A Cup of Tea

I love the power and confidence that comes with a bold outfit and good posture. Two double rings, high heels, a good book in my bag, a small moleskin journal with my sketches of strangers, a colorful scarf, audacious white pants, a neon striped plaid shirt, my favorite songs in a playlist, and sunglasses on the top of my head so that I can protect the world when my stares become too intense. 

I do. I love that power and that confidence. I love the ability to walk down a street with my chin high up, because I honor my humanity; my focus on the present, because anything else is a waste of time; and my composure, because caring about insignificant opinions is a setback. 

As you can imagine, such a facade masks a warrior, an arrogant rebel, an incarnation of nonconformity, or perhaps a quixotic misanthrope. And behind all the labels, there stands me, upset to the last cell in my being about a cup of tea.  

There is so much potential for good around us. So many outlets through which we can help each other and ourselves, yet we waste them, miss them, or stay ignorant about their existence in an attempt to ignore them. 

A few weeks ago, after I checked out some books from the library, I was walking towards a coffee shop across the street to try a new blend (because new things make life exciting), and I was in the aforementioned mindset of being invincible. I had an upbeat song playing through my earphones and I was walking to its rhythm when I almost missed the woman who passed by me. Actually, I passed by her, rather quickly too, because I couldn't slow down. My brain registered her quivering chin and the tears on her face the instant she was out of my peripheral vision. 

And when the registration was complete, my whole body went into autopilot. I was still walking, but my mind was all over the place. Why didn't I ask her if she was okay? Why didn't I ask her to get a cup of tea with me? Why didn't I say something? What if nobody said anything? What if everyone who saw her crying ignored her? What if she hurts herself? 

I was just so disappointed with myself. All that power, all that confidence, all that invincibility dissipated into the unpleasant air around me. I had the power to make a small change. A small shift in the universe, a small string of words, a smile, a brief pat on the back, an offer. That cup of tea could have turned into life lesson, a foundation for the trust I want to place in people, a story, maybe more tears, and maybe another cup of tea. I was given the opportunity to change the cosmos but I pushed it away with the back of my hand in the few seconds it was offered to me. And without realizing, I pushed away the potential and the courage, I pushed away the fearlessness. Because really, how can I claim to be courageous and fearless when I can't stop myself to ask a simple question? How can I claim I have potential when all I can do is to worry and write about the instance? 

I didn't turn around, a coward. I stopped the music. My shoulders sulked. I drunk the new blend without being able to savor the secret ingredient. I looked out the window, replayed dramatic scenes in my head, made it into a problem about me. I didn't go back. 

Don't waste the opportunities you are offered in life. They only lead to self pity sessions.

Lots of lights

~Belle

Albatross

I was listening to the Weight of Living Pt. I by Bastille and the lyrics pulled me in so quickly that before I knew what I was doing, I was already staring at ten tabs on my browser, all searching for the albatross. 

Here is the gist of it. Samuel Coleridge wrote the Rime of the Ancient Mariner a long time ago and in this narrative poem, the mariner kills an albatross that was flying above his ship. The albatross was supposed to be a good luck sign but when the mariner kills it, good luck turns into bad luck and his crew becomes so enraged that they want the mariner to wear the dead albatross around his neck until they all die because of the curse. And now, due to the poem's popularity and the albatross' wide usage in pop culture, in English, the phrase 'albatross around one's neck' symbolizes a burden or an obstacle. 

As I researched and thought about the albatross I realized that the albatross around my neck was my writing. And maybe to some, their writing is not exactly an albatross, maybe it's something that's more like the Midas Touch or the Weeping Angels but in the end, our greatest weapon is also our greatest burden.

My thoughts usually revolve around how subjective the perception of writing is although there are universally accepted factors that make good writing, good writing. How we can think that we are good at writing but then realize that it's such a common task in our lives that anyone who has the inherent talent can build upon it and become better than us. How it has the power to either boost our self-esteems to the skies, or kill us again and again and again mercilessly because we fail repeatedly. How the instances when we see our faults and note our mistakes remind us that we need more time and more practice. How writing can weave excruciating and exhausting with pleasing and enchanting. How it can seep into our bloodstreams and place itself in our DNAs yet still be remote and unreachable to us. 

