The Flash

When I was a kid I lived in books. I was shy and lonely and scared and books were my comfort, my friends. Through stories, I lived adventure, I lived beauty. I could be anyone I wanted to be. When I was nine or so I stumbled upon the world of LM Montgomery. While best known for her beloved Anne of Green Gables series, I became bosom buddies with another orphan girl.  Emily Of New Moon opened my eyes to a world of enchantment. She saw things I knew I could see, but felt crazy for feeling it. Emily was a writer. I recently re-visited the first book in the trilogy, and felt like I was reclaiming a part of myself that has always been there but in recent years, I am rediscovering.

“It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty.

Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside- but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond- only a glimpse- and heard a note of unearthly music. This moment came rarely- went swiftly, leaving her breathless with the inexpressible delight of it.

She could never recall it- never summon it- never pretend it; but the wonder of it stayed with her for days. It never came twice with the same thing.

Tonight the dark boughs against the far off sky had given it. It had come with a high, wild note of wind in the night, with a shadow wave over a ripe field, with a greybird lighting on her window sill in a storm, with the singing of ‘Holy, holy, holy’ in church, with the glimpse of the kitchen fire when she had come home on a dark autumn night, with the spirit-like blue of the ice palms on a twilight pane, with felicitous new word when she was writing down a description of something.

And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.”