all's divine in desire

I'm not pleased with the fact that I haven't written an entry in an entire week, but to be fair, I've been incredibly busy (and out of town for the past five days).  I think instead of talking about my weekend and college experiences today I will talk about those later and instead write about something else that I've been thinking about.

I suppose the key to writing a blog is to simply pretend that people care about what you have to say, so that you may articulate your thoughts without being afraid that they are useless or meaningless.  Which is what, I figure, I have been doing for the first two weeks of having my blog.

It's so easy to think that your thoughts and everyday words can only resonate at a personal level, because they were written with some experience in mind that happened to only you.  I have been assuming for all this time that I would write entries only to get down my own thoughts so that I could either look back on them and laugh, or simply exercise my writing muscle every day (note to self: isearch topic?); that I would receive a few comments here and there from my friends who have blogs but nothing much more than that, which is why it is totally weird for me to have people tell me that they have bookmarked my blog for future reading.

I am not trying to toot my own horn, or self-promote, or brag.  It is so bizarre for me to have somebody tell me that what I have articulated means something to them.  I wrote my common application essay -- the one I'm sending to my top three schools! -- on what this concept has meant to me since seventh grade, when I hungrily started to try to make my writing to move someone, whether to laughter or to tears.  I tried and tried to write about things that I thought would resonate in people, like death and divorce; cancer and car crashes, but what I failed to do was to check first to see that these things resonated inside of me.  What resulted was writing that was flat and unrealistic (and the farthest thing away from resonation that I could get).  It was not until I began to do unconventional things that my writing started to flourish.  Instead of writing about tragedy, I assigned thoughts and emotions to inanimate objects and strange protagonists.  By putting my own thoughts into these unconventional narrators, I was able to speak so much louder than any story I wrote about death ever could.  (and with that, I present to you the Sparknotes version of my college essay...)

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that since seventh grade, I have been infatuated with the idea that my writing could resonate inside somebody as meaningful.  And I have been so shocked to find that people care about what I have said on here.  My last entry has been complimented by three people, and I think it means three different things to all of them.  I think my English teacher, who stumbled upon my blog through a series of links on facebook, is impressed by the fact that I am doing this project at all, and putting in as much thought into my entries that I am.  My friend Grace (who is pictured below!) appreciated my thoughts on floatbuilding, because both of us were incredibly involved in that process.  And for my friend Rob, who graduated last year and is currently in college, I think what meant the most to him was simply the remembering of it all.

My writing is not just what I intend for it to mean -- it is just as much what the reader brings to the table.  And the thought that what I have wrote can mean something to many different people for many different reasons is truly fascinating and, honestly, a seventh grade dream fulfilled.

be this sunset, one for keeping

Lately, I have been living in a world that is overflowing with lasts.  Some leap out at me, waving their arms, shouting my name so as to ensure my attention.  My last first day of school; my last homecoming floatbuilding competition; my last home football game and homecoming dance.  These lasts are bold; they are insurmountable; there is no mistaking their presence.

Others, they are not so ostentatious -- instead, they hide behind corners and inside closets like small children playing hide and seek, only noticeable if a whisper or murmur of impatience or discomfort manages to escape.  The last time I will go back-to-school shopping at Staples with my mother, a list of supplies for each class in hand; the last time I will dance and belt out the words to a silly Disney song as an astonishing float comes together in the background; the last time I will do a victory lap around the football field with my entire grade because we have won the competition; the last time I will sigh exasperatedly as my father takes his millionth picture of my pre-homecoming group.

While it is easy for me to be constantly aware of these grandiose lasts, it is the subtle, murmuring ones that strike the most beautiful, elaborate, unexpected chords inside of me.  For AP English, our teacher had us write a narrative that depicted a certain aspect of our community.  Because the assignment was due the week after our homecoming and floatbuilding week, many students used this as their topic.  For the most part, those who wrote about it captured how much the week meant to most of us in terms of hard work and class bonding, but I know of one person who wrote about how none of it would even matter in the long run; how with time we would forget about our victory and how floatbuilding would be reduced in our minds to nothing more than a fact.

Perhaps over time we will forget some details of our senior year and high school experience -- after all, that is what time is; it is getting further and further away from a moment and forgetting and losing its nuances and details and aspects.  But just because I have forgotten some of these subtleties does not make the experience unimportant.  It is absolutely not the general fact of floatbuilding that I will carry with me as a great experience; it is the singing and dancing and laughing and bonding and sheer enthusiasm and passion that the entire grade had in common for a week.

Perhaps I will not remember the specifics of these experiences, but that is exactly what makes them so much more fragile and valuable than the fact of the experience as a whole.  Even after I have forgotten the words to a silly Disney song, I will carry with me the experience of for once in my life not caring that my voice was loud and clumsy and still singing anyway.  I will carry with me the feeling of camaraderie that I had even with people that I did not know well.  I will carry with me the conversations that I had with people with whom I do not often get the chance to come in contact.  How could I forget this? I want to remember it all.

That is where I think this boy was wrong in his narrative about our community.  These nuances do matter, even more than the general ideas.  If we allow all of these lasts to fade into generalizations, we lose so many of the things that made the experiences beautiful and meaningful.



photo by rod apfelbeck

photo by rod apfelbeck

get real, get right

It has been a while since I did an entry (I have been busy), but I do want to keep up with this thing for now so I am going to try to post relatively regularly, even if my posts suck.

This weekend, I had three swim meets, all outside in perhaps 50 degree weather.  On Friday, the bottoms of my feet (plantars, in honor of my anatomy test tomorrow) were numb, and by Sunday, the sun had heated up the day a little bit more.  I did pretty awfully in all three of them, so there is not much to report here...

