A Room With A View

Sitting here attempting to write my essay I have just witnessed a particularly beautiful sunset. The view from my window is really quite spectacular - if you ignore the road and the rushing traffic - kat is the only other person in the house to get a similar view to me. On a clear day you can see down into the valley* below and over to the hills beyond. These hills are my favorite part of this view as I have a fantasy of one day just dropping everything and running over to those hills and the unknown beyond. I get this feeling alot and not just with this view. Kat always says when she is high up somewhere she has an urge to jump off, well I suppose this is something similar (and less dangerous I feel) - a feeling of wanting to know, visit unseen places and explore the unknown. I want to know what is beyond those hills. The only thing I have ever been able to find that has explained this feeling is a poem in The Lord of the Rings (the book) some of you may know it if you have read it and possibly even if you haven't.

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known".

(The last paragraph gets a bit dramatic but then it is from Lord of the Rings!) I do think that poem no matter how mystical really does sums up how horizons make me feel. There is a line in Chicken Run as well that kind of sums up what I mean - Ginger and Rocky are talking on the Hen House roof:

"You know I come up here every night, look out at that hill and imagine what it must be like on the other side."

To her those hills are freedom, an adventure, just something better, different - the unknown! One of my all time favorite books is all about "Views" it is a book by E.M.Forster called "A Room with a View", it would take too long to go into all the symbolism of the "views" in the book but one meaning of the "View" is essentially about this feeling. I would definatly recommend this book if you have never read it, it had a big impact on me when I read it first and still does - it's truely brilliant.
Maybe I am over analysing this feeling but it is one I have had for as long as I can remember, may be that does make me a dreamer but I love the feeling. I love views and how they give me a soaring feeling when I look out at them, a sense of the enormity of the world, a sense that anything is possible if I only reach out and take it. OK now I am defiantly over analysing but I hope you get a sense of what I mean - next time you see a view, you see how it makes you feel!

Sorry about the length of this. Well done if you reached the end!
xxxFfixxx


* Valley is used for convienience....it's more like a dip in the land.*

The New Blog!

So as you can probably see things have changed a bit here, its all new and terribly elegant daaarling! I prefer this layout to any I've had before - which is good cos I designed it myself, which is actually very easy - they give you the template and then you just play on the customiser thingy! great fun...so have an explore...you may even find some secret new things hidden over my new page!
love and squishy hugs
Ffi xxx

Sonnet 129

This is one of my very favorite sonnets by Mr Shakespeare, I have typed out the notes aswell cos they often help me understand what he was driving at.

Sonnet 129:
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action lust
Is purjur'd, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and prov'd, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads man to this hell.

1) expense - using up, paying out; in a waste of shame - in the course of shameful extravagance, in a wasteland created by shame,
3) purjur'd - lying; full of blame - greatly to be blamed, very ready to blame others
7) bait - like rat poison or a fish taking the bait.
9) Mad - possibly should be 'Made' - ie: "made....extreme"
11) in proof - in the experiencing; prov'd - once experienced.