I’m An Introvert Until Someone Starts Talking About The Moon Or My Favorite Books.

last book that I…

bought: the secret history, donna tartt

borrowed: letters home, sylvia plath

was gifted: infinite jest, david foster wallace

started: uno, nessuno e centomila, l. pirandello

finished: song of achilles, madeline miller

didn’t finish: emma, jane austen

last book that I;

bought: stone blind, natalie haynes

borrowed: the collected poems of sylvia plath

was gifted: a set of antique 1830-1850s novels

started: elektra, jennifer saint

finished: a thousand ships, natalie haynes

gave 5 stars to: tales from the estate, sadie davidson

gave 2 stars to: war of the worlds, h. g. wells

didn't finish: if we were villains, m. l. rio

tagging anyone who wants to take part

Eyes

Eyes of flowing honey,

eyes of swirling ocean.

Is there really so much of a difference?

Both marred with scars,

painfully etched in over the years by family and friends and society itself.

A father filled with rage,

a mother who never wanted her.

One desperate to fit in with American society and one forever distancing herself from it.

One knowing nothing about himself and the other knowing everything about the both of them.

Yet, when their eyes meet all the scars seem to smooth over,

the raging sea calms,

the honey travels far from the fearsome bees of its past.

And, when they are inevitably torn apart?

Diana Giacometti stood on a crowded platform of St. Pancras Station in London, not quite sure what to do with herself. Her suitcases stood next to her, brown leather accents on green fabric. There were three of them, one and a half were occupied by clothes and toiletries, and the rest were other necessities (mostly various books in Italian and English). She also had a matching messenger bag crossing along her front to rest effortlessly on her hip. This contained her phone, a journal, and a battered copy of The Iliad, which was, quite strangely, in modern Greek, a language which Diana did not know, nor the language of the original text.

She’d just gotten off a two-and-a-half-hour train ride from Paris, which she’d taken after a harrowing journey through Europe. Said journey had started with a nearly ten-hour ferry ride from Olbia (in Sardegna, an island off the coast of Italy) to Rome. Then, after staying in quite a classy Roman hotel (at quite an expensive price) for a night, she hopped on an eleven-hour train ride from Rome to Paris. After that, she took a train across the channel to London, and here she was. The worst part of the journey was the fact that she was travelling entirely alone. Now, she was a thirteen-year-old girl standing alone in St. Pancras Station at 9PM.

Two more trains. She took the tube from King’s Cross (the station attached to St. Pancras) to Paddington Station, her first time on London’s infamous subway system. She was a bit sad that she was leaving London before she’d even stepped outside of a train station, but the fact remained that she needed to be at school the next morning.

After arriving at Paddington, she took her last train to Windsor and Eton Central, only a half-an-hour.

Standing in the eerily quiet streets of Windsor at a time which Diana reckoned was quite near midnight, the cold, just-rained air pressing on her; the past few days felt like a fever dream. Paris and Rome and countless views of European countryside blurring together while clashing with the shiny, linoleum trains and stations, and processed snacks from overpriced stores. She hadn’t seen very many travelers her own age. A band of three British boys, a scared Danish girl, and no less than five French siblings traveling with their mother.

She thought now that she might’ve stood out quite plainly in the crowded European stations, a middle-school-age girl in a tweed jacket standing idly. She’d sometimes whisper lines of the Greek in her copy of The Iliad, sounding out words and phrases that she didn’t know the meaning of. This invariably startled anyone seated near her, while simultaneously shutting her up for the foreseeable future.

Well, now might be a good time to describe the way that Diana looked. She had chocolate hair that poured from her head in coils and swirls, draping itself across her shoulders in a charming way. Her nose was a bit big, and a light, red blush stretched across the middle of her face, like a cat lounging in the sun. Her face was harsh but not ungraceful, an elegance hidden in the way she composed her features. She had large, red lips that complemented her face perfectly, along with unkempt but not untidy eyebrows that arched slightly. Her large eyes were a deep blue, a sea of dark waves, outlined by long eyelashes.

I might also tell you of her character here. It was not unlike the harsh, beautiful Greek that she read from that book. Her voice was eloquent, even-tempered, and she commanded respect around her. The wall that she placed between herself and the world was almost unnoticeable, her façade pinned up on it. She seemed sure of herself and what she said, kind at moments when you’d least expect it, nearly perfect to most people. Some thought her cruel and cold, while others thought her too loud with her opinions, but most saw this perfect self that she had instructed herself to portray.

In reality, she was afraid. She was afraid of herself. She was afraid at every minute that she’d say the wrong thing, wear the wrong outfit, tell the wrong lie. Who she was changed slightly from person to person, and she hated it. The wall of lies she built was splotchy and built of different materials at different sections, having been carefully constructed for years. She prayed that everyone thought they were looking at the same wall, that no one would dismantle it, brick by brick, or knock it over, sending it crashing down on her. Clermont was her opportunity to paint over it all in one stroke.

Only one person had ever managed to build a back door to this wall, and he was dead. It was his Greek book that she carried around, complete with his annotations in a mix of Greek, English, and Italian. She’d catch herself running her thumb over the words scrawled in the margins of that book, knowing that he’d written them all those months ago.

I’m so sorry that I haven’t been able to post lately, but I’ve just been very busy. For the last two weeks, I’ve had a summer course at a *certain British university*, and now I’m in Italy to visit my family and friends (while also taking French classes in the mornings). Between all that and the insane heat in Europe, I’ve been completely exhausted every night. I’ll try to post more, darlings (aka the two people who like my posts)!

His pillow was wet with salty tears and his eyes were swollen from crying as he woke up. His chapped lips stung with the taste of saltwater. Diana called him.

“What time is it,” he asked, his voice cracking. He hoped she would think he was just tired. She did not.

“It’s just about 8 o’clock. What’s wrong?”

He didn’t say anything but simply hung up. He walked to the South Meadow again, slower than last time. He did not see Theo next to him. After a few minutes sitting at the bench next to the field, he heard a voice behind him.

“You’ll be late to chapel,” it said quietly, worried. Theo popped up in front of him. He tried his best to smile. Theo did not mask the concerned expression on his own face. He noticed a stray tear right under Alexander’s eye, and knelt down to wipe it away. The feeling of his hand on Alexander’s face made his skin tingle. He started to smile honestly. Theo sat down next to him quietly.

It started to rain, and Theo stood up from the bench.

“We’ll be late,” he repeated simply. Alexander walked behind him to chapel.

In Greek, "nostalgia” literally means "the pain from an old wound”. It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards, it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.

Don Draper, “The Wheel”

You ever see a pretty dress, a well-organised notebook, a peculiar balcony or read one line of poetry and get the overwhelming urge to reinvent yourself

Hmmm maybe not Mr. Elton, but Mr. Knightley?

This very morning, my history professor picked up the book I was reading, looked me in the eye, and said “Don’t read Wuthering Heights.” He then proceeded to walk away and continue class.

She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married

Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell