Imaginative Writing
English 2250
Summer 2022
Professor Andrea Malouf
Learning Reflections:
Wow, I did
so much growing in this class. I had just come off a year of plowing through
generals classes, all of which drove me insane, with the one thought stuck in
my mind: I just have to make it to Summer and the English classes I love. I
went through many hurdles in the past few semesters, topped off with a
diagnosis for ADHD and math dyslexia. I fought, and won, the ability to apply
for class substitutions so that I could bypass math requirements by taking
equivalent classes...all of which made my brain hurt. I hated every second
I was forced to come up with rigid, stiff answers, for which there was no room
for thought or flexibility.
When I got to this class, I almost cried. The thought of
making something unique, and all mine was so incredible. I was so ready! I
found each and every assignment interesting, and I reveled in the Try This
Journals, because they were a blank page waiting for my creativity. This
was all me, and nobody could tell me I was wrong. (I mean, sure, they could
tell me they didn’t like it, and that I had mistakes that needed correcting,
but at the end of that day I could still say that it was my creative
expression. Math has no room for that. And I have no room for black and white.)
When I was diving into the bigger projects, I did let my fear
creep in a bit. The nice thing about Gen Ed classes is that some are easy to
ace, in that if you get the answer right, you win. But this creative space
demands that you be real and unique! I remember about we read that we should
try to avoid clichéd metaphors at all cost, and that stuck with me. How do I
make something new and fresh and still get a good grade?? Am I any good at
this??
However, I am good at this. I do know this, in my heart of hearts.
This is the direction I’m heading, and its not a matter of working painfully
hard and maybe I’ll improve. It’s that I am good, and this is what I love. In
writing my memoir and my poetry, I realized that I had no real experience in
either, and yet I loved what I birthed out of my brain. It was my brainchild! I
felt happy and giddy and excited and then I realized that I lost all fear of
what grade I may get, and so I wrote. It felt like sunshine.
I stopped wanting to follow the
guidelines. I know I’m supposed to be following the writing prompts here, and I’m
sure people in my class will copy them down, and maybe bold the words, and
then write each tin canned answer down neatly. I don’t want to do that. I want
to let my words drip off the page like honey. I wish I could create a page of
honey with this assignment. Words that are bigger and smaller with emphasis in
where they feel gooey. That’s what this class did to me. It made me want to be
loose with my words and meanings. Create layers and pools of meaning. Dive in and
get lost in them.
If I had to
be structured and good about this, I would say that I changed immensely, and
that my signature assignments were utterly influential in my development of my
progress. However, while they were, I would also venture to say that the
looseness in the margins of this class and the rigidity from past classes made
me do it. I was craving creativity. That
is all.
Poetry Reflection:
We were asked to write 2-3 pages of poetry. This seemed so daunting to me, and to ease my fears, I chose to just write about my day on the farm. That paid off, and I found that words just seemed to flow. I know its not for everyone, but I was focused on writing for me, and for the fun and love of it.
Poetry by Kate Rowan
Piper
She is a small goat
With an odd case of
bloat.
I suspect worms.
She flexes her jaw,
and anxiously
paws.
I box up some poop.
Send it off to a lab,
expecting a recommendation
for a jab.
Coccidia. (A parasite.)
Leif
My
angular son
Is in a hip hop class
In which the
mathematical requirements
For his limbs
Create
expectations
That are only
possible
In theoretical abstract
algebra.
Maggie
She
came with eyes not like windows
but fairy
caves lit
with bioluminescence
algae
flickering in her small
face.
Absent-minded angels
didn’t scrub
off the remnants of her
wings completely,
and so we rubbed our
faces
against her shoulder
fluff
until it disappeared
forever.
A pixie pickle pixel
pearl
My tiny girl,
A beautiful burl
in the wood of my heart
MissMargaretMaggieMagpieBee.
Hank’s Chess
He ran
away this morning before dawn.
Little of my heart could
fault his decision,
as the flies of late
have driven him mad,
and the adorable collie
on the other hillside was spreading her pheromones.
She’s a queen to his
pawn.
I found his loins
trembling in the wastes of a newly gathered rye field.
The sun rose, the
shadows harshened.
Red eye bags for us
both, and very little sympathy from me.
