Cornelia De Lange Syndrome

Laura reflects on living with a brother who has Cornelia De Lange Syndrome and then launches into a personal story of an encounter of someone mistreating her brother for his special needs. Though the story seems to have personal impact on the author, it isn't specifically addressed in the memoir.

I really liked the pieces of description in this piece. You ability to weave words and phrases into delights on the tongue made it hard to not want more when I was done reading. I couldn't tell if you were using a thesaurus or if that was your natural vocabulary but - either way - good for you. You painted these really specific images that you can't forget as you shy away from the cliches and stick with the hard details of the setting. "her three fingers covered in white, greasy lotion that smelled like Clementines and a doctor’s office" is clearly describing sunscreen lotion by use of the senses, which I think made your scenes really believable.

I did struggle with it being too descriptive at points. Sometimes I would get lost in a sentence with so many dependent clauses that I had to read it a few times to draw out the meaning. I think that some of the description can be condensed in some places. The ending was quite abrupt. I know that the beginning of the piece is talking about your experiences with your brother but the ending doesn't seem to provide any sort of closure for the reader at all. There's no reflection on the event, there's no lesson learned, there's not even a sappy "this is what i learned today mom" tearful speech.

Besides the weak ending, I think everything else was done quite well and you definitely have an interesting piece on your hands.

a night on the drunk bus

"A Night on the Drunk Bus" details Sally's bad day and spending a night riding around on the Security Shuttle at Auburn. She humorously recounts a story told by the bus driver that night, about young love and blueberry gum.

First of all, I absolutely loved the tone of this story. You portray yourself realistically and talk about situations that have happened to ALL of us (in different forms) without shying away from the gory details. You also touch on personal Auburn experiences, such as the wonder of the drunk bus specifically the snickering on the bus when us friendly passengers see the drivers as people rather than a personal chauffeur. Your humor combines well with the story, with details in certain places where you admit to exaggerating for the sake of writing and sarcastic thoughts that made me laugh out loud (lolroflmycopter etc.) (i.e. "no, Dan, I was actually hoping you would ignore my question" and "'her lukewarm coffee trickling down my calf' hardly gets the point across")

 I'm sure this will be brought up in class because it's quite obvious that there are no paragraph breaks so I won't waste time talking about that. And while I understand the need to describe your unlucky day, I feel like you wanted the core of your story to be about your time on the drunk bus which is why I might recommend cutting down some of the information beforehand. As it is, your bad day takes up half the paper which threw me off because I didn't realize that the paper would be so short. I didn't see any real reflection or meaning behind the story or how it effected you besides making drunk bussing a hobby. I don't want you to cut the humor anywhere but it kind of creates a joking mood that takes away significance from the piece overall. I think there could have been more description of those in the drunk bus or describing the air in the drunk bus. I think I'm not the only one when I say "when you get on that bus, there are certain people around you that create a mood." I'd also like to hear your thoughts on why you thought his story was dumb, though I looooved that the girls in the bus began holding out their hands for a piece without question. 

Please don't lose your humor, Plz.

Left

Alethia reflects on the relationship she had with her mother, before and following moving out. She comes to the realization that it took courage for her to leave a bad situation with her mother but she admits that she can see where her mother was coming from.

I like this piece because it shows a raw event. It starts off with an awkward encounter at the Dollar General with a cashier which launches into the backstory of why Alethia moved out of her mother's house. I like the addressing of the multiple meanings of the word "Left" and think that the title is simple but perfect. I thought it was interesting that it took time for her siblings to tell her of their relationship with their mother; it really showed the distance between them. I think my favorite line was ". All the time spent trying to confront problems that didn’t want to be confronted is time you can spend trying to heal" because I think that this is something that everyone can learn from and everyone can relate to but so few people recognize it that they get caught up in the past and end up holding grudges or feeling regret.

I think the transitions were a little shaky at times. There was a jump between a personal experience to telling history of her mother and back again that I think could have been fleshed out a little more. With this, there were times where spans of time were summarized only to go back to a time before that which left me a little dizzy trying to put the events in order. The scenes worked really well as you didn't need the dialogue for a lot of the yelling, though I think that would have made the piece stronger. By generalizing her mother's rage, the reader gets a biased side of the story (which I suppose is what a personal essay is supposed to do...) and makes her mother out to be "the bad guy".

