I always find crazy stuff when I'm visiting home. This past weekend, I came across the following, a story I wrote in 7th grade English that I'm sure at the time seemed clever, but now reads as ridiculous. I should also note that nothing like this ever happened; whenever there were signs of mice in the house, my mom always kept it on the down-low, and would catch them before Heidi and I ever saw them. This story is purely a work of fiction. Here is the story in its entirety, maintaining all grammatical errors, etc.
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The Dustpan Race
Picture this: my little sister, playing with her dolls, all innocent like. Today's episode is about Ken marrying a beanie baby and Barbie and Theresa trying out plans to try to sabotage the wedding.
Just when Barbie was getting ready to start, my sister screamed "EEEEEEEEEKKKK! A M-M-M-M-MOUSE!"
In the blink of an eye, she was standing on a chair, holding a dustpan, and of course,the mouse stopped dead in his tracks.
Now my sister was trying to figure out where exactly Mom put the cheese and traps, but decided that it was useless, and decided to smush its furry little butt herself.
She jumped off the chair, called it a VERY bad name, and started chasing it around the house like crazy. They weaved in and out of furniture, jumped and ran under and over tables, all while whacking at it from side to side. They kept this on for about ten minutes, until finally she chased him out the door.
Do you think that is dramatic or what? Well, the other side of the story is even more dramatic than you think.
Mr. Mouse got up early that morning, wanting to go to the "grocery" store for some more Limburger cheese (he was always running out). It was his weekly morning stroll, always around seven o'clock, and today happened to be Wednesday. He ate some cheddar on rye, brushed his teeth, stretched his paws, and started on the trip.
He sort of jumped at a screeching noise from somewhere up above, He was then frozen to the spot where he was.
'WHOW!What's that?Cheese? No. OH MY GAWSH! A CAT! No, wait, it has no tail. Hey, I know what she is. She is a human. Okay, now an escape route. Under the chair? No. East? Yes! I believe that that is the way to go!'
He then ran as fast as his little feet could carry him and cringed at what she called him, and hoped and prayed that she wouldn't kill him.
He was chased around for ten minutes, and finally ran out the door. She then went back inside. Mouse waited for awhile until after dark, and stealthily crept inside. He got to hismousehole again.
"From now on," he thought, "I'm taking walks at night."
My earliest memory of my sister, Heidi, involves a little orange jumpsuit with a matching bib decorated with a smiling, glowing pumpkin. She was just days old, and Mom had dressed her up as a pumpkin baby. This first memory is of Mom putting her into the car seat after church; perhaps Halloween was on a Sunday that year? I was too young. I cannot remember much beyond that; I was two and a half when she was born, and so I feel very lucky to remember that kind of a detail alone.
Heidi is a Halloween baby. She wasn't born on Halloween, though: just a few days before. Last weekend, when she and I were watching Hocus Pocus, one of her favorite movies, we talked about how this made sense with her obsession with horror movies. She's been trying to get me to watch every scary movie under the sun in the last few months especially.
But I digress.
Today is Heidi's 21st birthday. I've been very emotional the last few days thinking about it. It's not a bad thing; I've just been thinking a lot about everything that we've been through together. She's my best friend. We didn't get along too well as kids--well, we did, but we fought a lot, as siblings are prone to do--but then something clicked and we slowly became best friends. She is the most wonderful, kindhearted people I know, and I'm so proud to call her my sister.
One of Heidi's favorite songs when she was little was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." There is a line within the song that goes: "Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile/The girl with kaleidoscope eyes." She latched onto this idea of a 'turnstile' despite her misunderstanding of what it actually was: she named the final turn before the highway that leads directly into our hometown on our way back from visiting family in Nebraska the 'turnstile'. I remember her getting it confused, however. She called it "the turndial."
She and Dad would mention on it almost every time. "It's the turndial! It's the turndial!" she would cry, if Dad hadn't brought it up first.
I think she is Lucy. It may be odd to say so, it may be cliche, but I don't care, because I feel she really is, in so many ways. It was like the song is written for her, because it captures her essence so purely. Her creativity, her capacity to love, her steadfastness, and every beautiful fiber of her being. Looking on it now, I believe that whole-heartedly. The girl with kaleidoscope eyes, indeed.
And so, Heidi, you have reached another turndial. Happy, happy 21st birthday, Hootie! I love you. <3
The reading we were discussing in French Lit today included a couple essays from the French essayist Montaigne. The excerpts we had to read discussed the concept of death from Montaigne's point of view. Back at the beginning of the semester in my non-fiction class, we talked a little about Montaigne as one of the earliest essayists (in the traditional sense of non-fiction, anyway) in history. He's well known, and his writing is highly regarded.
When we talked about him in Adv. Non-Fiction, we discussed how the word "essay" derives from the French "essayer," which means "to try" or "to attempt". Essays, therefore, are one means for the writer to make an attempt to make sense of the world in relation to their own viewpoint; it can also be a kind of attempt to make a point (as in an essay supporting and promoting a certain argument).
