Pg. 1088 #4

When I think of a love song I always think of the song “When You Say Nothing At All” by Alison Krauss. I suppose it is the first song to come to my mind because it is what I imagine love to be like. The thematic similarity that I take from a contemplation of this song and the poems in this section has the most to do with how when someone is in love, everything else fades away. For example in the song I chose it says “without saying a word, you can light up the dark” and the poem entitled “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” states that the narrator will “make thee beds of roses”, I say that it shows that love makes everything else fade away because its thematic theme usage of importance and grand nature of love displays real life, no we usually do not literally make the one we love a “bed of roses” and it is not really true that someone’s words can “light up the dark” but I do think that this is what love makes you feel. It is the reason why people go back for more even after they have been hurt. Love is too grandiose and singular to be left alone. I think happy love songs and poems convey the singular nature of love, these poems brim with longing and impossibility because in many ways this is what love is all about, the struggle and mystery. Although as time goes by words and what they mean change, I think the basic emotion behind some things and topics remain. Love is one of those things and topics, in looking over the poems I noticed that they, for the most part, display and also convey not just the longing that love can create but also the exhilaration that it can evoke. This was really interesting to me because a lot of modern songs convey the exact same principle. “When You Say Nothing at All” is one of those songs, it is one of happy love but it also conveys a longing for the subject of the song and an exhilaration over that subject. When I listen to it, it reminds me of something being like new, it reminds me that love makes everything fresh and exciting. Even if you sit on a couch and just watch a movie with someone your in love with, it will feel like the best thing in the world even if you have done it a thousand times. I think these elements are universal and timeless. No matter what country, race, religion or era you come from some things are universal and unchanging. The poem entitled “Song” is not a happy view on love, but the others are more hopeful. “Song” conveys the realistic aspect of love, the aspect that is practical and the one that knows that you cannot live off of love, no matter how much you might want to. This realistic point of view is not really echoed in the other works nor is it reflected in the song I chose for comparison.

What Myths can teach us about ourselves

By studying and comparing different cultures creation myths I feel that we can learn a lot about how we as a society act, now individuals act and how our ancestors felt and thought. Cultures create creation myths to explain a world that seems so random and violent. From the beginning of time Man has been faced with many problems, the biggest of which probably being death and the universal question of what our purpose here on Earth is. Creation myths in a way answer these questions because many cultures such as the Greek feel that Man was created by Gods. I think beliefs such as this show that man has an instinctual need to feel that there is an order to our world and a reason for every act. I think because our ancestors faced such unique trials in terms of survival, they created Deities that they felt could control the life around them. I have heard of many that think that religions such as Christianity tie into and evolved in some way from stories such as the one of Zeus, being a son of a Titan and taking control. Many see a strong link between Zeus and his human like image as being very similar to the Christian portrayal of Jesus as human like. Whether or not you agree is really a moot point because I do not really take this to mean that God and Jesus are a fairy tale but I do feel that in ancient times people needed to feel that there was something they could look to for protection and meaning. In terms of how individuals acts I think that in the majority they feel a sense of security in their creation myths because they do imply that there is an order to the world and by extension an order and meaning to the world of Man. Regarding what creation myths can each us about ourselves today I think that they can really teach us a lot. I think the fact that so many of us are so interested in creation myths and myths in general show that as a culturally diverse world, we all still search for meaning and purpose in our lives. So many books have been written concerning such myths and much analysis has been done in regards to them and this shows a clear interest in them in not only what they can teach us about the world and its order but also what basic human need is. Which is to know everything, as a species we always want to know everything about every aspect of our lives, and I think this is directly influenced by the existence of the myths but I also think that this need to know is also why creation myths were created in the first place. I believe that creation myths taken alone are very interesting and creative. When you consider and take into account the people who create these myths, you can then achieve some small semblance of the connection we share with them, which is one made up of the desire to find meaning for our own fragile existence.

