An Ocean in a Rain Drop: The Art of Imitation

Sketch on Dance

Photo by Heather; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

Original

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. . . .

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Imitation

I stepped onto the floor because I wished to dance knowingly, to front only the expressions which I found in myself, and see if I could not learn what my catharsis had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not been seen. I did not wish to walk what was not dance, dancing is so dear; nor did I wish to relinquish my movement, unless I must dance in stillness. I wanted to dance intensely and suck all the meaning from my deepest expression, to dance so passionately and Martha Graham-like as to put to rout all that say life is not dance, to call the world my audience, to drive dance into the limbs of all people, and reduce it to its simplest movements, and, if it proved to be finite, why then to get the whole and authentic finiteness of it, and present its finiteness to the world; or if it were infinite, to comprehend it by experiment, and be able to give a corporeal chronicle of humanity on my next stage. . . . ~~~END~~~

Sketch on Thinking

Photo by Leon Ephraim; Unsplash

Original

More than once I should have lost my soul to radicalism if it had been the originality it was mistaken for by its young converts. Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country. For myself the originality need be no more than the freshness of a poem run in the way I have described: from delight to wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.

Robert Frost, “The Figure a Poem Makes” (1939)

Imitation

Many a time I might have surrendered my mind to musing if it had contained the profundity such thoughts were taken for by my maturing faculties. Profundity and eloquence are what I ask of my capacity. For myself the profundity need be no more than the simplicity of a well-wrought insight, synthesizing the elements I have explained: truth and implication. Its foundation is the same as for revelation. Like a ray of light breaking across the murky horizon, the insight must light the path of its own potential. An insight may be examined and contemplated once it is in being, but may not be compelled into being. Its most sublime influence will remain in its continuous presence and sudden illumination on the comprehending mind. Ponder such insight innumerable times: it will endlessly maintain its epiphanic moment as a dew drop on a parched petal. Insight can never lose its initial significance that once broke upon the mind, whether in stages or suddenness, as it dawned.    ~~~END~~~

Sketch on Young, Fleeting Happiness and Depression

Photo by Morgan Sessions; Unsplash

Original

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

Imitation

It was the brightest of days, it was the darkest of days, it was the season of happiness, it was the season of despair, it was the period of sensation, it was the period of indifference, it was the age of Motivation, it was the age of Depression, it was the spring of potential, it was the winter of dreams, we had all of life to live, we had nothing by which to live, we were all going straight to success, we were all going straight to poverty and failure—to make my point, the time was so much like the everyday, that some of us busiest participants decided to simply make due, for better or for worse, in the ignorant absolute of not knowing what other comparisons life could deliver. ~~~END~~~

Sketch on Children's Perspective and Fantasy

Photo by Jonas Nilsson Lee; Unsplash 

Original

“Come to my house,” I said to the beggar. “There you can find food to eat and a bed in which to sleep.”

“I never sleep,” he replied.

I was quite sure then that he was not a real beggar. I told him that I had to go home and he offered to keep my company. As we walked along the snow-covered streets he asked me if I was ever afraid of the dark.

“Yes, I am,” I said. I wanted to add that I was afraid of him, too, but I felt he knew that already.

“You mustn’t be afraid of the dark,” he said, gently grasping my arm and making me shudder. “Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn’t know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.”

Wiesel, Elie. Dawn. New York: Hill and Wang (2006). Print.

Imitation

“Come to my house,” I said to the little girl. “There you can have parents and a nice room in which to live.”

“I don’t have a house,” she replied.

I was quite sure then that she was not a real little girl. I told her that I did have a house and needed to return to it. She offered to walk me to the edge of the wood. As we walked along the moss covered paths she asked me if I was ever afraid of being lost.

“Yes, I am,” I said. I wished I could add that I was afraid of her not belonging anywhere, too, but I felt she knew that already.

