Yue Sun

Bryce Lillmars

Writing 39A

06 December 2021

Why Experience Matters?

—-Uniqueness and Resonance Make It Memorable

When I was in elementary school, I had nothing to do during the summer vacation. I met with a few close friends to go to the park  across the street from my house for a charity sale. It was a sunny summer, and there were a few mellow and lovely clouds hanging in the blue sky, which looked a bit like cotton candy from a distance. My friends and I chose a place on the square in the park to spread a blanket, and then we started to lay out the items we brought for  the charity sale. I brought a huge pile of scientific magazines. Katy brought two teddy bears. Jack brought some toys that boys love to play with. These are items that we no longer need. We hope that through this charity sale, we can bring these items to those in need and donate the profits obtained to charities.

After a while, the ground was covered with things we brought, and plenty of younger kids came around us. One of the little boys asked, "What are you doing?" "We are doing a charity sale." I replied with a smile, "Do you want to buy something?" He nodded and began to squat down on the ground to make a serious selection. After a few seconds, he picked a colored Rubik's Cube and asked how much it was. Jack said: "Two yuan." (Yuan is the money unit in China). The little boy took his mother over to pay us. Seeing our first customer happily leaving with his merchandise, we all felt very motivated.

More and more children were choosing what they wanted. Some parents nearby also walked over to express their support for us. After about an hour, most of the things on the ground were almost sold, but there were still some books and magazines left. At this time, Katy suggested: "Why don't we take these books to the children and ask them if they want to read them". So, we each took a few books and started selling. The people in the park were very supportive of our charity activities, and everything was sold out in a short while.

We started to pack our things and go home. It was very late in the afternoon. A breeze blew gently, everyone's faces were red from the time when we were busy selling. We packed our things, smiled at each other, and hopped out of the park holding hands. Finally, we donated all the seventy dollars we earned to the local charity. There is a Chinese proverb, “A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers.“ You feel glad inside when you see a person is happy because of something you did. While promoting products, we accumulate not only courage and social experience but also the joy of doing good deeds. The charity sale was very meaningful and unforgettable.

...

That was the story from 8 years ago, now I am 18. The eighteen years of spring and autumn seemed to have gone through a journey.  The infinitely beautiful scenery along the way always flashes by, which makes people too late to savor it, and I deeply regret it. The neon lights of that city looked extremely dazzling in the dark night, and the cars that shuttled through time carried people away, together with my memories. Time goes back and forth. Those passing years, those who have left, and those things that have gone away, ultimately left behind only a very faint trace. I should never forget my experiences as I come along, big or small, happy or pain, these thousands of wonderful experiences I encountered made my life memorable and they–created me–the unique me.  

        Uniqueness, the quality of being the only one of its kind, especially when describing an experience or a piece of literature, can be extremely critical to writers. It makes your writing stand out from a barren and gloomy ruin, because it is so special, it is special so that you could recall it some time in the future. A creative, memorable writing cannot survive without metaphors and similes, because they make the writing interesting and especially fascinating. Since metaphors and similes help portray a picture in the reader’s head by comparing recognized things with more ambiguous ones.

In the chapter “Writing and Knowing” of The Poet’s Companion, the author Al Zolynas–a booming poet from Australia, depicts a scene where he is doing housework. Even if there are tons of other things people would do everyday, everybody will need to do housework. For some people, this may seem like a desperate and vexing pursuit. However, Zolynas’s words make the reader feel pleasant as they make us think of housework as a chance to free ourselves in a calm world. Al Zolynas’s “The Zen of Housework” is a beautiful poem that tells that the search for sacredness in the most ordinary jobs in our life. In this poem, he compares water droplets to some habitual things: “like a school of playful fish, or like the sheer curtain” (Zolynas, 20). Zolynas brilliantly compares the water droplets to fish and curtain, two completely unrelated things, but shows two different dynamics of the droplets. The readers will learn that it is totally not boring for the author to wash dishes. It is like that everything around has its own motion and fluctuation. He makes the fleeting hour of washing dishes extra vivid as I can picture a school of fish swimming around in the air because this simile is quite creative and is like magic. On the other hand, saying “the droplets are rising” simply doesn’t have the same effect. Even though it is telling basically the same thing, it doesn’t convey the changing movements. The greatness of this line lies not in the actions and scenes, but the author’s imagination that inspires the readers’ minds. Seeing the sacredness of Zolynas cleaning the room also requires a strong sense of humor. For example, “The Zen of Housework”'s talented style and elegant tone makes it a unique and refreshing poem. For example: “I can see thousands of droplets of steam-- each a tiny spectrum-- rising from my goblet of grey wine”, “My hand lift a wine glass”, “It breaks the surface like a chalice” (Writing and Knowing, 20). The author just creates a special advanced tone, making me feel like the author adds a “rich” and elegant filter on the poem.  His careful wording in this poem creates images of sacred, noble scenes, just like he was offering something to a king in the medieval centuries of Europe. However, it is illustrating very far between the real and words. “The Zen of Housework” captures the moment when Zolynas washes the dishes and it becomes the most delightful and extraordinary moment in his life. The title of the poem “The Zen of Housework” also implies a degree of meaning. The word “Zen” is always associated with the peacefulness in one’s heart. Al Zolynas created this unique and very personal poem with his own experience of teaching Zen meditation in Escondido, California. His stylish wording allows the readers to feel that doing housework isn’t that boring and frustrating because his vivid descriptions of the scene can leave a lot of memorable pictures in the readers’ head. As we can see, even some ordinary things in life can make a piece of literature memorable. This is because Zolynas writes about his own little experiments which everybody can relate to. Furthermore, the unique tone and description he creates for this poem make it special and impressive.

