“Wait, wait, wait!”, I practically shouted at my dad. The car screeched to a halt, and I lept from the passenger seat. Dashing over to the wall, my eyes popped open. I started jumping up and down as I moved in to get a closer look. There, squeezed in a tight corner of the brick wall, sat an enormous moth, her wingspan longer than the length of my hand, her body thickly furred with dark scales and light lavender stripes. “What is it?”, asked my dad, who had stepped out of the car. “It’s a black witch! It’s a black witch!”, I exclaimed in sheer delight. “No! Really?!”, he asked. “The one we saw in Hawaii?” “Yep, yep, yep!”, I said, as I ran back to the car to grab my net. It was then that the strange setting hit me: the front of a Sherwin-Williams store in downtown Wells. And incongruously settled on the brick wall that comprised the store was a moth whose origins lay in Mexico, who had somehow arrived, by some serendipity, here in Maine, thousands of miles north.
Brandon, I really like this post because you not only conveyed your own joy, but as the reader I felt joy in your discovery as well. Had I seen this moth, I would not have looked twice, and if I did I would not have felt the same excitement that you felt. Despite this, I felt excited that you had stumbled upon such a rare specimen and so in reading it I experienced my own joy in addition to understanding yours. I also like how you didn't really describe your emotions, aside from "delight," and instead I could deduce what you were feeling from your actions. I think you could have elaborated a little more on the strange juxtaposition of the rare moth and the Sherwin-Williams store. Great post though, I really liked it.
There are some songs that, when you listen to them, fill your body with a fizzy joy that spreads a smile across your face. It doesn't matter how down you are; when you hear that song, you take off, happy, blissful, untouchable. A few days ago we were driving into school, the cold outside kept at bay by the car's small frame and heating system. I was in the backseat, as usual, and I was in the mood for some happy. I performed the ritual of school-morning car rides: unzip front pocket, pull out headphone bag and phone, rezip front pocket, pull backpack toward me, take out headphones, plug them in, and put on a song. The second I heard the beginning notes, I was grinning ear to ear. As the song kept playing, my body filled with joy, the kind that makes you want to dance, to move, to grin, to sing. It felt warm as it pushed its way up through my chest and out of my smiling mouth in the form of silent sing-along. A few minutes later, my cranky brother turned around to say, "Could you shut up? I'm trying to read and you're really freaking annoying." Any other morning, I would have withdrawn, becoming silent and vulnerable. And that feeling would have lasted all day, affecting each and every class I was in and my interactions with my friends. That morning, however, I was pure sunlight. Nothing could get me down. As the song played on, I was flying free, riding the rainbow of sheer joy.
Today when I was making dinner with my mom I saw a fox trot through my backyard. It was quite elegant. It’s fluffy tail undulated with each step and the underside of its neck was a deep auburn. When I think of a fox it is supposed to be scary. In my head they are more like the big bad wolf than the small elegant fox that came through my backyard. A fox might be able to hurt a cat, but over the summer my cat chased several out of the yard. A healthy fox will not hurt me, but I still feel like I should keep my space. I guess that is better for the animal, it must be terrified of me. I am at least 4 times as big as it is, probably more. Why am I scared of a fox? What stops me from going out and trying to befriend the fox, like in the Little Prince? I think the general consensus would be that wild animals are dangerous. I think we overestimate them. Maybe if we tried to befriend the animals thing would be different.
The grass feels soft under my bare, calloused feet. The suns rays are warm against my tan face and shoulders and my well rested muscles are loose as I run down the hill. Pepper is right next to me, mouth wildly agape and tongue flapping around in the summer air. She darts in and out of my feet as she attempts to stay with me. When she was a puppy, it was me who slowed down and waited for her to catch up; but now, an 80 pound full sized dog, she is much faster than me. Her face screams "come on!" as she skids to a stop and almost has to double back to let me catch up. After several minutes of sprinting, pivoting, sprinting, jumping, pivoting, I am exhausted and stop to catch my breath. Pepper bounds around me and jumps up with her front paws on my waist, and while panting dog food scented heavy breaths onto me, she seems to say "Are you kidding?! We're just getting started!" I don't even have a ball or a stick. It is simply me that Pepper is after in our everlasting games of tag. It's not very often that I feel that overwhelming sense of joy from just being with something, no strings attached. I take off again and suddenly feel Pepper's muscular, black legs brush against mine as she catches up. She could do this forever.
