Well, this post is inevitable. I simply have to heap loads of praise on the man that's been taking up all my spare time lately--John Green. However, the beauty and accuracy of all the prestigious book reviews have taken the words from me. They have already captured what I love so much about John Green and his writing.
They've captured how he writes to teenage audiences (and us twenty year old college kids, what can I say?) instead of at them. He doesn't patronize his readers. He recognizes that youth doesn't mean shallow and apathetic toward philosophical musings and that young readers can relate to themes more important than love triangles. He writes books with references to literature, and a lot of his readers understand them. He writes books that speak to problems of any age through the highly malleable lens of teenhood; he often says he feels called to write for teenagers and can't imagine his work geared toward any other audience. However, I think his books are suitable for anybody with eyes in their head and thoughts in their brains. I will continue reading them long after my age no longer fits in the prescribed parameters on the title page.
But even greater than the excellent quality of the books is the community sprung up around them. Admittedly, "nerdfighteria" could exist without John's books, but I don't think it would be as awesome. John's books allow a singular thread tying together most members of the community; I'm sure there are nerdfighters who don't read the books, but I am also sure they are in the vast minority. The books give a vehicle for tours and the community publicity, which gives them more leverage to "decrease worldsuck." Anybody who has read the books knows how smart John is (and consequently, attribute similar qualities to his brother Hank), and that he is an adequate role model for nerds everywhere.
The best thing about being part of the community is the encouragement of unbridled passion. John defines nerd: "Because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. We don't have to be like, 'Oh yeah that purse is okay' or like, 'Yeah, I like that band's early stuff.' Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself-love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they are saying is, 'You like stuff', which is just not a good insult at all, like 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness'."
I love that. I love being unironically enthusiastic. I love waiting in obnoxiously long lines for book releases, passionately discussing said books loudly in the dining hall (and on facebook and tumblr and blogger and with strangers in the bathroom and strangers on the sidewalk...), keeping quote books, hanging nerdy posters, wearing nerdy shirts, and just plain loving the things I love out loud and proud.
At the Tour de Nerdfighting event, there was plenty of unironic enthusiasm. People wear enthusiastic homemade shirts, enthusiastically sing Hank's songs, and just plain relish in all the things they love.
The world needs John and Hank Green. The idea that teenagers are supposed to be passive, brooding, and generally unattached from life is ridiculous. The vlogbrothers show teenagers that it is okay to be passionate and make nerdy into a positive moniker.
So, without shame or irony, I tell everyone to simply DFTBA.
Jan 19, 2012
Jan 6, 2012
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
I've been having trouble writing lately. I have about ten incomplete and unpublished drafts on here. The truth is when I'm at home, I become a lazy shell of a person who doesn't do anything but watch television and play video games and occasionally crack open a book. I really don't like this person. Which is why I can't stay here in this soul sucking little town.
That might seem like a harsh thing to call it. But I'm reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and it's about people with active, introspective, dreaming minds living in a soul sucking little town. The meager, poor town is completely devoid of opportunity and wreaks of ignorance, racism, and hopelessness. I don't live in the World War 2 era South, but I live in the closet modern day approximation. I can relate to the restless souls roaming the unnamed little town's dusty avenues. They feel totally isolated, alone in their thoughts and pining over unachievable dreams.
But the thing that gives me hope is that I'm not a character in the novel--I do have a future and my dreams are attainable. I get to leave. At home, my mind becomes a wasteland of sitcoms and football stats. At school, it's full of poetry and philosophy and grand pictures of what the future has in store for me. If I stayed home, I would never survive. Like Biff, Mick, Singer, and Dr. Copeland in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, I am not made for this containment; I am not content with what little this place has to offer me. It stifles me; it kills me.
There are upsides to small town America, and people tend to claim it is only my youth that drives me away; middle age will have me crawling back again with 2.5 kids, a mini-van, and a born again religion. But I know that isn't true. It's more than the slow pace, getting stuck behind tractors, driving hours for entertainment; it's the feel of the people and the despair in the air. There are no possibilities here. People work the same minimum wage jobs from the time they're born to the time they die. There is no room to think, to grow, to evolve. I valued that capacity when I was eight, and I am sure I will still value it when I'm eighty. I can't bear to spend any time more than Christmas vacations and summers here.
