[and Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear...]

[reenka]

I'm reading a book about Faerie, musicians and... other things set in Edinburgh called `Singer of Souls', by Adam Stemple, Jane Yolen's son, and it's made me realize something.... There was a reference to the Baker Street Irregulars, from Sherlock Holmes, of course, and when I read that, reminding me of my childhood adoration of every Sherlock Holmes story I could find, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace and happiness. Connecting these two stories in my head, making me feel that they're connected with each other, gave me this sublime feeling of sheer contentment and joy. It's like every story that I love combines and entwines in my mind, and creates a world I can always carry with me, can always tap into whenever I let go. A world to sustain me when this one alone just wouldn't, and couldn't, and never has.

    It's all kind of meshed together in my head, but... the thing I love so much about reading fantasy, and living, and being a writer.... It's all got to do with that moment when I see that world, that other world, the one that feels beautiful and mine and only mine. I just know it intimately, at the same time as I know there are many corners I've not seen yet. All these fantastical places are in my head and only accumulating with time. And it's so bright and warm and always there with me, no matter what happens. It keeps me sane, and has done for ages. I'm still so -familiar- with all of it, with the bits I'd added when I was ten and the bits I'd just added now, reading this book, and even its coldest places are warm to me because they're home. I haven't created this world alone, I don't think, but only I see it precisely this way. And as long as I live, the world is mine-- and as long as I write, the world is passed on to be someone else's.

I don't know if I can explain it, but every story I come across becomes part of my own personal Dreaming, a place where I can always go back to.... My own Neverneverland. It has all my favorite characters and all my favorite places, and it's got this spirit, this vibrancy and meaningfulness that I can never put into words, but it overflows and feeds every word in every story worth anything that I've written. It's something like home, I suppose.

I think that's really it-- that's why it's worth it, to me. I always wanted to go to that world and actually live there, always wanted to make it a reality-- wanted to escape to Faerie, wanted to become a princess, wanted to do things I couldn't do in consensual reality very easily.... And it just occurred to me, just now-- just now-- that this world does exist, and not even only in my head. It exists, and it's worth living for. It's worth waking up every day for.

I've always wanted it to be real, in other words, but I've missed something so important, that kind of sidesteps the word 'real' and yet actually fulfills it.... Whatever else it is to anyone else, this world of mine is real-- to me.

I think... if I could dream another day, perhaps, then it's another day worth greeting with hope.
~~


1. Rocky Horror Picture Show - Science Fiction/Double Feature and Pink Floyd's `Learning to Fly'
2. This entry of hp_secrets and every other one, too. But this one because of the "Crazy Bugger (literally)" :D :D :D
3. Basara, Basara, BASARA!!!11!
4. mistful, loftily & stellabelle -- you girls bring the crack to my heart. aww. ♥
5. `Singer of Souls'
6. Domino's Barbeque chicken wings and Coke. MMMM.
7. the fountain at my college campus <3
8. my pretty brown skirt with the jangles and lace
9. writing porn. teehee.
10. addictedkitten's snippets of our Blaise/Ginny & Theodore/Zach epic. ♥

Comments

[stellabelle.livejournal.com]

This is a really lovely post. :) I know what you mean, even though I don't think I feel it as strongly as you do. But I did feel that way to a certain extent when I read The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe to one of my cousins recently, and I remembered what it was like to read it when I was a kid. It was...nostalgia and bittersweetness and something more.
And! ♥! Hee.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oooh, yeah, that book has that feeling in spades-- well, it's literally about escaping to your own special world, of course-- man, I love that device, and I love that you need to go through a wardrobe/closet. That just makes sense to all children everywhere, 'cause man, closets are dark, and there are things in them :D Scary things, but sometimes soft furry things, etc. And secrets! People put things they forget about in closets.

When I was little, I liked to imagine I had a portal to another world underneath my bed. Like, my bed faced the outside wall, so there was only empty air in front of me once you got past it, but in my mind, there was a huge treasure chamber. I didn't really want treasure though, so I dunno what was up with that. I also had personal dragons living beneath my bed to guard me from the, uh, under-the-bed monsters ^^;;

♥! :D