




Imagine a beautiful humming bird, miniscule in size but ferocious in flight. Now imagine the great blue whale, incredibly large, yet has penetrating cries when alone. Now imagine us, the simple human, all living together in this world but all living different lives in unison. What do we all have in common? It is the simplest thing that is able to keep us alive, a heart. A heart that beats, loves, and lasts us a lifetime. Brian Doyle the author of “Joyas Volardores,” illustrates through the use of the heart, that no matter what our hearts have gone through, they all have a purpose and with time they are able to heal themselves.

The heart. When we think of the word heart we imagine the red and pink symbols of love, or we imagine that pounding machine that courses the blood through our veins. Either way, the heart is simple yet sophisticated all at the same time. This remains true for every creature we encounter on Earth. No matter how small or large, like an inch worm or a massive hippopotamus, we have this machine in our bodies. Now throughout this short story the word and symbol heart is repeated constantly and it is used to compare multiple different creatures. This is because the author is trying to convey how important the heart is to every living thing. The heart is the central part of the cardiovascular system; it keeps our blood pumping. No matter how tiny or enormous the creature, for example the humming bird and the blue whale that Doyle uses, both have hearts, but the demand for life is utilized in different ways. The humming bird uses its heart to carry out its dangerous day-to-day life, buzzing around in a panic to find food. On the other hand the blue whale uses their hearts to slowly guide them along to finding their mate. The humming bird’s heart is taut and tough, but the whale’s is large enough to fit a small child in. With the repetition of the word heart, it sets a clear view on how the author wants us to view ourselves compared to whatever else is on this planet. We are different, but under our colored exoskeletons we all have that beating muscle driving us to live. 

Now the life expectancy of the heart can be completely different for various creatures. Brian Doyle uses the examples of life expectancy to illustrate that no matter how short or long a life is, all of it has a meaning and a purpose. Imagine the examples from “Joyas Volardores,” the humming bird and the tortoise; they are completely different. One is agile in flight while on a desperate search for food and the other spends its days basking in the sun while gingerly munching on any vegetation that it can find. One lives to be two, the other, two hundred. The lifetime of a heart is limited. We only have a certain number of beats to keep us going and it is our decision on how we want to spend them.  

Brian Doyle also states, “We all churn inside.” (pg. 96). This means we all have some form of motion continually going on in our bodies. It is something that stands out so much in this story that Doyle makes us reconsider; what’s the whole point? The point is, is that the ‘interior motion’ is the pumping of our blood, but it means more than that. Our hearts and blood only get us so far in life, yes it allows us to live, but we make the choices to take us different places. We churn because that’s our purpose. We, as creatures use hearts differently, but we are put on this Earth to move, to churn, to find our way.

The only thing that is different about our hearts is that we, as humans, chose to love with ours. With love comes heartbreak, whether it is the death of a love one, a break up, or even as Brian Doyle puts it, “the words I have something to tell you,” (pg. 96). No matter how simple it is it will always be enough to tear that wall down we so desperately try to keep standing. In those moments, the walls around our hearts crack and crumble under the pressure of emotions. It scars and bruises our hearts just as Doyle explains it, “that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will” (pg. 96). It is like a dam collapsing from the pressure of the water, even though its job and purpose is to keep the raging waters behind it captured in one space. Our emotions are those raging waters and they beat against the concrete walls of our heart, but with time everything must fall, even our hearts themselves. 

Also with time comes healing, no matter what out hearts go through we can patch them up. Yes, there will be scars, and yes it will be painful, but with a lifetime so short everyone has to go through rough times to experience the good. Brian Doyle shows us that through his short story. He guides us through the life of different creatures and he shows us that everyone’s hearts are scarred and torn at the end of the day. The reason for those scars and bruises is because the heart has learned to heal, but it did not heal on it’s own. We have aided it in its healing process, we are the ones patching it with band-aids and sticking it together with glue. We will always be strong, no matter what tries to tear our hearts down.

