On Fairy tales and Love

I know, I know, I should be studying, but now that spring has decided to come, its reminded me of a couple of things, like love, and fairies. You know, cultures used to believe that fairies brought the seasons. Throughout the course of history, there have been several hundred, maybe even thousand versions of fairy tales.  You have the ones as common as Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, you have the ones with morals, such as Grimm's fairy tales, and simply the culture's stories themselves - The Golden Fish (Chinese), The Blue Bottle (Irish), etc. In all reality, some of these tales were viciously gruesome - Cinderella, for example...well, I won't get into it. Some fairy tales weren't even about love, they were about the relationship between families, often siblings - the Seven Swans is one of my particular favorites.

It was thanks to Walt Disney that fairy tales began to become so love-oriented. And of course, some of them can be taken as simply that way. "Follow your heart" has become the typical 'fairy tale nonsense', and most blame it on Disney. Well, guess what. It's Disney's fault. BUT that does not mean that it is always a bad thing. Yeah, when you repeat it over and over it gets dull. But if its always so bad, allow me to pose a question - why do Disney movies STILL fly off the shelves?

I'll answer that for you, since I'm assuming don't want to (it was rhetorical anyway). There are actually two answers - the first one is that the movies aren't all about love. A I said before, fairy tales are often more about other things - Peter Pan, for example. Childhood. And might I remind you all, Winnie the Pooh is also a Disney movie. You could make the argument that it is based off of books - well, so are the others. Ok, I will give it to you - Cinderella is a strict love story. But you can hardly make the argument that Beauty and the Beast is like that - its about the growing relationship and falling in love that happens between two people, not a oh-Im-so-in-love-with-you-because-I-just-met-you. As Mrs. Potts famously sings "Bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong." Beauty and the Beast is a true love story.

But as I said before, there are two answers. And here is the second one. The world can be harsh and cynical, and pretty high up on the list of what they are harsh on is love. The thing about modern people in respect to fairy tales is this - they want them, so they act like they don't. No matter how hard they convince themselves that happy endings are for nerd and dreamers, they know that that very ending is what they hope for. No matter how much they say 'fairies are for children', its because they wish they could believe in them still. No matter how much they pretend that doom and death is the answer to life, they want to think that it is love. They say love stories and fairy tales aren't 'realistic'. Unfortunately for them, love IS realistic. And it happens everyday. And they want it to be realistic. They want to be the characters in Disney. They  pretend to think its cool to be suave and epic, and 'not care what other people think of them'. Well everyone cares what other people think of them. Everyone loves at some point in their life. Everyone wants a happy ending to their story. Quoting National Treasure a couple of times: "'People don't talk that way.' 'I know. But they think that way.'" And then again: "'People don't believe that stuff anymore.' 'They want to believe it.'" Ok, enough NT. But its true. And so is love. And, to a much lesser extent, so are fairies  Truly, that's what a fairy tale is - when the world of love and the world of childhood collides. When you are little, you read them because they are what you believe. When you are a teen/adult, you read them because they are what you WANT to believe. And when you are old, you read them to look back. In the end, everyone will reap what they sow. As for me, I'm going about the way of love carefully, and planting seeds of caution, but openness - "Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge thee, do not arouse or awaken love until it is so ready." (Song of Solomon 2:7). I'm going to use the words of Snow White - some day my prince will come. I'm going to keep dreaming. Spring is a good time to do that.

So here's to hoping all of you dreams come true. 

"And they all lived happily ever after."

