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A Brief Jaunt in the Woods: Appalachian Journal
Last night, I returned with four other guys from a three-day trek along the Appalachian Trail through the Great Smokey Mountains. We imagined a fine stroll in the woods, a few days breathing good air and overlooking mountain vistas, but we ended up with cramped calves, blistered feet, and weathered shoulders. While it did not bring the calm or enlightenment that some people claimed, the mountain trip taught me a lot about expectations, companionship, and the nature of nature.
Below is a direct transcription of the little journal I kept throughout our hikes, including crazed ideas, admissions, and swear words. The entire journey proved harder than any of us thought, but we made it out alive and mostly intact.
June 9, 2013
12:31pm
Spirit Quest. Walkabout. Seeking.
Whatever cultural term might be used to describe a spiritual journey in the wilderness, this is not it. Rather, this will be a walk to death, the ascension to the hangman’s noose. Like many other confused, existential, directionless Caucasian males in their teenage prime, we chose to amble up into the Smokey Mountain National Park, hike a few miles of the Appalachian Trail.
The sky has decided to piss all over us, and I admit I’m not ecstatic to begin walking through muck and cold rain and liquefied misery.
1:20pm
After a wrong turn, we found ourselves lost along the highway. Using our smart phone devices, we found a new way to the entrance to the park. After picking up a map and looking through the visitors center, we are preparing for the hike.
6:40pm
Having entered the trailhead at 2 pm, we have not yet reached our destination. I sit along, awaiting the slower leg of our group to catch up. I need their water. I am unsure how much further it could be, but I hope I am close. The hike has been far more strenuous than I believed, heaving a fifty pound pack uphill. The incline never ceases, and even when I think I have reached the summit, the trail continues up. The last 1/3 has been tame, but exhausting. The first three miles went up a creek, the water rushing past our soaked shoes as we scraped our legs on rocks and climbed hand and foot. We did not prepare for, certainly did not anticipate, the sheer pain of going on and on, trapped in a steaming hallucination of green.
We spotted a single snake, but our worst enemy is the streams. Some have simple brides or even fallen trees to cross, but many we fall into, slipping on the rocks or moss. At the beginning of our journey, just past the first friendly mile, I took off my shoes to clear the stream, clinging to branches as I skirted along the clumsy rocks. My sleeping bag splashed into the stream, soaked through, and for a mile, I carried the bag draped over my shoulders.
I hear my comrades approaching and admit the time to sit has been restful. Like with every new horizon, I pray the campsite lies just beyond.
7:30pm
Steeper. The camp is nowhere in sight, and I feel my body and mind slipping away. My shoulders bulbous and raw and red.
8:10pm
This trail mocks me. Every tree masquerades as a peaceful meadow, but is only another sharp turn up this damned mountain. The Devil hovers behind every boulder, beckoning with bread, with rest, but there is nothing.
It is dark and grow darker. A storm brews in the distance, and not for the first time today am I considering whether I will die here.
8:30pm
I am taking more frequent breaks as I begin to lose hope. I sit on a log observing the first sign I’ve encountered in hours. Ricky encountered me on the trail, on his way to locate Stephen who had disappeared long ago. The sign says there is only a half mile left to the campsite, and I remember believing we had only 1.5 miles left after the 3 mile marker, but we crossed that at 5pm.
My feet are blistered, numb. Even to curl a toe takes great exertion. But Ricky’s presence made me feel better.
It just started raining.
9:00pm
Inane thoughts, rambling.
As I neared the site, I stepped wrong, rolling my angle. I could feel my muscles stretch unnaturally, snapping loudly. “Arrrgh. Fuck.” I collapsed, thinking the worst: that my ankle was broken, that I was trapped.
Three weeks before in La Habana, Cuba I had sprained my ankle and been unable to walk properly for a day– it still affects me now. If I suffered the same fate on the trail, we would be stranded. Alone, I called out the names of my friends. No one could hear me.
Clutching my foot, I assessed the damage. This did not feel as before, and I suspected I could walk given time. Putting weight on the foot, I hobbled across the trail until I felt comfortable walking upright. Then I hefted my pack onto my shoulders and plod on. Each step sent a jolt through my leg, but by now, that sort of pain felt irrelevant.
Funny to think, but while making the final stretch, I thought of how I could transform this experience into a lesson, the sort of clear, cut-and-dry morality imposed in a standard college essay or fable. Nothing came to mind except that I had overestimated myself– we all had.
We were weak, broken by strain, and lost. Five inept white bys, wondering the dark, dangerous forest.
I reached the camp where Tim and Ricky were, and I set up a tent with ease. While waiting on food, I spilled a bag of granola in my tent, and I cursed myself for bringing rats and other vermin to me.
