“The grass was green that day. Not like the chlorophyll filled trees of summer, but rather one shade lighter than fall olive. You could smell the fresh crispness in the air of summer coming to an end. Halloween decorations were starting to be put up, and you couldn't leave the house without a jacket. I was lying on my stomach, on a flowered outdoor blanket. We, my mother Cornelia and I... you children were born long after her death, but your grandmother knew her and even your mother, when she was just a baby. We were at a park in the city that I grew up in. She was reading, she loved to do that, she would go into spells where she would read for hours upon hours, shutting anyone and everyone out. She had brought me a book that day, but I was just not interested. We had just come from a festival in the Brewery District and all of the artwork, people, and activists really made me think. I wanted to be like that in a way, get the starving artist experience, be an enraged activist, protest for something I believe in, know what it's like to be in those communities. Strap myself to a tree while a bulldozer hurdles towards it in order to save a park, or a building. I just wanted to be tied to something like that, be able to tell the story and of course it never would hurt a college application. I was a Junior …show more content…
I stayed in my room the rest of the night after that looking online, calling close friends and even trying to come in contact with City Hall. It's hard for a 16 year old to get in there. By the end of it, I ended up calling my godmother, who was on the town council, for help. After all, I did say I wanted something like this to add to my short list of life achievements. What ended up happening was she called one of her friends on the city's Park Board and Directory and told me when their next meeting was so I could find out what was going
He described the fields of Ohio’s villages in autumn and their beauty. He described the “apples ripe”, the “grapes on the trellis’d vines”, “the sky so calm”. so transparent after the rain”. He made us feel as if we were smelling the grapes, the buckwheat and touch them. He made us hear the buzzing of the bees.
It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage; but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles away, and whom I had not seen for so long.
Everyone has them, people that raised them from when they were born, in most cases a mother and father. The memoir ‘’Salvation’’ by Langston Hughes and the essay ‘’Mothers’’ by Anna Quindlen awakened me to explore my relationship with my own parents. ‘’Salvation’’ gave me this over powering feeling that I knew exactly how young Langston felt sitting in that pew. I felt that I could also, to an extent, connect with the narrator in ‘’Mothers.’’ ‘’Salvation’’ and ‘’Mothers’’ both created emotional reactions from me; while ‘’Salvation’’ aroused feelings of vulnerability, ‘’Mothers’’ exposed questions about my parents.
cold, harsh, wintry days, when my brothers and sister and I trudged home from school burdened down by the silence and frigidity of our long trek from the main road, down the hill to our shabby-looking house. More rundown than any of our classmates’ houses. In winter my mother’s riotous flowers would be absent, and the shack stood revealed for what it was. A gray, decaying...
“I wish you would manage the time to come in and talk with me about your daughter. I’m sure you can help and whom I’m deeply interested in helping.” “Who needs help.”… Even if I came, what good would it do? You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me. (Olsen, 1953-54, p. 814)
The poem "Summer" by Dean Myers uses figurative language throughout to convey the simple joys experienced during a hot summer day. By using repetition and imagery to create a scene for his readers to experience and understand his message. I chose this poem because it reminded me of my summer experiences that are similar to this one depicted by Mr. Myers.
“The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. (The Lottery, Jackson).
The arrival of winter was well on its way. Colorful leaves had turned to brown and fallen from the branches of the trees. The sky opened to a new brightness with the disappearance of the leaves. As John drove down the country road he was much more aware of all his surroundings. He grew up in this small town and knew he would live there forever. He knew every landmark in this area. This place is where he grew up and experienced many adventures. The new journey of his life was exciting, but then he also had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach of something not right.
Standing on the balcony, I gazed at the darkened and starry sky above. Silence surrounded me as I took a glimpse at the deserted park before me. Memories bombarded my mind. As a young girl, the park was my favourite place to go. One cold winter’s night just like tonight as I looked upon the dark sky, I had decided to go for a walk. Wrapped up in my elegant scarlet red winter coat with gleaming black buttons descending down the front keeping away the winter chill. Wearing thick leggings as black as coal, leather boots lined with fur which kept my feet cozy.
A secret agent. A professional football player. A fire fighter. These would have been my responses when asked that inevitable question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Family, Media and Peers are said to have influenced my views concerning the role I am to play society. All of these factors had one thing in common. They all were influencing me to behave according to my gender. Everything from the clothes I wore to the toys I played with contributed to this. Even now as a young adult my dreams and aspirations are built around the gender roles that were placed on me.
Sometimes the grasshoppers would appear from around a blade of grass as if they were asking for approval to jump on my blanket. Every so often a leaf would jump off its branch to greet me as I sat. It would float through the air as light as feather and land softly on the grass. As the autumn drew near, it was like a rainstorm of brown, yellow and red leaves, all falling to make way for the beautiful spring leaves.
I awoke to the sun piercing through the screen of my tent while stretching my arms out wide to nudge my friend Alicia to wake up. “Finally!” I said to Alicia, the countdown is over. As I unzip the screen door and we climb out of our tent, I’m embraced with the aroma of campfire burritos that Alicia’s mom Nancy was preparing for us on her humungous skillet. While we wait for our breakfast to be finished, me and Alicia, as we do every morning, head to the front convenient store for our morning french vanilla cappuccino. On our walk back to the campsite we always take a short stroll along the lake shore to admire the incandescent sun as it shines over the gleaming dark blue water. This has become a tradition that we do every
The sunless sky covered the woods over the treetops which created a canopy over my head. The crimson and auburn foliage was a magnificent sight, as this was the season known as Fall. There was a gentle breeze, creating the single sound of rustling leaves. The leaves appeared as though they were dying to fall out of the tree and join their companions on the forest floor. Together with pine needles and other flora the leaves formed a thick springy carpet for me to walk upon.
The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.
It was late summer. The weather was gradually changing to autumn, which was noticeably seen on the leaves that were starting to turn orange. The sun was out, but it wasn’t too hot or too cold outside. In fact, it was actually soothing; the cold wind blowing, paired with the warm sun shining above.