I love my parents and brother, and I cherish spending time with them. But outside of my family, I am completely lonely here. There is nothing, no one here for me. I exist in a different space now, and I can't fit in here anymore.
My heart is a lonely hunter, and there's nothing to be hunted in this desolate place.
That might seem like a harsh thing to call it. But I'm reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and it's about people with active, introspective, dreaming minds living in a soul sucking little town. The meager, poor town is completely devoid of opportunity and wreaks of ignorance, racism, and hopelessness. I don't live in the World War 2 era South, but I live in the closet modern day approximation. I can relate to the restless souls roaming the unnamed little town's dusty avenues. They feel totally isolated, alone in their thoughts and pining over unachievable dreams.
But the thing that gives me hope is that I'm not a character in the novel--I do have a future and my dreams are attainable. I get to leave. At home, my mind becomes a wasteland of sitcoms and football stats. At school, it's full of poetry and philosophy and grand pictures of what the future has in store for me. If I stayed home, I would never survive. Like Biff, Mick, Singer, and Dr. Copeland in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, I am not made for this containment; I am not content with what little this place has to offer me. It stifles me; it kills me.
There are upsides to small town America, and people tend to claim it is only my youth that drives me away; middle age will have me crawling back again with 2.5 kids, a mini-van, and a born again religion. But I know that isn't true. It's more than the slow pace, getting stuck behind tractors, driving hours for entertainment; it's the feel of the people and the despair in the air. There are no possibilities here. People work the same minimum wage jobs from the time they're born to the time they die. There is no room to think, to grow, to evolve. I valued that capacity when I was eight, and I am sure I will still value it when I'm eighty. I can't bear to spend any time more than Christmas vacations and summers here.
I love my parents and brother, and I cherish spending time with them. But outside of my family, I am completely lonely here. There is nothing, no one here for me. I exist in a different space now, and I can't fit in here anymore.
My heart is a lonely hunter, and there's nothing to be hunted in this desolate place.
Dec 11, 2011
The Heart of Ram's Head
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a novel about the evil that lurks inside of all of humanity; when pushed close enough to the breaking points, primal actions emerge in primal situations. Conrad alludes to Nietzche's quote: "when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."
I have found a modern setting for this novel to replace the African Congo: my university's dining hall during finals week.
Every student is on campus; there is no going home during finals. Every student also emerges from their studying cocoons composed of flash cards, crumpled notes, highlighters, and tears at the same time to eat from communal vats of cheap food.
Just as the characters in Heart of Darkness fight for survival in a world with no rules, students fight for an empty table. The idlers stare at their stacks of plates adorned with used napkins and empty glasses with melting ice as they complain to one another about this test and that. Those without tables stalk the lucky few, pacing around and around, stomachs growling and minds imagining the moment they forcefully swipe the dirty dishes from the tables and throw a jacket onto the chair, like the Belgians taking the Congo, claiming the table for their own.
After twenty minutes of stalking the tables and a few minutes before cannibalization seems viable, finally one opens up! One of your pack approaches the table, but a swifter student seizes with a maniacal victory laugh. Death glares ensue as your group returns to pacing in circles in the increasingly frustrated throng.
Eventually, you ecstatically seize a table for your very own with just enough seats to accommodate your numbers. Heading out into the abyss, you seek to win yourself a plate of warm nourishment. But alas! all the stations are out of food and the lines waiting for the disgruntled workers to replenish their stocks extend agonizingly far. From a distance, you spot a pizza about to be removed from its fiery shelf and thrown to the masses for consumption. You elbow your way to the front of the crowd to ensure a good spot to pounce upon the fresh, cheesy goodness.
Ducking and spinning and fighting all the way, you manage to claim a slice for yourself. Still riding the high from your victory, you go for a glass to obtain a drink to augment your recently acquired food. There are none. You seek a fork and knife. There are none.
