Wisdom from last summer,

Last year, between May and December I read a lot. I also made the decision to document some of the more moving passages I found. I want to put these here. One quote from each book I wrestled with.

"There is enough love in this world for everybody, if people will just look."
-Cat's Cradle

"But most of all, above everything else, who in the Bible but Jesus knew - KNEW - that we were carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too goddamn stupid and sentimental to look?"
-Franny and Zooey

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensation for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly as spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle against temptation, or a fatal over throw by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."
-Brave New World

"You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed."
-The Little Prince


"...when the point is there are times when the world is in flux and the right voice at the right time can move the world."
-Ender's Game

"The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."
-A Man Without a Country

"Jesus was a living baby once. He went barefoot like we do in the summer."
-A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

"Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him."
-The Alchemist

"Its all like the ocean!" cried Dostoevsky. I say, its all like cellophane.
-Breakfast of Champions

It's true. Never a truer breath was ever breathed. "The Lord giveth," I say.
-As I Lay Dying

"Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore."
-Farenheit 451

"I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I know such people, and they need me like comets need tails."
-Looking for Alaska

"Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange unknown world, but our own."
-Anthem

"to the person in the bell jar, black and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream."
-The Bell Jard

"Its living up to being happy that's the difficult part."
-The Time Traveler's Wife

"You said I killed you - haunt me then! Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you! Oh God, it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
-Wuthering Heights (Oh Heathcliff...)

"Life is a gift horse, in my opinion."
-Nine Stories

And then from someone I have much to learn from, Stephen King, I have three wonderful quotes:

"I'd think, this isn't the way our lives are supposed to be going. Then I'd think, half the world has the same idea."

"Just remember... Dumbo didn't need the feather, the magic was in him."

"Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life."
-On Writing

And that's it. Seven months of acquired wisdom.

I was sitting in our white washed pews yesterday and I thought about what we're saying when we talk about God. My hands were folded in my lap and I was staring at the eaves, not at my pastor's preaching face.



And I thought, loneliness.
Loneliness is what we're talking about when we talk about about God.
How all of us are lonely.

All I can think to say today

My basement smells damp.

I generally have a certain fondness for my basement. It has orange walls and pictures of flowers hanging up. The furniture is all a wickedly dark wood and I like it. The windows, however, are raised so that I can see a tiny piece of my driveway, and through this window the rain tends to leak.

The rain will leak in on summer days like this one. It has been raining on my island for what feels like ages. The sky may not have any blue left in it, so full of gray it has been. Yesterday I sat on my bed and watched the rain just fall. It wasn't the kind of rain that frightened. It was just there and I knew that it was keeping me inside.

My neighbor stood on his stoop with shorts on and a cigarette between his lips.

Thirteen dogs walked by in an hours time.

I don't know why its been raining so persistently, but I certainly wish it would stop.

Circa 2006:The Product of Notebook Searching

The first time we broke up he was smoking a cigarette. I remember because he kept looking at its lighted end instead of into my eyes. He never said any words that would make it final, and that's probably why it never was. He said, I won't be calling you anymore. He said, I hope I didn't hurt you. He whispered a lot and I stared into the sky because it was setting and before I knew it he and the lighted end of his cigarette were walking away.

the second time we broke up I was the one who did it. I drove to his parent's house and it was all business from beginning to end. I smiled at the end and he frowned. I kept eye contact. He wasn't smoking because he hadn't smoked in months. I congratulated myself on my way back to my car that this time, someone had said the words that needed to be said. We can't do this anymore.

As I pulled away I waited for him to do something. Take even one single step toward the car. But he didn't. He didn't even wave. I turned my eyes to the rear view mirror.

He would smoke again that night.

I have a sunburn

Its kind of funny actually.

Yesterday (the first nice day we've had) I dragged my chair outside next to the pool and proceeded to get lost in the music of my iPod while the sun warmed me. I was wearing a new bathing suit and and there was an ice cream truck driving circles around my house. A friend sat with me by the water and it was lovely. Later, I went inside, changed, and vanished for burritos with friends.

I didn't realize until I got home just home red my shoulders had gotten. And quite frankly, I didn't notice until this morning just how red my entire upper body was. I didn't realize until tonight just how much the sunburn stung when I tried to rub aloe on it.