I’m the rook to his
knight.
He took to his hay bed
and the chickens ate his food:
Congealed eggs
unappetizing to a rogue.
My bed was
helpless.
The day began and burned
on.
Checkmate.
New
Farmer
There is no
pity in the furrow where new farmers lie.
Old farmers
ignore your tears.
And you, of
course, share your fears.
Don’t give
up, millennial farmer! Don’t die!
Just post a
doctored image of handmade pie.
You’ll feel
better.
The meat
chickens need killing,
And I’ve run
out of gall.
Pay the
account at A&C Milling
And set up
an appointment to cut the balls
Of the
errant guardian dog.
I have no
tractor; I have no hay.
I have no
wagon to bring in the pay
When I sell
the lambs that all have names.
But I have
no shame in jamming that needle
Into that
goat
Who would
otherwise die from septicemia and bloat.
(Her name
is Skittles.)
Chores
The
normal-
Say hello to
the sun and the dogs
Open doors
to a mess of hens
Wash out
buckets and hose down pens
Don’t forget
the hay.
The
odd-
The rooster
has bumblefoot
The ewe has
a cold
Sam the
horse needs sedatives
Because he’s
cranky and old.
Don’t forget
his hay.
The
bizarre-
A mouse died
in that bucket and has dissolved
The ram has
maggots in a hole in his chest
Thanks to
flies, the horrible pests.
I’m almost
out of feed again.
Can’t forget
the hay.
Memoir Reflection:
I wrote this piece from the memory of one of my most vivid moments in my life. It will never leave my mind, I think. I felt that writing about it would be both humorous as well as vibrant, and felt that it did a good job of serving this assignment parameters.
A Memoir: Tragic Ride
I
am, without a doubt, an insanely good liar. This particular event was going to
require expert level storytelling to obscure the facts. I had no issue with the
morals of that, as my lies were meant for the protection of others, which in my
14 year old mind made me a saint. Saint Kate, Patron of Idiots on Horseback.
My
first mistake was thinking I was better than I was. We all do it. I had
purchased some leather boots that made my legs look longer than they really
were. Did it matter that they were really for craggy older women named Cheryl,
clinging to a bearded man on the back of a Harley Davidson?? No, it did not.
I felt special, so I wore them, stubbly lug sole be damned.
My
second mistake was the weather. Monsoon season on the western slope of
Colorado, where obese sheep-looking clouds rolled in at 4 pm every day like
clockwork, filled with giant raindrops and claps of thunder. The damp heat made
me do it. My stupid boots and my big head didn’t help either. I was going to
ride that mare, and nothing was going to stop me.
My
third mistake was not telling anyone, which in hindsight was horrible of me,
and I now berate my own children for much milder indiscretions than this.
However, it did allow me to lie my way out any punishment my mother would have
exacted on my rear, and now I self-flagellate routinely, so as to make up for
my idiocy. I know God appreciates my suffering.
What
I will not consider a mistake was the actual mare herself, as she
was simply an innocent caught in the crossfire of my ridiculous plans. She was
a young thing, built like a stout mountain pony and I liked to imagine she
could have carried me from loch to glen in the Scottish highlands. We were
unenthusiastically stuck in a hay field, though, and neither of us really had
the best of training. I absolve her of all sins. Amen.
The
Actual Event, in which I get Squished:
I
chose a day when everyone was away. With only a few lessons with my trainer
under my belt, I chose to exercise my newfound freedom by taking my mare out
for a bit of a canter through the hay field, despite that fact that I had only
been working on a simple seated trot in the safety of enclosed arena so far.
Romanticism was strong with me. I would ride like the wind! I would slow-motion
gallop over the rolling green grass!
I
happily groomed and threw my adorable little brown saddle over her back. We
trip-trapped out to the pasture, and I could taste the rain in the air as the
ominous clouds loomed on the horizon. There’s a crayon that matches that color.
Prune.
