Project 365 New Things: Day 29

Today I was very busy with homework, attending to a sick family member, and trying to register myself for the PSAT, so I sort of left off doing today's challenge until, like, an hour ago (read: 10 pm. I don't know why, but the timestamp on my posts is always off). I was out of ideas, too. But luckily for me, Drew came to my rescue with the idea of writing a letter to someone by hand. I have, of course, done this before, but it's been a while. To make it even more challenging and new, I decided to write him a letter backwards, so that it could be read in a mirror.

Now, I've read that some synesthetes are able to write backwards very easily. Let me assure you that I am not one of these people. At the end of three and a half paragraphs, my brain was like a very colorful alphabet soup. It was actually pretty fun, though. I enjoy word puzzles and things like that immensely, and the combination of writing in a way I'm not used to while actually trying to record something interesting in a message to someone was rather entertaining, in a head-breaking sort of way. Tomorrow, I shall place this letter in the mailbox and send it on its way to Drew's residence. I think I'll write the address on the envelope in the normal direction, however.

And now, sweet and gentle readers, I bid you goodnight.

~Maddie

I wrote a thing...

Hello, lovelies.

I am taking a short break from studying madly and coughing up my lungs to post a short...thing. I don't know if it's a poem, a short story or an essay, but I do know that I wrote it (that is, unless someone has played a very clever joke on me and I only think that I wrote it). I wanted to post my first draft on this blog. Yes, it's still in draft format, so any input sent via comment or the communication widget on the right of your screen would be greatly appreciated, because it's still at that early stage of life where I can't tell if it's absolute rubbish or not.

~Maddie

Forever Almost

A thing, by Maddie.

If I loved you, I would love you in the complete and indisputably, unquestionably existent way that the wind blows through branches in October, creating fingers of air that, just for a fleeting instant, are solid enough to shake down dead leaves and toss them into a stormy sky, to turn and flip in one final celebration of a vitality already lost. I would love you in a way that just happens, so normal and so right that no one thinks about it, like the clockwork heartbeat of the universe. I would write you songs that could freeze snowflakes in the air and leave them there to hang, as specks of lace trapped in an immortal beam of cold afternoon light. I would sing down the moon and the stars and all the planets for you, and then launch them back into the sky to hover more brightly and more brilliantly than they ever could have before.

If I loved you, I never would have expected to. My love would be the lazy, slinky light that seeps in through the window at about four o’clock in the afternoon, and reminds me that even though the morning was full of life, the late, sluggish hours of the day will still slink in and claim my productivity as they trap sparkling dust in their glittering wakes. Though I forget this will ever happen, it does, as surely and as predictably and as beautifully as it can. You would have crept up on me, becoming an integral and irreplaceable part of my life before I even had the sense to stop and catch my breath.

I would tell you wonderful things, if I loved you. All those secrets that I have been saving for the one I love would be yours, by right of birth. I would tell you the word that means the smell of puddles, dirt and worms right before it has finished raining. I would show you all the ways that I hide my soul in plain sight. As we would lie down on our backs to look at the late September sky, I would talk about reds and yellows and blues, but mostly blues, because they are my favorites. And you would tell me things, too.

If, someday, you read this, then the future from this point, this fleeting and pregnant now will have laid itself out along the pebbled path of my imagination, to meander down streets held up by cafes and cobblestones and clouds and glass windows and the smell of books and the probable freckles on your nose. If you never read this, someone else will, someday. If you never read this, I wonder if you will know that you were my almost someone, and I yours. I wonder if one day, when your grandchildren are out of the house and you look up at the October sky, if you will remember our small, wind-tossed dance of possibility. And then the dead leaves will sink to the ground, and the memory will once again be claimed by the past.

Enough To Make The Most Hardened Azalea Beat its Wooden Fists and Wail "WHAT IS THIS LIFE?!"

I am a huge fan of botany. I just love learning about plants and the cool ways that they do things, not to mention their intricate medicinal qualities, methods for achieving homeostasis, and amazing external features. I am also a big fan of philosophy and literature. So when I was taking notes for my botany homework, this happened:

And yeah, for those who were wondering, this is basically what it's like being in my head. Only it's more brightly colored, noisy, and filled with confused fictional characters walking around, getting into arguments and bumping into things. All in all, it's even stranger and more random than the notes that you just read. (*cough*Bonus points to the reader that can find the subtle Shakespeare reference in the paragraph in the photo.*cough*)

~Maddie

Project 365 New Things: Day 3

So today, I kind of hit a wall. I'd spent the whole afternoon doing Spanish, and when I decided to take a break to do today's challenge, I could not think of a single thing that I could do. I didn't have the energy to cook something, I didn't have time to memorize a Shakespeare sonnet, I was at home rather than in a densely populated area and in possession of a bouquet of tulips, etc.

So I wandered around the house, looking for inspiration. Out of pure desperation, I picked up a bag of sidewalk chalk, determined to do something, anything with it that I had never done before.

After a fruitless Google search (did you know that you can use sidewalk chalk for the monumentally boring task of polishing silverware?), on impulse I ran into the bathroom, filled up the sink, and tossed in the chalk, just to see if it would float. It did not. I then ran downstairs to the microwave, and an astounding quantity of nothing happened after I heated up the chalk in it for ten seconds. Then I picked up a crayon so that the chalk could have mimed epic art supply battle, but they just ended up becoming friends and doing a dance on the kitchen counter. I then decided that the noble thing to do would be to give up, because I was clearly and unmistakably showing the signs of a textbook case of 'getting absolutely nowhere with these shenanigans.'

So I went into my room and decided to write a poem using the first line of the first ten songs that came onto my iPod when I shuffled my songs. Here is the result:

There's a fog upon L.A.
We made love all day
I'd like to be under the sea
Have a bit of me and a whole lot of you
Sun is shining in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight
Haven't seen you since high school
She's not a girl who misses much
There'll be girls across the nation that'll eat this up
Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
No, I can't take one more step towards you.

Tadaaaaaaa.

I apologize for the lack of interesting content today. I will do something much more interesting tomorrow! As always, if you're following the project, comment your challenge for today, and if you have any ideas for me, please oh PLEASE comment those as well.

~Maddie