I'm thinking...

I've often thought how hard it is to write down what you are thinking. It's almost nigh impossible. Thoughts are fickle things, you see. At the present moment I am thinking of half a dozen things, and yet I can only write on one. In the object of order and coherency it is necessary to stick to one train of thought, and yet the thoughts in your mind are in no such order. Thoughts, they flit in and out of your mind with no particular care for coherency. I'm thinking of rain falling on the pond, it looks like spots appearing as if a disease all across the pond's brown surface, or like spots on a Dalmatian. Then my mind goes back to the original thought and dwells on the shape of the raindrops falling. I remember watching a video about how the artists created the rain in Bambi, they filled a dropper with milk and watched slow motion videos of the milk dripping down and splashing into the bowl.
All of a sudden that train of thought is lost in thinking about the play I'm in. I think about how much I enjoy playing two characters in one play. I think about how I can make these characters as different as possible from each other, and how I'm planning on changing my hairstyle at least twice during the course of the play. I'm thinking about how easy it would be to talk too quickly, having each word we utter in the play memorized. Then I'm thinking about conversation. Sometimes I think out how conversations will go beforehand, I think about what I should say and how I should say it. In a sense I'm trying to memorize my conversation beforehand, as if it were simply an act in a play. But life rarely gives you an opportunity to speak that memorized speech, or at least as you planned it. Life is an adventure, not a play to memorize. We might think we know someone, but we will never know for sure what goes through their mind, what words will come out of their mouth. I suppose that's what makes me nervous about my interview for the scholarship on Thursday, I hope I do well, but I won't have a chance to think out my responses. I like to have time to think.
That's why I like writing so much. When you write you can put into words thoughts that you have been turning around in your mind for years and years. In most stories I've written I've found myself writing out thoughts about events from years ago. I always think what I'm writing is fictional, and then I read over it again and I find that I've put bits of myself into every character. Bits of me are scattered throughout the stories, the best of me and the worst of me. I remember talking about this a while back with a good friend, she asked if a part of my story was "real" and I said immediately "Oh no." because I thought it wasn't. It was completely from my imagination that story, I've never been in a situation similar to my heroine, I couldn't think of anyone more dissimilar than myself, but suddenly this heroine was spouting out thoughts I'd had myself. Those thoughts were mine and hers together. It's really interesting to think as you read of the author who has written this story. Writing is about digging into your soul. There is no way to write without sharing bits and pieces of yourself even if that is not your intention. I don't mean copying yourself and your life. No, that's not what I mean at all. I mean writing someone else's story, and then finding yourself in a brief thought or word that flouts through the story.
Now I've completely lost what I was thinking about when I started writing these thoughts on writing. I was going to talk about my interview on Thursday, but we'll leave that for now. It'll turn out as it turns out.

I'm reading...

Right now I'm reading Waking Rose by Regina Doman out loud to my brother. Waking Rose is my favorite of her books. I love that book because there's so many layers to it. Even though I've read it many times I still find something different in it. It's a story mixed with bits of reality and fantasy, with daily life at a Catholic College and with knights and ladies fighting for what is good and right. My favorite characters in it are the Knights of the Sacra Cor. They are funny and sweet, courageous and ready to stand up for what they believe. Then of course, there's Fish and Rose. Fish has always been the character I've loved most in her books, even in the first one. Which is funny because upon reading over them again he really isn't in the first book very much. Only two or three brief scenes, and yet I loved him best even then? Waking Rose is really his story. One of the things I really like about Regina Doman is that she doesn't pass over the after affects. You see characters in plenty of adventure books that have terrible things happen to them, and yet in the very next book they're back to their usual selves, tragic pasts being forgotten in the next adventure. Not so with the Fairy Tale Novels. We see Fish continually struggling with his past. His memories of the past are harder for him to deal with then when the actual event was taking place. When I read this book for the first time I didn't understand all that was going on, but now that I do I love it even more. It deals with some pretty deep topics, but what you're taking from it really depends on the place you are in when you're reading it. I also love Fish and Rose's relationship and how it blossoms. It gives a very real picture of love and what it's about. It isn't sappy love at first sight, nor is it a case of mutual dislike turned upside down (ugh it drives me nuts when this happens). It's shows love as a choice. My favorite bit about this is how Fish doesn't come to care for Rose in that way till he consciously opens up to her. He makes the decision to trust her and that is the beginning of something beautiful. Their relationship is that of a friendship blossomed into something that much closer and more beautiful.

