Summer Reading

Summer is coming to an end/is over, depending on how you decide when fall begins (for some, it's the moment the bell rings on the first day of school, for others, the day after Labor Day, for the sun it's the Equinox . . .).

In any event, I've been doing a lot of reading this summer. I have almost permanently had a book at my side as an extra appendage. In fact, it got to a point that my family members knew my summer better than I did--or at least were willing to answer the "what did you do this summer" question for me. One time a kind person asked that oh-so-harmless small talk question.

Kind Person (to me): What have you been doing this summer?

Me: Uhhhhhhhh.

My sister Sarah: She's been doing a lot of reading.

Kind Person: Oh.

And the conversation usually ends there. I think they're expecting me to say some extraordinary thing like, "Oh, I hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro," or "Oh, I rafted down the Amazon." (Honestly, people, I'm quite boring. Sorry to disappoint.)

But the thing is, I've been quite happy with my reading list this summer and crossing off some works I've been meaning to read and then re-reading some of my favorites.

And since I have this insatiable need to share people what I learned, here are some of my favorite quotes from my summer reading. (I could do a blog post about each book I read this summer, but I read about fifty, and that might get tiresome . . . also, a lot of the books I read were historiographies for Oxford preparations, and I read a couple of books on economics to prove a point, but I digress.)

[My Book o' Quotes.] 

"There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made." --My Antonia, by Willa Cather 

"Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." --My Antonia

"Sunflower-bordered roads always seem to me the roads to freedom." --My Antonia

"Do you know, Antonia, since I've been away, I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the world. I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister--anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me." --My Antonia 

"Dostoevsky said once, 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.' These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom [the freedom to choose one's attitude] cannot be lost. It can be said they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful." --Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl

"We had to learn ourselves [. . .] that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. [. . .] Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." --Man's Search for Meaning

"Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations." --Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"I have always felt that ultimately along the way of life an individual must stand up and be counted and be willing to face the consequences whatever they are. And if he is filled with fear he cannot do it. My great prayer is always for God to save me from the paralysis of crippling fear, because I think when a person lives with the fears of the consequences for his personal life he can never do anything in terms of lifting the whole of humanity and solving many of the social problems which we confront in every age and every generation." --Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"Katie heard the story. 'It's come at last,' she thought, 'the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them--I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them.'" --A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

"So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?" --All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

"She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day." --Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

"What does the brain matter compared to the heart?" --Mrs. Dalloway 

"Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, how vivid, and cruel. One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own [. . .] was there anything so real as words?" --A Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

"Cynicism is nothing more than idealism gone sour." --That Ye May Believe, Neal A. Maxwell

"Even in the midst of deep and discouraging blackness we are to trust in the Lord in order to show that we are a 'friend of God' by being 'righteous in the dark.'" --That Ye May Believe 

"It takes intelligence and faith in order to make one's way through [the ambiguities of life]." --That Ye May Believe 

"Power comes from love. Achievement and ability come from love. We can try to do it on our own, or we can really achieve with the Savior--by accepting His love and being willing to love others in return." --Disciples, Cheiko Okazaki

"When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve." --A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway

"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially." --A Farewell to Arms 

"But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget. You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present. The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in circles for awhile, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets. As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you. That's the real obsession. All those stories." --The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien

"Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story." --The Things They Carried 

"The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writing knowing guilt and sorrow. And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life." --The Things They Carried 

"Nabokov says that every great novel is a fairy tale. [. . .] But the magic comes from the power of good, that force which tells us we need to give in to the limitations and restrictions imposed on us by Fate." --Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi

"Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors, and infidelities of life." --Reading Lolita in Tehran 

"Learn to fight for your happiness." --Reading Lolita in Tehran 

"To have a whole life, one must have the possibility of publicly shaping and expressing private worlds, dreams, thoughts and desires, of constantly having access to a dialogue between the public and private worlds. How else do we know that we have existed, felt, desired, hated, feared? [. . .] We speak of facts, yet facts exist only partially to us if they are not repeated and re-created through emotions, thoughts, and feelings." --Reading Lolita in Tehran 

-If you were wondering, my top three books this summer were My Antonia, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Reading Lolita in Tehran. I also loved anything I read by Neal A. Maxwell.-

just some thoughts.

