Broken things

"Sam was drawn to sad things. Always was, his little masochistic, rain, crying, and sad people loving Sammy. Dean knew one day in Heaven his little brother would be surrounded by everything he'd lost, instead of imagining a place in Hawaii with cool breeze and awesome booze, or whatever it was that made Sam truly happy."

This one hit me pretty hard. I can't even tell you why. But I guess it's because I relate. There's a beauty in sadness that resonates so much easier with me than the beauty in joy. And I know that isn't a good thing. It just reminds me of a moment back in high school. I was offered a choice. Blue pill Red pill. And I didn't choose. Except not making a decision almost always is a choice. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I had made a different one. Where I would be. We don't often get true defined forks in the road. There's usually multiple options, so many different paths to take, it's hard when we get two clearly defined choices. This was one. And I took a wrong turn. 

Susan Pevensie

I could only hope to be this brave.

“There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.” - JK Rowling

Can we talk about Susan’s fabulous adventures after Narnia? The ones where she wears nylons and elegant blouses when she wants to, and short skirts and bright lipstick when she wants to, and hiking boots and tough jeans and big men’s plaid shirts when she feels like backpacking out into the mountains and remembering what it was to be lost in a world full of terrific beauty— I know her siblings say she stops talking about it, that Susan walks away from the memories of Narnia, but I don’t think she ever really forgot.

I want to read about Susan finishing out boarding school as a grown queen reigning from a teenaged girl’s body. School bullies and peer pressure from children and teachers who treat you like you’re less than sentient wouldn’t have the same impact. C’mon, Susan of the Horn, Susan who bested the DLF at archery, and rode a lion, and won wars, sitting in a school uniform with her eyebrows rising higher and higher as some old goon at the front of the room slams his fist on the lectern. 

Susan living through WW2, huddling with her siblings, a young adult (again), a fighting queen and champion marksman kept from the action, until she finally storms out against screaming parents’ wishes and volunteers as a nurse on the front. She keeps a knife or two hidden under her clothes because when it comes down to it, they called her Gentle, but sometimes loving means fighting for what you care for. 

She’ll apply to a women’s college on the East Coast, because she fell in love with America when her parents took her there before the war. She goes in majoring in Literature (her ability to decipher High Diction in historical texts is uncanny), but checks out every book she can on history, philosophy, political science. She sneaks into the boys’ school across town and borrows their books too. She was once responsible for a kingdom, roads and taxes and widows and crops and war. She grew from child to woman with that mantle of duty wrapped around her shoulders. Now, tossed here on this mundane land, forever forbidden from her true kingdom, Susan finds that she can give up Narnia but she cannot give up that responsibility. She looks around and thinks I could do this better.

I want Susan sneaking out to drink at pubs with the girls, her friends giggling at the boys checking them out from across the way, until Susan walks over (with her nylons, with her lipstick, with her sovereignty written out in whatever language she damn well pleases) and beats them all at pool. Susan studying for tests and bemoaning Aristotle and trading a boy with freckles all over his nose shooting lessons so that he will teach her calculus. Susan kissing boys and writing home to Lucy and kissing girls and helping smuggle birth control to the ladies in her dorm because Susan Pevensie is a queen and she understands the right of a woman to rule over her own body. 

Susan losing them all to a train crash, Edmund and Peter and Lucy, Jill and Eustace, and Lucy and Lucy and Lucy, who Susan’s always felt the most responsible for. Because this is a girl who breathes responsibility, the little mother to her three siblings until a wardrobe whisked them away and she became High Queen to a whole land, ruled it for more than a decade, then came back centuries later as a legend. What it must do to you, to be a legend in the body of a young girl, to have that weight on your shoulders and have a lion tell you that you have to let it go. What it must do to you, to be left alone to decide whether to bury your family in separate ceremonies, or all at once, the same way they died, all at once and without you. What it must do to you, to stand there in black, with your nylons, and your lipstick, and feel responsible for these people who you will never be able to explain yourself to and who you can never save. 

Maybe she dreams sometimes they made it back to Narnia after all. Peter is a king again. Lucy walks with Aslan and all the dryads dance. Maybe Susan dreams that she went with them— the train jerks, a bright light, a roar calling you home. 

Maybe she doesn’t. 

Susan grows older and grows up. Sometimes she hears Lucy’s horrified voice in her head, “Nylons? Lipstick, Susan? Who wants to grow up?”  and Susan thinks, “Well you never did, Luce.” Susan finishes her degree, stays in America (England looks too much like Narnia, too much like her siblings, and too little, all at once). She starts writing for the local paper under the pseudonym Frank Tumnus, because she wants to write about politics and social policy and be listened to, because the name would have made Edmund laugh. 