I have been subject to frequent headaches since I was eight. At the time we thought they were stressed induced, and maybe would stop when I hit puberty. Nope. Then we thought maybe I'd only get them from time to time. Alas, no. Then, last year, I got glasses for reading, but though they took away certain headaches, others stayed. I am now reconciled to getting a headache or two a week, and can identify at least four different types. Usually, headaches are a matter of routine for me. I take an Advil, try to relax my eyes, and they can sometimes fade away pretty quickly. Sometimes I don't take an Advil soon enough and the headache gets worse. Sometimes I need to drop whatever I'm doing and lie on the coach with a cold washcloth across my face, sometimes I resort to a second Advil. I am usually well-equipped to handle headaches in a manner that causes me minimal disruption, made all the easier because they generally strike after school in the afternoon--though I had 17 headaches during school last year (I started the year with a bottle of 20 Advil; when I cleaned out my backpack last summer, there were only three left). Then there are the headaches that really annoy me: the ones that aren't very bad, but make me dizzy right in the middle of supper, right when I'm enjoying a nice, big plate of food, so that I need to get up, lie down, and end up falling asleep on the sofa. I wake up, disoriented, an hour later, headache not entirely gone and stomach rumbling melancholily. "Well," I thought as I picked myself up, "At least now I've got something to write about for my blog post."
I talk about Nepal too much, but as it remains one of my most recent worldly adventures, it's hard not to. We were standing under the overhang of the balcony above us while watching the water droplets above our heads swell gradually, until eventually releasing their grip and plummeting to the ground at our feet. A gust of wind curled over our shoulders and blew a t-shirt off of the clothes-line and down into the rice paddy below. Meg ran over and peered over the ledge at the now dirty and wet shirt that lay mangled in the water. It was too far away for any stick to reach it, and the ground was too soft to walk on, so Meg reluctantly accepted the loss of one of her favorite shirts. Not long after, I heard the soft patter of little pink Crocs on mud below and I went back to the ledge. 50 feet down, I saw Krishma hopping across the rice paddy light a weightless ballerina. She picked up the shirt with her delicate hands and swung it over her head in triumph. She ran all the way back up and, although she was short of breath, the smile across her face was an unadulterated image of pure joy. She saw that Meg was unhappy at the loss of her shirt, and immediately did what she could to restore Meg's happiness. In doing so, Krishma experienced the joy of making someone else happy and I felt privileged to share in such a small, yet meaningful, moment.
I really like this, Meredith! I love the description in the first few sentences, before the shirt falls, and then again the description of Krishma, who is obviously so adorable. I especially like "the soft patter of little pink Crocs," which I can clearly envision. It's also such a heartwarming ending, it's impossible not to smile. The only thing I would change would be to mention that it's Meg's shirt slightly earlier; maybe it's just me, but when the t-shirt fell, I wasn't thinking about who it belonged to, and when I found out that it was Meg's, I had to go back and reread the preceding sentences. I also had a bit of trouble visualizing the geography of where you were, especially how you talk about watching Krishma from the top of a 50 foot ledge, but then she runs back up, but that's probably just me, as well. This is a really great story, though, and is very heartwarming.
Today in cross-country practice we did a mile time trial around the cemetery. I was exhausted, cold, hungry, and wanted to go home more than anything, but first we had to do a cool down. We moved sluggishly and our breathing synchronized with our heavy feet that pounded against the dirt path. I closed my eyes just enough to be able to see where I was going while preventing my eyes from tearing up in the cold. Suddenly, the footing changed, we were running through a pile of the loudest, most crunchy maple leaves. My eyes popped open and a smile spread across my face. I began kicking the leaves up into the air and watching their effortless decent back to earth. Others joined in and it seemed as though we were running through a snow globe of fiery colors. “It’s the little things,” I said, laughing. For that moment, I completely forgot about anything else.