“You musn’t be afraid of being lost,” she said, lightly flicking my hair and making me smile. “The woods are safer than a house; it is better for living and playing and believing. In the woods everything is more free, more possible. The echo of safety that is chanted in the walls of houses take on binding and restraining quality when spoken in the woods. The folly of parents is that they don’t know how to distinguish between fear and safety, freedom and habit. They teach fear in houses that would never be believed in the woods.

~~~END~~~

My philosophy in regards to style, rhetoric, reading, and writing:

I have discovered that I can try on a thousand new voices and still be authentically me. I have decided that it is okay to know I have a style and to know I am very good at it. But, it is also okay to go beyond myself and forge a new path. Read, write, read. Write, read, write. It is a vast interrelated, even interminable process. I am a one voice in a thousand, and we each have a thousand voices. It is an ocean in a rain drop.

~Natalie Cherie

Choosing Redemption: A Journal Entry

Photo by Christ Tolworthy

Tonight we went to The Count of Monte Cristo. Spencer had managed to get tickets for $4.00, and I was very excited. When I pulled on a maxi skirt and a woolen scarf, I felt ready to watch a tragic musical. I first read The Count of Monte Cristo in High School. I didn't see the film adaptation until five years later and was shocked to find such drastically different endings. With each in mind, I still hadn't decided which version I found more moving. Was is more important to show the ruinous results of revenge, or man's miraculous capacity for redemption? I didn't know.

The De Jong was dark and the pit began to emanate orchestral music. As the actors danced around the stage and sang song after song, I grew nervous. The show was beautiful, the singing was stunning, the graphics projected behind were innovative, and the effect was great. But, as Edmond Dantes sank lower and lower, I just knew they couldn't let him stay there. It didn't matter that he had decided to hate, that he had decided to remain unmoved by his once-true-love's pleas, that he was everything his original perpetrators were, the story would force him to be redeemed. I promise I'm not morbid, unforgiving, or even a lover of sad endings, I just couldn't see how a man who had determined his choices and destiny would suddenly have a change of heart in the course of a song. (Oh wait . . . it's a musical and heart-changing songs are a blissful convention.)

Sitting in my chair, I slowly began to hunch over and mutter under my breath as the life-changing moment came. He would suddenly have an epiphany, conveniently after he'd gotten all his revenge, and still repent in time to get the girl. Spencer, watching me become more and more frustrated and my frame more and more contorted with disgust, just chuckled under his breath. But it wasn't funny! They were straight up doing it wrong!

After leaving the theater I stood off towards a side wall, waiting for Spencer to finish giving guidance to a fellow stage managing employee. I was really frustrated. The performance had been beautiful, the bows all tied. But it just didn't sit right. Why would we, as an audience, demand that a story be adapted to allow a main character sudden redemption? Why did we think it was okay to change the story just so he could have both his revenge and the love of his life? I was disturbed with myself. Did I really have such a problem letting a man repent?

I'm sad to say I still don't know the answer. I can guarantee from a literary perspective that Alexandre Dumas did not intend to have his self-ruined character suddenly redeemed by viewers or readers who couldn't take a realistic ending. What is the purpose of such characters as Anna Karenina, Edmond Dantes, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dorian Gray, or even the Ancient Mariner from the poem, if their stories are nipped and tucked to be pleasant and devoid of consequences? When we remove consequences from our stories, we rob our stories of their power to display consequential reality. The problem is not that Edmond Dantes was redeemed; the problem is that The Count of Monte Cristo chose not to be redeemed. Themes such as the consequences of agency and the transformative effect of our choices morph into the cycle of vice, quick repentance, and a removal of responsibility.

All men may be redeemed; not all men will choose redemption. So what are we really looking for: a happy ending that highlights redemption, or fictional support that we may choose sin and still be redeemed?

~Natalie Cherie

Fill me up with loneliness; Drink it as love.

It fills every silent corner and rolls across each room like the booming ticks of a small mantle clock. Frightening, pervasive, indelible, and ever-stalking the peace of solitude. How is it possible that nobody else notices it? It must be just me. If I'd not grown up in the cacophonous hubbub of pattering feet, wrestling bodies, and chattering voices, or if I had simply taken more time when I had time, I wouldn't feel it either.

It highlights the pictures of family members I haven't seen in months. It feeds off of white noise making my situation more obvious. It dredges up memories that I wish weren't so distant. It paints brilliant hypotheticals that I can only imagine I'm missing.

