With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy?

Marilyn.

"So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong, and you really do have worth."
-Veronica Shoffstall

I really haven't been working hard enough. Instead, I have been climbing trees under the stars...

...punting along here...

...dressing up to feast on Chinese and go out dancing, listening to The Format's acoustic 'She Doesn't Get It' with the cows by Mill Pond, theologising in the Deer Park at Peterhouse over roast potatoes and ice cream, and dropping in on friends for tea and cake.

Oh, well. "My blood approves" Mr Cummings...

"I love you.
Does the blossom study her day of life?
Is the butterfly vexed with an hour of soul?
I had rather a rose than live forever."

As my friend put it, "doesn't the sky in Cambridge seem a much brighter blue than anywhere else?" The glorious arrival of summer has got me daydreaming of the perfect summer clothes to enjoy it in - of course, my fabulous black jumpsuit is already proving very useful:

By Rare at Topshop. I absolutely adore it - it makes me feel like Lauren Bacall and want to start smoking just because I think a long, Holly Golightly-style cigarette holder would finish it off perfectly...

...I'm in love with playsuits for this summer...

...and this perfect 'Boating Party Gingham Ice Cream Dress'...

The 'Candyland Castle' dress...

Perfect tree-climbing clothes from Gibbous Fashions

What is your partial vice?

*Sigh.* One of my new favourite quotes:

"It was something else. What? I don’t know, exactly. She seemed to be inside something, inside herself, as if all that beauty had been made in her as this big hall full of chandeliers and marble fireplaces—beautiful but empty. And she’d been dropped down in the middle of it and had spent too many years wandering around in it, her footsteps just echoing inside herself, wondering if anyone else was there, wondering how she’d got there, telling herself that if she had to be alone in there, at least she had interesting things to look at. Only she didn’t want to be alone in there, and since she was never going to find her way out, someone would have to find his way in. I knew all of that, and it took about ten seconds to figure it out. And it took another ten to figure out that I wanted to be the one to push open those heavy doors and wander those empty halls calling her name until I found her. But how do you do that when you aren’t really in a great hall but only a bookstore, and you don’t even know her name...?"
~

James Joyce outside of beloved Shakespeare & Company in Paris

She danced away from the day...

...away from those who float and those who sing and those who kiss in the hallways.
The hill she could climb home- she ran,
after all, she just didn’t want to see the others that passed her.
Somewhere inside they made her sick,
they just didn’t understand.
And just as much as she didn’t want to be like them- she wanted to be exactly like them.
They smiled.
They were happy.
There was always a feeling that she was just hovering and placed among them.

The muse of making- she was close to sparkling eyed Athena.
The muse of “you will be okay” and “your life starts today”.
She gave her gifts.
She sewed, and created for Athena. Made of silks and chiffons, beads and sequins.
She deserved the best.
The things she made filled a gap, produced shimmering ribbons of stardust.
Athena wore her crowns.






There were times when Athena floated, just like everyone else.
Only that, she who followed- wanted to float.
She wanted so bad.
And how they called to her,
but they didn’t- she only dreamed that they would.
But dreams pass, waking is sad.
She never wanted to wake up.





The muttered words and the stupid smiles made her cry.
It was gone.
But this has happened before.
The months where she wanted to sleep-
Fever dreams surrounded her.
It might all be broken,
give her a life like this.

She sewed a tapestry.
She painted grief.
Consume me in colors.
Glitter and shine-
please?
Darling- please
~

"She sits outside every morning in her prettiest dress with a steaming cup of tea at her feet and cries. Where each tear lands, a flower grows, but she doesn’t notice. She just sees a cold day and a life that has skimmed across lonely lakes and empty meadows. I don’t know if her wings are real but I’ve never seen her without them and I follow her everywhere. "
~




Tumbling-hair
picker of buttercups
violets

dandelions
And the big bullying daisies
through the field wonderful
with eyes a little sorry
Another comes
also picking flowers
-e e cummings

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
-Edgar Allan Poe





"You know what? You’re an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it’s gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life."
-Harriet The Spy

I meant to do my work today - but a brown bird sang in the apple-tree...

...And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand -
So what could I do but laugh and go?
-Richard Le Gallienne

Yesterday was a day just like that. The weather was so glorious that I hustled lots of my favourite people out for a scrumptious pub lunch at the Granta, and feasted on a perfect Sunday Roast, brownies with ice cream and a bottle of rose overlooking the willows shading the river. For the first time I got to wear my new polkadot playsuit, and I lounged by the river to revise whilst the air was filled with drifting white catkin seeds - like snow in summer. And when night fell, we all ended up having an eating-hot-chocolate-fudge-cake-with-chopsticks competition.

And I saw this couple from my windowseat:

"Evening has fallen and I am very tired, because the day that preceded this evening was very lovely... an endlessly shining, blue, vibrant day, the first of its kind; one of those that surprised and overpowered us - how well I remember it - in Rome about this time: you intend doing this and that, something quite definite, quite ordinary and nameable, something that is a continuation of yesterday; but then a day begins that has no yesterday (still less a tomorrow), a sort of leap-day, and you notice it as soon as you wake up, even before you've looked out the window, as though it has entered your sleep... I knew then that I would have to go for a walk, a long walk..."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

if up’s the word;and a world grows greener
minute by second and most by more—
if death is the loser and life is the winner
(and beggars are rich but misers are poor)
—let’s touch the sky:
with a to and a fro
(and a here there where)and away we go

in even the laziest creature among us
a wisdom no knowledge can kill is astir—
now dull eyes are keen and now keen eyes are keener
(for young is the year,for young is the year)
—let’s touch the sky:
with a great(and a gay
and a steep)deep rush through amazing day

it’s brains without hearts have set saint against sinner;
put gain over gladness and joy under care—
let’s do as an earth which can never do wrong does
(minute by second and most by more)
—let’s touch the sky:
with a strange(and a true)
and a climbing fall into far near blue

if beggars are rich(and a robin will sing his
robin a song)but misers are poor—
let’s love until noone could quite be(and young is
the year,dear)as living as i’m and as you’re
—let’s touch the sky:
with a you and a me
and an every(who’s any who’s some)one who’s we
-ee cummings

Alas, my first exam ["One God? Hearing the Old Testament"] commences tomorrow morning. So, after stocking up on strawberries and a 'treat box' of Millie's Cookies which I've been distributing to my cohorts as a welcome revision break, it is to work I must go. Until we meet again, my darlings, things we all need to hear:

I AM NOT A SHRINKING VIOLET
I AM A WIDE OPEN DREAMER
I HAVE NO FALSE AMBITION
AND PLENTY OF FIRE
I CAN TURN THIS PLACE AROUND
I CAN FIGHT THE FALSE-HEARTED
I AM NOT A TILTING POLE

I know you little, I love you lots,
my love for you could fill ten pots,
fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,
three teacups, and four dishpans.
-Shel Silverstein

Loving means being lonely

Moon river
Wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day




Oh dream-maker, you heart-breaker
Wherever you're going, I'm going your way





Two drifters
Off to see the world





There's such a lot of world to see





We're after the same rainbow's end






Waiting 'round the bend






My huckleberry friend





Moon river and me

"She feared nothing, but she was checked by the profound incertitude and the extreme strangeness—a brave person groping in the dark."
-Lord Jim