the mad whose blessing you must accept without pity

"What if poets aren't crazy?"
- Charles Simic

I think I told pretty much everyone that Creative Writing class required me to walk around blindfolded. I don't think, though, that I told everyone why that exercise was important. I'm going to talk about it here, as a statement of faith.

When I was being led, it took only a few steps and a turn to lose my way. I could hear other people bumbling along, and a few muffled laughs as people bumped into desks or tried to navigate doorways, the shuffling of papers, and the murmur of a few other classes as we walked down the hall. The only thing I could smell was classroom smell - boredom, pencils, and coca-cola. I walked much slower, holding my hands in front of me as if I could guide myself by the feel of the air.

When Becky reached out my hand to touch something, I felt an intense delight that, in the darkness, something was there. When she reached out my hand to that weird mirrored sculpture in front of Boyer, I laughed out loud. To feel something there, and to feel it move but defy definition... In that touch, the world appeared. I was somewhere again.

Professor Perrin, when I went to see her, said, "Just let the process take you where it will." Writing every day is going to take you somewhere unexpected; make it your personal mission to find an image that you want to explore, every day.

I'm going to let the process take me where it will, until I reach out my hand in the dark and find something there. Whether my fingers recognize it when it comes, or it defies my understanding, I have faith that somewhere, there is some sort of delight, in which the world appears.