"There is always something left to love. [. . .] Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well, then, you ain't through learning--because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he came through before he got to wherever he is." --A Raisin in the Sun 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I've been doing a lot of reading this summer.
Reading, writing, and thinking.
And although right now is not the time nor place to recap or analyze what all of this reading and writing,
pondering and thinking has done for me,
I think it is safe to say
that a lot of it has to do with love.
Real love.
The kind that heals and changes.
And I am learning
that just like a soft heart
can turn to stone
a stony heart
can become soft again.

Reality stings.
There's no doubt about that.
Life is hard.
It was meant to be.
However, even though life is hard and reality does sting,
I do hope that I never become
"so aware of 'reality' that I am unresponsive to the whisperings of heaven."

We have to want a softened heart.
But before that, we have to realize that we need it.
And then want it.
Because it's not easy to want it.
It is not easy for a stony heart
to become soft again.
It hurts.
It's painful.
Like that scene from Voyage of the Dawn Treader 
where Aslan peels off Eustace's dragon skin.
It hurts to become human again.
To allow yourself to feel again.
But those soft hearts
are much more prone
to "measure a person right"
and see things as they really are.

But it's hard
because so often we want to be right.
We want our opinions,
our comments,
our stereotypes,
our paradigms--
we want all of them to be right.
We want to be right.
The heroes.
The protagonists.
Or perhaps the victims.
Everyone else must be wrong.
Or at least not properly informed.

We are so resistant to change
when that change means changing ourselves.

But choosing to be an agent
free to act for herself
and realizing that I don't have all the answers--
nor am I right all the time--
is liberating.
Not that I am perfect at it.
And part of me knows that it will be something
I have to relearn again and again.
But I do believe this.
That being an agent to act
is so much better than being acted upon.

So yes.
This summer I have read.
And I have let it change me.
If just a little bit.
Because I am trying to apply.
It's always the application that is the trickiest.
"How is it done?"
And how do I get it from my head to my heart?
Measure him right, child. Measure him right. 

Account for the hills and valleys.
Including your own.
Because really.
We're all just children.
A long way from home.

Why Ella Enchanted is actually one the best books any ten-year-old can read

It's summertime, which means that I am reading books for fun again.

And that means that I return to old favorites. I am a re-reader. It's kind of like catching up with dear, old friends.

I've already re-read a few of my favorites.

Yesterday, I had an urge to Ella Enchanted*, by Gail Carson Levine. (Note: If you haven't read the book, then you probably shouldn't read this blog post because spoilers abound. You have been warned.)

Ella Enchanted was my favorite book when I was in second grade. I remember that my mom came back from parent-teacher conferences and handed me a book to read.

"I think you'll really like it," she said.

I was skeptical. Why, I don't really remember. I think I was playing the, "I am a contrary eight-year-old girl today and there's nothing you can do about it" card. I looked at the cover of Ella Enchanted and thought it was going to be really boring:

But I took the book from my mom, opened up to the first chapter, and was immediately captivated by its first two lines:

"That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift."

I was hooked. I fell in love with the story, I fell in love with the characters, and I fell in love with fairy tale retellings.

Rereading it yesterday reminded me of why I loved this book so much as a young girl.

-First of all, it is very well-written. Some people assume that if a book is written for children, it must be poorly written. Not true at all! Some of the very best books I have read are written for children. And Levine is a gifted storyteller and the book is rich and detailed. As an eight-year-old girl, it was one of my first forays into enjoying prose. Sure it's not Dostoevsky, but it was never intended to be a philosophical tract about the meaning of life.

-That being said, Ella Enchanted still deals with important themes, including the power of choice and the tyranny of forced obedience. Ella is cursed to be obedient whenever someone gives her a command . . . which leads her into some terrible situations. But, the power to break the curse is inside of her--just like all of us have the strength within us to change our lives and to take control of our lives--to be agents to act for ourselves instead of being acted upon. The final scene is still one of my favorites in children's literature--where Ella finds enough willpower to say no to the thing that matters most . . . and by saying "no," she gains everything.

-I WANTED THE BOOK THAT MANDY GAVE HER. I still do, actually. A book that grows with you and knows what you need to read/gives you glimpses into other people's lives? Awesome. 

