Memory, Final Week

It was a Saturday at the beginning of July, the one following my first week in Italy. While most of the students from other colleges went to Venice for the weekend, my little group from the University of West Georgia decided to take it easy our first weekend, to just day-trip somewhere, and save Venice for another weekend. Pienza, another Tuscan hill town a short way from Montepulciano where we were staying, sounded good. We slept late, rolled out of bed into our shorts and flip-flops, and ate at what we had already termed the Italian Zaxby's, a little pizza parlor we all loved and had already frequented at least three times that week for lunch between classes.
After lunch, we traipsed downhill to the bus station just outside of Montepulciano and, after buying our biglietti (tickets, one of the only Italian words I had learned thus far), boarded the bus to Pienza. The ride was uneventful; we probably chatted, maybe dozed, and, to be honest, our self-guided tour of Pienza was rather uneventful as well. We shopped; I bought one of my favorite pieces of jewelry, a delicate slave bracelet that consisted of a ring of Celtic knots around my finger connected to an ornate Celtic trinity symbol and my wrist by nothing more than a thin silver chain. We found a quaint park where Amanda fell asleep sprawled on a park bench, Nick fell asleep reading a book of poetry, and Rachel fell asleep behind her sunglasses so that I didn't know she had fallen asleep and sat talking to her for a few minutes before inadvertently waking her.
I believe we grabbed an afternoon snack of gelato and headed back to the bus stop. The sky had been fairly clear all day, only a few puffy clouds, faintly tinted gray, hinted at rain, but as we stood under the flimsy plastic bus shelter, it began to come down in sheets. Shortly after it started, over our laughter and conversation about barely fitting under the awning, we began to hear loud raps above our head. Looking up and around us we realized that nickle-sized hail was bouncing across the pavement, skittering around our feet. We all got out our cameras for the first time that day and took pictures at arms length of our four faces squashed together sporting mock scared expressions while the hail fell in the background.
Looking back on the incident now, it amazes me that I don't remember more about Pienza, the tourist town we set out to explore. Instead, I remember us falling asleep in a park, a piece of Celtic jewelry I bought in Italy, and how we huddled in a bus shelter to avoid the hail. We went back to Montepulciano, visited Manuel at his little cafe, A Gambe di Gatto, for a pre-dinner drink, and ate more pizza and drank wine at the restaurant where our study-abroad group ate every night. I also remember that we never made it to Venice.

Response to MacKenzie's final week memory, Final Week

MacKenzie,
I love the imagery here; evocative and detailed, I can see the caves you describe clearly. I also like the tension between the past and the present, the evolution of our species, and the questions you ask to create this tension and progression. What I would suggest is, answer some of those questions you ask. While it is a type of reflection to ask the questions, a deeper reflection might come from the speaker creating a life, thought, an experience for the people who once lived there. I mean, what makes the speaker even ask such pointed questions as "Did they watch their fire in the dancing pit cast shadows over the caves?" It almost seems that the speaker already has an image of just that in mind, an image of maybe a child casting shadow puppets against the wall, of the long legs of a shadow of a young girl distorting her length? The options are endless and, of course, you would want to make sure to stay away from the expected imagery, but dedicating time to imagining the lives that once lived there could make the last line so much more resonant. What makes the empty caves like graveyards and why does the speaker want to make noise because of that? Creating the existence of life in the cave, even if it's only in the speaker's mind (research could help here), makes the absence of it seem wrong, seem lacking, seem, like the speaker says, like a graveyard.

Original Prompt, Final Week

"I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others.
I am a writer. And by that definition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language -- the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade. And I use them all -- all the Englishes I grew up with." Amy Tan, Mother Tongue.

In traditional classrooms, students are taught to vary their sentences, begin each with different words or phrases, provide a variety of lengths. A paragraph consists of a topic sentence, at least three supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence (much like the five paragraph essay structure that is championed...for some reason 5 seems to be the magic number of completion). One teacher even had me graph the number of words in my sentences to make sure that the line graph produced either a W or an M ; another had my class diagram complex sentences on the board each day, the result, what looked like a large felled tree branching horizontally across the ground; yet another teacher required that no student in his class ever use a form of the verb "to be" in their papers, on penalty of severe grade reductions. To this day, I can rattle off all of the forms of the verb, am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being, and I avoid has, have, and had as well, since Coach Costley didn't like those either.
My point? Traditional classrooms have created a type of methodology, a calculation, if you will, of how and what to write. There is no right answer, it's all subjective the Math and Science students say, and English teachers respond with what can only be described as a formula. In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan addresses just these types of formulaic approaches to the English language, and frankly, breaks most of them. Her first paragraph is two sentences, the bulk of every sentence in her first two paragraphs begin with the same word, with the exception of one, and that word is the infamous "I" which should never be used in serious analytical writing. Granted, Tan's piece is "creative" in scope, but she, nevertheless, is very serious and very analytical in her treatment of the subject. Granted, she uses a literary device called anaphora, but that is usually employed in poetry. In short, my point is, Amy Tan's language, her sentence structures, her disregard for the "rules" of English discourse, help to undermine and redefine common conceptions of how English "should" signify, "should" mean, and what constitutes "good" writing, mirroring her ideas on the subject which she has taken up.
In addition to her language being perfectly suited to her subject, Tan's anaphora of the word "I" goes beyond merely debunking the "rules" of English composition and also serves to emphasize the subjectivity of English usage. It opens her piece up for extensive reflection! (Just what much of my own writing in this class has been missing.) So...
Prompt: Choose what would normally be thought of as an universal experience, like Tan does with English education and the taking of standardized tests, and using the same anaphora of "I" that Tan employs, write a draft that not only tells your own personal details of that experience, but also which expounds, using the "I", on the speaker's individual thoughts, then and now, about the subject. Granted, in subsequent drafts, and as Tan does after the above quote in her piece, the "I" will probably be greatly cut or revised, but this prompt should leave writers with a great bank of subjective and personal language which can more fully round out a draft which may otherwise be missing the personal reflection we've learned about.

Response to Brett's final week Memory 2, Final Week

Brett,
As usual, your language is wonderful and the details you share are interesting and evocative. Korea really does seem to be a subject around which your writing flourishes and I'm sure the experiences you had there and the clash of cultures aids in writing. That being said, should you choose to make this post into a more detailed and rounded out draft, there needs to be more of the reflection which we've been talking about in class. Here we have the memory of what you and Corey actually did, but readers have little to no indication of what the speaker thought about the experience, then or now. Of course, the speaker didn't seem to have the great time and adventure he was hoping for, but what about his outlook made it so? How might the speaker view the experience differently after the distance of time and space? What about this particular night stuck out in the speaker's memory? What was life like in Migeum so that the speaker thought he might gain something else from Daegu? How might this desire for adventure without a specific plan, or without knowing even what direction in which to head, read culturally? Would that have been something Koreans would have done? Would it be something you would normally have done at home in the US? Have you found spontaneous adventure before? If so, was having the adventure a planned hope or just a side-effect of experience free of expectation? Why is it significant that the speaker and his friend were disappointed? Exploring the answers to some of these questions could help you decide upon a certain type of reflection which might work well here, which might make both the reader and the speaker see the experience through a nuanced light.
PS: Thanks for this post; it made me think of my own misadventures abroad and now I want to write about those. :)

