On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln commenced a terse speech. As he examined the solemn crowd gathered around the soldiers' cemetery, Lincoln probably saw many icy expressions glaring back at him. His audience, composed mostly of inhabitants of Gettysburg, still bitterly remembered the smell of 7,500 rotting corpses that had covered their town four months ago. And they knew that those fallen men composed a mere fraction of the quarter-million soldiers who had died for this war. The moment Lincoln started his speech, he knew many people in the town and the nation hated him.
Four score and seven (plus 49) years later, a squealing baby girl unwillingly emerged from her mother's aching body. I was immediately off to a nasty start in the world. For one thing, I was nine days late. Apparently, I didn't want to leave my warm, well-padded personal universe. I was also troublesome. The 43 hour birth caused my mother the most excruciating pain of her life. Plus, she had an allergic reaction to the pain medication, causing her to hallucinate about snakes slithering around the hospital table and spiders creeping down the doctor's arms. After I begrudgingly exited her body, my mother swore never to have any more children. And she kept her word. I wonder how many lives I prevented with my violent clinging to her womb
Lincoln spoke in his high-pitched Kentucky accent for three minutes, redefining the Civil War as not merely a fight for the Union, but a struggle for freedom and equality. He concluded his speech with a fervent oath that the "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." When he finished, no one applauded him. Silence hovered above the graves. The listeners had passionately clapped for the three hour speech that had preceded Lincoln's, given by Harvard president Edward Everett. When Everett complimented Lincoln on the brief address, Lincoln replied that he was glad it wasn't a "total failure."
After such a melodramatic birth, you would think the rest of my life would be similarly epic. And in some ways, I suppose it has been. Nasty tears, fierce thoughts, soothing laughs, deep breaths, and taunting dreams are all epic in their own ordinary ways. Even a raindrop sliding down your neck is epic if you think about it. Nevertheless, I'm cursed with that common, obnoxious desire to dazzle. To be seen. To be remembered. To be important. To burn the world with my thoughts and singe time with my actions. Yet, I am one in six billion. One who will die in a galaxy's wink of time. Why should I see myself as anything but a twig in time's fire?
Lincoln never knew that his carefully crafted speech would endure long after his tall body decayed. He never heard Carl Sandburg or Martin Luther King quote the iconic phrases. He never witnessed historians proclaim it "the turning point of the civil war." A bullet extinguished him, and he died in a finger's twitch of time.
I know death is inevitable, but the idea still viciously claws at my mind. What if I die ordinary? What if my rage against the dying of the light never sparks massive change or personal fulfillment? Yet perhaps my life's actions, just as the speech uttered on my birthday, will ripple through time in some unforeseeable way. Perhaps all people serve the future just as vitally and intensely as we serve the present, though not as clearly. Lincoln did not give the Gettysburg Address so his face could be stamped on bronze and paper currency. Desire for epic fame did not fuel his words. Rather, desire for present benevolence lit a brilliant trail of future good.
Who knows what sparks we ignite unknowingly?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Cell Me Short
My cell phone is sleeping next to me. It's exhausted. It should be. We've had a long day. Pressed against my bed spread, the scuffed silver phone lies still. Florescent light from the ceiling festers in its wrinkled scratches. I slide my hand down its side. I know its contours well. Every day my fingers grind against its numerical chest. Every day I clutch the slim machine in my hand. All this attention is slowly destroying it. The numbers that were once elegantly precise have flaked off. Now I can see into its messy stomach with masses of wires and the dull plastic beneath the metallic skin.
The screen's blackness erupts into bright, sky blue. On the cell phone's newly alert face, a cartoon letter pops out of an animated envelope.
1 New Message from: Boyfriend.
Eagerly, I press the phone's round center button that watches me like an unblinking eye ball.
Love you babe goodnight.
10:58pm 3/25/09
Cradling the cell phone in my hand,Ｉimagine his eyes and voice.
Americans cell phone users between 13 and 29 send an average of 20 text messages per day.
I would like to know what I have missed because of my relationship with my phone. There must be so much. I imagine two lovers on the bus, holding hands for the first time. Hunched over my metal device, poking messages into they key pad, I do not see the their hands slink together. I will never perceive them, and to me they will never exist. How else have I condensed my existence? I think of all the trickles of sunlight, the shadows of knotted grass blades, the lacy silhouettes of trees that I never saw. All of them invisible to my eyes that stared at a square inch screen instead.
4.1 billion people own cell phones. That amounts to six of every ten people.
I would like to hear all of the things that people never told me because of my cell phone. If you can talk to someone anytime, why speak at all? My cell phone, a vein connecting me to my family, my boyfriend, my best friend. But what does this vein pump? Forgettable words and filtered feelings. When you're connected with everyone so intimately, able to interrupt them at any moment, it's so easy to take them for granted. Perhaps cell phones weaken that yearning that unites people in the first place
In a recent survey, 51% of those polled said they could not imagine giving up their cell phone.
