Booking It...

During Christmas Break, I had what I thought to be an ingenious idea. Not what appeared to be a feasible idea, of course, but an exciting one nonetheless. Now I like reading, and I like writing, so I thought to myself, "Books, novels, I love 'em. I've tried my hand at reading them and have thoroughly enjoyed it thus far, but not once have I so much as dipped my toe into the pool of actual, full-fledged, big-league book crafting. So I may as well start now." I believe those were my thoughts verbatim. Just kidding. Kind of.

Anyway, I am one of those people who takes a thought or a potential endeavor and runs with it. No; I literally run with it. I do my best thinking while running, and I am always grateful and eager for the opportunity to let my chaotic mind relieve itself for a bit, to let my stifled thoughts flood on out, to settle into a stride both literally and figuratively, to allow my worries and wonders to take a number and wait patiently for my peculiarly refreshed mind to attend to them one at a time. But that day, I was all too consumed by the glorious prospect of a book. A book of my very own. And in that run, I decided that it was a lovely idea, logistics aside because, well, who needs logistics?

Now I am blessed to have parents who are not very keen on the growing trend of scoffing at the hopes and dreams (no matter how impractical or unattainable they might be) of their children. Generally, if I am ready to be totally invested in a project or a goal or a plan, so too are my parents. Let's just say, they've mastered the art of the good kind of "jumping on the bandwagon." So, I told them about it. About my intent. About my longings to actually publish. About everything. And they simply agreed to it. And I cheered.

The book is currently entitled Good, Better, Beth. So far, it seems as though this title will be sticking around, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see where the book takes me. You see, I like to think of it in the sense that as I am writing the book, it, in turn, is writing me. I have a broad concept of where I'm going, but not necessarily how I'm getting there, and to be completely honest, this fascinates me. It adds such vivacity to what could be a tired writing process. Plus, what better time to write about teen life in all its unadulterated absurdity than when I myself am I teen? So I knew I had to get cracking.

I won't say much other than that Chapter One is officially complete. The story centers upon a certain Beth Benson. It's fiction. With little hints of non-fiction sprinkled in. The non-fiction portions being a direct reference to myself I must admit. I like the idea of leaving the readers guessing which is which, which is real and which is merely more of my untamed thoughts. And never fully knowing. Beth is different. Oh yes; that's for sure. And she is quickly discovering that any attempts to blend in are in vain. And that's okay. I guess you could call her weird. But she's surrendering to that fact. To the fact that high school will never be her forte. To the fact that even her most commendable attempts at raw, invigorating adventure turn out to be pretty lame. Will it include cliche teen angst? Oh, you betcha. But it will be done tastefully and kept to a minimum, I promise. In a sense, it's an attempt to give the avid users of #foreveralone hope, a solemn plea to stop feeling sorry for themselves for one measly minute and to enjoy the finer things in life. As awkward as they may be.

Updates to come.

Words: A Dying Art. Round Two.

You bet. I'm going to be "that person" who has the audacity to comment on her OWN post. But it's more of a simple follow-up. I just had some extra thoughts that were a tad too belated to make it into my previous post about words and language, so I thought I'd throw them out here before they became too stale. If you don't remember that post or you're new here, go ahead and click the link below and maybe skim a little. Or don't. Whatever works.

Words: A Dying Art

Yes. I believe it is quite clear from the above excerpt that I have a strange infatuation with words, with the brilliance and limitlessness of language, with the unfamiliar yet readily welcomed tingling feeling that overwhelms me whenever I hear someone express an unprecedented thought, and express it with eloquence. I have found that there is something quite appealing – almost intoxicating – about a person who makes deliberate and noteworthy language choices, a person who does not live with the perpetual fear of the profound. I never truly realized how much value resided in such language until I found myself falling in love with a certain Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars. And indeed, you guessed it, he is a fictional character. But he spoke with grace and with earnestness and with a craft that appeared to be borderline uncrafted because it was so nonchalant, so effortless. From the moment he said, “My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations,” he legitimately had me swooning, holding on to every last word he said like each was the last day of summer, eliciting my attention, demanding my unhindered contemplation because I could sense it was fleeting. Even I, who currently is debating whether or not that kind of love is a mere fallacy or beautiful illusion, fell in love. I fell in love with his language, with his scintillating methods of expression. And it gave way to a love for him.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I recognize that being in love with a character from a novel is a bit unrealistic, and I recognize that it was indeed just a book, and he is just a character, and it’s a little weird to love something (or more accurately, someone) who is but a member of the musings of the intelligent and breathtaking word-artist John Green, but here’s the point I’m trying to make: Language commands respect; well-versed, practiced grammar is like a meager yet vastly effulgent candle cowering confidently (if that's possible) in the corner of a dark room; an adherence to vocabulary in its entirety and a love of the fact that one can never master it in its entirety are perhaps the most extraordinary things this world of words has to offer.

So seize it; take hold of it with all your might; clench your fists tightly and don't dare let it break away; feel free to immerse yourself in the ceaseless cascade that is language. Let your overly-simplified slate, your bland palate, be dirtied with sweet, untrodden words and whetted with an appetite for more. It will not go unnoticed. It will not go unvalued.

"All that we behold is full of blessings."

I would love to say that I have somehow managed to perfect the imperfectable art of being content in any and every circumstance and that I have this second-nature quality which allows me to never miss an opportunity to take into consideration how deeply and widely and overly blessed I am each and every day of my life. But that would be a lie. A nice one, a wonderfully-fabricated lie, but a lie nonetheless. You see, truth be told, I am blessed beyond reason, beyond anything I myself could ever hope for or contrive or even deserve, and yet, this very fact still slips my mind about 99% of the time.

I will forever ask myself the unavoidable, cliche question: "Why is it so easy for me to take note of all the things I don't have and merely disregard and overlook all the blessings I do have?" It seems as though I only take inventory of all of life's blessings when one appears to be missing, thus sending me into a tizzy of ungratefulness and self-absorbed self-absorbedness. Basically, I am a blessing hog, a miser of blessings, but I rarely take the time to even acknowledge this overabundant array of blessedness I've somehow managed to rake in. Oh how quickly we lose sight of how blessed we are to be blessed.

And I AM blessed. I am crazily blessed. You know when it's cold out, but there's still a considerable amount of sunshine, and then a piece of the sweet warmth sneaks in through one of the frosted window panes and radiates throughout that one area, encompassing all inside it with a strange but quite welcomed glow? Yes, well that is the best analogy I can conceive to describe how blessed my life is. My life's blessings are nothing but the sunshine-y spot that sneaks through the window on a bitter winter's day. Yet, so often I am prone to remain outside the gloriously heated zone (for lack of a better, more accurate term). I walk through it for a moment perhaps and acknowledge the blessings' presence in that instance and that instance alone, and then proceed to plod on forward, letting this beautiful, unceasing gratitude-worthy discovery be forgotten, or at best, placed on the back burner.

Such is life. As I have said approximately a million times already in this post, I am blessed. I know this to be true for a fact. But I am so utterly, embarrassingly terrible at letting this knowledge affect me, affect how I perceive my life, affect how I perceive the needs of others, affect how I perceive my Savior. Because I have yet to master the craft of makings blessings contagious, though I hope and pray with all my might that I will one day have it down cold. Ideally, blessings should prompt more than thankfulness. They should prompt an eager change, a refusal to allow anyone around you to go a day without being enveloped with the gift of these same blessings, a determination to make the alive and active presence and love and grace of Jesus Christ known not only through a grateful and selfless proclamation of blessings, but also through the perpetual fervor required to share these blessings, and in turn, to share Christ.

And that's it. It's one thing to know you're blessed. It's another thing to be appreciative of these blessings. And it's a far better thing to let this appreciation compel you to share these blessings. Indeed. To make these blessings contagious.

I'd Like That.

This, right here, is brilliance in its finest hour. John Mayer always has and always will know what's up. I mean, everything about this is so accurate that it is borderline frightening. Frightening in a good way though.

Never underestimating the power of "I'd like that." We act as if that's some sort of novel concept, some cutting edge idea that has taken all of us and our outlook on relationships - of all kinds - by storm. We act as though these feelings and experiences that "Uncle John" articulates so beautifully here are ours alone, as though no one else knows of their validity, as though we want to reprimand him for reading into the deepest facets of our mind and then sharing the contents with thousands of people at one of his shows. But the truth of the matter is, it's a real thing and it's a feeling felt by many, and the sad thing is that it gets to the point where words, even the grandest and most heartfelt of them, no longer suffice, where they become tired and overused and mundane and run-of-the-mill, and all the adventure and newness wears off. 

But it doesn't have to. You see, we are so eager to throw around words like "I love you" these days. It's almost to the point where it's nothing but another conversation filler or a sweet complement to goodbye.   Now, I must say that I love the concept of loving people; I really do. To an extent, I suppose, to an extent where it's real each and every time love's presence is noticed and then uttered. But we no longer have the ability to find joy and fulfillment in rarity, in the wonder that comes from not hearing something every day of the year, but from the thrill of the unknown, from being caught off guard with a genuine, deeply-felt "I love you." And when this is achieved, when just as much love can be rendered from actions as from words, then relationships - family, friends, lovers, spouses, whatever - can thrive and last and never get to the point where the simple "I'd like that" is not enough to make us smile or send our hearts leaping or induce unbearable excitement. Because saying newer, deeper words should never mean that the older, simpler words have been checked off the list, never to be said again.  

