Alaska

I always wanted to write and I always took solace in words. My childhood was tumultuous to say the least but something vital happened to me when I was about 15 (which now looking back on it was a big year for books) I fell down my first youtube hole and spent four hours watching all of the Vlogbrothers Brotherhood 2.0 videos. It was 2007 and the project was just hitting its sixth month. John and Hank Green made videos back and forth and somewhere in there John mentioned a book he wrote called Looking for Alaska.

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I wandered into Barnes and Noble, grabbed a copy, then went home and read it all in one sitting under a pile of sheets and tears. I'd never felt so wholly understood by a book. I'd never seen a character so like me on pages. I'd never had feelings I'd always felt put into words I didn't know were the right words. I'd always loved books but this was my first favorite book. My world changed that summer night. I finally knew what I wanted to write.

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When I talk favorite books, I have my Big Three. I've talked before about Gatsby and The Book Thief and there is no better time than now to talk about Alaska. It's January 10th. It's Alaska Young Day.

I read this book every January to coincide with Alaska Young day. If you've read the book, you know the significance of January 10th. But even if the day wasn't significant I'd read the book once a year, just as I do with my other favorites. I miss these characters when I don't read the book. I think of them sometimes like I reminisce about my own friends. "Hey, remember the night in the barn with Pudge and Alaska? That was great." They are just as real to me as my friends. They've taught me just as much and helped me grow just as much.

I read this book at an interesting time. I was growing and changing and my life was turning around me quickly while I stood powerless to stop the ever growing wreckage. I could see myself going down a very dangerous road and I welcomed it because what else could I have done? What else was I worth?

In the character of Alaska I saw myself. Powerful, motivated, broken, sexy, charged, enraged, empowered. Volatile, scary, passionate, self destructive. Reading her story was like holding up a mirror, or a warning. We were driving down the same road at 95 miles an hour. The difference? She turned left and after reading her, I turned right. She saved me. She was my first building block in finding myself.

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I still see myself in her when I read the book. We talk the same still. Think the same often. I'm still as moody as ever and I have my days where answering questions won't happen and you just have to accept that my melancholy streak will never die. But after this novel I grow. Every time I read it I grow. I'm reminded of the dangers of holding to your past and letting it kill you. I grow with Pudge and learn the value of my own great perhaps.

John Green, though. He's been my favorite author since I as 15. His words have kept me up half the night way before The Fault in our Stars ripped all of our hearts out. He's influenced my writing style a lot, I'd like to think. I love his always honest, never preachy way of expressing emotion. He is relatable and open and never patronizing or belittling. He knows we are intelligent people and he knows how big our hearts are. His gift really cannot be touched and if I could be 1/8 of what he is, I would be pleased with my life.

His words always inspire me, whether I'm rereading a book of his or watching his weekly videos. He is so unwavering in who he is and always full of hope and inspiration, something I want to be as well. He makes me better and he makes me hope. He makes me want to write so I can save someone like his books saved me. In a few years when some fifteen year old girl feels so alone and lost, they can pick up my book and feel heard and healed, just like I was.

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In my second year of college before I took my time off, I was in a directing class. The final project was to direct our own short 20 minute play. When I was down at that university, I was incredibly unhappy and I was not writing at all (which explains part of the unhappiness). After tearing through script after script and finding nothing, I saw Alaska sitting on the edge of my bed staring at me with her emerald green eyes, a cigarette between her smirking lips. I knew what to do.

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I wrote a play based on the book. I wrote a twenty page script in one night and cried after I was done. I hadn't written in so long. I hadn't felt my words carrying me in so long. The misery seemed to clear and I felt like myself again. This book brought my words back to me and to this day that play is the piece of writing I am the most proud of. Now, if only I could find some way of getting John Green to read it! That would be the dream.

So on this day, January 10th, Alaska Young day, I celebrate this life changing book. I'll read the book, pour myself a revolting glass of Strawberry Hill, and hold an unlit cigarette between my lips for her. An eternal thank you to John Green for this book, the life changing member of my Big Three that shaped who I am, my career goals, and everything. Thank you Pudge, Takumi, Lara, The Colonel, and Alaska most of all.

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The Book Thief

Some books transcend everything, don't they? They change the way you think. The way you write. The way you see the world. They change everything. It gets to the point where you feel incomplete without that book living on your nightstand staring at you every night. When you see other people reading the book you get jealous that they are spending time with your best friends among the pages, cradling the spine like you cradle those characters in your heart. The book has become so completely yours and so completely you that you simultaneously want to share your love for it and keep every single copy in the known world under your bed for yourself.