-Rhian

On Les Mis and my little sister

This is not the long book review I know you're all waiting for with bated breath (someday I WILL get around to writing it). This is taking a moment to say thank you to all those little siblings out there, especially my own. Being a younger sibling myself, and a good deal younger than most of my friends, looking up to people is part of my everyday existence, and not just in the literal sense of being shorter than the rest of my family. But eight years ago I was blessed with someone who would look up to me, rotten older sister that I sometimes am. As I'm getting older, and Sarah and Daniel as well, days seem to have gotten shorter, and everything else I have to do longer. Even the weekends are sometimes taken up finishing school assignments and other things that I should have been doing during the week instead of writing in my blog. Remembering what it was like to have to beg to be played with, I try to give some of that time to Genna, but sometimes life just doesn't cut the cloth to fit my coat. Or however that saying goes. In any case, the lemons it gave me don't always make Genevieve happy, so I tried to find something else to do with her that wouldn't take the hours we used to be able to spend together, but that she would still enjoy. Then, my Dad had the brilliant idea to listen to the Les Miserables soundtrack on the way to Hillsdale one day. I was raised on the very same CD's myself, and having just seen the movie it was nice to refresh my memory. But unbeknownst to me at the time, it gave me a lot more than just memories - it gave me my answer to the dilemma. As the days turned into weeks, I would come downstairs and hear Genna listening to the soundtrack on the radio (I swear, she knows the songs better than I do now). I found bits of time to come and sing them with her, and then to teach her the movie version. We would sing the songs together, and discuss the differences between the Broadway and movie, and the characters. Before long, I realized that Genna wasn't just enjoying my company - I was enjoying hers. We started not just to sing the songs, but to act them out and to add our own comments, and then the accents of the characters. Sometimes I would sing the harmony, and sometimes she would sing the Broadway version of the song as I simultaneously sang the movie - which usually ended in terrible cacophony, but it's still fun.
In any case, I was finding out along the way that I had someone who actually seemed to understand why I love the songs so much. She was always ready to listen to me as I went on a five minute rant about how each walk of the people who came out at the Oscars performance pertained to their specific character, and is just as ready to act out said walk with me, and laugh at me when I use my "fan girl voice" (only a few people would know what THAT is...). It takes about ten minutes to sing our favorite songs, and through something as simple as singing them when I wash the dishes after dinner with her in the kitchen, I feel a bond growing between us that really doesn't have anything to do with singing the songs themselves. I don't feel like she's eight years younger than me when we're able to grab our few precious moments of singing time together - I feel like she's just a sister - and one who understands me better than a lot of people who are older than I am. So, thank you, Genna. 
"Music has a way of expressing what words cannot." - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. Seemed appropriate. 
-Rhian

On Bubbles

Now that spring has decided to tentatively poke a finger through Michigan's atmosphere, I had the chance to do something a little different than usual with the kid I babysit. Usually we are inside in his living room, and though the morning starts with playing cars ramming into each other, that doesn't last more than an hour, and the remainder of my stay is spent chasing him around the room (what I'd like to know is how a kid that trips over his own feet that much and runs into walls doesn't have a single bump, when I get cut by my stupid dustpan whilst sweeping up some dirt). In any case, it was a relief to take the little bloke outside for a bit of a change. It was warm and wet, which never went well in my mind unless its actively raining - anything just "damp" is a pet peeve of mine. But I found a considerable amount to do playing hide and seek with a kid who doesn't understand that "hide" means hide, not sneak up behind the babysitter while she's counting and laugh when she turns around. Then, lo and behold, just as my energy was as dead as a door-nail, Connor decides its time to play with bubbles.
I don't know how many of you have ever played with bubbles since you were six, maybe seven, but I haven't in a few years, and it was like reawakening my childhood. Needless to say, once we got the blowing started, Connor wasn't the only one running around the yard popping and chasing little iridescent globes. For being practically transparent, we got a lot of different shades of pink, blue and green rimming the bubbles. We also got them in our hair, and our clothes, and since Connor didn't know how to work the blower, I ended up getting them all over my hands, too. But bubbles have a way of making me happy. So if some warm day you're sitting around with absolutely nothing to do, I would advise to find one of your little siblings' forgotten plastic bubble jar and blower, and have a little fun chasing your childhood across the lawn.
"There's just no angry way to say 'bubbles'" - Anonymous (Its true! Try it!)
-Rhian

