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Mary Oliver, from long life: essays and other writings

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Creative Writing 8.13.23

Darkness. A field. A figure standing all alone, looking up into the abyss when suddenly the sky bursts into a technicolor dream. Coming from somewhere else in the field appears another individual. By some chance encounter these two have met. Under the star speckled sky that seems to have been kissed by the angels themselves. I look over and see that same sky in the freckles on your cheeks, the same sparkle in your eyes. I can see galaxies being created and destroyed in the expressions you make. You look in awe at the creation above us but I have no need; I can see its beauty reflected in you. I am no longer staring into the abyss, I am gazing at the marvels of space contained within a single being. And then, with the same swiftness with which it all began, you were gone.

And now every night I return to the field to search for my shooting star, hoping one day I can catch just one more glimpse of your beauty.

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I stumbled upon this card today and nearly had a breakdown. 😭

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Writing 8.9.23

Every rose bush is beautiful until you realize it has thorns. I never asked to be made this way, half broken. Not quite good enough to be perfect but not bad enough to be truly broken. I hover in the in between, and most of the time, that’s okay. I don’t question it, in fact I’ve just begun to accept it as the way things are. And then there are the times when I realize. I realize I will simply never be enough and I just wonder… why me? Why am I the one who questions things, who’s willing to argue, to fight? Why am I the one who, in spite of it all, can never and will never be angry at the world for being like this? I have every right to be angry. And yet that anger is directed at myself. I haven’t done enough to get better, I’m just not what they want, they never liked me anyway.  Sure, living in the in between has made me ‘intelligent,’ but at what cost? I don’t feel real most days because I’m stuck wondering the cause of why we even exist, why we were put here. Intelligence comes with a price and I’m finally paying it while also just. Dealing with life as a teenage girl who is also in the in between. I was never skinny enough for the skinny girls, not fat enough for the fat girls. I wasn’t pretty enough to be wanted but I wasn’t ‘ugly’ per se. I was smart, but not as smart as those around me. Not to mention I was ‘english smart’ which for years just wasn’t the same as ‘math smart’. I had a great personality but I was just a little too weird. I’d finally found my safe place, the space I never once questioned if I was good enough. I found a home in theatre. And then I lost it. I found another home in the forest but it isn’t the same. I’m back to remembering I’ve forever lived in the space where I can feel accomplished but I will always be reaching, forcing myself to be better. Which can be good, but most of the time it leaves me feeling… empty. There is a chasm in my chest that never goes away and I am stuck hanging onto the edge by my fingertips. And yet that fight still exists. I am like a cup meant to hold an endless flow of love but I have little hairline fractures all around. I have so much to give but… who wants a broken cup? And so it sits. And sits. And eventually the cup weathers down into nothing. The sky darkens, the flowers wilt. And after all this, am I still beautiful?

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So, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I keep seeing metas about how Aziraphale wants Crowley to return to Heaven and be an angel again because he wants them to be on the same side/be good/change/etc., etc., etc. but I don’t see that at all. I actually see it as the very opposite.

Aziraphale loves Crowley just as he is. But there’s something more. Something huge.

Aziraphale loves Crowley and because he is an angel who is stuck in seeing things as black and white, he constantly praises Crowley for being nice. For being good. For being kind.

Aziraphale has watched Crowley on and off for 6,000 years. He watched him thwart the plans of Heaven and Hell because it was unjust. He spared the lives of innocents. He did small things that made Aziraphale happy just because (like making Hamlet successful and saving valuable books). And because Aziraphale sees things in black and white, he sees all the things Crowley has done as nice, as good, as kind.

Crowley vehemently attests he’s not nice or good or kind.

He’s not exactly wrong nor is he lying when he says this. When Crowley spares goats during a cruel bet over a righteous man and swallowing laudanum to prevent a suicide, when he prevents Armageddon by working with Aziraphale and stopping the Anti-Christ from being the Anti-Christ, he’s not doing the nice/good/kind thing.

He’s doing the right thing.

Crowley chooses to do the right thing without hesitation. He is better than all of Heaven and Hell who have callous and dispassionate view of all existence because he questions, because he makes choices. Crowley sees the world for all its messiness and he sees himself. He sees a place where he fits in. He sees the blurred edges.

And Aziraphale sees that, even if seeing the blurred edges is hard for him.

But here’s the thing that Aziraphale can’t voice.

It’s the reason why he told Crowley about being allowed to return to Heaven and become an angel again. He doesn’t want Crowley to change. He doesn’t think Crowley is flawed. Or not enough.