Frustrated, you stalk back to your table to sit down, prepared to choke down food with your fingers and no liquid accompaniment.
Your chair is gone.
You slam your plate down on the table, causing the grease bubbling in the pizza to splatter into the air. "Where is my chair??" you announce to the patrons eating all around you, silent and ignore your plight.
In your mind, you are ripping the chairs from underneath their smug butts, separating their heads from their bodies and skewering them on sticks around your table to serve as examples for further people who want to steal your chairs. Gathering the chairs from under the decapitated bodies, you stack them up and sit high up in the air, shouting "the horror, the horror!" over the whole scene as people cry in the floor, clutching their plates and murmuring, "I just want a seat...a glass... a fork."
But instead you share a chair with your friend, squashed tightly together as you silently eat and then surrender your table to the next group to set the cycle anew.
As you exit the double doors into the cold world, hardly full and satisfied, you think how when they swiped your card, the dining hall staff also swiped a little piece of your soul. A little of your faith in humanity.
But you have survived. You have stared into the apocalypse and won.
I have found a modern setting for this novel to replace the African Congo: my university's dining hall during finals week.
Every student is on campus; there is no going home during finals. Every student also emerges from their studying cocoons composed of flash cards, crumpled notes, highlighters, and tears at the same time to eat from communal vats of cheap food.
Just as the characters in Heart of Darkness fight for survival in a world with no rules, students fight for an empty table. The idlers stare at their stacks of plates adorned with used napkins and empty glasses with melting ice as they complain to one another about this test and that. Those without tables stalk the lucky few, pacing around and around, stomachs growling and minds imagining the moment they forcefully swipe the dirty dishes from the tables and throw a jacket onto the chair, like the Belgians taking the Congo, claiming the table for their own.
After twenty minutes of stalking the tables and a few minutes before cannibalization seems viable, finally one opens up! One of your pack approaches the table, but a swifter student seizes with a maniacal victory laugh. Death glares ensue as your group returns to pacing in circles in the increasingly frustrated throng.
Eventually, you ecstatically seize a table for your very own with just enough seats to accommodate your numbers. Heading out into the abyss, you seek to win yourself a plate of warm nourishment. But alas! all the stations are out of food and the lines waiting for the disgruntled workers to replenish their stocks extend agonizingly far. From a distance, you spot a pizza about to be removed from its fiery shelf and thrown to the masses for consumption. You elbow your way to the front of the crowd to ensure a good spot to pounce upon the fresh, cheesy goodness.
Ducking and spinning and fighting all the way, you manage to claim a slice for yourself. Still riding the high from your victory, you go for a glass to obtain a drink to augment your recently acquired food. There are none. You seek a fork and knife. There are none.
Frustrated, you stalk back to your table to sit down, prepared to choke down food with your fingers and no liquid accompaniment.
Your chair is gone.
You slam your plate down on the table, causing the grease bubbling in the pizza to splatter into the air. "Where is my chair??" you announce to the patrons eating all around you, silent and ignore your plight.
In your mind, you are ripping the chairs from underneath their smug butts, separating their heads from their bodies and skewering them on sticks around your table to serve as examples for further people who want to steal your chairs. Gathering the chairs from under the decapitated bodies, you stack them up and sit high up in the air, shouting "the horror, the horror!" over the whole scene as people cry in the floor, clutching their plates and murmuring, "I just want a seat...a glass... a fork."
But instead you share a chair with your friend, squashed tightly together as you silently eat and then surrender your table to the next group to set the cycle anew.
As you exit the double doors into the cold world, hardly full and satisfied, you think how when they swiped your card, the dining hall staff also swiped a little piece of your soul. A little of your faith in humanity.
But you have survived. You have stared into the apocalypse and won.
Dec 7, 2011
Brevity is Beauty
Usually at a semester's end, I feel nostalgic or at least a little sad that a certain set of experiences, faces, and the overall feeling that things will never be just as they are again. All my life, I've been a self-professed hater of change.