On random happiness

Contrary to my face when I left for school this morning, which was as grumpy as the sky has been these past few days, I now feel quite joyful (though the sun stays resolutely hidden behind clouds). I can't exactly trace when it started, but it was probably around the time during writing when I had finished grading my paper and was staring at my doodle of a girl reading a book with popcorn on a rainy day. My drawings are so haphazard and ridiculous that I seldom wish to be one of them, but today I did. And I was thinking about how hungry I was, and how much I wanted to go home, and then for some reason told myself to stop being a wimp and brighten up. I mean, life is life. I'm blessed to have it. In any case, it appears to be one of those days when you are thrown into a happy mood for no reason whatsoever - but I've been able to  scrape together a few explanations. #1, first and foremost, God decided to shower me with happiness. He does that to me sometimes. #2, and also quite likely, it was seeing you guys. Friends always make me happy, even if its at school. You guys don't know how much you brighten my day. #3 is maybe that I'm having a happy hangover from some unexpected news on Monday that my mom is pregnant. We rather gave up hope after Genna, but be it far from me to laugh like Sarah (not my sister, the Old Testament woman). Actually, I cried. So that is all very good. 
It's most likely a combination of these many things - life has a way of making you depressed sometimes, but it always lifts you up. By metaphor of a heartbeat monitor - if you have no ups and downs in life, you are dead. Well I'm pleased to say my life has been looking up. Its those times that strengthen you for when you roller coaster downhill, giving you the power to make it up one more time, because you know what's on the other side. 
"Comedy is the truth that life is always on your side, and will come to good if you let it." - Dr. Russell. (Actually, he said that today during literature class. It makes sense, right? Although obviously this is the definition of comedy and has nothing to do with humor, we generally think of laughing when we hear the term. Laughter is good for making me happy - I got a lot of that today :D But the definition part makes sense too...) 
-Rhian

On rain and flowers

Its the "girly girl" post you've all been waiting for. Well, I would never say I was a tomboy, but I'm no strictly feminine teenager either. However, the one thing I've clung to with all my female love is the flower. I'm not going to go on and on and on about it the off chance that a male is reading this (and if he is, is probably wanting to leave right now), but I will say that the flower is a lot more than a Valentine's Day gift. Its a piece of nature that, in my opinion, has a way of outshining all the rest. Contrary to most of my sex, I prefer wildflowers to roses (though roses are nice too). Wildflowers have a way of attracting my eye with their hundreds of different shades, delicacies and shapes, even scents. And, unlike roses, you can pick them without killing your hands. Flowers brighten a yard, and brighten every girls day when she has a chance to pick them some time when there's nothing else to do. (Rare this time of year, but summer yields the best wildflowers and roses anyway). The flower is something that looks pretty and smells nice. As Matthew Chapter six says "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like on of these." This particular verse also reminds us of the fact that God always takes care of us. (lilies, actually, are one of my favorite flowers. Ok, I confess. They're all my favorites). 

Speaking of things that look pretty and smell nice, the rain today was wonderful. Something about rain always makes me feel more alive than any other weather condition. I love it. 

(I'm sure you all know that, staring at me like I've killed ten people because I come in from lunch a little wet ;) As the saying goes. "Life's not about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain." While I'm still working on that real meaning of it, I think I've been able to take the literal words seriously enough.

April showers bring May flowers. Rain will make the flowers grow. You've heard them all, and there's really no point in putting an ending quote here. God designed nature with a beauty beyond compare - if one of you can truly smell like rain, or dress like the delicate cornflower, then maybe we'll talk. Not that any of you WANT to look like a cornflower - we're made in God's image, after all. What could be more beautiful than that?

