An excerpt and an idol and a reason why I write.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

-The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, chapter 7

I have tried to describe this feeling on countless occasions, but was never quite able to in the way that she does. I could try to tell little aspects- the world rushing by me or missing every opportunity I watch come along or wanting and wanting and wanting so badly that I feel like it physically hurts. But alone, I think, none of these suffice. Now that I've read how she says it, I can almost explain what it is for me- wanting an English degree from Merton college at Oxford, but still needing to studying theatre at NYU or Yale, I want to live in a small apartment with a balcony in Montmatre Paris, or a little cottage in the English countryside and feel incredibly chiche and romantic, but also, I'd love to stay in New York. I want a little girl who looks like me, but I swear I'll never settle. I want to be a runner and a writer and a performer and a free spirit and someone grounded and to be this person and that person, but then I want just a better version of myself. I feel my life unraveling before me, every step defining the next one, every choice leading to something larger, feeling that I must make these decisions fast before time runs out, but never being able to. I know that logically I cannot have all of this- be in two places at once, be five different people at once, have ten different lives at once- but illogically I think I'll never be happy without it, and unable to bring myself to a choice, I eventually see it slipping away, smell the figs of what could have been my future rotting.

What is so brilliant about The Bell Jar isn't the story (though that is brilliant as well), it isn't the language (though that is most definitely brilliant as well), rather it is Sylvia Plath's ability to feel for others and write what they cannot- it is her incredible insight into humans and emotions. During The Bell Jar instead of feeling like an outsider, reading Esther's story, thinking- like the others- that she just a young tragic woman who lost her mind, I found myself rather tied up in her world. Suddenly she wasn't insane, they were- the doctors and the therapists and her mother and Buddy and the other girls in the asylums that she was sent to. They were all mad, but she was fine. Suddenly, I was with her at every appointment in the offices and waiting rooms, I was there for her during each heartbreak and treatment and breakdown and failed attempt at death. I was looking through Esther's eyes at the rest of the world. It made sense when she thought that every last stranger who passed her by most definitely had some grand plan to harm her, I understood when suicide seemed logical, I believed her when she said that she hadn't slept in fourteen nights. Her mother didn't, her doctor didn't, but I did.

There is a reason why this beautiful, eloquent and tragic novel has survived, still relevant to anyone who may read it, some 50 years later. Yes the times have changed- that much is clear from where the story is in women's rights and medical breakthroughs, but hurt, confusion, joy remains the same- what happens in us, I think, never changes as rapidly as the outside world. Though I am not suicidal and our lives are as vastly different as our ages, I feel as through Sylvia Plath understands me. Each human struggle is individual, but the presence of them in everyone remains the same- Plath is able to simply take that presence and create something incredible that not only connects to everyone, but that forces them to feel. That, I suppose, is what makes an artist.

This is the gift I want to have.

I don't usually write about Harry Potter because I tend to think that it's too brilliant for my words... but I guess this is more about life than him.

***Spoiler alert for those who haven't read the seventh book***

“Does it hurt?”
The childish question had fallen from Harry’s lips before he could stop it.

I know you've read the book, because I put a spoiler alert for those who haven't (and they should've immediately quit out of the page before their eyes accidentally slipped over a few words). But if you've forgotten, this is what Harry asks his parents about death in the Dark Forest when he is on his way to give himself up to Voldemort towards the end of the seventh book.

It took me a long time to figure out what exactly made this line stick with me. Often the kind of sentence that wedges itself into my brain like that is 'deep' or beautifully metaphorical or will inspire me in some way. Often these kinds of lines are obvious in what made them stick to me. But this wasn't. This was so plain. This seemed topical, no hidden layers- it was just a simple question. A pretty fair question, really. Why did this stick out more than a sentence during Snape's last memories or part of Dumbledore's past? Why did it double my tear production, keep me up at night, make me think and think and think about I-don't-know-what.

It didn't hit me until a few weeks ago. Sitting on a plane with a finished book, a dead ipod , and a computer with no internet, I began to type. I wrote three little entries about nothing much really, just about my life or about moments that I thought needed to be captured, theories that needed further developing. I wrote about things that seemed more fitting to be in the pretty notebook lying at the bottom of my bag, but, somehow, came out better when I typed. One such moment that I tried to recreate and think slightly deeper about was this, you won't understand what exactly it is or who exactly I'm talking to, but I don't think that I'm going to try to explain:

-I just want it all to go away.

