Dealing with Tragedy

After hearing or reading anything about New Orleans, or really any disaster, I often feel guilty for feeling disconnected from the tragedy. I feel that I should be more affected because so many lives are destroyed and consequently find myself trying to make a connection to the tragedy. For example, two months before September 11th I had been in New York for a school trip. I bought my mom a picture of the Twin Towers and had stood under the building listening to our guide tell us about the last terrorist attack on the tower. Well when September 11th occurred I ended up telling everyone I talked to about how I had just been there. I guess I felt that if I had a connection with the area I could some how share in other people's grief. I don't know if this makes any sense, but maybe it will to someone.

On another note, I think the tragedy in New Orleans will be much harder emotionally than 9/11 because there is no one to transfer our pain to. After 9/11 everyone could push away the stabbing pain by concentrating on fighting the terrorists. We hung flags and planned how to protect ourselves from a future disaster. By hating the terrorists we kept ourselves from having to deal with the tremendous loss for a short time. However, in New Orleans there is no faceless terrorist to turn our attention to. We are left with a sadness that can not be pushed away. It must be dealt with now, whether we want to or not.

Please keep everyone touched by this disaster in your prayers.

O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story"

The most effective part of the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story” is the example O’Brien gives after each war story description. For example, O’Brien first statement is that a true war story doesn’t have a moral and is never uplifting. O’Brien then illustrates this statement by telling the story of Rat Kiley and his letter that never gets answered. This story perfectly embodies his point because after I read that story I didn’t feel anything close to happiness. How terrible for Kiley to have poured his heart out to someone he wanted to share his pain with and then never get a reply. The rest of the chapter is brimming with other lessons about true war stories; a true war story is too crazy to believe. A true war story never seems to end. A true war story can not distinguish between what happened and what seemed to happen. O’Brien then shares a piece of his past to corroborate every story so that the reader can see each aspect of a war story. This chapter’s mixture of lesson and memories is so amazing in that O’Brien writes a true war story while telling how to write one.

Another fascinating part of this chapter was the description of the different sides of war. O’Brien shares that war is hell, but also much more complex than that. O’Brien’s idea of war is a war of fear, excitement, pity, and love. In most movies and books today war is seen with only two sides: war as hell and war as heroes. This chapter showed me that war is so much more than just hell and courage. I was shocked to hear O’Brien describe the beauty of war. I had never imagined that war could be beautiful, especially for a veteran. However the description of the “purply orange glow of napalm” gave me a little insight into how something seemingly so ugly from a different side.

O'Brien's The Things They Carried

The most memorable part of the chapter The Things They Carried is O’Brien’s both literal and symbolic use of weight. O’Brien describes in detail the things each soldier carried with them and always lists the weight of each object. This helps the reader to see the weight each man literally carried on his back. More important than the literal weight of the things the men carried was the emotions the men bore at all times. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries pictures and letters from the woman he loves which don’t weigh more than 10 ounces, but it is the emotional strain they put on Cross that is the most important. When Cross remembers all that his comrade Lavender carried he mentions Lavendar's “unweighed fear,” once again showing how emotions, especially fear, can weigh a man down. The men lighten each others' burdens by sharing the “weight of memory.” Through describing everyday life for the soldiers, O’Brien shows the true burdens of the men, and that the biggest strain the men carry is their own lives and the lives of their comrades. Cross feels the horrible guilt of not saving Lavender, a feeling that will pull him down throughout the war and most likely throughout the rest of his life. The most heart-wrenching part of this piece is the men’s dreams of going home; a time where they can fly away and let the “weights fall off.” O’Brien beautifully captures the strain caused by both objects and the emotions that the soldiers live under.

Another part of The Things They Carried which I found interesting was O’Brien’s description of the things the men deemed necessary to carry. The list of necessary articles included things such as canteens of water, mosquito repellent, and steel helmets. O’Brien goes on to list the unnecessary things as diaries, condoms, bibles, and comic books. The thing I found most interesting about his was that the unnecessary items actually kept the men as much alive as the food and weapons did. While condoms may seem to some as useless and unnecessary, they actually served to remind the soldier of his humanity in a time when his life was corroding. Lieutenant Cross’s letters also serve as a life line for him, giving him a way to escape the horrors surrounding him. All of the men’s personal necessities reminded them of who they were before they became just another member of the United States armed forces. O’Brien does a wonderful job showing how the seemingly unnecessary items really support the men throughout their time in hell.

P.S. I feel such awe and respect after reading anything about people in the armed forces because they make such extreme sacrifices. We should all always support our troops.

