The Imaginary World

I’ve been reading Looking for Anne of Green Gables which I ordered from Amazon a couple of weeks ago, which is effectively a biography of the author of the Anne series, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and the factors which contributed to the conception of the book. Even though Maud lived in a small town on Prince Edward Island, Canada, over a hundred years ago, surprisingly I am recognising a few similarities between her and I.

This is not to do with her upbringing in a small provincial town, being raised by her strict grandparents. She also led quite a lonely life until her early thirties, but I don’t so much identify with that either – I see myself more in her temperament, habits and view of the world. The author describes Maud as a person who lived in a colourful world in her imagination as a form of escapism from her dreary, monotonous life, and she used fiction as a “wish fulfilment dream”, because in writing “the constraints of real life can smoothly be turned into their opposites”. I certainly am not describing my life as dreary or monotonous, but I empathise with Maud and the way her writing became an escape for her, and she possessed the power to transform the disappointments she experienced in her own life into joys and triumphs for the characters she lived through, the way she dreamed her life would turn out.

I see some similarities between our personalities also. I think, like Maud, I have the tendency to “subtly close off [my] feelings”. Maud’s universe is described as being “fuelled by dreams”, and “the rest of the world had a way of becoming peripheral” for her, and she possessed a certain “aloofness”, whether consciously or unconsciously.

I’m sure I can appear to be aloof to strangers, but I’m sure that for Maud, like me, this came down to shyness. I take a while to warm up to people and have a tendency to keep myself guarded until I know someone exceedingly well. Being aloof can make this a long process however, and I walk a fragile line between keeping my true feelings to myself, and revealing just enough, bit by bit, so a friendship can develop, slowly but surely. When someone and I are “kindred spirits”, however, I am fiercely loyal. I guess I am just not interested in superficial, fleeting friendships. I’d much rather spend time with people I’ve gotten to know over time and who accept me.

I also need to live in the real world a little more, as I’m sure Maud would have benefited from. I tend to always be daydreaming about the future, how I want my life to turn out, and I dwell on hopes and possibilities. I’ve heard time and time again that happiness can be found in enjoying the small, everyday moments and being present in the now. This is definitely something I am striving to do.

In the end, Maud’s social withdrawal and the vivid imagination in which she dwelt gave birth to a timeless classic, which still touches the minds and hearts of people across the world, transcending generational and cultural differences. She found a way to escape the disappointments and hardships of her life. But on the other hand, she surely would have missed out on a lot of what the world has to offer, and the joy of appreciating the present moment.

I suppose all I can do is try and achieve a balance.

Thursday Traffic

Boy, was the traffic horrendous this morning. I fully intended to leave a bit earlier this morning, but somehow managed to press the “Off” button on my alarm instead of “Snooze”, resulting in me tumbling out of bed at 6.18 rather than 5.50. I had my peanut butter toast and coffee at super-speed and managed to not leave too late … but then I had to get petrol and by that time the cars were bumper-to-bumper. I managed to pass the time by singing Taylor Swift loudly to myself and daydreaming.

(Which are both things I should probably not admit to doing while driving. But for most of the time I wasn’t actually moving, so I have a clear conscience.)

Has anyone else noticed that Thursday is the worst day for traffic? Why is that? Maybe people are over the working week and everyone leaves slightly later in the morning in a stupor of exhaustion and mood of denial. And Friday's traffic is less congested due to everyone being bright-eyed and excited about the impending weekend.

A Bend in the Road

I’ve been holed up at home for the past two days. Normally this would not be a problem – we’re all aware I’m a homebody. A bit of studying, a bit of writing, a bit of baking, pottering around with the house all to myself. The only barricade between me and the enjoyment of this peace and quiet is the fact that I’ve been practically maimed by the influenza virus. Take your Vitamin C supplements kids, the one going round right now is a whopper. I have felt absolutely rotten.

There, that’s my geriatric-style whinge about the state of my health over and done with. Now we can move on to more important issues. Like how emotional I just became reading the end of Anne of the Island. Yes, I’m aware that I probably do invest too much emotional energy in fictional characters, but I felt an enormous sense of relief and joy when Anne finally accepted Gilbert’s proposal, and they

walked home together in the dusk, along winding paths fringed with the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed, and over haunted meadows where winds of hope and memory blew.

Anne Shirley really is one of the greatest literary heroines, and the strong characters, wonderful humour and descriptive writing style of L.M. Montgomery means that the Anne of Green Gables series never fails to carry me away and make me feel better in “times of trial”.

Speaking of trial, I really believe I’m going to have to give up Japanese. I've been thinking about it for a while, and it’s going to feel so surreal and a little heartbreaking, as this is my tenth year studying it. The revised course at university however is just miles too complicated, and it’s taken the joy out of learning Japanese that I once felt. It’s a shame to give it up, but I’m determined to keep going with it in my own time. The other disadvantage is that it means there’ll be an extra semester at the end of my degree in order to fit in all the units for a new major. But I think it will be worth it in the end. Better to change now than to struggle and be miserable for another two years, and it has been something which I’ve been stressing about since the beginning of semester.

