The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do --

determined to save

the only life you could save. 

While, admittedly, poetry is my least favorite of all forms of writing, I really loved this poem. I suppose it's because at times, everyone can relate to it. Lately, I've found that I've been stuck in a rut of sorts and there is no better way to explain it than with this poem. There are times that I put everyone else before me -- literally, everyone, even people that I don't like very much, which I find strange, but it happens.

 It's times like these when I run myself ragged trying to do everything I can for everyone else. People are pulling on me from all directions wearing me thinner and thinner. No matter how much I'd like to help all of them, things eventually start slipping through the cracks and I get worn so thin that I'm about to snap.

This goes on, as it always does, for a few weeks until I realize that I just can't do it anymore. No matter how much I try to help anyone, I can't fix their problems for them and I can't make everything magically better. It takes a while, but little by little I try to back myself out of everyone else's messes that I've gotten into. (I know it sounds easy, but in reality it's like trying to claw your way out of a lion's mouth.) It's tedious and hard but I do it because I need to for myself, because I am the only one I can actually help and I am the only one that will do anything for me.

"It is difficult to get the news from poetry, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." - William Carlos Williams

I'm not entirely sure what this quote means. I think, however, that this means that men die miserably for not having enjoyed some of the simpler things in life. In poetry, there is often love, simplicity, music, inspiration, creativity and so many other things. By  not having these things, men never become whole, they are never complete in who they are. When someone dies, not having known love or inspiration or the appreciation for some of the smallest things in life, they die having not known some of the best things in life. These are the things that people strive for, that people appreciate most in life, and the things that make people happiest. Without them, people are unhappy and thus die miserably.

In the Future

It is the year 2049 and I am 56 years old. It has been a long fifty-six years and I have been through many things. All in all, I don't know how much I've actually amounted to. I've never been a CEO, I never became president of the United States like I once wanted to at age five, I never became a rock star like I wanted to at age ten, but I've done a lot. I'm a mother, which some say is the most rewarding thing in life, but eventually that ends. My kids are grown up and they don't need dear old mom around anymore. It seems sad but I am okay with it. After twenty some-odd years, it's time that they were on their own and I'm confident that I've raised them well enough for them to be okay on their own.

Life is it's own reward. The sense of accomplishment when you've persevered through a challenge, the amazing feeling that you get when you watch a sunset on a Hawaiian beach, the tingles you get in your stomach when you've laughed too hard with old friends, the sense of pride you are filled with upon your daughter's first steps, the butterflies you get on your child's first day of college, the day you leave them behind. It's these things that I consider best in my life: the challenges and the rewards.

I have laughed so hard with my friends that my stomach hurt for hours. I have woken up before to dawn just to watch the sun rise. I have sat lazily in a field, doing absolutely nothing but watching the clouds pass by. I have heard my children's first laughs, first words and seen their first steps. I have had the jitters on the night before my wedding. I have done all of these things, and so I consider my life lived to the fullest, though of course it's not nearly over yet. Some of these I may never experience again, but I know that there are new experiences waiting just around the corner.

Show, don't tell.

There's nothing more soothing than clutching my arms around soft tan fur when the lights go out and everything around me creaks and moans, as if there are spirits haunting the hallowed halls. I can hug it, and with its two arms and two legs, its almost as if it hugs me back. It is a security blanket and a best friend, something a girl should never live without. When my eyes adjust to the light I know that no matter what happens I can always look down and find a pair of chocolate brown eyes staring up at me. Sometimes, even though I know that they're just half -spheres of glass, I swear I can see sympathetic emotion in the eyes. With a smile plastered on its face, it never waivers in its positive attitude. Yes, no matter how loud the floorboards creak or how loud the plumbing buckles, it will always stay calm and still, the surest form of security and comfort.

Short Story Blog

In class we read a short story about a blind man who "taught" an able-bodied man how to see. I really liked this story. I thought the message was very powerful and the way it was written was perfect. I'm usually not a fan of short stories, because I think they're too short to be able to hold a good enough message. However, this story was worthy of spending the day on to read.

We also read the story about the black woman who was returning to her African roots while the rest of her family stayed in their normal lifestyle. I didn't really like this story as much because the actions of  "Wangero" really made me angry. I understand that she was going back to her roots but she was being mean to her family because of it and it wasn't respectful or a good attitude either. This story definitely didn't have a good enough message for me to enjoy it, at least one that was able to shine through Wangero's annoying actions.

Inauguration

I did not get to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama today because I was in the bathroom with a four year old who dragged me out of the gym twice today for no other real reason than that she didn't want to watch the inauguration anymore.

The little parts of it that I did see were relatively unimportant to the event as a whole. However, I think today was a very important day in the history of our country. We broke racial barriers and made great bounds and leaps for people of all races, not just African-Americans. It will be a day that the country will remember for all time.

A Bad Secret...

A bad secret, when locked away deep inside one's soul, can eat away at you until you crack. 

