Some Oddities of Time

At the end of the day, the one thing we all need is more time. 

 

The café in which I work is open around the clock. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. We’ve got nothing but time. Which is why it’s kind of ironic that the clock on the wall doesn’t work. The levers frozen at 3:42. It’s been that way for almost as long as I’ve worked here, yet no one’s bothered to fix it. Not that it matters, we’re always open anyway. So, if you’ve got time to spare, so do we. 

Most people don’t stick around for long though. Actually, you’d be surprised how many people pass through in a day. They come, and they go, busy and bustling, hustling by, passing between errands and places unknown. Time keeps us all on our toes. We all have appointments to keep, people to meet and places to go; things to do and not enough time to do it in.

It seems we are always pressed for time in one way or another, which is why it does not surprise me how quickly time escapes us. It occurred to me once that perhaps if clocks counted backwards we’d realize how the hours count down throughout the day. Time is of the essence, as they say, and there are only twenty-four hours in a day, after all. 

Sometimes I wonder how a force so strong can be so invisible. How can people be so unaware of something so imminent? Perhaps if we had less to do, or if people took more time to take joy in simply doing nothing, we would notice how the days go by. Time is the great hassler, turning our lives into time lapses of responsibilities and deadlines to meet. Hours that turn into days and days that turn into weeks, and so, all too soon, life passes us by. 

But there are a few times a year when people become painfully aware of the passing of time. During the holidays for example; or when the first leaves begin to fall; when you wake up in the morning and the world is white; or when blowing out birthday candles that grow from a flicker to a burning flame too fierce to blow out in one breath. 

Other than holidays, birthdays, and the change of the seasons, the rest of the year we tend to believe that time never counts beyond its twenty-four-hour mark, always counting up to something that never seems to occur. But then we stand next to grown-up children, or catch glimpses of old photographs, and we are no longer fooled.  

You see, most people think time is constant; dependable; predictable; always the same. But those of us who really pay attention know that time is as varying as we are. Time is fickle and unreliable. And, just like us, time has its quirks and oddities. Even time can be dreary and lazy, at times. It can be eager and eccentric. Time can be exhilarating, and time can be aggravating, as oppressing as it is ambitious. Even time has its peculiarities. And, just like time becomes more palpable in moments when its fleeting, such as when you’re saying goodbye to someone you love, time changes its pace in some places. 

 

 

Take airports for example. Nowhere does the tempo of time march faster or with such impending velocity. Or consider how time works in classrooms, so tedious and lackluster. And then there are cafes, like the one in which I work, in which time stands still.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, it’s always 3:42, and that’s not just because the clock doesn’t work. Cafes are timeless places. I would know. I work in one. 

And I think I’m not the only one whose noticed this peculiarity.   

There is an odd young man who used to come here for lunch. He always tucked his pants into his socks and wore the same brown bowler hat. I heard he was a business student, and so I’m sure he knew the pressure of deadlines better than most. He always sat in the same booth, in the corner by the window. And with feet outstretched, a unique pair of socks each day, he sat and mulled over his laptop, just passing the time, or rather, trying to escape it, almost as if he knew that his responsibilities would not find him here in one of time’s rare loopholes.

I used to not believe in destiny, but I also used to believe in the reliability of time. But a young man, as odd as time itself, proved that sometimes there is such a thing as being in the right place at the right time. 

Destiny walked in one rainy Thursday carrying a polka-dotted umbrella, her strawberry blonde hair dripping from the rain. There was nowhere else sit. All the seats were taken. 

The young man rarely sat alone after that. They sat together in his sunlit booth by the window all throughout the golden summer. He wrote on his laptop, and she brought stacks of books to read from a never-ending to-read list. They sat for hours sometimes, just savouring each other’s company, unaware of the frantic and frenzied people around them who, unlike them, were always pressed for time; or perhaps, simply less aware of its peculiarities.

 
There will always be those who come in here to “kill some time” before an appointment or when waiting for a bus; those who order a drink and maybe a dessert and glance impatiently at the clock that doesn’t work, slaughtering time instead of savouring it. 

 

Then, of course, there are those who are always running late, like the composed looking gentleman who is always flustered by the lateness of the hour. Perhaps he just hasn’t realized that the clock on the wall doesn’t work, or maybe he just has a bad sense of time in general, but he can never seem to catch up with it. He comes in once or twice a week to have lunch with a colleague and they chat till eventually he rushes off to some appointment or other. Maybe time just goes by faster for some people.

