dysp·ne·a

noun difficult or labored breathing

i am telling this girl about my condition. i don't know why i choose her but i guess it's because she insists i call her sister and rubs little circles on my back to soothe me while i try to fall asleep. i don't have a label for it, not really anyway, i hardly think it fits the bill – mine is a different kind anxiety.

one that boils right under the surface, replaces the blood with lava, circulates through 100,000 kilometers within my small body, and leaves me without an embrace when it has the capacity to wrap itself around the earth two times and a half.

the vapor licks the inside of my skin, and the largest organ in my body displays its own beauty with bitten nails, worn down cuticles, and white fading marks where i scratch myself
 

layers upon layers of protection, but what can protect me from the spies and traitors within my own body? 

 

i can see the dead cells fall to the ground, every white mark, blooming at the tip of a blunt nail–

 

i wish it was that easy to get rid of all things dead and unusable, and that no matter how brute we were, they still ended up catching sunlight through angled blinds and dancing with the millions of other dust particles in a room

 

i wish we all had elegant ends and photograph-worthy last minutes, maybe a lingering smile in the face of oblivion or the ecstasy of being surrounded by fellow revolutionaries

no, mine is a different kind of anxiety, it's the depression in the head of a devout believer who is obviously neither devout nor believer enough because why else would i suffer? have i tried reading the holy text? have i tried praying more? have i renewed my intentions?

no, mine is a different kind of anxiety, i can't count all the symptoms but this girl tells me that i have shortness of breath, that my ribcage feeling like it is constricting and poking into my lungs is no poetic heartache or longing – it's shortness of breath, and isn't that one son of a bitch

because mine is a different kind of anxiety, all my breaths are small gulps, and no matter how much i force them i can never fill my lungs enough to satisfy the need to breathe, but there are spurts of relaxed sighs

every
once
in
a
while

and sometimes i gasp, and gasp, and gasp and use all my energy to fill millions of capillaries with oxygen

to ensure that at least some clean air passes on to my blood –

but the blood has been replaced by the fire of a sickening feeling, and it strengthens with the oxygen i sent fanning the flames beneath my skin

because mine is a different kind of anxiety, one that is so dense and massive, it collapses in on itself and creates a black hole right where my heart is, between the lungs, and at the center of my circulatory system

one that gravitates everything surrounding it towards itself and swallows emotions whole,

one that is deafening, and shattering, and can't hold any meaning because shortness of breath is one son of a bitch, and what could i ever do?

00110010 00110010 00110001 00110000

Dear 12-year-old self,

You are the 500 pages of abridged classics in seven days. You are the $50 for each 100 pages in a race with your dad. You are the 176 books on your bookshelf, and the 12 more you buy with your own $50 at the book fair. You are the 95 points at a math exam, the 100 at an oral quiz. You are the five pieces of required artwork, and the three favorite pens. 

The number of people in your class (40) minus one (39). You are smarter than that many people. You are the four friends you found a group name for. You are the one friend that knew you since you were six. You are the only child, the first granddaughter. 

You are the 15th of every month. You are the one new pajama set and two pairs of shoes bought every 15th of every month. You are 34 plush toys, five photo albums, and one Yamaha recorder. 

You are the three plus two prescribed movements reiterated through every evening prayer. You are 801, the school ID you chose for yourself in first grade and surprised the principal with when you read it with ease. You are a composite of numbers. You are your pride in numbers. You are your enthusiasm for numbers.

And suddenly, it's seventh grade. You are 12.  You go to the bathroom during break time. It's a small school, there are maybe 15 girls in total. They are all in the bathroom, gathered around the only blonde, whispering conspiratorially.

"What's happening?" you ask.  
They look at you. The blonde one smiles. "I was talking to so and so last night and asked him to rank the girls in our school." 
"And?"
"Well, here, come look."
Number one is your English teacher, which makes you feel uneasy. She is engaged you think, she should not have been considered or put on this "ranking."
Number two is the blonde. You realize that you trust her word. (Now you are wondering why you did.)
Number three comes as a surprise. Your favorite number punches you in the gut and says you are it.
Number three.

And suddenly all the numbers that used to make up your being dissolve, and you're left bare with this three.

This three that taunts you. It's seventh grade. You do not yet know how the female body works. But you know that you were ranked number three by a boy possibly younger than you. And that makes everything worse.

You are not you. You have never been you. You are 2210 on the SAT, and fives on all your APs. You are 1,458 followers, and 26 poems. You are a composite of numbers. Nothing else.

Sanctuary

Do not make homes out of people, they warn me, so I make a sanctuary out of you. I don't return to you everyday, and you aren't my instinctual safe-house but you are welcoming even when I have sinned – especially when I have sinned.

There is grace and purity in you, and being around it relieves me. I thank the people who said not to make homes out of people, because I never want to feel confined within your walls or alone when I'm with you. I never want to be separated from you and suffer from being home-sick. I never want to have to leave you behind and then rebuild you brick by brick. 