Response to Pam's final week reportage, Final Week

Pam,
First of all, the language here is really wonderful. The ways in which you frame the "stalker" as "investigating" and "profiling" are really interesting and lend a more legitimized voice to the stalker. Instead of some creepy stalker, this stalker is more like a PI, more stalking for a legal reason, more valid in their views. Then, the way you turn that legitimacy on its head and invert the credibility, turn it into vulnerability, and give the stalkee the power works even better after you have built up the opposite with such language.
Also, this piece goes a little bit beyond mere reportage to me. I see you beginning to reflect on the implications of first impressions, of our own judgments, of the power structure of any given situation and how easily that structure can crumble or invert. These are the elements which I think could be built upon in later drafts should you choose to take this post in that direction. If not, these same observations could prove very interesting in relation to a number of situations about which you could write. This type of self-critique, I think, is exactly what Dr. Davidson has been looking for from us. The sense that the speaker is far from infallible and that he/she is aware of their own fault, to a certain extent, makes them a more credible narrator, and credibility, although subjective, seems to be a rather pivotal part of creative non-fiction to me.

Junkyard Quotes 1-4, Final Week

"To see the world, after all, either through a magnifying glass or a poem, is the first step toward wanting to preserve it."

"Wendell is speculating on the brain of a bird, on what a bird can know."

"'I don't use that word [environment],' Wendell replies. 'It's an abstraction. It separates the organism from its place, and there is no such place.'"

-All of the above are from an article about Wendell Barry by Erick Reece

"Garden & Gun" -the name of the magazine from which the above-mentioned article came...the pairing of such seemingly diametrically opposed nouns for the title of a magazine about "southern" American life was interesting to me. What was really funny was that my mother and sister, neither having any literary training, were the first to comment on, and laugh at, the name of the magazine I was reading in the hospital waiting room, bringing its interest to mind for me.

Response to Pam's memory week 7, Week 7

Pam,
I think the "uncomfortable turn" you refer to in your note is exactly what makes this entry interesting. I like the shift from physical pain to emotional, and the emphasis that, while both are real, one is given privilege over the other. To a certain extent, this reminds me of "The Pain Scale." This piece, like Biss' plays with the arbitrariness of measuring pain, but here there doesn't seem to be a clearly defined scale. Emotional pain is highly subjective, not quantitative.
Also strong here is your reflection, the questions you are seeking to answer for yourself. What I would suggest here, however, is that you ground that reflection more in the physical. What I mean by this is, you give readers concrete details about the scenes in which you talk about physical pain, but your emotional pain sections deal a lot more with reflection. Your emotional pain is like our understandings of it, hidden, rumored, guessed at. While this may be interesting in terms of talking about the social aspect of emotional pain, how it usually is rumored and hidden, this social aspect doesn't feature prominently here. So, in essence, it may be helpful to go either way here: amp up the social implications and instead of the actual emotional pain, show us the students whispering, the rumor mill turning or focus on the actual emotional pain and what it looks like. While it may not be quantitative, it does appear in some way. What does your pain look like? Your best friends? Do we, as you seem to suggest about physical pain, handle emotional pain differently?

Junkyard quote 4, Week 7

"That's one bad ass bunny." The incongruous mix of "bad ass" with a fluffy, little bunny just made me chuckle.

Original Prompt, Week 7

Perspective is a powerful thing; something as simple as a person's mood can color perception in interesting ways. We've all had those days where it was sunny out, but our outlook kept us from seeing the beauty of the weather. We've all had days where an event somehow colored our perspective and we saw that person, that word, that vehicle, etc. for the rest of the day. Lia Purpura achieves this same sense of circumstance-formed perspective in her essay Autopsy Report. Here, Purpura's visit to the supermarket is colored by the experience of viewing an autopsy earlier in the day. She sees autopsies on every face, notes the muscle and tendons under each person's skin, even goes as far as to find in her mind the "Y that would reveal" each person's innards. The most striking element of this portion of the essay was Purpura's language. It is not enough that she sees autopsies everywhere, she must describe her surroundings in terms of the autopsy. Now, "the dusty skin of grapes" takes on new meaning. Now, describing the day as "bright and pearly, lush and arterial after the rain" evokes paralleled images of the autopsy and the supermarket and the unlikelihood of the two subjects creates a jarring effect.

Like Purpura, think back to an event that seemed to color or distort your perspective for the rest of the day/week/year. Describe some other, perhaps menial, occurrence later that day and describe the second occurrence in terms of the first.

Oddity, Week 7

I have a habit of saving voice mails. In fact, I have 22 saved on my phone right now. I don't save them because they contain some bit of information that I need to write down later, a date, a time, a place. No, I save voice mails because I fear the loss of a voice, the voice of my daddy, my mama, my Chip, of those I love most. So when my dad called me 3 years ago and told my machine "Iz just callin' to check on ma baby girl," I pressed 9 after hearing it to save it, and have to save it again every "21 days" as the automated voice tells me.

All of the voice mails end with an I love you, all of them preserve my family at their best...the ones where my mom is hurriedly telling me that grandmama is coming and we're meeting at 5:30, "so head this way as soon as you get off," don't get saved. The ones where Mary, my sister, tells me that she's been trying to get in touch with my brother and, as usual, can't get him to answer his phone, don't get saved. Coincidentally, I don't have any saved from Seth, he hardly ever calls, and never leaves a message. "I hate talkin' to a machine," he says.

You see, I've lost enough voices, my grandpa's "squeeeeeeze 'em to a pulp" as he broke a stack of saltines in his hand and dusted the crumbs into his soup as my eight-year-old giggle made him take up another stack to repeat the gesture. Or my grandma's "Em-ry," her voice rising in pitch on the second syllable as she called my grandfather, suds up to her elbows in the kitchen sink as I waited to wipe dry the oval faces of plates. Or my uncle's "I'm too young to be an uncle, so don't call me that." I hear the words, even the inflections, in my mind, pretend I can hear them bounce off my eardrums, but will never actually, physically, hear those voices again. So I save the others, the ones I still hear now, on my cell phone, hoping that one day, when those I love have ceased to talk, I'll still be able to hear their voice.

Response to Ashley's memory week 7, Week 7

Ashley,
First of all, let me say that I really see you trying to keep several of the things we've talked about in class in mind as you write this; cool prose for high emotion, trying to navigate away from sentimentality, finding the flip side of a situation (trying to see the freedom rather than the anger and abandonment), etc. I'd encourage you to take a look at how Lynch talks about suicide again, granted he doesn't relay the loss of a close family member, but his detachment could help you here. I don't think you'd want to take detachment as far as he does, but the moves he makes, his sentence structures, etc could help you with your pacing and structure. Also, think back or take a look at Jo Ann Beard's essay again. How does she handle the murder of her friends? What other experiences does she toggle between? I think this piece could definitely benefit from a toggle to take some of the immediate weight away from your uncle's suicide and distribute it throughout the piece, making the main event a more contextualized whole. Also, take a look at your language here. While you want to remain cool, you want to be wary of lapsing into the expected or cliched. Phrases like "made peace with himself," "left a broken family behind," "alone in this world," "anger blinded me," etc. may be a little expected in a piece about suicide. Try, instead, to focus on the details surrounding the event. I loved the inclusion of the Reeses and how they still sit in the refrigerator. It is details like this that are unexpected and that could help to distribute the heft of such a subject. Also, while you would have to be careful that the inclusion of your son doesn't become a little heavy-handed, I like how your describe your uncle as "fading." While a euphemism, this idea of erasure could become more architectural and could provide a different way of talking about his suicide. Does it erase him? Does it erase his pain? What could be beautiful about non-existence? Or is the fact that it is erased the problem? It's gone, but we all know it was once there. This could help you keep a lot of the reflection you are playing with here,and we all know we need to keep the reflection :), but it could give you a different frame possibility for it.

