the steadfast tin soldier & other meanderings

Imagine what it must be like to be a music box ballerina. They must live for the time when thoughtless hands open their cages and set their souls free. They can dance! Only for a little while, though… What a terrible fate! I wish a steadfast tin soldier for every one of them.

I would like you to be my steadfast tin soldier. What is a delicate, paper castle to me when I could have someone who understands?
But what will be left of our love in the end? A spangle {burned} and a lump of tin {heart-shaped}, lying a pile of ash. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? But beautiful does not mean happily-ever-after. Sadness is beautiful. {I know that boy agrees with me. I once remarked that “sadness is beautiful” and he agreed. A girl protested. But it’s alright… she just doesn’t know. Don’t you think sadness is beautiful?}


Lately, I have found myself, expressing joy through an impulsive but meaningful medley of songs. I let my voice canter unrestrained as I run around and drape myself across banisters. {As if I was starring in my own musical improvisation.} No one has made me feel this giddy in a long time. It’s all because of you. I wonder if you’ll ever know what you've done to me.

So quickly, it seems, my devotion changed. I am not capricious - not in the least! I am the steadfast, tin soldier to my feather-friends. You will find that loyalty runs steadily through my veins, mixing completely with my blood. But it was time. Time to let go. Time to wake-up from my dream of who that boy is and finally see his reality. I shook his dream from my shoulders and it slithered to the floor like a velvety cape. I hadn’t realized how old and worn the fabric was. I know now. And I haven't felt this free, this content in a long time. This story made have a sad ending, but for now I don't care. Even if all that remains will be...

{1st picture found here, 2nd & 3rd picture taken by me from my book of The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen with illustrations by Angela Barrett. The nail-bitten fingers belong to me...}

Some of the beautiful things.

Just when her life was the most sodden with disappointments that it had ever been...
When she felt the only thing she wanted to do was slip into a fading nothingness; an anonymous grave....
Just when she had forgotten there is hope...
Then, she discovered it: the preservation of the things that made her happiest.
She collected empty bottles & jars and in them stored her treasures.

{Extract of sunshine; spice of the wind on an autumn noon.}

She set these containers on a shelf in an alcove in her kitchen, labeling them with a meticulous hand.

{Salt tasting of ocean breezes; essence of a feathery kiss.}

Pride welled in her heart when she surveyed the neat lines of her assorted riches. Lovingly, she would run her fingers along their varied surfaces. Some warm, some cool.

{Decanters full of intoxicating moonlight-infused water, gathered from a lake at midnight.}

With a careful reverence, she dusted them every day.

{A jar full of the fog that seems to creep from the forests and settle in the roads.}

Every day her collection grew, for now her senses were opened and she found beautiful things everywhere she went.

{Bottle upon bottle filled full of the infectious giggles of the little boy who lived down the street.}

All these years, she had mechanically fed her body but starved that thing inside her. The thing inside everyone that is sustained by the abstract & beautiful things of life.
She had forgotten you need more than physical sustenance to keep one's soul alive.
But, now she has remembered... and her life has never been more dear to her.

Porcelain Love

As a young girl, I had many dolls that were made up of different things... cloth, plastic, vinyl, porcelain... I loved them all. Even my porcelain dolls who always seemed so indifferent. When I held them close, their skin was so cool against mine.
No matter how many childish kisses and caresses I lavished upon them, they never warmed up. A blank, glassy stare would be the only reward for my efforts.

O, you, my love, must be made of porcelain!
It is so clear to me now...
This is why you never let your emotions show; why you never seem to really see me...

I never stopped loving my porcelain dolls, in hopes that someday they might respond to my gentle touch.

Just know, I shall do the same for you, my darling, porcelain love.
Someday your hard exterior will crack and I know a responsive human flesh must lie underneath.
Maybe then, you will love me back?


{Picture by me, of me and one of my porcelain dolls, Emily.}

I don't know, really.

The cracks in my ceiling are the cracks in your floor.
Am I just imagining the bloodstain spreading across your shirt?
I could just pretend I don’t see your paling face, your desperate blue eyes that I can’t look into.
I stare out the window at the tempestuous landscape. The wind whips the trees into a frenzied dance. Shutters clap against the house applauding the apocalyptic show.

I don’t want you to hold my hands, because then you’d know how clammy they are. I am filled with silence. A throbbing silence that wants to speak… which might be the wrong thing to do.
I don’t think I’m imaging the way you look at me. But I could be misinterpreting what it’s saying.

I wish, I wish… so many things. I wish you would stroke my hair and tell me things I don’t know.
But sometimes, I wish I could gather up my hair… Gather up all my thick, moody hair and cut it off. With a resounding snip! Would it be like killing part of me, though?

I used to love the rain and the dark clouds. Now dark, gloomy days bring dark, gloomy thoughts and not one glimpse of you. Why does it always come back to you?
You’re standing right here looking at me. I can’t look at you. It wouldn’t be… fair?
You sigh a sigh that melts my heart, but not my resolve. I close my eyes.
Silence.
Then I hear you leave. Was this the last time?
I can only watch your retreating back through the window’s rain-soaked glass. Through the glass you look blurred, like you’re in a Monet painting. But the surrounding colours are too depressing to be a Monet...

I stand and gaze out the window. Half-wishing you would appear again. After a while, I turn away. Then I notice… a piece of paper on the floor. Anxious but eager, I pounce on it. Your handwriting greets me like an old friend. The message it contains brings tears of hope to my eyes. It says simply, “Wait for me. I will return.”