I've had a practicality crush on my mechanic Mitch for over four years.
Not many women swoon over the idea of marrying for the cause of automotive reasonableness. Not many would look into a man's brown eyes and think "You look so... Steady and capable, and no one invoices their wife for marked up car parts or service time- right? So..."
I've spent hours and hours sitting in the brightly lit, oil perfumed waiting room at my mechanics over the six years I've been driving my little Ford Thunderbird. I've made weekend plans there, finished math homework for undergrad education classes there, read dystopian novels there, and, fortunately for you and my future grandchildren (who will probably be reading this on their transmission devices (thanks for imagining the future for us, Star Wars) ), I have also blogged there.
When I think about all that has happened in the four years since I last wrote about marrying my mechanic (which you can read here), I'm... Silenced. That 18 year old Jazmin had no idea what was going to hit her. She was always sitting at the counter in Bellatazza, looking down Minnesota Avenue and blithely ranting about how Disney princesses are distorting our worldview and dreaming about being a kindergarten teacher. I loved Mae and Toms and sad classical novels. I was quiet about the things I wanted and shouted the things I thought others wanted to hear. I spent a good chunk of my life thinking that, if the whole mechanic thing didn't work out, I could be quite happily covenanted to my doctorate degree and adopt kids on my own. When I was 18, I couldn't imagine life outside of Bend, let alone in South America.
I am thankful with my whole heart that I'm not 18 anymore, and that God has graciously allowed me to grow, to experience, and to dream bigger dreams. 22 year old Jazmin is less "outgoing" and far more brave, more adventerous, and she knows what she want in life. I'm thankful to be sore every day, to be spending so much intentional time with friends, to simplify my life down to what I NEED.
Fittingly, the day I found out that my mechanic got married is the same day I found out my car is loudly and agonizingly dying. It's time for a new dream.
Love,
J.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Monday, May 27, 2013
Why I still have to marry a mechanic: Ode to my Thunderbird
This is another short little essay for my Nonfiction English Class. The prompt was 500 words on "Cars." Just for fun, my professor said we could submit these essays to the "Readers Write" section in The Sun Magazine.
Well-meaning friends and gas station attendants always ask what happened to my passenger side mirror. “It fell off somewhere,” I answer profoundly, and usually they have no further questions.
I would like to think that my 90’s radio antenna was transported to that same fabled “somewhere,” along with whatever metal gizmo made my heater work before it corroded into rusty scraps and left me to slam the glovebox while driving over a speed bump to kindle some warmth from the deep caverns of the heating mechanism.
Hopefully the clinking part that once permitted the unlocking of my passenger side door has gone to rest there as well. The trigger inside the seatbelt that made it lock properly without surgical maneuvering on part of the buckler must be there, too. I sincerely desire that the never-seen cog or wheel that transmits washing fluid from some container under the hood to my windshield, cleaning it so that I don’t have to keep a spray bottle of Windex behind my seat, has joined them. Maybe the missing link that makes my cruise control engage is also part of their company.
The myth of the elephants’ graveyard originated from old stories of hunters and people groups finding elephant skeletons congregated together. It has been romanticized that old elephants make pilgrimage to the graveyard when their time has come. Others speculate that elephants band together in times of famine or disease and then all die, littering their bones to rot within close proximity to one another. The elephants’ graveyard as depicted in the Lion King was terrifying, I’m sure you remember it, full of dark shadows cast by sharp bones onto piles of ashes. Also: hyenas and green hellfire.
I imagine that these spiritually dead parts of my car have also found each other, after acknowledging that their time had come to an end. The hellfire in this elephants’ graveyard of car parts is fueled by dozens of paper receipts from visits to the mechanic, the auto parts store, and grocery stores that sell motor oil and ice scrapers. The shadows in this graveyard are freakishly grotesque, mechanical and oily. The wind slinking around the parts sounds like the regretful sighs of my father, when I tell him about this noise or that piece that’s hanging down. I sometimes don’t tell him about the horrible soul-wrenching sounds that come from my car. Don’t sounds usually go away like colds if you just wait long enough? Additionally, I want to avoid those sighs of his and the responsibility they make me feel, for it was me who wanted to buy it; “Please, daddy.” However, after ignoring a certain sound for too long and burning through my brakes to whatever nasty noisy part is behind the brakes, I had to adopt plan B, consult my dad, and get the brakes replaced.
For all of my efforts to be a self-sufficient, wise, worldly, sassy, and trash-talking woman of 21 who doesn’t need a man to take care of her, darn it, I am still a pitiful pouting Sleeping Beauty when it comes to my car.
---------------------------
Well-meaning friends and gas station attendants always ask what happened to my passenger side mirror. “It fell off somewhere,” I answer profoundly, and usually they have no further questions.
I would like to think that my 90’s radio antenna was transported to that same fabled “somewhere,” along with whatever metal gizmo made my heater work before it corroded into rusty scraps and left me to slam the glovebox while driving over a speed bump to kindle some warmth from the deep caverns of the heating mechanism.
