Sonny's Blues

This first thing that comes to mind when I read this story is actually a story from my life.

My brother was once addicted to drugs and I remember how weird it was for my family for a little while. He would come to the house high and my mom would make me hide in the stair well. At my young age I never could understand why.  It was weird having to see him go through a withdraw stage and how no one believed he would ever get better. My mother would always blame it on her ex-husband. It is something that I have thought a lot about since then. I have studied a lot and would almost want to work

The example about Sonny and his Dad and my brother and his dad is similar as well. So, this story has actually brought back tons of memories and only in the first couple pages.

Although there is a part of me that likes Sonny, a little bit anyways. He is irresponsible, free spirited and he has dreams. Granted, I think he is dumb for the drugs, but I suppose people mess up. Perhaps, I am more lenient on those types of things, because of my family. (Not that I think that drugs are in any way right)

“Sonny’s Blues” is a story I have actually read before in my English Comp class. Reading it a second time has actually made me appreciate it a little more than I did before.

I would like to know if there was any significance of the little girl dying and then him talking to his brother, or if it was just added in to make a more dramatic story.  I am also confused on whether or not Sonny quits drinking or if this is the start of his fall. 

A Grief Observed Prt. 2

This book bothers me. I have never read a book by C.S Lewis and everytime I say that, people at this school just stare at me. I don't find it that amazing that I haven't. However, one thing that I have learned from reading this book is, his writing can be a little hard to understand. Perhaps not to all, but for me I had to read the book three to four times to extract any meaning from these pages.  I can't relate to death, I have never had anyone close to me die.     ( But, I have had family and friends die.) Death has never been unsettling to me. I am sure one day it will though. This book made me a little nervous for my husband, or even myself, when I die, or when he dies. I would never want anyone to experience such pain. The more I read through the book, the more I began to apperciate the story and the narrator's struggle. I began to enjoy his thought process. How he goes from desperate to somewhat hopeful. I will most likely read this story again, to try and understand it more. 

I went to the Lakeview, Roselawn and Tiger Flowers cemetery complex for this fieldtrip, and I stayed there for at least 40 minutes. While I was there I noticed a few things that didn't necessarily disturb me, but they just intrigued me. The first, the graves were in bad shape. Not all of course, but some of the graves had large cracks and holes in the cement lids. Secondly, the some of the graves were old and unnamed. This disturbed me a little bit. It disturbed me because, I felt like these people were just forgotten. There were no names, no dates, nothing to remember these people except for the cement lid that covered their grave. 

A Grief Observed.

I found that while"What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Raymond Carver and "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis aren't exactly similar, they come to mind when I think about one or the other. 

 I have read over the first two chapers of "A Grief Observed" three times, trying to extract everything that I could. I wanted to feel the same way they narrator does. At pointst I found that I could easily sympathize for him and in others I couldn't and won't ( at least for a long time). The narrator is lost and depressed without his loved one. He is questioning God and wether God is who he has always thought he was. The narrator is questioning love and what he had. He is scared of even losing who she really is and was. 

I think the reason I think about these two stories together is because of their quest to find love, know love, and because of the general theme, grief for lost love.

Granted, the two stories are very different. Lewis' story deals with a grieving husband, who's wife just died of cancer. He begins questioning life and over all happiness. While, Carver's story deals with a couple who both were in pervious relationships. Neither of their realtionships worked out and they now have a false perception on what true love actually is. 

All the characters from the two stories, however, think that they know what true love was and is and are all hurting. They all have unanswered question that eat away at them on a daily basis, that just ends up driving them more and more mad.

So while these stories don't go hand and hand they have similar qualities. You can feel the characters pain and their broken hearts stick out especially. They both have lost hope, are heartbroken, and are on the constant look out for the answers. 

joel

Proclaiming this book outside really inspired me to read the book and try to see the deeper meanings. The images in this poem started to come alive and become way beautiful. The first part of the poem I found striking is in Joel 1:4. This is where he talks about the locust coming and eating everything there is in the land. I can just imagine the devastation from the first swarm coming and people panic. Then the second and third, each time the devastation just getting worse. The nation around is panicked and depressed wishing for deliverance. However, the deliverance they won’t be coming for a while.

The second image I find truly moving starts in Joel 2:28-3:21. Where the Lord just calls out his deliverance.

