{"id":67,"date":"2017-05-04T17:08:24","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T17:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-teaching-autoethnography\/chapter\/a-living-contradiction\/"},"modified":"2017-05-04T18:07:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T18:07:58","slug":"a-living-contradiction","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-teaching-autoethnography\/chapter\/a-living-contradiction\/","title":{"raw":"A Living Contradiction","rendered":"A Living Contradiction"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s weird to look at yourself from the exterior while remaining inside. Throughout our lives humans perceive the world from the little man in our heads controlling the show. He gathers all the information within the range of your pupils\u2019 sight, vacuums the scents of circumstance, tastes the flavors of now, translates every vibration flowing into the ear\u2019s canal, and recycles the energy of physical and emotional encounters. There\u2019s a strangeness of sharing this world with the others. The many other protagonists we establish as secondary and impartial to this movie of life. Frame by frame we intersect and cross-pollinate realities affecting the trends of decision. What\u2019s amazing to me are the screens we use to separate the big picture. A mass collection of individual filters, perpetually blurring and masking an original image of collective experience. How weird is this? I\u2019m trying to explain the obvious when really I\u2019ve just made it more obscure. My human being lives a daily flux of contradiction. Yeah, I\u2019d say this is a good place to start.\r\n\r\nIn the midst of fall in 1994, my mother passed away. She was thirty-four years old. Shortly after my younger sister Michelle was born, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Actually, she had been diagnosed during the pregnancy. The doctor had given her the option of starting chemotherapy while it was still early, but such a decision would mean giving up my yet-to-be-born sister. For my mother, this was a no-brainer. A few months later Michelle would be born, but the odds for my mother\u2019s life consequently favored the opposite. Her funeral was held at her place of birth, upbringing, and final farewell, Puerto Rico.\r\n\r\nHer name was Irma Doris Gomez. She grew up in a large family on the countryside of Puerto Rico, Guayama. When she was 22, she came to East New York to visit her sister, Maria, as a graduation present. She had just received her bachelor\u2019s degree in communication at the University of Puerto Rico. Then she met my dad. At the time, my mother hadn\u2019t yet learned English and my dad couldn\u2019t speak a word of Spanish, so naturally it was love at first sight. For months my mom and dad communicated via Maria, until they both had established a common ground of communication. My dad describes her as one of the smartest, most beautiful people he\u2019s ever come across. Needless to say, my mother decided to stay in New York and start a life with him.\r\n\r\nWe moved to Puerto Rico when my mom started her treatment. A paradise it was indeed; I look back and think about how she always just smiled through it all. Early mornings of waking up and running into her room just so we could lie next to her. My memories of her paint an image of soft joy. She loved her munchkin offspring and never once wore a face of discontent when we were around. She was wonderful for that.\r\n\r\nAt age 4, your understanding for the world is fantastic. Everything is the greatest thing ever and all you have to do is look, point, smile, and run to get there. The sun shines for you. The wind runs and laughs with you. After she had gone, it all seemed to look at me with sympathy rather than adventure. I didn\u2019t know what this thing was that I was feeling. It wasn\u2019t sadness. I\u2019d been sad before. Sad is walking into a toy store to find the greatest of the most awesome Marvel superheroes pristinely packaged, ready to start adventures with its potential new owner, only to be told \u201cno, you can\u2019t have it.\u201d Sadness is that passing feeling you experience while watching the evening news of tragic school shootings and an impending tropical storm that\u2019ll surely ruin your three-wee- planned Saturday night out. This thing that was happening to me was different. It was too close to fade away, too real to let go of. I had lost the person who made it all happen for me. The woman who held me close with genuine warmth and wiped my tears with whispers that said, \u201cIt\u2019s okay, I\u2019m here.\u201d\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t remember crying during it at all. I remember the silence. Everyone had left the cemetery after the burial. The sun was teasing dawn and the wind made the leaves dance. There he was, my father standing a few feet away from her gravestone, holding my sister in a trance. I remember the stare he wore, the void he had fallen into. I can\u2019t even begin to imagine how he felt. Such heavy eyes had played many games with life already, had lost more times than won, but wore everything with pride. Today there was no lion of a man, just a shell of hollow echoes. My older brother Steven kicked rocks around him, head down as he slumped his shoulders into his pockets. His cheeks were moist and his eyes drained of tears. Something had changed in us all. A connection had scrambled. White noise replaced the frequency of a mother\u2019s kinetic nurture. I don\u2019t know how long we stood there, but we longed for a sense of admittance to leave her. We didn\u2019t want to go anywhere, do anything, but be there. She was gone and we began missing her forever.