Ricky showed up with Stephen, both exhausted, and we ate soup. Stephen, like all of us, had at once lost hope on the trail, sitting down on the side, refusing to move. In that way, we are relying on each other to keep going, and I hope we can continue to do this tomorrow.
We learned that the estimation of the trail (4.5 miles) had been wrong and instead we had hiked 6.7 miles. That was why my mind suffered delusions after mile 3, because I thought I was nearly finished. But the I had not even been half-way. Not even half-way up what we learned was the second-highest mountain in the entire park.
10:30pm
We talked for a long time, eating a type of soup that warmed itself when you shook the can. It began to rain in earnest, and we retreated to our tents.
June 10, 2013
8:15am
Woke up to my tent filled with water, my shoes and much of my clothes soaked. I could not sleep in my wet sleeping bag and so made do with two towels covering me.
8:49am
The others still sleep.
Not all is misery here. I trekked up a hill to the mountain’s peak, though a good view is impossible through the thick of green leaves. But finally I am feeling a bit of accomplishment at climbing this damned mount.
10:30am
Waiting for clothes to dry. Packing up.
11:45am
Our first leg of our journey proved easier than yesterday, a few brief inclines but mostly flat trail. The descents are no easier, and we move slowly to avoid tumbling down. I packed my bag better with the mostly dry sleeping bag packed inside. We rest now on a bunch of logs. We overlook the mountains draped in white gauzy mist.
12:45pm
We have stopped to cook lunch. My shoulder burn again under the strain of a heavier pack. The trail has been tame, and most of yesterday’s rain has evaporated. No more sliding, spilling, and falling.
The mountain we climbed yesterday was one of the highest in the range, more than 5,000 feet. Hopefully, we will not continue to underestimate this wicked place.
For lunch, we’re eating from a giant canister of beans and rice. I admit I’m quite hungry, and we will not eat again until nearing nightfall. The sun is very warm in this spot, the wind refreshing.
4:12pm
We arrived in the campsite an hour ago. I have set up my tent. Others are currently setting p theirs. Very hot at the moment, but the bulk of the day’s strain is behind us. The final miles was perilous and muddy, and we hiked through more creeks.
7:00pm
Woke up from a nap. Cooking chicken, rice, and beans with pita chips.
The others have decided against spending a day to explore the area. There is not much to explore we have not already, and we will want to come home soon. The adventure might end prematurely, but it has been an adventure.
9:00pm
We started a fire and sat around it, some of us smoking cheap cigars we bought at the Cherokee Indian Reservation. We’re going to sleep now, as tomorrow might be the longest leg of our journey yet.
June 11, 2013
1:12pm
Woke up late at 10am with a stiff back and throbbing head. We encountered an old man hiking who simply grunted in our direction. Now we have learned that he hiked a mere 0.3 miles from a highway to our campsite; we had the opportunity to simply hike out, then hitch-hike, but instead we are already headed in the opposite direction. I do not particularly like this loyalty to the direction we’re headed because we’re unsure how far we must travel.
We left at 12pm and made decent time to the sign we’d encountered before. 1 mile uphill was more difficult than yesterday’s 4 miles down. We have stopped for lunch now– rice and beans again.
1:50pm
Making lunch now that Kevin and Stephen have caught up. Cooper Creek Trail is at 1.5, then there will be more space before we reach Mingus Creek Trail. Hopefully not too far. Though we feel nearly finished, we have a long way to go.
We have decided to eat at Waffle House once back in civilizations, and the thought of a sizzling burger will hopefully keep me moving forward.
5:23pm
Walked another 3.6 miles since lunch. The first 1.5 to Cooper Creek felt easy, so when we reached the crossroads, we kept hiking without stopping. The next 2.1 miles almost killed me.
Half a mile in, we started uphill, back up that damned mountain we climbed the first day. This was a place called Deep Low Gap, a huge elevation change between two high mountains. We spent the morning going down one, and I just spent three and a half hours hiking up the other.
I slowed, dehydrated, exhausted, and eventually I fell behind Tim and Ricky who took the lead. Our pack spread thin, stretched across miles of mountainous terrain. I took many breaks, fearing I could not make it.
700 feet before this intersection, I stopped, plopping down. I saw nothing, my mind turning to mush, but I came to two realizations in that moment of desperation:
1.) I could not go on.
2.) It didn’t matter.
Even though I thought there was no way I could go on, it didn’t matter. I had to go on. I needed to stop, but I could not. This mountain cared nothing for what I thought I could or could not do– it never considered my limitations. The thought of it growing dark again, being trapped here, haunted me. I stood up and kept on, not because of any resolve or new-found strength, but because there were no other choices. Soon, I spotted Ricky and Tim at the intersection, and I collapsed next to them.
Here, there was nothing to learn, but what pain could teach me, and somehow, despite the fact I knew deeply I could not make it, I had made it. And there were still 3 more miles to walk, heaving that pack.
