Nicole Lue
Ms. Parham
AP Language and Composition, Period
3
June 17, 2013
Flawless
“It is proof of
the shallowness of the doctrine of beauty, as it lies in the minds of our
amateurs, that men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence
of form upon soul.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”
There she was. She
was always that girl that everyone praised. She appeared perfect—smart,
athletic, came from a good family. I don’t know about all that. I never really
understood what all the hype was about.
She is average height, has brown hair and brown eyes—nothing special.
But, there just seemed to be something about her, some inner drive and
determination—something that drew people to her. You want to know her name?
Well, it doesn’t matter, we’ll just refer to this girl as “Her.”
I hate Her, yet I love Her at the same time.
She is my best friend and worst enemy. Still, it is almost as if it is
impossible for me not to love her. She is just, well…Her.
From the moment I
entered Kindergarten I knew I was different. All of the other kids would giggle
with their friends during naptime, while I stared at the clock determined to
catch the hour hand move, even if it was just a centimeter. Sure, I had
friends. I had lots of “friends.” My mother was meticulous about setting up
play dates for me, but most of the time, I really just wanted to be alone. I simply
knew I was different. Before I knew it, I was about to graduate from high
school. I had been waiting for this moment for so long, and now it was only a matter
of hours before I would be walking across the stage. So much had changed from
that year of Kindergarten, yet everything seemed exactly the same. I have
friends, I go to parties, I get by in school. But nothing is great, nothing is
okay. I am empty, I have no idea who I am. My life felt just about as put
together as the five-dollar DVD bin at Walmart.
Then there is Her.
She was so desperate to please others, and please she does. She was always the
first called at assemblies to get awards—the definition of a teacher’s pet. It was
when she felt this acceptance where she thrived. There was never a time where
she wasn’t surrounded by friends—so full of confidence. She appeared
untouchable.
As I stare at her
long brown hair, flaming smile, designer clothes, and deep brown eyes, I flash back
to the time when she spoke at our middle school graduation. Her voice calm, and
her words so fluid it was as if I was listening to tea pour out of a spout. She
must have been so proud. Such pride I will never know, for I was suppressed—pushed
aside. It was her time to shine, not mine. She had a flame beneath her pan—so
exuberant, so alive. Her body glowed with the warmth of the fire within her.
It’s not that I am
obsessed with her or anything. She interests me. She makes me feel real. There
are very few times I can remember feeling so alive without her presence. She
takes pieces of me that I do not have the courage to express. She has the
ability to take the best and show it to the world. Perhaps this is why she
appears flawless. But maybe she’s more complex than everyone thinks. The equation
r=4 appears simple, easy to graph, and perfectly solvable. But, what most
people don’t realize is that this equation does not represent an ordinary line—it
is a circle, one of the most mysterious, never-ending, side-less shapes. It has
no beginning and no end. That is how I see Her, forever in a reoccurring loop
of flawless smiles and perfect demeanor. There’s more to her than meets the
eye.
The same, I suppose, can apply to me. I’m quiet
and easily belittled. I have spent most of my life living in quiet desperation and for a while I thought I would go to the grave
with my song still dying to escape. And if it were not for Her, that song
probably would never have been set free. I would have spent the rest of my life
in resignation. But she changed that all for me. To this day she teaches me what it means to
speak to the world. Such speech does not always occur through words, sometimes
it is through actions. I learned to pick up sports as a way to release my
physical tension, but it was through the act of writing that I was able to
release the weight on
my soul. The pan of my
body had finally been heated by the fire within me. My spirit was buzzing. Was
this completion? Was this what it felt like to be whole without her? Frankly,
I’m not sure. What does it mean to be “complete,” anyway? Who gets to define
that? Who gets to decide? Maybe I should go ask Her, since everyone else seems
to think she knows everything. Yet, I know for a fact that even Her does not
know the answers to these questions.
I consider myself
an observer. I was not blessed with the ear to translate nature into beautiful
strings of words, but I was given the eyes and the mirror to see all of the
world that reflects back at me. My years of listening to everything around me show
that there are two sides to every person. There is who we are and there is whom
we are perceived as. So different, yet one Being. We try and strike a balance
between these two, once again hoping to reach that state of completion. We read
about these paradise-like states that can be achieved. Whether it be Nirvana or
Heaven, we like to believe that there is something better—something fuller.
This is what we’re all ultimately after.
These days
everyone tries so hard. Day in and day out, I watch people change and mold to
the newest stereotypes. One day you have to have the newest two hundred dollar
shoes, and the next those same shoes are old news. This shows our craving for
fulfillment. We all want to believe that there is some true understanding of
who we are just waiting to be discovered. Common thought is that the only way
to achieve this completion is to be perfect by society’s standards. Even Her is
guilty of this. Some say she is as close to perfect as one can get, but I know
this can’t be true.
