Life of Pride
"I think you should move that last paragraph to the beginning," my mom said.
I looked at it and squinched up my face.
"But I put it where it is to leave the scholarship committee with warm fuzzies," I said. "See - because the first part is more dry, I want to give them something nice to remember me with."
"If they get that far," said my mom. I frowned.
---
Ought that to be enough to start an argument? I don't think so. Yet, it did. Turns out I was very defensive over that particular scholarship essay, and with good reason. It wasn't very good. It was very abstract, much like this blog. I tend to think abstractly about myself, I told my mom. It's so funny, because my fiction is so concrete. No more. I shall keep abstractions to a minimum in this blog.
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PHC Chorale. It gave me some of my best memories of this past semester. No matter how tired I was feeling Mondays and Wednesdays, as soon as I entered Town Hall at 4:30 and saw Mr. Johnson and the other Chorale members, my mood turned up. It had a magic, a common spirit, this past semester that it didn't under Mrs. Cochran. We were all adults working for a common purpose. Or maybe I just felt that because I was singing tenor, and there were so few of us tenors that we all stuck together and listened very hard to each other. Mr. Johnson, however, recorded our Christmas concert and gave each of us CDs, and I can definitely hear something special. It's not just people singing; you can hear the pathos or joy in our voices.
I think it was Mr. Johnson. He so much enjoys music and conducting that he would start mouthing along with different parts and not even notice. He told us to throw whiteboard erasers at him whenever he started doing that, and we pelted him several times. ;) Such fun.
I have listened to our concert CD over and over again. At first I could only hear the parts I sang, because I was listening very carefully to see if I could pick out my own voice. I didn't even pay attention to the words. As time went on and I realized I either blended too well or was too quiet to be heard, I began actually to hear the music. Especially in the Latin songs, the way the parts fit is amazing. They twine around and climb over each other, but in the end they always come back together. Even if I can't hear myself, the knowledge I helped make that sound washes over me again and leaves me amazed each time I listen. I want to do that more and more.
So many things I could say, and want to say, but a barrier stands in the way of every one. One is not proprietous; one would give away a bit of my most secret hopes and dreams. But that is all right, for all I truly wished to say with this post is that I know now why time has slowed down during this break. I haven't put God first of all. He has given me this time, and He has put me right where I am. I can use the time, or I can moon for what comes after. I choose to do the former. :)
In a few hours, my older brother, his fiancee and I go to claim free ice cream at the opening of the new Coldstone's. :D We're also gonna see Oceans 12, which I hear is supposed to be a brainless but fun ride. That's the afternoon and early evening. After we come back, I'll probably exercise, read Bible and some more
Habits of Highly Successful People, do my Sybervision Spanish lesson, and then write some more of
Erthe - the Faeries' Story from 10pm to midnight or so. This is my day.
Twelve more days until I'm back at school. The days trickle past. Unlike last breaks, when time sped up as I got more used to being home, this one is slowing down. I spend most of the days looking forward to the evenings, which race by so fast that I'm back to day before I know it again. Still, by God's grace I have accomplished some good things. I have read two of the books that I wanted to, and I'm working through the others. I've spent time with family, and I've rested. I baked probably more than 500 cookies and distributed them to the four winds in Christmas packages. I sang in the Christmas choir concert at church. I've been going through the Spanish course I bought last semester to supplement my ineffective PHC clase de espanol, and I've written so far another 3500+ words of what may some day be my book. This latter is especially giving me joy, and making me feel worthwhile.
So why are the days passing so slowly? I think I miss my friends. The other day I shocked myself by telling my little sisters, "It's only two weeks until I go back home!" Home doesn't feel like the most comfortable place for my heart and soul any more. Home is frozen in stasis, always the same, never changing. I
am changing. I
have changed this past semester, in some indefinable way. The unprecedented ease in writing that I am experiencing has something to do with it, I think. I am writing about Susan, a little wayward faerie who will grow up into someone quite important. I know her entire story, and the entire story of her world, and it gives me great pleasure. I
like the story I'm writing, and I can't wait to see it take shape. Nor am I struggling over the details. They come to me as I write, and they're fun. As I type out events, I feel myself wrapped up in them. If I leave Susan in suspense, I can't stop until I take her out of it.
Never have I felt this before when writing. I know not only Susan's story, the "middle story" of what will be my trilogy, but I know how it will connect with the Phoenixes' (before) and Humans' (after) stories. I described Erthe itself in such detail last summer that I know the framework in which I write. All that remains is for me to peel back the layers and reveal the world, piece by piece, to other people. I have such a great feeling of anticipation... Is this all what it means to feel the "Muse" working, when one asks God to make one's words His own?
I also have so many more real stories to add into the mix, what with having begun my study of history this past semester. I can't wait to continue it and learn more of our own world's history. That helps me so much in creating a single, cohesive whole of my fictitious universe. Meanwhile, I can't get carried away with my own success. I have written only 6534 words of my first book, and I have so much more story to cover before I'm done. Then, before I can know that it really does make sense, I shall have to write the books for the Phoenixes' Story and the Humans' Story. Ooh! It gives me shivers when I think of how neatly they fit together. :) This trilogy will really be a synthesis of everything I know and want to say at the present time when it is done, plus I hope that it will contain some just plain fascinating stories of interesting people and creatures. :)
Erthe is pronounced "erth-eh," by the way, with all the accent on the first syllable.
So I greatly enjoy my hours writing and thinking about my story, though mostly because I anticipate bringing back several new chapters to the UWC (Unnamed Writing Club) this spring. Never have I written this much in successive sittings. Never, in fact, have I written so much on any one story. Every new page I write makes that much more of a new record for me. Perhaps that also gives me some of the excitement I'm feeling.