It’s something that is so monumental that it cannot be put into words. Because to put it into words would be more than blasphemy. It’s down right unthinkable for anyone in Heaven, Hell, or Earth to say what Aziraphale knows deep in his soul.

God was wrong to cast out Crowley.

Aziraphale believes Crowley can/should return to Heaven because he knows that Crowley should never have fallen in the first place. He wants him to be forgiven because when Crowley fell it was unjust. Aziraphale is trying to correct a mistake. He’s trying to do the right thing.

Yes, Crowley would never accept returning to Heaven. And Aziraphale was wrong to even suggest it (although that conversation is another can of worms to unpack).

Aziraphale loves Crowley. He loves him exactly as he is. He doesn’t want him to change. Aziraphale knows that Crowley the best of all of them. He wants to change Heaven because of it. Because God was wrong and Aziraphale knows it.

Aziraphale may have difficulty seeing beyond black and white, but when it comes to Crowley he sees everything crystal clear and in vivid color.

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Susan Sontag, from As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980

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Good Omens 2 appreciation post for that moment after Nina has just rocked Crowley's world with the revelation that no, he isn't slick and yes, it is glaringly obvious to everyone just how head over heels in love with Aziraphale he is.

Crowley takes himself off to the french restaurant and is drowning his sorrows in a bottle of wine while having the realisation that he's been following the angel around like a lovesick puppy all day with no other possible agenda other than to be around him.

And then he sees Aziraphale and whistles him over but the angel is too busy to join him for a wine in the middle of the day and Crowley tries to divert questions by complaining that he's scared Gabriel/Jim is gonna smite him and he'll be well and truly smote, no, smoted? Smited? What's the word he's looking for?

And the angel gives him a knowing look and says:

"Smitten, I believe."

PERFECTION.

GRAMMATICAL CORRECTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN A SENTENCE.

AZIRAPHALE JUST READ HIM LIKE A HIGHLY COLLECTIBLE BOOK AND DOESN'T EVEN REALISE HE HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD.

This is my new favourite double entendre.

Smitten as the past tense of Smite. And the exact reason Crowley is drinking in the middle of the day.

He's realising he's smitten, your honour.

I hope Neil closed the laptop with a dramatic flourish after writing that line. Hell if I'd written a moment that perfect I'd take a victory lap of the kitchen and then call someone to tell them how clever I'd been before I pop.

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Benedick Character Analysis

I wrote this about.... a lil over a year ago when I played this character so uhhhhhhhhyeah enjoy ~~~

I don’t feel like writing this as a normal essay, since it’s quite literally not. This is just me getting my thoughts down on page about a character I’m thinking way too in depth about. Just because you’re a person who loves people and quite literally lives for others doesn’t mean you have everything sorted out in life. It doesn’t work like that. Instead, you’re confident in the fact that you’ll be there for everyone else but worry to a crippling extent that nobody will be there for you. So what do you do about it? You hide. You joke. You play jester. It’s not like you don’t know what you’re doing or that it’s unhealthy… in fact you know exactly what you’re doing. You know how to word things so that people only slightly worry for you but end up laughing it off in the end. You don’t notice it’s a problem until you finally break down in an unusual situation and realize that your body and mind’s way of dealing with that is to completely shut down all occurrences of those feelings for the next while. You don’t realize it’s a problem until people point out the fact that you’re so obnoxious, till you realize you have become the comedic relief. It isn’t necessarily that people don’t come to you with problems, that still happens and those are serious moments. In fact, because you love people, you live for them, like I said before. You know how they work, how to stay calm, how to not break character in situations where you’re needed. You become the therapist friend. I’ve always found it funny how the therapist friend and the comedic relief friend tend to be one in the same. Your jokes don’t have to be funny, your advice doesn’t always have to be the best. You just have to feel for people. Because not everyone can the way you do. And that’s okay, they shouldn’t have to. That’s why you’re here. But sometimes, when you’ve had enough, you snap. Nobody expects it, the complete, seething anger that’s able to spill from your lips when the time is right. When someone has pushed you just a bit too far past your limit. 

