An excerpt and an idol and a reason why I write.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

-The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, chapter 7

I have tried to describe this feeling on countless occasions, but was never quite able to in the way that she does. I could try to tell little aspects- the world rushing by me or missing every opportunity I watch come along or wanting and wanting and wanting so badly that I feel like it physically hurts. But alone, I think, none of these suffice. Now that I've read how she says it, I can almost explain what it is for me- wanting an English degree from Merton college at Oxford, but still needing to studying theatre at NYU or Yale, I want to live in a small apartment with a balcony in Montmatre Paris, or a little cottage in the English countryside and feel incredibly chiche and romantic, but also, I'd love to stay in New York. I want a little girl who looks like me, but I swear I'll never settle. I want to be a runner and a writer and a performer and a free spirit and someone grounded and to be this person and that person, but then I want just a better version of myself. I feel my life unraveling before me, every step defining the next one, every choice leading to something larger, feeling that I must make these decisions fast before time runs out, but never being able to. I know that logically I cannot have all of this- be in two places at once, be five different people at once, have ten different lives at once- but illogically I think I'll never be happy without it, and unable to bring myself to a choice, I eventually see it slipping away, smell the figs of what could have been my future rotting.

What is so brilliant about The Bell Jar isn't the story (though that is brilliant as well), it isn't the language (though that is most definitely brilliant as well), rather it is Sylvia Plath's ability to feel for others and write what they cannot- it is her incredible insight into humans and emotions. During The Bell Jar instead of feeling like an outsider, reading Esther's story, thinking- like the others- that she just a young tragic woman who lost her mind, I found myself rather tied up in her world. Suddenly she wasn't insane, they were- the doctors and the therapists and her mother and Buddy and the other girls in the asylums that she was sent to. They were all mad, but she was fine. Suddenly, I was with her at every appointment in the offices and waiting rooms, I was there for her during each heartbreak and treatment and breakdown and failed attempt at death. I was looking through Esther's eyes at the rest of the world. It made sense when she thought that every last stranger who passed her by most definitely had some grand plan to harm her, I understood when suicide seemed logical, I believed her when she said that she hadn't slept in fourteen nights. Her mother didn't, her doctor didn't, but I did.

There is a reason why this beautiful, eloquent and tragic novel has survived, still relevant to anyone who may read it, some 50 years later. Yes the times have changed- that much is clear from where the story is in women's rights and medical breakthroughs, but hurt, confusion, joy remains the same- what happens in us, I think, never changes as rapidly as the outside world. Though I am not suicidal and our lives are as vastly different as our ages, I feel as through Sylvia Plath understands me. Each human struggle is individual, but the presence of them in everyone remains the same- Plath is able to simply take that presence and create something incredible that not only connects to everyone, but that forces them to feel. That, I suppose, is what makes an artist.

This is the gift I want to have.

Two nights in Paris is not enough, now all I can focus on is how I must go back

I took a corny picture, I wrote a corny post. Oh well, I happen to love chliche's.
...This started out as being a poem, but I'm not really sure that that's what it is anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am in love with the world.
Not travel, but the idea of travel.
I am in love with Venice and India and Scotland and Santorini and New Zealand.
I am in love before first sight.

I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach- this urge- this pull to lie out somewhere in the English countryside where all I can see for miles is green and all I can hear is a stream trickling or a far-off cow mooing. I yearn to wander through a Parisian street market, buying strawberries and roses from a woman who does not speak my language or ride a horse across the shallow waters of a beach that is too beautiful to exist beyond a computers desktop background. I need to explore some old vineyard in Italy or castle in Ireland. I have to run across a field in Africa, climb through a forsest in Costa Rica.
I need to see the things that cannot be real, that I can not fathom, until I see them.

Not even so glamourous though.
Really, anything will do.
I could ride across the U.S. or just stay somewhere upstate. I need somewhere that's not here- a place with no people or different people. A place with trees and fresh air and good food that I don't have to worry about eating. A place where I can be someone else or myself or whatever it is that I want to be, when I figure that out. Because more than scenic beauty, I need freedom.
I've got what every kid gets at some point- a strong, lasting case of wanderlust.

Sometimes, when my mood is high, and my imagination is wild, I can turn my backyard into a secret, overgrown garden. The old wooden bench becomes a precious, weathered antique and our small tool shed is a cottage with its own story- vines growing up the walls and wild roses at its base.

