Ending with a Bang (of Sadness)

At the beginning of this course, I wrote a blog post questioning why we don't call our transitional years of childhood coming of age and I decided that I would write one at the end about the same topic. I guess I'm still not totally sure why they're different, so I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to talk about Sag Harbor. Originally I didn't really like this novel, although I'm not sure why. Maybe part of it is that senioritis is weighing down on my *big time* but also I think it had something to do with the fact that I haven't really been connecting with Benji. However, in the chapter "Breathing Tips of Great American Beatboxers," I felt a stronger connection with him as he interacted with Uncle Nelson. Benji has shown us all along that he is kind of dorky, not your average "rough" teenage boy, and he has stood out from the others in his crew. Unlike Bobby, for example, who "wanted word to get back to his parents [of him asking Uncle Nelson for beer], to prove that despite accepting the car..., he could still bring them misery," Benji doesn't want to piss of his parents (Whitehead 204). He doesn't want them to hear that hey asked Uncle Nelson for beer, he doesn't want them to find the house dirty, and he doesn't want them to know that he has a BB in his eye socket. When Uncle Nelson says "Now, it's your turn to do all that stuff we used to do," Benji tries to act natural "in case [he says] something kidlike, and he [changes] his mind" (Whitehead 205). This reminded me of a time last summer when my parents gave me permission to go with my cousin to a party at his friend's house. I was shocked as they would have never given me permission at home and we were in a big city (should be more dangerous, right?), so I did my best to avoid the topic for the rest of the week so that they wouldn't think better of it and not let me go anymore. I realized that, like myself, Benji doesn't want to disappoint or upset his parents, so he tries to keep the stuff that they wouldn't approve of on the down low. When Uncle Nelson gives him permission and encouragement to do "normal teenager stuff," Benji is really happy and I felt happy for him, too.
The other time during this chapter that I really connected with Benji was towards the end during the second description of his and Bobby's encounter with Uncle Nelson. He starts thinking about how the place where Uncle Nelson and his friends hung out is now a "haunted house" for them. He starts questioning the future, saying

What would our houses look like thirty years from now? We'd still be here, right? Or would we be out in the world like Uncle Nelson, our homes shadowed, the gutters sprouting flora, the driveways buckled and ripped? Haunted by us. And one of the other houses up the block or around the corner the new hangout spot for the next generation. Those future kids tossing pebbles at our windows and running away screaming, or daring each other to knock on the door. Double-dare you--crazy people used to live there and they'll get you. (Whitehead 220)

As the end of my high school career comes to a close, I've been thinking a lot about the past and the future. So many people who have been around me and on the same path as me for the last few years are going in completely different directions, but I still feel like their lives will be part of my life because they're my friends and I follow them on Instagram and we'll come back together for summer vacations and reunions. But I haven't thought about 20 or 30 years from now. Will I come back to Uni then? If I do, how will it have changed? Will people talk about my handprint, or will it be painted over? Uni has been such a strong presence in my life, but in a couple of decades, Uni will have forgotten me. Sag Harbor held a very dear place in Uncle Nelson's heart, but now all he is there is a crazy, old, embarrassing failure to most of the Sag Harbor community. Benji is just starting to realize that here, and so am I. That's kind of a sad, depressing note to end this post on, but I don't really know what else to say...

Summertime Nostalgia

Ask, How long are you out for? and a cloud wiped the sun. The question trailed a whiff of autumn. All answers contemplated the end, the death of summer at its very beginning. Still waiting for the bay to warm up so you could go for a swim and already picturing it frozen over. Labor Day suddenly not so far off at all...The season had begun, we were proof of it, instrument of it, but things couldn't really get started until all the players took their marks, bounding down driveways, all gimme-fives. The others were necessary, and we needed word...Once we're all out, we can begin (Whitehead 2).