“And afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams; your young men will see visions.” I just love this, in the first part his Spirit will be poured out on ALL people. Everyone, God wants to pour out his love on everyone.  

Joel

              I have read Joel a few times before this assignment. It is a book I have found problems with before. I tend to read it literally and I can't understand the figurative language. It is something that my Pastor and I have talked about on many occassions. I would like to sit down and understand and see all the meaning behind the words, but I can't. 

               However, there are a few things in this book, or  poem,  that even taken literally are beautiful. The first is on page two, in Starvation and Drought. "How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle wander aimlessly...For the water brooks are dried up And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness." It sticks out to me because I can just imagine where I live. The green grass and just beautiful pastures with cows and pigs roaming every where. Then I can just see the cows starting to lose weight and the grass a certrain shade of brown, instead of vivid green.  I just recently had a huge brush fire in our yard, so it doesn't take much to imagine what a pasture would look like after a fire. 

                The next part I found beautiful was on page three, where the deliverance is promised. I can just imagine God coming down and helping replant everything that was destroyed. Giving food to the hungry and clothes to the naked. To me its just beautiful because I can see the Lord's love. 

            This whole book shows God's anger and judgement. It shows us why we should fear the Lord,although, it also shows us how much the Lord loves us. That even though we mess up he will come back to deliver us.  " It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;"

The Colonel / A Story about the Body.

I didn't find anything very deep in either of these stories. When reading "The Colonel" a few parts stuck out to me more than others. The first is in like first couple of lines, the family seems so normal. The daughter doing her nails and his son out for the night. But then it hits you, "broken bottles were embedded in the walls...".What? Why are there broken bottles embedded in the walls? Where is the narrator? The story just took a turn. The family seems incredibly rich, which makes me think that the father is an important person, obviously the colonel. This is when he brings out a bag of human ears. Human ears, really? I am not getting this story, to me it is just a story. Why does this man have ears? Why is he throwing them around? He put an ear in his drink? All I have to say to that question is gross, why would you even want to play with an ear?

It makes me wonder are these ears like trophies to this man. All the people he has killed or are they just people he has tortured? I have many questions from this story but not very many answers. 

When reading "A Story About the Body" I was a bit angered. It kind of shows me that the love this man had for this woman wasn't love but a form of lust and obsession. If he couldn't love her because of her condition who could he love and could his love be true towards anyone. The one thing that truly confuses me about this story is the last few lines. "the rest of the bowl ...  was full of bees." Why bees and were the roses from the man? Was is to show that beauty wasn't just on the outside of things but to look deeper into a person before deciding who they are?

short story

            It’s hard to believe we were actually talking to each other. I stood outside his “All American” pink-brown house, cute little porch and two-car garage. I look at the grass, thick and green, and the big oak tree that provides shade over the majority of the yard. I loved this house, so many memories. I sat in my car nervous, afraid that this was a mistake. I knew inside that this was nothing but a harmless visit, but it scared the crap out of me.

            When I finally decide to get out of my car and walk to the front door, my heart starts racing. “This is stupid, just stop freaking yourself out!”, I quickly reminded myself.

            As I walk in, it is like nothing had changed. It’s hard to believe its been over a year. The TV still sat in the same corner and the same beat up brown leather couches hadn’t moved from their original spot. His parents greeted me, eyes bright and wide with excitement. His father round and jolly and mother tall and slender, cute couple actually always laughing never seeming stressed.

            Then I see him leaning on the wall, white button up shirt, bright red hair, dark wide eyes, tall and bone thin. But when you take an extra look you can tell that the bags under his eyes are a little darker than they used to be.  He won’t make eye contact, but rather looks around the room rapidly; he shrugs his shoulders, rather than standing up straight. His voice sounds the same, a little arrogant but that’s not how he really is.  He still remains sarcastic and cracks jokes, straying away from a serious conversation. I never understood that.

            The conversation remains small and light, full of joy. Questions about school and classes, my job, my family, nothing to deep. His family begins to discuss the church service and how it impacted them this morning. He and I don’t speak he just stares, blank and wide, you can sense the sadness in his eyes, almost smelling it in the air.