Oh, that would be so nice. To see love run its course without ever nearing the finish line. Yes; I'd like that.

Reading Is Perfection.

I have come to the conclusion that reading is perhaps the most underrated concept in this modern generation. It's almost as though it's become a thing of the past, so old-fashioned that it simply cannot compete with the flashiness of a high definition tv or a cluttered smart phone. And it is a crying shame. Books are absolutely beautiful. They provide everything from quaint entertainment to thought provocation to a clever means of transportation, toting readers almost effortlessly into a brand new, exotic world, often unbeknownst to the readers themselves. There is something sweetly satisfying about unearthing stories for oneself, rather than simply hearing them or watching them. There is something wonderfully curious about turning a well-worn page only to discover that just as much vivacity can be consumed on the pages to come. There is something gratifying in the realization that a good book will never fail you; it won't change despite the fast-paced change of the world in which it resides. Reading is the greatest. It really is. And it was this thought that prompted me to find some incredible - and quite valid - quotes about reading, about taking in a good book. So feel free to read on. And take the words to heart.


"There is no friend as loyal as a book."  -Ernest Hemingway

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the tv set, I go into the other room and read a book."  -Groucho Marx

"I love books. I love that moment when you open one and sink into it. You can escape from the world, into a story that's way more interesting than yours will ever be."  -Elizabeth Scott

"A great book provides escapism for me. The artistry and the creativity in a story are better than any drugs."  -Wentworth Miller

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive."  -James Baldwin

"I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them."   -L.M. Montgomery

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."  -Ray Bradbury

"Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist."  -Ian Mcewan

Engulfed by Miserable Happiness

You know what I hate about happiness? Absolutely nothing. I could sit here, plucking away at the keys of my computer, attempting to conjure up one minute reason to rid happiness of its happy connotation, and I simply would be incapable of doing so. Happiness, in and of itself, is undeniably, irrevocably, unwaveringly, breath-takingly happy. Thus, it becomes pretty apparent why people in this world will do anything to achieve such happiness. They yearn for it; they thirst for it; they live a life consumed by the pursuit of happiness. And this is not wrong. There is nothing sinful or perverse about craving genuine, well-cultivated happiness. We all do it. However, there is something to say for this whole idea of being consumed by the pursuit of happiness, engulfed by the ravages of a life that will never be happy because it is consumed by happiness.

In The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe says, “Why does that which makes a man happy have to become the source of his misery?” If I had to describe this quote in one word, I believe I would go with, “Bingo.” There are millions upon millions of ways through which a person can achieve happiness. Oftentimes, these sources of happiness begin with extraordinary innocence, simple wonder, and – how could I forget? – pure, unadulterated bliss. Yes; I am speaking of happiness in its infancy, the rough equivalent of the first time you felt butterflies when you realized that the opposite sex was not totally worthless after all. Yes; that is like the onset of a sweet sickness called happiness. Soon, butterflies give way to comfort, a solace in the hands of a source of joy in which you have grown to enjoy the company. It is no longer a thought or a hope. It is real, and it is concrete. Happiness has been achieved. Yet, this achievement of comfort then gives way to consumption. It consumes you. It devours you. Longings for more and more and more of this once easy-to-come-by happiness soon become too much to quench. This innocent happiness is now a wanted criminal, using you as nothing more than a plaything in its miserly, devious plan. Soon, happiness gives way to misery.

Quite sadly, I have seen this progression unravel in my own life a couple times before. If you know me well (or are familiar with my blog at all), you've come to know my love for New York just as well. It began as a simple curiosity, a realization that there is such a thing as a big city, an inimitable desire to take in something just a little bit different. Once I made my little journey to the Big City, sheer awe and amazement gave way to true enrapture. I was happy amidst the seas of people and even larger seas of attractions. Indeed, I had found joy on its pleasantly filthy streets. However, when I returned, my memories of that joy did not soon dissipate. They stuck right on with me. Soon enough, I was so consumed by the idea of going back to New York that I could not focus on the life in front of me. I was engulfed by the future and its promise, so much so that the present had become nothing more than a monotonous bore, the present was no longer fulfilling. Thankfully, I recognized this sooner rather than later and made some necessary adjustments to my perspective. Do I still yearn to live in a big city? YES. But it has slowly but surely returned to a happy craving as opposed to an overwhelming, hindering consumption.

And thankfully, I have come to find that not all sources of happiness are the first step down a slippery slope. That would be a sad life. We can’t live in fear of happiness. The idea of such a fear makes me sick just thinking about it. Happiness is lovely. It is like waking up to a snow day when you least expect it. However, if every day was a snow day, the happiness would quickly wear off. So, be wary of consumption, but not too wary to enjoy.