to misremember

The topic for today's thirty things adventure is one that I think about quite often, actually. I've hinted about it here and here, but never with much detail. I've spoken to a few about it before, and discussed it at length with the best professor on the planet, and she helped me come to this realization: my thoughts and ideas are very radical for my demographic, and that is okay. It doesn't matter if you agree with me or not - my story and my personal archive are different from yours. That makes me who I am; it is continually changing with every experience I have. The same is happening to you, but you are being shaped into you. Me into me.

Now, onto what I think people misunderstand most about me. I could be completely wrong about this, but I get the impression that a lot of the people who I interact with believe that I am very conservative; almost prudish, even. I'm not. Don't believe me? Come over to my house and take a quick gander at my bookshelves. I'm an intellectual who believes that you have to read and experience the unaltered grit of reality to understand those ideals that begin with capital letters. Thanks to Toni Morrison and her novel Beloved for the title of this post. I think the concept accurately describes what is happening to me - the people around me remember me as a child, and are therefore misremembering me. I'm different from the childhood me. I've grown up and developed my own non-prudish, non-conservative ideas about the world.

29. What do you think people misunderstand most about you? | thirty things

"Now she had to be content with the company of the person she prized most of all --- herself."

Home | Toni Morrison

double rainbow all the way

"You think dark is just one color, but it ain't.  There're five or six kinds of black.  Some like fingers.  And it don't stay still.  It moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green.  What kind of green? Green like my bottles?  Green like a grasshopper?  Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky just before it breaks loose to storm?  Well, night black is the same way. May as well  be a rainbow."

Toni Morrison | Song of Solomon

my favorite.

I have a friend named Toni. I've never met her, but I know her. I know her through her writing. And I'm on a first-name basis with her. {As I am with Sylvia, Aldous, Zora, Edgar, William . . .} Well, she was on Oprah last week, and I almost fell off the couch when Oprah introduced her, I was so excited. And I may or may not have squealed like a twelve-year-old fan girl at a Justin Bieber concert, thrown my hands in the air, and almost cried. She's a good friend. Toni has meant the world to me since the first time I read Beloved waaaay back in the twelfth grade. She is the epitome of all things I consider wise. She always says the most thought-provoking things, and they always make perfect sense. I guess that's what comes with being eighty years old and a Nobel Prize winner. The more you think about what she says, the more you realize how wise, and how right she is. Also, she has that fantastic story-teller voice. I could listen to her talk all day long. The latest and greatest words of wisdom from her that I've acquired and implemented into my own personal beliefs is something she said while telling a story about her son.

"Do you light up when a child enters the room?"

Think about that for a minute. She genius, right? Tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this woman is brilliant. She continued to talk about the importance of showing people (especially children) how we feel about them, instead of simply telling them. This.is.so.important. You can tell someone something, but until you show them, there might be doubts about what you say.

Toni continued to talk about the importance of finding something to do that is purely for yourself and for your own enjoyment. Find that space that is sacred, she said, and only for you, where you can escape and completely be yourself. For her, she said, it's writing. But it could by anything you enjoy doing. Anything at all. I dare you to find that space if you haven't already. I believe it is essential to our survival as women. And please read Toni's books if you haven't. They are incredible.