Kelly Cullen
Final
For the final writing project, I decided to write about Lake Ariel and how important it is in my life. For writing this assignment, I chose Kaysen as my writing mentor. I also chose Rankine as well but specifically Kaysen. I chose Kaysen because i wanted to talk about specific moments in my experiences at Lake Ariel. Throughout Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, we experience her life journey of transformation and identity. I show in my assignment how the lake serves as a place where i have transformed and come to identify myself. I am who i am because of the lake. Next, i used the 5 r’s to help me write my autobiography. For example, i used immersion or real life the most. Everything i write about derives from personal experience. I also used reflection during this paper. Clearly i am reflecting about my life experiences at the lake. Lastly, i think that after writing this assignment, i think my sense of importance of this place is achieved. I think i emphasize the importance of it, almost in ways leaving the reader wanting to know more, or even wanting to go there. I think it is easy for the reader to understand how important my family is to me as well as my lake house.
Kelly Cullen
Non-Fiction
Professor Meehan
April 27, 2012
Topic: Family/ Lake Ariel
With Bruce Springsteen blaring on the radio, a big smile on our face, and an indescribable feeling in our stomach, my father and I turn down a dark back road on my way to my favorite place in the world, my lake house. Every summer, my entire family gathers at our summer cottages, in Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania. There are no words to describe the lake. It is said we become attached to special places, but this place is more than special, this place is sacred.
In order to understand the lake to its full extent, you need to first know about the Cullen family. Family is an interesting thing. Every family is different. Some are close, some are friendly, and some are not close at all. My family doesn’t fall into a category, we are one of a kind, and we are rare. Consisting of one grandparent, twenty-two aunts and uncles, and over forty-first cousins, we are often considered the Irish Catholic mob of the Washington D.C. area, but I prefer family or best friends. We truly are all best friends. The relationships we have with one another are all unique ones. Our bond comes in all forms. We opened an office building in downtown Bethesda, named the Cullen building, where not only myself, but where six of my uncles, my father, my two siblings, as well as my other cousin all work. Along with that, at my high school, there are six Cullen’s and at my grade school there are currently ten Cullen’s. We are a pack; everything we do, we do together. We have a sense of family that is hard for other people to comprehend. I’ll never forget when one of my close friends said she didn’t have a relationship with her cousins, and asked whether she should hug them when they came to town for the holidays. When I heard that, I was blown away. I couldn’t imagine not hugging my cousins, or speaking to them everyday. But not every family has a Lake Ariel, and that is what makes us different, that is what makes us the Cullen’s.
It has been in our family for more years than I can even remember. My grandmother Mary Jane grew up in the house with her family. When her parents passed away, she was given the house and that is when the adventure began.
My grandparents met as teenagers in large, beautiful houses separated by a long brick road leading to Adirondack chairs overlooking a calm and populated lake. Their love blossomed, their children multiplied, and eleven kids, forty some grandkids, and 2 great grandkids later, we still return every summer to honor the place where we all started. My grandmother resides in her house with her kids on one side and my late grandfather’s family on the other side of the brick road that has long converted from an actual road and marker of the separation of the past, to a reminder of the unity of the present.
It is a house full of generations and the memories are endless. Every waking moment spent there is a memory to cherish, but there are there are specific moments that really show who my family is and the specialness and rareness of Lake Ariel. Every year Memorial Day weekend, we all close up our D.C. houses, pack up our cars and drive the four hours to open the lake houses for the summer. Our family calls it ‘opening weekend’. The most loved but hated weekend at the same time.
Opening weekend is just how it sounds. After a long and typically brutal winter, our houses are time to be open. It consists of hours of cleaning the houses inside and out, bringing out of the porch and dock furniture, mowing the lawns, re-painting, and simply just putting the place back to how we left it. You would think this would be easy to accomplish with how many people we have, but it takes us almost an entire day. The uncles split us into groups, and everyone is given a task. As dreadful as this sounds, it is amazing at the same time. It’s this feeling that we are finally home; finally back to the place that makes us happiest. With music blaring from the boathouse while cleaning and opening the houses, we are starting another summer, another adventure at Lake Ariel. That Friday, people arrive from Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and more, and the staggered arrivals continue the anticipation and excitement of who might roll down that brick driveway next. We greet each other as though no time has passed through the fall, winter, and spring and grab a baby, kiss an aunt, and sit down on the dock to take in some sun and talk about the last summer. We all are finally back to the compound. The fist night back every year is indescribable. The excitement just to be back is enough, but my uncles love to make it more than that. With a huge barbecue/ party, the night is full of story telling, catching up, dancing, drinking, and simply just enjoying being back.
