If she wanted to be a heroine, it was time to start behaving like one

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard.
I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

-Mary Oliver

~

Wow. I've just realised something, about all of my fretting for the future. Every worry I have about what will happen next in my life: which path to choose, whether I will find work that I love, [mundanely enough] whether I will make enough money, and most of all, whether I will have to live far away from The Boy... - every one of those worries comes from fear.

"Riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky, I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again."

-F Scott Fitzgerald

I am so, so afraid that nothing else I find can be as good as what I am leaving behind. For so long, my dream was just being here and finding a hero; now I have to find a new dream, something to work towards and fight for. I can't picture one clearly yet, and that frightens me. I am so afraid of not finding a purpose. Most of all, I am afraid I will lose The Boy if I find a dream that takes me far away.

I love this:-


"i just want to wander and zigzag and tiptoe around the world for a while, and scratch it and vacuum goodness from it, to the greatest quantity i can possibly gather and grasp, just forget about success and the future and trying to `shape my life' and loss and mcdeath and micro$oft and rent and "meaning" and relationships and just:

do what really fucking matters,

which really, is each little human's personal thing. and my personal thing, my pretties, is everything! and i am not just speaking of this site, i mean everything, this entire earth, the fragrances, a sculpture, romeo and juliet, some stars, the feeling of running, a mislaid book, a weary traveler, coffee in a styrofoam cup and the energy emanating from the body of a person in love.

i just want to be allowed to do whatever i damn want.. many might see it as a personal weakness but i cannot for the life of me satisfy myself with thoughts of something better, whilst doing something i loathe. if i have a mind-numbing, depressing job, i can't be happy knowing that later, i can read, i can collapse on the floor or cry for no reason if i want. i have to be able to do whatever i want, when i want. otherwise, i feel an urge to die. i never see the point in doing things i do not need to do. i'm sure some of you might tell me you need to get your hands a little dirty in order to work for what you want.. the things i want don't require work though. the things i want just require me to have the bravery to... dash about and write a while and sneak into theaters and kiss a stranger and steal a sailboat and be part of a cabaret show and see a castle and touch some stone.. play in disneyland, pretend to be a child, draw graphs which map quite ludicrous things.. just, anything.

i have to have the courage to be an absolute nobody. this is all i really want."

~

What do I want? I want to start my mornings on a balcony [preferably in Rome!] having breakfast with The Boy in the sunshine. I want to continue writing here at Sparkles & Crumbs. As this awesome 5-year-old says, "I care if I do something that's special!" Sometimes, incredible messages like this really make me wonder whether the last two are actually the same thing. Lovely Amanda Cupcake comments that Sparkles & Crumbs "lights up a sparkler somewhere in me" - well, her words of wisdom do the same for me:

"To any of you
who are afraid of making a change..
stepping into the unknown..
Yes..
That is a scary place.
But I can tell you..
That everything happens for a reason..
And gradually, the little lights on your path will start to light up. ♥"

I need to replace fear with curiosity and courage! I need to stop being scared and start being brave. I need to look for opportunities to do things I love, things that sound exciting and heart-swelling, whatever the risk.

[My friend's amazing adventures in Bali!]

"Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep alone under the stars. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no whenever you don't want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide if you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you're doing here. Believe in kissing."

-Eve Ensler

Another place that inspires me lately is the Brave Girls' Club - it's incredible! Sign up to receive free 'Daily Truths,' and you get this kind of encouragement sent straight to your inbox every evening:

"Great hopes make great women.

Noble dreams make noble women.

Incredible acts create incredible women.

Brave choices make brave women.

It is not much harder than that. DO the things that emulate the kind of woman that you want to become. BE the kind of woman that you admire...

Every day, in everything you do... every choice and every thought... you are becoming the phenomenal woman that you are meant to become. You are already there... imagine how amazing you will be when you keep up the great work!"

Another awesome piece of advice, from Gala Darling:

"Stop looking outside yourself for people to emulate. Stop waiting to meet someone who is going to *make you happy.*

Be your own superhero.





...You are your own greatest untapped resource. Knowing that you can rely on yourself, that you can pull yourself out of bad moods, that you have the ability to direct your life wherever you want it to go — is one of the best things you could ever do for yourself.

Aim to ‘wow’ yourself daily.

Learn how to put together an amazing outfit, get your pilot’s license, learn Mandarin, give yourself an incredible orgasm, speak in public, throw a stonking party, write a book, paint a masterpiece… You are the only person who can change your life. Hop to it!"

Next time I'm freaking out, I must remember: I have a secret life as a Sparkles & Crumbs superhero. I can fly. No need for fear. Just faith.

"There is probably no point in my going into your questions now; for what I could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring your outer and inner lives into harmony or
about all the other thing that oppress you - is just what I have already said: just the wish that you may find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith...
And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always...
I am glad, in a word, that you... are solitary and courageous, somewhere in a rugged reality. May the coming year support and strengthen you in that.
Always
Yours,
R. M. Rilke"

Love, homemade pizzas and Funny Face xxx

Like parachutes and air balloons, like satellites and lonely moons...

...We'd still be drifting, far apart,
But thank the stars we are
Entwined...
-Jason Reeves

All of my beloved Audrey Hepburns, pining for a Paul Varjack but surrounded by Sally Tomato-s and super-rats - this is a message I really, really needed to hear two years ago. So now I am sending it to you:

He really exists.