I'm wearing...

A blue dress.

Outside my window...

The canoe has been hoisted half way up the hill and is now resting in the daisies between the pond and my window. Just beyond it a shadow divides the lawn. Dew drops can be seen on each blade of grass in this shadowed area, beyond the great divide the sun has dried all morning dew and the daisies have unfurled themselves. (Now that I have put you to sleep with my description of the outside world I shall proceed. Such a description would only be interesting if I tossed a character or two in there. Perhaps a dark and mysterious figure in the shade and sunny faced pleasant character in the sun. Don't mind me. I'm babbling.)

 I'm creating...

I'm determined to finish the letters I've started writing. I really do need to get them in the mail. I'm a fearful procrastinator sometimes and I've been neglecting my correspondence horrendously. Then I'm wracked with guilt.

I'm thinking...

Isn't it funny how things can change over the course of a year? Everything changes. It changes as a year passes, as a month goes by, as each day turns into the next. We change- but never entirely. We grow from the single building block we were to begin with to a castle of blocks. Parts of that castle are knocked over, our clumsy hands have knocked down what we were trying to form, but the blocks are lying on the ground waiting to be picked up and placed back into position. Each event, each memory, each success and each mistake, meshing together, forming our castle. There's the story Mom and Dad told me of how I sobbed when I first watched Hercules at age three, saying "He shouldn't leave his Mommy and Daddy." Time passes and I'm ten, waiting for my parents to return from a weekend trip, knowing that my grandparents are worried because I've been sulky all day long. "I just want to go home. I just want my parents home." I mummer grumpily to a pillow. Time goes by yet again and I've just turned thirteen. I'm laying in a bunk bed at a summer camp repeating over and over again to myself "I don't want to be here. I'm calling Dad and Mom in the morning. I'm not staying here. I don't like it." Then all of a sudden I'm sixteen and on a bus traveling through Europe. I glance out a window and let myself sniffle a bit. I miss home and my family, but as I look out the window I know I wouldn't go home that instant if I could. I would still wait till my trip was ended, even though it hurt. Then I'm seventeen, kneeling in a little chapel on a college campus, thinking this is where I want to be. I want to go here. Isn't it funny how people change? Funny, and beautiful.

I'm reading...

Rapunzel Let Down by Regina Doman. Wow. I don't quite know what to say. Everything feels real in this book. It breaks your heart. The world seems very dark and everything has gone black. There is so much very real pain. It hurts. Really, really hurts. Then you are filled with peace and there's beauty coming out of the darkness. The whole theme of this book is how God can take something bad, something ugly, and through His grace, something beautiful is brought about. It's very- real. That's all I can say. Her other books are books that I read over and over again because I love them. They make me happy whenever I read them and go to them when I'm looking for an old favorite. Rapunzel Let Down isn't like that. It isn't the sort of book you would read again and again because you enjoy it, but it is the sort of book that will last in your mind. Something to think about, to ponder. It's because part of it hurts so much that what follows is so beautiful and makes you feel so peaceful. It goes back to how without suffering we wouldn't understand what joy is, without dark we wouldn't understand light, but that doesn't make you stop wishing that it hadn't happened. If only they had chosen differently, if only sin didn't exist. Because their lives were destroyed before something beautiful came from the destruction, and it doesn't have to be that way. It shouldn't be. I'm probably putting this badly and I haven't quite finished it so I haven't yet finished sorting out my thoughts, but...I just, wow.

Outside my window...

Everything is looking very, very green. Green grass. Brilliant green leaves. Darker Green trees. Green bushes. Green.

I'm listening to...

the Loreena McKennett station on Pandora. I love this music because so much of it is old poetry that's been put into song. I love listening to the words of this music.

I'm creating...

I started knitting again at the last rehearsal of Much Ado About Nothing (did I mention I'm taking part in a play?) and I want to keep going with my red slouchy hat again. I always forget when I'm not knitting how much I enjoy knitting. Though, I'm not watching murder mysteries while knitting late at night again. I don't think I've quite recovered from last time I was silly enough to do that. Miss Marple, indeed.

Also, on a creative note, I thought it would be fun to try and make one of those video book reviews. I always write them, and it would be sort of fun to try making them in video form for once. At least to try it out.

A picture thought I'm sharing...

This is one of the pictures of the tulip fields that Mom took yesterday. Look at the gorgeous tulips!