Imagine

Music and Lyrics by Jessica


Sunlight dips down
Through the field of my soul
Casting waves of springtime
O’er the dew on the grass

When my mind drifts away
It stumbles and shakes
As it trips through the sea
Of my memory

And the things I long for
I might just die for
If they dared come true

Imagine...
Imagine...

The velvet belief
That all is as it seems
Causes my mind to doubt
All that’s happened to me

That my dreams now
Pale to real life
Are the midnight souls
Finally one?

Yet I cannot seem to tell
And perhaps I’ll never know
If this is my dream come true

Imagine...
Imagine...

The Sight of My Love...

A Poem by Jessica Claire Barker

My love, my love
I see you there
I pause in the door way
And I stare
I've just returned
From rushing 'round
Now I'm home with you
Knowing I'm safe and sound
The corners of your mouth
Turned up in a smile
In wonderland
You have been a while
I long to ask you
Where you are
And where you've been
You have traveled far
My love, I know
In dreamland be
I don't wish to wake
You from your fantasy
I glide over-
Yes, I dare-
To kiss your eyes
And stroke your hair
"I love you," I whisper
As I lay my head down
I listen to your heart
'Tis the purest sound
Dawn breaks and I realize
The beats fade away
And I see I am caught
In the moment of today
I look down to where
My love should be
And I shed a single tear
Over what I do not see
"Someday," I murmur,
"You won't be a dream.
My love won't disappear
at the first sunbeam....."

Come True

The layers of beauty surround me
As I sit here alone
We both know who created this
Now I want you to be here
To share this with me
And not just now, but forever more

The quiet here is thrilling
But the scratching of my pen
Reminds me of where my heart has been
I can hear your whispers
From far away in my ear
Will you ever walk the path with me?

I’m afraid to write about you
Afraid it is not due
Scared to wish on a melody
For fear it won’t come true

I find myself pondering
Why it changes so suddenly
Will inspiration ever find me?
I feel my soul unwinding
Hiding behind a story book
Perhaps the tale should not be told

One day I want to be lost
In the sea of your eyes forever
And in the sounds of your stunning harmonies
You’ll never believe the affections
That sprung from our recent farewell
Ever since I’ve been blind to everything…

If you want to hold
My heart in your arms
Just tell me, I’ll let you
I know you’ll do it no harm

~JCB

Le Papier est Fini!

If you haven't noticed, I've had a little obsession with typing/posting in French.  If it's annoying you, I am sorry.  I just really want to learn more French and I don't have time.  So I am just going with what I know.  That means that if something I want to say happens to translate into French in my brain oh-so-magically, then I will say/write it without much of a doubt (except perhaps on the correct pronunciation....)

So I am done with my last research paper for the semester and I am rejoicing, of course.  Yes, doing the Highland Fling and other dances I am famed for.  I haven't blogged a real blog in a long time.  The last time I told you how I was doing was for that "Tag" thing, and that doesn't really count because there was this thing entailed known as "structure."  I don't like structure.  It bothers me.  Organization is not bad, but structure...I won't even go into how it just messes up things.

So things are about to get drastically different.  I have re-thought my life plan for the 7,000th time since last summer.  Not this summer, just last summer.  I am going to stop having getajobaphobia and I am, instead, going to get a job.  I really want to work at either a bookstore or a pet store.  I am working on a write-up on everything about myself, putting my social security number in big print on the cover page, and giving that package to random people I see in stores.  

Next semester I am not going to go to college.  Every time I sign up for a college class I forget all the negative things like sitting in classrooms, being lectured, writing papers, taking tests, being told what to do, and things like that.  For the rest of my life I am vowing not to make that mistake again.  I DO NOT like being told what to do.  I am going to do what I want...and that is...

1)  Study music theory

2) Study creative writing more intensely

3) Read more books

4) Write more (poetry, stories, etc)

5) Compose more (like, music, you know?)

These would be done when I am not working, of course.  And I am going to use my money to either travel the world, buy myself a house (in North Carolina.......), or as my own marriage dowry or something.   Or maybe just...oh, never mind.  

