| Table
of Contents About
Us Sleep-Walking
and The Art of Manipulation Maturation
within Margins
|
Maturation
within Margins -William Zinsser The recording of my personal history began in third grade. As a restless and ambitious eight-year -old, I relished my third-grade journal writing time. With simple syntax and misspelled words I used my journals as an avenue to express all of my seemingly brilliant ideas, and hopefully reachable ones. Ms. Rhode. a petite longhaired woman with endless patience and limitless energy was my third grade teacher. A dedicated educate, Ms. Rhodes was determined have her students express themselves through writing. Assigned journal topics varied, but my enthusiasm never wavered. Eager and excited, I could feel a jolt of blood flood through my tiny hands as I rushed to fit all of my ideas into giant margins of the extra wide, third-grade style paper. While recently running through old pictures and clothes in my bedroom,
I unexpectedly came across my old third grade journal. It seemed fitting
to find it while home on Thanksgiving break, a time full of reflection.
Its pages were crumpled and yellowing, and since it had been stuck under
piles of "trash," it was conveniently bent at a 45-degree angle
across the front. I opened up to the first page; it is dated with block
letters written with an oversized pencil: Bo Jackson has always been one of my favorites. His versatility and combination of strength, grace and confidence has always amazed me. Although, as an eight-year old I was probably more impressed with his larger -than -life nickname of "Bo." I had his poster on my wall. It was the standard issue Sports Illustrated-produced poster. Bo was dressed in his baby blue Kansas City Royals jersey number 16, right next to my other hero, Don Mattingly, adorned in his sparkling white, pin striped number twenty three. I always imagined then being best friends. I figured since they spent so much time together in my room they had no reason not to be. October 24, 1990- They have always been my favorite animals. Fierce, fast and intimidating, but as an eight-year old, I just loved their spots. Animals always ended up in my writing as a child. I think it was out of envy. I was jealous they didn't have to ever stop playing to 'come inside and wash up for dinner,' or do homework. They never had a set bedtime and I was certain that no one cared if they ate their vegetables. August 25, 1994- "Justin is my best friend. He lives down the street. I play with him all the time. We play hockey and basketball and football and baseball and nintendo(sic0 al the time. He beats me in nintendo most of the time but I beat him basketball. Sometimes we play to 50. It takes a long time. Eventually those games to fifty on a lowered hoop between two eleven year- olds became games to 100 on regulation hoops between two vicious 16 year-old competitors in the suffocating Texas heat. Those games never ended without one of us being victorious. We couldn't stomach the idea of stopping short of what we plan to do. Writing helps me to remember those situations in perfect detail. To this day he is my best friend. Separated by thousands of miles and years of distance, our bond has yet to be broken. I moved away when I was fourteen and he is currently enrolled at the University of Arizona. We live different lives on separate coasts of America, you our friendship has remained intact. Through my writing, I feel as though I give our friendship a pulse, keeping memories of basketball and nintendo, slipcovers and prank calls, alive-fresh in my overcrowded memory. ***************** We flew out of Dallas on a perfect Saturday morning. It was more than strange to board the plane clutching a one way ticket. I inspected every square inch of that paper in some halfhearted attempt to find a return flight date and time, but it was nowhere to be found. I was much more than overwhelmed, certainly more than scared, and fresh off my freshman year of high school and moving across the country. The night before I had said all of my good-byes, emotional farewells to friends, many of whom I would never see again. Instead of staying out late that night talking about times passed, I chose instead to hide in my bedroom nestled with a book, Darcy Fery's The Last Shot. I had to finish that book that night, I still don't understand why I was so determined or committed to the task. The night got darker; I turned pages quicker, devouring all 225 pages in one day. It is a story of basketball and inner city life, one thing I loved and the other I know nothing about. It provided me with a welcome distraction from the harshness of my current reality. I needed an escape and Fery's writing provided me with one. Flight 328 to Boston presented me with another opportunity to distract myself. This time I chose to compose my own work. August 31, 1997, written with a blue American Airlines pen. "Lonely, undecorated hallways provided no comfort last night. I just kept thinking of leaving. Just the word scares me; it seems so final and complete, a verbal point of no return. I'm trying not to think about what my first day of football practice will be like or who I will sit with at lunch. I can't afford to think about it because I will become overwhelmed,an emotional wreck. So I'm sitting here in this isle seat, next to my Dad trying to distract myself long enough to fill up this time spent in the air."