I want you to be the steady point of my life, the stabilizer, the safety net. I want you to be wherever I go because I always need an escape and you are my refuge, my hideaway.

The feeling of divine love is multiplied in your presence, and I take off my shoes to walk on the sacred ground around your heart. You let me in to the shrine of your mind, and every now and then, I bring you statuettes of votive offerings. I don't want to walk away having left only my problems with you. 

You aren't a temple no, nor an object of worship – we both have our own Gods.  But when the religious heads can't contain me, and I'm looking for shelter, I come to you.

I come to you because sometimes I'm homeless and I need a place to stay. I need a listener for my stories and a holy person for my confessions.  I come to you because I feel safe – because if nothing else, I know one thing about the world, and that is, no matter how cruel people can be, they won't dare harm a sanctuary. 

***

Lots of  candy wrappers

~Belle

Adventures With My Grandmother

My grandmother and I once went to five different engagement ceremonies in one day. None of them we were invited to.

The ceremony house was located near a small amusement park, we would go in, smile at these strangers, accept the prizes we came for, stay for the vows, and leave to come back again in an hour. 

The prizes were my grandmother's favorite souvenirs to collect: the intricate engagement candy assortments wrapped in expensive packaging with pink bows, candles and felt roses, one for me and one for her. It's a tradition where we come from. The candies. Almonds covered with a milky sort of hard chocolate. They last forever. And the assortments? People get creative with them, and those are my grandmother's favorite kind. Give her the little figurines and the porcelain boxes.

"Are you from the bride's side or the groom's?" They asked. We changed our answer each time, or said that we knew both the bride and the groom, that we actually played matchmaker. We sometimes even posed for pictures, imagining what people would think later. 

We would weave stories of the newlywed couples looking through their albums together coming across the elaborately dressed grandmother and her granddaughter. "Do you know them?" the bride would ask the groom, and he would shake his head. They would shrug and flip to the next page, see if they had other strangers in their album. "Maybe they are extended family?" "Yeah, could be," "I'll ask my mom" "OK."

We would walk to the amusement park and buy cotton candy from the vendors. And then we would relax in the shade under big trees and a small Ferris wheel. We would keep telling stories. Make them up. About the girl and her mother waiting in line for the basil, tomato and mozzarella sandwiches. About the old man sitting by himself drinking tea and eating popcorn. About the stone faced riders on the roller coaster.

We would return to the ceremony house after enough time had passed. To extend warm glances and exchange pleasantries, maybe pose in a few more photographs. We would watch two people commit to each other, while a new set of candies rested in my grandmother's purse. Waiting to be put in her glass display cabinet.

***

Sorry for the infrequent updates everyone, I am writing college application essays and trying to juggle senior year at the same time. I tagged this as creative writing, but this is something my grandmother and I did once and I recently remembered it. It was an amazing day. 

We are nearing the end of 2014 and it only feels like yesterday we started it. I hope you all accomplished most of your new year goals by now (:

Lots of pumpkins,

Belle

Valentine's Day Nightmares

Content warning: 50 Shades of Grey, swearing, and sexual language in some links

Recently, Universal Pictures announced that they would be releasing their movie adaptation of the disaster that is Fifty Shades of Grey. On Valentine's Day in 2015. Yep.

Of course, this post isn't about Fifty Shades of Grey (or more accurately). It isn't about why I call it a disaster (you can read about that here). Or why it makes me question humanity. Question the writer, scriptwriters, actors, producers, sponsors and readers of the book and watchers of the movie for entertainment and education purposes (because we definitely can take it as a reliable resource).

I'd rather not go into my problems with Fifty Shades of Grey. You can read reviews for all three books from my favorite review writer on Goodreads here (first book, second book, third book). But I'll give you my favorite part of her review that explains why I hate this book with a passion and think it should be obliterated so it no longer is a part of human history.

"It's this kind of ignorant trash that sets feminism back decades. Women who defend this book are, however unwittingly, participating in some of the most blatant misogyny I've ever witnessed, giving the impression that some women enjoy being debased, abused, and controlled (outside of a consensual Dom/sub relationship). This is not a book about BDSM, this is a book about one sick, abusive man and his obsession with a young, naive invertebrate. It's a book about a girl who has absolutely no sense of self, who sacrifices any pretense of individuality in order to hold onto a man who doesn't even show her the faintest glimmer of respect. It's about two attention-starved individuals with the emotional maturity of toilet paper convincing themselves that their relationship is 'like, the best thing ever, OMG'. It's trite, insulting, and dangerous. I fear for any impressionable young women who read this and think that this is how an ideal relationship should operate. If nothing else, it should be issued as a guidebook to mothers around the world to show their daughters the kind of man to avoid at all costs. This book does good men (and indeed, all of humanity) a disservice." 

In any case, this brings me to my actual reason for writing this post. Reviews.

Both before and after reading a book, I like reading reviews and general critique for said book. What do people think, how did they like it, is the writing any good, is the plot intriguing etc. And I found that there are two major ways for people to review books. One is to focus solely on writing and the literary aspect of the book, critiquing the language and the lexicon. The other is to focus on the characters and their relatability and how likable they are. 

