Tag Archives: non-fiction

non-fiction

Where Is My Mind

By Matthew Shaddock, faculty

“Am I dead?” 

I look at my father. Disheveled but healthy, at least outwardly. Body, fine. Mind, like Swiss cheese. In a sharp blue Rice sweatshirt, the normal khaki pants replaced with loose fitting gray sweats. His beard turned gray, his bald head spotted by the sun. He still looks sharp in a distinguished manner, even while huddled over a walker. 

“No dad, this is where you live now.” 

Looking around, I could see why he would ask this. The Villages of Southampton looks like a Pottery Barn vision of purgatory. The ante-chamber to a peaceful suburban heaven. Muted yellow walls, with tasteful paintings at a suitable interval. Stately crown moldings. Comfortable couches in periodic seating areas. Even a nice outdoor patio for the residents able to venture outside on their own. 

In its own way, this is purgatory. A place with a door locking in the residents. A place that will seem the same every day until there are no more days left and his stay is suddenly over. And then, shortly after, a new resident will replace him in Room 7. 

The Muzak hums at a tasteful volume over the speakers. unknowingly twinkling a familiar, touching piano solo. 

A cold shiver runs down my spine. Even without lyrics, I recognize the song instantly. Where Is My Mind, as performed on the piano by Maxence Cyrin. How can they be playing this very song? Have these people never seen The Leftovers? The haunting piano, missing loved ones, existential dread. A man questioning: what’s reality, what’s imagination, what’s somewhere in between? 

With your feet on the air and your head on the ground

Try this trick and spin it, yeah

As we slowly circulate the fifth story, floor to ceiling windows allow a glimpse at large green oak trees in the surrounding sprawling suburban village. The very live oak trees I’d helped him plant years before. If memory serves, $1.00 an hour was the going rate for a nine year old family member in 1986. But here, only my memory serves. 

Towering above the trees, a church steeple. How could he remember? That was his church. Member, choir director, church council head. The steeple, I recently learned from a family friend, was his brain child. A beacon across the flat plains, like those he’d seen all over Europe. 

“Did you hear the church bells?” I ask. 

“Yes, how nice. What church is that?”

“Christ the King.” 

“Have we been there?” 

“Yes, many times.” Me internally: every Sunday for 60 years. 

“How wonderful! I’d like to go again.”

“Yes, for sure.”

Your head will collapse

But there’s nothing in it

We enter his room. Newly hung portraits dot the walls. He slow to glance at them. The impromptu beach picture of my mom reclining in a swimsuit stops him in his tracks. 

“Doesn’t she look beautiful?” 

“Yes, she does.”

“Where is Dorry?”

“She’s at home feeding Heidi.”

A look of disappointment across his brow. 

“Home? Why aren’t I there?” 

“Because…” it’s almost impossible to answer. I pause. I sit on the foot of the bed to gather strength. 

Just like my children, my own dad immediately recognizes the look on my face, my hesitation. 

“It’s ok, you can tell me the truth.” 

“Because….” I pause for what seems like an eternity. “She can’t take care of you anymore….  You had an operation, and now you need constant help. Here there are nurses who can take care of you.”

“Why can’t Dorry take care of me? Why, of course she can.”

“Because, dad.” It’s almost impossible to verbalize. To explain. Again. 

And you’ll ask yourself

Where is my mind?

I turn to the CD player. Music always helps. I start the disc, at a medium volume. Bells ring out, a choir sings. His choir. His bells. His wife playing the organ in the background. 

My dad sits down, reclines on the bed. I lie back into a pillow next to him. We lie silently, side by side, listening to a recording of the church choir. 

As the sun sets and the room darkens, I realize we are holding hands. Something we literally have never done since I was a child. Tears silently soak my pillow. 

With your feet on the air and your head on the ground

Try this trick and spin it, yeah

Your head will collapse

But there’s nothing in it

And you’ll ask yourself

Where is my mind?

Where is my mind?

Where is my mind?

Way out in the water

See it swimming

Where Is My Mind

  • The Pixies, as performed on the piano by Maxence Cyrin
non-fiction

The cultural impact of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

By Gabriel Flores, 12th grade

My generation has a lot of childhood paraphernalia to be nostalgic over. The one that probably had the most impact on our small, not fully developed brains was a book series by cartoonist Jeff Kinney, called “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. This book series started back in 2007 with the main character Greg Heffley in a coming-of-age story having to adapt to middle school life, while he describes his struggles to us with a diary he writes/illustrates during the school year.