-Also, I just loved the world of Ella Enchanted. I loved that the world was magical, and I loved the clever retelling of Cinderella. It led me to write my own fairy tale retellings.

Now, reading it in my twenties, I've realized some other wonderful things about the book that I didn't realize when I was eight.

-Honestly, I think it was one of my first encounters with a strong female protagonist . . . at least that I can remember. Most of the books I read before then were Encyclopedia Brown books (which I loved). But they weren't books about girls. It was exciting to read a book about a girl--a girl with a brain, a kind heart, and courage.

-And Ella is smart. She is witty and she enjoys learning (for example, she is a gifted linguist and eagerly learns any language she comes into contact with), and she's not afraid to be smart. She is comfortable with who she is while refusing to let her curse define her. Other notice her confidence, including Prince Char (who, by the way, is one of the nicest love interests out of any book I've ever read--he rivals Mr. Knightley from Emma).

-Can we talk about Char for a minute? Reading it yesterday, I noticed just how smitten he is with Ella, practically from the very first time he meets her. And it's really cute. He loves her for her bravery, intelligence, humor, and her clumsiness. Their friendship is the basis for their entire relationship, which I think is lovely. And their letters. Oh, their letters to each other are just delightful. (Except for that terrible part where Char confesses his love to her and she has to pretend to be a total dirtbag who was leading him along the entire time so that she doesn't end up risking his life and the fate of the kingdom because of the curse . . . yeah, that part is terrible. And it just hurts when she has to write him that letter to break his heart . . . yeah, terrible. I was always mad at her for doing that when I was younger. Now I understand more and I applaud Ella for her bravery. But it's still awful.)

Anyway. This post probably seems really random. That's because it is. But Ella Enchanted is one of those books I'm going to read to my children. It's quite enjoyable to read out loud . . . I've done it a couple of times. And it never disappoints.

And really. It is a perfect book for eight-to-ten-year-olds. My mom does know what she's doing once in awhile (read: all of the time).

*Now, if you've seen the movie of Ella Enchanted and if you haven't read the book, you might think that it's weird that I love this story so much. Welllllll, the movie and the book are very different. I remember the first time I saw the movie I was appalled at how they had adapted the book. It felt like a Shrek wannabe movie and the only things that were similar in the book/movie were the names of the characters and that Ella had the curse of obedience. Now I look at the book and movie as two separate stories and I can appreciate both for what they are--but I prefer the book story over the movie story.

"There will never be anyone for me but you."

Sooooo, this post *might* just be me avoiding studying for my Soviet history final.

But also, it is a tribute to Gilbert Blythe.

If you didn't know (aka, if the Internet didn't explode in your face this weekend), Jonathan Crombie, the actor who played Gilbert Blythe in the Anne of Green Gables series, died this past weekend.

And all of the women have been in mourning.

Because Crombie represents our generation's version of Gilbert Blythe.

And Gil is actually the perfect man.

I mean, just look at this scene:



Um. Perfect.

If I can find a man who loves me as much as Gil loves Anne, I will be in good shape.

(As an aside, I always thought that my "type" was Gilbert Blythe. You know--tall, dark, and handsome. And I probably thought it was my type because of Anne of Green Gables and I think that Gil is absolutely perfect. But I don't think I have ever gone out with someone who looks like Gilbert Blythe. I usually end up dating/going out with guys who are tall, fair-haired, and blue-eyed. So I guess that my "type" is guys who could fit in a Hitler Youth group? [And let me clarify, not that they act like Hitler Youth, but they look the part.] Anyway. Weird. Moving on.)

But, basically, Gilbert Blythe is wonderful. He's smart, good, kind, opinionated, and pragmatic. And, since there is quite a bit of Anne in me (I might not have the red hair, but I certainly have the dreamer in me), I still am looking for that Gil to ground me and complement me.

Because let's be honest--I need someone practical to help balance me out. But I also need someone who believes in me and my dreams.

Someone like Gilbert Blythe.

"I don't want sunbursts or marble halls. I just want you."

Why I love Tolstoy class [part 1]

This semester my favorite class was my Tolstoy class. I learned so much from that class and the books we read, especially War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I think everyone should read these books (believe me, you'll be a better person from reading them). But, since I know that you probably don't have time to read all of the books you have to read (not including the ones you want to read), indulge me as I include some of my favorite Tolstoyan themes/quotes which impacted me this semester.

