Oranges, fire
Halfway - a very long way - through Atlas Shrugged, I found myself wanting to take a break from the hard business world of Ayn Rand. I wanted to feel, which is something that the protagonists of the book rarely allow themselves to do.
So I picked up Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which Jeanette Winterson wrote when she was 24. That's what I was last year and I didn't manage to write an award-winning novel. But Winterson is rare, and I found myself thinking today that I hope she doesn't die soon.
If she dies, where will I find work like hers? It will take more discipline than I have to stop myself from reading all her books. If I've read them all, what will I look forward to? Rereading, I guess. But there is nothing like discovering a book for the first time.
May she live a long, prolific life so I will have many more of those first times.
I finished reading it in 24 hours, eating and napping in between. Having read her later works, I can see that in Oranges she is still unpolished, relatively new to her craft. But she already found her voice, and I wonder how long and hard I have to work to find mine.
- - -
The fire at Pisay is still at the back of my mind. Looking at the pictures, it was already different from what I remember. Is that why I'm hesitant to go back, why I've never attended one of those homecoming events? When things change in the places I love, the places where I was most happy, it just reminds me of how much time has passed and how that place was never what I remember it to be, except for me. I know some people who don't romanticize high school the way that I do, but seeing as how I spent more time living rather than studying, it's understandable why I feel that way.
This is what the fire tells me: I lived there and I have to commit it to memory. The place itself may crumble.
So I picked up Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which Jeanette Winterson wrote when she was 24. That's what I was last year and I didn't manage to write an award-winning novel. But Winterson is rare, and I found myself thinking today that I hope she doesn't die soon.
If she dies, where will I find work like hers? It will take more discipline than I have to stop myself from reading all her books. If I've read them all, what will I look forward to? Rereading, I guess. But there is nothing like discovering a book for the first time.
May she live a long, prolific life so I will have many more of those first times.
I finished reading it in 24 hours, eating and napping in between. Having read her later works, I can see that in Oranges she is still unpolished, relatively new to her craft. But she already found her voice, and I wonder how long and hard I have to work to find mine.
- - -
The fire at Pisay is still at the back of my mind. Looking at the pictures, it was already different from what I remember. Is that why I'm hesitant to go back, why I've never attended one of those homecoming events? When things change in the places I love, the places where I was most happy, it just reminds me of how much time has passed and how that place was never what I remember it to be, except for me. I know some people who don't romanticize high school the way that I do, but seeing as how I spent more time living rather than studying, it's understandable why I feel that way.
This is what the fire tells me: I lived there and I have to commit it to memory. The place itself may crumble.