Hopefully the clinking part that once permitted the unlocking of my passenger side door has gone to rest there as well. The trigger inside the seatbelt that made it lock properly without surgical maneuvering on part of the buckler must be there, too. I sincerely desire that the never-seen cog or wheel that transmits washing fluid from some container under the hood to my windshield, cleaning it so that I don’t have to keep a spray bottle of Windex behind my seat, has joined them. Maybe the missing link that makes my cruise control engage is also part of their company.
The myth of the elephants’ graveyard originated from old stories of hunters and people groups finding elephant skeletons congregated together. It has been romanticized that old elephants make pilgrimage to the graveyard when their time has come. Others speculate that elephants band together in times of famine or disease and then all die, littering their bones to rot within close proximity to one another. The elephants’ graveyard as depicted in the Lion King was terrifying, I’m sure you remember it, full of dark shadows cast by sharp bones onto piles of ashes. Also: hyenas and green hellfire.
I imagine that these spiritually dead parts of my car have also found each other, after acknowledging that their time had come to an end. The hellfire in this elephants’ graveyard of car parts is fueled by dozens of paper receipts from visits to the mechanic, the auto parts store, and grocery stores that sell motor oil and ice scrapers. The shadows in this graveyard are freakishly grotesque, mechanical and oily. The wind slinking around the parts sounds like the regretful sighs of my father, when I tell him about this noise or that piece that’s hanging down. I sometimes don’t tell him about the horrible soul-wrenching sounds that come from my car. Don’t sounds usually go away like colds if you just wait long enough? Additionally, I want to avoid those sighs of his and the responsibility they make me feel, for it was me who wanted to buy it; “Please, daddy.” However, after ignoring a certain sound for too long and burning through my brakes to whatever nasty noisy part is behind the brakes, I had to adopt plan B, consult my dad, and get the brakes replaced.
For all of my efforts to be a self-sufficient, wise, worldly, sassy, and trash-talking woman of 21 who doesn’t need a man to take care of her, darn it, I am still a pitiful pouting Sleeping Beauty when it comes to my car.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Postcard.
This is another nonfiction essay assignment.
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I am using a postcard from Washington, D.C. as a bookmark in Moby Dick. Kaitlyn, who has never been to Washington, D.C., but does love collecting other peoples’ postcards, sent it to me with a filled-out punch card to Townshends tea house downtown unceremoniously taped to it. Her benediction states “Take yourself (and a friend) our for a cuppa on me! XO, K.” So, with this postcard, she sent me a cup of tea. The “Message Here” segment on back of the card (except for the place where she had taped the punch card) is crowded with her endearingly illegible cursive, leaping awkwardly across the cardstock with all the grace of a beautiful, dying bird dropping out of the sky.
The postcard could not exist without the standard postage rate stamp. When postcard stamps were first introduced in July 1928, they cost one cent. 40 years later, they cost five cents. This year postcard stamps cost 33 cents.
I am nine. “I’m going to write myself a postcard so I can remember this!” After this proclamation, I scrawl about the meal we are eating at the Sisters diner, the antique shops we visited, how much fun I am having, and how much I love my aunt from Florida. I truly believe that, if I do not write as much as possible on this postcard, these memories will be lost. I will surely forget everything as soon as I arrive home. So, as I scribble on the card with a gel pen, I imagine my extreme delight when I open the mail box to find a postcard from myself that will remind me of how much fun I had in Sisters on that day long ago, last week.
Postcards owe their existence to Dr. Heinrich von Stephan, a German postal official. However, while the Germans were busy debating the value and practicality of a card with a universal stamp that could be purchased before being mailed, the Austrians put it into use in 1869, a year before the Germans. The United States began using the postcard in 1873. The postcard has always represented a snapshot of someone’s travels or daily life, and is the only such snapshot that can be affixed with a stamp, tossed in a mailbox, and delivered to the recipient, all without an envelope.
Finding blank postcards in a thrift or antique shop is always a bittersweet discovery for me, not entirely unlike finding a treasure chest beneath the clutching hand of a corpse, though less morbid and ghastly. I flip through the stack, and wonder who purchased that postcard from the Alamo, packed it up carefully, so as to avoid creases in the cardstock, brought it home by car or air or train or boat, over some hundred miles, and then donated it to Goodwill in company with old dishes and outgrown shoes. Postcards have to be the most disappointed of all inanimate paper products. They are manufactured with a destiny in mind; to offer the selected recipient a brief glimpse of your travels or your hometown. Postcards are potential moments of intimate handwritten connection, sparse and intentional lines of text meant to share the story of a journey or the feeling of walking down an unfamiliar, or familiar, street. However, for those homeless postcards that were never addressed, never allowed to achieve their sole purpose, there is a sort of transition house here in this cardboard box in the thrift store. Old postcards can experience a rebirth here. They are offered a second chance to fulfill their mission to deliver news too romantic or brief to be shared in a letter. “I am offering these postcards a second chance at life,” I say to myself, walking with my head a little higher towards the cash register. Does that make me some sort of postcard hero?
