The Past

I've been thinking a lot about the past again. My family's past, specifically, as I've been making friends with my grandmother's "Heritage Scrapbook".

There is an entry in my journal that sums up the emotions I've been feeling lately, so I'm posting it, with a couple revisions and clarifications. (This entry was written last September when we were in KY for the first time in forever, to go to the Creation Museum and visit family also since a lot of my father's family comes from there.)

"We are in Kentucky. [...] We went to the annual [family] reunion. The highlight of this was seeing great-aunt D- (my grandfather's oldest sister). We set on her porch for a while, the porch of the house her (late) husband built! (Though, as she said, there have been improvements made.)
And as I sat there on the porch swing, I started thinking about old people & how many stories & memories they have & how they are our tie with the past. And once they die all their stories & memories die with them. One more tie with the past is severed.
It makes me wish I could just spend time with people like Aunt D- & my grandparents & ask them to tell me stories of their life.
Where are we without the past? I say I hate history [as a subject in school] - I don't. I hate textbook history. I don't just want to know about impersonal, large battles. I don't want to know about dreams of the nation. I want to know about the individual battles of every day. I want to know the personal dreams that the generations before me held. I don't want to lose our connection with them."


Does anyone else ever feel that way? It makes me wish I had a stronger inclination to be a biographer or something. Now I always make sure to pay close attention when my grandparents start telling a story. I don't think I remember often enough how blessed I am to still have all my grandparents alive.

As I mentioned, I've been looking a lot at my (maternal) grandmother's "Heritage Scrapbook" lately. My brothers and I spent the night at her and my grandfather's house yesterday because my parents and older sister were both gone. I adopted the scrapbook for the night so I could spend more time with it, hehe. I took some pictures of some of the photos and thought I'd share a few. (Sorry the quality isn't the greatest.)


This is my favourite picture in the album. It's my great-grandmother (or my mother's mother's mother :P) in the 1920's when she was dating my great-grandfather (the man next to her, obviously). The funny thing is, nobody remembers who the little girl on the right is. My grandmother asked my great-grandmother when she was still alive and she didn't remember either.
Still, I love this picture; it just screams 1920's and I love that era.

This is my great-grandfather's family. Yep, he had 11 siblings. I'm not sure when it's from... late 1910's or 1920's is my guess. He's in the back row, in the middle (he's the same fellow in the picture above).



And this is a picture of my grandmother and grandfather in the 1950's before they were married!

They were so cute. :)


Anyway, I hope everyone is having a lovely summer and has a great new week!

mostly true musings on missing

I put my memories of you on the gramophone and played them all night long.
I awoke in the morning, stretched out on the floor like a cadaver.
All I felt was sadness and confusion. Had I awoken from a dream? I don’t remember.
But the sadness and confusion decided to make themselves at home; one nestled in my right pocket, the other in my left.

The rain sang drowsily all morning and dampened the world's colours. I sat at the window and mused how if I should touch any part of the wet world, the colours would come off on my hand.
I contemplated going outside and tracking the grass's green into the worn, grey asphalt. Perhaps I should have run my hands across our blue car and then streaked my fingers across the sky, making it blue again.


I took the poem with the cracked frame off the wall and replaced it with a Monet: vague, colourful, whoami?; it seems to fit my life right now.

Do you know how to say 'I miss you' in French? 'Tu me manques.' That literally translates as 'You are missing to me'. I love that.
The phrase 'I miss you' seems so solitary, as if the missing process only concerned 'I', myself. But 'tu me manques': your presence is evident, you are the subject of the sentence.
Likewise, you do not miss me, I am missing to you. Je te manque. We are a whole that makes no sense apart.

At first, I thought I would be fine. Now I feel as if my subconscious has been dyed the colour of your eyes. Underneath every thought and action it’s there, a wandering, green phantom. I can't wash it out no matter how hard I try. Though perhaps I was hardly trying at all... (It's too wearying to care enough these days.)

It seems to be my fate to miss the times and places that have gone, and the people too. The times and places cannot be helped, but the people... perhaps I am at fault. Maybe there is something I could have said or done, so that I would not be here, feeling lost and dreaming of you. Yet there is a thought that haunts me: I am happier this way, missing you. That I have made you transcendent as an intangible and your reality could never measure up.
For all I know, that could be true. But it has no chance of being proved or amended because... tu me manques (and I fear it will last forever).





{1st picture taken from text of "Miss Bishop" by Bess Streeter Aldrich, 2nd picture taken by me [the painting is, of course, by Monet], 3rd picture is of Paul and Linda McCartney taken from his 'Maybe I'm Amazed' music video.}

and the years keep coming...

I am 18 today.
It has been a lovely day; low-key and quiet. And I am happy to have reached this milestone birthday.
But these past few days there has been an apprehension and fear: this year I will not change. For the better, that is.

If I could write a letter to the myself of a year ago and tell her about the upcoming year, what would I say? I have been pondering this. There are just... no words. Myself a year ago could never understand the me of today. This past year I have done things I never thought I was capable of. They weren't good things either.
I have come out of this year scarred {literally} but I don't know if I'm any stronger. I am still so weak and that frightens me.
Last night, I sought heartease in God's word and found the peace I needed. We have been given such hope. And isn't that a beautiful thing to have at the bottom of the Pandora's box we call life? If I keep my eyes heavenward this year will be different; I will be changed for the better.