Today, we talked a little about the origins of "essais," the French for essays. Again, "essayer" is the word from which it derives.
For some reason, when my professor asked us what it meant in English, and we answered "to attempt," I had a moment of clarity. Essays are attempts. An attempt. I knew I made the connection back at the beginning of the semester, but it seemed to finally click, and the connection between these two things, French literature from the Renaissance and the art of writing non-fiction (essays in particular), solidified itself within my mind. True to the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance, Montaigne's essays explore and exemplify the idea of individual thought.
I've been fascinated with the idea of coming to some sort of understanding through the act of writing, particularly how memory can assist with that in addition to the intriguing idea of a kind of fallible memory. (This, of course, is thanks to the amazing Non-Fiction writing class I'm currently in.) Memoirs, for instance, are reflections upon an event or more that may be connected in some way. These reflections attempt to make sense of who we are as human beings, as individuals, as one small part of the collective human race. There is so much freedom in this: non-fiction (including the memoir) can be anything, explore anything. Montaigne is trying to come to an understanding of his own views on death in relation to the viewpoints from various philosophers of and before his time.
Understanding. Attempting to understand, to make these connections in what we know, what we remember, and what we may not know.
I have random moments similar to this fairly often. I will be sitting in lecture, and something--or everything--will suddenly click. Perhaps there is an overlap, or even repetition in the information. Perhaps it is also an honest interest in what we're learning. I love those grand moments of understanding. Little by little, the world starts to make a bit more sense. Perhaps this is what my answers to the Sorting questions on Pottermore indicated when I was officially sorted into Ravenclaw.* Maybe, maybe not.
I think it simply comes down to learning and how this (an many other kinds of learning) continues. Our minds, as well as our capacity and desire to gain knowledge, is an intriguing thing.
*I explain more on this (and other thoughts on Pottermore) later; I'm still in shock. But a good kind of shot. It's hard to wrap my mind around it...
At least, I think it was a Tuesday. I was in eighth grade, and was sitting in second hour, Advanced English.
Mrs. Bower, the gifted teacher, was in the room preparing things for the days' lesson; she came every Tuesday in class to do different activities with us. Sometimes we did projects, sometimes stories with holes, sometimes different writing assignments aside from what Mrs. Anderson was having us do. I don't remember what she had planned for that day.
Shortly after class had started, Mr. Young, the American History teacher for in the high school (the junior high was connected to the high school) popped his head into the room.
"Some idiot just ran a plane into the World Trade Center," he told Mrs. Bower and Mrs. Anderson.
Channel One, a news program we watched every day at the beginning of second hour, didn't have any news that day about the WTC. I knew it was because it was taped before anything actually happened in New York City. It wasn't until the next day that we saw anything related to the tragedy.
We watched the news in almost every class for the rest of the day. Mr. Thexton, my Earth Science teacher, snapped at our class when some of us weren't paying attention to what we were seeing on screen. Some people in my classes joked a little about it. I remember being horrified when I saw images of people running away from a train of billowing smoke down the street. And it continued to get worse, and I wondered this real thing that was actually happening would never end. That kind of thing only happened in movies.
At lunch, the teachers had set up a television on a rolling cart in the cafeteria and had turned on the news. I sat at a round table close to where the t.v. set was, watching and trying to process what was happening as I waited for the rest of the group I sat with to arrive. Tessa and Leanne came, talking.
Bethany, one girl who I used to call my best friend (and I seemed to go through a lot of them), was one of the last of us to sit down. She walked up to the table in a mild rage, her feet attached to some invisible engine propelling her forward. She slammed her tray down, and looked at us all before taking her seat.
"I can't believe it," she said, her tone serious and tinged with snark. "I was going to visit the World Trade Center some day and now I can't even go because someone knocked it down."
I sat there, shocked. Was she really going to make this all about her? Did she not realize what had happened? How many lives were lost, from the employees inside the building to the people on the planes and then those who tried to save them? How many families were affected, including, as I would find out later that day, a distant cousin on my mom's side and his two daughters, who were much to young to fully grasp what had happened, who had lost a wife and mother that morning?
This was much bigger than that. It affected all of us.
Ever since we got cable, I have been glued to Fuse and Vh1 Classic (and any That '70s Show episode/marathon that happens to be playing at the time) any chance I've gotten. This morning during their '80s video block, this video came on.
I love watching music videos in general, but I adore older music videos, and the fact that Vh1 Classic takes the time to
actually play music videos and
features a wide variety of older clips
...is kind of awesome. But that's not the only thing that struck me about the video block, especially after seeing this video.
Aside from my obsession with '80s music videos, I love the take on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland--one of my favorite books of all time. I am fascinated by its nonsense. And everything I've heard from Tom Petty has been amazing. But that first shot of Tom Petty at the end of the long table sparked some kind of recognition in my mind. I felt like I'd seen it before, years ago. I didn't necessarily remember the rest of it--except the checkerboard room--but it must have been very early on when I saw it. I couldn't place where I saw it, how old I was, what was going on in my life. I just...felt like this morning wasn't the first time I'd seen it.