---------------------------
I am using a postcard from Washington, D.C. as a bookmark in Moby Dick. Kaitlyn, who has never been to Washington, D.C., but does love collecting other peoples’ postcards, sent it to me with a filled-out punch card to Townshends tea house downtown unceremoniously taped to it. Her benediction states “Take yourself (and a friend) our for a cuppa on me! XO, K.” So, with this postcard, she sent me a cup of tea. The “Message Here” segment on back of the card (except for the place where she had taped the punch card) is crowded with her endearingly illegible cursive, leaping awkwardly across the cardstock with all the grace of a beautiful, dying bird dropping out of the sky.
The postcard could not exist without the standard postage rate stamp. When postcard stamps were first introduced in July 1928, they cost one cent. 40 years later, they cost five cents. This year postcard stamps cost 33 cents.
I am nine. “I’m going to write myself a postcard so I can remember this!” After this proclamation, I scrawl about the meal we are eating at the Sisters diner, the antique shops we visited, how much fun I am having, and how much I love my aunt from Florida. I truly believe that, if I do not write as much as possible on this postcard, these memories will be lost. I will surely forget everything as soon as I arrive home. So, as I scribble on the card with a gel pen, I imagine my extreme delight when I open the mail box to find a postcard from myself that will remind me of how much fun I had in Sisters on that day long ago, last week.
Postcards owe their existence to Dr. Heinrich von Stephan, a German postal official. However, while the Germans were busy debating the value and practicality of a card with a universal stamp that could be purchased before being mailed, the Austrians put it into use in 1869, a year before the Germans. The United States began using the postcard in 1873. The postcard has always represented a snapshot of someone’s travels or daily life, and is the only such snapshot that can be affixed with a stamp, tossed in a mailbox, and delivered to the recipient, all without an envelope.
Finding blank postcards in a thrift or antique shop is always a bittersweet discovery for me, not entirely unlike finding a treasure chest beneath the clutching hand of a corpse, though less morbid and ghastly. I flip through the stack, and wonder who purchased that postcard from the Alamo, packed it up carefully, so as to avoid creases in the cardstock, brought it home by car or air or train or boat, over some hundred miles, and then donated it to Goodwill in company with old dishes and outgrown shoes. Postcards have to be the most disappointed of all inanimate paper products. They are manufactured with a destiny in mind; to offer the selected recipient a brief glimpse of your travels or your hometown. Postcards are potential moments of intimate handwritten connection, sparse and intentional lines of text meant to share the story of a journey or the feeling of walking down an unfamiliar, or familiar, street. However, for those homeless postcards that were never addressed, never allowed to achieve their sole purpose, there is a sort of transition house here in this cardboard box in the thrift store. Old postcards can experience a rebirth here. They are offered a second chance to fulfill their mission to deliver news too romantic or brief to be shared in a letter. “I am offering these postcards a second chance at life,” I say to myself, walking with my head a little higher towards the cash register. Does that make me some sort of postcard hero?
Sunday, April 21, 2013
In Company with the Little Lady (Personal Essay No. 1 Revision No. 2)
This essay is still in progress and I am still seeking feedback and criticism!
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In case you have not yet experienced the joy of summertime in Bend, I need you to know that it is lovely. The light is all roses and gold and the air is both crisp and soft. I do not have words tender enough to describe all the green things growing out of the ground, or the way people’s eyes light up when they see them in the park. The people of Bend, natives and visitors alike, love summer. It can be seen on their faces by the way their smiles change from looking dutiful and required, like taxes, to organically manifesting between sunburned, freckled cheeks. It is as if the smile cannot help but appear there. Summertime; sometimes when I am sitting near a window and sunlight warms my face I imagine that I am there, in summer. There are so many things to keep one company in summer, it is nearly impossible to be lonely with all the new grass growing under one’s feet.
This story is not really about summer in Bend, but it creates a lovely scene, does it not? It is hard to describe something so beautiful without using beautiful words, making the description sound like it belongs in some well-written book. Maybe that’s why my grammie loved summertime in Bend; because it reminded her of a passage out of a book. I do not know if that is true, but it makes me smile.
I remember an afternoon in the summer, which I have established as being wonderful, when grammie and grandpa were visiting. Grammie and I were in the music room at my parents’ house. There was a big bay window opening up into the summer light before us, baby grand piano on the right. She was sitting on that rocking recliner she and grandpa had reupholstered for my dad years earlier. I always felt a kinship with the fishermen on the fabric, endlessly casting their lines into a pond made of thread, surrounded by grass composed of the same. Grammie was likely wearing some handmade purple floral polyester ensemble like she usually did. She often made her own clothes, because she preferred to be comfortable and she preferred her clothes to be purple. It was, after all, her favorite color. I still think of her when I see it. Her feet were probably tucked into work Birkenstocks.
I do not remember what my eight-year-old self was doing before she called me over, or what I was wearing. I do know that it was just the two of us in the room, it was afternoon, and it was summer.
