The one thing I realised after doing @BoJaneHorselady's poetry workshop today is that I have completely stopped using my imagination. She asked us some fairly elementary questions and my answers were as unimaginative and boring as I feel I have become.

I remember that as a kid, I used to read all these fancy ass books about witches and dragons and djinns. German, Polish, American authors...whatever I could get my hands on. What happened????

Also, I had forgotten the joys of absolute nonsense. Her task freed us from creating a masterpiece. When the goal itself becomes to write nonsense, you suddenly have all the freedom to experiment. It's crazy how simple it is, but not at all easy.

I do this for my students. I make completely nonsensical sentences and make them translate them. My dog loves cooking Chinese food. Is your cat Indian? My students come up with the craziest stuff. @jo_len_ta and @geetabose came up with a super wakda story in one of the lessons.

But somehow, when it comes to my own writing, it has to be super controlled and meaningful and factchecked and as a result I never write anything. I either aspire for the calibre of @rumlolarum's hauntingly beautiful personal essays, or choose to write nothing at all.

But what is the pointttttttt? It's very banal, but my big epiphany here is that NONSENSE IS GOOD. It really opens your brain up. Allows you to meander and flow and run and pause and sprint without having to worry about your words making sense. Really, truly liberating feeling.