5:55pm
We worry about Kevin and Stephen who have not reached our stopping point yet. They have fallen behind. Ricky and Tim have walked back down the path, sans their packs, to locate them.
8:21pm
We reached the end, after plodding through creeks, and I rolled my ankle again. We waited for ten minutes and continued. Seeing the parking lot brought great relief. Everything did– sinks and toilet seats and the promise of air conditioning. I dresses in fresh clothes I had kept in the van. We washed our muddy legs in the restroom.
We took the Blue Ridge Parkway, which gave us views of those mountains of wicked beauty, all the view we never got climbing them.
8:29pm
Strange to think we camped at the second-highest campsite, seeing these mountains tower over us now. In a way, we feel like conquerors. Weakened by war, but victorious.
8:44pm
Saw an elk on the side of the road. A much more interesting animal than ever we saw trudging through the trail. Up there, there were deer, snakes, and bugs– mostly bugs.
9:30pm
We’re sitting now at a Waffle House, that wonderful bastion of civilization, that beacon in the distance we each crawled towards. We may not return home until very early tomorrow morning, but that seems a little irrelevant now, as the smell of hash browns floats under our nostrils. Mostly, we’re broken, though mostly, we’re exhausted, though mostly we’re satisfied. Never mind– mostly, we’re just hungry.
The Case for “Drug Safety Education” Reform in Public Schools
{The statements expressed in this essay are the sole opinion of the author, Derek Berry, and do not necessarily reflect the philosophies of all of the harm reduction groups discussed}
In fifth grade, I won an essay contest for D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), a program devoted to keeping kids from abusing drugs and alcohol. The essay, I read in front of my entire fifth grade class and their parents, probably making them deeply uncomfortable with righteous statements of abstaining from smoking cigarettes, forgoing the consumption of alcohol.
I do not believe I even mention “drugs” in the essay because the thought of abstaining from them never occurred to me: only homeless parasitic liberals used drugs, and I lived in South Carolina where I rarely encountered this breed. (To be fair, DARE has addressed my most serious concern of prescription drug use that I address below, and I have nothing against D.A.R.E., only wish to criticize its approach).
What strikes me about the program is how the officers and teachers attempting to divert us from a life of drug abuse: just say no. Nancy Reagan pioneered the “Just Say No” campaign in the 1980′s, becoming perhaps the most influential first ladies of her time. Not only is this approach slightly rude (Just Say NO THANK YOU), its notion that feeding horror stories to children about drug abuse will deter them from experimenting with drugs is deeply flawed. For more information on “Just Say No,” visit reaganfoundation.org.
Fact: Since 1990 a reported 20.5 million people have used marijuana in an average year.
(http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr4/2Usage.html)
Statistic: 40% of Americans over the age of 12 have tried cannabis sativa (marijuana).
(
http://www.soberlifeinc.net/js/modalbox/content/g.htm
)
Now, this statistic is mighty misleading because cannabis, of course, might be considered a milder drug than many people actually consume, but it gives a good idea to how effective the “Just Say No” philosophy is. If a majority of American school children went through this D.A.R.E. program and still experimented with one of the drugs that were advised against, what other drugs might they try? Despite cannabis being relatively harmless, its use often help guide users into use and abuse of harder, more dangerous drugs.
What I would like to propose is certainly not an obliteration of drug awareness education but rather a more realistic approach to educating our kids about drugs. In many middle schools, groaning school children sit through Sex Ed classes, where the philosophy has shifted from “Abstinence-Only” education to “Protection” education. Teachers and administrators realize the reality of teenage sexuality, that many teens will not abstain from sex and without the proper knowledge, could end up impregnating each other and transferring potentially life-threatening STD’s.
Naturally, I am aware that sexual education also is lax, that despite efforts information is not always transmitted in the most effective means. What proponents of sexual education have done right, however, is take into account that a portion (even if not a majority) of teenagers will experiment sexually with more than one partner and without the know-how to protect themselves, they could end up in serious trouble. We need to admit to ourselves that American youths do indeed indulge in drugs and if we want to save them, we have to be honest with them. We have to educate them.
(http://ssdp.org/resources/facts-and-statistics/)
This approach has worked more effectively with alcohol education. The College of Charleston where I attend requires each student to complete an Alcohol Edu course online before attending for the semester because they have grown aware that students break the law, that students will drink alcohol whether the law permits them to or not. Many students approach drugs with the same mindset, but during the Alcohol Education class, the only drug mentioned was marijuana and only briefly. (It made some comment about knowing what ingredients are in the brownies you eat on campus).
There grows a serious problem here, one that we prefer to ignore. The more we delude ourselves that kids will not experiment with dangerous drugs, the larger chance we take. We’re metaphorically throwing two hormonal teenagers together in a room without a condom and telling them to “not do anything bad.”
