Emerging from darkness

Bu ignores my call as he perches on the fern-laden bank rising from the swampy pool that he has just exited. He studies the now-still surface toward its center. I follow his gaze across the water, slick with pollen. It appears almost black, this tannic soup of steeped roots and dissolving stumps. But there, where Bu’s canine interest rests, I find a fist-sized form emerging from the surface and just below, a disc-like shape glowing with soft reflected light. Four paddles project from the sides of the snapping turtle suspended there, silently taking air.

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HONESDALE, PA – “There’s a strange old oak door at the bottom of the wine cellar that houses the headmaster’s personal stash of wine but whenever it is approached a blinding flash of light pours through the spaces around it in a house where no one can remember his or her age.”

This snippet of a fantasy piece in progress was written by seventh-grader Blake Rayvid of Manhattan, one of six young writers endeavoring to explore the untapped wellspring of their imaginations in a reality-writing workshop entitled “In Their Own Words,” taught by retired English teacher Constance Moser from June 27 to July 1.

As they sat around a table sharing their experiences about the weighty but fun-filled endeavor of creating characters and setting, establishing conflict, establishing a pattern for a story and using imagery, five middle-schoolers and one high-schooler were wrapping up a week of drawing from their own life experiences to create short stories that involved friends, family, pets and memories of moments fraught with emotion.

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A vision to behold

It was an especially busy day for me. I had my normal appointments and had to squeeze in an extra meeting in Milford. I was covering it for an office colleague and really wasn’t sure of what to expect. As a rule I don’t like meetings. I never feel like I want to sit in a room after working all day and listen to a lot of things that don’t concern me. Beyond that, I’m not sure what gets accomplished in meetings.

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Having your cake and eating it, too

It’s the Fourth of July as I write this, and I’m thinking, “It’s all politics.” A recent “New Yorker Magazine” cover has a sad Uncle Sam at his birthday party, without any guests to share his birthday cake. Some Americans these days are feeling like that birthday boy, without a friend in the world.

A friend’s daughter, who recently returned from Europe, found anti-American sentiment high among the young people she met. She told us about her experience of trying to change their opinion of Americans, one person at a time. I was grateful for her effort. I never liked dining alone.

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A D V E R T I S E M E N T S