Seattle Day

I'm on break, but my boyfriend has to work...an hour and a half away.  So today, when I wanted to visit downtown Seattle, I decided to "take him along" by sending him pics of all the different steps of my adventure - including some of my favorite places.

Step one: Mercury's chai. Always

[Hello, my old frenemy]

Ok, so this is where I got off, but it is also pretty significant for our relationship.  The day I met my boyfriend, he offered to walk me to the bus. It was raining slightly, we got to this covered gate area and stood talking for quite a while about arts and faith.  I watched my bus come, I watched my bus go, I kept talking to this cute boy I had just met.  At one point in the conversation, he leaned against the gate, not realizing it isn't secured, and totally got off balance.  And I took it as a bit of a sign that, as I hoped, this fella may like me.  Turns out...he did :)

The room where we met!

Then I visited the Sheraton's famous Gingerbread Village.  Here was an incredible Seattle replica, complete with a motorized Great Wheel.

Here's another, I loved the Seahawk Crane with a 12th Man Flag, Mrs. Seahawk, and Hawk's nest.

Another had this ode to Up :')

"Typical Tourist" moment

The back side of the Market

And the wheel we took on our first date...

I can't visit the market without a stop to Le Panier

Cafe time calls for a journal moment

And then, after a secret little stop, it was time for a visit to the impressive Seattle Public Library.

Just a few different angles of the library.

I brought my current read...

One more angle from outside...

And then it was back home.
I've missed Seattle, and it was lovely to reconnect with some familiar spots.
Next time, I hope to get some more exploring in to discover new ones.

Latest Powell's excursion...

[via]

This time I was really good.  I mean it!  I only bought 2!

//  Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art - Madline L'Engle
I've been wanting to read this one for a while and am bringing it this weekend on my family's getaway.

//  Lilith - George MacDonald
Cami has been on me for a while for not having read this.  I loved At the Back of the Northwind, but have stopped part-way through some of his other fantasies.  I'm thinking this one may be up my alley, though.

Just noticing a theme these two books carry - pioneering fantasy authors?  You don't say!

They were sold out of Tolkien's Beowulf already, so my spoils totaled under $15!  For. the. win :)

Stories

teach us how to love

and swallow sadness,

find light in darkness,

 turn away from despair.

Crafting and grafting us

into a plot much bigger,

much smaller

than our own.

They remake us

like their protagonists,

from coward to courageous.

Each story that passes

through our hands,

through our minds,

is a gift

wrapped up inside words.

 "Hello, old friend

and here we are,

you and me

on the last page."

Where they end

our hearts break or smile,

crying from tragedy or delight.

But then, our next page.

While their story ends,

our journey is only mid-way,

another chapter,

a new gift.

Top:  Nurse, Young Man, Kiss-a-gram

Below:  Old Man, Journalist, Hero

"We are all stories in the end..."
- The Doctor

"The end of a matter is better than it's beginning."

- Ecclesiastes 7.8

“If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?"

- GK Chesterton

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."
- Samwise Gamgee

  

“Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.”  

- Madeleine L'Engle

"You were my new dream."

- Flynn Rider

"There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die...that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living."

- The Count

[HitRECord]

"Though truth is heavier than fiction,

Gravity lifts as the projectionist rolls tape.
And it makes us brave again"

- Sleeping at Last

31 Days of Books: A Wrinkle in Time

I'm continuing today in the vein of fantasy - because I love it!  But I have to confess I read (and fell in love) with this particular book in 3rd grade... and a re-read is long overdue.  So pardon any lack of specificity.  ("Spe-ci-fi-ci-ty." - JGL to TH in Inception... sorry, couldn't resist.)  Alright, on with the show!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Title:  A Wrinkle in Time

Author:  Madeleine L'Engle

Published:  1962

Year I read it: 1999

One sentence summary:  Meg Murray accompanied by her brother, Charles Wallace; friend, Calvin O'Keefe; and the three odd Mrs W's (Whatsit, Who, and Which) goes on an adventure in search of her scientist-father after his mysterious disappearance years before.


Three reasons to read it:

• I can't even convey the power of the climax - a struggle between the law and conformity and death against love and light and life.  Of the books and movies you read/see as a child - some stick with you for inexplicable reasons - this would be one!
• This novel was one of the early nerd-slash-social-outcast-becomes-hero books.  Living in a post-Harry Potter world (and thanks to a majority of other YA novels),  this combination has gone from trope to epidemic, but I've found reading the source of a cliche refreshes the notion of it.
• I often can't parse out where sci-fi ends and fantasy begins [it makes for fantastic late night conversations though!] - but this story is a wonderful blending of both.  The fourth and fifth dimensions, tesseracting, far off planets, impossible happenings, adventures and humanity - it all makes for some fabulous literature.
• [Bonus reason:  Whovians would just LOVE this book.  All sorts of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey in here]

One reason you maybe shouldn't:

• It's a children's story and doesn't exactly follow a logical or expected plot progression... [I don't know, does that turn you off? No, ok...good :]

Great quotes:

"...by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."

"Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself."

"Believing takes practice."

"A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points."

“I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be.” 

"I love you, Charles Wallace."