"It's now 1990. I'm forty-three years old, which would've seemed impossible to a fourth grader, and yet when I look at photographs of myself as I was in 1956, I realize that in the important ways I haven't changed at all. I was Timmy then; now I'm Tim. But the essence remains the same. I'm not fooled by the baggy pants or the crew cut or the happy smile—I know my own eyes—and there is no doubt that the Timmy smiling at the camera is the Tim I am now. Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is something absolute and unchanging. The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow,"(236).
As I look back on my own life and think of the lives of others, there are striking characteristics that remain static throughout the course of our lives. While I clearly didn’t know her as a child, my grandmother was the kindergartner sitting in the corner smiling shying. She would always know the answer but would never speak out, for a fear of being misunderstood. My mother was the first-grader who would receive that highest grades on spelling tests, but would still feel a sense of inadequacy. She was a book worm, I’m sure, consumed by the pictures of children’s books and she was unafraid of spiders and worms as she trudged through the woods of her backyard. This is all speculation, of course, but I can deduce these descriptions of my mother and grandmother from knowing them now- because, in essence, we all have certain characteristics that define us as individuals.
This being said, I do not agree with O’Brien’s assertion that “the human life is all one thing.” Perhaps for some people, they remain exactly the way they were from the moment they were born. Their outlook on life is exactly the same, the characteristics of their soul unchanging. However, most individuals experience changes due to unexpected events or troubles in their life that alter, even slightly, the way they act, feel, and look at the world as a whole. For example, there is a picture in my room of my mom and me standing in front of a rhododendron bush. I see in my blue-brown spotted eyes many parts of the girl I am today- I was and am jealous, stubborn, impatient, unable to make a decision between the blue and pink toothbrush at the dentist’s office, loyal, compassionate, optimistic, unfortunately judgmental, and likely to change my opinions about people, the world, and myself in an instant. However, while core parts of me remain, the way in which my mind works has changed dramatically since the instant that picture was snapped.
At age six, I was perhaps the sloppiest, most careless person in my kindergarten class. Smears of crayon found their way outside of the lines, and somehow coats, jackets, socks, hair brushes, shoelaces, stuffed animals, and other necessities of a six-year-old were left stained, torn, misplaced, and entirely abused. However, I am today a borderline obsessive compulsive “neat freak.” I am not this way simply because “I learned better," but there is actually a feeling inside of me the drives me to take special care of each and every one of my possessions.
Additionally, I was painfully shy, quiet, and refined in elementary school. I would raise my hand patiently in class as ten other children shouted aloud around me. I am, to some extent, still very refined and quiet. I am “hyper” only with my closest of friends and those I feel comfortable being silly around. However, somewhere along the road I acquired a love of the spotlight. This caused an actual change within me. This comes from my experiences as a dancer and stage performer. I have shed a huge amount of self-consciousness that I was plagued with as a child, and I thrive on the opportunity to be noticed.
As a child growing up in a household with separated parents, I learned the realities of love and marriage and I learned that the truth of life did not lie in Disney movies. This realization caused me to become self-sufficient and I have within me a drive to succeed so I never in my life have to depend on someone else. Had a continued to grow up in a “perfect” household, I would not be as nearly self-sufficient as I am today and I would be sheltered from some harsh realities of life.
My parents have instilled in me important values and the difference between “right and wrong” which account for my incredibly loud conscious. This conscious often forces me to act in a certain way in a given situation. Is this instance, I have not actually changed characteristically, but rather I have advanced as a human being and my awareness of the needs of others.
Therefore, characteristically I am the same that I have always been, but the way I act and the way I feel in different situations has certainly changed drastically due to life’s experiences. Life is not so much “a blade tracing loops on ice,” but rather, a blade tracing a zigzagging, curving, spiraling picture drawn across the ice. Life is a collage of one's static characteristics, as well as one's growth and change.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Why I Write-Frank McCourt
I write. I write. I write.
The lush feel of ink staining paper makes me feel full and satisfied. Many necessities in my life have been scarce at one time or another: money, cleanliness, self-satisfaction; however, the vast oasis of words in my mind has never run dry. Ask me for 100 words, I’ll give you 1,000. I can’t help myself. Words are history. Words are my memory. Words are Ireland. Words are my passport to the intangible past-the days behind me that have lost brilliance, but not vigor.
I have lived. I do not write to solidify my own past-I have a mind that is solid enough to retain my memories. Rather, I write to teach the past to those who were born blindly into this world- those who live each day not knowing the legacies of those who walked before them. I am the voice of Ireland and all that it lost, and all that it gained.
Who? What? When? Where? Why? Who cares? Tell me how you felt, how your body reacted to overwhelming human emotion. Take away everything material-take away my food, his clothes, your bed, their house. Maybe life is fair: the important aspects of life-emotions- cannot be taken away. I do not manipulate words to create narratives, but I order words to mimic emotions. Emotions are horrifying, fulfilling, uncontrollable, self-induced phenomena that lack a How-To Guide. I write not to create that How-To-Guide, but to create a This-Is-What-Happened-To-Us-Leave-It-Or-Learn-From-It Guide. I want to teach the depression of my mother and the drunken movements of my father to save not myself, but those of the future.
When I write, I sing. Words are more powerful than temporary emotions induced by the generosity behind a material gift. It’s amazing the power a sing-song voice can have on a person. Words hold the healing powers-I wish to heal through writing, as I allow my words to sing.
