Location: On my bed. It’s a naiiice place. Though why is there a fruitbowl next to me? The mind boggles…
Time: 2308 hours. Yeah, I can do 24hr time.
What be happening: A delightful combination of insomnia, Pride and Prejudice, nostalgia and apples.
It’s become a common thing: every night, I say to myself at about 6:30, “Now, you’re going to go to bed at a reasonable hour.”
Every night without fail, I’m typing something new. A story, a blog which I delete for not being awesome enough, a Facebook status that may border on witty but probably just teeters on the edge of insanity. Anywho, I’m not too sure what I’m writing about tonight.
Well, I am a Christian. I think it should be stated forthrightly, just because honesty’s fun. It’s why I allow all the crazy to come out in one hit. It stops accusing glares of, “You never told me this before.” I’m a Christian. God is awesome. I am stubborn. I’m not changing that belief.
I am 18. I write for funs. I write to live. I write because it’s the only thing that makes sense. If I’m in a whirlwind of thoughts, I’ll write them down. I wrote in a piece for uni that, “My head is filled with scenarios, with people and places and things that lap over each other and refuse to quiet. But when my pen lands on paper, or my fingers run across a keyboard, they form a sensible construct, one that I mould and carve.” That, kind Tumblr readers, is the truth.
I read, because ever since I was read to, I’ve wanted to take control of the words which were breathed into life through voices.
And I draw, because to create is to give life and beauty.
Summing up myself at this hour of day/night, I will leave with two poems, not my own. One is by Pablo Neruda, which I find myself often quoting, but which fits so perfectly. The other is by Gabriela Mistral, whose poems my Tata read to me when I was tiny.
[Note: always, always, I have had drummed into me that translators are traitors – the Italian is traduttore, traditore. This is my Tata’s sentiment, and at his urging, if you know Spanish, read these poems in the original language. And read them aloud.]
Decalogue of the Artist: Gabriela Mistral
I. You shall love beauty, which is the shadow of God
over the Universe.
II.There is no godless art. Although you love not the
Creator, you shall bear witness to Him creating His likeness.
III.You shall create beauty not to excite the senses
but to give sustenance to the soul.
IV. You shall never use beauty as a pretext for luxury
and vanity but as a spiritual devotion.
V. You shall not seek beauty at carnival or fair
or offer your work there, for beauty is virginal
and is not to be found at carnival or fair.
VI. Beauty shall rise from your heart in song,
and you shall be the first to be purified.
VII.The beauty you create shall be known
as compassion and shall console the hearts of men.
VIII.You shall bring forth your work as a mother
brings forth her child: out of the blood of your heart.
IX. Beauty shall not be an opiate that puts you
to sleep but a strong wine that fires you to action,
for if you fail to be a true man or a true woman,
you will fail to be an artist.
X. Each act of creation shall leave you humble,
for it is never as great as your dream and always
inferior to that most marvelous dream of God
which is Nature.
Poetry – Pablo Neruda
And it was at that age … Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
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