It was a whisper of an answer that slipped through my lips before I could stop it. Like when 17-year-old Harry asks his parents- at the end of the seventh book- if death will hurt. A childish question. A childish answer that happened all too quickly. It was a thought that made itself into audible sounds forming words without my permission- something I thought only happened in movies and books to characters who weren't real. It left my mind and then my mouth before I had the chance to realise it. Before I had the chance to take that thought and disect it- keeping only the vaguely acceptable parts as though to have some traces of truth left behind- and mix it with what she wanted to hear. Before I had the chance to carve and chisel and polish it into something that was not a thought in the rough, but a mature, insightful, and smart answer. Before I had the chance to create an articulate, adult-like response that showed the growth and acceptance I had been faking.

That was what I did with questions and answers and comments. That was how I talked, communicated, lived. I took every instinct and changed it to what I instinct I was supposed to have, and then into what I was expected to think or say. I remodeled my words to match the face that I was wearing, the wall I had put up, the other girl I was pretending to be. What would she say? What would she think? Then suddenly with one sentence, seemingly simple in wording and length, my cover was broken. I was suddenly vulnerable because this was my real answer. Not my fake response that the other girl inside my head had fabricated. This was my raw and true and honest answer. It was stupid, foolish and immature, irrational and far too hopeful. And it was mine. It was real. It showed that I was not mature, not insightful, not articulate- but, rather I was childish and weak and cowardly. It allowed a peek inside of me, into who I was, how I worked- something that was never meant to be seen or heard. I had, for the first time in what must have been forever, let someone in. Not to say that I hadn't let people in, because I had- friends and such- but this was letting her in on an entirely different level, in an entirely different way. And that, in and of itself, was terrifying.

Harry Potter lives in a world and a time where he is the most wanted boy/man/person alive. His parents are killed before he can remember them, years later he find out about and is reunited with his last remaining family member only to see him killed shortly after. The teacher who he thought to be his biggest supporter and defender, the only man he thought could understand him and protect him was now dead as well. He couldn't be with the girl he loved for so many reasons a teenager shouldn't have to face, had been hiding and running for months, had put his closest friends in danger. They'd all ricked their lives for him and, just moments ago, three had died, in part, because of him. Now he was walking into the forest to surrender and be killed. All before he's even eighteen. And though I often felt that Harry got annoying and slightly big-headed at times throughout the series, I think we can all agree that he has a lot on his plate. Yet he always seems to be brave, tough, persistent, and filled with answers- if not in the inside, in his actual thoughts, then at least on the surface for everyone else to see. He always played that part, depicted that image.

I'm not trying to say that Harry Potter is fake, because I don't believe he is. And in that small moment, I'm not even trying to say that I'm fake, because I don't believe I am either. But I think that, as humans, we often put up walls to protect ourselves or to protect others or for any number of reasons we come up with. And that could mean having a brave face so that the people around you can feel safe. It could mean telling someone what they want to hear so that things are easier, cleaner for them and for you. So that you can be the person you want to be, the person they want you to be, even if only on the surface. It could mean not letting yourself cry to prove to god-knows-who that you are not and never will be weak. But then I think, as humans, we also all have a breaking point. I think that we all, at some point, have a moment where the wall falls down- when you just need to cry or you feel so fake that you can't stand another moment of it or, if nothing else, you just forget and it happens before you can remember. We let our guard down, or it comes down without our permission. For some people, probably, it can happen in a bigger way- an outburst, or a breakdown. For Harry and I, it came in a short line, a simple spoken sentence that could, to others, almost go unnoticed. He, like me, had built up an image and a character for everyone to see- a personality that he had gotten himself into and was now committed to keeping up. Then suddenly in a simple question, he had (maybe even accidentally) shown a different side- perhaps a truer side- which wasn't weak or immature or cowardly. It was only human.

This book hurts.