I'm not saying that our author doesn't give credit where credit is due, it just seems like she was so personally affected by the situation that she doesn't reflect on the reasons her mother did some of the things she did. Did her mother feel entitled to her daughter's money because she was her daughter or because she had helped her in some way and thought that she deserved some credit? Can we get specifics on what her mother was sick with, so we can experience some sympathy? Was it verbal abuse that kept her siblings quiet or was it something else?

I think that this essay is written from the heart about a very personal experience. I respect you for sharing this story with us.

five of me

"Five of Me" documents how Leslie came to be born. She explores the world of her parents and their history, delving into their desire for a child and the frustration they faced when they weren't able to conceive.

I found this story fascinating that it was told from her mother's point of view. I mean, there would be no other way to do it but it was really interesting to see the details that she thought out and her speculations on what her parents felt. These speculations make the story seem more real to me because our author wasn't the one who was there but it able to accurately paint the picture to show how her mother must have felt. There was a lot of detail, which I liked, because it didn't gloss over her mother's attempts unlike most stories do with a simple "they tried for months and grew more downtrodden but then a baby was miraculously born". Instead, Leslie took that phrase and expanded on the experience, creating an overall interesting story to read and a personal look into the events that transpired before her birth.

I didn't like the ending. I understand where it came from, as a reference to her mother's treatment where there was a possibility of sextuplets. I understand that the memoir has come to a close and needs to be wrapped up in some way to show Leslie's birth into the world but it felt like it fell short. There was such great imagery throughout the whole piece and she started to continue that imagery on the last page, painting the scene of her parents and brother and what they were doing. But I guess I would have liked to see a guess on her mother receiving the news or (if possible) a scene documenting the positive pregnancy test. Because there wasn't ever a scene, it kind of dragged on even though the information was interesting.

The last line just...didn't work for me? I guess because Leslie didn't touch on the possibility of sextuplets more than once in the piece. I almost feel like it would have worked even better with just cutting that last line and ending it that way. I guess because I was confused at one point where I thought Leslie was the older sibling so I thought that the story would end without her mother getting pregnant. But once I got to the end, it all made sense. I don't think that needs clarification because I'm just a ditz and bad at paying attention. On the note from earlier, I think there could be a different title. I don't have any specific suggestions but I think it could be better at talking about what the story will address.

Great work!!

learning to let go

Carrie's story is about an experience she had before college, where she decided against her instinct to just on a tire rope swing and seized up, sending her to the hospital. As most personally stories do, this memoir requires a certain amount of knowledge of Carrie's life to understand the significance of it. After reading the ending, I realized that her relationship with her mother is strong and her going on the swing was almost a symbolic flying out of her mother's nest for the first time.

I didn't realize that Carrie had had a seizure. With her recollection of the few memories she has after her jump, it was hard to tell what had happened to her. I really liked that she emphasized her inability to recall most of tose memories, as that was quite realistic, and the sentence "I’m still, to this day, hearing about things that happened that I don’t remember." which reinforced the memory for me. I think the dialogue was near perfect in every place; there was humor where there needed to be and the dialogue really did something for the story, rather than just filler. We got a better look at her companions and her relationship with her mother.

On that subject, I might suggest fleshing out the last paragraph a bit more. You set up a meeting with your mother and, with a bit of foreshadowing in the middle, about how upset she would be with you. But, upon the actual first conversation post-seizure, I found it a bit lackluster that the scene was basically summarized to wrap up the memoir. I wish that the whole last page was just dialogue, about the worries you had about going to college and your mother's responses to that. I'm sure it's hard to remember exact words of course because memories are hazy like that but "I talked to her about some of my worries about college and how much I was going to miss her" just seemed too curt if you're trying to show the relationship you had with your mom and what changed after the incident.

I really like that we get into your mind during the moments before the jump. I think that it's essential for a reader to be in the narrator's shoes and I really think you captured those feelings right before you jumped perfectly. I wish there had been a little bit more setting? I'm not sure if it's necessary, but maybe just putting the reader in a place that's familiar: describing some of the lake, maybe someone fell off the dock and is splashing a friend, laughter tinkling in the wind (please don't use that line, it's so corny). Just little details to bring the reader to the setting to fully set the scene we're about to experience.