She held the book near her chest, her heart, as she explained its significance to me. “I’ve had this book for a long time,” she said, her age-spotted hands tenderly holding the aged yellow pages. Grammie looked at the book the way other people look at photographs of their favorite childhood friend; knowingly, fondly, with a soft sigh of remembrance. The worn pages of the book were bound together between a threadbare cover, so the word “bound” is used very loosely. I recognized it as she held it, I think, like it was a book she had read to me before. Maybe she hadn’t. But I remember looking at it, seriously, as if it was a book I already knew well. She warned me to not let it fall open as she passed it to me, and I felt its weight in my hands. I can no longer recall whether she or my dad used packing tape to reinforce the binding of the book, an ungraceful attempt at slowing the deterioration that had already begun. Pages, pictures, and stories gone missing, numbered sheets out of their intended sequence. Deterioration and aging happens quietly without begging our permission or pardon. We all make ungraceful attempts to slow it. Sometimes I ponder how afraid we are of something falling into pieces and returning to the dust. Does that slow and quiet death remind us of ourselves? Or, are we simply determined to maintain our lives and objects in a state of beauty, not because of fear, but because we really believe they should be beautiful, as if it is a birthright? Is it a fear of detached covers and lost pages that cause us to tape up the bindings of books, or is it a desire to make sure we can read the story again? Do we mourn death or celebrate lives at funerals?
The summer light coming through the window must have been beautiful when I held the book close to my own chest, my own heart. Grammie then said that we should write my name in the cover of the book. I opened the cover carefully and saw her name there; Lois Burnett, and next to it the name of her sister who died while she was still small; Gladys Burnett. The date noted next to their names was 1939. I knew then that it was not a mere book that I was holding in my hands. It was part of her memories, of her sister, moving throughout Oregon, settling in her own home in Lebanon, and raising her three children. She carried that book with her for over 60 years before handing it to me. I am sure that there were many times, many difficult moves or rough years when it would have been easy to lose such an item.
I watched her with a young amazement as she wrote on the inside cover with that elegant, graceful script I have always admired;
“To Jazmin Julene Miller
This was a special
book to me, and I
hope you will feel
it is special too.”
I read the book several times after that, with her and by myself. The title was (and still is) The Little Lady: Her Book, and was published in 1901. Just as the title suggests the stories it contains are about a little girl. She and her parents reside in in the House of Many Windows, which is what she calls the apartment building she lives in, though she knows “it is really a great castle, with dungeons beneath and battlements at the top...” (p. 11). She takes outings in town with her father, Big Man, and goes to the sea, and has puppies, and eats sweets, sometimes before dinner.
The Little Lady and I were reunited last year when I read the book again. I cried. The book was as sweet as I remembered, but I couldn’t tell grammie how much I still loved it because she had already passed away. I realize that she likely had no doubt that I would always love the book, but I still wish that I could tell her. I would tell her how much I love the graceful font of the title on the cover, the illustrations that were intended to be black and white but were colored in by some child less precocious than I. I still love the book, the words of the story, the words on the paper, the words in my hands. I am now far beyond the fear I felt when it was first handed to me, like I should encase it in glass and titanium, but I am thankful for the packing tape on the binding, because I plan on reading it to my children. Until then, it sits in a place of honor in company with other old and beautiful books that I have collected.
Maybe I picked up those other old books because I wanted the Little Lady to never be lonely. I found them, brought them to my house, adopted them, and they all became a family. At least that’s what I would like to believe. I imagine that the Little Lady and Jo March and Tom Sawyer and talking horses from Narnia all sit down for tea together on a regular basis because they so conveniently abide on a shelf together.
I have been many things, but lonely was never really one of them. I think this is due in large part to grammie. She introduced me to many friends that live within the covers of books. They helped keep me company even after she died, though they all had a sad look between their eyes because she would never be narrating them again.
Family was always so important to her. That’s why she loved her children and her grandkids so well. She loved having us together at Thanksgiving and Christmas and whenever else we could make the trip over the mountains. She had this open-handed generosity that drew people to her. I never saw her waste anything or say ‘No’ when she had an opportunity to help. Now I have a whole pack of cousins that help honor her memory by modeling that way of living, and by keeping and reading her books. We have kept Brother and Sister Berenstain Bear and many others in the family. Maybe it’s because we all read the same books with her as kids, but I cannot look at my cousins without seeing little glimpses of grammie. But even without those glimpses and the reminders from book characters, however, I do not have to worry about losing her because I have her in writing.
Well, I suppose it is not HER. How demeaning to suggest that a person, with all her complexity and warmth and practicality, could be written with pedestrian and base words on scratchy white paper. That implies that I know more of her than I do, and that what I don’t know (which is a great deal) is of no importance. So, while I do not have all of her in writing I have what I need. You see, she didn’t just write my name and her wish for me to enjoy the book in the cover that summer day. She also wrote that she loved me, in ink, and the Little Lady bears witness of that to this day.
