Weekly Creative Writing #8

        A cluster of associations, degrees of familiarization, and collections of differences lay scattered throughout this world, as either beacons of light or tombs of darkness.  Knots of illumined galaxies find comfort together, in a magnificently tenebrous universe.   Botanical creatures conglomerate towards their source of life, health, and beauty - towards the light, or towards the darkness.   

        How are we, as humans, any different?  We concentrate ourselves in various poleis - city-states, metropolises, capitals, kingdoms.   Whether by our will or through influence of it, we ask to share something in common with those radically different from us.   

        Architecture soars high into the lowest part of empyrean to stand as markings of our desire to be together.  Populations filter in and out of these steadfast buildings, as the durable material remains uniform as always. Its very presence creates a gravity which rivetingly draws the human nature. 

        But, without us, the stone is an empty ruin - a useless, lifeless, and colorless landscape of empty mortal ambition.  We bring the stone to life, but almost require its presence to activate participation and communion.  And thus, a city stands as the product of man’s natural desire to be loved - to feel, and be felt in return.    The buildings are built for the purpose of inhabitance.  Inhabitance occurs because of the buildings.  Both have served each other equally through centuries.   A puzzle is only completed when its individual, unique, and unrepeatable parts are placed together.  Those parts are made for no other purpose but to be together.  Thus, their purpose and the purpose of the puzzle is complete when they are together.  Perhaps humans are similar - we are quite unrepeatable, but amidst our lovely individuality, the only way part of our purpose is completed is to utilize our unrepeatable nature, to become something united and synonymous.  Quite like a city.  But, we must ask ourselves... Will we be the radiant galaxy in the tenebrous universe, or the bats who cluster toward the innermost darkness of the cave?  Which form of communion shall our cities take?

This city is what it is because our citizens are what they are - Plato

Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King - Psalm 48:2

For the amazing counterpart to this weekly writing project visit: http://thebeatlesandblackcoffee.blogspot.com

Weekly Creative Writing #7

I am inconsequential. Just standing here, in a crowd of a thousand or more people.  It is just me.  Me and this airport.  For the first time, it is only me and the world.  No other barriers or protections. They say this is one of the busiest airports in US.  I believe that, wholeheartedly.  The previous flight has left me thoroughly exhausted, but I still need to navigate my way through this maze of people, to the parking lot, which holds a car and father who will take me back to familiarity.  But, I don’t move.  I just stand here, watching these people pass.   Not only is this airport foreign to me, but so are the thousands of shapes that walk speedily past me and my small suitcase.  How odd it would seem if all of us here stopped and observed each other.  We might just learn something, I suppose.  Maybe about each other. About ourselves.  Maybe if the whole world did that for a few measly seconds, we might not have quite as much strife.  Or maybe it would destroy the world, to look beyond itself for a single moment in time.  Yet, I certainly know something I never knew before.  I am a small soul - one of millions that walk this lovely earth.  I have the rare privilege of seeing so many faces congregated together, so many destinies passing each second, so many stories in all their eyes.   It is so different from any other place - this airport, that is.  No city, town, or community can really compare.  And in many ways, I hope they never do compare to this.  It is so very saddening to see so much human potential fade with a pressed schedule, a late flight, or rushing home.  Such speed.  And, they miss so much.  I’m comforted, though, to see modest glimpses of joy found in this speedy, ambitious current of people.  Next to me stands an officer about to leave for duty again - he smiles happily at everyone passing, although many will never think twice about the sacrifices he is making for their own happiness.  The janitor or little gentleman does a kind deed for humanity, which for a while, stabilizes this chaos.  The world is so magnificently big and all its grandeur culminates in this place to travel, yet simultaneously, it is the smaller than anything I’ve experienced. 

For my absolutely brilliant friend's counterpart to this concurrent themed creative writing project, visit: http://thebeatlesandblackcoffee.blogspot.com

Exams Are Complete!

I am thoroughly glad to announce that exams are done in the Smith residence!   Καλή δουλειά to those who have finished, and καλή τύχη, να παραμείνουν ισχυρά! to those with an exam or two left. =)   Regular posts and Weekly Creative Writings will be up and running again soon!

