#anarnianfox

I still check in every once in a while, right now about once a week. And I'm glad because I saw this!

This made me tear up, thank you Joyce! I am also wishing you so much happiness.

Haha I talk about it sporadically on here, so if you want to see some examples I have it tagged /synesthesia :)

I’ve had it since I was very little! Like my first memories of days of the week, numbers, letters, etc. are all in color. I also have a lot of image association for things I learned when I was little–like certain phrases would be indelibly associated with a rocking horse or whatever. It colors (ha) a lot of my writing and word choice for things, and makes it sort of a personal science in a way? Sometimes it leads to very beautiful coincidences: like the word lavender–the first three letters are purple, blue, and yellow, so it’s the most gorgeous word bouquet. Whereas the word “beautiful” is pale golden yellow and the word “coincidence” is shell-pink. 

Hello!

“Praise the Lord! I’m dead!” Is a quote from Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Life. My mom and I were studying it for school when I was...fifteen? Sixteen, maybe? And the whole book really changed my perspective on Christianity as a whole. Reading it felt like watching puzzle pieces click into place one by one—still not forming a complete picture, but finally making sense of something that had previously seemed like a total mess.

My favorite part was when (if memory serves) Watchman Nee was a young Christian, struggling with the notion of his ‘old man’ (his flesh, his sinful self) having to die to make way for the ‘new man’ (a flesh and spirit belonging to God). He was praying and praying for God to kill the ‘old man’ in him, when he finally stumbled across a scripture (I can’t remember which one) that made him realize: the ‘old man’ was already dead, crucified with Christ. He immediately jumped up and ran through the house, yelling, “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, I’m dead!” (No doubt to the utter confusion of his neighbors and housemates).

I’ve always loved the juxtaposition of morbidity and joy in that statement, how the utter ridiculousness of it kinda encapsulates the ridiculousness of all Christian joy. And, it’s been a good reminder for me too. Starting out on Tumblr, I’d already been a terrible jerk on more than one social media platform—about opinion and politics and who knows what else. “Praise the Lord, I’m dead” was meant as a constant callback to the fact that my opinionated, angry, prideful self was dead now, and the things I did or said (online or elsewhere) should never spread the stink of its corpse. It’s not a vision I always live up to, but it’s a vision I’d like to, nonetheless.

LOL JOYCE

I won’t lie, this made me laugh a lot. You’re right, they are dumbstruck fools. It’s part of what makes All Too Well so endearing- it’s all caught up in mundane details, not the grand overall scheme of it. It’s about them driving in fall, scrapbook pictures, a red scarf, dancing in the refrigerator light because it’s so ridiculous that they’re both up so late scrounging for food and they MUST dance in their 2am crazy haze. It’s romanticism in the littlest parts of your life, the beauty in the little details where she loved him most. 

It breaks your heart not because of what it could’ve been, but what it already was- a departure from the White-Horse era of Taylor’s writing, it was about the moment she’d already lived, not the one she was waiting for. 

So yes, it was a silly, funny thing. That’s why it hurts so much that she lost it. 

YES

I love New Romantics so much.

It’s sharp and funny and wounded and knowing and glorious. A great encapsulation of her 1989 era, its weaknesses and its strength.

“The rumors are terrible and cruel but honey most of them are true” is one of the best lines she’s ever written on fame.

I love Joni sm

ISN’T IT??? I miss last winter when I could watch it in theaters! It’s so funny and sweet and layered and kIND and visually stunning. (ALSO THE CAST.)