When I was younger, my best friend confided in me a "deep dark secret," at least as deep and dark as a secret can get when you're a kid, and swore me to secrecy. While, admittedly, in hindsight, the secret wasn't so deep and dark or so horrible to keep, it ate away at me. However, I was a noble friend so I wasn't about to "let the cat out of the bag" and give away her secret, so I didn't tell anyone.

I kept her secret for a long time, even until we weren't best friends anymore, and I still keep it today. In truth, the guilt doesn't eat at me anymore, considering it is a secret that is stale with age and no longer relevant, plus the fact that now, at sixteen, the secret doesn't seem so horrible anymore. For a while, especially the first couple of weeks and months after she told me, I felt racked with guilt about not "telling on her." In fact, whenever my mother asked me what was going on in my life, I feared it was because she knew about the secret that I was keeping and, consequently, I started avoiding these mother-daughter chats. I became paranoid about it to a certain extent. While it may have been an overreaction at the time, guilt can do that to a person without a doubt.

New Year's Resolution

The year 2009 means a fresh start, which means new resolutions to follow through on. This year, I've decided to actually make a resolution, unlike past years where I've just passed it up, knowing that the odds of my following through on it are slim to none. For the year of 2009 I am determined to finish the things I've started.

While this is a general resolution, this resolution mainly applies to my writing. For over a month now I have started numerous stories, probably upwards of ten, but have not gotten past page ten on hardly any of them. It's frustrating to have all of these ideas bouncing around in my head without being able to put them down on paper somewhere. For this reason, I want to finish what I start before moving onto another story, because I know that if I leave one task, I'll never go back to it. This is why I want to follow through on this resolution.

Saying I'm going to do something and actually doing it are two completely different things; this I know. Therefore, this year, I have a very simple plan of action for accomplishing my goal. I will simply just not let myself move onto something new. In essence, I will force myself to follow through, rather than just accepting that giving up once in a while is okay. For me, it will just not be okay. If I start to cook something, I will not leave the kitchen until I'm finished; I won't just put it in the fridge and tell myself I'll finish it tomorrow. If I start to write something, I will not start writing another story until I have at least stuck it out for a while and decided that I do not like it and that is why I'm quitting, rather than just because I want to move onto something else. If I start a project, I will continue working on it in regular intervals, rather than just give up for a few weeks and come back to it at the last minute.

New year's resolutions can be considered silly and a bad idea, and I have thought this in the past. However, I know that I will follow through on this one, one way or another, no matter how hard it is, thus making it a good idea to have promised it to myself in the first place. So, here is to 2009 with new beginnings and a clean slate. Here's to promises that will not go left undone.

Winter Poem

Hoar Frost

Branches were dipped in frosting this morn

and the sun cast a fairyland spell;

Each fragile twig looked feathered and white

and beckoned a heart to  swell.

A winter treasure - a sight to behold -

while silence augmented the scene;

I wanted to talk through an open gate

to find the artist, supreme

No gate could I see, the artist unseen,

awe captured my soul;

The canvas would change, as nature intended,

but I'd witnessed her morning's goal.

-- by Joan Adams Burchell

Good Authors

"What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers." - Logan Pearsall Smith

I agree with what Logan Pearsall Smith is saying, but only to a degree. I took this quote as that he loves all of the underlying themes and hidden meanings behind a text more than he loves the actual blatant spoken story line. All of those hidden secrets lying beneath the surface of the text are intriguing and wonderful to ponder, but at some point it gets more annoying than interesting. At this point, I prefer just the plain text to the obscure themes and symbols found in a novel. However, before this point, I love feeling the gratification of deciphering the "codes" beneath the words in a story.

A good author is able to convey those things that are "between the lines" while still having them be mysterious. It is essential.

Memorable Fairy Tale

"And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes impossible things are happening everyday." - The Fairy God Mother

For as long as I can remember the sweet but captivating story of Cinderella, whether it be in the form of the old Greek folklore, the cartoon Disney adaptation or the live stage adaptations, has always captured me more so than any other story. I've always rooted for the underdog in every aspect of life and Cinderella is the true underdog. She is the "plain country bumpkin" with a broken past who finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance with a prince who doesn't know her true identity.

I don't think that as a young girl I've ever been more on the edge of my seat than I was when the Prince slipped the glass slipper onto Cinderella's dainty foot. And I don't think I've ever fallen more in love with a Broadway song than I did with "Impossible" from the stage version of Cinderella or "Ten Minutes Ago" from Rodger's and Hammerstein's live action made-for-TV movie version.

The story has stuck through me for all of my life, making me remind myself that no matter how low down the underdog is, everyone can get a happy ending- all you need is some faith and a dash of magic and with a quick bippity-boppity-boo anything can happen. In truth, there is no magic and there are no fairy god mothers to tell you to spin around so they can fix you a beautiful dress out of thin air, but that doesn't make the story any less "real." It is a metaphor or sorts, telling little girls everywhere that every girl can find her prince, no matter how worthless she might think she is.

Thousands of years ago when this story was first told, I'm sure no one would have imagined how important the message it held would be in society in the future. However, it is that important. Every girl has a chance to shine and she should never forget that.