Much of the rest of my time does drag, however. It went much faster when I was frenetically baking. I wish I had some physical job to do that would involve my hands, but the job I'm doing for my parents is purely mental, and very boring. That is, it uses my brain alone, but only a tiny portion of my brain. The rest of my thoughts wander everywhere imaginable and tend to overwhelm the tiny bit that is supposed to be working. So time passes slowly. Still, in the end, it will pass. I should try to enjoy it for what it is - an earned respite in my hectic schedule. I can always read friends' blogs.
Christy's is quite fun, and updated often at large extent.
God is good, and I have only things to be thankful for.
Way too introspective. What a boring blog. Not to mention that I haven't written in it for almost two months. That's sort of a large time to...
leap over all at once. So much has happened; perhaps at least one of the things that has happened is life-changing, but I can't talk about it here. It's too private and internal at this point.
So here I am, on Christmas break, feeling as though I've just been spit from a whirlwind. I'm sort of sprawling at home, breath knocked from my body, a little afraid to get up and test my limbs to see if they work. I've completely shut my mind off from school... well, what am I saying? No I haven't. School and friends from school poke their heads back into my thoughts constantly. I very much enjoyed this past semester, despite of, or perhaps because of, all the pain it caused me at various times.
I guess I'm too dizzy still to know what I think. I'll stick with relating a funny story from yesterday's expedition to see "Phantom of the Opera" with my brother.
Joe and I gained permission to go see the movie quite easily. I mean, is my mom going to say no? He's 23 and I'm 21, for Pete's sake! So off we buzzed at 4:30pm or so. The movie didn't start until 7:15, so we first visited Borders and the library. At Borders I bought
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and
What Color Is Your Parachute, two excellent books recommended by Dr. Hake, which I can tell already I shall very much enjoy reading. At the library we returned a tremendous mound of materials borrowed by our siblings, and I took out a single book:
The Plague by Camus. We already have far too many books at home that I should read; I don't need anything more than that from the library.
All that has no bearing on the actual story whatsoever. I just recount it because it is interesting to moi. The actual story began when we arrived 45 minutes early at the plaza where the movie theater resides. This seemed far too long a time to go in and sit, even with books to read. Much to our interest, we espied a new Coldstone Creamery at the farthest end of the parking lot. Being young and spry, and not wishing to lose our parking spot near the theater, we walked over to check it out.
If you have never visited a Coldstone, you are missing out. The ice cream itself is smooth and lovely, but the best part is that it exists in more than a dozen flavors, from peanut butter to cake batter, which they will combine before your eyes on demand and will mix with extras such as crumbled mint patties or Reese's peanut-butter cups. Further, the teenage workers with the alive, self-deprecating faces will sing to you. They have various little ditties with which they regale their customers.
This all is what we were expecting to find. Instead, as we peered through the door, we noted with dismay the stepladders, the chipped paint, and the lack of ice cream. The only person inside was a tall, gangly man who sat on one pink-bottomed spoke-backed chair with his leg draped over the back of another. He was talking on a cell phone.
Confronted with the unexpected sight of a half-finished store and the knowledge that the man inside had seen us gawking curiously for several seconds before we had noticed him, we drew back and prepared to walk away as if really we had had no intention at all to go in, and as if we had known all along of course that the Coldstone was not yet ready for customers. Something in the gangly man's grin stopped us, however, so I knocked on the door. He swung his leg carefully off the back of the chair, stood up to a tremendous height, shook out his pants legs so that they appropriately covered his socks, and came to open the door.
"When are y'all opening?" I asked.
"Next Wednesday - but I have something for you two. Come in, come in!"
We exchanged a wary look. The entire front of the store is clear glass, therefore rendering its innards visible to the public; I'm a black belt in Tae Kwon Do; and my brother has taken significant self-defense training at the Coast Guard Academy. Threat level was low. We followed the guy inside.
He began to talk to us in short spurts as he fished around in his pockets and on a table piled with white, official-looking binders of various sizes.
"I'm Clive, the area manager..."
(left pocket)
"...we're actually opening seven stores in the area..."
(right pocket)
"...Next Wednesday we're having an opening day party here..."
(lifts stacks of binders and peers underneath)
"...it should be fun..."
(frowns and scratches his nose, then extends his long, skinny left leg over the top of the ice cream counter and steps completely over it; carefully pulls his right leg after him; looks behind the counter)
"...I would like for you two to come..."
(doesn't find what he's looking for; frowns again and steps back over the counter; pulls more binders to the side on the table)
"...because you're peering in the window and being curious and all... Ah!"
(finds a box of business cards, apparently the goal of his search)
"Here!"
He scribbled his name and a note on two business cards and handed them to us.
"If for some reason you miss the party, give these to anyone at the store in the first few weeks we're open, and they'll give you a free ice cream creation."
We both started, then looked at each other and grinned. We had been completely silent the whole time, watching the man as if he were some sort of curious animal. It's not every day you meet such a tall, friendly, awkward, puppyish person. We took the cards.
"Thanks," I said lamely, "Coldstone is one of my favorite chains."
He beamed.
"And one of the fastest-growing," he announced.
We admitted that it must be so, thanked him again, and escaped.
"God bless!" he called after us.
We giggled all down the sidewalk for no apparent reason. Christmas. I love this time of year, and I love the One to whom the day, and in fact every day, belongs. It brings out the worst in people sometimes, but also the best.