But as the countdown on my dorm room door ticks down to zero and I get closer and closer to home, I don't really feel that ache for each "last" like before. It was very anti-climatic as my professor in my last lecture clicked off his microphone for the very last time. His preceding lecture was oh so relevant to the thoughts already drifting around in my head.
Maybe it's the completely different environment I'm in, or the difficulty of becoming attached to a two hundred person lecture, or a sign of growing into adulthood.
Or maybe it's what my professor was talking about today before he sent us off into the world, having departed a semester's worth of wisdom onto half-comprehending vessels with notebooks and Macbooks. The lecture was about human values--it is natural to think we value what is permanent. Immortality is appealing and death is terrifying. We want to choose the longer lasting everything. Antiques are more valuable than new furniture; older friends are better friends.
My professor challenged this assertion. We also value what is rare, scarce, and unique. What is more scarce than time? It is the ultimate example of something important in limited numbers. And things that are abundant are just not as valuable. We often the cite the shortest, smallest, more unique moments as the best ones: sunsets and rainbows and snow falls, or those moments of uncontrollable laughter, or the agonizingly joyful moments at the top of a rollercoaster. These things are valuable because we cannot experience them whenever we want for however long we want. Their value is derived from their rarity and brevity.
By that logic, I shouldn't grieve for the loss of this snapshot in my life, my first semester in college. I should be glad that it feels so short because if it were eternal, it would also be mundane as breathing and commercials and whatever else is ubiquitous and inconsequential.
I can feel myself shifting from my old point of view, hanging onto to everything and mourning for every small loss, to something new and better. I am grateful for change, for the temporary nature of my existence. Without it, nothing would seem quite so good.
But as the countdown on my dorm room door ticks down to zero and I get closer and closer to home, I don't really feel that ache for each "last" like before. It was very anti-climatic as my professor in my last lecture clicked off his microphone for the very last time. His preceding lecture was oh so relevant to the thoughts already drifting around in my head.
Maybe it's the completely different environment I'm in, or the difficulty of becoming attached to a two hundred person lecture, or a sign of growing into adulthood.
Or maybe it's what my professor was talking about today before he sent us off into the world, having departed a semester's worth of wisdom onto half-comprehending vessels with notebooks and Macbooks. The lecture was about human values--it is natural to think we value what is permanent. Immortality is appealing and death is terrifying. We want to choose the longer lasting everything. Antiques are more valuable than new furniture; older friends are better friends.
My professor challenged this assertion. We also value what is rare, scarce, and unique. What is more scarce than time? It is the ultimate example of something important in limited numbers. And things that are abundant are just not as valuable. We often the cite the shortest, smallest, more unique moments as the best ones: sunsets and rainbows and snow falls, or those moments of uncontrollable laughter, or the agonizingly joyful moments at the top of a rollercoaster. These things are valuable because we cannot experience them whenever we want for however long we want. Their value is derived from their rarity and brevity.
By that logic, I shouldn't grieve for the loss of this snapshot in my life, my first semester in college. I should be glad that it feels so short because if it were eternal, it would also be mundane as breathing and commercials and whatever else is ubiquitous and inconsequential.
I can feel myself shifting from my old point of view, hanging onto to everything and mourning for every small loss, to something new and better. I am grateful for change, for the temporary nature of my existence. Without it, nothing would seem quite so good.
Nov 16, 2011
Charity Trains
The very first chapter books I read on my own were Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories. The ancient-looking volumes belonged my Grandma and her siblings when they were kids and had that delicious old book smell and yellowed pages softened from use. Though the doctrine of the Christian morality tales never really stuck with me, I didn't escape entirely from their influence.
I distinctly remember reading one particular tale. It centered around the predictable poor-but-jovial family gearing up to celebrate Christmas. They didn't have any presents, but they shared love and a faith in God, so off they went to church on Christmas Eve. The story sets up that the little boy protagonist is a nice, selfless kid, unconcerned about his lack of presents under the tree and uncomplainingly helping out with his tiny baby sister. His angelic-like state is heightened to the point of puke-worthy as he is overjoyed when his aunt and uncle give him some mundane, practical gift, and he is gracious and overjoyed, thinking it the climax of his Christmas.