But just because cafes are timeless does not mean that time does not work its tolls here. Sooner or later, something always changes. Outside the café window rainy spring days become sunny summer days, and soon the first leaves of autumn begin to fall in one of time's most prominent moments. The girl with the strawberry blonde hair doesn’t come here anymore and the young business student sits alone, though he too doesn’t come nearly as often as he used to. 

Time is relentless, and, sooner or later, it catches up to all of us. But at least we have cafes, so remarkably ordinary in their timelessness. Every once in a while, when I see old friends reunite over coffee, catching up and reminiscing about the past when life was young and time abundant, I cannot help but think that perhaps they should have spent more time in cafes, savouring time and drinking coffee. 

Of course, there are also those who have more experience with times ability to fly by. Many of the retired folk come here to idle away their afternoons. People think they come for the free refills, but I know better. They come because they know that here time will not escape them. 

I told you that a man in funky socks taught me about destiny. Well, an old woman in chunky jewellery taught me how to savour time. 

It was the winter in which I first started working here, in this timeless café before I discovered its timelessness. It was December 24th, one of the rare nights of the year in which we close. The clock read 3:25, and I was just mopping up to close at four. The café was empty, except for a tiny old woman in a vibrant green and purple dress sitting at a table alone. 

I had never seen her before, but I have seen her many times since. She comes in most nights, wearing every piece of jewellery she owns, from pearly necklaces to emerald earrings. But on her left ring finger she wears only a simple golden ring, as if to heighten its importance. She never orders anything but coffee, decaf, which she sips quietly as she stares pondering out the window, dwelling on the past as she fiddles with her golden ring. 

I did not have the heart to ask her to leave, so I asked her if she was waiting for someone. “No,” she said, smiling up at me with kind old eyes and blush coloured cheeks. “I’m just making up for lost time.”  

 

 
I sat with her that Christmas eve. I was new in town. I didn’t have anything better to do. I would not have admitted it then, but I was pretty lonely, not just because I felt alone but because I felt abandoned; left behind by time, regretful of the years I had lost and the time I had wasted.

We laughed that night, me and the old lady dressed in emeralds and purple flowers. We drank coffee, decaf, and we talked about our pasts, starring out the window at the snow which drifted slowly down into the silent night. 

I didn’t notice it then, but the clock stopped ticking that night. Maybe it was the time we savoured, or maybe it just ran out of battery. Though, looking back now, something tells me that clock isn’t broken at all. Maybe it’s just enchanted.

Because at the end of the day, we all need more time: time to savour, to read a book, or catch up with a friend; time to ponder; to relish in the moments; and, maybe, to enjoy a cup of coffee.

Stoker's Shadows

 "Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches crashed together... It grew colder and colder still."

(Dracula, Bram Stoker)

It was a cold, blustery day; the cold was of the wet, bitter kind; the kind that seems to grasp your very bones. Not even the heat indoors could fight it away. You could feel it seeping through the glass of every window. 

 

 

The outside world looked dreary, blurred by the wetness and the damp, and the rain's slim slippery fingers tapped on my window eerily, sometimes almost desperately.

 

By the time the afternoon rolled in the day had changed its mind tenfold, turning itself from rain to snow, and back to rain again. By then the clouds above were as thin as a dying person's skin, and the light it let loose was pale and meagre. 

 

The day was almost spent.

As I read by the window, the shadows crept out from between the pages of my book, out of the core of its very spine. Even as I held it open, transfixed by its horror, still, the shadows lingered. I expanded its leaves, extending its spine and wrenching it wide. Still, the shadows deepened.

 

 

 

 

 Dracula was made to be read on days like this: when all through the afternoon the light weens to grey; when the imminent dark of November is only hours away, and even the crook of a spine is a dark and shadowy place. 

 

The Night Before Halloween

Writing Horror on Halloween

 

It was the night before Halloween on which I sat up late, editing a scene which I'd written many moons ago. 

It seemed to get dark earlier that night, and the only thing that was to be seen in the windows was the reflections of the candles I had burning within. 

 

 

Ironically, I wrote about the darkness too. In the scene in which I dwelt that night, there was no light to see by. But, if there is not sight to write about, the writer's pen takes up other senses. The touchless dark has no surfaces or scents. But sounds it has aplenty; sounds to make the imagination go wild, conceiving apparitions, fabricating frightful fancies. I forced them all onto the poor soul who had wandered into the pitch darkness of my scene. 

