s w e e t silver l i n i n g

[claire]

[claire]

Oh, it's so exciting to be writing those words! "Dear diary." I wonder how many other people have written those words, neatly beside each other like that? Probably quite a few, I'd imagine, what with the amount of people that keep diaries. Diaries! Just like the one I have now - just like you, Diary. I'm writing in a diary! I've read so many books where girls keep diaries and now I'm one of those girls. I wonder if this means that my life is going to become rather exciting. That usually happens in books whenever they start writing in diaries. They need something to write about after all. Maybe that can be my goal this year. To do lots of exciting things that I can write about in my diary.

But my life is already exciting! I'm a witch. Hogwarts, all of it, it's unbelievable. When I was little, I used to believe in magic and fairies even when everyone told me that neither existed. And then on my eleventh birthday, I got a letter from a school of magic. How exciting is that! Julia and Johnny and Hannah and Steffy never got letters. But oh dear, I don't want to sound like I'm gloating, no, no. I'm just excited. By Hogwarts, by magic, by all of it. It's been five years and I feel just as excited to be going back to that school as I did when I was going for the very first time. At least it feels like it.

But now I have a diary to write about everything in! So I can tell you all about Hogwarts and how amazing it is. And how amazing you are! Poor Diary, you can't see how beautiful you are. Well, I'll tell you. You're absolutely gorgeous, hand-made with this cover that has all these different shades and textures and patterns of purple (which is like my favorite color) material stitched together with a bit of beading and embroidering and then the border around your edges is more of a plum purple with all this pattern-like-stuff stitched in white yarn. And this rainbow-colored string wraps around you so I can tie you up closed so no one can read all my secrets! Yes, Mama and Daddy chose well, Diary. I love you so much already! My very first diary!

But don't get me wrong, I mean, writing itself isn't new to me at all. I must have at least ten - maybe even twenty!! - notebooks full of all my stories and random stuff I write. But I've never had a diary! I don't know why, I mean, it would seem like such a logical thing for someone who likes to write to have, right? But I guess I have my notebooks for that. I write down observations and feelings and all that in them so I guess they're sorta like a diary. But they're not a real diary, not like you! I was so, so excited when Mama and Daddy gave you to me. I, Claire Anabelle Turner, am now the proud owner of a diary. It's so exciting! Just like my life is sure to be now that I have a diary to write about everything in.

This is SO exciting!!

And oh! How could I have almost forgotten! Today is my birthday! Yes, I'm officially fifteen years old, only one more year until I'm sixteen. S-I-X-T-E-E-N! That's like a sweet sixteen! I told Mama that today and she laughed and told me I was sweet enough as it was. Isn't that a nice thing to say? But yes, today is my birthday and you were a present and now Daddy's calling me to get my nose out of this book and come have the special birthday dinner they've all prepared. Which means chocolate cake for dessert! Yum! Toodles!

[claire]

I love summer (:

I mean really, who doesn't love summer? Who doesn't love feeling nice, fresh grass tickle your feet? Who doesn't love soaking up the sun right into the pores of your skin? Who doesn't love spending the entire day running around like a silly fool and not caring about the fact that you're out of breath and acting like a child because you're having so much fun? Who doesn't love jumping into the river when it gets to be too too hot and feeling the water splash all around you? Who doesn't love lying in the field at night and staring up at the stars and trying to count them even though you know you'll never be able to and you eventually just drift off to sleep and have to be carried back to the bed? Who doesn't love waking up at the same time - if not before - the sun and poking your head out your bedroom window and watching the sky get lighter and lighter and pinker and pinker until - voila! - there it is? Who doesn't love making bonfires and roasting marshmallows and giggling and snuggling into warm, fuzzy blankets around the fire and knowing that you can stay up as late as you want because there's no school tomorrow or the day after that or the day after that or the day after that and so on? Who doesn't love being able to spend hours sitting by the river with your nose in your book and being able to just stay there because there's nowhere else you have to be? (After this morning, the total count of how many times I've read Romeo and Juliet has gone up to twenty-nine! Almost at thirty!) - Who doesn't love eating chocolate cake with their fingers before dinner with all their sisters and their big brother up in the barn loft and giggling and just being so happy to see them all again? Who doesn't love dancing and twirling around when it rains because of course you don't mind, there are lots more sunny days to come and rain is always so magical? And who doesn't love seeing the rainbow that always always always stretches across the sky in technicolor when the rain eases up?

So of course I love summer.

Who doesn't?

