Community Engagements Through the Arts: This I Believe essay #1---CETA 2019 begins!

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

This I Believe essay #1---CETA 2019 begins!

Please post your essay here before class on Tuesday, January 15. Please also remember to bring a printed copy of your essay to class and be prepared to read it aloud.

32 comments:

AnonymousJanuary 12, 2019 at 10:03 PM
I believe in art.
Art is described as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.”
Before, I just thought it was something cute, a fun thing to do to showcase your talent.
Now, it is something that replaces my words and expresses my emotions. It helps me destress.
I believe in art.
I paint, I draw, I play the cello, I sew.
When I paint or draw, I won’t explain it unless asked but until then, it is whatever you would like it to be. Just know it is always deeper than the surface.
When I play my instrument, it is an escape. It is just me and my music, nothing else matters.
When I am sewing, I think about all of the doubt given about what I want to achieve.
I believe in art.
I never realized how important art was to me until recently. For those of you who know about a safety plan, it is apart of mine.
When I can not think...
When I feel like crying...
When I am angry...
When I am overwhelmed with joy…
Art is my comfort.
That is all I know when I can not truly or verbally express how I feel.
I believe in art.
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AnonymousJanuary 13, 2019 at 3:18 PM
Dark and light shades of green, lush leaves enhanced by explicitly sharp branches that have their own agendas. An overwhelming darkness that looms over all that pass through and seems to severely influence the actions of all. A thrill that lives within all who dwell there. The woods. The wonderful woods. A place of passion and spontaneity and love and hate. A place with deep emotion and danger and filled with all the things in life that make humans feel superhuman.
Being out of the woods is such a liberating feeling, but have you ever stopped to consider that being out of the woods feels like a rush of relief because the monsters and angels that live in these very woods create a paralysis within us all that make us feel like omnipotent beings, which is something so incredibly divine that we are inept to handle it? The woods create explosive fireworks that are ignited in our spirit. This fire is transferred and represented in the glow of our eyes.
As we hurdle over obstacles, break through brick walls, and are attacked by demons that wouldn’t dare face the light that shines over us all in protection, we should pause to consider why we are fleeing so desperately. Is it to be entrenched in truth? Does truth feel free? Is freedom the whole point of coming out of the woods? If so, why not stay in the woods? The woods, although it may not be the most traditional or philosophical sense of freedom, is truth in itself. Living is about learning lessons, being honest with yourself and others, and portraying honesty in your actions. The untouched, unfiltered, messy experiences and moments are usually when we are the truest versions of ourselves and when we learn the most about life as well as others and our own souls. I believe in the messiness. I believe in the power of candidness. I believe a life lived unapologetically in the woods is pure.
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AnonymousJanuary 13, 2019 at 8:43 PM
I once fell in love with a guy who didn’t love me back. Like, head-over-heels, I-can’t-imagine-life-without-you in love. He never meant to break my heart, but he did anyway, and there was a months-long period of my life in which I cried a lot over it. C’est la vie.

While mourning love lost, I constantly thought about why he did not love me back. I gave him so much of my time and energy - was I just a flawed, unlovable person? The pain of unrequited love sent me in a spiral. I could not understand why I could not make these feelings vanish as quickly as they had appeared. I tried shoving them in a shoebox under my bed, and then the shoebox would explode whenever I saw him walk into the room.

So then I tried writing poetry (it sucked). And then I tried Tinder (it also sucked). Then I finally tried therapy (it didn’t suck… as much). I told myself that I was moving on, but in my deep down, I was still holding on. Surely, I could convince him to love me. One day he’d suddenly fall for me as quickly as I had fallen for him. Alas, life is not the romance novel I wanted it to be.

I would like to tell you I am completely over him now, but I’m not quite there yet. Sometimes, I will hear a song that makes me think of him, and my heart swells with so much emotion, tears leak out of the corners of my eyes. But instead of storing those emotions in a shoebox and wrapping the lid in duct tape, I hold them close, give them a tight squeeze, and then let them drift away. And then I go about my life again, because I believe in moving on.
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AnonymousJanuary 14, 2019 at 11:58 AM
Heath Stiltner
January 13, 2019
CETA

Everything is coming up roses, a phrase I never quite understood as a kid. Spending many afternoons in the gardens of two of my Appalachian grandmothers, as well as one great-grandmother, I often fond myself mesmerized by their rose bushes. I spent hours touching them, smelling them, and trying my best to figure out the essence of the delicate blossoms. A different color for each grandmother—yellow, pink, or white.

Thorns roughly grazed my skin while I ran past them into the garden that separated my house from my Nana’s—like dangerous, beautiful pink guards at the gate of the sun-dappled trail I traveled each day between our houses.

