My Villages’ writing instructor asked us to bring a photo of someone to our first writing class. She led us through a series of exercises hoping we’d be able to see more than just a photo. Our task was to examine the image from left to right, and then top to bottom, looking for details that we may have missed with our first cursory look. We were to look for the story behind the picture and develop a caption.
She wanted each student to dig deep, but to limit our observation to a hundred and fifty words. Almost everyone, including me, failed to follow the limitation. This is what I wrote.
This trip to visit young Jackson James, and his parents, took place a month after his grandmother’s death. We had visited four other times since his birth, but it was my first trip since Ruth’s accident. Everyone was still in shock from her loss. Although he had not met his teenage cousins, Brady and Eva, young Jackson referred to his paternal grandparents as Nana and TGO just like they did. He asked about Nana when I arrived alone. I thought he was pretty smart for a nineteen-month-old.
Jackson was going through his train phase at the time, so we played with his train set. It was a wooden model much like his dad had played with in his youth. His father, Michael, had inherited his set from his older brother, David, and sister, Elizabeth. Young Jackson let out the same joyful commands that his dad had forty-three years prior.
When the floor play ended, we settled into the family couch and read a book about trains. Neither one of us knew there were so many types. I’d read a page about each one and offer a wide-eyed question. “Can you believe it?”
Near the end of the book, he asked the same of his mother, Kate. “Can you believe it?” I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the train or Nana’s absence.
I had an MA degree professor give us a similar assignment
He asked us to look at a fish and write a descriptive essay
about it. We met daily for a few weeks as it was a summer
class. Top down, left to right, inside out and on and on. He
was trying to get us to analyze every facet of the fish, as you
would analyze any problem that arose in a school setting. It
took most of the class, including me, about three days to
finish the analysis to his satisfaction.
As an afterthought, I should have used that analysis thoroughly
when I became an administrator.
What fun !