Other than that, I think you did a great job!

conceal, don't feel [finalish draft]

Kevin Mayo

ENGL 2000

Ms. Spell

10 April 2014

Conceal, Don’t Feel

It was because of my father that I got better at golf. He was constantly telling me the advantages of knowing the game of golf and explaining why he liked to go out and play with his buddies. I was young, then, and my mother was really good at convincing me that I needed to go play golf with my dad because “he needed this” or “he wasn’t feeling great” or “he would really enjoy it if you went with him.”

After sitting through church doodling on the program while my mother pinched my father to stay awake, my dad would always ask me on the way home: “You want to go play golf with me today?” He always made sure to make eye contact with me in the mirror of the car, where I would shift uncomfortably in the backseat and start reading over my “notes” from church. Sometimes I made up excuses and sometimes I said yes only to take a nap later. Either way, whenever I broke eye contact with him in that small little mirror, he would just smile and shake his head. “No, that’s okay.” He would assure me when I apologized for wanting to play my GameCube instead. My mother would give me a stern look and, after a short conversation at home, I would appear in the basement at 3:15, dressed in a polo, shorts, and a hat that never fit on my head right.

The golf course that we went to was rarely visited by women. We could never convince my mom to come to the course which just meant that my dad and I grew closer. It was mostly old black men getting a cheap round of golf in, either paying the additional money for carts or just bringing along push carts to roll around on the fairways. Whenever I got out of the car in that parking lot, my heart started racing. I think it was confidence. Once I got to a point where it wasn’t embarrassing for my dad to golf with me, I started to visit the course more often. Something about the rubber spikes on the bottom of my shoes and the gravel parking lot turning to smooth concrete when you stepped onto the course made me nervous.

My dad was never far behind me, hovering near my shoulder when I visited the putting green before our round. He watched from the clubhouse while I shanked shag balls into the woods next to the course. When our neighbors showed up, it was showtime. We would flip a tee in the air to decide who would tee off first. It was usually just the four of us, but sometimes another older man would join our group. Once, we had someone join our group who kind of laughed at my presence with the group. After the others had hit their respective shots and displayed their differences in age by the distance of their drives, I was up next.

“Your daughter can use the ladies’ tee, if she wants.” This was before I would recognize my actual identity as a male – but that’s a story for another day.

I remember looking at my dad as I pushed the tee into the ground, between the two blue stones representing the “Seniors” tee. I wondered how he would respond. He grinned and, I swear to you, there was a flash of sunlight on his gold tooth, making his grin infectious for me.

“Just watch.” He gave me a nod.

If you’ve never played golf before, then you don’t know the amount of sweat that piled on my forehead. There were only a handful of people standing around the teebox but the amount of pressure that falls on your shoulders to succeed and hit a golf ball with precision, force, and aim is one of the most terrifying and exhilarating moments to experience. My hands were shaking. I stared down the green shaft of the driver and I closed my eyes. As soon as I had convinced myself I was definitely ready, I took a step back and took a couple more practice swings. What was a hat good for anyway if it couldn’t stop sweat from leaking into my eyes?

I stepped back up to the ball. Etched on the side were my initials: AMM, written in my dad’s thin uppercase handwriting, made jagged from my continual use of this ball. I let out a quick breath and then swung, staring up at the fairway in hopes that I hadn’t fucked this up. The ball soared, landing a great deal past any of the other balls in the fairway and I heard a soft “Wow” behind me. I turned around and pushed my golf club in my bag, grinning the whole time.

“That’s why she doesn’t use the ladies tee.” My father said proudly, pushing his cart past me as we starting trekking down the tee box. I came pretty close to crying that day; my dad seemed really proud that I had done so well.

I remember the first time my father shed tears. 

My parents had picked me up from school just like it was any other day and took the twenty minute drive from work to home with little chatter. I was usually filled with trivial stories and my parents usually chattered about changes to the Birmingham district. 

