A Woman Worth Knowing

I would like you to meet a friend of mine. Well, I guess technically, she is more of an acquaintance than a friend. I suppose if the two of us were more extroverted around each other, we might be friends, but such is the nature of those who are quiet thinkers.

I won’t say her name, out of respect for her as well as to avoid embarrassment. But I will say that she is beautiful. And not the kind of beauty that screams, “Look at me!” Some have a natural ability to turn people’s heads while walking down the street. But that’s not the kind of beauty I’m talking about. I’m talking about the beauty that makes you think. The kind that you may not notice at first if you’re not looking, but is like a hidden treasure once you’ve discovered it. Her soft eyes radiate a gentle warmth that reinforces the kindness in her smile. She may seem to have a quiet voice, but her strength of character comes not from the volume of her voice.

I would say that within her lies a dedication and a passion for learning that I don’t see in every girl. She loves to read extensively, and so there will never be a shortage of conversation topics in her presence, although she is not the kind of person who would dominate a conversation. She conducts herself with grace, and is often willing to lend a helping hand when needed.

For those of you who have the privilege of meeting and knowing her, I want to say this: don’t mistake her quiet spirit for shyness or disinterest. It may take some time to get to know her well, but it is time well spent, for she is a woman worth knowing.

Resentment

I know you’re trying to make friends with me,
But that’s not my kind of harmony.
You are dissonance,
Causing friction in the very fibers
Of my being.
Clashing with the clarity of my mind,
You paint pictures of people’s imperfections –
Creating caricatures of their flaws
Just so I can find fault with them,
Forcing me to forget
That they, like me, are human.
I am undone; I am broken,
Believing that bitterness will better me,
But instead it is a fetter to me.
You hold me hostile to my hypocrisy,
Only to harbor animosity.
Tell me, what is so satisfying about
Seeing others struggle, only to sneer
In your insatiable hunger for hurt?
I am not sorry when I say
That your sickness is not welcome here.

The Adult Cult

I joined a cult called “Adult”:
Ditching the dramas for the documentaries
And embracing the boring which many call life.
Scheduled into a system
Formed by the few for the many
Leaving little room for spontaneity.
Where is the creativity, the craziness,
The charisma from our youth?
We have traded the marvelous
For the mundane mediocrity
Of daily life. In the name of
Making money,
We have drowned our dreams
In the depths of human sorrow.
I have come to realize
That what troubles me are not
The traumas of a lifetime – those
I can handle – but rather
The pesky flies of petty problems.
The daily disturbances and annoyances
Coupled with the crippling hopelessness
That comes with realizing
That that’s just the way it is.

Likes and Dislikes

I enjoy lists, so… here you go.

Likes

Intellectually stimulating conversations

Learning something new

The smell of barbecue sauce

Blankets

Teacups

The feeling of completing something good

Bear hugs

Yellow legal pads

Roses

Sarcasm

Burritos

Dislikes

Small dogs

Cold feet

Chai tea

Emotionally charged arguments

Loud noises

Crowds

Florescent lights

Gummy candy

Boredom

Clutter

Long nails

 

If Facebook Were a Woman

4/2013

So, you’re the one
Who causes all the trouble. Dressed
In blue makes you look innocent,
but you still manage to steal
my eyes for hours. “Come on,
what’s what harm?” you ask me,
showing off some of your recent pictures.
Another cute bunny or advice
on dieting. But if I see one more kitten
I think I might throw up. You know,

You are a great photographer, especially
when the photos aren’t yours. But that’s okay
because you change your style so often
that your selfies would become outdated
really fast. You’re a great seducer. Those
green kisses on familiar faces force me to think
that my friends may want to talk to me,
but you lure them to yourself
with your latest gossip.
You have a way with words.

You sit back and chuckle
pretending not to notice how many relationships
you’ve ended, how many fights you started,
and how many times people share
your poisonous words of “wisdom” and “inspiration”.
You seem to thrive on clutching people’s throats
and holding on for dear life, while still
convincing others to do the same. Temptation
never felt so subtle, but honey I know
you’ve got me good.

Questions to Ask on a Date?

While I don’t know much about dating, I do enjoy looking at articles with fun date ideas – because sometimes the activities mentioned seem like good ideas whether you have a date or not!

We know that a first date can be awkward. What do you talk about? I especially don’t care for small talk, so the conversation would probably become uncomfortable for me quite quickly. In my thought process, I don’t really care how many facts about you I can recite, because knowing about you isn’t the same as knowing you. That’s  partly what distinguishes our relationships to our friends versus our celebrity crushes. Learn as much as you want about Jennifer Lawrence, but unless you take her out for pizza and spend time with her, chances are you won’t really know her that well.

That being said, I came up with the following list of questions that will guarantee success on any first date you go on.

