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Category Archives: Petit Passages

Loneliness and solitude

21 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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feelings, life, loneliness, musings, prose, solitude, thoughts, writer, writing

snow tumblr alone girl sad emo winter pale goth ice aestheticWhat an awful word L O N E L I N E S S is! An illness of one, the words ‘illness’ and ‘one’ literally in it, along with ‘lone’ and ‘ill’. The word is most potently representative of its meaning when written in upper case letters spaced far apart, as I saw it on television this morning. Ten letters equal in height, spelling out the bleakest emotional landscape of all. L O N E L I N E S S. ‘I am so lonely, I need somebody’: loneliness is the desire for company and warmth, a shivering stranger pining for that phantom hut in the snow, glowing hearth ‘neath thatched roof under starry sky, the hearth an earthly star to the crescent moon formed by a semicircle of friends conversing jovially in its fiery berth. What warmth; what company. But the word we are discussing here is one of coldness; it even looks cold to the eye. ‘i’ is almost in the middle of the word (L O N E L I N E S S), the smallest letter, taking the least space. I suppose existence becomes faint when one cannot put oneself in relation to others. If there is no-one to recognise you for who and what you are, how and why do you exist? There is no ‘u’ in loneliness. Loneliness is an illness of one.

S O L I T U D E, on the other hand, trumps soldier with attitude, the word S O L D I E R almost entirely in it. There is an ‘i’ and a ‘u’, an ‘ode’ and a ‘soul’: an ode to your soul. Unlike its pneumonic cousin above (L O N E L I N E S S), it is stoic and unwavering in appearance. It does not cry out for company. Instead, S O L I T U D E celebrates the strength and freedom wielded by a company of one. Even far apart and in upper case the letters look sturdy and well-defined, rooted in confidence. S O L I T U D E commands not attention but admiration, self-admiration: ‘I am my own person, large and full of multitudes’. It is the friend of quiet contemplation and artistic expression—one reads, paints, writes, composes best when alone. ‘I am a complete, wholesome soul all by myself, my existence needs no reassurance for I am sure of myself,’ the word announces, proud on a podium.

Solitude is a closed fist punching the air, loneliness is a limp hand begging to be held. I punch the air. I march to the beat of my own drums. To the steady beat of my heart I say to myself: ‘I am, I am, I am’.

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Back again

07 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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academia, learning, memoir, memories, memory, prose, studying, university, writer, writing

university tumblr academic studying vintage aesthetic

At first it felt as though my old self would simply resume: that I was on pause, would start again should I tap the forward triangle floating above my head. I visited old haunts, striding knowingly, fingers trailing dry sandstone walls and withered vines, broken Roman pillars (it is winter within and without): Continue reading →

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An afternoon’s worth

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Beauty, Petit Passages

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aesthetics, art, classic music, music, prose, writer, writing

light tumblr

Light is fading, and with it the sun’s warmth. The room—golden and glorious just then—seems bigger and impossibly empty without that radiant guest. Drenched of the life it bestowed upon them for that brief, sacred moment, what adorned the room now shrunk in size. They will swell again, in size and in beauty, Continue reading →

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Max Errman, “Desperata: Prose for a Way Out of Life”

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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anxiety, desiderata, escape, life, max ehrmann, modernity, poet, poetry, prose, writer, writing

bear illustration.jpgWent to bed last night with the realisation that all the world’s a sham, except maybe the art of bread-making. Supplying fresh wholesome handmade loaves to the local community, donating what’s left at the end of the day to charity. Betty’s Bakery. No! That means Continue reading →

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On leaving the art gallery

16 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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art, art gallery, greek mythology, literature, prose, writer, writing

rodinI loathed to leave the gallery. In the darkening light of dusk its magnificence expanded outwards, casting an enchanted aura over its surroundings. Even the parklands opposite where I walked became magic at its touch. Still I walked, stopping every so often to glance backwards, whereupon I beheld with marvellous longing the architecture to which I could return time and again. The consequence of my backward glances, I am happy to announce, was that I was simply very late for supper. Had I been a hero in a love story and the art gallery my deceased beloved—I am sure you have all heard of the poor chap—it would have been lost to me forever.

