Fairy Tales and Monsters

I've never really thought about WHY I have a tendency to delve into the past and cling on to memories of certain people and the places associated with them. Over the years the places and the people who occupy my thoughts more often have changed of course, but the feeling's the same- that bittersweet 'I want to think about them but not' kind of attitude.
Call it winter blues if you will (that's what I name it myself), but there's something about early sunsets and wan evenings that really gets you down. A certain hostility- that's what it is, in that early darkness, something waiting to pounce on you as soon as the Sun retires to his chamber for the night. That something is nostalgia.
Loneliness- that's what it is. There are little demons hiding in the dark waiting to pounce on you and suck away at all your fortitude and scrap that appearance of togetherness that you wear. The 'face' that you so carefully wear dissolves in the face of their insidious onslaught. You're pining for company when you have none, and when some arrives, you wish for nothing but its departure. It's an ugly situation indeed.
But sometimes there's one particular person you long for, and they don't show up. Or worse, they turn up and rush away too soon, displaying none of that longing you hoped they would feel for your company- the long you felt for their's. No, it's not 'love' or anything- it's a matter of connection, or someone being there for you at a particular time when no one else was, catching you when you fell to set you back up on your feet, only you don't want to stand alone- you want to run after them and hold on tight to them. Why? You tell yourself it's a way of expressing gratitude, but deep inside, you know better.
You think that person is the only one who can fight away those winter demons when no one else can, precisely because he did so before. Or you think he did so.
What DO you do in times like this? Blabber away to a blank screen is one excellent recourse- it displays exactly the reaction you want, that of a sympathetic, silent listener. You could also find a human ear, but that's a bit more difficult.
Plus, it tires much more easily than a moniter does.
There is consolation of course- in all the stories, monsters are eventually defeated in the end. Unless all the fairy tales are lies and the heroes never existed, you have some hope. The monsters will die in the end.
There's just that horrible period of struggle in between that you have to live through.
But look at it this way- that's always the most interesting part of the book to read. Now maybe you'll feel some sympathy for those poor protagonists as they struggled through their Quests. Now maybe you'll nod in understanding as Harry tramps all over England searching for Horcruxes, not chafe at the interminable wait before he kills Voldemort and brings about the happy ending.
The body is in the struggle, not the victory.
How I have rambled in this entry. It's amazing.

'You're not here for a course in creative writing. You're here for a course in critical writing. It doesn't matter what you have to say, what matters is how you use what others have said before you.'

That's it. My world crashed- academic world that is. Okay, what HAD I expected English honors to be? Certainly not a course in which I would be drilled into using the words of some long dead writers to say something about a text that I wanted to view in a certain way. Certainly not a course in which I'd never be able to look at the material directly, only look at its reflection in the words of some 'critic' and weave my answers from that reflection. I never counted on being a Lady of Shalott.

I hoped for a course that gave me free rein; gave me something to read and then let me go ahead and say whatever the hell it was I wanted to say about it. Let me express whatever thoughts ran through my head- regardless of format and the extent to which I used the opinions of people I'd never met and probably never would meet. I mean, in the end, how would it matter what Mary Pouvey said about 'Pride and Prejudice'? What's going to stick with me is what I thought the first time I read it, how I reacted to it. So why can't my essays on that infernal book showcase MY opinion and not that of a woman who's already been published and finished saying whatever the hell she had to say about fifty (if not more) years ago??

The answer comes back laden with smugness- cause I haven't read enough.

Again, how does that matter? It's my opinion on the BOOK that's wanted, my opinion on the CHARACTERS. Not my opinion on Austen's use of tax laws in her work. How does it matter whether I know the stuff about Chartism and all, if I can't tell you in a reader friendly language what I honestly think of Elizabeth Bennet (which is that she's a bloody annoying coot)? How does knowledge of Austen's economic situation help me formulate an opinion on the Jane and Bingley romance? Why would I want some long dead people dictating what I think of these characters?

If you're referring to critics, why not just watch the movie?

This may be completely biased and all...but seriously. I refuse to be a Lady of Shalott. I want to look at a work directly, unbiased. And the quality of work does not depend upon the number of critics you quote, in my humble opinion, it's the originality of your opinion and how well you put it forward the counts.

I rest my case.

Nostalgia

It's been a while since I touched this.
But thanks to my fishy friend, I've been pushed towards it.
Besides, leaving anything unfinished and unclosed bothers me somewhat. Call it the result of a traumatic first grade experience if you will.
For months I'd been moaning about not having a 'direction', no 'path' in life, of being stuck at home as far as I could see. But that is not to be. For suddenly my life has gained direction (or maybe it had it all along and I refused to see it or acknowledge it). Yours truly has gotten into a college, and not just any college , the place she has been dreaming about for years! I suppose I should be full of a sense of fire and accomplishment now, but sadly, I feel none.
Why is that?
Call it a hankering for some people left behind in old haunts. Or for people who WERE part of those old haunts, but have left it themselves. In fact, a hankering for both sets of people.
Have you ever sat down and wondered whether those you parted ways with think about you as much as you think about them? Whether they think about you at all, conjure you up in their thoughts and daydream about what you might be doing?
And come to the conclusion- 'Definitely nowhere near as much as I am.'
Maybe it's cause you were jobless.
Or maybe you're just lonely.
And rainy afternoons certainly don't help.

But now that there's a path and all for you to follow, isn't it time to ditch all those old hankerings? At least, one may hope that there's less time for them to surface.

One hopes.

Ah, I have arrived.

Rather pointless saying that, wasn't it, considering that everyone can pretty much SEE that.

Well, how do I start? I'm sorry if I'm being cliched and all, but I REALLY can't help that. I've never ever blogged before. I mean, I used to keep a journal (regularly till about a year ago, and I do have some random entries from this year) but writing on paper seems so much easier than typing things out on a keyboard. It's so much easier to dash things off on clean sheets of white, the gel (I am absolutely addicted to Add Gel pens) flowing freely from the nib of the pen, maybe even the desk wobbling slightly as you attack the paper in your creative burst.

Typing on a computer is so much more...well, sterile by comparison. There's no FEELING really when you type. The keyboard clicks and the USB hums, the light from the moniter flickers now and then, you switch eyes from screen to keyboard, from screen to keyboard, from screen to keyboard....

And so the routine goes.

And now, you might be wondering, if I really don't like typing all that much, and find the thought of posting things on the internet not very erm, well, nice for lack of a better word, why then am I doing it?

Simple. Because I, like many other teenagers before me, succumbed to peer pressure.

That's right. One of my friends is a regular blogger. And she has been at me to create a blog for the longest time. 'It's so much FUN! You meet so many new and interesting people!' she gushed, and despite all my misgivings, I was convinced. 'Why not give it a shot?' I thought. And so, here I am, rambling away on a webpage, my mind still churning about what exactly to put down here that will interest people enough to read it...

Ah, the name of the blog. That's from Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings'. You see, the Hall of Fire is a room in Elrond's home in Rivendell, where all the Elves, and any guests that happen to be residing in this house gather to hear stories and songs, kind of like a cultural hub. This is the place where old stories are given life, passed down to waiting ears, where new songs and tales are forged in the light of the flickering fire, where the past and present and future meet and intermingle and the listener is transported away from his reality into a place where Time has no meaning and life flows on golden before him...or her as the case may be. At least, that's the idea I got from reading the chapter that describes Frodo's reaction to the place, and his reaction to the music he heard there. By naming my blog after one of my favourite places in my favourite book, I was hoping to be blessed with some form of creativity by whichever Muse touched Tolkien. We'll see if that happens as Time wears on...