We must equip the next generation with the knowledge they need if they do experiment with drugs because to not do so is the marginalize a great portion of the younger society, to basically say that while we care about helping prevent alcohol poisoning, we have no intention of preventing drug overdose.
A brief anecdote if you will permit:
I attended a party one night and had left my bag in my friend’s bedroom. When I entered the bedroom to retrieve the bag, I found a girl laying on the bed transfixed on the television.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded very slowly, and I approached her, asking again, “Are you okay?”
“Just a little high.”
“On what?”
She didn’t say anything, just shrugged, then pointed to her IPhone on which remained residue on a crushed-up white substance (it turned out to be molly, a drug growing in popularity among the alternative scene: pure MDMA, though it is often cut with things that are not MDMA including heroin, speed, or methamphetamine. To find out more about this drug, go here.)
“How much of that did you take?”
Another shrug.
“How much? Are you okay?” She certainly did not look alright and if then I had been informed as I am now I might have sought medical attention, but she exhibited no signs of overdose. Rather, someone had helped administer the drug, then left her alone while she experiencing a mood-altering drug for the first time.
“It’s okay. The guy who sold it to me said it was basically harmless. I wouldn’t overdose.”
Fin.
Let’s talk about some of the immensely major problems we encounter in this story. A young girl trying a drug for the first time did not know what drug she had tried, had not inquired what the drug might have been cut with, and she was unsure how much of the “basically harmless” drug she had snorted.
Here’s a good rule to keep in mind: you can’t trust what a dealer says. Even if he’s your friend, your uncle, or your pediatrician (we’ll get to prescription drugs as well), you should educate yourself on the drugs you’re taking. You and you alone are responsible for using a drug sensibly, if you choose to use a drug. After all, if McDonald’s isn’t willing to tell you what’s in your chicken nuggets, what makes you certain that someone you don’t know that well will be honest about what your ecstasy is cut with?
Because of the lack of drug education, many people don’t know what a lot of drugs even look like. They do not know what various drugs might DO to
them when snorted, injected, smoked, parachuted, huffed, or eaten. My personal theory is that many people experiment with various drugs to “experience what they feel like,” but if people knew more clearly their full effects and also the dangers posed by various drugs, they could avoid seriously harming themselves through experimentation.
While there is no single great resource completely backed by scientific research yet, there are still resources to educate yourself about drugs. Even if you do not personally experiment with drugs, you should be aware of the effects of drugs and what to do in the case of an overdose. It is also important to know what different drugs might do when taken together (an especially lethal idea, mind you).
My most-trusted resource is erowid.org, a website devoted to proliferating this knowledge to the general public. For each drug that exists is a page listing statistics, researched effects, and chemical properties. Be able to identify whether your friend or acquaintance might be experiencing an overdose or even a “bad trip” from psychoactive drugs.
Just as important as it is to know how to prevent these events is the knowledge to deal with them if they happen. Remember that everyone has a different body weight and build, meaning that different amounts of a particular drug will affect individuals differently. If more credible sources existed as to how one should take drugs safely and what to look for, we could avoid much of the grief surrounding drug addiction and overdose.
Another good resource is dancesafe.org. Dance Safe is an organization devoted to helping people take safer drugs. On their website, you can buy drug-testing kits with which one can delineate the contents of the pills one might be taking. For more information about what drugs might be cut with and how, visit their website.
I learned about this organization and much of this information through a school group SSDP (Students for Sensible Drug Policy) which each week helps educate students about safe drug use, the war on drugs, and progressive legislation in drug policy. We do not condone or condemn drug use, only hope that through spreading knowledge about how to use drugs safely, we can decrease the rate of overdose among our generation and generations to come. Our organization is also committed to end the War on Drugs, a subject about which I will elaborate on in future posts.
Fact: More American are arrested for marijuana each year than for all violent crimes combined.
(Students for Sensible Drug Policy)
There’s one more important piece of the puzzle that must addressed: legal pharmaceuticals.
When we do teach youth about drugs, we focus on drinking underage and the abuse of illegal drugs. In fifth grade, I often rolled my eyes when officers told us of scare stories of people addicted to meth or heroin. Today, naturally, I believe meth and heroin addiction are very serious, but at least this is viewed as a problem by the American population. What often escapes our notice is the widespread addiction to narcotics.
Another Fact: The most commonly abused drug among high school seniors are prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
(http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/topics-in-brief/prescription-drug-abuse)
Narcotics, opiates, and amphetamines all share addictive qualities, but because we receive prescriptions for them from doctors, we assume they are inherently safer to take than drugs that are illegal. Several pain-killers (such as Oxycodone and hydrocodone) prove to be as addictive as morphine, and because these drugs are seen as “legitimate,” patients tend to abuse them.