There are things we won't remember--regardless of whether the memories will stay buried or become uncovered by some kind of trigger. A small part of me is worried about never being able to recover those things; I wonder if it's even possible. The big things, the little things, everything in between from when I started comprehending everything around me to the things I should remember but have lost, even from today. There is a slight fear that if I can't, I will never fully understand my place on this Earth. As if maybe if I'd paid more attention, I wouldn't feel so unsure about everything. Life and its complexities with cracks, with holes that will lead to somewhere I will never be able to access.
I know that I will never reach a complete understanding of everything life possesses, how life experiences connect and function, why things happen as they do. Not in this life, anyway. And as cliche as this may sound, until then, I'll just sit and ponder.
Long ago, my parents owned two station wagons, one a pale gold, one a grayish-silver. They replaced the gold one with a red Ford Topaz when I was two or three years old--rumor has it that I picked out the Topaz and proceeded to call it "Strawberry Fields Forever"--but they kept the gray station wagon for a little longer before replacing it as well.
The back of the station wagon had an extra set of seats that folded out; when the door that hid them was closed, it was a flat space for loading whatever needed to be transported.
I remember asking my parents if Heidi and I could ride back there, and most of the time, they let us. The seats faced out the back window so as we were driving around, Heidi and I were able to see everything behind us.
My memories of riding in that car are very few as we were really young when my parents finally replaced it with a newer model. I do remember pretending that we were "driving" from the back, being silly. I remember other little things like eating Hershey's chocolate bars with Heidi, eating Twizzlers with Stephanie, my best friend in second grade.
I had forgotten about the car until the other day when I was at work. In the grand scheme of things, it may not be that important, but I knew I needed to write it down, somewhere, so I would not forget it.
My procrastination got incredibly ridiculous over the last week. I didn't work the weekend and other than my friend Whitney's wedding on Saturday, there was no real reason for me to be working late into the night last night to finish the take-home essay exam. But I was. I was so ashamed of myself for letting it get so bad. The essays themselves were not difficult and didn't take long to write. But I just couldn't hold concentration long enough start writing anything until yesterday after work. I wastedmoretime doing other things than actually writing, all because I was just tired of doing things. (Plus, thinking about next week--especially with this video making the end more real in my mind--has me caught between so many mixed emotions and it was hard to focus.)
Also? I spend much of the day wishing this truly had the ability to solve my problems.
Regardless, my history class ended really well. I don't remember getting so attached to a non-major class; when I thanked the professor on Friday when we were dismissed, I was so overcome with a multitude of emotions that I simultaneously stumbled over my words, rambled, and tried not to cry. On the second to last day of class, we watched an awesome movie called Easy Rider, one I can't really talk to you about unless you've seen it. It is wonderful, though. So very wonderful.
Alisha and I spent the Fourth at Cico Park to watch the fireworks and stuff our faces with food. It was only the third or fourth time I'd ever shot off any fireworks aside from sparklers, so Alisha found it highly amusing to poke fun at my apprehension. I sprinted from everything I set off, afraid of being in the way of any unexpected explosions. Regardless, it was a nice evening. We listened to some of the Glee soundtrack as we watched the show. I don't know what it is about July 4th, but I never seem to really get excited until the moment the sky lights up. As we stood there in a calm silence with the booms and bits of music surrounding us, I thought back on past Independence Days with my family spent either at home, in Nebraska with my cousins, or once even in Michigan. How much my dad hates firecrackers; how Mom would pull out the bug candle for us to light our sparklers and how we'd draw words through the air. The time I remember spending the Fourth in Michigan, and because of the rain and humidity, the show we went to see at Lake Superior took place on the 5th instead of the 4th. Sitting on the front porch at my parents' house, watching what we could see of the Lakeview show through the branches of the trees.
So much emotion in those forty minutes. I miss my family.
At one point in fifth grade, my desk was situated right behind my least favorite person in the world--the only person who seemed to be always on my bad side--Jessica. We had never gotten along (seriously, it had lasted since daycare) and after we had rearranged our desks that month, I was not happy that I'd have to deal with her on a daily basis.
That was about the time that my mother had started teaching me the basics of drawing the human face, and it was something that I was really, really excited about. (Drawing the figure/portraiture is my favorite thing to draw now, and I knew very early on that it was something I was interested in.) It was not anything fancy; the faces I was practicing were straight-on, basic forms, beginning. But I practiced. A lot.
Jessica turned around in her seat one day and saw me drawing someone else in the class, I forget who. She seemed genuinely interested and asked if I'd draw a portrait of her. I agreed, and gave it to her when I was done.
The next day, Jessica turned around again, wearing a look that I would recognize and see later, over and over again. She held up a sandwich bag by one corner, dangling it in front of me.
