As Demi Lovato Sang, "This is Me"

My name is Erin Lindsay Monaghan, and I hate when things change. It doesn't matter what is changing (plans, what I'm eating for dinner, what movie I'm going to see at the theatre) because I don't like it; once my mind is set on something, I stick to it. For example, I told my mom when I was four that I wasn't going to have kids; she could have them for me, or I'd find another way. To this day, I feel that way, and have decided that I am adopting kids. Basically, the only change that happens in my life is when it is out of my control (a testing date, moving, what days I work).  The ironic thing about this is that the meaning of my names correlate with me. My first name "Erin" means Ireland, peace, or green water. Continuing down this earthy path, my middle name, "Lindsay", means Island of the Linden Trees, with my surname "Monaghan"meaning a place where hills gather. It gets scarier because my initials tie everything together too, because they spell out ELM, like the Elm tree.  What I've concluded about myself, and the meanings of my names, is that we don't change; Ireland will stay the same;Linden trees will stay the same; a place where hills gather will stay the same. But, like myself, there is another, stronger force that can change it, and that is Mother Nature, or people. I've also come to the realization that these names, do in fact define me; they solidify who I really am.

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And then there is Anna Quindlen, who remarks in her essay, "The Name is Mine", that, "there are two me's, the me who is the individual and the me who is part of a family of four". I wholeheartedly agree with that statement because, while I am not a different person, I act differently according to my surroundings. 

Most of you know that I am very quiet person, and I can't get up in front of people to talk to save my life. I also have a difficult time during discussions to say what exactly I want to say coherently, because most of the time, I jumble whatever I am going to say up. But when I get out of my school surroundings, or, at least out of a group of thirty kids my own age, my body relaxes. For example, I work at a retirement facility as a waitress, but the me who works there is a different me who goes to school. I am a very loud, assertive worker too, and I talk to anybody and everybody. The me who preforms at Open Mics are also different, because I have to talk and sing and pretend I just didn't mess up what I sing. 

As Demi Lovato sang, "This is Me", because this really is me; a grounded, quiet-but-not-quiet person. And I'm okay with that. 

As Hall and Oates Sang, "So Close, yet so Far Away"

We are the Other - David and Lou, South Minneapolis, MN (2012)

They were like an echo. Whatever question I asked one would answer and then the other would nod in agreement or repeat the answer. They met seven years ago when Lou (right) moved here from Chicago. “I don’t ever want to go back,” he said. “It’s hard for a young black man there. Mofos robbing each other.”

David lives a block away in the house he grew up in. They are “brothers from another mother” they said. Some other things they are:

“We love women.”

“Real recognize real.”

“We’re two bosses, entrepreneurs. We’re always gettin’ it.”

“Whatever gets the money, that’s what we’re into. And family. That’s about it.

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Let me be clear: this photo is not like any other photo; it is a photo of culture, of race, of dignity, of ethnicity,of man, of friendship, of life. It demonstrates how close and how far away two people can be, even if they're only feet away from each other, which is why I chose this particular photo. 

At a glance, the photo depicts two men sitting on a porch, one white, and one black. It looks as though they are enjoying each others company, and channeling some of the same energy.

But if you look deeper, you can see how the men hauntingly mimic each other; like the way both hunch over slightly, with their heads hanging over their bodies; the way their left arms bend slightly less then ninety degrees, clutching the hand; the way they wear their rectangular facial hair, surrounding the lips; the way their faces fall, as if sharing the same pain. The way they share their body language demonstrates how close the friendship the boys have, and how much they have rubbed off each other.

Besides how close the two men are, the photo also swings the other way by demonstrating how unalike they are. In the photo, the white man is wearing lighter clothing, and is sitting on the lighter side of the porch, where as the black man is wearing darker clothing, sitting on the darker side of the porch. Not only is the appearance of color important to their separation, but how ironically there is a porch beam barricading the white man to the left, and the black man to the right. This separation represents how the white man will never understand the black with his culture and background and vice versa.    

When I think about The Handmaid's Tale and connect it to the photo, I see the men representing the "others" together, and the "others" individually. 

They represent the "others" together because of how close they are. For example, in the book, the ultimate goal of the handmaids was to become one, and function as one.The unison that Atwood wrote that the Handmaids should have is depicted thorough Huie's photograph because even he himself wrote that the two boys "were like an echo" to each other. The resemblance of the two men cast them out of society and into their own "others" group. 

The two boys also represent the "others" individually because of the distance in culture and background. First, the black man grew up in Chicago and had a rough time there, setting him a part from his friend who grew up in Minneapolis. The difference in ethnicity most likely put the black man at a rougher point (stereotypes, racial profiling, unconsciously thinking that blacks are not superior to whites) than the white man, and because of that, suffered. In The Handmaid's Tale, the groups are set up based off of the background of each person. If these two men in the photo were placed in the society, they would go their separate ways, and get casted out into their own "other" groups. 

I've concluded that Atwood wrote to specifically divide each group in society, creating the "others", and unified the groups within, similarly to that of Huie. In both cases, color divided the groups, and shared feelings drew them together. 

As Hall and Oates sang, "So close, yet so far away", which represents both the book and photograph, and how the "others" group is formed.