*Writing practice: to take a provocative image and immerse myself in the imaginary world, writing from a particular character point of view, emotion, or etc.
That’s me in the picture, looks like I’m sitting on a stump eh? I don’t remember what I was on, a stool under the carpet? I remember the smell of the carpet, slightly wet and the feel of it, itchy and don’t want to touch it. Balanced on the bulk of it but feels like a princess on a miniature throne!
Isabel is next to me, big sister near so I felt safe and wanted to keep clapping my hands. I was singing a lot of songs of that time and it was very hard for me to sit still.
We loved to run and play in the fields, we loved to sing and jump rope. Mama did my hair for me, helped me sit on the stool and balance there. That was a real tree stump behind me! It smelled like outside and freedom. When I saw the background I was amazed, it looked like I could run out into that world, it was hard to understand that I couldn’t just go into it. Isabel said, ‘No Macy, it’s pretend, it’s not real’. But how would a real tree stump be there? The line between imaginary and real was perplexing to me,
How could those stumps exist beside each other? One real and one pretend? One that looks unreal next to one that looks real but isn’t? And what did that make me? I often had philosophical arguments such as these going through my head.
CELLOPHANE 