She writes as Susan Pevensie, too, about nylons and lipstick, how to give a winning smiles and throw parties, because she knows there is a kind of power there and she respects it. She won wars with war sometimes, in Narnia, but sometimes she stopped them before they began.

Peter had always looked disapprovingly on the care with which Susan applied her makeup back home in England, called it vanity. And even then, Susan would smile at him, say “I use what weapons I have at hand,” and not explain any more than that. The boy ruled at her side for more than a decade. He should know better. 

Vain is not the proper word. This is about power. But maybe Peter wouldn’t have liked the word “ambition” any more than “vanity.”

Susan is a young woman in the 50s and 60s. Frank Tumnus has quite the following now. He’s written a few books, controversial, incendiary. Susan gets wrapped up in the civil rights movement, because of course she would. It’s not her first war. All the same, she almost misses the White Witch. Greed is a cleaner villain than senseless hate. She gets on the Freedom Rider bus, mails Mr. Tumnus articles back home whenever there’s a chance, those rare occasions they’re not locked up or immediately threatened. She is older now than she ever was in Narnia. Susan dreams about Telemarines killing fauns. 

Time rolls on. Maybe she falls in love with a young activist or an old cynic. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe Frank Tumnus, controversial in the moment, brilliant in retrospect, gets offered an honorary title from a prestigious university. She declines and publishes an editorial revealing her identity. Her paper fires her. Three others mail her job offers. 

When Vietnam rolls around, she protests in the streets. Susan understands the costs of war. She has lived through not just the brutal wars of one life, but two. 

Maybe she has children now. Maybe she tells them stories about a magical place and a magical lion, the stories Lucy and Edmund brought home about how if you sail long enough you reach the place where the seas fall off the edge of the world. But maybe she tells them about Cinderella instead, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, except Rapunzel cuts off her own hair and uses it to climb down the tower and escape. The damsel uses what tools she has at hand. 

A lion told her to walk away, and she did. He forbade her magic, he forbade her her own kingdom, so she made her own. 

Susan Pevensie did not lose faith. She found it. 

-

http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/69470941562/there-comes-a-point-where-susan-who-was-the

World Heritage Natural Areas aka places I need to visit

Los Glaciares National Park

Iguazu National Park

Península Valdés

Ischigualasto / Talampaya Natural Parks

Lord Howe Island Group

Shark Bay, Western Australia

Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh / Naracoorte)

Heard and McDonald Islands

Macquarie Island

Purnululu National Park

Ningaloo Coast

The Sundarbans

Belarus

Białowieża Forest 

Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System

Bolivia (Plurinational State of)

Noel Kempff Mercado National Park

Okavango Delta

Iguaçu National Park

Atlantic Forest South-East Reserves

Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves

Central Amazon Conservation Complex 

Pantanal Conservation Area

Brazilian Atlantic Islands: Fernando de Noronha and Atol das Rocas Reserves

Cerrado Protected Areas: Chapada dos Veadeiros and Emas National Parks

Pirin National Park

Srebarna Nature Reserve

Dja Faunal Reserve

Sangha Trinational 

Nahanni National Park 

Dinosaur Provincial Park

Kluane / Wrangell-St. Elias / Glacier Bay / Tatshenshini-Alsek 

Wood Buffalo National Park

Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks 

Gros Morne National Park

Waterton Glacier International Peace Park 

Miguasha National Park

Joggins Fossil Cliffs

Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park

Sangha Trinational 

Lakes of Ounianga

Huanglong Scenic and Historic Interest Area

Jiuzhaigou Valley Scenic and Historic Interest Area

Wulingyuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area

Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas

Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries - Wolong, Mt Siguniang and Jiajin Mountains

South China Karst

Mount Sanqingshan National Park

China Danxia

Chengjiang Fossil Site

Xinjiang Tianshan

Los Katíos National Park

Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary

Sangha Trinational 

Talamanca Range-La Amistad Reserves / La Amistad National Park 

Cocos Island National Park

Area de Conservación Guanacaste

Côte d'Ivoire

Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve *

Taï National Park

Comoé National Park

Plitvice Lakes National Park #

Desembarco del Granma National Park

Alejandro de Humboldt National Park

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Virunga National Park

Kahuzi-Biega National Park

Garamba National Park

Salonga National Park

Okapi Wildlife Reserve

Ilulissat Icefjord

Wadden Sea 

Stevns Klint

Morne Trois Pitons National Park

Galápagos Islands

Sangay National Park 

Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley)

Simien National Park

High Coast / Kvarken Archipelago 

Gulf of Porto: Calanche of Piana, Gulf of Girolata, Scandola Reserve 

Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems

Pitons, cirques and remparts of Reunion Island

Messel Pit Fossil Site

Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and the Ancient Beech Forests of Germany 

