The Dash by Linda Ellis

The Dash
by Linda Ellis copyright 1996

​I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth
and spoke the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that they spent alive on earth.
And now only those who loved them
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real
and always try to understand
​the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before. 

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

​So, when your eulogy is being read,
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent YOUR dash?

Last week many of us lost a dear friend, Katlyn Marie. I hadn't had much contact with Katlyn in the past few months, but she made a huge impact on me during my freshman year. Outside of the people from my middle school, Katlyn was one of the first people that I met at AACT. One of my friends who chose to attend a different high school told me that she had a friend who would also be going to AACT, and that I should find her. Katlyn and I met on the tour around school on the first day and later realized that she was the person my friend was talking about. We quickly became friends. 

Katlyn made such a difference for me in the beginning of that year. I had just left some not-so-great friends, and was really nervous about making new ones. Katlyn made all of that anxiety go away instantly. She would text me first thing on the morning every day, asking where we should meet up when we both got to school. We talked and laughed at lunch. She showed me all of the drawings she had done the night before and I ranted about the books I was reading.

It was such a blessing to have known you, Katlyn Marie. Thank you for always being so kind, gentle, and appropriately sarcastic and jokey. Even though it was all too short, you lived your dash well. 

Dead Week

One more week. Just one more week. This is the week of hell if there ever was one. We The People is on Saturday. The hopes I have for my team are so low. We're so screwed. There's no way that we can beat the other schools in our district competition. So, that's disheartening. Then, finals are next week. I'm not too worried about that. They should be pretty easy. Next week should be even better than this week, to be honest. I can invoke my finals tradition of studying until 8:30 and then relaxing for the rest of the evening. I have a whole week to make it through before that, though. Homework and finishing plays and answering long objective questions is not something I look forward to (not to mention Christmas shopping...).

I honestly just can't wait until We The People is over. I feel like my team is solid, two of our testimonies are really good. We have what we need to be able to rock this competition. The other groups on my team are another matter. Some of them have their stuff together, just like my group. Some of them do not. I honestly cannot see us knocking out one of the top three other schools and making it to the state competition. Those schools have established teachers, established programs, and they have something that works. They have a pretty long history of making it to nationals. I just don't see us making it. Not with where we're at.

I'm trying to be positive for this last week. If I just give in to this week being awful, I could certainly make it worse than it might be.

"It's Christmas! Let's be glad! Even if your life's been bad, there are presents to be had!"

It's Christmas 1st!

In an attempt to get out of the November funk, I've been making myself listen to Christmas music. Christmas music always helps me to get into the mood of the season. This year I have expanded my horizons past my families normal Christmas music to something that's more to my liking. My first recommendation to you all is Relient K's holiday album "Let It Snow, Let it Raindeer" (have I mentioned that I love puns?). It features typical songs such as "The 12 days of Christmas", "Sleigh Ride" and what not, but it also has quite a few of their own songs. One of my favorites is "I Hate Christmas Parties" The next album that I would like to mention is "Songs for Christmas" by Sufjan Stevens. This also offers classic Christmas songs, but a few of his own. I really enjoy this album because he takes a very folksy approach to all of these songs. I am especially identifying with his song "It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad!". He also has another album that weeves in and out of holiday favorites, too absurd songs like "Mr. Frost" and "Christmas Unicorn". I highly recommend that you guys give those a look.

Thoughts on Ferguson

I do not want to talk about the Michael Brown case in this post. I feel as if I do not have nearly enough information to be able to discuss it at all, outside of the racial injustice piece. Even then it might be best for me not to speak on it, as I am white. However, I do want to talk about the protests going on because of it.

Thinking about this whole thing brings me such immense pain. I hate the idea of how much people of color are hurting right now. It pains me to realize that we are still living in a world of racism. But I think this issue brings such an important reminder that this is still going on. As a white individuals, we do not have to even think about racial injustice. It doesn't happen to us. But that is absolutely no excuse to pretend that it doesn't exist. This issue is still very much alive. As unbelievable as it sounds, the KKK are still active. African Americans are arrested at six times the rate that whites are. We are among China, Brazil, and Mexico who are fighting against corrupt governments. America is held up to be one of the greatest nations in the world. Can you really still say that?

Is he really crazy?

It was very strange to me to be confronted with Hamlet's madness this week. Inside the text, I feel that Hamlet's words and actions are entirely justified. While many of them are not right, they are at least justified. All of his witty comebacks seem to be simply coming from a very intelligent mind that resents having to associate with lower beings. Perhaps even the real hurt and betrayal he feels towards his uncle and mother. But Hamlet's actions towards Ophelia right before the play, are ones that I simply cannot account for outside of madness. They are unfounded and the exact opposite of what he has told her in every other encounter they have had. I cannot make sense of it.

However this madness is suggested in every enactment of the play I have seen. It is startling to see the interpretation that this man is truly mad throughout. When we watched the film version with David Tennant, it was the first real enactment I had seen. While he performed it incredibly well in my opinion, it was just jarring for me. I'm not sure how to proceed with this revelation, especially as he seems to be slipping more into madness by the scene. We shall just have to see.

Family.

It is becoming more and more apparent to me that I have a very unique relationship with my family. As we trudge on through november, it seems that even parents have been on edge. It might just be in response to frustrated students, but I'm inclined to believe otherwise. I've been the quiet listener to quite a few rants regarding parents this week. I heard about numerous silly arguments that have boiled down to "I'm your parent, I get to decide. That's final."

I feel very blessed that I have a relationship with my parents (well at least my mother) that they are willing to sit down and have a reasonable discussion with me. It seems that other people don't have this relationship with their parents. It feels as though many teens don't have a mutual respect established with their parent. It is just very odd to me that the stereotypical teenager/parent relationship is very much a real thing, and that it is actually very prevalent. Just some food for thought this week.

A Play Within a Play? How Meta!

I would like to take a moment this week and talk about the play within a play contained in Hamlet. I think that Shakespeare employed a great plot device. It was tremendously clever, and I've seen it used so many other places. It's nice to know where all of these things come from. Especially the "The lady doth protest to much me thinks". That was also great. I would also like to take a moment to trumpet Adventure Time for having so many literature parallels. They employ a wonderful reference in the episode "Ignition Point".

In this episode, Finn and Jake venture off to the Flame Kingdom in order to retrieve Flame Princess' scented candles. While they are there, they get mixed up in in a plot to kill Flame King. They decide to take over the night's play and go on stage pretending to be the king's assassins. They watch the audience to try and discover who the real assassins are. However, before they manage to find them, the King has them captured. Finn and Jake then tell him that they overheard the assassins and their plot. It is then revealed that the guards holding the boys are the actual assassins,
and they are the King's nephews. They swear revenge on the Flame King for killing their father and taking the thrown.

It has been so enjoyable to find all of these older literature ideas represented in contemporary entertainment. It really solidifies the idea that it's hard to come up with new ideas nowadays. This frustrates me, but it also encourages me in that as long as you can spin something a new way creatively enough, that it doesn't really seem to matter that you're using and old idea.