Bees

In the beginning of the novel Lily does not seem to be overtly racist or prejudiced. She seems to be an inherently kind and observant young girl who does not seem to me to believe that her race is superior just different from that of the Black community. I did get the sense though that being brought up in the South in this time period and with such a Father gave her a skewed outlook on the Black community. For example, when Lily first meets Zach she was really taken aback by the fact that she found him good looking and attractive to her. She was taken aback because she was so used to other people, both young and old, looking down upon Black features as bad or unattractive that she never really questioned it until now. Prior to this, when Lily breaks Rosaleen out of the Hospital she takes control from the get go and eventually Rosaleen takes offense to this because Lily is treating her like the other white members of the community do, as someone who is too slow or simple to take care of her let alone the both of them. These examples and other similar ones did not make me see Lily in a bad light because you cannot help but be a product of your environment, to an extent we are all products of our individual environments. The difference with Lily is that Lily did not blindly follow along the path she was set down upon. She loved Rosaleen as a mother figure and she risked her own life and safety to rescue her. Her concept of race did indeed change, but she was never a hard core “racist” or bigot to begin with. I think deep down inside she always knew that color is the most insignificant factor of a human being. When Lily first meets August, May and June I did not get the sense that she was amazed that Black women were the source of the Black Virgin Mary card rather it seemed as if she was most amazed at their way of life and its dream like quality. To Lily it was a haven and even after May has died and the police man tells her she should not “lower” herself to living in a Negro house she pays no heed because through her time spent with them she has realized more so than ever how inconsequential color is. Rather than saying Lily’s concept of race has evolved I would say it rather expanded. By living in such a strong minority household, one made up entirely of strong Black women, showed her how wrong judgment based on race is. As Lily said, after spending a good deal of time with the women, she wished God has erased any concept of skin color. I think August especially expanded Lily’s mind and what she thought, she became a substitute mother for her, the hearth fire that Lily saw in Augusts’ eyes called to her and told her that she would find unconditional love and acceptance in her. These “calendar girls” and Rosaleen called them showed Lily how race should be and how it is. In society race is a ball and chain when it should be as unimportant and meaningful as shoe size.

Wriitng Topic #1 pg. 1326

My sophomore year of High School my Mother got really sick and she had to stay in the hospital for about two weeks and the only time I got to see her was on the weekends during visiting hours in a hospital that I still get nervous to even drive by. I was only fifteen years old and it seemed that at that age I needed her most, for comfort, advice and simple understanding. My Dad worked long hours so my paternal grandmother, someone I was never able to get that close to, came out from Los Angeles to “watch” out for us and although I do love her and it was nice to have someone there as a distraction, it just was not the same as having your own mother there. In those two weeks it seemed that I became like an Ostrich, I say ostrich because similar to that animal I tried to bury my head in the sand and shut out all the bad things around them and the world. Obviously I did not literally go out into my backyard and bury my head in the dirt. However, during those two weeks I tried to stay out of my house and I stuck to my friends as if they were my life lines and in many ways they were. I looked on them in this way because I did not want to feel the fear that my Mother was not coming back or that I would never see her again. Every chance I got, I would go over to a friends house, go to the mall or even do the homework that I so hated just to keep myself busy and preoccupied so I would not have to feel that fear. Like the Ostrich who shuts itself off from the world, I tried to shut myself off from feelings that I did not want to deal with. I did not feel comfortable confiding in either my father, grandmother or my friends about what I was feeling, yet I looked to those friends to provide a distraction. I never really told them where my mother was because I did not want to talk about it, I looked on them as a distraction so I hid anything and everything about the situation that I could because the whole point of a distraction is to forget about something. At the time it seemed like my only option because I felt like it was essential that every other aspect of my life stay the same because I felt that if I could control part of it, the whole situation would follow along and nothing bad would happen. But I think that being like an Ostrich all through that experience hurt me more than it helped me because I never really dealt with how I felt. Like they say, unfortunately it is the hard times we experience that make us grow and later in life such times actually help us to deal with tough situations that arise, and all I can remember about that time has to do with how my entire attention was focused on just getting through it and not dealing with it. But I do wish that I had let myself experience the whole thing because those times do really make you who you are and I think times like that can make you stronger and im sorry that I did not give myself the time to work through that and confide in someone.