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Musings of Myself A JOURNAL WRITING PORTFOLIO Blake Bohanan Spring 2021

The Unlocking of Story I ve had a fervent interest in creative writing for as long as I can remember The passions of my academic career have always favored the language arts but I feel that my love for literary compositions was born from earlier and much more personal experiences Unfortunately I cannot tell you what these experiences were or what they might have been as I am entirely unaware of them myself Something I m confident in however is that the momentous study of storytelling and the resultant writings of this past semester have brought me significantly closer to their discovery Until taking this class writing had been a relatively reserved practice for me I consider writing as like any other art an extension of its creator I have always taken inspiration from my personal life and have found my best writings to be the ones that draw most heavily from it Up till the past few months the confessionary aspects of my writing were never admitted forthright their portrayal moderately reticent behind coats of fiction and observational spectating But my foray into journal writing led me to create some of the most intimate stories I ve ever written It s difficult to mask the personal nature of my work when the pages are rampant with first person pronouns These tales are still often privy to reflective observations and the flourish of imaginative prose but their contents and the new perspective from which I tell them present an even more detailed exploration of self Together the techniques of old and new have combined to reveal a deeper understanding of myself as both a person and a writer From these experiences I hope to broaden my craft and further incorporate the storytelling skills I have learned into my repertoire of writings I ve already noticed considerable improvements in my other works Even in writing this reflective essay a process I normally detest for its lack of direction I find it easier to review my journey in this class by referencing the art of story Through its structure and personal musings this reflective essay quite literally reflects the contents of my portfolio I find it fitting how this preface mimics the very journals it aims to introduce With that I implore you to continue reading as you ve really already begun PAGE 1

Table of Contents Dreamscape Dream Space 3 Puzzle Perceptions 4 Cause and Effect 5 Tinderbox 6 Day at the Museum 7 Ode to Omelas 8 Keeta 9 Spiritual Excursion 10 Once Upon a Time 11 Thanks 12 PAGE 2

DREAMSCAPE DREAM SPACE Ideally my preferred writing space would be somewhere quiet with a large open space for movement Most of my writing sessions are interrupted by abrupt movements of standing and pacing My typical workflow consists of sitting staring typing or scribbling a few sentences standing doing a lap around the room pretending to fight an imaginary boxer and repeat I don t know why this is what I do or why it makes me feel more prepared to write but it does It s crazy I m probably crazy I m laughing about it and I wouldn t change any part of it but man is it weird This space doesn t need to be void of sound but minimal background noise is best Hearing people talk or even listening to music which I know some people say makes their creativity flow sometimes brings my brain to a dead stop I don t think time would have much of an effect on my writing Inspiration doesn t necessarily run on a clock for me but if I had to choose this space would most likely exist at night Late at night often past midnight is when I usually think of the most exciting things But of course the world doesn t run on ideals Because of that I realize that my designer writing space will not always be available and as such I must learn to write regardless of time or place A true writing space is anywhere I have access to pen and paper The only things required are initiative and an ear to listen To make writing more enjoyable during these times I should practice focusing on my observations If I spend less time worrying about what to write about and when I will be able to do so I can prioritize finding inspiration around me Ultimately I believe that the perfect space for writing will provide itself PAGE 3

PUZZLE PERCEPTIONS One of my earliest memories is from Pre K when I was four or five years old I m sure there may be things I remember from before then but this is the only one with enough details to constitute a feeling I was standing on a decorative carpet It was the kind meant for small children full of bright colors that drew a cartoonish map of a fictional city It was soft to the touch So soft that it was practically fuzzy the threads of fabric so light that they tore at the slightest friction while afloat in a sea of static electricity In the palm of one hand I held an assortment of roughly cut puzzle pieces oversized and wooden I remember them being in the shape of leaves perhaps even jungle animals they had been swiped from a lush green stencil depicting a forested habitat With my remaining hand I pressed the tips of my fingers onto the pieces and pushed away from body thrusting them forward in haphazard directions like throwing stars blurring out of sight I was having fun The smell of classroom crafts did little to dampen my mood despite their constant reminding that I was stuck at school I had been encouraged to weaponize our educational playthings by a fellow student who had been doing the same I don t remember his name or truthfully anything about him at all but I think we were friends Soon after we were reprimanded by our teachers and I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment I can t quite recall a taste associated with this memory Some boxed lunch perhaps Maybe peanut butter and jelly It was Pre K after all I distinctly recall this memory happening I m positive it s not just some story I heard my parents say then later stole and rebranded as my own I don t think anybody knew about it besides me and the teachers and I would ve been too embarrassed to tell anybody else PAGE 4

