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avonleigh
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Name: Nelle
Country: United States
State: California
Metro: Orange County
Gender: Female
Interests: following Jesus. Christianity. Poland. coffee. history. linguistics. politics. writing. Eastern Europe. communism. democracy. political theory. music.
Expertise: failing. getting up to try again. learning to rely on God for everything. laughing. trying to love. sarcasm. making myself look like an idiot. baking. being a klutz. cooking. ignoring the strict, dictionary definitions of words. reading. being awkward.
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  brokenlights73
Member Since:
5/6/2004
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avonleigh.livejournal.com = the journal I actually use. Thought I'd mention that, in case anyone stumbles acoss here and wonders... maybe someday I'll put this xanga to good use once more...
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...fragmented reflections at the warsaw uprising museum...
... a room dedicated to young insurgents -- dedicated to children. toys they used to conceal the notes they passed between batallions. a memorial to a twelve-year-old corporal.
... a boy around my age smiles at me. how dare you? I want to ask, cuttingly. how dare you smile like that, here in this place? I want to smack him.
...
I stand over a tv screen, lowered into a container with warnings about
graphic content written all over its sides. shots of bodies -- gassed,
shot, experimented upon. so I stand there, surrounded -- crowded -- by
my fellow museum-goers. and I think: what the hell are we doing? we clamour and shove for a chance to look at slides of gruesome atrocities. what is it that draws us here?
...
„the only reason for aiding Warsaw would have been pity for the one
million inhabitants dying in the town. but pity is superfluous
wherever a sentence is pronounced by History." -czesław miłosz- [hatred
is solidified as being completely inadequate to define my feelings
toward the policies of soviet russia.]
... I read a description
of ,banan' [banana]-- zbiegniew banaś -- a liason; he delivered letters
to the front line. killed by nazis on 17 august whilst delivering
letters to a red cross hospital. he was 15. the ways i give of myself
are thrown into harsh perspective.
... „do remember that
dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. don't imagine
that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking
propagandist of the soviet regime, or any other regime, and then
suddenly return to honesty and reason. once a whore, always a whore."
-george orwell, in a condemnation of uk press-
... I sit on a bench, and a father walks by with his two sons, approximately 8 & 10. who brings children here? I think. then I look over at „banana's" wall. oh. I forget the
children who are presently here and remember all the ones who can never
leave.
... „I wish that instead of mumbling words of official
optimism we had had the judgement and the good taste to bow our heads
in silence before the tragedy of a people who have been our allies,
whom we have helped to save from our enemies, and whom we cannot save
from our friends." -george kennan-
... same bench as before.
two old men sit down next to me. they're Polish. I'm filled with the
overwhelming desire to simply wrap my arms around them and cry -- for
and with them. I want to ask: please, tell me everything. tell me
what you suffered. let me honour you. help me value the history you
embody. please. please.
... „you, Poles, have your weaknesses
that are revealed when you enjoy freedom, and virtues that appear at
the times of the worst adversities and misfortunes. your strength lies
in the fact that at the worst of times you know how to preserve hope.
when you lose absolutely everything you had to lose, when you are left
with nothing, you still preserve hope, and persistently repeat against
reality, ,Poland is not yet lost, not yet lost.'" - gregory macadams,
head of the bbc-
...zorza wolności się pali
nad Polska idących lat
moc nasza przemoc powali
nowy dziś rodzie się świat...
[...the dawn sky of the freedom is burning
for our country and all that she'll be
as a new world is thrust into life,
our might will cast off slavery...]
{lyrics by kaziemierz kumaniecki ,kozakiewicz’ – october 1942
translation: norman davies}
...I walk outside and get on the tram home. and as I look around me, at the buildings, at the people, I remember: Poland has not been lost, has not been lost. | | |
| Hey guys... I'm currently in London, and I wanted to just let you all know that I'll be on sabbatical from xanga for an unknown perod of time. If you want to stay updated on my life in Poland, feel free to e-mail me at brokenlights.at.gmail.com, and I'll add you to my correspondence list.
Love you, Nelle | | |
| - In My Head
...you're my scraps of magic...
"These are little scraps of magic & when you paste them together you
get a memory of something fine & strong, she said. Sometimes it
takes till you're 40 to see it though." -Bryan Andreas-
a somewhat-less-than-comprehensive list of what i'll miss...
… my church
… trins
… my mum
… krisia
… my grandma
… our dog
… my bed
… starbucks
… the ocean
… my house
… college group
… loma
… the way the people at starbucks can never spell my name
correctly
… driving
… my room
… him
… making cookies for dr. smith
… the caf
… being annoyed at the blatant spelling and grammatical
errors in the school paper
… getting up early to chat with noelle
… rooming with jena
... my professors
… having internet on my computer
… in-n-out
… the tent
… her
… blogging
… ryan seacrest
… clothes dryers
… henry’s
… my books
… television
… jena’s
gamecube
… my shower at home
… everyone
… everything
… you
(cross-posted at livejournal)
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| - Laughing City
...something of a stream of consciousness...
For as long as I remember, I’ve imagined myself a Writer. I have a romantic fascination with
words. They’re exquisite. There’s just… something… about combining strokes and creating beauty.
But there are so many instances where what I create seems
inadequate, even ugly. Words disappoint
me, and no combination of them will ever truly convey my heart and what it
longs to express. Yet I continue to
reach… reach… writing furiously,
somehow believing that if I just. try. hard. enough. I’ll conquer this
time. I’ll win out over whatever this is
that’s holding me down.
I know that with anything I write, I never truly capture
what I wanted to. Ever. Any kind of art, for me, is like that. There’s always something missing, because
nothing is ever as good as the original.
And I realise that I’m
one of those Originals. I am that
embrace. I am that sense of
longing. I am that sheer joy. I am that total sorrow. I am the most exquisite sunset you’ve ever
seen. I am that instance that takes your
breath away. Every moment I experience
is wrapped up into who I was created to be and become.
My Creator intended me to feel. He intended me to seek
out this beauty, and yes, intended me to attempt its capture. I can’t go back and recapture every emotion I’ve
ever experienced and every beautiful scene I’ve ever witnessed. But I will never give up attempting to
capture those little pieces that make me His creation. My attempts will never be good enough, but I’m
learning that that doesn’t make me not
good enough, it simply casts a blazing light onto the fact that I and my
emotions and my soul cannot be expressed in mere
words.
I’ve questioned if my struggles made me a true writer or
simply a failure.
Maybe they just make me an ordinary Original.
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