"Creativity and Collaboration: The Relationship of Fact and Fiction in Personal Writing"

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About the Author

Rachel Casey is an undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida. Her academic interests include the analyses of rhetorics involved in critical thinking, civic engagement, and feminist theory.

Contents

Introduction

Review of Literature on Creativity

Method and Approach

The Story

The Magazine

The Allegory

Conclusion

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

References

Appendix E: “The Poppy”

Every Sunday afternoon for as long as Eva could remember, she and Batya walked together to the flowers.

Eva would skip down the dusty path carved into the forest which separated the flower-filled meadow from her home, loudly whistling random notes as if imitating the song of the light breezes spinning through the intermingled branches of the surrounding trees. Batya, watching her granddaughter leap with joy to the flowers, would follow slowly behind, taking care to avoid any stray branches which littered the path.

Last Sunday, upon reaching the old swinging rope, Eva realized she could no longer hear Batya’s feet shuffling behind her on the dusty path, and she paused, looking back for her grandmother who seemed to follow at a much more leisurely pace than usual. Rule in place that Eva could not travel beyond the sight of Batya, she called for her grandmother to hurry and waited near the edge of the trickling river, impatiently twirling in circles.

The river used to be Eva and Batya’s first stop on their way to the meadow. Batya would wade into the water while Eva swung in, holding tightly to the rope fashioned to the tree branch overhead. However, the old, frayed rope now hung far above the surface of the receded river, and recently, the trickle of water only existed as a trail marker on the pair’s weekly journey to the flowers.

Eva, dizzy from spinning and looking to busy herself while waiting for her grandmother, dipped her toe into the cool stream which ran slowly over the now-visible pebbles. She waded into the light trickle, mimicking Batya’s old habit of holding onto a nearby tree limb as she stepped down from the forest floor into the water. Batya would look up, letting the sun warm her face; Eva turned her head to the sky, staring up at the mesh of green and brown overhead, tree branches woven together as if holding hands.

She stood there, looking at the leaves fluttering slowly in the wind, so immersed into that old memory that she did not hear her grandmother approach from behind.

Batya quietly watched the little girl clothed in her lacy, white Sunday dress, a dress which now hit above Eva’s knee and seemed to be shrinking as quickly as Batya herself. Standing back on the path, Batya observed how intently her granddaughter studied the sky above, and her heart swelled with pride.
It was not until a squirrel scampered across, crunching leaves noisily under its feet, that Eva was brought back to the forest, realized her grandmother had caught up, and sprung from the stream, eager to get to the flowery meadow.

Wide-eyed and carefree, Eva skipped ahead, loving the wind on her face and the dirt under her feet and the rainbow-colored field she could see in the distance. The flowers, as if expecting the pair, waved to the red-headed young girl flying through the meadow and the grayed woman who followed behind.

Among the flowers, Eva could sit for hours, sharing her deepest secrets and greatest wishes, whispering to the wind and worshiping the open sky. Batya always sat off to the side, eyes smiling, watching her young granddaughter spill the contents of her heart to the quiet, attentive meadow. As the sun began to fall in the sky and Eva’s meditative monologue drew to a close, Batya would clear her throat to remind her granddaughter that dusk was nearing. Eva would then stand, scour the meadow, and choose one flower to take home with her before leaving.

She would always choose the prettiest flower.

Eva would pluck it from the earth and carefully carry her chosen wildflower back home. There, Batya would help her place it inside a black-leathered book, drying out the flower to save it from becoming wilted and lifeless like the ones left in the field. Eva kept all her pressed flowers tacked to her bedroom wall to create her own little garden. The flowers, although slightly faded, maintained their beauty, each preserving a memory, each patiently waiting to meet the weekly addition to the Eva’s flower family.

Last Sunday, towards the edge of the meadow, Eva found her perfect new flower. Growing beside a fallen tree and surrounded by browning daisies, the bright red, unscathed petals shone like the setting sun. Batya smiled gently at Eva, content with her granddaughter’s selection.

As if in a hurry for something—as if trying to edge Eva and Batya out of the meadow and back home—darkness rapidly painted the sky, and the song of crickets filled the otherwise still night air. Eva reached out and slid her small hand inside her grandmother’s, and last Sunday, they strolled together back down the dusty path carved into the forest which separated the flower-filled meadow from their home, Eva’s left hand embracing her grandmother’s and her right holding tight to the fiery-red poppy.

But now, Eva returns to the meadow alone.

She walks somberly through the field, one small poppy seed pressed tightly into the palm of her right hand. The flowers, waving in the breeze, welcome the barefooted young girl clothed in a new, and slightly too large, white Sunday dress. Eva gently makes her way to the edge of the meadow near the fallen tree, and kneeling beside the ring of wilted daisies, she digs a small hole with her fingers, placing the lone seed inside and covering it over with a handful of earth.

The poppy, Eva knows, will grow, and in the later years, she can bring it home to join her little bedroom garden, preserved forever alongside the bright red flower she chose to pick last Sunday.