life's unmerry-go-round

Do you know how many histrionic posts I have saved in my blogger drafts?
A lot.
Generally, I sleep on them before posting so they never see the light of day.
I should have done that last night.
I could delete that post and pretend I never felt that way. But, on the other hand... maybe I shouldn't always be swallowing these roiling emotions and should be letting them out sometimes. I know I can err on the side of being overly buttoned-up.



I stayed up late last night submerging myself in this beautifully written book:


It eased my heart's pain a little.

I do feel better, but nothing has changed. My issues and fears (which have nothing to do with anyone but myself) are still there and I know it's just a matter of time before they bring me down again. I'm still lost, but now I'm lying on the floor of the maze and looking up at the sky. Its gentle billowing is keeping me stable for the present.

On another note, I've never updated my blog this many times in one week. Next thing you know, I'll be one of those people who updates their Facebook status every 10 minutes!

Not really. :P

And in the moonlight your hands were cold.

{Though both can stand alone, I thought I'd mention that this story is a sequel to a piece I wrote a while ago called "this is our house". When I first started writing this story, I didn't realize it was a sequel-of-sorts. But eventually I became aware of the fact that I was writing from the perspective of the same narrator, even though the two pieces of writing have two very different feels and little in common. Funnily enough, I wrote this story around its first sentence [and title]. The sentence was a random phrase I picked for the name of a playlist and I liked it so much that, after ruminating for quite a while, birthed a story from it.}



And in the moonlight your hands were cold.
Nothing felt so fragile and so strong as the bond of our hands.
I saw a familiar crowd of fears and dreams reflected in your dark, dark eyes. I couldn’t stop staring into these windows and looking at your midnight-coloured soul.
Your hold on my hands spoke of life, yet I look over your shoulder and know you’ve had ghosts too.
Still, I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. I want your cold hands to hold mine for... how long? Forever. That sounds about right.

The tower of silence stacked above our heads was toppled by footsteps walking down the stony path.
(hearts quickening, cheeks warming, sudden inches between us)


Now I make my way back to the house which continues to stand in hunched, withered obstinacy.
Ducking through the hallways where the ghosts meet, I find my thoughts have stayed with you though I’ve walked away.
I open the door to the library where the silt of wraith-words lingers on every surface. I whisper to the books, soothing them as I run my fingers lightly over their spines; searching, searching.
I locate the book I seek and smile: tonight it is not merely a book, it is a message. A message for you, a reply to your question.

There is a murmuring near the fireplace. I don’t even look over. Tis the ghosts. They have not lessened since your arrival but I forget about them more frequently.
I found a lonely, little ghost wandering in my room last week; it had a familiar face. What could I do but offer my bed? We shared our sleep that night. A phantom makes a quiet bedfellow at least.
I never minded their presence, like dusty cobwebs haunting the corner of every room. But now, you have sparked a flame in me, a desire to no longer sit holding the tattered quilt of what once was in my lap.


With timid footsteps and a yearning heart, I leave the book outside your door. I kiss its dilapidated, burgundy cover once, twice. Soft and staccato like eyelashes fluttering. (Even I am not quite sure why I did this. Sometimes doing silly, pointless things feels necessary.)

Later, I lie on my bed, wide awake and listen to the nocturnal medley of my family...
A cough.
A sleepy snort.
The creaking of a rocking chair.

At last, your tread on the stairs! Your feet walking the floor above me, your footsteps pattering up my spine.

Then, the quiet midnight void.

My eyes won’t close. They want to stare into the dark and think of cold hands and warm, dark eyes that promise “Life can breathe anew.”

I worry that you didn’t find my message. Or perhaps you didn’t understand the response the book was conveying. I chew over these sticky doubts for a while, wishing I could spit them out.

But! I hear quiet movement from upstairs, steps that come nearer.

You?

A family member?

A ghost?

There’s a knock on my door. My heartbeat pounds at a speed it’s never reached before. I leap from my bed and open the door to reveal your tall, reassuring form. You almost look surprised for a moment, then you smile. I smile back; there is no need to speak.

I grab my suitcase which lies near the door and step out into the hall. Your cold hand joins my warm one and together we walk; down the hall, past the ghosts. Down the stairs, past the dull eyes of family portraits. We walk out of the house, I softly stomp my feet on the threshold to shake the house’s bony grip off my ankles.

I don’t even look back.

Ravings of a Bibliophile

You know what makes me sad?
When people (kids and teens in particular) tell me they don't like to read.
It makes me want to hide in the back of a dark, dark closet and mutter curses against our current society. Of course, I'd take a flashlight in the closet with me so I could read in between tears and anguished cries.

