"You set your heart too much on things, Anne..."

...I'm afraid there'll be a great many disappointments in store for you through life."
"Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them," exclaimed Anne. "You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.' But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed."
-'Anne of Green Gables,' L.M. Montgomery

I have just reread one of my old favourites - it has been so long that the only part of the story I could really remember was Anne almost drowning when she borrows a punt and pretends to be Elaine from the Arthurian legends - and her resemblance to my ideal of Sparkles and Crumbs is uncanny! Heroine Holly has already written a gorgeous post about her, too...

"Do learn to take things calmly, child."
For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All 'spirit and fire and dew', as she was, the pleasures and pains of life came to her with trebled intensity. Marilla felt this and was vaguely troubled over it, realising that the ups and downs of existence would probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul and not sufficiently understanding that the equally great capacity for delight might more than compensate. Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill Anne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows... The downfall of some dear hope or plan plunged Anne into 'deeps of affliction.' The fulfilment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight...

"Sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut-trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don't seem half so important."

"But I do hope that some day I shall have a white dress. That is my highest ideal of earthly bliss. I just love pretty clothes. And I've never had a pretty dress in my life that I can remember - but of course it's all the more to look forward to, isn't it? And then I can imagine that I'm dressed gorgeously. This morning when I left the asylum I felt so ashamed because I had to wear this horrid old winey dress... But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most beautiful pale blue silk dress - because when you are imagining you might as well imagine something worthwhile - and a big hat all flowers and nodding plumes, and a gold watch, and kids gloves and boots. I felt cheered up right away."

"Oh, look, here's a big bee just tumbled out of an apple blossom. Just think what a lovely place to live - in an apple blossom! Fancy going to sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn't a human girl I think I'd like to be a bee and live among the flowers."

"I have come to the conclusion that it is no use trying to be romantic in Avonlea. It was probably easy enough in towered Camelot hundreds of years ago, but romance is not appreciated now. I feel quite sure that you will soon see a great improvement in me in this respect, Marilla."
"I'm sure I hope so," said Marilla sceptically.
But Matthew, who had been sitting mutely in his corner, laid a hand on Anne's shoulder when Marilla had gone out. "Don't give up all your romance, Anne," he whispered shyly, "a little of its is a good thing - not too uch, of course - but keep a little of it, Anne, keep a little of it."

"Dear old world," Anne murmured, "you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you."

I had a very Anne-ish moment of gluttony, frivolity and high spirits yesterday - I was summer job-hunting in town and happened to pass by the window of a chocolate shop... of course, I had to get two skewers of marshmallows and strawberries slathered in melted chocolate and stroll down the street gracelessly consuming them. Alas, too late, I realised I had managed to drip most of the heavenly substance all over my clothes. What to do? I couldn't go to job interviews like that! So I darted into Gap, bought a replacement top [a very nice purple and white tank, £3.99 in the sales!], and inconspicuously changed into it in a quiet corner outside. Oh dear, oh dear...

Speaking of clothes, the camerado and I had a final dress-up for her Last Supper before she flew away to America - so I got to wear my new vintage dress, which seems made for hosting tea at Green Gables and reciting poetry at White Sands with Anne:-

The camerado's costume [on the left]:
My South Pacific-style rouched dress, handmade by Samamba
Sequinned sandals and corsage from Sainsbury's [believe it or not!]
My costume:
1980s halterneck dress from dearly beloved Mela Mela
Red polkadot heels by Firetrap

I have fallen in love with a librarian. Our small town library is usually manned by middle-aged woman, but this man was beautiful and kind and knew his Flaubert. And as I strolled home through the woodlands, I spotted magpies - two for joy!

And just as I said that to myself, a third joined them - for a girl. And then, finally, a fourth appeared - for a boy. A boy like Gilbert Blythe, please...

I spent today in London at the Old Vic, watching Ethan Hawke play guitar as the rogue in Sam Mendes' Winter's Tale. I fell in love with him in Before Sunset and I fell in even deeper love with him now that I know he can sing, too:-

Rebecca Hall is my new favourite heroine...

Hermione: Sir, you speak a language that I understand not: my life stands in the level of your dreams, which I'll lay down.
Leontes: Your actions are my dreams...

And last but not least, some thoughts I try not to forget...

Make your own Bible...

...Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

What do you try and live by?

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination."
-John Keats

Dear Stephen,

I hope you are well. I know you are not. As it happens you wrote in 1973 a letter to your future self and it is high time that your future self had the decency to write back. You declared in that letter... that "everything I feel now as an adolescent is true". You went on to affirm that if ever you dared in later life to repudiate, deny or mock your 16-year-old self it would be a lie, a traducing, treasonable lie, a crime against adolescence. "This is who I am," you wrote. "Each day that passes I grow away from my true self. Every inch I take towards adulthood is a betrayal."
Oh, lord love you, Stephen. How I admire your arrogance and rage and misery. How pure and righteous they are and how passionately storm-drenched was your adolescence. How filled with true feeling, fury, despair, joy, anxiety, shame, pride and above all, supremely above all, how overpowered it was by love. My eyes fill with tears just to think of you. Of me. Tears splash on to my keyboard now. I am perhaps happier now than I have ever been and yet I cannot but recognise that I would trade all that I am to be you, the eternally unhappy, nervous, wild, wondering and despairing 16-year-old Stephen: angry, angst-ridden and awkward but alive. Because you know how to feel, and knowing how to feel is more important than how you feel. Deadness of soul is the only unpardonable crime, and if there is one thing happiness can do it is mask deadness of soul...
Novels, poetry and the worlds of art and ideas are opening up in front of you almost incidentally. You spend all your time in the library yearning to be told that you are not alone, and an unlooked for side-effect of this just happens to be a real education achieved in a private school designed for philistine bumpkins... But those rugger-playing ordinaries have souls too. And you should know that. I know you cannot believe it now.
You poor dear, dear thing. Look at you weltering in your misery. The extraordinary truth is that you want to stay there. Unlike so many of the young, you do not yearn for adulthood, pubs and car keys. You want to stay where you are... where feeling has primacy and pain is beautiful. And you know what ... ?
I think you are right.