To believe that you are loved, not were loved, or could be loved, or even will be loved- it changes something in you. To believe that you are loved is to evict loneliness from your soul.
The Little Lady and I were never lonely because we were always loved.
-----------------------------------------
In case you have not yet experienced the joy of summertime in Bend, I need you to know that it is lovely. The light is all roses and gold and the air is both crisp and soft. I do not have words tender enough to describe all the green things growing out of the ground, or the way people’s eyes light up when they see them in the park. The people of Bend, natives and visitors alike, love summer. It can be seen on their faces by the way their smiles change from looking dutiful and required, like taxes, to organically manifesting between sunburned, freckled cheeks. It is as if the smile cannot help but appear there. Summertime; sometimes when I am sitting near a window and sunlight warms my face I imagine that I am there, in summer. There are so many things to keep one company in summer, it is nearly impossible to be lonely with all the new grass growing under one’s feet.
This story is not really about summer in Bend, but it creates a lovely scene, does it not? It is hard to describe something so beautiful without using beautiful words, making the description sound like it belongs in some well-written book. Maybe that’s why my grammie loved summertime in Bend; because it reminded her of a passage out of a book. I do not know if that is true, but it makes me smile.
I remember an afternoon in the summer, which I have established as being wonderful, when grammie and grandpa were visiting. Grammie and I were in the music room at my parents’ house. There was a big bay window opening up into the summer light before us, baby grand piano on the right. She was sitting on that rocking recliner she and grandpa had reupholstered for my dad years earlier. I always felt a kinship with the fishermen on the fabric, endlessly casting their lines into a pond made of thread, surrounded by grass composed of the same. Grammie was likely wearing some handmade purple floral polyester ensemble like she usually did. She often made her own clothes, because she preferred to be comfortable and she preferred her clothes to be purple. It was, after all, her favorite color. I still think of her when I see it. Her feet were probably tucked into work Birkenstocks.
I do not remember what my eight-year-old self was doing before she called me over, or what I was wearing. I do know that it was just the two of us in the room, it was afternoon, and it was summer.
She held the book near her chest, her heart, as she explained its significance to me. “I’ve had this book for a long time,” she said, her age-spotted hands tenderly holding the aged yellow pages. Grammie looked at the book the way other people look at photographs of their favorite childhood friend; knowingly, fondly, with a soft sigh of remembrance. The worn pages of the book were bound together between a threadbare cover, so the word “bound” is used very loosely. I recognized it as she held it, I think, like it was a book she had read to me before. Maybe she hadn’t. But I remember looking at it, seriously, as if it was a book I already knew well. She warned me to not let it fall open as she passed it to me, and I felt its weight in my hands. I can no longer recall whether she or my dad used packing tape to reinforce the binding of the book, an ungraceful attempt at slowing the deterioration that had already begun. Pages, pictures, and stories gone missing, numbered sheets out of their intended sequence. Deterioration and aging happens quietly without begging our permission or pardon. We all make ungraceful attempts to slow it. Sometimes I ponder how afraid we are of something falling into pieces and returning to the dust. Does that slow and quiet death remind us of ourselves? Or, are we simply determined to maintain our lives and objects in a state of beauty, not because of fear, but because we really believe they should be beautiful, as if it is a birthright? Is it a fear of detached covers and lost pages that cause us to tape up the bindings of books, or is it a desire to make sure we can read the story again? Do we mourn death or celebrate lives at funerals?
The summer light coming through the window must have been beautiful when I held the book close to my own chest, my own heart. Grammie then said that we should write my name in the cover of the book. I opened the cover carefully and saw her name there; Lois Burnett, and next to it the name of her sister who died while she was still small; Gladys Burnett. The date noted next to their names was 1939. I knew then that it was not a mere book that I was holding in my hands. It was part of her memories, of her sister, moving throughout Oregon, settling in her own home in Lebanon, and raising her three children. She carried that book with her for over 60 years before handing it to me. I am sure that there were many times, many difficult moves or rough years when it would have been easy to lose such an item.
I watched her with a young amazement as she wrote on the inside cover with that elegant, graceful script I have always admired;
“To Jazmin Julene Miller
This was a special
book to me, and I
hope you will feel
it is special too.”
I read the book several times after that, with her and by myself. The title was (and still is) The Little Lady: Her Book, and was published in 1901. Just as the title suggests the stories it contains are about a little girl. She and her parents reside in in the House of Many Windows, which is what she calls the apartment building she lives in, though she knows “it is really a great castle, with dungeons beneath and battlements at the top...” (p. 11). She takes outings in town with her father, Big Man, and goes to the sea, and has puppies, and eats sweets, sometimes before dinner.
The Little Lady and I were reunited last year when I read the book again. I cried. The book was as sweet as I remembered, but I couldn’t tell grammie how much I still loved it because she had already passed away. I realize that she likely had no doubt that I would always love the book, but I still wish that I could tell her. I would tell her how much I love the graceful font of the title on the cover, the illustrations that were intended to be black and white but were colored in by some child less precocious than I. I still love the book, the words of the story, the words on the paper, the words in my hands. I am now far beyond the fear I felt when it was first handed to me, like I should encase it in glass and titanium, but I am thankful for the packing tape on the binding, because I plan on reading it to my children. Until then, it sits in a place of honor in company with other old and beautiful books that I have collected.