He had told me the day before how he hasn’t slept or ate. “I made a mistake a year ago”, but it was the past how it couldn’t be changed. It can’t be changed. I don’t want it to change. 

An hour passes and his father leaves, so we retreat to his room in the back of his house. I don’t know why, it just seemed like the thing to do. That’s where he began to talk. It started out as small talk. He began to show me his new room and the new set up. He showed me all of his new gifts but never looking me in the eye. He looked so uncomfortable. I kept thinking, “Is it me? Do I stink? Do I have just a rotten look on my face?”. I didn’t understand.

 “Sit down, please”, he said, “How do you like the new set up?”

“I guess its okay?”, All I could think was, what do you even say to that question?

“Nice flag” I said and laughed. A Canadian flag, why in the world did he have that. He always was the comical one of our group of friends.

He remained with the small talk, but I could tell he wanted to talk about what had happened. So I asked, to others it may have seemed rude to be so blunt. But, to Luke, bluntness was an endearing quality

“Tell me, what happened. “, I asked.

“ It’s just over, she is going to school, I am staying here…I am ruining her family life.”

That was it, heartbreak, this story seemed all too familiar, and perhaps that is why I could sympathize with him. I was going to school, I was taking away family time, so I was kicked out the door. I needed to change the subject; I didn’t want to get this deep with him, not now, not anymore.

“Hey, you remember when we used to play flags?” I asked, “You cheated. I remember that much, you always cheated.”

“Sure, if that’s what you call it. Maybe you should have just worn your glasses.” He replied. 

We both sat down and laughed. This game was never ending; every time we saw an American flag no matter where we were we would just yell it out. I am not even sure how we kept score.  I wanted to keep his mind off the hurt, so I asked him to tell me something he remembered. We had known each other for 5 years, there must be something.

He began, “Remember when we went to the mountains with my family?”

“Yes, very well.” I replied.

“ We were so young and happy then. Nothing could have bothered us. “ I could tell he was starting to get upset. I could smell the sadness in the air.

“You know it gets better, right?” I wish I could have just stopped talking, but I couldn’t, “ It hurts right now, but perhaps this is for the better. I promise it gets better. “ I knew it would take a long time, but something in me wanted to make everything better. My insides were screaming, I didn’t want to care. “Why am I caring?!” I just kept talking, not even fully aware of what I was saying. But part of me knew it most likely wasn’t making sense.  But, I wanted to. I wanted to make everything all right, but there was nothing that could be done, was there?  I laid back on the bed in silence; I kept thinking that maybe all he needed was someone to be around. Loneliness and heartbreak are very nasty, they are something I wouldn’t even want my worst enemy to have to go through.

“I should leave.” I knew that I had said those words, but I didn’t mean them.  I didn’t want to leave. So, we just sat in silence, letting the darkness fade in.

Sanjeev and Twinkle

I decided to go with Twinkle. She is such a free spirit; it is hard not to like her.  It starts in the beginning of the story when you begin to see her curiousness. She is so excited to find the porcelain effigy of Christ and vinegar and while her husband finds no value in either, she insists that both have value.  Her husband is 33 so I would assume that Twinkle is also in her early 30’s maybe late 20’s.Twinkle finds some importance in these items and wants to keep them safe. When Sanjeev makes a comment towards her she just brushes it off. Twinkle just seems so carefree and happy, like nothing in the world could go wrong. With each item that is found she becomes obsessed with finding the next. Twinkle drinks and smokes and just wants to have fun at any possible moment.  I think that Twinkle is slightly taller than average and I would picture her to be thin, dark, and has long dark hair. I would think of Twinkle as being what people would typically call beautiful.

I don’t think she thinks very much about the consequences of her actions, such as talking on the found when long distance rates are at their highest, she is just very carefree. She just lets life happen and accepts it for what it is. I like the line on page 142; “She was life that, excited and delighted by little things, crossing her fingers before any remotely unpredictable event.” I just think that this sentence sums up her character perfectly.

            The others find Twinkle to be lovely, charming, and just fun. They immediately join her in her treasure hunt, which probably gets Twinkle even more excited about finding a new item.

            I guess my conclusion to this would just be that Twinkle is very likeable and a very relatable character.  I love how witty and free spirited she is. I love that you can just tell she lives life day by day, not worrying about what will happen tomorrow.