In the summer before my junior year, I took a two-week long Spanish-immersion trip to Chile. Thomas Jefferson High School, where my peers and I spent our days conversing with the students and sitting in on lectures, happened to have a basketball court. I excitedly asked my host student, René, if anyone really uses the court, to which he replied “no.” My lips curved into a half-smile as I acknowledged the inevitability that I would soon be teaching my new classmates how to run five-on-five. What I couldn’t acknowledge at the time, however, was that I would fall and break my arm five minutes after I began playing. After a fit of moaning, I was rushed to the nearest emergency room by a few of the chaperones, along with the principal of the school. On my first day at Thomas Jefferson High School, halfway across the world, I just had to break my arm—playing pickup basketball. To be fair, I was incredibly lucky to have broken my arm in a country with universal healthcare. Besides, what else could the defense do to stop me from dropping fifty points other than to break my arm?

Why do I continue to express my love for a sport which certainly doesn’t love me back? Maybe it’s the way the seams of the ball feel when I grip them. Maybe it’s the look of devastation on the defender’s face when I sink a shot (a rare occurrence). Or, maybe it’s the freedom that the game warrants. See, basketball, in my eyes, is more than just a game; it’s a reminder of my own free-will. When the ball is inbounded in a game of scrimmage, the receiving player may initiate any one of an infinite number of offensive schemes. Pick-and-roll, pinch-post, motion offense, fast-break, isolation, triangle, pick-and-pop with a cherry-on-top (maybe I made up that last part), you name it; they are free to explore any one of the infinitesimal avenues of offensive play. Basketball serves to remind me that I shall live my life deliberately.

Welcome to Survivor.

Wanna know what you’re playing for?

Lies, backstabbing, and hunger.

What could go wrong?

Survivor is a reality tv show where twenty four contestants compete for the 1 million dollar prize and the title of Soul Survivor. But just like the title suggests, they all need to survive the elements with a lack of resources– especially food. Imagine living on an island with complete strangers, with a cup of rice per day, and without a single trace of technology. From day one, you and your tribe have to fend for food, make shelter and provide for yourselves.

In addition, alliances are formed right off the bat. If you don’t make connections with your fellow tribe mates at the start, that can instantly make you a target. If you make a move too early, you become a target. If you don’t make any moves at all, you won’t have a chance at winning. Survivor is more mental than physical in most cases. No one knows who to trust and arrogance is a weakness. Safety is an illusion and is never certain.

Unless you have an immunity idol, that is. The only way to guarantee your safety in the game is to have an idol in your pocket or around your neck. You can earn them by finding a hidden one around the island or winning an immunity challenge. But I’m getting ahead of myself. During the day, there are two types of challenges: reward and immunity.

Towards the start of the game, the twenty four contestants are split into three or four tribes. They compete for rewards like food, comfort, fishing gear and flint. The challenges determine their physical and mental strength as the majority of them entail lifting heavy objects and solving puzzles. As always, not everyone can win, and you have to earn it. In immunity challenges, they compete for a chance to stay away from tribal council for one night.

Tribal council is what all contestants want to avoid at all costs. Each week when the show airs, one person is voted out and loses their chance of winning. If you don’t have to go to tribal council, you won’t get voted out. It’s that simple.

Or is it?

Like I said before, safety isn’t guaranteed. Everything you say can be used against you, and blindsides can happen any time. Outwit, outplay and outlast, and you might have a shot at the title.

Just don’t get voted out.

When reading fiction, a special bond forms between the reader and the narrator. We engage with the constructed world as though we are a character in the story. It fosters emotional connection and drives the plot forward. We’re all familiar with first person narration. Most works of fiction utilize the style, from classics such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to contemporary novels such as The Hunger Games.

It’s a simple narrative technique and doesn’t seem to contain any particular flair or pomp beyond the events of the story. Writing in first person is a natural extension of human discussion. At its most basic, it is a recounting of events, like an old friend telling you about their weekend.

As a result of its reliability, writers use first person constantly. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just makes it harder for one particular work to stand out from the pack.

Good writers use narration to deliver their stories. Great writers use narration to enhance their stories. There are 3 novels I shall discuss that particularly demonstrate the impact that narrators have on the writing they deliver.

(Spoilers follow. Tread carefully)

Earlier I mentioned the casual nature of first person. Mark Twain highlights this feature in the aforementioned Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huckleberry Finn’s command of language is weak. His grammatical conventions are inconsistent and his syntax is juvenile. However, these imperfections serve a distinct purpose. Not only do we see Huck’s adventures through his eyes, but we hear it through his voice. He’s naive, young, poor and simplistic. And it shows. He reminisces about past schemes, and crudely comments on his experiences. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn surrounds the reader with Huck’s thoughts.