The details are a little fuzzy at this point, but the families are all gathered in the church, and after the typical Jesusy stuff, the preacher turns to the kids and unveils a tree of gifts. The toys and fancy clothes astound the poor kids into a grateful oblivion, and the protagonist boy eyes a snazzy toy train. It is the only selfish want he expresses throughout the whole story. There is some random method of allowing the kids to select a gift from the tree. For some reason that also escapes me, the boy sacrifices his train to get a coat for his sister or lets some other even poorer boy get the train. I don't know; the reason doesn't even matter.
The point was, I was incredibly disappointed for the boy. Since he was bent on refusing to show actual human emotion, I felt it for him. I think he eventually gets a train (from the benevolent preacher who saw what was going on), but the crushing disappointment quite powerful. Upon my many re-readings of the collection, I always skipped that story to avoid having to feel that way all over again.
Even at my young age, I looked around at the vast array of toys surrounding me and felt horribly guilty about not giving them to orphans.
Every time I see a charity, especially around the holidays, I feel a pang of guilt for not being like the little boy with that damn train. For Christmas my seventh grade year, I acquired two crisp 100 dollar bills. We were having a fundraiser at school for victims of the tsunami, and I tried to sneak one of the bills to school to donate. My mother caught me and prohibited the altruistic action. "But Mom," I protested, "I will still have a hundred dollars left!" Really, I was thinking of the boy and the train.
Maybe it's the profound affect of the first chapter book I read independently (and foreshadowing of the importance books would always play in my life), or the power of Uncle Arthur's storytelling (doubtful), or the simple moral at the heart of it all. Either way, I want every little boy to have his train.
This basic motivation keeps me gravitating towards a career with some non-prophet organization. What better way to spend my life than assuaging that guilt developed so young? Maybe the story affected me so powerfully because helping people is what I'm meant to do. I don't really believe in fate, but I do believe in predisposition. Maybe good ole Uncle Arthur was onto something.
I distinctly remember reading one particular tale. It centered around the predictable poor-but-jovial family gearing up to celebrate Christmas. They didn't have any presents, but they shared love and a faith in God, so off they went to church on Christmas Eve. The story sets up that the little boy protagonist is a nice, selfless kid, unconcerned about his lack of presents under the tree and uncomplainingly helping out with his tiny baby sister. His angelic-like state is heightened to the point of puke-worthy as he is overjoyed when his aunt and uncle give him some mundane, practical gift, and he is gracious and overjoyed, thinking it the climax of his Christmas.
The details are a little fuzzy at this point, but the families are all gathered in the church, and after the typical Jesusy stuff, the preacher turns to the kids and unveils a tree of gifts. The toys and fancy clothes astound the poor kids into a grateful oblivion, and the protagonist boy eyes a snazzy toy train. It is the only selfish want he expresses throughout the whole story. There is some random method of allowing the kids to select a gift from the tree. For some reason that also escapes me, the boy sacrifices his train to get a coat for his sister or lets some other even poorer boy get the train. I don't know; the reason doesn't even matter.
The point was, I was incredibly disappointed for the boy. Since he was bent on refusing to show actual human emotion, I felt it for him. I think he eventually gets a train (from the benevolent preacher who saw what was going on), but the crushing disappointment quite powerful. Upon my many re-readings of the collection, I always skipped that story to avoid having to feel that way all over again.
Even at my young age, I looked around at the vast array of toys surrounding me and felt horribly guilty about not giving them to orphans.
Every time I see a charity, especially around the holidays, I feel a pang of guilt for not being like the little boy with that damn train. For Christmas my seventh grade year, I acquired two crisp 100 dollar bills. We were having a fundraiser at school for victims of the tsunami, and I tried to sneak one of the bills to school to donate. My mother caught me and prohibited the altruistic action. "But Mom," I protested, "I will still have a hundred dollars left!" Really, I was thinking of the boy and the train.
