Part 1: Reckoning Writing Sample

Ok guys...here we are...nearing the end. I have my final writing sample that I'll be posting in two parts because it's around 16 pages long. This was my longer nonfiction piece that I worked on for weeks last semester. Dr. Graham gave me some suggestions for it, so it's subject to later revision, but for right now, this is what I have. I did go through and shuffle some things around or delete things altogether. But it's a piece I worked hard on and would want to send with my applications. So...without further ado...The Reckoning Essay. (Also, a reckoning essay, in this case, is a personal narrative tied together with other pieces of literature or art. In this case, I used a myth, a poem, and a statue.)

Barriers

“I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.”

-William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, 1892

            I have been running since I was four years old. I started running from people soon after. Well, I didn’t always run from people. Fourth grade, when I had first joined my grammar school cross-country team, I hated running. Unless it involved running around my yard pretending to ride an imaginary horse, I wanted no part in it. Our second race, I waited in the woods for my friend, letting her catch up so we could run the rest of the way together. I had been in first place. Coach O’Sullivan yelled at us in his Irish brogue that he would be installing cameras along the way so we couldn’t stop anymore. He made us kiss the bird poop covered rock as punishment.  My friend and I went to school together for twelve years. We were co-captains in high school for our cross-country and track teams. Today, we don’t talk. We used to be friends. But she let me down, like others did in grammar school, by spreading rumors and making fun of my awkwardness. I had a sneaking suspicion she made fun of my glasses, my awkward smile that made one of my eyes look smaller than the other. I never knew what I did to deserve any of these comments. I thought there were some classes or books I should have looked into about how to grow up the right way. I felt different and no one embraced it. So how could I? I hid. Summers in Otis. Weekday afternoons riding at the barn. And later, I ran.

            Women were not allowed to officially enter the Boston Marathon until 1972. Kathrine Switzer entered unofficially in 1967 under the initials, “K.V.”. The race officials assumed she was a man and the crowd in the beginning covered her from view. Except from the view of Jack Semple. He ran down the pavement, screaming and waving his arms. He wanted this woman out of his race. He tried tackling her to rip her numbers off. Her boyfriend body slammed him onto the ground and they continued. She finished the race. The first woman to do so. Today, women run the Boston Marathon almost as fast as some of the men. World famous Paula Radcliffe is only a few minutes off  the men’s time, which in the marathon world, is not much at all. Women fought to be allowed to run. They were running toward progress. They proved all the men wrong that told them their uteruses would fall out or they would die of fatigue. Women were born to run, just as men were. They are a permanent fixture in the running world, equal to men, running alongside them as the crowd cheers them up Heartbreak Hill. Everyone is running toward the finish line.

            I hope to one day run the Boston Marathon. I never followed the running world until I was in my junior year of high school. I could have cared less about mile splits for the pros or who just broke a world record. I was running because my parents threatened to sell my horse. Running has always been my way of achieving something else. I’ve never purely run to run. Maybe that’s why I’ve begun to hate it. I thrived on the moments when running gained me the attention of the cute track boy. The front page of the sports section on a Thursday morning. Murmurs of admiration when I ran workouts and people stood at the fence to watch. A college scholarship. People’s reactions to my running kept me going. But I was running away. I avoided real life. I let running choose college for me. I let running dictate who I thought I loved. I let running tear my body apart. Injuries kept me in a constant flux when I knew I thrived on structure. I couldn’t settle. I struggled to find some permanence in someone or something. I was running to a moment where I could stop and finally live.

            Mrs. Muldowney’s ninth grade English class was taking a two month excursion through mythology. She assigned us various mythological love stories and told us to act them out in front of the class. My friend’s group picked Daphne and Apollo. They stood at the front of the class in their bathrobes, my friend holding two healthy sized tree branches behind her back as one of the boys, playing Apollo, chased her around the room yelling, “Daphne!” She cried out to her father, who turned her into a laurel tree. She whipped the branches from behind her back and raised them over her head as she stood stock still in front of the blackboard. Everyone laughed as the boy playing Apollo fell on his knees before her.  I laughed with everyone else, but I was busier thinking. What does a person run from and why do they do it? Surely Daphne, a mountain nymph, saw Apollo’s good looks, his charm. He could have given her anything she wanted. Why did Daphne run? Was it out of a knowledge of the possible problems that can come from relationships with the gods? But Daphne never even gave Apollo a chance to prove that maybe he could be different, god or not.

            I had great friends in high school. We were each different, but always there for each other. However, they all had the astounding capability of being able to talk to boys and have boyfriends. I sat off to the side, awkward and shy in most of those situations. I really had nowhere to run in those moments. They were all growing up without me. Arie had her boyfriend Matt, who she assuredly told us she would marry one day. Rachel was busy talking to various members of her brother’s rock band. And I silently watched the boy at track practice, knowing I would not have the nerve to talk to him.

