Is namhaid an cheird gan í a fhoghlaim.
The craft is an enemy when not learned.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

[ANAH] Weeks 15 & 16: Sacred Objects (James and Bianca)

I liked this exercise more than I thought I would. At first the idea of connecting objects to characters felt artificial. Then I thought about how so much of what I own is sacred to me and I felt overwhelmed. I reminded myself that I'm not neurotypical and my assignment of myths and meanings to random objects isn't normal, and I felt better.

Bianca was harder to do because for a child, meaning is intense but sometimes transient. I selected what matters to her right now. Her bicycle is a real one with two wheels and she feels very grown up when she rides it around. It's even a dirt bike like the boys ride in commercials. Her hand-held video game is her connection to her father. It also makes her cool at school and is a focus of her competitive nature. Her little gold cross was a parting gift from one of her nannies at the orphanage where she lived before James adopted her. She has a lot of mixed feelings about God, but she loves Church and all the solemnity there. It's a marked contrast to her father's work and she has some vague but positive memories of Catholic ceremonies.

James' sacred objects were something of a surprise because they are mostly from the distant past and have very little monetary value. Neither do they add to his social status in any way. All of his important objects are about family in one way or another.

The Story So Far: A very interesting way to look at characters that I'm going to do from now on. This is the kind of thing I end up fumbling to make up at some important part in the story and doing it ahead of time would be very intelligent of me. Good thing I have a book to tell me to do it!

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