This is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Author's Note: This was converted from a stream of consciousness exercise we did on family. I related it back to the Thanksgiving break we just had when I spent a lot of time together with my family, and now I'm realizing just how priceless that time was. It is almost impossible during this time of the year to get even my immediate family all together, and though I don't usually see it right away those times when we have nothing to do and no where to go are the most memorable moments. This piece specifically talks about someone I'm really close to in my family  that I only get to see every so often.

We sit together,

For once,

With no where to go,

No clock ticking down our time together.

She laughs and I do too,

She talks and I listen soaking it all in.

Her time here is limited.

I dream about my future as she explains her's,

Willing it to be just as glorious and fun.

She inspires my mind to think,

She inspires me to stretch myself.

Yet when the meal is over and we leave the table,

I shrink back to my reality.

My reality that I'm not her.

I feel like I know so much more because of her,

Like college will be a dream,

And everything in the future will be even more fun.

But it's not,

Because I once dreamed,

About my life like she would describe it,

But now I'm here and she's there

And I'm still lost in that dream.

"Live like today is the first day of the rest of your life,"

I remember that day in the airport,
When I really understood that line.

I've never been fond of saying goodbye,
That day came too quickly.

My heart raced in attempt to run away,

To leave and return to reality,

Expect what I wanted was no longer reality.

Family --

That was all I wanted.

I was loosing something irreplaceable.

She never cried so neither did I,

She was excited so I was too,

She left so I tried to follow,

But this time I couldn't.

I had no clear cut path to walk on,

So I  had to make my own.

My own way without her.

Now when she returns I have a new fond love,

That makes our time together,

A thousand times more priceless than before.

No money or currency,

No gold or silver,

Nothing on this earth,

Could possibly account for times we share together.

The Burning Cycle

Author’s Note: This is my summative piece for the book Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. One of the things that I noticed as I was looking back at my notes after reading the book was how many times fire was used as a symbol. I saw a trend that throughout the novel there was a progression of how Montag viewed fire. Though I didn't initially see it when I was reading the book, there was a whole other meaning to fire throughout the novel that really intrigued me. I began to fire as cycle of destroying and rebuilding, and I also saw how it was necessary to experience both ends of the cycle.

Fire is contagious. It devours and destroys; within a matter of minutes it can turn years of work into ashes. It is ruthless and heartless until it is extinguished. We burn to rid the world of what is old and to make it new. Though it is perceived that fire should be feared, there is a whole other side to it to which we are drawn. This side brings us together; it shows us that there is pleasant atmosphere surrounding a little fire. Fire provides warmth for us when the world has none to offer, and allows us to gather around it in our times of need. Without the fearful side though, there would be no enjoyment in fire. Fire is a cycle of destruction and rebuilding, and we must experience the burning, the loss, and the sorrow to rise with hope from the ashes.

"It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed." (p 33) When the story began Montag's thoughts toward fire were that it was essential for destruction, and through that brought peace in the world. He saw fire like a roaring lion, just waiting to devour whatever was in its path for its own pleasure. Montag channeled his emotions into the fire, and used it as a cover up. Fire was a source of control through destruction. If you controlled the fire, you had all the power to either protect things or burn them, and everything was in your hands. The government clearly used fire in the same why. They did not want the people to have access to certain things -- books and other ideas -- that would provoke them to revolt, so the government burned to cover up and control the people.

There is a certain type of burning that reflects this part of the story; it is called a controlled burn. Present day firefighters use it to burn down prairies or large fields when they become overgrown. It is nothing wild and spontaneous like forest fires, it is more of a completely calm and well thought out, manipulative way to contain an area of land. Much like in the story, when the people of the city became overgrown and almost independent, the government used a controlled burn to destroy their hope of growing any further.

With this type of fire, though, the plants are not completely demolished. The visual part of them is burned, but there are always roots left underneath the soil that remain untouched. In time, the roots grow to be the same magnificent flowers they were before. But when they start to go their own way again, they get burned to their roots.

