more collegiate things

Today went better.

It started out not better; I had a magnanimous as always video conversation with my love, which was wondrous, but then I had nothing to do afterwards and couldn't sleep and was feeling quite lonely.  And then Bobbi posted on my Facebook wall "KELLIE.. YOU SIT IN YOUR ROOM ALL THE DAYS".  And it sort of hurt my feelings.  And I think that's the first time in our six year friendship that Bobbi has ever hurt my feelings.  I know of course that she was just trying to be lovely and wonderful and it was her own way of making sure I was okay.  She's endlessly lovely. 

Anyway, I sat there feeling incredibly depressed for about three minutes, and then I got up and walked up to the fourth floor and knocked on Bobbi's door and we went for a walk and then had dinner.  It was nice.  I needed that.  Bobbi always knows how to cheer me up. 

And at dinner I had a genuine conversation with Natasha and Marie about roast potatoes and scholarship money.  Also a slice of chocolate cake.

And I hung out in Tessa's room with her for fifteen or so minutes before we had to go off to a group activity thing.  And we both agreed that a specific girl in our stack is unforgivably loud and irritating.  Ahh, talking about others behind their backs.  What an evil you are, and yet, how magnetically you bring people together.

I checked out the TV lounge as well, where Jeremy and another girl were watching Pay It Forward on television, and I watched for a bit, though we didn't really have conversation.

So, yes.  The day evolved from one of loneliness and insecurity to one of mild socialisation.  Dare I say that things are getting better?

we're only making plans for Nigel

I feel . . . an odd feeling.  I would say I feel deflated but it's not that really, it's more as if I'm a sort of firm spherical object such as a tennis ball and I've been punctured quite forcefully but due to my rubbery shell I've managed to keep my general form intact.  It's my third night at university and I hear and see and feel people buzzing around me and I've been sat in my room since 6pm reading Oscar Wilde and watching Mock The Week and for the first time appreciating the Smiths.  All of this should make me enormously contented, but I nonetheless feel so icky right now.  I feel like everybody is pitying me; that's it.  I feel like I am being pitied and stared at and patronised, though I'm probably not and it's probably just that stupid OCD part of my brain. 

Nobody sat at my table at dinner today.

What is going to happen to me if I don't make friends now, while everybody else is? 

I miss Oscar so badly.  I just want this to be over so I can run off and marry him and never have to feel lonely again.  I'm torn between building a stable foundation in my life and fleeing in a burst of romance and spontaneity.  Perhaps I could catch the next plane to England and show up at his doorstep without telling him I'm coming and ask him to marry me and we could just be happy forever together.  Please.

But what would my parents think if I threw away my world and ran off to follow love? 
Why do I care what my parents think?  Their lives are the utter antithesis of the way I'd like to live mine.
But moving away and figuring some other uni method and just starting to live the way I want to live.  I don't know that even I, in my romanticism, could take that plunge.  But it grows more and more plausible every day.

Even if I end up completely destroying my future, in the grand scheme of things, it won't make any difference to the universe.  So why shouldn't I go for it?

What is it?  I don't even know what I'm referring to. 

I need Oscar here with me.  That's what I'm referring to - anything that gets us back together.  Everything else is so shallow.  I'm not bothered by the prospect of overturning my life.  I'm only bothered that I'm not bothered.  And then I realise that the only reason I wouldn't be bothered by such a thing is that nothing else I've got going in my life is of even the most miniscule importance when held up against the explosively beautiful, neverending stream of sunshine that is my love for Oscar.  Nothing else is of any permanence or consequence or value.

It's just so painful to live with the knowledge that we may not be together permanently for several years.
But even several years' wait is a blessing of a price to pay for the privilege of being able to meld my life with such a spectacularly magnificent human being.  I desire nothing else from life.

Most Common Death Bed Regrets

This article was posted on Twitter - The Most Common Death Bed Regrets. 

They are:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Today, I am promising myself that I will not have these regrets in life.  I will continue to follow my dreams, even if they're silly- especially if they're silly.  I won't focus on monetary matters (unless they relate directly to pursuing said dreams).  I will let people know exactly how much I care about them, and I won't hide my sadness or love or joy or fear.  I will not let those I love slip away from me.  And above all, I will choose, forever, to be gloriously, pompously, decadently, illuminatingly happy.
 
In that spirit, a song that everybody who is the owner of their own life should hear- 
 
Ten Things by Paul Baribeau.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

I do not feel like writing a long description here, but I'm on a rather indulgent art binge and I've just come across this rather extraordinary piece:

The Swing

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

1767

More from Jean-Honoré Fragonard-

The Musical Contest

1754

The Lover Crowned

1772

The Stolen Kiss

1788

If orgasms were rooted in visual decadence, Jean-Honoré Fragonard would be the greatest lover of all time.