The yellow blooms of my Granny’s bushes warned of the steep, rocky hill you could tumble down. The dozens of grandchildren given to her by her sixteen children used the bushes as a boundary for games of lightning bug tag on summer evenings, and they came to represent the edge of that hilltop world of Stiltner family gatherings.

Every time I see a white rose I hear the childish giggle of my Mamaw White. I’m taken back to images of her in her blue kitchen, hair pinned up, and neck draped in Bakelite pearls. Our own 95-year-old Minnie Pearl in her shift with a wit as sharp as the crackle of her wood-burning stove.

I believe in roses. I believe that even when we put two of those grandmothers to rest with roses in our trembling hands, we were still left with the memories of those yellow and white bushes. Their homes still standing, but their roses gone. A few years ago I decorated my skin with a colorless rose of my own to remind myself of those women, and those moments. Still, everything always comes up roses for an Appalachian family accustomed to loss and hardship. Generations persevere, going forth to plant their own roses in the world. Everything always comes up roses, you just have to tend the bushes.
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EmilyJanuary 14, 2019 at 2:56 PM
You say to yourself, “I’m not lonely, I’m just alone.” And you really mean it. You are truly self-sufficient. You carry a fifty-five pound queen size bed up your apartment stairs. You sleep sprawled, dead center in the middle of that bed every single night. You take yourself on dates better than any man ever has—Thai food and movies only a cinephile as yourself would appreciate. You journal about your accomplishments and anxieties. Asking for a table for one feels natural.

But you never realized you’d get so good at being alone that it becomes all you know, like when you forget the multiplication table because you mastered the calculator.

It’s so hard to explain to someone with 20/20 that the world is blurry. An out of focus photo pales in comparison to a prescription of negative three or four or five and how glasses and contacts are in every overnight bag. And it’s hard to explain loneliness. You can be surrounded by people or even in someone’s bare arms and still feel complete solitude. Waking up in the morning and reaching a blind hand to find glasses is like when you feel alone. In reality the people who love you are at arm’s reach, but it doesn’t make it any less terrifying when you can’t see them.

But that’s not the end of the story. You begin to foster kittens to save a life, and sometimes you’re not exactly sure who saved whom. You find little snippets of joy all around that remind you what living means, like the one memoir you read four times, or the black and white movie you can’t stop watching, or the song you can’t help but dance to, or the sunset that lasts for sixty seconds but you know you’ll never see one quite like it ever again.

I believe in loving yourself so much that you commit to learning which square pegs fit into the round holes of your heart, because none of them look the same, but they all make you feel a little less alone and a little more in love with life. And I believe in loving yourself even when you fail.
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AnonymousJanuary 14, 2019 at 4:21 PM
Constant murmuring and conversations with little to no substance float in the air
Everyone talking to the person next to them or across from them
People sitting alone blasting music

Constant blabbing and conversations nonstop about little nothings
Everyone listening to people talk to them, at them, or around them
People watching YouTube or Instagram videos

Walking around all I hear is noise
The birds chirping
The squirrels running and biting acorns
The students complaining on their phones or to friends

Why is there always noise?
I have no idea
Does all the noise not stress people?
It does me
Why do people avoid silence?
Is it because silence makes people feel uncomfortable? Awkward? Nervous?
Probably so

Have you ever sat in silence with someone and you didn’t feel uncomfortable, awkward, or nervous?
I have

I felt uncomfortable, awkward, and nervous at first
But now I don’t
The noise of conversation makes me uncomfortable, awkward, and nervous
It leaves room for mistakes, which I too often make
I welcome silence

Sitting in silence, not having to fill the air with nonsense that no one cares about or will remember is truly something different

It allows me to let me be me with no other influences
It allows me to think freely
It allows me to zone in and out of reality
It allows me to get in touch with my inner me
Or
It allows me to not think at all
To just baste in the nothing for once
To void good and/or bad thoughts
To soak up the dull, cold quietness
But to me, it’s not dull or cold
It's riveting

Laying down with no one around, no TV on, no music on, with no sound at all
Not thinking of anything particular
Just enjoying the solitude and relaxation
That’s powerful

I learned to accept it
I learned to appreciate it
I learned to adore it

I seek out silence

Silence should be embraced
Silence is a strength

Unspoken words
Silent moments
Glimpses of nothingness

I believe those moments when you’re drowning in your thoughts is
when you find yourself
Or
completely lose yourself

For that, I believe in silence
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Marissa PriceJanuary 14, 2019 at 5:19 PM
When my mother didn’t make scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast on weekends when I was a child, I occasionally opted for oatmeal, made from those grocery-store oatmeal packets. Every time she made it, I’d watch her guess, or “eyeball,” the amount of water to add to the oats before putting it in the microwave for forty-five seconds. She had sugar and butter waiting on the counter, and as soon as the oatmeal was done, those were added to the mixture.