Response to Susana's reportage week 5, Week7

I completely agree with Jenna; this is great subject matter to handle! It could really open itself up to the type of reflection we've been talking about in class: Your speaker says that it wasn't a good idea to go to the farmer's market on a Saturday, but then the descriptions make me wonder why? Was it really not a good idea, because of the crowding, or was the crowding exactly what made it so interesting? What about this specific crowd of people caught this particular speaker's attention? What is it that has made the organic or whole foods market such a lucrative one? I understand the appeal to health, etc. but why has this become such a boom? Is it merely the health aspect, or is there, perhaps, a type of affluence or prestige attached to it because these people can afford to spend more on their food, on something that is ultimately consumed and must be bought again? Could this possibly become a commentary on consumerism, on affluence, on some other aspect of American culture? And while the speaker states that the most interesting part was the people, there is very little in the way of actual description of these individuals. The line "as assorted as the produce section" really seemed to suggest a connection between the people and the food they buy. How might you play up/with the common cliche, you are what you eat? How are people like the varied foods they eat? What do their choices say about them?

In short, I agree with Jenna that there needs to be more description and detail here, but the "so what?" of it needs to come out as well. Could there be a way for you to bring out some answers/reflections on some of the questions above, or perhaps different ones that occur to you, in your descriptions? There is a reason that the speaker views each of these individuals or even the crowd as a whole in the way she does...that unique perspective is really what I want to see. Show me the reportage and the detail, yes, but reflect on why those particular details, that specific event, speaks to the speaker and dissect the implications of that.

Junkyard Quote 3, Week 7

Cona: "You can come to...but you'll have to ride bitch. And the shifter sticks and won't go into first, so I have to bang on it sometimes."
My husband: "I think I'll pass."
What was particularly funny to me about this exchange was that it was between my husband and his "knight" in the SCA, a man I had hitherto only seen in medieval garb and armor. He was talking about "the beast," his rebuilt old pick-up truck which my husband later told me took the men 15 minutes to even get out of the driveway.

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 7

"He looked like a pear stuffed in jeans."

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 7

"You look like a radio-active mugger." -my friend to her husband who was bundled up on a cold night to walk their dog with a reflective belt around his waist to reflect headlights back on themselves

Oddity, Week 5

Smokey eyes peer out of the pale oval face framed by platinum blonde hair. Her lips bend slightly upward with a sly little smile and are painted the same color as the picture's baby pink background. Her dress matches this shade as well but is set off by the light caught in the skinny rectangular sequins that run its length. It's form fitting and low-cut, but shows no cleavage, due more to her boyish figure than the dress's modesty. "His Best Sex Ever," "Um, Vagina are you okay down there?," and "Too Naughty to Say Here: But you have to try this sex trick" in bold type frames her lithe body. "COSM" on one side of her head and "ITAN" on the other is all that readers can see of the magazine's title, but most any woman would readily know, even without the title, that this is an edition of Cosmopolitan, it's glossy front and sex-riddled headlines a dead giveaway for the iconic women's magazine.

The woman on the cover is Dakota Fanning, and she is only 17-years-old. A child actress, known for her sweet-little-girl appearance and girl-next-door appeal and most recently of Twilight fame, Fanning seems to be eschewing her wholesome associations by posing on the inside of the magazine in rabbit ears, redolent of Hugh Hefner and his bunnies. In truth, the magazine and it's staff seem hyper aware of the seemingly relative innocence of its cover model in using the baby pink color as a background, in printing several pictures of Fanning as she grew up, and even by drawing attention to the incongruency of an underage cover model for this particular magazine by captioning the bunny-eared picture with the statement "Two years ago, this would have been cute. Now it's hot."

This cover is only one of many magazine covers that seek to sensualize young girls on the cusp of womanhood. In 1980, Brooke Shields was only 15 when she posed for Cosmo. In February of 2012, it was Dakota Fanning. In March, Cosmo will feature Disney channel star, Selena Gomez, who may be 19 (only slightly overage), but is still young and very much associated with a younger age set and viewership. A few years ago, Miley Cyrus, also of Disney channel fame was involved in a scandal over her Vanity Fair cover photo. Not to mention the number of greatly underage supermodels today, coveted specifically for their undeveloped figures which allow the clothes to hang like on a coat hanger.

Response to Pam's Response to my Oddity for this week, Week 5

Pam, thank you so much! One thing I've noticed about your comments here and on my workshop piece is that you have a wonderful way of seeing somewhat strange connections that could blow a small piece like this wide open to the more nuanced and reflective expansions we've been trying to work toward in class. I, of course, began with the game itself and moved slightly off-subject to the obsessive culture that has grown up around it, but had little idea of how to expand this further or add in a more nuanced "reflection." I never even thought about the implications surrounding why the company would include such a warning. Granted, I feel, knowing the game and the rampant jokes written into it, that the programmers are probably just being tongue-in-cheek here, but you bet that if someone tried to sue the company because they lost their job, and I've known such people (he lost his girlfriend too, but that's another story), because they played too much WoW, the company would use any means necessary to absolve itself of culpability, including this little quip. I think suggestions like this will be the most beneficial uses of this journal because, at least to me and in my writing, I can easily generate small posts, my problem is finding the connections that expand that piece and actually make it into an essay worth writing. Again, thank you so much!

Original Prompt, Week 5

In a section of "Mary and Wilbur," Thomas Lynch writes about how he and his wife take walks in their town. "She sees the architectural detail of Greek Revival homes, Queen Anne's, Federalist, and Victoriana. I [Lynch] see the garage where two teachers, long married and childless, known for their prowess at ballroom dancing, and careful fashions, were found asphyxiated in their Oldsmobile." The pair of Lynch and his wife look on the same scenes, but where she "sees a well-made garden, bordering the backyard of a house," he remembers "painting a bedroom overnight in which a man had shot himself so that his children, grown now, wouldn't have to return to the mess he'd made." This passage brought to mind the nuanced differences of perspective. Depending upon who is an author's speaker, and even that speaker's changing moods, different scenes and details take on vastly different connotations and relevancies to a given piece. In creative non-fiction, this perspective is a very important for it often is the source of the reflection we've been needing to cultivate in our own writing. Here, however, Lynch gives us two perspectives, vastly different, and in that difference is a subtle reflective commentary on the essay's subject. Prompt: Write about a scene, experience, etc. in which two characters, one being the speaker, have opposite perspectives. It would probably be best if the perspectives are not directly opposing, or at least that the characters emotions connected to the perspectives are not high emotions, so that the characters do not enter into an argument, but are simply noticing different details and remembering different events. Focus not on the interiority of the individuals, but more on the nuanced physical details of the scene/experience they are noting. Then, compose an accompanying reflective passage in which the speaker comments upon the relevance of the different perspectives through his/her own perspective.