And I’m not saying that being this person is a bad thing, it’s simply a bit much sometimes. You lose track of yourself in caring so much for others. But you’re okay with that if it means everyone else gets to feel okay. You can help people, you can cheer them up, you can just offer them a genuine hug - something so many people desire but also something that seems to be in such short supply - a hug… what good certain types of hugs can do. And there are different types. There’s the hug you receive from a friend while hanging out. There’s the hug you get from a partner in those more private, emotionally intimate moments when you just can’t hold all the emotions in anymore. There’s the hug you get from a parent or adult figure that feels so loving that you’re finally able to let your walls down, finally able to be a scared little kid again, because you know they’ve got you. That’s my personal favorite type of hug. There’s so many more, but it’s getting a bit repetitive. Either way, everyone needs hugs from time to time and that’s what you’re here for: a hug and a joke. You learned a long time ago how to deal with your problems alone; the faster you learned that the more you were able to be for people. You fell in love with humanity itself, and you vowed to care for it. But now you don’t know how to let humanity care for you. The nights sat sobbing and silently screaming for those you love to the point where your heart begins to physically hurt. It hurts so deep it opens a chasm that you allow yourself to gracefully dive into. But only once. Then the feeling is no more, for you must become the jester. 

And such a man is Benedick.

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Creative Writing 8.8.23 Part 2

It’s quiet. Too quiet. But not in a creepy, ‘somebody is in the room with me’ kind of way. It’s the kind of quiet that forces one to think past what their mind believes it is capable of. Where true creativity begins to fester, stirring within the recesses of the soul. It is in this quiet that a person is able to truly see themselves; away from the role they play for those around them. A role unintended for them and yet they perform anyway. But not in the Quiet. In the Quiet all existence ceases. Time stops but for a minute, there is nothing but the silence and the darkness. It may be too quiet but one begins to find comfort in the excess. They bask in it, learn from it. They lean into the discomfort and force themselves to hear. What do they hear, you may ask? That is a question I am unable to answer, you must find out for yourself. Go into the Quiet, ask it questions, search deep within yourself and allow everything to disappear. Find the version of you that sits within your chest, in the darkest corner it can find, cowering from the light… and speak to it. Learn from it. And begin to be comfortable when it’s just too quiet. For maybe there you will be able to finally hear.

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Creative Writing 8.8.23 Part 1

I hope to meet the Man in the Tree again one day. I have yet to learn his name, but he is always around me. When I am sitting in the somewhat discomforting quiet of my room, I think I can hear him whisper, ‘look over here.’ As my eyes drift towards my window, I see it: the trees slowly swaying back and forth, back and forth, as if performing a dance for me or waving to get my attention. It is then I am made aware of the Man in the Tree. The Man is not really a man… at least not what we think of as a man anyways. I call him the Man in the Tree because I have no other name for him yet, I have yet to know him. He is also not only in one tree, as his name might suggest. He is in every oak, every cypress (maybe not every pine… I don’t quite care for pines.), every birch. He is in every freshly cropped blade of grass, every wildflower growing on the sides of rolling hills. But what’s important to know about the Man in the Tree is that he has always been here. He has seen millennia come and go, empires rise and fall, and he has abandoned all that and chosen to comfort me for what is but a speck in his long existence. His roots embrace me like the hug of a father long forgotten, his leaves tickle my face like softly scattered kisses. I can see the twists and knots and scars of limbs that were lost to the weathering battle of Time. And above all, I can speak to the Man in the Tree like a friend I know will never leave. Because despite the constant and steady flow that is time, the Man in the Tree will find new ways to continue existing. He exists now to find me, to hold me, to show me that there are things worth living for. I can live for the flowers, the grass, the trees; sometimes it has to be as simple as that. And sometimes, it’s all we have. I have found a new friend in this Man, though I know not who he is, where he comes from, or why he is here. But I know he is here for me, and that is all that matters. I thank the Man in the Tree for whispering to me on this oh too quiet night, for I have learned to be alone without being lonely. I have learned to always look for my Man in the Tree. I hope to meet him again one day, and perhaps on that day I will ask his name.

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Creative Writing 4.4.23 part 2

Why do I love? I have been hurt by what I thought was love over and over and over again and yet I always come back. Even when I say ‘this time I won’t. I can’t. I wouldn’t survive it.’ Even though the vase that carries my heart has been shattered into a million pieces and scattered amongst the stars. I look at those pieces and smile because within them is still the potential to love. Each individual sliver of my heart is brimming with new possibilities. The more I am broken the more love I am able to give. But what happens when the pieces become so small that I begin to lose myself? How do I live when I do not know who I am supposed to be? I know my name, my face, my body; but I do not know me. I don’t think I’ve known for a long time. I have become friends with the cave in my chest, I hide within the shadows knowing that I may not be able to bear the light. I feel the walls of that cave grow and begin to collapse with every heartbreak, every blow to my love. 