Maybe it's the profound affect of the first chapter book I read independently (and foreshadowing of the importance books would always play in my life), or the power of Uncle Arthur's storytelling (doubtful), or the simple moral at the heart of it all. Either way, I want every little boy to have his train.
This basic motivation keeps me gravitating towards a career with some non-prophet organization. What better way to spend my life than assuaging that guilt developed so young? Maybe the story affected me so powerfully because helping people is what I'm meant to do. I don't really believe in fate, but I do believe in predisposition. Maybe good ole Uncle Arthur was onto something.
Nov 12, 2011
Veterans Day
Most people associate the military with rigidity, fighter planes, propaganda posters, marches, cadences. They always want to thank them for their service, and usually think their service consists of shooting people from the tops of buildings as snipers and performing barrel rolls over Iraq as fighter pilots.
But my military associations are much different. The pleats in dark navy pants, the stiff and colorful ribbon racks, the careful starching all remind me of my dad; whenever he would finally come home, I'd rush to the door to greet him, breathing in the familiar smell of uniform and feeling the scratchy fabric on my cheek as he gathered me in a long-awaited hug.
I think of being perched on my parents' bed as my dad went through the nightly ritual of preparing his uniform. We'd talk of whatever issue was currently plaguing me; his words of advice always came as steadily and effectively as the iron that removed the wrinkles from his shirt. As he burned the frayed edges and fly-away strings from his pants, he'd cut the extraneous worry from my life.
I remember waiting in his office with my brother. We'd play with the toy bombs and guns used to train for drills. One of us would plant the bomb somewhere in the building: a filing cabinet, carelessly unlocked desk drawer, couch cushions. The other would then try to find the object while the mastermind would laugh maniacally in triumph until the good guy deactivated the bomb, just in time. To me, this is what occurs in Air Force office buildings.
I remember Dad pulling up in front of the house in his AF cop car, sirens blazing. My brother screamed in terror (he was young) while Dad "arrested" my friends and I, cuffs and everything. I remember squadron holiday parties with Easter egg hunts, where my toddler brother loudly proclaimed "that's not the Easter bunny! That's a man in a suit!" and Christmas parties where my best friend was embarrassingly obnoxious and my brother broke the stick we were using to hit a pinata that was apparently reinforced with concrete. I remember trick-or-treating on base housing, the best place for treat-or-treating, and staying out so late people would start dumping their left-over candy into our outstretched bags.
I remember the freedom of walking to the Shoppette and to school, passing under a gigantic air plane statue every morning on my way to elementary school, skipping through the security gates on my way home, and calling the grocery store the commissary.
My childhood was marked by the multiplicity of military brats; half Turkish or Korean or from Hawaii and Alaska, we united in our ever-revolving life. Half your classmates would move away before the end of the year, but then you'd have pen pals all over the world.
But most of all, I remember the long months when Dad was gone. Mom struggling to be both parents, do all the duties. I remember my carefully penned letters and the phone calls with extreme delays as Dad's voice took twice as long to travel around the world.
I remember the extreme joy as Dad stepped off that plane and returned to us. His skin was extremely tanned by the desert heat, and he was incredibly skinny from the desert chow hall, but he was finally home. And my face scratched against the stiff fabric of his uniform and I breathed in the familiar smell, and I took away an entirely different conception of what the military is.
As the National Anthem plays and people standing staring up at the American flag and the camera pans over a crowd of military men and women, I know all the memories that pass through their minds aren't the same as the images that riddle military advertisements and popular culture. It's the smaller things, the real life things.
I appreciate my dad for so many things, but being in the military was just his job. I appreciate him for not making it his identity. He doesn't like when random people walk up and thank him for his service. He joined because he had no other options out of high school; there is not a lot separating a fast food uniform and a military one. While the military life does mean a lot of sacrifice, it also means a lot of benefit. Military members get healthcare benefits, GI benefits, housing, and a plethora of other benefits many Americans do not have. It's overly romanticized why people join the military--for every wannabe hero, there's ten that are just joining to survive.