But its okay. Its painful, but its okay. It means summer is here. It means my hair is slowly getting blonder. It means sand will soon be in between my toes.

Ah. Summer.

There are often things I would like to say here that I struggle with for one reason or another. I often feel like the things I want to say are things I shouldn't. Or rather, they're things people wouldn't want to hear about. Or things that are better kept inside to ponder.

Because of this hesitancy, and my desire to remain safely away from any pity parties, I will say what I want to say like this.

I love long conversations. I love really thick socks. I love freshly washed hair. I love powdered donuts and the havoc they wreak on your fingertips. I love quirky handwriting and aged notebooks. I love the ocean and chlorine. I love the color tongues turn after eating cherry ice. I love laughing with somebody else.

Now what I want to say is that I want someone to love these things with.

Words for today,

"Cause I built you a home in my heart
With rotten wood, it decayed from the start."

On the Blondes,

A few days ago, I went to the mall with three of my friends. We wandered around and collected things we do not need. We are still young enough to have disposable income. We do not buy jeans in our mall because our legs are too long. We laughed.

One of my sister's friends saw us there on Monday or Tuesday. She watched us go from store to store apparently unaware of the flaws in our surroundings. Laughing at the more ridiculous clothes. Picking up things in interest, turning for other's opinions.

She called us, "The Hannah's".

A few years ago. My cousin and I went to see my sister's Christmas concert at school. We were standing at the snack table contemplating Auntie Ann's chocolate chips, when another of my sister's friends approached us with Hannah in tow.

"OH MY GOSH, THERE'S THREE OF YOU."

This is a reaction we receive most of the places we go. Store clerks want to know where we're from in Europe. Waitresses ask how our mother managed to raise us all. We forget sometimes how different we are on this island.

Our island is many things. We appreciate it for being so many things, and it has given us each other so we can't be too harsh. But we all grew up with jeans that didn't reach our ankles. We all asked our mothers to dye our hair brown. We all wanted to leave school early on Wednesdays to go to CCD.

But, we weren't what we thought we should be. We were all tall. All of us grew thick blond hair. All of us grew up in tiny protestant churches that taught us Scandanavia was in our blood. This was different on the island. And now, when we travel around in our pack, we are surprised when eyes follow us.

Advice,

Don't worry about the future.
Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind,
The kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
-Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen

This morning I took a large piece of newspaper. I found the largest marker in the house and scribbled these words into its surface. Then I thought about hanging it on the ceiling above my bed, so it was the first thing I saw in the morning.

Then I folded that newspaper and put it away in my drawer.

I have a problem with worrying. I'm a nervous driver, I can't sleep in my basement without a nightlight, and my heart rate is accelerated more often than not while watching my younger siblings. Worrying is not something I struggle with, its a part of who I am.

Summer goal, number one. Stop this nonsense.

The real definition of home away from home,

I was in sophomore year when I started loving Tuscarora like I loved a pair of old jeans or my worn out stuffed animals. There is a smell that hits you when you walk into the Hillside manor that always bombards me with memories. I came home from camp that year and could still smell Hillside on my blanket. My eyes welled up with tears. The day coming back from camp is hard because you are as far away from going back as you will ever be.

I was eighteen when I found my second home away from home. It was my white washed dorm room in Houghton. It was thr first time I could leave something in one place and it would be there when I returned. My DVD's remained unscratched and my clothes stayed folded. It was luxurious to a girl who had always shared a bedroom with two younger sisters. I loved it.

Neither of these two places compare to the location I am homesick for now.

I emerged from the underground for the first time and my first breaths of London air were a memory I didn't think I would hold onto. I know exactly what I was wearing, I remember dragging my 80 pound suitcase down Highbury Fields. London fit me like a glove from the start. And beneath the surface of the modern trendy city there were echos of the ghosts of London's past.

I didn't expect this. No one warned me. No one tells you that you will lie awake at night months after coming back thinking about the planters in front of the flats across the street. No one mentions that you will taste cadbury spread in the morning even as you try to forget. I didn't think my hands would still itch for a tea cup after dinner.

I didn't know London was breaking my heart. I didn't know I had the world within reach until it was gone. Now I feel tied down and lost. I feel far from home. I want to cry at times for no reason, and then I realize I'm crying for London. The city I'm too far from. The city, that though I didn't know it, stole my heart away from New York. If only for a little while.