For me, it has always been a mixture of both with some other elements depending on the book. How realistic is it if it's set in the modern world with modern technology and laws? How historically accurate and appropriate is it? Does the terminology match the era? Where are the resources and where is the research? Are there plot holes and lost potential for characters? Can I justify problems? How are women treated? What tropes are used? What are people learning? 

In the case with Fifty Shades of Grey, as you can see, people are not learning anything. In fact, if there was at least a seed planted in the readers' minds from before to respect women as people and care for them as humans, it will rot and die. It will then become fertilizer for a different seed that will bloom and make the readers think that it is completely okay to be in abusive relationships and women are the weak, submissive, unintelligent beings men always say they are.

Books are important because they introduce people to new things and help them think beyond what they know. Books help us speak up or reconsider our actions with their heroines and antagonists. They are important because they influence us. And that influence cannot be measured only in the sophistication of language or the allure of certain characters. We need to look at books holistically because it's upsetting to know that some people will never like/read Austen's Emma or Huxley's Brave New World because they can't stand Emma or care to follow Huxley's prose. 

Lots of bookmarks,

~Belle

Sins

Sometime around 11 in the morning, you get out of bed, you open the dusty blinds and fixate on the hawthorn tree with its tips reaching your window. The red berries you have tasted every bloom are frozen, the branches are coated with a soft layer of snow, and you think that maybe this is the day. A flimsy jacket over your thin white shirt and a pair of jeans take you outside – your cotton flats make no crunching sounds as you go out and leave a small trail of silent footsteps on your way to the hawthorn tree. Your head is angled up, your mouth, open in an invitation that gets rejected continuously. You never got along with snowflakes. When you reach the tree, you pop a frozen haw berry in your mouth and lie down under the tree where the leaves are thick. You can never fully trust a half evergreen. You watch the sky through the little cracks, and as the berry leaves a bitter aftertaste in your mouth, you realize that you don’t know where the sky ends and where the rest of the universe starts. You close your eyelids, and wait, because the snowflakes that will reluctantly land on them will numb your whole body. Breathe in, you’ll never know when you are cold, just trust the snow and the soil to do their work. They will clean you of your sins, take you apart, and give you a new beginning. Yes, you want that. Breathe. Time passes rather quickly. It’s 11 at night and the dim streetlight is giving the snow a yellow tint. You smile. The icicles under your fingertips will disintegrate you and the earth will take you in, and you finally understand why the berries taste bitter – they are filled with sins.

Belle ©

Equestrian Acts: the Cossack Rider

inspired by The Ring of Time by E.B. White

"The girl wasn’t so young that she did not know the delicious satisfaction of having a perfectly behaved body and the fun of using it to do a trick most people can’t do, but she was too young to know that time does not really move in a circle at all."

It seemed repetitive maybe, I am not entirely sure, but what I did, what I felt, every single emotion that washed over me with each stride, with each movement, was different, distinguishable, unique, irreplaceable, a hallmark in my journey through time and space as I flied, as I stood atop my horse, as it strolled around in a circle, as the earth circled around the sun and the sun around the Milky Way and the Milky Way around the universe. Each gesture lighted up, shone brightly for an instant, and then faded away to become a piece of the trail I was leaving behind as I traveled the cosmos. 

I had never given much thought to what I did outside of where I did it. My whole life had been inside the circus. Confined to striped colors, flapping tents, discarded tickets, tamed beasts and roaring crowds of similar interests. I had woken up to lion roars and I had slept with monkey howls, and although I had realized that the life I led didn’t fit the norm, it had become routine for me to comb out straws from my hair and to rub away bear droppings from my soles. It had become routine, predictable, scheduled almost.

Until I saw Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I had never paid particular attention to art. I liked literature, I liked biographies and atlases, I liked analyzing constellations and old maps, and I liked reading the journals of ancient travelers and early sea voyagers. But I had never realized that we had enough magic on our hands to create masterpieces like The Olive Trees or Daubigny's Garden. 

I was fifteen, we were visiting Amsterdam, and I had an entire afternoon to myself. I was getting ready to lie on my bed with my favorite astronomy magazine when I heard that we had settled a walking distance away from a famous art museum. I don’t know what exactly made me tuck the magazine under my pillow and forced me to get up and leave to find the said art museum, but that’s what I did. When I finally stepped inside, eyeing the first exhibit, half an hour later, I seemed to regain control of my senses. I felt as if something had pulled me into the Van Gogh Museum and although the mysterious force was disappearing, it was leaving a ghost attraction towards one of the paintings. The Starry Night. 

I walked towards that painting and watched it, absorbing each hue, each curve, each dimension, and each shade. I lost myself inside the stars, inside the gleaming crescent of the moon, in the flowing winds of the night. When I came to, I turned around and walked all the way back to the circus. I flopped down on my bed, the nebula posters on my ceiling merging together in countless swirls of colors. I felt as if I was drugged, as if someone had taken my life, stretched it around a canvas, and was doodling around with an enchanted paintbrush. I closed my eyes and as the images slowly calmed against my eyelids, I understood what my life had meant. I saw the path I was carving out in the celestial sphere.

