Writing (is) My Life

By Liat Shaked, A grown up woman, who loves to read between the lines.
A hopeful Feminist, who wishes for peace, but not prepared for war.
An unknown inventor of phrases and words.
A frustrated painter, who hanged the pencil too many years ago.
A desperate Lawyer, who have seen too many evil.
A terrible singer, who is waiting to be discovered, and yet doesn’t stop singing.

I was an A student. I was so nerdy and diligent, that if I were to be called after an insect I would have been probably called an ant. I remember one time my younger brother and older sister talked about how fast my father’s car can speed from zero to 100 (km/h), while I was sitting nearby and wondered how they had the guts to even try it.

More than that, once I found out that I didn’t do my homework, I was shocked and rushed to complete it, and you wouldn’t guess it was about 5 years after the homework was due.
Mathematics was my favorite subject that even my teacher wanted me to be her daughter.
And still, there was one subject in which I got only a C. It was writing. In every parent’s meeting, my teacher used to tell my mother that I probably didn’t read enough. That wasn’t true. And yet, I couldn’t make it in writing.

The years passed, I became a lawyer and wrote so much that my wrist ached. But, still, I used to remember my teacher’s voice telling me I didn’t write good enough. I even wrote a very good Thesis for my M.A in Women and Gender Studies. And still, I remember her.
Today, one of my favorite activities is writing. I get excited from it. I love it. It makes me laugh to my myself, it’s an integral part of me, of my own being. And often I find myself thinking about the young child who sat there in front of her teacher and next to her mom, while the teacher was telling her she couldn’t write.

So dear teacher, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I thank you for not believing in my writing, I thank you for not seeing me. It actually made me become who I am today, 30 years later. A strong and brave woman who is a lawyer and a CEO of, guess what, a translation and localization company called Targum & More. I even have my own blog in which I write my life. There is nothing I enjoy more than writing.

To sum up, I would like to tell you a little secret. I have heard about this website from a friend. She sent me the link about one hour ago, and although it was 6:45 am at Shabbat, my free day, I was so excited to find out that I can spread my writing to so many women, that I rushed to write this article/post (whatever you like to call it). Now it’s 7:45 and I’m going back to sleep. I hope you enjoyed this post, or as I told a friend a few days ago, I have only one head and two hands, and this is what they can do, so like it or not, this is me.

Self-portrait. Pencil on A4.

Read more of my writing here