We all have one thing in common, every live being on the face of this earth, a heart and more specifically a heartbeat. It is the one thing simple, yet oh so complex that labels us alive or dead.
All our tickers are like silent bombs that have been set and will detonate at a time and place far beyond our knowing. Every stroke and beat is like countdown to an invisible timer we cannot visualize.
Is this scary? Well, I guess it depends on our point of view, how we view our lives. Some person suffering might be praying for the blessed assurance that anytime their suffering will end, and that clock will stop, and that they will have reached their count down. On the other hand, some individuals find their hearts are about to stop all too soon and premature, especially at the view of their loved ones, who might think why? You are too young to die! These events were an eye opener to me as I witnessed my first ever Code Blue.
It was an early Wednesday morning, and I lay still in my bed hitting the REM cycle as I dream vividly about a young lady about to be wed. She was dancing in a field of wheat and sunflowers. She was a country girl of whom I had never seen in my life, but in my dream, I knew her. It seemed I had known her family too, they were hillbillies and she was the pride and joy of their family, a shining star on her family crest. She had long, slinky, dark chestnut hair that was pulled up for such an occasion, Decorated with a fresh flower from the fields. She wore a form fitted white dress that looked as if it was her mama’s passed onto her. In her hands were an array of hot pink, sassy orange, and depressed purple Gerber Daisies wrapped precisely with an off white ribbon. She twirled distantly from her family knowin...
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...en complete, like the day is not my final draft, and I am still working on it.
I drove home and vegetated on every piece of food I had in my house. As if I had done so much just standing there all day, but emotionally I was exaughsted, so that defiantly had to have burned up some calories I am sure. I threw down some comfort food, cereal, chocolate, Zingers, like a Twinkie, only better! I remember sitting down getting ready to do some homework, thinking this is not going to cut. I closed my book and drifted off to sleep.
As I lay there the day played over and over again, subconsciously I kept seeing the girl in my dream. I thought what was the significance of today? What lesson did I learn? Well, I learned that no matter what we do all day, we should take the time to acknowledge our heartbeats. To listen, even for just five to ten seconds and think, wow!
“She lay awake, gazing upon the debris that cluttered their matrimonial trail. Not an image left standing along the way. Anything like flowers had long ago been drowned in the salty stream that had been pressed from her heart. Her tears, her sweat, her blood. She had brought love to the union and he had brought a longing after the flesh. Two months after the wedding, he had given her the first brutal beating. She had the memory of his numerous trips to Orlando with all of his wages when he had returned to her penniless, even before the first year had passed. She was young and soft then, but now she thought of her knotty, muscles limbs, her harsh knuckly hands, and drew herself up into an unhappy little ball in the middle of the big feather bed. Too late now to hope for love, even if it were not Bertha it would be someone else. This case differed from the others only in that she was bolder than the others. Too late for everything except her little home. She had built it for her old days, and planted one by one the trees and flowers there. It was lovely to her, lovely.” (Hurston 680).
“I slept… but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth…. as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death…and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms…and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel” (43).
It is not surprising for an author’s background and surroundings to profoundly affect his writing. Having come from a Methodist lineage and living at a time when the church was still an influential facet in people’s daily lives, Stephen Crane was deeply instilled with religious dogmas. However, fear of retribution soon turned to cynicism and criticism of his idealistic parents’ God, "the wrathful Jehovah of the Old Testament" (Stallman 16), as he was confronted with the harsh realities of war as a journalistic correspondent. Making extensive use of religious metaphors and allusions in The Blue Hotel (1898), Crane thus explores the interlaced themes of the sin and virtue.
Kate's family had rented out a ballroom in a neighborhood country club, and we intended to dance the night away. As I approached the scene, disco lights streamed through the large windows and ran all over the lawn. Music enveloped the parking lot as my adrenaline began to elevate. I sauntered in, waving to my friend...
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
But in the places where it isn 't faded and where the sun is just so-I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conscious front design (241)." She is realizing her depression is sometimes worse at times than it is at other times. She wants to break free from the weight she has of having all the pressures and expectations that men put on women. "And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through the pattern—it strangles so (246)." The pattern represents how she is stuck in being a wife and a stay at home mother. She is expected to be the one who cooks and cleans and takes care of her child. She is not allowed to have a job outside of the home because back then that was looked upon as being bad. She does not like this and that 's why she feels stuck with no way to get out. "I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper. And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish it today (247)." I feel as this represents that she will not let a man be in charge of her any longer. She will be her own person and have rights. She wanted to fight for this so that her daughter would not have to be a slave to her husband. "Jennie looked at
The poem ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ is based on a couple relationship between the farmer and his bride. It is in some aspects similar to ‘Of Mice and Men’ as they both present a couple based relationship. In the poem the relationship is bet...
