Hope is My Philosophy

I will love you more than me and more than yesterday.
If you can but prove to me, you are the new day.

Sounds like a pretty straightforward love song, right? The audience is the speaker's beloved, and all the speaker has to say is, "Hey, I love you."

Thoughts that we as humans small could slow worlds and end it all
Lie around me where they fall, before the new day.

That's from the exact same song. So now you probably think I've got it all wrong. Honestly, I'm not sure...

Express just combined with the lovely Chamber Ensemble of Glenbrook South at the Techny Concert, (for anyone who cares, we worked on FANTASTIC SONGS this year) and we sang John David's "You Are the New Day." When we first received the music, our choir director told us that he honestly didn't know what the song meant. After spending more and more time on it, I began to realize that the meaning is so much more complex than just a simple love song. Our guest conductor, Mrs. Moe, told us that it's very likely that each person who knows this song will find different meaning in it. She told us her interpretation, and one of the members of our choir also shared her ideas. I, too, began to find meaning in this song.

The different (extremely abridged) interpretations:

•The speaker is loves his or her live, even knowing that humans are small and powerless.
•This is a proclamation of love to another person. The speaker feels that nothing else matters beside spending a whole lifetime with the person he or she loves.

To me, this song is a surge of gratitude. Some lyrics are frightening: "When I lay me down at night, knowing we must pay," and "We... could slow worlds and end it all," and "One more day when time is running out," and they make me think about how finite and fragile our lives are. Even so, the speaker loves the life he or she has had, and realizes that although his or her only power is to hope for more days, that's enough, because just being able to continue living is what the speaker desires.

I'm mildly obsessed with this song.

So, here are the lyrics, and here is the best version I could find on YouTube. I want you to experience this beautiful piece, and tell me what it means to you.

Thank you!

Buzzing About...

Over winter break I started cleaning my room by taking all the old books out. I came across my dogeared copy of The Secret Life of Bees and realized that I had never finished it. That's my "reading for fun" style: Starting a book, getting through as much as I can in one sitting, and then losing interest. Admirable, right? Well I finally finished this one, and I caught on to so much more literary brilliance than I had when I was reading it sophomore year, such as the narrative style Sue Monk Kidd uses.

She shows how events in the story are all connected by having Lily tell sequences of events the way she sees one happen immediately after the next. For instance, June's stormy relationship with Neil permeates everyone's life at the hot pink Boatwright house. Lily tells us about how she creeps downstairs and hears Neil leave angrily and June begin to sob. In another scene, Lily sees a June-Neil argument take place while she's working outside. The way we see subplots progress through Lily's eyes (rather than receiving the narrative from one of those "invisible" speakers uninvolved in the action) gives us Lily's perspective (rather than letting us see the events as outsiders).

I also liked the sense of closure we got at the end about Lily's feelings toward her mother. When August and Lily first discuss Deborah, Lily suddenly feels unloved and abandoned, but she eventually decides to believe her mother did love her. It's so optimistic! Why choose to remember her mother as unloving when she could just as easily decide to believe her mother did love her very much, that leaving her behind during one visit was not an indication of hate or disaffection? Lily discovers she has grown just fine without her mother, for she had Rosaleen to care for her, and she even cared for herself to an extent. Finally, the community of caring women Lily finds confirms that she can find people who care for her and love her even if her biological mother is gone.

I heard there's a movie version of this novel. I don't have time to watch it now because I'm in tech week for a show now (I feel like I'm always busy with a show...), but I am curious to see how the narrative style translates to film.

Are you familiar with the S.L.o.B? What other examples of these intertwined narratives (such as the June-Neil observations) do you see in the story? Do you see similar narrative styles in other authors?

Managing Lately

Last week Carl Wilkens came to speak to my class. Before his visit, I had a very basic understanding of the Rwandan genocide -- just dates, rough numbers, definitions of Hutu and Tutsi -- so, in all honesty, I hardly considered it important. But this genocide happened in my own lifetime; the years I associate with my early childhood, others will associate with that. Wilkens really did open my eyes to that piece of history, and I'm thankful for my new appreciation of this history.