Wadden Sea 

Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve 

Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve

Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst 

Surtsey

Kaziranga National Park

Keoladeo National Park

Manas Wildlife Sanctuary

Sundarbans National Park

Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks

Western Ghats

Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area

Komodo National Park

Ujung Kulon National Park

Lorentz National Park

Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra

Isole Eolie (Aeolian Islands)

Monte San Giorgio 

The Dolomites

Mount Etna

Shirakami-Sanchi

Yakushima

Shiretoko

Ogasawara Islands

Saryarka – Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan

Lake Turkana National Parks

Mount Kenya National Park/Natural Forest

Kenya Lake System in the Great Rift Valley

Kiribati

Phoenix Islands Protected Area

Tsingy de Bemaraha Strict Nature Reserve

Rainforests of the Atsinanana

Lake Malawi National Park

Gunung Mulu National Park

Kinabalu Park

Mauritania

Banc d'Arguin National Park

Sian Ka'an

Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino

Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve

El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve

Uvs Nuur Basin 

Montenegro

Durmitor National Park

Namib Sand Sea

Sagarmatha National Park

Chitwan National Park

Wadden Sea 

Te Wahipounamu – South West New Zealand 5

New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands

Air and Ténéré Natural Reserves

W National Park of Niger

West Norwegian Fjords – Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord

Darien National Park

Talamanca Range-La Amistad Reserves / La Amistad National Park *

Coiba National Park and its Special Zone of Marine Protection

Huascarán National Park 

Manú National Park

Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park

Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park

Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary

Białowieża Forest 

Laurisilva of Madeira

Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes

Danube Delta

Virgin Komi Forests

Lake Baikal

Volcanoes of Kamchatka 

Golden Mountains of Altai

Western Caucasus

Central Sikhote-Alin

Uvs Nuur Basin 

Natural System of Wrangel Island Reserve

Putorana Plateau

Lena Pillars Nature Park

Saint Lucia

Pitons Management Area

Senegal

Niokolo-Koba National Park

Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary

Seychelles

Aldabra Atoll

Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve

Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst *

Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and the Ancient Beech Forests of Germany 

Škocjan Caves 

East Rennell

iSimangaliso Wetland Park

Cape Floral Region Protected Areas

Vredefort Dome

Garajonay National Park

Doñana National Park

Teide National Park

Sinharaja Forest Reserve 

Central Highlands of Sri Lanka

Suriname

Central Suriname Nature Reserve

High Coast / Kvarken Archipelago 

Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch

Monte San Giorgio 

Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona

Tajik National Park (Mountains of the Pamirs)

Thungyai-Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuaries

Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex

Ichkeul National Park

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Rwenzori Mountains National Park

Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and the Ancient Beech Forests of Germany 

Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast

Henderson Island

Gough and Inaccessible Islands 

Dorset and East Devon Coast

Serengeti National Park

Selous Game Reserve

Kilimanjaro National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Everglades National Park

Grand Canyon National Park

Kluane / Wrangell-St. Elias / Glacier Bay / Tatshenshini-Alsek 

Redwood National and State Parks

Mammoth Cave National Park

Olympic National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Yosemite National Park 

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park 

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Waterton Glacier International Peace Park 

Canaima National Park

Ha Long Bay

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

Socotra Archipelago

Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls 

Mana Pools National Park, Sapi and Chewore Safari Areas

Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls 

I Loved You First

I am aware that this is not travel related. But no one reads this anyway. This is more a diary than a blog, and so I can write what I damn well please.


http://archiveofourown.org/works/1799623/chapters/3859159T

This nearly destroyed me. It's funny how words can do that. I was sent this link by a friend whom I trust (ed), and I was expecting something fun. I know people who would scoff simply because Marvel is comic books. And Comic books are childish, or nerdy or childish. And sometimes they're right. But not this time. Just because these people are fictional, just because their stories are told and retold, and their names a common house hold names, usually said with some mocking or derision, doesn't make the pain, or anguish in this story any less real. This isn't just a Captain America story. We tell stories with purpose, with meaning. And this one nearly killed me. It is equal parts sorrow, and anguish and greys mixed with small bursts of colour. To love so completely for so long, to have that missing part constantly forever, is something universal in its experience. Some of us are lucky enough to find and to have someone who loves us, and who we love. But for a lot of people, for far too many, it's a dream. Whether it's because the person they love doesn't love them, or because of society, or biology or just bad luck, we can't find that essential thing. And most of the time we don't notice. We go about out lives and we live them. But then something like this comes along. Something that reminds of the pain we feel. This might be a story about Captain America. But more importantly it's a story about James Barnes. It's a story about someone who felt a love more powerful than anything else in his life, more powerful than biology or technology, more powerful than science. And it's a story about self loathing and denial and loss. His pain resonates, because it is something we can all feel. I can feel. This story broke something inside me. It proves that however we dress up our characters, as fictional heroes or fantastical creatures, no matter how much critics may scoff at the incredible or mythological, it is the inherent humanity of the characters, the universal humaness of them that can reach through the pages, through time and distance and touch something inside of us.

THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR I AM THE EVILEST MOTHERFUCKER IN THE VALLEY.

Prague

There are times when I hear the phrase 'faith in humanity lost' or 'faith in humanity restored'. And every time I do, I can't understand why your faith would be lost in the first place. Maybe it is the expectations. But no one can be good all of the time, and sometimes humans do horrible things. But I've never lost faith that people are essentially good, and that everyone is striving to do their best.

I have seen amazing things. Humans have accomplished so much. And almost all of it is in the name of faith. If I ever doubt for a moment, I have a thousand instants to recall, should my faith waver I know exactly which moments prove my beliefs. And one of those moments was in Prague.

Across from the Charles Bridge is a cathedral. It is large and very beautiful on the inside. It also happens to have amazing acoustics. On our first evening in Prague, we went and saw a concert. There were only three instruments, a violin, the organ, and female soprano. Instead of standing in front of the audience, all three performers were in the Organ loft above and behind where the audience sat in the pews. And when they performed it was magic.

The woman had an incredible voice. It projected and blended throughout the cathedral, and it was beautiful. And all I could think was, if God looks down upon the earth at this moment, he will see all the tragedy and horror. People starving, wars, diseases we learned to cure years ago, tons of pollution, and an appalling apathy for all these things. But he will also look down on this little church, which was crafted with love and devotion and he will hear this music that was inspired by love and faith, and hear this sublime voice raised in song and if he is ever tempted to destroy the world, to wipe humanity from its surface, this will stay his hand. We are capable of immense tragedy and horrors. But the depth of our depravity is matched only by the peerless hights of our sacred endeavours. When we destroy, we can destroy utterly. But when we create, we can make something so beautiful, it can move the world to tears.

That is our saving grace. And when humanity seems lost, when all hope has faded, I remember a time when it seemed the voice of heaven itself rang through the church which has stood for hundreds of years, and know that humanity cannot be truly lost as long as these things remain.

Days of Future Past

Today I was asked to perform an exercise. And I think I needed the good advice. 

1. Something the current you would tell yourself 10 years ago.

I know it's tough, and you're all alone. But one day you're going to meet some amazing people who make you feel included. You're going to have some wonderful Best Friends and go on some awesome adventures. But right now, you're going to have to deal with all those people who have abandoned you. And you don't have to try and hide inside. You don't have to make yourself bigger to feel safer. You just concentrate on being fit and healthy, and try and avoid some of the pain, because it's not worth it. I wish I could say I did it the right way, but I didn't. But that's ok because I'm going to fix it now. And btw (by the way in future speak) that trip to Paris? We did that. And you know how you always wanted to see lions in Africa? We did that too. So do your best but know this will all work out. P.S. When the time comes, and you'll know which time, don't be alone. Grab whoever you can and make them stay with you because the future gets better and that was too close a call.

2. What your future looks like, being as specific and detailed as possible

Future me looks an awful lot like Sarah Harding. Not the lame one from the movies, but the intelligent, resourceful large predator specialist who spends all her time in Africa studying Hyena and Lions. She is tough, and stronger than she looks, capable of hiking across the savanna if her 4x4 breaks down and dragging her friends out of danger. She is a successful and respected researcher, who has the funding and the PhD to do whatever she likes and she's working on working with the locals to protect their fauna. She can fix a car, shoot a gun and still have all the boys in the bar wishing they had the guts to talk to her.

3. What’s one thing the FUTURE you would come back and tell TODAY you so that you head down the right path?

Don't lose faith. Sure the path looks tough right now, but you'll get there. Never stop dreaming of Africa, and don't let others get you down. You can make it, you just have to want it. And as for the other thing, now is the time. Not tomorrow, now. Go sign up for the gym on Wednesday. Use what you know and get it sorted. Because there is a point to it all, and you will find your way. You just have to learn to stand on your own feet for a while and really stop letting it get to you. I know you think you don't care, but that's an act. Get the help you need to start feeling again. And don't let the darkness in. You're as strong as you want to be, so you need to want to fight. That last single inch is the most important and if you work at it, you can make that last bit of light grow bigger and bigger till it lights up your whole world. And when you do, you'll be unstoppable.

Mapping my Travels

Places I've Been

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

It seems insignificant when you see where you've been against the world.