Faith, Literature

At Last, The King

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I started rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the umpteenth time this week. It’s just as good as I remembered, but nine chapters still sounds like an awfully long time to wait for Aragorn.

While I was spending my Christmas Eve curled up on the couch reading about hobbits, I realized how perfect a book it is for me to read during advent! I’m waiting for my king.

Christmas is the climax. The hero is coming tonight.

Are you paying attention?

He’s sitting in the corner, in muddy boots, with his hood low over his eyes.

Are you watching?

He’s far away from the glamour; a tiny baby, sleeping in a manger.

Are you ready?

“In the dark, in the shadows
“Light has come
“In the quiet, in the dead of night
“Glory, glory sang the angels in the highest
“At last, the king has arrived”

-“At Last, the King” by the Gray Havens

Life

Hey

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Hey, hobbits.

I know I’ve been gone a lot.  ACT prep stole my time.  (I’m still looking for a place to lodge a complaint.)

I think the original idea was for me to take the ACT once.  Something happened to that, ’cause I just took it for the third time.  The third time.  Opening my fancy scientific calculator again was a weird feeling.  It was a little bit like a reunion with an old friend, and a little bit like running into your arch enemy when you thought he fell off a cliff in the last episode.

The Seventh Short Story also kinda’ fell off the bus.  Did you miss him?  We’ll see if he comes back.

Anyway, I turned eighteen last week.  Eighteen.

I keep looking in the mirror and saying, “You’re eighteen,” but I still don’t buy it.  I don’t look or feel like an adult.

“They told us that time flies, didn’t know what it means
Now I feel like we’re just running around trying to catch it and hoping to cut up its wings”

-“Lost in the Moment” by NF

Sometimes I think I was smarter when I was younger.  Like I’m growing backwards, and getting dumber.

Maybe that’s true.  But my heart’s in a better place now.  I’m not as selfish as I was when I was little, and I’m better at loving people, and at loving Jesus.

At the end of the day, that stuff’s more important.

So I guess I’m excited to grow up.  I’m excited to see where this year takes me.  I want to keep sharing my weird brain with you all, even when my life gets busy, so I’ll keep trying to do that too.

Thanks for reading.

Family, Life

Climax

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I came to the airport to say good-bye.

It was the climax after so many months of waiting around. . .  Waiting around while the only clear thing was the feeling of something precious slipping through my fingers.

Goodbye was our arms wrapped too tightly around each other, and it was forced smiles at each other, while the silence covered for all the things that should have been said.

I didn’t expect missing her to be so lonely.  But at the same time I’m glad that others get to have her too.

If letting her go has taught me one thing, it’s this: that she is one of the strongest and one of the most beautiful women anyone could ever know.

~*~

*My sweet sister’s safety is very important to me.  Please follow my lead, and don’t share any specific places or names in the comments.  Thank you.

My Writing

The Seventh Short Story: Destruction

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The girl was with the child every day.  She said, “I will protect you.”

She said, “You are worthless.”

The girl came to the child everyday and tormented her.  She came with fine-tipped brushes and paint, and she covered the small, pock-marked face with cosmetics.  “You are ugly.”  She dyed her hair, and covered her fragile body with silk. “You are plain.” The fat fingers were ringed with gold–the misshapen ears with diamonds.  “You are not enough.”

And every night she went away disappointed.  And every morning she came back.

She would say, “You are fat.”  She starved the child, and drilled her in exercises, until she was spent and gasping for breath, but never let her rest until, “You are scrawny,” she would say, and then she would make the child eat until she was bloated and sick.

She lied to her, and scolded her, and threatened her, and cursed her.  She told her she was ugly and lazy.  “But I will help you,” she said.

“I am everything you need,” she told the child.  “We will do it alone. We are strong.”

But she never let the girl go free.

~*~

And the child sat in the dark.  And waited.

She waited in the room with the mirror, for the girl to come.  The child frowned at her torturer and said, “I am everything I need.  I will do it alone. I am strong.”

And everyday the girl stood in the dark before the mirror and waited, for the eternity that is wrapped up in a split second.  For an eternity the girl-child waited for the flip of the light-switch, and the appearance of her tormenter–in the mirror.

Stories

The Seventh Short Story Guest Post: “The Star-Catcher” by Micaiah Saldaña

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Look, a guest writer (those always makes me happy), and a long, lovely story!  The Seventh Short Story is back!  Be sure to catch Micaiah at her own blog, Notebooks and Novels, where she posts writing tips and lots of other fun stuff.

~*~

The Star-Catcher by Micaiah Saldaña

All of the best stories start with “once upon a time.” This, dear reader, is not one of those stories. Instead, this story will begin with a star-dance, a wandering knight, and a star-catcher with a cloak as black as night. For you see, a long, long time ago, in the age of kings and castles, one could lay on one’s back, look up at the sky, and watch the stars dance.

The lords and their ladies would watch from their castle windows. Knights would beg for guard duty, if only to see the silver-haired star-maidens skipping about on feet that had never touched a thing called ground. Peasants would peek out of their homes. Wide-eyed children would clap at the sight. All people watched. All people stood in awe at the star-dance.

