Bouquets Turns One!

One year is a long time.  Remember my first post?  That night I sat up late after my brother and sister were in bed.  It was a school night, mid term.  What was I thinking?  What was I feeling?  I was frustrated I couldn't word my thoughts quite as elegantly as I had imagined I would.  So I started to sum up my hopes, instead. 

Everyone says that the first blog is the hardest. Of course it is. The key, they say, is to state all the things that I aim to achieve through the publishing of a blog. Well, I reply, I would like people to get to know me better.

THEY: Yes, what else?

ME: Oh, also, I would like to encourage people to read classic literature.


THEY: Indeed, that's a good one; is there anything else?


ME: Well yes, I would like to journey through the books I read and share with people the things that deeply delight me.


THEY: Genius! Now put it into words.

Here lies my dilemma. I could wrack my brains for creativity that is finally and frankly not home at the moment, or I could present the situation to you in exactly the light it has occurred to me. There you go. Here is the first oppertunity for me to lie to you, but in all honesty, my dears, I'll start being creative tomorrow. Tonight, I'm just bothered with beginning.

So shall we?

How much of that have I achieved?  Any at all? 

Since that night three hundred and sixty-six days ago, we have:

• Been romanced by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Savoured the flavours of France with Julia Child,
• Suffered the stains of George Orwell and the cuttlefish, 
• Taken two job interviews,
• Turned into true patriots, 
• Been bored and bothered in turns by the Woman in White,
• Technicolour yawned all over English assignments,
• Bid the Void 'goodnight' with our most vulnerable thoughts,
• Buttered the sky,
• Read poetry to the symphony orchestra,
• Been as cool as cucumbers,
• Red Leaped into The Arrival,
• Opened the sesame,
• Sung odes to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in my Armpit One Midsummer Morning,
• Failed to panic even though the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything was horribly unsatisfying,
• Quested to Mount Doom with the wonderful Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee,
• Fought for the humans in the War of the Worlds,
• Captured Every Minute with ABBA while enjoying the finer pleasures of sobbing like a girl,
• Caught a Storm in a Teacup,
• Put Sherlock Holmes in a 'Whopping Big Nutshell'
• Daydreamed about a perfect Anne Shirley moment,
• Discovered the beauty of true friends,
• Spent forty hours blind,
• Shamelessly skinny-dipped,
• Experienced the revelation of mortality with Dorian Gray,
• Wandered in a Woody Allen World,
• Fully learnt that life is actually too short to read anything you don't enjoy,
• Became more human with James Herriot,
• Wondered over words,
• Got Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close with ourselves,
• Eaten Animals,
• Counselled neurotic elevators,
• Learnt to read and write in a language invented by J. R. R. Tolkein,
• Written with calligraphy pens,
• and lastly, baked a blog a birthday cake.

Two hundred and ninety-two posts.  Have I encouraged people to read classic literature?  Have I journeyed through books and shared with people the things that deeply delight me? 

I have.  But I have also proved that I am still growing.  Actually, now that I say that, I think that that is what the moral of this blog is.  I'm still growing.  I will always love books, but as we keep on sharing and delving and loving and feeling, we'll keep growing, and with that comes the fact that we'll be changing, too, becoming, if not better humans, more human. 

When I first started, I thought that it would be nice to refer to you affectionately as "my dears".  I wonder now if it was a prop to make me feel more comfortable, more a part of something.  I see now that I was already a part of something.  A part of my life.  And I can't thank you enough for being a part of my life, too.  You've made it less of a Void. 

James M. Barrie, that beautiful man who wrote Peter Pan, said

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

Tonight, I look back and compare.  This blog hasn't been the door to oppertunity, but it has been the window.  Leaning out as far as I can on tiptoes, I can almost see blurred in the distance my very image, at the kitchen table, stressing about how to begin. 

Happy Birthday Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils.  My birthday wish is that this is just the first paige of a beautiful story.

Shall we continue?

Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils Birthday Cake

Happy Birthday Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils