Category: Craft

Making Peace

anna blogRelationships aren’t really something that I’m good at. I’ve never been the type of person that has had an easy time with making connections, whether they are romantic or platonic. I know the main reason behind this is me trying my best to protect myself from disappointment and heart-break, but I also have started to realize that walking this earth alone isn’t the correct way to live.

In the beginning of August, I decided that I would try something new, so I decided to make a connection with someone I knew I cared about and had the potential to love. it was a decision that terrified me but I had promised myself that I would try to change and put myself in uncomfortable situations. It turned out to be amazing, while it lasted. I knew going into something like this that it would eventually end because everything does end, but somehow I made peace with that and continued to fall for him.

It all ended less than a month ago. I originally thought this would completely wreck me and close me out to the world again but the loss ended up doing the opposite. At first it hurt to know that I wasn’t enough for someone who I believed was everything but the entire situation taught me that it’s okay to feel things, to let people in. I was now more open than ever. I wouldn’t cower away from  another opportunity to love someone again.

Now that Valentine’s Day is starting to make an appearance, I don’t feel like I’m going to miss out because I’m no longer in a relationship with him (platonic or romantic). I’ve made peace with the idea that I’m better off alone and I’m content that way. I’ve learned that happiness is found within me and not within someone else.

-Anna Dominguez, Junior Poetry Editor

Writer-ly Relationships

writers-blockDA’s writing department flourishes a plethora of interesting relationships. We spend four years getting into small groups and dissecting each other’s personal writing. As each year progresses, said writing blossoms into embodiments of the writer. We learn to pull inspiration and authenticity from our actual lives. Then, we go to class and sit idly by while class members peer into a sliver of who we are. On the page this calls to be a highly intimate experience. Yet over these years, I’ve watched us all leave the writing classroom and hardly even share eye contact. On the page, it would seem that these people reading into my life would be the closest friends. Writers, though, don’t follow societal norms. We have to go against the grain.

Instead, we writers associate in more subtle ways. We all walk around on campus as if a part of a secret society. As if we’re all too busy being the quiet observer in the corner -pooling ideas for the next short story- to acknowledge one another. Whenever I’d pass by a fellow writer, my lips would give a small smile accompanied by a quick head nod. This year, I’ve greatly stepped out of my comfort zone. Writing has taught me that nothing is learned if risks aren’t taken. Maybe it’s senior year blues, maybe nostalgia, but I’ve put in a lot more effort to form an actual relationship with these incredible people. Not a single trace of regret has surfaced since.

In the coming months, we’ll all go our separate ways. Inevitability at its finest. But these unique perspectives that I’ve sat beside for the last four years aren’t about to leave. As I continue pursuing writing, I’ll always refer to my original, and most cherished critics.

-Mariah Abshire, Editor- in- Chief

Sometimes, It’s Hard to Walk Away

indexWriting is built on relationships. Writing is composed, constructed, resurrected, and thrown together with a relationship in mind. In literature, readers -myself included- are quick to judge the characters without in depth analysis or benefit of the doubt to the situation unfolding. As readers you place your struggles and the concepts of your own personal relationships into the text, sometimes letting it overshadow the new way of thinking the writer wants you to experience.

For example, last year, I read the book Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston. This book is sewn together with beautiful language as it follows the life of Janie, a mixed race woman in the early 1900s. Though I connected to the strength and determination the main character had the entire time in the book, I couldn’t understand why she stayed married to a man who abused her. Even after reading this book, I weighed the argument that Janie had a nice life married to a pastor but was muted into submission by him. I didn’t understand why she didn’t just pack her stuff and leave. As a senior in high school I have already begun to mentally pack my bags for college and have grown to understand Janie. I’ve learned that even when the front door is open it’s hard to leave the people and the place you’ve called home for so long, that there is a relationship you have to even the drippy faucet you’ll only notice when you’re gone.

As the year progresses I take the idea on relationships Hurston gave her character Janie and now look for it in other stories. Relationships run deep. They don’t need to be subjected to a list of archetypical characters. In the long run, they are really hard to walk away from.

-Chrissy Thelemann, Submissions Editor