You may wonder why Wilkens's visit resonated with me so much. Think of what he has done, and then compare my own experiences. I've never set foot in Rwanda. I've never lived the midst of a genocide. I've never taken on responsibility for an orphanage. On that level, I guess I can't relate to his stories. But I have looked at a situation with positive eyes, and seeing someone else do just that and succeed comforted me. I have had doubts about my optimism. Maybe I'm just stupid and naïve. Especially this week (Warning: Next five sentences may follow "irritating rant" format!) I've been pretty swamped. Yes, I finally got my first batch of college applications turned in, but the next deadline (November 15 for CC, for anyone who's curious) is creeping up fast, and school has not relented in the least. The end of the quarter was just a time for me to find out my current grades and feel the pressure of what marks I have to maintain. Express, one of the choirs I sing in, is starting Christmas Season, so I have 2-and-a-half-hour reheasals every day after school. On top of that, Variety Show auditions are Monday, and with so many different numbers (such as the ones I've just linked) to rehearse I haven't gotten home before 8 p.m. yet this week.

I was just going through blogs on my reader account, and I came across this one. Emily reminded me of Mr. Wilkens's visit, and how inspired I felt after listening to him. I'm gonna emulate Wilkens (very consciously this week, though it wouldn't be such a bad thing to do all the time). I'm going to accept some things that I cannot change and trust that I will reap the best possible results if I work hard. My schedule this week isn't gonna change, but I can get through it, and I can enjoy it if I look at the situation the right way. Thanks, Carl Wilkens, for making this all manageable.

Not Alone!

In English class we are reading The Poisonwood Bible. This story has multiple narrators - all the female members of the Price family (if you need more information on the story, go here). Each girl has a distinct voice, and the way they narrate events reveals their varying personal outlooks on the world. The oldest daughter Rachel often pities herself, while Ruth May is too young to abstractly think and simply tells what she hears. Leah yearns to please her father, but her twin sister Adah prefers to develop independent opinions. Orleanna, the mother, feels trapped in her role as Reverend Nathan's wife. We readers receive so many opinions from these authors, but we also see Nathan's beliefs and the values of the Congolese people living among the Prices. One of the most crucial things for readers of The Poisonwood Bible to recognize is all the different viewpoints that are presented. While reading I've felt a faint curiosity to know what the author actually believes.

Today I had a speech team meeting. My coach had told me she had a few pieces picked out that she'd like me to read, and the first one she handed to me was the commencement address to Duke University's graduating class of 2008. The original speaker? None other than Barbara Kingsolver, the author of The Poisonwood Bible. Early in her speech, Kingsolver gives the traditional definition of success: "having boatloads of money." She goes on to name a large house, nice car, and spacious office as things that can be acquired with success. Later, she brings up happiness and its correlation to financial success, saying, "In the last 30 yeas our material wealth has increased in this country, but our self-described happiness has steadily declined. Elsewhere, the people who consider themselves very happy are... Mexico, Ireland, Puerto Rico, the kinds of places we identify with extended family, noist villages, a lot of dancing. The happiest people are the ones with the most community." To my gleeful surprise, I found that Ms. Kingsolver is an optimist like me! Her idea that financial security has no personal meaning, that it cannot bring happiness like a community can, resonated with me.

So how does this relate to The Poisonwood Bible? I now notice ways in which Kingsolver's optimism come out in her writing. Rachel is the most unhappy and most materialistic. When Ruth May falls ill, Leah and Anatole converse. Leah states, "Children should never die," and Anatole responds, "No. But if they never did, children would not be so precious... Also, if everyone lived to be old, then old age would not be such a treasure" (Kingsolver 231). Anatole does not have the power to prevent deaths, and rather than take sorrow in the helplessness, he cherishes children who survive - optimism! I'm very glad to have been introduced to Kingsolver's commencement speech. Analyzing Poisonwood as I continue to read it won't be as daunting as I previously saw it, because I've learned that the author and I are looking out the same window.