What’s just one more pill, right? You’ve just undergone surgery, so you begin taking more and more pills, building up a resistance to their effects. You take more. You try to stop taking them, but you feel so terrible without them (this is you going through withdrawal), so you renew your prescriptions. Doctor says to take two a day, but only two pills never works, so you take three, four, five. Your new prescription runs out, and you can’t renew it, so you start buying painkillers from a fifteen-year-old down the street. You’re just dealing with pain, with stress, right? You’re not actually addicted.
This is why pharmaceuticals become so widely abused. Because of the intense stigma on illegal “uppers,” many students snort Adderal recreationally. They pop a Vivance before a night of essay-writing as “a study enhancement.” Just take one more for the final exam, and then you’ll never do them again. But addiction sneaks up on you like that, dropping the trapdoor from under your feet before you get the chance to realize you’re standing on top of it.
In our drug awareness classes, we should address these problems. We cannot tell them “Do not do drugs or you will die.” They might try marijuana, then wonder, “What else did they lie about? How safe are drugs?” We need to educate youth on specific drugs, how to use them sensibly, what their effects are, and what drugs are potentially lethal, even pharmaceuticals. Too often as well, we find a kid who might be “too jumpy,” and we begin feeding him pills he could potentially abuse or even sell to his friends for them to abuse. And that sort of madness, that zombie mentality of “saying no” to certain illegal drugs, “saying of course” to legal pharmaceuticals, and never seeking information about the drugs we’re consuming– that leads to the overwhelming rates of overdose we experience.
While D.A.R.E. has addressed this and does at least offer some counsel about drug abuse, these resources should be more widely available and apparent to both youth and their caregivers.
I will conclude with a plea: begin treating drug abuse with the same amount of realism we apply to alcoholism. It can happen; it can happen to you; your friends might be addicted; your grandma might be addicted. If you’re a student at the College of Charleston or any other university, I encourage you to take the first step to help reforming drug safety education by perhaps visiting your local chapter of SSDP.
At CofC, we are currently petitioning to change the Good Samaritan Policy to apply not just to victims experiencing alcohol poisoning but drug overdose as well. To differentiate over who is important to save and who is not is a cruel determination forced upon us by the stigmas surrounding drug use that do not apply as evenly to alcohol consumption. The Good Samaritan Policy allows students on campus to call Public Safety for help if a friend is experiencing alcohol-related sickness, and neither the victim or Samaritan will face criminal charges; a member of SSDP is pioneering the change to this policy to include overdose victims as well.
For more information concerning the Good Samaritan Policy, refer to {
http://studentaffairs.cofc.edu/policies/amnesty-policy.php
} or contact me to sign the petition. For information, find me via Facebook or on campus. The SSDP meets at 6:30 on Wednesday on the second floor of Stern.
For more information on drug use and experience, check out erowid.org.
For more information about preventing drug abuse in raves, visit dancesafe.org.
Please consider my points carefully as we move forward in a world where drug chemistry is ever-changing; what one drug might do or might be made of can change within a week. Delineations of drugs crop up often, and we must stay ever vigilant and knowledgeable of what is out there to avoid future generations from experiencing the same overdose rates as we have.
Other Sources:
The Hobo Chiropracter
He is all show-and-tell, asking you to straighten up and drop your bags at your feet. Your first thought is that he might beat you up and steal your bags when he offers to “relieve your stress,” then you wonder whether or not he means to give sexual favors here on the street corner in broad daylight. Surely he knows he should take you behind the Starbuck’s, into the parking lot, if he intends to kill you or do anything else to you. Instead, he offers his chiropractic services—cheaper than a real one, with the same results, he promises.
You know that this is dangerous, that he could snap your neck, and he laughs off your worries. Natural for you to be frightened of a burly black man sitting on the street corner. You’re not sure whether he is homeless, but he smells that way, and you’re not sure whether he knows what he is doing as he takes your hand between his palms. You imagine action movies during which a James-Bond-look-alike twists a henchman’s neck. That simple: dead.
In a few seconds, you could be laying like that, and this man who has you in a stranglehold could walk away with your laptop computer. Maybe you should tell him that your computer isn’t worth it, to target someone with a Macbook Air or at least something that reliably can log onto a wi-fi network. Every law of childhood tells you to walk away, but fear of appearing racist and presumptuous keep you planted.
Don’t talk to strangers, your mother told you. But don’t judge a book by its cover. You’re slowly realizing the lack of real-world application of these outdated adages. You should be crossing the street, walking fast but not running in case it caused offense. You can feel his beard brushing against your neck as he heaves you into the air—crack. Not dead yet.
