tidbits.

I never write random posts.

Truly, not ever.

Which, in all honesty, is very odd.

I am an incredibly eclectic person with a whimsical mind that tends to wander a bit more than perhaps it should at times.

But today has been so dreadfully hot, as though the fingers of the sun had become lonesome in their cooler home, begging for just one more moment to turn the earth into a simmering mass of melted souls.

Perhaps it is this vile heat, drawing me down into a puddle of nothing but dreams.

 Perhaps it is simply the creative spirit within me, whispering

compose again

dance again

write again

that draws out a need to speak in regards of some lovely wisps of colour that have passed alongside me today.

• this blog. a place laden with tea leaves and Jane Austen, laden with the aroma of Earl Grey and whispers of vintage dreams yet uncovered. this place belongs to my best friend, Alexandria, of whose mid-March engagement I wrote about here. this is not her first attempt at blogging, but this is hopefully her last attempt and first complete success. i promise that you will not be disappointed by her writings in the least. visit her, stop and say hello, if you would?

• the slight design changes i let myself make to the blog tonight. simple new header, new quote from my favourite authour. just the little things. do you like? 

• the summertime wonder of crickets chirruping and cicadas trilling. the beauty of this warm evening's soundtrack, shutting out the nonsense and drawing out the stillness in me again. 

• this song. could it be any more perfect for a day like this? it's a silhouette of perfection. i am lost in its wonder. 

• the wonder of my King. oh, how His glory endures. 

• the final week of my giveaway is upon us. take a moment and enter. i promise you will not be disappointed with what is in store. 

• the impact that imperfect prose on thursdays has had on my writing. everything is different. i'm letting go of so much inner perfection, my incesant need to be flawless at all times. i'm learning to fall in love with lowercase letters and let the magic flow without my inner voice wailing at me to edit just once more. and so, my dear Emily, I thank you.   

These are my evening wonders. 

forgive me my tidbits. 

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~e.e. cummings

skyeyes

Remember being a little child

lying on your back with your eyes wide shut

staring ceaselessly at the floating clouds above.

Giraffe. 

Ice cream cone.

Hero dragons with mouths of flame. 

These are the things we saw

more than just puffs of gathered precipitation floating in the

atmosphere.

Angels bowling

Cameras flashing.

Roads to Oz.

These are the things we heard

more than just rolling thunder

or whirling tornado clouds.

Child ears. Child eyes.

Nearly twenty-one and never forgotten.

I want to keep my

innocent eyes

to look up at the clouds.

(Note from Rachel: After penning yesterday's post of imperfect prose, I became so inspired to turn my hand at the poetry wheel again. It had been so long, and I felt so deeply that this was something God was telling me I was supposed to undertake once again. And so here it is...uncensored and unedited. 

Spoken word. Living truth.) 

Bucket

In dreams, we enter a world that's entirely our own.  ~Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


I have a Bucket List. 


Actually, I think more people have bucket lists than they're willing to admit. 


After all, at first glance, it might seem silly to have a little list of all our secret hopes and dreams...


...some tiny, some huge, most insignificant to those around us.


In fact, I never planned on sharing my own personal Bucket List with the world. My list is eclectic, artsy, random...maybe, to any eye that isn't mine, it might even seem trite or foolish.


But then a post & fabulous Bucket List themed giveaway over at (life's too short not to)wear red shoes inspired me to stop being so selfish...so insecure...so uptight. I bear my soul on this blog all the time...no reason that I cannot share my dreams with the world, as well.


And so...here is a sampling...a taste, if you will...of the dreams I must meet before I "kick the bucket," some of which were born when I was a very little girl.

1.       Visit every continent AT LEAST once (North America and South America have been achieved...the rest are still to come)

2.      Read every Brian Jacques novel ever written

3.      Visit “The Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter” AND buy my own wand.

4.      Cook my way through “The Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child

5.      Have dinner at the “Eagle & Child” in C.S. Lewis' booth

6.      Take AT LEAST one semester of classes at Oxford University

7.      Go skydiving, bungee jumping, or SOMETHING that requires me to leap from a very high location

8.      Visit every state in the Union.

9.      Adopt a Peruvian child

10.   Get a tattoo

11.    Learn how to make French macaroons PERFECTLY

12.   Have a handwritten-letters penpal with someone I have never met in real life.  (Grace Doolittle, June 30^th, 2011)

13.   Visit the Holy Land

14.   Write a novel that actually gets published.

15.   Make it onto the New York Time’s Best Seller list

16.   Learn how to French braid

17.   Ride an elephant

18.   Perform as the Witch in Into the Woods

19.   Perform in Wicked as ANY role

20.  Visit the Eifel Tower

21.   Visit Machu Pichu

22.  Have dinner at Caprial and John Pence’s Supper Club

23.  Meet Paula Deen AND cook with her

24.  Meet J.K. Rowling

25.  See Owl City in concert (June 30^th, 2011, Summerfest 2011)

26.  See Imogene Heap in concert

27.  Attend culinary school

28.  Get. My. Degree.

29.  Stand on a Broadway stage

30.  Meet Douglas Gresham AND have a conversation with him

31.   Meet Adam Young AND have a conversation with him

32.  Take an art class and actually apply myself this time

33.  Get to the point that I am reading my Bible every day habitually

34. Perform in "Les Miserables" in some capacity

35.  Direct a theatrical performance (Hansel and Gretel, Opening Night 9/24/2010)

36.  Open my own Etsy shop

Yes, these things may seem silly. Odd. I know they are truly a random collection of dreams, woven of my own heartstrings and overly vivid imagination. 


But I don't care. 


These are my dreams. These are my goals. 


And you can't make me smaller. 


My heart is just too big.


Let go of the world you know, and plug in the party lights / Soak your cares in the solar flares that light up these island nights / Orange eclipse, I can taste your lips in the citrus afternoon / If you can fly, don't stop at the sky, / 'cause there's footprints on the moon ~The Yacht Club, Owl City

Paths

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. ~G.K. Chesterton

Everything in life is a path.

Every book we read...

...every story that floods our minds from the time we are children, has an impact on us.

They shape us...

...transforming us into the adults we will one day become.

From the time I was four years old, I found my magic in the pages of a book.

Books were my road, my map, and my compass.

Tucked away in the corner of my bedroom, I received my letter and boarded the train to Hogwarts...

...I slipped through the wardrobe to Narnia and gazed into the eyes of the Lion that would change my life and capture my heart.

...I whispered "I am that is" in my sleep and ran my fingers of the sandstone walls of Redwall Abbey, battling rats and wildcats alongside the mice and badger warriors of Salamandastron.

...I walked the knolls of Middle-Earth and joined the Fellowship in their quest to Mt. Doom.

...I found my first love in the Misters Darcy, Knightly, Bingly, and Brandon, and discovered that Prince Charming dwelled in Darbyshire and Kent.

These lands became part of me.

They sparked the fires of knowledge, and encouraged me to chase my dreams of pen and ink.

It was here I found myself.

Among the pages of a book, I found my footing.

I found my home.

So point me down the nearest path...

...press a book into my hands...

...and let me wander forever.

In memorium of Sir Brian Jacques, who left this world and journeyed to the gates of Dark Forest on February 5th, 2011. May you rest in peace, oh weaver of dreams and changer of souls.