I don't know why I never read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak- I'd certainly heard a lot about it. Maybe it was my being guilty of judging the book by its cover that wasn't exactly suggesting "my type" of book or maybe it was the specific people that had recommended it to me whose opinion I didn't trust or value or believe that I'd agree with or the concept of death as a narrator I'd heard about that implied an ironic black humor sort of book- definitely not my taste. But then with about a month left before starting high school, I had the novel idea of going online to check for any summer assignments that should have been already completed. And lo and behold, I was supposed to have read The Book Theif. At first, this was a burden seeing as though I wasn't keen on the idea of the book in the first place and being long, it rather interupted my other nerdy reading plans for the last few weeks of summer. However, though I expected to have to force myself to pick it up and read in order to ever finish, it turned out that I rather had to to force myself to put it down for a a 20-minute meal break every once in a while. I devoured the book, often reading a few hundred pages in one sitting. This may have had something to do with the fact that, while reading it, I had two nine hour flights between Alaska and New York on which I couldn't fall asleep and only read/wrote for hours on end. But whatever the reason, those 552 pages flew by far faster than I ever could have imagined.

Set in Germany during the 1940's, you know that this book hurts without me even having to even say it. It revolves around Liesel Meminger- a young German girl- and her learning about, then shortly after falling in love with words, books, writing. She is a girl who goes through more in ten years than anyone should have to endure in a lifetime. Her story is narrated by death- a character who helps you see into people in a way that no one else could. He, while collecting souls of the dead throughout the world in a time when there seems to be more to collect than ever before, follows Liesel through her childhood, often revealing what will happen or who he will visit next, long before it takes place in the story. The language is beautiful, every moment is poetic, and each image is strong.

So I have forewarned you- this book hurts. It hurts simply because of its setting and its protagonists struggles. It hurts because death is the narrator who tells you what will happen before it does which makes a different kind of pain. It is no longer a quick shock that stabs your heart. No, it's suddenly slow and excruciating. It is waiting for what you know is coming, watching around every corner of every page for it to come. It is standing by and knowing what the characters you love don't, it is wanting to tell them and not being able to, wishing to scoop them up out of the story and save them, but you can't. Like things so often are, though, what makes this hurt the most is also why it's so beautiful- the characters and how you are able to see into them. Because this isn't an ordinary book with 2-dimensional, rather undefined supporting characters. There is so much depth, not only in Liesel, but in her mama who curses like no ones business and her papa who plays the accordian better than anyone ever could and in the young jewish man that they hide in their basement who lives to hear her weather reports and her friend Rudy who wants to be Jesse Owens and in the mayor's wife and the angry woman next door who spits on her door step. There is depth even in the boy that they steal apples with and a kid from school named Tommy and the stern nazi who owns the candy store. Every single character is endearing and good somewhere, every single characters finds a little crack in your heart to wedge themselves into. Even death. And that hurts so much, somehow, because when you find yourself loving so much, you suddenly have worlds more to loose, immense amounts of more potential pain to be caused.

This post has done the book no justice and barely began to organize or complete my thoughts on it, but I don't think that I'll ever really be able to do that. It is one of the most endearing, original, haunting, and heartbreaking books that I have ever read. I cannot find words for it.

Why Teenagers Don't Want To Wake Up In The Morning

I would be fine alone.
And I was.
Until the morning. When, only half awake, I tried to think why I was alone in the bed. There was a leaden feeling. It was the same leaden feeling with which I woke on mornings after John and I had fought. Had we had a fight? What about, how had it started, how could we fix it if I could not remember how it started?
Then I remembered.
For several weeks that would be the way I woke to the day.
-The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I love sleeping more than practically anything else in the world. Maybe it's because I'm going through a staying-up-late-sleep-deprived phase that puts me in a constant state of tiredness, making sleep a precious commodity that I crave more of, always. Forget parties or concerts or running around the city at all hours of the night, acting twice my age- I’d much rather go home and take a nap, any day. This makes me sound incredibly lazy, but that’s really not what it’s about. Sleep lets me run away in my thoughts or from my thoughts. When I'm up at 4AM for the 5th time that week, completing a project that should have been done months ago, or waiting to see a TV show late at night, what keeps me going is the wonderful thought of how I will, eventually, be able to lay down my head, slip under the blankets, curl up into a ball, and fall fast asleep. The covers are always soft and safe and every line in my brain or heart is blurred and smudged. I’m in my own little unconscious world, unaware of anything happening around me or inside of me. It's this peaceful, carefree sensation that beats every feeling in the universe.
I can't be touched.

