Imperfections=Best Friends

I must confess that I don’t like at all how now a days, your so called “friends” don’t behave like friends. Real friends are the ones who are always there for you no matter what, supporting your decisions, respecting your opinions and your way of being. There will always be “friends” like this; fake friends. I say it because I have experienced it myself. Fake friends replace you, hide things from you, have secrets, and criticize you behind your back. Maybe sometimes I am included on that “fake friend list”, but I am determined to change and I hope that my friends are also willing to.

It was actually very funny, that time when we were at the bowling alley, and two of my friends, including me, were talking. One of them was telling us about this “rumor” they had heard, and the so-called “rumor” was about one of our friends. I could see the interest in their eyes, and I surely wanted to know, too; but I supposed that if it had been SO important then our friend, who was involved in the rumor, would have told us.

Then another one of our friends (the one who had spread the rumor first) came into our conversation and started yelling at my friend who was telling me the story. She told her to stop telling other people (which meant she didn’t want me or my other friend to know) or she would get in so much trouble! I got really tired.

“OMG! We are all so stupid!!!” I finally said, desperate. “I hate it when we keep secrets! If we are really friends, we should share everything and not hide things from the rest of us. If you don’t want people to know, then don’t tell anybody, as simple as that. You can ask her if it’s true, and I bet she’ll tell you, but you don’t have to talk about her behind her back.”

By this time, my friend (who had to do with this rumor), had joined our conversation. She laughed as I said this to my other friends. She always finds fun in everything. I had gotten really mad because my group of friends tends to keep secrets between each other. But I guess that now, you can’t really change the fact that this happens in every group. I really can’t complain about my friends, because regarding their imperfections, they all are like sisters to me.         

Loving What I Do

It’s amazing how something that can seem so insignificant to most people can be so important to others. There will always be something that means a lot in your life, even if other people find it pointless. Something that lets you escape from all your troubles and that relaxes you, or even something you like a lot and you couldn’t live without. In some cases it might be music, for other people maybe art, reading or sports; for me it is ballet.  

People around me are bored of hearing me talk about my dancing. “That’s the only thing you do! You don’t have time for anything else!” They tell me. Maybe it is true, but at least I love what I do. I simply can’t picture my life without ballet. It is incredible to know that every day after school I will always go to that special place where I feel loved no matter what, unlike school. School is full of insecurities and troubles, but the best way to forget about the bad day I always have is dancing; letting it all out. A place where you can certainly find fake friends is school, also. But in my ballet community we are all friends, there is no jealousy or lies, or things that can break us apart. We are all like sisters.

            There are times when I think about quitting ballet. The truth is, that I don’t have time to do the things my friends, and girls my age do. When my friends invite me to the mall, I have practice. When they invite me to a sleepover, I have more practice. On the day of my birthday, I have a competition and have to spend the whole day in a cold theater. But after you have experienced so much like me, you notice that waiting backstage for your turn is one of the best feelings because after you step on that stage you feel like if the whole world was yours. When you’re dancing on the stage, you are the center of attention and everything will turn out right if you give your best, and smile.

            I looked around the huge backstage. It was very dark, but as I peeked to watch Anna dancing, I could see the bright lights, reflecting on her face and beautiful blue tutu. We all had the same tutu, since we were all dancing “Paquita”. Our big group of sisters was once again dressed the same. We had just finished dancing the Paquita Pa De Deux, and I had some time before my turn to dance my solo, “Paquita Wedding”. I had felt my legs trembling a little, while dancing the Pa De Deux and I knew it was because my time to dance alone was approaching.    

            My toes were hurting incredibly too much from standing on my point shoes. I knew how the audience would think, “Wow their feet look so pretty with those shoes!” but they didn’t really know how it hurt. That’s what people normally think about ballet, that it is so easy to move your arms and lift your legs, but they don’t know the pain and the effort it takes to really dance and enjoy. My point shoes were not working as they should, they were too loose around my ankle and the elastic kept failing and falling off my ankle. Luckily it hadn’t fallen off when I was dancing on stage, or my teachers would have killed me. I was sweating an awful lot, too, and I hoped my makeup hadn’t run.

