Upright Creative
Faith Freshwater
“Dancing in the Rain”
The rain hadn’t stopped since she’d arrived. It had changed in volume and sound, sometimes a soft tinny on the roof, other times a loud monotonous howl that shook the windows in their frames. But it had yet to stop entirely.
Libby was sick of it; the ringing in her ears, the chill that seeped through the dorm walls, the constant reminder that she was currently half a world away from home.
The rain droned on, erasing any memory of why she’d thought this would be a good idea.
It was her fourth weekend in York and she was huddled up at her desk with a steaming cup of tea. Weekends back home were spent out with friends, at the beach, or a shopping centre, somewhere they could soak up the sun and forget about the assignments due the next day. They wouldn’t believe her if she told them she hadn’t left the campus a single weekend.
Thick purple clouds rolled out to meet the horizon and thunder crackled in the distance. It wasn’t like she had anyone to go out with, anyway. And she didn’t trust herself not to get lost if she travelled anywhere outside of the small inner-city around campus.
How ridiculous she had been to expect an adventure and instead get a small chilly room, a few lecture theatres, and the corner store down the block.
At least the work was interesting, Libby kept reminding herself. Challenging but not impossible. If the study itself had been just as awful as everything else, she would’ve packed her bags and been home by now. Or maybe not. Her dad always said she was too stubborn for her own good, and leaving felt too much like admitting defeat.
It was the same reason she was still sitting here, staring blearily at her laptop screen, even as the information refused to sink in. She had set her timer for forty-five minutes, and she would sit here until it went off, no matter how badly her bed was calling to her. If she let herself take breaks whenever she wanted them, she’d never get anything done.
Not that she was getting all that much done right now, anyway. But it was the principle of the thing. And it wasn’t like her mum was here to tease her about it.
That sent a bundled up ball of emotions spinning through her and for the first time Libby wished the rain was even louder, just so it would drown out her thoughts.
Two bangs rang out in quick succession, at first sounding like thunder in the still room, until Libby processed where the sound had come from and she got up to answer the door.
On the other side of the door was a short frenzied looking girl who had clearly just come in from the rain, hair matted to one side of her head and wearing a large raincoat that glistened with fresh drops.
Libby recognised her from Medieval History but could not remember her name. Cleo?
“Hiya!” she grinned, “You doing anything right now?”
This seemed like such an absurd question for a stranger to ask after knocking on her door that Libby simply blinked and said, “Assignments?”
“Pshhhh,” the girl scrunched up her face like a goldfish and shook her head, “Nah! That’s boring. You should come out with me, instead.” She paused before adding, “I’m sure you’ll be fine with those assignments, I’ve heard you talk in history.”
Being the only part of this whole thing that made any sense, Libby latched onto it. “Yeah I remember you from history, but I don’t remember your name, sorry?”
“Oh! My bad,” she said and then did full-body dramatic curtsey in the middle of the hallway, “Madame Clover at your service, Miss.”
Clover. She hadn’t been too wrong then, and it’s not like it was common.
“Nice to meet you, Clover,” Libby said, still feeling out of her depth, but she had felt that way ever since she stepped off the plane. “I’m Libby.”
“Well then Libby, what do you say? Want to go on an adventure?”
Libby was not a spontaneous person by any measure and part of her is surprised that she hadn’t yet closed the door or turned her down.
She had no idea why Clover had invited her or where she’s going, and another glance out the window confirmed the rain hadn’t changed since the last time she checked.
But there’s something in Clover’s grin that gave her pause. Why did she come all the way to England if not for an adventure?
So instead of ‘no thank you’ or ‘maybe another time’ or ‘depends where we’re going’ she nodded and said, “Let me grab my coat.”
It turned out that Clover didn’t really know where they were going either.
“I just like exploring,” she explained on the train, “Going new places. Thought you might want to as well since you’re here on exchange and everything.”
Her accent was sharp, cutting off the end of words and emphasising vowels Libby wouldn’t ordinarily pay any attention to.
“That’s why you invited me, then?”
She had grinned that infectious smile again, “You just seem interesting, is all. We’ve had a bunch of people from elsewhere, but I haven’t had much to do with any of them. So when Corey and Finn said they didn’t want to come with me, those are my mates, boring sods, I thought I’d try to get to know the girl from Australia instead.”
Which answered most of Libby’s questions but did not inspire confidence that they would make it back to campus before class on Monday.