“Horses are the nomads of the Chinese Zodiac, roaming from one place or project to the next.” It all fit perfectly. 

Perhaps, I don’t look it, and perhaps it seems repetitive, but what I do is what I am. Each second, I transform, I change, I grow, I leave one more footprint behind. Every action ignites a signature. Every action brands my presence, my existence, my being. I leave behind a long track of lights. A unique one-way route for each soul, untraceable, only recalled in memories. No chance to go back to the beginning, no chance to go back even a second. We move until the universe can expand no more and has to coil back again. Back into the infinitesimal mass it rooted from. But until then, I am moving forward, carving an intricate design and leaving a legacy. A road made of stars. 

•••

I can feel the eyes of the guy who looked at me with a strange sort of curiosity as I entered. I dismiss his gaze and focus on my road, I lose myself, each second counts, I treasure as many light particles as I can and as I finish my last circle, I see that the guy looks displeased. Maybe he didn’t have his Starry Night moment yet. But he will. He surely will.

Charms in We The Living

We The Living by Ayn Rand ~ 509 pages

***

"It seemed that the words she said were ruled by the will of her body and that her sharp movements were the unconscious reflection of a dancing, laughing soul. So that her spirit seemed physical and her body spiritual."

"The first thing that Kira learned about life and the first thing that her elders learned, dismayed, about Kira, was the joy of being alone."

"There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don’t want to do it—it isn’t right. If it’s right and you don’t want to do it—you don’t know what right is and

you’re not a man."

"Because I have less in common with you than the enemies who fight you, have. I don’t want to fight for the people, I don’t want to fight against the people, I don’t want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone—to live.”"

"Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one’s highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It’s a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it."

"Well, I always know what I want. And when you know what you want—you go toward it.

Sometimes you go very fast, and sometimes only an inch a year. Perhaps you feel happier when you go fast. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten the difference long ago, because it really doesn’t matter, so long as you move."

"I don’t mind that we’re beaten. I don’t mind that we’ve taken the greatest of crimes on our shoulders and then let it slip through our fingers. I wouldn’t mind it if we had been beaten by a tall warrior in a steel helmet, a human dragon spitting fire. But we’re beaten by a louse. A big, fat, slow, blond louse. Ever seen lice? The blond ones are the fattest. . . . It was our own fault. Once, men were ruled with a god’s thunder. Then they were ruled with a sword. Now they’re ruled with a Primus. Once, they were held by reverence. Then they were held by fear. Now they’re held by their stomachs. Men have worn chains on their necks, and on their wrists, and on their ankles. Now they’re enchained by their rectums. Only you don’t hold heroes by their rectums. It was our own fault."

"“The survival,” said Leo, “of the fittest. However, not all philosophers are right. I’ve always

wanted to ask them one question: the fittest—for what?"

"So you loved me? So I was the highest of women, a woman like a temple, like a military march, like a god’s statue? Remember who told me that? Well, look at me! I’m only a whore and you’re the one who made the first payment! sold myself—for money—and you paid it. Down in the gutter, that’s where I belong, and your great love put me there."

"What are we doing? Do we want to feed a starved humanity in order to let it live? Or do we want to strangle its life in order to feed it?"

"She had no thoughts left. She felt empty, clear and quiet, as if her body were only an image of her

will, and her will—only an arrow, tense and hard, pointing at a border that had to be crossed."

Review with Spoilers

I am not sure what exactly I was expecting with this book, but it was a bit of a disappointment. I read The Fountainhead and Anthem by Rand and thought I would like this book, but it didn't live up to my expectations (maybe because she published We The Living before the other two I have read).

The story is one that of individual vs. state with our protagonist as Kira, the virtuous heroine who will sacrifice herself to a villain to save a hero only to find that the villain was the hero and the hero the villain. 

Before I go into problems I have with the story, the thing that bothers me about Rand is that her philosophy, objectivism, says that man is an end in himself and must live for his own happiness. And although, on her website and in her books, there is clarification about 'man' referring to humankind, Rand always uses males as the incarnations of her philosophy. As soon as the females fall in love or become fascinated with the unique male heroes (Gods as she calls them) they lose all of their own integrity. Thus bringing me into why I just didn't understand Kira's characterization at all. 

Kira started out as a the ideal Randian character, I was hoping she would be the Howard Roarke of this book, but as soon as she met Leo, she went into the stereotypical housewife mode and beyond. The Kira that didn't care about people's opinions and gossip became a Kira that started giving importance to the most bland things. She started cooking, and cleaning and changed into a communal being overnight which would have been acceptable if she were continuing her previous characterization as an independent and free woman. As if the sudden change wasn't enough, she treated Leo as if he was the reason behind her existence and at multiple occasions, she pointed out her own inferior status in the relationship, once calling herself a 'slave' and Leo a 'slaveowner.' And all of her integrity, for me, disintegrated as soon as I realized that she was going to stay in that relationship. Leo was abusing her in a psychological way, which makes sense because although Kira mistakes him for the hero, he turns out to be the villain – but her staying with Leo made no sense to me whatsoever given that she was well-aware of her situation and her options to get out of it. Now, if you look into typical abusive relationships this might be expected behavior, that the victim stays to change the abuser. But Kira didn't think like the usual victim which is why I thought she would save herself and realize Leo's real persona before 400 pages had passed. 

