κοινωνία

Christmas break was a different kind of animal this year. I alternated between being so busy that I forgot to eat (if you know me, you know how weird that is) and reading Harry Potter for hours on end in odd corners of my house (because, obviously, books are just more enjoyable when read upside-down on the staircase landing).

I also learned a lot. I learned about the Church and the Mayans and Hogwarts, thanks to God’s creativity in making different kinds of people and people’s creativity in writing different kinds of books. But mostly, I learned about myself. At the end of break, I wrote down 7 “life facts” I had either forgotten or never realized before. Here’s #3:

“The closer I get to someone, the messier the relationship becomes. But it also gets better.”

I think this homely but heartfelt sentence can be expanded on a grand scale. Getting close to anything means giving it permission to hurt you. I feel the ache of loss every time I volunteer at the refugee shelter downtown. For a few hours, I talk with, eat with, play with, and sometimes nearly cry with a bundle of precious souls. Then, they climb into a van which takes them to a bus which, eventually, takes them a thousand miles away. Here is what I wrote one afternoon after coming back from the shelter:

“I can still see Erica and Andrés’ faces pressed against the thickly-screened window. They are smiling and waving. Tomorrow, they will be in another state, and they will forget the girl who made beds, swept, watched ‘Finding Nemo’, and danced in front of the security cameras with them. Now I have their names with their faces and personalities still fresh and attached. But the more tender, living memories, the emotions and mannerisms, will slowly be taken from me. Only names will stay behind, like fossils imprinted on rock: concepts defined by empty space, feeding on absence. It does not feel beautiful to me right now, the way we touch each other’s lives. So much of me is lost with each person I encounter.”

If I could go back to time and talk to the Aubrey who wrote that paragraph, I would tell her that it’s good she felt something when Erica and Andrés left because it meant she cared about them. I would also tell her that the presence of pain does not mean the absence of beauty. Closeness means opening your heart, which means hurt, but also means fulfillment.

Maybe I should put it this way…

One item tops my virtual lists of character flaws, discouragements, joy-killers, lifelong struggles, etc. This slithering sin has tyrannized me and poisoned life’s sweetest moments. Its name is selfishness.

I have long agreed with G. K. Chesterton – “how much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it” – but I am also very bad at making myself small. Thus, I can spoil a lovely day by snapping at a family member who interrupts my study time. I can suck all the healing out of words spoken to a struggling friend by contemplating how gentle and sympathetic I must look. I can and do repent of these failures, but I also repeat them. Again and again and again.

Today, it dawned on me. I finally realized the full impact of a truth my parents have taught me since I was little: put off and put on. It’s not enough to put off selfishness; more selfishness will rush in to fill the void. I need to also put on love.

And what is love? Most would agree that love has to be more than a feeling if it is to last for any length of time. But love must also be more than an action – I know because I have “served” my brothers on many occasions (such as by picking up their LEGO bricks which, only moments before, impaled my bare foot) without expending so much as one-sixteenth of a milliliter of goodwill.

I do not dare to pretend that I fully grasp what love is. I’m sure there are as many sides to it as there are thoughts in Dumbledore’s pensieve. But as I mull over passages like 1^st Corinthians 13 and 1^st John 1-5, I become more and more convinced that at least in part, love is identifying with someone else to the extent that their good becomes my good. That’s why love is patient: if controlling my tongue is the difference between blessing and wounding my friend, then I am happy to do it. Love isn’t jealous: if spending time with someone else helps her to grow, I’ll gladly relinquish my claim on her schedule.

I believe that communion – κοινωνία, sharing, fellowship – is central to love. Jesus didn’t just write us a certification for cancellation of sins; He took on our decaying flesh, shared in our sufferings, experienced our temptations, and became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus’ method of redemption was a sharing of identity - His righteousness for ours, ours for His. And His prayer for the believers He left behind was a plea for unity: “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us” (John 17:21). This communion is something Jesus’ first followers preserved: the church devoted itself to fellowship (Acts 2:42), and Paul shared his own soul with his beloved Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2:8).

Now I press a few buttons in my mental elevator and descend from the abstract to the personal level.

It’s comfortable to hold people at arm’s length, because they can’t hurt me if I don’t need them. It’s nicer to share articles about refugees on Facebook than to spend three hours cleaning up a play room that fifty-something children have passed through. I feel safer when I spill my thoughts in a private journal than when I let my acquaintances see that I am weak and flawed. So I do not commune, I do not share my soul.

