“Do you love me?”

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. “Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!”

“What do you mean?” Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.

“Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s become almost obsolete,” his mother explained carefully.

Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.

“And of course our community can’t function smoothly if people don’t use precise language. You could ask, ‘Do you enjoy me?’ The answer is ‘Yes,’” his mother said.

“Or,” his father suggested, “‘Do you take pride in my accomplishments?’ And the answer is wholeheartedly ‘Yes.’”

“Do you understand why it’s inappropriate to use a word like ‘love’?” Mother asked.

Jonas nodded. “Yes, thank you, I do,” he replied slowly.

It was the first lie to his parents.

* * *

This excerpt from The Giver by Lois Lowry comes just after Jonas receives a memory of Christmas and family. It’s the first time he’s ever experienced real love, and it transforms him. This passage gives me chills–to think that such a society could exist with the absence of love.

In case you’ve been living under a rock and have never heard of this book, I’ll give you a brief summary. This novel takes place in a dystopian society in which every citizen conforms to the same concept of Sameness. As each child approaches the Ceremony of Twelve, he or she is given an assignment–a career choice, if you will, although a committee decides for each child based on his or her aptitude and interests. Jonas is chosen as the Receiver of Memories. He alone will receive the collective memory of society (collective unconscious, anyone?). He must carry the burden of all the emotions–happiness, love, pain, fear. He experiences poverty, war, hunger, sunshine, snow, Christmas, family, joy. No one else in the community ever knows that such extremes existed.

This is a world with color. Without art. Without music.

Without love.

It’s chilling in its portrayal. The novel beautifully explores notions of freedom. It made me realize that freedom of choice–in what I’ll wear, in where I’ll go to school, in whom I’ll marry–is something I often take for granted. What if that choice were taken away from me? Would I miss choice if I’d grown up without it?

I re-read this book this week because I was working on a paper for adolescent literature on how to use literature to teach social justice to secondary students. I chose this book and The Knife of Never Letting Go as examples of dystopian literature that can be used in the classroom. Dystopian literature is so intriguing and thought-provoking because it shows the extremes to which society could go if preventative action isn’t taken. Will we fight against those who remove choice? Will we fight for the oppressed? Can we make a change and avoid a bleak future?

Something to think about.

A list of things that I’m super excited about right now:

1) I applied to the M.A. in English program at Gardner-Webb University…to start in January (hopefully, with Coa!). It seems like such a sudden change, but I’ve known for months now that the M.A.T. program isn’t right for me. I don’t want to teach high school, and the student teaching and certification progress to do that would be a waste of my time and energy. With the M.A., I can take just English classes (yay!), write a thesis, begin teaching full-time at the college level (hopefully!), and eventually decide where and in what concentration to get my Ph.D. I applied to G-W last week, and I’m working on getting the rest of my documentation in. Then, I’ll work on financial aid. With the peace I feel about this decision, I’ll be shocked if everything doesn’t work out perfectly.

2) Next week is Thanksgiving Break! It’s going to be wonderful to have a few days off from work and school. I’m going to Sullivan’s Island with Chris on Wednesday (and eating at Poe’s Tavern!); Thursday is Thanksgiving Day with my family; Friday, my family is going shopping in Charleston; and Sunday is a surprise for my mom (that you’ll all hear about soon)!

3) On Tuesday, I got my tickets to see Switchfoot at the Orange Peel on December 4! They’ll be playing the entire Hello Hurricane album from start to finish, plus some “old favorites” and “a few surprises”! YAY!

4) The end of the semester fast approaches. I’m finishing up final projects, grading my students’ final essays, and looking to Dec. 7 with mixed feelings. I’ll give my last final exam that day and take my last final exam at Converse. On that day, I’ll officially finish my first semester of teaching college English, which has been marvelous and challenging, and I’ll also officially end my academic career at Converse after a year and a half. I’ll definitely miss my very first students, and I’ll also probably miss the people and experiences I’ve had at Converse. But, alas, life continues on.