Yes, I do love that blue illumination that announces a text or call. My cell phone whispers in my ear that people want me, people need me. That excitement is addicting. So addicting, sometimes I purposely forget my cell phone when I go to Portland. What liberation! Sprinting around a city with only my own thoughts. I feel connections with the grumbling max train, with the witch-like woman perched across from me on the bus, and the low growl of the crowded streets. No machine is needed for these bonds. It's satisfying. Yet, I always feel a slow pull of anxiety in my chest. Whose call am I missing? Whose texts have I not responded to? Who thinks I'm ignoring them? Times like those, I wonder if people can really be alone anymore.
I scoop my petite phone into my palm and tell it to wake me up at 8:15 in the morning. Tomorrow, my phone's voice will be the first noise to penetrate my ears. I place the weary machine on my nightstand, and switch of the light. I better go to sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.
The screen's blackness erupts into bright, sky blue. On the cell phone's newly alert face, a cartoon letter pops out of an animated envelope.
1 New Message from: Boyfriend.
Eagerly, I press the phone's round center button that watches me like an unblinking eye ball.
Love you babe goodnight.
10:58pm 3/25/09
Cradling the cell phone in my hand,Ｉimagine his eyes and voice.
Americans cell phone users between 13 and 29 send an average of 20 text messages per day.
I would like to know what I have missed because of my relationship with my phone. There must be so much. I imagine two lovers on the bus, holding hands for the first time. Hunched over my metal device, poking messages into they key pad, I do not see the their hands slink together. I will never perceive them, and to me they will never exist. How else have I condensed my existence? I think of all the trickles of sunlight, the shadows of knotted grass blades, the lacy silhouettes of trees that I never saw. All of them invisible to my eyes that stared at a square inch screen instead.
4.1 billion people own cell phones. That amounts to six of every ten people.
I would like to hear all of the things that people never told me because of my cell phone. If you can talk to someone anytime, why speak at all? My cell phone, a vein connecting me to my family, my boyfriend, my best friend. But what does this vein pump? Forgettable words and filtered feelings. When you're connected with everyone so intimately, able to interrupt them at any moment, it's so easy to take them for granted. Perhaps cell phones weaken that yearning that unites people in the first place
In a recent survey, 51% of those polled said they could not imagine giving up their cell phone.
Yes, I do love that blue illumination that announces a text or call. My cell phone whispers in my ear that people want me, people need me. That excitement is addicting. So addicting, sometimes I purposely forget my cell phone when I go to Portland. What liberation! Sprinting around a city with only my own thoughts. I feel connections with the grumbling max train, with the witch-like woman perched across from me on the bus, and the low growl of the crowded streets. No machine is needed for these bonds. It's satisfying. Yet, I always feel a slow pull of anxiety in my chest. Whose call am I missing? Whose texts have I not responded to? Who thinks I'm ignoring them? Times like those, I wonder if people can really be alone anymore.
I scoop my petite phone into my palm and tell it to wake me up at 8:15 in the morning. Tomorrow, my phone's voice will be the first noise to penetrate my ears. I place the weary machine on my nightstand, and switch of the light. I better go to sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Truth Shmuth
What if truth was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home?
Pardon my ridiculousness. I just felt the urge to be silly. Because honestly, I find the question "what is truth" as silly as the lyrical questions above. I have my opinions about nonfiction and judging from the general comments in class, you probably won't like them. Don't worry. I'm not asking you to. Your agreement or disagreement won't make my ideas any less true to me.
Personally, I think metaphorical truth is MORE real than factual truth. Shocked? Good. Let me explain. Last night I had a dream about my old elementary school. It was not a reproduction of a literal experience, but it captured the truth of my complex emotions about childhood. Like all dreams, it was an metaphorical exploration of the truth I extract from life's overwhelming details. And that truth, that essential core of my experiences matters more than the sum of the facts that created it. I have the same opinion about memoirs. The facts don't matter as much as the emotional truth that emerges from them.
I hate discussing "what is nonfiction" because I think that writing truth, like dreaming, is extremely personal. Only you know when you're tapping into the essence of your life and only you know when you're exaggerating. Most people don't seem to like that idea of morality being personal. We live in a mirky age that craves absolutes. So we satisfy ourselves with calculating gravity, predicting the weather, and striving the categorize the massive world around us. But when it comes to the unique universe between our ears, sorry math majors, but you can't measure that.
So do me a favor. Don't tell me if I'm telling my life truthfully. Critique the art I use to convey truth, but do not question my sense of truthfulness. I have a sensitive conscience that squeals sharp chords when I lie. I don't need you as a truth policeman. And guess what? You don't need me as one either. Change the trivial facts if it helps guide me to the emotional truth. I don't care if you tell me you wore a red shirt when you actually wore a white one. I don't care if you tell me you brother was sitting when really he was lying down. Why you would lie about that is beyond me, but if your conscience doesn't beep furiously with alarm, then I trust that it's part of your metaphorical story. And that's okay with me. Just make me feel what you felt. Keep that core, that essence, that personal truth and it will be true to me too.
