Fear Inventory
My greatest fear in third grade was hell. Not fitting in, a close second. When I said "God damn" on the bus, I said it because I was tagged as a sweet, quiet little girl, the bus driver's pet. But as soon as I uttered those two irretrievable syllables, I was seized by consequence. I thought it was blasphemy. The unforgivable sin. I felt the devil suck away my inheritance, my peace. I had crossed the line. Mom always said that cursing God was blasphemy. And the preacher always said blasphemy was unforgivable.
I couldn't ask my mom if I was going to hell now. It would break her heart to know that her little girl was doomed already. I couldn't ask the preacher because that's the same thing as outing myself. So I turned to my Bible concordance, collecting blasphemy references I didn't really understand. Sometimes I found relief, if I could tweak my perception enough. Cursing God, I learned is forgivable. Speaking against the Son, also forgivable. But blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgivable "neither in this life nor in the life to come." I hadn't cursed the Holy Spirit, so I decided I was safe enough. But that took a bit of denial. I had to believe that God, Jesus, and the Spirit were three different beings, that sinning against one wasn't the same as sinning against all. I had always been told they were one. But I don't think "God damn" is blasphemy anymore anyway.
I might call hell tangible if I could see it. Now, though, it seems abstract like my fear of it. Rivers scare me too, and I see them all the time. Even though I know it won't happen, I imagine myself facing that fear, tracing the river from the bridge into the ominous unknown where there aren't any houses, only snakes and unharvested trees. The closest I've come was when I turned off my headlights while crossing the Tallapoosa river one night. It doesn't make sense, but I thought if I crossed the river in complete darkness that it wouldn't scare me anymore. I had a fudge brownie cake from the Dairy King in my hand at the time. It was all over my pants when I finally found the lights again.
The first time I remember being petrified by anything tangible, the nearest water source was the toilet near the playground at Folsom Elementary. Just beyond the door trapped between the tips of my black knee-high boots and a pair of tennis shoes belonging to Stephanie Foster stood the biggest, furriest brown spider I'd ever seen. I've not seen one bigger since. But I'm bigger now, so proportion might be to blame. I wasn't afraid at first. In fact, I was poised to stomp the life out of the beast when Stephanie shouted her wisdom. "My mama says spiders that big can bite you through the bottom of your shoe."
Showing posts with label Final Week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Final Week. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Peer Response 2, Week 2
Response to MacKenzie's Memory, Final Week
MacKenzie,
The way you put the words together in this piece make it beautiful. For example: "as the wind scrubs the cliff-faces smooth and teases the fire I’ve built." And I like how you take advantage of the absence of the standard explanatory plaque in order to imagine possibilities for the people groups who lived there before. It gives you a chance to reflect on the nature of curiosity--I wonder . . . I wonder did the Pueblos wonder. Also, when you write "If I had been a pre-Pueblo, would I be missing whatever made me afraid of heights?" you're still navigating the unknown, expressing curiosity about how your particular moment in time might influence even your fears. I really think curiosity is the link here through which you can expand. You started with the missing historical synopsis (the absence of the plaque) and this seemed to lead you directly and fascinatingly into an analysis of the unknown.
MacKenzie,
The way you put the words together in this piece make it beautiful. For example: "as the wind scrubs the cliff-faces smooth and teases the fire I’ve built." And I like how you take advantage of the absence of the standard explanatory plaque in order to imagine possibilities for the people groups who lived there before. It gives you a chance to reflect on the nature of curiosity--I wonder . . . I wonder did the Pueblos wonder. Also, when you write "If I had been a pre-Pueblo, would I be missing whatever made me afraid of heights?" you're still navigating the unknown, expressing curiosity about how your particular moment in time might influence even your fears. I really think curiosity is the link here through which you can expand. You started with the missing historical synopsis (the absence of the plaque) and this seemed to lead you directly and fascinatingly into an analysis of the unknown.