Weekly Creative Writing #6

       
       The radiance of a fiery dawn felt its way through the clouds and it scattered itself across the dew-studded field, which was thoroughly unadulterated except for an old cypress tree.  Underneath that solitary tree was a modest grave - newly filled and wet from the last night’s rain.   The headstone was imprinted with the name of Levi Merrill, a soldier only twenty-eight years old, married, a father, and dead - in the company of a mourning cypress which had been planted there only ten years before, by two loving sets of hands.   Gentle sobs came from a young woman sitting at the foot of the fresh grave, holding her small child tightly to her bosom.   Her hair was dappled with water - she had lingered by this stone since the darkest hours of morning.  Tugging at her mother’s damp red dress, the baby asked to be put down.  Hesitantly, she placed her down, whispering a soft command mixed with the name of Iris.  She handed the baby some white rose buds she had found along the trail to this place of joyful memory, yet painful circumstance.   Black roses were scattered around the gravesite by mourners, so that the white, girlish rosebuds yielded a hopeful contrast to the deathly appearance of black.  According to childish whims, the baby crawled happily away towards a field full of dancing grasshoppers, but the mother stayed facing the grave.  Reaching into her small sack, she pulled out a dried red rose from last year’s deployment and placed it on the grave. 

        Black, white and red.  Black, the color of despair.  Red, the color of desire.  And white, the color of childlike innocence.  His life had ended.  And with that vanished the ghosts of two sweethearts dancing around innocently on the dew-studded grass and the echoes of their sweet, care-free laughing as if eternity was theirs, whispering across the green - all that must now end, and find its rightful place in her memory.  Yet, the life of the baby beside her was just beginning - rising brilliantly out of the dark of ages past, out of the black roses - a white, innocent light.  

       Light... A fiery dawn like no other had come upon her soul when they met - red like the color of desire, and crimson like the blood he spilt fighting.  And yet, as the light had set in the West with his cold body, it rose once more in the East with the light, and warmth of a baby girl - a world about to dawn, and the night that ends at last.

For the fantastic counterpart of this weekly themed writing project:  http://thebeatlesandblackcoffee.blogspot.com

Never Stop Learning

Ah, I have neglected this site for a while.. needless to say, hopes are that such neglect will not occur again. =)

Anyhow. School begins again on Monday!  I’m sure we are all having a lovely time adapting to that cruel thought.  Although I adore the smell of books and the satisfaction of academic achievement, every corner of my mind and soul is currently resisting the reality of school beginning again.

All the same, the picture below still holds true.  Never stop learning.

Breaks are truly blessings.  They allow us to breathe and rest - enjoying life with one less responsibility.  However, we should not forsake the virtue of learning amidst our lax time.  

Why do you think so many people grow old, calloused or miserly upon leaving systems of education?   It is simply because they categorize the art of learning as a period of time in their life they must endure, or complete for a “higher” goal.  They turn their brains off - allowing life to become mere habit.  Slowly, they grow unaware, then their minds blurred, and lastly blind to the beauty of learning.  Our ability to learn, rationalize, and love with both our hearts and minds is what puts us apart from the rest of creation - it is God’s image reflecting within us.  Learning should not be likened to merely dry history books, SAT/ACT prep, or dreary Algebra lessons... all that passes in time and is, by nature, exhaustible.  

But, learning - true learning - is to see the world around us and never cease to be amazed. 

It is the ability to say little, but think deeply.  

It is to love wisely. 

It is the child who asks too many questions. 

It is the echoes in the hallways of churches, long after services are over as the priests and laymen discuss the heavenly realm. 

It is the mother teaching her daughter to bake.

It is the tears of a tried and broken heart. 

It is the madness for an answer, yet the acceptance of mystery. 

...and it is the adventure that will never be completed.

Never stop learning, my friends.  When you rest, don’t rest.  Even when your mouth is shut and your hands inactive - keep your mind and heart forever open and alert.  Never allow yourselves to fall unaware of what you are given. 

