This Month....

  This is a post I will be doing monthly this year to kind of recap how the last month went, and preserve more memories, because life is made up of those, and what's the use of them if we don't remember? Hopefully you enjoy!

                                                               January Wrap-Up
                                     
                  favourite part: I'm not sure if this was my favourite, but probably my biggest accomplishment this month was doing my first Supreme Court Simulation, which I think was a milestone because it helped me to realize that I can do hard things, and be successful at something that previously seemed almost impossible.
                  reading: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller,
                  listening to: Rachel Platten's Wildfire (album), and lots of music by Aurora
                  learning: responsibility and how to stay happy in the midst of crazy
                  thinking about: how far I've come in the past year, and how excited I am for the future
                  doing: lots of homework, babysitting and dishwashing :)
                  next month: I'm gearing up for a whole new crazy awesome month. I'll be doing more hard stuff, the life changing kind, and I couldn't be more excited!
                 

Ode to January

           
              January.......a month of golden light and blue shadows. The crisp cold is like a numbing kiss                on my cheeks and nose, leaving a sensation of warmth where there really is none.
             
             The pure white snow, sparkling like a lovely gown, clothes the fields. The charitable skies                   gift the bare brown landscape with fairy white flakes, consecrating it with beauty.
             
             January.....you are so kind.
           
             Your soft white curves cover the ugly bareness of a snowless landscape, like a fairy                              godmother dressing a drab young girl in an exquisite ball gown. You shine forth radiantly,                  filling my world with soft pink sunsets and navy blue night skies. You hold every mystery of              beauty in your icy clutches and captivate me with it's presence.
           
             And yet people think you cruel! People condemn you for your freezing exterior, not                              understanding that it is a part of who you are....that you must have your bitter side like all the               rest of us.
           
              Many people hate the cold and curse the glittering snow.....but you shine on despite them all.               You show the world that cold does not always mean cruel, and that seasons and people who                  find it difficult to be loved are not any less worth loving for that.
           
               Dear, lovely January, you are my month of beginnings, my month of hope. And your beauty                has shown me the love that God bestows even on the frostiest and most misunderstood of                    his children. Because cold is it's own kind of beauty.

               After all, only the bitter weather has the ability to make us feel so sharply alive.

Mayflowers---A Tribute to L.M. Montgomery

Pretty pink blooms, scent sweet as summer, gathered by a dreamy eyed girl with auburn braids. “Smell them Marilla, drink them in” and the pretty girlish laugh fills the house as the springtime fills her soul.

the auburn haired girl is a girl no longer, but she still gathers the pretty flowers every spring, the gentler joy of young womanhood a soft light in her gray-green eyes, the springtime still intoxicating her laughter and her soul.

Soon to be a mother, her body burdened with the weight of a precious child, her eyes filled with a new wisdom and joy as she plans and waits. The springtime beckons from her window, but she cannot go out. A weather beaten old sailor, with eyes as blue as the sea he loves, and a laugh as deep as it’s rumble, brings her the pink blooms faithfully and the joy of spring fills both the old soul and the young.

Years have passed, and the young mother has laid one sweet little girl in the grave, soon to be followed by the weather beaten sailor. But a little boy with dimples and a delightful laugh lives on, her pride and joy. He too, smells the intoxicating delight of spring and he rushes back to his mother, his arms full of sweet smelling blossoms, “Isn’t springtime lovely mother dearwums?” and she agrees that it couldn’t possibly be lovelier.

The boy is now a man, and a great war, ripping apart nations and hearts all at once, has called him away from her. The springtime loveliness is like a knife to her wounded soul, but she carries on through it all. Her second son, a slender youth  with eyes like poetry, and a great courage buried underneath all of his fear brings his mother flowers, and they both forget the anguish inside of them for a moment.

All three of her sons have gone to the front, and the light that her sensitive poet brought to the world has been blotted out forever. As grief fills her soul, she feels that there is no room for springtime there. A small boy taps her on the shoulder, and looks up at her from beneath serious black brows. “I know you have no sons left to bring you flowers, so I brought you some in their place.”

And as she crushes that little body in a tight embrace, she knows that while there is springtime there is always hope.