There once was a star who danced more beautifully than any of the other stars. There once was a blue-eyed boy with a restless soul. There once was a man who wanted nothing more than to catch a falling star. This, dear reader, is their story.

~~~

“Do you want to see the stars tonight, dear one?”

Little eyes blinked open, and cracked lips spread into a smile as bright as the sun. “Yes, please, Daddy.”

Luca Medici picked up his little Gabriela from her bed. He, unlike his daughter, was not smiling. Luca had never been one for smiles, but now that his sweet girl was ill, he was sure that a smile would never grace his lips again. But, smile or no, he picked his ailing child up and took her to see the star-dance.

While wonder flitted through her eyes at the silvery swishing of star-folk, his own were blind to the spectacle above. For how could stars dance when his daughter was dying?

Continue reading The Seventh Short Story Guest Post: “The Star-Catcher” by Micaiah Saldaña →

Life, Literature

Little Women

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I’ve always been a re-reader.  But this summer especially has seemed to be one of old favorites.

Today I finished re-reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott for the umpteenth time, and it still made me cry.  I can’t tell you how many times I read this book when I was little, and I distinctly remember crying over you-know-what part the first two times I read it.  But this was my first visit to Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy since I’ve actually experienced death, in “real” life.

I swear that books–that the power of stories and the comfort of the written word–are what got me through “the valley of shadow” in one piece.  The first thing I did after my grandpa died was shut myself in my bedroom and read The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien.

This is a huge reason why I believe in reading fiction.

“Made up” characters can sympathize sometimes when “real” ones can’t; and living some things through a novel (or a movie) is better experience than most people seem to give it credit for.

I remember standing in the bathroom washing my hands, right after I finished reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, looking at myself in the mirror, and bursting into giggles from sheer contentedness.  I reasoned that from a strictly bookworm-ish point of view, I had just gotten engaged, and could therefore give myself grace to be a bit giddy.

The characters in my favorite books are family, and I can’t see them as anything else.  They have taught me more than almost any nonfiction, and they make me a stronger, braver, kinder person.  And that is why I believe in reading fiction.

That is why I will not stop talking about books.

Life

Right Now I’m Thankful For. . .

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~rain~

~big trees~

~spiders~

~poetry~

~the kind of smoke that smells like adventure~

~old books~

~good movies~

~people who never judge you unless you keep secrets from them~

~a God who loves me and wrote me a book~

~brown eyes~

~chocolate~

~wind in my hair~

(I missed the Seventh Short Story this month but we shall pick up in September.)

Faith, Family, Literature

Heroes and Leadership

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~written winter of 2017~

Aragorn.

Where can I start?  I know I could write forever about my favorite fictional character; Aragorn has been a role model for me for a long time.  While he has been a favorite of mine since I found him in The Fellowship of the Ring, some of my fondest memories with him have come from the second book, The Two Towers; maybe the most poignant of them being his first sight of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings–and his decision to turn away from it to help rescue two little hobbits, simply out of love and loyalty.  But one memory from The Two Towers is a little less pleasant:

“At last Aragorn stood above the great gates, heedless of the darts of the enemy.  As he looked forth he saw the eastern sky grow pale. Then he raised his empty hand, palm outward in token of parley.

“The Orcs yelled and jeered.  ‘Come down! Come down!’ they cried.  ‘If you wish to speak with us, come down!  Bring out your king! We are the fighting Uruk-hai.  We will fetch him from his hole, if he does not come.  Bring out your skulking king!’

“‘The king stays or comes at his own will,’ said Aragorn.

“‘Then what are you doing here?’ they answered.  ‘Why do you look out? Do you wish to see the greatness of our army?  We are the fighting Uruk-hai.’

“‘I looked out to see the dawn,’ said Aragorn.

“‘What of the dawn?’ they jeered.  ‘We are the Uruk-hai: we do not stop the fight for night or day, for fair weather or for storm.  We come to kill, by sun or moon. What of the dawn?’

“‘None knows what the new day shall bring him,’ said Aragorn.  ‘Get you gone, ere it turn to your evil.’

“‘Get down or we will shoot you from the wall,’ they cried.  ‘This is no parley. You have nothing to say.’

“‘I have still this to say,’ answered Aragorn.  ‘No enemy has yet taken the Hornburg. Depart, or not one of you will be spared.  Not one will be left alive to take tidings back to the North. You do not know your peril.’

“So great a power and royalty was revealed in Aragorn, as he stood there alone above the ruined gates before the host of his enemies, that many of the wild men paused, and looked back over their shoulders to the valley, and some looked up doubtfully at the sky.  But the Orcs laughed with loud voices; and a hail of darts and arrows whistled over the wall, as Aragorn leaped down.” (528)

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Stories

A Good Movie

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You know it was a good movie when you have to think about it for days before you find the plot-holes.

You know it was a great movie when you find the plot-holes and still love it just as much.

My Writing

The Seventh Short Story: Nightfall

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The last fiery sliver of the sun disappears behind the Arceis Mountains.  The sunset is burning itself out in the eastern sky, touching every dim thing with a bloody rose hue.

My leather boots slide on the wet grass.  I adjust my grip on my bow, and try to tuck renegade strands of hair back into my bun with one cold hand, squinting at my trail in the waning light.  The sound of a soft, squelching step jerks my attention away from the muddy prints on the ground, and I glance nervously at the nearby belt of trees, trying to tug my grey woolen cloak over my scarlet shirt. Of all the foolish things to wear. . .

There most certainly is someone lurking beyond the trees.  I slip closer. Several people. What’s going on? I feel for my dagger.  Why did something have to go wrong?  Avoiding the heaps of dry, crinkly leaves, I slide between the trees.

My blood freezes as I recognize Taral out of the group, and I freeze with it.  His jet black mantel is tinted red in the evening light. His hood is up, but no matter how many years it’s been, I know it’s him; that confident swagger, still marred slightly by a nagging limp from old wounds–the arrogant poise of those broad shoulders?  They belong to only one man.

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My world through my eyes