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Le WeekendOnce upon a time, I slept. If that doesn't sound like a fairy tale, I don't know what does. Too many of my friends and acquaintances don't get much shut-eye. We don't just work; we hustle. Chasing a dream is a full-time job. Add a real full-time job on top of that full-time dream-chasing and it's no wonder the creative millennial feels ragged. I promise this isn't another obnoxious millennial trend piece, though. This is just a bunch of words I've strung together on a Saturday afternoon. This is me rambling at the keyboard. This is me promising to relax because it is the weekend and I need a fresh start come Monday. One of my friends recently left grad school to become a writer. As she trained to become a nurse, she listened to patients' stories everyday, but felt like she had no outlet for everything she heard and witnessed. When I told a mutual acquaintance about my friend's choice, she called the move “brave.” Plenty of people, regardless of age or socio-economic status, live according to what they think others want for them.
I recently left a full-time writing job to give myself time to write what I really want to write and spend a little more time making films. But before I can start making anything of worth, I need to recuperate. I've spent the past couple of days moving like a snail in an old cartoon: slower than slow. Apart from meeting a few clients, I read The Help, which, for the unfamiliar, is about a young, white woman in Mississippi who's working on a book of firsthand accounts of what it's like to be a black maid in the Jim Crow South. She and the maids she interviews are terrified because of the risk they face. All names must be changed and the author must simply be credited as 'anonymous.' With family drama and a looming deadline, Miss Skeeter abandons any chance at a normal social life in Jackson and delves into her project. One of the many aspects of The Help that touched me was the repeating theme of sacrifice. The maids sacrificed their happiness and comfort working for families that often disrespected or even endangered them. The maids once again sacrificed their safety in helping this white woman write her book. They sacrificed that safety for the sake of telling their stories. Though her sacrifice is a mere fraction of the size, my friend has sacrificed, too. My friend sacrificed the certainty of a good-paying job for her art. More than one person disapproves of her choice, yet this is the choice she has made and, I would argue, must make. Now I run the risk of writing things a little less slick and a little less pleasant than I did before. But I say, rile 'em up. Before the riling comes pizza and wedding magazines. Thank goodness it's Saturday. #TheHelp #JimCrow #Segregation #Racism #SelfSacrifice CommentsComments are closed.
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