This is my first journal entry for my trip to Brazil, based off of my reading of Yasmina Traboulsi's "Bahia Blues."
I’m going to start off this entry with a passage I wrote from my “final reflection” to the Brazilian Literature class I took this past semester: “I did feel a sense of gloom overriding a lot of the chosen material, and I was left with a somewhat dismal emotion at the end of each story. However, as I learned more and more about where these writers were coming from (culturally), I began to see and feel this "light-heartedness" that Heloisa spoke of, an essence that embodied a hope, a desire, a light at the end of the tunnel, per se.” I think this reflection sums up the same feeling I had after reading Yasmina Traboulsi’s “Bahia Blues.” Based on the title, and because of the previous works I studied including Assis, Rosa and Lispector, I had a sense that this novel would include aspects of the Brazilian “favela” such as poverty, crime, and misfortune.
The structure of the book was new to me and it took a little while to get used to the “choppy” movement of paragraphs. I often found myself going back to a previous page to find the paragraph that coincided with the current one I was reading. I did find it a little agitating, but by the end I appreciated the effect it had on me as a reader. It was real; much of our lives happen simultaneously and Traboulsi was able to create that effect successfully by using this choppy format. Traboulsi’s language is simple and direct, so I had no trouble following the narrative, but it was also very beautiful and powerful in places, leaving me with vivid images and gripping emotions.
This novel further educated me about the lives of Brazilians living together in a community, sharing their lives and supporting their dreams, although they are often surrounded by pain and destruction. “Bahia Blues” is the real thing; no sugarcoating or optimistic elaboration, but rather telling us how it is in a "favela." Yet, as I said in my passage, I do feel that of the Brazilian literature I have read, there is something in common. There is this never-ending desire to reach for something better, something that holds a sense of hope for all that seek it despite the pain and suffering. And, there is a sense of community in “the square” of Bahia, a sense that everyone is family and that everyone needs to be loved no matter the circumstances. I picked out aspects of Brazilian life that we had often discussed in my Literature course, such as the idea of fortune-tellers like Mama Lourdes and the influential role they play in society. It reminded me of Machado d’Assis’ short story “The Fortune Teller,” where the fate of two young lovers is in the hands of her magic. I also recognized the power of soap-operas and how the banality of Brazilian life is colored and heightened by the melodramatic TV soaps, bringing to screen the familial life “behind closed doors” that no one ever talks about. “Bahia Blues” left me, yet again, with a disturbing feeling that I remember feeling after many of the Brazilian works I’ve read thus far. Yet, there is something very powerful that I get from these works that goes much deeper than the pain and suffering of the circumstances. It is a feeling of survival; of people overcoming aspects of life that often seem unbelievable. I admire Traboulsi’s strength to create these story lines, ones that may ring very close to a life she knows and understands, even though she grew up in Paris. It makes me feel like reading about suffering and poverty is one of the best ways to truly understand it, acknowledge it exists, and feel motivated to go out and change it.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Bill bo' blanksy
It’s hard to write about a feeling that seems so inherent in humans. And it’s even harder to recognize that this feeling exists, considering it comes so naturally. I’m searching for the best word to describe this feeling and I’m having a hard time picking one, so here…
My husband and I got a puppy over Christmas. He was only seven weeks old, fur-balled and wobbly, soft as cashmere with gigantic floppy paws. He peed all over my husband Stevie, on the car ride home, burrowing his moist black nose deep into the armpit of his sweatshirt. The anxiety of leaving everything he had ever known in the straggly hay corner of a massive wooden barn, his fox-red mother and six siblings still finding their way to the food bowl together like a herd of sheep.
Bill was a rather independent puppy. The first few nights we had him, we took turns getting up every few hours he cried, carried him down the steep back steps of my parents’ house, groggy-eyed and stumbling to the back door so he could step outside into the calm cold of early morning, tinkling as he faltered onto the frozen grass. But, he learned very quickly to sleep through the night and was fearless when it came to exploration.