Choosing either French or Writing as my new major is what my gut is telling me is the right thing to do, so begins a new chapter I suppose. It will definitely alter my career trajectory not having Japanese as a major, and it will take a little while to get used to not studying Japanese as it's something that's been a part of my life for so long. I hope I'm making the right decision.

I guess I'm learning that even the most carefully-made plans can be derailed, blowing everything wide open and making things uncertain which you thought would always be a constant. The future is so much more uncertain than we expect or want it to be. But I trust that it will all turn out alright in the end.

There is a quote from Anne of Green Gables which is always a comfort to me when life is uncertain:

There’s always another bend in the road.

An Article and the Autumn

Sarah Dessen is my all-time favourite author, equal first with J.K. Rowling, and they are both the benchmark against which I measure the quality of any writing that I attempt. I just ordered half Sarah’s books from Amazon in December, with the other half sitting cheerfully in my Wish List, waiting for me to save enough to pay for the postage from America.

I’ve always loved young adult fiction and the themes they explore. Sarah Dessen’s books take it even further, away from the preconceived notions attached to YA by some as Twilight-esque high school drama and romance, into wonderful novels full of substance, style and good, old-fashioned entertainment, with characters you care about and that deftly explore the concepts of family, friendship and love.

And now I’ve started gushing. I did have a point here, I swear. I love reading Sarah’s blog, and a couple of days ago she posted an article which she’d written when she was fresh out of college, working as a waitress by night and writing her novel by day. She talks about how she was not self-confident enough to consider herself “a writer”, much less say it out loud, but decides in the end that there is no reason she should have to define herself by the label of an occupation at all.

It’s a funny and encouraging read, and I’ve printed it off and slid it into my desk drawer to take out whenever I have doubts, or when my fiction writing class is doing my head in, with part of the assignment for the semester to write concrete poems.

I’m now editing a short story I wrote about a girl working in a coffeehouse who fancies the handsome singer/guitarist, which I have to print out and distribute to my class for workshopping. This is it, my first workshopping experience! It’s like going into the lion’s den.

But today I feel good. The air is slightly crisp and cool, hinting at the first faint traces of autumn. Nights in in front of the heater with a book and a hot chocolate, here I come!

Skittle Wisdom

I had a sort of mini-epiphany today when I was at work. It’s amazing how these little nuggets of wisdom can hit you in the head as you straighten up the paisley blouses and rearrange the faux hiking boots and stand at the counter reading a magazine and trying to pretend you’re busy. I realised that most of my mental energy every day is spent contemplating the future – daydreaming about my future career(s), a beautiful rolling countryside where I’ll live, what my “house of dreams” will be like.

This daydreaming is a large part of who I am, and let’s be honest, is something I’m not going to be able to cease doing no matter how hard I try, because most of the time I don’t realise I’m doing it. But I need to take heed of the advice professed upon us by so many wise minds – I need to be more present in the now. I really want to learn to appreciate the little things that happen every day that are right in front of me, rather than focusing on some blurred, hazy picture of a dream future which might never happen.

Very deep I know, but for some reason Sunday evening always puts me in a contemplative mood. Probably the comedown from my 3pm packet of Skittles.

Back at College

It feels so weird to be back at uni after three months off. Sure, I’m probably the biggest dork in the world, but I was so looking forward to getting back into classes, and if I’m honest, halfway into the second week I’m still pretty thrilled to be back!

I was extra-keen to start my creative writing class, which I’ve been waiting a year to begin. We’ve only had one seminar so far but it looks like it’s going to be a fascinating course, and a great way to introduce me to new ways of writing (read: motivate me to actually make time to do some). This morning I even wrote three haiku. I’m not normally a fan of poetry in general, either reading it or writing it. I can appreciate it in its own way, but I’d sooner pick up a novel or read a short story than read a piece of poetry laden with metaphor and hidden meaning about life and the cosmos, but so far it’s not going to badly. To give you a taste of my newfound poetic voice, here’s a I wrote a haiku about the passing of time and growing older –

Autumn

The pages turn, lines

grow deep and leaves fall as I

watch the calendar.

Pretty deep, right? Metaphorical? Imagery-filled? Commenting on the fleeting nature of life? Check, check, check. I am now a working poet, as per the requirements of the course. Looking forward to getting into more prose and short story work, but this is fun for now.

French and German are amazing fun, and I’m enjoying them immensely … especially French! I'm very chic and sophisticated. Hardy-har-har.

On the other end of the spectrum, Advanced Japanese is turning out to be a whole new level of difficult. I naively expected, after getting a Distinction in the Intermediate course, to be able to sail into Advanced, no worries. Boy, was I mistaken. Luckily it’s not only me commenting on the arbitrary and complicated nature of the text, and I’ve decided to give it until the end of March to decide whether to continue with it or not. If I drop it, it’ll add an extra year on the end because I have to do all the required units for a different major, most likely Writing or French. It’s a brown-paper-bag-moment, with me almost asphyxiating, whenever I think about it so I’m just focusing on the present right now.

I knew trying to do an Asian language was gonna come back and bite me in the behind. I think I need a lie down.