            Rachel hadn’t exactly been my closest friend once we hit sixth grade. Those years of running around the playground together seemed years and years ago. She fit in with the rest of the twenty-six students. I did not. We were friends for a little while, in fifth grade, but she told me one day that I was too immature for her because I didn’t like boys. I went home and my mother just told me that Rachel was trying to be cool. We could still be friends. She was wrong. I lost my friends, one by one. They grew up without me. Not one seemed to remember sleepovers or trips to Roller Magic, they must have been considered un-cool by this point. I missed that memo, clearly. They all dated boys in the class, sometimes switching partners every other week. I thought it was ridiculous as we were only in eighth grade. I was made fun of. I was told I was one of the ugliest girls in the class. They spread rumors that I never even heard specifically. The eighth grade graduation dance came around and no one asked me to dance. I had straightened my hair and put on make-up for the first time. No one asked me except for one boy who felt bad because we were kind of friends. I went home and cried.

            I hated high school the first year. I continued my awkward stage, even though I bought contacts and tried watching what I ate. I was still afraid to try and make any friends. I knew they would turn around and do exactly what everyone had done in grammar school. They would leave me. They’d lure me into a false sense of security. I’d tell them my secrets. I’d tell them my fears. I’d tell them my loves. Then they would leave me. Interestingly enough, Rachel was the one that stood by me, mending our lost friendship in the stark white of Ms. Shea’s art room. We put our differences aside and became our own group, eventually finding a few other close friends. But I always still ran from them, afraid to share anything close to my heart for fear it would be used against me.

            I wanted to be close to someone, but my fears following me from grammar school held me back. My mother just told me that I was “more mature” and had a different set of priorities. I just saw myself as unattractive and inexperienced to the opposite sex.

            “People think you’re stuck-up,” Rachel told me, on a cloudy afternoon that we sat in my room, watching old YouTube videos.

            “Why?”

            “Because you don’t talk. And when you do, it’s in class. And you always do your homework,” she replied, picking at the already chipped pastel polish on her nails. Rachel seemed to bathe in the light of being that flippant high school student with an outsider’s view on everything.

            I silently glanced away. Her and Arielle were adamant about changing how I looked, pushing me to wear make-up and buy new bras. I wanted to accept their advice, but it wasn’t that easy. Rachel didn’t remember back to Kindergarten. I had my first taste of what boys were all about when I was only about five years old. I never told anyone about nap time, keeping the sight of Kevin, with his languid smile on his pasty lips for myself.

            Kindergarten had never been my favorite time of the day. The room always smelled of lunchmeat. No matter how well our high tech lunch boxes were insulated, everything seemed to wilt in the ancient coat room. Cheese turned to a watery, egg shell colored mess and my bologna felt slimy as I took a bite. Mrs. G. cleaned the desks off with something that smelled like sharp lemons. It mixed with the lunchmeat odor and made me feel sick until Mom came to pick me up.

            My best friend had mysteriously disappeared during that dreary afternoon. Her towel lay in a wrinkled heap next to mine. I heard a scuffling sound.

            She crawled through the desk limbs, her big blue eyes lit with excitement. Always the dutiful student, I was still attempting to nap like a champ, despite not being tired.

            “I have something to show you.”

            She took my arm and began dragging me along behind her before letting go, assuming I’d follow on my own by this point. She took me to a corner in the back of the classroom, obscured by desks and chairs. Kevin was sitting in the corner. I never liked Kevin. I don’t know why. He made me feel nervous. His blue eyes never fully connected when he talked to you. Even as a child I knew when someone was really listening and when they weren’t. He sat there in his polyester navy blue uniform pants and light blue oxford shirt. He had a smug expression on his face as we inched our way toward him.

            “Kevin has a surprise for us.”

            Kevin unzipped his pants, the zipper making an awful ripping noise. He nonchalantly pulled them down, underwear included. I just stared. My friend smiled and inched closer.

            “He’ll let you kiss it. He said he likes it.”

            She demonstrated exactly what she meant. My eyes widened at the sight and I’m scurrying at the speed of light back to the safety of my horse towel. Our teacher was at her desk, lost in a romance novel somewhere else.

            My heart thumped as I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could. I buried my face into my nap towel, smelling the moldy, lemon scented cleaner aroma of the carpet through its rough surface. I made sure everyone thought I was sleeping, but I wasn’t. I kept seeing Kevin. Way too much of Kevin. I knew it was wrong and I can’t honestly say why it affected me so much. I had always been a little more on the timid side, but this just put me over the top. I wanted to throw up that damn bologna sandwich. My stomach still turned as Rachel and I lay upside down on my bed, heads hanging off the side, the tips of our hair brushing the nubby mauve carpet. She would never understand.

            Professor Saunders sat down and told us that we needed to pick a piece of art to write an ekphrastic poem about for our workshop next class. Moment of panic. Write about art? Then, I remembered back to fall of my freshman year in history when, flipping through the musty textbook pages in boredom, I stumbled upon “The Kiss”, by Rodin. Solid rock that curves and flows with all the love and nurture of real human beings. Paolo and Francesca. Two lovers, completely lost in each other, in their moment. I wanted that.