We have dinner at long picnic tables, the adults hover as kids age 2-32 sit next to each other–everyone enjoying the massive meal my grandmother has prepared for a casual 85 people. Cocktail Motown music hour begins for the adults, and the kids vacate to the boathouse to listen to our music and enjoy each other’s company. Eventually the adults will rejoin us, and ignite a large Irish Catholic dance party as pre-prepared iPod playlists boom from the massive speakers we have had since the early 80s. Uncles jump into the middle or jump into conversation with their nieces and nephews, moms dance with sons, the older girls dance with the younger ones that look up to them, and Bruce Springsteen rings out over the lake into the summer night. It’s late when an unexpected favorite Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” is chosen as the next song and before we know it its 4am. We saunter off to bed in the same staggered manner that we arrived, and wake again the next day to do it all over again.
July 4th, besides opening weekend, is what makes the lake so extraordinary. It is the weekend at our lake houses where all families without a doubt are in attendance. The houses bustle with activity. It’s so crowded in our 100-year-old houses that some are sleeping 3 to a bed, but no one minds. There is one 4th of July memory that stands out to me. It was the summer of 2010. It was the last 4th of July spent with my cousin Caitlin. The atmosphere on this day was absolutely perfect. The yard full of children running around in bathing suits, Frisbee being playing from dock to dock, the docks packed and the water full of screaming kids. The teens, the 7 of us girls were all laying on the floating dock sun bathing. I was laying next to Caitlin. Soaking up the sun, talking about the boy cousins, Caitlin sat up and quieted us for a second. I can still hear her saying it today. “Guys, we are so lucky”. Changing the comical mood to a serious mood, Caitlin expressed how much she loved life. I remember us all just laughing at her for getting so personal and emotional. “But seriously guys, how did we get so lucky. I cannot image what life would be like without the lake.” Taking what she said to heart, we all became quiet. It was a pivotal moment in our lives; we finally realized how special this place was. Our relationships revolve around this place. Our relationships have been built here and continue to grow here.
Thinking back to that moment right now, I really wish I could go back to that day and remember every little thing about it. I never realized the importance of little moments, such as the seven us just sunbathing on the floating dock till this past year when Caitlin was killed in a drunk driving accident. Losing her was one of the hardest things I have ever dealt with, but the lake helps me cope with her death. That is the thing about the lake; it is unique in all aspects.
We do it all again, weekend after weekend throughout the summer, year after year, growing closer to our cousins and our father’s siblings, understanding how important it is to preserve what our grandparents created as teenagers, what has made us who we are, and what will make our children who they are. Caitlin’s memory will forever live on every summer at Lake Ariel.
Kelly Cullen
Non-Fiction
Professor Meehan
April 27, 2012
Topic: Family/ Lake Ariel
With Bruce Springsteen blaring on the radio, a big smile on our face, and an indescribable feeling in our stomach, my father and I turn down a dark back road on my way to my most favorite place in the world, my lake house. Every summer, my entire family gathers at our summer cottages, in Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania. There are no words to describe the lake. It is said we become attached to special places, but this place is more than special, this place is sacred.