 

I paused. 

It's dangerous to live this way, I thought, to be so immersed in the page before you that you do not see what goes on around. Anything could happen when the writer is so engrossed in the fictional; anything at all. 

People might be peering into their windows; a cat might creep by through the flickering shadows; a raven may call on the tree just outside. 

Would the writer notice?

Probably not. 

 

Its dangerous to live this way, to take up one's laptop and sit in a chapter all night, neither seeing nor hearing what goes on behind you, or underneath your chair. 

Better not look, that's what I say. It'll only distract you. It'll only give you a fright. 

 

And what goes on in the night is better left up to the imagination. 

The Perks of Living in Disarray

Being a sort of "Story" but also a Pro and Con List (of sorts)

 

Written on the theme of Anticipation in Fall 2018

The Germans have a word called vorfreude which basically means the joy that comes from anticipation. This joy is one shared by all those who lead ordinary lives, when they mark dates of anticipation in their calendars and count down the days till birthdays or anniversaries; days when loved ones come home or important events take place; moments of anticipation which come with grand roles of the drum, like dramatic climaxes or a grand crescendo. Anticipation is a part of life, and it is the closest to which ordinary folk ever come to pertaining any sense of foresight in their lives.

I say ordinary folk because I do not consider myself ordinary. You see, I have never experienced this thing which the Germans call "vorfreude". The closest I get to anticipation of any kind is a sneeze. This is because, for as long as I can remember, I have lived my life in disarray.

Most folk think that it comes with the regulation of calendars that all days are to be lived in their proper order. Wednesday follows Tuesday, and if September comes, one can always be sure that October will follow. But I myself have never been very organized, and personally I have always had a blatant disregard for rules.

For example, I consider Mondays to be optional. Birthdays is another thing which I immensely enjoy, but the act of growing up need not necessarily be done in an efficient manner. I only have one life, after all, and I like to live according to my mood. I choose days like some people choose what to wear in the morning. What’s the point of waiting for something when you can just enjoy it now? –That's what I always say.

 Of course, I still keep a calendar. But, while some folk cross off days all tidy and orderly, I cross off mine at random. Even living one’s life in a disarray needs to have some sort of order, you can only live each day once, after all. (I don't really feel like getting into what happens if you accidentally live the same day twice. The experience still gives me nightmares).

I particularly enjoy being eight. But there being only 365 days in which I get to be eight, I have to be sure not to out-live them all. I try to maintain some sort of balance in my chaotic lifestyle so as not to run out of good days before I die. Birthdays is another thing with which I take serious precautions. I don’t yet know when I die, but I know I only have a limited number of birthdays in my life, and I don’t plan on running out of those any time soon.

 Being seventeen has been another good year for me. That’s the year me and my best friend Max start a band. We have some good times together, but for some reason I’ve never run into Max anywhere beyond the age of twenty. I considered contacting him once, beyond the brink of my twentieth birthday, but I try and live as spoiler-free as I can. I find it’s the most care-free way of living. And so if I find myself living in the aftermath of some sort of disaster, I usually mark the days pertaining to that time with some sort of warning. So, while anticipation remains something which I have never experienced, I am a master of avoidance. Who knows, maybe mine and Max’s short-lived friendship was for the best. There are some things only my past self knows, and I like to keep it that way.

Though every once in a while, I inevitably stumble across a spoiler. I know that I get engaged to a girl named Anni around the time I’m twenty-five. I don’t know how I meet her yet, and so in an effort to avoid any unnecessary awkwardness, I stay away from any days past our estimated time of engagement.

 I also regret to admit that I still haven’t finished all my days of kindergarten. Those days to me are like a never-ending to-do list of slobbery children and alphabet songs. When it comes to years like those, 365 seems like a big number.

Of course, every once in a while, I come across a particularly bad day. Any day of being nine is bound to be awful. I know my dad walks out on us sometime that winter, and by springtime me and my mom have moved into a stuffy apartment in the city. I don’t like hearing my mom cry, so naturally, I try to avoid being nine as much as I can.

But no day will ever be as bad as the time I lived a day of twenty-one and found out my mom had died earlier that year.

I went back to being nine after that, not because I particularly wanted to, but because I had the sudden urge to hug my mom. Living in disarray has its ups and downs, but life has those anyway. There will always be bad days, only difference is, I get to choose when I want to live those. 