This is The Book Thief. The untouchable, perfect, heartbreaking, groundbreaking work of art that changed everything for me.

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I read this book for the first time when I was about 15. I was immediately pulled in to this world as I watched Death walk alongside these characters and sit by their side in the snowy streets of Molching, Germany. I was immediately in love. I had never read words like this before in my life. The way death described things. The way he saw the world. I wanted to stand with him as he told me his stories, to see the world in the colors he saw it in.

DEATH AND CHOCOLATE

First the colors.

Then the humans.

That's usually how I see things.

Or at least, how I try.

***Here is a small fact***

You are going to die.

I loved the voice Death had. The tired, dry, sarcastic wit. The love he feels for Liesel. For Rudy. For them all. Death's narration makes this book. The way he describes colors. Every time I reread this book I find a new description to love. The first one I underlined? The eyes of a dead pilot the color of coffee stains.

I've never seen description like this. It's an amazing feeling to pick up a book, not realizing how different you will be after you read it. This book changed my writing entirely. I began going description crazy and I saw the world around me twist and turn while I read some passages over and over again. I had never been so taken by a book. 

When I got to the last fifty pages or so, I slowed down. I had tears cascading down my cheeks and I felt like I would never be able to breathe normally ever again. It took me two hours to pull myself through that mountain range of rubble and I emerged on the other side tear-stained, exhausted, and wholly swept away. It still takes me about two and a half hours to read those last pages. Those are some of the most gorgeously brutal words I have ever read.

I've never felt so attached to characters. They feel like family. Because the author spends so much time letting you get to know these characters, you cannot help falling in love with them. He tells you stories that really have no consequence in the grand scale of the story. They don't move plot forward per se, but they make your heart ache for these people. Rudy with his lemon hair, Liesel's love of words and hours spent on the floor of a secret library, Hans breathing with his accordion, Rosa's hidden moments of tender love with Hans, Max sweating fear every hour of the day. Lord, I can't even type about this book without getting tears in my eyes.

This book gives me the most visceral reaction of any book I've ever read. I feel my entire body pulsing when I read it and when I even think about the words. If I ever feel the need to cry, I can think of a scene in the book between Max and Liesel and in seconds glass tears will fall. If I need a laugh, I think of Liesel and Rudy saumensching with each other in the school yard or along the Amper River. Even the name of my blog comes from this book. Liesel reports the weather to Max one morning so the hidden Jew can have a small taste of the sky.

"The sky is blue today, Max, and there is a big long cloud, and it's stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is like a yellow hole..."

Max, at that moment, knew that only a child could have given him a weather report like that. On the wall, he painted a long, tightly knotted rope with a dripping yellow sun at the end of it, as if you could dive right into it. On the ropy could, he drew two figures- a thin girl and a withered Jew- and they were walking, arms balanced, toward that dripping sun. Beneath the picture, he wrote the following sentence.

***THE WALL-WRITTEN WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG***

It was a Monday, and they walked on a tightrope to the sun.

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I've spent a lot of time thinking about why this book has affected me so much; enough to lead me to read it once a year, each year highlighting and underlining more and more of my beloved well-loved copy. (I would read it more but I physically and emotionally don't think I could handle it.)

I think at my core, I connected with Liesel and her love of words. Her inspiring, motivating, life changing dedication to reading and writing and taking control of her own world through words. The power of language is a theme that is so central in this book and that is also a big part of my own life. Nothing moves me more than the power of language and watching this little girl fall in love with words reminds me of myself discovering words and using them as a weapon, a crutch, an embrace, a friend. I see so much of me in Liesel. I see me in her feeling of displacement and her deep love for those she cares most about. Her quiet watchfulness and powerful soul. I love that little girl. 

I love all of those characters. I am in love with Max Vandenburg. Hans and Rosa are my second parents. Rudy. To quote Death:

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

This book kills me. This book steps on my heart. This book makes me cry. 

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I was so nervous when I heard this book was going to become a movie. Actually, screw nervous. I was livid. I was in my bathtub reading the book when I decided to look at Tumblr tags, hoping to find some pretty fan art. Instead I found a cast list and filming locations. My heart burst open. No, I thought, this is The Book Thief. Not the Movie Thief. Where will the words be? No. These are my characters. They'll have to leave out so much. No. No. No.