I
tried to emulate my fussy riding instructor in her pert teachings. Heels
down. NO, DOWN! Relax your hands, keep her nose down. Why are your elbows
flapping like that? YOUR ELBOWS! Now drop your shoulders, and chin up. Leg
pressure. Wrong leg! Ease her through the corner. Are you even looking where
you’re going? You’re staring at her ears! Up! Chin up! However, none of
this is engaging when faced with open spaces and nobody to jump down your
throat about the 45 degree angle of your arms. My horse tried her best to stay
calm despite the zigzag of my energy. I could feel her rising frustration as
she swished her tail and tossed her head. I did one turn around the field, then
two, three, four, staying with the fence line.
She became bored,
hot, bug-bitten. I was as well, and irritated that none of my expectations were
being met. I chose to give up at the far corner of the field and pointed her
nose at the gate on a diagonal across the wide expanse. I tried to capture
romanticism in that last moment, and asked her for a canter, hoping for a
gorgeous rocking horse ride back home.
Instead, at that
very moment, a massive bolt of lightning and a clap of thunder happened almost
simultaneously. My horse saw the safety of her barn across that field and chose
to get there NOW. How I stayed in the saddle, I’ll never know. For such a short,
stocky little horse, she could really move.
I clung to her thick hair and screamed like a banshee. (That really
helped her demeanor, I tell you what.)
She blazed across
the field, me clinging to her like a tick, until she hit the low point of the
field in the very middle. This was where the irrigation water pooled, and it
was soggy even in the driest summer days. Her hooves hit the mud, and I felt
her slip out sideways. Her head came up and hit my face, and then we both went
down hard.
I remember thinking
that maybe she was dead for a moment. I was lying on my left side, and I could
feel her immense weight crushing my left ankle in my metal stirrup. She didn’t
move for a long second, and neither did I. The crickets resumed their trilling,
and the thunder boomed again behind us. Them, suddenly she stood up. I was so
surprised at the movement that I went as limp as a ragdoll and lay there…except
for my left foot. Those stupid, stupid lug soled boots had gone through my
stirrup, and I was hanging by my ankle.
English saddles
have a metal hook in which the stirrup strap hangs from, which can slip off
with enough pull. Apparently, my 100 pound body was not enough to
loose me from my trap, and with another crash of thunder, my newly-developed
racehorse was off for the finish line…dragging my gangly collection of limbs. I
had no more sounds left in my lungs. I tried to grab my own ankle, but in her
terrified state, she saw me as an attacker, and proceeded to kick me
aggressively down both legs.
At this point, the
stirrup leather DID come off, and I fell to the ground, legs akimbo. Everything
was black for a moment. My helmet had pushed over my face and smashed the
bridge of my nose. I pushed it off and looked up. I saw things falling out of
the sky at me. Rain. Giant droplets crashed into my eyes, and I couldn’t
think to close them. I could taste blood where I had bitten my tongue, and
shock where I could feel every hoofprint down my legs.
I don’t know how
long I lay there. It felt like hours, but it was likely much less. The pain was
so intense that I couldn’t formulate a way to stand and had to think about it
for some time. I knew that nobody would find me for several hours, and I had to
get back to the barn. The rain was now pelting me, and I began to shake very
hard. Rolling to my side, I found the strength to crawl back to the gate and
pull myself up. My God, it took ages. A newborn deer had more grace than I. My
horse, sick of being in the downpour, followed me slowly back to the barn and
let me strip off her tack. I then began the long walk back to the house, one
excruciating step at a time.
I finally made it
to my room and sat in the little chair at my desk. I zipped off the boots and
peeled off my breeches. Crying seemed the only thing to do when I saw the
bruises forming with a speed I haven’t seen since. I slumped in the bottom of
my shower after a healthy dose of Tylenol and let the blood run off my face.
And here’s where the excellent lying came in: I wore pants for the next month
till the bruises had dissipated and told my parents I had banged my nose
dropping some pictures frames off a high shelf in the storage room. It wasn’t
until I had x-rays 5 years later than I learned I had broken both of my legs.
The cracks were still visible in the images, and still ache when storms roll in
these days.
I knew that my
horse would be taken from me if I told the truth of my accident, and that I
would lose the little freedom I had gained when I convinced my parents to buy
her. Lying saved me from that. I kept my horse, I found the courage to get back
in the saddle after some time off, and I learned a valuable lesson: stay
humble. You never know when Nature is going to shake you around a bit. Just
stay humble. I am no saint. I am no saint.