This is really nice, Emily. I love how it starts with you feeling really down and not happy about the situation, and then, with one event, that whole feeling disappears. The description of the leaves and the run through them is something I think many (or all?) people can relate to, and it brings a smile to your face no matter how old you are. The metaphor of “...a snow globe of fiery colors” is fantastic. The last two sentences are perhaps a bit stilted, but they could easily be reworked. All in all, great job!
I search through my google drive and the files I've uploaded into my 2012-2013 folder. As I scroll down the list, most of my writing has a title that reminds me of what it's about. But, as I keep scrolling down the list of all that I've written in the past year, I come across a file titled just "Shit." I chuckle as I open it, my brows furrowed in a quizzical look because I don't know what to expect. But it opens like this: "I haven't touched pen to paper or touched the keyboard in this kind of way in a long time. I'm sorry. But, now, I'm making up for lost time. My fingers are using the letters of the board in the way I have been yearning to for months. I just had no time. Excuse me, let me rephrase that. I had all the time, just with everything else I had to do, there was none left for writing." I go on in the document and see that I had started writing something about movie theatres and the haven it creates, but then I stop and actually write how bad of a start that was. How predictable and how fake. I still agree with my earlier me's criticism, but it just shows how quick I am to judge myself. I didn't keep going with it. It was a good concept. I just had to edit the beginning. If i stuck with it at the time, I'm sure I could've come up with something great. But I didn't. I didn't have enough faith in myself to continue. But, now, I open a new tab. I delete everything from that awful starting except for the first line, and start again.
“Wait, wait, wait!”, I practically shouted at my dad. The car screeched to a halt, and I lept from the passenger seat. Dashing over to the wall, my eyes popped open. I started jumping up and down as I moved in to get a closer look. There, squeezed in a tight corner of the brick wall, sat an enormous moth, her wingspan longer than the length of my hand, her body thickly furred with dark scales and light lavender stripes.
ReplyDelete“What is it?”, asked my dad, who had stepped out of the car.
“It’s a black witch! It’s a black witch!”, I exclaimed in sheer delight.
“No! Really?!”, he asked. “The one we saw in Hawaii?”
“Yep, yep, yep!”, I said, as I ran back to the car to grab my net. It was then that the strange setting hit me: the front of a Sherwin-Williams store in downtown Wells. And incongruously settled on the brick wall that comprised the store was a moth whose origins lay in Mexico, who had somehow arrived, by some serendipity, here in Maine, thousands of miles north.
Brandon, I really like this post because you not only conveyed your own joy, but as the reader I felt joy in your discovery as well. Had I seen this moth, I would not have looked twice, and if I did I would not have felt the same excitement that you felt. Despite this, I felt excited that you had stumbled upon such a rare specimen and so in reading it I experienced my own joy in addition to understanding yours. I also like how you didn't really describe your emotions, aside from "delight," and instead I could deduce what you were feeling from your actions. I think you could have elaborated a little more on the strange juxtaposition of the rare moth and the Sherwin-Williams store. Great post though, I really liked it.
DeleteThere are some songs that, when you listen to them, fill your body with a fizzy joy that spreads a smile across your face. It doesn't matter how down you are; when you hear that song, you take off, happy, blissful, untouchable.
ReplyDeleteA few days ago we were driving into school, the cold outside kept at bay by the car's small frame and heating system. I was in the backseat, as usual, and I was in the mood for some happy. I performed the ritual of school-morning car rides: unzip front pocket, pull out headphone bag and phone, rezip front pocket, pull backpack toward me, take out headphones, plug them in, and put on a song. The second I heard the beginning notes, I was grinning ear to ear. As the song kept playing, my body filled with joy, the kind that makes you want to dance, to move, to grin, to sing. It felt warm as it pushed its way up through my chest and out of my smiling mouth in the form of silent sing-along.