            It wasn’t the first time I would dance a solo, I was actually sort of used to it; but it was the choreography that had me nervous. I knew exactly what I would do when I stood up on that stage, but the repertory had to be done with such cleanness, precision, and so delicately, that it had me scared to death. I could hear Keni’s music now and it was my turn to dance after her. So I stood up from the chair I had been sitting on, and walked towards the black curtain I had been assigned.

Two of my teachers were standing there, they always stayed around to “give us luck”... or maybe pressure. But I really appreciated their effort to make us look great after a year of hard and excruciating work. They always made a fantastic job showing off their abilities to make our yearly presentations awesome. My turn to dance was less than a minute away, and I made the Sign of the Cross so everything would turn out fine. “Enjoy it, and dance like you always do,” my teacher told me, smiling.

            I heard Keni’s music ending, and the sound of my fragile melody starting. I took a deep breath and smiled in anticipation before taking my first steps towards the stage. I did my perfect balance and ran delicately across the wooden floor. I could feel the audience staring at me, millions of eyes gazing, unmoving. The bright lights shone at my face and I smiled joyfully as the rest of the melody continued playing, and I continued dancing to its classical, delicate beat.

            It is very easy to criticize dancers who usually don’t have time to do other things than just practice their choreographies over and over again. But no one really knows, except for other dancers obviously, the sacrifice that dancing takes. We lose time with friends and family, parties, going out, days, weeks, or even months practicing. We do our best everyday to progress on our moves. But people don’t notice, they only know that we dance up on a stage with lights and dresses. They don’t know that inside every dancer there is someone who wants to reach their dream.        

The Catcher in the Rye: Made to be Read, Not Banned

           The famously known book, The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger and published in 1951, is a coming of age novel starring Holden Caulfield. This “anti-almost everyone”  (Chasan 2) book is written from the main character’s point of view. As soon as the first copy of this book was published 60 years ago, it was put in the “banned list” of many states, due to its sexual and obscene content. But what many people ask themselves is: “Why is this book still being censored and rejected after so many years?” The answer is: because people don’t want to hear the truth about what’s happening to our teenagers and to human beings around the world. Holden Caulfield is the typical picture of a teenage boy who wants attention; and profanity and sexuality are so common in his everyday life.   

When reading The Catcher in the Rye, it seemed that, since the book was written so long ago, the topics were a little off time and irrelevant to our century. But as the story kept flowing, it was noticeable how some things that happened to Holden throughout the book still happen today; like getting drunk. The truth is, many things this book contains are exactly what coming-of-age teenagers go through usually. So yes, The Catcher in the Rye is still a relevant book of our time because it projects daily adolescence trouble with sex, excessive profanity, problems, negative activity, and alcohol.

Should the teaching of The Catcher in the Rye stop? “By 1981 Catcher had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the country and the second most frequently taught novel in public schools,” states Daniel Jack Chasan in his article, taking an excerpt from what Pamela Hunt Steinle wrote in In Cold Fear. The book has and is still being banned due to its “vulgar and obscene language, drunkenness, prostitution, and delinquency”(Chasan 2). It is also said to be anti-white, since it talks poorly about rich, American white families, and goes against the perfectly known picture of it. It contains degrading passages about women, God, and people with disabilities, too. The thing is, that J.D. Salinger did an excellent job picturing the imperfect yet real teenager, its family, and its many problems.

The book is being censored over and over because of showing imperfect but true reality to its readers. People don’t want to read about the terrible descriptions that Holden gives the audience, yet the descriptions fit perfectly what human beings have been transformed in. I believe the book should be taught in schools, since it warns kids and teaches them about the process of adolescence and coming of age. It contains problems and issues that many teenagers can relate to: breaking the rules, confusion about the future, looking for answers and experience, negativity, and especially depression, which was Holden’s favorite.      