And then what?

“The modern man does not immerse himself in anything he does,” wrote Octavio Paz. “Always, a part of him remains intact and alert…The solitude that this engenders…is a total condemnation, a mirror of a world without escape.”

What we might call being reserved or independent is often a hyper-individualism that shuts us up inside of ourselves. When I protect myself instead of giving myself away, I am locked into a room of mirrors. I cannot see what is true, beautiful, good, and eternal; I only see my own reflection staring angrily from every nook and cranny of this world without escape, reminding me of all that I fail to be. I am condemned to confinement within my own mind.

Life is meant to be shared. Specifically, it is meant to be shared through Christ. When we come to people through the One who became like us to save us, we don’t have to fight for self-preservation or pleasure. Christ has already given Himself unreservedly to us. And in His presence we find fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11).

This is why beauty and pain coexist when souls collide. This is why relationships can get better and messier at the same time. Communion requires a surrender of self to others, a death of desire. And death, of course, causes pain. But dying to self is a way of imitating what Jesus did for us, of sharing in His sufferings.

Communion with others flings ten thousand doors open, letting us explore the new and unimagined wonders God has placed inside of each person. It splits our little worlds apart so that we are aware not just of ourselves, but also of the star-like souls that fill this madly spinning planet and of the One who spoke them all into being.

My ambition for 2016 is to love well, to make the good of other people my own good, to live not in fear of loss but in anticipation of grace. And thus item #5 on my life-fact list:

“I am part of God’s story and my life isn’t just made for me; it’s made to fit in other peoples’ lives. Sometimes I glimpse the big picture, sort of like when Harry and Hermione time-travel in Book 3 and finally understand why everything happened the way it did. That makes me happy.”

Oh, and lest you think I spent my entire break drawing analogies between spiritual truths and Harry Potter, let me give you #1 on the list:

“I love bugs.”

Do with it as you will ;)

Love as always,

Aubrey

Sweet Adelaide is...

...a beautiful soul...

...who knows how to delight in the world.

in a minute there is time...

I am sitting here with my mug of tea, prepared to work on that priority list I talked about in my last post...
except for that I realized I have things I want to write about first.

That statement probably says something about my priorities in and of itself.

Having always been a project-oriented person, it's strange to find myself suddenly caring more about the process. You know,

project (n): the sum of experiences which, when combined, achieve a desired end

process (n): the sum of moments which, when combined, create an experience

Not Merriam-Webster definitions by any stretch, but that's how I think about it: the act of painting vs. the finished picture, the practice vs. the game, the conversation vs. the application. Last year, I would have never chosen to write a blog post that maybe 10 people who already know me reasonably well will actually finish over mapping out my future. Last year, I took the PSAT, did debate research, and caught up on math homework (in my bedroom, by myself) for my birthday. This year, I went out for breakfast, hiked, and went ice skating with my little brothers for my birthday. It's like I actually prefer having fun to getting work done! I can feel you laughing at me but that, my friends, is the strange (sad?) truth. Each day, I find myself more inclined to choose the process of life over its various and sundry projects.

There are probably a lot of reasons for this, one being that I caught a glimpse of a different way of life, a grace-filled way of life, when I visited the Smiths in Mexico City. ("I know this hurts your American heart to hear, Aubrey," Naomi said to me, "But you don't have to always be cleaning the kitchen.")

God made good things to go in His good world: colors, emotions, scents, music, laughter, tastes, relationships, words, light, rest...the list goes on and on. Enjoying them is a way of enjoying God - God the Creator, God the father of light from whom every good thing proceeds (James 1:17)

Taking tea at Casa Tassel

Enjoying quesadillas in the apartment after a team meeting

Strangers socializing at a taco stand. Two things I miss about Mexico: spontaneous conversations and taco stands.

When it comes to enjoying goodness, a lot can happen in a moment. To quote that brilliant man, T.S. Eliot*:

There will be time to murder and create
And time for all the works of days and of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
~
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

*Each time I read Eliot, he feels more and more like an old friend and his poems feel more and more like letters. I love it when that happens between myself and a favored author.

