So, I have attempted to write this blog post 8 times now, so I give in. This blog is not going to be linear. It’s probably not going to be coherent. Stream-of-conscious blogging in 3. 2. 1.
=>Begin
I’ve been really focused on goals lately. I have several – sort term, I want to stay in honors by achieving a 3.5 gpa in my classes. I would like to come to a point were I stop feeling self conscious around my friends and commit to a long term goal. Long term, I’d like to get a job in the publishing business, specifically as an editor – and have the sensability to change this goal should my interests dramatically dive of the deep end.
Hopefully, having my CoSP back will help with this somewhat. Maybe. Probably not.
I’ve been thinking about death recently, and how I react to it. Death terrifies me – it is the one finality in life that I can’t argue with. I can’t make a case against something that is intangible.
Thursday, I broke down crying in front of Pamplin, because 4 minutes before class, I found out that my Grandmother was dying. I was inconsolable – I’m still not doing to well with it.
But I was more upset at the thought of her dying than I am now. She passed away at 1 am Saturday morning. When I found that out, I nodded, and went on with my day like nothing had happened. I don’t know why. I think it’s because I got my sadness – or, at least, the dramatic, self involved sadness – out of my system on Thursday. I don’t want people to tip toe around me because of this. I’m sad that she is gone, but I’m happier that she doesn’t have to suffer any more.
Plus, I think she would be happier if I continued towards my goals. Make her proud, do well by her memory. I can’t just stop everything because of a tragedy. I have to press forward. We all have to.
[I also want to clarify – I don’t want pity. I will ask for help if I need it.]
That’s why I’m going to work on my novel today. That’s why I’m going to sign up for Arabic as a class next semester – if I even can, I haven’t looked at that yet. That’s why I’m not going to the service in California next weekend.
I know that’s what my Grandma would have wanted – she would have wanted me to stay at school with my friends, and continue to do well in my classes.
I can almost hear her telling me:
“You know I love you.
And That I’m proud of you.
Now keep going.”
=> Rise Up
=> Press Forward
April 18, 2012
Just a Ditch, Really
emigee93 death, descriptive writing, Emily has WWI feels, self, This probably doesn't make sense, thought process, what, writing, WWI Descriptive Writing, Self, Story Telling, Uncategorized 0 Comments
– Or Emily is Going To Accost You With More Description –
Yes! Another exercise in description. It’s happening. Hold on to your hats.
“It’s just a ditch, really.”
Well, of course it’s just a ditch, if you’re just looking at it. It fits the colloquial description of a ditch – low depression, usually made for draining water out of an otherwise flat field, but in this case they’re probably just totally normal scars in the landscape. Except they’re not. Except that a synonym for ditch is, in fact, trench.
It’s a trench – and what you fail to see for your act of just looking is that they are important and are more deserving of description than your – ever so clever – ‘just a ditch, really.’ This is a trench where people lived, ate, slept, read, and died. Rotted away, in some cases. Drowning in their own fluids in others. It’s a trench, in a country field in the east of France, where soldiers fought one of the worst wars in human history. More than a ditch, really. Closer to a grave, actually.
I could show you a picture, but I don’t want to – perhaps because standing here in a grass covered trench on a narrow brick pathway that, oh, close to 100 years ago now, was covered in at least an inch of water, mud on both sides, and miles upon miles of barbed wire, makes me a tad emotional. Though, that’s as much of an understatement as ‘ditch,’ considering I am about as close to all out sobbing right now as I ever plan to be in public. The history and importance of this place has that effect on me, I think.
You’re going on about how you don’t see the point in memorializing this place and I consider describing the effects of chlorine gas on the body and exactly what that looks like while you are desperately trying to flee the grenades and machine gun fire of the Germans just that side of No Man’s Land, but I don’t. I don’t because you don’t internalize history like I do. The images I would paint would shock you, gross you out, but little more than that. The horror of ancient battle formations meeting brutally efficient new technologies is lost on you, as it is lost on many, because it won’t happen again. A World War III would be all atomic bombs, incineration, and nuclear fallout – history won’t necessarily repeat itself.
But it still moves me to tears, because these trenches, these unassuming ditches in the French countryside, show cased the brutality of the human race, and the terrible things soldiers were made to suffer in the war that began, frankly, because everyone wanted ‘a good war.’ And they got one. Because it was a good war, really, if you just look at it.