Oddity, Week 5

MMO stands for massively multi-player online game. World of Warcraft is, and has been for many years, the biggest of these games and I play a Draenei arcane mage. The world of WoW, Azeroth, consists of three continents, the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Northrend. On these continents are two factions, the Alliance and the Horde. Players can choose to make either an Alliance or a Horde character and by this choice limit themselves to a certain number of races for that character. The Alliance is home to Night Elves, Humans, Gnomes, Dwarfs, Draenei, and Worgen. The Horde is home to Forsaken, Trolls, Tauren, Orcs, Blood Elves, and Goblins. Each of these races can then be customized into various classes: warriors, paladin, hunters, rogues, priests, shaman, magi, warlocks, druids, and death knights. Each class has three talent trees which allow even the classes to be customized. Currently, there are about 10.3 million people in the world who subscribe to the game and these numbers are down from where they used to be. As has already been said, I am one of these subscribers. It's Chips fault. Chip, like many of these 10.3 million people have played WoW since it was introduced, but I would be classified as a "wrath baby," meaning I didn't start playing until the second expansion "The Wrath of the Lich King" was already released. It started as a free month's subscription as Chip said "just to see if you like it." At the time, it was supposed to be something Chip and I could do together. Now, I genuinely enjoy running around Azeroth "pewing" things with swirly, glowing magic. I, however, would be classified as the casual player. I get on when I want to, do what I want to, get off when I want to, and sometimes go weeks, even months, without logging on. Most players, however, belong to a guild with which they raid. Chip's guild raids three nights a week, for a couple of hours. There are some guilds, however, who make WoW their life. Literally, their people spend every spare moment they can muster on-line. The WoW programing team even occasionally puts a reminder to "go outside of Azeroth" with your friends on their loading screen. Now, while I do enjoy what many would classify as a rather dorky pastime, I must admit, I have no idea why these people forgo their real everyday lives for this on-line fantasy.

Junkyard quote 4, Week 5

"Bring your friends to Azeroth, but don't forget to go outside Azeroth with them as well." -another loading screen tip from World of Warcraft

Junkyard quote 3, Week 5

"You're much less likely to encounter wandering monsters while following a road." -tip on the loading screen for World of Warcraft

Junkyard quote 2, Week 5

"I guess that was only a minor nuisance for him." -Chip disgruntled by the guy who just one-shotted him on Battlefield whom Chip had shot at least four times before the guy hit him

Response to Pam's Oddity from Week 5, Week 5

Pam, I love the details in this post. Instead of saying "low calorie foods" you say "spinach, diet soda, black beans, and brown rice." Instead of saying women "cheat" on a diet, you give the example of "sweet tea and red velvet cake" at a baby shower. You do an excellent job of showing rather than telling, but the telling you do, ie the mantra "fails by association" to "Moose Tracks," "yeast rolls," and "fettuccine alfredo," hints toward the deeper reflection we've been talking about being missing from much of our drafting. While short, this piece is really working toward not just a reportage of weight loss attempts, but a critique and a discussion of the practice with which most women can easily identify. A question I would ask of this draft, and perhaps a way to expand it, is: How many weight-loss programs has the speaker been on? Bringing in details about different plans, could be a way to further explore the cultural phenomenon which keeps these companies in business, our inability to actually lose, and keep off, all the pounds we want to. What about American culture, and its women's perceptions that make these such lucrative businesses. Or as a way to get off subject, maybe this piece becomes about the food, and why we eat it, rather than just the attempts to deprive ourselves. What does food mean to us? Why do we beat ourselves up for eating the "wrong" thing?

Junkyard quote 1, week 5

"please prove you're not a robot" -the prompt to type the two squiggly words before Blogger will allow us to respond to someone else's post

Response to Brett's Junkyard quote, week 5

While the actual quote was interesting, what really made me think about this post was the last line. I really think Behan is right...okay maybe we aren't all drinkers, but it seems that most writers have to be something else. Dr. Davidson, for instance, would be a teacher with a writing problem. I would be a budgetary assistant with a writing problem. Our problem is that most of us will never make bank by our writing and so, must have some other occupation by which society can define us. So why, do we do it? Is it some need, some compulsion or addiction even? Seriously, we may all need some serious help...writers anonymous anyone? ;)

Response to Pam's Reportage Week 3, Week 3

This is an excellent example of what Dr. Davidson was talking about the other day when he said we should take the unexpected look at events, people, objects, etc. It would be one thing to write about the time a mouse scared you and you acted like a big sissy and had to have your husband come take care of it for you. While that would offer itself up to an examination of stereotypical gender roles, etc., it would also be quite expected. Writing about a mouse in this way, however, is quite a different thing. It is more unexpected and fresh, a different story than the one of dominant thought about women and mice. What I would ask of this draft, however, is WHY you saw the mouse differently? Why is the mouse only lovely in passivity, in death? Why when the mouse is "beyond the basement door" and outside of your house does it create a different response than when it scampers past your feet in your basement? Why is it interesting that you are now okay with the mouse when it is very likely that the poison you had your husband put out is what killed the mouse? In short, what is your reflection in regards to this mouse? Add that and you take this draft beyond reportage and give yourself a way to get off of the triggering subject.

Oddity, Week 3

While my husband and I were waiting for our to-go order of Chinese food the other day, a woman walked into the restaurant with her young daughter. While that in and of itself is not unusual, what I found interesting was that her daughter, who could not have been more than about nine or ten years old, looked like a complete miniature of her mother. I don’t mean that she resembled her mother in facial features, although she did, what I mean is that she wore tight jeans on her spindly, boyish legs, knee high, leather boots (I have a pair which my brother calls my hooker boots), a fitted sweater, and long chunky necklace. This ten-year-old had a small cell phone to her ear and designer sunglasses propped on top of her head, just like her mother. The one difference between her outfit and her mother’s was that the little girl had a much bigger purse than her mother’s. Her petite little figure carried a brown leather purse that my husband joked he could fit her inside of with no undue effort (and he wasn’t far off the mark). Upon closer inspection, I realized that the little girl also had on eyeliner and mascara, what looked like bronzer on her cheeks, and a shimmery lip gloss painted her lips. Truth be told, occurrences like this are not really an oddity now, but I remembered back to when I was that age and thought that the sight would most definitely have been odd then, and that was only 18 years ago.

Junkyard Quote 4, week 3

"But it's Madonna!" -friend watching the Super Bowl
What struck me about this quote is that none of the other people seemed to understand the relevance of the fact that it was Madonna. So often we say things that seem to us self-evident, but are so removed from other people's understanding and opinion that, without elaboration, the utterance means little to nothing to anyone but ourselves. In this particular case, this friend's husband replied "And?" and this friend had no response. She didn't even know why it was relevant that it was Madonna; she had no real interest or fascination with Madonna either, but as a cultural icon, apparently Madonna is supposed to carry some kind of significance. I'm starting to see, however, that in many cases dialogue can be a hazardous thing. If I were writing the scene, I would want to remain "true" to what happened and what was said, but if I were to do that in this instance, there would be a break down in communication between the story and a large portion of the would-be audience. To some "But it's Madonna!" would make perfect sense, but in many cases the reader would have the same response as my friend's husband. The importance of picking and choosing dialogue that is relevant and that does more than just directly relate the spoken word is becoming more and more apparent.