In other general news, we got our piano tuned yesterday.  It's an understatement that I am quite ecstatic.  We haven't had it tuned since we got it 14 years ago...sad.  So now it sounds next to wonderful.  It's an upright, so it will never sound like a grand, but it's pretty pretty!  Also, Saturday I got to go to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert!  It was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!!!!  And that is also an understatement.  I'll be talking about it for the next decade.  :D

I really need to be getting on important things like chores since I haven't done much because I've been working on my paper.  It is a terrible paper.  I will fail the class.  < /low self esteem >  That's okay though!  I really don't care.  I enjoyed it, but what do grades matter when I'm not going to go to college and I am not going to change my mind about going to college???

I will write again soon.  I have to write lots of tiny paper summaries for my classes and study for a couple of finals (ugh...I sound so school-ish...I disgust myself), but I think I will have more time because I don't have to spend so much of it thinking about something I don't want to think about.  Isn't that liberating?  I'm considering re-naming this the Blog of Liberation again!

Anyways, talk to y'all later!

~Jessica

In Which Jessica is Tagged and Also Tags...

Lizzie tagged me!

• Link to the person who tagged you.
  
• Post the rules on your blog.
  
• Write Six Random Things about yourself.
  
• Tag a few other people at the bottom of the post.
  
• Leave comments on their blogs, letting them know they've been tagged!
  
• Let the person who tagged you know when you've written the post.
  

1.  I cannot decide whether I like winter or not.  I don't like it because the weather is cold, harsh, unforgiving, and uncomfortable.  However, I like it because when it's cold I can snuggle up and feel warm and cozy inside, read a book, drink all manner of hot things such as cider, hot chocolate, coffee, and tea...and there's Christmas!  

2.  I have a tendency to get ahead of myself in just about every area of life.  The latest has been a nice little habit of doing google searches for mountain retreats/bed and breakfasts with my honeymoon in mind....not even a particular person.  Just the honeymoon.  

3.  I have recently discovered (like, two days ago) that I play piano VERY EXTREMELY by ear...I was sitting down at the hotel in DC, with my "Alfred's Basic Keyboard Chart" (please don't ask...) (and who is Alfred anyways?) thinking that I could start musically notating a piece I am working on.  I tried to play it on the piece of paper, but I couldn't really remember what keys to press.  I was writing it down, but I have no idea if I'm right or not.  I kept thinking...if only the piece of paper made noise...and I thought I was a "doer" but I guess I'm just a "hearer."  I wonder if there's any hope left for me....

4.  I used to be very much a feminist/tomboy when I was, like, ten or something.  It was one of those embarrassing phases of my childhood, so I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you.  I just thought that boys had all the fun, and why can't girls go do things the boys did?  So I made a point to go against the pressure there was to be a girl and just do what I felt like doing.  While I've basically grown out of rebelling against anything girly, I'm still not an extremely girly person....however, I am NOT a feminist any more....

5.  I can carry cash into a clothing store and come out with it still in my wallet.  But I have to make a point of leaving all my money at home if I am going to the bookstore.  

6.  I have a large collection of countless notebooks that I've filled up over the years...and I keep  most of them in my bottom dresser drawer.  Come to think of it...that is my largest collection...

I'm going to tag Michelle and Chris.

The Dream

The Dream…
A Poem by Jessica Claire Barker

A dangerous dive into harmony so faint
Strong whispers plummet hoarsely into oblivion
The mystery of a still-lying, melancholy ocean
Where an empty echo hardly resounds

The apathetic sky allows itself to be alive
An old fence caringly stands
A new gate daringly grants you entrance
Where an abridged river longs for freedom

The shrouded symphony feels regret
As the water stirs meaninglessly
To fully abandon the attractive novel
See the audacious dawn weakly abate

The cricket’s music sadly abbreviated
See the hidden source of the borne chaos
Searching for your crying eyes in a photograph
At last, the colorful flame aborts…

Mindlessness

There are certain things I love doing, that I just cannot bring myself to put on my “interests” or “hobbies” list. I’m not embarrassed. That’s ridiculous. But…there is some reason or another. Things like: clipping my nails, blow drying my hair, driving, dancing outside in the middle of the night, and being alone in complete quiet.