I remained furious for months. I got protective and angry. I didn't want people to start claiming this book that was my lifeblood as their own after seeing a movie and never holding these characters in their hands. I wanted the movie to be done right, to do justice to these words that are so ingrained into me. I didn't want people who I felt didn't deserve this book to be able to see the movie and cry. They don't know these characters like me, they don't deserve to sit and cry with me. They will cry because of the Holocaust, I will cry because I'll be watching my family and my heart on the screen. 

Then I saw the trailer. And lost it completely. It blew me away. I was crying within the first three seconds. I was so happy because it looked exactly like what I always pictured, but also different enough to let me keep my images of these people and places alive in my brain. I calmed down with being so militant about this book being mine. My perception of this book and the meaning I have assigned to it will always be mine and nobody will ever touch that. But now the world will see why I go so crazy over this. They will get to meet my loves. 

I am so scared to see this movie. If watching the trailers is any inclination, I will be a horrible sobbing mess the entire time. I went to a movie last weekend and saw the trailer for the first time on the big screen and immediately started weeping, much to the embarrassment of my sister, brother in law, grandmother, and fellow movie-goers. My mom flat out refuses to see the movie with me because I won't be able to stop crying throughout. That's alright, I'd rather brave it alone. 

This was a whirlwind to write. I'm once again tear stained and exhausted; it's like I just finished reading the book. I love this book to pieces, with every beat of my heart and I am so happy to share my love of this book with you all. 

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A New Beginning

So hey. I started a blog back in January and I loved that blog. That blog served me well. But after a while, that blog didn't feel like me anymore. I reread a lot of my posts, and while I still like a lot of what I said, I feel completely different now. I've changed, I've grown. I'm happier now than I've been in a long time and I'm ready to begin anew.

The title of this blog comes from a very special book, one of my favorites actually. It's called The Book Thief and it's probably the most beautiful books I've ever read. I refer to it a lot so, get used to that if you plan on reading this much. ANYWAY, the quote is said by my favorite character, who is also the love of my life. Max Vandenburg. Oh my heart melts for him. I picture his as James Franco, with a bit of Joseph Fiennes circa Shakespeare in Love and also Jewish.

He is hiding in the basement of Liesel Meminger and one day, he asks her to report the weather to him. She says, "The sky is blue today, Max, and there is a big long cloud, and it's stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is like a yellow hole..."

"On the wall, he painted a long, tightly knotted rope with a dripping yellow sun at the end of it, as if you could dive right into it. On the ropy cloud, he drew two figures- a thing girl and a withering Jew- and they were walking, arms balanced, toward the dripping sun. Beneath the picture, he wrote the following sentence."

***THE WALL-WRITTEN WORDS OF MAX VANDENBURG***

It was a Monday, and they walked on a tightrope to the sun.

....Mm, right? I've loved this since the first time I read the book years ago. I've never really understood why this line stuck out to me so much until I realized it conveys such a huge sense of hope.

Life is like a tightrope act. You try so hard to balance so much without losing it completely, and falling into the emptiness that is always beneath you. The glimmering sun of hope is always up ahead, just out of reach as you push forward on your rope. Whether you are walking hand in hand with a withering Jew, or navigating the rope yourself, you must keep pushing forward.

This is an attitude I want to retain throughout my life. I've had a mess of a life these past few months. It was as if I'd stopped and sat down on my tightrope, precariously perched on a fragile rope, waiting for the emptiness beneath me to swallow me whole. But then I realized, this is a waste of time. I am not this person. I love life. I love who I am. I am all I need to worry about. I. Am. Unbreakable.

This realization hit a few days ago. I mean fully hit. There were times when I talked like this, trying to convince myself I was ok, even though I never was. I needed more time to sit on my rope. But now I back full force, balancing gracefully and moving forward toward my sun. If you choose to be a person in my life, I'm happy to have you here. And if you've chosen to remove yourself from my life, or treat me like crap until I am forced to remove you, I am so sorry. It's been real knowing you, but I'm worth more. I hope you miss me. I'll have fun remembering you. Bless you. 

I am so excited to be myself again and even MORE excited to be writing again! I cannot wait to share my life with you all again :) I've missed this. And don't think I haven't stalked all of your blogs this whole time. You're great. You're beautiful. I love you. I hope you come back for more words soon :)