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you about all this. I don’t usually take the time to write down my thoughts, because frankly, I’ve never had the patience to do so. But I recently learned about the German word of vorfreude, and it got me thinking.

It had never occurred to me before that anticipation could be a joy rather than a drag. My calendar with its shambles and unruliness used to be a catastrophe I reveled in. My life is like a chaotic jigsaw-puzzle with holes in the middle and pieces long since lost under the depths of a dusty couch. But I always thought I liked it that way. Now I somehow can't help but wonder what it might be like to live a life of vorfreude.

I thought I’d visit a particularly dreary day to give me time to think.

The day I chose was rather a muddle to me, I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember thinking that I rather liked fall, though I’d never realized it before. Aside from my mom having died, twenty-one has never been that bad a year for me, all things considered. Twenty-one-year-old me actually has a job, which I gotta say is both a nuisance and a convenience.

Halfway through the day I discovered some change in my pocket and decided to spend it on a drink. I sat at the counter for a while looking over my calendar at all the appointments I’ve never kept, the due-dates I’ve never met, all those times I avoided going to the dentist. I was trying to decide which day to live next, feeling a sense of hopelessness when this girl approached me. 

I had noticed her sitting across the room for a while, reading what appeared to be a leather-bound notebook. She didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at me as if she wasn’t quite sure what she should say.

I don’t think I knew it then, but in that moment of silence, I think I felt a twinge of anticipation. I saw the thoughts flicker in her eyes, and then a spark came into them.

“Do you know what the date is?” she asked.

I didn’t. Heck, in that moment I don’t even think I knew how old I was. I glanced at my calendar. It was the 9th of October. Or was it November?

I’m not sure what I settled on in the end, but she laughed, so I’m sure I got it wrong.

We talked for a while after that. I’m not entirely sure about what exactly. Though I know we talked about music and about art, and at some point she ordered a vanilla sundae. She ate the entire thing but left the cherry in the plate.

It puzzled me for a while. Everyone knows you’re supposed to eat the cherry first, but there it was, sitting lopsided in her empty plate.

She must have noticed me staring at it, because she smiled, then picking it up she said, “I always save the best for last.”

She left not long after. She didn’t leave me with so much as a name, and I found myself feeling sad, and a little disappointed, though I wasn't entirely sure why. Yet somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something important had just happened.

That’s when I noticed her notebook.

I didn’t want to touch it at first, though I briefly considered running after her and returning it, but then I caught a glimpse of the inside through the dog-eared curl of the cover.

It was a calendar.

I had never felt such a strong sense of climax in my un-climactic life than when I reached out and flipped the pages.

In many ways, it was just like mine. She had drawn it out herself in an untidy, disorganized way. The months were written on-top in funky lettering. There were scribbles and warning labels, messy doodles lined the edges and tally marks with which she counted down the days. The only difference was, her days were all crossed off.

Which brings me to today.

I have decided not to keep a calendar anymore. Living my life in disarray has been fun, but yesterday I experienced what I believe can only be vorfreude, and so I am leaving the chaos of my youth behind me. I’m still going to count down the days though, not because I’m waiting for something but simply for the joy of anticipation. As of right now though, I am merely looking forward to tomorrow. I’m not sure why yet, but I have never lived a tomorrow before, and who knows what it might bring. 

Turning it Around for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always brighter when reflected upon, or when seen in pictures afterwards. 

 

We entered this same forest last year, but the sun was not shining then like it did now. Last year the forest was a fairie one, full of moss, and little mushrooms and tiny timid snails. The dainty webs of spiders were bejeweled. Little streams stole through the leaves then, creeping through the crannies on the ground, barely heard. We hopped over them last year, trailed them, tapped our booted-toes in them. Last year this forest was undiscovered, unwoven by our trails, every bend a mystery.

 

Not this year. This year, the sun was shining, and the leaves were painted, like I'd always dreamed I could paint them with my messy oil pastels, bronzed and bitten, flushed and florid; as if the trees themselves exhaled a sigh, blissfully remembering how wondrous the summer has been.

 

 

This year the sun warmed the leaves like pie; this year the world seemed illustrated, like a picture book that stretches through the hundred acres. This year we were no strangers to the forest, we knew which trees to pass. There were no streams to hop, but there were roots to tip toe across. This year two kitties waited back home for dessert to begin (instead of just the one); this year, our family was a little bigger.

