Each school year, towards the beginning of community weeks, the entire Creative Writing department journeys to the Botanical Gardens. There, we prance around the rambunctious geese, who leave presents of poop in the grass. Clinging to each other, we narrowly avoid the poop, cackling to ourselves about how silly we must look. But looking silly isn’t and has never been our main concern, especially not when we’re all immersed in each other’s company.

By the time we’ve gotten situated—either under the tree or next to the water fountain—Heather, our lovely department head, distributes our missions. Together, in duos or trios, Heather gives us a map of the botanical gardens with six different destinations and prompts. At each destination, we are to hand-write a collaborative poem with our buddy, building off each other’s writing to create a work in accordance with the theme we were given. Once finished, we delicately place the poem in a spot visible to random passer byers. 

The idea is that our writing will light someone’s day up, that they will find the small poem on the slip of paper and smile. However, what we fail to notice is the smile that spreads across each Creative Writer’s face as they contribute to their section in the poem. The joy we aspire to share with others is already imprinted in our own selves, which is—in my opinion—what makes Creative Writing such an enlightening department. 

So without airplanes and trains, we travel through the world, delicately stepping across continents as if we were giants. We journey through the gardens: through Temperate Asia, New Zealand, and the Meso-American Cloud Forest all in under fifty minutes. Our feet touch the soil and our eyes recognize traditional plants native to the location we stand in. From temperate art to dirty fountains, we inspect them all, especially when it comes to determining landmarks so we don’t get lost. And though our missions are timed, many of us end up taking much longer than the given amount of time, as we take one too many wrong turns or merely wind up in a tree (I’ve seen it happen before). However, the timing does not matter as much as one may think. Instead, the main priority is to spread the Creative Writing cheer—even if it means spreading the cheer all the way to the tops of trees. 

At the end of the day, everyone regroups and collapses into the grass, our exhaustion finally taking full control of our bodies. As we lay, we whisper small secrets about our day into each other’s ears and show each other pictures of the funny moments that occurred during our voyages. Sometimes, if we’re especially lucky, a loving alumni will even stop by to meet the fresh faces of the department and hand out donuts!  The voyage through the botanical gardens does not only consist of beautiful plants but also of smiling faces and full bellies! To join our expedition through the Botanical Gardens is to experience a trip of immersive writing and beautiful sights; the perfect Creative Writing field trip.