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Youth

02 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by Betty Zhang in Opinion, Petit Passages

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change, empowerment, english, inspiration, literature, Opinion, poem, poet, prose, writer, writing, youth

indie-tumblr

Youth is vitality, excess collagen, fluids and oil from our pores. Our restlessness feels edgeless like the galaxy, scary and exciting like exploding stars, new like unopened books.

Youth is arrogance—we act as if we invented sex, and mock the old for their weary bones. But they were once young like us and was it not from them you and I and our parents sprang?

Youth is rage, against our predecessors’ norms, against our parents’ wishes, against the preachers and teachers who know not what it is to be young today no more than theirs did, against our own better judgement.

Youth is power: it is power harnessed from our vitality, arrogance, and rage. We can change the future because it is ours—because, if not us, who?

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Summertime Sadness

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Beauty, Petit Passages

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lana del rey, literature, music, musician, poem, poet, poetry, summer, writer, writing

carmen-lana-del-rey-roses-vintage-Favim.com-1725863.gif

Listening to Lana Del Rey on summer nights: a wearable mood / like slipping on a cloak of indulgent sadness / a shift of persona, swift as Mystique / a sinking and falling into place, like being swallowed into the depths of a dark rose, petals spiralling into infinity / memories unfolding, genuine or embellished, shrinking and blooming like youth on rewind / FIN.

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Who said demise was for the fall, and death winter?

25 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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death, nature, poet, poetry, prose, romanticism, summer, writer, writing

flower girl tumblr.jpegI should like to die on a splendid day at the height of summer, under a radiant blue sky on a bed of flowers. If it were not for my morbid longing for the picturesque, I should not mind expiring as wildlife do, Continue reading →

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Sorry

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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anxiety, books, health, life, literature, poem, poetry, prose, thoughts, writer, writing

book-flatlay

‘Sorry,’ I said to the cashier at the art store because I took too long to grab my bags, of which I was carrying four. And I was sorry. ‘Sorry,’ I said again on my way out, because the shop was crowded with shelves and people and I was carrying one too many bags. I did not bump into anyone or knock anything off but still I was sorry for the time and space I took when exiting. And I was sorry many times before then because the aisles were narrow and I had to get through or somebody else had to get through, either way I was sorry I troubled the other shoppers. I went to a thrift shop next and I was sorry there too, sorry for the fact that the shirt I tried on did not suit me, sorry that I did not make a purchase and they have to put it back. ‘Sorry, that’s okay, thank you so much,’ I managed, this time at the music store, because the clerk could not locate the vinyl I wanted. I was sorry that he tried for me and wasted his time when he could be doing something else. Then I was sorry I was sorry because I had started to feel real bad for myself, because the only reason I kept apologising was this—this idea that I was unworthy of their services, someone who did not deserve their products or anything for that matter. And Uber—the convenience of it all and the patience of that particular driver—had me sorry too, four times if I remember it correctly: twice for having too many bags and twice more for being confused as to where he was parked; and he did not know this but I was sorry for seating at the back too, I would have ridden shot gun had I fewer bags to carry but he probably thought I was protecting myself from him. I was sorriest when I got home and looked at all that I had bought because I thought I did not deserve them. But later that night when I was well-rested and the boulder of existence lifted from my chest new copies of Hemingway, Pushkin and Yeats were read and felt and understood and I was not sorry anymore, I was soaring.

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Unwritten

18 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Betty Zhang in Petit Passages

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anxiety, books, films, humor, literature, mental health, personal, prose, writer, writing

JAPAN-US-ENTERTAINMENT-CINEMA-GODZILLA

Sitting at the corner of my mind is a sprawling metropolis of abandoned ideas and incomplete drafts, all of them feverishly conceived. Some are penned in haste and barely legible, others the result of fingers tap dancing on screen. Continue reading →

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