At least I look pretty when I cry. That's what I thought as I looked into the mirror once I'd gained enough energy to pull myself off the bed. The redness around my eyes makes the blue stand out even more strongly. And the expression on my face - it's vulnerable but like I've given up, too. Giving up. There's something sexy about finally just letting go.
I'd never meant to fall in love with him. In fact, I didn't even know I had until I'd already been in love for some time. It was like my love for him had always been there, hanging out in the background. Until one day it just decided to jump out from the side and tackle me. It hit me like a truck. And that's when I started crying. The floodgates opened because when you're hit with that many memories and that much emotion, you have to let it out somehow. So the tears fell. And fell. And fell until all the water was used up and I just lay there sobbing, my eyes bloodshot and dry.
I don't want to love him, I don't even want to think about him. But that doesn't stop my foolish heart from obeying itself.
I love him. So love him.
But I don't want to. You don't have to want to. Just love him in your own confused, convoluted way. And then let it go.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
How Harry Potter Changed My Life
Jo Rowling is up there on my personal "Most Influential People" list. And the funny thing is, it's only in hindsight that I've noticed this. When I first started reading the Harry Potter series, I would never have guessed in how many ways it would affect my life. Let me explain:
When I was in 2nd grade, I got Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for a Christmas book exchange at school. My classmate came up to me afterward and said that it was a really cool book, so I was naturally very excited to read it as I walked home with my brothers in tow. But, to my complete disappointment, my mother took one look at it when I presented it to her with an excited flourish, and forbade me from reading it and promptly confiscated it. You see, my mother was one of the devout Christians who had been hearing all of the negative press about the books and was concerned about the subject matter. So for a while, Sorcerer's Stone sat quietly on the shelf in my mother's room and I, being an impressionable 7 years old, forgot about its existence. Over the next couple of months, however, Harry Potter kept coming up in conversation with my peers. At this time I had moved and was attending a new school, so I was eager to please and acquire new friends. So I stole the book from my mother's shelf.
I was never the kind of child to disobey my parents. But this was different; my mom had never given me a reason for not reading Sorcerer's Stone and I figured that it wasn't too big of a deal - perhaps more importantly, I'd hoped she'd forgotten about it after the time elapse. So I moved my dresser out from the corner and made a little secret place (between my bed and dresser where no one could see me from the door so I'd have time to stash the book if necessary) for me to read Harry Potter. And that is precisely what I did. As I was 9 or 10 and my attention span minimal, it took me some time to get through the book. Before I could finish, and without my knowledge, my mother had gone to see the first movie (I think she was curious what all the hype was about). And, even more astonishingly, she decided that the books weren't inappropriate or blaspheming, devil-worshiping atrocity that many a news article had led her to believe. So she rented the first two movies, watched them with us and gave us her permission to read the books. With her blessing, I quickly finished the rest of the first novel and then proceeded to devour the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th.
My 14th birthday party was dedicated to the 4th movie. I stayed up all night reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and finished it in approximately 14 hours. I've reread the books many, many times. I've spent hours reading articles, watching interviews, and surfing the web for HP-related things. The past 9 years of my life have been spent either reading one of the books, watching one of the movies, or eagerly anticipating the release of the next installment. I love Harry Potter.
But besides being a world-renowned (at least, I should be) Harry Potter expert, what has the series done for me? I mean, I've spent all this time investing myself in it - have I gotten anything in return? To that I would answer with a most emphatic yes.
At the surface level, just as my 9 year-old self knew, after reading the books, I had something in common with a lot of people that I could talk about. But beyond helping me get friends, Harry Potter was the spark that ignited my love of reading and my life was changed from that point on. While I was waiting for the 6th book to come out, I got my hands on as many books as I could to pass the time. My parents would have to tell me to stop reading and go outside for awhile. I was ravenous for good books and spent a lot of time at the library looking for new ones to read. Some were better than others, but no matter the quality, I finished them all. I could not be stopped. And this avid reading and insatiable appetite for books led to my, if I do say so myself, exceptional vocabulary and, nowadays, my (almost) career.
But that's not where the story ends. More than anything, Harry Potter helped me to step into the world of my own imagination. It made it ok for me to be imaginative and I ran with that permission. From that, many a thing has been born: my penchant for fiction writing, my vivid dreams, and my boisterous daydreams. For all of these reasons, Harry Potter has played a huge role in shaping who I am today; it was the key that unlocked the door to so many things for me.