5) This morning, Michele, Harvin, and I had a discussion about Christmas. Right now, we’re planning a little trip. We’ll all drive up to Pennsylvania the weekend before Christmas, stay a few days, take a day-trip into New York City, and then we’ll leave Michele up there for Christmas with her family while we drive back home in time to get back to our families for Christmas. It looks like I’ll be heading back up north for the second time this year! I’ll see new states, and I’ll be in NYC at Christmastime! It’s gonna be amazing, and I hope we can make it work.

So there we are. Changes, adventures, life.

Friday afternoon, I found a medium flat-rate box in the mail with a return address of San Carlos, CA. Inside, encased in bubble wrap (that was quickly tossed aside) was the deluxe edition of the Switchfoot album Hello Hurricane–four days before the official release date (today!). The 84-page hardcover book contained lyrics, notes, and a story written by Jon Foreman about the album; photos of the band on tour, in-studio, and surfing; a full-size poster; a DVD detailing the making of the album, as well as live recordings; a CD of alternate mixes; and the 12-track album, the first album full of new material Switchfoot has released in nearly three years.

Before I listened to the album in its entirety, I had only listened to the song “Mess of Me” once. I wanted to wait and experience the music only when I had the CD in my hand, when I could read the lyrics as I heard them, when my focus could be almost totally on the music (which explains why I almost forgot about the cookies I was baking at the time).

I want to proclaim that this album is their best yet, and although I’ve initially believed that about every album, this one actually does blow my mind in how incredible the music is. The reason why Switchfoot is my favorite band is evident on this album: the music always meets me where I am. As my life evolves, so does the music, it seems. I listen to Switchfoot and wonder how Jon Foreman makes poetry out of the jumble of thoughts in my head. How do his words always seem to reflect what’s going on in my heart?

This album reveals the cycle of one’s life, or even one’s day. “Needle and Haystack Life,” the opening track, greets the new day, while “Red Eyes” seeks the rest that comes with hoping for a new beginning after the night is over. The progression from high-energy anthems to slow, introspective songs mirrors the triumph and tragedy of life. And through it all, one purpose is revealed: the world is wrong, messed up, but we fight for love anyway. Love is what drives us, frees us, redeems us.

So, song by song, here are my impressions of the album:

Track 1: “Needle and Haystack Life”

“The world begins / With newborn skin / We are right now”: it’s a great way to open the album. The song immediately presents the theme that is so prevalent in nearly every Switchfoot song: purpose. Life is no accident, even when it’s difficult.

Track 2: “Mess of Me”

This is the first single from the album. I’m really not surprised by the choice. It’s loud and energetic–much like “Oh! Gravity.” was for the album or “Meant to Live” was for The Beautiful Letdown. Thematically, it also works with those two songs: Yeah, we screw our lives up, but we must strive for a better life. My favorite lyrics for this song: “It’s hard to free the ones you love / When you can’t forgive yourself.” Truth is right there. And this is one example of how Switchfoot is so relevant to my life: so much of what we work through in Radius, what pervades my life as a  believer, is how to be free and free others.

Track 3: “Your Love is a Song”

This third track slows the tempo down to almost a rock-ballad-like feel. After my second time through the album, I’d already pegged this one as my favorite on the album, and I was listening to it on repeat. If “Mess of Me” shows that we make mistakes, this track reminds us that redemption is available, and perfect love can conquer all. Hope is here. Thematically, this works perfectly with “Let Your Love Be Strong” from Oh! Gravity. and “Your Love is Strong” from Jon Foreman’s Spring EP. My favorite lyrics would be the whole song, so I’ll just post the chorus: “I’ve been keeping my eyes wide open / Your love is a symphony / All around me / Running through me / Your love is a melody / Underneath me / Running to me / Your love is a song.”

Track 4: “The Sound (John M. Perkins’ Blues)”

[If you're wondering who John Perkins is, check out his foundation's website.]