 This book was beyond popular to elementary school kids, it managed to depict middle school in a way that was unrealistic but still believable to kids who were nervous about the leap from 5th grade to 6th grade. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone I knew in school owned a copy of the first book. Now not everyone loves this book, some schools tried and succeeded in banning the book series due to Greg being “pessimistic”. I can only assume that that decision was due to many having Greg as a role model at such an early age because the writing style was aimed at 3rd or 4th graders but meant to be enjoyed by anyone. 

Yet some people still consider Jeff Kinney a literary genius for creating such an influential book. Of course, after his book sold more than 250 Million copies and made it the 6th most successful book of all time he made sequels. And I mean a lot of sequels. There are currently 16 books in the series without including spin-offs and a 17th book is coming this November. Even though his newer books have been declining in quality, the books are still dearly loved by the masses and held up in high regard. Yet no one really acknowledges that poor Greg has been suffering through middle school for almost 15 years. Yeah, every book covers about 1 or 2 semesters, and some of them cover the summer vacation. 

By that logic, Greg Heffley should be well over 27 now and is instead in a constant state of purgatory by being kept at 14 years of age and repeating the 8th grade with no one ever acknowledging it. Now let’s talk about Greg Heffley. Greg can be considered; in the words of a deleted Reddit user “lazy, petty, slightly narcissistic, sociopathic, egotistical, eccentric, egocentric, usually backstabbing, and sometimes even selfish and dishonest, and apparently lacks talent.” There are many instances of Greg being an asshole to everyone around him as long as everything goes his way. For example, in the first book, Greg and his best friend Rowley are in the school patrol (basically hallway police but on steroids) and one of their duties is to walk the elementary school kids home. 

The issue was that Rowley had broken his arm due to Greg throwing a football to his front bike wheel, launching him in the air, and snapping his arm. One of the days it was raining and Rowley could not get his cast wet, so Greg had to go alone but borrowed Rowley’s raincoat. Greg then decided to terrorize the elementary school kids with worms and unbeknownst to him, a neighbor saw him and called the school reporting Rowley as Greg was wearing his coat. Ultimately Rowley gets fired from the school patrol team. Greg then reflects on whether he should come clean to the principal or keep quiet. After talking to his mom about “doing the right thing” Greg decides that the right thing to do is to let Rowley take one for the team. It’s this behavior that makes the books so interesting to read. 

We are so used to a hero who can always fix his mistakes or have no mistakes at all. Yet Jeff Kinney decided to give us a character that is such an asshole, such a menace, such a SIMP that keeps constantly messing up and pushes the blame to other people. It is precisely that, that keeps us glued to the pages of the diary and keeps our eyes on the big screen….Oh God, the movies. 

The movies were (and still are) some of the most influential pieces of media in the early 2010s. They had a worldwide gross of $75,700,498 on just the first movie. There are currently 3 movies (if anyone tells you there was a 4th one in 2017, they are lying to you) representing 4 books. The movies were a love letter to the books. They gave us a story that was just as good, they gave us some of the funniest moments, and they gave us Devon Bostick as Rodrick. These films were the pinnacle of Hollywood. 

Unfortunately, there have been attempts to reboot the series with a new cast, which by the way went horribly. There was simply no replacing the original cast. The cast was a carbon copy of the stick figures depicted in the diaries. Those movies and books raised not only me but countless others, and I will say that as a kid they influenced my personality a lot. And I’m sure they influenced a lot more. 

Thankfully the books won’t end anytime soon, in a Twitter post by Jeff Kinney, a user asked “How long are you going to make this kid suffer through an existence of perpetual middle school?? Lol” To which he responded “Forever.” 

The Anthropocene Reviewed Essays

A Graveyard

by Mia Zavala, 12th grade

I have a very complicated relationship with graveyards.

My first impression of graveyards would be the cartoon episodes featuring a group of teenagers that catch spooky antagonists who scheme by poorly lit graves and eventually damn those, “meddling kids!” after they are caught. The scene of a graveyard was masqueraded with images of thick dead trees that hung hunched over like an old man with extreme Kyphosis, and an ominous moon served as the only source of  light to guide the desiccated paths. Surely even a clueless young kid, like myself, could tell this graveyard place was not somewhere you would want to simply wander into. 

