Just…beautiful.

Maybe you’ll never notice.
Because you are fireworks, and I am pale skies.
And you are trumpets and claxons, while I am a single harp string.
And I have shy eyes and quiet hands,
and where you are the chorus and the thunder of waves,
I am only a breeze ruffling the grass in the faint and milky dawn.
but
I love you
more than you know.

-Author Unknown

Possibly one of the best pieces of short fiction I’ve read in a long while.

Three hours later on the plane to Calgary, I dreamed horrible, unformed, crimson-tinted dreams. I heard the terrible crunch of bones cracking beneath the weight of fists and boots. I saw the puddles of congealing blood. I must have cried out because the flight attendant asked me if I was all right. I told her I was. She handed me a napkin. I reached for it, suddenly embarrassed to have allowed this woman see me cry, even in my sleep.

…

These days, I can quantify my remaining decades. I can measure them out in life-events. I can gauge my value as a man by who I’ve loved, who has loved me, and by the ones I didn’t love nearly enough. My marriage didn’t last, of course. No one was surprised.

…

I’ve seen you many other times over the years, sometimes more clearly than others. I’ve seen you in my son’s handsome sensitive face as he’s grown. I’ve felt your spirit in his sweetness, his trusting nature. I’ve heard your voice beneath his.

I feel your spirit moving in me when I react with patience and kindness to the fact that he’s not like me, and in fact couldn’t be more like you in many, many ways.

And in loving that in him, in knowing that he might someday tell Susan and I what you told Mom and Dad that terrible afternoon 30 years ago, I’m granted some sort of absolution, a redemption I don’t deserve, in knowing I’ll know how to love him at the moment he’ll need my love the most.

In my dreams I see you rising out of that bloody alleyway on a fountain of radiance like some sort of immortal angel full of fire, full of power, full of light.

-Ghosts, by Michael Rowe

If I do not do as expected, it will have been because I wasn’t good enough.

After you’re done shitting all over my life, can I maybe please have it back?

Yours sincerely,
Me

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

-High Flight, by John Magee, Jr.

There’s a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, ‘He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.’ Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

-Ronald Reagan

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering; 

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

- Emily Dickinson

A little sappy, but nonetheless;

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

-Dear Sugar

At the start of the year, I set myself the target of reading 52 books. Today, I completed it, the last book being Can Asians Think? by Kishore Mahbubani.

There was a set of criteria that I needed to follow; I couldn’t just pick some easy-to-read book to fill up the quota. The books had to be of some value, either having literary merit or being educational. They had to broaden my mindscape or stimulate my faculties. Award winners were preferred (Wolf Hall, The Fiddler in the Subway, The God Delusion). By virtue of that criteria, all the books completed for the challenge were of good quality, and in one way or other enriched me.

The challenge started out easily enough, as I had 2 books that I had started at the end of 2009 and finished in early January (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle). Towards the middle of the year, my enthusiasm started to flag. It was exhausting to read so many books at the same time. While 52 books works out to 1 book a week, I was often starting books in parallel and the energy needed to jump from book to book was frankly, quite taxing. Because books that did not fit the criteria did not count towards the quota, it was quite demoralizing at times to see the count not increase.

But overall, this has been interesting, if only to see if it was possible (well, it was possible, though unpleasant at times).

A few books of mention:

The World According to Garp, by John Irving – this was my second Irving novel after The Cider House Rules, and was significantly more violent and graphic. I preferred Cider House for its subtleties and exploration of abortion.

The Complete Plain Words, by Ernest Gowers – this book was a manual of writing style, and was without a doubt the driest book I’ve had the misfortune to read, though it was useful.

The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum – though spy thrillers aren’t normally considered to have literary merit, this one was different. The plot intricacies of this thriller was, put simply, mindfuck.

The Religion Wars, by Scott Adams –  this was a sequel to God’s Debris, which was a philosophical exploration of epistemology and probability in the form of a novella. This was probably the book to have blown my mind the most and widened my mindscape.

The Swan Thieves, by Elizabeth Kostova – this is Kostova’s sophomore effort, after The Historian. Her writing still remains as good as ever, and her research in both books are impeccable and thorough.

Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn – definitely the most freaky book amongst the lot of novels. It doesn’t bear thinking about it.

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel – probably the best novel of 2010 that I read, though Edgar Sawtelle and Swan Thieves are very close. This is an epic novel, spanning the first few years of the rise of Thomas Cromwell. Her attention to detail and tightly-woven plot make for a very fine read.