This song picks up the tempo and blends the ideas of the two preceding tracks, while adding some incredible guitar work (and other stuff). The world is fallen and messed up: “This is the sound / From the discontented mouths / Of a haunted nation / We are the voice of breaking down.” What’s the cure? “Love is the final fight / Let it rise above / Rise above / There is no song / Louder than love.” When I start a revolution, this song will be on the soundtrack.

Track 5: “Enough to Let Me Go”

This is a quiet, aimless, melancholy tune, a nice break between the epicness of tracks 4 and 6. I want to know if there’s a story behind it, but it seems to be about the difficulties of relationship. “Do you love me enough to let me go? / To let me follow through / To let me fall for you?” While love might be what we’re fighting for, it’s not always easy. Sometimes, it hurts a lot.

Track 6: “Free”

Another anthemic song from the very first notes. I cannot wait to hear this song live–it’s gonna rock so hard. And, thematically…well, duh. Freedom again. This picks up where “Mess of Me” left off–we have to be free–from the chains we lock ourselves. The chorus: “Free / Come set me free / Down on my knees / I still believe you can save me from me.” When I see them play this live, and I’m in a crowd of fans screaming these lyrics, these words are gonna come from that desperate place deep inside all of us that desires to completely overcome the sinful, enslaved nature that prevents us from living the glorious life God has designed us to live. “There’s a hole in my heart but my hope / is not in me at all / I had a dream that my chains were broken / broken open / Free.”

Track 7: “Hello Hurricane”

This song is perfect for the album title. If “Free” gets our fighting spirit riled up, “Hello Hurricane” reminds us once more what we’re fighting for. We have to fight through our sufferings through the storms of life (or, you know, hurricanes). The song echoes the apostle Paul: “Everything I have I count as loss / Everything I have is stripped away.” How do we survive? The answer is always the same: “Hello hurricane / You can’t silence my love.”

Track 8: “Always”

Jon’s notes in the book describe this as a song about love “from the upstairs perspective.” We know that we’ll have to overcome adversity, and this is yet another reassurance that we are not alone in that battle. The last few lyrics of this song are the most beautiful. The words have my crying out that this is Truth: “Hallelujah! / Every breath is a second chance / And it is always yours / And I am always yours.”

Track 9: “Bullet Soul”

This will also be on my revolution soundtrack. It will also be incredible live. It’s so intensely anthemic–I want to be a “kid with a bullet soul.” And what will we be aiming for? Of course: “I want to turn up the radiation / I want to glow in the dark / Love is the one true innovation / Love is the only art.” Anyone else feel utterly consumed?

Track 10: “Yet”

Passion and intensity can’t be all of life, though. We have to slow down, which is evident in this much slower track: “I’m losing ground and gaining speed.” Even when we know what we’re fighting for, we lose sight and get caught up in confusion. This phase won’t last, and you’ll learn from it and come out stronger: “If it doesn’t break your heart it isn’t love / If it doesn’t break your heart it’s not enough / It’s when you’re breaking down / With your insides coming out / That’s when you find out what your heart is made of / And you haven’t lost me yet.” This song is going to be such an encouragement on days when I lose sight and forget what really matters.

Track 11: “Sing It Out”

And the story continues: “I’ve lost the song of my soul tonight.” Jon’s notes describe this as an “apocalyptic hymn in first person present tense.” It begins with a lonely, ethereal, longing question. This song haunts me. This could be the story of anyone’s journey: crying out for the Father and grasping for the Truth that He is all we have. “I need your breath in my lungs tonight / Sing it out / I’m holding on / I’m holding on to you.” This is a song that’s gonna make me cry–in a good, cathartic sort of way–just when I need it most. It’s the most emotionally intense song on the album. Raw and genuine.