CAUSE AND EFFECT Truthfully I cannot think of a personal story that was ever important in itself I know deep down that I have been told many and that some are assuredly more influential than others in the shaping of me The closest examples I can think of are stories of failure Stories told by family friends and mentors of their falls and journeys of recovery My dad for example has often told me about the many jobs he has had throughout the years Some resulted in being fired others he quit and certain roles he continues to this day The important thing about all of them though the jobs and the stories themselves is that none of them end They all played a part in the development of his character and in their retelling a part of mine My mom told me another story a few weeks ago that hit in a special heartwarming way She said that when she was younger she applied for a hostess position at Red Lobster and to get the job her interviewer required that she try to sell him a paper clip She did not get the job This one made me laugh but it resonated with me in the same way the others did These stories made me feel a sense of companionship with my parents a commonality that linked us despite being born in different generations I have never shared these stories of failure with anyone at least not overtly Perhaps in some hidden way I have slipping them out in the ways I think and the things I say Stories like this are important to me because they make me feel closer to others When they are shared with me it feels as if a part of that person stays with me I know them a little bit better and in turn find myself a tad bit more true PAGE 5

TINDERBOX In previous writings I have mentioned that I feel a connection with stories of failure Hearing about the journeys of others the struggles they faced and how they overcame them are the kinds of stories that stick with me the most The stories I wish to preserve most are the ones that teach a lesson I understand how vague this statement may sound but its ambiguity is mostly intentional On one hand I can t seem to think of any such stories at the moment and on the other I recognize that any story can have a moral or provide advice The abovementioned stories of failure and fights for success are among these I also want to preserve the embers of my loved ones I want to tend to the stories of my family s lives chronicling the happy the sad and the funny Within every story no matter how truthful its contents is a piece of its author By preserving story we preserve people A good story is like a time machine It brings the past to the present Truthfully I haven t done much to actively preserve these stories though I have them stored in my memory but one day they will need to be transfer to more permanent lodgings I hope to one day write them down making a compendium of the past for future generations An archive to spark memory and relight the embers of times before But for now most of the stories in my family have been passed down orally and continue to be done so My mom however has scrapbooked as a hobby for I long as I can remember She has binders full of baby pictures and decorative pages adorning the snapshots of life Each one has a caption and each one of those has a story that leads down a rabbit hole of hundreds more One day those scrapbooks will pass to me and eventually I ll send them to someone else When that happens I only hope to give more stories than I received PAGE 6

DAY AT THE MUSEUM I ve felt afraid several times before I don t like butterflies the dark makes me uneasy and I bury my face in the nearest pillow each time I watch a scary movie That deep resonating boom that makes water ripple every time the Tyrannosaurus rex from Jurassic Park takes a step Terrifying I find that sound so petrifying that I curl into a ball on the couch and wait for the T Rex to eat me just so I longer have to deal with it Ironically the example of true fear that I m currently thinking of a time where I felt I was in real danger and not just frightened by what was on television is remarkably similar to my phobia of Jurassic Park sound effects I was around six years old and on summer vacation with my parents They had taken me to a natural history museum in Hays Kansas presumably thinking that the only possible threat this trip could have presented was the risk of their son s boredom Boy were they in for a surprise At first everything was sunshine and lollipops I saw a fossil of a small fish embedded in the stomach of larger fossilized fish and thought that was pretty neat I got some free coloring pages at a dinosaur exhibit that was fun I remember coloring a triceratops back at our hotel room later that day with a green crayon and nothing else It took about a minute and then I was finished I refused to put in any effort beyond scribbling so there were a lot of single colored dinos that day Eventually we came across a diorama of spear wielding early humans hunting a wooly mammoth The display was automated and activated by motion As we moved towards it the surrounding lights dimmed and began to flash in sporadic bursts approximating the lighting of a Paleolithic storm Thunder crashed over loudspeakers and the trumpeting bellow of the mammoth froze me in place I edged my way towards a wall and used it as a guide reaching with hands outstretched for the nearest exit as my eyes welled up with tears I remember being so frightened by this None of us had expected it and I think the associated trauma from the shock of this moment is what has forever cemented it as one of my earliest memories Thinking back on it I wish I had been a bit braver and not so quick to cower at something I didn t understand But then again I was six so I m not too upset about it PAGE 7

