After learning about observation, imagination and language as fundamentals in creative writing, we were given a homework assignment - to visit a place that we often go to and look at the place with new eyes, in a deeper way, and then describe it in 500 words or less. After much deliberation, I finally chose an outdoor platform of a seven train that I have become overly familiar with during the past year. I figured it would be good for me to give a place another chance by looking at it with fresh eyes, and perhaps, come up with more positive things to say about it. In any case, whether I would actually become fond of it or not, I needed to eventually start writing about things that I didn't like or that bored me. So, I wrote from the perspective of street lamps, totally removing myself from the situation, showing and not telling, observing, imagining and using a few newly learned words that quickly became my favorites.
Here is the result of a fun creative Sunday afternoon on my couch:
"Pine green stalks of street lamps cast languishing shadows on the grainy worn-out train platform. They leaned their clunky metal buds toward the earth in curiosity, as if the oversized industrial bulbs were looking for something exciting. Surely, the sedentary lifestyle was getting to them, bugging them to peak further and move from the overly familiar spot that they were planted on. They longed to be like the visitors of the platform and hop on the train that would carry them away on the snaking, twisting tracks toward some place new. Alas, they have been sanctioned to be silent witnesses, observers of life. But they ached to see beyond the rusty metal rows of train tracks that disappeared far into the distance in both directions. Past the kaleidoscope of grey-brown buildings that looked like a collection of stamps, spilled on the floor by a clumsy philatelist in a cascading heap and stuck together in a moist summer heat. These cluttered buildings, like rows of teeth of a giant shark, were filed down to ennui and left standing at various heights. They were all missing something, an unfinished project abandoned by men. A few lucky pigeons were making the most of the barren rooftop right underneath the platform, catching people's immediate attention with a flutter of wings.
A canopy of a tree emerged out of concrete and brick here and there, triumphantly claiming its space, adding lively color and grace to otherwise dour scene. Playful rays of the afternoon sun winked through the clouds at an impatient crowd of people that were gazing in the distance for an upcoming train. The warm golden disk of the sun has long passed the zenith of its journey and was now leisurely retiring west. Wistful clouds drifted by in rich fluffy bundles past the street lamps, past the homely plain platform and past the disinterested crowd. There was nothing uncommon in the diversity of persons meeting up with the same goal, to get where they needed to go. Solemn, determined faces focused on spotting a train paid no attention to them or the vastness of the bottomless sky. Stark blue in contrast with the whiteness of the clouds, it presented them an escape, into its dreamy depth and away from the noise and disturbance, an everyday extraordinary of peace and quiet tranquility taken for granted by most. Illuminated by the cooling sun, they simply checked their watch, itching to go on with their day as they planned it. Oblivious of the majestic beauty surrounding them, they weren't aware of an occasional ray of sun pouring all the way down to earth, projecting its radiance onto the dullness of man-made disarray, effortlessly adding harmony and expelling the darkness from the farthest corners that the street lamps could see. Maybe being still was not such a curse after all, for in constant movement and hurry there is much to overlook!"
Here is the result of a fun creative Sunday afternoon on my couch:
"Pine green stalks of street lamps cast languishing shadows on the grainy worn-out train platform. They leaned their clunky metal buds toward the earth in curiosity, as if the oversized industrial bulbs were looking for something exciting. Surely, the sedentary lifestyle was getting to them, bugging them to peak further and move from the overly familiar spot that they were planted on. They longed to be like the visitors of the platform and hop on the train that would carry them away on the snaking, twisting tracks toward some place new. Alas, they have been sanctioned to be silent witnesses, observers of life. But they ached to see beyond the rusty metal rows of train tracks that disappeared far into the distance in both directions. Past the kaleidoscope of grey-brown buildings that looked like a collection of stamps, spilled on the floor by a clumsy philatelist in a cascading heap and stuck together in a moist summer heat. These cluttered buildings, like rows of teeth of a giant shark, were filed down to ennui and left standing at various heights. They were all missing something, an unfinished project abandoned by men. A few lucky pigeons were making the most of the barren rooftop right underneath the platform, catching people's immediate attention with a flutter of wings.
A canopy of a tree emerged out of concrete and brick here and there, triumphantly claiming its space, adding lively color and grace to otherwise dour scene. Playful rays of the afternoon sun winked through the clouds at an impatient crowd of people that were gazing in the distance for an upcoming train. The warm golden disk of the sun has long passed the zenith of its journey and was now leisurely retiring west. Wistful clouds drifted by in rich fluffy bundles past the street lamps, past the homely plain platform and past the disinterested crowd. There was nothing uncommon in the diversity of persons meeting up with the same goal, to get where they needed to go. Solemn, determined faces focused on spotting a train paid no attention to them or the vastness of the bottomless sky. Stark blue in contrast with the whiteness of the clouds, it presented them an escape, into its dreamy depth and away from the noise and disturbance, an everyday extraordinary of peace and quiet tranquility taken for granted by most. Illuminated by the cooling sun, they simply checked their watch, itching to go on with their day as they planned it. Oblivious of the majestic beauty surrounding them, they weren't aware of an occasional ray of sun pouring all the way down to earth, projecting its radiance onto the dullness of man-made disarray, effortlessly adding harmony and expelling the darkness from the farthest corners that the street lamps could see. Maybe being still was not such a curse after all, for in constant movement and hurry there is much to overlook!"
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