Memorable Passage

“Memory is a tenuous thing. . . .
flickering glimpses, blue
and white, like ancient,
decomposing 16mm film.
Happiness escapes
me there, where faces
are vague and yesterday
seems to come tied
up in ribbons of pain.” 

-Ellen Hopkins, Impulse

 

I’ve always enjoyed Ellen Hopkins’s writing and Impulse is my favorite book. The first time I read this passage, it made me think a lot about the past. Nostalgia has always been one of my biggest enemies because life changes so much and sometimes I wish that things could go back to how they used to be. Although Impulse has been one of the saddest books I have ever read, I like how Hopkins has always been able to write things that we don’t usually say although we may think them at times. When she talks about the vague faces, it makes me think about all the people I have encountered in my life and what they have taught me. The decomposing film makes me think about how pictures are witnesses to the things we have been a part of and the events that led us to where we are today. Thinking about decomposing film is like thinking about memories that we cherish fading away and we can’t do anything about it because everything has an end and one day none of us will matter anymore even if we did something amazing with our lives. When Hopkins writes about the flickering glimpses, it reminds me of everyone and how we try to stay even though we are fading away. I guess that doesn’t make sense but it made sense in my head. I just really like how she can take the things we feel and put them onto paper. Life will never be what we expect it to be but I guess we just have to take things as they come and roll with it. 

Readers as Writers

There comes a time when enough is enough and we have to realize that we can’t make everyone around us happy. I think that is one of the lessons that life teaches us that proves to be one of the more difficult concepts to wrap our heads around. Everyone builds up walls around themselves we chose who we let in and who we keep out. Sometimes, we think that we let the right people in when all they do is destroy us from the inside out. The worse kind of pain is watching someone forget about you because there are memories that can never be forgotten. A lot of people in our lives are temporary even if we think that they are going to stay forever and even if they say that they are never going to leave. But they do. And it sucks. But I guess that’s how things work. People come in and out of our lives for an amount of time to teach us a lesson even if it doesn’t feel like it. But sometimes we let the wrong people in and they get too close. At the same time, we don’t want them out of our lives even though we know that they are bad for us. However, I have found that it’s the difficult people that I need to value the most. There’s something about struggle that makes us a better person in the long run. Everyone is different and we don’t handle the things the same way but that’s okay because that is what makes us different from each other. Sometimes, watching people walk out of our lives makes room for someone better to walk into our lives. And other times, we have to learn that it is okay for us to leave those who hurt us because when it comes down to it, we shouldn’t have to sacrifice ourselves for people who don’t care about us. 

Some Kind of Dispute

As he sat there and thought about his family, tears came to his eyes. Watching them being slaughtered in his own living room was the most gruesome and yet most paralyzing event that his eyes had ever been a witness to. He was the only one in his family that was left alive…if that’s what you want to call it. Making funeral arrangements for his younger brothers and sisters was something that he never thought that he would have to do. But this is war. Everything was different now. The playground in which his younger siblings used to play in was now an unmarked grave for those who got lost somewhere in the crossfire. The market that his mother used to shop at everyday was now deserted and riddled with bullet holes. As he walked around his home town, he could almost hear his friends talking to him. He could almost smell the smoke that came out of his father’s pipe. He could almost see things the way that they used to be. But then he realizes that things can’t go back to the way they were. Even if the war ended, that wouldn't bring back his mother’s smile or the sound of his sister’s voice. But all that everyone else knows is that there is some kind of dispute going on in the Middle East. We hear about snipers and the military but we don’t hear the cries of orphans. We watch videos of bombing attacks and learn about the newest technology that could kill everything in a five mile radius, but we don’t see the bloodshed of the innocent. As the shelters fill up, it seems as though more bombing takes place and more people are killed that had nothing to do with the war. Maybe we should focus on trying to rebuild the lives that we have shattered instead of destroying more lives. We hear about all the soldiers that we lose in a war but they get a proper burial and we don’t pay any attention to the four year old who is starving to death on a dirt road in Syria because he lost his parents when his city was attacked. War has always been a part of history and the innocent are always the ones who suffer the most. But the worst part is that when the war ends, they are left to clean up a mess that others created. 

Probably a Pessimist

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. It is the one about what could have been. He almost lived. But he didn't. The word “almost” gives us false hope because for a split second, we get our hopes up just to be knocked down. So much could have happened, but it didn't. He could have grown up and made it through life. He could have gotten the chance to grow old and watch his grandchildren grow taller everyday (or at least it seemed like it). But none of that happened because we don’t have control over the universe and I guess that some of us were meant to exist longer than others. Why is it that some babies die after their first few hours of life yet the oldest person to ever walk this earth lived to 122 years of age? I sometimes wonder what determines how long we will have to spend here. It seems as though from the very first breath we take, we are dying, some faster than others. When I think about people who died too young or too soon, I think about all the things that they could have done. But I guess that we will never get the chance to find out what they could have done with their life. People say that life is short when it the longest thing that we ever do. But when it comes down to it, almost is worse than nothing. It’s like losing your eyesight and then getting it back for a few minutes, but then losing it again forever. Life doesn't always turn out the way that we want it. When I think about all the things that go wrong and all the things that we will never know, I just try to hold on to the fact that sometimes, ignorance is bliss. But when it comes time for me to leave this life behind, despite all of the chaos, I will realize that this is not the scene I dreamed of. Like much else nowadays, I leave (life) feeling stupid, like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere. 

Quotes & Stuff

(The last one is by Sarah Kay)

Famous First and Last Lines

“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”

                The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford begins with this sentence. Published in 1915, the book is set around the time that World War One was occurring and it tells the story of a seemingly perfect marriages and how they fell apart due to human error. The entire book sounds really sad, which I anticipated because of the first line of the book. Death and tragedy are scattered throughout the novel and Ford leaves his readers with a question that he doesn’t answer. Ford (17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was from England. He was mostly a journal critic before he wrote his books. Although he didn’t write many books, The Good Soldier is considered to be one of the greatest novels of the 20^th century and of all time. I do think that I would like to read this book. I’ve always been attracted to sad stories or books that don’t have a happy ending. I think that Ford was a realistic writer because he wrote about the struggles that people faced and how those problems could make or break them.

“This is not the scene I dreamed of. Like much else nowadays I leave it feeling stupid, like a man who lost his way long ago but presses on along a road that may lead nowhere.”

                Waiting for the Barbarians was written by J.M Coetzee in 1980. Coetzee was born on February 9^th 1940 and is from South Africa but now lives in Australia. He is a distinguished writer and has won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. Waiting for the Barbarians is about a small colonial town that is under attack by the indigenous people that surround them. After a Colonel capturing and killing some of them, the Magistrate has a change of heart and decides to help a barbarian girl who was hurt during the attack. He later falls in love with her and asks her to stay with him. Throughout the novel, the Magistrate is trying to do the right thing and help the barbarians while the Colonel hunts and kills them.  This book doesn’t seem that interesting to me and I don’t think that I would like to read it. I don’t usually read books about adventure and I like books that are more realistic. However, it reminds me of King Kong, but in reverse.