I know it is so hard to believe sometimes - to hold on to the dream of a Prince [or, indeed, Princess!] when one is surrounded by frogs as far as the eye can see. I spent years and years waiting, and feeling alone. I almost gave up hope.

But you must keep the faith. Make your own dreams come true, but still wish upon stars. Stay true to the best in you. And, when you least expect it, the best person, the one worthy of the best in you, will appear - like the first day of spring.

And it will be everything you expected - the electrical kisses that send crackles through your body. The warmth of their body holding you through the night. The love letters and the flowers and the slow dances. It is all waiting for you, I promise.

And it will be a hundred and one things you didn't expect, too: how much you will make each other laugh, how you will fall in love with their freckles, the sledging in the snow and the swings in the playground and the squabbles. How they will become the air you need to breathe and the sunniest hour of every day - how you will love them so much it frightens you.

"Ah! It was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt..."
-E.M. Forster

Rob Ryan really was right all along:

It really will come true. Gregory Pecks still exist, as long as you stay a Princess Anne. Please believe me, my darling.

"It’s clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty bumming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another."
-Robert James Weller

How do I know? Lovely Kate asked me: "Have you ever met your true love?"

Yes, I have.

~

Love, tulips and parcels in the post xxx

Find tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything

Buongiorno, beautiful darlings! How was your Valentine's Day?

Life has been as sparkling, jumbled and full as the picture above - but busy days have made me a bad blogger! So here's what been going on in the cosmos of Miss Cakewise...

First of all, I had great fun baking this double-decker heart-shaped sponge cake with chocolate fudge icing, sprinkles, Tigger and Eeyore candies and Smarties spelling "Love You" for The Boy's Valentine [one of my more cynical friends looked at it and sniffed, "You don't know the meaning of overdone, do you?"]...

The Boy himself handmade me some marzipan hearts dipped in chocolate [he ground the almonds himself! Tres impressive!], and brought me this as a lunch time surprise:

I said "oui, oui!", of course!

I also attended the first Ball of the season [I feel like an Austen heroine!] - the Churchill Spring Ball, with the theme of the Seven Deadly Sins! The Boy and I slaved away as dishwashers for the first four and a half hours in order to attend the second half of the Ball for free. I made a very sullen, soaking wet and sulky Cinderella, believe me - but I befriended the kitchen workers and procured gallons of sneaky hot chocolate and platters of pizza slices, and all was well when we were finally unleashed on the festivities! It was so much fun, with some of our favourite people: champagne, cocktails, chocolate fountains, bouncy castles, ball pits, and even our favourite band, Truly Medley Deeply!

And I've been spending some Quality Street time with some of the varied, eccentric and amiable characters I've come to love here in Cambridge, whether it's an elegant dinner with the theologians finished off with wine, cheese and gossip...

...or fancy dress festivities with my favourite college folk...

[I loved The Boy as The Hulk! Oh, the arms...]

Other instances of awesomeness? A friend turned 21, and her family treated everyone to a delicious dinner in our own private room at a posh restaurant - her mum had baked her 21 amazing, glitter-icing-ed cupcakes to celebrate! Mmm! And today our ragtag bunch descended on the local swimming pool, partaking in float battles and racing each other down the slides! It is such a cheap way to have fun [and don a bikini to pretend it's summer already!]

My little brother even came up for a visit - I got him dancing along to Mr Brightside for the first time ever!

Alas, also, of co,urse I've been slaving away on coursework essays on sexual ethics, the soul, and salvation. But at least they are both challenging and so very relevant; more distressingly, I've been facing some friendship feuds and familial ill-tidings.

But those unhappier events have made me realise what an incredible extended family I have. I have such an amazing spectrum of people a rainbow wide to provide comfort and advice when I need it the most; from companions here in Cambridge taking me out for lunch to rant along with me if I'm in a rage, to the camerado, who called as soon as she received an upset text from me at 1:30 am and soothed my spirit. I feel so very grateful to have friends I can count on, whatever the hour, to be there for me - it is the greatest gift. I hope you have friends like the camerado, too, my dearhearts.

I also only realised the other day how much hatred and anger I was putting out into the world at large at the moment. I had a lightning-flash moment the other night. I was snuggling in the nook of The Boy's arm as he dreamed peacefully, but I couldn't sleep, so seething was I at a recent slight - my mind was humming with angry responses to make. Suddenly it hit me: I was wasting so much energy focusing on the people who frustrate me, rather than bathing in a glow of love for the kind-hearted and gorgeous person cuddled up next to me, or falling asleep to thankful thoughts of the fun times with friends I had that day. Yes, some folks are just infuriating - but surely it's best to do what you can to deal with them, say all you need to say to get it out of your system, then wash your hands of all that icky indignant rage, and fix your heart and mind on what [and who!] makes you happy. You'll feel better, I promise!

[I don't know if I could manage this - I love a good rant as much as anyone when it's a righteous complaint! - but what a great idea!]

Remember:

Focus on what's fabulous in it! Raise your glass and say "Chin chin!" to calligraphy, colourful tights, creamy hot chocolate, and kind strangers.

Love, Baby Yoga and chicken schnitzel xxx