Junkyard Quote 3, Week 3

"Only dorks would name their group something no one else would even understand." "I understand it." "You're an English major; that's different." -discussion between myself and a friend about our husbands' involvement in the Society for Creative Anachronism

Junkyard Quote 2, Week 3

"He's lucky it didn't make his head into a canoe." -Chip, watching a YouTube video

Response to Brett's Memory from week 3, Week 3

Brett, I believe you said after class last week that you hadn't read a lot of contemporary poetry, but what struck me about this draft was the amazingly poetic language. Phrases like "flat panel plasmas of the bored middle class," "Circle City's crosshairs of class," "Indiana's proud blue nipple on a red conservative breast," and the entire listing following "Indy's circle stands for..." belie a great ear for poetic phrasings, techniques, and unexpected imagery. Especially the second section seemed to fall into more of a poetic cadence.
What I would like to see a little more of here, however, would be more personal details. Here you have a lot of reportage, but you hint at the apartment being your favorite, "shady deals" you've witnessed, the neighbors, and you letting out your friend's dog. These details, however, are limited. It could be interesting to hear more of why the apartment is your favorite, the specific memories there that seem to stand out in your mind. Or to hear some specifics about the "shady deals" you see. The factual details about the city and its layout are interesting and could be architectural to the piece, but could also be very interesting when juxtaposed with the more human and personal details I'm sure you could provide in later drafts.

Junkyard Quote 1, Week 3

"He was pooping rainbows for, like, three days." -Brandon, my department's IT guy

Reportage, Week 2

She lies in my computer chair, chin resting on both her crossed front and her back paws, making a perfect circle with the outline of her body. Her stomach distends with each quick breath she takes, the dark lines on her tabbied coat momentarily spreading apart and coming back together. Her right ear, the one pricking the air, twitches once, twice and is still. Chip's phone vibrates and she stretches, her limbs straight and taut like some strange state of rigor mortis, but she still doesn't spook and jump from the chair. I need her to jump from the chair; I need my computer and she seems too peaceful to pick up and toss to the floor, even if she would land on all feet. She's laying on the top of her head now, her legs relaxed but still straight in front of her. From my angle above her, all I can see is the white of her chin and throat. I reach down, scratch it, and she rolls further onto the top of her head, giving my fingers greater purchase. "Alright Zumba, mama needs her chair." She opens one eye and looks at me with all the interest of the fence post I argued down last week, daintily crosses her paws, and lays her head back down.

Memory 2, Week 2

Sir Kona sits hunched against the back of the flimsy rampart whose front is painted to look like the solid stone of a castle for the ongoing "fort battle." The dark braided leather of the greaves covering his upright shin and the arm he slings across his bent knee completely hide the face he has buried in the crook of his elbow. Only his long, dark, wavy hair peaks above his arm and falls over his pauldrons. My Lord Chip walks over and holds a bottle of water out to his knight, but Kona shakes his head and instead reaches for Chip's hand and hoists himself from the ground. He slowly walks away, headed for camp, slightly dragging his feet through the dust and sparse grass. In real life, Kona's name is Brian Cooper and he is in great need of back surgery. He, like many of the aging men of the SCA, however, likes to pretend that he can leave that part of himself behind for event weekends as well. Chip stands in front of me now, eyes brighter blue than usual. The way they always do when he's happy and has physically exerted himself. "Do you have any Advil?" he asks. He knows I do; in my purse next to the cell phone I'm not supposed to carry around here. "Kona's really hurting."

Original Prompt, Week 2

"They die around the clock here, without apparent preference for a day of the week, month of the year; there is no clear favorite in the way of season. Nor does the alignment of the stars, fullness of moon, or liturgical calendar have very much to do with it...it is also true that the dead don't care. In this way, the dead I bury and burn are like the dead before them, for whom time and space have become mortally unimportant...but no cause of death is any less permanent than the other. Any one will do. The dead don't care." -Thomas Lynch "The Undertaking"

There are two elements of this passage which I'd like to draw prompts from. The two could be taken separately or together. 1) Lynch spends great portions of "The Undertaking" describing what the dead don't do, don't think, don't care about, etc. This negative description serves to somewhat negate the dead person and bring Lynch's suggestion that funerals are not for the dead, but are for the living to the forefront. Take a memory, an object, a person, which you can recall to mind vividly and instead of trying to describe what or how that subject IS, describe what or how it ISN'T. Try to describe a scene, person, etc. through a negative description. 2) Lynch repeats the refrain "the dead don't care" several times throughout "The Undertaking." This is a technique poets use frequently to add emphasis, etc. Use this same method of repetition with one of the phrases, sentences, words, etc. in one of your drafts to create this same type of cyclical narrative and see what, perhaps disparate, details can be linked in this way.

Oddity, Week 2

I was sitting across from the man who is now my husband at dinner early on in our relationship. I noticed when he chewed that his lips puckered and protruded slightly to form a perfect little heart shape. This was caused by the fullness of his bottom lip and the relatively thin, yet perfect, arcs of his upper lip being pursed together in a slight kissing motion, bringing the outside corners of his mouth into line with the down-turn of the arcs of his upper lip. He, of course, noticed me studying his mouth and immediately became self-conscious and asked me what I was staring at. When I told him that his lips made a perfect little heart when he chewed, he flushed, said "no they don't," and covered his mouth when he chewed from that point on that night. In spite of the fact that I assure him every time I note it that I find it adorable, til this day he still cannot stand for me to scrutinize his chewing.

Response to Susana's Oddity from week 2, week 2

I know that Dr. Davidson said to stay away from affective reasoning, but what first got my attention on this draft was just that. I, too, had an ear fixation. What's really funny is that I STILL find myself playing with my ear, especially when I am tired. I, however, went beyond just rubbing my ear. I can actually stick my ear inside of my ear and it will stay (and if it is cold, I like it even better). I've done this since I was a baby, and the doctor told my mom that the cartiledge would never harden...it hasn't. What struck me about this post after the affective reasoning, however, was how it had never even occurred to me to write about my ear. I think many times we try to think of something to write and can't come up with something; the task seems too daunting. I mean, what could I possibly have to write that would be of interest to anyone else? This one little detail about your ear, however, could open up a whole world of stories (or at least I could write pages on the experiences that center around this oddity of mine). The more I read of creative non-fiction, the more I am becoming convinced that the trick is to begin with the small details, keep writing, and see how it evolves. Or, at least, this seems like what is beginning to work best for me. Thank you for this snipit!

Junkyard quote 4, Week 2

"When Grandma Goes to Court" -title of an email my husband received...I saw it across the room and this is all I could read, but that sounds like a story I really want to hear.