Clover put headphones in after running out of things to say, bopping her leg along to whatever she was listening to. Without headphones of her own or conversation to distract her, Libby was forced to listen to the soft rhythmic sounds of the train and watch the rain form beads on the windows.
It started to look beautiful after a while, individual gems against a misty unknown world.
They got off the train and onto a bus. As soon as the bus rattled into a small village, Clover leapt out of her seat and made her way to the front as if she had known this was their destination all along.
While Libby hugged her raincoat tighter around her, struggling to pull her umbrella out of her bag, Clover spread out her arms and turned her face to the sky, grinning.
“Welcome to the Yorkshire Dales, Miss Australia!”
Libby rolled her eyes, “Libby is just fine. And didn’t you bring an umbrella?”
She shook her head so fast Libby could see water flying loose, “Nope! I am one with the rain.”
Libby scoffed and finally managed to untangle the cover on her umbrella and open it up. She really should have done this on the bus, but a lifetime of superstitions stopped her. She’d rather be a bit wet than cursed.
Not absolutely soaked, though.
“You’ll freeze to death if you keep standing in the rain like that!”
Clover just grinned, and Libby overcome with inexplicable annoyance and concern for a girl she’d met a matter of hours before, moved closer and held the umbrella over both of them. “Here. We’ll just share.”
Clover smiled up at her, “Cheers.”
Libby smiled back, “So then, where is this adventure taking us next?”
Part of her felt like they were doing something forbidden; as if they were skipping class by leaving campus even though it was a Saturday. Surely she should have at least told someone where she was going before she left. Back home she never would have ran away across the country on the weekend.
Except this country was a lot smaller than what she was used to, and travel times were a lot shorter, and she was an adult now. She didn’t have to ask permission to go somewhere, even though it was probably smart for someone to know your whereabouts when you travelled further than the local Sainsbury’s.
Clover had said that her friends knew she was going out though, even if she’d supposedly had no planned destination. They would be fine, Libby told herself firmly.
“Let’s go check out that shop,” Clover pointed, “Or is it a cafe?”
She started towards it without waiting for an answer, leaving Libby to struggle behind her trying to keep the umbrella covering them both.
It was in fact, both a cafe and a shop. The small room was cramped with tables in between shelves of hand-crafted goods, and a counter with a cake display stood at the back. An old man sat at a table with a newspaper and a young woman stood behind the till, but it was otherwise empty.
Clover darted towards the cakes immediately, while Libby stood on the doorstep and shook out the umbrella before she placed it in a bucket underneath an embroidered sign that read “umbrellas here, please” surrounded by roses.
They sat at the table by the window and looked out onto the cobblestoned street.
“Have you been here before?” Libby asked, hands wrapped around a mug of steaming tea.
“No,” Clover said through a mouthful of almond croissant, “Most of these little places through the highlands are pretty similar, though.”
Libby hummed and looked at the rows of knitted tea cosies and sculpted mugs. She should get something for her mum. The knitted stuff would definitely travel better. Did her mum own a teapot?
“I’ve never been somewhere like this before,” she confessed.
“Really?” Clover seemed surprised.
Libby nodded, “Yeah, there are similar places along the coast, but they feel more aimed at tourists somehow. This just feels… hidden?”
It occurred to her that she never would have found this place if she hadn’t decided to go on exchange, or had spent the entire time locked up in her room.
Libby would never have thought to travel somewhere new without a plan if Clover hadn’t turned up on her doorstep.
Libby didn’t believe in coincidences.
After the tea and cake had been finished, and Libby’s bag held a purple tea cosy, the two of them stepped back into the rain.
Libby was careful to keep them both under the safety of the umbrella. Clover immediately jumped into a puddle.
The rain was a cold shock up Libby’s legs, soaking her tights. Her face must have expressed exactly what she was feeling, because Clover laughed and said, “It’s just water,” in that cheerfully lilting voice of hers.
It occurred to Libby that although Clover’s accent was wildly different to her own, it was also unlike most of the ones around campus.
“You’re not from York, are you?” she asked curiously.
Clover’s smile dulled, but her voice was still bright when she said, “Native to Wales, I am.”
Something about that shift in her expression told Libby not to push. She turned the conversation back to herself. “At least you’re probably used to all this rain. I’ve never seen this much water in my life.”
Clover chuckled again, “I like it! It feels freeing, I dunno. Makes me want to dance!”
As if to prove her point, she twirled away towards the bridge at the end of the street. It was only a small bridge, made from rough stone, leaping over a small trickling river.
Libby stood there for a moment, watching the fast running water travel towards her, then underneath and out of sight.
