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THE ALLEYNIAN 710
Creative Writing
For Jamie Chong (Year 13) the last Uppercase writing session, which took place on a gloriously sunny May afternoon, was a bittersweet experience
The air is sweet and sizzling with anticipation. The temperature soars up into the twenties, and the Uppercase writers are trekking tenaciously towards Grange Lane allotments, half a mile from the College, for our final writing session. Grass grows most beautifully here, each proud, green head standing tall after the harshest battering of rain, wind and sun. We sit under the canopy of trees which fringe the allotments, with London spread out beyond. After writing, and then sharing the poetry which bubbles up within each of us, everything becomes uncertain, except what’s in front of us. The future perhaps. Or the city. The view of London has never seemed so clear or so still to me. I believe it’s because I’m about to leave. I feel as if it’s probably because nothing is swinging or hanging in the pendulum of things about to happen, or things that are happening, or things that have happened – the moment is tangible for once, sinking like a pound coin in my palm. We’re at that age where we’re experiencing so many things for the first time, so it’s difficult to conceive of things that we will have to go through for the final time. The final society meeting; the final lessons; the final lunches in the Christison Hall. Two years have flashed by like a match licked up by a flame, hungry and ambitious, taken for granted. I realise I don’t want to leave. Between the oak trees, the rhubarb stalks, the paths encroached upon by bushes, I’m thinking about the plots. About each person that I’ve known, like a stem emerging from the ground. Or each seedling of an opportunity budding. What narrative will there be for those?
What if the seeds we’ve sown don’t grow? What if the seeds that we didn’t sow would have borne the sweetest fruits? There’s a Portuguese word for this: saudade . All of these possibilities spidering out – it is difficult to imagine all of them. I guess it will not do to hang on to each moment as a crux of our lives. We must move on. One of the moments that I’m particularly proud of this year is the creative writing sessions which students in Year 13 led with young writers from City Heights Academy, where we truly got to experience the creative potential of the younger pupils sprouting and rooting, as each mind glowed under the warm lights of the Wodehouse Library. I can only hope this continues to grow. As you read through the writing produced by the students this year, I hope you sense how significant, unique, and impossible to define, these moments and these pieces of art are. I invite you to join me in celebrating the students behind them. Two years have flashed by like a match licked up by a flame, hungry and ambitious, taken for granted. I realise I don’t want to leave “
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