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Imagery

I’m taking a writing class. The teacher is inspirational and thoughtful, witty and insightful. She leads a full and exceptional life of courage and bravery that she uses as material for her writing and her classes. In discussing how crucial finding the right image can be, she discussed how she found the image she used as a basis for her autobiography. The child of intellectual dissidents and prisoners of conscience under Ceausescu, the image that spoke most directly to her about her life was her parents’ process of burying their blackmarket typewriter every morning and digging it up every night. They would spend each night drafting seditious, liberal propaganda, yearning for a freed Romania. Listening to her speak about her imagery, there really wasn’t any space for my own inner monologue; I was simply in awe. She then asked us to try to think of an image that reflects our own sense of person and purpose in a similar manner. She gave us silences to think and reflect. And, I c...
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Fighting Laryngitis

As a kid, I used to have this recurring nightmare; I was trapped in a burning house, flames silently pouring down every wall around me, and the heat making my skin start to bubble. I would always race to the single window on the second floor of a gabled house on a busy, steep, San Francisco street, rip up the pane of glass, lean out as far as I dared, and start to scream but not a sound would come out. I could hear the common sounds of the pedestrians below. I could hear the cars passing by. I could feel the pressure in my head as the breath forced itself between my tightened vocal cords but no sound would come out. I could feel that dull ache in the middle of my forehead as I pushed harder and harder to make a sound. I was desperate - soon to die as I felt the searing heat on the nape of my neck from my hair catching fire - unable to leap from the high second floor without falling to my death. And no one heard. I could see the tops of pedestrian heads but no matter how hard ...
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