Benji's description of Sag Harbor and the atmosphere there is somewhat vague, but it still evokes feelings of nostalgia and happiness for me, and I'm sure for others. When he talks about Sag Harbor, it is kind of abstract, but the details he does give are mostly about locations or actions, such as going for a slice at Conca D'oro or not breathing when you pass the cemetery. Even when he is describing a person, the only description we get is of their "pleated salmon shorts," which gives the impression of a faceless, unimportant being. For all the "who's out here"'s and "the crew"'s that he drops, Benji doesn't seem to care too much about the people in Sag Harbor and that was what I had more trouble connecting with. The only time I've been to a summer home was when I went with a friend to her family's summer home that was a complex owned by various families. I loved my time there, but I didn't really know anyone besides my friend, so my memories are more of what I did, rather than who I did them with. However, last summer I started working at a camp that I had gone to for 5 years as a camper and it was for my time there that the quote above stirred up nostalgia for. Each year that I was a camper, I went with a huge group of friends from school and manipulated it so that we would all be in the same cabin. Once I was a counselor, I still had friends that came with me, but I met so many new people and became really close with them. Now when I go through my memories from last summer, I think more about who I was hanging out with. We didn't do anything exciting most of the time, usually just hang out in lawn chairs and gossip about campers, but I had so much fun. This winter we had a reunion and it was so exciting to see my friends from camp because we all live in different towns and have such different lives that we never really see each other during the year. I've been feeling pretty excited to go back to camp again this summer, and I identified with Benji's excitement in the car to get to Sag Harbor and see everybody, but I'm hoping that I don't build it up too much because I don't want this summer to be a flop. Maybe Benji's relationship to Sag Harbor is more of to the place than to the people, but I guess it just surprises me because the community of people who "summer" there seems to be so important and he doesn't seem to care too much.

Madame C Helps Jason T

But human beauty falls leaf by leaf. You miss the beginning. One tells one, No, I am tired or The day is bad, that is all. But later, one cannot contradict the mirror. Day by day by day it falls, until this vieille sorcière is all who remains, who uses cosmetician's potions to approximate her birth gift. Oh, people say, 'The old are still beautiful!' They patronize, they flatter, maybe they wish to comfort themselves. But no. Eating the roots of beauty is a...Insatiable, undestructible slug. 

-- Madame Crommelynck (Black Swan Green, 150)

Jason starts visiting Madame Crommelynck during chapter 7, or "Solarium," in Black Swan Green and she provides a new perspective for him. She is brutally honest and frank, but it is clear that she is trying to help Jason. The other people that Jason interacts with are his family and friends and Madame Crommelynck is unlike most of them. The kids at school have a complex set of rules for who can say what and when and half the time they don't understand or mean what they're saying. At home, Jason experiences harsh speech from and between his parents, but their motives seem to be more selfish. They are frank with each other because they want to hurt the other person. Julia calls Jason "thing" and taunts him, but then sugarcoats their parents' fights and tries to soften the blow of their crumbling marriage. Madame Crommelynck is the first person who is straight with Jason and wants to help him. She doesn't baby him like so many of the other people in his life do and she explains things to him. The quote above is just one of many examples of Madame Crommelynck telling Jason how life is; she doesn't water it down as she acknowledges a sad fact of life: we are all going to die someday and it won't necessarily be a walk in the park when we get older. These conversations with Madame Crommelynck are extremely important for Jason's coming of age as he is able to engage in an intellectual conversation and really think about life. She gives him the opportunity to question the world around him and encourages him as he questions what she is saying. It seems like this is the first time that Jason isn't just stumbling into an adult moment and faking it until he makes it. Yes, he sort of stumbled into his arrangement with her, but he could leave or respond differently to her prompts to think harder. Rather, Madame Crommelynck allows Jason to take his coming of age into his own hands a bit, and it is really exciting to see that milestone.