-Rhian

( I think you've all caught on by now that I've got nothing of import to say, so I just wrote on the two things that make me feel slightly less tired than I do now, draped on the keyboard that I am. Going back to school after a three-week break will do that to you :P)

On a certain state in the USA

No, its not Michigan. Michigan is, of course, my favorite state, seeing as I've lived here for more than half my life, but my second, and very close, favorite is the little state everyone always seems to forget about - or when they do remember it, its to boo on their sports teams. Yes, I speak of Ohio. I couldn't care less about their sports, I don't follow sports much anyway (does the fact that I flip a coin for who I want to win the Superbowl mean anything?). . Now I've moved a lot, sometimes cross-country. But I was born in the little, dusty, stinking town of Steubanville, Ohio
Steubenville has its nicer parts of town, but we had one of those little houses that looks the same. I always remember that the porch was covered in this green carpet-like substance, and I would always pretend it was grass. I don't even know how I remember half of that town, I was so young, and I don't remember lots of other things from that time period. But I remember the way the air always smelled like factory smoke, and how everything was dirty, and how much I loved the tiny little backyard and the store that was nearby our house with the mural of the man and the moon on it, and how I could just walk down the sidewalk for a few yards in any direction and be at the house of someone I knew.
Then we moved, and I was too little to really miss it, but as I got older, I started to remember everything we'd left behind. Every once in a while we'll take a visit back there, and drive past everywhere we used to. I'm not sure how the rest of my family feels, but I always knew that somehow, Steubenville, no matter where in the town, will always be just as much a home to me as where we are now. Even though now the mural of Noah's Ark is gone from my bedroom wall, I can still remember Dad singing about it to me when I lay in bed with my Tweetie sheets and my stuffed whale. The green carpet is gone from our steps now, but I remember how it looked, and how it felt. The mural remains near the store, however, and the church (which is full of candles...<3) is always there for when we want to visit - as well as the mountains.
Not rocky mountains, not tall mountains - but just giant hills covered in trees. I can always see them in my mind, looking like a forest of broccoli when I was little, now looking like a piece of my heart that will always remain in Ohio. I've heard people describe Ohio as ugly and boring - well, maybe it is. But I guess I like ugly and boring, then. But for me, those hills are never ugly, even if the rest of Ohio is flat. And when we drive those twisted roads in between them to get to our little town of memories, I feel like I'm going back to find a piece of myself that will never leave Steubenville.
"With God all things are possible" - the State motto of Ohio. As opposed to Virginia's, which is "Sic Semper Tyrannis"
-Rhian

On Moldy Bread and life's philosophy

     I know, the title is making you scratch your head, because moldy bread has no comparison whatsoever to life. However, I would beg to differ. As one of my characters had a flashback today, she remembered the wise words of her older brother's friend Jason, who came to her room, to which she had locked everyone out of for 24 hours, and comforted her after a recent break up by speculating the relation of moldy bread to life. I thought his words worth noting if you're bored enough to be reading my blog posts anyway, so here you go: 

“Life” he began “life is like moldy bread. Some of its bad, and some of its good. But you can’t change the bad, and the only way to change the good is to let it sit and not enjoy it. And while you’re waiting, the bad just gets worse. So while you’re sitting here thinking about it, Lauren, everything is just going to go downhill. Or, you can eat your pizza and go out and enjoy the good before that expires, as well.”

The pizza part was explained earlier, if you got lost on that part. Ok, I used "comforting" but actually its not very comforting at all. Jason is a blunt character - doesn't sugar coat it, even if he sometimes thinks too much. Also, I doubt this will apply much to you in any case, since you're not sitting in your room crying your eyes out over a breakup (at least I assume so). But I'm going to hazard a guess that, (as noted above) if you're reading this, you are as bored as I am, and are suffering from writers block, thus reading the first random post you came upon for inspiration. Ergo, I'm going to go play with my sister now. May your life be like the side of bread that doesn't easily expire.

"It is nothing to die. It is terrible not to live" - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. Someday I'll write a very long critique on that amazing book. Watch out.

-Rhian