Still Chasing My Art...

The twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower illuminate the surrounding park for 15 minutes each night.

On my second night in Paris in May, we visited the Eiffel Tower. We arrived when the sun was still bright and rode the elevator to the top to take pictures as the sun set over the city. By the time we descended, the sky was dark. On the way down, we stopped briefly on the second level to watch a video; after the presentation, we planned to ride the elevator to the bottom. The elevators were running extremely slowly, however, which posed a significant problem. The Eiffel Tower has a twinkling light show every night. Because of the cost of electricity, though, the city can only afford to have the lights twinkle for five minutes at 10 p.m., 11 p.m. and midnight. We were cutting it close by riding the elevator down as 11 p.m. neared, and because of the elevators’ slow pace and long lines, we worried we wouldn’t make it to the bottom in time. So several of us chose the path less traveled: we ran down the stairs in the leg of the Eiffel Tower. I have never run so fast or down so many stairs, and we truly felt we were cheating time. It paid off. We made it down the stairs and out to the garden just in time to see the lights begin to twinkle.

This semester has been quite a journey. I have learned much about myself, from future dreams to my growing skills in Microsoft Publisher for my internship. I especially feel that I have taken ownership of and have a better grasp on my writing – my art form. One of my goals, for instance, was to work on making my writing more concise, and I feel as though the blog posts have helped me achieve that; I realize now that not everything I write needs to be (or should be) book-length. Additionally, I have worked to develop my own style of writing feature pieces, which involves combining the reporting of journalism with the style of creative writing. Though I may not have perfectly achieved this with every piece, my awareness of this style alone is an accomplishment. I will certainly have to work to perfect this style in the future.

I have also learned from others this semester, primarily through the readings we did for the blog posts. The observations and details provided by many of the authors have inspired me to be more observant when conducting interviews and research for a piece; then I need to be more descriptive when I write. Tom Junod’s “Can You Say… Hero?” particularly affected me. I feel that Junod not wrote a touching, memorable piece, but he also challenged me as a writer to be more descriptive and to write equally moving stories.

I attempted this with my last piece of the semester. My final story relates my struggle with a loved one’s eating disorder and the methods – good and bad – by which I reacted to it. This was the most frank and open story I have ever written, and it demanded a lot of strength, energy and tears. Ultimately, I am somewhat surprised that I was able to accomplish it. More than that, though, I am proud that I finally put those words out there in a way that, hopefully, touch some people’s lives.

Much like my dash to the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, my writing process has been exhausting as the semester has advanced. The effort required paid off, though. When I finally reached the bottom, turning in that final story, I was been able to sit, relax and enjoy the show.

But I have to admit – the journey was half the fun and 95 percent of the memories.

Conversing with the Child Inside

I try to keep the child inside of me alive and kicking.

I do not remember watching “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” as a child.  I recall seeing episodes of his program, but I cannot say that I considered him my neighbor.  My childhood memories are of Maypoles and Fourth of July fireworks, of summer evenings spent chasing lightning bugs and Hide-and-Seekers to the symphony of cicadas that surrounded us in the trees.  That was my neighborhood. 

We used a neighbor's oak tree as Base for every game of Hide-and-Seek.

A man in tennis shoes and a zippered cardigan did not educate me; however, I feel as though the Mister Rogers whom Tom Junod portrays in “Can You Say… Hero?” would approve of my childhood.  In the profile, Junod uses astounding detail to paint a picture of this famous man who touched so many lives through his program.  Through observation, Junod is able to recount various stories about Mister Rogers as well as those affected by him, and these observations lead us to understand the man behind the cardigan.  What’s more, they lead us to understand more about ourselves.

I think that a great profile accurately depicts an individual and the impact that he or she has—why is this person important?—while making that individual relatable.  To care about the subject, readers must be able to relate to it.  To make us really understand Mister Rogers, then, Junod had to make us see the connection we have with the star.  Mister Rogers speaks to children.  Thus, he must speak to the child in all of us.  In “Can You Say… Hero?”, Junod does just that: he makes Mister Rogers reach out to the child inside.

I love that Junod accomplishes this through telling a bit of his own childhood and how getting to know Mister Rogers changed his life.  What Junod does is a mark of truly good writing: in writing about himself, he challenges the readers to think about our own childhoods.  When he throws Old Rabbit out of the car, I pictured the times I lost my beloved stuffed animals and dolls; when he prays, I think of the times I’ve prayed furiously for something and then have not learned from the experience.  By connecting Mister Rogers to himself, Junod causes us to connect him to ourselves.  In this manner, we enter into a personal relationship, a personal conversation, with Mister Rogers that really has nothing to do with the writer.  This is a mark of brilliant writing.

The detailed picture that Junod paints helps place us in the scene and create a cohesive vision of the life and surroundings of Mister Rogers.  From images like “The place was drab and dim, with the smell of stalled air and a stain of daguerreotype sunlight on its closed, slatted blinds…” to scenes such as, “…he leaned back from his waist and opened his mouth wide with astonishment, like someone trying to catch a peanut he had tossed into the air…”, we grasp exactly what his life looks like and how he acts in private and in public.  It is a remarkably detailed story that allows us to walk for a while in those famous tennis shoes.

My favorite detail, however, that Junod utilizes is the style in which he writes the story.  He uses a combination of short sentences with long run-on ones, including extensive phrases and descriptions that only a child could follow.  That is the point: he writes the story just like Mister Rogers speaks to the children who watch his show.  Though some sentences are long, they flow like a stream of consciousness, and the simplicity of the story is of the kind children require.  Watching a short clip of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” gives us a glimpse at the similarities between Mister Rogers’ speech and Junod’s writing style.  By writing this way, Junod makes is sound as though Mister Rogers is talking directly to us.

Junod’s descriptive profile “Can You Say… Hero?” allows us to speak to Mister Rogers, even if he was not a large figure in our own childhoods. Mister Rogers stresses the fact that we each have “special ones who have loved us into being.”  While reading this piece, I could not help but take his advice and think of—and thank—those people who have helped me become who I am.  My childhood was full of these figures, and I think he would appreciate that I was so blessed.  I, too, was a child once, and my neighborhood of family and friends filled that little girl with hope and love.  And I like to think that in those times I did watch “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” I felt his love emanating from the screen, just as it does from his words.