Sometimes, at night, as I lie in bed and feel the summer breeze slither through the sheets to me and hear the occasional cars passing by, I can close my eyes and imagine the bottle of red wine and slice of french cheese lying next to me- I'm suddenly 22 years old. My window becomes the open doors of a balcony in Montmartre, Paris. Distant chattering is some french dinner party in the next building over.

Everything is perfect.

Then, I open my eyes to see my block in Brooklyn, New York lying beyond the lace curtains and my heart sinks. The distant chattering is my neighbors coming back from a late show, the cars are all American-made. The breeze- which I'm sure, is not nearly as wonderful as the one in Paris's nights- comes through, not a balcony, but a window which, even open, traps me and confines me inside the house and the life that is mine.
Until I close my eyes again.

Mentor Blog Posts

http://eveningswithdrfutterman.blogspot.com/2011/01/ive-been-feeling-so-strange-lately.html#comments

Time and time again, I feel myself being drawn to reading Annie's blog. She's more than just an amazing writer- every single post has such a specific voice and character to it (not to mention her amazing vocabulary that I can't seem to not mention every time I talk about her blog). I find it really inspiring to see not only the minimum reading entry per week, but also extra creative/independent writing or random thoughts every time I look at her blog. Every aspect of it from her background, to description, to title of blog, to each and every post shines through as "purely Annie". I love, love, love her metaphors and creative expressions, and the picture she chose for her "poem, art response" post. As time goes on, I will continue to look back at "Evenings With Dr.Futterman"often in the hopes that reading her writing, which is so drastically different and overall stronger than mine, will help me grow as a writer, reader, student, and person.

Whoops, I just realized that I forgot to write anything about the actual post that I put a link to. So, I love this post basically because it displays so perfectly what I described before. Annie does a brilliant job of extending her ideas and connecting what she's thinking about in her own life and in the world, to her books and what she's reading.

http://piasela.blogspot.com/2011/01/sense-of-normalcy-and-perfecting-our.html#comments

What I love about this post is how real it is, how everyone can connect to what she's talking about because it's just so true. What I admire most about Pia's blog in general is how beautifully she connects the book she is reading to real life, how she'll start with a pararaph or two to draw you in, get you thinking, and then give some context, tell you how it relates. A lot of the blogs I read are rants about life/things distantly/not-at-all connected to their reading or a very long retell with perhaps a few sentences explaining their thoughts on the book. Plenty of those blog posts are perhaps written well and thoroughly thought out, but somewhat defeat the point of a "reading blog". What I envy so much about Pia's posts is her perfect balance between the two- not too much retell, just enough theorizing and ranting. Her thoughts are always very organized and well thought out-- very obviously not left to the last minute.

http://ferny-nandez.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-time-comes-to-leave-just-walk-away.html

I am in love with not only her poem response, but also the piece of art that she chose for this post. The imagery and story that she creates off of this picture is so lovely and just makes me smile (perhaps partially because Ferny wrote it). I also idolize practically any poem that rhymes in any way, just because I love rhyming. On a broader note, I also really really admire that she has bits of independent/creative/extra writing included in her blog here and there.

I think that having an ELA blog community like this is and has been such an amazing experience that we should all take full advantage of by putting real and true effort into every post we write, and trying hard to go beyond the minimum 1 post per week mold. I realize that I personally haven't been writing much more than is required, which is why I applaud those who have (like Izzy, Annie, Pia) and I definitely want to work harder to do that in the 2nd semester of this year.

Lambey by Elena Nazzaro

Its been a while since you noticed me

a year

or two

maybe three?

You jump

and work

and sleep

and run

but, I never join in on the fun

Your only friend

was what I used to be

Your favorite pal

that was me

What's happend now?

did you forget?

my snow white fur

is gray

and wet

I miss the way

we'd laugh

and play

I miss the day

we ran away

Just you and me

a trip

of some kind

But now there's no "you"

because I was left behind

End of Winter

End of Winter
BY LOUISE GLÜCK

Over the still world, a bird calls
waking solitary among black boughs.

You wanted to be born; I let you be born.
When has my grief ever gotten
in the way of your pleasure?

