To The Woods - Day 2 - May 27, 2015

Today is the second day of To The Woods, so we are starting to settle in to the routine of things. We started the day with another reading, this time by Tom Brown Jr. He wrote about tracking something through the woods and having to bend down to the ground to get a closer look to keep the trail. He imagined that he was a tiny being, exploring the tall blades of grass and the soaring cliffs left by the bottom of someone's shoe. I found it interesting that he referred to the areas he observed as "miniature wildernesses." It was pretty thought provoking. Later, we did an entire activity based on this concept of the miniature wilderness, but I'll go into more detail on that later. After finishing introductory activities, we prepared to walk to a nearby park. This early morning walk was pleasant, as it had stormed the night before and everything smelled of rain and earth. After arriving at the park, we were introduced to Rob Boley, a local author and teacher who talked to us about creative writing.

Rob Boley assisting students with the prompts he gave 

He began his presentation by telling us that words are not bricks like most people think; they are malleable, easy to manipulate. He made this point by passing out random pages from a nature newsletter, instructing us to select a random three word phrase from anywhere in the newsletter with which we had to make a haiku using each of the three words as the start of a line. The three words I selected were "was deeply satisfying." If you don't know, a haiku is a three line poem. The top line has 5 syllables, the middle line 7, and the bottom line 5. This is my haiku:

Was the wind not strong? 

Deeply swaying the firm trees?

Satisfying Spring.

This haiku may not make much sense (due in part to the difficult prompt), but I think this is the beauty of the haiku poem structure. Being able to express an idea or story in so few words takes serious creativity (I'm lacking a little bit, but that's okay). The product doesn't even have to adhere to common grammar conventions. It's just a cluster of words with a very loose meaning. The next prompt Mr. Boley had us write about was similar to the first, but a little more difficult. Instead of randomly selecting a three word phrase, we had to randomly select an entire sentence. We were to use each word in the sentence as the beginning of a line of dialogue between two people. This is the sentence I had chosen: With the absence of livestock, red cedar reclaimed the gorge and the name Cedar Narrows became affixed to the farm as a genuinely descriptive term. This is the dialogue I came up with using each word as the start of a separate line: (verb tense was allowed to be changed)

"With Annie gone, I don't know how we'll get our milk."
"The poor cow; she worked so hard."
"Absence of milk through the winter could be bad; we may need a new cow."
"Of course, we could just get milk from the market."
"Livestock's milk is much more natural, a bit of the comfortable old world in the modern age."
"Red Barn Dairy makes some good milk, are you willing to try it?"
"Cedar Woods Dairy also does, but nothing compares to Annie's milk."
"Reclaiming Annie would be ideal, but we have to make a compromise."
"The idea of a new cow intrigues me, would it be any more expensive?"
"Gorging ourselves by buying another new cow seems frivolous and unneeded."
"And we could name her Annie 2!"
"The idea of a new cow is not realistic, we don't have the immediate funds, so please drop it."
"Naming new cows is fun though."
"Cedar Woods Dairy will do just fine; why don't you head into town and check the price?"
"Narrows Construction has the road into town blocked. I really don't want to confront them right now, especially after what happened in high school."
"Becoming confident enough to face your high school bullies is tough, but I'm sure you'll be fine."
"Affixed on the milk a little too much honey, consider my feelings."
"To err is human; please just go get the milk."
"The best thing to do is buy a new cow I swear."
"Farm animals are cool and helpful but we just can't afford one."
"As much as I love you honey, maybe we need some time apart. We cannot keep arguing like this."
"A divorce? You want a divorce? Over a stupid cow?"
"Genuinely I love you, but cows are my life. I have suspicions about you being Annie's killer, ripping her apart in the stables to make it look like a wolf attack."
"Descriptive, aren't you? Well you've found me out."
"Term-long term-separation is in order."

I found it fascinating that I could develop a story that had nothing to do with the original sentence whatsoever. The cool thing about writing dialogue like this is that, again, proper grammar didn't really matter. Think about how people talk; we often don't use proper sentence structure. Keeping this in mind, we could write sentences that worked well in a dialogue, but may have been grammatically incorrect. This was especially helpful when getting stuck on a word (such as 'affixed'-see above). This was the last portion of Mr. Boley's presentation, so we quickly prepared for the next activity. This activity is based off of the reading done at the beginning of the day about the idea of miniature wilderness. We were to mark off about a square foot of land to analyze using sticks or whatever. We started from a standing position, looking down at our patch of ground, taking notes on what we saw. We then knelt close to our patch of ground, once again taking notes on observations. Finally, we had to lay on our stomachs and observe the miniature wilderness as closely as possible for as long as we wanted, taking notes shortly after. Some things that stood out to me were ants that stood on the top of blades of grass, cleaning their heads, the dark areas between the blades of grass, the contrast in grass sizes, and the way some blades of grass quivered in the wind. This activity introduced me to a new aspect of nature, something I had never thought of before. It showed me what goes on in the places we walk over everyday, not sparing a second thought. It was nice to slow down and enjoy the small things (literally).

Setting up my small patch of land 

After the long, hot walk back to the school (and a quick lunch), we began another activity involving focusing on a small thing and recording details about it, this time with a Hershey's Kiss. We used all senses to analyze the kiss, recording observations as we went. After taking notes for each sense, we composed a poem using our notes, which we wrote on a paper Kiss. For some reason, I didn't find this activity as immersive as the miniature wilderness activity. I didn't feel like I focused in on the Kiss and learned new things about it like I did with my small patch of land. This activity was followed by our first yoga session with a guest instructor, which was surprisingly intense. Yoga really isn't my thing, but it was a pretty good way to relax after a busy day. 

A group picture taken at Delco Park