For the Sleepwalkers

Can’t we all be like the sleepwalkers…the ones who get out of the comfort of their beds and have so much faith in themselves? I want to be like that. I want to be able to face the unknown and accept it, embrace it even. There is one hurdle in life that I can’t jump over, and it is my own mind. I can’t get out of it, and I have almost no faith that it will lead me in the right direction, because I do not know in which direction I am traveling. Somehow I have to realize that’s okay. We’re not supposed to know everything before it happens. Maybe I should stop worrying about what my brain is telling me and listen to what my intuition tells me. That has almost never failed me… but we can’t shut our brains off. It doesn’t work that way. So I have to trust, like the sleepwalkers. They welcome the darkness; they live in it for a while and wake up just as they were before. They have no fear, and if they do it certainly does not stop them from doing anything. Maybe, just maybe if I let my heart go and keep my head from stopping it, I’ll be okay. Faith, that’s all it takes. But faith is a thing that haunts me because it’s a dangerous thing to rely on. I have to get over that. I have to trust myself. I have to let myself go a little further than I thought I could. Therein lies the solution.

Those Winter Sundays

Those winter Sundays

Robert Hayden
(1913 – 1980)

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the coal splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know
Of love’s austere and lonely offices?


This poem makes me think of my dad. He does so much for everyone and yet, no one ever thanks him. I am terrible at it, because he’s been there my whole life and I haven’t known much time without him. I do know that without him, I would be completely lost. The first stanza especially rings true to me.

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him

It doesn’t matter what time of day, or night. Dad is always there, doing the things no one expects him to do, all of the time. And I feel bad. Terrible, in fact… because he deserves so much better than anyone gives him. My dad is one of those people that you meet and don’t forget about. He can talk for hours on end and, surprisingly, all of it is interesting. I don’t just say this because I am his daughter- this is true fact. Ask anyone who has had a conversation with him. It just keeeeeeps on going. But besides being the most hilarious man I know, he is the best father I could ever ask for. There isn’t one thing he wouldn’t do for me or my sisters, or my mom. So this is why he deserves more thanks than a person could ever give him.

Now, I am sad.

Okay so this is a little more devastating than I anticipated. Robert and Edna finally meet again and express their love for each other, but this is actually kind of tragic. I feel like I wish Edna would have talked to Doctor Mandelet because I think he could have helped her. If only she had someone to talk to, maybe she could have fought through it. I didn't think I would have much sympathy for Edna in the end, because in more then one sense, she brings about her own destruction. However, there is a part of me that feels terribly for her because I really do think she could have made it. I suppose though, that she didn't want to.

Here we go again....

Ohhh man. So first, Edna's dinner party doesn't go as she thought it would. Only ten people show up and the whole thing falls apart when Victor starts singing the song that Robert always sung to Edna. She gets upset, and the party disintegrates. She goes home, and of course, Arobin follows her. Now things get interesting. She actually has an affair. I don't know where this is headed, because we don't find out until later, I assume. Edna is becoming more and more imprisoned with her effort to break away from society. As she pulls farther away, she loses more of who she really is. Unfortunately, she is under the illusion that she is actually breaking free. This is not going to end well.. and no I haven't read ahead.

Ohhh Edna...

So I was beginning to dislike this book but maybe my mind is changing. I like the whole "awakening" concept going on. Granted, that is the title of the book, so I should have probably anticipated it, but I like the direction the book is beginning to take. Edna is starting to discover who she is in the absence of Robert. In the last few chapters, she is moving towards an awakening, and is Robert who triggers it. When he leaves, she turns back to her painting to comfort her. She begins to realize that she hasn't been living for herself at all, but for something she does not believe in. Is this right or wrong? I don't think anyone can ever know, because this is the debate everyone has about the novel.