-Learning how to deal with uncertainty. The protagonists of Tolstoy's works have to deal with uncertainty--in life, love, death . . . everything (just like us . . . weird). How the characters decide to deal with uncertainty (whether embracing it or avoiding it) says a lot about their ability to live a fulfilling life.

-Learning how to die. Another major Tolstoyan theme is embracing death--greeting it like an old friend. How a character dies says a lot about how they lived.

-Prosaic vs. Romantic love. This theme is especially in Anna Karenina. Sure, romantic love is nice and is important to relationships . . . but it shouldn't be what your relationship/marriage is built on. Because marriage isn't just about kisses and roses and perfume. It is about who's going to take out the trash and change the diapers and get the bills paid. We can't live in our fantasy worlds of romantic love. We have to go out and actually live. 

-Value of self-reflection. Something that progressing Tolstoy characters have is the ability to self-reflect and self-criticize. These characters are then able to develop wisdom and empathy.

-Forgiveness and divine love. Because we all need second chances. There really isn't a statute of limitations on how many second chances we should get/should give others . . . unless we have given up. But we should be genuinely striving. And we should let others genuinely strive/change, too.

-Learning how to live. Tolstoy recommends a life of joy with gratitude and sorrow without resentment.

Quotes:

From War and Peace

“Yes, a new kind of happiness was revealed to me, one of the inalienable rights of man,” he thought to himself. [. . .] “Happiness beyond materialism, beyond all external, material influences, happiness known only to the soul, the happiness of loving! It is within the conception of all men, but it can be fully determined and ordained by God alone. But how did God ordain this law? And what about His Son?" (1020) 

 "Yes, it’s love, but not the kind of love that loves for a reason, a purpose, a cause, but the kind of love I felt for the first time when I was on my deathbed and I saw my enemy and loved him. I experienced the feeling of love that is the essence of the soul, love that seeks no object. I can feel it now, that blessed feeling. To love your neighbor and your enemy. To love everything, to love God in all His manifestations. You can love someone dear to you with human love, but it takes divine love to love your enemy. [. . .] When you love with human love you can change from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can destroy it. It is the essence of the soul. How many people I have hated in the course of my life! And there’s nobody I have loved more and hated more than her.” 

And he found a clear mental image of Natasha, though not as he had seen her in the past, with all the charm that had given him such joy. For the first time, he caught an image of her soul. (War and Peace, 1020-1021)

“And out there beyond the forests and fields lay all the shimmering, beckoning distance of infinity. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the play of the stars receding into the depths. ‘And it’s all mine, and it’s all within me, and it all adds up to me!’ thought Pierre. ‘And they caught all that, shut it up in a shed, and boarded it in!’” (War and Peace, 1134)

“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything is in flux and movement, and this movement is God. And while there is life there is pleasure in being conscious of the Godhead. To love life is to love God. The hardest and most blessed thing is to love this life even in suffering, innocent suffering.” (War and Peace, 1184)

“No, nothing is certain, nothing but the nothingness of all that we can understand, and the splendor of something we can’t understand, but know to be infinitely important!” (War and Peace, 313)

“It was clear and frosty. A dark, starlit heaven looked down on the black roofs and the dirty, dusky streets. Only by looking up at the sky could Pierre distance himself from the disgusting squalor of all earthly things as compared with the heights to which his soul had now been taken.” (War and Peace, 663)

“And there in the middle, high about Prechistensky Boulevard, amidst a scattering of stars on every side but catching the eye through its closeness to the earth, its pure white light and the long uplift of its tail, shone the comet, the huge, brilliant comet of 1812, that popular harbinger of untold horrors and the end of the world. But this bright comet with its long, shiny tail held no fears for Pierre. Quite the reverse: Pierre’s eyes glittered with tears of rapture as he gazed up at this radiant star, which must have traced its parabola through infinite space at speeds unimaginable and now suddenly seemed to have picked its spot in the black sky and impaled itself like an arrow piercing the earth, and stuck there, with its strong upthrusting tail and its brilliant display of whiteness amidst the infinity of scintillating stars. This heavenly body seemed perfectly attuned to Pierre’s newly melted heart, as it gathered reassurance and blossomed into new life.” (War and Peace 663)

From Anna Karenina: 

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” (Epigraph)

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (1)

“This is the life! How good! This is how I’d like to live!”