My School Lunch Memories
Most of my memories of school lunch come from elementary school as that was the last time I really ate lunch at school everyday. At Three Forks Elementary, the menu consisted of anything and everything on a bun. We had chicken patty on a bun, pork chop on a bun, ribs on a bun. I guess the school assumed that kids would be more likely to eat something if it came in the shape of a hamburger.
Although the food at school lunch was decent, it was a sign of coolness to bring cold lunch. Both of my close friends’ mothers packed them nice lunches everyday. Mom-made lunches always had lots of choices and a really great dessert which separated their lunches from the lunches I made myself which usually consisted of a peanut butter sandwich and whatever else I could scrounge up to make it look interesting. Perhaps more important than what was in your lunch box was what your lunch box looked like. The only acceptable lunchbox was a soft plastic coated cloth one in either turquoise or purple. Sadly I had to throw away my hard, square Barbie lunch box and replace it with the standard turquoise cool-making lunch box.
The most anticipated part of school lunch was sixth grade when anyone could order a chef salad on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I never got to enjoy the luxury of ham and iceberg lettuce because we moved from Three Forks when I was in fifth grade, but I will always remember the anticipation of my turn for the salad bowl.
After elementary school there really wasn’t much excitement about lunch. In Sidney, the salad bar was a novelty for a few weeks, but soon the excitement dwindled. Our school also served chili and cinnamon rolls every Friday as a way to compensate for the rest of the weeks dreary lunches. However, as the years progressed, a person’s status was less based on what you ate in the school cafeteria but on the fact that you never stepped foot in the cafeteria at all. A girl in my class exclaimed, “I didn’t know people even at school lunch anymore!” after finding out that one of her friends at school lunch everyday. While I have many more memories of school lunch, I can gladly say that I have eaten my last pork chop on a bun and bowl of chili.

(p.s. I did use the exclamation point knowing that it was wrong, but that’s just how the girl talks.)

Musee des Beaux Arts and Why We Should Read It

I first read W.H. Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts last year in my English class. I began reading the poem with little enthusiasm because it was just homework. However, I soon found myself caught in the beautiful descriptions of human suffering. The words glided through my brain, but with a strength and honesty I found memorable. I read the poem again, this time with more care, and was in awe at how accurately Auden describes human empathy and the sadness of people forced to suffer alone. Auden cites greatly the painting Fall of Icarus by Pieter Breughel, and it wasn’t until I saw the painting that the full depth of the poem was revealed. Because Auden’s poem Musée des Beaux Arts teaches us so much about our capacity for compassion, I believe every person should read it.

The poem describes with frankness how we deal with the suffering of others. It begins with the straightforward statement, “About suffering they were never wrong.” Auden understood that suffering takes place concurrently with ordinary events, while another person is “eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.” Auden later uses the Greek myth about Icarus’s fall from the sky to describe human reaction to the suffering of others. This theme is best depicted by the line “How everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may have heard the splash but for him it was not an important failure.” When reading this line I see myself reflected. As I walk between classes someone’s mother lies dying and as I sit at my laptop someone has just learned they have AIDS. It is sad to admit that I often look past the distress of others the same way the ploughman did. When we suffer we want companionship, someone to reach out and say they understand our pain. Yet so often we look past the pain of others because it does not affect our lives. We don’t see the splash because we choose not to. While we can not live in complete empathy to the extent that we quit living ourselves, we need to make an effort to help others in their time of sorrow. Reading this poem is necessary as hopefully by recognizing ourselves in it, we will be able to reach out with love. And with the tremendous state of sorrow caused by Hurricane Katrina it is crucial that we not turn our backs on our own man falling from the sky.

Anne Lamott's Three Chapters

With the way television and movies today are constantly changing from scene to scene, it is no wonder that our brains work the same way. We tend to think millions of things at once; each great thought flying away to be replaced by a not so great one before we have time to grab on. Sometimes what appears to be a simple everyday memory really is a mask of a hidden meaning on the part of the writer. Anne Lamott’s advice on how to deal with this problem is to write all of the thoughts flying through ones mind and then scour it later looking for something decent to continue on with. I have been doing this type of mindless writing for awhile and had a good laugh when the scramble was finally named a “shitty first draft”.

In “Shitty First Drafts” Lamott talks about the voices she hears in her head, from her parents to the emaciated German. She thought it was best to put all these voices into a jar and then turn the volume on them down real low; however, this technique wouldn’t work for me because I usually struggle with my own thoughts and not others. I usually think about trying to write about some universally important topic or try to write like someone else. Lamott’s friend suggests shooting the voices in the jar in the head, but no writing would get done if I did that.

When I was little I was always writing stories and poems and thought that I was writing masterpieces; sadly, when I look back on my masterpieces they serve for little more than a laugh. Now when I write it takes only a few minutes for me to read through what I just finished and realize its crap. It was comforting to know that even professional writers feel anxiety when they sit down at the typewriter. By describing her own writing dilemmas, Lamott took away a little of my own panic when I sat down at my computer this afternoon.

My childhood stories also tended to be lacking because I was writing about things I wasn’t involved in (the Titanic and the Holocaust for anyone wondering). In “School Lunches” Lamott has every petrified writer begin by talking about school lunches. Why? Because we all know about school lunch and have some memory. Lamott stresses that the important thing with writing is to write about what you know. From personal experience, I can say that this is very worthwhile advice. This small advice was only a small part of the wonderful and colorful lessons Anne Lamott offered in the three chapters on writing.

W.H. Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

If you want to see Breughel's painting go to http://faculty.smu.edu/tmayo/icarus.htm.