What I'm Reading...

So before Christmas, I borrowed this really, really big biography from my friend Kelsi on Edna St. Vincent Millay called Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford. I would have to say I normally stick to fiction in the semi funny realm with a little bit of romantic suspense, girl getting guy, rediscovering what her real purpose is in the world---examples: Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed, Something Blue, Love the One Your With, or Cecil Ahern's P.S. I Love You which was made into a movie with Gerard Butler.....can you say YUMMY! Anyway, my sister Leah always says they are not REAL BOOKS. Well if a biography isn't a real book, I don't know what is...

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a poet/playwright in the 1920's who embraced the bohemian lifestyle, with many love affairs, breaking with conventions of the time. I am not that far into the book, but I am already addicted. I wish I could read quicker. I have made it to Vincent at the age of 20 when she wrote her poem "Renascence." I love the first and last verses...

First Verses: ALL I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line	5
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.	10
Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand. Last Verses: The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky,— 205 No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. 210 But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat—the sky Will cave in on him by and by. I pulled these verses from Millay's poem from bartleby.com For me, I don't know if I fully understand what she is saying, but... I get an overwhelming, lost feeling.....but this feeling is a good kind of scary. Like when you get lost on a road trip, but find new and exciting things and then realize being lost is kind of fun. I guess the main point for me is to always expect the unexpected but to always know that the sky is only as high as you make it....and maybe you can go higher than the sky..... I know it sounds corny, but after a rough week, it kind of helped me. Anyway enough blabbering. Check out a few of Millay's poems or if you are looking for something new to read, take a look at her biography. Have an awesome weekend!