Category: Craft

Beware

Kiara Blog Post PictureShifting into this awkward phase where I’m beginning to think about adult things like constantly being aware of money, yet I still laugh about the scribbling in the bathroom stalls is torture. I mean, that sounds really angsty, but it really is. I’m really disappointed nobody told me that all those high school movies are completely inaccurate, like me looking twenty seven at sixteen and definitely having my license by now (I don’t even have my permit).

It’s reassuring as all my peers are going through the same thing too, the constant emails from all these colleges and the mail from universities I’ll never be able to even imagine paying for. Then there’s the part where I get to laugh with them about dorm life and dating all over campus and no parents!

And then sometimes there’s those moments where I can’t help but feel absolutely alone when I’m looking at SAT and ACT registrations and when I’m wishing that my PSAT score was a little higher to offer some form of reconciliation. Mom of course says it’s natural to have these fears and I’ll get through it but constantly drowning (or more so flailing in open waters). Sometimes a boat will come by, offer help, and sometimes I’m an idiot and say no, and watch the boat fly off across the sea into the horizon. Sometimes boats ignore me, and then every now and again a boat stops and I’m not stupid and climb on.

It’s strange planning campus tour dates and taking virtual tours of dorms, trying to decide the rest of my life. I know all adults are like: you still have time, but cut the crap, we really don’t. It’s like, college is probably going to be some of the best moments of my life, but if I mess it up, then it’s a huge blight looming over my life and you can’t get re-dos, just, I’ll try to clean up the mess.

I’m just hoping I’ll get some awesome scholarships, and maybe a school will really want me to come to their school and debt won’t be a problem. I just want to get a job I love and pays amazing, but doesn’t everyone want that? Well, some people don’t but most people want that, and it’s in the form of that false American Dream or whatever people want to call it. But maybe, this end to my childhood, isn’t the end of me.

-Kiara Ivey, Junior Layout & Design Editor

What Richard Blanco’s Looking for the Gulf Motel Taught Me About Identity

Aracely PictureAs I lay curled up in an armchair reading Richard Blanco’s third book Looking for the Gulf Motel, I was struck by his diversity and approach. In my personal life, when my writing suddenly shifted towards interactions with my father and references to Mexican culture- I housed a fear that I would be pigeon holed. Surely no one wanted to read ten poems all dealing with my father, and italicized Spanish words. However, words like chiles and tortilla popped up again and again, along with whole lines of dialogue in Spanish.

Somehow,- it wasn’t enough, just to talk about my father and discovering culture. There had to be something else, a layer or theme hiding from me I hadn’t explored yet. Blanco poetry showed me just that. Knowing he was a Cuban writer, I expected unbridled praise for his culture, imagery upon imagery of joyous family gatherings, and ethnic dishes. It wasn’t quite what I imagined.

Reading the poem for which the book is named, I realized there was so many other layers to exploring culture. In the poem he touches on the intricacies of poverty, shame and trying to exist in a society that is not completely forgiving. Amidst this, he celebrates, he creates the true immigrant experience of being out casted, a pariah, and in that humility rebuilding pride, but accepting the weight of practicing culture in different country.

Blanco also explores how his sexuality relates to his culture. He does this in a poem about his grandmother suspecting he was gay, and what the cultural implications of that were. Knowing how the LGBT community is viewed from the traditional Hispanic lens, I felt for him.

More than that, Blanco taught me that even though culture can be beautiful, and rich, you can walk the line of being an in-between, you can criticize it, and be fond of it.

Most recently, with this nugget of knowledge, I’ve been exploring the difficulties of having mixed heritage, being Irish American on my mother’s side and Mexican’s on my fathers.

For a long time I suppressed this desire to voice this confusion. Now I see I can, I have permission to celebrate, and express my identity and its intricacies.

–Aracely Medina, Senior Poetry Editor

The Biggest Change

PICTURE BrianaMan is not only made of skin, flesh and bones, but also of personal history. What influences someone to grow and shape himself or herself into the person they wish to be, is heavily affected by their experiences. Each of us has a story, some tragic and emotional, some simple, all equally as impactful.

At the start of my teenage years, when I became far more aware of the world around me, I began to recognize the emotional depths of people, specifically my father. As a kid, seeing him upset always registered as something temporary, something he could mend with a good night’s sleep, and his favorite snack. Soon, I learned, it wasn’t that simple.

I learned my father had clinical depression when I was fourteen and he was admitted into a mental facility for the first time. The weeks leading up to his admission, he had drastically changed. He lost twenty-five pounds and all the color in his skin.

He had always been the kind of man who danced on tabletops in fancy restaurants and laughed loud enough for an entire room to hear. He empowered others with his wisdom and he was a role model. He was a man who, more than anyone else, loved the art of living. He was also a man who was fighting for his life.

He didn’t experience another episode until the months leading up to August of 2015. The patterns remained the same. He lost weight and ambition and on August 6th, he took his life.

Often times in dealing with death, people express the hurt in losing someone else. They describe the pain felt in never seeing them, hearing them, or being with them again. I felt a much different pain.

Losing him meant losing my knowledge. He was the one who stayed awake with me at three a.m. eating peanut butter only sandwiches and discussing the history of the world. Losing him meant losing perseverance. He was the only one who always reminded me I was capable. The one who pushed me into the pool to prove to myself I knew how to swim. He showed me that words were art and that with them I was capable of changing the world. Losing him meant losing heart and passion.

With any loss, other things are gained as a consequence. I’m waiting for those things and, slowly but surely, I am learning that they do come eventually.

-Briana Lopez, Senior Editor-in-Chief