Concision

But you, like many people, have always been just the slightest but more mystical, have always thought that there was something out there, some higher spirit.

You have always believed there is a higher power.

You always believed in a higher power.

You have always been spiritual

Believe in God.

God.


But this vague belief in a higher power will be thrown into question along your journey.

Your belief in a higher power will be questioned.

You question beliefs in higher powers.

You will question your beliefs.

Question your beliefs.

Question.


Your attention will return to the movie in the final scene, just in time for the heart-wrenching scene where the animals return the child to his parents.

You will watch the animals return the baby boy.

Watch the animals return the boy.

The animals return the boy.

Animals return boy.

Reunited.

Essay Reflection

1. What is your essay about?
My essay is about religion and belief, and questioning that belief. It explores the idea that something very simple and unrelated can set off a massive chain of thoughts in your mind and end up changing your basic beliefs on who you are and the purpose/meaning of life.

2. What was the most challenging aspect of writing & rewriting this essay?
I found it very difficult to find a central point to focus on. In my rough draft, I had lots of vague ideas and concepts floating around without any concrete ties to each other. But my problem was, I wasn't all that invested in any of those ideas/questions. Once I really figured out what I was adressing, the writing wasn't all that difficult.

3. If you could go back and make changes additions, what would you do? Why?
A major problem with my essay was that I changed everything the night before it was due. I changed the point of view, the concrete device, and the major conceptual question I was adressing, all within 24 hours of the due date. This resulted in some of the writing not being as tight as it could have been. If I could do it again, I would have really made sure I was 100% positive that I was writing about the right thing a bit earlier than 5 o'clock the night before.

4. What was the most unexpected - or unexpectedly fun - about writing this essay?
I really enjoyed writing in the second person, a style of writing I didn't even know existed until we read the subjunctive tense essay in class. It was a great way to write a very personal essay without using "I" and really including the reader in the experience. I felt like the reader would feel engaged and would almost be able to experience my story for themselves. Also, it felt less self-centered, because I wasn't directly talking about myself, and I liked that alot.

Conceptual Questions to explore through my Memory

1. How does competition between siblings affect their relationship and their growth - in good and/or bad ways?
   This question comes up just breifly in my memory, in the part where we decide to have a competition to see who can gather the most coins. But it provides insight into our relationship, and so is something that could be explored to see if that was a good thing to have in our sibling relationship.

2. When should parents say "no"?
   A very broad question indeed, that has probably been around for as long as there have been parents. But it directly correlates to this story - our stealing of the coins in the fountain was "wrong," but we didn't know that, and so it begs the question should our parents have stopped us? Was it "wrong" enough to be worth ending our happy respite from the torturous days?

3. How responsible are young children for their own actions?
   Along the same lines as the previous question, are we (my brother and I) to be held responsible for stealing the coins or are our parents? Or does it matter?

A Memory

It was hot. Hot to the point where the ground directly beneath your feet looked like a mirage, and the statues in the fountains looked more like they were sweating than giving off cool water. Hot in a way so that there were only two things one could do: lie perfectly still in your apartment will all the shades drawn and as many fans on as possible, or go to the pool.

That summer in Lyon, France, was the hottest summer on record since sometime in the 1950’s. And I was there, with my parents and my younger brother Sam. We had been sitting in our apartment all morning with the shades drawn and fans cranked, but to no avail, and so we decided to go to the pool. But, because we lived in the center of the city, we did not have a car – everywhere was within walking distance, at least on a normal day. But the pool was pretty far even on a normal day, and this particular day was anything but normal. We didn’t even make it out of the Place des Jacobins, the square where we lived. Our parents, having somehow forgotten that it was nearing 300 degrees outside, were permanently sidetracked by an orchestra who had decided to set up in the middle of the road, and was causing a major traffic jam. It was somehow drawing a huge crowd.

Sam and I were not big fans of classical music, and were especially unhappy with it at that moment, for it was delaying our trip to the pool. We grumbled and sulked next to the fountain while our parents went over to watch, until suddenly I was struck by a brilliant idea. I turned and hopped into the fountain. It was cool and clear, and even better than the pool, because it had money on the bottom! Sam, who had followed me in immediately (almost as if he had been thinking the very same thing), proposed we have a contest to see who could get the most money. And so we rushed around the fountain, diving for euros, always trying to be one step ahead of each other. The cement mermaids and fish spewed water over us, completely blocking out the heat of the day, which had been our only concern all morning.