Stevie immediately commented on the maternal instinct in me, always checking Bill when he napped to make sure he was still breathing, googl-ing the color and consistency of his poop to make sure it seemed normal. This was technically my first puppy (my parents had raised a Bichon when I was in college), and even I was unsure of how I would behave. I was surprised at how effortlessly I “rallied” to take care of something much smaller and more confused than me, willing to interrupt my vacation night’s sleep, walk through the woods in the rain, wipe up every pee-piddle that meandered throughout a room, just to create a happy world for this little life that I felt utterly responsible for.
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, or maybe it’s because I want to have babies, but I never stop thinking about Bill’s mother, how we picked him up from his litter, snuggled him into our necks and took him away. I feel like I owe it somehow to his mother, to nature, to take care of him the best possible way I can.
He is five months now. Growing like crazy, long and lanky and still unsure of his own body. He wakes up full of piss and vinegar and goes flying into the wall with energy, ready to climb a mountain or swim a mile. His soft-smitten cry wakes my up every morning, ready to pee and ready to poop. He forces me to get up and go outside, to that wonderfully pristine moment just after daybreak when even 5th avenue and Penn are so silent you can hear the trees bend. I can’t imagine now what it would be like not to have this life in mine.
Thank you Bill, for waking me up early. Thank you Bill, for providing me with responsibility. Thank you Bill, for reminding me of how important it can be to devote your thoughts and actions to someone else. Thank you Bill for spinning next to me as you search for the perfect spot, plopping against my leg, your lion paw resting tenderly on my thigh.
My husband and I got a puppy over Christmas. He was only seven weeks old, fur-balled and wobbly, soft as cashmere with gigantic floppy paws. He peed all over my husband Stevie, on the car ride home, burrowing his moist black nose deep into the armpit of his sweatshirt. The anxiety of leaving everything he had ever known in the straggly hay corner of a massive wooden barn, his fox-red mother and six siblings still finding their way to the food bowl together like a herd of sheep.
Bill was a rather independent puppy. The first few nights we had him, we took turns getting up every few hours he cried, carried him down the steep back steps of my parents’ house, groggy-eyed and stumbling to the back door so he could step outside into the calm cold of early morning, tinkling as he faltered onto the frozen grass. But, he learned very quickly to sleep through the night and was fearless when it came to exploration.
Stevie immediately commented on the maternal instinct in me, always checking Bill when he napped to make sure he was still breathing, googl-ing the color and consistency of his poop to make sure it seemed normal. This was technically my first puppy (my parents had raised a Bichon when I was in college), and even I was unsure of how I would behave. I was surprised at how effortlessly I “rallied” to take care of something much smaller and more confused than me, willing to interrupt my vacation night’s sleep, walk through the woods in the rain, wipe up every pee-piddle that meandered throughout a room, just to create a happy world for this little life that I felt utterly responsible for.
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, or maybe it’s because I want to have babies, but I never stop thinking about Bill’s mother, how we picked him up from his litter, snuggled him into our necks and took him away. I feel like I owe it somehow to his mother, to nature, to take care of him the best possible way I can.
He is five months now. Growing like crazy, long and lanky and still unsure of his own body. He wakes up full of piss and vinegar and goes flying into the wall with energy, ready to climb a mountain or swim a mile. His soft-smitten cry wakes my up every morning, ready to pee and ready to poop. He forces me to get up and go outside, to that wonderfully pristine moment just after daybreak when even 5th avenue and Penn are so silent you can hear the trees bend. I can’t imagine now what it would be like not to have this life in mine.
Thank you Bill, for waking me up early. Thank you Bill, for providing me with responsibility. Thank you Bill, for reminding me of how important it can be to devote your thoughts and actions to someone else. Thank you Bill for spinning next to me as you search for the perfect spot, plopping against my leg, your lion paw resting tenderly on my thigh.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
A Piece of Vision Statement
I think, like Sanders, I have a lot of developmental moments in my life that have led me to want to become a writer. In Janice’s response to my last blog, she asked me about my “vision statement,” about what drives me to write. And I know it’s something most writing professors ask, something I’ve written about in craft workshop, but I am realizing that I don’t think young writers really know what drives us, or why we really write. I think that writing will show us what makes us beat, will reveal our inner drives that spill and spew out of us, landing up as words on paper, once thoughts now forms.
