Letting Go

Please, no, don't sing Frozen. That's not at ALL what I meant. I mean, really, we all know that fad passed quite a while ago.
Anywhooo...
I've gathered you here today to talk about poetry. Let me explain my reason for the title of this post:
For a long, long time, I've always focused solely on rhyming poetry. My mind told me, for some reason, that that was only the real poetry and everything else sucked. My mother, of course, didn't believe that. She is an English major who teaches a lot for my co-ops, and she absolutely loves poetry. Especially the non-metrical free verse stuff. In fact, she herself is a poet of the same type.
Yet in my stubbornness I refused to enjoy such poetry. I love writing, of course, and I really wanted to write poetry and be remembered as a great poet. But I had a lot of trouble writing it; they all were cheesy and quite awful, really.
Until I let go of my stubbornness.
Once I tried to write just a single little poem in a free verse form, a whole world was opened to me. I realized it was so sad I had been holding back all these years, because of a petty and foolish thought in my head. And suddenly, I realized that I could do incredible things.
Ever read E.E. Cummings? He's one of my mom's favorites, and he's known for his incredible free-verse that not only paints with words but also paints using the placement and form of the words and stanzas on the paper. He can make a little poem mean much, much more just by arranging it a certain way.
It's incredible.
Look his stuff up sometime. You won't regret it.
And for those of you who dislike poetry that isn't all rhyme-y and stuff, try to let go of that. Pick up a book of poetry, read it slowly, let the words wash over you. Or take a piece of paper and doodle with words, not worrying about what matches and what doesn't. Trust me. You'll thank me later.
I want to share with you some of my favorite personal poems I've written in free-verse. I really like looking back at them now, and I feel so proud, instead of embarrassed like how I always felt when I looked back at my older, metrical poems.
Remember, we're human. We're creative. Don't let your poetry be like "An Ode to Spot" by Data (TNG). That only works if you're actually an android.

A Time Ago I Spoke with the Winds

A time ago I spoke with the winds.

There was first Boreas,
fierce and cold.
His words were harsh,
his nature unforgiving.

Then Notos,
hungry for chaos.
Everywhere he went,
disorder arose.

Eureus, the poor east wind.
Unlucky, shy,
and disliked.
I think him quite misunderstood.

But my favorite, that is Zephyr.
The west wind,
warm and soft.
Esteemed above the others.
His embrace, his touch,
spring and summer's love.


The Importance of a Soul

The soul, the Psyche,
no greater invention of God.
For it holds the key,
the entrance to one's being.
What would we be
without a soul?
A shell, perhaps.
Living, animated,
but meaningless.
Or a carved marble man.
Beautiful, lifelike,
and yet, not
more than stone.


Welll, I hope you like the poems...yes, originals of mine ;)

Feel free to comment thoughts!

Picard out.

NaNoWriMo:Genesis

It's here, people.
It's really, truly, finally here.
My first NaNo has begun.

So, I'm gonna attempt to update my log *at least* once a week, if not every day or so. And I'm sure you can tell, since it's 10:00 at night, that I've spent much of my day writing and also my night writing.
And, congrats to me, I've managed to knock off 1,185 words TODAY.
Maybe this isn't impressive to you, but I'm SO proud of myself.

I have to admit, I wasn't that thrilled with my story plan yesterday and the day before. I was actually scared, scared that I wouldn't like it at all as I tried to write it and have to come up with something new very, very quickly.
But after writing today, I'm really in love.
I'm in love with the story.
In love with the characters.
In love with the relationships.
Really, truly, finally in love.

Thanks for reading. I hope I haven't distracted you from your own NaNo and gotten your word goal all off.
Sayonara.

Meet the Family (or just the cat)

So, this is my cat, Luna. My friend, my child, my love. Or maybe frenemy would be a better way to describe our relationship. That day when I saw her picture on the PAWS website was the first day of the end of my life. You can probably guess what we were thinking when we saw her. "Just look at her! So incredibly beautiful, funny, sweet. The most incredible soft gray coat and golden coin eyes. What a perfect cat!"
And then we brought her home. That's when the "fun" began.
She had been a stray, of course, and was actually only about a year old when we got her, though the shelter told us she was about two years old.
I, of course, wanted a cuddly cat who would curl up next to me on the couch as I read and sipped tea. Ah, such fantasies. Ah, such ignorance.
We soon discovered her true nature. If we tried to pick her up or touch her, she would hiss, scratch, and run away. She was paranoid and afraid of everything, quite a contrast to her mean-ness. She wouldn't eat like a normal cat; instead of eating a little of what's in the bowl and leaving the rest for later, she always gobbled down everything. She had gained ten pounds after the first week. It was really hard, those first weeks, and we weren't sure what to do with her.
But we pushed through it.
Okay, so I'm writing this like it's some sort of redemption story. It's really, really not. She still does all those things.
But I love her more than anything. She's a little better at tolerating our love, now. We feed her hardly a scoop of food a day; she's a little chubby but not too bad.
She's also absolutely hilarious.
That's mostly because of her paranoia, I think. She'll come around the corner, stare at us, and if we make one step toward her, she makes a funny little grunt and takes off to the other side of the house. If I try to pick her up or pet her, she get's very vengeful. I'll walk away and she'll literally be on my heels, attacking my legs and feet. Or she'll wait, and then run across the room to jump up on the chair nearest to me, her paws hanging off the edge and her eyes wild.

But sometimes she's sweet.
She follows me around the house. I'll move from one room to another as I work on school; not a minute later I'll hear little paws beating the wood and she'll appear in the doorway. She often will climb up next to me (not too close, mind you) and fall asleep. She's absolutely obsessed with peanut butter and popcorn.
If I make peanut butter toast, she can hear the jar being opened. She'll run into the room meowing and purring, then she'll jump up on the table in the kitchen, come to the edge, and sit meowing and looking at me with those big old eyes. When I bring the knife over, I hold it above her head so she jumps up, puts her paws on my chest, and stands there licking the peanut butter. That's when I pet her ridiculously soft belly :) Or when I have popcorn. She'll come up right in my face when I'm sitting on the couch. Then she'll wait for me to get a piece of popcorn, and try to paw it from my hand. It's quite adorable.

Gosh, I love her so much. I used to have awful panic attacks when she was outside. I worried so much about her not coming back that we stopped letting her out at all.

(My little brother. I'll write about him soon.)

Luna really means a lot to me. I talk to her a lot, and she just sits there staring at me with those beautiful eyes. Then she usually bites me or scratches me. But nonetheless, I really do love her.

I hope you enjoyed learning about my cat! She really has quite a personality. Which means she has many nicknames...:Luna-Tuna, Loons-Toons, Loony Lovegood, Luna-Luna, Draco Malfoy (their personalities are very similar, yes? Mean on the outside but wimpy on the inside. As well as being beautiful <3)
Thanks for reading!