\r\n\r\nGrowing up, I still didn\u2019t understand exactly how her death had affected me. We moved back to New York and picked life back up from where we left it. Although Michelle, Steven, and I had been staying in Puerto Rico, my other siblings, Mark, Josh, Christal, and Nadia, were still in the city. They had a different mother than we did, but they welcomed us back with open arms and headlocks.\r\n\r\nIn a house where a moment alone didn\u2019t exist, boredom was a rarity and everyone cared for one another, you\u2019d figure there would be a lot of consolation and openness to talk with someone about how you were feeling. But at that age, I just didn\u2019t know how. From early on as far as I can remember, I\u2019ve always kept to myself. My father taught me that a man should always be headstrong and ready to do anything and everything himself, because it would always fall on just you to decide how your life will unfold. At age seventeen, my dad immigrated from everything he ever knew in his home of Guyana and moved to Canada on his own. His only possessions were will and desire to start a new life in a new world. Hands down, I consider my dad to be the strongest, wisest man I know. And it\u2019s because of this that I always wanted to be just as strong and ambitious as him.\r\n\r\nMy father would be gone most of the day, due to singlehandedly trying to maintain a household of seven children, and left our care to my older sisters. They worked as well, and when they didn\u2019t, they worked at home. So since I was a kid, I developed an early sense of independence. Some days we would be left home entirely to watch over ourselves, and of course on these days we would have the most fun. The outside world instantly became a distraction and foreground to the realm of my inside life. Nothing can ever replace the allure of my childhood shenanigans. I would spend hours on end outside just running around, losing myself in imagination and play. This allowed me to express myself and sedate the emotions that slept at the base of my heart. I had created a duality with the physical, manipulative nature of life, the world I could change and assimilate into, and the intangible, sensual repressions of my mind, the inner feelings and desires I was scared of embracing.\r\n\r\nSuch a relationship between me, myself, and I gave way for insecurities to develop. In order to preserve and keep secret what was happening inside of me, I became all too conscious of my actions and surroundings. I always monitored myself, constantly checking to ensure that I didn\u2019t give away too much information or say anything that might trigger concern in someone. If I was feeling a certain way, I did my best to conceal it. I didn\u2019t want anyone to give me any more attention than I was comfortable with. This is something that has been with me through the entirety of my life. One of my mottos for this thing called living is not to influence and not to be influenced. I think in terms of how I affect other people and catalyze their course of action. People tend to emotionally burden themselves with the dilemmas and personal happenings of another when it isn\u2019t needed or rather consensual, and this causes turbulence for all involved. With this kind of rationale, however, you inadvertently push people away. The more I kept to myself and steered shy of letting other people in, the easier it became for people to look past me and not want to involve themselves. It\u2019s funny because at a young age I didn\u2019t realize I was causing that result. I didn\u2019t realize how much I actually wanted to open myself up to other people. I didn\u2019t and couldn\u2019t relate my personal experience with someone else\u2019s because I didn\u2019t allow it. I made myself a lone stranger with alien feelings when really I was a lonely, embarrassed child seeking the approval to let it all go. It\u2019s taken all that\u2019s happened and everything I\u2019ve dealt with up until now for me to honestly grip the complexity of my person.\r\n\r\nSo let\u2019s attempt to sum up this person I\u2019ve introduced as a living contradiction. I bottle up and cope with lingering emotions inside of myself to not appear weak or bestow stress onto someone else. Through this I\u2019ve developed a demeanor of nonchalance and indifference, in turn coming off cold to those around me. People get a feeling that I\u2019ve got it figured it out somehow for myself and they leave me be. But then I ask myself, why don\u2019t people want to get to know me? If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned, it\u2019s that no one will ever know who you are, until you get to know yourself.\r\n
\r\n