I used to be an athlete. I used to get high from the sound of a field-hockey ball “pinging” against the back of the goal cage. I used to get turned on by finishing suicides and feeling the sweat drip down my back, tickling my pumping muscles. I used to know what drove me, what passion motivated my game. I used to grip a long wooden stick and direct its quick finite movements against a soft-mowed lawn, driving the ball, to the square of stirring netting.
I don’t play anymore. I can’t due to injuries. But I think I know at least one of the reasons why I write. I write to get high, to get turned on by the writing exercises I finish, to discover what passions step up my game. I think I’m comforted by gripping a pen and directing it in quick finite movements against a soft-sheeted paper, driving the pen, into the window of my stirring mind.
I used to be an athlete. I used to get high from the sound of a field-hockey ball “pinging” against the back of the goal cage. I used to get turned on by finishing suicides and feeling the sweat drip down my back, tickling my pumping muscles. I used to know what drove me, what passion motivated my game. I used to grip a long wooden stick and direct its quick finite movements against a soft-mowed lawn, driving the ball, to the square of stirring netting.
I don’t play anymore. I can’t due to injuries. But I think I know at least one of the reasons why I write. I write to get high, to get turned on by the writing exercises I finish, to discover what passions step up my game. I think I’m comforted by gripping a pen and directing it in quick finite movements against a soft-sheeted paper, driving the pen, into the window of my stirring mind.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
From Country to Iran to Me
Everyday, I find myself thinking about what to write about, what to try to show through language and form, about me and my life that is interesting and relative to others, and I am often stuck. As I was reading Scott Russell Sanders “The Country of Language” I was pleasantly comforted by his simple and at times almost obvious statements that I connected to, not only as someone greatly influenced by the natural world, family and teaching, but as a writer who is constantly searching for a unique way of expression. Sanders lays out in very clear and organized chapters pivotal moments in his life that he acknowledges for leading him to where he is today. I thought about all the influential moments that I find crucial in my development as a writer, and I discovered that a lot of them crossed similar themes as Sanders. I don’t think it is the detailed accounts that make us writers want to find a way to talk to the world; I think there is something in the nature, or personality of a person that lights up from inside, a communication of sorts that wants to be heard.
As I sat and listened to Marjane Satrapi speak at the Carnegie Music Hall Monday night, I found myself thinking of Sanders, and how similar these too were as writers. Although from completely different worlds with completely different developmental moments, it seems the message is clear. They both want to find a way, to tell a story, one that may be different culturally or stylistically, but that in the end ultimately screams for peace: “And I decided I would try to build things up instead of tearing them down; I would try to make discoveries and bring useful new gifts into the world, instead of consuming what was already here; I would work against cruelty and suffering; I would help make peace.”
I realize with that in mind, I can sit down stress-free, not thinking about publication or career-goals or grades, knowing that to be a part of something that big and wonderful, is writer enough for me.
As I sat and listened to Marjane Satrapi speak at the Carnegie Music Hall Monday night, I found myself thinking of Sanders, and how similar these too were as writers. Although from completely different worlds with completely different developmental moments, it seems the message is clear. They both want to find a way, to tell a story, one that may be different culturally or stylistically, but that in the end ultimately screams for peace: “And I decided I would try to build things up instead of tearing them down; I would try to make discoveries and bring useful new gifts into the world, instead of consuming what was already here; I would work against cruelty and suffering; I would help make peace.”
I realize with that in mind, I can sit down stress-free, not thinking about publication or career-goals or grades, knowing that to be a part of something that big and wonderful, is writer enough for me.
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