Choosing to have a dance party with Sean instead of getting annoyed at him for playing the Pirates of the Carribean theme for the umpteenth time while I was trying to get homework done is the decision of a moment, but it amounts to an experience that then colors the entire dynamic of my relationship with this 11-year-old boy. Making a card for the girl I hardly know might cost me the chance to get back into classical violin, but it also might win me a friend. So much hangs in the balance of split-second decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

And to jump from the wisdom of T.S. Eliot into a deeper and more mysterious wisdom, there is Jesus.

God could have accomplished atonement with a fire-blazing, sky-splitting, earth-shattering projection of omnipotence. But He didn't. Instead, he designated an embryo to be born as a helpless little baby, go through all the awkward stages of growing up, travel first-century Palestine as an itinerant Rabbi, and die a shameful death.

God didn't just save us with a snap of His almighty fingers. He saved us through a story, through the life of a Man with flesh like our own flesh. He saved us in such a way that we would know were being saved. By dying to save us, He gave us the gift of glimpsing the height and length and breadth and depth of His love. That is a weighty grace

I've been mulling over this paragraph from N.T. Wright (I guess I have a thing for writers who go by their initials?):

"The Cross can be seen as Jesus' final great act of love. It draws to a climax all those actions throughout His ministry - His touching of a leper, His tenderness toward the chronically sick or bereaved, His tears at Lazarus' grave - in which we see the deeply human, characteristically God-filled Jesus truly at work."

God is a God who understands the power of a moment in human existence. He is a God who cares not only about the outcome of a life, but about the life itself. I imagine that's part of why He tells us to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control but never gives us a quota of souls to save or prayers to pray.

I am still wrestling with the tension between my goals-oriented self and my new, oddly flexible and contented self. Undoubtedly, I still have a lot to discover about what this clever God is doing in me. But I'm writing this down to share with you all some of the thoughts that are changing me, in hopes that I am not the only person confused by myself.

It's in seasons like these that I am especially grateful God is greater than my heart, and knows all things (John 3:20).

Much love,
Aubrey

P.S.

Here are some birthday pictures, if you care to see them!

Breakfast at Panera

Hiking at Comanche

Sean decorated my room and HE SPELLED MY NAME IN STREAMERS, PEOPLE!

My boys <3

 

playgrounds, dying, and other important things

In El Laberinto De La Soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude), Octavio Paz writes:

“Para el habitante de Nueva York, París, o Londres, la muerte es la palabra que jamás se pronuncia porque quema los labios. El mexicano, en cambia, la frecuenta, la burla...la festeja, es uno de sus juguetes favoritos y su amor más permanente.”

 "For the habitant of New York, Paris, or London, death is the word they never pronounce because it burns their lips. The Mexican, on the other hand, frequents it, jokes about it...celebrates it; it's one of his favorite toys and his most permanent love."

I believe Paz's assertion is proven by the playgrounds in Mexico City. Observe!

1. Climbing wall coated in [very slippery] moss and surrounded by mud
2. Treacherous, foot-trapping gaps between bricks
3. Partial railing
4. Flimsy bridge that a child's shoe can easily fit through (Selma figured that out for us)
5. Log that appears to be a stable handhold but actually ROLLS if you put pressure on it, leaving you the choice of falling in the mud or straddling the metal bridge (credit for that discovery goes to Malachi)
6. Thankfully, Malachi didn't discover the rusty iron nails sticking out of said log

But when you're not too preoccupied with safety, there are a plethora of ways to have fun! Like,


renting orange crates and sliding down steep concrete slopes,


 

climbing the trunks of colossal fallen trees,
 

 

finding creative ways to use the exercise equipment you're too short for,
 





 and sliding hand-in-hand into an enormous puddle (turning the heads of several Boy Scout troop leaders in the process).

 

Moral of the story: playgrounds that risk death are WAY more exciting than sterile plastic playscapes!

 

In all seriousness, though, the cultural acceptance and even embrace of death was one of the first things that drew my attention to Mexico. A major holiday, Día De Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), is dedicated to remembering those who have died. My friends, both named Gabi, described the keeping of Día De Los Muertos to me as we strolled through Zona Rosa. Graves are festooned with flowers, altars with photographs of loved ones are set up in homes, and a special bread flavored with petals is baked and eaten. The holiday is not a day of mourning; it is a day of celebration.

