To Beast -
Sometimes I too do not appreciate the body in which I live. My body is fragile and covered with scars, fissures in my soul. I was once given a rose, And I cherished its beautiful and delicate features. A rose is a vulnerable creation, much like you and I. As petals drift away, we realize the fragility of time. But we look for a new bud, a time when someone can look deep within the tiny crack and see the life inside.
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I steady my shaking legs on the rug,
letting them nestle into the worn surface. Before me lies an endless void, the rug on the other side scarcely visible. I gently place a paw on this cold, merciless ground. My whole body cringes at the sound of my nails against this horrible surface they call a floor. If I stretch my neck a little further, maybe I can reach that tiny bone perched precariously in the middle. My front paws slip on the surface And I skitter back onto the safe softness of the rug. The high pitched voices persist, and I realize the automatic wagging of my tail Is encouraging them. I give up and walk back to my bed. These humans are making a fool of themselves. Hair freshly washed,
drying slowly among the moon and stars. Settle into the faint smell of dad’s cologne, the scent of Sundays. Three books, nestled in the crisp crinkle of the floral comforter. The soft crack of the spine reveals a heart among a flourish of red ink. Glossy pages, reflecting tiny words and pastel pictures, the edges slipping between fingertips. Mom’s soft voice, interspersed with words rolling slowly off a young tongue. A hushing sound of the slow collapse as eyelashes are beckoned downward by the lavender color of dreams. (inspired by "Delicate Details") A soul as fragile as paper
has a place somewhere. Thoughts float and settle like dust. Somewhere deep inside, a quiet stirring. A river rushes hot and loud, finding a small space to filter. In a steady stream, the river and dust collect among the cool ceramic surface. Warmth exudes, healing the cracks. And some evaporates, curls -- and dances into the air. (inspiration for poem) It is amazing, those small details we remember from our childhood. Last night I realized just how precious these small, delicate memories are. My friend and I watched a favorite childhood movie, The Emperor’s New Groove. As with every other Disney movie, I realized how much more I get out of the movie now than I ever did as a kid. But among these new connections are feelings and pictures of familiarity. The small things my young mind noticed, the little details I loved. Sometimes it was a sound, a word, a picture, or a color. In the The Emperor’s New Groove, we both commented on how we always loved the viles - the delicacy of them as they spilled out of the cabinet and clinked against the floor. The bright red liquid inside that I always thought looked sweet and delicious. The rubber, squeaky corks that sealed each one.
This got us talking about other childhood memories -- specifically picture books. I mentioned that I had this big book of children’s stories, but I really only loved one: D.W. the Picky Eater. The story centers around D.W. refusing to eat many types of food. One day, she has to promise her parents that she will eat whatever is on the menu. My favorite part of the whole story was the picture of this menu. I always interrupted my parent’s reading so I could read the menu. I loved the little pictures of each dish. I loved the names of them, especially “Goldilocks Griddle Cakes” because I loved the way the words all sounded together on my tongue. There was another book, A Bargain for Frances, and Frances is trying to get a new tea set. The old one is a white plastic set with red flowers which I always loved the image of. But the new tea set sounded beautiful: a real china set with pictures in blue (at least those are the details I can remember right now). I was again drawn to the delicacy of these details. Another book is calledChrysanthemum by Kevin Hankes. Chrysanthemum is the name of the main character, and she is embarrassed by how long her name is. But I loved the way it sounded and I loved that they wrote it in icing on her birthday cake. Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse was another one by Kevin Hankes. I loved the three coins she had in her purse that jingled and glittered. When I was younger, for Christmas I was given little beads that shimmered like jewels. They were in a little basket and I stored them at the top shelf in my closet. It was always special when I could take them down and admire their glimmering colors and cup their small shapes in my hand. I apologize for all of these different references, they all kind of spilled out! But I just love thinking about the fragility of these small details that I still remember so fondly. I would be interested to see if you remember some of these same stories and details too. Or, if it made you think of other stories/movies, please comment! I would love to read about them. To conclude, you may notice that I have done some adding to the right side of my blog. Little details that I would like to share -- feel free to take a look. (I am hoping to update the “current favorite” movie trailer and music often, so stay tuned:)). January 2-3 ***warning: this day I was pretty jet lagged. This summer, I found out I was accepted to go to Italy. And now, here I am, in Italy 4 months later and it still hasn't sunk in. I am in love though, I know that much. Today was the longest day of my life - or was it two days? Three? Four? What year is it? What is this life.? Agh. Even as I type this i feel myself starting to fall asleep. That's the bummer about traveling outside of the country. Once you're actually there, youre fighting to keep your eyes open as you drive through while screaming internally “stay awake stay awake stay AWAKE you are in Italy!!” This hotel is so beautiful. I share with one other girl and we each have our own rooms and the floor is dark blue tiling and the bathroom shower is full of smaller, lighter blue tiles. And the shower door is glass and only covered half of the shower, but it wasn't as weird as I may have thought. It does sound like Italian showers are typically smaller anyways. We’ll have to see - maybe I can rank how good the showers are? January 4 This morning, I woke up in Italy. I opened the door to my hotel room and walked outside into crisp, refreshingly cool air. For breakfast, I had a croissant and really good coffee