When I wrote my memoir, I always tried to keep my eye on that vital emotional truth. At one point, I talk about a very vivid childhood memory. But the thing is, I was seven years old, so even though the emotions are vivid, the factual details blur in my mind. So what did I do? I imagined I was seven years old again. I tapped into that vivid emotion, and tried to reconstruct a skin over the memory's soul. And from what I hear in my responses, it was my most effective moment of my memoir. Do I feel guilty for recreating my Dad's dialogue? Hell no. Using my own intuition, I chose things my Dad would say. Without concrete facts, I could still explore the more important truth of who my Dad is and how he made me feel.
You truth fundamentalists may be scowling at the screen right now. You're probably taking my argument to the extreme, thinking "Well using your logic, one could completely fabricate a memory and claim it still conjured that emotional truth!" Let me defend myself. Firstly, I seriously doubt that anyone but a sociopath would claim that a story ungrounded in any type of fact is nonfiction. Secondly, I doubt that without some important facts, a writer is capable of tapping into that emotional truth of a memory. And thirdly, my argument isn't grounded in logic but human intuition. That probably makes you hard-core fact addicts cringe even more.
Well, go right ahead and cringe. I respect that your consciences differs from mine. But don't think that I'm a liar because I value the metaphorical truth more than the literal truth. In creative nonfiction, I think there should be an ambience of trust in each other's intuition. Otherwise, we may slip into the philosophical swamp of whose truth is truer, creating an atmosphere as tense as witch-hunting puritan times. Let's not burn each other on philosophical stakes. Let's accept that though we walk different roads, we still desire to arrive at the same place. After all, that desire to find truth is what makes us writers in the first place, right?
Pardon my ridiculousness. I just felt the urge to be silly. Because honestly, I find the question "what is truth" as silly as the lyrical questions above. I have my opinions about nonfiction and judging from the general comments in class, you probably won't like them. Don't worry. I'm not asking you to. Your agreement or disagreement won't make my ideas any less true to me.
Personally, I think metaphorical truth is MORE real than factual truth. Shocked? Good. Let me explain. Last night I had a dream about my old elementary school. It was not a reproduction of a literal experience, but it captured the truth of my complex emotions about childhood. Like all dreams, it was an metaphorical exploration of the truth I extract from life's overwhelming details. And that truth, that essential core of my experiences matters more than the sum of the facts that created it. I have the same opinion about memoirs. The facts don't matter as much as the emotional truth that emerges from them.
I hate discussing "what is nonfiction" because I think that writing truth, like dreaming, is extremely personal. Only you know when you're tapping into the essence of your life and only you know when you're exaggerating. Most people don't seem to like that idea of morality being personal. We live in a mirky age that craves absolutes. So we satisfy ourselves with calculating gravity, predicting the weather, and striving the categorize the massive world around us. But when it comes to the unique universe between our ears, sorry math majors, but you can't measure that.
So do me a favor. Don't tell me if I'm telling my life truthfully. Critique the art I use to convey truth, but do not question my sense of truthfulness. I have a sensitive conscience that squeals sharp chords when I lie. I don't need you as a truth policeman. And guess what? You don't need me as one either. Change the trivial facts if it helps guide me to the emotional truth. I don't care if you tell me you wore a red shirt when you actually wore a white one. I don't care if you tell me you brother was sitting when really he was lying down. Why you would lie about that is beyond me, but if your conscience doesn't beep furiously with alarm, then I trust that it's part of your metaphorical story. And that's okay with me. Just make me feel what you felt. Keep that core, that essence, that personal truth and it will be true to me too.
When I wrote my memoir, I always tried to keep my eye on that vital emotional truth. At one point, I talk about a very vivid childhood memory. But the thing is, I was seven years old, so even though the emotions are vivid, the factual details blur in my mind. So what did I do? I imagined I was seven years old again. I tapped into that vivid emotion, and tried to reconstruct a skin over the memory's soul. And from what I hear in my responses, it was my most effective moment of my memoir. Do I feel guilty for recreating my Dad's dialogue? Hell no. Using my own intuition, I chose things my Dad would say. Without concrete facts, I could still explore the more important truth of who my Dad is and how he made me feel.
You truth fundamentalists may be scowling at the screen right now. You're probably taking my argument to the extreme, thinking "Well using your logic, one could completely fabricate a memory and claim it still conjured that emotional truth!" Let me defend myself. Firstly, I seriously doubt that anyone but a sociopath would claim that a story ungrounded in any type of fact is nonfiction. Secondly, I doubt that without some important facts, a writer is capable of tapping into that emotional truth of a memory. And thirdly, my argument isn't grounded in logic but human intuition. That probably makes you hard-core fact addicts cringe even more.
Well, go right ahead and cringe. I respect that your consciences differs from mine. But don't think that I'm a liar because I value the metaphorical truth more than the literal truth. In creative nonfiction, I think there should be an ambience of trust in each other's intuition. Otherwise, we may slip into the philosophical swamp of whose truth is truer, creating an atmosphere as tense as witch-hunting puritan times. Let's not burn each other on philosophical stakes. Let's accept that though we walk different roads, we still desire to arrive at the same place. After all, that desire to find truth is what makes us writers in the first place, right?
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