Maybe I picked up those other old books because I wanted the Little Lady to never be lonely. I found them, brought them to my house, adopted them, and they all became a family. At least that’s what I would like to believe. I imagine that the Little Lady and Jo March and Tom Sawyer and talking horses from Narnia all sit down for tea together on a regular basis because they so conveniently abide on a shelf together.
I have been many things, but lonely was never really one of them. I think this is due in large part to grammie. She introduced me to many friends that live within the covers of books. They helped keep me company even after she died, though they all had a sad look between their eyes because she would never be narrating them again.
Family was always so important to her. That’s why she loved her children and her grandkids so well. She loved having us together at Thanksgiving and Christmas and whenever else we could make the trip over the mountains. She had this open-handed generosity that drew people to her. I never saw her waste anything or say ‘No’ when she had an opportunity to help. Now I have a whole pack of cousins that help honor her memory by modeling that way of living, and by keeping and reading her books. We have kept Brother and Sister Berenstain Bear and many others in the family. Maybe it’s because we all read the same books with her as kids, but I cannot look at my cousins without seeing little glimpses of grammie. But even without those glimpses and the reminders from book characters, however, I do not have to worry about losing her because I have her in writing.
Well, I suppose it is not HER. How demeaning to suggest that a person, with all her complexity and warmth and practicality, could be written with pedestrian and base words on scratchy white paper. That implies that I know more of her than I do, and that what I don’t know (which is a great deal) is of no importance. So, while I do not have all of her in writing I have what I need. You see, she didn’t just write my name and her wish for me to enjoy the book in the cover that summer day. She also wrote that she loved me, in ink, and the Little Lady bears witness of that to this day.
To believe that you are loved, not were loved, or could be loved, or even will be loved- it changes something in you. To believe that you are loved is to evict loneliness from your soul.
The Little Lady and I were never lonely because we were always loved.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
"The Little Lady" (Personal Essay No. 1)
One of my classes this term is a Nonfiction English class that requires a great deal of personal essay-writing. Since I have been meaning to write and blog more, I am (hopefully) going to be posting the essays here. This was written in-class, writing nonstop, on graph paper.
___________________________________
It was summer and we were in the music room at my parent’s house: bay window before us, piano on the right. She was sitting on that rocking recliner she had reupholstered for my dad years earlier. I always felt a kinship with the fishermen on the fabric. She was my grandmother, Lois, grammie, probably wearing some purple polyester getup like always. I don’t remember what I was doing before she called me over, or what I was wearing, but it was just the two of us in the room, it was afternoon, and it was summer.
She held the book as she explained its significance to me. “I’ve had this book for a long time,” she said, her gnarled hands tenderly holding the worn pages. I recognized it, then, I think, like she had read it to me before. Maybe she hadn’t. But I feel like I felt it was a book I already knew. I remember her handing it to me, gently, warning me to not let it fall open. I no longer remember whether she or dad taped the binding, an ungraceful attempt at slowing the deterioration that had already begun: pages, pictures, and stories missing, numbered pates our of their intended sequence.
I held the book before she said we should write my name in it. I saw her name, Lois Burnett, next to the name of her sister who died when she was still small: Gladys Burnett. I knew then I was not holding a mere book in my hands, it was her memory itself, and she entrusted it to me. To me, in ink, as she wrote my name and the date next to her own and some other name I did not recognize. The dates were decades apart, spanning nearly a century.
I read the book, with her and by myself, I read it several times. The title was and still is “The Little Lady: Her Book” and was published in the early 1900’s. Just as the title suggests, the stories are about a little girl growing up in a big house and all that happened to her: big man and puppies and sweets and stores in her fathers office, stores she set up there and then made him pay for.
I read it again last year, and I cried, because the book was just as sweet as I remembered, but my grammie was gone so I couldn’t tell her how much I still enjoyed it, still enjoyed the graceful cover, the illustrations that were intended to be black and white but were colored in by some child less precocious than I. I still loved the words of the story, the words on the pages, the words in my hands. Far beyond the fear I felt when it was first handed to me, like I should encase it in plastic, now it sits in a place of honor, in company with other old beautiful books I’ve collected. Maybe I picked up those other books because I never wanted the Little Lady to be lonely.
I have been many things, but lonely was never really one of them. I always had those books, even when grammie died I was left with a pack of cousins who help keep her memory alive, parents who help fill in the gaps in my memory, and a note in the cover of the Little Lady that proves I was loved.
___________________________________
It was summer and we were in the music room at my parent’s house: bay window before us, piano on the right. She was sitting on that rocking recliner she had reupholstered for my dad years earlier. I always felt a kinship with the fishermen on the fabric. She was my grandmother, Lois, grammie, probably wearing some purple polyester getup like always. I don’t remember what I was doing before she called me over, or what I was wearing, but it was just the two of us in the room, it was afternoon, and it was summer.