A few minutes later, my cranky brother turned around to say, "Could you shut up? I'm trying to read and you're really freaking annoying."
Any other morning, I would have withdrawn, becoming silent and vulnerable. And that feeling would have lasted all day, affecting each and every class I was in and my interactions with my friends. That morning, however, I was pure sunlight. Nothing could get me down. As the song played on, I was flying free, riding the rainbow of sheer joy.
Today when I was making dinner with my mom I saw a fox trot through my backyard. It was quite elegant. It’s fluffy tail undulated with each step and the underside of its neck was a deep auburn. When I think of a fox it is supposed to be scary. In my head they are more like the big bad wolf than the small elegant fox that came through my backyard. A fox might be able to hurt a cat, but over the summer my cat chased several out of the yard. A healthy fox will not hurt me, but I still feel like I should keep my space. I guess that is better for the animal, it must be terrified of me. I am at least 4 times as big as it is, probably more. Why am I scared of a fox? What stops me from going out and trying to befriend the fox, like in the Little Prince? I think the general consensus would be that wild animals are dangerous. I think we overestimate them. Maybe if we tried to befriend the animals thing would be different.
ReplyDeleteThe grass feels soft under my bare, calloused feet. The suns rays are warm against my tan face and shoulders and my well rested muscles are loose as I run down the hill. Pepper is right next to me, mouth wildly agape and tongue flapping around in the summer air. She darts in and out of my feet as she attempts to stay with me. When she was a puppy, it was me who slowed down and waited for her to catch up; but now, an 80 pound full sized dog, she is much faster than me. Her face screams "come on!" as she skids to a stop and almost has to double back to let me catch up. After several minutes of sprinting, pivoting, sprinting, jumping, pivoting, I am exhausted and stop to catch my breath. Pepper bounds around me and jumps up with her front paws on my waist, and while panting dog food scented heavy breaths onto me, she seems to say "Are you kidding?! We're just getting started!" I don't even have a ball or a stick. It is simply me that Pepper is after in our everlasting games of tag. It's not very often that I feel that overwhelming sense of joy from just being with something, no strings attached. I take off again and suddenly feel Pepper's muscular, black legs brush against mine as she catches up. She could do this forever.
ReplyDeleteI have been subject to frequent headaches since I was eight. At the time we thought they were stressed induced, and maybe would stop when I hit puberty. Nope. Then we thought maybe I'd only get them from time to time. Alas, no. Then, last year, I got glasses for reading, but though they took away certain headaches, others stayed. I am now reconciled to getting a headache or two a week, and can identify at least four different types. Usually, headaches are a matter of routine for me. I take an Advil, try to relax my eyes, and they can sometimes fade away pretty quickly. Sometimes I don't take an Advil soon enough and the headache gets worse. Sometimes I need to drop whatever I'm doing and lie on the coach with a cold washcloth across my face, sometimes I resort to a second Advil. I am usually well-equipped to handle headaches in a manner that causes me minimal disruption, made all the easier because they generally strike after school in the afternoon--though I had 17 headaches during school last year (I started the year with a bottle of 20 Advil; when I cleaned out my backpack last summer, there were only three left). Then there are the headaches that really annoy me: the ones that aren't very bad, but make me dizzy right in the middle of supper, right when I'm enjoying a nice, big plate of food, so that I need to get up, lie down, and end up falling asleep on the sofa. I wake up, disoriented, an hour later, headache not entirely gone and stomach rumbling melancholily.
ReplyDelete"Well," I thought as I picked myself up, "At least now I've got something to write about for my blog post."