Another factor that clearly brings out the theme is the fact that she claims that orderliness of family roses is her pride. However she may not necessarily be that orderly as depicted in the development of that story. The author of the story Shirley Jackson uses the author and her ambiguous cha...
As I walked through the door of the funeral home, the floral arrangements blurred into a sea of vivid colors. Wiping away my tears, I headed over to the collage of photographs of my grandfather. His smile seemed to transcend the image on the pictures, and for a moment, I could almost hear his laughter and see his eyes dancing as they tended to do when he told one of his famous jokes. My eyes scanned the old photographs, searching for myself amidst the images. They came to rest on a photo of Grandpa holding me in his lap when I was probably no more than four years old. The flowers surrounding me once again blended into an array of hues as I let my mind wander……
It had been a fairly good week. I received an A on another one of Mr. Jackson’s exams, and completed another week of eighth grade basketball ‘practice’, which in my case consisted of standing against the wall watching the starters run the plays. It was only my first year playing, so I was just enjoying being on the team with my friends. But that weekend was to be unlike most others in my past. I was attending my aunt’s wedding downtown. I was to watch my aunt, who I had known my whole life, and her boyfriend, who I had known for about 3 years, commit to each other the rest of their lives before the audience of people they knew the best. The last wedding I had attended, in 2004, was a very different experience for me. I was younger and knew less about how the world
When Miss Brill is sitting in the park observing passers-by, she notes “two young girls in red” who were met by “two young soldiers in blue … and they laughed and paired and went off arm-in-arm” (Mansfield 176). And later Miss Brill sees “a beautiful woman [come] along and [drop] her bunch of violets” (Mansfield 177). Miss Brill admires the beauty of these young people with their bright and vivid colors. To her the vivid colors represent life, passion, beauty, and happiness, all fulfilling elements that she believes she lacks. Later when she is studying herself she realizes that now in her older age “her hair, her face, even her eyes, [were] the same color as the shabby ermine, and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw” (Mansfield 177). All the colors that she notices in herself are dim and muted, communicating to the audience that Miss Brill feels her life much reduced from the brilliant excitement and color that it had once been. When observing the young people she sees red, which is commonly symbolizes passion and love; blue, which is frequently associated with innocence, youth, order, and serenity; and purple, which conveys richness, vibrancy, and royalty. In contrast the only colors Miss Brill mentions when critiquing herself are a muted brown and a yellowish color. The brown represents the confusion that is
The ballroom at the Yacht Club was decorated with deep red roses and black ribbons, the perfect combination of colors for a winter wedding. Long, tall windows covered the walls to let all the guests experience the view of the nearby ocean. Each round table was decorated with a long black underskirt cloth, a shorter bright white tablecloth, with each placemat arranged around a beautiful vase full of red roses. The wooden dance floor, full of chairs for the ceremony, took up half of the room, while the other half was occupied with 15 round tables and one rectangular Head Table. As the guests walked up the stairs to our ballroom, they would see a guest book that was decorated with pictures and captions and ready for their signatures.
Amy’s excitement and anxiety about kissing ignited a rush of memories. How I used to romanticize about first kissing someone! I thought that I would be in a long flowing gown, and the handsome young man would bring me flowers, and ask to court me. Our kiss would be done on the porch, under an encouraging moon and a harmony of stars. Or maybe I would be in a MacDonalds, and the most good-looking guy I’d ever seen would come to my table, buy me a hot fudge sundae, and he give me a kiss when he walked me to my car.
Right now, a buzz is going through the hall in which all the seniors are waiting and they look like bees swarming in the hall. It’s becoming hot and we’re all getting impatient. Amber is more composed and enjoying the good times in the present. She is standing there happy but sad to be dispersing from the rest of her classmates. Ann, the smartest one is having a little fun but not really. Her feelings are that of a person who realizes she’s going to miss what she had, but wanting to get the ceremony over with because it’s taking too long. Standing in that room we are together and enjoying one last real time capturing a picture with each other. Amber’s mom is so proud of her daughter that she keeps talking and smiling and trying to part of every MOMent. Amber is thinking to herself that she wishes her mom weren’t there but she’s ‘happy inside because someone is cooing over’ her. As Ann is standing beside Amber she keeps getting these expressions that say, she likes being with her friends but, ‘what is taking so long? Can’t we get out of these dang robes, yet?’
As the images and scenarios form, one’s emotions become a promising technique the brain plays on, touching the core of an individual’s deepest desires. When one wakes, the dream may be remembered; it might be in bits and pieces, but the parts still contain the dream. With the memories of the dream, comes the notion of wonder as one begins to contemplate whether what was seen in the dream is really the desires of her heart and mind or if the...