Ultimately I suppose it comes down to mindlessness. I really appreciate it. That sounds bad…shouldn’t I really like stretching my cognitive abilities? Well, I do. There’s no doubt about that. I enjoy feeling like the gears in my brain are really chugging away (if gears do that…you know what I mean…perhaps I am getting my imagery mixed up, but whatever). But I feel like my brain is like that all the time. It’s as if I’m running endlessly, never taking a break to just sit down and catch my breath, to let my muscles rest. Sure, if I sit down for a long enough time, I get antsy again, and get up and run. But rests are wonderful things.

Clipping my nails, filing my nails…it’s the epitome of mindlessness, in my opinion. I just do it. I’m doing something physical, working on something, and thinking about nothing. I wish I had more nails, or just more activities that were like clipping nails. Watching TV or playing video games just don’t do it for me. I get really wrapped up in television or movies, and when I play video games, I constantly am feeling like I should be doing something else. Clipping my nails is of such benefit to me and others…makes it easier to play guitar and piano, preventing myself from bending the nails back when they’re wet, makes them nicer-looking, and puts a stop to any lethal scratching I may inflict during water polo (you can thank me in the comments section).

I also like things like showering and shaving my legs. Sorry if that’s TMI for some people, but you must understand that I just like that mindless time. Because doing stuff that takes no brain leaves my brain to be opened. I come up with my best ideas for songs, stories, businesses, et cetera, while lathering my hair, getting soap in my eyes, or making funny shapes with my shaving cream (I am really a pro at making many different sculptures as I squirt the shaving cream out…I entertain myself very well). The problem with coming up with such a huge wave of ideas is that you can’t really document any of them in the bathtub. I suppose I could take all my hair that falls out and twist them into a musical staff and music notes, and write down ideas with my shaving cream on the walls…but that would take a lot longer than it would if I just finished the shower, wouldn’t it? Yeah. *sigh* Plus not being able to really read music, as well as my hair having a tendency to just curl up after a while, present problems. Shaving cream likes to melt.

Whatever.

I like dancing, that’s a given. I don’t think I’ve met a girl who doesn’t. I really like it when guys like dancing, too. It was pretty awesome to see all the guys who showed up at the cotillion-style dance class at the homeschool conference. It was even more awesome to see the very few guys who were AMAZING. It let me hope for my generation. Perhaps I will marry a guy who will go dancing with me!

As for dancing outside in the middle of the night, I’d say it is the epitome of freedom…so I don’t know why I just told the whole world I do it. Might as well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But I do it because the night is stimulating; the air is clear, crisp, and electrifying. No human is watching. The moonlight shines down like a single spotlight…the stars are my audience, the cool grass is my stage, the crickets and the frogs are my music. I dance without a care in the world. I get warm and breathless, my muscles begin to feel strained, and the beads of sweat begin to surface on my brow. The soft breeze cools me, and I want nothing else but to stay out there forever…

Death is just the easy way to escape. The weather recently has reminded me about this story about a boy and a girl. Simple enough, I suppose. They grow older and fall in love. The boy is poor, the girl is rich. While she goes away to school for her later teen years, the boy, a couple years older, determines to spend the time when they are separated in hard labor, working to make enough to support her. Of course, he knows what she’s used to and is willing to do whatever he can to get as close to matching it as possible. When she comes back from school, three or four years later, he is proud of himself. They meet, and she seems preoccupied. He plans to come over to her house later and propose. He does, but he finds her in the parlor talking with another man—a rich one—who has his arm around the girl. The girl announces, slightly embarrassed and grimly, that she and the rich man are engaged. The boy falls into devastation, and that’s a very understate-ish understatement. He had worked all these years, FOR HER. And now what? She rejects him. Unintentionally, but he can never have her now. He never even tries again. He just crawls into a hole, gives up. However, he’s developed a habit of working hard. In ten years, he’s pretty well off. He’s been keeping track of the girl now. She married the other man and they moved to a house on the lake. One night, the husband leaves for a business meeting. The girl is at home alone. She goes out to enjoy the moonlit night, and comes back into her dark living room. Something in the shadows moves—it is the boy, now fully a man, dressed nicely. His eyebrows are turned down. In his hands is a pistol. The girl is shocked. Her voice trembles as they talk. His is calm and confident. He thinks he wants her love…but in that conversation, he realizes that all he wants is for her to know what he did for her, what he always wanted, and how she carelessly and heartlessly ripped his chest opened, pulled his heart out, and threw it out the window where it was driven to the bottom of the river. The husband comes back home. The man confronts the husband and shoots him soon after. The girl screams, asking what the man wants from her. Now the man comes to his senses…he’s only hurt her more. She hurt him, but he swore long ago he would never hurt her. He’s gone back on the promise. His life is turmoil, and the moment is happening so fast around him, he feels dizzy. With quaking hands he turns the gun on himself. It would make things better for the girl if he was gone as well. He shoots himself in the head. What he doesn’t know is that he’s hurt the girl even more than he could ever imagine. The girl is confused, bewildered…this was not what was supposed to happen this evening! All she can see, though, is what is right in front of her, and that’s any meaning in her life now has surely vanished, and vanished tragically. Impulsively, she grabs the pistol from the man, lets out one last sob…and shoots herself.

