For Cedric 2.

Good God it's gorgeous out here. You ever been out west in springtime, Cedric? You wake up one morning dressed in your winter pajamas with a double comforter and you look out the window and it's as if the trees have suddenly exploded with tiny green buds tipped with white and pink and purple, and I tell you the buds are all over the place, and then there are little green shoots rising out of perennials you thought had been dug up and eaten by squirrels way back in October. Honest, Cedric, it was rainy and miserable just yesterday and now here I am swinging my bare feet out over the edge of the porch and licking a drippy orange popsicle with the sticky stuff running down my elbows (which has attracted all the floating red-and-gray dog hairs in the vicinity like a supermagnet) and wearing nothing but a t-shirt and yoga pants! Just when you think everything has gone to hell and you just cannot stand another day of rain and wet underwear and damp mildewey stink lingering in your kitchen coating your broccoli and salmon fillet with its sharp penetrating odor, and just when the dog has come in one too many times with wet ears that lead to ear infections because, for God's sake, of course I got stuck with the only dog in Washington that's practically allergic to water – just when life's all coming up around your ears and you have to bend your neck all the way back to suck in the air that remains above the rising tides, that's when you wake up on a day like this and remember why it is you even bother to breathe. The air is so sweet, so suddenly sweet with new green buds and birds hopping around in the branches that all there really is to do, at least at first, is sit and absorb the soft sun bouncing off the dew drops that glint on the teeny tiny green bits (which are really just everywhere, you know). Honest, Cedric, you must take a visit out here sometime in your life and soak some of this up, it's got to be the best spring there is anywhere. 

Maybe even better than back home. 

Oh you remember those delicious spring days after school was out and we'd all just tear out of the building and hold hopscotch races and watermelon-seed spitting contests! Or... well that may have taken place a bit before you awoke from....well you know. Anyway, Cedric, I have diverted from my purpose in writing this letter. I remember how you always seemed drawn by colors, mixing colors and using colors (and wearing them, God knows you wore a good half a mishmashed rainbow on the daily), but good God Cedric we all thought you'd go on to be an....Oh I don't know, a mailman or a...something, anyway. But a Painter! How free! How comfortable it would be to wake up mornings and think, I am a Painter and I will have my cup of coffee and then I will Paint something, because that is what Painters like me do. I think this, probably, because clocking in every day at work is tiresome and I am chained to my desk like a prisoner held hostage with a weight on my ankles and striped tattered clothes until five, when I am allowed to clock out. If I were to want a cup of coffee, it had better be before nine or after five, because otherwise I am stuck sipping that tepid brown-colored water that comes out of the machine at the offices. 

I do remember your pretty eyes, Cedric. They were stormy sea green flecked with tiny bits of gold and outlined in bold by your heavy lashes and I sort of always (in the back of my mind, you know) wished I could paint them and show them to you, because it seemed you never stopped to look at anything much, especially your own reflection. But, being the equivalent of a tone-deaf singer when it comes to art, I have only ever been able to sit and look and never touch a brush myself. But those eyes, and now a day like today, they make me want  – so badly – to be able to paint even a little. When I close my eyes to it though and let the colors dance for that splitsecond behind my lids...Honest Cedric, it's better than any painting I've ever seen. To answer your question-that-was-not-really-a-question, Cedric – yep, I've done that sort of a lot especially today because it's my eyes that are painting, and it's the closest I ever get to making art. 

Is that what you paint, Cedric? 

Nikki

For Cedric.

Cedric.

I see you haven’t changed one single bit. You are the same snot-nosed little boy who would pop gum in Ms. Liebgott’s face and make fun of her name just because it had the word “love” in it. Remember the time you pulled your shorts down in front of her car and wagged your pink little butt at the one-way glass, just because she hadn’t been able to name the Pokemon you’d drawn in class? (It was Mewtwo, I remember, because you borrowed my favorite purple colored pencil to draw it and broke the tip so bad I had to sharpen it until my arm practically fell off, so I could get the point just right again, and when you gave me that drawing my jaw fell so fast it hurt, especially since your ears were red and you looked like you actually felt sorry so I kept your drawing until my mother accidentally put it through the wash with my red Christmas socks and it turned into pink pulpy mush and had to be thrown out with the leftover chicken bones and potato peels.) People notice more than you think, Cedric.

