Cold Mountain

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Cold Mountain was a tough book to get through, I can’t lie. However, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t enjoyable. The long descriptive paragraphs about past memories the characters had reminded me of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Although Frazier didn’t bore us with fifteen pages about a turtle crossing the road, he did help you fall asleep.

The main thing that stood out to me in Cold Mountain was the amount of change Ada and Inman longed for. Though not outrightly expressed, a sense of the need for change was noticed. This was especially noticeable to me when I was reading Ada’s chapters. She talks of losing her father and not knowing how to care for her farm. She settles into such a routine it’s almost like she’s not even alive at some parts. Inman, too, has problems of his own. With the war sneaking back up on him every now and again, he needed to escape as well.

I believe the recurring pattern in Cold Mountain is being unhappy with circumstances you were placed in and having the courage to remove yourself from them. All of the other little stories about farms and memories don’t matter much when it comes down to the true meaning of the book. A lot of literature seems to be about living your life to the fullest and doing what will truly make you happy. Often, the characters will have gone through something difficult or traumatizing to induce the change they need. For Inman, it was getting hurt in the war and for Ada (to an extent) it’s losing her father.

In today’s society, we’re told we need to have certain jobs or do certain things, complete a checklist, but that shouldn’t be true. Anyone anywhere at anytime should do what is going to make them happiest and what will promote their own personal growth. Sometimes that requires a drastic change and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s sparked by something big and other times it just happens by will of nature.

The place Inman and Ada reference as part of Cold Mountain reminds me of Henry David Thoreau in his search for Walden, a place away from the duties of society. However, they never make it as Inman dies (or so I assume) and Ada goes on to live with Ruby.  I do enjoy the way the characters grow and the way Frazier expresses the change within them.

Ada started has a girl who knew nothing about farming or taking care of hardly anything. She way useless in the acts of labor and cooking, but in the end turns out to be a very hard worker. The fact that she lost the tip of her finger shows that. Something she never would’ve sacrificed before she now has to live without and seems to be content without it.

Inman, too, goes through changes. He seems to start as a man with no emotion or remorse for anyone, which is understandable because war changes a man. However after his journey, on his way back to Ada, his emotions grow stronger. He begins to appreciate humans and questions his own actions of killing them. He sees the woman who lost her husband with the sick baby and recognizes her strength. Before, I don’t believe Inman would’ve cared at all about her. Then, as he reaches Ada, his world is full again. He even says as she leave to go to Black Cove that the “richness of the world” disappears with her.

The ending of the book was sad to me, especially when Inman is actually shot and dies. It wasn’t all the surprising because of the foreshadowing before and all the times a bullet has just grazed him like in the beginning when you’re introduced to him and when Veasey and Inman are both shot. After surviving so many times, you kind of expect him to die.

Cold Mountain made me think about my own life in a way. I’ve always believed you should do what makes you happiest, but sometimes that just ins’t available to you for one reason or another. One responsibility or another. However, I do have an appreciate for Inman’s effort and his bravery to accept that he couldn’t go back into the army. Ada too, was ready for change and ready to adapt to her new life. They were very strong characters both in spirit and story.

A Binding in Mud

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The first thing I noticed when reading Mudbound, as I’m sure many of you did too, was the polarization of characters and, eventually, families.

It was interesting to me the way Hillary Jordan was able to truly develop so many characters at once. And, after finishing the book, I noticed how similar the Jacksons and the McAllens actually were.

Laura McAllen can be compared to Florence Jackson as they are mothers and participate equally in “momma talk” and “momma anxiety.” Noticed first when Laura’s children are sick and Florence has to come take care of them. Then again when Florence is talking about her son Ronsel and his sparkle. The same “momma talk” seems to come over Laura when she talks about her brother in law Jamie. Although Jamie was quite the opposite of her son, she still speaks of him fondly.

Throughout the novel, the sparkles of Jamie and Ronsel are mentioned. I imagine if it hadn’t been the time period it was, Laura would’ve fallen in love with Ronsel too. The two soldiers nearly mirror each other, their only difference being the blackness that tinted Ronsel’s skin tainted Jamie’s soul. They both had the charm that drew people to them before the war, but when Jamie came home his sparkle was covered with the same smoke that covered the cities he’d bombed. Ronsel, being African American, was used to fighting battles everyday in the Delta and had seen the struggles of his people so I don’t think the war took as much from him as it did Jamie. Another similarity between the young men is in the way they are fiercely defiant. When Ronsel first gets back to the Delta and Henry McAllen comes to his house to confront him for being defiant he says, “…but I wanted to knock Henry McAllen down a peg more.” Once home, he refused to walk away from a fight. Jamie was the same way, except he challenged what his Father told him about giving Ronsel rides home from town. Pappy said, “Don’t ever let me catch you giving that jigaboo a ride again,” to which Jamie replied, “Or what? You gonna come after me with that cane?” I think Henry and Pappy noticed the similarities between their beloved Jamie and Ronsel so it infuriated them, especially Pappy who always wanted Jamie to be like him.