"I'm sorry, but my dog tore up your drawing," she said. I remember her smirking or trying not to laugh--but that could be something my mind made up later.
In the bag were the pieces of the now torn-up portrait I drew of her.
I don't remember what happened immediately after. Sometimes I wonder if my head made this particular memory up, but then I know that it did actually happen. My mind may have exaggerated the memory, but I know in my heart that it did happen. There's always that one voice in the back of my head whenever I draw, the one that says many things. Not perfect, not good enough, are you kidding me?
I hate being there when someone else is looking at my work. I've hated it since then, and I know I'll hate it for the rest of my life. I don't want to be there to see their reaction. And I don't believe in holding grudges--and I really, really try not to--but the memory of her dangling that baggie in my face, telling me without words that my interests, my passions, meant nothing, knowing how I have internalized it so, is something I am struggling to forget.
The trailer debuted online on Thursday, and I know I should have mentioned it then, but that was also the same day as Pottermore's clues were put up, so I was a little overcome with various emotions and all I could do after class that night was sit and watch the trailer for the first time. I didn't full-out cry, but I did gasp, and tears did well up....and I had to process it.
The full water-works will hit when watching the film for the first time. I'm almost certain of that. When reading the book, right at the end of "The Prince's Tale" is when everything hits me like a big yellow school bus and I can't stop crying for years, it seems. It starts to pick up when Harry tells Neville to make sure to kill Nagini, and Neville tells him, "We're all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?" (p558, UK edition). And it gets worse when Harry talks to his parents and Lupin and Sirius. Never have I cried harder when reading a book, never have I felt the emotions so strongly or passionately. (That's the kind of power Jo Rowling has when she is armed with pen and paper.)
Which is why, when in the trailer, Harry is suddenly talking to his parents and Sirius and Lupin, that I almost fell out of my chair.
It still has not hit that this is going to be the very last Harry Potter movie, ever. (And it probably won't fully hit me until I'm sitting in the theatre, watching the last few minutes of film before the credits.) Since I was a sixth-grader, waiting to find out what happens in Goblet of Fire (which came out the summer between my sixth and seventh-grade years), there has always been something a little more to look forward to. This final release will definitely not reach the kind of emotion of ending that reading Deathly Hallows did, but it will also be the ultimate release of something that has become a part of who I am now. With the release of the book, we still had three movies to look forward to. Now, however, there will be nothing more tied directly to this series that will be released.
I keep thinking about a song by The Byrds, which is based on a set of Bible verses from Ecclesiastes. Things have their time in this world: each and every one of us will have our time, events in our life will come and go. I understand that, and as the years have gone on, I have come to accept it and love it, however affecting the loss in question may be.
But at the same time, however, I'm remembering the excitement of the wait: where we would make predictions about what was going to happen based on mere titles of each book and the precious few tidbits and hints that we were given before each release. I remember fighting with Heidi and Prairie about who was going to get together, Ron and Hermione or Harry and Hermione*--and seeing R/Hr clutching each other at 1:40 kills me because there's so much beauty and power and love and protection there and I want to cry because I had almost the same reaction as FYA did. The rawness, the newness of it all, the joy of spending releases with fellow fans who get that feeling of excitement/fear/love/community...I'll bring that with me for the rest of my life.
The trailer itself is gorgeous, and I'd argue the best of all of them--which is only fitting, since it will probably be the very last one we'll ever get (I'm not counting the TV spots). The dragon's in it, and that made me super excited to see the Gringotts sequence, which is one of my favorite parts of the book because it's so badass. And then the suits of armor (!!), and the Room of Requirement, and all the battle stuff, and I think you also see Neville with sword somewhere in there....Part 2 is going to be amazing. And the way they begin with clips from previous movies? So much awesome packed into 3 minutes.
Honestly, though this is the last movie, and it will be sad beyond comprehension to fully accept that, there will always be more. Perhaps not in the same sense, but certainly in spirit. Rereading the series (something I've meant to do for ages), rewatching the movies, and FREAKIN' Pottermore, when it's true identity is announced to the world next week. And then, anything that J.K. Rowling publishes in the future will surely be top of my to-read list. Also, if I do get married and have children, there will hopefully be a day that my children decide to pick up the books for the first time, taking in every word as I did, eager to find out what happens next.
Most of all, though, I'll keep the books, films and experiences close to me, because they have become a small part of who I am today. These books made me realize how much I love reading for the sake of reading rather than for a few Accelerated Reader points. The many wonderful themes will stick with me, the ones of love, friendship, and many more. Jo Rowling is one of my inspirations for wanting to be a writer. The characters of Luna Lovegood and Ron Weasley--and Snape, too--will always be models to look at when thinking about character. Through these books I've met many people, discovered and fallen in love with Wizard Rock--which led me to meeting even MORE people--and being a part of something more. There is so much more that I will encounter in my life, but I will carry every single aspect of this with me; it's part of me.