Unfit Caretaker

I've been wanting to talk about Sylvie for a while now, but I wasn't quite sure how to start until I read this passage from chapter 8:

"Sylvie?"
She smiled. "Shhh."
"Where's our lunch?"
"Still in the boat. You're probably right. It would be good if they saw you eating."
I found a bag of marshmallows among the odds and ends that Sylvie had bundled into a checkered tablecloth and brought along for lunch--a black banana, a lump of salami with a knife through it, a single yellow chicken wing like an elegant, small gesture of defeat, the bottom fifth of a bag of potato chips." (p. 151)

This interaction displays why I have come to dislike Sylvie: she is incapable of being a good parent figure to Ruth and Lucille. Not only does she bring an unhealthy and insufficient mix of food on their outing, but she also only sees value in Ruth eating lunch if it will help them accomplish the task of luring in wild children. Sylvie is, whether she likes it or not, Ruth's guardian, and as such, she needs to have Ruth's health and wellbeing as a priority. It was hard at first to pinpoint why Sylvie came across as a frustrating character because Ruth doesn't care that she is unreliable, inconsistent, flighty, etc., and Lucille, the one who does initially realize Sylvie's faults, is portrayed as a brat. When Sylvie first arrived, everyone--Lily, Nona, Ruth, Lucille, me-- had high hopes for her and she seemed to understand kids and their needs. When she promised the girls that she would get them presents the morning after she arrived, I felt optimistic about her abilities to take care of them because she knew how to talk to them and make them happy. However, as I've continued reading the novel and seen Sylvie get progressively worse at being a caretaker, I have started to identify more with Lucille. As we mentioned in class today, it is a bad sign when the teenager is angry at the guardian for not having a stricter hold over what they can or can't do. If I were Sylvie, I would have been furious and scared after the girls spent the night in the woods. Maybe I'm being harsh, because Sylvie has definitely had hardships in her life and didn't have to come back to Fingerbone to watch over the girls, but part of me wishes that she hadn't.

The years between her husband's death and her eldest daughter's leaving home were, in fact, years of almost perfect serenity. My grandfather had sometimes spoken of disappointment. With him gone they were cut free from the troublesome possibility of success, recognition, advancement. They had no reason to look forward, nothing to regret. Their lives spun off the tilting world like thread off a spindle, breakfast time, suppertime, lilac time, apple time. 

--Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, p. 13

Ruth gives an idyllic portrayal of life in Fingerbone that reminds me a lot of the time I have spent in Clarksdale, Mississippi. When we are down there, we hear a lot of jokes about Delta time, which is the slow paced, carefree way of living that is a signature of Mississippi. We are discouraged from bringing and using our phones on the trip, so we are more isolated from the rest of the world. Everyday while I'm there, my thoughts are on what I am doing in that moment. Occasionally, I wonder what will be for dinner that night or if I will get to work more on hammering after lunch, but there is a very simple routine that happens each day and the students who go on the trip form a close group as we eat, sleep, work, breathe together, similar to Sylvia and her daughters. However, the feel of the trip is still different than that of life in Fingerbone because we have a goal in mind, something we are looking forward to: finishing building the house. This makes me wonder if there were small goals while the four women were living together in their serene home. Maybe this is just because I have the mentality of always moving forward ingrained in my mind after spending years working towards each new milestone, but I can't imagine a life in which there are no goals at all. Mr. Mitchell mentioned in class today that the description of these years was reminiscent of adulthood in that it is easy to get caught up in the routine and believe that nothing will change. However, even if you have a career and a set routine for each day, most people are still working towards improvement of some sort, whether it is a more varied syllabus for a class or the best route to deliver newspapers. The idea of living in a setting in which no personal improvement is expected sounds kind of nice, because sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the pressure that is always on me to move forward and get better at things, but if improvement and moving forward, even in a minuscule way, is not present, maybe even discouraged, I don't think I could be happy there either.

