Personal Essay - Tumblr Posts
Before The Journey, The Heroine Reflects, Pt. 2
Before The Journey, The Heroine Reflects, Pt. 2
One doesn’t simply go on a journey. A journey is a culmination of days and weeks, yearnings and dreams, quiet moments, and frustrating moments. Journeys are the fruit of many mistakes and many triumphs, of figuring it out and losing your way. The Heroine had a whole life before she came to this point, this point of journeying, and she can’t help but think of how she got here… I am on this…
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Before The Journey, The Heroine Reflects Pt. 3
Before The Journey, The Heroine Reflects Pt. 3
For the New Year, the village comes together in a clash of languages and foods, traditions, and lights to wish away the year. There is excitement in the air, also a touch of melancholy as all that was lost and all those who were lost are remembered. Tears and laughter, sparkling wines and tender touches, frigid air and songs all wash over the Heroine as she thinks about the year. She has learned…
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Dancing Around the Point...Again
Dancing Around the Point…Again
Ever since I started my blog, I’ve harbored this feeling in the back of my mind that said, “well, this isn’t quite right.” I’m so familiar with this thought haunting my writing that I didn’t give it much credence. Imposter Syndrome. Self-doubt. The echo of past criticisms that reverberate even though all context is lost to time. This time the voice felt different. This persistent nagging held…
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Ave Atque Vale, My Love
I was in the middle of writing two other blog posts. I was coming home from work and ready to make dinner. I hadn’t spoken to her since six thirty that morning when I kissed her on the forehead and told her to get some rest, that I would see her when I got off. On January 20th, my great-grandmother, the beautiful, kind, and incredibly strong-willed, Hattie Lee Boards went Home to Glory, to a…
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Just Watch Me Overthink
I had several entries I was going to post by now. They were honest, honest in a way I haven’t been with myself, ever, I think. But… it just wasn’t the right time. I wasn’t in the headspace to share myself with anyone, retreating once again into my shell, that safe place of dreaming I’ve cultivated so well. It’s almost been a month since my Grandmother, my best friend, passed. In that time I have…
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Where I Come From, Where I've Been
When I created this blog, I wanted to document the process of writing my first novel. I wanted to talk about all the ups and downs of creating something personal, especially for the very first time. This will be my first novel. I will never be able to enjoy this beautiful frustration ever again. The next time I write a novel will be with any experience I pick up from this process. That is, if I…
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The Write Stuff
Alright. It’s time. Today is the day. I am finally going to talk about writing! I’m actually oddly excited to talk about writing. I talk about writing all day with my family. They are my #1 partners in storytelling. My mom writes. My sister writes. My brother is an artist who brings things to life for me. Art is the heartbeat of my household. Being a writer is more of a matter of time than if it…
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On Writing: What It Takes to Be a Writer
Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a writer? Sometimes I feel like I’ll really be a writer when I can set up my space: a nice, organized desk with all the trendy trinkets, set up for hours of writing or vlogging. Sometimes I feel like if I buy the perfect notebook and pen– something leather, something in a nice fountain style– then I can finally plot out my entire first novel, even my…
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On Life: It Takes Time
Grief is a tricky, complicated, maddening emotion. It’s always switching back and forth. Sometimes I look at the spot where my grandmother used to sit on the couch and it hits me in the heart, just steals all of my breath, that she is not there. Sometimes moments from the hospital will cloud my mind and I’m right back there, helpless, stunned, struck with the sudden knowledge that my grandmother…
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On Life: What You Learn Before and After College
On August 1, 2022, I was issued an official diploma: a Bachelor of Arts, English from American Public University System. Whoop!!! After 6 years of essays and forums, PowerPoint presentations and tests, I was finally a college graduate. There were meltdowns, sleepless nights, rushing home from work to complete assignments, and questioning if I even needed a degree in the first place. College,…
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On Life: When Life Keeps Moving
Today, I am moving into the fourth house I have ever lived in. For a long time me and my family were looking for the place where we could put down roots and have the space and time to finally recover from some of our crazier moments, from some of the generational ticks and fears we picked up from being poor in rural places. Sometimes, we didn’t have the gas to get to where we needed to go.…
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On Books: Happy Birthday, Harry Potter
Happy 43rd birthday to The Boy Who Lived! Every July 31st I find something Harry Potter centric to do. Drink Butterbeer from my local bookstore. Rewatch a Harry Potter film. Reread the books. Read some fanfiction, look at all the cool fanart and aesthetics online. Wear my favorite Harry Potter t-shirts and jewelry. I spend the day immersed in the Wizarding World. I’m not alone. A quick Google…
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On Life: Returning To The Page
It’s been 3 months since I sat down with the page, and in that time, a lot has happened. On life: In September I turned 28, and I must admit it feels different than any other age I’ve been at. This is the first birthday I have ever celebrated without my beloved great-grandmother. I felt her absence, but I also felt her love. Always bold, always so simple and sweet. I took the week off for my…
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First Post of the Year
I wanted to wait a few days before I wrote down all my dreams and aspirations, vowed to write every single day, and draw, and work out, and knit and somehow work a full time job. I wanted to see what it was I would gravitate to this year. What had I learned last year? What did I value now? What is it that I want to grow immediately? After what happened last January with the passing of my…
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Currer Jean: The Writer
Hello, world! My name is Currer Jean, and I am a writer! For the last eight years I have been working on a young adult series about a holy order of demon slayers who uncover deep seeded mysteries that run from the depths of Hell dimensions to their own holy temples. My influences for this series have always been mythology from all over the world, woven together in a tapestry of a shadow world…
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hi everyone! this is a copy of my most recent work, a short essay titled “butterfly girl”! i wrote it about not fitting in and the realization that not everyone is meant to fit in.
