Gray Sky

It was Saturday afternoon，I felt like a little headache so that I didn’t want to do anything as I got up. After having sat on the sofa for a few minutes, I went to a bamboo forest with my family.

 It’s about 10 km distance from the city to the bamboo forest. Many people used to go there for picnic on Sundays or Saturdays quite a few years ago, however they wouldn’t like to patronize there again since Mahjiong became a kind of popular game in the city. So it is getting more and more silent. But even if it is, I found I love the place more since I came here on Saturday last month. Because there isn’t any terrible noise which vehicle and this like make, and its air is so fresh. And I also can see some silver pheasants flying over the river when I’m lucky.Therefore I like playing badminton or sightseeing on the open-air in front of the forest in off-days.

Passing by the bamboo forest, I came to a flat ground, then I began to play badminton. After a while, I sweated and was refreshed much more. The more I played, the happier I was. Unforunately, It blew strong wind when I was excited. I had to stop, and then I climbed up the higher stage built with stones and cement to overlook the river. Blowing a little wind,there were some ripples on the water, which looked like a green silk carpet covering the river, how I wished I could lie on it peacefully and dream what I want!

With soft cool wind, I closed my eyes and happily imagined there were floating white clouds on the blue sky, and some lovely birds flying around the bamboo forest with great joy. However it was just my daydream, I saw a gray sky over my head when I opened my eyes. Perhaps it would rain in the evening. So I was so disappointed, I had to agree that classical word as there is always difference between ideal and reality.

There Is No Difference Between Tragedy and Comedy

“There is no difference between tragedy and comedy in the world. Tragedy usually can be turned into comedy if you come out from tragedy, and vise versa.”

An American playwright says.Speaking of the wise words with philosophy, I must tell a story about the playwright first. When she had pregnancy of seven months, she found her husband's  love affairs with a another married woman who was the wife of a British diplomat in USA. One day the diplomat met the unlucky woman in a restaurant. She cried to him, “Oh,sir, it’s too bad, how should I do? I will give a birth to a baby soon…”

“Yes, How is USA?How are Americans? How can we do?” Replied the diplomat crying sadly too though he is an exellent man in his career.

Looking at him who cried more sadly than her, she was almost despaired. Then she went to  New York from Washington and told her unhappiness to one of her friends. Hearing her narrating, her friend tried to comfort her, “oh, take it easy. One day, you will tell the event to others as an interesting story.”

She thouhgt what her friend said might be right, the unlucky event would become an interesting story by any possibility in the future. If it’s true, why don’t I let the tragedy turn to comedy so as to reduce the hurt that it brought me?

Later, she divorced with her husband and began to write plays according to the thing while she looked after her child alone. In the play, she named her former husband as his pet in order to express her indignation. It was so fortunate that the play was adopted by a director of Hollywood, therefore she became a professional playwright who is good at humors from then on. The playwright feels so much it is the tragedy that makes her step on the path of success. And the tragedy has turned into comedy finally.

Indeed, many things lie on ourselves in the world, it just depends on your attitude no matter how it is, bad or good. Because there are two sides in everything, sometimes bad things can  be turned into good ones, and vise versa. So if you meet something unhappy, please remember the poem written by Pushkin, a famous Russian poet , it is called If Life Cheats You, "If life cheats you/don't be blue, don't be angry/ Just to bear momently/Believe me please, happy time will come soon...all are transient , all will become the past/and the past will return to  loveliness again."

Wow，wow， 听到、听到阵阵cha- cha、cha声……”

A  Letter To Emily Dickinson

Dear Emily Dickinson, as everybody knows, you are recognized as not only a great poetess on your own right but also as a poetess of considerable influence upon American poetry of the present century. For your poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way, It is said that only seven had appeared during your lifetime though you wrote 1775 poems altogether. After your  death in 1886, your sister discovered the poems you had written and then they were published gradually with the help of Mrs. Todd and Thomas Wentworth, you got to be known to the outside world since then.

Your poems are usually based on your own experience,your sorrows and joys. But within the little lyrics, you address those issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, death, immortality,love and nature. Among them, the theme about death and immortality is subtle, you even imagined your own death, the loss of your own body, and the journey of your soul to the unknown world. And these poems look so sentimental and emotional.Honestly, it confused me why you preferred write such kind of poems while most people love life at the beginning? Is it because of your unhappy love affairs or other reason? When time goes by, finally I have realized that you actually were a great “philosopher” to life. You knew the truth of life circle well and you were a braver to death. In these days, I become to more and more love the poem entitled “Because I could not stop for death” . In the poem, you regard “the Shool”, “the Field of Gazing Grain and the Setting Sun as three stages of life, which are youth, mature period and end of life. In fact we all must experience the three stages. You teach people to face every period correctly even to death.Therefore I have learnt how to face the hardship in my life.

Maria’s Tragic Life

Do you like opera? If you do, perhaps you have heard of Maria Callas, the most famous soprano singer in the 20^th century. It is said that there are two epochal persons in the history of opera, one is Giuseppe Verdi, a famous Italian composer, another is just Maria Callas.

