Kimo's essay Number 5

Kimo Gray
10.24.08
Hamilton Salsich
English 9

Essentials of Life: Appreciation
An essay on an essay
To take a classic quote by quoting from Webster’s Dictionary, appreciation is “Understanding of the nature or meaning or quality or magnitude of something.” Stepping back and looking at my life, I ask myself, do I really appreciate my life? I have so much to give thanks for, such as my family, my friends, my ancestors, my country. Zora Neale Hurston, and her essay, “How it feels to be Colored Me,” present a new kind of appreciation, which tells that before one can appreciate everything around them, they must first appreciate themselves.
Zora Neale Hurston, whose childhood could be described as just ordinary, began her life colorless. Zora Neale Hurston was able to appreciate from an early age that skin color didn’t mean as much as attitude and demeanor, and that possessions didn’t mean nearly as much as happiness. From even an early age, this colored girl was able to find that sense of deep appreciation that so many of us quest for in our lives. She saw the person within, not just the judgmental skin-deep layer. Zora Neale Hurston was able to do something that is not to common nowadays-she loved herself. She loved her personality, she loved her dancing, and she loved her songs. She loved her skin, and she loved her life, however hard it may have been. Her biggest question was how even though she gave so much love and happiness to the people around her, that not everybody appreciated her the same way. It is hard, when you work so hard to enjoy life, only to have someone else kick at your walls of happiness, but Zora was able to rebuild it. Because she appreciated life and everything to do with it, be it music, art, or just making the world a little bit better, this was a voluble woman who even though she saw colorless, still saw the color that shines within a person.
More often than not, I find myself lacking the appreciation that I desperately need for myself; I have never been able to love myself as much as Zora Neale Hurston. Though I have led a relatively comfortable life, I realize that I don’t appreciate it as much as I should. Like I have said, I have anything I person could want, I have friends, I have family, I have a good education, I have life. But the one thing that I do not have is harmony with me. Let me step back and look at my jumbled life and see what Ms. Hurston would have seen. She would have seen that I have a knack for math, I like to run, I’m not the best when it comes to organization, and my mind is always a little random. But I hope that she would also see a kind person, an expeditious person, who even though can be confused from time to time, always tries to help his friends and family, always tried to help the world in some small way, always trying to love what is most important. I think the time I appreciate myself and my life most is when I am with my friends. When we are all together, laughing away at some dumb joke or having serious conversations about theoretical death matches (between Chuck Norris and Optimus Prime); they just bring out the life in me. I believe that the key to a long life is to stay happy, do what you love, and always keep some good friends. Though I may not always have the compliance I need with myself, looking back, I know that I am good person, one that will always do the right thing at the right time.
To once again quote from Webster’s dictionary, to be colored, “Is the act of defined by one or more attributes.” When I see myself in the mirror, I ask myself, what is my color? Am I a vivid orange, sparkling like the sun, or perhaps a mysterious blue, that shades behind everything else; maybe I’m a polka-dotted stripedy purple, or maybe I’m just shades of gray. Unlike Ms. Hurston, I don’t know my color, but when I finally do, I’m going to let it shine as bright as I can.







Purposeful Repetition: Underlined
F.A.S.T. Words: Bold