Until I wake up.
And the covers get pulled back.
And my mind slowly sharpens.
And everything comes crashing down.

Like Joan Didion-- when her husband dies and every morning she wakes up and that hard truth dawns on her once again. Every morning the covers are pulled back and her mind sharpens and she digs through her brain to remember everything that breaks routine, everything unnatural, everything that her unconscious, carefree self would never fathom- like John dying.

And the feeling that comes every time that that happens is unbearable-- the forgetting and remembering of the things that hurt the most. Because it's said that everything heals with time, all pain lessens as the hours and days and weeks pass. But how will anything heal if every morning is a fresh realization? How will the pain ever fade if you are hit each day with the initial shock of the very first time that it happened?

That's what I found most heartbreaking about this book- the way Joan would momentarily forget whether it was from falling asleep or just time starting to wear away the truth. Then she would wake up or see something that jolted her memory and it would all come rushing back in a second and she would have to face it all over again. It was as if each time this happened to her, every ounce of progress she had made was erased or forgotten and it was "back to the drawing board". Throughout the book, I was terrified for a character that I'd come to love so dearly because it seemed like she would never be OK, she would never feel OK when it was always "one step forward and two steps back".

Recent events of my life and just the fact that I'm fourteen has left a distance between my mother and I. It's hit like a meteor, practically over night, splitting the earth in half, leaving me on one side, and her on the other. What I laughed at and couldn't seem to understand as a little girl, what I swore would never happen, has happened. My mom and I have lost our relationship. I can’t handle her and she can’t handle me and neither of us know how to say that. Maybe it’s a phase, or maybe it’s forever. But, whatever it is, it’s here. The other day, when I could hear her steady breath and low snores from the next room over- when I was sure that she was sound asleep, I crept into her room to say goodnight. I used to do that every night. I used to kiss her cheek and she would pull me down for a hug and say something along the lines of "goodnight" and "I love you, beautiful girl" and "I'll see you in the morning". But I haven't kissed her cheek in weeks and I can't even remember the last time we've hugged.

I tiptoed to her side of the bed and leaned down and whispered goodnight and when she stirred, I expected tears or emotional ranting or a confused stare- all that seems to define our strange relationship lately- something I'd bite my lip at and awkwardly stalk off, not knowing quite what to say or do. But she looked up at me with the ocean blue eyes that stood out when she wore grey, the eyes that I’ve always envied, and they were tight and squinted like someone who had been staring at the sun for too long- slightly confused, but at the same time like she’d been expecting me. A slight smile played across her face- only one corner of her mouth turned up, sending ripples across that cheek. Then she closed her eyes again but kept the smile, and for a moment I thought she’d fallen back asleep.

Then I heard a whisper come of “goodnight” and “I love you” and “my beautiful girl”, in the same, ordinary way that it always used to. And for that moment, it felt like we were one of those pairs of mother and daughter who had a relationship again. Like what were before, like things had never changed. Like the days from years ago of sleeping curled beside her and cuddling and my imaginary rule of being safe from anything as long as she was there had never ended. Like we'd fixed it all or maybe just rewound.

Then I snapped out of my thoughts and looked down at her and remembered that she was half asleep- that she was having a barely-conscious moment. The kind where you wake up and for a minute, you forget what has happened- what life-changing thing has happened, or you forget that you’re supposed to be upset about something or angry at someone. And so, for a moment, you act like it’s not there, because for that second, it isn’t, not for you. And suddenly, I knew that she’d wake up the next morning and never remember this at all. And that things would go back to how they were- emotional and teary and frustrating- free of half smiles and squinting eyes. It would be like it had never happened.

I realized that just like Joan Didion, she would wake up the next morning and forget everything that has come between us over the past few months. She'd forget because the non-existant bond that we now have is completely irrational- it's something that no one could fabricate or imagine in a perfect state of sleeping. So, she'd forget, even if only for a split second and maybe start to call me in for an opinion or just to ask the time, before she remembered the unspoken rule telling her that she couldn't do that. It would come crashing down- the truth- and standing over my mom, looking at her ignorant-seeming blissful face was like staring into the sweet eyes of a small child that I knew would be hurt and I couldn't do anything about it, I couldn't even warn them-- I could only stand and watch it happen. And that was almost more painful than being the "Joan Didion", being the one to have the realization all over again time and time again, the one who has to pull back the covers and sharpen their mind, the one whose pain seems like it will drag on forever. Because watching pain can be harder than feeling it and on the outside looking in is an impossible position.