 

 

But there are some things these pictures cannot capture: Like how that same morning the skies were bleak and grey and I did not feel thankful at all; how we fought first, then thanked. 

But then we got dressed in fall colors, and we drove to my mom's house, and there it smelt like cinnamon, and apples, and cranberries, and warm turkey, and all the other fine delicious things you read about in books about holidays or critters that live in a red wall.

 

 

 

 

 

Fall gives such magic, and this year it gave me an even greater gift than timid snails and bashful streams over which to hop. This year fall gave me time; time to drive home in this golden kingdom after turkey; time to taste the tender goodies only a mother can bake; time to walk with my dad; to snap pictures of my brothers; time to fight with my husband, and fall asleep in his arms that same night.

 

 

Beowulf, Fire and Flesh

There is a story about a book that is often talked about among scholars of medieval literature. 

 
The story occurred on the night of 23 October 1731, almost three hundred years ago when a tragedy struck in Ashburnham House in England. It was then that a fire consumed many great pieces of ancient literature. 

As fortune would have it, not among those that burned was what today has come to be the only surviving medieval manuscript of Beowulf. Legend tells that someone had the foresight to throw the priceless manuscript out of the window, thus saving it from the fire. Even so, none can deny that Beowulf was moments away from being destroyed by the flames.

The manuscript, however, was not wholly left undamaged. The edges were badly burned, the corners scorched, and while the words survived, the paper on which they are written is brittle and has only been preserved with extreme care.

The fame of this story among Beowulf scholars cannot be denied. What no one seems to talk about though is the deep irony this chance happening holds. Beowulf, after all, is a tale haunted by fire. Foretold in its outset is a future in which all that the dwellers of the tale seek to protect has been consumed by a mortal fire. Furthermore, the tale's teller, who in Beowulf looks back on a time and age now over,  seeks to keep alive what has been destroyed. 

How incredibly ironic it is that he almost failed because of a fire.

Still, the legendary tale of Beowulf the dragon slayer remain embedded like deep roots into literature, there mostly un-reached by the frosts of time.

How deep those roots go, no one knows. Indeed, no one can tell for certain the source of this epic tale or its origins. The legends of Beowulf the monster slayer have not survived by mistake, no doubt. But though the manuscript which was so nearly lost to us survives, we do not really know where it comes from. Even its original author remains unknown to us. 

Yet the narrator speaks vividly throughout the tale, moving through time as Beowulf grows old and eventually dies, vanquished by the dragons fiery venom. 

Even so, it is clear from the poem's first lines that in the time in which the teller writes he is already looking back to ages gone by. 

"Listen!" he writes

"The fame of Danish kings

in days gone by, the daring feats

worked by those heroes are well known to us."

From the very outset, the teller's words echo with reminiscence, astounded by the glory cast from days now over. 

Of course there is a bit of irony therein that the tale he is about to tell is the only one truly known to us. The heroes of the days gone by and the fame of the Danish kings that lived then remain to us only in fragments. Only that of Beowulf remains intact, though not unscathed. Though there is a bit of prophecy in king Hrothgar's words of praise to him after the monster is slain.

"You (Beowulf) have ensured that men will always sing

your praises, even to the end of the world"

With a little help from a scribe and a monk's foresight (to name a few), this rings true today, for indeed, Beowulf has been remembered.

  Beowulf in Heorot by Alan Lee 

(Note: My sincere apologies to artists Alan Lee and John Howe for burning your art for this project.)

The poem begins by accounting the building of a famous mead-hall. The battles of Hrothgar king of this great hall are accounted only in brief, for they lie outside this legend. It is the hall he builds and what it represents that truly resonates in this tale. 

"He," he are told, "resolved to build a hall,

a large and noble feasting-hall 

of whose splendours men would always speak ... 

In due course

(before very long) this greatest of halls

was completed. Hrothgar, whose very word was counted far and wide as a command, called it Heorot."

Needless to say, the common man no longer speaks of Heorot's splendor, just like the drinking of mead is a custom the meaning of which has been abandoned. 

Next the poem recounts how, here, in this hall of great splendor, the "warrior Danes lived joyful lives."

...until the hellish fiend 

began to perpetrate base crimes"

Thus, Grendel creeps up from some unknown lair, destroying the Danes' joyful lives. It is said that Heorot remained empty for 12 years after that.