I mean, how sad would it be to not like to read?
How tragic is it that some consider reading to be something one is forced to do for school? (I am related to some of these people too! *shudders*)

Books mean the world to me. I cannot remember a time when reading was not something I enjoyed. This past year I have started taking trips twice a week to the library. Like one diseased, I search online for interesting and new-to-me books to read. (Which reminds me, got a recommendation? Leave it in the comments!)
This winter, especially, books have been invaluable. Books were my drug. When life got too stressful, too sad, too lonely, I lost myself in an inky world. According to goodreads.com I have read 175 books so far in 2011 (only a handful of which are re-reads since I don't usually log my re-reads.) Yes, I read a disgusting amount these days. It wasn't always like this, believe me. But I figure I probably won't have this kind of time later on in life so I am taking advantage of it now.

If you are reading this and don't like to read, I'm sorry. Sorry for for my vehement opinions or sorry for your incomplete existence, you may wonder. Well, I'm... not going to answer that. :P


Some of my favourite book quotes I have collected in my readings:

"I closed my eyes, put my right hand on top of the book, and passed it lightly across the cover. It was cool and smooth like a stone from the bottom of the brook, and it stilled me. A whole other world is inside there, I thought to myself, and that's where I want to be."
-From Ida B. by Katherine Hannigan


"Literature is a source of pleasure, he said, it is one of the rare inexhaustible joys in life, but it's not only that. It must not be disassociated from reality. Everything is there. That is why I never use the word fiction. Every subtlety in life is material for a book. He insisted on the fact. Have you noticed, he'd say, that I'm talking about novels? Novels don't contain only exceptional situations, life or death choices, or major ordeals; there are also everyday difficulties, temptations, ordinary disappointments; and, in response, every human attitude, every type of behavior, from the finest to the most wretched. There are books where, as you read, you wonder: What would I have done? It's a question you have to ask yourself. Listen carefully: it is a way to learn to live. There are grown-ups who would say no, that literature is not life, that novels teach you nothing. They are wrong. Literature performs, instructs, it prepares you for life."
-from A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé


"As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

No ... eight days a week."
-From The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley


"When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book."
-From The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley


"I feel, holding books, accommodating their weight and breathing their dust, an abiding love. I trust them, in a way that I can't trust my computer, though I couldn't do without it. Books are matter. My books matter. What would I have done through these years without the library and all its lovely books?"
-From The Girls by Lori Lansens

(A few of my very favourite books.)

{1st picture from the film "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" and 2nd picture taken by me.}

running away, not going anywhere

let's not leave the house today…

shall we be rebellious for once?
you laugh at that – i'm serious!
say you'll stay in with me.
we could snuggle into the eiderdown's warm embrace,
open a recipe book at random and make the first thing we see.
proclaim our favourite poems to each other!
waltz to the melodies we sing, forgetting words and tripping over each other.
we could compose a song of love in a minor key
(for of course i love you!
i would not be willing to break the rules with just any old person, you know).
we'll be renegades together!
traitors to the mundane existence!
outcasts of society! i must say it sounds awfully fun…
so please, forget your job. forget your life.
forget everything except me and what we will do today.
we may never want to go back again…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote this a couple months ago. But lately I've been wishing I really could run away from life. It's not that I am terribly unhappy it's just... life can just be a drag sometimes, you know?
Also, I've been wishing that I actually had someone that I'd want to "escape reality" with. That person is little more than an illusion I dreamed in the darkness to make loneliness seem less permanent.


{This is a minuscule playlist I made. These two songs reminded me of this post's concept so I thought, why not include them? Especially since they're by two of my most favourite artists. The first is 'Gold in the Air of Summer' by Kings of Convenience and the second is 'Our Day Trip' by Nina Nastasia. The lyrics can be found here and here.}

If you could run away, or rather, retreat from the real world where would you go? What would you do?

{Photo by me and made possible by my typewriter Donovan.}

For the dreamers.

I am not a leader and I have never been much of a follower.
What does that make me then?

I am... a dreamer! Yes, I am a dreamer; I make my own world and demand no one join me there. A leader would want subjects; I am not a leader.
I am not a follower. True, I am unassuming but I will not languish in waiting for someone else to do something I may not even like. Quietly, I will disappear and travel to the beatings of my own thoughts.
I am not a rebel. Well, I am really. Dreamers are gentle, starry-eyed rebels. We care not for mundanitites and rules. Our rebellion is not loud or brazen, but filled with sounds of raindrops and rose-whispers. Our respectful defiance is misunderstood as rebellions must be.