It isn't homesickness; the place I grew up is only the canvas of my contented existence. It is more than that. It distances me from familiar faces, close conversations, family jokes, company. Hard times, yellowed memories, happy times, youthful escapades. It proves to me that acclimating to a location is not nearly as powerful as acclimating to a soul.

It's loneliness, and I am really good at it.

Where does it come from? I'll tell you where it comes from. Everywhere. From the fact that Spencer is working late tonight, unable to help chase it away. From the fact that I just got off a phone call with words that couldn't be spoken in person. From empty evenings brimming with homework instead of siblings' orchestra concerts, soccer games, first words, and story time—I tell myself that it's okay, I'll make up lost time, I won't be so busy and isolated for much longer. It comes from having responsibilities that I can't ignore till I'm abandoned by any company because I first abandoned them. It comes from sitting silently wishing someone would knock on the door, going to sleep alone, waking alone, walking alone, thinking alone.

It comes when I realize that my siblings are growing up and I'm not there. When "Hey it's Natalie!" becomes a frequent reference to a calling device instead of my face. When me coming home is an occasion and not the everyday. It comes when I remember that my five-year-old brother cried in a corner outside the temple because he thought my wedding meant he'd never see me again. I held him and whispered promises; I prayed because I felt the gaps of time chasing me down. It comes when another brother tries not to cry when I leave, or a sister clutches me saying, "call me, we'll figure out what to talk about." When I say I'll teach her to crochet someday, or I'll read him Harry Potter, that I'll teach her French, we'll analyze Lord of the Rings, talk about boys, play frisbee, go on walks, go shopping, go to a movie, go on a double date, practice yoga, learn to draw, stargaze from the roof, roast s'mores, or sit and do nothing. 

Oh wait, I don't have time to do nothing, no matter how important, I'm too busy being laboriously lonely. 

Sometimes I am a well of loneliness. I can dig into my soul like deep earth and etch out the regrets of all that I'm missing. But, though I'm good at loneliness, the impression in my being while a void to me, houses love for others. I fill up my cavity with water to share. Each voicemail, each letter, each picture might fill me with loneliness, but I drink it as love. Some youngest siblings may tell you that they were always alone or that their older siblings didn't care. Not my siblings. Phone calls and letters. Skype and short visits. Ongoing texts full of riddles, ongoing conversations full of to-be-continued. And how do you think I feel about that?

Give you one guess. 

~Natalie Cherie

Speaking with God: Brief Personal Essays

Inner Struggle Essay

Photo by Natalie Cherie Campbell

Standing on a sidewalk I was stopped at a fork in the path. Instinctively I looked down the right path to my apartment window. My friends would be waiting, including the man I was dating. Without hesitation, I began to walk down the left path. Soon enough, as I’d felt to be true, Spencer ran up behind me, holding my hand. Through his eyes, I saw his soul sigh, and we kept walking.

Opening my eyes, I waited for the dreams to seep from my memory. I was accustomed to feeling forgotten dreams flee the daylight because I never remembered my dreams. But this morning was different: the dream didn’t leave. I had known Spencer for six months. We were folk dancers, and I lived for the moments when we danced together, talked together, laughed together, my feet burning with energy. But I also knew that he loved me and that I could easily love him if I let myself. So I didn’t let myself, instead choosing to spare with my conscious in an endless dance of self-denial as I remembered a priesthood blessing that told me "I'd know my future husband when I met him." Sometimes I decided that if Spencer was "the one" then he’d just have to wait. Sometimes I decided that God would have to fix my fear of marriage before I did anything. And sometimes I would dream. In the quiet moments of the night, when fear had gone to sleep, I began to dream honestly and refusing to let me forget, my dreams started to become a reality.

Scripture Essay

Photo by Dee West

In the summer of 2012, I would often sit on my roof, gazing up at God through speckled sunlight and leafy boughs. We would often talk, God and I; I would ask the questions and He would give answers. One day I climbed up onto roof from the side porch gap and lowered my head, shoulders sagging with repetitive weariness. I felt inadequate, frightened. I had received an email from Jerusalem, it was Spencer’s day to write, and he’s told me of his plans to work for the CIA. So I’d fled to my roof instead of arguing with mom over the wisdom of me loving a boy with such dangerous career goals. Feeling the warm shingles with my toes, I laid on my back, stared at God and began to speak:

“How is it done?” I paused as a bird flew from its nest. “God, how is it done, that you take such small people, move us so far, and use only those two actions to fuel your work? How?”

I sat quietly, waited, and began to speak. True to form, His answer emerged, simultaneous with the sound of my vocal cords. “By small and simple things, are great things brought to pass . . .”

Bombs bloom and poppies litter,

In realities where children shiver

From breath of hate and strain of woe

To such places my trusted go.

The small and simple are infinite,

