The Life that Turns Us

This week, I'm scared. I feel like I am scared most of the time these days, but today, I feel particularly nervous. I think I'd like to go to this program in Northern Ireland this summer for a playwriting program. Now, this isn't really what I want to be doing, (I think) but it sounds interesting, and like a great opportunity. And I need a writing sample. And I write here, so I think I want to do a writing sample for them on this blog. It would also be a link to other writing samples of mine. So I think it works. But it's nerve-racking. I even think I know what I would like to write, or at least where I'd like to get started. I have two ideas, and I think I might explore both of them.

The first is a script, cause that's how I do.

The second is a short story.

Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.

The Journey Homeward

So, I have something done for today. Really, I do. But I finished it today, and it's a drawing, so it's not online yet. And I do sincerely apologize.
I don't know what people expect when they come here, but I hope I have given the impression that nothing should be expected. I like to think of myself as a creator, through many mediums, some of which I have shown here in weeks past. (And even before the Tuesdays Project.)
I started writing because it fit with how I thought about things. Once I started to understand how it worked, and how I could use it, I started to use writing to figure my thoughts out. For me, thoughts are like strings, hanging in the air. When I write, I can pull those strings from the air and make a tapestry out of them. Then let them all go, and start again. Each time making a new picture, until I feel like I understand what's in my head.
Sometimes I write fiction because there are other people, and other stories in my head. Sometimes I use music because my thoughts need a certain direction, and I love drawing inspiration from other types of creative outlets. Sometimes, I draw because my thoughts don't have words right away. The words usually come in later, but sometimes I want more than words. This week's work is just like that. It started with an object, then lines, then it became a fuller picture, then words found their way into it, just as they always do.
So I hope I have left you all on the edge of your seats. The picture will be up as soon as I can manage it, and in the meantime, check out some of my other drawings, writings, musings and such.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any suggestions/requests/anything, leave me a comment!

Salt Stains on Snow Boots

I'm back at school now. And it's winter here. Like actual snow-on-the-ground winter. Which is cool cause it is not really winter in California. More like our rainy season... and it isn't even raining again until February. So it's nice. It's nice to have winter again.
It's nice to see all my friends again, especially because I haven't seen most of them in a while. It's nice to be going back to something familiar that has been home for me for the last three and a half years. Even when I've been away, it's a place I called home, and felt connected to. Something I knew I could always come back to.
Now that I'm back, it's not the way I left it. Which I expected.
But it doesn't feel the way I expected either. Which is... interesting.
I couldn't put my finger on it, but I've realized things were different. My classes will be different (I'm a senior now, and I will have senior classes, rather than the junior classes I left taking...), my living situation will be different, my job is different, the school is different, even my friends are different.
Not that I have different friends, but of course I do have new ones, it is that the people I have been close with have changed themselves. They've had months to change, more than a year really. I don't think anyone is a completely different person, we aren't in the part of our lives where we can change so drastically in such a (relatively) short period of time. It's like when aunts and uncles say you've grown so much, but you don't notice it because you see yourself everyday and it's not like you change overnight. I feel like the Aunt. There were little things that changed and shaped my friends over the time I was gone. And now that I'm back I see what they've added up to. They're all better people for it.
Just because my friends are different doesn't mean I love them any less. It's just different. The habits and rhythms we had when I left are gone, but the people I love are still here, and new things can be made; new habits, new rhythms, new traditions even.
The thing that throws me the most is that I am different too. In this case, I'm the kid. I bet my friends see that I've changed, maybe they haven't noticed how yet, but I think they see it. On the other hand, I don't.
Or didn't. Not until I start thinking about who I was when I left here for London more than a year ago.
Like how I wanted my life to be... I wanted to move to Los Angeles and write and make movies there. But now that I've done that a bit, I realized I want to write more than anything, but not there. I didn't know how much I loved London, and especially how it would hold a place in my heart, presumably forever. I didn't know how hard it would be to be away. And I really didn't know how easy it was to be gone. I know that sounds strange, but what I've noticed most about coming back is that this place doesn't feel like home anymore. I know it will always hold an incredible significance for me, but I've spent a large portion of being away worrying about what happens when I graduate, that I'll be leaving home and venturing into the unknown, the "not-home."
But now that I'm back and it doesn't feel like that, it gives me a little hope. Hope that I might not be venturing into the not-home, maybe I'm just searching for the next one.
And what I learned most about being away is that home is not one place, but anyplace.
Also that my friends love me no matter where I am.

Thanks for reading!

Check out next week - a drawing about going home, and finding home.

The Loveliest of Our Realities

It's a playlist piece. Not sure if that's a thing. But it is now.
(The playlist is at the bottom.)
Really, the music is optional, it's just what I was listening to when I was writing.

Getting Into You - Relient K
I like this song. I'm pretty sure they're a Christian band, but that doesn't really matter to me...
"Do you know what you're getting yourself into?"
"I'll love you with my life."
Definitely could be about Christ.
But I like to think of it just about love. Like how I think about religion, it's not about what god I believe in, it's about love. It's always about love.

Whippin Wind - Robinella
It's about tenderness. How we treat others and how we want to be treated. I know it sounds like a childish notion. But really. We all want to be loved. Deep in our hearts that's what all of us crave. It's no sign of weakness, it is our humanity. To deny that is to deny the fact we have bones, or flesh. We all want to be loved.
"One of them loses, one of them wins."
Yet sometimes we don't have the notion to treat others like that. Somehow in the cycle of who and how we are, hate seeps into love, and poisons it. Yet we think nothing of it. And if we do think of it, how hard to we try to right the wrongs?
"Singing songs of her happiness."

Black Mamba - The Academy Is...
"If you don't like it, you can take a long walk off of the shortest pier you can find."
I mean I do this, write, and want to be loved for it. I don't want to be adored, or famous, or well known really, but I don't want anyone to read what I write and hate it, or hate me by association. Not that everyone on the internet is reading these, but I'd like to think I share a piece of my soul when I write, either like this or in a story. It's personal. It's always personal.

Kiss Me - Ed Sheeran
"Kiss me like you want to be loved."
I know I sound like a little girly girl when I write this, but I do think that love is what makes our world what it is. We would not be anything without it and I don't know if enough people give it that much credit. And if I haven't been clear enough, I think it deserves it.
"I'm cold as the wind blows, so hold me in your arms."
I was watching a YouTube video today and she asked the question, would you want to know how a relationship ends just as it's beginning? I thought about it for a while and as I wrote this, I realized I knew my answer. I wouldn't want to know. More than likely it won't end well. And I never want that to stop me. I would rather be heartbroken than not give love freely and as much as I can. I would rather be too trusting and taken advantage of than not be open and expectant that the world is full of good people who want to do good things.
Society is filled with things that I don't really know if they make sense, and I'll get into that later, but I think the one thing that is so true and straightforward you cannot deny it, is love. Any kind of love. But I'll end with a quote I find inspiring, heart-warming and -breaking, and mostly honest. It has given me hope when I have not seen it on my own, and I hope to share it with many and more people to do the same.
"True Love will triumph in the end - which may or may not be true, but if it's a lie, it's the most beautiful lie we have." - John Green


Thanks for reading!

Comment with suggestions for future topics. I have a lot of year to cover.

Check out next week - my thoughts on going back to school.

Tears As Snowdrops

I'm a writer, and this is how I normally write.

It's a stand alone piece, enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

PS Leave me a comment if you have suggestions/requests for a future post. :)

Check out next week - Playlist Blog forming my thoughts on life and love. (One of many times, I'm sure)