the strawberry wine cake | a short story

On a sheep-cropped knoll under a clump of elms we ate the strawberries and drank the wine -- as Sebastian promised, they were delicious together -- and we lit fat, turkish cigarettes, and lay on our back, Sebastian's eyes on the leaves above him and mine on his profile.- Brideshead Revisited, Chapter 1 ?

It was a hazy day filled with  the sweet scent of sun-ripened strawberries and a heavenly bottle of Chateau Peyraguey. The dream was like a nice sounding record that played over and over in the baker’s mind. Night after night it came, while moonlight poured in from the laced draped window, enveloping the room in a silver glow. One night, as soon as the dream kissed her mind and burst into full bloom, the baker awoke. Pushing the blankets to the foot of the bed, the baker leaped out off her warm sleeping cocoon and tiptoed her way downstairs to the place of sweet creations: The kitchen. She lit the kerosene lamp, preheated the oven,  and made her way to the record drawer. She tilted her head and gently bit her lip as she thumbed her way through the records, looking for something…

Of course, she thought, smiling sadly.

Nothing is Over by Oh Land. Carefully, brushing the dust off the record, she placed it on the rickety old record player and let the music soak into her sweet bones, as she tied a faded pink apron around her waist. Dancing over to the icebox, the baker took out a glass jar of almond milk, rolled sweet butter, two medium brown eggs, and a pint of strawberries. Closing the icebox door with a slippered foot, the baker carefully balanced the ingredients in her arms over to the counter. Then, she quietly measured out dry ingredients as she sang along with the song:

two and a half cups of flour / In my head, in my heart /  a half teaspoon baking powder / Now you're here, now you're gone / one fourth teaspoon salt / I've had packed and I moved on

With the strawberries, she diced them whilst her toes tapped, and splashed them into a delicious bowl of sweet wine. Smiling to herself, the baker creamed the butter, adding in two cups of sugary crystals, and with tongue in cheek, she gently cracked the eggs against the bowl and added them to the sugary mixture, sans egg shells. Satisfied, she moved to take a wooden spoon to cream the sweetnesses together, but first she played it for a “microphone” and twirled around in the warm golden light of the lamp, catching a few of the words:

Turn the clock, let's go back / Clear our words, go from scratch / And you walk up to me

Tucking a curl back up into her bun, the baker floated back to her baking creation and stirred to the rhythm of the song, adding the flour mixture and milk in equal parts. And in a quick rush, she added a dash of vanilla flavouring. Not forgetting the wine concoction, the baker gently folded in the wine-soaked strawberries, just until incorporated. With one last effort, the baker whisked over to the pantry, and picking out a round baking tin, she poured  the strawberry-wine batter into it and placed the cake lovingly into the heated oven, just as the last words of the song faded away:

Tell me now nothing is over / Nothing is over!

a bittersweet memory.

Eating candy is like receiving a warm hug. That's a funny expression but really quite lovely. 

Anyway, at the beginning of the trip they gave  each a bag of sweeties and crisps:

Nutter butter

Doritos

Trident gum

Mints

Slim Jim

There was 8. In the van they talked nice, they asked me what my favorite music was. Someone played the banjo.

But I didn't really belong. I felt like an imposter. Like what the hell was I doing crashing their car ride. My mum says it's a business and if you give them money they let you be with them. That's t fucking wrong. Course, it's easy to be with others but it's hard to belong.

five favorite reads | friday

hello. i like words. they

empower,
empathize,
and emotionalize.

these are some stories that have made me feel special and i hope they make you feel special too.
it's funny, i sometimes can't remember the whole story, once I've finished, but i can remember how it made me feel and so that's why i wanted to share them: they made me feel hopeful.
enjoy.

the little prince.


there is a little prince on a planet that leaves his beloved rose to travel the other planets. he loves that rose because it is the only one on his planet, thus he believes it's specialness comes from it being the only flower on the planet. that is not the case at all and the little person is sad to find that many flowers exists in the universe.

the fox tells him: “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” 

message:  specialness comes from love and devotion not from its rarity. 

perks of being a wallflower

i've read this story twice. it's really lovely. it is written in simple words from the special perspective of a quiet boy. he only wants people to be happy but mean words, love, lust, and loneliness cause such troubles.

as charlie finds out " even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.” 


the book thief


every time i think about the book thief it makes me smile. there is this girl who is special mainly because she is hopeful and only ever builds things with love in the midst of a war-torn country.

one line perfectly describes the girl, liesel, "“She took a step and didn't want to take any more, but she did.”  
you see? even though there is a lot of sadness within its pages, the book thief is really about hope.

catcher in the rye


 Holden  seems to be the character who never settles, regardless. holden is a special character because in a world of such conformity he searches for the meaning to his life, knowing he won't find it in a stuffy building full of pretentious beings. he doesn't seem to like anyone but he is lonely. he is not sure what he wants and so wanders aimlessly. i'm not sure where i'm going with this.. holden is lonely and isolated from the world and goes to places like this museum he went to as a kid that made him happy. i think what i liked about this story is that there was this person who felt just as isolated and lonely and insignificant as me, yet the way he sees things and asks question makes one love him in a sad way. one scene that makes me smile and cry at the same time is when holden is trying to find out what happens to the duck in central park during the winter: "The ducks. Do you know, by any chance? I mean does somebody come around in a truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves." not only is he sad about his brother's death and his own life, he's worried about the creatures' lives.

p.s
i know this is a contradiction since this book doesn't have any words but i love it so much i couldn't not share it: The sidewalk flowers.

in the story everything the little girl touches turns to colour:  love and kindness is beautiful and colorful.

love still lives here.

"We do not meet one another as persons in the several aspects of our total life, but know one another only fractionally, as the man who fixes the car, or as that girl who serves our lunch, or as the woman who takes care of our child at school. The humanistic reality of others does not, cannot, come through." C.Wright Mills

As i sit crossed legged on the rickety wooden chair surrounded by others, I have never felt more alone. sometimes i wish everyone would stop pretending to be busy and just be with each other already, like dance or talk, or whatever. how can people so close to oneself feel so unattached like we are each wrapped up in our own world it's like we are on different planets, you know? it makes for sad days. wouldn't it be lovely if everywhere we went people were just.. friendly and nice? not that sugary fake shit. but just.. there. like really there. i'm so tired of everyone always leaving, always rushing off to somewhere like they are never content where they are, right now? sometimes i talk relly fast in hope that I'll say at least one interesting thing to make that person stay. why must one always be entertained? 

i read somewhere that silence created intimacy. if that's true,  that's maybe why we are afraid of it, the deafening silence. we'd all be united in solitude, sans voices and things that distract us. it seems we're too afraid of what we may find in the silence so we deafen it out with constant noise. by reveling in nothingness we may actually find something interesting about ourselves or the person next to us. embracing that vulnerability is realer than the acts we put on each day.