But now that cave is feeling small. Something has begun to change, I can feel it. I no longer feel small, I am shedding the old me and blossoming into abundance. I’m not afraid to love anymore, I don’t give to survive. I am welcome, I am loved, I am beginning to be whole. And within that, I am learning new ways to love. Human beings are complex creatures, we are not made for one type of anything. We are made to be ever-changing, adapting to the world around us. And for the longest time, I fought that change. It was easier to die than to change. Now I look at the stars and smile again, this time because I see their beauty and elegance; their boldness against the deep blues and purples of the night sky. I want to be a star. Not to be seen, but to be able to shine. I am not afraid of the light anymore, to be honest? I’m kind of tired of the dark. 

I am tired. I’m tired of being a failure, of being a disappointment, of making mistakes. I know it makes me human but why must being human only come with one day of reprieve, if even that? I want to experience joy as consistently as I experience stress or pain or heartbreak. I’m not saying we get rid of the negative experiences, we must have them to know when the good experiences occur. What I am asking is for whatever God exists to give me a fucking break. I am so grateful for the experiences I have and have had, I wouldn’t change them for the world. I love the life I live, but I don’t want to go through it feeling like a burden. I want to be able to bask in the good moments, take a stretch and actually enjoy it without the fear of it ending abruptly. I want to fall into the arms of those who love me without bracing myself for the crash. I don’t want to watch for patterns, worrying that ‘these ones will leave too’. 

Not every day is like this, but more often than not I am left alone in my room, worrying again. Were it within my power I would put a swift halt to the worry, telling myself ‘it’s okay. You’re safe this time.’ But alas, I need reassurance from someone without my brain, without my voice. 

I’m beginning to feel good again, and for once I am not scared of how long this will last. I am not cowering within myself, just waiting for things to go poorly, for something to go wrong. Instead I am living within these moments, grinning ear to ear because my prayers have been answered. I have been gifted with the opportunity of happiness and I refuse to waste it this time. I will be happy.

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Creative Writing 4.4.23 part 1

I am Icarus in that I know I should not do what kills me but I will fly anyway because fleeting joy is worth the flames that follow. And I am Orpheus in that I will sing the same sad song if it means loving you once more. My life appears a comedy but reads like a tragedy, and I cannot bear it. I am Achilles and you are my heel. I am Sisyphus, destined to push the same boulder for eternity, begging those who imagine me happy to see that I am breaking from the weight. I am Prometheus, punished for giving light. I can feel the eagle ripping my flesh and tearing me limb from limb, breaking down what little emotional strength I began with, reminding me with every bite that I am not worthy of the fire, not worthy of saving them. 

But I am Icarus, I laugh as I fall because I know there is water below. I am Orpheus, I make the legends before me weep from my overwhelming abundance of love. I am Achilles, my weakness only makes me stronger. I am Sisyphus, with time the boulder becomes less of a load to bear. And I am Prometheus, giver of light in spite of all that is against me. I would risk everything for love, for just a little spark of life. I will bathe in the flames and watch them dance around me. Pain cannot hurt me anymore. Grief cannot touch me with its cold, suffocating grasp. I will not allow it to break me. 

I am the hero of this tragedy.

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Gonna start putting my writing on here I think… as a good way to just. Force myself to write more and also just get it out there and maybe see what people say, as terrifying as it is

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I am very tired

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Fernando Pessoa // Franz Kafka

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So. We've already established that when Aziraphale said nothing lasts forever, he meant that he would give up his bookshop to be with Crowley, and Crowley took it to mean Aziraphale would give up him for Heaven. But I think the same happened with Aziraphale in regards to Crowley's refusal to go with him.

The story began with Crowley being incredibly happy creating his star machines. Now, Aziraphale knows Crowley hasn't been that happy recently, living in his car and being miserable and grumpy. And he loves Crowley, so he wants to see him to be happy again! As happy as he was back in the beginning of time! He keeps insisting Crowley could be his second in command, and... what if Aziraphale, in turn, thinks Crowley is saying no to that instead of Heaven? What if Aziraphale also thinks Crowley just didn't love him the way Aziraphale thought? He knows Crowley has been lonely (that dicussion in Job broke my heart), but here we see Crowley choosing that lonelines instead of Aziraphale's company. Making stars was the happiest Aziraphale has ever seen Crowley, and he has a tendency to oversimplify things and not think things through when he has set a goal. He's stubborn to a fault, he speaks French in the human way! This whole season was full of refrences how Aziraphale thinks he can just make people happy if he tries well enough. I bet he plans to do that in Heaven too. He'll make that place happy, or else. He has a lot to learn.

Both of them go off believing the other didn't love them as much as they thought, because they completely failed to understand each other. It's as if they are in love with their imaginary versions of each other, which are pretty close to the real thing, but not quite, and they stumbled upon that 'quite' real hard.