Original Prompt, Final Week
Kathleen Norris's "Celibate Passion"
In her first paragraph, Norris addresses two common views of celibacy, one a Conservative Catholic reading of it as "an idealized, angelic state" (396), the other a feminist theological view that "'celibate hatred of sex is hatred of women'" (qtg Uta Ranke-Heinemann). After this concession about tendencies in regarding celibacy, however, Norris shifts her focus to what she calls "celibacy that works," which she describes in this way: "[These celibates] manage to sublimate their sexual energies toward another purpose than sexual intercourse and procreation" (396, 397). Norris negates assumptions that such celibates are "perverse" or their lives "necessarily stunted" (397), and focuses instead on how these rechannelled energies invite deeply meaningful friendships with people of "all ages [and] social classes" (397).
Norris herself is a monogamist. When she develops a strong friendship with a man (she calls him Tom) who is pledged to celibacy, she recognizes mutual signs of infatuation and sexual attraction. But instead of grounding their love for one another in "utility," Norris says they ground it in grace, which encourages a "respect for each other's commitments" and clarifies the boundaries of their relationship (400). This "celibate passion" leads to "an underlying sadness, the pain of something incomplete," but Norris then says that "human relationships are by their nature incomplete" (400). She calls Tom's commitment "celibacy at its best, a man's sexual energies so devoted to the care of others that a few words could lift me out of despair, give me the strength to reclaim my life" (400). She ends with this sentence: "Celibate passion--elusive, tensile, holy" (400).
Prompt:
Norris makes an unexpected defense of celibacy which makes for an interesting essay in itself, but she gives herself credibility on the topic when she reveals the finer details of her relationship with Tom. Although both her and Tom found it "all too easy to fantasize about expressing [their mutual] responsiveness in physical ways," they rechannelled those energies to deepen their friendship and honor their respective vows.
With this in mind, can you think of a commitment that you feel strongly about in your own life, one that you're motivated to keep despite how difficult or misunderstood it might be? Marriage vows might be too obvious, but you could widen your scope by thinking about a commitment to purchasing only cage free eggs, for example, or of visiting a lonely neighbor once a week. Once you've got something in mind, jot down the obvious, go-to reasons people might list for keeping that particular commitment, as well as the most obvious defense and critique of your topic. Then move on to unchartered waters, so to speak, to make an unexpected compelling argument for your decision. If you have a relevant confession, make it in your argument to add credibility to your essay.
In her first paragraph, Norris addresses two common views of celibacy, one a Conservative Catholic reading of it as "an idealized, angelic state" (396), the other a feminist theological view that "'celibate hatred of sex is hatred of women'" (qtg Uta Ranke-Heinemann). After this concession about tendencies in regarding celibacy, however, Norris shifts her focus to what she calls "celibacy that works," which she describes in this way: "[These celibates] manage to sublimate their sexual energies toward another purpose than sexual intercourse and procreation" (396, 397). Norris negates assumptions that such celibates are "perverse" or their lives "necessarily stunted" (397), and focuses instead on how these rechannelled energies invite deeply meaningful friendships with people of "all ages [and] social classes" (397).
Norris herself is a monogamist. When she develops a strong friendship with a man (she calls him Tom) who is pledged to celibacy, she recognizes mutual signs of infatuation and sexual attraction. But instead of grounding their love for one another in "utility," Norris says they ground it in grace, which encourages a "respect for each other's commitments" and clarifies the boundaries of their relationship (400). This "celibate passion" leads to "an underlying sadness, the pain of something incomplete," but Norris then says that "human relationships are by their nature incomplete" (400). She calls Tom's commitment "celibacy at its best, a man's sexual energies so devoted to the care of others that a few words could lift me out of despair, give me the strength to reclaim my life" (400). She ends with this sentence: "Celibate passion--elusive, tensile, holy" (400).
Prompt:
Norris makes an unexpected defense of celibacy which makes for an interesting essay in itself, but she gives herself credibility on the topic when she reveals the finer details of her relationship with Tom. Although both her and Tom found it "all too easy to fantasize about expressing [their mutual] responsiveness in physical ways," they rechannelled those energies to deepen their friendship and honor their respective vows.