The Catcher in the Rye should certainly be taught in schools because it teaches about the difficult process in becoming an adult. It gives you the general picture of teenagers and rich families, which appear to be in good state all the time but are full of problems; like the Caulfield’s. Apart from that, The Catcher in the Rye is a literary masterpiece, which consists of reading between the lines in every chapter, when you least expect it. In my opinion, J.D. Salinger did a fantastic job and an unforgettable novel that will be surely recognized forever.      

Book Review of The Color of Water

*Realized the color of your skin, race, has nothing to do

*God is the color of water

*Identity, society

The Color of Water

In the memoir, The Color of Water, we experience James McBride’s life, problems and victories, as, throughout the whole story, he pays tribute to his white mother, Ruth. James and his eleven siblings never really knew who their mother was or where she came from, they only knew that she was different from the rest of the people that surrounded their lives. We see how his mother’s experiences and race affect James in good and bad ways. The memoir is written and organized in the most interesting way. One chapter is italicized, written from Ruth’s point of view based on her experiences; the way she told her life and the things that make her who she is. And the next chapter, in between the story of his mom’s life, is James’ point of view of his life, always relating somehow to his mom’s story, and so on, alternating.

James had always seen a difference in his mother, other than the fact that she was white and he was black, but he didn’t know what it was. When he asked her where she came from she said “God made me,” and when he asked her if she was white she’d say, “I’m light skinned.” When James asked her what color he was she said “You are a human being.” It never really mattered to her the color of her skin or her race; she only cared about her children’s safety, Christianity and education. But to James it did matter because he was black, as were his eleven siblings, and his mother was noticeably white, even if she didn’t feel that way. Ruth McBride raised twelve black kids, not even worrying to be seen with them throughout the streets, and put them all through college. Her kids never knew the story of her past, but after many struggles with society, James realized that in order to understand himself he had to understand his mother first. 

When James was a little kid, he loved it when his mother paid attention to him, since there were so many kids that it was difficult for him to be the center of attention. But as he started growing up he was ashamed to be seen with a white woman around his African-American neighborhood in New York, the Red Hook Housing Projects in Brooklyn. He realized that it wasn’t normal for a black child to have a white mother like his. He was afraid that his friends would see him because it was so unusual. Mommy, who always demanded respect and good grades and was a source of confusion and worry due to her race, had had a past that none of her twelve children ever imagined.

Ruth McBride Jordan is dead to her family. First known as Rachel Deborah Shilsky, she was born in Poland in 1921 an Orthodox Jew. She was the daughter of a Jewish rabbi, Fishel Shilsky, Tateh as she called him in her narrations. She called her mother, Hudis Hilsky, Mameh, and she had polio and was crippled on the left side of her body, but was always a good mother no matter what. Mameh’s family didn’t really care for her, because of her disabilities. On the contrary, when Ruth got married later, her husband’s family always took care of her and cared like if she was their own daughter. This made me realize that some families are connected because of blood but not because of heart and love, and Mameh’s part of the family didn’t have a nice heart; but other families do care about everybody. Ruth had an older brother called Sam and a younger sister called Dee-Dee. When Ruth was 2, they moved to the South of the U.S and lived in Suffolk, Virginia. Her family established a kosher store in the black section of town. Tateh overcharged his costumers, only cared about the money earned, and was racially demeaning to blacks. He sexually abused Ruth many times, when she was a little girl, and forced her to do harsh work for the store. He was also a very bad husband and ignored his wife.

During those harsh years when Ruth lived with her Jewish family, she also had hard times at school because of her religion. She used to have only one friend called Frances; many good moments from Ruth’s past involved her. Her brother, Sam, also ran away some years after having his bar mitzvah, and then died in World War II. Dee-Dee was always shy and following Tateh’s rules. Ruth then realized that Dee-Dee had suffered sorrow and desperation throughout the years, and her shyness was only a way to hide her pain.

Peter was Ruth’s first boyfriend, he was black and extremely nice to her, but society obligated them to see each other secretly. He got Ruth pregnant and she had to go to New York and ask her Aunt to help her with the abortion of the baby. I think that Ruth did want to have that baby, she had never really wanted the abortion but that was the only option she had because otherwise Tateh would have killed Peter and maybe her, too. I think that when Ruth had her kids with Dennis she didn’t apply for abortion, even though she was still young, because now she was free and not under Tateh’s law.   