Plunging ahead
into the dark and light at the same time
eager for sensation

as though you were some new thing, wanting
to express yourselves

all brilliance, all vivacity

never thinking
this would cost you anything,
never imagining the sound of my voice
as anything but part of you—

you won't hear it in the other world,
not clearly again,
not in birdcall or human cry,

not the clear sound, only
persistent echoing
in all sound that means good-bye, good-bye—

the one continuous line
that binds us to each other

I picked this poem because of the title, which probably isn't a good rule to go
by but, I had no idea where to start my search for the perfect poem for this
blog post, as I am, unfortunately no expert on poetry. Winter is, despite how
I may be mocked for it, and despite the "are-you-insane??" looks received
when I say this, my favorite season. Yes, at times the snow can be
cumbersome or the cold can be infuriating but, I think that the general magic
of winter completely makes up for that. You have no idea how badly I want to
go off on a rant about winter and all its wonders and angelic beauty-- the first
snow, cookies, sweaters, fires, etc, etc. I could honestly go on forever about
this topic, but it's completely besides the point and I have a feeling that I'll
want to make a blog post about this at a later date anyway. Moving on... I
picked the poem because I thought it would be about winter. I pictured
stunning imagery of the heartbreak that the author felt when winter and all its
magic disappeared for another year-- exactly how I start to feel towards the
beginning of march. This poem, however, is nothing close to what I had in
mind. Whatsoever. In fact, until I copied and pasted the it into my blog post,
I had completely forgotten the title and hadn't looked at it as a seasonal poem
as I read it.

"never thinking
this would cost you anything,
never imagining the sound of my voice
as anything but part of you—"

This line strikes me as a sort of "you never know what you had till you lost it"
type of idea, which is something definitely echoing in the back of my head
throughout the poem. What the author is trying to get across in this line is the
image of someone or something behaving recklessly, taking for granted "the
sound of my voice"- something that has obviously always been part of their life
and is now being taken away.
This poem is about karma, in a way, about realizing what you have before it's
gone-- it's about the fact that if you're someone who never let anyones grief in
get in the way of the way of your own pleasure, it will catch up to you
eventually. You will lose all you have, live in "the other world" where the only
sound is the persistent echoing of "goodbye, goodbye"-- the one continuous line
that binds you to the past.
The idea of winter or the "end of winter" is a metaphor in this poem. It's
about someones falling from power, crashing and burning. It's about
someone or something as strong and fierce and alive as winter when all
they've done and forgotten about is finally catching up with them. Everyone
has, no doubt, hurt someone without realizing. Everyone, at times takes even
the most precious things for granted. Everyone has "plunged ahead in all
brilliance, all vivacity" without stopping to consider the consequences. This
poem is about someone who does these things far too often- someone who
abuses these privileges that everyone has. This poem shows you what can
happen to anyone, at any time.

'The World's on Fire' response

I've never cried at a music video before. That is, not until I watched 'The World's on Fire' a second time.

Honestly- at sad movies I'm a wreck. But, songs? Music videos?

Never.

I guess it's just that music videos are usually no more than 5 minutes- I don't have enough time to get connected enough to the character to make me upset when something happens to them. And that's what was different about this video. I was already connected to the characters and the people and the issues in a sense. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm so familiar with the topic of poverty or maybe because these themes are so much deeper and more urgent and important than most you see in hollywood music videos theses days which was the entire point of the whole thing.

The images and footage of the people and places in poverty combined with Sarah McLachlan's writing, and ideas, and just the point about how the world is so corrupt that the amount of money spent on average music video can really make a difference in the world and on individual peoples lives, all together make such an affecting image that I am not likely to forget.

Lyrics are something that cannot stand alone, as we discovered last year in ELA. They need their matching music, they need what makes them what they are, what gives them meaning.

In this case, the lyrics needed it's video which is the whole purpose and inspiration of the song. When we first glanced at and annotated the lyrics, they didn't mean much on their own- there were so many theories as to what the words were meant to say in that context. Until, of course, we watched the music video and it became abundantly clear. It's amazing how the meaning can change like that- one moment we had people thinking it was about her own world falling apart due to heartbreak and the next, it meant so much more because of those three minutes of inspiration.

This song was written sung and presented beautifully but, the thing that made it really truly unique was the idea that this song really was giving back to the world, materialistically, financially and emotionally.