Clover was still dancing, twirling and jumping in puddles, a grin stretching her face wide.
Libby shook her head and sighed, the last of her resolve crumbling. When Clover spun back towards her, Libby grabbed her hand and twirled with her. It felt ridiculous, and the rain was cold on her legs as the water splashed around them.
But it was fun. Maybe that’s all it needed to be.
On the train home, Libby got a call from her mum.
“It’s been great,” she said honestly, “I’m having an adventure.”
Rationale
In my creative piece, Dancing in the Rain, I used the themes of family and adult responsibilities from Upright. I connected these themes to the focus question, “Can a mind stretched by new experience ever go back to its old dimensions?” by centring the main character’s mindscape around her home, family, and her newfound independence. I explored how these themes might impact someone experiencing something new and out of their comfort zone. My idea to have this new experience be an overseas exchange program originated from my own interest in these programs, and how travelling overseas has shaped my own mindscape. I also used characters that I created and wrote about for a creative task last year, so even while this one did not draw from that source material, the characters were shaped by themes from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. I decided to create a short story for this assessment because it was the best medium to explore a character’s thoughts and experience with a challenging situation in depth.
The main literary technique I used was motifs, as they were a powerful technique used throughout Upright. The motif that I used was the weather, or more specifically, rain. I used it by returning my main character’s attention to the rain throughout the piece and changing how she views and interacts with it to demonstrate her evolving mindscape. The rain contrasts with the hot weather Libby is used to at home in Australia, and at the start of the piece she is “sick of it” and views it as a “constant reminder that she was currently half a world away from home.” (Freshwater, pg. 1). This connects to Upright’s theme of family being important because the main reason Libby is missing home and struggling to get used to her new environment, is because she misses her family. In Upright, Lucky is distanced from his family and struggling with the complicated history between them. His guilt and anger over his family prevented him from enjoying a lot of his trip across Australia. I wanted to explore family from a more positive standpoint, but still write about how feelings around family can make it hard to move on to new experiences. I linked this into the motif of rain by having Libby’s feelings around her family be “a bundled up ball of emotions” (Freshwater, pg. 1) when she dislikes the rain, and then having a positive phone call with her mother when she finds enjoyment in it, making peace with her homesickness.
I used symbolism with Libby buying her mum a hand-knitted tea cosy from the small store and cafe, to represent her thinking of family in a positive sense, even when her mindscape is being ‘stretched.’ By considering whether she “should get something for her mum” (Freshwater, pg 4) Libby is retaining her attachments to her family without forcing herself to stay in the ‘old dimensions’ of her mind.
I also linked my motif of rain to the theme of adult responsibilities. Despite making the brave step to travel alone overseas, Libby feels out of her depth and struggles with being independent. She considers how odd it feels to make her own decisions without any input from authority figures, “Part of her felt like they were doing something forbidden; as if they were skipping class by leaving campus even though it was a Saturday. Surely she should have at least told someone where she was going before she left.” (Freshwater, pg. 4) while out in the rain. It is only after she has interacted with the rain more and travelled through it, that she also starts to appreciate stepping outside of her comfort zone, “It occurred to her that she never would have found this place if she hadn’t decided to go on exchange, or had spent the entire time locked up in her room.” (Freshwater, pg. 5). This gradual change of perspective ends with Libby realising that rain, and the change it represents, could be “fun” and “maybe that’s all it needed to be.” (Freshwater, pg. 5 ) This is similar to how Lucky struggles with being an adult, being teased by Meg, “Did you just call yourself a grown-up?” (Minchin, Lapaine, Taylor) but ultimately comes to terms with his responsibilities and looks after Meg and Billie. I wanted to explore how even though maturing can be difficult, it can also be worth it.
I also wanted to contrast how Libby and Clover interact with rain differently, “While Libby hugged her raincoat tighter around her, struggling to pull her umbrella out of her bag, Clover spread out her arms and turned her face to the sky, grinning.” (Freshwater, pg. 3) I did this to represent how at ease Clover is with trying new things, while Libby is uncomfortable. This was also intended to mirror the dynamic between Lucky and Meg in Upright.
My creative piece, Dancing in the Rain, incorporated themes of family and adult responsibilities from Upright while addressing the focus question through the techniques of motif and symbolism. I approached this task with the goal of exploring how mindscapes are changed and cannot return to previous dimensions. I achieved this by writing about a young woman’s perspective on life evolving due to growing up and being in a new place, and how this impacts her connection to family.