Memory, Week 2

It was probably October when I first saw them, before time had fallen back. That's the only time in Carrollton, Georgia when the days are still alight at around seven o'clock, but the air also carries that crispness that's chill enough to be invigorating but not enough to freckle my legs with goosebumps. I don't remember where I was coming from; it could have been a late-ending class or even the library where I had been doing some research for a midterm paper, but as I crossed the quad, I first heard loud banging and then saw two figures going at each other with sticks. My first reaction was to alert the campus police, but I then realized that the figures were surrounded by a group of other people lounging on the grass in the slanting light and that one person watching leaned against a tree dressed in a police officer's uniform complete with a red patch of flame on the right shoulder. The two figures danced on tip-toe around one another, studying the others moves. One held a short stick in one hand and a makeshift shield in the other. As I got nearer, I noticed the unmistakable flash of a stop sign peak from the underside of the shield and heard the clash of solidity against metal as the other figure leveled a quick blow from over his head, the blow glanced of the shield, and he rebounded out of reach. This figure carried a stick that looked to be about twice the length of the other's, and which he wielded with both hands. This figure also wore a long black dress that was held tight against his chest by a leather vest of black and dark brown. Along what could be seen of his forearms were plates of some hard black material; his head was covered with a beaten, dark steel helm. He backpedaled away from the other figures advances, eventually blocking a blow with his long sword, dancing around to the the other's backside, and making ready to hit from behind. The other figure was quick, however, and the dark figure's jab only glanced off the edge of his shield. This figure was dressed in a white dress that was longer than the dark figure's. Something bulky was secured across his chest, but the dress was fitted over it. His hands were covered with bright silver metal and his helm hurt my eyes as it reflected the setting sun. I noted rather snidely to myself at the time that these two would make the perfect, stereotypical figures for a medieval fight of good and evil. Little did I know that "evil" would one day be my husband.

Junkyard quote 3, Week 2

"I ran out of shaving cream, and since you never use yours, I commandeered it." -my husband, to me, after which I promptly went and shaved my legs

Junkyard quote 2, week 2

"You have to wait three days to call a woman; it's what Jesus wants us to do." -Barney from the show "How I Met Your Mother"

Junkyard quote1, week 2

"Asshole." -my brother, Seth
Okay, so I realize this language isn't particularly poetic, but I think, under certain circumstances it can be really interesting. Take the instance under which I heard it: I've always been quicker with the comeback or the insult than my brother. I'm the wit in my family...that is until I married Chip (but that's another story). The point is, it kills my brother that he can't come up with retorts as quickly as I can, so "asshole" really means, "I can't think of anything to say, but I can't let you have the last word" when he says it. This detail, coupled with others of course, can be really telling about my brother because the subtext of what he says is often so much more interesting than what he actually says. That, to me, is the power of dialogue. While we may try to keep as true to what is actually said as possible, we can also teach our readers how to read that dialogue through the details surrounding that dialogue. In essence, we can make the words the people in our essays say, actually say so much more than the words, outside of context, could.

Original Prompt, Week 1

This is a prompt from Jo Ann Beard's "The Fourth State of Matter." In this essay, Beard tells about the murder of her friends and colleagues on a college campus. Interestingly enough, however, this horrific experience is not the sole subject of her essay. In her essay, Beard most definitely describes certain memories of her friends and describes, in rather muted detail, her friends' deaths, but much of the essay focuses on her husband who left her but continually calls and keeps himself fresh in her mind, her aging and dying collie, the family of squirrels that made a home in her spare bedroom and the friend who helped her get rid of them, etc. The tendency when thinking and writing about a traumatic experience would be to focus on that experience to the exclusion of other surrounding details, but here, Beard focuses on these other details and keeps herself from over-sentimentality and lends HER experience, more individual and personal, to what was a story on the news to most anyone else. It seems that this technique could prove quite useful in the writing of "big" memories and events. Think about some pivotal, horrific, or even sublimely happy event in your life and instead of focusing on the details of that one moment, focus on the life you lived around that event, the smaller details of your day, what you were doing a week/month/day/year before, who was close to you at the time, where you were and any time you may have been there before, etc. In short, focus on any detail that does not immediately link to the "big" experience and, in essence, write two or three, or even four, stories, only one of which is the "big" experience just to see how they may connect or throw one another into sharper relief.

Memory, Week 1

I remember thinking, "Damn, this place is going to be so crowded" as we pulled into sight of the Nassau port. Already moored were five cruise ships and we made number six. The Carnival Imagination tilted only slightly as the captain turned the ship out toward open ocean; apparently, ships large enough to contain a casino, putt-putt golf course, a pool, a water park, and god knows how many staterooms need a lot of room to turn around. This was all Hurricane Rina's fault. She had made places like Cozumel, Mexico undesirable locations in October of 2011, so every cruise line was redirecting their ships here.
It took me a while to understand why we were headed back out to open seas; "Did the captain change his mind?" I asked my new husband, Chip. "No, they're going to tug us in," he said. We made our way to the aft end of the ship, which I had come to affectionately call the "ass" end after mishearing what Chip had said the first time, and sure enough, a comparatively small boat was being attached to the ass end of our boat by tug lines that, from our height, looked like they'd snap if they tried to move this heavy lady. The lines pulled taught and as I watched the tug boat pull against the weight, I couldn't help but think "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." I didn't even notice that we were moving at first, the movement was too imperceptible to feel through the eleven stories of our ship, but then I noticed the slight whitening of the water at the edges of the ship's base.
I can only imagine how impossible and, okay, silly our huge cruise liner looked being backed into its parking space, nor do I even remotely pretend to understand how the little tug boat moved the huge ship, but as we disembarked and I saw the true breadth of the lines holding the boat in place, at least as big around as my new husband and then some, I realized, perspective is everything.

Junkyard quote 4, Week 1

"Okay, well we'll throw on a pair of pants and head on over."-my husband's best friend Ryan
"One pair between the two of you?" -my husband in response

Junkyard quote 3, week 1

"My wife says it's like Mardi Gras on steroids." -Trolley guide describing Fantasy Fest in Key West

Junkyard quote 2, Week 1

"My husband always says I apologize too much. He just doesn't understand; sometimes 'I'm sorry' doesn't mean 'I'm sorry.'"

Junkyard quote 1, week 1

While holding my two year-old nephew at the McDonald's playground he looks up at the plastic dolphins and manta rays hanging from the ceiling and says, "I not sceered" with a somewhat affected smile. What is interesting to me is that Kade is already learning socially conditioned responses such as the fact that boys are not supposed to admit fear. Kade, most certainly, was scared as he kept telling me to hold him and wouldn't let me put him down, and this quote, to me, illustrates not only social conditioning, but also the fact that, unlike in straight journalism, in creative non-fiction, sometimes what is said is not the complete story and that the hidden context can often be more interesting and telling.