With this in mind, can you think of a commitment that you feel strongly about in your own life, one that you're motivated to keep despite how difficult or misunderstood it might be? Marriage vows might be too obvious, but you could widen your scope by thinking about a commitment to purchasing only cage free eggs, for example, or of visiting a lonely neighbor once a week. Once you've got something in mind, jot down the obvious, go-to reasons people might list for keeping that particular commitment, as well as the most obvious defense and critique of your topic. Then move on to unchartered waters, so to speak, to make an unexpected compelling argument for your decision. If you have a relevant confession, make it in your argument to add credibility to your essay.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Reportage, Final Week
I stalk people in the commuter student parking lots. It's innocent enough. All I want from them is a parking space. But as I creep along behind a young man walking to his car, I think I must seem sinister. I pause when he pauses. I start again when he starts again. But I learned to wait at the end of a lane, a trick I picked up from the more savvy stalkers.
After scoping out the two lots across from TLC last Thursday, I paused at the far end of the first parking lane behind the bookstore. That's when I saw the young man with thick-framed glasses and high-waisted jeans, his belt secured with a gold laptop buckle. I recognized his self-conscious gait, his free arm swinging out of rhythm with his pace. I thought "computer geek." I profiled him, but he was asking for it.
I felt lucky when he crossed in front of my car, heading to the black SUV just to my right. I backed up, turned on my blinker. I know he saw me. I have my own routine when I return to my car after class, so I was sympathetic to his. If he had no intention of leaving, I trusted him to tell me so. So I waited while he stood outside the driver's side door, his laptop open in the seat. I waited when he opened the rear door, shifting things around, taking a sip from a water bottle. I waited when he repeated the cycle. I wanted to leave, to move on to less obsessive prey, but I had that feeling you get when you just know if you leave after investing so much time, he'll drive off as soon as you do. Plus I know the odds are against me anyway. There are more students than there are parking spaces.
I exercised patience when he went to the rear door again, stripped off his laptop buckle, his plaid button down, his thick glasses. When he put on a gray athletic tee, untucked. By this time, I've got my phone to my ear though no one's on the line. I'm faking a conversation so that I can say with indifference on my face all the things I'm thinking. It looks more normal that way when I air my complaints. Less like a rant. Less mentally unstable. Though maybe it's both.
After he heads back to the front seat, he packs up his computer again, locks his doors, and heads back to class looking like one of those punks who bully computer geeks. I can see his smirk as he turns his back to me, strutting back to the TLC. I think "I could run over him." Of course I don't, I wouldn't. And yelling at him only gives him more power.
I've given away enough of that already. But what bugs me most is not that he stripped me of some of my own power, but that he reminded me of how fragile it was to begin with. So what if I can profile people, stereotype them based on recognizable markers. So what if I can say "geek" as though it shifts my social position somehow. Not that I consciously think "I'm better." But I'm not sure what else that could mean. Maybe just a kind of self-boasting, an idea that I'm observant, that I'm smart that way. But anybody might have made that observation.
He undermined my assumptions, pulling a Clark Kent in the parking lot. He's playing with people's assumptions on purpose, he has to be. And I don't blame him for the trick. It's not simply conformity, not simply rebellion, but power through the ability to disorient. "You can't know me." He used performativity--putting on opposing identities--to make alterable power. He also let me waste my time, a play made more powerful by changing personas in front of me. "You only thought you knew me," he suggests. I felt both amused and embarrassed. Amused because what he did was unexpected. Embarrassed because it felt like he did it to me. And because there were witnesses, I felt a heightened sense of vulnerability.
After scoping out the two lots across from TLC last Thursday, I paused at the far end of the first parking lane behind the bookstore. That's when I saw the young man with thick-framed glasses and high-waisted jeans, his belt secured with a gold laptop buckle. I recognized his self-conscious gait, his free arm swinging out of rhythm with his pace. I thought "computer geek." I profiled him, but he was asking for it.