ODE TO OMELAS I ve noticed a consistent theme between most of writings before I sit down to write them I have no idea what I m going to write about Having been asked to write about my inspirations I thought to myself What I don t know what s inspired me I don t know what to write about Then on the evening I decided to write this only a few hours before I opened the word document had I found an idea They always appear in the places I least expect and I think that s why I find myself so enamored with them I was replying to a discussion board for one of my classes and in someone s post I saw a reference to a short story I hadn t thought of in a long time The story mentioned was The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K Le Guin It s a fiction narrative describing a summer festival in the idyllic city of Omelas whose prosperity depends on the constant misery of a single child I had to read it for my freshman English class in high school For a reason I m not quite sure of I was captivated by the tale and have been ever since Every time I m reminded of it I get a powerful urge to read it again I don t know why out of all the books I was ever required to read in school this was the one that stuck The Great Gatsby was dull Lord of the Flies was fun but its pacing was ruined by an overabundance of classroom discussions and The Things They Carried was a trip and a half I always think back fondly on this one though Its contents might have imprinted on me for myriad reasons It might be because it was the first required reading I every enjoyed it could have been its vivid paintings of stunning beauty and grotesque horror or perhaps it was the heavy theme of morality that hit me like a semi truck I m sure the answer is all three Its words didn t inspire me in any specific way In fact I don t know what exactly they even inspired in me But when I think back on the first time I read it and each time I read it again I experience an odd rush of excitement It s almost as if something about it fires multiple neurons in my brain My head is filled with striking imagery in a panoramic landscape my heartstrings are tugged and played like a fiddle and my creativity bone is struck with enough forceful ambition to make me want to write something just as great as that story PAGE 8

KEETA Today I m going to forgive my dog for breaking my heart and instilling in me a deep seated resentment of her species Now before we get any further allow me to preface that statement and the ensuing journal entry by saying that I love my dog She s wonderful and I wouldn t trade her for any other canine in the world She smiles a lot and gets nervous whenever my cat tries to headbutt her or someone attempts to give her a kiss It s very sweet and funny and I love it Allow me to also say that I m fully aware of how much I am stretching the intended guidelines of this prompt over forgiveness Dogs aren t really people I get that But they all have such weird personalities and quirky behaviors that I think they might as well be considered people adjacent My parents have had dogs since I was a year old and the one that I ll be forgiving today has been a part of the family for over thirteen years I was in first grade when we adopted her from the humane society Those early childhood years are very formative moments in a person s life The perfect time for a young boy to build his quintessential forever bond with man s best friend as is seen in any and every form of media that contains children and dogs But that never happened She liked me don t get me wrong but I was never her favorite person She always preferred my parents especially my mom and the fact that I never got to experience the cliched adventures of a boy and his dog has always sort of stung To some extent I think that may be part of the reason why I ve always considered myself more of a cat person Dogs man They leave an ache in my heart and a lump in my throat And a jealous fury that razes the heavens and scars their reputation But they re oh so cute and I love them all to bits I m willing to forgive my dog because she s well a dog And I was a weird kid who probably gave off an awkward energy that understandably made her uneasy I didn t know how to interact with her just as much as she didn t know how to interact with me We were both part of the issue and I can respect that She deserves to be forgiven because she s an awesome dog I m just going to do what I ve been doing for the past thirteen years give her lots of pets and the occasional Milk Bone We ve developed a special bond over the years and I think the process of forgiving each other will go by smoothly In truth bygones became bygones the moment I first threw her a stick in the backyard PAGE 9