I talk about Nepal too much, but as it remains one of my most recent worldly adventures, it's hard not to. We were standing under the overhang of the balcony above us while watching the water droplets above our heads swell gradually, until eventually releasing their grip and plummeting to the ground at our feet. A gust of wind curled over our shoulders and blew a t-shirt off of the clothes-line and down into the rice paddy below. Meg ran over and peered over the ledge at the now dirty and wet shirt that lay mangled in the water. It was too far away for any stick to reach it, and the ground was too soft to walk on, so Meg reluctantly accepted the loss of one of her favorite shirts.
ReplyDeleteNot long after, I heard the soft patter of little pink Crocs on mud below and I went back to the ledge. 50 feet down, I saw Krishma hopping across the rice paddy light a weightless ballerina. She picked up the shirt with her delicate hands and swung it over her head in triumph. She ran all the way back up and, although she was short of breath, the smile across her face was an unadulterated image of pure joy.
She saw that Meg was unhappy at the loss of her shirt, and immediately did what she could to restore Meg's happiness. In doing so, Krishma experienced the joy of making someone else happy and I felt privileged to share in such a small, yet meaningful, moment.
I really like this, Meredith! I love the description in the first few sentences, before the shirt falls, and then again the description of Krishma, who is obviously so adorable. I especially like "the soft patter of little pink Crocs," which I can clearly envision. It's also such a heartwarming ending, it's impossible not to smile. The only thing I would change would be to mention that it's Meg's shirt slightly earlier; maybe it's just me, but when the t-shirt fell, I wasn't thinking about who it belonged to, and when I found out that it was Meg's, I had to go back and reread the preceding sentences. I also had a bit of trouble visualizing the geography of where you were, especially how you talk about watching Krishma from the top of a 50 foot ledge, but then she runs back up, but that's probably just me, as well. This is a really great story, though, and is very heartwarming.
DeleteToday in cross-country practice we did a mile time trial around the cemetery. I was exhausted, cold, hungry, and wanted to go home more than anything, but first we had to do a cool down. We moved sluggishly and our breathing synchronized with our heavy feet that pounded against the dirt path. I closed my eyes just enough to be able to see where I was going while preventing my eyes from tearing up in the cold. Suddenly, the footing changed, we were running through a pile of the loudest, most crunchy maple leaves. My eyes popped open and a smile spread across my face. I began kicking the leaves up into the air and watching their effortless decent back to earth. Others joined in and it seemed as though we were running through a snow globe of fiery colors.
ReplyDelete“It’s the little things,” I said, laughing. For that moment, I completely forgot about anything else.
This is really nice, Emily. I love how it starts with you feeling really down and not happy about the situation, and then, with one event, that whole feeling disappears. The description of the leaves and the run through them is something I think many (or all?) people can relate to, and it brings a smile to your face no matter how old you are. The metaphor of “...a snow globe of fiery colors” is fantastic. The last two sentences are perhaps a bit stilted, but they could easily be reworked. All in all, great job!
DeleteI search through my google drive and the files I've uploaded into my 2012-2013 folder. As I scroll down the list, most of my writing has a title that reminds me of what it's about. But, as I keep scrolling down the list of all that I've written in the past year, I come across a file titled just "Shit." I chuckle as I open it, my brows furrowed in a quizzical look because I don't know what to expect. But it opens like this: "I haven't touched pen to paper or touched the keyboard in this kind of way in a long time. I'm sorry. But, now, I'm making up for lost time. My fingers are using the letters of the board in the way I have been yearning to for months. I just had no time. Excuse me, let me rephrase that. I had all the time, just with everything else I had to do, there was none left for writing." I go on in the document and see that I had started writing something about movie theatres and the haven it creates, but then I stop and actually write how bad of a start that was. How predictable and how fake. I still agree with my earlier me's criticism, but it just shows how quick I am to judge myself. I didn't keep going with it. It was a good concept. I just had to edit the beginning. If i stuck with it at the time, I'm sure I could've come up with something great. But I didn't. I didn't have enough faith in myself to continue. But, now, I open a new tab. I delete everything from that awful starting except for the first line, and start again.
ReplyDelete