 

Celebrating death is foreign concept to me. Ocatvio Paz was right when he said that the word “death” seems to burn lips in the west. Maybe our prosperity has given us too much to live for, and we are afraid of losing what we have. “La vida nos ha curado de espanto” (life has cured us of terror), Paz writes for the beleaguered Mexican. Then again, a worshipper of Santa Muerte (Saint Death) from the barrio of Tepito told David Lida that “to venerate death means that you adore life, because death is the only thing that can take life away from you.”

Día De Los Muertos and Santa Muerte herself come from prehispanic Mexica tradition. The Aztecs’ relationship with death was not love and not hatred; it was a dark infatuation.

La Catedral Metropolitana

 

La Catedral Metropolitana de México, consecrated in 1656, is built on top of the ruins of an Aztec temple. A week from yesterday, Naomi and I walked into La Catedral. (Every entrance but one was blocked off by security in preparation for a presidential address in the nearby old parliament building). Two windows of glass in the cathedral’s main plaza open to the subterranean remains of the temple. Seared in my memory is the image of two fossilized human skulls, embedded in the crumbling, golden-brown temple stones. Shoots of green sprout out through the skulls’ mouths, a strange mezcla (mix) of life and death. Those skulls are the remains of human sacrifice victims. For the Aztecs, death through sacrifice was necessary to appease the gods and maintain order in the universe – salud cósmica, Paz calls it.

The veneration of death has carried over into modern-day Mexico, not only in Día De Los Muertos but also in literal worship of Santa Muerte. In First Stop in the Twenty-First Century, David Lida describes a scene around the corner from the Tepito market:

“On the first day of each month the believers arrive en masse, setting plaster statues of Santa Muerte on tables or atop squares of fabric on the sidewalk. Hundreds of visitors walk around and leave treats for the saint at these makeshift altars - chocolate coins, fake currency, cigars, shots of rum, Barbie dolls. Others walk around with spray cans of cheap perfume, with which they literally douse the figurines. As the afternoon passes, the street becomes increasingly crowded. By nightfall when the prayers are chanted – ‘I come toward you prostrate, so that you will meet my needs; thank you for the favors I’ve received’ – there will be about five thousand people, blocking traffic on the surrounding streets…This hybrid of idol worship is a hybrid of Mexican popular culture with official Catholic dogma.”

Worship of a saint called Death, a grinning skeleton in a habit and a halo, strikes me as eerie. Maybe it makes you feel the same. How, then, does it make you feel to think that you might yourself be a worshipper of death?

Santa Muerte

 

“El culto a la vida, si de verdad es profundo y total, es también culto a la muerte,” writes Paz. “Es inútil excluir a la muerte de nuestras representaciones, de nuestras palabras, de nuestras ideas, porque ella acabará por suprimirnos a todos y en primer término a los que viven ignorándola o fingiendo que la ignoran.” The cult of life, if it is truly deep and complete, is also the cult of death. It’s useless to exclude death from our representations, our words, our ideas, because she will eventually remove us all, and first of all those who lived ignoring or pretending to ignore her.

When we live in denial of our own temporality, we are feeding an insatiable void. We our pouring our breath down the hollow ribcage of a cold, dry, loveless thing. Worshipping life – physical existence – for the sake of its own pleasure turns us into worshippers of Santa Muerte, even if the altar we have built to her is in front of our computers or in our hearts instead of in Tepito.

 

When I strolled through the streets of La Roma or stood on the apartment roof to watch the morning sun spread over Mexico City, I took it all in with greedy eyes. I tried to extract every last drop of beauty from the world around me and stuff it into my soul. But I was never satisfied. The streets blurred together in my memory; the sunrise was always too short. My appetite for life devoured every living thing it its pathway, including my joy.

 

The curious thing about life is that it will never be sweet until you hold it loosely and love it less than you love the One who made it beautiful.

 

Sunrise from the roof - Psalm 19

 

The Art of Holding On

            Except for a smoldering orange patch crowning the hill which had hidden the sun, the whole sky was a grey twilight-blue. And I was in the middle of it, standing on the peak of a sloped gravel road. My shoes were in my hand; I felt the roughness of each sharp pebble beneath my feet. The ground all around me sloped downwards and sideways until the it vanished altogether, popping up again as trees and hills in the distance. My private gravel road was an island in that sea of trees and hills. The wind pushed my hair back from my face. Lifting my hands, I could feel it rush through my fingers. It laced in between each one of them, blowing through like silk ribbons. No matter how tightly I clenched my fists, I couldn’t catch hold of the wind-ribbons.

