On libraries

"Out in the world, not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather, anything might happen, always did. Listen! and you heard ten thousand people screaming so high only dogs feathered their ears. A million folk ran toting cannons, sharpening guillotines; Chinese, four abreast, marched on forever. Invisible, silent, yes, but Jim and Will had the gift of ears and noses as well as the gift tongues. This was a factory of spices from far countries. Here alien deserts slumbered. U front was the desk where the nice old lady, Miss Watriss, purple-stamped your books, but down off away were Tibet and Antarctica, the Congo. There went Miss Wills, the other librarian, through Outer Mongolia, calmly toting fragments of Peiping and Yokohama and the Celebes. Way down the third book corridor, an oldish man whispered his broom along in the dark, mounding the fallen spices..."

-Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

when fake life becomes real life

I got an email from someone in my ward today. I stared at his name and my first thought was, I think I know him, but his gmail profile picture didn't look familiar. I read through the email and then got distracted by other things. I just barely got back on gmail and looked at the email again. That name! I know that I know it! And then suddenly I realized: Roger Davies is a Harry Potter character.

I need to spend more time in real life.

on reading

"Reading requires a loner's temperament, a high tolerance for silence, and an unhealthy preference for the company of people who are imaginary or dead"

-David Samuels

"Marginal Notes on the Inner Lives of People with Cluttered Apartments in the East Seventies," Rereadings

rebel

"A rebel she was, but not of the kind he understood--a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most priceless of all possessions--her own soul"

-A Room with a View, p 118

(intro)vert

The other day while I was shelving I got distracted by an article. That's the problem, you see, with working in a library is that you want to read things. I refrained and came back after class to read the article. I was intrigued because it was about the power of being introverted, and I am an introvert.

We live in a society that was made for and rewards extroverts. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with extroverts (I actually rather like quite a few of them). I even have some extroverted qualities myself. But I do think that we value too little the qualities of introverts. Sounds cheesy, but God made people different for a reason.

The article really didn't have anything profound to say, and I already knew that I had introverted tendencies, but it really it home with me. It reminded me that it's okay that I am the way I am. There is nothing wrong with me. People too often mistake introvertism for being shy, afraid of social situations or complacent. It's none of those things (although they can accompany introverted traits). Introverted people are genuinely content to be on their own. They like to do things one-on-one with people they know well. They don't love small talk. They get over stimulated by big groups, especially big groups of people they don't know.

It's okay that I would often rather do things alone than be in a crowded room with a bunch of strangers. It's okay that I prefer one-on-one conversations or that I would much rather have a small get together with my close family and friends than a huge bash. It reminded me that there is value in those qualities. I'm contemplative and observant. I can focus and work independently. I like to talk about real things and get passed that small talk stuff. I find satisfaction and fulfillment being on my own. I even enjoy it.

Being introverted doesn't mean I hate being with people (I really like people you see), or that I'm shy, or that I'll never do crazy extroverted-like things. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't go out of my comfort zone to get to know people or do things with people even when I'd rather be alone. It's all about balance.

After reading the article I felt empowered. Over the years (and especially the last few weeks) I've come to love and accept the fact that I am an introvert. I don't need to fight against it. I think it's made me realize why I am the way I am and why I react the way I do to things, which in turn helps me to see ways to cope in this extroverted world and push myself.

I am M and I am an introvert.

Jealous

Dear Charlotte Brontë,

Want to lend some of your amazing vocabulary to me? Even just for a day? I wish I could throw words around like caprice, piquant, quiescence, assiduous, celerity, or salubrious as if it was no big deal.


your devoted reader,
M


PS if you love the Brontë sisters, you'll love this.

Wise man, Mr. Lewis

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Why there are no boys to marry at BYU

Boy 1: I mean when you read you have to imagine things yourself. I would rather have someone tell me what it looks like.

Boy 2: I know, seriously. I would much rather play on my ipad.

I heart reading

"Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality. But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do."
-C.S. Lewis

"The value of myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by 'the veil of familiarity.' The child enjoys his cold meat (otherwise dull to him) by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savoury for having been dipped in a story; you might say that only then is it the real meat. If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

lemon drop

"'Would you care for a lemon drop?' 'A what?' 'A lemon drop. They're a muggle sweet I'm rather fond of.'"