In order to understand the lake to its full extent, you need to know about the Cullen family first. Family is an interesting thing. Every family is different. Some are close, some are friendly, and some aren’t close at all. My family doesn’t fall into a category, we are one of a kind, and we are rare. Consisting of one grandparent, twenty-two aunts and uncles, and over forty-first cousins, we are often considered the Irish Catholic mob of the Washington D.C. area, but I prefer family or best friends. We truly are all best friends. The relationships we have with one another are all unique ones. Our bond comes in all forms. We opened an office building in downtown Bethesda, named the Cullen building, where not only myself, but where six of my uncles, my father, my two siblings, as well as my other cousin all work. Along with that, at my high school, there are six Cullen’s and at my grade school there are currently ten Cullen’s. We are a pack. Everything we do, we do together. We have a sense of family that is hard for other people to comprehend. I’ll never forget when one of my close friends said she didn’t have a relationship with her cousins, and asked whether she should hug them when they came to town for the holidays. When I heard that, I was blown away. I couldn’t imagine not hugging my cousins, or speaking to them everyday. But not every family has a Lake Ariel, and that is what makes us different, that is what makes us the Cullen’s.
It has been in our family for more years than I can even remember. My grandmother Mary Jane grew up in the house with her family. When her parents passed away, she was given the house and that is when the adventure began.
The lake house, a large, old, green and white house with a beautiful wrap around porch, overlooking the lake, shares driveways with another family, the Cullen’s. My grandmother soon became smitten with one of the Cullen boys, Thomas. Their story is truly a love story. To put it simple, they met, fell in love, and eloped. The two houses separated by a driveway became one family. My grandparents and my great-uncle took it over and started the tradition of Lake Ariel summers. The two houses once separated by a driveway now became one family, nicknaming it the Cullen compound.
My grandparents had eleven children, all you were raised at the lake. Now, continuing on the tradition, my grandmother, the eleven children and their families, including mine, along with all our extended family, reside at the lake every summer.
It is a house full of generations and the memories are endless. Every waking moment spent there is a memory to cherish, but there are there are specific moments that really show who my family is and the specialness and rareness of Lake Ariel. Every year Memorial Day weekend, we all close up our D.C. houses, pack up our cars and drive the four hours to open the lake houses for the summer. Our family calls it ‘opening weekend’. The most loved but hated weekend at the same time.
Opening weekend is just how it sounds. After a long and typically brutal winter, our houses are time to be open. It consists of hours of cleaning the houses inside and out, bringing out of the porch and dock furniture, mowing the lawns, re-painting, and simply just putting the place back to how we left it. You would think this would be easy to accomplish with how many people we have, but it takes us almost an entire day. The uncles split us into groups, and everyone is given a task. As dreadful as this sounds, it is amazing at the same time. It’s this feeling that we are finally home; finally back to the place that makes us happiest. With music blaring from the boathouse while cleaning and opening the houses, we are starting another summer, another adventure at Lake Ariel.
Opening weekend isn’t only about cleaning, there is so much more to it. It is the fist time every one is reunited, the Cullen’s from D.C., the Cullen’s from Scranton, and the 2nd and 3rd cousins from Philadelphia and Boston. We all are finally back to the compound. The fist night back every year is indescribable. The excitement just to be back is enough, but my uncles love to make it more than that. With a huge barbecue/ party, the night is full of story telling, catching up, dancing, drinking, and simply just enjoying being back.
Kelly Cullen
Non-Fiction
Professor Meehan
April 27, 2012
Topic: Family/ Lake Ariel
With Bruce Springsteen blaring on the radio, a big smile on our face, and an indescribable feeling in our stomach, my father and I turn down a dark back road on my way to my most favorite place in the world, my lake house. Every summer, my entire family gathers at our summer cottages, in Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania. There are no words to describe the lake. It is said we become attached to special places, but this place is more than special, this place is sacred.
In order to understand the lake to its full extent, you need to know about the Cullen family first. Family is an interesting thing. Every family is different. Some are close, some are friendly, and some aren’t close at all. My family doesn’t fall into a category, we are one of a kind, and we are rare. Consisting of one grandparent, twenty-two aunts and uncles, and over forty-first cousins, we are often considered the Irish Catholic mob of the Washington D.C. area, but I prefer family or best friends. We truly are all best friends. The relationships we have with one another are all unique ones. Our bond comes in all forms. We opened an office building in downtown Bethesda, named the Cullen building, where not only myself, but where six of my uncles, my father, my two siblings, as well as my other cousin all work. Along with that, at my high school, there are six Cullen’s and at my grade school there are currently ten Cullen’s. We are a pack. Everything we do, we do together. We have a sense of family that is hard for other people to comprehend. I’ll never forget when one of my close friends said she didn’t have a relationship with her cousins, and asked whether she should hug them when they came to town for the holidays. When I heard that, I was blown away. I couldn’t imagine not hugging my cousins, or speaking to them everyday. But not every family has a Lake Ariel, and that is what makes us different, that is makes us the Cullen’s.
