Two of the reading samples had a big effect on me; I Stand Here Ironing, by Tillie Olsen, and Joyas Volardores, by Brian Doyle. In Ironing, I really felt connected to the mother and it made me think a lot about what it must be like to be a parent, how each child will be different, and you probably won’t raise one the exact same way you’ll be raising another.
So as I understand it, the mother is going through Emily’s history in her mind in one sitting, as she stands there ironing. That really helped me connect with her as a reader-narrator thing, because that’s seems like such a human thing to do. When I’ve been distressed about something I will also go over it over and over in my mind until I come to some kind of peace, and that’s exactly what happens at the end of this essay. So in that way, the context of her standing there at the ironing board makes the whole story more accessible to me, it feels like something I could possibly go through in my life.
I also really liked Joyas Volardores for a few reasons. For one, I’m really into trivia and just knowing useless, interesting facts. This essay had a bunch of them but then it all came together in the end with a really heavy, introspective conclusion, with a main theme of how the heart, while being a biological/engineering miracle, is simultaneously durable, and fragile. The way he led up to that, through going over interesting biological and physiological facts about the heart itself, helped add worth to his deeper theme, because I already entered into the conclusion with the thought; “wow, the creation of life really is an amazing thing!” The last paragraph expresses a lot of thoughts that I’ve had, but have had trouble expressing, in a really meaningful way.
I also felt that I could relate the "Mom Ironing" photo as something I would see in my own life, especially as a teenager when I would just be mostly wrapped up in my own problems and what other things there was to think about during that day or basically just, "what am I going to do today?". I could totally see myself in a setting like this before, with the girl sitting there. I know would just ignore what stuff my mom would have to say while she did something like ironing. I didn't know the photographer took this to relate it to her experiences growing up too until after I looked at the picture and read the facts about it on the side.
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