I often think of myself as a heart person, even though there's never anything wrong with my good mind. I feel and think with my heart's mind, where I allow myself, as if by default, to reason and express unruly and unschooled. That said, I would easily conclude that I am a stronger feeler than a thinker. Taking this English class where reading, thinking and writing are daily disciplinary practices has kick-started my learning to think anew, otherwise, not as lazily.
I am thinking to myself right now, "No wonder I like writing Haiku, where I easily hunt for 17-syllable words, then legitimately, I can cook the game." (I know I am saying something rather true about myself here.) Towards the end of last year, prior to registering for this class, I was thinking to start writing regularly as in cultivating a hobby, also because I do enjoy crafting, linguistically. Little did I know, I would be forced, um I mean, disciplined to read, think and write likely every single day for at least an entire quarter. With an ambition to get top grades for every class I take on this academic path, I know I will buckle up and do my work. Nevertheless, I desire to see myself grow and change, for the better, intellectually, as well as getting good looking grades just for the records. I resolve to put this good mind of mine that was given to me freely to some good sweating workouts that might just bring on a makeover. After all, I have always wanted to write; now I will learn to work for it, so I can write, and write well.
To connect, in reading, with great minds penned in literature, and be able to elicit and organize my own thoughts afterwards, and sculpt the work of my mind into clear and solid writing that would, somehow, also better contribute to my communities around me, wow, is a high life I can aspire to live right now. Wow. Indeed, I am a lucky go happy, as always.
The reason I chose to say I could have been lazy to express the way I usually express in words, written or spoken is precisely the first thing that I thought of when I finished reading E. B. White's Once More To The Lake.
It's a very simple story where the narrator and his own son spent a week at his very own childhood summer get-away at a lake. The author took great care and fierce devotion to journey the writing in impeccable details. I know such an abundant fruitfulness in great work like White's could only sprout and spread from a persistent die-hard willingness to work hard and harder.
I love what White wrote about his experiencing a dual existence alike, in that week of revisiting the lake, as a dad to his own son, who was but himself as a son to his own dad. I can easily relate to, White described it as a creepy sensation, where I am the parent speaking what my mother had once told me to my daughter, where I was the daughter being addressed to, almost at the same breath. Creepy, and even deeply intriguing. I wonder if my daughter would also have this experience, should she ever mother another daughter some day.
Whenever I manage to 'duplicate' experience from my childhood that I could share with my daughter here, away from my birth place, together we grow , and together we change from the previous to the present, yet we remain who we are, and who we have always been will always be, hence our immorality. In the same light, generation by generation, Life evolves and lives on is maybe what I have learned from reading the story.
I absolutely resonate with what White said about life being life (if I am reading it right at all), growing, changing yet immortally existing still, just like the old and the new summer days at the Lake, and all that is in the Lake and around the Lake. Everything yesterday is the same everything today; except, the only difference being the waitresses' cleanly washed hair.
I see life in a big picture similar like that, life being immortal. I don't deny all earthlings, the embodiment of life on earth has a defined and limited time frame here. We live, we grow, we change and then we die (or not). However, Life goes on being Life, no matter who lives or dies, no matter if it was every August at the Lake, or just this one week at the Lake, the fade-proof lake where the woods are unshatterable.
My heart's mind surely feasted luxuriously when reading E. B. White's Once More To The Lake. I went along visiting a mystical body of water where my curious eyes see the solar panels displayed on the dragonflies' wings resting on the fishing rods diligently, and my keen ears heard the cool damp summer morning air daringly quenching up the night's stiff thirst there at the Lake, for my host catered his offering generously, once more.
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