A Life Changing Moment

Aunt Loretta is a very interesting character in this story. I feel like she is the only one that Rachel really connects with. She is there when Rachel has nightmares, she helps her with her unruly mass of hair, and she is the person that makes Rachel comfortable in Grandma’s house. When Aunt Loretta takes Rachel to the waterfalls with Drew, Loretta has a life changing moment. She realizes that she is exactly like the waterfall, frozen in place. Her life has been the same for years, always in the same place, doing the same things. She cries when she realizes this, and she tells Drew, “I want to be that girl again”, meaning the girl that had so much energy for life, the one who lived in New York, who wasn’t afraid of trying new things, and who had so much potential (Durrow 76).

When she gets back from seeing the waterfalls, she sees everything with new life. She takes the old things, like used tea bags, and Rachel’s old, stubby crayons, sees new promise and life in them, and turns them into something new and beautiful, much like she sees new promise and life in herself, and wants to recreate her life into something new and beautiful. The young Aunt Loretta wasn’t concerned with her race nearly as much as the Aunt Loretta right before the waterfall was. The young Aunt Loretta believed she could have done anything and been anyone she wanted, no matter her race. Aunt Loretta wanted to be that girl again. So she starts putting up African things all over the house. Everyday there is something new that is decorating the space. This was partially an expression of African pride. She wanted to be someone who was proud of her heritage, not someone who was stuck with it. I think that this was partly an artistic expression as well.

She also started painting again. Painting was a release for her creativity and troubles. She paints the waterfalls from memory, and titles them “Untitled 1” and “Untitled 2” and so on, like she won’t put a name on this feeling of release she gets from painting her life changing moment. She names later paintings things like “Figure by the Falls”, or “Woman on Bridge by the Falls”, which describe her life changing moment, as she was both a figure by the falls, and a woman on the bridge by the falls, but doesn't put words to the feeling she felt while looking at those waterfalls. Race doesn’t matter in painting, or any of the arts for that matter. Artistic talent doesn’t pick and choose people based on race. It can manifest in anyone, no matter who or what they are.

Aunt Loretta’s injury is appropriate to these recent changes in her life. It was truly a terrible accident, but it also doesn’t depend on what race you are. Something like that could have happened to anyone. It also is appropriate because it leaves her without a physical manifestation of race. While race may not actually have any basis on skin color, it is the one of the first things that pops into people’s minds when they think of a deciding factor on what race someone is. This injury leaves her without her brown skin, leaving giant white patches in its place. She no longer has a race to define who she is. She can be anyone she wants to be, without having to worry about people defining her based on what color she is.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 6)