Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

08/15 @ 10:30 PM

I'm not crazy about last days. Penultimate days--now those are the best. You're not too caught up in the finality of things to enjoy it all.
Today was a lot of fun, though. We went for brunch and then walked through this slightly massive street fair. It was over ten blocks of stalls with people selling scarves and sunglasses and knockoff purses. And hats. I got a hat that I'm quite fond of, but I'm still determined to find a Holden Caufield hat. It will come to me when it's ready. After that was obnoxiously good pizza and a disappointing lack of bakeries at which to get a cannoli, and sitting in my room sans internet. (I'll upload this tomorrow on the train.)

The fair ended up near 51st street, where St. Patrick's Cathedral is. We had wanted to go see it anyways, so we headed in. It was amazing. This huge monument had enough detail to make you cry just looking at--have you ever noticed how the most beautiful things have divine inspiration behind them? We sat in the front pew for a few minutes to rest, and I got the chance to pray in this amazing building, and with tourists snapping pictures and people walking past and guards holding ropes across certain passages and a dim buzzing from conversation filing every crevasse of the cathedral, I still felt centralized, right there, almost part of the structure. There were rows and rows of votives lining the walls in tribute to hundreds of dreams and wishes and hopes and I jut looked straight up to the ceilings and stained glass; the glass was amazing. I didn't want to move, just stay there for hours and sink into this church. Most don't have me pegged as a religious person--an irreverent, cynical, sarcastic, somewhat bitter, logical, scientific, argumentative person? Yes, and parts of me are that person, but this is huge. Massive. Bigger than I am. I've never said this out loud, but I would like to say it: everything good, or innovative, or noble you see in me isn't me. You're just seeing through me. I wouldn't have it any other way, either. I get the credit for what I am, but you know, no one really can take credit for most accomplishments. Determination, hard work, resolution, and intricate thought are really all we can contribute to what we are. The rest is out of our hands, whether you think it's God or a god or genetics. That's universal. That's really as far as I'm going to go on religion because it's not something that I need to justify. If you want to know more about how this relates to my world, then just ask (that goes for anything, really, and it's true). The funny thing is that no one ever really has.

Deus et veritias. Deus et veritas per verba? Nothing has changed but now i fight with words. The words are a constant, they are a mystery, they will arrange themselves as needed when the necessary time comes. Deus et veritias et tempus et verba. This was the last day of my Holden Caufield adventure, and I'm going to reread The Catcher in the Rye when I get home. I've only read it twice, and the first time, in sophomore year, I didn't even like it. Well, the words helped. I'm not the first person they picked up and dusted off. I went to the sometimes-skating rink; I've walked 40 blocks through Manhattan, I've sat in a hotel room and realized that I was alone again, I explored Central Park and went to the zoo to see the sea lions. I found the museum where nothing ever changes, except yourself. I watched the carousel--I can honestly say that, because of the life of someone who never lived, that merry-go-round made me inexplicably happy. I let myself have a "thing" where I was decidedly not ok, and now I have a book living in my head. Words can do this. I don't know how Salinger knew how to make that novel, but he did it. Authors do it all the time; they arrange the words so that you can see them too. I'm not sure what happens next. I live, I guess. Well, I can do that. I have the heartbeat down, it's the breathing I need to work on. Damn asthma.

That's what art does. Books and music and dance and paintings and intangibility--that jump between what you're looking at and what you see--make a difference. If you're unwilling to even open a window into that part of your mind, (because your mind needs fresh air, from all directions, always) then you're missing something. That's all I'm going to say about that.

This is what I think. I think that everyone should have a place in their mind this fresh, this alive. I have many, and I can add a new sort of living novel to the collection, the remains of my trip to New York City.

So, yes, I had a good time XD. Now, onward.

L