Cedric, did you know that when you fell into that crevice in that godforsaken place your father took you to and were in the hospital for all that time we were back at school and everyone heard all about it. Well, anyway we were trying to find out as much as we could, but first step was, figuring out what the heck coma even was. Jill thought that meant you’d died and she burst into tears right smack-dab in the middle of the hallway. I was embarrassed for her, for god’s sake. I had to drag her into the classroom and sit her down and make her wipe her face off while I got the Webster’s Dictionary Unabridged Version and read off the definition of a coma, just to make her shut up. It read,     

Coma\Co"ma [Latin, hair, from Greek ko`mh.] n.  1. A state of deep and often prolonged unconsciousness; usually the result of disease or injury.  2. A usually terminal tuft of hairs especially on a seed.  3. The luminous cloud of particles surrounding the frozen nucleus of a comet; forms as the comet approaches the sun and is warmed.

We figured you were the first one, since you are not a seed, and even Jill knows what a comet is and you are not a comet. It sounded serious though, and we wondered how what kind of ice it could have been to make you so sick. We started tiptoeing at recess, avoiding the real icy patches and taking turns using Lacie’s electric hair dryer to melt it off around the doorways (because the cord only reached that far) so nobody would slip on the ice and get coma. Teachers were talking about you, Cedric. Talking with their worried faces, the ones they reserve for talking about the stock market and extreme tornado warnings ­– not the angry faces they always used when they talked about you before you got coma. That made me scared, too. Even though all you ever did was give me that dumb picture of Mewtwo and break my favorite purple pencil. People notice more than you think, you know.

If all I ever did was eat paste, Cedric, then all you ever did was talk about it.

Nikki.

Final Overview

Obama split this book into three sections: Origins, Chicago, and Kenya. He retains his focus throughout the book because of these specifics – skimming over the events that occurred in between these three chapters of his life, he keeps the purpose flowing and clear. There is little mention of dating, life at Columbia University itself, and the various other details of his life that were omitted. Essentially, Obama writes solely on his journey of self-discovery, racism and the societal struggles of mixed people, and his eventual trip to Kenya, the place of his heritage. This method is effective because the deliberate way he set up the book, each section building on the previous, culminating in his trip to Kenya. The first section, Origins, detailed all of the above struggles, emphasizing the great enigma that was his family and history in Kenya. His father was the inspiration for writing the memoir, and is therefore an ever-present driving force behind his self-questioning and ambitions. As he becomes a self-assured young mixed-race American, Obama finds his voice through the lessons taught and encouragement given by deuterogamists – people described who shaped his gradual growth. Upon deciding that social justice and community organizing is where he wants to head, section 2 is begun: Chicago. Traveling to Chicago and the events leading up to it are given a meager few pages as Obama jumps into the next chapter of his life. Exquisite detail of his personal relationships with a few church members who Obama works closely with to better an ailing black, prejudiced society, complements nicely the section before it. The same struggles with race Obama had encountered earlier in life were recurrent, and he is forced to face them from different standpoints and bumble his way through many failures and minor triumphs in his attempts to reach through the racism that exists in prejudiced Chicago. Community organizing and the huge issue of race in society lead Obama into the last section: Kenya. Connecting with his family proves to be a difficult task, complicated by his family's poverty, need, and a lack of understanding on both sides. In his family, however, Obama finally finds a sort of peace: "It wasn't simply joy that I felt in each of these moments. Rather, it was a sense that everything I was doing, every touch and breath and word, carried the full weight of my life; that a circle was beginning to close, so that I might finally recognize myself as I was, here, now, in one place" (377). His discoveries are not close to being finished, yet in this snapshot of his life Obama has captured a fascinating and detailed, yet concise and focused account of the various intertwining experiences of his growth.

