La, la, la
Jun. 18th, 2002 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhJeez, when was the last time I posted in this? See, I'm deficient in writing journal entries even when it's not physically possible to be simpler.
Anyways. Here's a link to the
Love Stories
All the really great love stories are tragedies. Romeo and Juliet, Arthur and Guinevere, Anthony and Cleopatra, Echo and Narcissus... they all end in tears. And blood, often enough. As much as we want to pretend otherwise, as many teddy bears and candy hearts and flowers as we buy, we can never quite forget those stories of passion. They stick in your mind and never leave, they become the mythology of our culture.
Do you even remember the name of the last "romantic comedy" you saw? But I bet you can recite Juliet's balcony speech. In our hearts, these stories are what we really want, what we want to be- epic. We want our love to be predicated in the stars, to bring cities to ruin and to launch a thousand ships. We want to be a story for the ages, to be in songs and fairytales. We want to be better than any before, more powerful, more beautiful, more complete. And love like that never ends well.
Let me tell you a story. It's a story about love, if you hadn't guessed that already. It's about other things, too - life, youth, happiness, hell, there's probably even in moral in here somewhere - but in the end, it's all about love. And it doesn't have a happy ending.
Instead of Italy or Egypt, it takes place in a high school. He is a football player, the star quarterback of the team. Picture it now: a cool autumn night, stadium lights so bright that they bring day back to the field. The team bursts from the locker room and the roar of the crowd rises like a tidal wave as He runs out ahead, harvest moon reflected for one second off His helmet. And there She is, on the sidelines, surrounded by others wearing the exact same outfit. They are cheerleaders, and they dance, spinning and twirling and jumping in such perfect synchronicity that they seem like living mirrors. When they toss her above their heads, she flips, higher than humanly possible, high enough to touch they stars.
The perfect couple. They've been reincarnated a thousand thousand times, they're in every high school, every workplace. You know them. You either were them, wanted to be them, or hated them.
This story isn't an epic. It doesn't end in a happy home with 2.5 children and it doesn't end in suicides and poison and daggers. The characters may be archetypes, but the story itself is just too plain. It's got
everything it needs, though. Birth, death and some life in between.
The birth was on Homecoming Night. The birth of a new school year, the last of high school for both Her and Him, and the birth of a relationship. They knew each other, of course- the school wasn't that big- but it wasn't until they were voted Homecoming King and Queen that they really met.
They appeared in the yearbook as 'Cutest Couple' not long after, and it wasn't uncommon for Her locker to be decorated with balloons or for Him to have still-warm cookies at lunch.
They were cute. They were every freshman girl's fantasy.
But they were real also. Beneath the roses and chocolate, they had love, and passion, and genuine care. Their lives were full of those moments when the wind blows and the trees throw up their hands, showing the silvery underside and you realize that you're alive, really alive, and there is nothing better than that.
They were young. To be young is to be reckless and daring, but it is also to be filled with a magical realization of life, of its wonderfulness. To be young is to know that you are capable of anything you can imagine.
I've been told that those moments become rare as one grows older, as if along with playfulness and uncertainty and wild oats, we start to lose our connection to life, that feeling of immortality. Paying pound for pound, ounce for ounce, we buy our gray hair and maturity and wisdom.
And so it happened. Although their love had been real and true, college separated them. And though they'd once promised each other the stars, no fancy words could disguise the fact that every month the long distance bill was a little smaller. The love died, and they both knew it, but nothing could change it. Sex and marriage and interest and want can be faked, but when love dies, it leaves a hole that even other people can feel. Most people go on without it. They tried. The weekly phone calls had long since been more of a duty than a pleasure, but He still arrived back in town in time to surprise Her on Her birthday. How could He have known that She would be with another boy?
There was a fight, of sorts. Oh, there was enough screaming and tears and accusations to convince anyone watching of great betrayals. That is what is done when a life together ends. Even when the fight was about closure more than anger, they both knew enough of love to know that there should be a fight. They tried to make a passion to rival that with which they'd started, a hate great enough to pay tribute to their once-love. But they were empty, apathetic, which is the true opposite of love, and it all ended in hollow goodbyes.
And that is the death of the story. It's a small thing, but, in the end, everything is small. Life is in the details. All you can do is tell your story with style, and, if you're lucky, great themes and meanings will follow.
The heroine of this story- which is a strange word, if you think about it. Take away the 'e' and it becomes one of the most addictive drugs on the planet. Makes the heart beat fast and the breath come short and the eyes go wide. It draws you in, always wanting more. White powder looking just like crushed candy hearts.
Our heroine had gotten a taste of passion and power and joy. She'd felt like She could fly, like She'd been lifted up where She belonged. So She went back, looking for more.
It wasn't long before She found Her heart's desire, a dose strong enough to last the rest of Her life, strong enough to scare Her straight into marriage. Welcome to remission, to rehab, welcome back to the real world. Her wedding was a big church affair, white dress and three-tier cake. And no one, not even Her, noticed that the groom's eyes were the exact same shade of chocolate brown as the eyes of the boy who'd been Her high school's team's quarterback.