*My friend Alicia posted another BRILLIANT R/Hr video on her FB, and I love this one as much as the other one. It's soooo good....where does she find these things? And whoever made it should get an award or something. Seriously.
Don't you love New York in the fall? Makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. (from the beginning of You've Got Mail)
For my 21st birthday, I received precisely two gifts from my sister (or, at least, I think it was just two; I could be forgetting one). One was a fantasy-themed trashy romance novel (of which I have not gotten past page two to this day, and my 21st was a considerable time ago), in response to an ongoing inside joke we have. The other was a beautiful bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils. And it was one of the best gifts I've ever been given.
I adore You've Got Mail. It was released when I was in elementary school, and Mom fell in love with it, and like dominoes, my sister and I fell for it too. I remember standing in line for lunch one day, talking to Jeremy, a classmate, who had started talking about something related to The Godfather. After he was done talking, I looked at him and said, without a trace of silliness, "What is it with men and 'The Godfather'?" That's what the movie meant to me.
As the years have gone on, I've grown to appreciate it for more and very different reasons. It's not just that I can understand and fully appreciate the 'adultishness' of it now, but what understanding of it I had transcended itself naturally as I grew. The movie was put out at a time when the internet was just beginning to take hold. There's Frank, with his three typewriters, who is yet distrustful of computers and what they have to offer. The common form of social networking was strictly chat rooms and email. The depiction of New York City is lovely; whenever I get to visit NYC, I hope it to be as magical and bustling as what I've watched over and over on screen. And I have to visit it in the fall. That is a must--at least for the first time, anyway.
The moments of beauty that one might miss, like Kathleen talking about twirling, the butterfly on the subway, the emotion and the honesty of each of the exchanged emails, the arrangement of Joe's family, Joe's time spent in a broken elevator, the shot of Kathleen preparing to go to the mattresses, the caviar garnish, twinkle-lights, the music...it almost comes to a point where there are so many things with which I'm overcome with adoration that I lose my words.
And then there's the bookishness of it all. References to Betsy and Tacy, Ballet Shoes, and Pride and Prejudice...and don't even get me started on The Shop Around the Corner.
My personal bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils currently sits on my desk under my bulletin board. As pictured above, it's framed by two illustrations Heidi gave me from her sketchbook and the Macbeth finger puppets I bought in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The gift itself may seem strange to some people, and I get that: who are you to just sharpen pencils and never use them? That's such a waste.
It's something deeper than that, though. It's the magic of Kathleen's and Joe's relationship, the way it's constructed, the purity of it, the fact that words themselves are the energy driving their lives, both literally and figuratively. The simple things, the beauty of the idea. The creation from something so everyday. Little things that tie people together, whether it be a story of a butterfly on the subway, or the daily endeavors of one Brinkley.
But also, and most importantly, the gift surpasses the meaning the movie has for me. I look at it daily and think of my sister: our shared love for the movie, our mutual adoration for the idea of a bouquet made entirely of school supplies. Our childhood and the memories which we share and differ. Sisterly love and understanding. A bond. In a way, she gave me a piece of us, as cliche as that sounds. That bouquet will always represent that for me. And it will always be just in sight, the first thing I see in the morning, the last thing I see before I sleep.
There are few songs that have played on the radio in the last ten years that have given me that soaring feeling every single time, and Train is certainly at the top of the list. I heard this on the radio earlier today while at work, and it hit me that I had almost forgotten about it.
This was my very first ringtone on my very first phone. It makes me think of all the other great songs I listened to in high school that were on radio airplay at the time: Michelle Branch,Maroon 5....decent, decent stuff. I fear that today's music doesn't always have the same je ne sais quoi as music from the early 2000s did. Perhaps it was carrying over from all of the great 90s stuff...I don't know. I'm not an expert by any means. I just know what sounds good to me.
Also, thinking about this makes me feel old. Because, you know, it came out about 8 years ago.
Since this summer will most likely be the last one I get to savor fully (for the time being), the next the one I plan to cap off my college experience with Something Very Big and Probably Spontaneous. Summer has always been a reprieve. It is the silver lining on the haze of the rest of the year. So much can happen in the space of three months--and it can be anything.
The summer between junior high and high school, my friend Jael and I made a pact to prepare for high school. As far as we were concerned, there was a set of guidelines to follow. The top of the list was that high school girls had tans. So, we went to the pool every day for two weeks to sit in the sun for an hour to build one up--and I remember having a very mild one across my shoulders. The day I finished eighth grade, I felt different. For the rest of the summer, I spent my free time reading, working on the first two pencil drawings I knew would be due for my first high school art class. I wrote a lot that summer. I had finished that novella that I'm now slightly ashamed of. I started my second novel idea--which I have never finished to this day. The soundtrack that summer was Vanessa Carlton's "Be Not Nobody," a CD I listened to over and over as I was writing though at the time I didn't like most of the songs on the album. I made an over-the-shoulder bookbag from an old canvas Boogarts shopping bag, using a leopard striped seatbelt shoulder thing as part of the strap. I dieted the whole summer after talking to a dietician, walking every morning with my mom and keeping track of my calorie intake. We would sit out on the porch after our return to eat breakfast. I tried to get into a beauty regime. The diet, the tan, and Neutrogena were my passes to impressing boys and the rest of the student body. I don't think it actually worked, but at the time I had hope.