How We Deal With Grief

The last few weeks of my reading life have been an absolute dream as I started and finished two of my now favorite books of all time- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. My month has been a marathon of beautiful writing. Although these two books are very different from one another in terms of genre, character-type and writing style, they do share one common and dominant theme- grief. Oskar experiences grief when his father is killed in 9/11, and Joan when her husband of 40 years dies of heart failure.

What struck me so immediately about the character of Oskar Schell was his matter-of-fact attitude and way about everything. Even his fathers death. And watching a nine year old boy not only lose his dad, but address it in the same way that he would address the weather report was almost more painful than if he had sobbed nonstop throughout the story. Because that was his way of dealing with grief- keeping it inside, not dealing with it. Oskar makes sure that everything is clean and tidy on the outside for people to see by not letting out the messy inside thoughts and words and actions and feelings which, I know from experience, is so much more painful. And you have to think about it- was Oskar making this concious decision? Was he choosing to keep it in for the sake of, say, his mom or grandma? No- he's nine years old, his dad just died- he doesn't know what to do or think or who to turn to. He's polite and smart and just not the kind of person who can lash out or break down or show people what he's really going through. He doesn't keep his father's last voicemail's a secret to spare his mother any more pain, he does it because he's terrified and confused and guilty. Because so much responsibility and so much agony has been placed on his tiny shoulders and he's only nine and the only way he knows to deal with grief is what automatically happens- and that's nothing. Because nothing happens if we don't make it happen, and Oskar, not knowing what to make happen, does nothing.

And so it stays inside.

And that's how he deals with grief.

And he's only nine.

And that breaks my heart.

Then there's Joan Didion, whose story is equally heartbreaking in a completely different way. Before I read this book, my theory was that grief was easier as you got older, as you came to expect and anticipate the deaths of friends and spouses who were, like you, nearing the ends of their lives. But this isn't true at all because as Joan says, when you're so in love, you don't see yourself as growing older,

"For Forty years I saw myself through John's eyes. I did not age. This year for the first time since I was twenty nine I saw myself through the eyes of others. This year for the first time since I was twenty nine I realized that my image of myself was of someone significantly younger".

She had spent two thirds of her life with this man, and just because he had to die, didn't make him actually dying any easier. When you come to depend on someone for everything, when you come to realize them as a literal part of you, when not a single day goes by that you don't see this person, talk to this person, touch this person, hug this person in 40 years, how big is the hole they leave behind? And how impossible is it to fill?

But what stands out the most, to me, about her book is that it's a book. That she relived and re-experienced every moment of this event and every feeling that followed for years to make this book. That she published it, releasing to the world her innermost thoughts in the most raw, personal, heartbreaking and beautiful way possible. That this is her way of dealing with grief- the only way she knows- writing.

"Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden, to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind"

"Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief was we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself."

"Life changes in the instant, the ordinary instant"

-Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

And Joan Didion is so right.

Because no one expects death or grief- not how it really turns out to be, at least. And no one knows how to handle it when it does come.

Not even the seemingly most clever and scholarly nine year old boy that ever lived.

Not even the 70 year old woman who's intelligent and experienced and put together.

No one.

Because our minds use logic to make an image of what we think something will be like or feel like or look like, and there is nothing logical about grief. Because as much as we may plan or organize or try to control how our lives will play out, what happens happens. And when faced with crisis, it's hard to stick to your plans.

I need to get inspired

I've spent aproximately three and a half hours staring at the blank space where my entry should be. Occasionally I will take a break from that oh-so-hard work and get some water or a piece of gum. Then, of course, I will go back to my staring and thinking. I have no idea what to write. None whatsoever. This had never happend to me. Ok, that's a lie- it's happend to me a million times but, it never went on for this long and never for a reading response. Reading responses are fun to me, easy- I love writing essays and responses and entries- fiction is what I have trouble with (basically anything that requires the artistic side of my brain). I don't know why I have suddenly lost my ability to write.