A Poem

        if my soul could be seen it would look like a tree,
       with a long slender trunk and small shining green leaves,
        the bark, white as milk, is just like my skin,
        tender and fair but with strong growth within.
        the dark colored knots that peek as from a face,
        show beneath the first layer, there's wisdom and grace,
        the butterfly leaves, trembling in the wind,
        sing a song of a story about to begin,
        and so, like the birch tree I'll reach up to the sky,
        and show the world poetry is what I live by.

It Rhymes!!!

I have never been the best with rhymes. At times I try to write a poem in rhymed verse, but it never turns out the way I want it to. Sometimes, rhyme and rhythm can seem so...confining. Like I can't express my thoughts properly or correctly with these boundaries and restrictions that I have to adhere to. But for some time I've felt that a rhymed poem is just a necessary part of my experiments with great writing.
But last night after watching a lovely sunset, inspiration came and I jotted down this little poem....and it rhymes! It's really short and simple and not really that good but it rhymes!!! So just let me be proud of myself:)

                                         the day's sunlight was nearing death,
                                        but before it drew it's final breath,
                                        one last gift it gave to me,
                                        I opened up my eyes to see,
                                        a golden kiss on pearly clouds,
                                        that laughed in the face of a funeral shroud.

Anyway, that's all.....what should I call my first ever sort of successful rhyme?

today

         

                 
                  the sky looks like my soul, confused
                  tears fall out of bright cloudy eyes, drops making a pattern on cement
                  what would the droplets show me if they were permitted to stay?
                  would they tell a story on the sidewalk, paint a picture on the pavement?
               
                 but they dry up, leaving me to wonder, why does the sky cry?
                 do you cry at the beauty of the earth you look down upon, where flowers drink your tears                    like sweet champagne and get drunk on laughter and color in a world of grey?
                do you cry in sorrow over the little lost kitten, wandering through tall streets and among                       strange unfeeling faces?
                Or do you cry in remembrance of a beautifully sad day, when a sacrifice was made to save                   a broken but hopeful world, rising out of the darkness clinging to it like a shadow?
               This is one of earth's many unsolvable mysteries.
             

summer

           
.........summer and i used to be such good friends. every morning when i awoke, i would breathe in the scent of a summer morning, a thrill with the possibilities of the day. i experienced freedom and carelessness in the form of long, hot days, taking wild flights of fancy. the hill in my backyard became a magical staircase that i could climb up and down, taking me through different lands and times. i led a group of wide eyed little girls on adventures conjured out of our own minds, filters that caught bits of that fascinatingly obscure thing called the real world and created bits of magic where the holes were. my little neighborhood and the people in it were all i needed to feed the universe inside my head. i was happy to pretend that the neighbor's trampoline was a stage and i was a famous dancer, or that the swimming pool was an ocean and i was a moonlight mermaid being rescued by a handsome sailor. sometimes we made lemonade. sometimes i spent the whole day lost in a book. sometimes i stayed inside and watched movies with my grandma. summer evenings were the best time, and we ran around the neighborhood breathless in the cool twilight for as long as our parent's would let us stay out, and sighed at the unfairness of the world when we had to go in and everyone else got to stay.
  i miss those summers.
but lately, summer feels like a prison. the long days that turn into long weeks are filled with loneliness, and wishing for things that i don't have. i spend my days reading, filling my diary with useless scribbles, and crying over lost things. friendships, joy in the simple things, and the wonderful ability of a child's imagination to make you content anywhere. i miss it. i miss being able to add romance to any situation. if i were to be in one of my old imaginations now, i would imagine myself as a princess, locked in the highest tower imaginable, looking down at the loveliness, joy and simplicity that is the world, longing to taste it for myself. but trapped, gazing out between thick metal bars, so strong that they seem impenetrable. the princess of course, is beautiful, with tragic blue eyes, and long silky hair the color of the midnight sky, but she is lonely and heartbroken inside. she waits for a prince, who is off in a faraway land, having grand adventures and saving the world. her heart aches with missing him, and she dreams of going on adventures herself, fighting dragons. or...saving children and lighting people's hearts on fire.
my prison is self made, and the bars are only as thick as i allow them to be. i am working diligently to break out, little by little, one bit at a time. it's always easy to build these prisons, but if you let them become strong enough, breaking them down is a much harder process. but i can do it and i will, with the help of a loving Heavenly Father. and in the meantime, i'm going to go out and ask summer if she wants to be friends again.