Henry and the Jackson father, Hap, weren’t main components of the story to be told but did play key roles. They were similar in their hunger for land, the desperate need for it. Which isn’t all that interesting, except for the time period Jordan decided to write the story in with Hap being black and Henry white. That showed the differences between what they were able to achieve in the same amount of time. Hap, unable to even get proper medical treatment while Henry could uproot his whole life and buy his own land in a matter of days.

Old man Pappy was like no one else in the novel. He represented every racist of the time and really embodied everything terrible before Americans realized that skin color doesn’t determine your worth.

I think Hillary Jordan really wanted to express the significant difference between the way black and white people were treated in the time period. By making the families so similar, two strong women, men hungry for land, veterans with a sparkle too bright to let the war or the segregation cover it, and an old man that embodied everything that was wrong with the time period.

Reading this book at this day in age, one might think that everything that happened are times of the past. They’re wrong. Although there may not be lynchings where people get their tongues cut out anymore, there is still a significant difference between the way people of color are treated in America. Whether it be in the way most of them are recruited for college only to play sports (insulting their intelligence) or the way white police officers think they have a right to kill anyone they please. And maybe you say, “Not all cops are doing it,” but none of them are calling out the ones who do either.

Stand up or sit down.

All lives matter.

 

Discovering Myself

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Who is Ashley?

My instagram username is more than a username, it’s a question I obsessed over for the early parts of high school. Most people don’t know how that question plagued my mind and kept me up at night, but I’m not ashamed to admit that not knowing who I was in ninth grade made me feel things no one ever should.

I have experienced more in my life up to this point than I care to tell. Besides, telling you what I’ve been through isn’t who I am. They’re events. Some things have shaped me because I’ve let them, whether willingly or not, but other things I haven’t given the power to change me. I’m a firm believer in choosing your own happiness and deciding what and who you let affect you. So the bad things don’t get to me anymore. I guess after a few years of only bad it’s refreshing to feel the good.

Innately I am as my great grandfather used to call me: a little ball of sunshine. Much of my happiness comes from making other people laugh, having fun with people I love, taking care of people I love and creating things. Boy, do I love creating things.

Somewhere along the way, though, my sunshine was covered by clouds. Little ones at first, but they grew into a thunderstorm: dark and forboding. For a few years I lived my life in a constant downpour, unable to see the world around me through the blur of rain.

But one day, instead of asking myself ‘Who is Ashley?’, I asked ‘Who does Ashley want to be?’

That is the day I remebered the words of my great grandfather (I sound like the chairman on Iron Chef America) and decided to push the clouds away.

It was a gradual process, it took a lot of wind and a lot of will power but now I’m sunny and 75 and no one can take that away from me.

This is why I chose not to explain my life up to this point, but to explain my life from this point forward.

Since The Great Awakening that was my birth into happiness, I’ve gained a lot of confidnece that has allowed me to reach out to many people and pursue what I truly want.

I got the job I’ve been waiting to get for years at Orr’s Farm Market, where happiness is supposed to grow (and I believe every word of it). I’ve performed multiple times at open mic nights, written so much poetry I can barely count that high, and above all: I’ve gained new friends and gotten closer with old ones.

Moving forward after senior year, I’m unsure of what my plan will be. Right now all I know is I’m saving money for a van to travel in and hopefully play music out of. But that’s all I know, and that’s all I need to know. As long as I can spread what I believe and bring joy to others, I’m more than content.

Because of choosing happiness along with loving myself, those around me and the earth, I was able to make my life into exactly what I want it to be. I’ll preach love until the end.

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So that’s me. I laugh too loud and talk too much, write what I’m feeling and feel what I’m writing. Sometimes I’m too nervous to sing in front of people and sometimes I never stop singing but I love everyone with a passion so strong it brings tears to my eyes

My name is Ashley Nicole Hess and I am so happy to be alive and sharing my life with all of you.