So people might think I'm bad for not getting teary-eyed on Veterans Day, having been raised by a veteran. But really, the holiday is for civilians, not veterans. I appreciate the most important veterans to me every day of the year.
But my military associations are much different. The pleats in dark navy pants, the stiff and colorful ribbon racks, the careful starching all remind me of my dad; whenever he would finally come home, I'd rush to the door to greet him, breathing in the familiar smell of uniform and feeling the scratchy fabric on my cheek as he gathered me in a long-awaited hug.
I think of being perched on my parents' bed as my dad went through the nightly ritual of preparing his uniform. We'd talk of whatever issue was currently plaguing me; his words of advice always came as steadily and effectively as the iron that removed the wrinkles from his shirt. As he burned the frayed edges and fly-away strings from his pants, he'd cut the extraneous worry from my life.
I remember waiting in his office with my brother. We'd play with the toy bombs and guns used to train for drills. One of us would plant the bomb somewhere in the building: a filing cabinet, carelessly unlocked desk drawer, couch cushions. The other would then try to find the object while the mastermind would laugh maniacally in triumph until the good guy deactivated the bomb, just in time. To me, this is what occurs in Air Force office buildings.
I remember Dad pulling up in front of the house in his AF cop car, sirens blazing. My brother screamed in terror (he was young) while Dad "arrested" my friends and I, cuffs and everything. I remember squadron holiday parties with Easter egg hunts, where my toddler brother loudly proclaimed "that's not the Easter bunny! That's a man in a suit!" and Christmas parties where my best friend was embarrassingly obnoxious and my brother broke the stick we were using to hit a pinata that was apparently reinforced with concrete. I remember trick-or-treating on base housing, the best place for treat-or-treating, and staying out so late people would start dumping their left-over candy into our outstretched bags.
I remember the freedom of walking to the Shoppette and to school, passing under a gigantic air plane statue every morning on my way to elementary school, skipping through the security gates on my way home, and calling the grocery store the commissary.
My childhood was marked by the multiplicity of military brats; half Turkish or Korean or from Hawaii and Alaska, we united in our ever-revolving life. Half your classmates would move away before the end of the year, but then you'd have pen pals all over the world.
But most of all, I remember the long months when Dad was gone. Mom struggling to be both parents, do all the duties. I remember my carefully penned letters and the phone calls with extreme delays as Dad's voice took twice as long to travel around the world.
I remember the extreme joy as Dad stepped off that plane and returned to us. His skin was extremely tanned by the desert heat, and he was incredibly skinny from the desert chow hall, but he was finally home. And my face scratched against the stiff fabric of his uniform and I breathed in the familiar smell, and I took away an entirely different conception of what the military is.
As the National Anthem plays and people standing staring up at the American flag and the camera pans over a crowd of military men and women, I know all the memories that pass through their minds aren't the same as the images that riddle military advertisements and popular culture. It's the smaller things, the real life things.
I appreciate my dad for so many things, but being in the military was just his job. I appreciate him for not making it his identity. He doesn't like when random people walk up and thank him for his service. He joined because he had no other options out of high school; there is not a lot separating a fast food uniform and a military one. While the military life does mean a lot of sacrifice, it also means a lot of benefit. Military members get healthcare benefits, GI benefits, housing, and a plethora of other benefits many Americans do not have. It's overly romanticized why people join the military--for every wannabe hero, there's ten that are just joining to survive.
So people might think I'm bad for not getting teary-eyed on Veterans Day, having been raised by a veteran. But really, the holiday is for civilians, not veterans. I appreciate the most important veterans to me every day of the year.
Oct 24, 2011
Rascal
I've been dreading writing about this, but I must. I won't feel complete closure until I do. Offer up my little piece of tribute, of eulogy. Anything that takes up such a piece of your heart, mind, and time deserves a few paragraphs penned in its honor.
People who don't have pets think it's silly when their owners grieve them with the intensity of a lost human loved one. Even some people who only display a casual relationship with their animals look down on the people who perform funerals for gold fish and dogs and gerbils.