So, in precisely 48 hours I will be bouncing up and down in my seat, waiting for the premiere of the first half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the beginning of the end of an era in my life. With that, I would just like to send out an enormous Thank You! to Jo Rowling and her wonderful imagination. Without her, I wouldn't be where I am today.
When I was in 2nd grade, I got Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for a Christmas book exchange at school. My classmate came up to me afterward and said that it was a really cool book, so I was naturally very excited to read it as I walked home with my brothers in tow. But, to my complete disappointment, my mother took one look at it when I presented it to her with an excited flourish, and forbade me from reading it and promptly confiscated it. You see, my mother was one of the devout Christians who had been hearing all of the negative press about the books and was concerned about the subject matter. So for a while, Sorcerer's Stone sat quietly on the shelf in my mother's room and I, being an impressionable 7 years old, forgot about its existence. Over the next couple of months, however, Harry Potter kept coming up in conversation with my peers. At this time I had moved and was attending a new school, so I was eager to please and acquire new friends. So I stole the book from my mother's shelf.
I was never the kind of child to disobey my parents. But this was different; my mom had never given me a reason for not reading Sorcerer's Stone and I figured that it wasn't too big of a deal - perhaps more importantly, I'd hoped she'd forgotten about it after the time elapse. So I moved my dresser out from the corner and made a little secret place (between my bed and dresser where no one could see me from the door so I'd have time to stash the book if necessary) for me to read Harry Potter. And that is precisely what I did. As I was 9 or 10 and my attention span minimal, it took me some time to get through the book. Before I could finish, and without my knowledge, my mother had gone to see the first movie (I think she was curious what all the hype was about). And, even more astonishingly, she decided that the books weren't inappropriate or blaspheming, devil-worshiping atrocity that many a news article had led her to believe. So she rented the first two movies, watched them with us and gave us her permission to read the books. With her blessing, I quickly finished the rest of the first novel and then proceeded to devour the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th.
My 14th birthday party was dedicated to the 4th movie. I stayed up all night reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and finished it in approximately 14 hours. I've reread the books many, many times. I've spent hours reading articles, watching interviews, and surfing the web for HP-related things. The past 9 years of my life have been spent either reading one of the books, watching one of the movies, or eagerly anticipating the release of the next installment. I love Harry Potter.
But besides being a world-renowned (at least, I should be) Harry Potter expert, what has the series done for me? I mean, I've spent all this time investing myself in it - have I gotten anything in return? To that I would answer with a most emphatic yes.
At the surface level, just as my 9 year-old self knew, after reading the books, I had something in common with a lot of people that I could talk about. But beyond helping me get friends, Harry Potter was the spark that ignited my love of reading and my life was changed from that point on. While I was waiting for the 6th book to come out, I got my hands on as many books as I could to pass the time. My parents would have to tell me to stop reading and go outside for awhile. I was ravenous for good books and spent a lot of time at the library looking for new ones to read. Some were better than others, but no matter the quality, I finished them all. I could not be stopped. And this avid reading and insatiable appetite for books led to my, if I do say so myself, exceptional vocabulary and, nowadays, my (almost) career.
But that's not where the story ends. More than anything, Harry Potter helped me to step into the world of my own imagination. It made it ok for me to be imaginative and I ran with that permission. From that, many a thing has been born: my penchant for fiction writing, my vivid dreams, and my boisterous daydreams. For all of these reasons, Harry Potter has played a huge role in shaping who I am today; it was the key that unlocked the door to so many things for me.
So, in precisely 48 hours I will be bouncing up and down in my seat, waiting for the premiere of the first half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the beginning of the end of an era in my life. With that, I would just like to send out an enormous Thank You! to Jo Rowling and her wonderful imagination. Without her, I wouldn't be where I am today.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Writing
It's weird, my poetry writing process. There will be a span of time where poems just literally flow from my fingers on to the page and then, all of a sudden, they stop. After the poetry slam I felt like I couldn't possibly have any more poems to write; I had no ideas, no inspiration. And for the longest time, there was nothing. But now, the words are bouncing around again. The phrases keep dancing across my mind and it's all I can do to not write them down somewhere, somehow. But college life gets in the way of that a lot. I never have the time, never feel in the mood, never just sit down and do it. So those words just keep ricocheting off the sides of my skull, building up. And at some point, I'm going to have no other choice but to write them all down.
Stay tuned.
Stay tuned.
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