Creative writing class

 

I had a crazy dream last night. Not a nightmare this time, but a strange one that made me wonder, “Why would my subconscious need to manufacture such quirky fantasies to keep me sane during the day?”

In this dream, I was taking a creative writing class in English and the classroom or hall where this took place was also used by a jazz band. The seven musicians had a practice just before my class started and they would sometimes take longer than the time they were allotted. I didn’t mind because I like jazz and a 15-minute mini-concert was enjoyable.

The first hour of our very first writing class consisted of learning how to write in cursive. This being a dream, I didn’t question the legitimacy or need for such a lesson in a creative writing class. I did, however, find the lesson rather stressful because my handwriting has never been very elegant at the best of times and my ability to write by hand has decreased considerably with age.

The second task the teacher assigned was interesting and challenging. He provided us with a long list of words. We were to choose one of them as the theme of a four-hundred-word paragraph. I did not find it strange or inappropriate that he would ask us to write such a lengthy paragraph – critical thinking is obviously not a forte of my subconscious. What made the assignment challenging, was that we were to write this in the shape of a Christmas tree: one letter for the very first line, three letters and/or spaces for the second line, five for the third line, and so on. In addition to this directive, we were told that we could not use an “i” at the beginning of any of the lines.  The theme I chose from the list provided was “butter”. Mercifully, I did not get very far into this crazy assignment before waking up. This is as far as I got:

A
bit
or so
of soft
or frozen
nice butter

Where in the world did my mind gather the material for this dream? I did have a conversation with my daughter Geneviève yesterday. We talked about her blog, and I told her that I was impressed with her writing skills. She does write very well. Don’t take my word for it and check it out: https://mmehawtree.blogspot.com/ . Her blog is so good in fact that one of her articles was quoted in a CTVNews broadcast in 2014 (https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/striking-b-c-teacher-blogs-confession-1.1839835). The image at the top is from her latest blog article and deals with teaching children how to form letters. I should take a class with her to learn how to write in cursive!

Geneviève told me that I shouldn’t be surprised about her proficiency in writing, because “I am my father’s daughter after all.” I am very proud of her and that comment was the greatest of Father’s Day presents.

Un coeur qui écoute

Il m’arrive d’être en train de lire quelque chose, de m’arrêter et de me demander, « Qu’est-ce que je viens de lire? » Pour quelques secondes, mon esprit s’étant mis à vagabonder, j’ai lu des mots dans un paragraphe entier sans que mon cerveau en saisisse le sens. Je dois alors reprendre la lecture du paragraphe en faisant un effort pour « écouter » ce qu’il me dit.

Je constate qu’il est possible de vivre des portions entières de ma vie de la même façon. Je traverse des journées pendant lesquelles j’éprouve des événements douloureux ou joyeux, stressants ou captivants, banals ou intenses sans m’arrêter pour me demander, « Qu’est-ce que je viens de vivre? » Comme pour ces paragraphes dans mes lectures distraites, il faut alors que je « relise » mon vécu en « écoutant » attentivement ce qu’il a à me dire.

Cette relecture, je la fais à l’aide de la parole. Je mets des mots sur ce que j’ai vécu pour cerner la signification des événements de ma vie. Sans cela, mes journées et tout ce qu’elles contiennent s’enfuient et se perdent comme si elles n’avaient rien à dire, rien à me révéler du sens profond de ma vie. N’est-ce pas la définition même du mot « insensé? »

La Parole de Dieu m’aide aussi à faire une relecture de mon vécu pour en dégager le sens profond. Elle m’aide à me mettre à l’écoute de cette vie que Dieu m’a donné de vivre pour en découvrir le sens. Mon vécu quotidien, du geste ou de l’événement apparemment le plus banal à ceux qui semblent avoir plus de poids, ne se perd plus dans des culs-de-sac qui ne débouchent nulle part. La Parole donne un sens à chaque moment de mon vécu. Elle lui donne une direction.

Seigneur, donne-moi un coeur qui écoute. Que ta Parole éclaire mes sentiers.