We’re all after the pursuit of
happiness. Every friend we make, every job we take, and every decision we make
most likely is to try to obtain happiness for ourselves or for someone else.
This is where the origins of the journey for completion that both Her and I are
on lies. The association made with completeness and happiness is where the
cycle begins. She is stuck in this never-ending cycle. Once an object is
in motion, it will not rest unless acted upon by an external force. This is the
most fundamental concept taught in physics. She needs someone to free her, she
needs—as Newton would say—an external force. She needs me. She needs a little
more individuality; she needs to be a little more of who she really is.
Her and I talk
quite often. Maybe talking isn’t the right word to describe what we do—we
argue. We see things differently, yet we have the same attributes. We are both
hard working and honest, but there is an essential divide lingering between us.
A pitfall so large, many would consider us polar opposites. She conforms, I do
not. She cares so much about being accepted. Pecola from The Bluest Eye prayed for blue eyes every night, she wanted to fit
in. She wanted to be “normal.” Her didn’t want blue eyes, but she craved the
acceptance that they symbolized. Looking at Her from an outside perspective,
you wouldn’t be able to tell how hard she tries to fit in. But that’s just
it—this trying is her blue eyes. For this reason, I try—somewhat futilely—to
separate myself. As Douglass felt about his white oppressors so I feel about
her.
People see Her,
but they don’t see Me. Tears stream down my face at this thought. Her begins to
cry as well. I want to be happy, be complete. I don’t understand why. I
understand a lot of things, but I cannot and do not understand why it must
always be Her. I feel empty. I tell Her to go away, I tell her that I don’t
want her here anymore, I tell her to let me sit by myself, I tell Her that I
want to be alone, but she does not listen. She does not leave—she cannot leave,
and secretly, I never really wanted her to.
I looked up from
the ground and into her eyes. Her’s so warm, mine so cold. We stare at each
other for a long while, holding a freezing hot stare. Where others saw a
flaming smile, I saw a shallow one. Where others saw depth in her eyes, I only
saw emptiness. I couldn’t help but think
that completion isn’t something we can achieve in this lifetime. She may seem
perfect but cutting down to her core, we are the same. We dream, we wish, and
we hope that one day we can show our true selves to someone who is willing to
see. I broke the stare and looked down
at the floor. She was gone from my sight, but I could still feel her. I finally
turned away from the mirror and realized that even though Her and I weren’t the
same, we were both me. I was struggling against a current that brought Her
inside myself. “Do I contradict myself? Very well then….I contradict myself; I
am large….I contain multitudes.” Together we are somewhat The Poet, we are as
close to completion as can be in this lifetime. Everyone has a Her or a Him,
and while they’re important on the journey to completion, you can’t let them
overshadow the Me. I put the graduation
cap upon Her head and our voices blended into one as we practiced reciting the
valedictorian speech one last time.
Notes
Pg. 1
1. “I
hated her, yet I loved her at the same time,”—Paradox
2. “From
the moment I entered Kindergarten…”—Anecdote
3. “I
have friends, I go to parties, I get by in school”—Parallel structure
4. “My
life felt just about as put together as the five dollar DVD bin at Walmart.”—Analogy
Pg. 2
1. “As
I stared at her long brown hair, crooked smile…”—Imagery
2. “…and
please she did,”—Inverse word order
3. “It
was as if I was listening to tea pour out of a spout,”—Simile
4. “Flame
beneath her pan” Emerson, “The Poet” (1)
5. “Her
body glowed…”—Metaphor
6. “The
equation r=4…” Larson, PreCalculus (675)
7. “Living
life in quiet desperation…” Thoreau, Walden
(89)
Pg. 3
1. “Was
this completion…?”—Rhetorical Questions
2. “The ear to translate nature…” Emerson, “The
Poet” (5)
3. “The
eyes and the mirror…” Emerson, “The Poet” (11)
4. “Listening
all around me…” Whitman, Song of Myself (60)
Pg. 4
1. “The
pursuit of happiness” Jefferson, The
Declaration of Independence (1)
2. “Once
an object is in motion…” Hecht, Physics Alegbra/Trig
(15)
3. “Blue
eyes” Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Pg. 5
1. “As
Douglass felt about his white oppressors…” Douglass, “What to the Slave is the
Fourth of July (2)
2. “Blue
eyes” Morrison, The Bluest Eye
3. “Freezing
hot stare,”—Oxymoron
4. “I
was struggling against a current…” Hamid, The
Reluctant Fundamentalist (102)
5. “Do
I contradict myself?...” Whitman, Song of Myself (96)
6. “The
Poet” Emerson, “The Poet”