Maybe, my writing is like a magnet: because magnets are never found as only positively charged or negatively charged – they always come with two poles. For me, writing has its positives: the satisfaction, the joy, the power that comes with the ability to put words together in a seamless fashion; and its negatives: the insomnia, the need for new words, and the frustration with muses. And when I think about my writing as a magnet, I understand why I write better when I am negative – it's because I attract the positive side of the magnet. When I am beaming with positive charges, however, the positive side of the magnet is repelled, and that makes perfect sense when you look at it through the lens of, "You write so beautifully. The inside of your mind must be such a terrifying place." 

So, I will leave you with this. Writing is hard and I am trying to embrace the albatross around my neck to get into the right mindset, but who knows where that will lead me...

Lots of idioms, 

~Belle

Ramblings of a Sardine

Sardines, they say. Sardines. Of course, those insignificant humans cannot bother to learn the specific names of each different species. It’s so much easier to clump us all under one little name. Sardines. 

My chosen title is Kapinoida and I am a proud European pilchard, with a lineage of Sardina pilchardus. I live near the small English island Lundy in a school of hundred other European pilchards. We have a few different species here and there, but we get along well. 

My best friend, a South American pilchard with a lineage of Sardinops sagax, is thinking of forming a fish activism club. I suggested we call it the CLUPeidae because that’s the family name, clupeidae. The family all sardines belong to. It will be our fair share of irony.

We have culture clubs and the general dancing institution in our school, but we don’t have an activism club. And most of us need something to do in our spare times, so we are hoping that the CLUPeidae will provide that much needed distraction. The Japanese pilchards and the sardinella have their Japanese club in which they work on special glistening techniques for our scales. The Californian pilchards, and the Brazilian sardinella work together on producing interesting theater productions. 

There is a rumor that they get their ideas from humans, but it seems like a stretch to me. I mean, for that to happen, they would need to see humans engage in theater, which I highly doubt humans do. Humans and theater? HA! Quite a funny image if you ask me. Those crude creatures in something as emotive as theater? I don’t think so. 

For all I know, humans spend the bulk of their time hunting us down, and then turning us into either sustenance for feeding, or specimens for researching. Research I say, but obviously, they are flattering themselves with such credit. After everything they have researched, they still haven’t figured out our defensive brain mechanism that shuts down major brain functions when in danger. So they continue to insult each other with petty remarks as ‘goldfish’ to point out someone’s short memory, but in reality, we all know that as untrue as their claims are, they are also pathetic for their need to insult each other. Our biologists, the Southern African pilchards and the Bali sardinella, after working with our psychologists, the Indian oil sardines and the Round sardinella have concluded that due to the limited usage of their brains, humans haven’t moved past self-esteem issues and the like, which not only explains their insults, but also the other useless and extremely violent activities they participate in such as wars. 

For our activism club, we are thinking of working with the Goldstripe and the Maderian sardinella, our statisticians, to devise a plan to keep our family from overpopulating. As the global temperatures rise, our females reproduce more and more. If we don’t put a restraint on ourselves, we might take over the ocean, and homogeneity in a habitat has been historically proven to harm its inhabitants. We are cooperating with the Rainbow sardines first as the experimental species because they volunteered, already having reported of non-reproducing male-male and female-female couplings in their schools.

~~~

I had to write a story for my AP Language class and I thought, why not write the ramblings of a sardine? After a few hours of research and a completed first draft, it slowly dawned on me that my muse might have been high when it popped this idea in my head – so, I am sorry if any of this was disturbing to you. If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it! 

PS: I would also love to get prompts to write about, so if you have any crazy ideas and can compete with my muse, tell me and I shall write (:

Lots of porcupines,

~Belle