Not to mention, aside from all of the "after school special" morals in the story, it's a rather entertaining tale. I have to admit, that more than fifteen years after the first time I saw this movie, I still love popping in the DVD on a snow day and letting it take me back to the days when I was five or six years old, telling my daddy that I could be anyone I wanted to be when I was in my own little corner in my own little chair, or telling my mom not to worry about mice in the basement because with just a touch of magic they could be beautiful horses. It is the one story that I have carried with me through my whole life, without any of the details fuzzing themselves around the edges even the slightest bit.

Valuing Education

Do you think young people today value their education as much as Sara Smolinksky does? Why or why not?

I don't think people today value their education as much as Sara does in The Bread Givers. This is probably because an education these days is a given for everyone, at least everyone around here. School becomes more of a chore than a privilege and therefore we wind up hating it rather than valuing it. We resent our teachers for giving so much work because we haven't lived the alternative- a job. To us, time where there is no school is a time for just relaxing rather than working a job, or at least not working at a job filled with physical labor for 12 hours a day in a sweat shop. Education is a wide-spread thing, rather than a rare privilege and thus it has become less and less valuable as it becomes more and more common.

As this follows, a high school education has become nearly worthless in society, while it was once something that people rarely obtained. Even just graduating from college isn't revered as genius in society, not unless you get your masters degree along with your diploma. It is not just to the young people that education has become less valuable, but lower forms of education have become less valuable to society as a whole.

Walter "Red" Smith

"There is nothing hard about writing. All you have to do is sit down and open up a vein." - Walter "Red" Smith

Walter Smith is absolutely right in what he is saying, in more ways than one. Writing, in a sense, is extremely easy. Writing well, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Anyone can sit down and throw words on a page and then call them art. To create a masterpiece, a mirror image of yourself that you would be glad to claim ownership to, is infinitely harder.

Being a writer, though, admittedly, an extremely amateur one, I understand where he is coming from. Writing with inspiration can be easy, as well. When writing is your job, something that you are, in fact, required to do, it becomes a grueling task. To sit down and make yourself write is similar to sitting down and opening up a vein. You sit there and bleed openly onto the pages, pouring your heart and soul into them hoping that, maybe, one day someone will appreciate the words you slaved over. This is another sense in which he is correct.

The third, and final sense, is the process of criticism. With writing comes reviewing and with reviewing comes criticism. When you hand someone a piece of your own writing, a piece of your heart, a piece of your mind, it is inevitable that there is something that they will find wrong with it. Perhaps they find your characters, the ones that you carved from hard marble to be the warm creatures they transformed into, to be flat and boring. Perhaps they hate your plot, the one that you tossed and turned in your hand a thousand times over, trying to make it just right. Perhaps they actually just hate your writing. Your writing is a part of you, a direct reflection of you, in most cases. This means that they might as well just hate you. In writing, you open yourself to this criticism, and thus you open up your veins, letting the crimson flow in pain as you watch what you have created be torn to pieces by the hands of a stranger.

Yes, Mr. Walter Reed, you have hit the nail on the head. Writing is letting yourself flow onto the very pages that you work on. Writing is the deceivingly simple task of throwing yourself into the black and white world of words and phrases. Writing... can be pain.

Reaction to Bread Givers Ch 1-6

The Bread Givers is a mildly interesting story about a girl whose opinions differ from those of her tyrannic, sexist father. It is appalling how her father goes through his days, sitting around like a lazy sloth, while he throws his young daughters out into the harsh world to work all day to make money and earn the food that he eats, but in fact denies them of. I was one "fatherly" tirade about how useless the girls in the family are away from throwing my book into the open fire burning away on the first floor of my house. Granted, this book is supposed to take place in the 1920s, not exactly a modern time, but it is no excuse. Women were granted the full right to vote in 1919, meaning they were considered working parts of society, not tokens to be used and then thrown away when their value depreciates. How any of the women in that household could put up with him, I will never be sure.

In chapters three-six we watch as Bessie, Mashah and Fania fall in love and are denied their heart's wishes by their greedy father. Bessie brings home Berel Bernstein, a perfectly worthy suitor for his daughter- rich and kind. He denies her her wishes because Berel is unwilling to support Bessie as well as the family. This was where my true rage at the father began. It was upon reading how Mashah had fallen madly in love with Jacob, only to have ripped away from her, that the real contemplation of a book burning began. Mashah became a new person when she was in love with Jacob, and her adoration of him made me adore him, too. He left her and she was broken hearted, making my heart break for her too. In the end, when he came back to her, valiant and loving, to tell her that he cared not what his father thought and that he just wanted to be with her, her father denied her of her wishes. He told her never to speak to Jacob again, and she obeyed. This was the last straw. It was the last tyrannic raid I would take sitting down, in silence.

Thanksgiving Table Talks

10) The Year of the Tiny Birthday Cake for 10

9) The Frozen Turkey

8) Password Competitions

7) The Era of the Geese

6) Becky's Knitting

5) Everything Noel Did Wrong

4) How Many Days Until Christmas?

3) Every Grandma Story we can Think of

2) Kimmy's Wedding Antics

1) Dan and Camilla