        Uniqueness can be best used to describe a personal life experience. In the chapter “The House on Mango Street”, Cisnero describes how the protagonist-Esperanza’s family move to the house on Mango Street. The family moved to the house on Mango Street when their previous landlord refused to repair the broken pipes. Before they moved to Mango Street, the family moved frequently: “Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can’t remember” (Cisnero, 3). The repetition of “before” here shows how tiring and exhausting the character felt about moving around by sucking energy down. They once dreamed of owning a spacious white house with bathrooms, but their house on Mango Street only has limited rooms. Esperanza points out that this is not her dream house. Even though her parents say they won’t live here long, she suspects that they will move soon. However, this house still has some noteworthy advantages compared to the previous one. Esperanza describes her new house: “It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they are holding their breath” (Cisnero, 4). The phrase “holding their breath” is a use of personification. By saying the windows grasp their breath instead of saying they are extraordinarily small, it creates a more spirited visual imagery while reading. Cisneros’s creative writing style not only shows how the new house looks, but also allows the reader to feel because everybody knows how it feels to hold a breath.

        In the beginning of The House on Mango Street, Esperanza wants to change her name: “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees” (Cisneros, 11). The word “baptize” means “give a name or nickname to”, or “ to cleanse spiritually; initiate or dedicate by purifying”. This word emphasizes how Esperanza refuses to accept her name from her family heritage, instead, she wants a name that can define in her own capacity. The reason behind it is that the protagonist’s name-Esperanza-was her  great-grandmother’s name. Esperanza sees how her great-grandmother turns from a “wild horse” into a “fancy chandelier” after marriage and “sit [her] sadness on an elbow” and “[looks] out the window her own life” (Cisneros, 11). Cisneros compares the great-grandmother to “wild horse” and “fancy chandelier” and the contrast of these two phrases expresses how a living breathing woman turns into a stagnant decoration with the bind of her husband in that patriarchal society. Changing Esperanza’s name seems to her an important step to escape her family and create her own life as she decides not to be like one of those women who are either trapped in marriages or tied down by their children.

        The House on Mango Street is “an invented autobiography”. The house that Esperanza is seeking in The House on Mango Street might represent a search for her own identity. Based on the growth experience in her Mexican minority, author Cisneros sees through the theme of identity seeking in the minority literature. The entire seeking process also reflects that American minorities have long sought and recognized their identity when facing caucasian culture, and whether they chose to accept or escape the unsatisfactory living conditions. Esperanza’s destiny is not only personal, but a perspective of the complex social classes of Westerners in the entire society (Chen, 2012). The House on Mango Street is a mirror that sees through the world, with the reflection, readers can taste the struggle of life, beautiful ideals and cruel reality. Through multi-level descriptions to show different life classes, the author transforms things she urged for when she was a child into the inner desires of Esperanza. Examining the world through a perspective of a little girl, creating strong emotional appealings and allowing the minority groups to feel strong relevances, these are how Cisneros makes The House on Mango Street such a memorable novel.

After experiencing the classics, we will always have a glimmer of wisdom, and that understanding of life can always be memorable for us. Therefore, after experiencing the resonance of the soul, we found that the classics are the great men.  We want to pass on the taste of life. Everyone’s journey has his own unique scenery.  All kinds of people on the train may accompany you for a while.  You might remember them.  It may be a coincidence, and your destinations are the same, but after getting off the car, the terminal is a cruel and unforgiving parting point, so many like-minded people can't take one more time.  With our own ideals and goals, we smiled at each other and walked in different directions.  Maybe there is a little bit of inclination and nostalgia for the road I have walked, or maybe it is too thick to dissolve, but I can only take a deep breath and stride forward, because there will be a more extraordinary experience ahead. Now that we have taken over the mantle of our ancestors and become the masters of history, let us savor life to the fullest and create our own classics based on the classics of our ancestors. 

Works Cited

Addonizio, Kim, and Dorianne Laux. The Poet’s Companion : A Guide to the Pleasures of    Writing Poetry. New York, W.W. Norton, 1997.

‌Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1984.

Chen, Zhengjiao. “Children's Point of View,Autobiography and Metaphor——Construction strategy of national identity in The House on Mango Street”. Shaoxing University, 2012.

(陈振娇. "儿童视角自传隐喻——《芒果街上的小屋》的民族身份建构策略." 绍兴文理学院学报, 2012)

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