"Thus, Grendel ruled, resisted justice, 

one against all, until the best of halls

stood deserted. And so it remained."

 Until Beowulf comes. (Remember that word: Until. It is a crucial word.)

Famously, Beowulf slays three monsters throughout the course of the poem, all of which have been probed and studied endlessly since slain by the famous warrior. In many ways, they are a mystery to us still.

The first to be slain was Grendel. He is described as a "hellish fiend", a "notorious prowler", and is a  "gruesome" man eating creature, said to be condemned by the creator himself. I will not here recount his slaying. It is of little importance when it comes to the force of fire in this tale.

The second to be slain is Grendel's mother, a more puzzling monster still. The poem describes her as a "monster of a woman" a "sea-wolf" with "ghastly claws". Otherwise, she remains mostly featureless, and thus, a mystery. But she swims with sea monsters and gives birth to fiends, that much we know from the story. 

Yet, despite these two monster's fiendish and possibly hellish origins, it is the third one, the dragon, that vanquishes Beowulf. 

Grendel's Mother by John Howe

I wrote a paper on this question once, for it puzzled me greatly that the dragon, a creature of flesh, fire, and bone, is the one to take down Beowulf the man. 

The two die side by side, each taken down by the other. And though, Beowulf proves victorious, it is only moments after the dragon's demise that he too dies, consumed by the serpent's fiery venom.

I no longer think it so strange now that the only truly fleshly creature is the one to slay the warrior. 

After all, the blood of Grendel's mother is enough to melt the iron of a sword. In the heat of battle, Grendel and the woman that birthed him are seen only in flashes, in a flurry of blows and swings. They remain mostly featureless. Truthfully, we will probably never fully know what the author's intent with these was. Indeed, they have been re-imagined and debated over ever since.

Still, the narrator makes it clear that there is something unholy about their nature, for they are not beings of flesh. Beowulf slays these apparently hellish beings as a younger man, and lives to tell the tale. Furthermore, he lives to rule Heorot after Hrothgar is gone. 

Thus, Beowulf rules into old age... Until the dragon comes.

Turin Turamber, The Children of Hurin, by Alan Lee

"It is not until he is himself is old and grey that the dragon appears, rising out of the deep where he has dwelt these last hundred years, sleeping on, unmentioned by the poem and unknown to men. The dragon comes into the story as if summoned by the destiny which binds him to Beowulf." 

So I wrote once in a paper discussing the question of why this fate befits the poem. I do believe somewhere within that paper I missed the point. 

Beowulf is slain by a creature of flesh, like he is himself. Indeed, even in the wake of monsters, in the end it is the battles of the flesh that prove fatal in this legend.

So, while the corpses of the fiends are never inspected after they are slain, the dragon's corpse remains, exposed under the light of day under an open sky.

Beowulf's men find his body there, lifeless in the sand. Beside him lies the creature. The poem tells us that it was

"a loathsome serpent...

the fire-dragon...

was scorched by its own flames."

How fitting this seems to me now, that the blood in the veins of the fiends was hot enough to burn the sword of the warrior who slays them, yet the dragon's own flesh can be burned by the fire he breathes. 

There is something I have not yet told you, reader. As I mentioned in brief, there is a prophecy at the outset of this poem. It appears right after the naming of the great hall of Heorot, the very place Beowulf fights to restore and later rules, the place he dies to protect. It is in this prophecy that there lies the greatest irony in all the poem. 

I mentioned at the start of this post the story of how the Beowulf manuscript was saved from a fire.We have already seen much fire in Beowulf. We have seen it in the fiery blood of Grendel's mother, and the fiery venom of the serpent that claims the warrior's life and scorches its own skin.

But there is a more fleshly and consuming fire in Beowulf, a fire lit by a mortal feud. 

The narrator tells us that the great hall of Heorot, the very hall the poem concerns itself with preserving, will burn to the ground. It will burn in a bitter feud between the Geatish people and the Swedes. It will be destroyed by men because of a rift of loyalty, thus maiming everything the tale of Beowulf celebrates: honor, glory, fame, and fellowship.

The narrator tells us this on page 3. 

Thus, we know before Beowulf even sets foot on the page that what he fights to preserve will not be destroyed by either of the three monsters that threaten it. It will be destroyed by men. 

 

We see the shadow of this prophecy come near in the poem's final pages. The poem ends with war on the kingdoms borders, now exposed without their warrior and king to protect it. Enemies surround its lands even as the smoke of Beowulf's funeral pyre rises to the sky. 

