Wednesday, August 24, 2005
it was one thing i could feel deep insideThen the fire fades away
But most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's too hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world to me
My song du jour, KT Tunstall's 'Other side of the world'. Muchos gracias to Mel for popping by Hall 8 to visit me and have lunch. We chatted alot about school and guy problems in general, and shared our music. It's great to see an old, familiar face when everything's still new. And just when I needed someone to talk to over some burning issue.
Past few days have been busy, school's been heating up and work is slowly piling up. I never sleep before 1am over here. Yes, I have started studying, albeit grudgingly, and spend a good amount of time online, and deciding where to put this and that in my room. I feel somewhat nicely settled into a comfortable routine, but damn morning classes! Have also been getting to know more people, and nice ones at that. I guess I could say that I'm enjoying school lots more now.
I just finished reading The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman. I love her prose and the way she writes like she's painting a picture. Beautiful language, and in all her books [she also wrote Practical Magic and Here On Earth, both were made into movies] she always writes about something magical in the lives of ordinary characters. There's always an acute sense of feeling in a harsh landscape. And it always sets you thinking, the way characters go about trying to solve their problems or battle their demons. At the end, there always is a lovely, but sometimes painful resolution. Like this one, there was death in a beautiful way. I'll put some excerpts here:
What's the difference between love and obsession? Didn't both make you stay up all night, wandering the streets, a victim of your own imagination, your own heartbeat? Didn't you fall into both, headfirst into quicksand? Wasn't ever man in love a fool and every woman a slave?
Love was like rain: it turned to ice, or it disappeared. Now you saw it, now you couldn't find it no matter how hard you might search. Love evaporated; obsession was realer; it hurt, like a pin in your bottom, a stone in your shoe. It didn't go away in the blink of an eye. A morning phone call filled with regret. A letter that said, Dear you, good-bye from me. Obsession tasted like something familiar. Something you'd known your whole life. It settled and lurked; it stayed with you.
x
People hide their truest natures. I understood that; I even applauded it. What sort of world would it be if people bled all over the sidewalks, if they wept under trees, smacked whomever they despised, kissed strangers, revealed themselves? Keep a cloak, that was fine, the thing to do; present a disguise, the outside you, the one you want people to believe.
x
This is what I know, the one and only thing. The best way to die is while you're living. Even for someone like me. You'd laugh to know how long it's taken for me to figure that out, when all I had to do was cross over the mountains. When I walk to my car in the parking lot on winter nights, I have often noticed bats, a black cloud in the darkening sky. They bring me comfort. They make me feel you're not so far away. To think, I used to be afraid. I used to run and hide. Now I stand and look upward. I don't mind what the weather is; the cold has never bothered me. I hope what I'm seeing is the ever after. I hope it's you.
rachel at 11:04 PM