Secrets
I like to think that if my favorite classical authors were alive today, we would sip tea in the afternoon sun and talk about their work. I'm pretty sure Edgar and Arthur would butt heads and Jane would find them insufferable. And yes, I do call them by their first names.
I love Edgar's works, in all their dark and twisty glory. I bought The Complete Tales and Poems from Barnes and Noble over winter break but I haven't read any since I studied "Fall of the House of Usher" in my Modern Gothic Literature class last spring semester. Something about Gothic literature is exciting and intriguing to me. It's not so much about the gore or morbidity of the stories, but the mysteriousness and the underlying symbolism within the creepiness.
I have always been more of a British literature person, as opposed to American literature. I do, admittedly, like many post-World War II authors and poets. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Lee... some good stuff came out of this country during that time period. We are rereading "Fall..." in my American Lit class and since it's the only decent thing on the list we are reading, I'm holding on to it as my tiny beacon of hope. Other than Poe, it's all John Winthrop, William Bradford and other Puritan works. I don't even know that they can be considered "literature"!
I was flipping through "Fall..." during class today to refresh my memory. I stopped when I reached "In the Greenest of Our Valleys". I stopped - as in, I had to shut the book. That poem adorns the front of a journal I've left sitting on a bookshelf by itself, a journal given to me by someone who shall remain nameless.
It's strange how things just suddenly hit you; all the memories come flooding back. Just when you think you feel (or don't feel) one way, you find out that you were completely wrong. Okay, maybe not completely wrong, but more wrong than you thought. Objects with emotional attachments aren't usually an issue for me; I don't know what's gotten into me. I suppose today was just a long day, one of those days. It was one of those days where I missed him, I missed what we used to be. It's easier to push it to the back of my mind as I have been for the past three months, to brush it off. It's easier than acknowledging that sometimes I'll miss him when I see a Batman comic or read The Picture of Dorian Grey. I made a choice and I have to live with that, but it's okay to miss him and I forget that sometimes. It's okay to miss him and it's okay to miss the other friends I've grown apart from. It's okay to have bad days, long days, that make me sad and grouchy.
It's all okay; Edgar and Arthur and Jane - they have my back.
I love Edgar's works, in all their dark and twisty glory. I bought The Complete Tales and Poems from Barnes and Noble over winter break but I haven't read any since I studied "Fall of the House of Usher" in my Modern Gothic Literature class last spring semester. Something about Gothic literature is exciting and intriguing to me. It's not so much about the gore or morbidity of the stories, but the mysteriousness and the underlying symbolism within the creepiness.
I have always been more of a British literature person, as opposed to American literature. I do, admittedly, like many post-World War II authors and poets. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Lee... some good stuff came out of this country during that time period. We are rereading "Fall..." in my American Lit class and since it's the only decent thing on the list we are reading, I'm holding on to it as my tiny beacon of hope. Other than Poe, it's all John Winthrop, William Bradford and other Puritan works. I don't even know that they can be considered "literature"!
I was flipping through "Fall..." during class today to refresh my memory. I stopped when I reached "In the Greenest of Our Valleys". I stopped - as in, I had to shut the book. That poem adorns the front of a journal I've left sitting on a bookshelf by itself, a journal given to me by someone who shall remain nameless.
It's strange how things just suddenly hit you; all the memories come flooding back. Just when you think you feel (or don't feel) one way, you find out that you were completely wrong. Okay, maybe not completely wrong, but more wrong than you thought. Objects with emotional attachments aren't usually an issue for me; I don't know what's gotten into me. I suppose today was just a long day, one of those days. It was one of those days where I missed him, I missed what we used to be. It's easier to push it to the back of my mind as I have been for the past three months, to brush it off. It's easier than acknowledging that sometimes I'll miss him when I see a Batman comic or read The Picture of Dorian Grey. I made a choice and I have to live with that, but it's okay to miss him and I forget that sometimes. It's okay to miss him and it's okay to miss the other friends I've grown apart from. It's okay to have bad days, long days, that make me sad and grouchy.
It's all okay; Edgar and Arthur and Jane - they have my back.
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