To Learn That

“ ..The sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.. ”

- Virginia Woolf “To the Lighthouse” 1927

The sound was muffled; all he could see was Theo’s gorgeous eyes, looking down at his sketch. He leaned closer to see what he was drawing, placing his face closer to Theo’s. Theo smiled over yet another drawing of Alexander. Alexander looked back up at his eyes, and Theo couldn’t pretend not to notice him this time. Alexander’s face was angled in such a way that he was looking up at Theo, quite a rare occurrence. Theo looked straight into those emerald eyes that stared into his. Alexander moved so that his head rested in Theo’s lap and his legs dangled down the hill. His eyes glanced down at Theo’s lips.

Without thinking, Theo pulled his lips up to meet his, a perfect moment, a perfect moment. Warmth spread through Alexander as if he were drinking a scalding cup of hot chocolate in bed on a cold night, the warmth burning the back of his throat and spreading through his body. His hand reached up behind Theo’s head, clutching onto his tawny curls. He didn’t want this moment to end; he couldn’t let it. His mouth did not leave Theo’s, his fingers intertwined in Theo’s hair. He could feel Theo’s hand move down to his back. Their lips parted, a too-long goodbye. Theo looked at him, some sort of expression on his face, not exactly a smile. Alexander shared it. Alexander closed his eyes as Theo sprinkled magnolia leaves on his face, laughing. He knew this moment was never meant to last.

Factual

She wants to learn 75 languages

Ahem, I may or may not have read far too many novels recently. How do I know this? I have now developed a slight crush on my academic rival in school. Goodness.

To write is to cradle myth & memory both & emerge with the fact

of your flesh. I praise the first book that touched me because it was beautiful,

because it was written by a stranger born looking just a little like me & that made him beautiful, & in it

I find every person I’ve loved into godhood tunnelling through the page & beyond the echo

of those precious trees allowing breath: their shadows blurring into a wave, rich & urgent, to greet me.

— Natalie Wee, from “Self-Portrait as Pop Culture Reference,” Beast at Every Threshold

I believe that a morning should never describe a day. Of course, I don’t believe mornings listen to mortal pleas and reasoning, but I try to enact this rule myself. Yet, it is a morning’s nature to bleed into your perception of a day, tint it with sorrow or with beauty. The only times when I forbid myself from enforcing this rule is when my day is unknowingly stricken with a morning of perfect quiescence, an awake before the world has begun to turn. Those rare mornings can feel free to pour through the seams of time and stain the parchment of afternoons and evenings a beautiful shade of rose. I’m quite a hypocrite, I do know.

Details: Ship on Rough Seas, Max Jensen, 1908

Hmmm maybe not Mr. Elton, but Mr. Knightley?

This very morning, my history professor picked up the book I was reading, looked me in the eye, and said “Don’t read Wuthering Heights.” He then proceeded to walk away and continue class.

Duke Humphrey’s Library, the Bodleian, Oxford. May 2019.

Re-uploading these because I finally figured out how to format them!! I will never stop being grateful for the chance to study here.

sometimes i read a phrase in a poem or a story or i see the clouds amble in the sky traced by sunlight or i hear a specific combination of notes on a piano and i just get so overwhelmed with a really specific feeling that i can't really name but i know that this feeling is so human and so tender at its core and that i am a tiny little part of a world so delightfully rich with sensations and i exist to experience this very feeling because it stems from the pure human love for coexistence with the world