“Who’s stopping you?” said Levin, smiling. (162)

“You can’t understand it. For you men, who are free and can choose, it’s always clear whom you love. But a young girl in a state of expectation, with that feminine, maidenly modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust—a girl may and does sometimes feel that she doesn’t know who she loves or what to say. [. . .] Her heart speaks, but consider: you men have your eye on a girl, you visit the house, you make friends, you watch, you wait to see if you’re going to find what you love, and then, once you’re convinced of your love, you propose.”

“Well, it’s not quite like that.”

“Never mind, you propose when your love has ripened or when the scale tips towards one of your two choices. But a girl isn’t asked. She’s expected to choose for herself, but she can’t choose and only answers yes or no.” (270)

“He looked at the sky, hoping to find there the shell he had admired, which had embodied for him the whole train of thoughts and feelings of the past night. There was no longer anything resembling a shell in the sky. There, in the inaccessible heights, a mysterious change had already been accomplished. No trace of the shell was left, but spread over half the sky was a smooth carpet of ever diminishing fleecy clouds. The sky had turned blue and radiant, and with the same tenderness, yet also with the same inaccessibility, it returned his questioning look.

“No,” he said to himself, “however good that life of simplicity and labor may be, I cannot go back to it. I love her.” (277-8)

“She could neither think nor desire anything outside her life with this man; but this new life had not begun yet, and she could not even picture it clearly to herself. There was nothing but expectation—the fear and joy of the new and unknown. And now the expectation, and the unknowness, and remorse at the renouncing of her former life – all this was about to end, and the new was to begin. This new could not help being frightening; but, frightening or not, it had already been accomplished six weeks earlier in her soul; now was merely the sanctifying of what had long ago been performed’ (453)

“I’ll tell you,” Levin said, smiling, “In my heart I can’t find any feeling of regret for my freedom!” (444)

“Levin felt more and more that all his thoughts about marriage, all his dreams of how he would arrange his life, were mere childishness, and that it was something he had not understood before, and now understood still less, though it was being accomplished over him; spasms were rising higher and higher in his breast, and disobedient tears were coming to his eyes” (454).

“He knew and felt only that what was being accomplished was similar to what had been accomplished a year ago in a hotel in a provincial capital, on the deathbed of his brother Nikolai. But that had been grief and this was joy. But that grief and this joy were equally outside all ordinary circumstances of life were like holes in this ordinary life, through which something higher showed. And just as painful, as tormenting in its coming, was what was now being accomplished; and just as inconceivably, in contemplating this higher thing, the soul rose to such heights as it had never known before, where reason was no longer able to overtake it.” (713).

“It was already quite dark, and in the south, where he was looking, there were no clouds. The clouds stood on the opposite side. From there came flashes of lightning and the roll of distant thunder. Levin listened to the drops monotonously dripping from the lindens in the garden and looked at the familiar triangle of stars and the branching Milky Way passing though it. At each flash of lightning not only the Milky Way but the bright stars also disappeared, but as soon as the lighting died out they reappeared in the same places, as if thrown by some unerring hand.

“Well, what is it that disturbs me?” Levin said to himself, feeling beforehand that the resolution of his doubts, though he did not know it yet, was already prepared in his soul” (815)

“This new feeling hasn’t changed me, hasn’t made me happy or suddenly enlightened, as I dreamed – just like the feeling for my son. Nor was there any surprise. And faith or not faith – I don’t know what it is – but this feeling has entered into me just as imperceptibly through suffering and has firmly lodged itself in my soul.

“I’ll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul's holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I’ll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I’ll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray—but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!” (817) 

Life is meant to be lived with joy and purpose. And we are meant to take the dark threads and bright threads of this tapestry of life and use our experiences to help lift others. 

A life of joy with gratitude and sorrow without resentment. 

Living a life to be proud of. 

"If life could write itself, it would write like Tolstoy." --Virginia Woolf

Just a little war and peace

We've started reading War and Peace in my Tolstoy class.

