has shown me what I'm made of. While it is clear my writer is written into my genome, is part of every cell of my being, like genes she isn't always allowed to express herself. She is regulated by external repressors: studying, work, friends, events, by having a mere 24 hours in the day. And genes aren't constant either, transducing particles can come in and rewrite, recombine, and suddenly you aren't who you once were. Things are deleted sometimes. After not hearing anything from her for a while, I was scared maybe my writer was one of the lost genes.

However, we also learned that every repressor has an activator that will literally make it fall away. They come in many different forms. This one came in the form of good writing. The repressor fell away, the writer woke up, and although it seems to have recombined with the input of hours of studying microbiology, she was free to express herself.

Repressed she was, but not gone. Thank God.

~Kat

P.S. Many thanks to my activator, MB.