As we clearly see, it's a cycle. We always return to where we started. Destroy and rebuild, destroy and rebuild; we are creatures of habit, and it takes all the strength we have to turn away from what people are flooding into our minds. We build ourselves up and think we can disobey and turn our own ways, only to be reminded through burning that there is still someone in control. Fire expresses to us that, as people, we long for some sort of control, while it also shows us that some things are far out of our control.

Throughout the novel, Montag's interpretation of fire progresses from a fearful, powerful element to a warm, living element. When, he ran from the controlled fire of the government after they discovered what he was so diligently trying to hide, he began to see fire in a different way. In his pursuit to escape, he plunged himself into the river, hoping to cleanse him of his past. The water purified him and he emerged different "He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new." (p 165) Montag had finally found the only source that would ultimately destroy fire itself: water. It's water that makes old things new, that cleanses the conscious, and that can defeat fire.

As he proceeded with his new found hope, he saw a fire in the distance, but it wasn't the same as the fires he'd seen before.

"That small motion, the white and red color, a strange fire because it meant a different thing to him. It was not burning, it was warming… He hadn't known fire could look this way. He had never thought in his life that it could give as well as take." (p 171)

Montag felt intrigued by the fire, he found it strange to see people just sitting and talking around it, and he realized that fire could be used for so much more. It could bring people together instead of always tearing them apart. It could provide warmth instead of cold heartedness. It could rebuild instead of destroy. Fire was continually rotating throughout a cycle of causes pain and peace.

There is a mythological creature called the phoenix that symbolizes this cycle of fire. When the phoenix's days are gone and it's ready to die, it goes up in flames. Through the ashes, the bird is reborn. It shows us that there is a hope in destruction, and it is necessary and crucial to experience both of ends of the spectrum -- the death and the rebirth. Without the bird dying, there would be nothing to look forward too. In the novel, things were burned, but through the ashes new things were made. In the end, when the city went up in a bomb, it did not trouble Montag because he knew that it was a cycle. It was a sign of hope that all of the evil in the city had been destroyed. Montag knew that it was just like the phoenix, the city would be reborn through the ashes and it would have a fresh start, a new beginning.

Though we experience destruction, we can see it in a different way, knowing that there is a cycle and after destruction must come rebuilding. The novel displays that fire is a cycle, but furthermore it shows that life is a cycle, and ultimately the human race is a cycle. I always wondered why we had History class if the events were done and over with, but the truth is we need to be educated about past failures in order to avoid making the same mistakes again. No one really cares about what happened long ago, but we do care about the present day and we care about educating ourselves so that history doesn't repeat itself. Throughout the past decade, it is evident that we have a hard time learning from our mistakes, though. The human race has gotten themselves into war after war, killing millions of families, only to get themselves into more trouble. But through all of this, in the end, there is an inexpressible joy that we can experience: seeing soldiers coming home. There is nothing like a family reuniting after being separating. There is nothing like the hope and peace that comes after a fire.

The First Coming

Author's Note: I wrote this poem modeling William Butler-Yeats style in the poem "The Second Coming". I wanted to keep the focus of it close to what the focus of his original poem was to model is his style even better. Since his was on the second coming of Jesus I decided to do mine on the first coming. Yeats used a lot of symbolism from the Bible, so I tried to do the same thing with mine. In my poem, much like Yeats', I made it from the perspective of the people and what they were thinking during that time period.

The First Coming

Roaming and roaming the dessert land

The Sheppard came back for his sheep;

The people cannot see; the world won't accept;

A love never seen before hung upon a tree,

The burnt, the fellowship, and the grain,

Covered, and the law torn apart,

The rich in spirit are not sought out, while the lowliest

Are hand picked with precision.

This can't be what we've waited for,

This can't be the Savior who's arrived,

The Savior!  My soul is overcome

When a vision from the Spirit

Blurs my conscious: far beyond the entrance to the city,

A colt untied from his owner,

With healing hands and majestic little feet,

Prances along a cloth road, as palms

Wave throughout the air, hailing to the king.

The town trembles in fear; now knowing that those years

Of prophecies has prepared us for yet another

Vast amount of silence and trouble,

But the Sheppard, finally coming around,

Takes up his own cross to leave us again?

The Second Coming

By William Butler-Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?