My Spirit's Home

Every year since I was seventeen, I have been going to this magical place in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean called Star Island, part of the Isle of Shoals. Since moving to California, it has been hard to be separated from all of the people that I have known and loved from there, but it is even harder to not be there with them this year. I aged out of YRUU Week last year, and I don't really have the heart to start going to YAC (not to mention that I don't have the vacation time). I'm too attached to my younger brethren at YRUU Week, and though I know a lot of people that attend the Young Adult Conference, it is hard for me to finally admit that this is a goodbye.

But that's what it is. A parting of ways, a growing up, and I still refuse to let go. Some things are too good to forget, and this week that was a part of my life for so long is one of those weeks. This probably explains why the background to this entire blog is Star Island.

I watch from Facebook and see everyone growing up, getting in and out of relationships, I feel like an observer on what used to be a part of my life. I have kept some people close at heart, but it is still hard to long for that sense of community.

Wrote three pages yesterday, not of Anthony's story like I intended, but of Jessica's. I guess I'm in the mood to be a somewhat snotty, self-righteous teenager who is really completely lost and confused.

Moving Spaces and Same, Small Places

Sunken City
Originally uploaded by BrokenFallacy

The trip that Colin C. and I took to SoCal's Sunken City in San Pedro was incredible. Down by the sea, where the wind was blowing so fast I almost felt like I could lean into it and drift away. Listening to the waves crash against the ocean and the occasional gull flying by.

It's beautiful, broken, graffitied, and represents urban decay. Or rather, how I like to look at it, nature taking back what it rightfully owns. The Los Angeles Abandoned Zoo is rather like this. Vines growing over everything, wildflowers just starting to bloom, and rusty, old everything entangled amongst it.

The icing on the cake was the fact that there were a bunch of teenagers drinking beer and smoking out in this painted landscape. One even said to us, "Beautiful, isn't it?" Yes.

It made me wonder about my characters. I know the places that I go to make myself feel like a real human being. Star Island in NH is one of them, my spirit's home, if you will. But do my character's feel so strongly about a place - a place that they feel obligated to go back to because they feel such a strong attachment to it? And what happens when something that you thought was beautiful happens in that space, but something in the present corrupts it. Do you go back to the place? Do you still maintain your image of it, or is it now broken like the rest of the world? And what happens when you can't rely on that space anymore?

Anthony, Jessica, and Sophie... Do they have these spaces. I know Sophie's by heart, because she's very much like me. Anthony might not have a safe space. I think he tends to act out too much to want to admit that he has a safe-zone. I know where he runs to that one night, but what happens after he can't run there anymore? He goes elsewhere. I think his space relies more on the company in it. More on the people he is surrounded with and less with his surroundings. And Jessica... her whole journey is about finding a space for herself. Is that enough of a journey?

Photos to come of Sunken City, will be added to my flickr and my photo blog in the scenery section, probably.