Confession Tuesday

Fairy Tales to Me, Just Lies

              I don’t know what to write about, really, but I won’t go on boring you with the same old stories of princes and princesses and all that fairy tale jazz. It is nice to read and all, but who can relate to it? It's always princess this and princess that, she meets a prince, next true love’s kiss, and I can bet you know what comes later, of course they live happily ever after!

                 Well, No! Life just isn’t that way. It's sometimes full of sorrow, misery, and greed. It will stay that way if you don’t choose anything to do, or if you don’t want to help anybody out. There’s a solution though, you’ll only live happily if you think positively. Well, of course there are some mean people out there, but life doesn’t have to be perfect to be enjoyable. Heck, if everything was perfect the bad wouldn’t help us better appreciate the good things. So, if we were all robots walking around every day in a perfect world it would just always be same old, same old.

                 What I’m trying to say is, I realize, I like the world the way it is even though there is bad and it sometimes disgusts me. I am recently really trying hard to focus on the positive. I’ll even confess it's hard to do this, but if you think about it, the good really outweighs the bad.

These people like: Santa, The Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are to hide children's young and innocent minds from the horrors in the world. They should just teach us to look on the positive side instead. (It's hard, though, because on the news all the time it's only so and so just died, or a tsunami hit here etc.) These things do exist they are the spirit of giving to those who are in need the most. The people forced to during times like Christmas brace them selves for the cold put on some ratty old blanket and sit on the curb begging all Holiday long. 

I confess, even I find the world is a hard place. It's just always throwing challenges, but I try looking on the positive side of things, really I do.         

A Positive Twist

Fruit on my papaya tree eaten by the birds

A Positive Twist 

Looking at the good small moments that are simply special and important. These moments come up all the time. Thinking of a warm cup of tea or a breakfast outside or just a joke that makes you laugh. 

I remember waking up early, my friend Christopher in the blow up bed, and me in my own bed which is an oasis for dreams as I sleep. I open my eyes slowly sit up and stretch. It is early morning about 7:00 am and I am just awakening.

I slowly pull the blind back to look at the trees for birds. I see out through the window two Social Flycatchers land. 

“Hey Christopher come see these birds.” 

“Do you know what these birds are?” I question 

“Great Kiskadees” 

“You’re close” I say, 

“But those are Social Flycatchers.”

“Oh” he said 

I went on to show him the difference between the two birds in their color and their calls.

I then got down off my bed and opened the other curtain on my right just a little bit to let in some light. I walk to the bathroom and brush my hair then walk over to my dresser to get my clothes I quickly get dressed and so does Christopher and we both head down for breakfast.

As we open the door of my room my mom is walking by to go downstairs.

“Good morning boys.” she says 

“Good morning mom.” I reply 

We walk down the stairs and into the kitchen were my dad is cooking breakfast and heating up pancakes.

When everything is ready we go to the sliding door to eat in the backyard and as we go I see that two hibiscuses have bloomed on the plant. 

“Wow look there are two.” I say

We eat the pancakes with delicious maple syrup drizzled all over them and help ourselves to fruit from a plate laid out in front of us by my mom. 

As we ate the great food I looked to my right 

“Christopher look at the hummingbird” I say pointing to the little bird with its ever moving wings.

“Oh yeah!” he replied enthusiastically. 

We just watched as the little bird drank from the hibiscus flew up a bit hovered and zoomed away quickly in search of another nectar rich flower.

I appreciated everything around me the nature the shade casted upon us from the papaya tree, birds chirping loudly, the crystalline drops of due drizzled on the grass, the fresh morning air. 

I looked around and saw everything clearly just as it was simple, yet complex at the same time. 

“Are you happy to have maple syrup Christopher?” 

“Yes I sure am!” 

One more simple, positive thing to add to the list I say to myself.    

Book Review The Color of Water

Eric Gauthier

Mrs. Meadows

English E-F

December 5, 2011

The Color of Water -Thoughts and Review

 

The Color of Water by James McBride is his Tribute as a black man to his white mother. This memoir is an emotional journey of what it is like growing up in New York in a time of racial segregation and injustice. This book is organized by going back and forth between James’s childhood and his mother's In my opinion this is a very profound book that is about a family of thirteen kids barely making it through life. They lived in the Red Hook housing projects in Brooklyn.  Due to his surroundings as a youth, James gets pulled into things like gangs and drugs, but later on turns away from violence and fights and starts music and writing. 

  Having a white mother as a child he thinks nothing of it, but soon begins to, as he gets older, wonder who he is, but first to know this he must know who his mother is. Every time he asks about her past she tells him to mind his own business. The reason she hides her past is because it is her only way to keep going because her past is to painful to bring back into her mind. Her childhood was harsh and bitter and she was watched over by her strict and careless father Tateh. He does not care at all for her crippled mother and does not help her. All he cares about is money he makes in his store which he forces Ruth and Dee-Dee to work in for him. Ruth is the name that James’ mother used, but she used to be known as Rachel. It shows how cruel a culture the world has evolved into not accepting anything different or unique.

   I think that James has learned about himself that no matter what background you are from you can still be a success, but not without a little help from his mother.  Ruth is the person, even in her own sorrow, who helped him become a journalist, a writer, a composer, and saxophonist. 

Ruth is Jewish in her childhood and turns to, and accepts Jesus as her savior with her first husband Dennis McBride. She uses prayer to help her continue. She went to church every day with Dennis to hear Rev. Brown preach the messages of the Lord. When Rev. Brown dies Dennis and Ruth founded the New Brown Memorial Church. James has understood that humor can be a cure to a large family with many siblings and that even though sometimes there are fights, arguments, and disagreements that you still have to stick together. His mother always told him never to share anything about himself with others. 

  It was as if she was trying to create the perfect world within the house that she never had as a child. She ruled over all. She was the queen of the house and she always valued education. She would say “Educate yourself or you’ll be a nobody.”    

I really liked this line because it shows how much education is important and it is so concise an is straight to the point because if you don’t educate yourself nobody will recognize as a significant contributor to the world’s ideas. Basically I’m trying to say if you don’t educate yourself nobody will take you seriously either. 

He shows how she needs to stay active to stay alive and to keep moving through the challenges of life. James eventually drops out of school.  Education was one of the most important things for her children, for them to become someone and to find their way into the world. They luckily do not let this get in their way, the children all successfully go to college and university. The book shows a struggle against authority poverty the fight against segregation and of a mother single-handily taking care of a whole family. They don’t understand, while being children, why color or race matters or why they should not be integrated. James realizes that his mother had real strength, power and courage to have made it through a tragic childhood and motherhood, but was soon healed by her family as they grew older and made her proud.