SPIRITUAL EXCURSION With each passing day I believe I collect more and more spiritual information I rarely understand what I am learning and hardly ever realize that I have learned something until much much later Religion has never been a part of my household and has been largely vacant from my life As such most of the experiences I ve accumulated have been rather recent The bulk of them are often rooted in a form of self induced existential questioning I have no scripture to reference them from and no parables to dissect them with so these moments usually consist of me just asking myself a bunch of questions that don t have answers If that sounds infuriating to you it is But as I write this now at a time and place where I have not presently locked myself into a mental logic loop I can definitely see the humor in it One of the biggest spiritual experiences I can think of is a rather gruesome one I used to walk home from school in the afternoon my Freshman year of high school There was about a mile long stretch of sidewalk on that route and one day as I neared the end about ready to turn the corner I saw the corpse of a deer that had been hit by the side of the road I remember thinking about how big it was and how odd it felt being so close to one One A deer Something that was dead Both are accurate Each one surprised me I stopped and looked at it for what felt like an eternity It was probably only around thirty seconds but it stuck with me This had happened during the middle of the week and the deer remained in their grassy hammock by the slope near the sidewalk for three or four days Each time I passed them they were missing more Their body had lessened in form and figure but my mind had expanded in deep contemplation I felt a sort of connection with the deer A feeling that I had learned something from them through our shared kinship as mortal beings I felt that I had begun to understand something bigger than myself Ever since then I ve found a sort of peace in nature There s a hiking trail not far my house that I like to frequent It runs through a forest checkered by dry plains and knotted trees I often see deer there and a vast assortment of other animals squirrels running above in the branches lilliputian birds balanced atop stalks of long grass and hearty ravens that patrol the ground beneath their trees I even saw an armadillo once I hear see and smell life when I m there Yet I also know that there is death hidden both where I cannot see and in plain sight The mere notion of this would have terrified me as a child and to an extent it still does to this day But despite my fears I understand that there is some eternal beauty through all of it that eases my concerns This reminds me of that part in Walt Whitman s Song of Myself where he talks about the grass beneath our boots Like my encounter with the deer I feel that being in nature makes me consider the larger than life and ask myself questions Sometimes I even find what I think might be answers Or at least very interesting placeholders PAGE 10

ONCE UPON A TIME When it comes to my work life I see some resemblances between myself and the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood I m not incredibly hairy or ferocious looking Although I have been told by people who are just getting to know me that I often look angry My concentration face is almost always accompanied by a furrowed brow which is a misleading and hardly ever accurate indicator of my actual mood Nor do I threaten to eat people with gargantuan teeth gawk at them with oversized eyes or menacingly listen to them with enormous ears I m usually a pretty nice goofy and overall averagelooking guy But like the Big Bad Wolf whenever I really want to accomplish something I m incredibly determined to do so It s less the ambition I can relate to and more the extreme completely unnecessary lengths that the wolf strives for while completing his task I mean the guy dresses up in complete grandma attire just to fool a little girl He didn t need do to that He could ve just hidden behind a door or something and gobbled her up easy peasy That wolf is a victim of hubris and I ve never looked into a mirror as reflective as his character As for the people around me I might liken some of them to Little Red Riding Hood and the Woodsman They might look like defenseless little children but let me tell you something Nobody walks alone through a creepy Germanic forest unless they know how to take care of themselves These people are wonderful and lovely truly I would never dream of crossing them in any way shape or form I have no clue what they re carrying inside of their basket but whatever it is I doubt it s a baked good and I wouldn t want to find myself on the other end of it Then there are the Woodsmen who are just plain crazy but in a loving sort of way They swing their axes without care and are prone to point out the fallacies of my exuberant and often questionable work ethic They are all very much appreciated Without the foil of these characters who knows what madness I might commit myself to PAGE 11

THANKS One of the blessings I think most often about is my parents There s a reason why parents are so regularly featured in commemorative speeches Whether it s after graduation or winning the big game all acknowledgements have to start somewhere and most people choose the beginning I know plenty of people who have had rough upbringings or at least ones that were less than desirable and I m very thankful for the one I was given I greatly appreciate the fact that I was raised in a tolerant and supportive household by two loving parents I show thanks for this blessing by reminding them how much I care for them At least you know when I remember to I never claimed to be a perfect son I also attempt to show thanks through the ways that I interact with the world My parents have taught me several valuable lessons and I think that there is no better way to express thanks than by actively using those lessons in my life I ve found that parents often appreciate it when their children actually listen to the things that they say My other greatest blessing goes out to my friends and extended family The people who care for me most and the ones that never hesitate to lend a helping hand The way I show thanks to them is pretty similar to the method I use for my parents In high school I had a teacher who gave the class a love language survey each year It was intended to strengthen communication between the students and show us how to appreciate one another in a way that was truly meaningful to the recipient To show thanks to my friends I try to express my appreciation for them in a way that s important For example my preferred love language usually hovers around words of affirmation and quality time Other people I know tend to prefer gifts or acts of service and whenever possible I use this kind of information to show appreciation to the blessings in my life PAGE 12

Thank you for reading