However, I encountered my first proper introduction of a graveyard when my Great-grandmother passed and was set to be buried behind our community church when I was young. I prepared to catch some fiendish ghoul who looked suspicious and might be off their game that morning. The time for the burial arrived and I was slightly annoyed at the burning California sun saturating the waves of green grass that swallowed the impact of the heavy headstones. The people surrounding me did not seem to notice the serendipity of that day. They were all swollen with horrendous grief that blinded them from the striking harmonies that the Meadowlark birds had mastermind. As I looked around it became clear that no one saw the serenity of all the flowers that stippled the scene, and no one could feel the relief of the soft breeze. There were no goblins or ghosts, not even a suspicious looking grave-digger, and If I am being honest, it was all a little disappointing. There was, however, a lot of pain and sadness at that graveyard on that beautiful sunny summer morning.

My dad would probably tell you that I’ve got a screw loose somewhere in my chemically imbalanced brain to be noticing all the wonderful details about the area surrounding my Great-grandmother’s grave, and he might be right. But, I didn’t see the point of ignoring such an exquisite scene. Of course, death is heartbreaking and truly is such a gut-wrenching experience that we all must face, but death, like the graveyard, is also so beautiful. This realization came to me at a much later, and a much more challenging stage in my life. 

When I was thirteen years old, my mother was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer and had to go through several invasive procedures to try and prevent any metastasizing of the tumor to occur. My mom had accepted that the odds were not in her favor, and one day took my dad and I to pick a plot at a graveyard for her to be buried in. I was only in their company because the church had been down the street from my middle school, so they brought me there like it was some casual shopping trip that would only take five minutes. My mother went about her morbidity in a very casual matter-of-fact way that was so irritating to me at the time, but now I can see what she was doing as it really was, a coping mechanism. So we weaved through the openness of the yard, which seemingly taunted us with its emptiness and almost begged for us to fill a spot. I was completely encapsulated in blinding rage, and engulfed in total despair. This graveyard had no right to take away what was mine. It had no right to connect my mother to a world without me in it. As I fought back tears and tried to swallow the lump of anger that built in my throat, I looked up to see my mother smiling. She left stinging remarks about how beautiful the church architecture looked, and how well maintained the trees were. I could not remember how I saw graveyards with such wonder all those years back, instead all I saw was a place that served as a bridge between the living and the dead. And my mother, who I rarely saw smile those days and who was completely emaciated from the chemotherapy, was seemingly at peace and satisfied. I confronted her, my rage drove me to a point to do so. I needed to know she was just as angry at the thought of losing me as I was of losing her. But she wasn’t. She told me she couldn’t wait to go to Heaven, because then she would be able to watch over me and all my siblings. She had described death as something so magnificently beautiful that it forever changed my view. I remembered my childhood perception of the graveyard in its most simplistic form and revived that feeling of bliss. 

My mother survived cancer, and has been cancer-free ever since her last day of radiation therapy. Even though her journey was so hard to witness, I learned not to fear death but to embrace it and to remember those who have passed as a testament to live our life to the fullest.

Now, I often run a route that takes me past a cemetery located on a jagged street with my teammates. They all play with the idea that the place must be haunted and hold horrific horrors of the restless deceased. I laugh along, but I am comforted by the thought of enjoying a brisk walk through the tranquility of a graveyard.

I give graveyards 3.5 out of 5 stars.

100-word stories

sad 100-word stories :'(

“Get to work” he exclaimed, “The bell doesn’t dismiss you, I do” he constantly proclaimed. A stubby, middle-aged, salt and pepper-haired man, always stood at the door of the History classroom to give a handshake to every student that entered. I despised him, and the handshakes. This was the 5th grade, but one day he absurdly shouts “Live every day as if it’s your last.” That was the last lesson he taught us. I said I despised him, but as he lay in black with interlocked fingers on his stomach, I was sobbing, wishing for a handshake. 

By Abby Richardson, 10th grade

From the moment I could walk, I had one true adversary in my life. My older brother. He is three years older than me, and has an antelope-like stride. He ran faster in every single foot-race. His lungs didn’t combust into flames like mine had. I envied him to the ends of the earth. As I aged, and became faster, I relished in my new-found victories. But now, the starting line is empty. And I crave for one last rigorous sprint down our forgotten childhood street before we both must leave and there are no more races to be won. 

By Mia Zavala, 12th grade

I have never been close with the people whose funerals I attend. It’s difficult for me to lament someone I’ve met twice. But it isn’t difficult for my grandma to cry bereft of her mother. She stood over her body, pink rosary in hand, to look at her mom’s face one last time. I wept alongside my grandmother, but I was struck with guilt. I should be crying for a different woman—the woman who had unfairly departed. But instead, my tears were of empathy. My grandmother pulled me close, squeezing my hand. She didn’t need my grief. She needed me.

By Amara Mumphord, 10th grade