The Space Between Real Life & Manipulated Text

One aspect of "Writing Down The Bones" I really appreciated was the emphasis on the importance of writing as a regular practice. As much as I appreciate the feedback and instruction that I receive in writing classes, one of the things I appreciate the most about taking a class is the fact that it forces me to put words on paper. It is difficult, without the parameters of various exercises or the benefit of feedback, to remain motivated, at times, to write. This is a problem I've had with keeping a journal in the past. While, at times, it feels very therapeutic to write and I can appreciate the psychological benefits of the act, there are other times when it is extremely difficult to find inspiration without direction of some sort.

This blog has helped to provide an impetus to write, if mostly in the form of reactions to various reading, and I hope to continue it after the class (although I plan to remove content that is not poetry, short prose, recipes, shopping lists, or essays (i.e. the responses)).

Recently, I had an extra credit assignment for a physics class that consisted of writing a 5-page paper by hand. I chose to write the paper in cursive. While my my penmanship had decayed dramatically from years of neglect, it was interesting to note that I still remembered the shapes of all of the cursive characters. It was like the familiar analogy of riding a bike: once I was on, it felt like I had never stopped writing in cursive. This is a suitable analogy for my relationship with the written word in general. This class has helped to get me back on the bike and reminded me of how fun and rewarding the ride is.

on DON'T LET ME BE LONELY

DON'T LET ME BE LONELY is a record of Claudia Rankine's experiences in a specific geographical location (the United States of America) during a specific point in time (the beginning of the twenty-first century). The book begins with the author reminiscing about a time "when no one I knew well had died." Rankine goes on to examine death, its representation in popular media, and various anecdotes relating to death. In the next section of the book (distinguished by a photograph of a static-covered television), the author begins by remarking, "I leave the television on all the time." She reports a dialogue she has heard on the television concerning death - how a young man (a juvenile offender) responds to an interviewer, when asked if someone (it is never specified whom) is dead, that the person "is dead to me." This exchange results in some confusion for the interviewer as the young man repeatedly states that the person is dead to him (in an emotional context - whether or not the person is physically dead is of little consideration to the young man).

Themes regarding life and death are evident throughout this book: we can find them in the author's examination of the life and death of hope, medicine and hospitals, film and television, the work of various writers, and (then-)current events. This is very much a book about figuring out one's place in the world (and trying to make sense of this position). As determining one's position has much to do with determining the position of other entities, the importance of these interactions with said entities is also prevalent in this book. It is interesting that the author often references the medium of television (often seen as a cold, impersonal means of interpersonal communication) throughout the text. The author also discusses loneliness in the context of interacting with others. At one point, she states "loneliness stems from a feeling of uselessness."

Near the end of the book, Ranice discusses the act of shaking someone's hand - how it is an act of asserting one's presence as much as it is a submission of one's self to another. According to the author, the transient nature of the balance between the two has "everything to do with being alive."

on TOTAL ECLIPSE

TOTAL ECLIPSE relates the story of a journey to a city in Washington "near Yakima" where the author, Annie Dillard, has traveled (with her husband, Gary Clevidence) to view a solar eclipse. Within the essay, the author speaks of the expectations she has about the eclipse and her experience viewing a partial eclipse in 1970; however, midway through the essay she explains that a partial eclipse "bears almost no relation to a total eclipse." She continues by explaining that witnessing a partial eclipse "bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane." Within the story, the author's anticipation of the event turns to a form of grief (or even shame, perhaps (the images of the spectators "streaming down the hillsides", driving away in their cars, and never looking back hints that such an emotion may be shared)). Indeed, the human spectators (or, at the very least, the author) in this essay are humbled by the experience of the solar eclipse; despite having the advantages of modern technology and ideologies, they are still in awe of the magnificence of this natural occurrence ("From all the hills came screams," the author writes).

One of the difficult things with producing an essay that is a meditation on one's reaction to a specific phenomenon (and its emotional resonance) is keeping readers' attentions throughout the piece (it could be argued that keeping readers' attention is an important consideration when engaging in any type of writing). This seemed to be a problematic issue when we were discussing the essay in class. I would agree that this essay does seem to meander a bit. The author spends a considerable amount of space exploring seemingly mundane details (a painting in her hotel room of a bald clown's head made out of vegetables, the contents of a roadside diner, the hues that she experiences during the eclipse) in her journey to relate this story. In the end, however, this is still a moving piece of writing that reflects the author's struggle to make sense of her (and our) place in the natural world around us.