Yana

19. Virginia Woolf

"So this morning we will talk about Virginia Woolf's approach to writing," Miss Jacobs said. "We usually assume that we think what we write: in organized sentence structures. And we assume that when we write what we think, our writing is as ordered as our thought.

But Virginia Woolf disagreed. She believed that thinking is a random process, that it skips time: one moment in the present, another in the past, and so on.

Highly organized thinkers write highly organized works, but the average person does not think this way and therefore has trouble reading such a work.

So, Woolf came up with the idea of writing as a free flow of consciousness. If writing would follow ordinary consciousness through its free movements of fairly loose associations, writing would be more accessible to the reader.

But then one would need to closely follow one's own consciousness in all its free compositions. One would have to think about thought.

Let's ponder this, students. We don't think of object, subject, verb, and noun. We think what comes to mind, whatever comes to mind. And what comes to mind? An immediate flow of images, flipping on and off like a disorganized slide show. Even a pause is a thought in thought.

"Who can demonstrate for us a flow of consciousness?" She asked. The room was quiet. I could hear the ticking of the round clock on the wall by her desk.

"Tick tick," I said. "From the round. The wall. Round the wall. Tick. Eight. Eight, morning, light through. The room. Smell of coffee brewing. Must get up for school. Get. Up. Some more. Sleep. Last year I bought a new Iphone. Peace of junk. Summer. Must go to the beach this year. Must. Must tie your shoes, she said. By yourself. I am 5. She is tall like a tower. The sky is blue today. Still hear it, still doing it. Tick."

The class was silent. I opened my eyes and realized they had been closed while I was talking. Claire looked at me with her mouth open.

"That was astonishing, Yana!" Miss Jacobs said. There was a strange look in her eye, like that of a mother for her sick child.

"I think that demonstrates precisely what a stream of consciousness is," she said. "How did you do it?"

"I started thinking," I said, "and then I let the thinking think for itself."

"That's right," she nodded. "You've grasped the idea precisely. But for those of us who are still trying to grasp it, there is something called free association. It is often used as a therapeutic technique in psychology. This is where I say beach and you say ball. You say the first thing that arises in thought without scrutinizing it. I say rain, you say coat. But it could also be storm, or cloud, or boots, or season. The idea is that there is no wrong word. You could say milk, in other words.

Now I'd like you to play this out with the person next to you. Go ahead, please."

Claire and I turned to each other. "Fine," she smiled. "Perfect," I said. "Fantastic," she said. "Dandy," I smiled. "Nose," she said. "Witch," I said. "Old," she said. "Witch," I said.

"Ugly."

"Witch."

"Broom."

"Witch."

"One."

I laughed. "Which one! That's good, Claire!"

"Stair," I said

"Up," she said.

"Set."

"Go."

"Hiking."

"Forest."

"Witch."

Again with the witches!" Claire exclaimed and bumped my foot with hers. "Are you sure you're free associating, Yana, and not planning?"

"I think we're either talking in synonyms or finishing each others sentences," I said. "There's gotta be a better way. And the words should not rhyme. That's association by sound. That's coaching the mind to pick another word. Free thinking is not coached."

"What is that?" Miss Jacobs said. "What did you just say, Yana?"

"I said that free association is more like coaching, I said. The word given connects to the next. There should be a disconnection."

"You're right," Miss Jacobs smiled, "but what would be an example?"

I said: "We would each write down a word and then share it with the person next to us. That will give us two words that were not coached. They would connect only by chance, like thought."

"A great idea," Miss Jacobs smiled. "Let's do that, class!"

Claire wrote her word down and I mine. We waited until everyone in the class was done writing.

"Alright, class," Miss Jacobs said. "I would very much like to see this on the board, so I'm going to write your words down in pairs. Claire?"

"Summer," she said.

"Yana?"

"Burgundy," I smiled.

"You're right," she smiled. "That's free association."

There were some wonderful pairs: September, apple. Shoes, ceiling. Old, water. Sister, egg.

I was smiling as Miss Jacobs was writing down the pairs, but Claire kept bumping my foot with her show.

"What is the matter with you?" I hissed.

"You're bleeding," she said and pointed at her nose.

I felt the warm blood on my lips and then the room was spinning and then it was dark.