That was the summer after Grandpapa passed away, the one before the last summer we saw Grandmama before she died. I looked through Grammy's photo albums for pictures I wanted to draw for art, finding a stack that I worked my way through. I carried around two sketchbooks and a stack of magazines (mostly relating to Harry Potter) that I drew from. Apart from the family stuff and our Michigan trip, I spent a lot of time by myself, reading, drawing, writing, watching music videos, thinking.....I remember sitting in the living room one afternoon, staring out the screen of the front door, willing someone to come over. Though I appreciate now the time I had to ponder, to prepare myself for what would come, I should have involved myself more. But there was hardly anyone left to involve myself with, because the end of eighth grade was such a grand disaster.
I did, however, get involved in some form during the summers, though it varied depending on the particular summer. For many of them, I was a part of a kids' theater/singing group. I was Dorothy in "The Wiz," Nala in "The Lion King,"and sang many songs like "Aquarius" and "The Time Warp" (which I will never ever tire of). And then there was the community theater group I was involved with, whether it was having a small part in the ensemble or working as a techie. I loved every minute of these experiences--I'm a proud drama kid--though some productions weren't as fun as others and I hated striking the set. But there were so many little "defining moments" from not only being on stage or waiting just offstage to switch out a set, or even waiting for the next cue in the warm high school hallways with the other members of the cast. It became a part of me. It was only during my final involvement with the theater group--that summer's musical was "Will Roger's Follies"--where it just wasn't fun anymore, and I wanted out. That was the summer I almost quit, the last summer I spent in my hometown. I needed to get away from the patterns I was seeing, because a lot of it made me sick. That's not to say that I wouldn't be up to doing theater again in the future--it's just that by that summer, I began to see through the illusion and understand the dynamics of the people I'd grown up with, and I could not handle it anymore.
In junior high and high school, I joined a summer reading group for teens that was held every Thursday. It was called Lunch Bunch, and we would sit picnic style in the conference room at the public library (go libraries!) and eat our lunches, do an activity, and then talk about what we were reading that week. By the time I joined this group (probably right after I finished 6th grade or 7th grade, I can't remember the exact year), I was looking for more to read, and I remember meandering to the YA section for the first time, somewhere I hadn't been before. There was a different feeling standing in front of those few shelves, inspecting the books to find a good one. It seemed...dangerous, and from there, I have never looked back. I'm almost positive that the first summer I was a part of Lunch Bunch, I read a book called That Summer by Sarah Dessen, and it seemed like my life changed, even if it really didn't. I loved being a part of it, and I really miss it.
The summer between my freshman and sophomore years, I spent a lot of time by myself. I read nineteen books--an accomplishment I was very proud of--and began driving lessons. It was a big summer; I was fifteen, and I was determined to be more grown up. I started carrying a purse with me everywhere because I had a learner's permit. My driving instructor rejoiced when I finally drove over 60 miles an hour on the highway. I remember really, really wanting to be a good driver. That was my mantra as I started building up my driving hours: "You need to be a good driver, you need to be a good driver..." Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out that summer, and I lost myself in its 800+ pages. It's still my second favorite HP book (the top spot is held by DH). That was also the last summer we went to Michigan and saw my grandmother; she died the following October. I did not know the following school year would be so bad, and it was. Royally. I was incredibly relieved when summer came again.
I know I'm probably not making a lot of sense in this post. As usual, I've been thinking too much and the start of summer vacation has prompted a whole lot of memories that I had almost forgotten I had. There is a certain something about it, though, that keeps me interested. I love reading YA books about summers--and Sarah Dessen is the queen when it comes to good summer reads, whether they're set in summer or not. There's something about the freedom, the liberation in a road trip or vacation, the sounds of thunderstorms, the peace from watching the stars, listening to the crickets and the cicadas, swimming and getting out and just being....I'll probably return to this at some point.
Yesterday when I got up (I'm at home for the weekend to visit my family), I came downstairs and was almost immediately called into the kitchen. Mom and Heidi were looking at me with almost identical amused expressions.
"So guess what we found underneath the water tank?" Heidi asked.
"It's very 'privat'," Mom added, "and it's addressed to you."
The first thing I thought of was Harry Potter because the way she pronounced 'privat' sounded like 'Privet'. I didn't know what to say, and looked back and forth between them. "What are you talking about?" I asked after a moment, baffled.
Heidi then handed me a folded up piece of notebook paper, one that was slightly battered with a couple tea stains and the words: "Privat dont read" written in pencil on the outside.
