Today was pretty great, although I’m feeling tired and a little broken right now. It was a long day.
I walked along University Avenue and went to my creative writing class. It’s the second last class – I’m sad that it’s almost over! We talked about techniques for writing stories, such as writing lists, doing research, and drawing upon personal experience and observation. Kelli said to trust your instinct and your fascination with a certain topic or subject – that thing that gnaws at you, that you can’t seem to stop thinking about, or that you can spend hours on end researching. There are so many things that I want to write about, but most of all I just want to see where my imagination takes me. I tend to get stuck on certain ideas and limit myself, so it’s nice to write about something completely out of my comfort zone.
We broke into groups to review each other’s work. I had written a story about a young girl Kamini who is from a village in India and is forced by her parents to marry a local village boy. She can’t accept that this is her fate, and runs away on her wedding day. This of course is something that many little girls face on a daily basis, and it is an atrocity. I got some great feedback on how to revise the story, and everyone in the group loved it and wanted to hear more. It was amazing because I had actually started it in a previous class not thinking it was very good, but as usual I was being overly self-critical and hard on myself.
Following the class, I stopped by the ROM gift store (image above) and discovered a fascinating book about Hindu temples in India and the stories they tell. After that I walked to Balzac’s and saw that it was closed! So I went to Aroma instead to do some work and catch up on my reading. I read an editorial on the CARE Canada website about women and girls that are vulnerable in emergencies. One of the girls whose entire family was killed in the Central African Republic, said that dancing helps her to forget the pain. “When I dance,” she says, “I forget everything.” I’m similar that way – dancing makes me forget the pain. I think that’s why One Billion Rising is such a great movement, because dancing is a liberation of the spirit, and is healing and freeing.
The editorial also described the story of a young girl named Muzoon from Syria, who flees to a refugee camp in Jordan, and witnesses the marriages of many of her friends. She herself wants to fight against child marriage and become a journalist one day.
On the way home I ran into my homeless friend Marc. He recognized me and said that he’d been thinking of me – LOL – all good things I hope! It was his first week sleeping on the street (at Nathan Philips square) and he was actually enjoying it better than the shelter. He said that he slept better outside and wasn’t bothered by other people. I’m sure I’ll see him again soon!
She's Come Undone 