When bringing with them the Omnipotent.

Wilderness Essay

Photo by Natalie Cherie Campbell

We were lost and it was my fault. I had gotten 25 people lost in a lush green wilderness of English footpaths. I’d spent the past month hiking through different parts of the United Kingdom with my study abroad group. On this particular day, we were trying to get to the London Temple because having gotten my endowments a month earlier, I had requested we go. Doing my best to book rail tickets, plan bus trips, and minimize walking, since my director didn’t want to, I thought I’d done a pretty good job until the bus didn’t arrive and we were left stranded in a small town a few miles away from the temple, ignorant of which way the temple even was.

“We could have been visiting tourist spots.”

“This is such a waste.”

“I didn’t want to come anyway.”

“So much for that plan.”

The words swirled around me like bee stings. Tears began to coat the stingers as each drop slid down my chin. “Heavenly Father,” I prayed, “please just help me find the Temple.” The gravel near my feet crunched as a tire filled my peripheral vision. Looking up, a silver passenger van had filled the road in front of our pathetic band of walkers, and a man in a white shirt and tie with silver tipped hair got out.

“Are you people looking for the temple?” he asked casually.

I was dumbfounded. As our director arranged to have our group driven to the temple in shifts, I got into the car. I was silent as everyone filled the air with thanks. The gentleman simply replied,

              

“Don’t thank me, I was just working in the temple when I was prompted that a group of lost brothers and sisters was looking for our temple and wouldn’t find it if I didn’t go and find them.”

As we drove away from our wilderness of English footpaths, I bowed my head once again, “Thank you for finding me Heavenly Father.”

~Natalie Cherie

Only let me be something: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Photo by Erin M

There have been many moments whilst reading literature that I have stopped, stunned at a phrase that seems so simple but writes truth so perfectly. One such moment was while I was reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Following the childhood of Francie, a studious young girl who escapes her alcoholic, poverty-stricken home life through books, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn would often move me with small, profound ideas. While sitting in the passenger seat of my car on a hot day, I was reading while my husband was driving, waiting for me to tell him the next passage that was too good to be left unspoken. 

Currently suffering from a bout of depression, I look up at Spencer and say, "Listen to this: 'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry . . . have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere—be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost." 

When I finished Spencer, who has also suffered from depression, breathed deeply, saying nothing. It had been said. We were glad in that moment to live any moment because at least that moment included life itself. 


Other spiritual experiences with literature include:

• Understanding happiness while reading the first lines of Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
•  Feeling the vast intricacies of nature, and the lonely fullness of my identity within nature while reading The Rings of Saturn. I may be an individual, and I may even be alone sometimes, but I exist within the far expanses of a beautiful eternity.
• Experiencing the palpable reality of sin and redemption in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
• Listening to the voice of Death as the narrator of The Book Thief.
• Reading the accounts of Elie Wiesel's Night and Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, in comparison to each other as a study of suffering and either losing or finding God when there is no balm in Gilead. 
• Listening to my husband stand up and recite the poem "I Don't Care".
• Reading "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning with my husband the night he proposed to me

~Natalie Cherie

Discovering God in Narnia

Photo by Davemc500hats

I received my first copy of The Chronicles of Narnia when I was eight years old. The black cover held a stunning gold lion, who lived in the embossed cover, and while staring at its eyes I knew that The Chronicles of Narnia was going to be memorable. 

Looking back on those Narnian hours, I can now say that, outside of scripture, Narnia was the first place I had discovered God within literature. Beginning with The Magician's Nephew I found a creation story; moving to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe I found the atonement and resurrection. The Last Battle is eschatology in a children's story, and the allegories continue. 

As a child, these allegorical connections were thrilling and enchanting. I felt I had discovered a secret tale of a bygone land, woven with truths that must make God real. So I kept reading. To my young self, reading became the chance to unlock ideas and unseen realities that helped me understand the abstraction of divinity and the dichotomy of good and evil. When placed within the fantastic realm of lions, children, fauns, and witches, my faith became simple: God was real because if he wasn't then we couldn't have stories like The Chronicles of Narnia.

And Aslan is just one example of how literature can help us come to know God. As Edmund asked, "Are-are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." 

