of 100th posts and stitches.

I just realized yesterday night that my last post was my 100th. I wish I could think of something exciting and different to do to celebrate that fact, but nothing is coming. (Funnily enough, I reached my 100th post on my music blog in December. I actually did do something different there which you can go listen to if you want to be tortured.)

What I will do, though is tell you about a strange even that happened last week! Last Wednesday, I was putting a dish in the refrigerator and it slipped and essentially broke in my hands. Long story short, I got a horrible gash in my pinky and had to get seven stitches. But I was very brave, according to my mother, and she bought me coffee afterwards (which I suppose is the adult equivalent of a lollipop). ;)
I have to wear a finger brace because I'm not supposed to bend it til this Saturday. I can't write by hand very well. I also can't play the piano. *sigh* Well, I can... kind of, but only select songs, and still not very well. I've finally mastered buttering toast/English muffins, though! Overall, it's been much more inconvenient than painful, thankfully.

Ah, yes - c'est moi modeling my lovely metal finger for you all. It's going to be the latest fashion, let me tell you. As is wearing the old nightgowns of one's mother, as I am in this picture. :P

This debacle has screwed with my brain, though. I had just gotten out of vacation mode, and then this this whole thing came along and left me in invalid mode, which is quite similar to vacation mode.
So, I'm not entirely sure if I'm out of the funk I was in at the time of my last post... I am still lacking passion about any number of things, but I have been feeling less at a loss with my writing, which is excellent.

So... yes. This is just a little update.

Carry on, then!

But it's my theme, really.

Emily's Theme
by Charles Simic

My dear trees, I no longer recognize you
In that wintry light.
You brought me a reminder I can do without:
The world is old, it was always old,
There's nothing new in it this afternoon.
The garden could've been a padlocked window
Of a pawnshop I was studying
With every item in it dust-covered.

Each one of my thoughts was being ghostwritten
By anonymous authors. Each time they hit
A cobwebbed typewriter key, I shudder.
Luckily, dark came quickly today.
Soon the neighbors were burning leaves,
And perhaps a few other things too.
Later, I saw the children run around the fire,
Their faces demonic in its flames.

--------------------------------

Feeling strange & undefinable. Nothing seems important anymore & that scares me. I'm not depressed, or at least it doesn't feel like I am; but strains of November echo back & my dreams feel like they never belonged to me. I don't know what to do now that my hopes, my passions stare at me with the eyes of a stranger. So I devour the printed word & pretend that this ache is negligible & will go away even if I do nothing to try & alleviate it.

I don't know what else to do.

Also, I wasn't going to tell you all this now, but I keep putting it off, though I did wish to get it off my chest, so... The problem between my mother & I that I mentioned a couple of posts ago was this: she found out about my self-harm of last winter. There are no words to describe how it felt to make her so sad & guilty. Because, of course, she blamed herself to a greater extent than she should have. I always knew she would, should she (God forbid) ever discover this secret; still, there was little I could say to assuage her sorrow.

Things are all right now. A little different, but good. Admittedly, I do still feel a little on edge at times...

Of course, this might have come as a surprise to everyone, since I never made more than a couple, vague allusions to my cutting. I want to make it clear I'm not that girl anymore. I haven't been for a while; I had moved on, which is why it was so painful to have all those memories dredged up.
Thank you all for always caring. I don't know where I'd be without my dear blogging friends.

I felt calm today while sitting in church. I am daring to hope that soon my dreams will be mine again, cherished & familiar; they will come back, wagging their tails behind them... :)

{Photo is by Linda McCartney.}

a love letter

My darling iridescent angel,

Today I cannot shake you from my mind. I believe my dreams must've been full of your singing, you adorable siren.
These days I am strangely silent, as if everything I want to say doesn't seem worth saying to anyone but you. You--you make my favourite topics even more dear, with the way you firmly grasp them and spread them out before you--the way they make your eyes come alive.

I don't know how much longer I can go without hearing your laugh and seeing the way your eyes and nose screw up with merriment. I am saving up amusing things to tell you--I've got quite a trove of them now. I suspect, though, when I finally am able to be with you I shall lose them all in the flood of my long awaited happiness.

My hands are cold. Every single bit of me is cold. I wish you were here to warm me.
The shipwreck known as me has never longed to land anywhere but in your arms, I hope you know that. Every day spent all these miles from you makes that painfully apparent.

All my love to you and many kisses. For the two little rascals, as well. (I hope you tell them stories of me every night, so they are not forgetting their absent father who would really much prefer to be with them then stuck in a mire of endless business.)

I love you for always--till the moon crumbles, till the sun turns to ash, and far beyond that too.

Ever your incurably infatuated husband,

C.E.


Postscript - Make sure you write your reply in the strongest ink you can find--I always fear I'll fade your words with my constant readings.

-----------------------------------------

I finished reading the biography Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy - A Lost Generation Love Story by Amanda Vaill yesterday and for some reason it inspired me to write this imaginary letter. There weren't really any love letters in the book, but spending time in the midst of that era (n.b. the 1920's and 1930's) and its people (the Murphys, the Fitzgeralds &c.)inspired me. Actually, it wasn't till I was looking up a picture of Sara Murphy that the letter started coming into my head. That would be the picture above, by the way. Isn't she lovely? She also happens to share a name with one of my favourite people... :)
The initials C.E. were pulled out of thin air, in case anyone was wondering.


Still don't really feel like talking about life. I am feeling pretty positive about this new year, though. I hope everyone else is too!