It’s not supposed to be that easy. That is not bliss; that is not escape. It’s just tragedy. Naivety, short-sightedness. People commit suicide every day, feeling surely that once their souls have escaped the world, everything will be okay…

I don't mean to leave you on such a negative note. No, I'm not feeling suicidal. Far from it! I was just illustrating something with my little story. Now I shall go and love my life some more!

Romantic Ideals

I know this is a long entry (as usual). Please bear with me, as I have something important to address. Well, I think it’s important, anyway.

I’ve been meaning to blog for a while and I haven’t. But that’s a good thing. A couple of days ago I just got really frustrated, and I was going to blog about that frustration, but now things have cooled down on my part and I’m seeing the other side of it—the unfortunate cause of my discontentedness.

You see, I was going to blog about how I think every guy on the planet should be like Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, and how, not meaning to be a diva, I get quite frustrated when I constantly encounter “men” these days who aren’t chivalrous, or who are but only when their friends are not present to…what? Ridicule them? Is it silly, then, to be a gentleman? I hope not. My rant which was scheduled to be written was much more heated than this little summary, and I really don’t think it’s best that I get into it.

However, I will talk about my thoughts about why I have been sulking in misery for the past…well, ever since Monday or so. The whole speculation that every man in this world should be like Mr. Darcy is derived from lust, I guess you could say. Most guys lust about sex a lot, right? Girls really aren’t so partial to those types of thoughts, but they do have emotional lusts. Our lusts usually involve romance, the type of which that is usually idealized in our lovely chick-flicks we love to watch. I am surely making a generalization, but it is true that in most cases, women love to watch and read romance. It gives us little butterflies inside our stomachs, makes our hearts flutter, makes us sigh about “how sweet” it all is and…as a result…makes us severely discontent.

This is not to say men are not romantic. However, if anybody out there wants some tips on winning ladies over, just read or watch some Jane Austin stuff, and then do what the guys in the movies/books do! It’s really that simple. You see, when men try to write romance, it just doesn’t give girls butterflies. So, in Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas falls in love with Madeline Bray and…well, somehow they are very shy and get set up by the twins and everything falls into place and perhaps they have one philosophical discussion. Never once during that whole book did I react in the ways I described earlier as the ways women respond to romanticism. Wherefore, while Charles Dickens was romantic enough to include the part where Nicholas courts a girl, he was not romantic enough to write it romantically.

Jane Austen, on the other hand, is very skilled at making sure that a woman’s heart is most certainly palpitating nearly the entirety of a novel, or movie of her novel(s). Why is she? Because, like most women, she idealizes romance. Women have this strange little skill of analyzing situations involving lovers (either themselves or other people which they pretend are themselves), and imagine millions of possibilities of directions that the relationship could go, and the most romantic way for it to get there. I suppose guys don’t really do that, which is sad…but completely OKAY [!!!] because I’ve stopped complaining about guys and how uncivilized and inconsiderate they can be! Anyhooness (just for the record, they can be magnificent and wonderful as well), if guys thought the same way as girls, we’d all probably blow up or something because we’d all think the same thing, and then we’d all be the same and so really, why would we all need to be here? So we’d all blow up and leave one person all alone to…well, enough right now about all my many theories about how everyone will blow up, and what will happen directly thereafter.

