Inspired.

I just finished reading Confessions of a Teenage Nomad.

It's not the kind of book that you haven't read before. I mean, come on.  She's always moving, she's never met her father, she never quite fits in.  Typical book for a typical teenager.  But that's okay, because sometimes those types of books are enough.

Despite it's shortcomings, I enjoyed this book.  It had that tone to it, that atmosphere that makes you think that life is always beautiful, even when there's crap splattered all over it.  Like there's an art to the little details of life.  It's almost the same feeling I get when I watch certain animes (like The House of Five Leaves), read manga (Hana no namae comes to mind) and Japanese-themed novels (I'm thinking of The Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa and The Fourth Treasure by Todd Shimoda).

It's breath-taking, in a sense.  The way these authors speak is like they're freezing small moments in their life and loving them for what they are.  In a weird Zen Buddhist sense, it's like they are fully aware of themselves.  Which isn't to say that everything is happy, picture-perfect, and structured, but... *sigh*

I don't know how to describe this feeling, and I'm not sure if it's my lack of vocabulary or that there isn't really a word in the English language for it.  Perhaps the Japanese do, since all they always seem to produce that certain effect.  Like the sound of cicadas in an anime.  Or in Honey and Clover whenever they show the characters randomly looking at the moon.  Perhaps it's not a coincidence that the closest analogy I can find to this is when I compare it to Zen Buddhism.

I've been hoping to write more often lately, and not just blogs.  I mean I want to write.  Write poems, stories, all kinds of crap that my loser middle school self used to do and my loser high school self wants to return to.  But with the way life's been turning out lately, I don't know how to put pen to paper without it sounding like a history essay.  Because I'm always either writing for school, or I'm writing about myself in a blog post about how crappy and unfair my life is.

I'm glad I read Confessions of a Teenage Nomad.  It makes me want to write again, even if what I churn out turns out to be crap.

There are some beautiful moments in life you just don't want to forget.