i hope you enjoy, let me know if you’d like to read more :)
If I Can...
I was just helping a student with her homework at my job the other day, and she had to look up a poem and explain to her class what she'd learned about it in the process of studying it. The only problem was that she didn't know what poem she wanted.
We brainstormed. I tried to think of some of my favorite poets and run their most famous pieces by her. Robert Browning was out, since his were so long, and she would have to read the poem aloud.
Eventually, I pulled up Emily Dickinson. One of the first poems that popped up was the following:
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.
-Emily Dickinson
We talked about it for a long time, and she was pleased to understand what it meant and finally understand the rhyme scheme.
Yesterday, she came back to me and said that she picked a Shel Silverstein poem that she really enjoyed anyway, so we practiced that and talked about it and she left feeling pretty happy with it.
She also told me that the essay we had worked on together received an A, as did another short play review. Both of these assignments had caused her a lot of anxiety, and we'd studied and prepared for them over hours.
Even though she hadn't picked the Dickinson poem, it resonates with me especially. I don't always help her get A's, and Goodness knows I mess up a lot of things. I haven't helped a robin, or necessarily spared heartbreak, either. But this one time I helped.
I shall not live in vain.
omg no way not graphic imagery in the essay about the trauma inflicted upon me by the graphic incident
Art & The Heart
Some people don't love deeply because they do not live deeply. If you are not fully present in your own life, you are never truly present in the lives of others.
All depth and emotional fulfillment is only available when we are open, but that requires courage and honesty in the face of the real.
Many people try to avoid feeling until they become numb and lose themselves in banal distractions. Capitalism is built on the premise that the hole in each human heart can be filled with stuff, but sitting with the emptiness is all that heals the wound.
I try to face the darkness in myself and the world with an open heart and an honest mind, but some days that's a lot of work. I am only human after all.
On those days, when I am closed and full of denial, I cannot be creatively successful. But, when I remember to be genuine and let myself feel what I have been running from, then I am free to create beautiful things. And even if those things are sad, they are beautiful because they are authentic.
All good art arises from emotional honesty in the present moment.
© JM Tiffany 2024
Evermore - The “Red Wine” Album
"I made you my temple, my mural, my sky Now I'm begging for footnotes in the story of your life" (Taylor Swift, "tolerate it")
Evermore has always been the slight lean on needle for me when it comes to the sister albums, Folklore and Evermore. Not to say that Folklore is any less or is missing any component that’s not on Evermore; it’s how those components are implemented that makes the thin distinction for me.
There is comfort and closeness in Evermore, where you can sip on some coffee while reading the morning newsletter. Or you can be sitting near a desk, working while the lyrics float around your room and the dark shades swirl around your eyes. Perhaps as droplets fall onto the page as you take in the day that has passed. Shelving away the chronicles of films you lived to act day to day
It’s knowing what betrayal feels like after a long day of trying to make amends, learning how to move on without their side of the story, knowing when you’re the one who made the curtains fall inadvertently, standing up for yourself and others, remembering those from a faded recollection, learning how to grieve the person you cherish so much but feel unfulfilled with, and learning to try and open up again to others. It’s an album of self-reflection, an album that you can sit with and watch the world with autumn lighting on it.
Evermore is the cinnamon—the bitter mahogany carpenter life—streams into the ears nicely and hits the heart with a fluorescent wave of every emotion on the spectrum. And I, for one, love cinnamon. I also like to think Evermore is dark chocolate while Folklore is white/milk chocolate, and while I do love white/milk chocolate, dark chocolate takes my heart every time. The sweetness, sourness, and bitterness of Evermore make it so much more engaging for me. I love it, especially as an Evermore girlie.
