Unspoken Truths

By Marie-France Boissonneault (Dallas Road)

In the health class I have taught for the past two years, I incorporated an assignment from one of my previous classes that explores themes of embodiment through our five senses. 

In writing through animal characters, I have found this to be an ideal way to enable a deeper understanding of the world through the experience of another’s whom we cannot truly grasp due to our own limitations. I am always amazed at the imaginative ways that my students describe the experience. It can be a difficult task given the criteria, but some, like the first time I assigned it, really take to the challenge!

This past term, I came across a book in my middle school library that illustrated the exercise beautifully when writing about colour. This book proved to be a great tool to help some of the students that struggled with the assignment. It is hard to conceptualise the world of another, whether it is a being from our own species or a species with which our experience of the world is so far removed from our own.

We all live intricate lives that have a unique unspoken understanding to each that may cross our paths but they are only truly appreciated by ourselves. The reasons we do things, the choices we make, the way we survive, how we keep strong and smile into the next day… We can look upon another and try to assume that we understand their struggles or their pain, their joys or their sorrows, or even the reality that they mirror to the outside world, but no matter who we are there is always a hidden truth.

It is fascinating to travel through the realms of other beings by researching their experiences of the world and describing it to the best of my ability. As well, it is a great writing exercise to challenge oneself to describe an understanding outside the confines of the shared, and to inwardly conceptualise the journey forbidden from using descriptors related to our senses in question…

Stardust

Like flashes of lighting on a stormy night the brief illumination revealed moments past. Memories hidden in time came rushing to the surface. The first moment they had shared a breath, the feeling of calm as they traveled side by side across the dry landscape and the deep blue of the sky in the early morning light. She nickered softly stomping her hoof upon the ground of her stall. Her head nodding in longing as though to affirm the reality of her mind’ eye…

“And the rest is rust and stardust.”
~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Echo

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Two Rabbits Asleep by Jean-Baptiste Huet, 1784

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low

As long ago, my love, how long ago. 

Christina Rosetti

They spent many afternoons deep within the cool damp refuge of Schatz’s warren. He had graciously welcomed her and would calm her with his peaceful nature and tenderness. Guiding her through the network of tunnels Flitzen was enchanted with Schatz’s ability to conjure a story from a single prompt. He was a watcher, a listener and had a mild manner like no other. On those sweltering summer days, the dampness of the warren was a welcome refuge. Flitzen could easily lose herself in the environment, absorbing the coolness of the soil that surrounded her, the scent of the underground roots and wetness that hung in the air. Sometimes, she and Schatz would just lie side by side for hours enjoying the stillness and silence while the world above teamed with life under the hot blazing sun. She longed to return to that space. The time in which the world seemed to melt away and there was nothing left but a sense of synchronistic peace. She closed her eyes and travelled back as Betrüger’s claws tore into her side. The searing pain of the attack dulled to a throbbing pulse like the palpitating rhythm of her heart as each beat brought her closer back those moments with Schatz.