books, time, and silence

Hello again, blogosphere.  It feels good to be back.  Weird to be in a new setting though.  Whereas before, I lounged in the sitting room of Linley, listening to the purr of the pigeons and the chiming bells of the abbey, I now am sitting on my very old couch, staring around at the still blank walls that line our apartment.  Secretly, I have named our apartment The Burrow.  Yes, this is a shoutout to Harry Potter, but it's also because the word "Burrow" has such warm and cuddly connotations. You saw burrow, I think bunny.  You say bunny, I think snuggling.  I think snuggling, and then I'm happy. So there you have it.

Have you ever tried playing with words?  Take the name of your hometown. Write it down, and stare at it. Chicago.  Chicago.  Chicago.  Cago. Chica, go. Chi ca go. Chic. Ago. Has it lost it's meaning yet?  It's weird--mainly because I just wrote Chicago in my senior writing project story, and it looked strange to me. Perhaps because I haven't really been living in Chicago for eight months now, but just writing it made me realize that its meaning has changed slightly. Yes, it will always be home, but somehow it doesn't feel quite so singular anymore.  Or maybe it just feels farther away.  Still, when I write it, I think of Lincoln Park, and late summer nights in the alleyways, and running to school, and Halloween on Burling, and River Forest, and  train rides into the city when I raced the sun, and endless nights spent staring at the skyline that is even better than stars. I think of warmth and love and happiness.  But now I can't help but think that there is another home for me, out there somewhere.  Because what's different about what I think about when I write Chicago, is that I'm not thinking of the future.  I'm thinking of the past.  A great past, but a past nonetheless.  Bath, on the other hand, seems to be my present, and traveling will hopefully be my future. Future.  That is a word that scares the shit out of me.  So I won't think about it, for the moment.  For the moment, we'll deal with what's most important: books, time, and silence.

Right now, I am reading a book called, My Name is Mina and I Love the Night.  Anything Seems Possible at Night When the Rest of the World has Gone to Sleep by David Almond.  Actually, I'm pretty sure that it's just called My Name is Mina, but the rest is on the cover as well.  David Almond is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.  He writes in the magical realism genre, telling stories about little boys who find angels, or little girls with imaginations so vivid that they mesh flawlessly with the real world.  He is truly astounding.

Over the summer, Mike, my Senior Writing Project advisor, asked us to email him some books we thought he should read.  Books that would help him understand what influenced us.  Honestly, I surprised myself with my choice, and I think that simple task helped me to better understand my own writing.  Of course, I did think first of Harry Potter, but when emailing a creative writing professor, it's usually best to stay away from the mainstream.  So I instead chose Skellig by David Almond and The Giver by Lois Lowry.  Both these books have a little magic.  Both these books deal with growing up.  And both these books, interestingly, deal in large part with the protection of a baby.  Jonas with the baby Gabriel, and Michael with his little baby sister.  Why am I drawn to these books that contain a bit of magic, a bit of sadness, but a lot of hope?  Maybe I'll find out at some point this year.

Anyways, because I actually got out some stickies and marked several passages from this book (which you should all read, because it is absolutely fantastic), I'll write down a few select paragraphs.  But first, let me explain something.  This book is in the form of a diary, a nine year old's diary.  Throughout the book, she has different sidenotes, "extraordinary facts," and "extraordinary activities," that she writes in bold letters and puts in boxes.  Good grief, I am definitely going to have my fifth graders read this book when I become a teacher.

