Friday 20 December 2013

The Runaways


Today was snowy and lazy, so I cuddled up in my wolf blanket and watched one of my favourite movies for the fourth time: The Runaways. It's based on the real Runaways, the first all-girls band to play aggressive rock n roll. Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning play Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, and they did so well! I love the soundtrack and always end up listening to it for a week straight after watching the movie, haha. 
























Photos found on Google Images.

x~

Thursday 12 December 2013

the teen ghosts of the graveyard



Photos from the summer, on the road next to the graveyard where we like to hang out sometimes.

Tuesday 3 December 2013

sparkles


I hope I don't seem conceited because the majority of photos I post are of myself. In honesty, I haven't photographed anyone else for a long time. There have been occasions where plans were made to do so, but nothing ever seems to work out. Especially during a stressful time of the school year, it's not like I have time to go out and snap pictures or take leisurely strolls or anything like that.. so I'm constantly posting photos that I took a while ago that are in my folders and don't really relate to anything I'm blogging about. That's about it.
I'm struggling along with my second last essay tonight; as soon as I get these assignments done, I can finally relax (maybe actually get to sleep for a whole night!!), and do the things I haven't had time for like photography, drawing/painting, and collaging etc. That's if I can get through to Friday without having any breaking-point meltdowns or heart attacks of sleep deprivation.
Teeth clenched until then. 

Monday 2 December 2013

the nature of life

Photo by my friend Molly
I am a weary tree. 
My back is its branches: gnarled with knots; my neck is as stiff as its trunk. 
Winter brought stress and snow and mud; in it, my roots: they have sunk.
                                                                      - November 24th, 2013

My soul aches. I've never had to deal with stress like this and not have breaks from it. I've been devoured by essay after essay, and it's taking quite an affect on my body. I've never had problems with my back, but here I've been having trouble sleeping due to the impossibility of a comfortable position. I'm exhausted right down to my bones.

Wednesday is the last day of this term, and then I am free!! (Well, for a little while, and I'm not even going to think about exams). Three essays to go, and then a much needed visit to a massage therapist.

Saviour of skillful hands, free this weary tree of knots;
I want to blow in the breeze like the weeds in the parking lots.

--------------  --------------

Also, I just finished reading "Ellen, A Short Life Long Remembered" by Rose Levit, and couldn't help but cry over it. It's a true story, written by the mother of a seventeen-year-old girl, Ellen, who died of bone cancer in 1972. I related so much to this person I'd never meet. In the book were many of Ellen's poems and letters to friends that were found after her death, and I was astonished at her outlook on life and the way she thought; she was so insightful and was happy looking at life in the simplest way, content on the fact it could not be described. I can't quite explain it in the right words, but the way she thought was so similar to the way I think, that the connection I felt with this deceased girl was.. well, just something powerful and emotional. Forty years ago, she has pondered and written the same things I've pondered and written about religion, education, life.
I have finally found a person who understands who I am inside, and I'll never share anything with her. Perhaps one day I'll meet her in Heaven, if I ever make it there myself.

My favourite quotes you may or may not be interested in reading:

"I believe in God but in my own way." 
"God is Love. Love is something very giving, very allowing and very accepting, and so should God be. I don't believe in Worship. Love is not worship. I feel worship is following in the steps of your ancestors, saying "Praise God" because your ancestors have always said it. Tradition. When there is tradition-following, you cannot go your own way."
                                                           - excerpts from a letter from Ellen to Gypsy

"Things are very lonely here at home. This house is so big and the people far apart. But I am O.K. It gets me down once in awhile. But I am fine."
                                                          - Ellen, in a letter to Charlene

"She believed that since no earthly matter is lost but is just transformed into other forms, then people who die return to the earth and are used as part of an endless chain of life, re-use, and renewal."
                                                          - Rose Levit, talking about Ellen

"What is life - it is such a complex thing and yet at the same time so simple - it's silly to pin a definition on it. If you can understand all these complex things - fear, freedom, love - and still at the same time keep your mind simple - and love the beauty of a sunny day, just because it's a sunny day - then you can truly be free."
                                                          - Ellen, to her sister Jana

