Blowing in the Wind Sophia Mitra, New Jersey
“How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man?” Every Friday for the last two years members of the Muse, our college’s art and literary magazine, would get together in the commons area around 4 pm to chill and jam. Young boys and girls would be crowding around the pit, the center stage area, thumping, tapping, and clicking away to the sound of Bob Dylan blaring from a boom box. That was our moment of creative inspiration according to Stefan, the Muse’s President and one of my best students in my Introduction to Literature class. He was the one who invited me to join as advisor in the first place.
“It’s so cool, Mrs. Mitra. We get a space to express ourselves. Somewhere to find our voice.” At first, I was a little skeptical of the enthusiasm exuded by this 5’9’’ athletic young man with icy blue eyes that seemed more fit for decoding trigonometric equations than creating romances with figurative language. Turned out Stefan was indeed a computer science major. However, he surprised me with his creative ability and his first story, a personal narrative based on his grandparents’ lives, was truly touching. Native of Belarus near Ukraine, his grandn
123