Mommy's Nightgowns

It was easy to miss the small sleeping girl amid the piles of soft fabrics and fluff heaped on the slender bed. I needed at least 7 or 8 stuffed animals snuggled up with me every night, and would rotate them so as not to hurt any of their feelings. My old favorite piggy blanket, old and torn, was tucked somewhere among them. Even, sometimes, plastic toys or dolls would be privileged with a spot on my mattress. But no one object of comfort was so important to me as Mommy's Nightgowns. These nightgowns, my mother's best Talbot's shirts, were soft and cool and smelled of love. If the scent began to wear off, I crept into my parents' room to slide another off its hanger and carry it back to bed with me. Curled up against its smooth familiar flowers, it became my mom, and the glow of her reassuring presence chased away lurking shadow-creatures that crept around the periphery.

Dreams from My Father last journal

This memoir is unique because of the nature of the story, but also because of the way it was put together. I believe it is important to read books deliberately, looking for tools the author uses to convey his points, and the reason behind why he included each detail printed in the final copy. In Barack Obama's memoir, he is writing about virtually all of his life up until the point at which he sits, typing, at the keyboard. For a person to write their entire life story in a three-hundred page book is impossible, so the editing process is important. Throughout the book, a reader should consider the title and how it relates to the content. The title is the concise statement of the focus. Effectively, Obama begins by relating stories he heard from his mother and grandparents about his father, a way for the reader to begin to know what he went through in trying to understand who his father was. This direct interpretation of the title Dreams From My Father sets the stage for a book about discovery, of questioning identity. The wording of the title is also important: Obama could have titled it Dreams of My Father had he simply wanted to relate his struggle in learning who his father was from the stories he is told. However, the From sets the reader up to read about how the dreams of Obama's father influenced his son's dreams for himself. This distinction is an important one to make, as the memoir is as complex as this interpretation suggests. 

Obama carefully edited his journey to where he sat writing the book, including images and stories that related directly to his growth and discovery. His father played a large role in the awareness he had of people, of relationships, and of learning. When his half-sister, whom he had never met, called to say she would be visiting him soon, he excitedly prepared weeks in advance for her arrival. Days before she was due to come, she called to say that their half-brother had been killed in an accident and she would not be traveling. Having never met either of these siblings, growing up half a world away from them, Obama describes his new awareness of the complexity of emotion. He is a literal example that the world is not black and white. 

Barack Obama's memoir is especially effective because of the care he took to retain his focus and evocatively illustrate his psychological and educational maturation. I admire his ability to know which details of his life to omit and which to include in order to create a focused, concise, and fascinating memoir.

Dreams from My Father

Obama continues to eloquently recount the awkward steps he took as a young man towards figuring out who he wanted to be, and becoming that person. This book is a journey of identity in which the author uses a specific and effective method to convey the causes of his personal growth. Having been raised for most of his childhood in Hawaii with his grandparents, Obama escapes to California for college yet is primarily concerned with his place in society as a mixed-race conscientious American citizen. He struggles with his sense of identity - portraying himself as a typical lost young man, trying at all costs to find a niche: "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos....We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets....When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints" (101). Using these vivid descriptions of the various stages of his young life, Obama specifically uses examples of people he knew or met to show what shaped the direction of his life. Regina, the quiet eclectic black girl he met at Occidental who was the first person ever to listen to Obamas ideas and values and respect them, without him feeling he had to cover up who he was. She becomes the catalyst for his transformation from a boy hiding from his identity into one who is ready to accept himself as he is and find his own voice: "...after what seemed like a long absence, I had felt my voice returning to me that afternoon with Regina. It remained shaky afterward, subject to distortion. But entering sophomore year I could feel it growing stronger, sturdier, that constant, honest portion of myself, abridge between my future and my past" (105).  Regina comes to represent people who are comfortable and confident in their skin and who invite positive social change in Obama's life. He later refers to a girl he sees on the street as Regina (146). This person is just one example of the many Obama uses as physical milestones along his path to becoming the person he is now. This memoir continues to be fascinating and engaging. 