-Stephen Fry's letter to his 16-year-old self

Sometimes in our relentless effort to find the person we love, we fail to recognize and appreciate the people who love us. We miss out on so many beautiful things simply because we allow ourselves to be enslaved by our own selfish concerns. Go for the man/woman of deeds and not for the man/woman of words, for you will find rewarding happiness, not with the man/woman you love but with the man/woman who loves you more.

The best lovers are those capable of loving from a distance far enough to allow the person to grow but never too far to feel the love within your being.

To let go of someone doesn’t mean you have to stop loving; it only means that you allow that person to find his/her own happiness without expecting him/her to come back. Letting go is not just setting the other person free, but is also setting yourself free from all the bitterness, hatred, and anger that you keep in your heart. Do not let the bitterness take away your strength and weaken your faith, and never allow pain to dishearten you; but rather let yourself grow with wisdom in bearing it. You may find peace in loving someone from a distance not expecting something in return. But be careful, for this can sustain life but can never give enough room for us to grow. We can all survive with just beautiful memories of the past, but real peace and happiness come only with open acceptance of what reality is today.

There comes a time in our lives when we chance upon someone so nice and beautiful and we just find ourselves so intensely attracted to that person. This feeling soon becomes a part of our everyday lives and eventually consumes our thoughts and actions. The sad part of it is when we begin to realize that this person feels nothing more for us than just a friendship. We start our desperate attempt to get noticed and be closer, but in the end our efforts are still unrewarded and we end up being sorry for ourselves. You don’t have to forget someone you love. What you need to learn is how to accept the verdict of reality without being bitter or sorry for yourself. Believe me, you would be better off giving that dedication and love to someone more deserving.

Don’t let your heart run your life, be sensible and let your mind speak for itself. Listen not only to your feelings but to reason as well. Always remember that if you lose someone today, it means that someone better is coming tomorrow. If you lose love, that doesn’t mean you failed in love. Cry if you have to, but make sure that tears wash away the hurt and the bitterness that the past has left with you. Let go of yesterday and love will find its way back to you. And when it does, pray that it may be the love that will stay and last a lifetime.

There are two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. There is no mistake so painful that love cannot forgive, no past so bitter that love cannot accept, and no love so little that we cannot start all over with.

-'Love and Life' by Albert Einstein

[I want to be this girl - on the edge of a mysterious lake in a secret cavern. Where nobody can find you, but you could find treasure, maybe. Like a future Countess of Monte Cristo!]

nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

nobody can save you but
yourself
and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.
think about it.
think about saving yourself.
-Charles Bukowski

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
-Rumi

My ways to kneel and kiss the ground lately:-

Tyler Knott's daily haikus: "There are holes in me/pieces I was born without./You are all I lack." // Anne of Green Gables. // Learning Italian. // he smiles politely back at you. // Watching Bruce Springsteen play Glastonbury...

"She went away, she cut me like a knife
Hey beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life..."

...Oh, that hero for all time! //Heatwaves. // My friend composing a "symphonic poem based on the Mary Rose," to be played at the Royal Marine Museum! // The trailer for The Time Traveller's Wife. Can it ever be as stunning as the book...? // Prosecco on planes. // My Corfu discovery: rum, cointreau, cumquats, chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce and fresh strawberries. Like Captain Jack Sparrow meets Willy Wonka! // Holidays:

"Your heart is stitched into my skin with silken threads. I whispered to the moon about how the ocean never reaches the sky anymore and the light shone brighter over the darkened landscape, like the gentle candlelight from inside the cradle of your hands. Curious blackbirds have nested in the pearl leaved tree outside my window. Some nights, I leave tiny sunflower seed piles out for them and in exchange they carry off sad folded letters to wherever you exist now..." [-tiny boat dance]:-

You know I dreamed about you
for twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
I missed you for twenty-nine years
-The National

//Drew Barrymore in Elle - I want to feel like this for my whole life:-

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.
-David Carradine

And I'm alright, standing in the streetlights here...

...Is this meant for me?
My time on the outside is over

And we don’t know how you’re spending all of your days
Knowing that love isn’t here
You see the pictures, but you don’t know their names
'Cause love isn’t here

And I can’t do this by myself
All of these problems, they’re all in your head
And I can’t be somebody else
You took something perfect
And painted it red



No sympathy
When shouting out is all you know
Behind your lies
I can see the secrets you don’t show



And we don’t know how you’re spending all of your days
Knowing that love isn’t here
You see the pictures, but you don’t know their names
Cause love isn’t here

You take the best things from me
Then everything gets empty
That’s not a world that I need



And I can’t do this by myself
All of these problems, they’re all in your head
And I can’t be somebody else
You took something perfect
And painted it red
When you took something perfect
And painted it red



-Daniel Merriweather, 'Red':-