Sliding Doors

This is my "Sliding Doors" piece, focusing on an event in my life, 8 years ago.
I didn't fully realize that the point was to ask questions, so here are the questions, out of order but here nonetheless:
Why that day? Why on a day of the Children's Fair? What if I hadn't gone down that hill? would I remember that day?

My eight year old body was flying. My feet rested on the pedals, and my bike wheels soared under me spinning down down down. The incline wasn’t particularly steep, and the dare-devilish stunt's excitement lay in its finish line, where busy Sheridan Road zoomed by. The hill I rode down curved up to the left, past my church, so that oncoming traffic wouldn’t be able to see me until after I was well into the road. My brother was behind me, at the top of the hill, watching.

We rode our bikes from the Children’s Fair in Winnetka, an annual tribute to the end of school, and soggy, muddy grass with water that squished in your shoes. It was overcast, as always. Mid-day, summer. We gloried in that, savoring it as we pumped our legs past our house, tasting freedom again. The second grade was a thing of the past.

This freedom, so delicious in the form of the Sweet Shop’s prizes, gave me the energy and sugar that makes sane children hyperactive, like me. I was going fast at the top of the hill—faster now, and faster! Then, two sidewalk blocks away from the street before the concrete dipped respectively to the asphalt, I braked hard and turned my grinning face up to the hill. Where did William go? His bike lay on the ground. I screamed and ran back up the hill as life started to blur at the edges. I don’t know if I left my bike or carried it, but then time caught up and I was at the top of the hill. My brother had fallen, and, though I couldn’t see it, his helmet was cracked. He was sobbing, eyes squeezed shut as his ten year old skull was hurt. His head rested on the dirt of a flower bed, and through my screams and tears I realized that it was the same flower that we could eat, bluebells with sweet nectar. My mouth tasted sour, freedom didn’t matter. A neighbor came, her son in my second grade class and tasting freedom for himself. She comforted me, and called 9-1-1, asking her mother to help me. Her mother called mine, and repeated what happened. My mother spoke to me, her smooth words trying to erase the shame and anger I felt towards myself. The ambulance came, but I don’t remember. Someone must have pulled me away from the scene and taken me back to my house, only a couple blocks away. I was the baby sister, and again, trying to prove myself to my older brothers, had horribly failed and everything was my fault.

My dad told me and my brother Robert, while William was in the hospital with my mom, that everything would be alright. William had waved his arms, lost his balance and toppled over, bike and all. I couldn’t speak, and the coolness of my kitchen chilled my skin against my hot tears and warm, sun soaked skin.

I watched William walk slowly, completely tired from the car to the house. A short journey, but it didn’t take long for the bile to well up in a pit in my stomach, threatening to rise. I felt sick, disgusted with myself, despite promises that William was alright.

What if my mom kept us home, denied us freedom? She never would, but still… what if he trusted me, was not protective? I always picture him waving, anxious for me to see or hear. What if I had slipped into traffic? Would I be the one the ambulance came for? What if we took a different route—would I still ride bikes like my brother does?

Photography

I love taking pictures, and have seriously considered being a photo journalist. However, many people have made their dislike of journalists very clear. And yet there are so few actual professions, outside of being a full-time photographer, that involve taking pictures on a daily basis. I feel like I'm trapped: I don't want to care about what people think about journalism, but at the same time, if enough people stop reading teh newspaper like they used to, then I don't even have that. Also, I'm sure my parents would much appreciate it if I told them that I wanted to pursue a "real" career--teacher, lawyer, etc.
For me, I am drawn to photography by the abilities it has to change a person's perception of the world. For one person, the photographer, to look through a viewfinder and capture something, sometimes without even editing it, and they almost magically create an image that will resonate with many people. And the editing itself is a whole other world: cropping, burning and dodging-- they all make that 1/60th of a second, often less, so worthwile.The pictures that I take, some at 1/4000th of a second, can take me at least five or ten minutes, thousands of seconds more than how long the exposure was.
There's just something so amazing about pressing a shutter and having something beautiful come out. And if I don't make lots of money doing it, then that's okay too.

Is journalism a trend that will soon fade out? In the future, will photographs be linked to and spread all through the web, with no care for who took them? Can it be considered art at that point?

How close is too close?

I have never thought of my parents as my friends. They are my parents--sometimes friendly, parents who are friends with my friends' parents, but certainly not my friends. And although I often talk to my friend's moms, I have never thought of them as friends. So, when I was hanging out with a bunch of friends at my friends house, and she popped in the first season of Gilmore Girls, I was surprised to hear the mom whine to her daughter that they are "friends" and shouldn't they just tell each other everything about the boys in the Rory's life? I inwardly cringed. Though the show was actually pretty good, their relationship still really bothered me. I have nothing wrong with kids telling their parents about relationships, or school, but I have everything wrong with kids sharing every minute detail about their social life with their frighteningly eager parents. Truthfully, I have never seen this exchange occur, but when I talk to my friends about how little I tell my parents about my life, they seem shocked. I tell my parents whats important, because they are my parents, not my friends. With my friends, however, there is little left unsaid.

little miss sunshine

I watch What Not To Wear, maybe more often than I should. So of course, I often see the times for upcoming shows, like "Toddlers and Tiaras," a disturbing show about the beauty pageant industry, that makes young children, girls especially, act like sluts to win a prize. As disgusting as this is, the girls are also seemingly congratulated for being as bratty as possible, because this gives them an extra few minutes of the limelight on the episode. Everything about the show honestly scares me: if it were a documentary I might be able to swallow it, but the fact that it would be an actual series, seemingly in support of such a downright creepy industry freaks me out. In the movie "Little Miss Sunshine," the young girl Olive strongly desires to become the pageant winner, though her family's problems almost overshadow her dreams. While preparing backstage, Olive becomes hugely self-conscious as she watches the other moms dress their daughters in short, glittery dresses, and apply more make up and hairspray than anyone should ever use. Olive is a little geeky in appearance, with over sized glasses and a bit of baby fat still on her stomach. Yet she is the bravest, because she is the only real one in the entire pageant. She is the only one whose routine is amusing to watch, almost a parody of the others. Her innocence makes all the other girls, who really are a stand-in for their moms, seem fake and plastic-y.
And that brings me to the second most frightening part: the parents. Who could let their children act like this? No one in their right mind, of course. It's one thing if their children model, and see it as an extension of dress-up and play, but its another if their parents actually tell them to look slutty in front of the camera and judges. In the one part of the one episode I watched, every mom seemed to say the same thing, that they were living vicariously through their daughters. That's weird. Who would want that for their children? And moreover, what happens to these children in later life? Once they get wrinkles that make up can't hide, what do they do besides judge other young girls? What kind of life is that?