To be sure, as an actress, Maria was so successful that she was named as Goddess for opera, however she spent a tragic life in her lifetime. During her childhood, she didn’t have any happiness but attended various performs and contests for children. When she was 13, she was forced to give up normal education and enter a music institute. In April, 1949, when she was 26, Maria was married to an Italian man who was 30 years older than her. As the broker of Maria, his husband always asked her perform and even didn’t allow her to carry a baby. So in her only marital life, Maria couldn’t enjoy the happiness of marriage. The unpleasant marriage pushed Maria into Aristotle Onassis, the famous Greek ship king. She thought she had found her happiness as soon as the ship king expressed his love to her. Actually he only paid attention to her fame. After he met Jacqueline, the wife of Kennedy, former President of USA, he was attracted by her beauty and nobleness. It made Maria sad. On November 22, 1963, President John Fitsgerald Kennedy was murdered, Onassis met Jacqueline more often than before, at that time, he paid little attention to Maria.In October,1968, The two held wedding.. Maria had seldom performed since she got to know Onassis, the loss of his love drove her to more despair, she had to take sleeping pills everyday, finally she lost her voice. On September 16, 1977, she left the world with a listless,lonely and broken heart.

Many people think Onassis damaged Maria. However I don’t think so. I feel it was her mother who cause her tragic life. Because she only concentrated on training Maria in opera and ignored her ability to manage her own business and the personal relationship. As a child, she should study at school for education and learn how to get together with her little friends. But her mother seperated her from the innocent children, all of her was controled by her mother. Hence she got used to arranging by others. When she grew up, she was still a guy without own idea. For example, after she had been married, her husband arranged all performs of her. She became a machine for money completely. When she lived with Onassis, her emotion was fulfilly controled by him. When she was pregnant, Onassis tried to persuad her giving up the baby, she did so as to keep the dying love with Onassis. If she bore the baby, she might not be so lonely later and her end wouldn’t be so sad.

Through the tragic life of Maria, I think we should notice training their ability to sovle some actual problems while enhancing their some special ability.

Love Is A Flower In Life

I read a very affecting short story last morning. I t tells a love story about a famous French sculptor. One day, the sculptor points at an old apple and says to Rose, his son at five, “I will come back when the old tree are full of fruit.”

Rose loves his father so much that he waters the tree and capture the insects on it everyday so as to see red apples on the tree, then he will meet his beloved dad. He waits and waits, his father doesn’t appear year by year, the boy still looks after the old tree carefully, because he does believe his dad must be back one day. Till he is 18, his mother tells him his dad is a famous French sculptor, he has a wife in Paris, Originally he leaves them for Paris to plan to divorce his wife. However he hasn’t been back yet. Rose gets angry and rushes out and cuts the old tree .

Misfortune never comes lonely. Not long after, his mother dies of a traffic accident. When she is dying, she stares at his son’s face, Rose thinks she is trying to search father’s appearance from his own face. I t enhances his hatred of his father. One day, he knows his father will attend an art show in Paris from newspaper, so he decides to go there in order to unmask the hypocritical famous sculptor.

However he does nothing when he sees his dad, because what he can see on his father’s face are rimples, and he walks with anility. At the meanwhile, the great sculptor recognizes Rose, because the son looks so much like his father. So he says to his son, “Rose, long time no see…” Rose can feel sort of deep tone and melancholy from his voice. At this moment, the sculptor’s wife comes over sitting in a wheelchair. He approach her and kiss on the face. Then Rose finally understands why his father doesn’t come to USA again is that he can’t have the heart to abandon his deformity wife. He knows his father feels sorry to both Rose and his mother while he is a perfect man with responsibility to his wife. Therefore he runs away from the exhibition.

He receives a letter from his father not long after he arrives the US. In ther letter, the sculptor says, “ Dear Rose, how is your mother? The old apple tree is still OK? Though I can’t give you a deserved identity and heritage, I will still try my best to compensate.”

“Have I been waiting for my father for the reason?” mocks himself. So he writes in reply, “ Only roots has remained on the apple tree since you left, it has never fruited any more. ” Then he leaves home for New York.

However he knows his father runs away from hospital and he also leave a piece of paper on which he says he will find an apple tree. Then Rose return to his hometown, but his father has died. He sees many people enclosing his home. When the people see him and say that they can give him 10 milliom USA dollars to buy the whole house. He is so sad that he closes himself in his house. Suddenly he finds a marvelous sculpture with a basket of various fruits. H e realizes why his father runs away from hospital. And the unusual sculpture is one of arts his father has made with his life. Obviously his heart has been here, he loves Rose and his mother so much.

I couldn’t stop my tears when I read the end. To be sure , it is a very simple story, but it is so affecting. What a true love! Though he can’t stay with his beloved for some reason, the sculpture treasures the great love deeply, and at last he even expresses his love with his life at the last moment. It reminds me of that love is just like a flower. But There are two kinds of flowers in the world.One can both blossom and fruit while another only have flowers. Fruits always please everyone, but flowers usually bring you better recollection.