Becoming

Girl: Happy

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“In this world in which we live, simplicity and kindness are the only magic wands that work wonders.”
-L. Frank Baum

When I think of living simply, I immediately envisage small living spaces. Most often, the requiem I find myself in is a small loft apartment, with charmingly crackled walls, cold concrete floors, and a bed clad in diaphanous white linens, the center of it all. There are countless little towers of vintage books, haphazardly strewn throughout the humble haven, all standing watch like little sentinels.  Continue reading →

I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine

Quote ~ ~ brittanygolightly ~ 5 Comments
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^ That was taken at Versailles! “Isn’t it marvelous?!”

“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
-Oscar Wilde

Ernest Hemingway said to write hard and clear about what hurts. A truth I am trying to champion is that there is an acuity to my words only when they are written extractions of my tragic vulnerabilities (proof: here); I want to be able to extract my happiness with the same amount of expressive precision.  I have hesitated for quite some time to publish this part of my life for fear of brandishing my unpleasantries for the world wide web to witness. But, another truth I am trying to overcome is that I am not very brave. And so I am going to do as Ernest urged. He was, after all, a man so very handsome, and as  “I’m just a girl who cain’t so no” to a handsome man… Continue reading →

Night Rider

~ brittanygolightly ~ 3 Comments
“I ask not for any crown,
But that which all may win.
Nor try to conquer any world,
Except the one within.”
-Louisa May Alcott 

I was terrified to ride her. But not terrified enough not to. We began at my favorite hour, when Night begins its quiet capture of Day. On the back of a painted horse, I breathed in the free night air and let the sounds of Outside accompany my heart’s nervous trepidations.

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Promised Land

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“‘I’ve been through all this before,’ he said to his heart.
‘Yes, you have been through all this before,’ replies his heart.
‘But you have never been beyond it.'”
-Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light

I learned a word yesterday that I had yet to ever encounter: willowwacks. It means “a wooded, uninhabited area”. It’s an awfully silly sounding word, but I do love what it implies: portions of space yet to be “habitated”. Of course, I have no use for this word in the literal sense; I immediately thought of it metaphorically

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All I Needed Was the Rain

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umbrella sketch
“When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent, which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent…”
-John Milton, “Sonnet On His Blindness” 

There’s an alluring summer storm brewing outside. The bellowing thunder is in good company with the “hard rain” that’s falling. There was a time not too long ago, when it rained with such insistence that the only explanation was that Utah’s lover was unfaithful  and all Utah could do to alleviate the pain was cry and cry. Continue reading →