When we got home, I'm sure I disappeared into my room like usual to read a trashy teen lit novel, my father to the basement to watch sports in the dark and pretend not to fall asleep halfway through, and my mother to their bedroom to read her African-American books, the only kind of books she had.

My mother called me downstairs which I was reluctant to do because I'd just gotten to an emotionally juicy part of my novel and whatever she was interrupting me for could wait (examples include: "there are socks on the floor in your room" and "it's six PM on a Saturday put something else besides pajamas on"). When her call became more insistent, I thundered down the stairs, running my greasy fingers down the mauve walls, nudging the wooden railing with my hip. Childishly making my presence known and that I was obeying her demand, however reluctantly.

I hung a left to the hallway down to my parents' bedroom and leaned into the doorway, rolling my eyes at my stern mother who sat at the edge of the bed. "Yeah?"

"Sit down, honey."

"Why, am I in trouble?"

She smiled sadly at me and I instantly felt this strange pain in my chest. My mother wasn't the greatest at showing sympathy. So in this small moment, seeing her show that look filled with pity, fear, and discomfort, I swallowed hard and felt the corners of my eyes stinging. I didn't know what I would be crying for, just that something serious was about to happen.

"Honey, your Daddy had been feeling very sad today. Honey, Daddy's crying in the basement right now." I was twelve years old, very past the point of calling my father "Daddy" anymore, not that she would notice. What could possibly make my father so upset? He hadn't cried at his father's funeral, he hadn't cried when Mom had a meltdown and ran away to Virginia, he hadn't cried at anything. My dad was a strong man and he was someone I looked up to: someone who didn't have to show all those expressive emotions when he felt them.

I didn't believe her. I wanted to go downstairs but her grip on my arm was too tight. I was eight inches taller than her but all it took was a look for me to sit back down, ears back and tail between my legs. I finally brought up the courage to ask the question. "Why is Dad crying?"

"Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore."

"What? Why?" It was such a strange answer to that question. I was generally a good kid: I did was I was supposed to, I rebelled where I could, but I mostly followed whatever they said without questioning. I strained to remember if I had something that would indicate otherwise to my dad. 

I really couldn't think of anything. I'd struggled with the relationship with my mother: we fought often about what I should or shouldn't wear, what was acceptable to do in public, how I needed to act when we went to church. My dad was often the only part of my childhood where I could actually be whoever and be accepted as I was. The other place was the internet. Our afternoons at the golf course gradually became a routine for me, not just a chore.  The only thing I really shared with my mother was a love for reading but she was never interested in anything not by black authors so I wondered if she and I were even related. 

"..Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore because...well. We talked about it and we decided that it was the right time to tell you: You're adopted."

I sat still for a moment, still captivated by the image of my father crying. It was hard to imagine his happy round smile turned anywhere but up. The graying hairs of his beard and moustache poking in his lips as he grinned, his belly shaking with laughter were replaced with tears streaming down his face, making ugly what once held a serious passion for his job. The way his eyes lit up when he made a joke, the way he snickered and sometimes started coughing when he said something that was too funny. It was too strange.

"You guys don't have to have anything to worry about." I moved over and put my hand on my mother's shoulder, giving her a half-hug. "You're the ones who raised me, you're my parents as far as I'm concerned." I heard her sniffle and then give me a little push. "Go talk to your father. Make him feel better, okay?"

I stepped out of the bedroom and pulled open the door to the basement. I looked down the stairs and hesitated. Did I want to see my father in that weakened state? Would I ever see him cry again? I was bringing him good news - that would mean he would stop crying, right?

As I crept down the stairs, I wondered if my presence would surprise him. I wondered if they were testing me. A cruel, sick joke to see if I actually loved them and if I would run away, like I always planned to do when things rarely didn't go my way. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I knew it wasn't a test. The two television facing the couch were blank and soundless. The florescent light over the workbench provided a sickly light onto the concrete which made me wonder if he was down there at all. I flicked the light switch by the bottom of the stairs and I felt a jerk in my chest, like an instinctual knee kick from a hit to the patella.

My father sat on the couch, soft unfamiliar noises coming from him as he held his head in his hands. His ashy elbows balanced on his bare knees and I was struck by how old my parents really were. His bald head had little gray hairs growing on the sides, a sign that my mother was going to cut his hair in the basement later that week. I saw the gold band wrapped around the fourth finger on his left hand, contrasting with the dark, strong skin on the back of his hand. Though he was fifty-six at the time, I always thought that his arms and hands didn't show it.

