The task of this assignment is to write an essay, using the theory primarily based upon what we learned from Mark David Gerson’s work, ‘The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.’ The point of writing the memoir, based upon what was learned, instructs the person to be free and openly honest. In other words, you open yourself up to be vulnerable. Gerson said “Hold nothing back. Allow yourself to be astonished,” and “Truly the story knows best” (p. 253).
The essay begins on the following page.
Essay
No panic marched through my veins, and I laughed when Roderick Maurice – my baby’s father – asked me if I wanted to take the pink, fluffy rabbit-faced house slippers along. “Blood,” I thought, “would it hurt much?” A week and exactly eight days later an algebra exam waited. So I had to get an ‘A’ you know, and be good for the both of us. Rosita Charleswood and I had driven past Mount Sinai at least a dozen times last week, and fifty times last June when school let out for summer. But my son would be born at Bronx Lebanon Hospital. Anyway, all hospitals seemed like a giant matrix of mystery. Surely the mysteries of death and births filled their corridors. I liked driving past the huge brick building that was Mount Sinai – a lovely park, echoing children’s play under the canopy of green trees. Its sky-blue and white awning staring at me, challenging my purpose and womanhood, as we drove by. It was a portal, an official entrance to the life bubbling over inside my heart and mind. Tears came now, and I imagined two tiny fists testing the strength of their teeny-budding muscles. “Let me out!” A portal promising a journey, this piece-of-sky-blue scallops in front of the hospital dared me to enter. One brown-cheeked smiling nurse patted my hand, “Now don’t you worry, honey. Everything is going to be alright, you will see,” but the warm bubbles of my joyous emotions drowned all sense of worry.
People say all the time that they only want the baby to be healthy. Ten toes, and ten fingers, and ten itty-bitty blushing nails like pretty carnations. I like carnation flowers and the way they smell, too. Suddenly I missed them. The lazy days when I could roller-blade through Central Park, uncontrollably yelling with glee as we dodged the suits. Gone. My selfish days disappeared like a bad dream, and thank God, they were behind me now. A little family. We learned about that in Sociology. The teacher said a little family marked the smallest unit of society, and he called it a microcosm. Well, all I knew now was a mini-universe churned inside me, full of life and everything important.
Suddenly I knew, and felt that my place in the universe was ripe. Pushing with all my might during the last hours, was painful, because the doctors had decided on no epidural. Bright heavenly lights, clean flashes from the ceiling and a slight antiseptic odor filled my sweaty nostrils. My man grabbed my hand, squeezing so tightly I feared my palm would be crushed. “Look at me, and do a special cheer,” I shouted in my mind to the girls-varsity at my school. I was free. My love had built a life and place for us in this world, our love. No turning back now baby, not ever. Finally the epiphany hit my brain, flooding my inner spiritual-eye. Here we were in New York City, New York City – and wisdom whispered in my ear. As I delivered my son in the bed, I realized something. Living on this earth means nothing without family. Valet parking as a symbol of success was a lie.
References
Gerson, M.D. (2008). The voice of the muse: Answering the call to write. Santa Fe, NM:
LightLines Media.
