Past, Beauty, and Thunderstorms

It's late and I'm feeling particularly author-like. So I'll spew out my thoughts and emotions, some have been waiting to come out for some time now while others are just recent.

I'm thinking of many things at the moment. Of course, it's partially because of the lateness of the hour and the number of books I've allowed myself to read- and some I've forbidden.

Two things are first and foremost.

The influence of the past on the present. I'm seeing the pictures I found of my dear brother. My only brother, the only one I've ever known besides my ever-loving Heavenly Brother. My dearest earthly brother. I was blessed with his presence and the promise of his care, but it did not turn out as it was supposed to, as everyone says older siblings are to be. All because of "unspeakable" horrors committed in the past, never to be understood fully because they were just that "unspeakable". How can you come to understand something you are not taught to understand? Of course, there is still hope for my brother, still an opportunity for him to come back, to find peace. But if only he would let go.

Whenever I do think of my brother my thoughts always lead to this brick wall, this final obstacle: If only he would let go of the past and find faith in the future.

I pray for him to feel peace nearly every night. I wonder if it even works.

I wonder if he did not have the natural chemical imbalances in his brain if coming back would be easier.

And always I know that these thoughts are useless. All I can do is hope he finds peace either way, and maybe sometimes allow myself to also hope for the day he stands with me. That we will not be separated in such a way in the eternities, that he will find forgiveness from himself and God before the time comes for that final judgement.

At this point I usually start hurting in my chest area, my throat starts closing up- you know, all that.

My other foremost thought is a little more worldly- the difference of ugliness and beauty.

One of my favorite story re-telling that I love to read is any form of Beauty and the Beast. I think a part of it is because you have so much to change and expand on. In some versions he stays a beast at the end, others he becomes a handsome prince. Sometimes he gets his family back, sometimes not. Sometimes the servants are simply invisible, sometimes transformed into furniture (though why the poor servants of such a supposedly terrible prince would have to suffer too is beyond me). Sometimes he's a magician, too. In others, he's not even guilty of being ugly on the inside when he is enchanted, only misunderstood and blame heaped upon the spell caster. Then you have the girl. Sometimes she's ugly, sometimes beautiful, sometimes simply plain. Other times she is an only child, or she has two sisters who are just as spoiled as the beast is supposed to start out as, or sometimes her sisters are promised to lovers lost at sea or falling in love with a local man. The appearance of the sisters themselves is varied, sometimes they are just as beautiful as Beauty, others they are plain and hate her or plain and love her, sometimes they make fun of her for being ugly and with such a deceiving nickname.

(Sorry I got carried away I could go on, but I won't.)

But you see, even as I try to think up new versions, it continues to bug me. I don't even really know what it is about it that irritates me. Maybe the way the Beast in some versions seems to watch Beauty and her family a bit too obsessively, but that's not really it either. Now that I'm thinking about it some more, I know what it is.

In almost every version I've read, the Beast in the end transforms back into this beautiful prince. It's as if the spell caster is saying to Beauty, "Good job! You figured it out and somehow fell in love with that disgusting Beast! Here's a beautiful prince for you and all the trouble you've been through."

What a way to undermine your supposed moral lesson.

How in the world is Beauty supposed to remember to look on the inside of people instead of the outside if she ends up with someone who is beautiful in all respects?? And for that matter, how is the Beast supposed to remember to keep his heart pure?

Well, maybe it's a little easier for the two, them being main characters but what about everyone else?

"Oh, I guess that's okay Beauty that you had to go spend so much time in an empty enchanted castle with a great Beast because now you're married to this strapping young lad and who cares about what he looked like before? He's obviously a good man, him being so handsome!"

She's being rewarded for good behavior with this transformation, like it's a bonus, "You get the man you love AND he's handsome!"

What the heck is that?

Why should it matter? Honestly, I hope I wouldn't trust that beautiful man who took the place of my beloved Beast.

I think that's why I like the version Rose Daughter the most by Robin McKinley. (I also love her other version which most people know entitled Beauty)

It gets me thinking about my own thoughts on beauty, and honestly I don't think there's anything that isn't beautiful with time. Beauty isn't really beauty anyway. It's a matter of familiarity. You are exposed to something over a long period of time and judge everything else to that. You come to love that something and anything different form it just isn't good enough. When you are confronted with something so drastically different, you cringe away in fear and misunderstanding. Just as the seamen will look at the crowded forest in panic, the drastically different bone structure of another person will have you backing away in disgust.

So of course Beauty would love Beast over time. And no doubt, if the story were real, in the versions where he becomes handsome in the end Beauty would compare him to her beloved Beast. Maybe she would even come to mistrust him over the years because of how different he looks than her Beast. Who knows what would happen to their marriage.

So maybe I wouldn't mind being Beauty, as long as I got the choice to keep my Beast and not trade him for some pampered prince.


Thunderstorms keep slipping into my thoughts. The wind lashing every which way, never deciding what direction it wants to go, only knowing it wants to rage. Rain falling from brooding, low, and gray clouds so frequently you cannot see ten feet in front of you. Lightening cleaving the sky and making the world come into sudden, erratic bursts of focus and comprehension. Even the heavy, thick heat before the storm, sometimes days in advance. I miss it. Thunderstorms here are weak, paltry things. The drops may be fat, but they are far apart from one another and the lighting so infrequent and the thunder held up around the mountains' crowns. It's like they don't have enough energy in their war getting over the mountains that they simply are too tired to ravage the land properly. I miss that tingle of fear. I miss every part of it.

I am a silly goose who needs to go to bed.

Good night.

White-Nosed Coati/Pizote/Antoon

So! I've decided to feature an awesome animal that I've found.

Name/s: White-Nosed Coati, Pizote, Antoon, Tejon

Habitat: Found mostly in regions shown below. More specifically they are found in canyons of desert mountain forests near water. (They can also be found begging for food in Costa Rica, I found a photo of them hassling a car and its occupants but I couldn't find out if it was a major city. Though presence of asphalt indicates a town at least.)

Behavior:

They're naturally diurnal (awake during the day) They retire to trees at sunset and climb down at dawn to begin foraging. When they're hunted by humans/ when they raid human places for food then they become more nocturnal.

The females (that happen to be way smaller than the males) and immature males group together to make social groups of 6-24 in number (AKA families!) (oh, and the adult males just wander aimlessly ;) ). They clean each other's fur like monkeys with their teeth and claws. Oh! and they talk to each other! How cute is that!? The Young cubs (cubs? really? kits? something like that) are left with baby sitters during the foraging time.

So when they are out during the day, they're actually pretty noisy. They chitter to each other the whole time and they hold their tails up like lemurs do, almost straight up in the air. They forage all day 'cause their appetites never let up and they kinda act like raccoons in that they're nosy (they're actually members of the raccoon family so it makes sense).

They *get busy* in the Spring and give birth 11 weeks later in little rocky niches in woody canyons or in nests they built in palm trees.

Food:

They love fuit and insects the most, but they also eat lizards, roots, nuts, and eggs.

Animals that eat them:

Humans (go figure)

Boas

Raptors

Hunting Cats

Tayas (soon to be featured?)

Random Cool Things:

They are easily domesticated! Also, they raid trash cans and campsites. Also, there is one other member of the species, the Brown-nosed Coati (go figure) and it lives in only South America.

More Accurate/ Detailed information:

Here

Main Sources:

Here

Here

and Here