They made me think of Dicey’s Song, a beautiful book Mrs. Brock gave me to read a week or two ago. I have a nasty habit of reading quickly, devouring the plotline and the characters in one late, lamp-lit night. Dicey’s Song is the sort of book I’ll have to go back to, stretching it through afternoons and rainy days. Dicey felt the wind-ribbons, too.

“She thought to herself, she had to let go of what had gone before too, didn’t she? The people of last summer. And who she had been. Dicey felt as if she was standing in the wind and holding up her hands. She felt as if colored ribbons blew out of her hands and danced away on the wind. She felt as if, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t close her fingers around those ribbons. Dicey knew that she was sitting very still on a train, moving across the night. She knew her hands were wrapped around the wooden box that held the ashes of her momma. But she felt as if a wind blew through her hands and took even Momma away. What did that leave her with? The wind and her empty hands. The wind and Dicey.”

            Lisa and I were stretched out on my bedroom floor, reading through the names on the back of my Regionals t-shirt from 2010. Some people I thought I would hold onto for a while have slipped through my fingers. Other names, names that were only strings of letters to me then, have blown back around in the wind and become woven into my life without me hardly realizing it. I feel helpless.

            Lately my life has been tossed by the wind, fragmented. I leap between the world of speech and debate and my regular, San Antonio world. Sometimes the leap leaves me with a bit of jet-lag, and I don’t know how to connect to people in one group when I first leave the other. Ribbons are slipping through my fingers, out of my reach.

Words make more sense on paper. Writing doesn’t puff away as easily as thoughts. I wish I could write everyone I know a letter, telling them exactly what they mean to me. (Because even the people I talk to only once or twice have a place in my heart, especially if they are one of the many who took the time to draw me out when I felt most alone. That’s a lot more often than anybody would realize.) But the wind keeps blowing, and time and friends and words and emotions are snatched away and jumbled and sometimes blown back. Other times they are tossed from my island forever. I’m left with two ribbons that manage to stay wrapped securely around my heart.

            Dear friend, please don’t let me go. Even if I seem absent when I talk to you, even if I joke or forget to text or act like I don’t care. Even if I’ve just met you, or if we don’t know each other well yet. Please try to hold onto me. I need you, I want to know you, all of you.

            And even if the wind blew away everything I thought to cling to, this would stay constant: 

“As high as the heavens are over the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to His children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For he knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.” (Psalm 103:10-17)

Sometimes I wonder what Dicey wondered-

“You tell me to let go. But you told me to reach out, you told me to hold on. How can I do all those things together?”

            I can’t hold onto all the ribbons on my own. But if I cling to Him, everything will eventually be woven together with His love, for His glory. My God is faithful, from everlasting to everlasting.

Lover of Light

     I finally finished Les Miserables. When I started it a few months ago, I thought I would never finish. Ryan and I counted: EIGHTY-SIX Kindle pages for ONE PERCENT of the book! And when I finished, I wished it would never end. Les Mis is one of the most beautiful, powerful books I have ever read. Victor Hugo examines the world through the lens of man's soul. The lens isn't rose-colored; Hugo lays bare the depravity of our disfigured human hearts, and the lies and atrocities proceeding from them. But at the same time, Les Mis does not abide in the shadows.

     Probably the most heart-wrenching storyline is Fantine's. Fantine sold her hair, her teeth, and her love to provide for her estranged daughter Cossette. The people of Montreuil-sur-Mer saw the gaps in Fantine's mouth and pronounced her grotesque. They saw her on the prostitute's corner and, in all their moral virtuosity, declared her disgraceful. Everyone who could have lifted her up instead passed by with averted eyes. I wept, because I saw the whole picture of Fantine's life. I saw that Fantine was used and abandoned by Cossette's father. I saw that she had placed her daughter with a foster family to keep her from the shame of illgitimacy. I saw that she was decieved into believing that her Cossette was desperately ill and in need of expensive medicine. I saw Cossette in perfect health, being used for slave labor while Fantine's money lined the pockets of a criminal innkeeper. I saw the sacrificial love for her daughter that Fantine lived by. But the townspeople only saw the shame Fantine had been forced into, and the hatred their shunning spawned in her. Hugo writes, "Those who do not see, do not weep."

