Kirsten and Allie's Articles

What I found really interesting about Kirsten's article was one point they made about calming down when feeling nervous, how are you supposed to do that? Anxiety is an issue that a lot of people struggle with and I think that we as a whole are lacking the tools to teach and cope with anxiety. "Calming down" is easy enough to say, but when you think about the meaning behind it, it is difficult to achieve. I think this article really shows the need for emotional literacy and by teaching it to children it will definitely create a space for thinking about tough issues in a new way. Things can be looked at through a more emotional lens without the consequence and taint of taboo like today.

I really enjoyed the links Allie included. I have a little brother and a dad who isn't afraid to admit that he likes Hello Kitty. "I think she's cute" he always says. When we were little me and my sister used to dress my brother up, do his hair and makeup and then take pictures of him after. He had long curly hair that was the softest thing I ever felt. After we cut it it became course and thick. Now he must be a boy. He has to keep up with those stereotypical ideas of masculinity and they are so often challenged that it's almost like walking on eggshells. Now that he's a teenager, those ideas are even more influential, but I think my dad is a strong enough role model for my brother to at least stand firm on his policy of no bug squishing.

Competition

Having younger siblings, competition is a natural and inevitable part of life. Ever since they were born, I feel like I have had to compete with them for attention from my parents, attention at school, from friends and relatives. In school, my goal was to have greats that were always better then my sister's, so that it was her and not me that got in trouble. I wanted to be the better daughter and this was an easy way for me to do it. On an even more extreme level, I tried my best to be better at art than her. Both of of parents went to art school, so art has been a major part of our lives. I think by always trying to be better I snuffed out her creative flame and hogged it for myself. But at the same time, while I worked hard, she made friends and had a lot of fun that it would take me years to discover. 

But probably the most memorable instance of competition that I can remember was when I was in elementary school. Both me and my sister were in the same school, since she is only two years younger than me. I remember she came home with a story she'd written in class and both my parents praised her for her creativity. I heard them and knew I needed to write something better. I came home a few days longer with an even bigger story with illustrations and everything. They praised me just the same and I felt like I had won. When I look back on this, I sometimes think that it didn't affect my sister, for her it was a simple assignment in class, but to me it was about being the best daughter. I wonder where she could have been if I had let her take the spotlight? Maybe she'd be in my place here at Ithaca and I'd still be at home. And then other times I think that it was meant to happen, this is what I was meant to be good at and it was because of my sister that I found my path.

In the end, we both got our stories hung up on the fridge for a while before they were carefully tucked away in a box to be kept.  

"From Trauma to Healing"

In MacCurdy's essay, she talks about the relationship between trauma and memories. She argues that trauma stays with us as snippets of memory rather than the more linear thoughts of everyday life. MacCurdy believes that the best writing comes from healing, because the writer is able to take those ragged emotions and memories associated with the trauma and translate them into another story.

I thought this chapter was really interesting, especially when you consider how a writer is educated. In all of our writing classes, we are asked to write in scene, using vivid images and senses to put the reader in the same space as us. I think these traumatic memories are the stuff that makes up a scene and is why we remember them in such small and vague snippets. MacCurdy's desire for good writing to be healing goes along with the same idea, because the writer is able to get their emotions and memories in order so they can rewrite the story, a story that the reader can then relate to.

I agree with MacCurdy that good writing comes from healing because these traumatic memories an only be made un-traumatic when they are processed and understood--much like the other chapter in this book-- in order to take back the incident and heal.

Personal Essay Exercise

We called it “Monday-itis”.

It was a migraine that slowly crept from the back of my head up to the arch of my eyebrow and sent me to the nurse’s office several times a month. It always hit just before lunch, prompting me to stuff my face with whatever I could reach in hopes that something would make it go away. By the end of school, I was either already asleep in the nurses office/at home or close to vomiting.

After a while, I learned to hide the symptoms, retire to bed early or hide myself in my room for the strict four hours of sleep that would cure me. I hated the way people treated me, pitied me. Some time in fourth or fifth grade, my parents told one of my teachers about the migraines in order to explain why I might not participate or have to leave early some days. A few days later a headache hit and when I asked for permission to go to the nurse's office, my teacher looked at me. His mouth turned down into a deep frown and his eyebrows wrinkled together.

"Headache?" he asked, looking down at me like i was the most pathetic creature he'd ever seen.

All I could so was nod.

…

I had failed this time, the migraine won, and I threw up all over Katie’s new orange colored converse shoes. We went outside and she used the hose to rinse me off like a dog. I felt worse about covering her shoes in throw-up than I did about the stain on my clothes. 

After, I called my dad. I never called him to pick me up. It felt like I was going against the rules of parenting by calling him instead of my mother. I gave him the only directions I knew to Katie’s house: the way the bus went before it dropped me off. Me and Katie sat on the porch, her shoeless and me with a big wet spot on the front of my shirt. 

I heard my dad’s car in the driveway, and I prepared myself for the new pile of guilt and shame. I was sure he would be mad and annoyed that I'd made him come all the way back from work, given him terrible directions, and gotten sick again. 

He came up to me, eyebrows knitted together in concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

...

One day when I was in middle school, after I'd learned how to get through  day of school with my Monday-itis, my mother came home hours before she usually did.  I had just crawled into bed when she came into my room without knocking. At first I was ready to send her back out with typical teenager vocab. But then I saw her face. 

She came in and sat down on the edge of my bed. Her eyes were watery. I was silent. She explained that Scotty, her cousin, had died. She told me that if I ever felt so sad, so lonely and desperate, that I could talk to her. She never wanted to see me hurt like Scotty did. Typical for my mother, she even threatened to kill me herself if I ever tried to hurt myself. I nodded, understanding for the moment, but not really knowing.