The English portion of our Narrative project was to create a lyrical essay on a topic of our choice. A lyrical essay is a literary hybrid that combines elements of poetry, essay and memoir. I chose to do mine on the stress my mom was under as we lived through the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.
Fight or Flight?
Fight or Flight?
Hands begin to tremble
Heart pounding
Fight or Flight?
Fight or Flight?
Buildings swaying
Boulders falling
Fight or Flight?
Fight or Flight?
19 stories of stairs
9.1 magnitude earthquake
Fight or Flight?
Fight or Flight?
A tsunami of emotions
After shocks for days
Fight or Flight?
Intention Statement:
“Fight or Flight” is a lyrical essay about the experience of a worried and stressed mother during the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. On March 11, 2011, my mom, sister, and I were all in the car coming back from school when the earthquake started. We were still young and couldn’t comprehend what an earthquake meant or what was going on. All we saw were buildings swaying violently side by side. The stress and trauma that came from this natural disaster triggered my mom’s fight and flight response. My brother, who was 3 at the time, was still in the building, on the 19th floor, with our au pair. We got back and found out that the building had gone into lockdown mode. Since the elevators weren’t working, my mom had to climb at least nineteen stories, maybe even more, to get to my brother. They all safely made it back down and we were able to wait out the rest of the earthquake in the garage. I chose to write this lyrical essay in a poetic manner because I felt that I was able to convey the different emotions my mom was going through a lot better in this format. Ultimately, the pattern of repeating “Fight or Flight” at the beginning and end of each stanza was done to emphasize how traumatic the event was. My research sources were particularly helpful in explaining what your Fight and Flight response is and how it is impacted when you’re under stress. I arranged my text as a staircase to symbolize the many flights of stairs that my mom had to climb up to reach my brother. During my peer review, my readers enjoyed the layout and the content of my essay, but suggested that I include more research to back up what I wrote. I tried to emulate the footnote technique I encountered in David Foster Wallace’s, “Consider the Lobster” because I liked the stylistic approach of adding content in the footnotes so it doesn’t ruin the flow of your initial essay. Overall, I’m really proud of the structure and layout of my essay and how all my stanzas started and ended the same and how the two middle lines in each stanza started with the same letter.