"Extraordinary Fact!  There are as many people alive in the world today as there have been in the whole of human history!"  Mina, at this point, decides that heaven, then, needs to only be about as big as the earth, if all the souls were to live there. Then she goes on to say, "These days, though, I don't believe any of that. I think that the idea of Heaven is silly for other reasons.  When people try to say what Heaven is like, it just sounds deadly deadly deadly dull.  Standing around singing and eating nectar or something and looking at God and praising Him and being very very very good.  Imagine that!  YAWN YAWN YAWN YAWN!  Who'd want to do that for century after century after century?  ... I bet that even the angels get fed up with it all.  I bet they want to eat bananas and marmalade and chocolate, and to look at things like clouds of flies, and to climb trees or to play with cats.  I bet they look at us and envy us for being human. I bet that somethimes they even want to be like us.  Except they might get put off by the fact that we die.
       Anyway, in the end, I don't really believe in Heaven at all, and I don't believe in perfect angels.  I think that this might be the only Heaven there can possibly be, the world we live in now, but we haven't quite realized it yet.  And I think that the only possible angels might be us.  THIS MIGHT BE HEAVEN! WE MIGHT BE LIVING IN HEAVEN RIGHT NOW! AND WE MIGHT BE THE ANGELS!
       Is that stupid? No, it's not!  Look at the blackbird, the way the sunlight glistens on it.  Look at the way it shimmers, the way its blackness glints with silver, purple, green, and even white beneath the sun.  Listen to its song.  Look at the way it jumps into the sky.  Look how the leaves are coming out from the buds.  Feel how strong the tree is and feel the beat of my heart and the sun on my skin and the air on my cheek.  Think of the things like the human voice, the solar system, the fur of a cat, the sea, bananas, a duck-billed platypus.  Look at the things that we've made: houses and pavements and walls and steeples and roads and cars and songs and poems, and yes I know that it's a long long way from being perfect.  But perfection would be very dull and perfection isn't the point.
      !PERFECTION IS BORING!  !PERFECTION IS EMPTY! !PERFECTION IS NOTHINGNESS!
      Look at the world.  Smell it, taste it, listen to it, feel it, look at it.  Look at it!  And I know horrible things happen for no good reason.  Why did my dad die?  What the point of famine and fear and darkness and war?  I don't know! I'm just a kid!  How can I know answers to things like that?  But this horrible world is so blooming beautiful and so blooming weird that sometimes I think it'll make me faint!
       JUST LOOK AT THE MINDBLOWING LIPSMACKING WONDERFUL AMAZING BEAUTIFUL STUNNING MARVELLOUS GORGEOUS LOVELY LOVELINESS OF OUR WORLD!"

Literally, he blows my mind.  SUCH GREAT WRITING.  And just the kind that I love.  This girl tries to do things like write a story where nothing happens, only she realizes she can't do that because even a blank piece of paper is filled with possibilities, so it "really isn't empty at all."  She writes about extraordinary activities, like writing as many words for happiness as you can, and as many words for sadness.  She says that "Writing is like taking some words for a walk."  Honestly, how can you not love it?

Anyway, David Almond is really good at writing the voice of a nine year old girl.  And yes, some of the things he does are a little hokey, I'll admit, but I kind of like it.  Cause really, who wasn't a little hokey when they were nine?

So, onto other things.  As my last blog--the blog that can be seen here--was called "I Will Live my Life as a Lobsterman's Wife," I thought it would be fitting to stay with a sea theme.  And, as luck would have it, that quote up there is one of my absolute favorites.  It comes from a poem by e.e. cummings called Maggie and Millie and Mollie and May.

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

-e.e. cummings

And there you have it.  The poem that gets me through a lot of life.  And yes, I had the absolute time of my life when I was abroad.  The best six months in the history of study abroad, I'd say. Which is why I need to start fresh.  Also, I can't look at my other blog without wishing more than anything that I could once again be sitting in my lovely Linley chatting with Martha, or getting ready to go to Ben's Cookies. It's a bit like starting over, coming back to Denison.  I changed so much while I was abroad, and it feels like part of that person has been left behind in Bath.  So I need to work on finding my new more mature and self-assured self a place at Denison.  Cause whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

Write a poem,

L.R. Ogden

PS: A conversation between Mina and her mother: "'When you grow up,' I said, 'do you ever stop feeling little and weak?'  'No,' she (Mina's mother) says, 'There's always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.' 'Like a baby?' I say.  'Yes, or like a tiny bird, right at the heart of you,' she says.  'It's not really weak at all.  If we forget it's there, we're in deep trouble.'"