Track 12: “Red Eyes”

It’s fitting that the last track should reflect the close of the day when “Needle and Haystack Life”  reflected the dawn. “What are you waiting for? / The day is done.” At the end of the day, when we’re exhausted and “nowhere feels like home,” we always have the hope of the next day to look ahead to. We have to keep moving. We must have hope.  And, as a perfect way to end the song and the album, Jon’s voice echoes “In this needle and haystack life / I’ve found miracles there in your eyes / It’s no accident we’re here tonight / We are once in a lifetime.” He’s already reaching ahead, beginning the cycle over. We must join in.

I feel as though nearly every post lately has been somehow related to academia–books or poetry I’ve read or lessons I’ve taught (and subsequently learned). My life is consumed with this realm; ergo, my blog reflects that. You’re welcome.

Yesterday morning, I read page 617 of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White and snapped the book close with a sigh. There’s something incredibly satisfying about finishing a book so massive. Especially a Victorian novel, crammed full of detail and description, twisted plots and deception, and several delightfully intriguing characters.

The Woman in White is a story too involved to be contained in a simply summary; however, I’ll try. A woman named Laura Fairlie marries a man named Sir Percival Glyde, although she loves her drawing master, Walter Hartright. Sir Percival attempts to get Laura to sign away her inheritance so that he can pay his debts, and she refuses because she does not know what she is signing. This refusal, this rebellion sparks a chain of events involving mistaken identity; purloined letters; secrets of Sir Percival’s parents’ marriage; and Laura’s doppelganger, the mysterious woman in white, named Anne Catherick. Playing very important supporting roles are Marion Halcombe, Laura’s loyal, strong, and feisty half-sister, and Count Fosco, the charismatic, controlling, deceptive mastermind, who may be one of the greatest villains ever written.

The story is considered by some to be a precursor to postmodernism, though it was published in 1859-60 (serialized and edited by the wonderful Charles Dickens). Walter Hartright is the lead narrator, who brings all the pieces of the story together in narrative form. Many characters (major and minor) have a say in the narration; the bulk comes from Marion’s diary and Walter’s narrative. However, even Fosco gets a chance to tell his story, and his section was my favorite in the book. He’s charming and witty and audacious, and I loved him while I hated him. Through the entire novel, the reader must determine the truth, which is often ambiguous and relative.

Interestingly enough, the two characters who should have the most to say about this situation–Laura and Anne Catherick–have little to no voice at all. Only though small sections of dialogue written by other people do we ever hear their side of the story. Neither has a section written in her own hand.

There are so many more issues I could discuss here–gender roles (and the inversion thereof), the concept that one’s identity is bound with one’s signature, the theme of imprisonment (both literal and figurative).

We’ll just leave it at this: Wilkie Collins is magnificent. I got a little bogged down in the middle of the book–I was tired of reading, and I was ready to invest my life in something else. 617 pages is a lofty commitment. But having finished, I really wish I had time in my life to pick up another Collins work–Katherine has recommended The Moonstone, and I look forward to reading that one as well. I really love Victorian literature–detailed and verbose as it is.

For my Adolescent Lit class at Converse, I have to memorize a poem and recite it in front of my class, telling why I chose that poem and what makes it appealing for adolescents. I wanted to recite “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost; however, it’s only 9 lines, and the poem needs to be at least 14. For those of you who are Stephanie Meyer fans, recall that “Fire and Ice” was the epigraph for Eclipse, the third book in the Twilight saga, and has since become representative of Bella’s choice between fire (Jacob the werewolf) and ice (Edward the vampire). So, in the realm of contemporary adolescent literature, Frost already has a vampire connection.

But I may have spotted another vampire connection. The poem I chose to recite is “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost. Both poems are late Frost, written during the Modern period in American literature. The poem:

“Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain–and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say goodbye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Anybody else think this could be the theme for a vampire–particularly one with a soul who is haunted by the need to atone for past sins? I think Joss had read this poem extensively when he created Angel. Just sayin’.

Seven total for the month. Yearly total is 92. Reading is fun.