I can't help but think that perhaps it has something to do with (go ahead, make fun of me) Harry Potter. After re-reading the seventh book a few weeks ago and then seeing the movie three times since then, my life has been practically filled with the best book of the best series, ever. I feel like it's risen my standards. I've picked up and dropped at least three books since then because they just don't draw me in as much. It seems as if nothing is or ever will be comparable to Harry Potter. I've noticed this in the past as well- everytime I read one of the HP books, it takes me a few weeks of no reading to be able to thoroughly appreciate the next book that I pick up, like a cool- down period almost.

The trouble with this is that I want to read. I love reading. I want something that will draw me in as much as Harry Potter does every single time. I want a book where I feel just as connected to every single character introduced. I want to be able to laugh and cry and think deeper into every word I see. Harry Potter is the perfect book and I don't expect anything to ever top that. but I wish that there was something just as good for me to read.

Molly Weasley And The Power Of Love *SPOILER ALERT*

Molly Weasley is not perfect. She is not rich or beautiful or flawless. But, she's strong- she's a fighter, and she's smart, and loving, and the most amazing mother that anyone could ever wish for. Mrs. Weasley lives for her kids. She doesn't love anything in the whole world as much as she does those six boys and one girl.

She's not the kind of mother who give their children whatever their hearts desire- even if she could. She pushes them, and disciplines them, and teaches them. She's not the kind of mother that kids dream about, hope for. The kind that let their children do whatever, the kind that leave them alone, let them go their own way, whether good or bad. The kind that let them have what they want, watch them make their mistakes and let them. The kind that can't be bothered- the kind that kids think they desire. She cares too much to be that type of mother.

She's the human kind- the kind that makes mistakes, the kind that knows what is best even if it seems like "the meanest thing in the world". The kind that's not afraid to be the bad guy once in a while if she knows that it will help her kid. The kind whose children complain about her endlessly- the real kind.

The realistic nature of this character is what makes everyone love her so much-- she's the mother that we all have or know or have met in our lives. And before the seventh book, that's all she was- just that motherly character. But, J.K. Rowling made an extremely intentional and strong choice that most people overlooked. The one and only curse word actually written in the entire Harry Potter series is said by Mrs.Weasley and it's said in defense of her child. After Fred is killed, all bets are off- her child is dead- she won't be calm anymore, she won't just watch as Bellatrix attacks her only daughter. I cannot help but wonder- is it love or hate that helps her kill Bellatrix? Because she is a powerful witch but, let's face it- Bellatrix is more powerful. So how does she kill her?

My first thought was hate. Is it hate so strong that builds up so much to her limit that it bursts through in a surge of power, of energy, of a sudden passion for what she's fighting for? Or is it the power of love? Does love, the same way that it helped Lily Potter, help Mrs.Weasley kill the cruel woman that poses as a threat to her family? Did love, something that Bellatrix most likely does not possess, defeat her?

The whole idea of Lily's love protecting Harry always seemed a little far fetched to me. It just didn't seem like something powerful enough but now, all of the sudden, when Mrs.Weasley put herself out there to save her daughter, it all made sense. Her love for Ginny and Fred was shining through. In this one split second of complete chaos and utter loathing, everything fit into place for me. And suddenly, I believed that Lily's love could protect Harry like it did.

Because, Molly Weasley showed me how strongly and fiercely a mother could love their child.

Silly how things end, isn't it?

SPOILER ALERT!!!! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ HARRY POTTER AND THE

DEATHLY HALLOWS, STOP READING HERE.

But seriously, what earth are you waiting for????

When I read over the scene of Hedwig's death I cannot help but be dissapointed by it's length and lack of intensity. The first time I read it, I felt so overwhelmingly confused and guilty. Why wasn't I crying? What the hell was the matter with me? This was Hedwig- Hedwig who just died and I was just sitting there. When Sirius died I couldn't contain myslef- my mom thought I was having some sort of attack, locked up in my bedroom. I cried when Cedric Diggory got killed and I cried when Hagrid's hippogriff nearly got killed, and god knows that Hedwig is far more important than Hagrid's Hippogriff. The last 100 pages of the Half Blood Prince is destroyed from my tears. So why couldn't I cry when Hedwig died? Her death was certainly important enough- that wasn't the issue. Was it simply that the way she died wasn't important enough? Sure, she can't talk so, it can't be dramatic in that respect- last words and all. But, somehow I feel like it should be more than just:

"No - HEDWIG"

A second's relief, and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage.

