And held fast to my own soul as best I could

I grew up out of that strange, dreamy childhood of mine and went into the world of reality. I met with experiences that bruised my spirit – but they never harmed my ideal world. That was always mine to retreat into at will. I learned that world and the real world clashed hopelessly and irreconcilably; and I learned to keep them apart so that the former might remain for me unspoiled. I learned to meet other people on their own ground since there seemed to be no meeting place on mine. I learned to hide the thoughts and dreams and fancies that had no place in the strife and clash of the market place. I found that it was useless to look for kindred souls in the multitude; one might stumble on such here and there, but as a rule it seemed to me that the majority of people lived for the things of time and sense alone, and could not understand my other life. So I piped and danced to other people’s piping – and held fast to my own soul as best I could.”
— L.M. Montgomery (My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. Macmillan from L.M. Montgomery)

Have you ever felt as if you were a solitary soul just wandering aimlessly in the world, searching hopelessly for something that you can cling onto? Have you ever felt as if you were the only one of your kind, finding conversation difficult and pointless because no one could relate to your depth of thought? Well my friends, I have been searching for a kindred spirit, and I found her. Miss Lucy Maud Montgomery and I share the same stardust of a composition.

My childhood was lonely, harsh even, so I invented a world to which I could retreat when reality seemed a bit to unpleasant. Have you ever looked up at the stars and became enthused, knowing that the light was from a different time, when things were better? Like your very own time machine? Well, that is how this world came to me, except that time was only a pleasant fiction. I kept it hidden, so that reality in all its damaging sense, could not spoil it.

I learned to write from it. I became composed of nothing but ideas, thoughts, images of sweet nothings, lyrics of meaning. The more I dreamt, the further I grew away from every one else.

I was told that being separated from the human form was just as damaging as it was to be close to it. But despite all of my somewhat successful attempts at conversation, relation, and support, I found it difficult for myself to be elated in return by them. I only seemed to be a kind of table, an old wooden table that one usually tosses their useless garbage onto. They needed me. But in all relational sense, I did not need them.

The majority of people live for the services of our time. They try so desperately to satisfy the flesh of their dusty bodies. Money. Sensuality. Authority. Timelessness. Nowhere in that ‘classy’ world to I fit. So I just saddle alongside the invisible barrier that separates them from me, and pretend to blend in its chaos. As this spinning cycle of a world worsens, I will hold fast to my own soul as best as I can.

How do you spell love?

I thought I would inspire you with some of my favorite quotes from Winnie the Pooh himself. Today has been one of those dreary, tiresome, lonely days; there is nothing like a spark of genius to rekindle the fire in your heart. Enjoy.

Into a better shape

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

I have a rootless plant sitting atop my computer desk, and I noticed this morning that I have negelected to water it yet again. The leaves are wrinkled and withered and curled, gravity pushing the last life of them into the pit of the basket. So I poured the remaining gulp (literally meaning gulp) from my water bottle into the dried and cracking soil, and within hours, the leaves unfolded and rose as if the sun was pulling them by a rope. There is something peculiar yet special about this plant: it seems to willingly repeat the pains of death and rebirth. I can never kill it away, even if it was my sole intention.
This idea of rebirth reminded me of this passage from “Great Expectations”. I love the imagery of being literally bent, not easily like paper or clay, but painfully like plastic or metal. Because, let’s face it, we as humans are not bent easily by experience. It takes pressure after painful pressure to bend us into a worthily intended shape. I believe that we can be broken, crunched like glass underneath the heavy foot of reality. And I know that we are not easily mended. But like the cycle of my weird but beautiful desktop plant, we can be reborn. By a mere splash of hope, we can rise from our surrender.