Response to Susana's Junkyard quote 2 (week 1), week 1

I love the originality of what children say. I think that is what makes it almost harder to capture their character on paper than it is to capture what we think is the more complex adult. It's like my nephew, Kade, there are times when he says things that you know are merely parroting repetition of something he's heard his mother, father, or some other adult in his life say. In fact, one day my sister started noticing him saying something that sounded like "damn it," but she had no idea where he would have picked up that language (his family is very careful to watch what we say whenever we are around him), and thought it had to be something else that she just couldn't make out. It was about a week later, however, that he was standing in the kitchen "helping" his grandmother put up dishes out of the dishwasher that my mother dropped a spoon on the floor. In completely plain language, Kade said "Damn it, Bramma, you dropped a 'poon." The occasion of the five year-old boy Susana overheard is probably just like Kade, a repetition of something heard. I mean, how many times do you think both of those twin brothers have probably heard their mother chide them for being cranky? But then, there are other times that a child will say something that couldn't possibly have come from an adult; the language is too new, fresh, and unexpected to have been overheard and betrays and uniquely child-like perspective. It's this kind of material I hope to steal like crazy from my nephew this semester.

Oddity, Week 1

Growing up in the Bible Belt, the sight of a church of some denomination on just about every street corner never really seemed that odd to me. What I have begun to notice, however, are the billboards that now seem to appear in front of each of these churches. We've all seen these signs, I'm sure. They usually consist of the name of whatever church I may be passing in bold, solidly-scripted letters across the top and channels of plastic meant to hold removable letter cards so that the church can continually change their message. Some of these billboards display the name of the message that will flow from the pulpit the following Sunday and the verses of scripture on which the pastor, reverend, father, etc. will focus. Some of these billboards hold dates and times for important events at the church that week. These billboards make some sort of sense to me. They relay what I can only assume is valuable information to the churches parishoners. What seems strangely odd to me are the campy sayings that some churches put on their signs. Like the church I saw last summer in the humid Georgia heat that said "And you think it's hot here...," or the sign in front of the small church on a dirt road near my parents' house that looked like it could barely hold fifteen people and said "Hungry? Soul food served here," or the hopelessly cheesy saying found on the sign of a rather prominent church in Carrollton that said "Fight truth decay, read the Bible daily." I wondered where all of these saying were coming from and decided to do a little research. Apparently, there are whole websites devoted to the promotion and dispersion of these sayings. You can literally find categorized and sortable lists of sayings for any event or holiday. Now I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and still attend regularly, but I have to admit that I have absolutely no idea what these churches are hoping to accomplish by putting up these sayings.

Frescoes

Cobblestones thump softly under my flip-flops, the indentations of each stone smoothly pressing into my feet. In my hands I carry several bags full of tourist memorabilia: pashminas, Ciao Bella t-shirts, and the cool, Celtic bracelet that attaches itself to a ring of Celtic knots around my finger. “Molto delicate,” the trendy store owner had told me as she wrapped the silver in tissue paper and slipped it into a crimson paper bag sealed closed with a gold sticker. Now, outside the glass fronts of a long line of such trendy stores, heat rises like slithering phantoms from the Florence streets and disappears into the heavy summer air. People mill about, dark-haired, expressive-eyed Italians hurrying between the paler, wide-eyed tourists that periodically swoop in and out of these stores with familiarly foreign names: Dolce and Gabana, Gucci, Armani. Crowded buses creep like gorged caterpillars, huffing grey puffs of exhaust into the clear blue sky as business men in suits and ties swerve through the traffic, beeping the tinny horns of their Vespas.
Rounding the corner, the shiny fronts of cafés, boutiques, and tourism give way to the mud-caked, stone façade of an unfinished church. It’s just like Italians to put off what can be done tomorrow for a few centuries worth of tomorrows, displaying their procrastination as civic pride. Weathered stone steps ascend to the church’s heavy, wooden double doors, a grand platform for such a humble frontage. I finger the intricate carvings etched into the doors’ rich surface and smoothed by uncounted hands before my own. Leaning against the portals and escaping the heat, I duck into the refuge of the cavernous church.
Here, all is cool, dark, and quiet. Small candles flicker along the walls, casting their light on the upturned, ecstatic faces of stone saints. I am not Catholic, yet still the scene evokes a sense of deep respect, a feeling of smallness, inadequacy, before the God that could excite such devotion in men. The bright, white walls and dark red pews of my own, familiar Southern Baptist church reflect nothing so reverent, yet even here, though their tones are hushed, the general murmur of tourists echoes against the tall, frescoed ceiling.
My skirt’s sheer, black fabric brushes against my bare legs as I drift down the center aisle and slide into a pew in the center of the church. Supported by rows of thick, white columns, the vaulted ceiling weighs down on those below, dampening the source of the noise it magnifies. A naturally lit dome brightens the space directly above my head, filters the light downward into the church’s dimmest recesses. And I sit, ankles crossed, shopping bags gathered around my feet, hands folded in my lap, listening, looking.
To my right, an elderly Asian man drops his glossy souvenir bags into his wife’s waiting hands and pulls the camera hanging around his neck to his eye. I watch as the pair make their way around the room, pausing at each statue, each altar, only long enough for the man to snap a picture before moving on to the next, then the next, the next, then out the door. They must hurry; they have so much to see.
A few pews ahead of where I sit, a blonde boy of about eight also sits with his feet dangling, his elbows on his knees, and his face in his hands. He swings his feet, stretching to scuff the toe of his sneaker against the tile floor until he jerks his head upward and runs to a young couple standing nearby. Although I do not denotatively understand him—except enough to know he is speaking German—his whining tone translates well enough for me, “Can we go yet?” A quick look at his mother’s face and the resulting slump of his shoulders and dejected trudge back to his seat, also tell me that she has replied “no” and that he realizes the futility of further badgering.
Backed against one of the columns that line the aisle leading to the altar, an old man with salt and pepper hair and eyes clear and bright as a mountain stream, sits hunched on a rickety stool, a sketch pad open across his lap. A couple of charcoal pencils peek out from his breast pocket and one rests lightly in his hand. His fingertips are blackened and trace a slight shadow across his forehead as he pushes his hair from his face and looks up to eye the statue opposite him. Watching his eyes searching, studying, darting back and forth from statue to paper, I come to understand that shading a drawing of a statue displaying so many folds of fabric must be rather difficult. His weathered and knotted hands, however, make smooth strokes of his work. Quick flicks of his wrist accentuate detail. Deliberate presses of his fingertips smudge in shadow and dimension. Or at least that is what happens as the picture his movements form in my mind takes shape, but he is too far away for me to see his drawing. Perhaps he doesn’t even sketch the statue.
Perhaps, instead, he sketches the woman who, for as long as he has been sketching, has been standing staring into the face of the figure I assumed was his focus. Perhaps his smooth strokes trace the length of her hair as it falls down her back. Perhaps the quick flicks of his wrist sketch in her folded arms, one hand reaching upward to rest right below her lips. Perhaps the darting of his eyes is to catch every detail, hurrying back and forth in fear that she might move before he is finished. As she turns and walks away, I wonder if he had enough time to capture her sad expression, the lowered arch of her eyebrows, the slight downward turn at the corners of her mouth, or the way that one strand of hair wouldn’t stay out of her face no matter how many times she brushed it away.
To my left, I hear the musical sounds of an Italian woman speaking softly. I turn to see an elderly woman leading a young girl by the hand. Pausing next to one of the smaller altars lining the walls, the old woman kneels and motions for the girl to do the same. The little girl kneels and her large, dark eyes look up into the face of a figure of Jesus with a radiant heart painted upon his chest. Touching her head, chest, and shoulders, the girl crosses herself and bows her head. Her eyes close tightly as her little lips move quietly in her smooth round face. The elderly woman beside her periodically peers over at her, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
Suddenly feeling rather intrusive, I pull my eyes away from the little girl who, in my mind, has begun to resemble the cloud-lying cherubim that adorn the ceiling and scan the room until my eyes meet a pair staring straight into mine. These eyes peer out of a sun-swept face under honey-colored hair and, like me, she is probably in her early twenties. Slightly embarrassed, we both quickly look away and I begin gathering my bags. Stepping out into the aisle, I file past her, noting the several bags also lying about her feet and make my way to the door. Pushing it open, the heat and noise of a busy city greet me. Molto delicate, the moment is gone, fades away like frescoes on a church wall.