But then there are the people who regard their furry (and scaly or slimy or whatever) friends as members of their families. The frequently crocheted quote "Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened" rings true. It's a special kind of relationship. Cats love unconditionally. No one can dispute the comfort a purring cat perched happily on his or her owner's lap, eyes slightly closed and paws kneading, provides. There's no question of the unfailing love behind the green oval eyes.
Rascal sat on my lap for ten years, his love never failing and his paws never allowing a morsel of food to make it to my mouth with an attempted interception. He dined better than most people, preferring bacon above all else. Though he was largely governed by his stomach (and easily manipulated by the all-important word t-r-e-a-t), his heart is the most memorable part of his kitty personality. He was a very sweet animal, not at all bowing the general cat stereotypes of disdain for humans.There is no disputing that he loved us from the moment we extracted him during his first days of life from between Grandma's porches to the last time he exited our house.
He punctuated my child- and teen-hood with the needed experience of pet ownership. With animals comes the responsibility and companionship necessary to growing and maturing. Though I was devastated to learn of his disappearance, it seemed somehow darkly fitting that he died a mere week before I returned home for my first break from college. One of the largest pieces of my childhood now divides my life into childhood and adulthood, life with and without Rascal.
The night I returned home, the first thing I saw was his little dry food bowl sitting sitting expectantly and full. That sight coupled with his abandoned toys and scratching post littering the living room floor drove the reality of his disappearance home. But as I sat crying in the midst of his things, I wasn't mourning just my precious pet. I was mourning the loss of my life was it was before.
Rascal was the best first pet anybody could I have, and I'm incredibly for the ten years he brought joy to my life. I refuse to think about what terrible fate he most likely met and relish the many, many memories he gave me and my family. He was a remarkable cat and my best friend for half of my life. I will miss him.
And many years from now, when I have a family of my own, we will have a precious family cat too, so my kids will know the all-important love of an animal.
People who don't have pets think it's silly when their owners grieve them with the intensity of a lost human loved one. Even some people who only display a casual relationship with their animals look down on the people who perform funerals for gold fish and dogs and gerbils.
But then there are the people who regard their furry (and scaly or slimy or whatever) friends as members of their families. The frequently crocheted quote "Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened" rings true. It's a special kind of relationship. Cats love unconditionally. No one can dispute the comfort a purring cat perched happily on his or her owner's lap, eyes slightly closed and paws kneading, provides. There's no question of the unfailing love behind the green oval eyes.
Rascal sat on my lap for ten years, his love never failing and his paws never allowing a morsel of food to make it to my mouth with an attempted interception. He dined better than most people, preferring bacon above all else. Though he was largely governed by his stomach (and easily manipulated by the all-important word t-r-e-a-t), his heart is the most memorable part of his kitty personality. He was a very sweet animal, not at all bowing the general cat stereotypes of disdain for humans.There is no disputing that he loved us from the moment we extracted him during his first days of life from between Grandma's porches to the last time he exited our house.
He punctuated my child- and teen-hood with the needed experience of pet ownership. With animals comes the responsibility and companionship necessary to growing and maturing. Though I was devastated to learn of his disappearance, it seemed somehow darkly fitting that he died a mere week before I returned home for my first break from college. One of the largest pieces of my childhood now divides my life into childhood and adulthood, life with and without Rascal.
The night I returned home, the first thing I saw was his little dry food bowl sitting sitting expectantly and full. That sight coupled with his abandoned toys and scratching post littering the living room floor drove the reality of his disappearance home. But as I sat crying in the midst of his things, I wasn't mourning just my precious pet. I was mourning the loss of my life was it was before.
Rascal was the best first pet anybody could I have, and I'm incredibly for the ten years he brought joy to my life. I refuse to think about what terrible fate he most likely met and relish the many, many memories he gave me and my family. He was a remarkable cat and my best friend for half of my life. I will miss him.
And many years from now, when I have a family of my own, we will have a precious family cat too, so my kids will know the all-important love of an animal.
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