Finally, I cleared my throat and, sweat appearing on my forehead, I approached him and sat next to him on the couch. We stayed quiet for a moment and then I slowly wrapped my arm over his shoulder. He gave a quiet sob and then began to hastily wipe his eyes, giving a fake smile through blurred vision. 

I don't really remember what he told me. I don't really remember what we talked about. I do remember crying with him. I remember sitting next to him on the couch, trying not to sob pathetically as he asked me “Do you still love us?” It was really hard not to break when he was grinning through his tears and rubbing me on the back.

I assured him, “I love you even more now” and he patted me on the back. He looked like he wanted to cry more, but he also looked less distraught. “Go see if Mom needs help in the kitchen.” I smiled at him, a little sad that our moment was over and turned to go. “Hey.” I turned back around and looked at him as he stood up, motioning at me. “I love you too.”

Our round of golf wasn’t great. I missed about two hundred really easy putts, frustrating me to no ends. I shanked a couple of iron shots and ended up taking a lot of drop balls, jacking my score up. It was starting to get late as we trudged the uphill fairway to finish the eighteenth hole. It was straight out of a movie: a father and child pulling their carts up the fairway as the sun set majestically in the background. He reached over and pat me on the shoulder, smiling at me with those warm dark eyes. “I’m glad you came with me today.”

“Me too,” I wiped at the corners of my eyes, trying to hide my emotion as we approached the green.

“Finish strong, go ahead and sink that putt.”

I did.

conceal don't feel [memoir] [actual thing]

I remember the first time my father shed tears.

My parents had picked me up from school just like it was any other day and took the twenty minute drive from work to home with little chatter. I was usually filled with trivial stories and my parents usually chattered about changes to the Birmingham district.

When we got home, I'm sure I disappeared into my room like usual to read a trashy teen lit novel, my father to the basement to watch sports in the dark and pretend not to fall asleep halfway through, and my mother to their bedroom to read her African-American books, the only kind of books she had.

My mother called me downstairs which I was reluctant to do because I'd just gotten to an emotionally juicy part of my novel and whatever she was interrupting me for could wait (examples include: "there are socks on the floor in your room" and "it's six PM on a Saturday put something else besides pajamas on"). When her call became more insistent, I thundered down the stairs, running my greasy fingers down the mauve walls, nudging the wooden railing with my hip. Childishly making my presence known and that I was obeying her demand, however reluctantly.

I hung a left to the hallway down to my parents' bedroom, smirking at the faceless African dancers hung in time on the wall. They'd confused me as a child - black faces with colorful garb? What were they celebrating? I leaned into the doorway, rolling my eyes at my stern mother who sat at the edge of the bed. "Yeah?"

"Sit down, honey."

"Why, am I in trouble?"

She smiled sadly at me and I instantly felt this strange pain in my chest. My mother wasn't the greatest at showing sympathy. So in this small moment, seeing her show that look filled with pity, fear, and discomfort, I swallowed hard and felt the corners of my eyes stinging. I didn't know what I would be crying for, just that something serious was about to happen.

"Honey, your Daddy had been feeling very sad today. Honey, Daddy's crying in the basement right now." I was twelve years old, very past the point of calling my father "Daddy" anymore, not that she would notice. Confusion, shock, fear. What could possibly make my father so upset? He hadn't cried at his father's funeral, he hadn't cried when Mom had a meltdown and ran away to Virginia, he hadn't cried at anything. My dad was a strong man and he was someone I looked up to: someone who didn't have to show all those expressive emotions when he felt them.

I didn't believe her. I wanted to go downstairs but her grip on my arm was too tight. I was eight inches taller than her but all it took was a look for me to sit back down, ears back and tail between my legs. I finally brought up the courage to ask the question. "Why is Dad crying?"

"Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore."

"What? Why?" It was such a strange answer to that question. I was generally a good kid: I did was I was supposed to, I rebelled where I could, but I mostly followed whatever they said without questioning. I strqained to remember if I had something that would indicate otherwise to my dad.