Christmas in Chile

It was December 25th, 2001. It was hot. My dress clung to me like a damp rag and my hair was heavy and thick against my neck. This year's tree was standing on aspen floors, a bedraggled stick with embarrassed, stubby branches. Underneath, next to the large soft stones propping it up lay about seven or eight messily wrapped packages. Padding quietly into the large open living room, I surveyed the scene. Our excuse of a Christmas tree seemed foreign, as was the gaudy holiday wrapping. Every year since my birth we had celebrated this day - yet every year I had gleefully emerged from my room wrapped in a thick blanket or sweater. I looked down - the short red cotton dress I wore barely covered my bony brown knees. Through the oak-framed window lay groves of deciduous trees and a sparkling lake, laughing in the sunshine. The sun had not yet reached the middle of the clear azure sky, and was beating relentlessly, playfully, against the short yellow beach down the way. A Christmas tree. A beach. Chile. It was twisted, contorted, bungled up,  - 

"It's so backwards, huh?"

Nathan had appeared behind me, voicing my next thought. Forgetting about Christmas, we quickly threw on our swimsuits and ran out to the creaky wooden rowboat in front of the cottage. Haphazardly splashing our way 100 meters down the bay, we arrived at the grainy beach, already soaked and giggling. Immediately we were surrounded by small eager nut-colored kids, begging for a ride in the boat. Rowing circles around the cove, slipping in our seats from the water sloshing over the sides, romping half-naked in the calm cool water with Mom slowly, thoroughly burning her skin as she lazily dozed off on the sand, we spent Christmas morning. It was not Christmas, though. It was a summer July day only pretending to be my favorite winter holiday. Later, I opened a white-and-red teddy bear and ruby earrings. Nick and Nathan got Doritos and squirt guns, all we could find for them in the tiny fishing town. I sat on the steps outside, leaning back against the cedar door and munching the orange from my stocking. The last of the Christmas summer light still beamed faintly onto our tiny tree.

In Montreal

I suppose I should have gotten a hint from the drawings plastering his stand. Some colored and some simple charcoal-on-white-paper, all bore an undeniable likeness. All at least semi-sexualized, most depicted similar-looking women in fishnets and low-cut dresses standing on tiptoes, their seductively pursed lips bursting from the page. I supposed I should have had a different expectation about how he would warp and re-create my brother and me. But I didn't, and Nathan and I sat down across from the soft-faced, cherubic man with thick silver hair and a worn navy blue baseball cap. He didn't say much but seemed to know exactly what he was going to draw even before we were seated. I suppose the fact that he didn't take a good look at our faces and features before he began should have clued me in. But it didn't, and we laughed at the cracks my dad was making in the background, at the ridiculous mental caricatures he was painting for us as the physical one was being swiftly sketched in confident black sweeps. The soft-faced man worked quickly and surely, looking more at the page than at his two posing customers. Whenever he did look up at me I could feel my arms closing tighter around my body, hands stuck self-consciously between my knees. Next to me Nathan basked in the morsels of attention, body loose and shoulders dipped, an easy smile spread across his freckled brown face. His laugh, pouring out of his throat, rippled the dark red shirt draped over his torso. I laughed a little too hard, amused at Dad's jokes, amused at the scene, but really wishing the man would shout "Voila!" and be done with it.

Dreams from My Father Journal 1

Dreams from My Father is written in a lyrical, colorful, yet straightforward manner. Barack Obama could surely be writing frilly or philosophical phrases, but instead writes to the general public using quietly sophisticated, evocative words. His descriptions of people are detailed and often lets other characters paint the picture of each person. He begins with a description of his father based on his mother and grandparents' stories. Their tales present the reader with multiple accounts of Barack Sr.'s behavior. 

" "So the fella took another look, and shook his head again, and that's when your dad picked him clear off the ground and started dangling him over the railing!" Gramps lets out a hoot and gives his knee a jovial slap...

"He wasn't really holding him over the railing, Dad," my mother says, looking at me with concern, but Gramps takes another sip of whiskey and plows forward" (7). 

Instead of presenting his formulated idea of what his dad was like, Obama allows the reader to get to know his father the same way that he did – through stories, the only means available on which to learn about him. 

Obama includes a lot of dialogue (most of which is likely paraphrased). This has the effect of making the memoir read like a novel. This book is not a reflection; rather, an account. It follows the chapter in his life during which Barack was seeking answers to the unanswerable questions brought to light by his father's sudden death: How should his son feel upon hearing the news? Did leaving his son mean that he did not love him? What were his dreams? Who was he?

This story is proving to be a fascinating, detailed, and easily-read depiction of Barack Obama's thoughts and tactful observations on a society overcoming social racial obstacles and his personal growth along the way to discovering his father. 