Fitting the norms of society is believed to be important. If you don’t fit the norms, something is wrong with you. This brings you in ways to the American Dream. You have to be a certain way, act a certain way, to achieve the American Dream. The American dream sometimes is more damaging than helpful. People in society try so hard to achieve it, they end up hurting themselves in ways.
In Susanna Kaysen’s autobiography Girl, Interrupted, you see her struggle with society’s norms. Not necessarily in achieving the American dream, but she struggles in whether she is actually sick or just not conforming to society’s norms. She expresses in the novel that there is such a hard fuzzy distinction between what is normal and what is not normal. She doesn’t know what she is, if she is following society’s norms or is “crazy”. She struggles with why conforming to the norms is such an issue. If you don’t conform, you instantly have a problem? She shows that the American dream in ways is more of a damaging concept; we all think we need to fit the mold, we need to conform, when in reality, it is more important to be yourself.
Kelly Cullen
Non-Fiction
Professor Meehan
April 9, 2012
The strong and powerful influence Multimedia has on autobiographies.
The Media is very much apart of our society today. Its presence in our society today is overwhelming. It is very influential on individuals and how individuals perceive things. Its influential aspect can be either positive or negative. In the two works, The Names by Momaday and Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, we see truly how important multimedia is and how using the multimedia approach really helps to understand the purpose of the autobiography.
In the autobiography, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Rankine’s life stories and events are being mediated through the use of the multimedia approach. One of the main messages throughout Rankine’s novel is life, and how life will always be accompanied with adversities. We go through life with up’s and downs, inconsistencies, and learning that nothing is guaranteed but that is what life is. Rankine portrays this message through her use of multimedia. For example, throughout the novel, Rankine consistently uses the image of a television to portray this image of life. It isn’t just an image of a television; it is an image of a television displaying a screen of static. Looking into the meaning behind the static, in ways this is Rankine’s way of showing the difficulties we face throughout life. Television isn’t supposed to have static, but it happens. Just like in life, we don’t want certain things to unfold, but it happens. When she writes, “There was a time I could say no one I knew well had died”. This is a prime example of how unpredictable life is. Using her life as an example, Rankine had no plans for her mother to not come with the baby. Rankine uses the image of the television and static as a symbol of life. Television is a form of mu
Just like in Claudia Rankine’s autobiography, Momaday in his memoir The Names uses the same multimedia approach to help that reader not only relate to his life story as well as gain the purpose behind his autobiography. Through Momaday’s constant use of images of his family, he helps pull the readers in and feel familiar to his life. A prime example from the novel is his continuous uses of family photos. Using family photos really helps the ready to relate and feel one with the reading. Otherwise, it would seem almost boring and uninteresting for the readers. The photos brings the readers in, almost make them feel like they were apart of the picture. The one picture that stood out to me the most was the one of him as a child on a play horse. Almost all of us have a similar picture from our childhood. Not only does using this photo help that reader feel familiar with the memoir, it in ways shows that our lives are similar. That everyone is capable of writing a memoir.
In conclusion, when reading a memoir, they are filled with memories. Memories are something that everyone attains. Something we all like to reminisce about. Without memoirs, memoirs wouldn’t exist. And in these two works, we see that portraying these memories are best done by using the multimedia approach.
In the memoir, The Names, I find myself having a hard time really engaging. Momaday’s style and type of writing is so one of a kind that I find myself re reading most of the pages I had just read. One part of the book that I found this to be true was starting on page 72 he writes the boy and this boy. The whole time I was reading this I kept asking myself who is this boy? Is this boy him? Because he goes on in the next pages using I. I think it is an interesting way of writing, however a confusing one. He is saying the boy, so I assume it is someone else but really it is him, or so I believe.
