An Old Soul's Secret Love Affair

FOR THE LONGEST time I've wanted a typewriter and I think I'm going to start looking for one. Also I started thinking about it and I think I was born in the wrong time era, or I just have an old soul. I don't know why but all the new age technology (though impressive and innovative and quite helpful) really doesn't impress me nor am I really that fond of it. I mean, obviously advances in technology via medical or safer cars or what have you, I appreciate to the upmost. What I'm talking about are the non-threatening sort of things that have been done away with. For instance, reading the paper, or even just a book. The news is read more now on the web more than in paper form (that is, if you're under the age of 65) and books, hundereds and hundreds of books can be stored on one little slab of bits and parts put together to form a slab of glass and metal. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fantastic that you can save space that way, but I don't know....there's just something so phenomenal, so enthralling, so...invigorating about holding the newspaper or a brand new book in your hands. The feel of the gritty paper between your fingers, the smudges of ink on your elbows from resting your arms on the paper, that stale heady smell of ink and paper and the inside of the truck that carried it, the smell of news and happenings, of letters colliding together to form thoughts and feelings. Ahh, there really is no substitute for a lovely afternoon basking in the sunlight of some little coffee shop, with a newspaper in your hands or a book, worn and battered from numerous reads. Which then leads me to my secret love affair with the typewriter. Although completely inconvenient in just about every sense of the word, that is one of the things that I miss dearly. There's so much satisfaction in the sound of letters being stamped into existence, and the boldness that comes from each word displaced from electrical impulse in your brain between your neurons, down through your spine, out towards your arms, trickling out through your fingers until out rushes so many thoughts you barely get it out before another rush of thoughts overtakes the first. With computers and anything really nowadays, you can write something, take it back, re-write it, delete it, save it, paste it, then change your mind again and delete it.  There's always a way out, you don't have to be sure of what you are going to say, neither do you have to fully mean it, and there is (not always, but lots of times) not a whole lot of format or serious thought into writings (sort of like this message.....IRONY). But with a typewriter, I don't know. I suppose I just picture the writer sitting there at the table, a cigar in an ashtray with the smoke creating this ethereal haze in the room, running his hands through his disheveled hair, standing up, sitting down, standing up, walking around, shirt wrinkled and half tucked, tie hung loosely around his neck, sitting down, setting his face with determination pounding out a few sentences...brooding over what he wrote and grueling over what he was to write next, fighting, struggling, listening, sorting, rearranging--bringing his thoughts to a boil, letting them simmer, and then a sly half-smile over takes his countenance as he finds the hidden trail in the path, the key to the secret room in the house--he finds the words that match with his whirlwind of thoughts and like a madman, he begins to pound the keys, hesitant at first, but upon hearing the resolve of each key as it strikes the page and leaves behind it's fingerprint, a fury is unleashed and like a fire he quickly consumes the page with his words before the flame is snuffed out. 

Ahh, yes. The mottled mess in my brain that creates such a distinct and clear image in my mind's eye...an old soul with a young face. 

Until next time....

-A Walking Contradiction

"Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile." -William Cullen Bryant

THIS IS WHY FALL IS MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR:

