Joyas Voladoras literally means Flying Jewels in Spanish. Brain Doyle wrote this essay that has a meaning that can be... manipulated. This essay perfectly captures how a heart pains and loves. I love his opening, "Consider the Hummingbird for a long moment." Meaning that you shouldn't rush through the essay. It makes you curious on why you should take your time on concentrating on such a small insignificant creature. He goes on to explain how hummingbirds have an incredibly fast heart rate that makes their life short and brief, yet adventurous. In contrast, whales however have big, heavy hearts that take in so much. And so he writes, "But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles." What Doyle is saying is that even though these magnificent large creatures are not "flying jewels", that are adventurous, they have a longer and potentially a better life. Whales generally travel in pairs so they have a better support system, others that want to hear their cries. My favorite part of his essay was when he said: “So much held in a heart in lifetime. So much held in a heart in day, and hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end–not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.” We're meant to experience life deeply. We are meant to get hurt and so we try to shield ourselves form the pain. As the hummingbird, that only works for a while before it all comes crashing down. We have to move and go on in life with all those scars of sorrow, but what about the ones of joy and love- real love. They are there and that's what helps you keep going. So buckle up; life has a lot to throw your way. Monday, June 24, 2013
Joyas Voladoras
Joyas Voladoras literally means Flying Jewels in Spanish. Brain Doyle wrote this essay that has a meaning that can be... manipulated. This essay perfectly captures how a heart pains and loves. I love his opening, "Consider the Hummingbird for a long moment." Meaning that you shouldn't rush through the essay. It makes you curious on why you should take your time on concentrating on such a small insignificant creature. He goes on to explain how hummingbirds have an incredibly fast heart rate that makes their life short and brief, yet adventurous. In contrast, whales however have big, heavy hearts that take in so much. And so he writes, "But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles." What Doyle is saying is that even though these magnificent large creatures are not "flying jewels", that are adventurous, they have a longer and potentially a better life. Whales generally travel in pairs so they have a better support system, others that want to hear their cries. My favorite part of his essay was when he said: “So much held in a heart in lifetime. So much held in a heart in day, and hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end–not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.” We're meant to experience life deeply. We are meant to get hurt and so we try to shield ourselves form the pain. As the hummingbird, that only works for a while before it all comes crashing down. We have to move and go on in life with all those scars of sorrow, but what about the ones of joy and love- real love. They are there and that's what helps you keep going. So buckle up; life has a lot to throw your way. 
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