Gradually, other children in the square began to catch on to what we were doing, and ran to join in. By this time we had already filled our pockets near to bursting with change that we probably should not have taken, and were now just enjoying the swim. We climbed up onto the higher levels of the fountain, splashed and played, and generally had a good time being young boys.

Eventually our parents came to get us out, and I don’t know if they were mad at us. I had them fully tuned out. But they did let me keep the money. And so I trotted happily home, much refreshed and five euros richer.

Questions for Tobias Wolff

1. In Nightingale, where did you get the inspiration for the ending with the button, and what was your intended meaning?

2. What led you to become a short story writer - have you ever wanted to continue a story and turn it into a novel?

3. Were any of your stories in Our Story Begins based off of your own experiences or other real-world events?

An Exercise in Time, part 2

"Clark's hood whipped back and forth in the wind, sounding like the standard of a ship raised high into the sky and crackling under the force of the zephyr that buffeted it." 
Carson Witte, An Exercise in Time


Clark was yelling at that  point, trying to impress upon us all the futility and utter pointlessness of standing out here in the gale to look at a pickup truck that didn't work. I only caught snippets of what he was saying, because the wind was so loud. "This is pointless" ... "don't care" ... "go cry in a" ... "home" ... "dead just like Tucker". And so I got the general jist of the point he was trying to make. 


Watching that hood being tossed about brought me back to an old memory, of me and Tucker as young boys in the swimming pool with our dads, being tossed up in the  air and caught by strong arms coming back down again. We were laughing so hard we could well have passed out for lack of air. And then I remembered the time when Tucker and I played a prank on Mrs. Judy, his crabby nextdoor neighbor. We laughed so hard that by the time we were done, she had already finished being mad at us for the prank and was now grumping at us to get off her lawn. And in turn I remembered the soccer field where Tucker and I scored the greatest goal ever to grace the Midwest - a textbook corner kick to a perfect header by me, which bounced off the crossbar and Tucker finished it off with a diving header. We ran all over the field doing victory dances - airplanes, shoe shines, eagles, cartwheels, everything. 
And now, I remember that Tucker is dead.


The hood went back and forth and back and forth, each time cracking like a lion tamer's whip as it was brought to a screeching halt and pulled back again. Each time it broke the sound barrier, dust flew off the tip in little showers, dust that must have been accumulated over centuries in Clark's dresser. It floated gently  down to the ground, where it was indistinguishable amongst all the other dirt and debris that littered the road.    

An Exercise in Time

"Freddy and Clark and I stood with shoulders hunched, hands in our pockets, and looked on as Ivan circled Tanker's old pickup and explained why it wasn't his fault the tires were mired almost to the axle."

Tobias Wolff, Our Story Begins, Flyboys, pg. 153

The wind was blowing hard, almost to the point of howling, yet it made no noise. It seemed to penetrate my jacket, my shirt, my pants, my hat, and left my skin feeling cold and damp. Goosebumps the size of mosquito bites had risen on my arms and the back of my neck, and I was shivering ever so slightly. Clark's hood whipped back and forth in the wind, sounding like the standard of a ship raised high into the sky and crackling under the force of the zephyr that buffeted it. Fraddy's hair was blown across his face, making him look like a mop being used to vigorously scrub someone's ceiling. The curious thing about this wind was that it kept changing direction, as if its creator was having a bout of indicision as to what he was going to do with this powerful gale he had created. The sky was overcast, and it seemed like night, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon. Dark clouds rolled across the sky, moving shadows across the empty landscape. They were hulking, menacing things, looking like demons converging down upon any sorry soul who was foolish enough to be outside. You could tell it was going to rain, almost taste it in the air. The taste of freshly mown grass mixed with muddy water overwhelmed the senses, even though not a drop of rainfall had fallen from the sky. The truck was pulled over on the side of an unused dirt road, which cut through a barren landscape that stetched out in every direction - as far as the eye could see in such conditions. There were small shrubs dotted throughout the otherwise flat plain, seemingly holding on for dear life so as not to be uprooted. And there were those shrubs who had failed to withstand the onslaught of the wind, the tubleweeds, rolling across the road faster than the winner of the Gloucestershire cheese rolling.

And then it began to pour.