create

 

      To preface this, I will say that Youtube is a beautiful thing. This afternoon while I was writing a very boring paper for school, listening to one movie theme after another, I realized that my entire homeschooled career would have been 99% less interesting and bearable if it hadn't been for Youtube and its unending musical possibilities. Also, autoplay. You never know what's going to come on next. You discover the most beautiful gems (like this one that's got me walking around with stars in my eyes) (I just want to listen to that song over and over and over).

    Today the music made me think. I write. I don't know why, I just do. I have all my life. I'm really bad at it but once in a while I crank out something really good (I only show the good stuff on this blog, so you all think I'm amazing, but actually...I'm not). I'm terrible and yet I keep trying -- even when I hate it -- even when there doesn't seem to be any point or any reason to keep going.

    So...why do I write? Why do we all have that one thing we love to do that we couldn't live without? I think maybe everyone does, even if they haven't found what it is yet. It's some sort of need to create. Why do we have this crazy urge to make our own form of beauty when everyone else and their second-cousin has already written the book, made the movie, recorded the song, stitched the quilt? It's all there for us to enjoy, but no, that's not enough. We've got to do it ourselves, our own way, and we don't feel complete until we do.

    I believe it's because we are born of a Creator. We are all made in the image of God and we are His beautiful work. He was the first One to create beauty, and He planted that same seed of desire in all of us. Because of Him we have to do this.

    Those are my thoughts. How do you feel about it?

~Emma

 

backseat

August 28

All I wanted was to be in the backseat of that truck.

You knew that. I was in the truckbed with all the other kids, and you were up front, and there was one more seat left. You turned around and looked at me, so I slid in through the back window even though I was wearing a skirt and my underwear could probably be seen from some angle. But I didn't care because I would have done anything to be in that truck. You knew that, and you knew why.

I was one girl in four boys. And there he was, right in front of me behind the wheel. He started up the truck and we both held our breath. The big rattly thing rumbled out the driveway, leaving a huge cloud of exhaust and a bunch of running kids in its wake, and I felt more than rightly satisfied that I was the one sitting in the backseat of the truck, in full view of his red head, and not her.

The gears buzzed into place while he shifted without looking. A little ways down the road we turned into the church parking lot and he took it around in a circle. My heart rate was already through the sky, I didn't need any more. But then he crushed the brake and the truck spun around and dust rose like we were in a rodeo ring, and I clung to your arm so tight I must've cut the blood circulation off. You had that look on your face, like maybe we were going to die, but we were going to have the most fun ever doing it.

He looked back at me from the driver's seat and grinned and then I did die.

The test drive was complete and so was my life forever after. Back to the house, we spilled out of the truck and you and I looked at each other without saying a word. We knew we'd just seen something legendary. We knew it was an honor. And we knew exactly what the other was thinking because after all, you were the one told me to get in the backseat.

Anyhow, girls don't forget stuff like that.

________________________

     They say only rednecks are best friends with their cousins, but that's okay because I guess we kind of are. Check out Henry's youtube channel Henry Williams and help make him famous because he'd like that.

~Emma