Haunted

     Call me a nerd. I've spent the majority of these past few days in Colorado reading and writing. In fact, I've read about one thousand pages over the past three days. Quite the luxury. One thing that I struggle conveying to people is the degree to which I get involved in books. I know it's true for me and several others I've met, but I'm not sure if it's just a literary nerd trait. When I read a book, I am startlingly close to living it. I take the time to learn the characters as intimately as I know my friends and feel the emotional struggles as closely as if they were my own.

     I'm sure most people have read about a character that attaches him/herself to the recesses of the mind. The character lingers like the sweet, earthen smell of rain for hours or days after the storm has passed. I'm currently having that particular reaction in a book I am reading. Whether I'm driving to a nearby town to eat or walking our dog, the girl in this story travels with me, all but tangible in my day to day life.

     Perhaps that's the sign of a well-written book. Perhaps of a novel idea. I'm going to guess, however, that the truth is behind imagination. What a great aspect of the human mind: Imagination. From all the knowledge people have gathered regarding life on this planet, I'm not sure we've come across another being that had imagination other than ourselves. We can see words, formulate thoughts, envision characters, and on top of it all, imagine every aspect of that character's life, written or unwritten.

     That's the beauty of stories. At the heart of it's conception, process, and ultimate interpretation lies imagination. The story can literally and metaphorically be whatever we want it to be. A protagonist is a protagonist, but MY protagonist will forever be different than any other reader's, and there is immense beauty in that realization.

     My trip is more than halfway over and I will be returning to grad school, work, and a near infinite number of other obligations upon my return, but I will be at least one haunting character, one thought-provoking plot, and one enlightening story richer.

     Here's to imagination.

Creators

A few people have asked me where I got the inspiration for Elizabeth. Coming from a fairly well off, suburban, conservative family, I haven’t experienced some of the events I have written about in the story. One person asked me “But if you’ve never experienced it, how can you write about it?” The question made me laugh and left me slightly confused. Isn’t that what every person does?

So much cooler than a spaceship

            If you were to walk through a kindergarten classroom, what kind of activities would you expect to come across? Coloring? Arts and crafts? Story time? From the time we are born, society grooms us to become creators. We listen to stories, draw pictures, and build spaceships out of Legos.

            Another statement I hear rather often is, “I can’t even draw a straight line.” Well when was the last time you sat down and practiced? I do it for hours a day. I’m sure if you did the same, you’d be just fine at it.

              My mechanical response to most of these statements and questions is that I simply never stopped drawing or writing. Every five-year old is an artist. Some stick the path and become the painters and authors of our world; others apply their creativity to science and become the engineers behind the next undiscovered invention. Regardless of titles, however, I’ve yet to come across a person who wasn’t a creator. It’s just a matter of passion and application.

            My unknowns are characters and plots. Doctors search for new medicines, bartenders try new drinks, and businessmen lift start-ups to staggering heights. And the best part? Our teachers create the next generation of creators. Passion and application.

            Do I think art is for everyone? No, of course not. But creating? That’s about as all encompassing as a description of people can be.

            Here’s to teachers, creators, and the faded line that divides the two.

Conserberalism, Robert Frost and Uteruses (Uteri?)

Undoubtedly many of you have read the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. If not, go ahead and take a glance here: The Road Not Taken, it's worth it.

     For those of you who have already read the poem, surely there has been a point in you're life where you felt like you were faced with a fork in your path and took the unexpected one. If you happen to live in this great nation, I'm sure you're aware that the road from southern, conservative high school to liberal, northern university has its fair share of weeds sprouting through the most recent footprints. Needless to say, I found myself in rather unfamiliar territory.

   I attended high school at a private, almost exclusively white, Christian, middle/upper class, conservative, Republican male high school. It also happens to be the high school written about in  Dead Poet's Society. If you've seen the movie, you know very well the type of place to which I am referring. Dress code, demerits, topped off with just the right mixture of over-achievement and mild arrogance that left most outsiders and half the insiders hating the place. Don't get me wrong, now that I'm out I am rather grateful to have attended school there, but the sentiment was slow in the making.

  As you would probably expect, this was a pretty 'inside-the-box' institution. Math, science, language...pretty much anything with rules was bound to take hold. Needless to say, there wasn't much wiggle room for an artist.

     One of my favorite stories from high school happened at my senior art show. I had spent many hours compiling a portfolio of slightly edgy portraits, two of which are shown here. Yes, they are rather in-your-face and one is sideways, but I had provided a nice, lengthy explanation explaining the concept (a short version is that it represents the struggles people face on a day to day basis, taking the pain people feel from not living up to society's expectations, not making enough money, not being attractive enough, and making the pain physical instead of mental). The concept is a little abstract, but if you read the explanation and have a remotely open mind you can approach it fairly comfortably.

