Cut What is Bad, and Reveal What is Good

I was talking today with Ammi, about how terrible things, things that heart are so widely known. We were discussing how some times our lives can be so unbelievably tragic and devastatingly awkward. "Those times are like realizing your car is stalled train track and there's an amtrack coming..." I summed up to her "CRASHES, [loud explosions]. Then afterwards, people leave crosses and flowers."
"Jeeezzz," she was thinking out loud, "I hate tragic things, they're so much more dramatic when they are publicized, than they would be otherwise."
My conclusion: "Life would be better if we publicized the good things and hushed the bad."

What if for example we focused on this:

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's hearts would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a crystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

(Foer, Johathan. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.)

Let's focus on the good, and leave the bad to the world at large.

That is not to say that we should completely disregard hurt. No, we need to be aware of hurt, we need to experience hurt. We need to know what it is to be without, to be unrejoicing--that's what keeps us tenderhearted.

The Parent Syndrome

This weekend was good, which makes it worth the long week--there wasn't much to be done in the later part of the week, except dread the following week and count the days until the long weekend, but having nothing to do made the week creep by. Sure I could have worked on my papers, read some of my books, redecorated my room, all the things that you do when you are bored, so I could have done (& just what I did do incidentally) nothing. "I'm letting the words marinate in my brain." I convinced myself, dwelling on them in their unconscious form, waiting for that "AH-HA!" moment where I will sit down and churn out the paper. That moment never quite came. So now, as the busy week is approaching, I am frantically pushing words out the ends of my fingers trying to make sense of the world inside my head.

But, this weekend, as I made less and less sense of the world that only I can see, I did manage to find time to venture out into the "normal" world. The picture to the right displays some of my humble findings, all of which I paid less than 5 dollars for, while my friends and I rummaged through bins at Goodwill and towers of books at the Winter Haven Library.
The Rundown:
*The Pelican Guide to English Literature: free
*Perks of Being a Wallflower; Chbosky: $1.00
*Splintering; Eireann Corrigan: $.50
*The Natural; Bernard Malamud :$1.00
*Best American Nonrequired Reading 2005:$.75
*American Literature 1914-Present: Free

Also while we were walking around Winter Haven, we found an antique store, chock-full of great trinkets and baubbles. I had forgotten how much fun it was to go antiquing. Of course, once you've seen one (or 200 in Lauri's case), you've seen them all, but it was a delightful way to spend a Saturday with friends.

When we returned back to campus, we put our treasures up, changed our shoes and hopped back in the car for a quick drive to the lake where there was a Hispanic festival. We didn't stay for long, because it was rather dark, but I was there long enough to see one of my students from an ESOL field study class get arrested. That was heart breaking, to know his story and see how hard his teacher fought for him, to try to help him rise above his role models at home, and then to see him being lead away with his hand behind his back. Something I was told in an education classes was, "You cannot save them all, Charlotte" but I still want to, I don't want to see their mug shot in the paper or read their obituary.

Which brings me to the point of this blog, I have dealt with many different types of parents: the parents who dictate everything in their children's lives, the parents who have nothing to do with their children, the parents who live vicariously through their children, the parents who honestly try to encourage and help their children think through their decisions and support their conclusions. I am thankful that my parents are the last example, through the years, we have had our ups and downs, but lately, we have become friends who give each other honest whole-hearted counsel. They have always been behind my dreams, and have done everything in their power to push and equip me to reach them. It wasn't until this semester that I was glad my parents are the way they are.

C