I really couldn't think of anything. I'd struggled with the relationship with my mother: we fought often about what I should or shouldn't wear, what was acceptable to do in public, how I needed to act when we went to church. My dad was often the only part of my childhood where I could actually be whoever and be accepted as I was. My dad and I would go out to the golf course on Sundays and those were the days when I realized how much I loved my father. Not just because we had a good time and he was helping me get better at something, but because it was an afternoon away from our nagging glue that held our tiny family together. With the amount of time my father and I spent together and the vast difference of my enjoyment of my time with him over my time with her, I sometimes wondered if she and I were even related.

"..Honey, he thinks you won't love him anymore because..well. We talked about it and we decided that it was the right time to tell you: You're adopted."

I sat still for a moment, still captivated by the image of my father crying. It was hard to imagine his happy round smile turned anywhere but up. The graying hairs of his beard and moustache poking in his lips as he grinned, his belly shaking with laughter were replaced with tears streaming down his face, making ugly what once held a serious passion for his job. The way his eyes lit up when he made a joke, the way he snickered and sometimes started coughing when he said something that was too funny. It was too strange.

"You guys don't have to have anything to worry about." I moved over and put my hand on my mother's shoulder, giving her a half-hug. "You're the ones who raised me, you're my parents as far as I'm concerned." I heard her sniffle and then give me a little push. "Go talk to your father. Make him feel better, okay?"

I stepped out of the bedroom and pulled open the door to the basement. I looked down the stairs and hesitated. Did I want to see my father in that weakened state? Would I ever see him cry again? I was bringing him good news - that would mean he would stop crying, right?

As I crept down the stairs, I wondered if my presence would surprise him. I wondered if they were testing me. A cruel, sick joke to see if I actually loved them and if I would run away, like I always planned to do when things rarely didn't go my way. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I knew it wasn't a test. The two television facing the couch were blank and soundless. The florescent light over the workbench provided a sickly light onto the concrete which made me wonder if he was down there at all. I flicked the light switch by the bottom of the stairs and I felt a jerk in my chest, like an instinctual knee kick from a hit to the patella.

My father sat on the couch, soft unfamiliar noises coming from him as he held his head in his hands. His ashy elbows balanced on his bare knees and I was struck by how old my parents really were. His bald head had little gray hairs growing on the sides, a sign that my mother was going to cut his hair in the basement later that week. I saw the gold band wrapped around the fourth finger on his left hand, contrasting with the dark, strong skin on the back of his hand. Though he was fifty-six at the time, I always thought that his arms and hands didn't show it.

I remember biting my lip, taking in this moment of sadness that I could not understand. It kept going through my mind: why are they so upset? They're my family, I couldn't ever love them less. Why are they crying? I love them more than anything in the world. Years later, I would discover that I could love them less. By separating myself from them biologically, I would come to isolate my feelings and myself away from them.

Finally, I cleared my throat and, sweat beginning to appear on my forehead, I approached him and sat next to him on the couch. We stayed quiet for a moment and then I slowly wrapped my arm over his shoulder. He gave a quiet sob and then began to hastily wipe his eyes, giving a fake smile through blurred vision.

I don't really remember what he told me. I don't really remember what we talked about. I do remember crying with him. I remember staring into his eyes and realizing that he wasn't just a hero, he had flaws and imperfections and fears. I remembered loving him more, having more respect for him. I remember telling him that everything was going to be okay and that I was always going to love him. More than anything else, I remember feeling closer to my father and pledging my eternal devotion to be a Daddy's boy.

If you knew then, Mr. Green Jeans

I found that both pieces offered a myriad of ways to look at creative non-fiction as a genre. "Son of Mr. Green Jeans" was a disjointed telling of history by providing a series of seemingly unrelated facts to provide "a meditation on fathers", which took many pieces and made into a whole. "If You Knew Then What I Know Now" is a memoir using every little detail the author can recall to "warn" his younger self of what he was getting into, creating the memories that Ryan recalls now, in the present.

In Van Meter's story, I was confused about the line in the middle "They saw it and there it will be, holding a box of cupcakes." Is he referring to himself naively holding the box of cupcakes referring as a metaphoric image of his homosexuality? It was interesting that, in their reunion, Van Meter is conscious of the reunion apology cliche and acts on it, telling Jared not to apologize.