Before I read it aloud to Mom and Heidi, I glanced over it to reacquaint myself with its contents. As soon as I read the first line, I knew exactly what it was. This is what it said (spellings, grammar, etc. have been retained from the original):
Dear Heather,
I was thinking and I Guess I Do like you, and well will you Go out with me? and about the butterfly hair hair clips I think you should Decide if you look better with them on or off. if you dont want to be my Girlfriend thats fine. and I think your cute too. Well if you want to Reply to this the sign it and put a yes or no beside your name.
Sincerely, Charlie
Mom, Heidi, and I laughed about it after I finished, but it got me thinking. My apparent vanity the note admitted to aside, if you would have asked me two days ago, I would have told you that there was no way I'd received a "yes/no" note in elementary school. Cue yesterday, when I realized how naive I'd been. Who was I kidding? Of course I'd gotten one; I would not remember EVERYTHING that had happened in school. As for the information gathered from reading this ancient note, I knew that I was in fifth grade when I'd received it (the mention of butterfly clips, which were all the rage at that point). I remembered the events that lead up to it. This boy was new at the time and I had a crush on him, and then proceeded to tell everyone at Girl Scouts about my feelings. Within a few days he knew that I liked him because it's the general tendency to pass on the information to everyone else in the fifth grade. I must have either written him a note or talked to him at recess to clarify information, and then he responded with this.
I don't think I "dated" him. I had had a couple of "secret boyfriends" after this note, but the sender was never either of them and since I was not allowed to truly date until I was 16, the two relationships in question never got any further than notes passed in class or exchanged tokens or one or two slow dances in seventh grade. I suppose my main concern after reading it yesterday was that I couldn't remember everything surrounding it. What else was going on? The note holds some sort of context long forgotten, weighing it down to a point from which I cannot retrieve it. And was he truly interested in being my boyfriend? Probably not, but at that age, it may be more of the idea of being closer with the people you fancy or the idea itself of having a significant others that drives kids to ask yes or no. It is the nearing the line between cooties of grade school and the hormones of the teenage years, where sexual experimentation reigns king and love gets complicated.
I haven't been in a relationship in four years, but in that time I've thought a lot about it. I know know that it's more than just "thinking someone's cute" (though I appreciate what the note had to say). There are also many kinds of love, and the kind of love that the note addresses is much different than the kind of love people my age search for. As we grow older, our understanding of the world becomes both clearer and much more complex. I fear that sometimes we forget that love is that complicated, and therefore what we think is forever reveals itself to be only temporary. I know that I've only felt that "strongly" about one person ever, and I never even dated him--and even then I still am not sure what our friendship entailed or if what I felt was truly this kind of love. It is different than the kind of love I have for my parents, my sister, my family, or my friends. I see the kind of love my friends and peers have with their significant others, the love that's declared daily on Facebook, both for newlyweds and babies. Everyday it seems more and more complicated. And when we toss around the word "love" like a frisbee, do we fully comprehend how what we say relates to what it is we're actually feeling?
The other day when Alisha and I were at Hastings, I found a copy of The Secret Garden. It had been AGES since I'd seen it--I'm in my early twenties and the only time I was able to watch it was when we'd go visit my grandparents in Omaha because we never got around to getting a copy for ourselves...and the last time I watched it, I was probably 7 or 8. I figured it would be worth it for nostalgia's sake, and so I bought it, unaware of what it would do to me.
I put it in that night and finished the following day (it had been very late when I started it). I remembered only bits and pieces and I was not expecting to become so enveloped in it...yet the entire time I was caught up in its simplicity and beauty. The walls of the manor were covered in tapestries, the wardrobe Victorian (as is Colin's preoccupation with death). The look of the film itself had the quality and feeling as old photographs do, an air of the antique, of times long forgotten and secrets within. The garden, I think, was what really got me. Vines making their way up the wall, as thick and present as the tapestries in the house, ruins of a building (a church, perhaps?) on one end, and within the expanse, roaming flowers, bushes, animals. And that gorgeous, grand swing...
At the end of the movie, after I'd calmed down from getting unexpectedly emotional while watching Colin running around, his father in tow, showing him every nook and cranny of his mother's garden, I found myself thinking about what had drawn me to it in the first place. There was a sense of magic, of curiosity and mystery that surrounded the story; present in Mary's discovery of an ornate key in the room at the other end of a secret passageway, present in the moment Colin walks for the first time back and forth between Mary and Dickon, present in Mary's dream of her mother in the garden.
And then I thought about the other films I'd loved as a child: among many others, A Little Princess and Labyrinth. Each of these films has a sense of magic to them. Sara never loses her sense of imagination and belief that every girl is a princess despite her father's apparent death (though her faith is tested when she is forced into servitude immediately after she is told the news). The other girls are enchanted by her storytelling; Miss Minchin's practical viewpoints are challenged with everything that Sara brings to the school. And the film is beautiful...the scene that still enchants me today is the one in which Sara stands on the balcony of her attic prison, and the snow is falling, and she begins to spin around and around......
