Literacy Autobiography

When I was four my friend and I covered the walls of her sister’s bedroom with lipstick. I remember looking up at the blank wall and the most logical thing seemed to be to fill with something – anything. I picked up the lipstick from the vanity and galloped around the room, letting the lipstick slash the wall. I was, at that moment, exhilarated with the thought of creating something, of expressing something. I wasn’t old enough to write – I didn’t understand letters or words, but I understood that that red lipstick was saying everything I wanted to say to the wall. But it wasn’t art that I was creating – it was emotion.

Years later, I still had that same desire to fill space with emotion. It didn’t matter what kind of space – the surface of a desk, the margins of newspapers and lined paper were all the same to me. They could hold beauty, they could morph into art. At first, I doodled, but it wasn’t enough. Doodles were flat and dull, and I was insatiable. The doodles just sat on the page saying nothing, showing nothing; I needed the page to show everything. I began to scribble down song lyrics that I felt connected to. Just the act of writing words was therapeutic and intimate - the soft curve of a lowercase a, the slight tilt of an off kilter t. While my eating disorder wreaked havoc on my life, I found comfort in the contrast of ink on paper and the shape of the words. It didn’t matter at first what the words said – I just loved the way they looked in the margins of my notes, or secretly tucked away on a folded piece of paper in the back of a book.

My favorite line to fill the margins of my notes was this: “and you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's blinking eights / this is incredible, starving, insatiable.” I didn’t love that line because of what it meant, or the way the words sounded. I loved the line because of the slender ovals of the number 8. I loved the line because the last three words stacked perfectly on top of one another to create a lovely shape.

I met Caroline, a senior, my freshman year in high school. She was an artist, and a writer, and sometimes she wore pencils through the holes in her ears. Two days after I met her she wrote me a note.

“I think you’re my Claire,” it said.

I pulled out my phone and sent her a text. “Claire?”

“You’ll see.”

She slipped the book Violet and Claire by Francesca Lia Block to me across the table at lunch that day. During biology, I opened the book to a page Caroline had dog-eared with an underlined passage:

"At first we raced through space, like shadows and light; her rants, my raves; her dark hair, my blonde; black dresses, white. She's a purple-black African-violet-dark butterfly and I a white moth. We were two wild ponies, Dawn and Midnight, the wind electrifying our manes and our hooves quaking the city; we were photo negatives of each other, together making the perfect image of a girl."

That night, I devoured Violet and Claire. It was my story; it was her story. It was everyone’s story.

Every line that Francesca wrote moved me. As Dvořák’s New World Symphony moved musicians, every line that Francesca wrote moved me. There were times when I would momentarily stop breathing at the splendor of her language. I craved to emulate her style and choice of words. To me, she was a writer, a perfect storyteller. I found myself in all her characters.

I began to carry a black marble composition book with me everywhere. It was more than a journal – it housed my favorite words, quotes I loved, lines that spoke to me. Opening up my book was like meeting up with a familiar friend. No matter what page the book fell open to, I knew exactly what was there; I memorized each page by heart. Not just the prose – I memorized the slight indentations where I’d pressed the pencil harder, the folds of the page, the way the titles looked above the entries. It was a love affair, and I’d memorized its face.

The book contained the first piece of creative writing that I internalized and put my own vitality into. I remember when I finished the piece; I was emotionally drained yet satisfied. It had no title – I called it “Portrait of a Girl #1.” It was a sketch of a girl who imagined she had long, perfect hair and could fly. From this piece came a series of sketches, all of the same girl. Caroline and I would sit at our lunch table and critique the portraits, dissecting the dialogue and tasting each word on our tongues. One day Caroline said to me, “This portrait reminds me of a book by Francesca.” That’s the only piece of writing I held onto when Caroline died later that year.

Process vs. Product

I'm not sure I agree with Murray's theory that we can only learn the writing process by doing it. I've learned a great deal about writing by discussing well known pieces. If we study only the process without envisioning the final product, the process cannot be successful. For me the most effective way to learn the process is by understanding what makes a product effective. If I understand the use of literary devices and the author's appeal to the audience, then I have a good understanding of what I can do to write a good piece.

Questions to consider:

A) What does your personal pre-writing phase consist of? How has is changed as you've matured as a writer?
B) Do you agree with Murray's claim that we can only learn the process by doing it instead of talking about it?
C) Do you find that many of your writing classes are focused on product or process?
D) Is studying successful pieces of writing an effective way of teaching since essentially, you're only studying the product instead of the process?

On Reading and Writing

Brandt's essay examines the complexities of reading and writing, both as independent subjects and in relation to each other. The comparisons and connections she makes between the subjects are vast, but what I find most intriguing are the questions what is good writing, and who is a writer?

When we study writing, we analyze it, dissect it and find its beauty and truth; we come to revere it. In my opinion, any writing that illuminates a truth is successful. I cannot be the judge of whether a piece of writing is good or not. Writing has so many faces: it can be angry, young, naïve, informed, intellectual, academic, political..I don't believe that any writing can be "bad". As long as it is truthful and expresses something with which others can identify, then I feel it is "good". Or at the very least, successful.

