Xavier A Talamantes
ENG270
May 11, 2020
Word Count: 840
Stone cold clouds loom close overhead, concentrating the cold and heaviness upon you. The wind is sharp, as it cuts at your nose and fingers. Your bones feel brittle, and joints go stiff. The trees are leafless, as they line the sidewalk, with colorless bark. Like stone watchtowers before you, trees are shrouded by a swirling sphere of mist.
There will be a time in your life when everything feels like it’s falling apart. You may feel like you’re alone with your struggle, and the fear of other people’s judgment just adds more emotional pressure. Everything you’ve worked towards could be your last, things might never be the same, perhaps more than ever before, you don’t know what tomorrow holds. It might feel best at the time to give in and succumb to the darkness. Emily Dickinson illustrates this beautifully in her poem, “The Bustle in a House” when she writes,
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away,
We shall not want to use again
[thesis]We will all experience these turbulent times at some point in our lives, though regardless of its severity, there is always a brighter outlook.[thesis]
When you’re young and naive, you have this longing for adventure. You know the life you want is out there, and you’ve already romanticized it. “The sweet-tastin’ good life is so easily found, way over yonder, that’s where I’m bound” as put by Carole King. It’s an old, American fantasy, of life and adventures on the road. Every night something new, to be knowledgable of the road and bar talk. Maybe it’s the wind in your hair on a Harley Davidson or the sound of timeless tracks on an old Ford pickup’s cassette player.
Have you been on a long road trip before? You’ll soon learn it isn’t all its made up to be. We’re talking hours upon hours in a car, in traffic, with the sun glaring in your eyes, not having a place of retreat to rewind from the world in your shower and bed. The first time you get to do these things after a long trip you appreciate what you once took for granted. This is just one example though, it doesn’t have to be a road trip. It may be a dream career, a person, money, lifestyle that you need and if you don’t you know you’ll never be happy. It consumes your every thought and decision. You miss important events likes weddings, parties, and you slowly push people away, as you dedicate years into work for this ultimate end goal, that you miss all the amazing small events and achievements in life that make up a fulfilling life and foster the close human connections we all need as social creatures. What’s perhaps even more unfortunate, is that many of us will never get to that end goal which had slowly over the years chipped an empty spot in our hear into a roaring chasm. When faced with the glaring abyss, we feel a chilling depression and the feeling of failure is hard to shake off. We end up, back on the same highway from decades before, in that small bar in the middle of an imposing desert. We sit alone at the bar facing a deer head up on the wall, drinking our Everclear, as we hear the sound of some young couple entering the establishment with wide eyes and confidence that gives away their true naiveness.
Proulx describes this moment intensively in her short story, The Half Skinned Steer, with Mero our main character, and as a means escaping his past, he leaves in his home, pushing away everyone from his past. He goes on to acquire financial wellness, but that doesn’t bring him true happiness. Perhaps, as a result, his relationships with women are strained as in the story we learn about his three failed marriages and his “sampling” of others, he seems to think of women as tools for fulfilling an unquenchable desire he carries.
In, A Most Disgusting Song, by Rodriguez, he sings about characters we’re all familiar with to varying extents. Characters and timelines for gritty, dark, and gloomy events that we’ve all encountered at some point, either personally or indirectly. In all the stories presented by these writers, we’re able to see the same story at different points along with its progression. But, present in all of them is a sense of sadness that is overcast across the whole experience.
I want to clarify, I believe dreams are powerful, and being driven and ambitious are admirable traits. But, here’s a line from a song I recently heard called Growing Pains by Birdie, “you can search forever for the person you’ll never be,” that I feel captures a defining factor in this narrative and relates to a common element in all the readings in this paper. Chasing a life, money, or a feeling. Until you’re able to confront yourself and come to terms about the reality of yourself and everything that’s shaped you, you’ll be going nowhere.
Works cited:
King, Carole. “Way Over Yonder.” Tapestry. Ode Records. 1971.
Rodriguez, Sixto. “A most disgusting song.” Coming from reality. Lansdowne Studio. 1970.
Proulx, Annie E. “The Half-Skinned Steer.” The Atlantic. 1997.
Dickinson, Emily. “The Bustle in a House.” Poems by Emily Dickinson. 1890.
Birdy, “Growing Pains.” Beautiful Lies. Atlantic Records. 2016.
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