Life has a funny way of repeating itself. Sometimes it seems as though everything we do we have done before, as deja vu becomes less of a novelty and more of an everyday occurrence. Flash forward: I'm now a sixteen year-old high school junior well adjusted to my Massachusetts home, and once again I'm writing in my journal. Only this time I'm sitting attentively in a Psychology class taught by Mr. Brett Mulvey. 'Mulv,' as we called him was the kind of teacher every high school kid loves, young and energetic, sarcastic but serious, a more mature version of ourselves. Like Ms. Rhode, Mr. Mulvey was stanch in his attempts to have students express themselves with written words.
We did dream journals where we wrote down everything we could remember about our sleep as soon as we woke up. We did memory journals and problem journals; anything we wanted to write about was acceptable. 'Mulv' never eead what we wrote and I always respected that. He just glanced quickly at each of our journals as he rushed through the isles. It was his way of showing us that he wasn't wasting our time or trying to pry into our lives. Rather, he was making an honest attempt to help us learn how to express ourselves, and deal with the seemingly massive trials and tribulations of high school. This journal was a little bit easier to find find as I have kept it on the shelf near my bed, always ready to be skimmed through.
The date was December 11, 1998. The topic was life after high school. "As we approached New year's again I'm amazed at the speed with which high school is passing me by. I'm terrified of college and its nuances, and I am even more afraid of life after college. I feel as though I'm stuck between maturity levels. Part of me just wants to concentrate on my next basketball game while the other side of me is always pressuring me to figure out what I want to do with my life." Looking at the journal now it amazes me the way topics float around, touching down occasionally on deep, life altering issues, while at other times my writing becomes completely immersed in the trappings of high school. ********************** She broke up with me on a meaningless Wednesday. It had been two years, and apparently she had grown bored and troubled. Somehow I never saw it coming. We had a baseball game that game against our nemesis, Westwood. Obviously distracted, I had two crucial errors and went hitless in four at-bats. I'll never forget the long bus ride home from that game. It seemed appropriate that the day we played our furthest geographical component would be the day I desperately needed the time to reflect about the sudden and drastic change in my life. By the time we arrived at school I was exploding with thoughts. I rushed off the bus and hurried home, locked my door and began to explore the confusion of my mind with a pen in hand. The emotions and passion, although jumbled and at times incoherent, spilled out of me and onto the page for hours like blood from an open wound. "Naive enough to care interested enough to share the parts of myself that I call me but now, through these tear stained eyes it's hard to see what it was we lost or maybe what we had" This time the journal entry was my own. There was no assignment or topic. This time it was just the emotions and thoughts associated with a breakup, intertwined more closely then they had ever before. The journal helped. It made my fears and stress real. Residence between margins gives ideas credibility more so than those thoughts that are spoken, never recorded, and discarded in eternal oblivion. ******************** The fire of my passion had been officially lit. Although I spent many long hours writing and recording many of my thoughts and feelings before, It wasn't until that night that I realized what crucial role writing played in my life. As a third grade writer, I penned dreams and hopes of a life that I envisioned is neither glamorous nor trouble-free. And rather than writing about the pursuit of such things, I spend my time writing about the unrealized potential of those dreams while sprinkling in other issues from my life.
In a way this piece is now the product of many journals, which have been in the process of completion for years. The difference? The thoughts this time are based on a retrospective look at thoughts that have come before, an interesting an fulfilling task.
