The Spring Break Diaries

Okay, so yeah, I pretty much can't ever write on the correct day anymore. Please forgive me.

Anyway, this past week was spring break for me. Because Colorado was a little too far away, I stayed at my friend Kellie's house about 30 minutes from campus. It was restful.

Classes start again tomorrow at 8am, and since it's already way past midnight, I'm going to share one of my journal entries from spring break instead of actually writing a post. I've never journaled on the computer before, but Kellie got me started over break and it's been really good for me. Basically, I get to pretend that I'm some sort of cross between James Joyce, Donald Miller, and C.S. Lewis. It's fun.

Anyway, here's one of the entries. I hope you enjoy. I kind of ran out of steam near the end, which is why the ending is so abrupt, but it's the most presentable excerpt I can share as of yet. Anyyyyway... here goes.
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March 12, 2012

So I've been reading. Today, Kellie and I went for a drive (her dad apparently trusts me enough to let me behind the wheel of his Nissan 350Z) and we went to Barnes & Noble and a used book store downtown. I bought a book of blank staff paper at B&N and a paperback entitled Games of Thrones at the used book store.

I was planning to do some composing in the music book but I got distracted by the fantasy novel. I've only read the prologue and the first chapter, but I can tell already that's it's going to be a good book. The writing style is refreshing: precise, elegant, and not at all flowery. It's almost too sparse for my taste but it's probably about time I read something that's not overly dramatic.

I think Kellie is working on her novel. She's sitting on the other end of the couch, her graceful fingers poised over the keys of her laptop. They move in bursts, sometimes tapping out letters and sometimes reaching up to comb through her long, soft hair.

I wonder what she would think if she knew I was writing about her. She'd tell me I'm awesome, probably. She does that a lot. I think she called me a “tank” one time. Apparently, it's a compliment. I've never known her to insult anyone so it must be so.

The apartment is dark, and although the dishwasher is humming and gurgling away in the kitchen, it seems quiet without Koufax running around trying to eat everything he can reach.

(Kellie just yawned and said, “Yawns are even contagious from the fictional world into the real world. Dmitri just yawned and so did I!” I love Kellie.)

Anyway, I'm sitting here in the dark and I remembered an experience I want to write about– it's not much of a story, but it is a thing that happened. Here goes.

The other day, Trinity asked me to deliver an envelope to Montecito Covenant Church. It was late evening, my favorite time of day, and I was feeling wide-eyed and quiet, the way I sometimes do. How do I explain the quiet days? Does everyone have them? I don't know.

It was a quiet day inside me, nonetheless.

I held the envelope tight between my fingers and walked out into the evening air, grateful for the task. The day before, I had cried in a professor's office, hoping he could tell me what to do with my life. He couldn't– at least, not in the way I was hoping, but he did make the idea of a day's work seem somehow noble. This job was my duty as a Christian, and I would carry it out with joy and contentment and peace.

The light was gold. That's one of the things I love about evening –and always have– the light. There are times when it is just the right color– do you know what I mean? The color of a different time, an earlier time. Childhood, perhaps, or earlier. The days of late summer come to mind; a plastic yellow measuring cup, tipping brown water into the gutter, translucent with sunlight; tiny blue shards of glass, strewn across the driveway like forgotten jewels; the strikingly bitter white taste of dandelion milk beneath fingernails.

I wonder what name I gave this feeling before I knew what nostalgia meant. When the light poured down as if from a window to another place, what did I call that place? Not the past– back then, there was no past. Then again, perhaps I have always looked backwards for answers.

Anyway, the light. It was full of memory.

If life is something we spend then green is the color of wealth. There are better ways to say that, but I can't think of any. Green is a rich color. Not rich like gold; rich like soil. Rich like life.

Green arched over me. At night, that path is so dark you feel like there's something weighing on your eyes, but in daylight it's a living, whispering green tunnel. It's almost like a jungle.

As I walked and thought about the jungle-y-ness of my surroundings, I looked down. I was struck by what I found there: a thousand imaginary kingdoms, a thousand countries, jungles, forests, gardens full of exotic fruit and flowers, tiny paths trodden by tiny heroes, villains, and mischievous elves.

Had they always been there? I realized they had. But it's been years since I've seen them. Maybe I grew too tall. 

I'm tired of writing. The light is gone. Maybe one day I'll be able to light it like a candle flame, keep it lit behind my eyes, blow it into life whenever I want it. But not today.

Goodnight. 

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DFTBA,

Emily