The day after graduation, Ruth decides to leave Suffolk and head to New York, where her mom’s part of the family lived. She loved New York because she always saw blacks and whites integrated; there wasn’t too much racial separation. She had a really big affection for Bubeh, Mameh’s mom, so she stayed with Bubeh in her apartment in the Bronx. A connection I made was that Ruth went to New York to live with Bubeh because she gave her support, and in James’ case he went to Kentucky to live with Jack because she gave him support while he was doing drugs.

She also worked on her Aunt Mary’s leather factory, and there she met Andrew Dennis McBride. There she fell in love with Dennis and they lived together in an apartment in Harlem, before getting married in 1942. It was hard for them to get married because no preacher wanted to do it, but they found Rev Brown who offered. This made me see that love is more powerful than the racial differences Ruth, a black woman, and Dennis, a black man, had. Many blacks around the neighborhood didn’t accept Ruth, but they stayed together. Ruth recalls those years of her life being the happiest she ever had. She also retired from being Jewish, and started believing and praying to God.

            They had their first baby in 1943, and continued having more kids until they had seven. They had moved to Red Hook Housing Projects by then. Dennis had wanted to start a church and be a preacher. So he initiated by having meetings at his house with the neighbors. Then he found an empty building near Red Hook and called it New Brown Memorial, he became the reverend. Dennis was the best husband Ruth could ever have, but at an early age he died of lung cancer, when James McBride, his eighth son wasn’t yet born.

           

Music and writing was what brought James back to life after he had been in the bottom and in Ruth’s life Dennis revived her and later Hunter Jordan. Months later, Ruth’s grief ended when she met Hunter Jordan, another black man. They got married and he became James’ role model. Since he had never known his biological father, he called Hunter Daddy. He was a mechanic for the New York City Housing Authority. Ruth and Hunter had four children together. He gave Ruth the support not any man would have given her, and raised the rest of the kids like if they were his. He spent all his money buying a new house for the twelve kids, and moved them all to St. Albans, Queens.

            James was 14 when Hunter Jordan died from a stroke, and he began rebelling against his mother doing drugs and drinking. He started having failing grades because his only role model was gone, and he knew a part of his mother was gone too. He began plummeting in every single thing he had done correctly once, and mommy decided to send him to Louisville, Kentucky with Jack, his older sister for three summers. She warns him of doing drugs and crimes, and eventually he follows her advice. Her husband, Big Richard introduces him to the corner, a tavern, and she meets Chicken Man who teaches him that if he’s smart he has to prove it because anybody can be smart but not anybody can actually make a smart act. James moves back with his family, and they all go live in Delaware.

            As a grown man, James decides to go to Suffolk and talk to people there to find out more about his white mother. He finds a man who gives him more information about his mother. Then James also decides to go find Frances, Ruth’s only friend in Suffolk, and they are both delighted to see each other after so many years. Much later, in 1994 it’s the fortieth-anniversary of the New Brown Memorial Baptist Church. James and his family are there, and Ruth, and many other family members of Reverend McBride the founder. Mommy is called up to talk about the beginnings of the church, and gives her first speech ever about her first great husband.

            James studies at Oberlin College and graduate from Columbia University, he becomes a famous writer, composer, and saxophonist. He could find his identity and who he really was, after finding out his determined mother’s back round. He realizes that the color of the sin has nothing to do with the size of your heart or your determination.   

     

The title, The Color of Water, is extremely important in this book. One afternoon on the way home from church, James asks “Mommy” if God is black or white.

“Oh boy… God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit.”

“Does he like black or white people better?”

“He loves all people. He’s a spirit.”

“What’s a spirit?”

“A spirit’s a spirit.”

“What color is God’s spirit?”

“It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color.”