"No - NO!"

"Hedwig - Hedwig -"

But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage. He could not take it in, and his terror for the others was paramount.

And that's it- she's dead.

Hedwig who has been with Harry always- through thick and thin.

Hedwig who was with Harry wherever he went- who stayed with him at Howarts and who left with him in the summers.

Hedwig- who served as his only connection to the world in which he belonged during those long months spent with the Dursleys.

Hedwig who was given to him by Hagrid days before beginning at Hogwarts for the very first time when he was 11 years old. And now, 6 years later, only 53 pages into the 7th and final book, she's dead. And, no more than a half a page was dedicated to this tragic event.

Now, you may say that I'm overreacting- she's just an owl, right? Not even a major character. Not nearly as important as Sirius or Dumbledore or Ron or Hermione or Lupin or even Ginny. She doesn't deserve so much attention. But that's not true- if I've learned anything at all about what Dumbledore or Ron or Hermione or Sirius or Lupin thought was right, it's that all creatures are equal- all types of living things should be treated with the same respect and, going by that rule, Hedwig is possibly Harry's very best friend in the world, right?

So why does she get this pathetic ending? It's as if she almost fades away without anyone even noticing, anyone even caring. Had someone skipped a paragraph of reading, they never would have even known she died. They would have assumed that she was just mentioned less or left behind on their grand adventure or killed so unimportantly that J.K. Rowling didn't even bother to mention it. I don't think that Hedwig deserves that, do you?

Real-world Mudbloods

Harry Potter is perhaps the most realistic fantasy book, ever. I know what you're thinking- I'm crazy. And though I do love Harry Potter with all my heart and though it pains me to say this, no- I do not believe that dragons exist, or hippogriffs, or giant spiders or 3 headed dogs. And though I pray to be proven otherwise everyday, neither does Harry. He's not real, Ron's not real, Hermione's not real, and Hogwarts is not real.

So, you're now you're thinking "ok, she's not crazy but, I still don't get it, if none of this is real, then what's the realistic part?". The realistic part is the people (and no, I don't mean that werewolves or giants or wizards are realistic) but, the realistic part is that the basic way that their society works is so similar to ours, especially as young people. Which is what, I think, make this books so universally loved- everyone can connect to it.

The feelings that go on in adolecents are similar to those of the ones in real-world teenagers. Fame still exists, stores and banks and schools still exist. It is our world, with an added element- magic.

But what makes it the most like the world we know is perhaps, discrimination.

The discrimination against muggles or "mudbloods" perpetrated by certain pureblood wizards throughout the series is similar to the discrimination that has been going on in our own world since the beginning of time. The thinking that they are superior to muggles is the same thinking Hitler had with killing so many jews, it is the same thinking Americans had in enslaving African Americans. It is the same thing that went through the settlers minds when they invaded and took over the Native Americans' land and resources, and when the English colonized America. J.K. Rowling took something very true and used it to make this book more human, more... well... real.

I turned page 607 and prepared to read the next word- I remember feeling so wonderful at that moment, curled up in a sleeping bag beside my fellow classmates on the hard but inviting floor of Ms.Wexlers 6th grade ELA classroom. I was the only one really reading in the reading marathon- it had just begun and i was already deep into my book while everyone else scanned magazines and ate starburst. My eyes searched the next page- nothing. There was nothing. Nothing at all. That was it. Then it hit me.

Harry Potter was over.

For good.

And that's when I started to cry.

In the middle of 7th period ELA I started to cry like a little girl.

I'd hit the end of the line- there would be no more long nights just reading Harry Potter for hours on end, there would be no more opening fresh pages and fresh books with words and and themes and ideas just waiting to happen. No more running out of rooms and hiding in closets with my ears between my knees singing Jingle Bells as loud as possible when my mom and brother talked about The Deathly Hallows to avoid accidental spoilers.