It’s textbook first person. Huckleberry Finn is the story-teller through and through. Twain sought to illuminate the experience of a boy coasting down the Mississippi River. Morally, he is torn between helping Jim, or returning him to Miss Watson. Having access to Huck’s inner thoughts illuminates this dilemma. The reader’s literary experience lurches with the current of Huck’s conscious. We are effectively pulled down the Mississippi on the same raft as Huckleberry Finn and Jim, subject to all its twists and turns, as frightening and exciting as they may be.

My personal favorite novel, The Great Gatsby, goes in a slightly different direction. Nick Carraway generally lacks passion and personality. He routinely plays second fiddle to the larger-than-life Jay Gatsby and lacks Tom Buchanan’s arrogant and bombastic nature. Nick really isn’t the central character of his own universe. Frankly, he doesn’t have to be. His relative indifference illuminates Gatsby as a grandiose and mystical figure.

The other components of Fitzgerald’s novel make up for Nick’s comparative dullness. He’s perceptive enough to let others shine, and other characters often trust him enough to share some of the saucier elements of their personal lives. By making Nick the narrator, Fitzgerald treats the reader to a personal story without compromising Gatsby’s mystery. Nick isn’t the one that’s Great, but part of Gatsby’s greatness comes from his indulgent facade.

All we learn about Gatsby comes directly from Nick’s observations and experiences. This style distances the reader from the book’s wealthy and sultry namesake. Even as Gatsby’s closest confidant, Nick doesn’t entirely understand what makes him tick. At times the reader gets the impression Gatsby isn’t in control of himself. When he meets up with Daisy in Nick’s home, Gatsby is disorganized and nervous. He fiddles incessantly and contemplates abandoning the whole ordeal. Throughout the novel, the reader isn’t quite sure why Gatsby does the things he does. He constantly says “old sport” and accepts blame for Daisy’s vehicular incident. The reader and Nick can infer Gatsby’s intentions and motives, but there is a clear wall between the story being presented and the mind of the cryptic metropolitan.

I do not like George Orwell’s 1984. I think it’s profoundly dull, sounding less like a story and more like a manifesto-in-denial. But even I must admit Orwell employs a deeply engaging narrative style. 1984 is deeply personal, depicting Winston Smith’s thoughts and struggles in a repressive society. Throughout the book, we are constantly informed of what Winston knows to be true.

At least, what he thinks he knows to be true.

While the two books I mentioned prior featured first person narrator-reader interactions, 1984 includes no such thing. The story is narrated in third person limited, so Winston never directly communicates with the audience like Huck or Nick. But instead of sounding cold and detached, the novel brings us directly into Winston’s mind in a strange, roundabout way.

The narrator’s diction is absolute. They don’t simply relay Winston’s thoughts to the reader, they relay his conviction. When Winston is particularly sure of some Party plot, the narrator mirrors his certainty. Phrases like “Winston confidently thought X”  are replaced by “He was sure of X. It was so obvious, anyone paying attention would know within an instant.” Such language slowly molds the reader’s worldview to fit Winston’s. The narrator undermines the unfortunate truth facing Winston, instead bolstering his (often incorrect) judgments about the nature of his life. By the book’s conclusion, it is painfully obvious that Winston has been actively and persistently deceived.  As Winston’s taste of freedom is ripped from his hands, the reader learns he was never as safe as he thought. Orwell presents a narrator who is deeply attached to the protagonist. This narrator is untrustworthy not because they are dishonest, but because they cling to a character who is wrong.

Narration profoundly impacts every work of fiction. Deliberate and conscious decisions ensure a novel’s narrator will actively contribute to the story’s literary value. In the case of theses 3 books, the authors turn a seemingly simple decision into a profound tool to subtly enhance their writings. So the next time any of you indulge in writing fiction, take a moment and think; Who should tell my story?

 

From the airplane window, I see the island of Puerto Rico rapidly approaching. Another summer going to what most would consider a vacation spot, but for me, it’s home. I make the trip to Puerto Rico by myself for the first time. I’m nervous, but I won’t let my confidence falter.

Puerto Ricans view me as a tourist. Unknown to them, my Puerto Rican roots run deep. However, I am no longer comfortable and confident on the island. I’ve become an outsider, alone for the first time, surrounded by people who look at me with animosity.

Throughout the summer I realized that I would never be accepted as a “true” Puerto Rican. I questioned whether I was losing myself. Why are they unwilling to accept me as one of their own? What gives these strangers the right to decide who I am?

