the words that come into my head are so hard to pin down. they are fleeting, leaving a bitter taste of the hunt. i can not remember sentences for long before i spin the words around like children with a yo-yo. reading comes quick and sharp and it is not something to be left for the moments when there is too much to do, because with the sharpness i find a satisfactory sort of emotion. mulling over my thoughts does not seem so vain and the words that usually elude me so well come seeking me out. they look for me, crowding into my head with their meanings and pronunciations. distressing the importance of archaeology, spanish, the art of cunning thieves, they have no other purpose but to give me solace. a sweet solitude from the ordinary days of this life that tend to carry my sanity away on a silver plate, saying to me, "you hold this dear, so we will treasure it, but you need to find this luxury in order to appreciate it." and that makes me imagine that i am not thankful for such a commonplace characteristic of being sane or right with the world. i live my boring, lazy days with a good book and a quiet chair. does this make me lose the portions of my sanity that stem from quality interaction with other humans? does my immense love for the confusion and still fragility of reading make me become a person that i will not recognize in later years? in times of curiosity, my ever faithful ability to forget words and drown in the wonderful mess of available sentences makes me pause before blurting an ill thought and foolish conjecture out to the world. i have so much in my head, so many thoughts and words and juxtapositions and essay topics, but they are not meant to be shared with anyone other than a beautiful novel, a wonderful work of soul poured on to the papyrus papers of older times. i am afraid that my mentality is only reflected by the words i say and not by the thoughts i think. bring me back, tolstoy. open my eyes, austen. tell what i've been missing in these moments of frantic frustration, flaubert. i find my own beauty in the books whose words make wince and feel as if i was not meant for their honest dialogues. i realize that i have so much more to share and that part of this schooling, this force-fed learning, is to break my fingers loose from my mind. writing well comes from my head, but my love and passion comes from my heart. (technically, it doesn't, but i am dramatic.) i think this is my one instance where my quick bursts of inspiration have not lead to a mess of rambling threaded with good ideas, but pathetically far away from a strong sense of idealistic confidence. the one time where i push my head far down and let my heart float up to win the right of telling my fingers what to do is the moment when i know exactly what to say. reading is the fire within me, i have figured out. after years and years of playing the turtle in the local variety of zoo animals, i am finally becoming the strong and confident marie antoinette i knew before i became a witch in my mother's eyes. before my father stopped being happy and before my sister stopped being a sister. i am a lioness, proud to hunt for what i know i need to survive and respected enough to take care of what i know needs help.
reading breaks me free, i do believe.