Girls and women and ladies, when they idealize romance, wish for it to happen to them. Hence the fantasizing about how romantic encounters might progress (even if those girls know *gulp* quite well that they are not supposed to be thinking about boys or going out with them right now…). This makes them very discontent, and then they don’t realize it when real love stares them right in the face. Like Anne in Anne of Green Gables. She read all the time about nights and fair maidens and the like, and always had her fantasies of a tall, dark, handsome, and possibly rich knight in shining armor to come to Green Gables in a valiant manner and ask her to marry him, and then they would go live in his castle, where she would roam the grounds all day reading and writing. Gosh darn it, don’t we all want that? Anyway, when Gilbert proposes for the first time, she refuses him, saying they cannot possibly be more than friends. Gilbert’s not…well, refer to the description of Anne’s ideal earlier in this paragraph. He’s just not. But Anne finally comes to her senses and they get married and live happily ever after.

Even that’s fiction, and an idealized view of romance. OH BOTHERATION. O spite!

So it seems as if these fictional accounts of romance are forever stuck in my brain, ready for me to refer myself to if I ever want to construct my own ideal love story. Hooray (*waves wilted party favor around in the air*). I just think it’s so sweet (yes, here we go again with the sighing) that Mr. Darcy loved Elizabeth like he does, and still loved her even though she seemed to hate him, and then she started to love him, and then in the new version she goes outside in the beautiful English countryside and stands on the bridge, and it is dawn and she sees Mr. Darcy walking through the wet green grass as the sun begins to pour a couple rays over the layer of mist, and as the beautiful music that lets you know that this is the big romantic scene plays, Mr. Darcy’s long coat flaps behind him in the early morning breeze like a cape, and his shirt is unbuttoned at the top so he is just the vision of the perfect romantic suitor! And, even though he knows they are entirely alone, he stays at a respectful distance and explains and apologizes and re-declares his love and proposes again in the sweetest way where you just get tears in your eyes as he struggles over his timidity and says, “I love…love…I love you, and never wish to be parted from you from this day forward.” You start trembling with excitement because THIS IS IT!!! SHE’S GOING TO SAY YES!!! And then she walks over to him and they don’t even kiss, but instead just stand there as she warms his hands in his and they stare deep into one another’s eyes and you know they both cannot be thinking anything except how happy they are, and the sun spills through between them in what I think it is a really cool shot…*BIG SIGH* Oh-My-Goodness, it is just the most tempting thing to think that falling in love is always like that, and that in order for it to be truly romantic the scenery and costumes has to be exactly as it is in that movie (not the boring black-and-white garden like in the old one), etc, etc, etc.

Well, it’s not. And that’s not to say that falling in love isn’t extremely wonderful, because God made love and romance for a reason. But not everyone, as a matter-of-fact, no one, gets to be a character in a Jane Austen book (unless they are an actor, but that doesn’t count). It is hard not to give into fantasies, because it is not only hindering to the soul, but a very big waste of time. Anyway, God will bring about my own beautiful romance (that He’s written for me already!) when the time is right (please—at least not until after I graduate highschool—can’t…hold…one…more…thing!! *collapses as she realizes that she’s working on a blog instead of working on school*), and I should not even bother myself, distract myself, or anything-else myself with romantic notions till that time is here. Does that mean holding off on my indulgence in romantic movies and books? Possibly. I do enjoy other things, you know. It’s not as if I will be at a real loss. Especially at a loss of things to do. Speaking of which, I really must go now…ta ta!

~Jessica

More than a feeling!

I just have this weird "subtly excited" kinda feeling that I can't get over. I am greatly anticipating something, but what? Maybe everything. From real short-term things like breakfast, to some things like swim meets and improv shows this weekend, to graduation-hooray for freestyle learning-, getting a job, living life in a new and different way...the idea of falling in love...the hope of one day going to Europe and blending in with the locals...WOW!!! I just feel GREAT! Last night, singing at Bible study, all I could think about was Italy-cobbble stones and vineyards and yummy food and rustic mansions and beautiful land that extends into eternity. It's really WEIRD.

Music and romance and forests and cottages and herbs and horses and big kitchens and dogs and Wolf Park and Bible Studies and knowledge and dog walking and my own car and being loved and weddings and honeymoons and hiking and camping and reading and summer and green and EVERYTHING and writing and picnics and no classrooms and no homework and no tests and simply what I WANT TO DO!!!

~Jessica