Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/510699
latin magazine » spring 2015 15 what my head looks like now, 9/11 is one of those things that cracked all of us who remember it. at's one thing it means. We're all a little more fragile, a little less frozen over. I don't know if a brain really looks like cracked ice, and maybe I'd think I was crazy if Anne Sexton didn't write about her brain, too. Sexton wrote her ideas in a poem she named after my birthday, January 24th. "Sometimes I have to hunt [my mind] down / Sometimes I have to track her / Sometimes I have to hold her still and use a nutcracker," she says. Why do we personify our brains, Anne? ere has to be a distinction between a mind and a soul, so that we can write about our brain as if we're not using it at all. I don't think I can rely on my brain to interpret that first memory. It would make the same observation that I did when I was three – my father had never cried over things that hurt him, like cuts or bruises or scrapes. Yet here he was. A mind can't explain that, because empathy is soulful. Maybe my first memory is the reason I write. Maybe it's empathy pooled like an ink well. I heard one writer call empathy a centrifugal force. I guess that means selfishness is the centripetal force, and balance is when we're being tugged on by them both. Maybe I take my pencil that is my ice pick and I chip at things I shouldn't. Maybe if I distanced myself from my writing, the process wouldn't be so destructive. I read something in an Alice Munro story that made me think about this. She talked about a man who lived in a near-abandoned house down the road, and then she said she didn't want to talk about him because her story is "not a story, only life." Alice sees the distinction, but I wonder if everyone else does. My French teacher once tried to ease us into passé composé by saying that we spend most of our lives speaking in past tense. My French teacher may be right, and what we think we know about ourselves we gather from stories, so that my father crying can say something about me. I believe that, I believe Alice, and I don't know enough about myself to decide who's right. I don't know much about myself because what I do understand slips through my fingers like water. Water, water that I dive in for memories and that sometimes looks moonlit. Water that drips words on the page, pages steeped in stories and meaning and me. Calling all Roman writers! Alumni, students and faculty, if you have a story to share, please submit it for consideration to Latin Magazine. We are now accepting stories for the Fall 2015 issue. Submissions may not be longer than 750 words and should be sent to communications@latinschool.org. We look forward to hearing from you! My Story 9/11 is one of those things that cracked all of us who remember it. That's one thing it means. We're all a little more fragile, a little less frozen over." 15 latin magazine » spring 2015