Their story isn't epic. It isn't even tragic, really. Most real stories aren't. Life just doesn't work that way. We don't have much of a plot, most of our characters are pretty boring, and we spend more time on pointless side trips than on getting on with the story. Things don't fit together as nicely and as neatly as in a story. Most of the time, it doesn't even have a clear beginning or ending. You don't start when you're born or end when you die; your parents' influence begins long before that and your own influence goes on long after you die. But your actual story, the parts that are interesting, don't take up all the years in between. So what's a writer to do?
Tell only some of the truth. Or make up anything you want. People will rarely notice or care, as long
as you entertain them. We spend so much time looking for the love of stories- perfect or destined to fail-
that we don't notice it when it appears in our own lives. Because love can be great and powerful, or small
and almost unnoticed, or passionate or quiet or wild or simple or complicated, but it will never be exactly like it was in your favorite story. And so we miss it, or let it die, or never let it be born. And that is the real tragedy of love stories.
I was complaining about writing. Meh. It's not perfect, and could have used a little more fine-tuning if it hadn't been due, but I think my writing style's really improved in the last couple years. I like this. It could be better, but I still like it.
Let's see. What else have I been planning to post about? Oh, the quilt I made is finished. I think I'll load a picture of it later. It's very, very far from perfect- one side is smaller than the other- but I was getting so sick of sewing that I just couldn't do it anymore. I like it though. I mean, it's not very pretty, but it's not falling apart, and I plan to use it for my dorm room. Cuz 1. I'm always cold, so more blankets=good, and 2. I think it would be neat to tell people I made it myself, with no help, from scratch.
For the second project I have to make, I'm working on a pair of paper-mache statues, an angel and a devil. I'll probably finish those tomorrow or the day after. They're alot simpler than the quilt. I wish it had only taken a week. The paper-mache's not as fun as I remember, it's hard to deal with and gets all over the place, plus the warnings on the box are really scary, so I'm kinda worried about getting cancer, but I think painting them will be fun. The body of the angel's already done, and I can start the base coat on it tomorrow, but the devil's still missing a head and feet and hands and it looks kinda lopsided, so I'll have to work on it. 'Sokay.
Hmmm. I tried to tan today, but I'm apparently destined to be pale forever, cuz even after an hour in our way-hot sun, I still had no tan, no burn, no brown, no pink. And I was wearing *no* sunblock. Sigh. I used to tan when I was little. I suppose I shouldn't want to be tan, since my aunt just had surgery for skin cancer, but I don't want to burn. I don't even want to be very dark. I just want to stop looking like a vampire fanatic.
Well, it's a long enough entry already, so I think I'm done.
Anyways. Here's a link to the
Love Stories
All the really great love stories are tragedies. Romeo and Juliet, Arthur and Guinevere, Anthony and Cleopatra, Echo and Narcissus... they all end in tears. And blood, often enough. As much as we want to pretend otherwise, as many teddy bears and candy hearts and flowers as we buy, we can never quite forget those stories of passion. They stick in your mind and never leave, they become the mythology of our culture.
Do you even remember the name of the last "romantic comedy" you saw? But I bet you can recite Juliet's balcony speech. In our hearts, these stories are what we really want, what we want to be- epic. We want our love to be predicated in the stars, to bring cities to ruin and to launch a thousand ships. We want to be a story for the ages, to be in songs and fairytales. We want to be better than any before, more powerful, more beautiful, more complete. And love like that never ends well.
Let me tell you a story. It's a story about love, if you hadn't guessed that already. It's about other things, too - life, youth, happiness, hell, there's probably even in moral in here somewhere - but in the end, it's all about love. And it doesn't have a happy ending.
Instead of Italy or Egypt, it takes place in a high school. He is a football player, the star quarterback of the team. Picture it now: a cool autumn night, stadium lights so bright that they bring day back to the field. The team bursts from the locker room and the roar of the crowd rises like a tidal wave as He runs out ahead, harvest moon reflected for one second off His helmet. And there She is, on the sidelines, surrounded by others wearing the exact same outfit. They are cheerleaders, and they dance, spinning and twirling and jumping in such perfect synchronicity that they seem like living mirrors. When they toss her above their heads, she flips, higher than humanly possible, high enough to touch they stars.
The perfect couple. They've been reincarnated a thousand thousand times, they're in every high school, every workplace. You know them. You either were them, wanted to be them, or hated them.
This story isn't an epic. It doesn't end in a happy home with 2.5 children and it doesn't end in suicides and poison and daggers. The characters may be archetypes, but the story itself is just too plain. It's got
everything it needs, though. Birth, death and some life in between.
The birth was on Homecoming Night. The birth of a new school year, the last of high school for both Her and Him, and the birth of a relationship. They knew each other, of course- the school wasn't that big- but it wasn't until they were voted Homecoming King and Queen that they really met.
They appeared in the yearbook as 'Cutest Couple' not long after, and it wasn't uncommon for Her locker to be decorated with balloons or for Him to have still-warm cookies at lunch.
They were cute. They were every freshman girl's fantasy.
