Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
-Christina Rossetti
Okay. There's a lot going on in my head right now. (By the way--hello, blog! Nice to see you!) This poem was constructed and arranged into a song by Dohters last year, and it was their senior song, and I always feel like crying when I hear it. (Even though I'm not in Dohters and I wasn't a senior- it's just...beautiful. So so beautiful.) However, we also read this poem in AP Eng class a few weeks ago right as we were finishing reading Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. That book was quite a stunt. Incredibly character-driven and well written, it was also the most depressing book I've read in quite a while. I love being able to talk about sad books, but not conventionally sad ones, with Harkness. You want to know why? Because a lot of the time I don't know what to say and other people do. And that's great.
I may have been more affected by this book (and while I just typed 'affected' I would like to take this second to remind anyone who's reading the difference between 'effect' and 'affect'. thank you.) than other people too because I was reading it the same time I was reading and then finishing, far too quickly, Looking for Alaska by John Green. An absolutely stupendously and beautifully written portrait of a boy, around my age, and his experiences (and lack thereof) with and having to do with Alaska Young. I fell in love with both of their characters, which made it all the more devastating when the big bomb was dropped in the middle of the book. It was actually one of the best books I've ever read, and it immediately jumped to the top of my list. I'm reading another John Green book right now, too: Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
I feel like everything is connecting in this post. Next segue...(AND YES IT'S SPELLED SEGUE NOT SEGWAY YOU FOOLISH PEOPLE) I watch John and his brother Hank on YouTube each and every week on the vlogbrothers channel. During this unbelievably stressful, and weird, and sad, and strange, and happy, and ETC time of senior year, their ~4 video blogs to each other have given me moments of respite, and sometimes just pure unadulterated happiness, for a much needed short period of time.
I'm addicted to YouTube, and I watch a shitload of videos from people I follow whenever I get the chance, but their videos mean more to me because they're not just vlogs, or comments on random things: they're a way of staying in contact with someone you really care about, with the help of the handy interwebz.
Segue number three. (Come ON, give me some credit...this is pretty cool...) I've always had a tough time with online communication. I have so much going on in my day-to-day life at Masters, and even in Pleasantville, that I will simply forget people. Not fully, of course, because I make sure to have everyone catalogued by some sort of fact in my head, but just for a short period of time until that fact suddenly rushes back to me and I remember that I want to contact them. I've fallen out of touch with many, many people who I would've rather not, from past summer programs or even my old highschool. I've learned to accept that I actually can't see, or talk to, everyone on a day to day basis, though, so I don't pay it TOO much trouble. This year, though, in both good forms and in very bad, I've been staying in very close contact with people from Earthwatch this summer. This makes me feel like these people are thinking of me on a day to day basis, in THEIR own day to day, busy, hectic lives, and want me to know what they're doing or how I am.
And that, my friends, makes me happy. All the love and peace in my heart goes out to you every single day.
I love my friends. I just came back from dinner downtown, where three of my friends from at least half an hour away had driven just so I didn't have to shlep myself out to their neck of the woods. I really appreciate it. Some of these people I can't even bear thinking about leaving. This year is getting really, really weird, and I'm hanging out with some people I would've thought that I'd never hang out with, too. I think it's coming hand in hand with the fact that come June 11th, we won't ever all be in the same place again at the same time.
When I typed that, my stomach started churning.
Enough huge thoughts tonight, I'D SAAAAAY.
I want to make this a more regular thing. Leave me topics to talk about,
and
remember me.
love,
shana
x
be at peace.
Song of the Day: Just a Dream- Nelly (just because, for a rap song, its chorus is kind of indescribably beautiful.)