What furthers the gender problem is that, in my edition (purchased form the Ayn Rand Foundation), in the back, there are some comments by Rand about the characters. Rand says that Kira was above both Leo and Andrei (the hero who was made to look like the villain), but to me she looked below both characters. She begun the book with a high sense of self, lost all her characteristics in the middle, regained her composure towards the end for a few pages, and lost it all again in the end.

Overall, I didn't dislike the book, as I like Ayn Rand's storytelling, and am fascinated by her ideas, but I am a religious person and after I read the following part in the book, I realized Rand might have been looking at stereotypical viewpoints on religion.

"Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one’s highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It’s a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it."

I do believe in a God and an after-life but I do respect and cherish my life here on earth as well. I don't see any need to go to extremes and ruin my time here, in the end, it's all about moderation. Of course, people might think and live differently, and they do, but just because I believe in a God doesn't mean I don't believe in life.

With a lot of Rand's writing you'll see that she puts a great deal of importance into existing for the sake of existing and cherishing what one knows she has. We don't know for sure what happens after life and we don't know what happened before, and since we are physically sure of this world and this existence (which is flawed because: solipsism) we should make the most of it. This of course definitely boosts a person's ever inflated ego exponentially. Here you have someone who not only doesn't believe in a superior being, and sees herself as the most superior being in existence, but also condemns those who don't. People have exalted themselves to the point of being Gods so that the idea of a creator offends them.

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche here – with whom, I sometimes speculate, Rand would have had the time of her life, had she lived one generation earlier – is on the same boat. The idea of a supreme being, something bigger than himself offended him. We are talking about the creator of all that exists in our universe, of life, of humanity, of compassion, of trust, of galaxies, of oceans, of black holes, of dark matter and of motor proteins. And this man, he says he can't believe in a being who in theory not only has created him, but has also allowed him to exist on this realm. Without seeing her own littleness, the person starts thinking of herself as God. People love to believe they are powerful, but often times they fall victims to unstoppable microscopic cells in their own bodies.

So, yes "whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life." Because we are little. Physically, we are not above anything else on the planet. We are helpless and tiny and incompetent. But. We are human. Our humanity is the only thing that can set us aside and I think that makes for a better philosophy. Because men aren't gods. They will never be gods. But men can be the best representatives of humanity. Of what differentiates us from the rest of the living beings in existence. Men will never be immortal, invincible and eternal. But men may be able to leave ideological legacies, build iron relationships, and achieve a world where education gets more funding than military technology.

Lots of keys,
~Belle

Charms in Empire Falls

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

483 pages

• • •

"Like himself, Father Mark, as a child, had been reassured by the imagined proximity of God, whereas adults, perhaps because they so often were up to no good, took more comfort from His remoteness. Though Miles didn’t think of himself as a man up to no good, he did prefer the notion of an all-loving God to that of an all-knowing one."

"Everything on the other side of the glass possessed the stark clarity of an Edward Hopper painting, which meant that Jimmy had pretended to be unable to see what had been plainly visible. A silly lie. A lie so small and to so little purpose that it suggested to Miles a way of life, a strategy for confronting the world, and this was further reason—if any was needed—to doubt the truth of everything the man had said inside."

"But now the river’s gone back to doing what it wants, and what it wants is to wash up dead animals and all manner of trash on my nice lawn. That’s the lovely odor you noticed when you sat down. Which is my point. Lives are rivers. We imagine we can direct their paths, though in the end there’s but one destination, and we end up being true to ourselves only because we have no choice. People speak of selfishness, but that’s another folly, because of course there’s no such thing."

"In Grace’s opinion it was love that people needed most—more than food and shelter and warmth—and the best part was that love didn’t cost anything. Even poor people could afford to make a gift of it to the rich."

"A lively intellect, so much admired in a man, is seldom tolerated in a woman—or am I mistaken?”

"The fundamental dishonesty of adults never fails to amaze her, their assumption that you’ll believe whatever they say just because they’re grown-ups and you’re a kid. As if the history of adults’ dealings with adolescents were one long, unbroken continuum of truth-telling. As if no kid was ever given a reason to distrust anyone over the age of twenty-five."

"Miles said, and he was about to add that yelling wasn’t permitted in the restaurant when he saw that the girl’s eyes had instantly filled with tears. My God, he couldn’t help thinking, how terrible it is to be that age, to have emotions so near the surface that the slightest turbulence causes them to boil over. That, very simply, was what adulthood must be all about—acquiring the skill to bury things more deeply. Out of sight and, whenever possible, out of mind."

