the beauty of writing

It feels like weeks since I've posted, but really it's only been three days. I suppose it might be the schoolwork - having so much to do every day makes the time crawl by. In any case, here I am again. ♥

School hasn't been horribly awful so far (which is always nice) and I'm taking a splendid English elective (which is by far my most favourite class ever.) For this English course, we're currently working on our description. We're developing our own unique styles of writing by learning from the greats, like Shakespeare, Dickens, Bronte, etc.

For our first assignment I had to describe this man:



I apologize for the poor quality of this photo.

My description is pasted below.

His hair, his hands, his eyes – they’re grey and wrinkled, old and tired. His very posture seems to indicate defeat; his head cradled in his hands, his back stooped so he can peer at his papers spread across the table.

He keeps a now-cold cup of tea just within reach, but the crumbly old biscuit is forgotten in his left hand as he stares at the music lying face-up in front of him. Old dirt has been worn into the crevices in his fingers, and he handles the music carefully, so as not to smudge the pages. There’s no point in bothering, though, because the music looks as battered as he does.

The worn folds of his dirty brown coat envelop his bony figure, and the skin around his sad eyes lies in bags; signs that he was once a much larger man. Something has crushed him, reduced him to the solitary old musician sitting there in the corner. He never glances up, never stirs except to rub his hand across the silver stubble on his chin, or to draw a Minuet nearer.

 

There was more to the assignment, but that was my favourite part. It was neat to see how the others in the class described the same man in such different ways - one referred to him as a street person, and considered him a nuisance, and another student described him as a retired fisherman. We were all looking at the same painting, but we each saw the man in a different light.

Isn't that the beauty of being a writer, though? Looking at the world and seeing it in a completely different way from everyone else?

What about you? What kind of a person do you see in this photo?