Sideways

This whole day has been extremely peaceful. I haven't done a lot particularly...I've had two cups of steaming peach tea, eaten leftover tiramisu and two of the absolutely delicious cookies from Lineth's mom (which, before I forget, you're going to have to make at least once a month when we share our apartment, Linut), listened to the same couple of songs on repeat, read a bit of Ethan Frome, napped on and off, used some warm vanilla sugar body wash, wrote out a couple of story ideas, and tested out my new binoculars. So, not exactly productive but extraordinarily blissful in its packed-with-those-small-pleasures way.

I had Selected American Authors--probably my favorite class this semester--on Wednesday (the half day before break) and, if you can you believe it, no one wanted to work! So alternatively, we ate baked goods--my mom's peanut butter cookies and my friend Allie's oatmeal--and had a photo shoot. I had brought my camera to class to snap a quick group picture at the end, but as I looked around the dim room--the only light coming from the windows and one small lamp--I remembered my long ago craving to have a projector made silhouette photo shoot. So, I grabbed the projector from the corner of the room and walked around the classroom, scouting for profiles. Almost everyone got involved (have I mentioned how much I love my class?) and the half hour class went by way, way too quickly. I had my friend Sarah trace the outline of one of my scouted model's profile, used my left fingers to cover the projector which made it cast that rainbow light about the board, had my friend with excellent penmanship, Allesandra, write Thoreau's words "There is no remedy for love but to love more” on the board, and then started to shoot.

I don't think I've really thought about the quotation until right now. I think the words just had merely sounded nice...but now I'm starting to realize what he means, or at least what his words mean to me. I feel like everyone must come to a realization at some point about the painful side of love. Maybe it's a voice that says, hey, hey wait a minute--what's the point of loving anything when inevitably you're going to get hurt? Think of grandparents, parents, pets, friends, siblings, anyone--anything! Which c'mon, how depressing.

So then, what is the cure to this aching, to this feeling? Maybe Thoreau is saying it's simply to wrap yourself in it more...to remember all those beautifully positive things about love. To remember the smiling, the pounding heart, the thrill that any kind of love can bring and think less about the sad part of it all, the part which does not exist initially and only comes when the brain forces itself to make conclusions. Romain Rolland said that "One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved." I think I'm going to try to remember that.

Whew. Sorry, didn't mean to go into that little tangent! I guess I've just had a lot of different things on my mind lately.

After this tribute to Thoreau, I recruited anyone who wanted to to grab all different colored markers and just put chaos on the board: nonsensical designs, little words, doodles, everything. Of course, they rose to the occasion.

Then I asked my returning model Maddie (borrowing my Christmas sweater this time) and Kayla (who had her own excellent sweater on) to mirror each other.

I really hope there are more classroom photo shoots in the future, because it was a blast. I could have done it for a couple of hours more...although considering it was the period before the start of our freedom for a week and a half, I don't know how many willing models I would have still had left...

I might go see The Princess and the Frog tonight with a friend from work. If I don't end up doing that though, I think I'll stay in with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--which I have only heard excellent things about--and another pot of tea. Side note, did anyone enjoy 50 degree weather yesterday? It felt like spring, which albeit is heavenly, I don’t quite feel like I’m ready for. Hopefully a snow storm coming in around New Year’s will extend our winter break…but if not, I suppose I could deal with a couple more of these gorgeously sunny days…that is, as long as the snow doesn’t go away for good this season!