Those who are not dreamers find us exasperating. They look in scorn at our flushed faces from dancing in the meadows. They regard our snowflake stained eyes with suspicion.
"Why??" they ask. They don't know how much it helps.
With annoyance, they survey our bare toes. Knowing we have been dabbling them in a pool of fairy tales, they are afraid we might drip on their spotless carpet.

But we try not to care what the ignorant people think. We are introspective but not self-centered. For we find the company of other dreamers to be invaluable... we need to be understood as well!

If you are reading this, I feel sure you must be a dreamer. This blogging world feels like a secret society of dreamers and I am so glad I stumbled upon it. I love you all. {Just so you know.}



{Photograph by Rodney Smith.}

My Favourite Place

"This," she told her little brother, "is a treasure map!"
Her little brother eyed the tattered piece of paper doubtfully and complacently continued playing with his toy cars.
Unruffled by his disinterest, she continued. "At the end of this map you will find a door... a door that leads to all of my favourite places!
How would you like to go through a wardrobe to a beautiful land where animals talk! We could take Fritz with us and he could tell us what he is thinking!"
By now, her brother had abandoned his toys and was regarding the paper she held with curiosity.
"We could step through a looking glass, even! And be pieces on a giant game of chess! Or we could go to Dictionopolis and eat the very words we say. If we get too full we could go to Digitopolis and eat subtraction stew which makes you hungry instead of full!"
Her little brother's face broke into a smile that was parenthesised by two dimples.
"Oh! Wait," she gasped, "I know where we could go first! A place called Neverland! You get there by flying and you can never get older there, never ever. They have pirates there and indians and fairies and everything! Oh, yes! Let's go there first!" She almost shrieked, hopping up and down with exuberance. "Do you want to?" She asked earnestly peering into the little boy's widened eyes. He nodded vigorously.
"Well, then, off we go!!" She slipped her hand in his and swinging their arms they set off together down that well-worn path... the path that leads to the library.

{Painting: The Land of Enchantment by Norman Rockwell.}

{the night of my grandmother's party}

Silently, I sat at the table.
My left-hand neighbor had gone. My right-hand neighbor chatted gaily to her right-hand neighbor about places I'd never been.
The people across from me were happily engaged in a conversation that I could have joined but I had no desire to.
I looked around the capacious tent that held all the people talking and laughing. So many people... I wished they would all go home so I could have peace.
I sat dully, listening to the chatter.
Darkness enclosed the tent. It seemed like a friendly dark... a dark that was beckoning me...!
Without a second thought I stood up, with one object in mind: to escape.
Doubting anyone would notice me leave or give much thought to it, I made my way outside.

I looked back at the lighted tent, happy with the knowledge no one would miss me.
I stepped further into the darkness. Childishly, I jumped through the tree that was divided in the middle so that its shape resembled a giant "Y".

Down the garden path I walked. The ground was cold and damp beneath my bare feet. {I had abandoned my shoes long ago.}
I walked to the garden's edge where trees, bushes, and vines formed a thick bramble. There I stopped.
Though still in view of the lighted tent, no one could see me.
Staring up into the dark sky, which was punctuated by a full moon, I felt a pleasing sense of solitude slip over me.
The beauty of the night, the joy of seclusion, and the romance of the outdoors intoxicated me. An inspirational emotion washed over me... filling me with the need to write or sing!
Since I had neither pen nor paper, I started to softly sing.
The songs were sad but I sang them because I was happy.
Only the trees heard me and the night hid me from prosaic eyes.

Eventually, I knew I had to go back.
With a regretful sigh, I gathered my skirts and made my way back to the noise and brightness.{Making sure to jump through the "Y" tree again.}
Quietly, I resumed my seat at the table. But I felt different. I felt exhilarated after my impulsive excursion. I even successfully made conversational efforts. I smiled and talked late into the night.
Though in the back of my mind, I still was blissfully singing in the darkness, immeasurable happy.


{Painting: "The Girl Under the Magic Moon" by Darren Daz Cox.}

The place only I can go.

When those people hurt me I don't want them to know.

But it affects me...

I shrink from their speeches which are like prodding fingers.
I try to block out their mocking words.
I become aloof on the outside;
On the inside I've run away.
I've run away from reality to a place only I can go.
It's quiet here. I can lean against time & think for a while.
My exterior is frozen. My interior is alive.
You can't follow me here. No one can.
I pity those cruel people. Their perception of beauty is clouded

They don't have a place like mine.
They could though.
But they're too busy... Busy in their miserable world.

{Photo: Anna Brønsted of Our Broken Garden. Taken by: Gina Zacharias.}