"There on Whaleness, the heroes kindled 

the most mighty of pyres; the dark wood-smoke

soared over the fire, roaring flames 

mingled with weeping ... 

until the body became ash, consumed even 

to its core... 

Heaven swallowed the smoke".

 

It is true that Beowulf survived time, survived fickle frost, and consuming fire. But it did not do so unscathed. Deep roots are not reached by the frost, which passes with the morning and fades with the seasons. But though we do not know when Beowulf was written, we know that by the time the poem was penned, these great ages were already over. 

The manuscript survives today, but it is a brittle remembrance of what Beowulf once symbolized. There are no more meadhalls; today, Lords give no rings for loyalty, and the monsters are all dead. All the dragons have been slain. 

One thing has stayed the same, though. Then, like today, it does not take monsters to topple kingdoms and nations. Men topple those themselves.

And as Tolkien wrote in this essay "The Monsters and the Critics", Beowulf is a poem about our land and our language.  

"(Beowulf) was made in this land,"he writes. "It moves in our northern world beneath our northern sky, and for those who are native to that tongue and land, it must ever call with a profound appeal –until the dragon comes."

 

Remember that word. The inevitably of until can crush the hopeful whisper of unless. As I already mentioned, Beowulf is fire-filled. With a fateful feud lingering on the horizon of its history, it reminds us that even a dragon's flesh can burn in its own fire; and what's more, that even men has hard to kill as Beowulf have been taken down by a dragon.

Why Tolkien Left Middle-Earth

Wisdom From Gandalf on the Nature of Stories

"It has been brought forth and must now go its appointed way in the world, though naturally I take a deep interest in its fortunes, as a parent would of a child. I am comforted to know that it has good friends to defend it against the malice of its enemies."

~Tolkien on The Lord of the Rings

 

In a letter that Tolkien may have never actually sent, he recounted a peculiar conversation he once had with a man at Oxford whose name he had forgotten.

He could recall little else about the gentlemen of mystery other than that he was well known, though ill-remembered by Tolkien later on, despite the interesting conversation he shared with him.

This conversation took place somewhere neigh twenty years after the publication of The Lord of the Rings. Though the exact date of it is unknown, it was by it that Tolkien believed to have discovered the answer to a well-worn question of his. Remarkably, the answer was, as Tolkien later recalls, offered to him as if by Gandalf himself! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(some things), Tolkien claimed "may explain to some extent why it (The Lord of the Rings) 'feels' like a history; why it was accepted for publication; and why it has proved readable for a large number of different kinds of people... It does not fully explain what has actually happened."

What a strange question. Yet to be sure the answer cannot be horribly simplified by the simpleminded, one should note that Tolkien was not asking about the logistical explanation for his success. 

When a reader asks a similar question of the author (namely how a work was created? or where its inspiration came from?) it does not seem to the inquirer nearly as large a question. The word why is not used, after all, and questions that deal in where and how usually seem far more traceable than the the large untraceable why.

A great many readers did ask this of Tolkien. Questions like "where did your inspiration come from?" or "how did you come with these ideas" plagued him. As a younger man he took the time to explain the mystery of his discovery of Middle-Earth. As he got older, he had little patience for it.

But naturally, when the writer doesn't supply a suitable answer, the reader will try to solve the mystery themselves. Usually they will seek to do this in small ways, like examining the things they encounter that remind them of the work (such as other works of art), or inspecting the authors lives, both of which Tolkien hated. Some inquirers were more persistent, however. Many wrote to Tolkien, asking him for answers. Some were lucky enough to interview him.

Yet when the man whose name Tolkien could remember asked him a similar question (though greatly disguised by his words) Tolkien was suddenly and expectantly given an answer by someone whom one might suppose far wiser than he himself: namely, Gandalf. 

"I think I can now guess what Gandalf would reply...", Tolkien wrote. For just as Tolkien dismissed the inquiry, the mysterious gentleman fell silent, and stared "fixedly" and said, in a voice much like Gandalf's,

"Of course you don't suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?"

"Pure Gandalf!", Tolkien states.

And then, being well familiar with Gandalf and his ways, he considered his answer.

"I was too well exposed with G. to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: 'No, I don't suppose so any longer.'"

