Kapow!

Hannah unexpectedly - and quite suddenly- realizes that being alone right now is way more fantastic than any other option!

Something so wild turned into paper

Winter Memory List:

1. Russian People.
2. Tea Parties
3. Mondays
4. New Years (Eve and Day)

Spring Purchase List:

1. Hunter Wellies (Yellow?)
2. New Ipod (how depressing)
3. Slip Slops!
4. Camera? Possibly?

Summer Reading List:

1. The Master and Margarita
2. Great Expectations
3. Brideshead Revisited
4. Moby Dick
5. The Four Loves
6. Something by Chesterton
7. Finish the books I am reading with my sisters (War in Heaven and Marple)

Fall To Do List:

1. ________ (Insert Something Clever)

Count the stars, if you can.

I keep finding myself back in Genesis. I have this feeling that God is trying to teach me something in the story of Abraham. Something about patience, trust, surrender, wilderness-wandering. Something about my own blockheaded ways.

Orange, Gold, and Green

I remember those months. I remember each one of us, caught up in some sort of first kiss. Everyone was so naive then, reading Perks of Being a Wallflower, eating Italian food in colorful skirts and collared shirts, sitting on furniture that is a few years older now. Oh, standing near those big windows that tapped with the spring rain (it always rained), the music behind me, and the laughter - our laughter - it was what that same book might have called "infinite." It is surprising how few photographs of that time I have. I could probably count them on one hand. It's enough to have a thousand pictures in my memory of the Converse sneakers, the dining room table, all of us a bit smaller and baby-faced.
We're so boring now, pretending to graduate from college and playing like we're old and wise enough to get married. Street names have changed for a lot of us, our pianos sit against different walls. I don't smell that smell which I found so much comfort in. The Italian restaurant is closed.
But I find that I'm still that girl in those big old windows, who now recollects and replays the voices and laughs of each of you in your own far places. Are you still laughing there? Is it all still real?

Here

... as Hannah reminds herself for the 100,000,000th time that change of location doesn't = problems solved.... is it so bad to just want to be somewhere where you cannot reach me?

9:18 pm

It seems that whenever I set out to learn or know something, instead of finding the nature of that one thing, I gain something else entirely- or many different things. Maybe it is this strange aspect of the nature of learning itself that makes learning such an infinite and beautiful thing. We're constantly redirected to another path, to something new or different which will soon point us to something else, we are chasing. Imagine how limited learning would be if this chase didn't exist... How lonesome it all would be if I met you and you simply taught me about yourself instead of adding to that knowledge a deeper understanding of myself and our world.

Introduction.

I'm suddenly inspired to write. Inspired by indignation, in fact. Indignation, yes, with a hint of procrastination. There is something about those two states of mind which makes me more eloquent than when I am happy and leisurely.

I don't really have much to say about things; about the state of politics, the state of the economy, the state of the weather, the state of New York. I think the only state I can currently speak about with any certainty is the state of my own mind and heart. Maybe this subject would be better left alone, but after all, I think it's my right to ramble at great length about myself on a blog whose URL is "hannahhempstead.blogspot.com." If you want politics or weather, just quit reading now.

So, here you are. If you're looking for a statement of purpose for this blog, or for a general theme which will consume the contents of it, you could probably sum it up very nicely like this:

The purpose of this blog is to provide a window into Hannah Hempstead's observations. There is no guarantee that these observations will reveal anything intelligent, entertaining, or relevant. One guarantee is that Tea, Community College, and C. S. Lewis are likely to be mentioned with some frequency.