In Nuremburg, a one-armed Turkish man plays accordion for money. In South-East Asia, some street-dwellers offer dubious massages. But the Charlestonian who sits on a park bench all day with a pack upon his lap—he is not some petty hobo. He has skills, chiropractic know-how, despite having no official training or degree. You wonder for a brief moment whether it is unfair that licensed practitioners get paid so much while this man may or may not live underneath a porch.
Then you remember that this man is preparing to crack your neck, your back, your arms. He could incapacitate you. But each time, he offers relief. That crick in your neck feels better than ever. You feel limber as Play-dough. Maybe he wasn’t lying, you think, as you pick up your bag and stretch, feeling refreshed.
You pay him with half a Panini, and he asks you to tell your friends, though he doesn’t have a business card or anything. Rather, he sits outside of Fed-Ex, across the street from the art museum, offering his services to whatever subconsciously-racist, gullible kid walks by. He is a legend, an enigma, a stranger with a past likely as colorful as Charleston’s.
Sun Ain’t Shine in Charleston
Sunday. Rain besieges the Holy City. I wake to thoughts of stray cats of Calhoun shivering under porches of abandoned houses, and I think of the homeless people curled up against the porches, peering through the lattice work, envious of the felines’ comfort.
When I wake, my heavy and hallucinatory dreams melt. Machine-gun fire rattles from above, rebel clouds releasing fleets of kamikaze rain that streak across the sky. Waking to such clamor, I fell back to sleep, wrapping my cocoon of blankets tighter around me. You’re supposed to write today, some voice inside says, and you’re supposed to get things done. How about breakfast?
I venture out finally into the morning dressed in an unseasonable outfit, the sky only dripping. But thirty minutes pass, the the heavens smile with crooked teeth, drooling on the buildings and the pedestrians. My body is a rag to be squeezed out, to be ringed into a bucket and thrown away. Returning in such a state, I strip off my clothes and climb under the blankets. You’re supposed to write today, some little voice says, but I drown it out. A few more minutes, I think, pushing my laptop away. I will work very soon, but let me sleep while this celestial war rages on.
What Is So Innocent About Childhood?
Source: http://www.arocha.org/za-en/8524-DSY/version/default/part/ImageData/data/children_playing_grass.jpg
I read a poem today in which two boys played in the backyard, a deceptively simple poem. The more I pondered the two stanzas, the more concretely I realized how little the poem was about—childhood innocence, friendship, etc. Should poetry be so hushed, so calm, so unobtrusive?
Having grown used to brass, dramatic poetry, this caught me unawares. Why be so calm and cool and collected? Two boys running and throwing balls and pushing toy trucks around in the grass, all things I’ve rarely seen. Because childhood is rarely as innocent as we assume.
Why not write about two boys playing video games (we often played videogames), about how they shout at each other as each wins? Write about throwing the controllers at each others’ faces, knocking out teeth, bloodying their noses. Childhood is rarely flowers and sunshine and playtime before supper. It’s a constant war.
Children, in fact, are sufficient evidence that we as the human race descended from savages. They are cruel, selfish, and conniving.
And no one is as guilty as a child is. When a child steals, they spend the next few hours fretting over their sin, their black crime. When they lie, they burst with the need to say the truth. Adults do not share this tendency: we do not feel guilty about much past infidelity or murder.
I closed the book of poetry and put it away, thinking about times I might have played in the grass. Surely not as many times as I argued with friends over Pokémon cards or whether or not a certain Mario Kart race victory was considered fair. Do poems need to shout, to demand change, to radicalize, or can they fall light as clouds on your brain, invoking nothing serious, only the fabled innocence of children.
In a Waffle House, Noon on a Sunday
We arrived to eat breakfast, though it was nearly time for lunch. I ordered a black coffee and she a chocolate waffle. For a long time, I sat uninspired with a notebook in front of me, too tired to transcribe what I was seeing. Instead, I contemplated the synthetic webs, filled with plastic spiders, decorating the establishment for Halloween.
Behind me, two couples sat facing each other, enjoying a post-church lunch in sweater vests and Easter dresses.
One woman refilled her coffee cup and sat down, frowning toward the waitress.
“Want some sugar, honey?” asked her husband, pursing his lips and leaning forward.
“No thank you,” she said. “Maybe just some Splenda.”
“The Beard” As a Symbol
Besides being a fashionable asset to any face, “The Beard” is a statement, usually that “I am a man and can grow a beard, so deal with my stubbly insubordinate nature.” In some cases, growing facial hair has become the calling card for indie band members, Canadian lumberjacks, and brutally masculine movie stars (see: Sean Connery, Jeff Bridges, Mr. T). But can beards symbolize something other than masculinity and what implications can growing a beard have on a person’s psychology?
Those are both very intriguing questions that I doubt anyone could answer without first delving into weeks of research in an academic library. Because I’m rather short on time, I’ll rely on my flimsy conjectures and access to Wikipedia.
