In defense of the imagination

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days I have experienced in a long time. Today was one of the most frustrating. In both cases, it's amazing how the whole day-- not jsut work, not just the evening, not jsut the morning, but the whole day-- turned out the same way. Anyhow, I won't get into details of either, because talking too much about yesterday would be disrespecting several confidential spaces, and because talking too much about today is unfair as i will be presenting very one-sided versions of a story that clearly has many sides. So, let's drop them both.

Instead, I will focus on one thing from today (and from several months in some sense of the other) that has been on my nerves. Below is a fictional letter (which i probably will send sooner or later) to the director of the Transformative Language Arts (TLA) program at Goddard college and, by extension, to all TLA practitioners out there whoahve contirbuted ot the amazing reader "The Power of Words".


Dear Caryn,

Remember me? We met at the "The Power of Words" conference held at Goddard in 2007... I was the odd international student (both, student and international, were odd) who flew up to Vermont from my college in California. What a beautiful four days they were! What a delight to meet so many people, attend so many workshops, and learn so much together.

Caryn, did I ever tell you just how relieved I was to discover TLA? To discover that somewhere out there, there were other people like me, people who had a sneaky suspicion that creative writing and stories were intrinsically connected to personal and social change... people who have devoted their lived to exploring this connection. Honestly, I am tired of people telling me that art is irrelevant in the context of society, that it is more the "fancy (read: superflous) stuff," or at most that it is a tool for self-expression... I hear that about poetry above all, and that stabs me because I love poetry, I live through poetry. For too long, i too had grown up thinking that my passion for creative writing (reportage bores me) somehow contradicted my desire to work for social change. TLA was such a perfect coming together, such a comfort, because suddenly I saw that my life could be whole, my two greatest passions could speak to each other, could even work together to create something even more powerful and beautiful.

I have written to you, haven't I, Caryn, about the Creative Writing for Personal and Social Change workshops I did here in Delhi? I worked off of your book "Write where you are" and Linda Christenson's "Reading, Writing, and Rising Up" to create the curriculum. It was such a beautiful expereince for me to facilitate that workshop, to see how these two passions of mine could indeed converge, to experience rather than just read about TLA.

And yet, despite everything, i seem to always hear people say that creative writing is irrelevant to the real world, to the world beyond "I." Have you heard that, Caryn? And do those words hurt you too? They hurt me deeply-- TLA, or my interpretation of it, has become what i really believe to be my life's passion, the meaning i find when all else is muddy, and it just hurts to have people tell me it does not, cannot, even exist.

Today was one such day. So after I got home from work, I opened "The Power of Words." First, I read Katt Lissard's story about her work on HIV in Lesotho-- that's always been one of my favorite TLA stories. Then I went to the dramatherapy for troubled teens one, because i too work with teenagers. And then I just read through a bunch of other essays like the one about making the journals and finding the students writing their names in it... lots of other ones. It felt so good to read it all.

Earlier, i have read this book for ideas, made little notes about how i could try out some of these techniques. Or i have read it as stories about the power of words. But today, the stories themselves were the words that had so much power. They reminded me that I am not alone in these dreams, that stories and poems and theater do indeed have so much transformative power, that even if a million people disbelieve in the sheer power and beauty of the imagination, there are a handful who believe... and that changes everything.

I think I can take up this conversation again at work tomorrow, this time more equipped with a sense that it IS possible and important, even if others don't think so. I think I'm going to take this book along to try and prove a point to those who still won't believe. Anove all, I think that now even if this project were to fall through, i will be disappointed but not totally disheartened. Because i will know that I have succeeded with one small group, that many others have succeeded with many other groups, and that even if not yet, eventually, I can work on making TLA my life's mission.

Thank you, Caryn, for opening up this space. And please convey my deepest thanks and warmest regards to everyone I met at the conference and to everyone who contributed to this book.

With love,

Aditi