We're only 115 pages in. There are 1337 pages.

I am so excited. It's one of those books that just dares you to try to read it. And we get to analyze it in my literature class.

Not to mention, I love Tolstoy. He is one of my favorite authors. The way he writes about life, love, and loss . . . he understands the human journey, and how life is made up of the prosaic.

And he makes the prosaic beautiful.

Also, I've been thinking about this quote from my Tolstoy professor all week:

"Mistakes are not fatal. They are often just missteps. But that doesn't mean that we are off course."

I love that.

And I'm looking forward to reading this epic.

All 1337 pages of it.

But there are dreams that cannot be

You know those books that are so deep that you are lost in them for hours or even days after you finish them?

I just finished reading George Eliot's Middlemarch. It started slow, but it is a beautifully interwoven story of resignation, realism, and redemption. The last 200 pages are wonderful and I've been lost in those pages and thinking about it over and over again. I have just been sighing over this book for the past day or two, just soaking in the beauty of it and in the glory of that last scene where the two star-crossed lovers finally come together at last.

AND I'VE BEEN DYING BECAUSE I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK WITH SOMEONE, BUT NO ONE HAS READ MIDDLEMARCH!

So, I'll just say what I need to here.

I won't share too much detail, because I don't want to say too much if you ever decide to read the book. So I won't say names. But basically, two characters have almost no chance of getting together (and, really, I thought that they never would get together, even at the end . . . it was a possibility that they would both end up alone and without each other), but he just can't ever leave her and keeps coming back, even though he knows that it is impossible.

And they finally come together in one of the most delightfully realistic and beautiful love scenes I have ever read.

"While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which lit each of them up for the other—and the light seemed to be the terror of a hopeless love. [She] darted instantaneously from the window; [he] followed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so they stood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on the storm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them, and the rain began to pour down. Then they turned their faces towards each other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did not loose each other’s hands.” 

Bahhhhhhhh! It's so beautiful I could die!!!!! [that is supposed to be read in the "It's so fluffy I'm gunna die!" voice]

But with all of the tension leading up to the book, and then to have this moment of realization and of commitment in library during a thunderstorm. Ah. It just took my breath away.

The beauty of a hand hold. That trust. It says so much.

And I think it is lovely.

Anyway. Nerd rant over for now.

Even though there are more thoughts that are in embryo. Of impossible love. And hopeless dreams. And yet, and yet . . .

no conclusion for today. Instead, I will just bask in the afterglow of this beautiful love story. And keep on dreaming while living.

How Little Women Relates to My Life, Part the Second

I know that I just wrote a huge-monster-sized post about how I'm über-excited about how I actually have dreams to work towards. 

Bear with me, this will be another long post. 

But it's aching to get out of my heart, so I need to write. 

Remember how I decided that I am Jo? 

Well, there's another reason why. 

Jo has three sisters. She loves her sisters very much and would do anything for them. Her dreams are based upon their happiness. In fact, it's hard for Jo when they all start going their separate ways. Her sisters are her world. 

Aren't they so cute?

I have three sisters, too. And I would do anything for them.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of all four of us together. I have lots with Sarah and Katy (the ones on missions right now), but none with all four of us together. Problem. We will have to fix that. Someday. [Erika, I promise that I love you, too. I just can't find a picture with all four of us together.]

For right now, I'll just post this. It's from this summer when I got home from my mission. We're all here and we all look genuinely happy.

Yay! Happy family. Love them. 

But. The point is that like Jo, I love my family. I love my siblings. I love my sisters. They are my life. And I want them to be happy. 

It's bittersweet watching us all grow up and go our separate ways, even though they are all good, wonderful ways to go. I mean, two of my sisters are on missions right now. They are incredible and brave. It's not easy giving them up, but I am glad they have chosen to serve the Lord. 

You know that feeling you get when you realize that nothing is going to be the same? Yeah. Nothing will be the same. We're growing up. We're forging our own lives. We're becoming the women we need to be. 

Even though these are wonderful things, it's still not easy. I miss them. I miss them an awful lot. 

So recently, another song from Little Women which has resonated with me is "Fire Within Me." Jo sings it after Beth's death, and it describes her anguish at how things haven't turned out the way she had hoped, and then how she realizes that her sisters are and always will be a part of her. 