I felt lucky when he crossed in front of my car, heading to the black SUV just to my right. I backed up, turned on my blinker. I know he saw me. I have my own routine when I return to my car after class, so I was sympathetic to his. If he had no intention of leaving, I trusted him to tell me so. So I waited while he stood outside the driver's side door, his laptop open in the seat. I waited when he opened the rear door, shifting things around, taking a sip from a water bottle. I waited when he repeated the cycle. I wanted to leave, to move on to less obsessive prey, but I had that feeling you get when you just know if you leave after investing so much time, he'll drive off as soon as you do. Plus I know the odds are against me anyway. There are more students than there are parking spaces.
I exercised patience when he went to the rear door again, stripped off his laptop buckle, his plaid button down, his thick glasses. When he put on a gray athletic tee, untucked. By this time, I've got my phone to my ear though no one's on the line. I'm faking a conversation so that I can say with indifference on my face all the things I'm thinking. It looks more normal that way when I air my complaints. Less like a rant. Less mentally unstable. Though maybe it's both.
After he heads back to the front seat, he packs up his computer again, locks his doors, and heads back to class looking like one of those punks who bully computer geeks. I can see his smirk as he turns his back to me, strutting back to the TLC. I think "I could run over him." Of course I don't, I wouldn't. And yelling at him only gives him more power.
I've given away enough of that already. But what bugs me most is not that he stripped me of some of my own power, but that he reminded me of how fragile it was to begin with. So what if I can profile people, stereotype them based on recognizable markers. So what if I can say "geek" as though it shifts my social position somehow. Not that I consciously think "I'm better." But I'm not sure what else that could mean. Maybe just a kind of self-boasting, an idea that I'm observant, that I'm smart that way. But anybody might have made that observation.
He undermined my assumptions, pulling a Clark Kent in the parking lot. He's playing with people's assumptions on purpose, he has to be. And I don't blame him for the trick. It's not simply conformity, not simply rebellion, but power through the ability to disorient. "You can't know me." He used performativity--putting on opposing identities--to make alterable power. He also let me waste my time, a play made more powerful by changing personas in front of me. "You only thought you knew me," he suggests. I felt both amused and embarrassed. Amused because what he did was unexpected. Embarrassed because it felt like he did it to me. And because there were witnesses, I felt a heightened sense of vulnerability.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Junkyard Quotes 1-4, Final Week
1) "The universe just defied its laws to pinch me." ~Emily Murphy
2) "My job is to swipe meal cards. Oh, and chase down football players who steal food." ~Cat Chandler
3) I recently realized that I say "I'm sorry" way more than I should. What bothers me is not that I don't mean it; it's that I shouldn't mean it as much as I do mean it. If that makes sense. Everything can't be all my fault. Surely the odds are against that. Of course I also use the phrase when I'm accidentally offensive or at least when I perceive that I might have been. I use it loosely to express regret or empathy when someone is experiencing problems or inconveniences of some sort. I say all this to get to the finer point: When I said "I'm sorry" yesterday (probably three times in a 20 second period, all to do with the same moment), a 23-month-old girl repeated what I'd said, and in a sad, self-defeated tone that I didn't realize I'd used. She said it more than once. I never want to hear that again. It broke my heart, coming from a voice of innocence. I said to her, "Oh, sweetie, don't say that," but the only way I can make sure she doesn't is to choose my own words more carefully.
4) Jeff: "What are you doing?" Me: "Nothing." Jeff: "Nothing?! Why are you doing nothing?" "Me: "I don't know. (Pause) What do you want me to be doing?" Jeff: "I don't know. Whatever." After this, I felt awkward (guilty?) for doing nothing and found something to do.
