Jasmine - Prompt Eight: The American Cultural Freedom

   There are tornados.  There are instances of metamorphosis.  There are patchwork quilts and there are threads.  But only in America can they all coalesce to become the melting pot it is famously known as. Melting does not mean destroying – it means blending; substance does remain.  It means letting a small star on a forehead erupt into a tornado that binds and bellows as the threads from the patchwork quilt display, in collaged intricacy, the process of metamorphosis.  It means American footprints.  It means Half Face, Du, Duff, Taylor, Lillian, Professorji, Bud, Darrel, Jasmine, Jase, and Jane.  It means not letting go of the past but rather accepting it for what it is – the past.  America is a coalition of not only states, peoples, identities, histories, and emotions, but it is also one of cultures, environments, and love.  America is the land of the free – it is the land of the many cultures.  The novel Jasmine ends with this sentence, “I am out the door and in the potholed and rutted driveway, scrambling ahead of Taylor, greedy with wants and reckless from hope.”  (chapter 26, page 241) America is not perfect, it is dented with “potholed and rutted driveway[s],” but America is hopeful and flourishing with cultures, and hope and the freedom of variety will always try to conquer destruction. 

                - J. A. Kind