"David has this theory that between your mom and dad and him and you there’s, like, one complete person. Your father never thinks about anybody but himself, and your mom was always thinking about other people and never herself. David thinks only about the present and you think only about the past and the future."

"The cutthroat savagery of high school romance inspired in nearly all adults a collective amnesia. Having survived it themselves, they locked those memories far away in some dark chamber of their subconscious where things that are too terrible to contemplate are permanently stored. The more skilled you were at the game in high school, the more deeply your guilty recollections were buried. This was the reason parents so often worried vaguely about their high school children, yet balked at inquiring after the details of their social lives. Heartbreak, they reassured themselves, was “all part of growing up."

"Again he closed his eyes and considered the blessing of darkness, the marvelous way it could subtract the whole world."

"Each day Mrs. Whiting had a “To Do” list, and the brilliance of that list lay in the fact that she was careful never to include anything undoable. On those rare occasions when a task proved more complicated or difficult than she’d imagined, she simply subdivided it. In this fashion, the woman never encountered anything but success, and each day brought her inexorably closer to her goal. She might be delayed, but never deterred."

"And that’s the thing, she concludes. Just because things happen slow doesn’t mean you’ll be ready for them. If they happened fast, you’d be alert for all kinds of suddenness, aware that speed was trump. “Slow” works on an altogether different principle, on the deceptive impression that there’s plenty of time to prepare, which conceals the central fact, that no matter how slow things go, you’ll always be slower."

Review with Spoilers

I was definitely intrigued by this book and its intricately woven storyline. The plot revolves around Miles Roby, a small town grill worker with big dreams and ideas but unfortunately hopeless goals and a pacifist disposition. Through the book, we get a glimpse into the harsh reality behind the American Dream, and the effects of control and power. I thought the writing was brilliant and thoroughly engaging, keeping the reader's attention for almost 500 pages despite having a rather steady and slowly building story. You might want to check on content issues before you start reading it, but overall I really enjoyed it and I would recommend to anyone with enthusiasm for good writing and good endings. 

Contextual References & Wrong Opinions

My life has reached the point where after I introduce myself with my name, my age, and my hobbies, I also add 'replying to comments on YouTube' as a favorite pastime. 

I don't know why I bother commenting though, because sometimes I look at a trail of comments and exchanges and think to myself, I shouldn't have started. And sometimes, I chuckle because, somewhere on the globe, an adult white male with strong opinions and undermining statements types furious replies to a teenage girl on some other place on the globe, completely unaware of what he is dealing with and stubborn to the last exclamation point. 

This has become such a routine act, I am considering opening YouTube account where the only thing I will do is film myself while I rant about why a comment made me lose faith in humanity. It's hard to imagine what I put myself through each time I scroll down a page (against my better judgement) to check out how people reacted to a video. And by the time I am done reading people's wrong opinions (which do exists), I want to smash my beautiful Mac with a hammer and hope that the internet ceases to exist, which of course, doesn't happen. 

You don't understand, I guarantee it. I am a very emotionally invested person both in things I like and dislike, and thus my passions reflect on my physical being. When I am happy, I can feel my blood rushing through my veins and my brain sending neurons of exhilaration to my nerve endings, but when I am sad I can also feel this hollow drop internally and my bones constricting, and drawing together in shame and disparity. It happens. And at those times, I want turn to the people around me, to inanimate objects, or air particles that surround me and shout a long Doctor Who soliloquy as follows:

"Take my experiences. Take my memories. Take all these comments I have seen. I've lived a fairly short life but I've seen a few things. I walked away from terrorist jokes. I have marked the passing of the apocalyptic Femen movements. I saw the birth of cyber-bullying culture and watched as humanity ran out, trait by trait, until nothing remained. No humanity, no nothing. Just me! I typed in chat rooms where the laws of ethics were devised by the minds of a madman! And I watched faces freeze and emotions burn! I have seen things you wouldn't believe! I have lost things you will never understand! And I know things, secrets that must never be told, knowledge that must never be spoken! So come on then! Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all!"

And yes, I have heard that people don't care, and I have read that nobody cares, but isn't that why we are standing where we are? Our ignorance drives us down and dehumanizes us, and we can still stand up tall and say we don't care. We never cared.

Well, then, should we be proud? Proud that serious problems like equality and representation and environmental issues go unnoticed to us, and we don't give a damn. Proud that we don't see the reason to learn, to listen, or to accept that we don't know everything. Should we really be proud?

Because the last time I checked, I still have to read, I still have to write, I still have to listen and be open-minded, and I have a long way before I can assess all the issues on Earth and decide that I don't care. Because if I do not care and I do not know, then am I really, truly, human?

Lots of differential equations,
~Belle

The Nerd Identity

“HA NERD!” yells the conventional part of me to the nerd, shoving her into the back confines of my personality that the outer world sees. 

“At least I am knowledgeable and do work that requires brainpower,” says the nerd part of me, shooting a sideways glance at the artist and enunciating each word with contempt. 