Because there are no good Youtube videos/recordings of this song (they are all high school students singing for their school plays. No offense to high school thespians, but they are not Sutton Foster), I'm just going to put down the lyrics. They are absolutely beautiful, and describe my feelings pretty accurately: 

"How do I go on?
Just an empty room
All I have are memories
I need a task to do
Someone give me a task to do
I need a....

I thought that somehow we would always have forever
I thought the promises we made would have a different end
I thought the love we shared would keep us as we were
It was the fire within me

We dreamed and plotted with abandon in this attic
When we were gathered here the room became our citadel
We were amazing then my sisters and I
They were the fire within me

In this room I knew we were alive
Nothing was too painful to survive
We faced the world together
The four of us forever side by side
Everything I promised was for them
I was theirs no matter where or when
How can that be lost forever
How when I gave everything with all my heart?

[Jo starts writing about her sisters and then has an epiphany:]

Everything I promised them is here
All of us we used to be
We will always have each other
They will always be the fire in my heart
Here I go, and there's no turning back
My great adventure has begun
I may be small
But I've got giant plans
To shine as brightly as the sun
Here in all the smallest details of the past
Here in this attic suddenly life is something vast
The four of us forever here at last
As unexpected as can be
Astonishing." 

Yes, things are different. But we will always have each other (no matter how cliche that sounds). If we want it, we will always be there for each other and be each other's best friends.

I know this is extremely sappy.  

But it's the truth. There is power in sisterhood. And I'm so grateful that I have the best sisters anyone could ask for. 

How Little Women Relates to My Life, Part 1

To those who aren't aware, I've been working on my Honors Thesis. It's about Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. 

Needless to say, I've been on a Little Women kick recently. I just finished re-reading the book (and it's amazing--simply beautiful), and then I decided that I needed to watch the 1994 film with Winona Ryder, and then I found out there's a Little Women musical, so I've been listening to the music and falling in love with it.

Here are some highlights from my research so far:

Just kidding. That is NOT the most important thing I have learned from my research. But, Christian Bale is perfect as Laurie. Also, Christian Bale is just really attractive, okay? 

And this scene? Where Jo completely shuts him down? You feel so bad for Laurie. Also, let's just talk about how she turns down Christian Bale. Takes a brave woman to do that. 

Anyway . . . 

Really, one of the most fun and interesting things for me as I've been doing this research on Little Women is relating the characters and situations to my own life. I'm an English major, and that is just what I do. Let's be honest, I'm a reader and that's what I do. One reason I love to read is because I can relate to and see myself in characters, and I learn from their joys, mistakes, and heartaches and work through my own as I enter their world. I could go on about the joys of reading and literature, but that's a series of blog posts for another day. 

So, of course I have been trying to figure out which March sisters my sisters and I are most like. (Because there are four of us, just like there are four March sisters.)  

If it's been awhile since you've read Little Women, or if you're not familiar with the story, I'll give a brief description of the four sisters: 

Meg--she's the oldest. When she's younger, she wants to be rich, marry wealthy, and go to fancy parties. When she grows up, she falls in love with a poor man, and she's more than okay with that, because she really loves him. 

Jo--she is the independent, fiery sister. She wants to be a writer. She wants to change the world, and no one is going to stand in her way. As she grows up, life mellows her out a bit, but she still never abandons her dreams. 

Beth--she's the sweet, quiet, shy, kind sister. She is truly an angel. She ends up dying. 

Amy--stereotypical youngest child. She's selfish and ambitious, but at her core she has a heart of gold. 

Honestly, I feel like I am a mix of all of the sisters. Some days I'm more like Meg, other days I'm Beth, and sometimes I am fiery, determined Jo. 

Recently, I've been having a Jo-streak. (And I'm totally okay with that, because Jo is awesome.) 

Let me explain. 

This semester has been full of changes for me. It's been different in so many ways. It's been stressful, but very fulfilling. One of the reasons this semester has been so rewarding is that I actually have a life plan that I'm excited about! Like, I have a career goal and plans. And I'm excited about them. 