This week I am making my way to Kenyon College in Gambier.  I am insanely excited to be there in the autumn; I have heard it is gorgeous there and I am admittedly a sucker for natural beauty... Whether it can top Yale is questionable, but I am going in with an open mind.

College applications are looming over my head.  Hello, Celia, why haven't you done us? Why do you have sleepovers with your friends or sit blogging or read John Green books or facebook instead of working diligently on these things that very well may shape your future? I may have said earlier that I am enjoying myself in the college essay writing process, but that doesn't mean it is easy for me to get started on any of them....

It is just so easy to do the things we want to do instead of doing the things we need to do.  But I ought to get my act together so I can just be done.

In other news, I still love Sufjan Stevens and I cannot wait to see him when I drag my entire family to Indianapolis on November 4th.  I have a growing list of songs that I will melt if he plays...!

Also, my friend Julia took some of my senior pics the other day and I must admit I am so happy that I did not go to a professional place because I love them so much.  She did a fantastic job and I feel so beautiful just looking at the pictures she took, which is what I think it should be like with this kind of portrait. <3

photo by Julia Rose Carleton

extraordinary people are, ordinary people are everywhere you look, everywhere you turn

It is 11:16pm and I am exhausted and I have also sacrificed most of my homework that is due tomorrow in return for doing the past two weeks of calculus homework that I have neglected, so I'm not planning on making this a great post.  There is not room for much more in my brain than derivatives and f double primes and the most complicated word problems I have ever done.  It's been five hours and I can honestly say that my work turnover is maybe 10 percent of what it was earlier this afternoon, so naturally, on to making a shitty blog post.

I discovered Sufjan Stevens the summer before ninth grade, and then re-discovered him while studying [for the first time in my life] for my freshman year midterm world studies exam.  At first his long, elaborately arranged pieces were hard for me to get used to, but once I started listening I could not stop.  His endearing and eccentric music grew on me exponentially, and as a result I have drifted in and out of Sufjan mania over the past three and a half years.

I was originally pretty apprehensive for the release of his new album, for obvious reasons if you know anything about Sufjan or have ever heard any of his three most recent albums, but all I will say for now about this new album is that Sufjan, in his own words, is most certainly not fucking around.

i'm not fucking around; i'm not, i'm not fucking around.

it wasn't about me, it was only a stone in my shoe

I have been thinking about what I can put on here for the past day and I must admit I am perplexed.  Do I use this as a way to write creatively, or do I just post the mundane details of my existence? Will I really care about whether I have forgotten to return college swim coaches' calls for the third day in a row, or should I take advantage of the blank space in which I am writing to fill it with my most precious thoughts?

Hmmmm.

I like to write in circles.  For me, a reference to the beginning of a piece of writing toward its end reminds the reader why they are there.  There is nothing more satisfying than coming to a conclusion and obviously experiencing growth throughout the piece and yet still in some way maintaining something that you had or thought in the beginning.  I like conclusions that are both satisfying and thought-provoking, ones that neatly seal up the conflict but continue to tug at the back of your brain for hours after you read.  I honestly can't get enough extended metaphors or visual interpretations that correspond with ideas, and if this metaphor makes an appearance at the conclusion of the piece -- I can't think of anything better!

I have been noticing that the college essays that I write are not filled with reasons why I am the best candidate for a school; they have been much more like personal, anecdotal nonfiction with fluid description and an abundance of metaphor.  In short, pieces of writing that I actually would consider being proud of.  It's weird, because I thought these essays would be an utter chore -- and, I mean, the ones for the schools that want me to tell them why I am right for their college are an exception -- but I honestly have been really enjoying reflecting on the things I am proud of.  It's like in writing these essays, I am neatly sealing up my high school existence and experiences, coming to these special conclusions about each of them.

I mean, enjoying the college application process? Is that weird? Instead of stretching one essay as thin as I possibly can and trying to make it apply it to as many prompts as I can, I have found that I am taking full advantage of each unique prompt and thinking about exactly which experience I have had that corresponds with it.  And I am continuing to find that I, a sixteen year old girl living a mundane existence in suburban Cincinnati, am so much more applicable in so many more areas than I ever imagined I could be.

Ultimately I think what I am learning is that I have something to say, and that, to me, is both satisfying and thought-provoking.

with my feet on the dash, the world doesn't matter

The moment my mom looks over my shoulder and sees a blogging website, she asks me how on earth I think I have time to blog, what with college applications and senioritis and swimming and, you know, the future to worry about.  But my friends Julia and Elizabeth are both somehow finding time, so I figure that I can squeeze it in as well.

Julia is a food connoisseur and Elizabeth is an avid follower of fashion -- me, I am not really anything.  Or maybe I am too many things to dedicate a blog to just one of them.  I am a competitive swimmer, a high schooler, an artist, a sister.  But I am also a writer.  So I suppose I don't need to dedicate this blog to anything, because the whole point of a blog is to write.  I figure this is a good way to keep my words flowing, so maybe you will get some quality posts, and maybe quite the opposite.  (I'm assuming that it will be a mixed bag.)

I know words-only posts are unappealing, so I will try to get some other visual stuff on here as well, but I guess the point is to exercise my writing muscle, not to aesthetically please anybody or make my posts look more interesting. Is it selfish to think that the whole point of having a blog is to please myself?

I apologize that I do not have any recipes or pretty runway fashion to offer you, but maybe you can find something to do with my thoughts.  Or maybe this blog will serve as a journal and a journal only, for me to look back on and laugh at when I am old and mature.

I suppose the beauty of it all is coming to that conclusion myself.