She held the book as she explained its significance to me. “I’ve had this book for a long time,” she said, her gnarled hands tenderly holding the worn pages. I recognized it, then, I think, like she had read it to me before. Maybe she hadn’t. But I feel like I felt it was a book I already knew. I remember her handing it to me, gently, warning me to not let it fall open. I no longer remember whether she or dad taped the binding, an ungraceful attempt at slowing the deterioration that had already begun: pages, pictures, and stories missing, numbered pates our of their intended sequence.
I held the book before she said we should write my name in it. I saw her name, Lois Burnett, next to the name of her sister who died when she was still small: Gladys Burnett. I knew then I was not holding a mere book in my hands, it was her memory itself, and she entrusted it to me. To me, in ink, as she wrote my name and the date next to her own and some other name I did not recognize. The dates were decades apart, spanning nearly a century.
I read the book, with her and by myself, I read it several times. The title was and still is “The Little Lady: Her Book” and was published in the early 1900’s. Just as the title suggests, the stories are about a little girl growing up in a big house and all that happened to her: big man and puppies and sweets and stores in her fathers office, stores she set up there and then made him pay for.
I read it again last year, and I cried, because the book was just as sweet as I remembered, but my grammie was gone so I couldn’t tell her how much I still enjoyed it, still enjoyed the graceful cover, the illustrations that were intended to be black and white but were colored in by some child less precocious than I. I still loved the words of the story, the words on the pages, the words in my hands. Far beyond the fear I felt when it was first handed to me, like I should encase it in plastic, now it sits in a place of honor, in company with other old beautiful books I’ve collected. Maybe I picked up those other books because I never wanted the Little Lady to be lonely.
I have been many things, but lonely was never really one of them. I always had those books, even when grammie died I was left with a pack of cousins who help keep her memory alive, parents who help fill in the gaps in my memory, and a note in the cover of the Little Lady that proves I was loved.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Angry Letter to the Editor RE: Django Unchained
This letter was written in response to a review of Django Unchained published in Volume 61, Issue 12 of The Broadside, the campus newspaper for COCC and OSU-Cascades. Unfortunately, the review has not been posted on the papers website, http://thebroadsideonline.com.
Letter to the editors and readers of The Broadside;
Aaron Fennell’s recent film “review” in The Broadside distressed me for many reasons. However, it should be noted that I placed the word “review” in quotes intentionally, to draw attention to that ill-advised word choice. In order to call a piece of writing a review, the writer is required to have actually experienced what is being reviewed. It is clear from Fennell’s description of Django Unchained that that experience did not occur, which is unfortunate both for him and his readers. Not only does Fennell inaccurately describe main characters and the plot of the film, but he grossly underestimates the shocking quantity and quality of violence in the film.
I would have been able to tolerate either a positive or negative review, despite my own feelings about it. However, I will not tolerate an uninformed review, especially regarding a film of this caliber. I vehemently disagree with Fennell’s statement: “This is a must see for everyone who loves a good story and very graphic descriptions of gunfights.” This film, while being one of the greatest achievements in cinema I have ever seen, is certainly NOT “for everyone.” The brutality of the violence in this film goes far beyond mere gunfights, and to not mention that is both irresponsible and ignorant on part of the writer. Based on what was printed in The Broadside, readers anticipate a “deep love story” filled with “quick comebacks” and “explosive action.” What they will actually experience is something much more compelling and unsettling than that.
To Aaron Fennell, I do not mean this to be a personal attack. However, I cannot allow your statements about Django Unchained to go unchallenged. If you decide you want to see the film in all its bloody glory and write another, more informed review, shoot me (pun intended) an email. I’ll buy the ticket.
Sincerely, Jazmin Miller
Letter to the editors and readers of The Broadside;
Aaron Fennell’s recent film “review” in The Broadside distressed me for many reasons. However, it should be noted that I placed the word “review” in quotes intentionally, to draw attention to that ill-advised word choice. In order to call a piece of writing a review, the writer is required to have actually experienced what is being reviewed. It is clear from Fennell’s description of Django Unchained that that experience did not occur, which is unfortunate both for him and his readers. Not only does Fennell inaccurately describe main characters and the plot of the film, but he grossly underestimates the shocking quantity and quality of violence in the film.
I would have been able to tolerate either a positive or negative review, despite my own feelings about it. However, I will not tolerate an uninformed review, especially regarding a film of this caliber. I vehemently disagree with Fennell’s statement: “This is a must see for everyone who loves a good story and very graphic descriptions of gunfights.” This film, while being one of the greatest achievements in cinema I have ever seen, is certainly NOT “for everyone.” The brutality of the violence in this film goes far beyond mere gunfights, and to not mention that is both irresponsible and ignorant on part of the writer. Based on what was printed in The Broadside, readers anticipate a “deep love story” filled with “quick comebacks” and “explosive action.” What they will actually experience is something much more compelling and unsettling than that.