I won't go into too much detail (if you really want to know, just ask me, and I will talk your ear off), but let's just say that it involves academia. And probably too many years in grad school. And it may end up looking something like this: 

[image courtesy of buzzfeed.com]

But I promise there's a reason. A really, really good reason to go to grad school. Now I have a dream to work toward. And I'm excited. 

Which brings me to why I feel like Jo. Because she also has her goals, and she is determined to reach them. She's not afraid to dream. She's not afraid to work for her dreams, even if they seem impossible. Right now, this is me. 

I may or may not have been listening to music from Little Women: The Musical (which is brilliant, by the way--it's so, so good--I love it) and I just have to share the song which has been the theme of my life for the past few weeks . . . minus the part about someone asking me to marry him. Because that hasn't happened and probably won't for some time. So don't worry. 

The song begins to describe my life around 1:20. So you can just skip to there. 

Here are the lyrics: 

"I thought home was all I'd ever want
My attic all I'd ever need.
Now nothing feels the way it was before
And I don't know how to proceed.
I only know I'm meant for something more
I've got to know if I can be
Astonishing

There's a life
That I am meant to lead
A life like nothing I have known
I can feel it
And it's far from here
I've got to find it on my own

Even now I feel its heat upon my skin.
A life of passion that pulls me from within,
A life that I am making to begin.
There must be somewhere I can be
Astonishing
Astonishing

I'll find my way
I'll find it far away
I'll find it in unexpected and unknown
I'll find my life in my own way
Today

Here I go
And there's no turning back
My great adventure has begun
I may be small
But I've got giant plans
To shine as greatly as the sun

I will blaze until I find my time and place
I will be fearless,
Surrendering modesty and grace
I will not disappear without a trace
I'll shout and start a riot
Be anything but quiet
Christopher Columbus! 
I'll be Astonishing
Astonishing
Astonishing

At Last!"

This is me right now. 

I am Jo, standing on the threshold of something bigger than myself. At least, that's how I feel. Idealistic? Yes. But I am a dreamer, and ever will be. 

I may be small, but I've got giant plans to shine as brightly as the sun.

                                               [image courtesy of thedisneyprincess.tumblr.com]

The future is bright. No more waiting for my life to begin. It begins today. 

I'll be astonishing at last. 

"And her nose stuck in a book"

A few of my friends have posted this on Facebook and I just loved it. Well, most of it. I've made a few changes of my own, and they're in italics. But you can see the original here. 

Why do I love it? I think you'll find out . . . :)

A Girl You Should Date

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality, but she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.

Love her. She won't accept anything less. And know that she'll love you, and give you more than you can dream of. She's been planning for a storybook love, but it will be better than Elizabeth and Darcy's, better than Prince Charming and Cinderella's, because she knows that it will be REAL. But she also knows that happily ever after doesn't come easily. It never does in true love stories. Expect to work hard together, and know that she'll quote Shakespeare while getting dirty.

Trust her. Trust her ability to forgive, and to see you for more than you are. Because a girl who reads understands that mercy is as real as justice. A girl who reads has read Hugo and Dostoyevsky, and knows that mercy is what this world needs. A girl who reads knows that people need second chances. And that she needs second chances, too.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
                                                                                                             – Rosemarie Urquico –

Thoughts

This summer has been rejuvenating.

I've found time to relax, which was definitely needed in my life.

I've found time to read again, savor a book, let the question it raises change my mind and often my soul, and become friends with the characters. It is an incredible thing to let someone's story change your life; that is why books are so powerful.

But perhaps even more important to me is that I've found time to write again. In the flurry of assignments, work, and other semester-drudgeries, writing my own stories gets put aside. I can't do that to myself. Fortunately, one of my friends and I created our own writing group to share our stories, and it motivates me to write. And the more I write, the more alive I feel.

I'm realizing that my hobby for writing is more than just a hobby--it's a need. I have a need to create beauty; I have a need to share stories; I have a need to use my imagination. I thrive on creation; on breathing life into characters. I feel complete by pouring my questions into a plot; my soul into a tale. I get excited when I think of new plot twists and character developments. I love it when my prose sings truth.

The stories I write are powerful. And I don't mean that in a prideful way, because goodness knows I have so much to work on. More than I'd like to admit.

But my stories are changing my life. And if that isn't powerful, I don't know what is.