1) The principle of the "Beauty of death"--it reminds me of a sort of a beautifully poetic metaphor for a bittersweet end of a time in someone's life. It paints a lovely image of the life and death of relationships that people share. This may not make sense, but in my head it does so I shall do my best to relay these thoughts to you. The trees changing from green into different shades of yellow, brilliant shades of oranges and reds, almost always reminds me o fpeople that I have met in my lifetime, the friends that I've had for a long time or a short time, the random lives that have crossed mine, for but a moment it seemed, and then slipped away from me. Not due to any fault on either my or the other person's end, but purely beacuse that's just the way life works sometimes. The different paths you've crossed, the different people you've met has played a huge role in the person that you are today and there's a sort of feeling like, bittersweet. Life takes people down different avenues and different places and as much as it is bitter that some relationships you once had are no longer there, there is a hint of sweetness in the memories that you have and that you will carry with you until the end of your days. I feel like one carries with them a piece of everyone they've ever met within themsevles in who they are today. That's what I think of everytime I see the leaves changing colors--even in their death, they paint the world in a beautiful portrait of bittersweet endings. There is even poetry in the trees. OF COURSE now that I read back on everything I have written I feel sort of silly for having such thoughts on such a simple occurrence. Haha, I don't even know if what I wrote just now made any sense, but take from it what you will.
2) The air is soooo clean, so crisp. Mmm, I love it.
3) Layers. Lots and lots of layering. Sweaters and longs sleeves, jackets, scarves, beanies, hoodies and a general cozy comftiness.
4) Fires in the fireplace.
5) Coming in from outside and having a touch of pink on your cheeks and nose from the air.
6) The way the trees take their time in slowly shedding their coats for the winter. Lying underneath a tree with the sunshine on my face, feeling the cool breeze and hearing the chimes of leaves running into eachother and then watching them take their time floating here, then there, before finally settling on a place to land. I love
watching the leaves wave a sad farewell as they float through the air.
7) Apple cider and doughnuts, OF COURSE :)
8) The nostalgia that I inevitably feel each fall. I have a very nostalgic soul, always have and always will, and for some reason, fall especially makes me feel as such. Reflecting, pondering, musing, remembering.
9) Fall inspires me to write.
10) Sitting in coffee shops and reading a good book are especially lovely in the fall.
11) The general feeling of romance that can be felt in the brisk air on your skin and the warmth of the sun on your hair (haha, ironic that this statement comes from a long-time, natural-born cynic).
12) Feeling my inner child come out as I step and jump to step on the leaves on the sidewalk as I walk to class. There's something very satisfying in hearing the final words of the leaf as it crunches beneath your feet.

Fall is the most beautiful time of year--it holds so much depth and sort of reminds me of an old weary soul resting and basking the glow of his previously long-lived life, reminiscing on the summer adventures of his youth and the memories he made with the people that he crossed paths with, and that have long-since gone.  Fall is a beautifully nostalgic soul.

Until next time....

-A Walking Contradiction

An old "first" gets BOLD.

I have never done anything like this before...well, actually that's a lie. Let me rephrase: I have never done anything like this before, publicly. Truth is, I have been "blogging" since about the first time my tiny fist wrapped around a pen and my thoughts commenced in their first attempts to wrap around what I've come to call, LIFE.
Introverted by nature and by circumstance (my brother being 4 years my senior, the friend you never knew you had, and extroverted to the utmost), I have learned to mask this sometimes inconvenient truth about myself as life has gone on. All those nights growing up that I crept out of my bed and through the kitchen to talk with my mother about some issue or feeling that I was questioning, wondering, or even just looking to discuss with, I would find myself standing there alone, hidden in the darkness of the kitchen, with the faint light of the adjoining living room tempting my feet to tread further...However, rarely, I gave into that temptation. I would hear the typical loving motherly advice from mother to troubled angsty teenage son (my brother) and would stop short, sigh, and then sink back into the darkness back to my bed. I would then spend the hour or hours following lying in bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that I had placed on the ceiling, and ponder these emotions, feelings, thoughts until I slowly slipped into slumber. Little did I know that these twilight ponderings would soon shape my mind, and create the very foundation of my innermost being.
You could say that this was the beginnings of my understanding and application of the ancient Greek aphorism, "Know thyself."  This phrase, as it were, has many different meanings. From the information that I have gathered form my mini-research, my understanding is that the phrase "Know thyself," can be found in the Suda with adequate explanation.  The Suda (or Souda) is a massive 10th Century Byzantine "encyclopedia" of the ancient Mediteranean world with over 30,000 entries, many of which draw from ancient sources that have since been lost. The suda says that to "Know thyself," is a "proverb that is applied to those whose boasts exceeds what they are" and that " 'know thyself' is a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude (Cited from Wikipedia, don't judge me, you know you use Wikipedia whenever you research something)."
Without even knownig the history behind this phrase, it seemed as though I was already taking the steps to whence I should become the direct embodiment of the idea behind it. And so began my tumultuous journey from Ryan's little sister, to finally having him leave to go off to college when I was a freshman in highschool, to realizng that I have the means to take on my own personality, to withstanding highschool drama and the relationships (and heartaches) that would come along with that, to graduating highschool, to figuring out who it was that I wanted to be and what it was that I wanted to be about, to the shocking truth that life doesn't get easier with age and experience and that it still hurts when you get cut...and finally to the work in progress (forever in progress) that sits before this laptop, transferring these thoughts bottled up in this head, and allowing those thoughts to spill out before you, whoever you may be that is unfortunate enough to have stumbled upon these seemingly meaningless scruples.

Until next time....

-A Walking Contradiction