Age is incredibly important when analyzing one’s capacity for comprehension, pain, love, and want. I write to reflect the way I thought at a given age. At age five, I took notice of the trivial moments in life, and the miniscule details. The brilliant white of my brother’s coffin was much more important than the way I felt, or the way mom cried. At age seventeen, I could evaluate my life from a far. The weather was much less important than the way in which I viewed my sinful actions, and how they would affect my future. However, the mind of a child is just as influential, if not more influential, than the judgmental, often dirtied, mind of an adult. We are born with the ability to view life without bias, without comparing ourselves to those around us, without self-pity. I write to teach the genius of the juvenile mind.
Oh, those pompous priests. I write to prove those pompous priests wrong. Life is more than strategically avoiding the urges of sin, just as Ireland is defined much more by its physical beauty than by its church. Yes, St. Francis, I once spoke of life’s unfair nature. However, through writing, I have reassessed my life. Religious fastidiousness has been replaced with maturity and self-forgiveness. Writing gives me the power to move forward, grow, and teach.
A poor boy-that’s what I was. I am a boy whose mother gave birth out of wedlock, and whose parents were from not from the same regions of Ireland. It was overwhelmingly difficult to break free from society’s unwelcoming tendency to express prejudices. Emotions were contained, not nurtured. America and my voyage upon the Irish Oak gave freedom to my pen. Words flew unfiltered from my mind and onto the page, where they gained tangibility. I write to be free.
Words have the power to induce laughter. Life is filled with humorous moments that make us stop our pain and suffering, even if just for a moment, to enjoy simply being alive. I consistently inject a little humor into my writing to convey the joy of breath and the pure beauty of living.
Yes, life has been a wild ride. A ride filled with faces that I cannot remember, emotions that I never captured, and moments that transcend words. However, my past, as difficult as it may have been, is what allowed me to move forward. I write to move forward as I carry with me my readers. I write to retell what I can in hopes of nurturing a better tomorrow by touching the minds of today.
The lush feel of ink staining paper makes me feel full and satisfied. Many necessities in my life have been scarce at one time or another: money, cleanliness, self-satisfaction; however, the vast oasis of words in my mind has never run dry. Ask me for 100 words, I’ll give you 1,000. I can’t help myself. Words are history. Words are my memory. Words are Ireland. Words are my passport to the intangible past-the days behind me that have lost brilliance, but not vigor.
I have lived. I do not write to solidify my own past-I have a mind that is solid enough to retain my memories. Rather, I write to teach the past to those who were born blindly into this world- those who live each day not knowing the legacies of those who walked before them. I am the voice of Ireland and all that it lost, and all that it gained.
Who? What? When? Where? Why? Who cares? Tell me how you felt, how your body reacted to overwhelming human emotion. Take away everything material-take away my food, his clothes, your bed, their house. Maybe life is fair: the important aspects of life-emotions- cannot be taken away. I do not manipulate words to create narratives, but I order words to mimic emotions. Emotions are horrifying, fulfilling, uncontrollable, self-induced phenomena that lack a How-To Guide. I write not to create that How-To-Guide, but to create a This-Is-What-Happened-To-Us-Leave-It-Or-Learn-From-It Guide. I want to teach the depression of my mother and the drunken movements of my father to save not myself, but those of the future.
When I write, I sing. Words are more powerful than temporary emotions induced by the generosity behind a material gift. It’s amazing the power a sing-song voice can have on a person. Words hold the healing powers-I wish to heal through writing, as I allow my words to sing.
Age is incredibly important when analyzing one’s capacity for comprehension, pain, love, and want. I write to reflect the way I thought at a given age. At age five, I took notice of the trivial moments in life, and the miniscule details. The brilliant white of my brother’s coffin was much more important than the way I felt, or the way mom cried. At age seventeen, I could evaluate my life from a far. The weather was much less important than the way in which I viewed my sinful actions, and how they would affect my future. However, the mind of a child is just as influential, if not more influential, than the judgmental, often dirtied, mind of an adult. We are born with the ability to view life without bias, without comparing ourselves to those around us, without self-pity. I write to teach the genius of the juvenile mind.
Oh, those pompous priests. I write to prove those pompous priests wrong. Life is more than strategically avoiding the urges of sin, just as Ireland is defined much more by its physical beauty than by its church. Yes, St. Francis, I once spoke of life’s unfair nature. However, through writing, I have reassessed my life. Religious fastidiousness has been replaced with maturity and self-forgiveness. Writing gives me the power to move forward, grow, and teach.
A poor boy-that’s what I was. I am a boy whose mother gave birth out of wedlock, and whose parents were from not from the same regions of Ireland. It was overwhelmingly difficult to break free from society’s unwelcoming tendency to express prejudices. Emotions were contained, not nurtured. America and my voyage upon the Irish Oak gave freedom to my pen. Words flew unfiltered from my mind and onto the page, where they gained tangibility. I write to be free.
Words have the power to induce laughter. Life is filled with humorous moments that make us stop our pain and suffering, even if just for a moment, to enjoy simply being alive. I consistently inject a little humor into my writing to convey the joy of breath and the pure beauty of living.
Yes, life has been a wild ride. A ride filled with faces that I cannot remember, emotions that I never captured, and moments that transcend words. However, my past, as difficult as it may have been, is what allowed me to move forward. I write to move forward as I carry with me my readers. I write to retell what I can in hopes of nurturing a better tomorrow by touching the minds of today.
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