making strides

Today was the fifth session in the year-long Creative Writing course I'm taking, and the third that I attended. Just like the first two, this one seemed more about post-structuralist philosophy and contemplations on identity than about writing. The tricks of the trade are not ladled out steaming hot from the cauldron of creative incubation as I had hoped. Sometimes, I sit and stare at the teacher and wonder what the hell I'm doing there.

These moments feels endless but they are brief. The class is not half as bad as it seems from a distance. All these pseudo-philosophical musings help define characters in the context of modern society, and the open the floor wide to discussions. Today, towards the end, we were asked to react to a photo by Eve Arnold, showing a new-born baby's fragile hand hanging on to her mother's left index finger as if it were the only life buoy on the Titanic. The background was black and featureless. What do you see?

My partner in this exercise, a recent mom, saw loss. A mother is never closer to her child than right after birth. She has to help him grow and steer him towards independence, losing a little bit of the little one every day. The baby is fragile but also strong. He grabs the outstretched finger with surprising power and won't let go. In contrast to what one might think, it is the baby who calls the shots.

I saw an idea – tenuous, blurry and ill-defined. Sometimes, anywhere, a scientist realizes that the thought currently bouncing around in the emptiness of his brain has the potential to develop into something concrete, something substantial, something important. At this point, and perhaps for quite a while after that, it is not clear what's really going on. But the incipient idea has taken hold and won't let go. It will take elaboration and nurturing of the crazy thought to realize its full potential, to fill the blank canvas of its existence with meaning.

One simple image of two hands touching, two radically different visions – and neither terribly literal. We didn't mention that the baby was only born minutes before the picture was taken. Does that mean we're creative? This week's assignment is food as ingrained in one's culture. Talk about non-sequiturs.

Below are the two previous assignments (once I upload them).