My life is a mixture of two cultures. I have a home and family in Puerto Rico as well as in Cleveland. I will never be able to identify with only one culture and neither culture will ever fully accept me. Why did I ever allow strangers’ judgments to define me? Now, as a young woman, I refuse to change a single aspect of who I am. I’ve chosen to embrace both aspects of my unique and diverse self so that, no matter where I go or who I meet, people’s only choice will be to view me as the proud, young Hispanic-American woman that I am.

In times of tragedy and strife,

I flip a switch inside of me.

I become the strong one,

I put on my mask,

attempting to put the well-being of others before mine.

 

I disregard my own feelings for the time being,

just so i can make others feel okay.

I bottle up every emotion inside of me,

all for what?

 

It happens every time.

I never know when to draw the line,

and consider the validity of how i’m feeling.

 

Just because i cope in different ways,

doesn’t mean my emotions are any less important or valid.

 

I never take a step back and breathe deeply,

I make myself the strong one.

 As a child, I was a connoisseur of all things crafty. I would take trips to Michaels, grabbing whatever caught my eye at the moment, throwing them into the little shopping basket and, in turn, zapping my father’s bank account (I must have spent at least a hundred dollars on craft supplies and materials). I did everything: crocheting, collaging, sketching, sewing, photographing, t-shirt designing, stamping, painting, etc. I thought I had versed myself on every craft on the planet until my mother and I walked into the unassuming book store and my life changed.

You know that feeling when you know that something is destined to happen? That happened  when I saw the thick binder of origami figures sitting on the shelf, waiting for me to take it. In my eyes, origami was going to be the hobby to end all hobbies. Origami was the one craft that I was going to do for the rest of my life.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t last for the rest of my life. I kept up folding for a solid 4 months before I moved on to the next activity. I would occasionally pick up the book on off days from school, telling myself that maybe I would start folding again. My folding inspiration would last a day, then I would re-shelve the book and leave it there for another month or two.

It was only in high school that I began to fold again. This time around, I focused on one figure: the paper crane. Ironically, paper cranes were one of the figures I hated most because of a confusing intermediate step. It took me years of frustration and then one day, it just clicked. After that, folding the crane was a breeze.

For me, paper cranes were a gift. They one: looked so peaceful, two: were easy to fold once I got the general routine down, and three: were something to do with my hands when anxiety struck. I would fold in class or at work-anytime I got bored.

I still fold today to ease tension and give my hands something to do. Paper folding hasn’t just given me a new hobby, it’s given me a new goal: fold 1000 paper cranes. There’s a legend that says that if you fold 1000 cranes, you can have a wish granted. I only have 50 so far but a start is a start.

 

then:

slipping

through the cracks, like water

nothing meant anything

happiness was handed to me

in late night hugs and movies

coming back, words were handed like daggers

stabbing deep

it all started from slipping away

now:

echo

no more slipping

coming back meant so much more

and you can’t slip when you’ve already fallen

those words don’t hurt anymore

they’re only an echo in my past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I have something to confess…up until this year I had excruciatingly bad writing anxiety. I wish I could tell you why this started, but all I know is that it reared it’s ugly, sweat-inducing head the very beginning of my sophomore year. Writing essays, I felt like I was in a fog. I could focus sentence by sentence but I wasn’t able to see the full picture of my essay. I felt like I was writing blind and I’d panic because of that. I hated this feeling so much that my unhealthy coping mechanism of choice was avoidance.

I was so afraid to start essays that I would avoid them to the very last minute until I was forced to deal with them. Of course, this fear-induced procrastination coupled with the writing anxiety only made me more anxious. Let me tell you from first hand experience that trying to write an essay the night before it’s due with writing anxiety feels like you’re a flaming ball of panic racing off the side of a cliff into a pit of despair.  I finally decided it was time for a change after I ended up avoiding the very first essay of my junior year to the point of turning it in a month later. To help me get over my anxiety, I enlisted the help of my freshman year English teacher/mentor. I worked with her after school to create strategies to combat the anxiety and when I did have an essay, we broke the work into chunks so I could do a little bit of it at a time. I would come to her when I felt like I couldn’t start and she’d help me get over my initial fear until I wrote something.

Today, I’m over my anxiety. Even if I do start to feel that familiar hum of anxiety (which happens occasionally), I know I have the tools to handle it, and to help others handle it as well.

you have
stolen my breath,
you have broken in
to my lungs and
bagged it up.
gone before I could say
thank you.

crackling, they shatter.
ten million tiny pieces of
lung.
now it will be easy to tell if
he was a smoker.

but no matter,
my heart can
hold my breath.
my liver could, too, you know,
in a pinch.

i’ll get along just fine,
thank you.