Writing like life, is a constant evolution. At times there is improvement and growth, at other times there is anguish and frustration. As William Zinsser says, "Writing is hard work...Remember this is moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard." The fact that writing is hard is part of its lure. However, if enough effort is put forth I feel as bough I can become informative intelligent for others to come to know of. But then again, I do not write to become great, noticed, respected or admired. Nor do I write for the approval of others. I write for my own satisfaction in an attempt to experience the personal l percision that writing is. For the majority of my writing career my subject matter has centered upon events that have directly affected me. Recent proceedings have changed that forever. Upon learning of the news of the attacks of September 11, 2001, my first response was to write. "One day and history has been changed. And maybe people learned or maybe we will let it pasee by remaining unconcerned, as our immature attention spans are unable to handle such large portions of reality. We choose instead to reside in peaceful seclusion. But the present is here, and change, well change is inevitable." The attacks acted like an enormous vacuum on the population of the world, sucking the life, energy, and hopes out of people everywhere. Coming from a strong Christian family and possessing my own strong faith I went to church on that fateful day to pray for the world. Although prayer is beneficial and needed, I felt as though I wasn't able to say to God what I wanted to without writing. Through writing I feel as though as I have developed a more earnest and honest relationship with Him as my work, sometimes intentionally, other times not, often becomes long-winded prayers about my family, my life and my friends. In this instance, not only was my subject matter changed, but I was also witnessing a change in the structure and style of my writing. I had been focusing more on poetry, tackling, through often-unrhymed stanzas, the biggest questions the words has to offer. I feel as though this is a great sign of maturity within my writing. As I move beyond self-centered, trivial issues in cluttered prose form, and concentrate more upon clear bad concise expression of my visions through poetry. ****************** My passion for writing did not become evident by some massive stroke of luck. Rather, it was nurtured and fed while my writing traversed my dreams, worries, hopes, fears, and my reading expanded to include Salinger and Hawthorne. Passion lies within us all. It spews from unknown outlets, yearning to be discovered. Some of u muffle its cries, choosing to remain bashful and silent, unwilling to explore passion's boudoir's. Others flaunt their fervor on their sleeves like Boy Scout troop hunting badges, begging others for acknowledgment and approve their zeal. Others still like me, have their passion consistently build over long periods of time, burrowing its ways into our minds and bodies, until it is suddenly a driving force into our lives. Red ink dated August 1t, 2001. For the first seventeen years of my life, I have been content to e viewed as the 'jock' or 'goofball' in class. My writing, however, has fueled a desire within me to want something much more than that. At nineteen, I want credibility as a thinker, and the reputation of an intelligent young student. ***************** Eventually I would like to learn how to compose short stories. I'm intrigued by the creativity and freedom associated with them. It all fits together; my early writing was so simple and constrained, while my maturation as lead to more structure and focus. As I grow older I am anticipating returning to simplicity and creativity as I love beyond the harsh realities of the world to create my own truths in stories. I would love to get one published. Regardless of whether or not one single person reads it, I would love to have my own work extended and perfected, binded, and presented in a nice, neat little package. I'm convinced that even if I never advance beyond my current abilities, my passion will continue to grow. Writing's most basic essence is earnest communication between not only others but ourselves as well, and that prospect greatly entices me. To see my work published, to know that it is out there for some young child on a lonely night like fery's book was for me. Or the fact that someone out there can relate to my problems and worries is exhilarating. I'm older now, more informed and deliberate. Writing has created this. And writing has created a perfect circle, the immature sponge of a boy/writer/reader into an intelligent capable of passing on the love of writing and reading, or helping a young child somewhere feel the same rush of pen on paper that I feel. Writing brings me closer to the heart of matters, to the parts of the world that sometimes we don't want to talk about or think about. Writing brings me into the eye of the storm and provides me with a way to counter and withstand its fury. |
|