Discussion Questions<\/h3>\r\n
    \r\n \t
  • Why would somebody want to read this piece (the \u201cWho cares?\u201d factor)?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Can you clearly identify the author\u2019s intention for the piece?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • How well does the author support the intention of the piece? Cite specific details that support or take away from the author\u2019s intention.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Is there information missing from this piece that would make its intention clearer? What else would you like to know?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Does the author portray herself as a round character? How does she do this?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Do you trust the author of this piece? Why or why not?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • How clearly does the author establish a sense of setting\/space in this piece? Cite specific details that support your claim.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • How clearly does the author establish characters other than the self in this piece? Cite specific details that support your claim.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Did you learn anything new from reading this piece? If so, what?<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Are there particular passages with engaging language\/description that stood out to you? Describe the appeal of these passages.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Would you read more writing from this author? Why or why not?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"
    \n

    It\u2019s weird to look at yourself from the exterior while remaining inside. Throughout our lives humans perceive the world from the little man in our heads controlling the show. He gathers all the information within the range of your pupils\u2019 sight, vacuums the scents of circumstance, tastes the flavors of now, translates every vibration flowing into the ear\u2019s canal, and recycles the energy of physical and emotional encounters. There\u2019s a strangeness of sharing this world with the others. The many other protagonists we establish as secondary and impartial to this movie of life. Frame by frame we intersect and cross-pollinate realities affecting the trends of decision. What\u2019s amazing to me are the screens we use to separate the big picture. A mass collection of individual filters, perpetually blurring and masking an original image of collective experience. How weird is this? I\u2019m trying to explain the obvious when really I\u2019ve just made it more obscure. My human being lives a daily flux of contradiction. Yeah, I\u2019d say this is a good place to start.<\/p>\n

    In the midst of fall in 1994, my mother passed away. She was thirty-four years old. Shortly after my younger sister Michelle was born, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Actually, she had been diagnosed during the pregnancy. The doctor had given her the option of starting chemotherapy while it was still early, but such a decision would mean giving up my yet-to-be-born sister. For my mother, this was a no-brainer. A few months later Michelle would be born, but the odds for my mother\u2019s life consequently favored the opposite. Her funeral was held at her place of birth, upbringing, and final farewell, Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

    Her name was Irma Doris Gomez. She grew up in a large family on the countryside of Puerto Rico, Guayama. When she was 22, she came to East New York to visit her sister, Maria, as a graduation present. She had just received her bachelor\u2019s degree in communication at the University of Puerto Rico. Then she met my dad. At the time, my mother hadn\u2019t yet learned English and my dad couldn\u2019t speak a word of Spanish, so naturally it was love at first sight. For months my mom and dad communicated via Maria, until they both had established a common ground of communication. My dad describes her as one of the smartest, most beautiful people he\u2019s ever come across. Needless to say, my mother decided to stay in New York and start a life with him.<\/p>\n

    We moved to Puerto Rico when my mom started her treatment. A paradise it was indeed; I look back and think about how she always just smiled through it all. Early mornings of waking up and running into her room just so we could lie next to her. My memories of her paint an image of soft joy. She loved her munchkin offspring and never once wore a face of discontent when we were around. She was wonderful for that.<\/p>\n

    At age 4, your understanding for the world is fantastic. Everything is the greatest thing ever and all you have to do is look, point, smile, and run to get there. The sun shines for you. The wind runs and laughs with you. After she had gone, it all seemed to look at me with sympathy rather than adventure. I didn\u2019t know what this thing was that I was feeling. It wasn\u2019t sadness. I\u2019d been sad before. Sad is walking into a toy store to find the greatest of the most awesome Marvel superheroes pristinely packaged, ready to start adventures with its potential new owner, only to be told \u201cno, you can\u2019t have it.\u201d Sadness is that passing feeling you experience while watching the evening news of tragic school shootings and an impending tropical storm that\u2019ll surely ruin your three-wee- planned Saturday night out. This thing that was happening to me was different. It was too close to fade away, too real to let go of. I had lost the person who made it all happen for me. The woman who held me close with genuine warmth and wiped my tears with whispers that said, \u201cIt\u2019s okay, I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n