The artist slouches a little bit, sighs loudly into the blackness, and dips her brush in the palette in front of her, thinking yet another day in which my artistic abilities, skills, and efforts are devalued and invalidated. How inspiring. 

Although, I do not have dissociative personality disorder or struggle with a split personality, this inner struggle has been gnawing at my mind for a while. 

The cliché is between the nerds and the jocks. The jocks tease the nerds for their extensive understanding of various topics, or for their passions about certain subjects while the nerds grumble about the barbaric and crude nature of the jocks. We have witnessed and publicized only to this extent of the age-old battle, but we have ignored the shameless mirroring of this bullying reflected onto artists. 

Here is what I have observed: in a way to defend themselves, nerd will attack the artists so that they aren’t at the bottom of the food chain, but in putting the artists down, they acquire the same moral ground as the jocks. According to the nerds, artists are know-nothing-do-nothings. They splatter some paint; write a few unrhymed lines of poetry, try to create new genres of music, and act out plays with absurd names like Urinetown. And let’s be honest. Artists are all hippies aren’t they? They don’t care what we think. They don’t care when we insult their new way of writing or their abstract collages. They don’t take it to heart when we say that theater isn’t intensive, and they don’t mind when we take fine arts lightly. I mean, why should they? Artists probably aren’t even human, right? They probably don’t feel things. I mean, why else would they choose such visual and sensory mediums of self-expression? That just would have made it ironic. 

But research shows that artists are human. They are of the Homo sapien species. And they do feel things. Like sadness, and regret, and disappointment. And just as the nerds pursue careers in oceanography and nanotechnology out of their passions, artists try their luck in graphic design and directing for the same reason. They put everything they have into their work, they chase down their muses, they track down mentors, and they work, at times, more than theoretical physicists and statisticians, to remain off the streets and not be labeled as starving artists. 

And the problem boils down to our inherent insecurity. We try to defend our own passions and likes by discrediting others’ passions and likes and that really doesn’t take us anywhere. So the question is: how should the system change in order for those who feel a special connection to baseball, those who feel a special connection to science, and those who feel a special connection to drawing, all get along?

Lots of texture sets,
~Belle

A Cup of Tea

I love the power and confidence that comes with a bold outfit and good posture. Two double rings, high heels, a good book in my bag, a small moleskin journal with my sketches of strangers, a colorful scarf, audacious white pants, a neon striped plaid shirt, my favorite songs in a playlist, and sunglasses on the top of my head so that I can protect the world when my stares become too intense. 

I do. I love that power and that confidence. I love the ability to walk down a street with my chin high up, because I honor my humanity; my focus on the present, because anything else is a waste of time; and my composure, because caring about insignificant opinions is a setback. 

As you can imagine, such a facade masks a warrior, an arrogant rebel, an incarnation of nonconformity, or perhaps a quixotic misanthrope. And behind all the labels, there stands me, upset to the last cell in my being about a cup of tea.  

There is so much potential for good around us. So many outlets through which we can help each other and ourselves, yet we waste them, miss them, or stay ignorant about their existence in an attempt to ignore them. 

A few weeks ago, after I checked out some books from the library, I was walking towards a coffee shop across the street to try a new blend (because new things make life exciting), and I was in the aforementioned mindset of being invincible. I had an upbeat song playing through my earphones and I was walking to its rhythm when I almost missed the woman who passed by me. Actually, I passed by her, rather quickly too, because I couldn't slow down. My brain registered her quivering chin and the tears on her face the instant she was out of my peripheral vision. 

And when the registration was complete, my whole body went into autopilot. I was still walking, but my mind was all over the place. Why didn't I ask her if she was okay? Why didn't I ask her to get a cup of tea with me? Why didn't I say something? What if nobody said anything? What if everyone who saw her crying ignored her? What if she hurts herself? 

I was just so disappointed with myself. All that power, all that confidence, all that invincibility dissipated into the unpleasant air around me. I had the power to make a small change. A small shift in the universe, a small string of words, a smile, a brief pat on the back, an offer. That cup of tea could have turned into life lesson, a foundation for the trust I want to place in people, a story, maybe more tears, and maybe another cup of tea. I was given the opportunity to change the cosmos but I pushed it away with the back of my hand in the few seconds it was offered to me. And without realizing, I pushed away the potential and the courage, I pushed away the fearlessness. Because really, how can I claim to be courageous and fearless when I can't stop myself to ask a simple question? How can I claim I have potential when all I can do is to worry and write about the instance? 

I didn't turn around, a coward. I stopped the music. My shoulders sulked. I drunk the new blend without being able to savor the secret ingredient. I looked out the window, replayed dramatic scenes in my head, made it into a problem about me. I didn't go back. 

Don't waste the opportunities you are offered in life. They only lead to self pity sessions.

Lots of lights

~Belle

Albatross

I was listening to the Weight of Living Pt. I by Bastille and the lyrics pulled me in so quickly that before I knew what I was doing, I was already staring at ten tabs on my browser, all searching for the albatross. 