To Aaron Fennell, I do not mean this to be a personal attack. However, I cannot allow your statements about Django Unchained to go unchallenged. If you decide you want to see the film in all its bloody glory and write another, more informed review, shoot me (pun intended) an email. I’ll buy the ticket.
Sincerely, Jazmin Miller
Monday, October 22, 2012
Chicken soup for the soul of the exhausted college student.
This is not something I ever thought I would write, but I am aiming to write a B essay tonight.
I'll explain that statement by explaining why I never thought I would say it. While I don't have a type A personality and I'm not a perfectionist (or maybe I'm just in denial), I am very competitive, especially in academic environments. My goal for this year is to graduate with a 3.9 GPA, because I know I can do it, and it is hard for me to accept anything less than the very best I can do. This is not inherently a character flaw (at least in my mind... or maybe that's the type A personality I don't have talking).
However, I am not great with the art of balancing one's life. When I'm in school, I am a great student. I'm not a great friend, or co-worker, or most other things. I have a hard time being wholly present anywhere because I am always thinking about school. I disappear from the lives of my friends and family, buried beneath textbooks, notebooks, and assorted Apple products. While it may just look like I have a great work ethic, what I am actually doing is fusing my self-esteem with my grades. This is not healthy and not something I'm proud of.
I am trying really hard not to do that this year.
The reason why is as follows:
My grandma died just over a month ago. While we were going through boxes and boxes of her things, we found many pictures and documents that'd we never seen - or paid attention to - before. We found her diploma from George Fox (then) College, where she graduated with honors. We also found boxes of old cards she had sent and received, almost a dozen photo albums, even collections of recipes. We pored over the cards and photos and clippings, and we loved it because we were seeing things that mattered to us as a family. However, no one gave the diploma more than a brief glance. Truthfully, I don't even remember what level of honors she graduated with.
Now, I am one of the last people in the world who would degrade college education, or graduating with honors. I want to go to graduate school, so I know that grades really matter.
However, so does life.
I realized that when I'm dead, my dozens of grandchildren won't really be concerned with my GPA or what's on my diploma. They will be far more interested in pictures, in my stories, in what I did with my degree - with my life.
I think everyone is going to school for different reasons, so this state of mind that I have somehow ended up in may sound straight-up crazy to you. That is okay. My goal with confessing these things is to encourage you, as a student, to take a second to reflect on why you're going to school, how you're living your life right now, and what will matter in years to come. Take breaks, go for walks, spend time with friends, eat grilled cheese sandwiches and watch sports once in a while without kicking yourself for it afterwards. Our college experience are, after all, 4 years of our lives - I for one don't want to hate it.
Just an thought.
Much love, and good luck with midterms.
I'll explain that statement by explaining why I never thought I would say it. While I don't have a type A personality and I'm not a perfectionist (or maybe I'm just in denial), I am very competitive, especially in academic environments. My goal for this year is to graduate with a 3.9 GPA, because I know I can do it, and it is hard for me to accept anything less than the very best I can do. This is not inherently a character flaw (at least in my mind... or maybe that's the type A personality I don't have talking).
However, I am not great with the art of balancing one's life. When I'm in school, I am a great student. I'm not a great friend, or co-worker, or most other things. I have a hard time being wholly present anywhere because I am always thinking about school. I disappear from the lives of my friends and family, buried beneath textbooks, notebooks, and assorted Apple products. While it may just look like I have a great work ethic, what I am actually doing is fusing my self-esteem with my grades. This is not healthy and not something I'm proud of.
I am trying really hard not to do that this year.
The reason why is as follows:
My grandma died just over a month ago. While we were going through boxes and boxes of her things, we found many pictures and documents that'd we never seen - or paid attention to - before. We found her diploma from George Fox (then) College, where she graduated with honors. We also found boxes of old cards she had sent and received, almost a dozen photo albums, even collections of recipes. We pored over the cards and photos and clippings, and we loved it because we were seeing things that mattered to us as a family. However, no one gave the diploma more than a brief glance. Truthfully, I don't even remember what level of honors she graduated with.
Now, I am one of the last people in the world who would degrade college education, or graduating with honors. I want to go to graduate school, so I know that grades really matter.
However, so does life.
I realized that when I'm dead, my dozens of grandchildren won't really be concerned with my GPA or what's on my diploma. They will be far more interested in pictures, in my stories, in what I did with my degree - with my life.
I think everyone is going to school for different reasons, so this state of mind that I have somehow ended up in may sound straight-up crazy to you. That is okay. My goal with confessing these things is to encourage you, as a student, to take a second to reflect on why you're going to school, how you're living your life right now, and what will matter in years to come. Take breaks, go for walks, spend time with friends, eat grilled cheese sandwiches and watch sports once in a while without kicking yourself for it afterwards. Our college experience are, after all, 4 years of our lives - I for one don't want to hate it.
Just an thought.
Much love, and good luck with midterms.
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