You Really Do Have Worth

 

“After awhile you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security,

and you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises,

and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open,

with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child,

and you learn to build all your roads on today,

because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans.

After a while, you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

that you really are strong, and you really do have worth.”

 

-Veronica A. Shoffstall

I Believe in Chalk Dinosaurs

This I Believe is a website/program that has people send in their personal “This I Believe” essays, and reads them on NPR and posts them on the website. The variety is really beautiful and it’s easy to spend hours reading the different essays. For my Philosophy class, we were told to each write our own.You should too. :]

I Believe in Chalk Dinosaurs

One of my fondest memories of my Uncle Alan is of him drawing colossal dinosaurs with sidewalk chalk in the cul-de-sac right outside of my home. He would make an outline of the body with precision and then spend the majority of his time adding its individual features, eventually making it come to life. There were scary ones, silly ones, even frighteningly realistic ones; each dinosaur was different in its own way.

These dinosaurs that I knew so well as a child allowed me to learn about the variety of life. They taught me to embrace peoples’ differences rather than shy away from them. I learned about the many things that affect the way a person “turns out” and that sometimes their mistakes were what made them beautiful. I also learned that with the rain came swirling colored rivers that cascaded down my driveway and left nothing but memories of the playful dinosaurs that I had adored. Embracing the loss was easy though, for I knew that with the next day of sparkling sunshine, I’d be able to recreate the dinosaurs I had once known.

But when the rains of fate washed away my Uncle Alan, I had no bucket of sidewalk chalk with which I could recreate him. Accepting this was difficult. I had never experienced such permanence; such loss. I hadn’t a clue how to cope with the heart wrenching and unexpected change. With time, however, I realized that I had recreated the chalk dinosaurs with the memories of them that I possessed. I had countless memories of Uncle Alan, so he too could be recreated. And with that, I found a way. Today, I live with Uncle Alan within me. Each day, he inspires me to take a risk, to find some hidden courage and to be whatever it is that I want to be.

From this life lesson that he so effortlessly taught, I learned that nothing is permanent and that nothing is forever. All things change, and I must cope with the change or be left behind. Life is short, so I must make it the best that I can because I never know when the rains will fall and wash it all away. And though the falling of rain is inevitable, it is essential, for it is the memories that we have of each other that truly keep us alive.

Rubber Glove Kingdom

Here is a poem I wrote in English class. (Posting it by request of Madeline) The assignment was to write something hinting the style of Ginsberg. Or, well… at least writing something obscure and making up some words I guess… I wrote about hospitals (because I wrote this when my uncle was in one…) and, I don’t mean to  make doctors and nurses sound bad. I actually aspire to be a nurse… I guess… I was just mad. Haha. Here goes:

The Rubber Glove Kingdom

In the ever enchanted Rubber Glove Kingdom,

Dwell the lime-jello brained care-giving doctors and nurses set on autopilot.

Check a chart, check a chart, check a chart, lunch break.

Feed their jiggly, shapeless fruit brains.

Each word they read in medical school, just another minute in the fridge,

Solidifying the gelatinous substance in their cranial mold.

And cranial mold was exactly what it was.

The rotting, wasting, destruction of something that could be good.

 

In the suburbs of the kingdom live the employees, the staff, the slaves.

Not good enough for jello, so pudding to fill their heads.

Whether they dance with the mop, fix the ever-dripping ceiling, or serve the voluptuous mystery of ground-to-a-pulp monkey masterpiece,

they are of the same species, and they all think with their jiggly mold minds.

 

When the electric egg yolk sun cracks and crashes onto the frying pan horizon each evening,

The dessert-headed robots head back to their cells.

They forget about the lives saved or lost in their daily symphony of sadness.

And this is the price of living in Rubber Glove Kingdom.