"Green Jeans" is written from small snippets of time, often including an exact year or date which made the story that much more personal. By providing that level of detail (read: you can google it), Moore brings the reader to realistic people doing realistic things. He increases his solidity as a reliable source by using the name of the actors rather than referring to their roles in their respective television shows. He provides their names for reference but doesn't go into specifics of their character - this is to create a connection with the audience as if the name says it all. Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best were iconic in the time that the flourished and the narrator relies on this importance to bring the actors to realistic life with facts on the juxtaposition of their cookie-cutter Father roles and what kind of lives they actually lead.

The tense of Van Meter's story is an interesting choice. It's basically second person future tense, which puts the author at a different point in time from the audience. This perfectly describes the title: the author's hindsight vision is twenty-twenty and wants to address that to his past-self by describing each step of the story to him as inevitable because he's already seen it. I think it worked though I wonder if the end could have been changed. I liked the transition to present tense, to show the audience that we've entered the "What I know now" but I wonder if he had continued with the future tense, would it have worked just as well?

physical evidence

I enjoyed the writing of "Physical Evidence" because it almost reads like a short story, providing more information as the plot thickens and our narrator finds out more about herself. The difference between a short story and this story, I think, is the personalization of the subject. The unexpected murder of Carlisle's mother is not a light-hearted subject but she tackles it with the fiercest determination to tell her story. I found myself shaking my head the entire story, imagining our narrator building up the courage to call the police station in an attempt to find answers and not receiving much more.

The final line "This is what I know about my mother: I am her daughter, and her memory rests with me" is so powerful that it's still resonating with me. Here she was, finding answers to her burning questions that anyone might have been too scared to find. She accepted them in stride and, without dashing her image of her mother, Carlisle lays out everything she knows about her mother on that final page.

Throughout her essay, Carlisle explains her transition of growing up, from being a curious child at eight to a worshiping child at eleven, a morbid child at twelve, and a responsible adult. The few times she talks about being a child is indicative of the stages of development that most people go through, which I thought was a really interesting way of expressing change.

This narrative is written with such personal details that the reader can't help but feel empathetic toward the writer. She reveals the answers to each of her questions as she finds them, which creates a journey that the reader can venture on with her, finding out as they go together. I would like to see more by Carlisle, about a different personal subject, to see if she can invoke the same emotional sympathy that I felt from reading this.

well a rat always knows when it's in with weasels

Dillard's explanation of the life of weasels does well to express her suggestion of "carpe diem". I never imagined weasels as being so ferocious, what with the way the author describes it. I always saw carnivores as doing what they need to survive, not dragging corpses to their crib just because. I know that I may be taking the metaphor too literally, but if Dillard's suggestion to "live in the moment" is to satisfy your immediate needs and fuck everything else then I don't think that I can get on board.

I think that Dillard has a more prominent meaning, though, in her final paragraph where she argues for you to "grab your one necessity." I think that people should have a passion that they pursue until their very last breath. By dedicating ourselves to that one calling, we are not like that weasel. I can't tell if the author is trying to relate the weasel's violence as his one necessity or if the author is trying to prove that the weasel is not human because the weasel cannot choose what its necessity is. Should we choose to dedicate ourselves to one calling, however, we will find something cannot be stripped from our person. 

I am confused with "I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should." Where is the should involved? Because we're humans we should live by choice instead of necessity simply because we have the option? The weasel should focus on finding its next meal and where to lay his head because that's how things "should be"? Is Dillard arguing that we live in the moment, "remembering nothing"? I suppose it would be favorable to be able to forget the past and just move forward but we are a bundle of experiences; we learn by associating things with other things. 

I like Dillard's connection to the weasel,it provides a fresh look at the human experience as compared to an animal in a non-cliche way (such as a pride of lions or murder of crows). I think that the heavy description in the specific memory provides a clear picture of the scene, puts the reader in the moment which makes her reflection all that more relevant to her image. I want to get better at providing a descriptive scene so I'll definitely take note of some of her concrete details (bright blow to the brain, plugged into another tape) in my attempts at creative non-fiction.