Fighting for Life

I was looking through Hope Was Here today, just flipping through it, when I found this on the first page I started reading:
"A man shouts from across the room. 'G.T., how are you going to handle the stress of campaigning and being mayor if you're fighting for your life?'
G.T. leans against the dessert case across from the register. 'Because I'm more interested in living than in dying. And I want to bring as much healthy change into this town as I can before I go. I'm a short-order cook, Morgan. I always do more than one thing at a time.'"
~ from Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer, p. 37-38
...How inspiring is that?

Stella

Usually, I can't ever find something that looks like a scene I've pictured in a book. Usually, when a movie comes out that is a book, I'm always dissapointed by the scenes and the people because they're not what I pictured (unless I watch the movie first, then read the book). But this picture, this is exactly what I picture Stella's garden in The Truth About Forever looking like:

I love this garden. It reminds me of summer, and the trees with the sun poking through, ohmygod, I'm taken back to a couple years ago. Isn't it so amazing, for a picture to bring back memories, laughter, or even anger? (Someday, I'd love to try out photography... someday...)

Here's a little excerpt from The Truth About Forever, just to see what I mean about this garden:

"Everything in the garden felt so alive. From the bright white flowers that reached out like trailing fingers from dripping branches overhead all the way down the short, squat berry bushes that lined the trail like stones, it was like you could feel everything growing, right before your eyes. I kept walking, taking in clumps of zinnias, petunias, a cluster of rosebushes, their bases flecked with white speckles of eggshells. I could see the roof of the doublewide over to my right, the road to my left, but the garden seemed thick enough to have pushed them back even farther on the periphery, as if once you entered it moved in to surround you, crowding up close to hold you there."

And then here's my favorite part, the part about the owner, named Stella:

"...I found myself at the back of a sculpture. It was a woman; her arms were outstretched to the side, palms facing the sky, and lying across them were slim pieces of pipe, the ends curving downwards. I moved around it and stood in its shadow, looking up at the figure's head, which was also covered in the thin, twisted pipes, and crowned with a garland made of the same. Of course this was one of Wes's, that much was obvious. But there was something different, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then, I realized that the sclupture's hair and those bits of pipe it was holding all ended in a washer bisected by a tiny piece of metal: every one was a flower. Looking at it from the top, where the moonlight illuminated those curling pipes, to the bottom, were the sculpture's feet met the ground, I finally got that this was Stella, the entire figure showing the evolution of that thick, loamy dirt moving through her hands to emerge in bloom after bloom after bloom."

I like to call this "The Evolution of Stella". Mostly because of the description, this is my favorite part of the book.Wouldn't you just love to walk through a dark garden only lit by the moon, in the middle of the night? Somehow, I think flowers would look more beautiful during this time than ever.

Staying Gold

"...But I didn't just write The Outsiders, I lived it. Looking back, I realize how important it was for me to have another life at that time. To be someone else. To deal with problems I had to face, and write my way to some sort of understanding and coping. This is all hindsight. At the time, I was mad about the social situation in my high school. I desperately wanted something to read that dealt realistically with teen-age life.
I knew I was going to be a writer."
~ S. E. Hinton

She is my role model, along with J. K. Rowling. While J. K. Rowling shows the world that you can come from nothing and be one of the most influential people out there, S. E. Hinton really makes her mark as one of the greatest teenage writers of her time. It's crazy; one day, she was angry and started writing a short story about a boy that gets beat up by "nice and popular" kids on his way home from the movies. At age fifteen. On the day of her graduation, she got her publishing contract. That's insane. And I want to be just that.
I want to make my mark.

Tell Me

"You know, you're different than most girls. You don't care about makeup and guys all that mush. But you're still... passionate, you know? You still care about the important things, the things that mean something to you. You might not care that you're not like everyone else, but something's gotta bother you. You're human. It's not possible to be chill all the time. I know you got more to you than you let me see, but that's okay.When the time is right, I just know you'll hand me over the key. But it's alright waiting. Waiting is nice. Always something to look forard to." ~ from my own book I've been writing lately

Blink

Max: Did you make this?

Carol: Yeah, yeah.

Max: It's very good.

Carol: We were gonna make a whole world like this. Now, everyone used to come here, but you know... you know what it feels like when all your teeth are falling out really slowly and you don't realize and then you notice that, well, they're really far apart. And then one day... you don't have any teeth anymore.

Max: Yeah.

Carol: Well, it was like that.

- Where the Wild Things Are, the movie version

Blink, and you'll miss it all.

In the Garret

Four little chests all in a row,

Dim with dust, and worn by time,

All fashioned and filled, long ago,

By children all in their prime.

Four little keys hung side by side,

With faded ribbons, brave and gay

When fastened there, with childish pride

Long ago, on a rainy day.

Four little names, one on each lid,

Carved out by a boyish hand,

And underneath there lieth hid

Histories of a happy band

Once playing here, and pausing oft

To hear the sweet refrain,

That came and went on the roof aloft,

In the falling summer rain.

"Meg" on the first lid, smooth and fair.

I look in with loving eyes,

For folded here, with well-known care,

A goodly gathering lies,

The record of a peaceful life-

Gifts to gentle child and girl,

A bridal gown, lines to a wife,

A tiny shoe, a baby curl.

No toys in his first chest remain,

For all are carried away,

In their old age, to join again

In another small Meg's play.

Ah, happy mother! well I know

You hear, like a sweet refrain,

Lullabies ever soft and low

In the falling summer rain.

"Jo" on the next lid, scratched and worn,

And within a motley store

Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn,

Birds and beasts that speak no more;

Spoils brought home from the fairy ground

Only trod by youthful feet,

Dreams of a future never found,

Memories of a past still sweet;

Half-writ poems, stories wild,

April letters, warm and cold,

Diaries of a willful child,

Hints of a woman early old;

A woman in a lonely home,

Hearing, like a sad refrain-

"Be worthy, love, and love will come,"

In the falling summer rain.

My Beth! the dust is always swept

From the lid that bears your name,

As if by loving eyes that wept,

By careful hands that often came.

Death canonized for us one saint,

Ever less human than divine,

And still we lay, with tender plaint,

Relics in this housefold shrine-

The silver bell, so seldom rung,

The little cap which last she wore,

The fair, dead Catherine that hung

By angels borne above her door;

The songs she sang, without lament,

In her prison-house of pain,

Forever are they sweetly blent

With the falling summer rain.

Upon the last lid's polished field-

Legend now both fair and true-

A gallant knight bears on his shield,

"Amy", in letters gold and blue.

Within lie snoods that bound her hair,

Slippers that have danced their last,

Faded flowers laid by with carem

Fans whose airy toild are past;

Gay valentines, all adrent flames,

Trifles that have borne their part

In girlish hopes and fears and shames,

The record of a maiden heart

Now learning fairer, truer spells,

Hearing, like a blithe refrain,

The silver sound of bridal bells

In the falling summer rain.

Four little chests all in a row,

Dim with dust, and worn by time,

Four women, taught by weal and woe

To love and labor in their prime.

Four sisters, parted for an hour,

None lost, only gone before,

Made by love's immortal power,

Nearest and dearest evermore.

Oh, when these hidden stores of ours

Lie open to the Father's sight,

May they be rich in golden hours,

Deeds that show fairer for the light,

Lives whose brave music long shall ring,

Like a spirit-stirring strain,

Souls that shall gladly soar and sing

In the long sunshine after rain.

J.M.

-Little Women, p 623-625