1. Carmilla, Sherdian Le Fanu. A novella. Vampire story. The best that I read of Le Fanu. (From In a Glass Darkly, a collection of short stories and novellas. Towards the end of the book, I was on Le Fanu overload. He’s not my favorite, but I really did enjoy this novella.)

2. Roanoke Island: The Beginnings of English America, David Stick. I had a presentation on nonfiction writers for young adults, and I randomly chose this guy because he writes about nautical history. This is a lengthy book examining the history of early British colonization in the “Virginia” area (which is actually modern-day NC). It’s really interesting and informative.

3. The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank. I’d never read this before. It’s hard to read, knowing that each diary entry brings me closer to the end–her arrest and subsequent death. It’s incredibly powerful.

4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. Volume 5: Issues 21-25: Predator and Prey. Ugh. I’m only reading these because I love Buffy. I want to know the story. This one was actually better than volume 5, but I miss the goodness of the TV show.

5. The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness. AMAZING.

6. The Ask and the Answer, Patrick Ness. A sequel that is just as good as the first book. These books are astonishing.

7. The Same Stuff as Stars, Katherine Paterson. Required for my young adult literature class. An excellent book for middle-school-aged readers about a girl whose father is in jail and whose mother leaves her and her younger brother in the care of an elderly great-grandmother. Angel is forced to be the grownup always, and this book is a great story about how she handles that pressure.

One year ago today, I started this blog. Happy anniversary to me! This is my 83rd post, which averages to about one every 4.5 days. Not bad at all.

My very first post was a memoir I wrote about a year and a half ago–an exploration on beauty–or the lack thereof–in my life. Interestingly enough, that subject is something that still intrigues and perplexes me. A year later, it still weighs on my mind often.

A few weeks ago, I assigned my students the chapter on Beauty from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature. Before I visited Massachusetts a few months ago, my opinion of Emerson was very different. I respected him for his influence on American literature, but I didn’t really appreciate him for his own literary worthiness. That’s changed so much in just three months. I’ve read Nature in its entirety once and my favorite sections many times since. My copy of Selected Essays, Lectures, and Poems, bought at the Emerson House in Concord, MA, is battered and worn already. Purple highlighter marks a plethora of worthy passages. Emerson’s ideas are constantly running through my mind.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath.

The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. [ . . . ] Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All.

When I assigned the chapter to my students, most of them balked at reading Emerson. He uses big words, they complained. Their eyes examined me skeptically as I raved over his genius. But when I gave them a writing assignment and had them give me a definition of Beauty, I received so many insightful definitions. And while they perhaps didn’t enjoy Emerson as I do now, their writing was proof that they were thinking about beauty outside of just my classroom. And they were incredible insightful.

After reading Emerson, many of them listed things in nature as being beautiful: sunsets, the ocean, rainy days. Others talked about beautiful people or love or gave a literal definition. But I also had each of them make a list of things they find beautiful, and as a good writing instructor, I made one in my journal as well, which I’ll  include here.

So what is Beauty? Have I decided? I think so. Beauty is Truth. Beauty is anything that makes me realize how powerful God is, how excellent his creation is, and how valuable my life is as a result. So here’s a very short list of beauty in my life:

1. Mornings on Camp Creek Road on my way to work, which the trees make a canopy over the road, and the Blue Ridge Mountains are enveloped in fog
2. Switchfoot’s Learning to Breathe; the Civil Twilight album; The Earth is Not a Cold, Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. Plus, a whole lot more incredible music
3. Driving down a long stretch of road
4. Everything about autumn–the weather, the colors, the scents
5. Renewal and rebirth in spring
6. The ocean at night, stretching to the horizon to meet a sky full of stars
7. Being surrounded by my family at Radius
8. My bulletin board, filled with memories of adventures my best friends and I have had
9. The smell of coffee brewing
10. LOVE
11. Stacks of books
12. The color purple–not the book, which I haven’t read–just things that are purple
13. Edward Hopper paintings
14. Great works of literature
15. Long, colorful scarves
16. Christmas lights
17. Connemara, Carl Sandburg’s house in Flat Rock, NC
18. The Concord River flowing past the Old Manse and under the North Bridge in Massachusetts
19. Redbirds
20. Lighthouses

I could go on forever, but twenty is enough for now.