I saw her make oatmeal this way so many times that I’m fairly certain that, for a long time, I believed those flavored packets must be so bland on their own that sugar and butter must be added to make them good, and I thought that the companies must not give a convenient way to measure the water before it was added. I don’t think I ever read the directions on the box. It probably never crossed my mind to do so. Why would I, if I knew how to make oatmeal from watching my mother?

Though I don’t remember when, there must have been a day where I made my own oatmeal and, for once, didn’t add the sugar and butter at the end. I suppose it was then that I realized that all along, the ending steps had been unnecessary. Or, at least, to me, they are.

Up until this summer, I remained unaware that there is also a fill line on each packet, to act as a makeshift paper measuring cup. Though I’m not sure if every oatmeal-making company does this, it seems I’d been making bowls of oatmeal for years which had too much or too little water, all because I never read the packet. I don’t think I’m quite as skilled at guessing the amounts as my mother is.

Today, I enjoy my oatmeal without adding butter or sugar and without worrying that I’ll add too much water and make it taste not-so-great. I microwave it for one minute, like the box says.

I believe in following directions on boxes of food, and
I believe in the ways that our parents influence us just by doing everyday things.

----
Note: I asked my mom about this today and she told me that she usually only added butter and sugar to the original, unflavored packets, but I think I somehow missed that and applied it to all the flavors haha
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AnonymousJanuary 14, 2019 at 11:06 PM
Ever since sophomore year of high school I have looked forward to summer night bonfires with my friends. We started this tradition for my best friends 16th birthday and have continued on since then. We would Swap stories and gossip while the fire crackles between us. Passing around cheap 2 liters of soda and ruffles chips. Laughter always permeates the air. The summer bonfire used to be a reconnecting night before we returned to our shared high school. Post senior year it has now become the only time all seven of us see one another. My friends have all moved away for school or work and my small town feels more empty now. The last summer bonfire we had I could see the changes in all of us. It’s often said that the first year of college changes you. I initially thought that was a myth, but I know now there is some truth behind it. The different colleges we all go to and the different jobs we hold have impacted the group more than I suspected. I have grown away from friends I used to have a lot in common with. The stories and gossip now told over the bonfire is not relatable to everyone present. Stories about our friends at college are hard to explain to our friends at home. Although we are not all on the same page anymore, I still feel the love and bond of our friendship. I believe in the power of summer bonfires with friends. We may go our separate ways, but the short moments we share together will tie us together forever.
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KurtJanuary 15, 2019 at 12:55 AM
Because the building is quiet only in the summer, I assume it was a warm day when painting started on what is surely the largest mural Lexington will ever see. The seasonal timing and scorching temperature inside the then-uninsulated metal frame building did not slow what was either the single most determined snow-obsessed artist since Thomas Kincade or an army of under-practiced practitioners armed with enough blue, white, and purple spray to transform a string of warehouses into Elsa’s Frozen world.

In order to preserve my own self-esteem as an artist who undertakes large projects, I will continue this essay assuming it was an army that created this work. This army of painters would be very much like what I imagine Army artists are like: they have seen human figures, deer, mountains, and trees and have probably even heard of penguins as an intellectual construct. The requirements to join this team, however, fall short of ever once looking at these things with a thought you may one day recreate them in paint.

Layers of dirt and fingerprints suggest this entire work of art was completed before the internet came to be. This makes forgiveness easy when thinking the artists may not have known of Bob Ross, his painting show on television, the techniques he shared freely for quickly painting realistic pine trees, the live squirrel he kept in his shirt pocket, or, for that matter, paint brushes smaller than the body of a squirrel.

It is huge, unheralded, unassuming and for the most part uninteresting but for this army of painters (who I assume were all high schoolers, or blind-folded, or blind-folded high schoolers) the mural is a heroic, unparalleled work of art. I, too, painted murals in high school and was bullet-proof with pride when I made them. They were not done nearly as well as this Lexington mural and were probably less than a hundredth the scale.

I believe there are times when a creative work grows to the size of a world and becomes near invisible as art. A reality is created. Viewers are allowed in. In this particular reality, ice skaters are, at times, moose.
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Kremena TodorovaJanuary 15, 2019 at 10:40 AM
Kremena
January 14, 2019

I last saw Bette the day before the last of last year. She was staying in a rehab facility. She had been there a few weeks already when I arrived with a pair of socks for her. I wanted her to have fun in her rehab dwelling, a place where people are issued plain white compression-socks.