Why yes, Dumbledore, I would love a lemon drop.

mmmm.

M

you must

read (or listen) to this. No one cannot help but smile and get lost in the charming characters and lovely language of this book.

Please.
You'll be doing yourself a favor.

"Like I say, you stick around and don't let nothing happen."
"You can depend on me," said Tom.
"It's not you I worry about," said Douglas. "It's the way God runs the world."
Tom thought about this for a moment.
"He's all right, Doug," said Tom. "He tries."

Dandelion Wine, p112

bradbury had it right

Everyone has a method to their writing. When I read this passage from the forward of the lovely book Dandelion Wine, I felt my feelings on the process were captured most perfectly with Bradbury's profound words:

[...] like every beginner, I thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turn on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies. It was with great relief, then, that in my early twenties I floundered into a word-association process in which I simply got out of bed each morning walked to my desk, and put down any word or series of words that happened along in my head. I would then take arms against the word, or for it, and bring on an assortment of characters to weigh the word and show me its meaning in my own life. An hour or two hours later, to my amazement, a new story would be finished and done. The surprise was total and lovely. I soon found that I would have to work this way for the rest of my life.

choices

Work these days brings hours of computer work or shifting among the shelves. In order to pass the time with my brain still intact, I listen to books. They fill my mind with thoughts and ideas that are simply beautiful. I ran out of books that I hadn't listened to (or had interest in) that belonged to my parents, so I reverted to the default: HP.

I think I've listened/read each book a thousand times, but each time I still fall in love with the story and words all over again. (yeah, I'm twelve, I know). Lately The Order of the Phoenix (Okay please just click this link and appreciate whoever spent the time to make this. Lovely.) has been filling my ears. I'm near the end, having just finished the intense fight in the ministry of magic.

As I listened with pained ears to Harry make the mistake of believe that Voldemort really had Sirius Black, I realized yet one more reason why I love the books so much. Rowling shows us that all choices have consequences-even good ones. I wanted to badly for Harry to listen to Hermione's hesitation. I wanted Sirius to walk into the kitchen when Harry checks Grimmauld Place to see if he's there. I wanted so badly for Snape to stop Harry in the forest. I wanted something to change and for Sirius to live. Harry did the right thing-he showed he would do anything for those he loved so everything should turn out, right? But even though Harry had the best of intentions, Sirius still died. And as painful as that is, it's just like real life. When we act and make choices, there are often unforeseen consequences. And even if we have the best intentions and we do the "right" thing, it might not turn out the way we hope.

Often in movies and books everything goes wrong only to be turned right at the end, with nothing lost. But think about the books and movies you truly love-the ones that made you think and feel and be. They often don't end with every little piece of the story neatly wrapped up in polka-dot wrapping paper with a satin ribbon on top.  We relate to these stories because they mimic our own lives. There is a price to be paid. Always. But that my friends is what makes life so great. When we hurt and struggle, when we cry and bleed, it only makes those moments when the world is good and our hearts light that much sweeter. We become more.

"So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil librarians"

I can tell this is going to be one good book.

tired,
M

word

In the book Eat Pray Love, one of the many interesting souls she meets a long the way tells her that each person and place has one word that describes them. After a discussion about what her current location's word would be, he inevitably asks her what her word would be. At that point she has not yet found herself, and has therefore not yet found her word.

It was only natural after reading that that I would think about what my "word" would be. I found my mind combing, but there are just too many and not just one that seems to encompass everything that I am (or anything that any of us are). So I let it go.

Since Eat Pray Love I have embarked on much more daunting literary feats, settling into the 986 page The Brothers Karamazov. It's been a rough beginning. I have always had a fond spot in my heart for Dostoyevsky, but when it seems like 40 pages of the 103 you've read so far are about Christian punishment and the state, it begins to bog you down. I picked it up tonight after a prolonged absence (absence makes the heart grow fonder right?) and stumbled upon a lovely scene. One of the monks is speaking about one of the brothers and labels him with a word. " That is his designation and his entire inner essence." Unfortunately for the brother his word is voluptuary. It made me smile inside that a 19th century Russian monk had the same philosophy about people as a 21st century Italian man.

We are all more alike than we think.

M