And at that moment- in my dorky flannel pajama's and L.L bean sleeping bag, in school with all the tears and running mascara and strange looks- my heart just broke into a million pieces. I've never quite been satisfied with any book I've read since that day. Nothing has ever had that strong of an effect on me. Don't get me wrong- I still have books I like and books I love, and reading remains on the top of my facebook list of hobbies and interests- there has just never been a book that touched me in the way that Harry Potter did.

So naturally, you would think that as soon as The Tales of Beetle The Bard came out I would, like every other devoted Harry Potter fan, snatch it up, ecstatic and devour the stories that were as close as I would ever get to another Harry Potter book. However, I did quite the opposite- since my brother bought it, it was on our living room bookshelf right next to the rest of the series- but, I avoided the book at all costs. I hated it. I really really hated it. It felt like a fake book. Like one of those books that are written by other authors once the original one is dead (even though J.K. Rowling wrote it). The kind that are written when everyone knows the book cannot continue and that's the next best thing. It felt like that book was just created for money, which disgusted me- I thought that Harry Potter was an amazing piece of literature and if it was over, it was over. It shouldn't be stretched out for more money. But, more than this, it felt like a tease- it wasn't Harry Potter- he wouldn't be in it, and neither would Hermione or Ron or any other character that I missed having the company of. It was just stories from their world- there would be no mention of how they were doing or what had become of their friends- it was just there to tease me.

The other day, however, rushing out of the house in the morning, impulse made me reach up to that shelf and take down The tales of Beetle the Bard. I'm not sure what or why but, something inside of me kept saying "why not? go for it! give it a chance, just a chance". And now, I'm about halfway through it, giving it a fair chance, and I'm honestly so glad that I did. I'll admit that about this one thing, I was wrong. This book is not a tease, not really. And it is, in a way about the characters that I love- not directly but, about their childhood. When I read these stories I can see them being read to Ron by Mrs.Weasley, Hermione studying them as a teenager, and Harry reading them to his own children, giving them the magical upbringing he never had and remembering his journey as a kid and young man.

The Giver

I could talk about memory. I could talk about pain. The givers pain, Jonas's pain- both emotional and physical. I could talk about my empathy- my sympathy for Jonas's character- for all his frustration and loneliness. But, I feel this has all been covered before- I feel I've written and thought about all these topics before, whether in fourth grade or in seventh.

Every single person who writes one of these entries or essays talks about Jonas, talks about the giver. But, more interesting than their characters almost, more heartbreaking than them, I think, is the rest of the community.

They do not feel.
They do not feel pain or hate or stress.
They do not hug or kiss.
They do not see colors.
Everything is the same- Everyone is the same.
Spouses are chosen, children are given, jobs are assigned.
Feelings of passion are prevented with a pill.
There is no hurt, but in return, there is no love.

To deprive so many people of these things is, I think worse than to let one feel it all. And although many people will argue the point that they don't know what they're missing- so it's not so bad, I think that that makes it even worse because, at least Jonas can feel the good in addition to the bad, at least his life was not a lie. There is a point at which Jonas is talking to The Giver about his parents life once Jonas and Lily grow up and move out of their house-
"They'll go and live with the other childless adults and they won't be part of my life
anymore. And, after that, when the time comes, they'll go to the house of the old. And they'll be well cared for and respected and when they're released, there'll be a celebration"

"Which you won't attend" pointed out the giver.

"No, of course not, because I won't even know about it. By then, I'll be so busy with my own life. And Lily will, too. So our children, if we have them, won't know who their parents-of-parents are either"
This quote broke my heart into a million pieces. It, to me, is worse than anything else in this
community or this book. The fact that they would simply forget about their family without a
second thought. The fact that they would erase the people they have spent their entire lives with from their from their future, forever, and never look back. Many people in our world today do the same, including my own dad. Many people, like the people in Jonas' community, never talk to their family again, try hard to forget. The difference is, they have to try hard, the difference is it's not the automatic thing to do, the difference is, they have the choice. The people in The Giver were taught to do this, they were told that it was the way- the only way- anything else was dangerous. These poor people are trapped in this tiny world, there are so many things that they don't know and never will.

Some say that ignorance is bliss. It's a trade off, though, when you think about it- all or nothing.
Personally, I would chose all- the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, the mad and the
glad. And, maybe the people in The Giver would chose nothing, maybe they would chose all but,
that's not really what matters- what matters is that they didn't get the choice.