This means that God loves everybody, it doesn’t matter the color of the skin. Also that He, Himself is the color of water, which I think means He is black and white and any way you want to picture Him; but His spirit is always there when you truly need Him. I think it also means that like water, He is pure, but most importantly He has no color. This was the line I loved the most throughout the book: God is the color of water.

I liked this book very much because it showed me how determination can make you reach your dreams. Twelve children who used to be in the poor rank went all through college and graduated to be what they are now. It also showed me that love is greater than the differences in race, and that the color of your skin only makes you different on the outside, but inside we are all equal and have an equal value.  

I am the Headless Horseman

            Katrina Van Tassel was the woman I loved and I would have done anything to marry her, which I did indeed. She was the kind of woman that comes into your life and through your eyes she is perfect. She wasn’t perfect only through my eyes, but also through the eyes of every young man in the small town of Sleepy Hollow.  She was extremely beautiful, her wide eyes shined off every time I saw her, a flirter, and to add to her beauty, her father was one of the wealthiest farmers in town. Men would always go knocking at her door, asking for marriage; maybe for the riches, or her beauty, or both.

            There was one man, specifically, which I felt was my biggest rival; we were both profoundly in love with Katrina. Even though he was skinny, tall, puny, and unattractive, Ichabod Crane was the wisest schoolmaster in Sleepy Hollow. His affability would make everybody pleased, even Katrina who had very high expectations. His personality would leave me completely despondent when trying to conquer Katrina’s heart; it seemed it was so easy for him. And even for me, strong and handsome Brom Bones, it would be hard to act like Ichabod. Oh did I abhor him, I didn’t want him to win my Katrina’s heart.

            Some people used to say that Katrina wasn’t in love with Ichabod, that she loved me and played with his feelings so I would feel jealousy, but sometimes it seemed that they were both deeply in love. I guess I will never know what they really felt. Did I say that I abhorred Ichabod? I think I did… I did every thing I could to let me win this love war, smoked outside his singing class and even destroyed his school house, but he wouldn’t give up; yet. I had to think of a way to lead Ichabod out of Katrina’s life, and I knew exactly what to do.

            One afternoon, while Ichabod was teaching his pupils, he got an invitation to the Van Tassel’s ball that night. He put on his only black suit and rode off with his borrowed horse, Gunpowder. Half of the town had come to the event and the wealthy Van Tassel’s had served a banquet. The feast led everybody to the dance. I felt irascible while, with Katrina as his partner, Ichabod smiled and danced graciously. I had an interminable wait before Ichabod came to join the corner where I found myself. We had been talking about some Sleepy Hollow ghost tales and I knew that this would be the perfect time to get rid of Ichabod.

I started telling the tale of the awful headless horseman specter who rode around the graveyard in search of the head he had lost in the revolutionary war. I told my pals gathered around me that I had once seen the creature, and I knew that Ichabod must have been shaking behind me, he was so superstitious. I left the ball early and went to find the costume I had used for one of my pranks, put it on and headed towards the graveyard riding my black horse with a carved pumpkin in hand.

The time had come for Ichabod to make his way back home. As the night grew darker I knew that all the stories of ghosts haunted his thoughts. As he approached the church and the graveyard he felt something following him. He tremulously turned his head to see me disguised as the headless horseman. I saw his expression, eyes wide open and the kind of scared face you would only imagine, as the fearful schoolmaster’s screams reverberated all around the forest.

While he and his horse tried to escape from my pursue, the girth of Ichabod’s saddle broke and he took hold of the horse’s neck. I rose in my stirrups in the attempt to knock off his head and he fell off the horse and landed directly on the ground. I took hold of his body, leaving the pumpkin on the ground, and galloped away searching for a place to burry it.

The next day there was no sign of Ichabod, only of the horse and the broken saddle left on the ground. Nobody ever knew what happened to him, they all supposed the headless horseman had actually left the pumpkin and taken his head instead. Such foolish people who believed in that specter, I found myself laughing every time they mentioned it. Months later after Ichabod’s disappearance, I entreated Katrina for her hand and promised to give her my love. She only looked at me with those wide eyes and I knew she loved me too.