a lack of color.
this is fact not fiction.Be the change that you want to see in the world.
Vote, our generation is this country’s future. Countdown, thirteen days away, but thirteen days closer to a better world.
the earth constantly rotates; no matter what.
October 21: I left before the sunrise, just to get back to Keene. I am really trying to learn to love it here, but it just isn’t happening. I find myself longing for home every second I spend here. I missed Old Saybrook even before I got on the highway. I think it is my favorite place to be. I drove back home on Wednesday evening, and spent most of my time at the high school. It was the literary magazine’s cafe night for Musings.
Musings is the literary and art magazine I edited while I was as a student at OSHS. It won the NCTE award for Excellence. Cafe night is a night where all of those that are passionate about English and Art can come forward and show their work. It was a beautiful night, and it made it so much harder not to be able to be apart of it. However, it made it alot easier knowing that I helped bring Musings to where it is now.
On Friday, I took a drive to New Haven to visit my friends Chad and Lara at Southern Connecticut State University. I was thinking of transferring there, but I am not so sure anymore. Southern just doesn’t seem like the place for me. Chad and I had fun hanging out though, and it was nice to see an old friend. We drove back to Old Saybrook, and then later that night I picked up my friend Bryan Cryder and his two friends to go see State Radio at Webster.
It was an amazing show, one of the best I have ever been to. After the show, Bryan spoke with one of the opening band members named Temba, from Bongo Love. The band is originally from Zimbabwe and they are touring with SR. We got to hang out with them, after the show. They snuck us up the stairs, and we talked all night. Then, after I spoke to Mike, the drummer from SR, and Chad’s girlfriend Sybil about the Rock for Darfur concert I am helping organize. It seems like they will be coming in February to Keene. Rock for Darfur benefits will be going to Doctors without Borders, so anybody interesting in being involved, email me at carissa.kerpen@gmail.com. After the show, I talked with Johnny Sousa of 3rd left! Overall, it was the perfect night. I slept like the dead that night.
The next day, I spent time with my little sister, Taylor. I picked her up early, and we went and bought pumpkin eggnog, sourpatch, beandip, mangos, blackberries, and soda. We decided to kick back and have a movie night together, but before that, we made tye-dye shirts. They were pretty much amazing. All in all, hanging out with my little sister is one of my favorite things to do.
Saturday, Josh, Taylor and I went hiking at Devil’s Hopyard. He took us to this cliff that overlooked the whole park. It was absolutely beautiful. I love the smell of fall. Sunday, and Monday — loved the sunshine, hated the chills.
Hemingway.
“charlie, there is no future in anything. i hope you agree. that is why i like it at war. every day and every night there is a strong possibility that you will get killed and not have to write. i have to write to be happy whether i get paid for it or not. but it is a hell of a disease to be born with. i like to do it, which is even worse. that makes it from a disease into a vice. then i want to do it better than anybody has ever done it which makes it into an obsession. an obsession is terrible. hope you haven’t gotten any. that’s the only one i have left.” – ernest hemingway
burning.
october 14th: today was particularly beautiful out; the trees are on fire, and the air smells like apple cider; it is the only thing keeping me here.
today i love: warm sweaters, pumpkin eggnog — yes already, brett dennen, my ann patchett book, birks and socks, leaf imprints left on the ground, cold noses, sunsets over monadnock.
I don’t need a smile, from a mannequin.
october 10: I spent the day with one of my best friends in the entire world: Chris Walonski. Chris is currently attending the University of South Carolina, studying as an english/art major. He has never showed me anything other than love. I have always had a strong relationship with him as he and I have always had a lot in common with eachother. He has never once let me down, and has always been there to lend a hand, and an ear. He has given me some of the best advice, and some of the most beautiful insights on life. We just understand eachother, and it is one of the most beautiful things. For this, I love you Christopher Walonski, and I will always be here for you no matter what the weather brings.