[claire]

Something else to add to the list of things I love: sunrise. Or sunset. They're both pretty (: But sunrise just seems even more pretty 'cause it's in the morning and the day is just beginning and you're all sleepy and tired and the sun looks just as sleepy and tired as you are as it pokes its head up from the horizon and slowly warms up the sky, and it gets all pink and purply and orange and just so so pretty. Mornings are so nice. I don't get people that like to sleep in til the late hours of the day. Julesie's like that and I've never understood. But we're very different, maybe that's why? It's funny that people can be related and so different. I don't think I'm much like any of my siblings. I mean, Steffy likes learning things like I do so that's similar? And we all get along so that's what really matters. But they're still all asleep, silly sleepyheads. Haha. I mean, it's only six o'clock but I fell asleep so early last night. I'm such a morning owl. I mean, morning bird. And I'm not at all a night owl. Johnny can stay up so late all the time and I still struggle to make it to midnight on New Year's Eve! Is that silly?

Oh, Diary, don't answer that. I know it is. But that's okay cause no one else is awake so I'm gonna go downstairs and grab some cocoa. And then I can go outside and watch the rest of sun rise (:

Did I mention that I love summer?

Thought so (:

[claire]

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Romeo and Juliet will never stop being my favorite literary work. No play, no novel, no anything shall ever replace it in my mind. Who could ask for a more romantic tale than that of star-crossed lovers who meet such a tragic end? No, there is nothing more romantic in the entire world. Juliet will always be my favorite heroine and Romeo my favorite hero. I love them so so much.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

And there is certainly no one better than Shakespeare! No, I refuse to believe that any other writer has ever managed to better capture such beautiful emotions. Whether you're reading the words for the first time or the thousandth doesn't matter. They're still beautiful and they still pull you in. Because it's Romeo and it's Juliet are the world has never known a more powerful and wonderous love than theirs.

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Who doesn't sigh when they read over those words? Who doesn't imagine the dashing Romeo and the beautiful Juliet in their first encounter and imagine that they were Juliet. Or Romeo, I suppose, if you were a boy. But still! I don't think there's anything I'd rather daydream of. Nothing.

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

And everyone knows about Romeo and Juliet. They're immortal because we remember them and always will, characters or not. Their love was the most tragic but also the most remembered and that makes it seem as if they never died after all. They still live on. Because who can't quote a line from their play, even if it's just say "Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" I mean really, it's probably the most well-known play by the entire world because we all know the story, and we all know the words. Granted, some of us better than most but that doesn't matter. Romeo and Juliet will never stop being my most favorite story ever and Romeo and Juliet will never stop being my favorite lovers, tragic and star-crossed as they were.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

<3

[claire]

The strangest thing happened today. Well maybe not strange, but certainly unexplained. I was sitting out in the field reading Pride and Prejudice - that's another favorite, even if it doesn't come close to Romeo and Juliet - when I noticed a little red balloon in the sky. The sort that comes on a string, you know? Just a lonely, little red balloon, all by itself. That's what I thought at first. And then I noticed these other balloons floating along behind it way up over my head. There were so many! And all different colors too. Like a rainbow of beautiful, bright balloons. I watched them as they floated farther and farther away, higher and higher until I couldn't see them anymore. And then I thought about them. Whose balloons were they? Why had they been allowed to float away? Was it for some sort of celebration? I love celebrations but it made me a bit sad to think of them floating away like that. At least I watched them, at least they had me as an audience for a little while. Until even I couldn't see them anymore. Who knows where they are now. They probably popped. Daddy explained that me to once - how balloons like that pop when they get high enough. Because of the air pressure. I was so crushed when he told me that. I'd always imagined that space was full of all these bright balloons that had floated away from Earth. That even though no one here wanted them anymore, they were floating around where they could see all the beautiful stars and planets. Now I realize that that's a rather silly idea but I didn't back then and I was so disappointed when Daddy cleared it up. Not that I would have preferred to believe something that isn't true but... it just seemed so much happier. Balloons in the sky are pretty but there's something so sad about them, don't you think? I don't why but I've always felt this way, silly little me. Maybe it has to do with the fact that they're so far away. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that they're too far gone for anyone to catch them when they inevitably fall.

[claire]

Oh goshkins.

I miss Hogwarts ): I miss Illi and Xeno and Vi and Owen and Fi and Rose and Sev and eeee, I just miss so many people and so many things. I miss waking up in a dorm with all the other girls and I miss having huge meals in the Great Hall all together and I miss cheering Hufflepuff on at Quidditch games (even if we didn't do so great this year ): ) and I miss magic. I'm not going to say anything though, 'cause I mean, I don't want Mama and Daddy and Johnny and Jules and Hannah and Steffy to get the wrong impression. When I'm Hogwarts I miss the farm! And now I'm here and I'm so so happy to be home but I also miss Hogwarts. Do you think it's possible to have two homes? I think so. But I guess seeing as I spend most of the year at Hogwarts, I should savor the time I have here. Which is what I'm doing! I do my chores in the morning and everything but then I'm outside soaking up the sun and wandering around or going for a swim in the river or playing with Archie (: Or with the others when they aren't busy (: So I'm having fun, I really am. But all the same... I think I'm gonna go write a letter to Illi and see how she's doing. It's crazy missing everyone so much, it'll be so great to hear for her!