2) "My job is to swipe meal cards. Oh, and chase down football players who steal food." ~Cat Chandler
3) I recently realized that I say "I'm sorry" way more than I should. What bothers me is not that I don't mean it; it's that I shouldn't mean it as much as I do mean it. If that makes sense. Everything can't be all my fault. Surely the odds are against that. Of course I also use the phrase when I'm accidentally offensive or at least when I perceive that I might have been. I use it loosely to express regret or empathy when someone is experiencing problems or inconveniences of some sort. I say all this to get to the finer point: When I said "I'm sorry" yesterday (probably three times in a 20 second period, all to do with the same moment), a 23-month-old girl repeated what I'd said, and in a sad, self-defeated tone that I didn't realize I'd used. She said it more than once. I never want to hear that again. It broke my heart, coming from a voice of innocence. I said to her, "Oh, sweetie, don't say that," but the only way I can make sure she doesn't is to choose my own words more carefully.
4) Jeff: "What are you doing?" Me: "Nothing." Jeff: "Nothing?! Why are you doing nothing?" "Me: "I don't know. (Pause) What do you want me to be doing?" Jeff: "I don't know. Whatever." After this, I felt awkward (guilty?) for doing nothing and found something to do.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Peer Response 1, Final Week
Response to Brett's Prompt, Final Week
Brett,
This prompt is timely for me. I started working on an essay Friday night about the evolution of fear in my life. I started thinking about the odd fear of hell that I had in grade school because I thought I had committed blasphemy, the "unforgivable sin." It was such a scary feeling because I didn't want to talk to anyone about it and ruin their dreams of Heaven for me. Instead I internalized that fear and read all the passages I could find about that particular sin and its consequences. Which, of course, made me a quiet, brooding middle schooler, edging into my second greatest fear--that of being a social oddity.
I hadn't looked at Martin's essay yet, but I think I'll look to it for inspiration now. And to your prompt!
Also, it sounds like you have a "childhood fear" essay asking to be written . . .
Brett,
This prompt is timely for me. I started working on an essay Friday night about the evolution of fear in my life. I started thinking about the odd fear of hell that I had in grade school because I thought I had committed blasphemy, the "unforgivable sin." It was such a scary feeling because I didn't want to talk to anyone about it and ruin their dreams of Heaven for me. Instead I internalized that fear and read all the passages I could find about that particular sin and its consequences. Which, of course, made me a quiet, brooding middle schooler, edging into my second greatest fear--that of being a social oddity.
I hadn't looked at Martin's essay yet, but I think I'll look to it for inspiration now. And to your prompt!
Also, it sounds like you have a "childhood fear" essay asking to be written . . .
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I think you've got the makings of an interesting juxtaposition here, all to do with perception: the gas station attendant's perception of the man with blood on his shirt seems strangely connected to your own perception of Waffle House. Both of you wanted minimal contact with someone or something that you found offensive or dirty or otherwise dangerous. This beginning seems ripe for self-critique of the sort that Davidson has been encouraging of late. You seem hyper aware of the gas station attendant's problematic assumptions, but how can you start to deconstruct your own assumptions? Not that I don't get your feelings about Waffle House--I completely agree. In fact, I won't eat there.
But I wonder if restaurants (or public spots, in general) that appear cleaner than Waffle House are in fact any less in need of a thorough disinfecting. I often think about who touched the ketchup bottle, the salt shakers, etc. How clean is my plate, really, before my order is piled on top? How about that fork? Did the person wrapping my silverware have clean hands?
Even more generally, you might question the idea of standards? The station attendant had his and so do you. Could you play with that and bring in reflection that might give this piece some depth? Maybe show you questioning your own assumptions? Even your son has expectations associated with Waffle House, which you could play with as well. When he says "this was the reason he likes coming to Waffle House," what exactly is he implying? That Waffle House invites interesting characters? If so, it reminds me of one of my own problematic assumptions: I've been in Wal-Mart a few times at 2 or 3am, and caught myself thinking "there are some crazies out at this time at night." But I was there, too, so hmmmmmm. Anyway, I think you have the perfect opportunity here to dig deep with reflection and self-analysis.