In all the time I have known her, Bette has never been a woman of plain fashion. Though I don’t remember the evening I met her, I know it must have been at a happy-hour gathering, one that featured Bette’s customary entrance: a flurry of purples in the summer, a whirlwind of fake fur and cheap jewelry in the winter. And laughter that spills into the neighboring back yards like a hug. Seated with a glass of red wine, Bette would recount raucous stories, cracking everyone up. I wanted to age like Bette: overflowing with young laughter.

Twenty years later, Bette spent the holidays in a rehab facility, recovering from a bout of pneumonia in the middle of a long series of treatments for cancer. She had kept the lung cancer at bay for a few years, but it was now taking over her body. She sat diminished in a wheelchair, hairless, with a thin tube under her nose feeding air to her lungs, and a pair of white compression-socks on her feet. I kept thinking about all the things she could use: a cancer-free body, new lungs, colorful socks.

I returned six days later with a pair of purple-and-blue-checkered knee-high compression-socks. Upon seeing them, Bette laughed her old laughter.

I heard, just yesterday, that Bette is moving to Hospice care. I don’t expect to hear her laughing again. I am spending time every day thinking of her: wearing her purple-and-blue socks, cracking up over a funny story.

I believe in colorful knee-high socks.
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AnonymousJanuary 15, 2019 at 11:12 AM
I believe in dancing in the rain…
“When the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you’re doing pretty alright in life.”

I remember vividly the year my life changed. It happened gradually. It was Freshman year of high school and I was in a school of 3,400 students. I had gone from being a big fish in a little pond to a little fish in a huge pond. It was a hard transition and I lost my light. I had always been a pretty outgoing kid and then in the next minute I stopped having a voice. I had always loved school and the next minute I couldn't even get myself out of bed to go and my grades dropped. I had always loved life and in the next minute I had lost any will to live. I couldn't even remember what happiness looked like. My parents didn’t understand and thought I was just sad. I felt guilty because my parents were great and I had all the resources I needed to live a happy life. It was a hard time but eventually I found a way to cope and discovered my new normal. I would then hide behind smiles and a big personality as to not concern my parents and friends. Another hard transition and I was back in the same boat as I had been in high school. Luckily I had made some pretty awesome friends who made the bad days seem a little better and the good days even better. One particular friend pushed me into therapy. I was skeptical at first but then things got better. I finally had an answer for everything. Depression caused a chemical imbalance in the brain. It was something that I would deal with the rest of my life but now that it had a name it was less daunting. I stopped feeling guilty and was able to focus on my happiness. For the first time in what felt like forever I was finally coming up for air after feeling like I was drowning. After one of my weekly therapy appointments it began to rain. As the drops pelted my skin I looked up and smiled and I danced. I was finally ready to live again.
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AnonymousJanuary 15, 2019 at 4:39 PM
One year, eight months, and seven days. That is how long I lived in a world where every aspect of my religion was not scrutinized. Where Islam was just like any other religion in this country. Where Muslims weren’t considered violent or murderous (Too bad I was too young to remember). That was until September 11, 2001. When both my country and my religion were hijacked. They were hijacked of their purity, truth, and innocence.
As a practicing Muslim, I have been impacted by this horrific tragedy many times. The stares and comments I get because I choose to cover my hair but instead people think I am oppressed, “random” searches I am chosen for at the airport, and the fact that many people see me and automatically assume that I am any less of an American than they are. Or when white supremacists threaten to kick Muslims out because they are a “threat” to America. It isn’t until these moments when I remember September 11, 2001.
However, when our founding fathers were creating our country, they stated freedom of religion in the first amendment. Diversity and tolerance of religion is what our country is built upon. Although there have been bumps in the road, this basic belief of the constitution has always been upheld.
Although the media portrays America as relatively islamophobic, it’s really not. This is evident when a lady in a grocery store asks me what my headscarf represents and gives a genuine smile after I’m done explaining it. Or when the Orlando airport is opening a prayer room for Muslim travelers.
So although I face challenging times because of my religion, I maintain the belief America is the greatest country when it comes to religious tolerance. No other country in the world allows one to freely practice their religion the way America does, this I believe.
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Community Engagements Through the Arts

CETA 2020: Our first 2 emojis (of hundreds)

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

This I Believe essay #1---CETA 2019 begins!

Please post your essay here before class on Tuesday, January 15. Please also remember to bring a printed copy of your essay to class and be prepared to read it aloud.

32 comments:

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