My favorite part of Zora Neale Hurston's How It Feels to Be Colored Me was the end.
She compares herself, and others, to bags. Paper bags of different colors with a mish mash of contents.
That got me thinking about how I would be, if I were a bag. Here's what I've decided:
If I were a bag, I'd be creamy colored and smooth papered. Not the rough texture of your average lunch sack, but rather the plasticy coated feeling of expensive wrapping paper.
I'd have a large amount of contents. I'd also have to be like Mary Poppins' tote to fit them all.
For example, I'd have a tree.
I'd also have a fake sterling silver ring with the varnish wearing off and the copper showing through.
I'd be full of glitter.
And cupcake tins.
I'd have two brightly colored paper clips.
A strawberry.
A small figurine of a bullfrog named Jeremiah.
A knee-high sock with alternating stripes.
A pair of broken sunglasses.
A blue button.
Pieces of green thread.
A toy army soldier.
A polly pocket.
A brooch of a butterfly.
A miniature origami crane.
An orange highlighter.
Bits of glass.
Tinkly glass beads.
A paintbrush.
A piece of silky fabric.
A book with all the pages ripped out.
There's more, I'm sure.
But it's an interesting thought, isn't it?
Try looking at someone, a stranger, and try to figure out what the contents of their bag would be.
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1 comment:
I like how you've taken this and done your own. I'm going to have to steal that idea as an assignment the next time I teach this essay. Thank you for doing this; I can't help but think that there's a poem in there.
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