Also, this year has not been all bad! On the contrary, there have been many bright moments to offset the dark ones.
I'd just like to thank you, dear readers, for bringing so many bright moments my way this year. You all never fail to bring smiles to my face with your comments and you fill my heart with the beautiful words you write. I love you all so much!


I don't feel 18 in the least, I could've sworn I was still 12. The song 'I Won't Grow Up' from the musical Peter Pan used to be my theme song. Now I no longer fight the years that are slowly accumulating around my feet and piling up to my shins, but concentrate on keeping my heart young. To me, being young at heart means you know how to behave like an adult and do... but can morph into your inner child at the snap of a finger.

And yes, that definitely entails wearing train conductor hats if one pleases. ;)
















{This hat used to be at my grandmother's house and somehow it ended up at our house during the move. I found it the other day and adopted it. I figured it was appropriate since I am the "train conductor" of the "midnight train of thought". Hehe. :P}

Appreciation for the familiar.

"When you talked earlier about, after a few years, how a couple would begin to hate each other by anticipating their reactions or getting tired of their mannerisms… I think it would be the opposite for me… I think I can really fall in love when I know everything about someone. The way he’s going to part his hair, which shirt he’s going to wear that day… knowing the exact story he’d tell in a given situation.
I’m sure that’s when I’d know I’m really in love."

~Céline, Before Sunrise~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you feel that way? I do. Sometimes I think there is nothing so comforting as the familiar. Sure, experiencing new things is great; the thrill of the unknown is unparalleled! But at the end of the day I just want to be reassured by something predictable. Though I am not one for daily rituals that must be performed. Just being in a familiar place with the people I love and know is enough for me.
{...Though this is probably because I'm a major homebody.}

The burgeoning story.

I've been carrying around a story in my head for a while now.
Not a short story, as in a few pages and it's done. No... this is much longer than that. It's patiently been humming in the back of my brain. I've been ignoring it. But now its kicking against the bars of my mind.
I can't neglect it much longer. It's burning a hole in my pocket. I can feel it tingling on the tips of my fingers.
It wants to be told!

It's like carrying around a mouthful of water. I know I shall either have to spit it out or swallow it. Swallowing it would be the coward's way out. I know I'm going to have to spit it out. Soon. And it will be so relieving!

But till then, I am holding it close to me, not wanting to let it go yet. Why, I wonder? I think because I am afraid it shall disappoint me. I am afraid that it will cheapen and lose its lustre in the harsh light of reality.
Also, I'm in the midst of two other stories. One I am at a standstill with. The second I have been nursing for about a year. They are both technically on back burners already...

Hm... I think this story is about to get its long deserved turn at front and center in my literary efforts.

Poetry and Me!

I used to think that I hated poetry.
I mean, everyone else hated poetry! What was up with this whole analyzation thing? And I had read a volume of Robert Frost's poems for school that I didn't enjoy. Sooo... I must hate poetry.

Which is idiotic logic. {Especially since I loved Shakespeare's plays and had read all his sonnets. *rolls eyes* I also loved various humourous poetry, such as Lewis Carroll and Shel Silverstein.}

I realized later, you can't just read one poet's work and decide you don't like poetry. That would be like reading a book, not liking it, and saying "I hate all books!" No, you just don't like that author.

So, there I was. Convinced I hated poetry. My brother, who also hates poetry, was complaining about this book of poetry he had to read for school. He especially disliked one poet in particular, Carl Sandburg.


I don't remember exactly how this came about but I ended up reading one of his poems titled I Sang:

I sang to you and the moon
But only the moon remembers.
I sang
O reckless free-hearted
free-throated rythms,
Even the moon remembers them
And is kind to me.

Being an offbeat kind of girl, I liked the fact that it didn't rhyme or follow a strong meter. {Obviously, I was not familiar with the term "free verse".}
"Hey, I like this!" I said joyfully to my brother.
He just rolled his eyes and said, "You would."

Since then, I have kept an open heart to poetry. I have discovered many new poets I love and enjoy. {Though you still won't find me analyzing poetry!! I am content to see in it what I want to see in it. Overanalyzation gets ridiculous!}

Now, I am saddened when I hear people say they hate poetry. Obviously, they haven't found the right poet for them. They have no idea what a wonderful thing they're missing!

Uppercase "I"

One day, I was doing my French homework, and I started thinking about the way I write the letter "I". I write it vertically, without two horizontal lines on each end. Like this: I. And I realized... I didn't used to write it that way! I used to write it with the horizontal lines. I became consumed with curiosity of when this change happened. So, I consulted my faithful journal which I kept from late 2000 to early 2009 and I found out something very interesting...
On January 1, 2006, I was writing my "I's" with the horizontal lines. The next entry, which was January 26, 2006, the horizontal lines were gone!
Strange, non?
I'm wondering now, what in the world happened that made me start writing my "I's" differently? I'm fairly certain it wasn't an intentional change... Was there someone I knew who wrote their "I's" that way and I unknowingly picked it up from them?
It does make me wonder... and I don't think I shall ever know. *sigh*

On a similar note, I forgot how therapeutic writing in my journal is. Today I picked up my journal with the intention of only writing a few lines. I ended up writing a two page entry! It was wonderful. :)