"It is very clear to me that the parents in this country, who elect all the administrators and the Boards of Education, don't give a damn about knowledge. All they seem to be concerned with is the grades that are brought home and the little piece of paper - the diploma - that says this certain student has fulfilled the requirements and has graduated from this High School. Are grades such a true symbol of a student's learning?"
                                                          - a newspaper article Ellen wrote

"We shared speculations and personal beliefs about the survival of the human spirit, about immortality and what that might be. Ellen stated hers simply. She hoped that she would contribute to the replenishment of the earth's vital resources. She hoped for a place in nature's eternal cycle of growth and decay and growth."
                                                          - Rose Levit, talking about Ellen
                                                           
x~

Wednesday 27 November 2013

a walk in the rain


In the midst of rocks and sand and bags and beer cans, I stood and watched the rain shatter the grey surface of the river; it resembles a fuzzy tv screen, or it is the visual representation of midnight silence. The pleasant rank of seaweed came to me in a wintery breeze, and crows cawed in the crooks of trees.


"She believed that since no earthly matter is lost but is just transformed into other forms, then people who die return to the earth and are used as part of an endless chain, re-use, and renewal."

- Rose Levit, about her daughter

x~

Friday 22 November 2013

the return to Nature


When I do die, lay me in the forest. 
I will find eternal peace amongst the trees, 
and my body will rot, decompose, 
and therefore bring life to the woods 
in which I am lain.
                   - August 27th, 2013

In the end, we are all returned to Nature. We die, we rot, and we feed the Earth. 
I read A Carcass by Charles Baudelaire, and it is so disgustingly descriptive that it makes you cringe; yet it celebrates the Circle of Life, much like my earlier request to be lain in the forest when I die. 
My desire for this has been confirmed.
I don't want to be buried in an expensive coffin made from slaughtered trees, and I no longer want to be burned and thrown to be caught by the wind. Just lay me in a bed of moss beneath the tree branches, my skin will be speckled by both sunshine and shadow.
And if I can no longer breathe, let me nourish and help the trees around me to breathe.
The flowers that grow from my bones will be the healthiest of all.

When at last our lively hour ends,
Slowly we begin the Return to Nature;
And return as well the life she lends.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

The Lover


I started reading Marguerite Duras' The Lover once when I was younger, but I couldn't get all the way through it as it was difficult for me to follow; even so, I fell in love with the scenes that Duras described and thus much later decided to read it a second time. I fell in love with it once again. It was a strange book to read; the depressing, simple life of a young girl written beautifully, romantically. What intrigues me most is the fact that Marguerite writes about herself as a young girl; true events, her very own memories. An affair she had with a 32 year old Chinese man when she was as old as I am now. 

I was so excited when I discovered that there was a movie based on the book! I watched it immediately after finishing the book (well, after I finished crying over the end of the book), and I was not disappointed in the slightest (which is usually my expectation of movies based on books)! They could NOT have chosen better than Jane March and Tony Leung. They were perfect for the characters that had formed in my mind while reading. The soundtrack got stuck in my head, and I became addicted to watching certain clips over and over (and I'm not talking about the sex scenes).

This film is now on my mental list of treasures to find at a yard sale/thrift store one day.








"I'm going to die of love for you."
- the Chinese lover


(None of these pictures are mine)

Wednesday 13 November 2013

summer soul


Trying to write an essay on a topic I really don't care for just makes me ache for summer days.

find peace in the trees

Saturday 9 November 2013

the summer before change


These photos were taken by my friend Molly, I think three summers ago. We were in Maine for a week, and the beach was my favourite part. I love the sound of ocean waves, and vast stretches of sand.. Let the sea set you free. I only hope the two of us can go back one day, or anywhere really. 




Sunday 3 November 2013

the seafarer


"My heart's desire urges my spirit
time and again to travel, so that I might seek
far from here a foreign land."

- The Seafarer
from the Exeter Book Elegies

Tuesday 22 October 2013

I left my heart in the summer sun


The rain was cold today; it felt more icy than Autumn rain ought to feel, and it made me yearn for the warm months of summer where I would spend long days at my cottage, walking about in bare feet, laying in the grass, and basking in the sunshine. Here is a collection of photos I took on one of those dreamy summer days.





Cicadas singing all around me,
the glitter of sunshine, the sway of trees;
the lilies and the ferns dance in the breeze.
Butterflies kiss the open flowers,
blades of grass caress my summer skin.
Here I am renewed, for nature 
knows no sin.