Hair, Continued

A young impressionable  girl, and desperate to have flat hair, I convinced myself that what I really wanted was a flatiron to torture the stuff into heat-induced submission (although I didn't see it that way at the time). Proudly I went to the drugstore and picked out the cheapest one I could find that still looked like it might work. Excitedly pressing my hair through it for a good twenty minutes, I emerged from the bathroom sporting a semi-straight head of hair.

"Well, my dad said matter-of-factly, "It is pretty flat. But isn't that bad for your hair?"

I didn't care. I took showers in the evenings so it would dry and I could straighten it for the next day of school. It was great.

...Until I gradually started to realize that my miraculous hot stick was not a permanent solution. In the battle, this was merely an armistice, a brief period of peace between me and my hair. The more I slid that scorching stick through my overly lively locks, forcing them to life lat, the more I noticed problems with my newfound "solution". My bangs, once soft and wavy (the waves drove me nuts) were frizzy and dry after being burned by the stick. Looking in the mirror one day, contemplating my hair after a bout of vigorous disciplining, I suddenly realized that my hair was flat. I mean, I knew it was flat but it was flat. Limp. Straight. Droopy. Lifeless. Kind of staticky. Boring.

Boring?

Boring is one thing I've never wished to be. But it was true. Once straight, there was little I ould do with my hair except let it lie, straight, boring, or put it into a ponytail. A straight, perfect, boring little ponytail.

It took a little time, a little acceptance, a little burn-stick-weaning, but I learned to just leave the fibrous protein sprouting from my head alone. It still poofs, still frizzes and dries with weird creases and energetic waves protruding from the mass on my head. I learned how to control it while refraining from furiously pinning it to the back of my head. I learned to live with it, to love it sometimes. Really, I figure, who am I to restrain the vibrant life sitting on top of my head?  To force it to be boring? What a cruel way to rule a head of hair.

Just yesterday I discovered the dusty flatiron hiding in a corner of my room. I threw the damn thing away.

Hair

It's been chopped, grown, snipped, touched, pressed, curled, washed, dried, loved, hated, manipulated, and finally, accepted. I used to have a short bob until I discovered that all of the girls in Mendoza had long, sleek locks. I grew it out, trying to make it long enough to rest over my shoulders in dark brown waves. In fifth or sixth grade my hair, always having been gently wavy but decently straight and controlled, started to turn on me. It fluffed out in uncontrolled puffs with unattractive and maddening persistence. I would carefully smooth it, attempting to flatten the billows I knew would inevitably erupt from my head as it dried. Time and time again, I was forced to tie it up in tight buns or knot it into braids to conceal the relentless frizz. 

This was war.

Onions and Cheese, Then and Now

2000.

I walk to the door and hear Savage Garden faintly through the wood. I knock. Dad opens it, wearing his blue checkered apron, smelling of onions and cheese. The music is loud now, the boom box blaring from the kitchen. I love coming home, to this. The house is small and warm, not half the size of our home in the U.S. but equally comfortable. Our legos in the living room, and Magic Cards scattered on the floor. Beary on my pillow, a keyboard to play, Backstreet Boys and Shakira tapes to listen to, and my family to talk. Every comfort. Except it does feel a little different, because I feel different. It's all the same but different. Everything is. 

2006.

The black cast-iron gate, the chipped white door - these are the same. But walking inside, I find my house's smell is absent. A sweeter, softer, unfamiliar smell greets me. This is not my house. It bears no semblance to my house. Nick's room, once full of light and Coca-Cola cans and stray clothes, has been converted into a storage space, jammed with boxes, shades drawn. My parents room is stale, void of the easy life it once held. Seeing my lively little house so changed makes me sad. Only one person lives here - she doesn't use it like we did. We sit down for a cup of mate in the kitchen to catch up on missed years, and as she spoons tablespoons of sugar into the gourd, the familiar gaudy blue pattern catches my eye. Our old plastic tablecloth, on which our boom box blaring Savage Garden used to sit, on which Dad chopped up countless onions and blocks of cheese, remains quietly in its place. Smiling, I reach for the outstretched gourd, one hand resting on my table.