Groupie Readings: Tanya

I actually had the pleasure of being Tanya's group member earlier in the semester. It was fun to read the other blogs I didn't get to read after the switch. The three "Greatest Hits" for me start with "What Someone Doesn't Know Doesn't Hurt" because her grandmother is hilarious and very relatable. The second would be "Him and I" because of the way the story progresses. It starts out giving little information about the actual subject, gives more until the reader finally gets to meet Mr Cuddles. "My Journey" was a great piece because it was so inspirational. I also like that the idea and question come full circle with an answer.

Tanya has a talent of writing about difficult issues and making them easy to swallow. The dialogue in all her pieces are honest and real. Some things that could improve were grammatical errors. They can be very distracting to a reader. Also I think that using more imagery and description in the pieces would be great. It's the whole "show us, don't tell us" thing. Good job Tanya.

Groupie Readings: Jessica

Jessica has an amazing talent for writing. I will go ahead and say that she is one of the best I have been partnered with in this class. My top three "Greatest Hits" would definitely be "Scarified," "Translations" and "The View." Scarified made me laugh. The easy flow of dialogue from the teacher to the students felt natural. The interrupted thoughts by the narrator had a distinctive voice, one the reader grows to love. "Translations" was genius. She has a great understanding of human relationships and the way we talk in them. Again its has a very easy flow because the structure is well established. "The View" was beautiful and thought provoking. The descriptions were perfect and made for easy imaginings.

Her strength is in her voice. Her characters have well developed personalities and Jessica has a way of writing so we all understand but think "what a cool way to say it." One thing that could use some improvement were small errors that were probably neglected in the editing stages: misspelled word, run-on sentence etc. There were remarkably few. Great blog!

There Were Roses

There were roses. I'll always remember that. They hung like living drapes, red and pink, over windows and banisters. The way they wound made me think of snakes or crate paper at a party, depending on the mood I was in for that second. The breeze through the windows moved their smell toward me, reminding me to smile at this wedding.

I know that he was there in black, smiling, not noticing the roses, how they smelled, or me. Though my back was to him I could see his thick eyebrows raised in surprise at some relative he hadn't seen in years. I knew he didn't know any cousins or aunts really well because he told me. Dark nights with just me and him sitting on a bench and we would talk for hours. We were best friends. He would be kind though and hug the distant relatives, remember their names and show them his beautiful bride. With my back turned to it all, I leaned to sign the guest book. Curvy black lines appeared on the paper as my name. I was guest number 157 to sign here. One hundred and fifty seven. I laid the pen down after briefly considering drawing a horizontal line through my name; this, so they could still read the name and that its being crossed out was intentional.

Heading for the door I noticed one rose had fallen from the wreath above the door. It had no stem and I couldn't make out where it had fallen exactly out of the wreath. An urge to crush it, so hard it would have to turn to powder, overcame me. But then I became aware of how soft it was, how good it smelled, the weightlessness of it. I pushed back my hair and placed the rose in the groove above my ear, then turned and walked out.

Braiding: Beginnings of a Braided Essay

She pulled my hair in a braid. One piece and then the other. Criss and then cross. "So then he told me he didn't want to see me anymore..." Her voice continued as with her fingers. I thought about her fingers and the knife accident: the reason why her index finger was too thin and strange looking. But her story and the braiding blended together, lulling me to sleep. It was somewhere in my dream now and I could still feel my hair being pulled. A voice was narrating a scene in front of me. 

I slid further into sleep and Tammy and her boyfriend were standing here, right in front of me, fighting. There was crying, which belonged to her, and he was saying he didn't want to see her anymore. It was never said but all of us in the dream knew perfectly why. Suddenly I couldn't see Tammy or her boyfriend. The room was filled by her hand. We were all forced to look at her index finger: at its remarkable unlikeness to the other fingers, how deformed it was. It was too thin and strange looking but worse since it was now too big as well. In the distance, fingers were on my head crissing and crossing, braiding.

A slit of sunlight, the kind that seeps through the lines in the blinds, cut across my closed eyes. My eyes opened responding to the touch of heat. Pulling forward quickly, the reaction of waking from deep sleep, startled my sister and the braid unraveled at the bottom. She looked irritated, knowing I had fallen asleep during her story. I feared she knew what I had been dreaming. "I'm so sorry, " I said. "Tell me again." So she started braiding.

Collage: Red, Yellow, Blue

Red

The other day I watched a bullfight on television. The man waved a man-made flag in front of a bull. It is red, they explained, for the bull. A swipe to the right and then to the left. All the while the red flag flapping in front of the man and bull. Suddenly the flag went down. So did the man. There was red everywhere. The mesh of the flag melted into the wet red that seeped through. Some colors at sometimes mean something very real, like blood or life.

Blue

"He's feeling blue right now." This is what my mother told me when I was five after my brother had left the living room with tears in his eyes. Blue? How do you feel blue? Who ever thought of saying someone feels blue? I just thought he was sad. Sometime later I had gone outside. The sky was above and blue and beautiful. Something about how very open it was, the way it could swallow me or how I could float into it without ever reaching a protective barrier made me feel strange. My thoughts returned to the life around me and the sky turned back into the ceiling I had always known. It was just blue.

Yellow

My sister had drawn my mother in  picture at school. My blonde mother had yellow crayola colored hair and lazer green eyes. Her dress was a little pink triangle, the tip touching exactly on the bottom of her circle head. I laughed because it didn't look like her. Mom's hair was blonde not yellow. So I asked her who it was. She told me mom of course. Then how come she has yellow hair I egged on. She rolled her eyes. "Crayons aren't real life," she left in a huff.

Though her picture was wanting her understanding of reality was sound. Blonde could be yellow in a picture made with crayons.

The Girl on the Fence

She walks on the fence everyday. Blonde, barefoot and carrying  a bouquet in her hand. Maybe there is a half moon grin--maybe not. Either way she feels free in there. There is another girl in a bubble gum dress suspended and held, with her hands free. 

Each corner is a reminder that Home is an object like a balloon, a thing to hold onto, though we know with a slip that it could leave forever. Gazing up and past it, the sky waits. It can float very far away. That makes me sad.

So we hang Home in our houses. In a frame. At night as I ascend the stairs, I see her on the fence, free inside her square. Barefoot of course, she isn't going too far. Her shoes may be in the house we don't see. They are fine there. You don't need shoes to walk on the fence.