Esther's Road to Recovery

While I was reading the chapters in The Bell Jar that focus on Esther's time at the private hospital, I had some mixed emotions. At first I was kind of upset that Esther was being forced to be there. I sympathized with her and I didn't think that it was fair that her family was dragging her to a mental institution because some random lady decided that this place was what was best for her. I was also upset with the hospital and with society in general. There is no doubt about it that the second hospital is a much better fit for Esther-- she likes her psychiatrist, she isn't forced into painful shock therapy, and she feels more at ease-- but I still felt that she was unhappy and didn't want to be there. Esther's mother is more harsh than I would deem appropriate when it comes to Esther's move,
"My mother told me I should be grateful. She said I had used up almost all her money, and if it weren't for Mrs. Guinea she didn't know where I'd be."
Esther is shamed for having tried to kill herself, which seems to reflect on the attitude of not only her mother, but also the majority of society. When news of Esther's suicide attempt gets out, the media eats it up and publishes it in the newspapers, giving Joan the motivation to also try killing herself. Esther encounters blame for Joan's suicide attempts, as well as hostility from her family and others. 

However, once I started to think about it and continued reading the novel, I realized that most of the issues that I had with the second hospital were not actually with the institution, but rather with outside forces that could have happened anywhere, and my opinion of the place changed. I think that the second hospital was a beneficial stepping stone for Esther. She encountered love and support from Dr. Nolan and the nurses, as well as the permission to take her life into her own hands. One part that really stuck out to me was when the nurse told Esther that she was being moved up to the next level of recovery:

"'I'm not ready. I'm not well enough.' 'Of course, you're well enough. Don't worry, they wouldn't be moving you if you weren't well enough.' After the nurse left, I tried to puzzle out this new move on Doctor Nolan's part. What was she trying to prove? I hadn't changed. Nothing had changed.

Esther is wary of Dr. Nolan because she doesn't believe in herself, which is one of the factors that contributed to her downward spiral earlier in the novel, but the nurse does. She gives Esther the confidence that is necessary to continue down the road to recovery. Despite my initial wariness, I've realized that the second hospital was indeed salutary and that without it, Esther may never have reached the point where her future would be full of optimistic question marks. 

The Kids Are (More Than) Alright

While we were talking in class about Holden's feelings towards kids, I felt myself identifying more and more with him. As was mentioned, Holden is in this awkward stage between being an adult and being a child. He is trying to spend time with people who are much older than him and they don't take him seriously. Everyone can tell that he is young -- not quite a kid but definitely not an adult -- and they don't respect him, much to Holden's dismay as he sees himself as mature, responsible, an adult. I totally understood how Holden was feeling because I often feel lonely in my Brazilian family. All of my cousins are much older than me (they range from 14 to 26 years my senior) and are starting to have kids, who range from 7 to 16 years younger than me. It is hard to know where I belong because I am technically in the same generation as my older cousins but they think of me as being the same generation as their kids because I am closer in age to them. This wasn't an issue for me when I was a kid, but now that I've grown up a bit and taken on a lot of responsibility, I definitely don't see myself as a kid. Holden thinks all of the adults in his world are phonies and get angry at them for not respecting him as the adult that he sees himself as, so he seeks companionship in kids. In the past few years, I've also turned to the company of the children in my family, so I really identify with Holden here.

Holden and I both like kids a lot, but I sometimes wonder why that is. I guess one reason is that they could just as easily exclude us as the adults do, but they don't. Kids are fun and funny to talk to and watch, as shown by Holden's desire to "chew the fat" with Phoebe and his amusement when he notices that the skater in Central Park is wearing twenty lumpy sweaters. I think another thing that is nice about kids is that they are spontaneous and carefree. Holden has this mentality that we are on a conveyor belt and our lives are out of our control. I've definitely thought about that before, but I have trouble not continuing on the path that is set out for me. I'm planning on taking a gap year next year before I got to college, which isn't even that original, and I've been met with resistance from people who don't understand why I am not just going straight to college. I think one of the reasons I am drawn to kids is because they don't have any expectations of you. Maybe the reason Holden and I love kids is because we can live vicariously through them. My childhood was pretty great, and it seems like Holden's was, too, so kids are a great way to get back to that time.