Happy Halloween!

“Maybe our story will turn out differently if we take the left fork, maybe the bad things that are waiting to happen to us won’t happen, maybe there’s happiness at the end of the left fork and warm places with the people who love us and no Noise but no silence neither and there’s plenty of food and no one dies and no one dies and no one never never dies.”

* * *

“Cuz I see Viola looking back at me as we run and there’s brightness on her face and she keeps urging me on with tilts of her head and smiles and I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it’s dangerous, too, that it’s painful and risky, that it’s making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?”

* * *

“‘Here’s what I think,’ I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my Noise like whispers of the truth. ‘I think maybe everybody falls,’ I say. ‘I think maybe we all do. And I don’t think that’s the asking.’

“I pull on her arms gently to make sure she’s listening.

“‘I think the asking is whether we get back up again.’”

* * *

This book has been sitting in my room for over a month, beckoning to me, tempting me to abandon my academic pursuits and fall into this incredible story.

I knew it would be incredible from the first moment I laid eyes on the cover. I was taking a break from grading and homework one Saturday morning, browsing the young adult section at Barnes & Noble, not expecting to find anything new that didn’t involve vampires or angsty darkness (not that this book isn’t dark, it’s just not that kind of dark). As soon as I saw the cover, I knew I’d found something impressive. First, there’s the image of a road. This book is about a journey–literal and figurative. And the title: what the heck could The Knife of Never Letting Go possibly mean? So I picked up the book, read the first chapter, and decided I must buy it before I shifted into responsible teacher mode and graded a stack of student journals in the B&N cafe.

When I went home sick on Tuesday, I decided to curl up on the couch and read because that’s what I do when I’m sick. But I was caught up on all my reading for school, so I realized the time had come to read this book.

The basic plot: a boy named Todd is one month away from his thirteenth birthday, at which time he will undergo the ritual to make him a man. Todd, however, lives on a planet called the New World, in an isolated village called Prentisstown. Todd is the last “boy” left in town. This village consists only of men; previous to this story, according to the story Todd has been told, a virus called the Noise germ infected the residents, killing all the women and half the men.  The germ also made it so that every man hears every other man’s thoughts. No one can ever escape the Noise, and even the animals have Noise through which they communicate with humans.

The month before his birthday, Todd is made to flee the town for reasons that he doesn’t fully realize and the readers have no concept of. He grabs a rucksack, and he and his dog Manchee cross the swamp and escape Prentisstown, with an army of villagers forming to chase him down and kill him. Outside of the swamp, Todd meets Viola–the first female he has ever encountered, a girl his age. Her parents are dead, and she is also being attacked by the villagers. The two of them flee, and the story ensues.

The first aspect of this story that is immediately recognizable is the language in which the story is written. Many longer words are misspelled intentionally. For example, “preparations” becomes “preparayshuns.” Also, the author, Patrick Ness, employs a lot of run-on sentences and comma splices, bad grammar, and double negatives, and he breaks many other major rules of language. This should annoy me. It doesn’t. The run-on sentences actually add a lot of tension to the story. They move the action along more quickly and greatly reveal the intensity of the narrative. Additionally, the misspelled words and other grammatical issues aptly imply the degradation of society. Education is no longer important, and the men have slipped into a violent, selfish lifestyle. Much like Faulkner, Ness uses the narrative style in an incredible way to paint the chaos of the society he has created.

This book also provides an extensive commentary on society and religion. One of the main antagonists is Aaron, the preacher in Prentisstown. He is an almost mythical creature–he escapes death so many times, and he always manages to be several steps ahead of Todd and Viola. He preaches hellfire and brimstone, and he’s everything a good preacher would never be. He attempts to hide his violent and repressive nature behind a mask of religion.