But they were real also. Beneath the roses and chocolate, they had love, and passion, and genuine care. Their lives were full of those moments when the wind blows and the trees throw up their hands, showing the silvery underside and you realize that you're alive, really alive, and there is nothing better than that.
They were young. To be young is to be reckless and daring, but it is also to be filled with a magical realization of life, of its wonderfulness. To be young is to know that you are capable of anything you can imagine.
I've been told that those moments become rare as one grows older, as if along with playfulness and uncertainty and wild oats, we start to lose our connection to life, that feeling of immortality. Paying pound for pound, ounce for ounce, we buy our gray hair and maturity and wisdom.
And so it happened. Although their love had been real and true, college separated them. And though they'd once promised each other the stars, no fancy words could disguise the fact that every month the long distance bill was a little smaller. The love died, and they both knew it, but nothing could change it. Sex and marriage and interest and want can be faked, but when love dies, it leaves a hole that even other people can feel. Most people go on without it. They tried. The weekly phone calls had long since been more of a duty than a pleasure, but He still arrived back in town in time to surprise Her on Her birthday. How could He have known that She would be with another boy?
There was a fight, of sorts. Oh, there was enough screaming and tears and accusations to convince anyone watching of great betrayals. That is what is done when a life together ends. Even when the fight was about closure more than anger, they both knew enough of love to know that there should be a fight. They tried to make a passion to rival that with which they'd started, a hate great enough to pay tribute to their once-love. But they were empty, apathetic, which is the true opposite of love, and it all ended in hollow goodbyes.
And that is the death of the story. It's a small thing, but, in the end, everything is small. Life is in the details. All you can do is tell your story with style, and, if you're lucky, great themes and meanings will follow.
The heroine of this story- which is a strange word, if you think about it. Take away the 'e' and it becomes one of the most addictive drugs on the planet. Makes the heart beat fast and the breath come short and the eyes go wide. It draws you in, always wanting more. White powder looking just like crushed candy hearts.
Our heroine had gotten a taste of passion and power and joy. She'd felt like She could fly, like She'd been lifted up where She belonged. So She went back, looking for more.
It wasn't long before She found Her heart's desire, a dose strong enough to last the rest of Her life, strong enough to scare Her straight into marriage. Welcome to remission, to rehab, welcome back to the real world. Her wedding was a big church affair, white dress and three-tier cake. And no one, not even Her, noticed that the groom's eyes were the exact same shade of chocolate brown as the eyes of the boy who'd been Her high school's team's quarterback.
Their story isn't epic. It isn't even tragic, really. Most real stories aren't. Life just doesn't work that way. We don't have much of a plot, most of our characters are pretty boring, and we spend more time on pointless side trips than on getting on with the story. Things don't fit together as nicely and as neatly as in a story. Most of the time, it doesn't even have a clear beginning or ending. You don't start when you're born or end when you die; your parents' influence begins long before that and your own influence goes on long after you die. But your actual story, the parts that are interesting, don't take up all the years in between. So what's a writer to do?
Tell only some of the truth. Or make up anything you want. People will rarely notice or care, as long
as you entertain them. We spend so much time looking for the love of stories- perfect or destined to fail-
that we don't notice it when it appears in our own lives. Because love can be great and powerful, or small
and almost unnoticed, or passionate or quiet or wild or simple or complicated, but it will never be exactly like it was in your favorite story. And so we miss it, or let it die, or never let it be born. And that is the real tragedy of love stories.
I was complaining about writing. Meh. It's not perfect, and could have used a little more fine-tuning if it hadn't been due, but I think my writing style's really improved in the last couple years. I like this. It could be better, but I still like it.
Let's see. What else have I been planning to post about? Oh, the quilt I made is finished. I think I'll load a picture of it later. It's very, very far from perfect- one side is smaller than the other- but I was getting so sick of sewing that I just couldn't do it anymore. I like it though. I mean, it's not very pretty, but it's not falling apart, and I plan to use it for my dorm room. Cuz 1. I'm always cold, so more blankets=good, and 2. I think it would be neat to tell people I made it myself, with no help, from scratch.
For the second project I have to make, I'm working on a pair of paper-mache statues, an angel and a devil. I'll probably finish those tomorrow or the day after. They're alot simpler than the quilt. I wish it had only taken a week. The paper-mache's not as fun as I remember, it's hard to deal with and gets all over the place, plus the warnings on the box are really scary, so I'm kinda worried about getting cancer, but I think painting them will be fun. The body of the angel's already done, and I can start the base coat on it tomorrow, but the devil's still missing a head and feet and hands and it looks kinda lopsided, so I'll have to work on it. 'Sokay.
Hmmm. I tried to tan today, but I'm apparently destined to be pale forever, cuz even after an hour in our way-hot sun, I still had no tan, no burn, no brown, no pink. And I was wearing *no* sunblock. Sigh. I used to tan when I was little. I suppose I shouldn't want to be tan, since my aunt just had surgery for skin cancer, but I don't want to burn. I don't even want to be very dark. I just want to stop looking like a vampire fanatic.
Well, it's a long enough entry already, so I think I'm done.