     There are so many things we do not see. I don't know the stories of the people who sit on off Judson Road with misspelled signs, or the homeless man whose eyes I saw peering out from a pile of cardboard and towels under a downtown bridge, or the rude old man in the grocery store, or the barely dressed girl in Wal-Mart. Certainly they are sinners. We all are. There was a great deal of darkness in Fantine. But somewhere in Fantine, in those broken people around me, is a light, a trace of the image of God. I want to see their pain, their stories, their hidden light. I want to be a part of bringing out that light, seeing it redeemed, like Monsieur Madeline rescued Fantine and brought out her light.

     2nd Corinthians 5:16 says, "From now on" [now that the love of Christ controls us] "we regard no one according to the flesh". We don't see people the same way. Verse 18: "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." Through Christ, God has brought me back to Himself and given me new life. Now it is my blessing and duty, granted by Him, to bring people to His "wonderful light" (1st Peter 2:9).I cannot see everything, but I know the Light, and because of my great God I can see Him everywhere, even in the blackest corners of the blackest souls.

I will strive to be a Lover of the Light.

Finished! :)

Now I just I need to send a copy to my favorite twins!

I'm still alive, I promise!

Hello!

I realize that I’ve abandoned my blog for over two weeks now, with absolutely no explanation. To the very [very] few who read it, I’m sorry. I have nothing important to say right now, but just to reassure you that I am, in fact, living and breathing, here is a lovely little bullet list I compiled this morning:

·         I went on vacation! To Arizona! To visit my wonderful Grandparents! (Ask me about their story some time; it’s truly a testimony to God’s faithfulness, even in light of human faithlessness.) Proof:

We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns on the way up. On our last visit, some five or six years ago, I spent most of my time being terrified. Now I LOVE it! It's seriously one of the most incredible places on earth, a testimony to God's creative design. Walking through the caverns, you can't doubt that a Designer's hand was in it all. None of the pictures did justice to the cave's majesty, but they were all stunning anyways...I couldn't decide which to post, so you'll just have to settle for me in "Fairyland". It's not exactly what I expected :P

Arizona Skyline

Dessert! (Ursula is a fabulous cook, as Ryan's smile testifies.)

Ringtoss aftermath. I just love this picture of Sean; for some reason, it seems to describe him perfectly.

Ursula also has wonderful wall decor, including this sword.

Ethan FINALLY got his Porsche ride! This is a moment he's been waiting for since...whenver he became obsessed with cars. In honor of the occasion, he went to Wal Mart with the SPECIFIC purpose of finding a blue Porsche Hot Wheels car thingy.

·         I learned to sew, sort of. Charity taught me. I feel that the venture was a success, because my black-and-white scraps of cloth mysteriously transformed into a purse. Also, it was wonderful spending time with Charity and the other girls. I received several encouraging compliments from Bethany which will probably carry me through the week, including “Aubrey, if we all woke up this morning and you were dead, it’d be kind of sad.” (Thanks, Bethany.)

·         Last time I babysat at the Franklin’s house, the kids and I made up stories. How it works: they all pick characters, and I build stories around those characters. Micah is always a lion, Hannah usually settles for nothing less than Queen, and with the other four, you never can tell. Bethel likes wise old _____ (insert some obscure fantasy creature here) and Laurel adores unicorns. David picks the most interesting characters I’ve ever heard of, including “stairs”. Trust me, he regretted that choice. Did I mention you have to act your character out? Anyways, I’m thinking some of these stories might turn into picture books in the near future. ;)

·         I finished the Mistborn series on vacation, and promptly ran into the bathroom sobbing. I’ll say nothing more about the ending, I swear. But I highly recommend them, if you’re over 13. I also ended Count of Monte Cristo and an assortment of books from Mrs. Brock. Now I’ve begun Mockingjay and Manalive…I think I’m going to like Manalive much better…

Thank you if you are still reading my blog. It means a great deal to me. :)

Dialogue with a Dragon

(From The Hat Lady, by me)

I turned again to the beast, and then I realized just what he was.

          “Y-y-you…you…you’re a dragon!”