And then, of course, there is Labyrinth, which is still one of my favorite films ever. The Sarah in this story has one desire only: to find her brother and fix the wrong she caused. She struggles with her love for fantasy and the pressure to be more mature, to act her age. Everything that she encounters works against her; little creatures that live underneath the cobblestone change the direction of her marks, she is always being given the wrong directions, and Jareth controls the conditions of their agreement. But yet she continues on, determined to accomplish what she said she would. And by the end? She discovers that she can overcome anything, telling Jareth, "You have no power over me." Though she attains a sense of maturity by the time her parents arrive home, she also recognizes that her imagination, her fantasy, will always be a part of her and should therefore not be completely shut out.
I fell for these movies long before Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, and American Girl, before I realized that reading was something I loved, that storytelling meant more to me than almost everything else. And though I never read Frances Hodgson Burnett's two classic stories as a kid (something I mean to rectify this summer, if everything goes as planned), the stories themselves stuck with me as I read more and more, soaking up the mystery and the magic. Perhaps these influences left me with with a slightly warped sense of human nature--I tend to underestimate what people can do sometimes--but these were some of the first things that also lead me to think beyond what everyday life presents to us. The human imagination can be a terrible thing, but it is also beautiful, transcending the ordinary ebb and flow of real life, allowing us to grow and understand better who we are. With The Secret Garden, I discovered that there is beauty within mystery and that it is these mysteries that engage the mind and ignite the imagination. Perhaps this child-like curiosity and fascination with storytelling will be with me for the rest of my life. I don't mind, though. It keeps things interesting.
I think it's safe to say I am obsessed with the concept of memory. I mean, I think too much anyway--about anything and everything--but when it comes to memory, my head nearly explodes because it is such a complex, multifaceted idea. I return to it a lot in my writing (especially poetry), and it has recently wiggled its way into my artwork alongside time (which is another discussion entirely--and another obsession I'm sure I'll return to at some point). It makes sense, though, that I'm so preoccupied with it; isn't a huge part of what we think about memory outside of the immediate action of the moment? Our knowledge is based on memory.
I'm not an expert, by any means. I intend to do a lot more research in the near future. A lot of my musings at this point are merely that: muses.
Anyway, I'm home for the weekend to spend time with my parents. I was talking with my mom after she got home from work last night, and I noticed one of the picture frames I'd helped put together for my sister's high school graduation a few years back, propped against one wall in the dining room. They'd been there for awhile, and as my habit is when I go anywhere, I looked at the pictures.* The ones included in it were those Mom and I had picked out; I remember the stories behind what's going on in many of the pictures, but there was one picture in particular that struck me. It is of my sister and my cousin Betsy, taken in the rainforest area at the Henry Doorly Zoo. My sister is smiling, Betsy is giving a shy smile, and they are pausing to pose along one of the vine-framed paths. It's not that I'd forgotten about the picture; when I saw it again last night, it hit me that I had 'forgotten' (i.e. I had not thought about) that day in ages. In a brief moment, I remembered how shy Betsy was when she was that young, how much Heidi, my sister, had changed in the time between the day the picture was taken and today. I remembered that the reason for the outing was to celebrate my aunt's visit from California, and most of Mom's side of the family had been there that day to go to the zoo. I remembered that my grandfather had gone that day, but my grandmother had not (but I couldn't remember the reason why). That was the day we'd had the chance to see the Desert Dome, walked through the Aquarium arch in which sharks would "swim" over you. But not much else beyond that.
I remember a lot of strange, random things when I'm home. Some are good, some are bad. I feel like I remember more when I make these visits back home: things that I didn't necessarily want to think on--a lot of my memories of elementary school, junior high, and high school fall into this category--but also really good things about visiting family and our trips to Michigan, Mount Rushmore, and Nebraska, things that I treasure about my own experience with my parents and sister, good friend memories, etc. By merely being in that small town environment, seeing the places I attended school, frequented in my childhood and adolescence, I am both bombarded and blessed with the memories I had stored in the back of my mind. A lot of them are jumbled, and I forget details, but I certainly remember why they are important to me. They must matter in some way, or I wouldn't remember them, right?
In the case of the zoo picture, I worried that if I had not looked at the picture, I would not have remembered anything about that day in the way I did, with the memories tagging along, one right after another. I remember going there, but those little details that those pictures brought back to me...would I have been able to present them to myself?**
*I love looking at picture albums, etc. When I was little and we'd visit my grandparents, I remember spending hours upon hours just looking through all the old, new, and in-between photographs they had. I love the stories they tell, and I entertained myself imagining what stories they could be telling (or making up things if I had no knowledge of the reality behind them).
**Pictures vs. pure memory is also something I'm interested in....see what I mean? THERE IS SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.