Actually I have no idea if these are any good; these are just questions I’ve thought about in my spare time when my brain has nothing better to do.

If you were granted three wishes, what would you wish for?

If you had a completely empty day ahead of you, how would you spend it?

Were you to pick any job besides the one you have, what would you want to do?

Do you like sweet, salty, or spicy foods?

What is one of your favorite places to go in town?

If you could pick any era to live in, past, present, or future, what would you pick?

What is something you don’t want to live without?

What is something you’re thankful for today?

What, if anything, do you want to change about the world?

Who do you want to be in the future?

When is your favorite time of day?

Where do you go to relax?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop? (answer: the world will never know)

What’s the strangest question you’ve been asked on a first date?

*Disclaimer: Katherine Hill is not liable for any rejections or failures that result from using this list of questions, so please do not sue her. Side affects may include queasy stomach, palm sweating, frequent trips to the bathroom, and uncomfortable silences.

 

A Respectable Young Lady

I got the “lady” thing down. When I was a girl, I learned all sorts of “lady” skills that would prepare me to be a decent woman and successful housewife. I make applesauce. I spin yarn. I can knit and crochet. I paint, sing, and play the harp. I can make quilts and clothes, and serve afternoon tea.

The problem is, activities such as those are no longer as popular as they used to be. Spin yarn? Many people don’t even understand what a drop spindle is, or they have never seen a harp up close.

Felicity Merriman and Elsie Dinsmore were my childhood friends, but I have learned that girls like them remain alive only on the words of a page. While girls my age learned about makeup and name brand clothing, I was out riding horses. While so-and-so was dating her first boyfriend, I was wondering if it was morally okay to wax my eyebrows (would it be vain?). By the time I reached young adulthood, I thought I was well on my way to becoming an accomplished gentlewoman (I use the term loosely). You can imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that a proper gentlewoman is not esteemed in the same way she would have been a century ago.

These days it appears that society values a woman who is career driven more than housewife driven. Many women today are being awarded for accomplishments that, a century or two ago, only men would have attempted. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it means we’ve allowed women to go above and beyond the original expectations of their gender. I think, however, that there is something to be said about a woman who can manage her home well, career or no career. There is a certain beauty that is lost when the art of housekeeping is thrown to the wayside in pursuit of what used to be left to the men.

That’s not to say that pursuing a career is a bad thing. I myself am studying to get a bachelor’s degree, after which I would like to manage a flock of goats (maybe), grow an herb garden, and possibly build my own house. Yes, with my own hands.

Do you remember the term “calling” before it was used in reference to the telephone? In the Victorian era, ladies would pay visits to, or call on, each other. In higher society, women would keep track of who called on them and to whom they owed calls. Paying a call could be compared to paying bills, they were so important. Today? “We should hang out sometime.”

Sometimes I wonder what the hell men are looking for if not a housewife. I may be late in saying this (by about 100 years), but it seems that the woman is having to find a new identity, since it is no longer defined by the skills she acquires for running a home. In a way, this is freeing, because it gives her more independence to choose her own path. In another way, however, it leaves people like me a bit confused about what to do when I’ve spent a significant chunk of my life training to be useful to a man.

Please do not take this as a self-pity rant (although that’s exactly what it is, so forgive me). This is not to say that I cannot survive without a man taking care of me, because I have complete confidence that I can. I think more importantly, I am trying to find my place in 2014 when I feel like I should have been born in 1880.

The Irish Harp

Summer 2012

It was my dream to play a harp in Ireland. I had spent years learning how to play the Irish harp, but only in America. Now that I was in Ireland, I thought it would be fun to play a “real” Irish harp. To my surprise, it was more difficult to find a harp to play than I thought it would be. I explored the streets of Dublin, but I never found the harp store. I visited a music store in Limerick, but all they had were ornamental harps, having no more than 4-10 strings. I became discouraged, but I did not give up hope. I knew I would have one more chance to find a harp during the evening of music at Newport.

When we arrived at the school house which held the event, I stepped inside and eagerly scanned the room. I saw a multitude of children playing violins, accordions, whistles, and drums. Then it caught my eye. Standing off-center in the midst of the children’s ensemble was the instrument I had been looking for: the Irish harp. My body shook, partly from the chilly air and partly out of excitement. I desperately hoped for an opportunity to play before the night ended, but I was nervous too. What would everyone think of me, an American, playing Irish music on an Irish instrument? I hoped that I would do it justice.

When my name was called and I was asked if I wanted to play the harp, I nodded eagerly. Rising from my seat, I stepped toward the front of the room, where the harper from the ensemble set the instrument next to an empty chair. I sat down to get familiar with the harp while Denis Carey introduced the piece I was about to play, which was an original composition of his. I am glad he did the talking; I couldn’t have spoken if I wanted to, my voice being scratchy from my cold. While he spoke, I ran my fingers over the strings, feeling the sound. The tuning was slightly different from what I was used to, so I decided it would be easier to transpose the piece from its original key to the harp’s current tuning so I wouldn’t have to change it. The harp itself stood probably less than 4 1/2 feet tall –– shorter than my harp back home. It rested just beneath my right shoulder as I stretched my arms over the soundboard, ready to play. In a matter of seconds, the introduction was over; it was time to play.