          “How observant,” Said the dragon, with a sarcastic eye-roll.

          The dragon was certainly going to eat me. After all, isn’t that what dragons do? But I was surprised to find that I wasn’t scared at all. Maybe it’s because I knew I couldn’t get away, that trying was hopeless. Anyways, I just wanted the awful beast to get it over with as quickly as possible.

          “What are you going to do to me?” I asked.

I tried to move, but my hands were tied behind my back. Not even this scared me. I felt brave, like Nell.

          “Do to you?” The dragon snorted, sending a puff of smoke into the air. “What would I do to you?”

          “You’re going to eat me,” I said flatly, scooting back so I could lean against the cave wall.

A diamond stabbed me in the leg, and I leapt into the air with a yelp. The dragon kindly swept it out of the way with his spiked tail.

The dragon just sat there and looked down on me. It’s hard to read a dragon’s face because they don’t have eyebrows or lips or anything like people do. But I think, inside his scaly head, he was calling me stupid.

“Are you going to eat me?” I asked.

Suddenly, the dragon erupted into that weird growling that might’ve been a laugh. I jumped, again.

“Eat you?” He wheezed. “Eat you?! I suppose you buy into those silly bedtime stories as well as any other child, but I had expected more from a princess.”

Like a tidal wave, fear crashed over me. The dragon wasn’t going to eat me? Then what would he do? What awful torture did he have planned?

“How do I know you’re not lying?” I said, trying to sound brave again. But I could hear my own voice trembling.

The dragon snorted scornfully.

“A dragon’s word,” He said, “Is his most prized possession. And upon my word, I have not the slightest intention of eating you. Humans have a terrible aftertaste; I much prefer beef. In fact, it is not the tradition of dragons to eat people. Because of our size and flaming breath, we have been unjustly stereotyped as cruel beasts.”

“Then what are you going to do to me?” I asked, frightened tears blurring my vision.

“Don’t cry, now,” The dragon sighed, puffing out a cloud of smoke that made my eyes water even more. “I don’t plan to hurt you in the least.”

“Then wh-why did y-you k-k-kidnap me?” I sniffled.

“A dragon’s life is terribly dull,” Said he, lying down on his belly and crossing his front legs like a dog. His face was only two feet away from me. “People are afraid of us, and common animals are too stupid to converse with.”

“Don’t you talk with other dragons?”

“Frankly, we don’t get along,” He replied, twitching his tail. The firelight glowed in his red-and-gold scales, and I thought for a moment how beautiful he was, in spite of his knifelike teeth and frightful spikes.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

And I really meant it. I couldn’t imagine living without Nell or my parents or anybody to talk to. Just thinking about it gave me a hollow, lonely ache-the exact sort of ache I’d felt when Marina was telling Nell and me about her husband.

“’Tis a lonely lot,” The dragon said dramatically. “Stealing cattle is rather entertaining for a little while; it makes such a stir in the villages. It’s quite charming to watch those panicked little peasants run about like ants when their mound is stepped on.”

The dragon laughed his throaty laugh. I stopped feeling quite so sorry for him.

“That’s mean!” I said.

Shrugging, the dragon went on with his speech.

“Alas, the cattle game does grow tiresome. And something must be done with those noisy cows. I personally prefer the taste of venison and other wild game; it’s much fresher. Peasants only cry and tremble when one kidnaps them, and it’s not often anyone takes much trouble to get them back. It seems the only way to get a fair bit of attention is to borrow a princess.”

“So you’ve just taken me to…to entertain you?”

          “No, no, no,” The dragon yawned. I could see red-hot embers glowing in the back of his cavernous mouth. “In a matter of days, knights will be coming to challenge me. I’ll fight them off and-”

          “You mean you’ll kill them?!” I gasped.

          The dragon glared at me with his glowing yellow eyes.

          “Would you mind terribly if I finished a sentence? Most knights are blubbering cowards when it comes to dragons. They’ll run away after a few fire blasts and a little wing-beating, perhaps a tail slash or two. Most of them I never touch, you see. They all go limping back to the castle with pretend injuries, lying about how I wounded them in order to defend their ‘honor’. It’s rather fun, and frightening those arrogant knaves does break up the daily grind. When I get tired of it, I’ll pretend a knight has defeated me and let him carry you home.”

          “Oh,” I said, not sure of what else to answer.