What’s It Like?
For ten years or so I taught creative writing classes at Floyd’s Blue Mountain School, a parent run cooperative with early roots in Rudolph Steiner. I taught several classes to kids from about four to fourteen once a week in exchange for a portion of tuition for my own sons who were students there. Over the years the kids and I produced a monthly newsletter called The Dolphin Messenger and a yearly calendar that showcased their art, poetry, and prose. The Dolphin Messenger included interviews, cartoons, crossword puzzles, advertisements, quotes, group stories and poems, along with stories and poetry that the kids created. They took turns designing elaborate front covers using stamps from an extensive collection I had. One regular feature in the newsletter called “What’s it Like?” was something I came up to shift the kids from linear thinking into the creative abstract. I cut out a selection of unusual magazine photos (mostly from old National Geographics) and had each kid describe what it was like. The goal was not to guess what it was but to describe what it was like.
After seeing how the above photo came out I found myself playing the game and thought it would be fun to get other’s answers to “What’s it Like?” I’ll add my answer after a while.
Comments
uh, i don't know! i immediately thought of school patrol belts with that strip of orange and i see two people leaning on one another at the bottom, a happy scene on the other side of - something.
michele sent me :)
Posted by: honestyrain | October 20, 2007 3:41 PM
It is cold with the early first frost followed by this bone dampening rain. But I am feeling a little better since I finally found the garden frogs. Now I have to just get out of the car and make a dash for them!
Posted by: Tabor | October 20, 2007 6:01 PM
Despite the rain outside, my birthday party had been a great success(except for that cake someone smeared on the top left of the storm door). But not only had I eaten too much cake, I'd drunk the last of the wine and I was wishing I hadn't. There was a knock at the door. I lurched drunkenly to the storm door, batting at the gaudy red ribbons strung everywhere. When I looked through the door, I gasped. Egads! Damn that wine! There standing on my doorstep--little green men from Mars!
Posted by: Beth | October 20, 2007 6:41 PM
I'm at the Cafe Del Sol for Spoken Word night. We're getting a slow start so I thought I'd check in and the comments here had me scratching my head. Is it raining everywhere? What are these ladies talking about?
It must be the beer or the fact that I get nervous before a reading. But now I get it!
Posted by: colleen | October 20, 2007 7:14 PM
I guess it does look like rain on a window. But I can't get away from seeing a long tongue licking every last drop of something good in a glass bowl. Pretty neat exercise to have thought of, by the way. Glad I got to Spoken Word tonight in time to hear you. I love your imagery and I like the way you read it too! You really are quite the poet.
Posted by: June | October 20, 2007 9:14 PM
Thanks, June!
My take on the photo: Red seat belt in the dishwasher as seen through the dishwasher window.
Posted by: colleen | October 20, 2007 9:28 PM
It's like being in a glass bubble, rolling through a weeping willow forest while it's raining.
Michele sent me.
Posted by: Square1 | October 20, 2007 9:37 PM
Photo is taken from inside the car going through the car wash, and the red thingies are whipping the dirty, slushy water off the car and windows.
Posted by: Bonnie Jacobs | October 20, 2007 10:05 PM
This reminds me of going through an "old fashioned" car wash in my father's olive green Pontiac Parisienne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Parisienne). I used quotation marks around "old fashioned" as the one's today use water pressure and tri-coloured soap and are marketed as "no touch" car washes.
Posted by: Christine | October 21, 2007 1:51 AM
There are others all around us and time and space don't really exist (everything is really more like an ocean of being. But we try to to put controls on everything and wonder why we make the others so unhappy.
Posted by: Absolute Vanilla... (& Atyllah) | October 21, 2007 2:31 AM
It's like being the only warm dry ,creature on a soggy day and being so thankful that your mother made you wear your brothers old red rubber boots.
Posted by: Sue | October 21, 2007 10:47 AM
Ah, very nice! I'm thinking: A red seat belt getting cleaned in a dishwasher as seen through the dishwasher window.
Posted by: colleen | October 21, 2007 12:21 PM
It's pouring out and the rubarb is tasting really good since we don't have any food here. I think I will survive. Once in awhile the sun will come out, but it is very rare here.
Posted by: Sherry | October 21, 2007 5:46 PM
Love it! Can we dip the rhubarb in sugar?
Posted by: colleen | October 21, 2007 6:54 PM
It is like when I peer in from the outside of the shower my husband takes every morning with his coffee ready to hand him!
Reminds me of watching the solarium during a heavy rain!
Posted by: Ruth | October 21, 2007 8:44 PM
It's like a really dirty window that decided to take a shower and went in with it's red suspenders on. I'm not sure what Michele would say about that other than "hi".
Posted by: Smiler | October 21, 2007 10:01 PM
Colleen, you said, "I'd like to say you win a free car wash. Maybe a virtual one or maybe it will rain and you'll get a natural carwash."
I want you to know, it actually rained here! Not a sprinkle, not a few raindrops, but real rain! We are behind something like 16 inches this year with very dry trees and plants, so rain is good. Unfortunately, I was out driving in it all over town and our drivers were busy crashing into each other ... maybe they've forgotten how to drive in the rain?"
Posted by: Bonnie Jacobs | October 23, 2007 7:18 AM