Here is the gist of it. Samuel Coleridge wrote the Rime of the Ancient Mariner a long time ago and in this narrative poem, the mariner kills an albatross that was flying above his ship. The albatross was supposed to be a good luck sign but when the mariner kills it, good luck turns into bad luck and his crew becomes so enraged that they want the mariner to wear the dead albatross around his neck until they all die because of the curse. And now, due to the poem's popularity and the albatross' wide usage in pop culture, in English, the phrase 'albatross around one's neck' symbolizes a burden or an obstacle. 

As I researched and thought about the albatross I realized that the albatross around my neck was my writing. And maybe to some, their writing is not exactly an albatross, maybe it's something that's more like the Midas Touch or the Weeping Angels but in the end, our greatest weapon is also our greatest burden.

My thoughts usually revolve around how subjective the perception of writing is although there are universally accepted factors that make good writing, good writing. How we can think that we are good at writing but then realize that it's such a common task in our lives that anyone who has the inherent talent can build upon it and become better than us. How it has the power to either boost our self-esteems to the skies, or kill us again and again and again mercilessly because we fail repeatedly. How the instances when we see our faults and note our mistakes remind us that we need more time and more practice. How writing can weave excruciating and exhausting with pleasing and enchanting. How it can seep into our bloodstreams and place itself in our DNAs yet still be remote and unreachable to us. 

Maybe, my writing is like a magnet: because magnets are never found as only positively charged or negatively charged – they always come with two poles. For me, writing has its positives: the satisfaction, the joy, the power that comes with the ability to put words together in a seamless fashion; and its negatives: the insomnia, the need for new words, and the frustration with muses. And when I think about my writing as a magnet, I understand why I write better when I am negative – it's because I attract the positive side of the magnet. When I am beaming with positive charges, however, the positive side of the magnet is repelled, and that makes perfect sense when you look at it through the lens of, "You write so beautifully. The inside of your mind must be such a terrifying place." 

So, I will leave you with this. Writing is hard and I am trying to embrace the albatross around my neck to get into the right mindset, but who knows where that will lead me...

Lots of idioms, 

~Belle

Ramblings of a Sardine

Sardines, they say. Sardines. Of course, those insignificant humans cannot bother to learn the specific names of each different species. It’s so much easier to clump us all under one little name. Sardines. 

My chosen title is Kapinoida and I am a proud European pilchard, with a lineage of Sardina pilchardus. I live near the small English island Lundy in a school of hundred other European pilchards. We have a few different species here and there, but we get along well. 

My best friend, a South American pilchard with a lineage of Sardinops sagax, is thinking of forming a fish activism club. I suggested we call it the CLUPeidae because that’s the family name, clupeidae. The family all sardines belong to. It will be our fair share of irony.

We have culture clubs and the general dancing institution in our school, but we don’t have an activism club. And most of us need something to do in our spare times, so we are hoping that the CLUPeidae will provide that much needed distraction. The Japanese pilchards and the sardinella have their Japanese club in which they work on special glistening techniques for our scales. The Californian pilchards, and the Brazilian sardinella work together on producing interesting theater productions. 

There is a rumor that they get their ideas from humans, but it seems like a stretch to me. I mean, for that to happen, they would need to see humans engage in theater, which I highly doubt humans do. Humans and theater? HA! Quite a funny image if you ask me. Those crude creatures in something as emotive as theater? I don’t think so. 

For all I know, humans spend the bulk of their time hunting us down, and then turning us into either sustenance for feeding, or specimens for researching. Research I say, but obviously, they are flattering themselves with such credit. After everything they have researched, they still haven’t figured out our defensive brain mechanism that shuts down major brain functions when in danger. So they continue to insult each other with petty remarks as ‘goldfish’ to point out someone’s short memory, but in reality, we all know that as untrue as their claims are, they are also pathetic for their need to insult each other. Our biologists, the Southern African pilchards and the Bali sardinella, after working with our psychologists, the Indian oil sardines and the Round sardinella have concluded that due to the limited usage of their brains, humans haven’t moved past self-esteem issues and the like, which not only explains their insults, but also the other useless and extremely violent activities they participate in such as wars. 

For our activism club, we are thinking of working with the Goldstripe and the Maderian sardinella, our statisticians, to devise a plan to keep our family from overpopulating. As the global temperatures rise, our females reproduce more and more. If we don’t put a restraint on ourselves, we might take over the ocean, and homogeneity in a habitat has been historically proven to harm its inhabitants. We are cooperating with the Rainbow sardines first as the experimental species because they volunteered, already having reported of non-reproducing male-male and female-female couplings in their schools.

~~~

I had to write a story for my AP Language class and I thought, why not write the ramblings of a sardine? After a few hours of research and a completed first draft, it slowly dawned on me that my muse might have been high when it popped this idea in my head – so, I am sorry if any of this was disturbing to you. If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it! 

PS: I would also love to get prompts to write about, so if you have any crazy ideas and can compete with my muse, tell me and I shall write (:

Lots of porcupines,

~Belle