When we talk about writing in an intellectual context, I think we often discuss it as though writing belongs to an exclusive, elite group of people who possess secrets that enable them to express themselves eloquently and uniquely. Ernest Hemingway is a writer. Joyce Carol Oates is a writer.  What about that high school student who scribbles song lyrics on her assigments, or the scientist who writes about his findings? I think they're writers too. For me the definition of a writer is anyone who has a passion and, upon seeing empty space, feels compelled to fill it with the knowledge and truth of what they know.

Rilke's eighth letter

This has absolutely nothing to do with this class but I feel compelled to share it with other writers. You might have read it and if you have forgive me for being unoriginal. It's a letter by Rainer Maria Rilke from the book, Letters to a Young Poet.

Here's the link: http://www.carrothers.com/rilke8.htm.

The whole thing is outstanding, but in case you're crunched for time, here's my favorite passage:

"We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

Complexion

Complexion examines racial stereotypes and the value society places on physical appearance. The opening scene, where Rodriguez describes the different facial characteristics of his family is something to which I can wholeheartedly relate. Both my brother and I were adopted as infants, and as I grew up, I often felt like I did not fit in with the my extended family. My cousins, all slender, tall and blonde, seemed to me like towering goddesses; as a child I always felt plump, short and out of place when I looked at my family.

Where Rodriquez's mother often seemed overly concerned with appearance, so too does my mother.

When was when I was a little girl, I would sit on my mom’s bed every morning before school while she brushed my long, golden hair. She would neatly pull it into a ponytail, and send me off on the bus.

My mom loved my hair. When I was nine, she wanted a portrait of my brother and me. She waited until the middle of September to have it taken so my hair wouldn’t be summer white blonde or too dark from the winter. One of the portraits didn’t turn out quite right, so in October we retook it and I wore the same outfit I wore during September. Both portraits hang on our wall now, and if you don’t look at them intensely, they look like they were taken the same day. But my hair is a few shades darker. Whenever my mom talks about the portraits, she always mentions the slight difference.

I used to think that her love for my hair was a simple admiration of natural beauty. But as I’ve grown older I’ve often felt that my mom thinks my hair and other physical attributes add value to me.

Just recently I lost thirty pounds. Every time I would go home for a weekend or a break, I’d lost a little more weight and my mom was just a little more fixated on my appearance. Over winter break, I finally reached my weight loss goal of thirty pounds; I also began seeing someone for the first time in four years. I met him in an online political forum, and through a lucky string of coincidences, we found out we’re both from Philadelphia. We talked every day for hours, about music, religion and sex. The night of our second date, I stood in front of my mirror while my mom watched me brush my hair. I wore skinny jeans, a slim sweater and brown, suede boots. It had been a long time since I could wear a slim sweater, let alone skinny jeans.

I smiled as I exhaled and let my guard down for a moment.

My mother snapped. “Suck in your gut!”

I stared at her reflection in the mirror, not recognizing her for a second.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “You look beautiful.”

“I think Mike and I are past the point of focusing on bodily imperfections, Mom. I’d like to think we have a deeper connection than that,” I replied.

The Achievement of Desire

Chapter two examines the Rodriquez's path as a student and the impact his education has on his life and family life. Using Richard Hoggart's work as a frame of reference, Rodriquez analyzes his life in terms of academic success and familial connections.

Rodriquez's eagerness to displace his Spanish accent struck a chord with me. To me, language is so important as a aprt of one's own cultural identity. We relate to everything through language. In English the word slice says so much in one syllable. At once we understand that the word is crisp and fresh, and we can hear, feel and taste the word. When we learn a second language and begin to speak it natively, I believe we can lose some of the innate beauty and understanding of our first language as it related to one's identity and culture.

I was also struck by the disconnect from his family that Rodriguez experienced as a result of his education. Hoggart's passage explains the sentiment quote nicely:

"From the very first days, through the years following, it will be his parents, - the figures of lost authority, the persons toward whom he feels the deepest love--that the change will be most powerfully measures. A seperation will unravel between them. Advancing in his studies, the boy notices that his mother and father have not changed as much as he. Rather, when he sees them, they often remind him of the person he once was the life he shared with them."

Up until recently, I've always admired my parents and rarely noticed their imperfections. But lately, whenever I'm home from school, I've a difference in intellectual depth. I don't mean to say that my parents are unintelligent; on the contrary, they both have several degrees.

My father, a CPA, is a master of logic; when I'm with him it seems as though we lack an emotional connection. Where he is concerned only with facts and figures, I've learned that I understand a subject most when I can explore it from all possible perspectives, for example, from a philosophical viewpoint or an artistic viewpoint. When we have conversations, it often seems as though we're on different, unrelated planes.

My mother is a person deeply rooted in emotional depth. While emotional intelligence is necessary and a difficult skill to develop, our conversations often fall short because she sometimes relies only on her emotions when giving an opinion. For example, if we were to discuss a political issue, she would most likely possess little background knowledge of the subject, but think that her own, uninformed opinion was good enough. I used to fall victim to that way of thinking, but since I've been at school, I've developed a hunger for knowledge. Now I'm almost fearful of speaking without understanding.