Weekly Creative Writing #5

I remember the days when this ten year-old sister of mine was once a babe and naive to the world, yet she would still smile and giggle every waking minute of the day.   Back in the day... when our business failed and we struggled for years, when every other night ended in tears, when hopeless feeling echoed in the caverns of my heart, when the world was vast and dangerous to my young eyes.   Yet she always smiled.  She never stopped laughing, and, in many ways, we attribute the reason for our sanity during those days to her and her laughter.  All those days I sat by her infant rocker and fed her mushed up peas and fruits... oh, she would laugh at me - innocently mocking my desperate attempts to feed her.  The corners of her mouth were eternally secured to opposite sides of her face, as she giggled and managed to get a colorful, fruity-flavored and scented mess on my face. Constantly grinning like a cheshire cat and I, being only six years-old, honestly thought her face must hurt terribly from such lively exertion.   Her laugh reverberates in my memories the same way it once effortlessly and gleefully echoed through our home and charmed all who heard it.   Such jubilance amidst struggle.  

I put the old pictures back into my drawer and close my eyes for a moment.  That’s what I hope to never end and remain enduring - that which my sister made us remember.  Laughter.   Non-contained, mirthful, pealing laughter filling the halls of my future.  Filling my mind are images of what could possibly be.  I see myself in college, laughing with classmates and age-old friends over some conversation.   Then marriage - I can smell the perfume, flowers, and taste pastries made by my adopted Greek yayas who filled every buttery, calorie-packed pastry with hours of laughter.  I can feel my future children running in from the outdoors, laughing their hearts out, grabbing my neck and kissing my cheek.   And, in my old age, I can hear laughter frolicking with my grandchildren and daintily embellishing the conversations with my, then, timeworn friends and husband.   And my musing is interrupted by my family downstairs - amused at some reality.  The sound of their laughter mirroring my current thoughts.. 

For the superb counterpart of this themed concurrent writing project:  http://thebeatlesandblackcoffee.blogspot.com

Weekly Creative Writing #4

        I need to get out.  This room gets smaller by the hour.  Bullets hurdle above me and their torturous sound fills every empty space within me.  Raging and thrashing like the sea, blood surges through my veins and my breath quickens. Oh, to breathe.  How did William live with this torture during the war?  That’s right, he didn’t live.  Neither will I - not as long as the bullets and legions assail me in this tiny cottage.  The bullets. They’ve stopped again.  Stopped sporadically like they have all day as I sit here curled up by the coat rack for protection.   What babies the enemy troops are!  Thinking they can bring me out of his home.   My stomach groans.  Of course, I haven’t eaten in days, but why should I expose myself to these treacherous murderers?  My mouth is dry and the pain in my abdomen is becoming too much to bear.  And the bullets. They’re gone, yet the violent pounding still echoes in my mind.  Oh, food.  Maybe it’s worth dying, to get some nourishment.  At least I would be freed of the imprisoning echoes those bullets have created.  That waiting, devilish army can’t see I’m scared, though.  I must control my breath as I pass that open window in the kitchen.  William would want me to be smart about this.   In his letters, he mentioned tribal drums and how they echoed within his mind to temper his breath.   I attempt that, but nothing stops the echoes of bullets.  Still, I start dragging myself to the kitchen.   I freeze.  The world will collapse if I drag myself another foot.  I’m shaking violently.  One more meter and this world will collapse on itself.  The wood is so frail and paper thin - so close to snapping beneath my starved body.  “Never look down, Abigail, you won’t get anywhere.” William used to say.  So I look forward.  But, it’s so far away - that kitchen.  Miles away and continually fading!  The feeble floor following it and continuing into infinity.  But, I won’t look down.  I won’t disappoint Will.  I reach the pinnacle of my senses.  I stand - both feet are shakily on the brittle floor.  And it starts to crack and I feel myself falling.  I scream, but all that comes from my mouth is the sound of bullets.  I fall into a pit and it consumes me.

        The blackness that once surrounded me fades into an antique farmhouse.  The sound of the bullets... Oh, wait, the sound of the rain dances on the tin roof and I can smell its musky perfume through the open window by the kitchen.  I stand up, running my fingers through my hair.  It is wet.  A pang of hunger stabs me as I stumble across the room to the fireplace for support.  Post-war magazine articles are scattered throughout the room. William’s picture is on the mantle, beside what remains of his bullet-ridden uniform. 

 I’m so sorry Will...I’m trying so hard to bring you back...

For the brilliant counterpart of this weekly themed writing project:  http://thebeatlesandblackcoffee.blogspot.com/