    I don\u2019t remember crying during it at all. I remember the silence. Everyone had left the cemetery after the burial. The sun was teasing dawn and the wind made the leaves dance. There he was, my father standing a few feet away from her gravestone, holding my sister in a trance. I remember the stare he wore, the void he had fallen into. I can\u2019t even begin to imagine how he felt. Such heavy eyes had played many games with life already, had lost more times than won, but wore everything with pride. Today there was no lion of a man, just a shell of hollow echoes. My older brother Steven kicked rocks around him, head down as he slumped his shoulders into his pockets. His cheeks were moist and his eyes drained of tears. Something had changed in us all. A connection had scrambled. White noise replaced the frequency of a mother\u2019s kinetic nurture. I don\u2019t know how long we stood there, but we longed for a sense of admittance to leave her. We didn\u2019t want to go anywhere, do anything, but be there. She was gone and we began missing her forever.<\/p>\n

    Growing up, I still didn\u2019t understand exactly how her death had affected me. We moved back to New York and picked life back up from where we left it. Although Michelle, Steven, and I had been staying in Puerto Rico, my other siblings, Mark, Josh, Christal, and Nadia, were still in the city. They had a different mother than we did, but they welcomed us back with open arms and headlocks.<\/p>\n

    In a house where a moment alone didn\u2019t exist, boredom was a rarity and everyone cared for one another, you\u2019d figure there would be a lot of consolation and openness to talk with someone about how you were feeling. But at that age, I just didn\u2019t know how. From early on as far as I can remember, I\u2019ve always kept to myself. My father taught me that a man should always be headstrong and ready to do anything and everything himself, because it would always fall on just you to decide how your life will unfold. At age seventeen, my dad immigrated from everything he ever knew in his home of Guyana and moved to Canada on his own. His only possessions were will and desire to start a new life in a new world. Hands down, I consider my dad to be the strongest, wisest man I know. And it\u2019s because of this that I always wanted to be just as strong and ambitious as him.<\/p>\n

    My father would be gone most of the day, due to singlehandedly trying to maintain a household of seven children, and left our care to my older sisters. They worked as well, and when they didn\u2019t, they worked at home. So since I was a kid, I developed an early sense of independence. Some days we would be left home entirely to watch over ourselves, and of course on these days we would have the most fun. The outside world instantly became a distraction and foreground to the realm of my inside life. Nothing can ever replace the allure of my childhood shenanigans. I would spend hours on end outside just running around, losing myself in imagination and play. This allowed me to express myself and sedate the emotions that slept at the base of my heart. I had created a duality with the physical, manipulative nature of life, the world I could change and assimilate into, and the intangible, sensual repressions of my mind, the inner feelings and desires I was scared of embracing.<\/p>\n

    Such a relationship between me, myself, and I gave way for insecurities to develop. In order to preserve and keep secret what was happening inside of me, I became all too conscious of my actions and surroundings. I always monitored myself, constantly checking to ensure that I didn\u2019t give away too much information or say anything that might trigger concern in someone. If I was feeling a certain way, I did my best to conceal it. I didn\u2019t want anyone to give me any more attention than I was comfortable with. This is something that has been with me through the entirety of my life. One of my mottos for this thing called living is not to influence and not to be influenced. I think in terms of how I affect other people and catalyze their course of action. People tend to emotionally burden themselves with the dilemmas and personal happenings of another when it isn\u2019t needed or rather consensual, and this causes turbulence for all involved. With this kind of rationale, however, you inadvertently push people away. The more I kept to myself and steered shy of letting other people in, the easier it became for people to look past me and not want to involve themselves. It\u2019s funny because at a young age I didn\u2019t realize I was causing that result. I didn\u2019t realize how much I actually wanted to open myself up to other people. I didn\u2019t and couldn\u2019t relate my personal experience with someone else\u2019s because I didn\u2019t allow it. I made myself a lone stranger with alien feelings when really I was a lonely, embarrassed child seeking the approval to let it all go. It\u2019s taken all that\u2019s happened and everything I\u2019ve dealt with up until now for me to honestly grip the complexity of my person.<\/p>\n

    So let\u2019s attempt to sum up this person I\u2019ve introduced as a living contradiction. I bottle up and cope with lingering emotions inside of myself to not appear weak or bestow stress onto someone else. Through this I\u2019ve developed a demeanor of nonchalance and indifference, in turn coming off cold to those around me. People get a feeling that I\u2019ve got it figured it out somehow for myself and they leave me be. But then I ask myself, why don\u2019t people want to get to know me? If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve learned, it\u2019s that no one will ever know who you are, until you get to know yourself.<\/p>\n

    \n

    Discussion Questions<\/h3>\n