            I see the Rodin statue and I think of Paul, and not just because of the similarity in names. I imagine him holding me, brushing my jaw line so softly that I can’t feel the rough edges of his callused hands. I like to think that we can sit in the same pose as Francesca and Paolo. I have my own Paolo now. Or, like every other romantic, I like to think I do.

            Paul and I first met in Otis, on the Reservoir, when I was turning into a cross-country and track crazed “runner girl”. My life was becoming enveloped by mile splits and blisters that covered brand new white socks in permanent blood stains.

            I saw him on my dock that first day and vehemently told myself that I didn’t like him. I really didn’t give him a chance. I was just being stubborn. Arielle happened to be with me.

            “Why don’t you talk to him?”

            I shrugged and squinted at her through my oversized sunglasses.

            I eventually did date the track boy I thought would never notice me. Track runners have a phrase called “speed goggles”. Guys will date certain girls because they run fast, thus making them seem attractive. This boy had “speed goggles”. Or even if he didn’t, I really don’t think he was drawn in by my scintillating personality. He ended up asking me out because I was fast. I can unashamedly say that I said yes based on his looks. Nothing grounded our relationship. He was dull and my sarcasm went right over his head. Never failed. I had run harder to gain his attention, as well as some place I could call home. Running had brought me to the wrong place, in this case. Paul didn’t even know I was a runner when we first met. On that July afternoon, I wasn’t giving him a chance. But, maybe Arie was right this time around.

            She kept staring at me before we both turned to look out at the setting sun and the rough lake that was being churned by the wind.

            “Paul could be a perfect summer fling,” she said. Arielle was the relationship advice queen. She thrived on relationships and trying to solve any problems, from minor arguments to sex. She was good, too. I hated to admit she was almost always right.

            “He seems fun and really nice. And besides, he’s easy on the eyes,” she said with a laugh.

            “Arie, enough.”

            He showed up, every day. Arielle would call and ask if I was spending time with him. And I was. Always after noon, because he slept late. He drove his boat a few houses down to my weathered gray dock. Any free moments were filled with him. He called me on a late August night. We had only known each other three weeks.

            “So, um, do you like think we’re more than friends?” he asked in a lowered voice. Maybe his brother was in the next room, eavesdropping.

            I simply told him that I thought we were. His response was “cool beans”. Who says that anymore? I didn’t want to laugh and make him feel more awkward. I was new to the whole scenario as well, so I just smiled into the phone and gave him another yes. I was ready to finally give him a chance.

            Everyone else saw it, at least a week before the phone call. How he watched me a little too long while we stood on the dock, waiting to say goodbye as the sun set on our wind burned faces. Or following me on the jet ski and sitting in Dismal Bay, just dipping our toes in to make swirling whirlpools in the inky black surface. I could feel myself starting to change.

            I let him hold my hand, his fingertips brushing mine, signaling that he wanted to lace his rough fingers with my bony ones. I never hesitated. We would fall asleep on the coach watching “Invader Zim”. His mom would angrily call and he hastily pulled his shoes on before hopping out the door. He would let out a low whistle as he sat down on the collected condensation on the seat of his quad. I watched him grin at me in the dim light from our back spotlight. He was always late for curfew.

            He realized, like I knew he would, that while I let him hold my hand, I was never truly comfortable. We were lying on the roof of his parent’s camper pontoon boat. They were watching the stars on the chairs beneath us. He held my hand and I closed my eyes, listening to our even breaths as they synchronized with the breeze and the waves. I heard a fisher cat scream, a baby’s cry through the midnight woods. We just stayed there like that until his Dad made him drive the boat home.

            “Why didn’t you kiss me last night?”

            I turned my head to look at him, a little taken aback.

            “I don’t know.”

            “Don’t you want to?”

            I told him yes. I thought that I really liked him. But inside, I was shaking. What if I was bad at it? What if I ended up not liking him after? What if I let him take this little piece and he ran away with it and hurt me? All these thoughts jumbled in my head. He finally took control of the situation. We were sitting in my boat one night and he pulled me to him and very gently kissed me. For the first time. I was sixteen.

            I was letting go of childhood, whether I knew it or not. I was taking that first step to the next tumultuous six years. I wanted to run. But my dad wasn’t a river god, capable of turning me into a beautiful laurel tree. I shrank away from Paul’s touch. It was the one thing I wanted the most, but also what I feared above all else. I didn’t know if he would be different from my classmates. He could decide one day that I wasn’t worth the time. I couldn’t live with giving part of myself away only to have it ripped apart.

            I look at “The Kiss” and think of how freely they hold each other, letting their bodies fall into place. Art tells people that love is something to be desired. It makes the impossible happen. Love emanates from cold, immovable stone. Love happens in the unlikeliest of places and at the unlikeliest of times. I think love happened on a creaky gray dock, covered in spider webs and lake weed, with the waves gently rocking it back and forth. Love happened with someone I never imagined it happening at all. I was realizing that my life was not a fantasy, it wasn’t perfect, and it most certainly wasn’t predictable. But it was mine.