The end of the age

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread.
Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Love After Love, Derek Walcott

It was a surprise for me to read that, almost like I have never read it before. It was in The Time Traveller's Wife, but this is the first time that I have felt that it meant anything to me...

So. Right now, I'm just idling time away wishing I had something constructive to do. I'm currently re-reading a few books, among them Plath's The Bell Jar; that isn't a good sign though, because I tend to get depressed after reading it...

The other depressing book I'm reading...Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. Well it's a love story, but it's also a social commentary of New York's upper class during the 1870s (usually through the eyes of Newland Archer, the protagonist). It's the mildly satirical tone that I like...and yes, the tragic story of Newland Archer and his wife's cousin the Countess Olenska too. And no, they didn't have a sad affair which scandalised everyone, but still....well you get the idea.

Here's an excerpt of it (reproduced here with permission from no representative):

...But when he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product. Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.

Newland Archer was thinking this about his fiancee May Welland the day after they got engaged.

Anyway, do you think this happens now, in this decadent age of loose morals and sadly misguided teens?

I liked Wharton's writing; it was neat, uncluttered, not preachy and well, no lengthy descriptions. The personality of the characters were not explained prosily (He was an old benign man with heaps and heaps of old age wisdom!), and the settings were just nicely described to give you an idea of life and the rigid social system back then.

The movie stayed really true to the book - I managed to catch it on Astro! - and though it did win several awards, it was a bit of a disappointment to me. Kind of bland, I thought then. Maybe I'm just not the kind of person who appreciates subtlety...well what can you expect of a girl who likes The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

So yeah, that's how I celebrated my first day of freedom. Reading depressing books and poems while listening to Damien Rice.

And there I was happily anticipating the time "after SPM" a few months ago. Now it's a bit empty though, like someone broke a promise he/she didn't actually make to me. The same thing happened after PMR too, and there I was, wandering round the silent school with bits of papers with my messy ideas and writing...

Well actually no. I remember I had a really good time with Jia Yi then. Played Speed until we got sick of it and couldn't play properly because we kept laughing. There were some games of Scrabble with some others, but they're a bit hazy to me now. But I did scribble a lot then. Mostly sad stuff, like I do now.

I can get Rice's new album, 9 now!

But 9 Crimes was disappointing...

Okay. So that's it. My second post-SPM post.

But if I were to meet myself at the door, I'll scream. I look like some sad depressive woman...which I probably am...but not quite.

This is the end of my age of innocence. I have left school. I have no idea what I might be tomorrow.

Well neither do you.