that I know I will never be able to get enough of (I am already dreading going back to the states for that reason ugh). Then we drove to Segesta, a site among the mountains. There, we saw remains of an old theatre. Amazingly, they still use it today (mostly in the summertime). And sometimes they have people read poetry as the sun rises (I think I blinked back tears when I heard that). Then we saw the Doric temple that is just across from the theatre (also in the mountains). It was amazing to see it up close and take time to look at the details. Then we walked down the mountain to a little gift/pastry/coffee shop and I bought my first coffee (an americano <3). And again, we all commented on how hard it will be to drink coffee back in the states. Later that night we reached our second hotel of the trip and after I dropped my stuff off I immediately went out exploring. We went downtown and it was just so cute (except for the fact that people in Italy literally have no respect for pedestrians and the only sidewalk downtown is a little narrow strip - so narrow that you have to walk single file and pray that a car doesn't hit you... I might be exaggerating a titch but that's how it feels). We went into a pastry shop and I got one filled with Nutella - need I say more? And for dinner I had OCTOPUS and MUSSELS and it was so GOOD!! (mom, dad and grandpa are you proud of me?). After dinner, a couple people and I went back up to town to walk around. OH and can I just add: to get to town you have to walk UP 2 0 0 stairs. Hahahaahaha. January 5 8:45 am: In town for the third time, 600 stairs later. But it is SO worth it. We also went into the basilica there which was beautiful. I wanted to go to the bank to get more euros and was frightened by entering through an enclosed tube that may or may not have had the capacity to shoot upward into the sky. Unfortunately, the line was too long but I still have plenty of euros because everything here is WAY cheaper than I thought it would be. Later that morning we took a bus to Agrigento to view more temples. One of the first themes we talked about was the imperfections of the human eye. In other words, we cannot always see imperfections. In the first temple we looked at, the Greeks did not build the columns parallel so they would eventually touch when they reached the sky. But due to the human eye, we do not notice these imperfections. Another thing I was very interested in was how in the world these temples were built. We talked about some of the techniques used which just amazes me. For example, they used ramps to transport blocks of stone up to the top. But how were these ramps sturdy enough? They also carved a u shape into a block of stone and then placed a rope in the u to lift it -- a sort of “pulley” system. (I am hoping to also post my academic journal I am writing for the actual class part of this trip -- it would go into more detail of the historical and cultural things we discuss at the sites. Hopefully I will post that sometime soon, but if not I will probably post it at the end of the trip!). We are settled into our third hotel for the night and I quite like it. We ate a very nice dinner in a separate, open room with lots of windows. Everything we ate was fresh - zucchini, bruschetta, mushroom risotto (I am LOVING all the risotto here), goat cheese, fresh plums… it truly is a dream. January 6 Well, it looks like we are snowed in at our Sicilian castle. We woke up this morning to snow and frost everywhere, and since this hotel is at the top of a mountain (basically), it was a simply breathtaking sight. Unfortunately, that also means that the bus was parked at the top of an extremely steep hill. And it hasn't snowed like this in Sicily for years, so even if we could get down this treacherous mountains, other roads would still be blocked off. We were just grateful that we stayed stuck at this wonderful hotel instead of stuck inside the bus in the middle of the road. I am bummed to be missing our sightseeing for the day though. I also was excited to see Epiphany parades and celebrations around the city, but that is hard to do when we are isolated up high and a blanket is covering everything. It is snowing again, but I am hoping that it will stop soon. As beautiful as this hotel and view is, I am restless to get on with our trip and I hope we won’t lose another day. If all goes as planned, we will drive to Palermo tomorrow morning (And then in a couple days … Rome!). To calm my wandering mind, maybe I’ll go downstairs now and check in on the cappuccino situation… January 8 Yesterday we finally got off the mountain and made it to Palermo! Today we walked around Palermo and looked at a bunch of different churches, such as the Palestine Chapel. Upon going into the first church, I felt chills down my spine and my eyes welled up just a little -- I was taken aback by the amazing beauty of the space. And that feeling has continued with every church I have entered. Everything is just so exquisite and detailed and your mouth just drops as you realize this was built by human beings. Everything is just incredible. For lunch, we had more pizza than we could handle, but then we walked it off as we wandered through town. A couple of girls and I all went to a small makeup store and got fancy lip colors. Mine is a pink, sparkly lip gloss and I actually smiled at myself once I put it on. I am excited to wear it during my nights in Rome. For dinner, I had arencinno -- an AMAZING food here -- it is like a fried ball of risotto with different things added (the one I got last night had four types of cheeses -- I have had way to much cheese on this trip). I loved seeing the town and looking at all the Italians here -- everything and everyone here just looks so flawless. And it will only get better from here…. next stop, ROME! January 9 I am currently on a plane to ROME! And blasting “On an Evening in Roma” by Michael Bublé <3. When I listen to that song, I picture what it would be like to be in Rome. And now I am actually on my way there ahhhh!!!! ........ Okay i think i am actually in love. Rome is simply breathtaking and I still can’t believe I am here. I don’t even have much to say right now because this place has left me completely at a loss for words. It is beautiful!! Stunning! Exquisite! I am sad we’re only here for 3 nights so I am trying to soak it all in. I will definitely post more pictures later! For now, going to go enjoy my first “evening in Roma.” with love from Rome,
Bridget |