Even though his writing tends to be confusing and somewhat hard to follow, his use of photography throughout his memoir is very important. A memoir is all about an individual’s life. And in Names, when Momaday uses these pictures of his childhood and family members, it almost helps the reader to engage more. For me at least, I was able to relate because I have similar pictures of those from my childhood. For example, on page 62 there is a picture of him on a play horse. Almost every child has that picture.
I think his usage of photos really help the readers engage not only in his life story but his culture.
One of the continuous themes throughout Nick Flynn’s The Ticking Is The Bomb is torture and loss. Torture and loss serve as demons. Nick Flynn has live a life full of demons. From his mothers suicide, to his alcoholic father, and then to worldwide demons such as war, we see him struggle with accepting these as well as bracing the future.
A pivotal chapter that portrays this is the chapter Istanbul redux.He write “I’ve come to believe that the function of torture in our society is not about getting information, in spite of what we might want to believe. It is merely about power. It tells the world that there is now no limit to what we will do when we feel threatened”(228) I think that Flynn is expressing that torture is inevitable, there is nothing we can to prevent it. It is how we handle the torture that will shape the future. I think this passage is almost a foreshadowing to Flynn unborn child. He doesn’t want his child born into a world of torture, but realizes that is virtually impossible.
One of the most influential quotes i found in this book was in the very first sentence. Flynn writes ” everyone, if they live long enough, will lose their way at some point. You will lose your way, you will wake up one morning and find yourself lost. This is a hard simple truth”(5). He is summing up life in one sentence. It is never what we expect.At some point something will happen that will seem like your life is upside down. But we need to remember torture happens, and eventually life goes on. Flynn struggles but eventually is graced with his child and it seems his life is back on track and no longer lost.
Torture is defined as something that causes pain. It is the act of causing pain on someone or something. In Nick Flynn’s The Ticking is the Bomb, we are shown that life is full of torture. Torture that comes in a types. We see through his writing and stories, that he comes obsessed with torture. Everything that has happened in his life caused him to become intrigued with agony.
Torture has consumed Nick flynn’s life immensely to the point he never seems to talk about anything else. In his chapter They came back, it was the holiday season. But rather than trying to celebrate the good in his life, he continues to only focus on the negative. For example, it was the anniversary of the death of his mother. Usually on an anniversary, you celebrate the person’s life remembering the good, however Nick Flynn does the opposite calling it happy death day. He writes “every year around this time I’m filled with a dark energy, so i watch zombie movies, and if you were to see a photograph of me from one of those you might think i was a zombie myself”(31). He swallows himself into a dark place, reflecting on the pain he felt when his mother died, rather than trying to move on. This shows how much he is consumed in torture and self agony.
I think because he is so absorbed in torture and everything that has happened to him, he struggles with the future regarding his unborn child. He doubts his ability of becoming a father because again he can’t focus on the positives in life.
LIfe is something that is beautiful. Something that we all love. When we love something, we hope for the best, we don’t want anything to change or hurt it. However, in Claudia Rankin’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, we see the hardships that accompany life. These hardships show us there will always be up’s and downs, and that America and our culture can be a an inconsistant ride.
Claudia Rankine confirms for the readers that in life nothing is consistent and that there will always be bumps in the road. She shows this through her constant display of television throughout Don’t Let Me Be Lonely”. The television is a picture of static. We know we all hate when we turn on the television set to be welcomed by the ungodly never-ending static noise, as well as the image of almost like scratches across the screen. The static in a way is related to the burdens we face. We hope to never encounter these bumps, but we know sometimes they are inevitable. We see these especially through Claudia Rankine’s life experiences. She writes ““There was a time I could say no one I knew well had died”. No one plans for these bumps. Claudia didn’t plan for her mother to not come home with the baby. She didn’t expect 9/11 to happen and all this tragedy to happen. Through her strong use of lyrics, and more importantly, the media she makes sure that the readers know life is a roller coaster. Our world is a world of love, inconsistencies, bumps, and that nothing is guaranteed.
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