Mawnkey

“Mawnkey” he says pointing a long, skinny finger at me through the chain link. I smile, but just in case I didn’t understand him, Francesco says one more time “mawnkey,” rolling his arm upward to scratch beneath his armpit, the other arm hanging limply, swaying from side to side in some prehistoric, Neanderthal dance. At this point, Christina, Brandy, and I are laughing, not so much at Francesco’s joke, (I mean, let’s face it, I’ve been called worse than a monkey.) but at the sheer absurdity of a tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, twenty-five year-old Italian guy mimicking an ape just to make sure that I understand that he is calling me the one English word he knows.
In the three weeks we have known Francesco, this is the first time he has spoken any English except in parroting repetition, and now, feeling sufficiently adored, Francesco resumes his soccer game. He walks away from us, goofy smile on his face, muscular legs protruding from shorts short enough to make any American guy uncomfortable.
“So he does know some English,” Brandy says.
“Yeah, and now he’s so proud of himself for making us laugh. He’ll be calling us
mawnkeys for the next three weeks,” Christina says staring across the field at him. Turning back to me, she continues. “Seriously, you’ve already got one, so why do all the rest of them feel the need to flirt with you too? Can you please just share SOME of the Italian boys?”
“Aww, did you want Francesco to call YOU a monkey, Christina?” Brandy mocks, a smile playing its way into her eyes.
Again, they are laughing as I turn my attention back to the guy Christina says I’ve “got.” Unlike Francesco, Andréa Miceli fits the Italian stereotype, short to medium build, dark hair, equally dark eyes, olive skin. He even works in the wine shop his family owns. I met him after only three days in Montepulciano, Italy. His older brother, Eliseo (who HAS taken an interest in Christina, by the way), works as a waiter in the restaurant where our study abroad group eats every night. Eli is a warm guy with a broad smile and a fairly good conversational English, so my table of University of West Georgia students took to him almost immediately. So much so, that we invited him to come to Café Polizziano for coffee with us after he got off work that first night we were here. He came, and two days later he brought Andréa with him.
Always the leader, Eli was the first to come into the café that night. It wasn’t until they had almost reached our table, that I realized there was even someone with him. Eli slid into the tan, leather seat across from me and suddenly I found myself staring at a pair of what we Americans had come to affectionately call man-pris, a navy blue fannypack and a fitted black shirt with the word Yes in white block letters printed across it. As Andréa slid into the booth, his face slid down to eyelevel and stopped directly across the round table from me. Andréa was quiet, reserved, mirroring nothing of the open, jovial mood of his brother, but I often caught him looking at me as our group of about five American students were tutored in the Italian language by his brother. Noticing me notice him, Andréa would smile, but quickly look away, usually dropping his eyes to the glass of Coke in front of him.
Later, our group filed out of the café and walked the wrong way down the one-way streets of Montepulciano, my flip-flops slapping the ground beneath me. Even warned that Italian girls don’t generally wear shorts as short as American girls do, I had packed and was wearing a light blue pair of jersey cheerleading shorts and the cool summer breeze felt wonderful against my bare legs. While the others stayed to the main road through town, it wasn’t long before I was ducking away alone to explore the smaller side roads, rejoining the group as the streets looped around and emptied back into the main thuroughfare. As I sneaked off to one such road, I heard a heavy accent behind me,
“Where she go?”
“She has a habit of wandering off; she’ll be back,” my friend Nick laughed.
I rounded a corner onto an amazing view, or what I assumed in the daylight would be an amazing view of Italy’s domesticated, pastoral beauty, but that was then an amazing view of darkness pricked a million times with pinpoints of light. I climbed onto the wall overlooking the valley that fell away into the darkness when the same heavy accent startled me.
“You fall.”
I turned to find that Andréa had followed me. Ignoring the hand he held open to me, I practiced walking the balance beam across the wide wall.
“You fall,” he said again, taking my hand before I had time to deny it. Laughing, I pulled my hand away and jumped off of the wall myself.
“What do you call the stars?” I asked.
“Stelle.”
“Stelle?”
“You speak good Italian.”
“Si,” I laughed.
“Why you walk solo…only?”
Ignoring the question I caught up with the others.
“See. I told you she’d be back.” Nick told Andréa. “He wanted to make sure you’d be okay.”
I spent the rest of the night asking Andréa to name random things in Italian, and he spent the remainder accompanying me on my “solo” excursions and stealing brief glances in my direction.
Tonight at his soccer game, however, Andréa looks over openly and frequently to make sure I’m watching him. Each time a smile spreads across his face momentarily before he sprints back into the game. Running around in his red and black AC Milan jersey and black shorts, he almost looks professional until he stops to look at me. Then, he looks much like a child just learning to play, scanning the sidelines for his mother and father’s approving faces. The first night he asked me to come watch him and his friends play, I believe he thought I would say no. “Yes?” he said, for yes was always a question with him. The truth is, I love soccer and had played it in high school, but the doubt was apparent on his face when I told him this. I soon learned why. Their soccer game was now a weekly event for Christina, Brandy, and me, but not one time that we came did we ever see any other girls there, although many of Andréa’s friends assured us that they had girlfriends.
“Girls don’t like soccer,” Andréa had told me. Even when I assured him that that was most certainly not the case, and that I had even played co-ed soccer, WITH BOYS, in high school, I still had yet to receive an invitation to play with these boys. But he was right, the concrete bleachers beside the field did remain empty except for three American girls, two of which sat and talked most of the time, waiting for the guys to be done so we could go out to a restaurant, and one of which wished she could play rather than watch.
But now the guys are finishing up, filing off of the field, and I look back at Christina and Brandy. They are huddled over Brandy’s I-pod, filing through what seems an endless list of music. “I have Brass Monkey on here” Brandy beams. “I’m gonna let Francesco listen to it” Christina says taking the player from Brandy’s outstretched hand. They run over to Francesco, pushing the buds into his ears. He waits, eyes glancing upward to the right, expectant, bouncing his head with the beat until he latches onto the one word he knows. “Mawnkey!” he yells over the music and our laughter. From the corner of my eye, I see a soccer ball skirting toward me and instinctively my foot is out to stop it, shift it to my right foot, and pass back to whoever it got away from. Andréa stands, hands on his hips, smiling at me. Smirking I take a soft, chip shot on him, hitting him square in the stomach. Laughing, he feigns injury as he follows Francesco to the showers in the field house. I rejoin Christina and Brandy on the bleachers as the sound of running water and a clear, distinct voice rise from the building. “Na nana na na MAWNKEY na nana na na MAWNKEY.”