Additionally, the book is an interesting commentary on the differences in gender. Women were resistant to the germ, and as a result, men can never know what women are thinking. Women, however, still hear everything men think, and as men attempt to hide their Noise, women become more adept at reading the silences in their Noise.

There’s so much more I could talk about: the idea of voice being what actually comes out of your mouth, or what you actually think; the idea of what actually makes a man; tension between hope and despair; and so much more. However, this blog is long enough already. In conclusion, this book is now one of my favorites. It has a cliff-hanger ending, however, as it’s the first book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy. The second one is already out in hardback, and I’m going to buy it this afternoon because I just can’t wait. That means, though, that I’ll probably have to wait a year or so before the conclusion. It’ll be frustrating, but worth it. The book is so good!

“I lie in bed at night after ending my prayers with the words ["Thank you, God, for all that is good and dear and beautiful"] and I’m filled with joy. I think of going into hiding, my health and my whole being as [good]; Peter’s love (which is still so new and fragile and which neither of us dares to say aloud), the future, happiness and love as [dear]; the world, nature and the tremendous beauty of everything, all that splendor, as [beautiful].”

-Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition)

* * *

I finished this book tonight. It’s really hard to read a book and know that as I finish each entry, I’m a day or two closer to her death. Every time she mentions a break-in at the warehouse of the building in which their hidden, or another person arrested for hiding a Jew, I wondered if people realized yet that eight people were hidden in what she called the “Secret Annex.”

Certain entries could be the diary of any fifteen-year-old girl. (For that matter, they could be a diary entry I wrote yesterday.) Then, Anne discusses the fact that they’ve been hidden for two years, or that they’re eating rotten lettuce, or that the man who delivers potatoes has been arrested for hiding Jews. Suddenly, the fact that she doesn’t get along with her mother or that she thinks she’s falling in love with Peter seems to be extra-weighty. Her dreams of being a writer, of going to school to be a journalist, are bittersweet. Although she certainly hoped and dreamed it, she would never know for sure that millions of people decades later would still be reading her words, would still care about her story.

There were tears in my eyes as I read the afterward to the diary. In the 323 pages of the definitive edition, I grew to know Anne, her sister and parents, and the other inhabitants of the Annex well. I rejoiced when Anne and Peter kissed for the first time. I grew angry when Anne’s mother berated her for a seemingly insignificant matter. Then, to read the afterward, and find out that only Anne’s father Otto survived, was heartbreaking.

While the book is engrossing and not a taxing read, as far as vocabulary goes, it’s definitely hard to read in regards to content. When I closed the book, I felt like I’d lost a friend (cheesy, huh?). Nonetheless, I’m glad to have read it. I think I’ll go write in my diary now.

[Note: the title of this blog is from the song "Holland, 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel. One of my students wrote a review of the album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for a class assignment and has been reminding me to listen. The whole album is apparently Anne-Frank-themed, but this song in particular is striking. The link is to a video someone made containing images of Anne Frank and other images from World War II. It's not exactly pleasant, but it is poignant, if you care to watch.]

Things I love about this month:

1. Pumpkin everything–candles burning in my room, bagels and cream cheese at Einstein’s, the literal pumpkin that Michele bought yesterday (we’re going to carve it, as I’ve never carved a pumpkin before).

2. Coffee! “Perfectly Pumpkin” to make in our Keurig at home and Einstein’s new chestnutty “Autumn Roast.” Yum!

3. Cooler weather–I can wear sweaters and drive with my windows down with the heater warming my feet.

4. Fall for Greenville! Civil Twilight is playing at 9 tomorrow night! (And their album is currently #29 on the charts! YES!!!!!)

5. Fall Break. Two days off from work next week, and then my own Fall Break from classes. It’s totally time for a break.

I love autumn.