How lucky that I discovered God in Narnia because it is true—by knowing Aslan there, I came to know God better here. 

~Natalie Cherie

A Bird Must Have Strong Wings: The Awakening by Kate Chopin

“The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.” 

These are probably the most beautiful lines of Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening.

So I'm going to approach this novel very differently from the first two. I have fewer opinions and less analysis. This is because of a few things:

1. I found Edna's character entirely unengaging.

2. I ardently disagreed with Edna's actions in response to her awakening.

3. Regardless, this novel deserves thought and discussion because the message and experience cannot be ignored.

When The Awakening was first published in 1899 it was not received well. It avoided a direct ban but was heavily censored due to Edna's choices which aggravated the established gender roles in society as well as exposed the very real existence of female sexuality. In short, our little, listless, Laodicean Edna created quite a stir with her emotional, mental, and physical abandonment of her husband, her occasional indifference to her children, her scandalous sexual liaison with Arobin, and her emotional infidelity with Robert Lebrun. The last of which resulted in her suicide. 

So what was the message? That female nonconformity results in unrest, unhappiness, and drowning in the Gulf of Mexico? Well, I suppose that's one take away, but certainly not the one Kate Chopin intended. Instead, this novel is heralded as one of the first truly feminist novels. This means the message lies within Edna's secretively common experience, making her the victim of an existence smothered by societal expectations. 

Before I continue with the alternative format I want to create some quick parallels in the novel's characterizations. So Edna is obviously the main figure, originally an ideal woman, wife, and mother who then awakens with life, passion, longing, and dissatisfaction. Mademoiselle Reisz is a recitalist who deeply touches Edna. Though isolated and often unpleasant, Mademoiselle Reisz is independent, perhaps even a representation of Edna's desire to be so as well. Adele Ratignolle is a doting and devoted wife and mother who gives consistent warning to Edna as well as Robert. She may also represent what women were expected to be: the ideal mother and wife who found fulfillment in others fulfillment. Robert is obviously the catalyst to Edna's awakening, and he also serves as the face to the qualities she sees lacking in her marriage. Whereas Arobin seems to be Edna's form of expression and rebellion.

Okay. I have selected some of my favorite quotes from the novel. (If there is one thing about this book it would have to be its style. It is written beautifully.) I will also offer some questions which will hopefully allow us all to ponder the messages behind Edna's awakening.

“Even as a child, she had lived her own small life within herself. At a very early period, she had apprehended instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.”

• What necessitated the dual life for Edna? Was it expectation, propriety, class, etc?
• Does our current society necessitate a dual life?

"He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world."

• The "he" is Edna's husband. (Just for your information and contextual understanding.)
• This seems to be the definition of an "awakening." Edna's awakening was definitively sexual and independence-seeking. This isn't necessarily always the case, so was Edna's awakening a result of that which she had been deprived of? Or was it a natural reflection of her personality? Both?
• If the awakening is a response to a deprivation of the passions of life and personal sense of fulfillment then must an awakening always react like the swing of a pendulum? 

“Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul.” 

• Could Edna have confronted her awakening, her desires, and her "dream," while still maintaining a functioning and respectable place in society? 
• Just as a side note, this quote could function well as Edna's unlabeled understanding of oppression.

"I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me."

• Do you agree with Edna's categorization of what is unessential?
• She leaves the only truly essential thing as herself, her being. Is this selfish? Assertive? Natural? Healthy?
• What do you think she means when she says, "but I wouldn't give myself"?
• It seems that she has drawn a difference between giving her life and giving herself. What do you think the difference is?
• Are the phrases "to give of yourself" and "to give yourself" intrinsically different in meaning?

“But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”

• This is right before Edna drowns herself in the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier in the summer, Edna had finally learned to swim and reveled in the self-assurance and power of it. Does Edna's method of suicide a representation of her last act of independence? Or was she simply being morbidly romantic in dying where she was awakened by Robert? Both, or maybe more?
• Much like the first quote of a bird needing strong wings, do you believe that Edna could have been successful in building a world she could abide in? Was she doomed to "perish in its tumult" from the beginning? 

"But whatever came, she had resolved never again to belong to another than herself."

-Natalie Cherie