Chris and I are both incredibly homesick, and we are missing the morals and values that the people don’t have back at college, so it was nice to spend some time in Old Saybrook together. We started the afternoon off with a drive to fill out an absentee ballot, to vote Obama 08! Then, we decided to go to one of our favorite places: Paperback Cafe. I must have spent most of time there, a long with most of the remains of my wallet. It is one of those places that I find comfort in. It is a piece of home that I don’t have in Keene. We, along with others have laughed at stupid jokes in the chairs outside of Paperback. We have talked about intelligent things, and I know that on some occasions, I have atleast cried a few times too. We sat in the autumn sunshine, and things couldn’t have been better. Chelsea came later, and we talked with her, urging her to hold on to her childhood, and appreciation and love for the town that we had to grow away from. Later, we went and tried suprising Chad, and Shaun at the trainstation. They were coming in from New Haven, but we were a little too later. Chad called us, and we met him and Shaun at the Temple’s. By the way, Shaun grew a beard, and Chad can twist his mustache like Salvador Dali. Anyway, Mrs. Temple took me upstairs, and showed me the room that she wants me to live in. She is a doll, and I love her. We hung out for a little bit, and then separated and left to get food. We dropped by Dharma Jewels, and it was seriously a complete time-warp.. really nice. We then met back up with Chad and Shaun and drove to the Old Saybrook Town Beach. They jammed out; Shaun and Chris on keyboard, and Chadeth on his guitar. You have to love them. The sunset was to die for tonight too. With the combination of my friend’s tunes, the smell of the ocean, and the colors in the sky, it made me realize that Old Saybrook is the place in which I am meant to be. It is driving me farther away from Keene, but I think it is supposed to be that way. We spent the night talking, jumping over sand, smiling, and playing hackysack and badmitten with our feet, hands, and a yellow birdie. Chris drove me home later, and we talked about everything on our minds; the spaces that we feel between home, and our colleges, about life, friendship. It was a nice change. I don’t think that I have felt this happy in a long time.
life is short, but sweet for certain.
When all else fails, paint you’re the sky. When all else fails, wash your hands and let the dirt from today become a particle of what we know as trash, mistakes. Let it go, wave goodbye as it floats on and becomes your smile. When all else fails write a letter to yourself, and tell all of your darkest secrets, reach deep within. Read them until you have them written on your face, breathe them in until you are no longer ashamed. Swallow them whole, without the cracks, the missing pieces, and the dripping sweat of things remembered; reasons to hide whoever it is that you are. Raise your glass to imperfections, count them if you may, and put them in row, next to the perfect person, smile because that is how much more knowledge you will have. And maybe you’ll have to make the same mistake twice before your brain fits it perfectly as a new reason to seek out hope. When all else fails, pretend your good enough to be something, and maybe one day you might actually walk the path you’d planned. When everything changes, and everything fades, tell yourself its supposed to happen that way, and you’ll get through. When lying fails, tell the truth – don’t tell yourself you are only human because we can be so much more. Break down the barriers, and be more than just beating hearts, and outlines, and veins that you can only feel when life is running low. Be one with everything, and maybe one day you will find your way into everything possible. You will be the essence for everything that was once just barely here. Give life not a reason to be any less than it is
we would stand staring in awe at our lives still posed like a bowl of oranges.
october 7th: ran today on three hours of sleep, and it wasn’t something i enjoyed — to say the least. drove up with j to keene so i could catch my 10:00 intro to historical studies lecture. on the way, we stopped in brattleboro, vermont. every weekend, i leave to go home to old saybrook, and as much as i hold that so close to my heart, there is no other smell than the smell of pine trees in vermont. i’m pretty sure i would live in vermont just because the smell reminds me of winter, and christmas. i raced to get lunch, while reading “rats,” by robert sullivan. it’s a book based on the observations of the history and habitat of the city’s most unwanted inhabitants: rats. i find it to be quite interesting. it actually edified me a part of the word i haven’t put much though into. sullivan refers to henry david thoreau — my favorite transcendentalist writer. the book kind of mirrors “walden.” one part of the passage this week is as follows, and it’s important, so put some of your thinking juices into it: “..we come and go. we are beaten down but we come back again. we live in colonies and we strike out on our own, or get forced out or starved out by our competition, by the biggest rats. we thrive in unlikely places and devour.” i believe sullivan is trying to make a ladder between rats and humans, which is completely brilliant in my opinion. i skipped environmental studies and did a ton of homework, and then went to the holocaust/genocide meeting. we watched some of schindler’s list, and then we spoke about our benefit concert: rock for darfur. i am currently in the process of getting state radio to come and play. 100% of our profits go to doctors without borders, and to those that need it in darfur. anyway, if you are interested, you can contact me at : carissa.kerpen@gmail.com. well, goodnight world.
carissa kerpen