Berthe Morisot

I just discovered the impressionist artist Berthe Morisot today via the fuckyeahimpressionism Tumblr blog. According to that ever-reliable falcon of soul Wikipedia, one of the main reasons she's not well known is because she was born equipped with a vagina.  All the better to love her, I say.

Young Girl With Doll

1884

This is the initial painting that drew me to her.  It's stunning.  I love the innocence of the girl's face and her entire expression, and the black that concentrates your eyes to the element of timidness there.  It reflects such . . . fragility.  Looking through her portfolio she seems to paint children frequently, especially young girls.  

On the Balcony 

1872

As I was explaining earlier to Oscar, painters who are able to use black are some of my favourites.  I love contrast in paintings.  I love contrast in photos and sculptures and life, but especially in paintings.  Black is one of the most difficult colours to pull of, but when a painter does it successfully it simply oozes elegance.  This painting I like because it contrasts the difference between what the little girl and the woman see from their same view.  It channels the strange and uncomfortable process of going from a tiny, white-clad, innocent to a societal, black-clad, structured woman.  

Psyche

1876

In addition to her depictions of young girls, she also seems to have painted many high society women, none of whom look particularly enlivened.  Most are either very dressed up and bound, or in the process of becoming very dressed up and bound.  Her young girls, on the other hand, reflect either the purity of youth, or a sense of disdain at societal things.  To give a more concrete example of what I mean, take a look at this painting:

Lucie Leon at the Piano

1892

It seems obvious to me that the vast majority of her paintings are depicting a strong displeasure with late 19th century French society, and especially the induction process that females must go through in order to maintain social status.  This makes sense, because she was born into a bourgeois familial line.  One more for the road, to highlight once more her view of an innocent young child in contrast with a high society French bourgeois woman:

The Cradle

1872

She was also, it seems, a muse of Manet's.  I'd urge whoever you are to look up some of Manet's portraits of Morisot at some point; they're absolutely gorgeous.

So, in conclusion, we have a French female feminist impressionist contrast-capable painter.  I approve of you, Berthe Morisot.

Mein Liebe

I was IMing with Oscar today and he ended up sending me an old screenshot he had taken back before we were together, on the last day of May.  It was of a few of the private messages I had sent him when he was going through his breakup.  They were telling him that I found him to be a fantastic person (which I do), that I found him to be very attractive (which I do), and finally that I had a crush on him (which I do, plus some).  I knew they were taken in May because in them my display picture was the Twining's tea bag that I haven't had up for several months.

Something about that was so beautiful to me that it nearly made me cry.  I couldn't really pinpoint what exactly made me so overwhelmed with emotion; I had screenshotted his confession of a crush on me, after all.  And I think I've just realised the reason why it struck me so much.  I think it's because it was a kind of proof that my words had actually meant something to him even then, that they were so important he wanted to make sure he remembered them.  Lots of people were sending him messages of companionship, but mine meant enough to him that he wanted to hold onto them.

I suppose what makes me so happy about that is that in some small way I was able to get across to him even then, at least a tiny bit, that he is absolutely a divine human being.  And he is.  It reminds me of that Velvet Underground song that has some of the most stunning lyrics I've ever heard -

I'll be your mirror, 
Reflect what you are,
In case you don't know.
. . .
I find it hard
To believe you don't know
The beauty you are.
But if you don't
Let me be your eyes.
. . .
When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you're twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind.


I cannot possibly put into words how incredibly important it made me feel to know that maybe, possibly, I am his mirror.  He deserves to have a mirror reflecting to him how beautiful he is for all eternity.

I love him so much.  I love him endlessly and infinitely and exponentially, and I've used all of those words so much since we became a couple because they're all true and they all apply to the way I love him.  It's more than just loving him constantly.  It's falling in love with him constantly.  I realised today that that's what it is.  I have the comfort of love, of course, but at the same time I have the absolute joy and passion and schoolgirl giddiness that goes along with falling in love with someone, and I have it over and over and over whenever I think of him.



And yes, I know that you can read this.  I love you.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

This is one of my absolute favourite poems.  I have never read a piece with a more elegantly-constructed cadence (though Poe's The Raven does come close).  Whenever I read this poem I just get these gorgeous swoops and dips of sunsetty colour, like orange ribbons looping and bobbing in the wind.  It's stunning.  Of course the words and the message are breath-taking as well (moreso if you know about Maya Angelou's life).  I want to twirl around in a ball gown made of this poem.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
By Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange sun's rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.