All in all, the conversation echoes of Gandalf's advice to Frodo. His words to Frodo in the Mines of Moria are not so different, in a way. No one can put one in one's place quite so simply and thoroughly as Gandalf, whether that be to put one back where one belongs, or bring one forth and out onto the greater way.

'I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.'
Gandalf: 'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.”

One cannot help but feel that Tolkien was likewise meant to find Middle-Earth and all that happened in it. (He always said that Middle-Earth was his discovery, not his invention.)

One could say a great deal about why Tolkien's creation has remained so astounedly successful. (I know I could). But perhaps that has little to with Tolkien himself and much more to do with those that aided him in its creation. C.S. Lewis and his youngest son Christopher Tolkien certainly come to mind.

But maybe it wouldn't be so crazy to say that Gandalf helped a little too.

One can easily chuckle about this notion. But it is, after all, a strange relationship an author has with their characters. They are not really "theirs", nor are they fully of them. Even those that resemble the author (as Tolkien claimed Faramir did) are not really theirs to keep.

The author has them only for a time, like a friend that they know and love for a short while who will one day move away. The author may at times wonder how that friend is doing, they might even consider writing to them, but it is unlikely that they ever will. 

Their characters have passed into the Grey Havens, a place only attainable from afar. One may catch glimpses of that distant shore, but neither reader nor writer will ever walk there in this lifetime. The pages of a book work the same way for us as the roundness of the earth does for the worlds of men: the best we can do is go back to where we started, travel round the globe, go there and back again, and start anew.

Eventually the author must let go of their characters. This is an inevitable truth. Even those that refuse to do so will eventually find that their characters are not the same; that they are less alive than they once were. Indeed, many writers suddenly find that they are unable to write about their characters. It is as if they aren't there anymore, living in the hole where they once dwelt; all that remains are the writer's memories of them and what they might have said or done in a given situation. But the story is over, and its characters, like its author, must move on eventually.

Many wise authors have abandoned sequels to their great works. Thus, their story ends well and its characters are allowed to retire (whether they pass into death and legend, or to have untold adventures on the road that goes ever on). And so, Bilbo walks down the road to Rivendell at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring, and not even Tolkien was able to follow.

In the same letter in which he recounted this conversation, Tolkien, in words that seem to rekindle Bilbo's own narrative tone, wrote that

"Looking back on the wholly unexpected things that have followed its publication ... I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world has been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight had poured down again. As if indeed the horns of Hope had been heard again, as Pippin heard them suddenly."

And that is where the author stays, eventually: retired into the routine of their own life with abundant memories of their adventures, now behind them. His letters reveal just how often Tolkien would return to his memories of Middle-Earth, in one way or another, reminiscing about the events of his works like once lived adventures he had been fortunate enough to witness.

After all, Tolkien knew well that

"The L.R. (The Lord of the Rings) does not belong to me."

If it had, he may have stayed there forever; might have returned there often to walk in its hills or have tea with Bilbo. Indeed, one would like to think he could. But Bilbo doesn't live in Bag End anymore. 

What a sad thought this is. And yet, if one really thinks about it, one cannot help but feel that it is better this way. For all great adventures end eventually. It is only so that new adventures can be had, and a new Hobbit can come to live at Bag End. As Tolkien wrote long before his journey through Middle-Earth was over,

"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings."

(The Hobbit)

 

 

It was by discovering Middle-Earth that a desire was in me awakened to write and to create things that likewise arouse such fondness in others. (How marvelous it is to be fond of a place that one can carry in one's bag, in one's mind, and in one's heart! Only books can fit worlds in such little spaces; can cram worlds to explore and get lost in into words, and keep hearths to sit by and call home into paper!)

But reading Tolkien's letters has reminded me that all things have to end. Books always run out of pages sooner or later. That is the nature of things. But it is both a sadness and a blessing. For it is only in ending that they can become fond memories.

 

 

 

 

I may still be in the midst of my own adventure. And while I think often of the day when I can look back on all that I have said and done with fondness, I cannot forget to take the time to enjoy the journey for all the joys and struggles that it still has to offer me.

Even Tolkien had to leave Middle-Earth eventually, after all. But I am not yet ready to leave mine.

My book will run its course one day, and then the words will leave me. I may write about other things, but nothing will ever again be written about the realm I once knew and walked. Even an author can overstay their welcome in their world.

For now, I know that at least that it is not ready to leave me. There is much still to discover, and I am not finished with it yet.

 

On goes the road, as ever and always old stories continue to give way to new ones.