Well-known theologian of the second century Clement of Alexandria wrote extensively about the importance of facial hair. A Christian philosopher, he deemed beards man’s “natural and noble adornment.” In fact, an inactive user on a Puritan forum I found on the vast internet shared similar sentiments with the quotes he posted (thanks to anonymous Puritan guys researching ancient texts):
“How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them!…For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He adorned man like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest–a sign of strength and rule.” 2.275
Not growing out your beard, Clement asserts, is womanly, which may come as quite an insult for bearded women.
“This, then, is the mark of the man, the beard. By this, he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of the superior nature….It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness.” 2.276
These quotes reflect that to shave one’s beard rebels against God himself, yet in today’s society not-shaving, not not-shaving, signifies an aptitude for rebellion. We view beards as belonging to badass transgressors and terrorist anarchists. Sometimes, then, beards can be seen as a sign of obedience and sometimes as a sign of rebellion. It’s strange that tufts of facial hair could signify two such disparate ideologies. Naturally, we associate not shaving with Amish identity as well as the religious identities of other factions (Jewish and Islamist faiths being two prime examples).
That is the epitome of manliness
Then what is a beard by any other name other than nothing more than what it is?
Hair. On your face.
A beard can symbolize whatever you want it to symbolize. A beard, like many other universal symbols, can be used to instruct unconsciously in a myriad of ways and therefore are meaningless as well as full of meaning. Then, when you grow your beards, you get to choose what it means. Sort of like a tattoo. Perhaps you want to seem manly, or want to seem rebellious, or like my friend Andy can’t not grow a beard because your manliness refuses to hide itself.
The reason I’m contemplating beards: November is Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. And to support awareness of a possibly awkward topic, men grow out their beards. Next time you shave, think about what you’re saying or not saying about yourself.
Jonathan S. Foer: A Campus Visit
During orientation for the College of Charleston, each Freshman received a copy of Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer’s latest nonfiction book about factory farming, meat consumerism, and cultural ideas surrounding meat. For most of the year, many of the lectures, documentary showings, and group involvement activities have centered around discussing the impact of farming animals and how we do and should feel about it.
Very often, we discussed these ideas in class and how we felt about them. In fact, scroll down and there is a picture of my BGS (Beyond George Street) class discussing the book in Rivers Green. (I’m the one in the plaid shirt).
During his first speech (which I attended at 2:00pm), he mentioned that his goal certainly was not to attempt to convert a generation to vegetarianism—something he deemed impossible. When I received the book back in June, however, that’s exactly what I felt like he meant to do. What a snot-nosed liberal policy-pusher, I thought, shoving his green-leaf ideology down our throats.
Only, it didn’t, not really. He leaves a lot of room for improvement—moral wiggle room. The attacks you expect him to make he never truly makes because he accosts not you—the omnivore—but the industry as a whole. Rather than approaching the subject with a mind to depress and horrify the reader, he attempts to uplift by sympathizing with the plight to better ourselves.
I, like many others I am sure, were reluctant to read the book out of fear he would impose moral superiority. In 
fact, the book is a shocking choice, considering College of Charleston’s various sponsors. Surely, they expected some flak from alumni contributors or local restaurants. During his final speech, made in the TD Arena before hundreds of students and citizens of the community, he took an early jab at an advertisement above his head.
“What’s this?” He looked up, indicating the Kickin’ Chicken banner above his head. He made the point that with sponsors like these for our stadium, reading the book might be questionable. He also inquired after the name, making vague connections to animal cruelty in the form of kicking chickens.
I arrived at these presentations with a pretense, ready to berating, but Foer proved more reasonable than he seemed. The day previous I attended a vegan potluck outside of the library, and I actually enjoyed this food. If it were an option in the cafeteria, surely I would choose it over half-cooked hamburgers on stale buns or suspiciously pink hot dogs. Why not listen to what he had to say?
Yesterday, Foer explained his position in his own words, and if you missed the presentations, I will write a recap of what was discussed.
With a newly grown beard, he looked more like James Franco than he did in his cover photo. He took the stage of the first forum, engaging the participants on a personal level. He explained his own college experiences and his experiences with college but seguing into a discussion about his work. In the next two posts, I will paraphrase things discussed both about vegetarianism and storytelling. Read both or read either, depending on what you’re interesting in, but do take his ideas in consideration.
{These essays, recording some of the interview questions asked, will be posted later this evening or early tomorrow morning.}
Htein Lin: Survival Art
{Last night, I had the good fortune of hearing distinguished artist Htein Lin speak about his work, life, and inspirations. Because I found it so profoundly moving, his story so incredibly interesting, I wrote up a brief summation of his lecture. If so inspired by future lectures, perhaps I will do the same to pass on some of the knowledge I have been learning at university. This post probably does no justice to the beauty this man espouses, but I have tried, in the plainest terms, to convey it.}
Born in Burma under a military regime, Htein Lin spent his life struggling as an artist suppressed by Burma’s government. He works in the mediums of painting, performance, and video, practicing what he calls “Survival Art,” which is to take the negative out of life and turn it into something positive. As Htein Lin put it, “making misery into art.”