     My high school community had a lot of gifts, but open-mindedness wouldn't have made the top three. On the day of the show, my art teacher and I had a good laugh or two as we watched people from across the room. Some would walk in and glance around, not quite sure if they should leave. Others would simply ignore my portion of the room. My favorite, however, was the grandmother of one of my classmates, who entered the room with two of her friends. Sensing the possibility of a heart-attack or at the very least a reaction that might have been appropriate fifty years ago, my teacher and I moved forward, only to catch this woman whispering through her fake teeth that whoever did these drawings was surely going to be the next Virginia Tech shooter.

    Now remember, this was my senior art show in 2007. Chronologically speaking we are at most maybe two weeks removed from this event. I found myself caught in between uncontrollable laughter and utter disbelief. Surely this lady wasn't serious.

     As the experience sank in, I began to feel uplifted by the fact that I was traveling up to Providence to attend Brown University, one of the most open-minded and 'road less traveled' schools in the country. No need to tone down metaphor or censor your writing.

     When registration rolled around for the first semester of college classes, I made a conscious decision to spread out the topics of my courses, despite having an open curriculum. I ended up in studio art (which I hated), Spanish (which I dropped), Calculus (which I passed with a grade of 39%), and a course on the beginnings of Christianity, which is by far the most entertaining. Having grown up in the Bible Belt, I arrived with a relatively conservative interpretation of scripture. I won't purge spirits from your chest, but I knew what I believed in and was interested to receive a perspective I assumed to be rather different from my own. I can only begin to tell you how much of an understatement that assumption turned out to be.

     The class was rather enjoyable for the first few weeks. I remained pleased with what I was learning, and the differences I had discovered were surprisingly rather insignificant. The date to drop classes passed and I thought the first semester, all things considered, was off to as smooth of a start as I could have hoped (Spanish aside). I arrived at class one day a little late and took a seat next to the door to cause as little disturbance as possible. I got my notebook out of my bag, was reaching for my book, and suddenly I was able to process what my teacher was exactly saying. She was.....splitting off from her denomination of the church? What had I walked in on? Talk about piquing curiosity.

    "It's just sexist. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." I glanced around the room. Was I the only one incapable of processing this argument? Everyone else was so diligently taking notes. "I've tried to explain it but they won't listen. There's an easy solution. A couple of backstrokes and you could have 'Mother, Child, and Womb' in there instead."

     Now, I should probably begin by telling you that I am a huge proponent of gender equality. Suffrage? Great. Elimination of workplace discrimination? Great. But the Holy Trinity in one fell swoop? ...Bold. Mother....I can live with it. Child....pretty sure Jesus was a dude, but vague isn't a crime. But WOMB? Say what you will, but the last time I read a passage about the Holy Spirit descending from Heaven, I didn't picture an oversized uterus floating down at me from the sky. Understandably, my teacher and I found ourselves slightly at odds.

     

     In retrospect, maybe Frost had it wrong. After being a liberal in a conservative environment and a conservative in a liberal environment, I'm pleased to announce myself a Conserberalist. The paths are there for a reason, but ultimately humans are individuals. Sooner or later we all have to forge our own path, so lace up your boots, pick up your walking stick and trample through the forest. Here's to being human.

Eight Hours

     What is your favorite novel? Your favorite movie? Song? Play? What about your most loathed Disney antagonist? Or the television show that makes you laugh so hard you cry?

     If you're like me, every one of those answers would require several minutes, if not days of deep thought.  It's not that I can't compare Beloved and Light in August or Scar and Ursula, I just struggle settling on a single one. After all, how many books have you read? Probably less than the number of songs you've heard.

     I heard an interesting statistic the other day: The average American spends eight hours a day reading, watching, or listening to stories. Whether it's watching the news when you get home from work, reading before you go to bed, or listening to your friend talk about the cute guy who glanced her way in math class earlier, stories define our every day lives.

    So what if I asked you what you believe is the most important story of your lifetime? If you're religious you might answer the Bible or the Qur'an. If you're 14 you might answer Harry Potter. The possibilities are endless and there is no right answer. So why did I ask? Because I believe stories are at the heart of what it means to be human. From the cave paintings to Trajan's column to Hollywood, every society across time has had story at its center. After all, whatever religion you belong to has a story of creation or beginning. Whether God made man from dust or the Water Beetle brought mud from the depths of the ocean to form the lands as the Cherokee belief holds, humans and the earth are the great creation. By design, we are the inheritors of the world. Being created, however, does not define a human. The animals, plants, viruses, air, water and fire are creations as well. So what separates people? Stories hold the answer.

     On the most basic level, in order for a story to be shared, somebody must record it. Today we pay ten dollars to go to a movie, twenty for a book, and a few hundred for a television, all to get our fix of stories. But who created those stories? Along the way there was a filmmaker, an author, an engineer, each a component of the ultimate story. For that is what people are. We are the created, but we are also the creators. For every person there is a Narnia. For every planet a Yoknapatawpha County. For every star a Hundred-Acre Wood. You've told your story to friends and strangers, and you've heard the stories of thousands.

     It is a story that defines who we are. Yours, mine, and every one we have heard that changes us in some way. We are the creators and the created. The talkers and the listeners. The actors and the audience. So read a book, or write a poem, or catch up on the news, and celebrate being human.