I began to play the first chords of a sad, sweet farewell tune, and the magic melody resonated off the soundboard, reminding me of my harp back home. My fingers glided over the unfamiliar strings –– rougher than nylon, but smoother than gut –– I’m not sure what they were made of, but I enjoyed their timbre. In those few moments, my nervousness, the cold, and the people listening all disappeared as I became absorbed in playing. In those moments, nothing existed but the music and me. I played a few wrong notes, which I hoped I covered up smoothly enough, but it almost didn’t matter. The harp was playing itself, and I was along for an enchanting ride.

As the notes of the final chord drifted away into the air, the room erupted with applause. I stood, smiling, and began to walk back to my seat. I received several compliments on my playing from people on the way, but there was no greater compliment than the praise from the composer himself, Denis Carey. I hoped he hadn’t noticed the wrong notes I had struck, and he didn’t appear to. His smile was almost as wide as mine as he told me how much he enjoyed my playing.

I sank back into my seat, filled with a joy deeper than words. My dream had come true.

Why a Ring?

Chances are if you’re from generation Y – or even generation X – you’ve probably seen it. The engagement announcements, the pictures of the fancy ring. Don’t get me wrong, I love admiring people’s rings. I think rings are beautiful. I just wonder what the hype about them is.

Yes, a quick Google search will reveal that a ring symbolizes eternal love, the commitment to marriage. Although according to Wikipedia, “Historically, the wedding ring was connected to the exchange of valuables at the moment of the wedding rather than a symbol of eternal love and devotion. It is a relic of the times when marriage was a contract between families, not individual lovers.”

My conflict about the wedding ring isn’t a sense of belonging or devotion to somebody; my conflict is about the practicality of wearing a ring in general. I love admiring jewelry on other people, but for me, any sort of ring is uncomfortable. And what about when people go to the bathroom and wash their hands after? Isn’t that putting a lot of wear and tear on the ring? Suppose you’re making meatloaf and mixing the raw meat with your bare hands? To wear a ring in a situation like that just sounds really gross to me. What about gardening if you don’t wear gloves? Suppose you’re a painter and you get paint on the ring? I wouldn’t wear a $5,000 dress to paint a house, so why would I wear a $5,000 piece of jewelry only to have to pay more money to get it cleaned after?

(I don’t really know what the going rate for rings is…I’m just throwing around numbers)

Yes, I know that wearing a ring can show that you’re not single, that you’re devoted to someone else. And yes, that can be a very good thing. But technically, shouldn’t the way you act in your everyday life show that you’re devoted to someone? I’m not trying to put anyone down here, I’m genuinely trying to figure this out.

Of my many concerns about getting married someday, one is having to wear a piece of jewelry that someone spent a ridiculous amount of money on that I don’t even like. God have mercy on the man who gets stuck with me.

Book Review: Phantom of the Opera

I have made it a goal to read more classics, both to be more well-rounded and so that I can say I’ve read them. One of the classics I read this summer was Phantom of the Opera.

Before I begin, I will say that this is not the most professional book review. I know what I like to read, and my “review” of a given book will be based on my reading preferences. Therefore, just because I liked a book does not mean it is “good,” neither is a book necessarily “bad” if I disliked it.

That being said, I did initially find POTO a little difficult to read, since it was written over a century ago, making the language style different from what I’m used to. It was not a mindless, easy read for me in the beginning; I had to engage with the text to understand what was going on. Perhaps another reason for this was that the first few chapters read more like a report than a story. After I was several chapters in, however, the author introduced more dialogue and action, which helped to make it more interesting.

Now for the plot. As I’m sure many people know the story already, I will not bore the reader with the details of the narrative. I had already seen the movie (starring Gerard Butler), which made the story easier to follow, since I had an idea of what to expect. Of course the details in the book were different from those of the movie, but the extra scenes and descriptions added a richness to the text that the movie simply does not have. Included in these extras would be the elaborate tunnels and passageways through the opera house (which we only get a glimpse of in the movie), Christine visiting the graveyard, the torture chamber, and the Phantom’s magic tricks. The details and descriptions in the text add a depth that could not possibly be addressed in the movie, yet give the reader a better understanding of the story.

Overall I did enjoy this book, even though it did require a little more mental muscle than I had used in awhile for recreational reading. I would definitely recommend it to someone who is interested in broadening their horizons in literature, but maybe not for the reader who is looking more for something quick and easy.