He began his artistic career as a comedian while he studied law at the university. During this time, he joined an art organization that cultivated his artistic sensibilities but in the most conservative way possible. During his school term, he became involved in many protests which made him unpopular among the local regime. Because no social media existed in 1988, no Facebook or Twitter, the uprising that followed garnered little press coverage.
To fight for democracy, he needed to work outside of Burma, moving to India to work as an illustrator for a magazine. Soon after, he moved toward the border of China to join the “iunale.” These were peaceful rebels for democracy, carrying no guns, starting no conflict. The presence of guns would make them vulnerable to attack—they were safer without weapons, seeming to pose no real threat.
During his exile, he suffered many horrors, the least of which was nature. Each night, he taped his eyes shut in fear leeches would suckle his eyeballs just as they often latched onto his feet, arms, and back. After staying for a little while, the group split, one half accusing the other of being spies, including Htein Lin. They tortured the accused with freezing temperatures, by burning their skin, and by making incisions in their fingers.
15 of the accused escaped into China, only to be arrested again. This quickly blew over, though.
Htein Lin’s life as a captive truly began in 1998 when his name appeared on a circulating list of possible rebels. For this, he was sentenced to seven years in jail. According to Htein Lin, American and British prisons seemed like “a Bed and Breakfast.” He survived on a metal-mesh bed barely large enough to accommodate him while sitting cross-legged.
He continued, however, to work on his art. He used old prison uniforms on which to paint upon, paying off guards to smuggle in paints. For a brush, he used once a roller from a lighter, another time the tip of a hospital syringe. He became what he described as the “resident artist of the prison.” Despite being confined, his creativity bloomed.
After prison, he “fell in love with art,” marrying a British artist and moving to Britain.
He lived his life, transforming pain into beauty. When he broke his elbow in a car wreck, he used the plaster to create a sculpture. When
Source: http://saladtv.kr/?document_srl=104683
Depicted here is a Burmese prisoner who has cut off his fingers to avoid being sent to a labor camps.
tested for a deadly disease, he allowed the doctors to use a special micro-camera to snap pictures of his digestion system, swallowing the pill-like device. He used the images to create a video for Youtube, a living art piece.
Htein Lin’s art focuses on sampling simple things from his life to create sculptures or paintings or useful tools. He transformed his fears, his regrets into something others could learn from, something we could wonder at.
I encourage you to check out his artwork as well as research individually his remarkable biography (I have only given small details). Best of luck.
Library Fines
The book-mobile came to our elementary school every Thursday afternoon, beginning my love affair with books– especially the free variety from libraries. We waited, my brothers and I, until 3 when it rolled into the parking lot, and we climbed on books, scouring the few shelves that the bus held. This, I believed– this rolling-meth-lab-turned-book-van– constituted the entire library. Many years would pass before I realized the library had more than four shelves, stocked with copies of Goosebumps and the Magic Tree House Series.
My mother perhaps did not fully understand the concept of libraries or checking out books from them. I really do not know why she continued for months to check out fifteen books at a time, returning maybe only two of that number. She collected fines like most people collect state quarters or Beanie Babies or the teeth from their enemies (if they happen to be ancient war lords). She continued until the library rejected her when next she tried to check out the latest offering from James Patterson.
She resorted to creating library cards for her three sons and using those instead to continue this open theft of library books. I am sure there is a copy of Dinosaurs Before Dark with a library sticker crammed into my bookcase; despite our accessory to this large-scale heist, she was the mastermind. At one point, I believe the librarians posted a wanted poster with her image, demanding several hundreds of dollars in fines lest she be caught on the premises.
The true Wild West character of the County Library. She still avoids the library, as far as I know. Years later, I re-applied for a new card
so I could check out books uninhibited by her dark reputation. And it’s not that she amassed fines in malice, like a rebel against the library system. She simply loved books so much, she needed to keep them.
Perhaps she believed stories were permanent, and if she relinquished a book, the characters and tales would somehow dissipate. She kept the books as if to check that the words never faded. I too, at times, feel the need to hold onto stories, hoping their contents never fade from my mind or from existence.
We tell stories to explain who we are, just as I tell this one to better make sense of my mother’s book-related criminality. My mother probably never nurtured such absurd notions about books, that they were semi-permanent. And she never really stole the books, but she did take an awfully long time to return them. But in a story, it helps to link actions to causes. We need reasons for doing things. We tell stories to make points, whether they be true or not.
We need stories to make some sort of sense because people rarely do.
