This afternoon while I was reading parts of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, I surprised myself that I started to cry in the middle of her July 15, 1944, entry. The first tears came from the sadness of what was done to her, especially because the secret annex was discovered the following month, but a lot also came from the pain I felt on how she was writing about her inner self and opening up to others. For me, it's a lot from wishing someone in particular would be willing to open up to me.
On a more positive note, I liked being reminded that she kept a Book of Beautiful Sentences, which was made up of passages she liked from what she was reading. I sometimes do that but want to be more organized and regular about it.
One of the people I follow on Facebook, Rebecca Solnit, posted today about research indicating that using paper maps can be better for our minds. She quoted T.S. Eliot:
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
From "Little Gidding," last of the Four Quartets (short interpretation of those poems: "Four Quartets: TS Eliot’s struggle to make the real world right in a spiritual realm" by Roz Kaveney in The Guardian, May 19, 2014) These lines remind me of my post about labyrinths in Baltimore.
According to the Poetry Foundation biography of T.S.Eliot, "He himself thought Four Quartets his greatest achievement and Little Gidding his best poem."
It goes on: "Whereas his early poems had been centered on the isolated individual, Four Quartets is centered on the isolated moment, the fragment of time that takes its meaning from and gives its meaning to a pattern, a pattern at once in time, continuously changing until the supreme moment of death completes it, and also out of time. Since the individual lives and exists only in fragments, he can never quite know the whole pattern; but in certain moments, he can experience the pattern in miniature."
According to the Poetry Foundation biography of T.S.Eliot, "He himself thought Four Quartets his greatest achievement and Little Gidding his best poem."
It goes on: "Whereas his early poems had been centered on the isolated individual, Four Quartets is centered on the isolated moment, the fragment of time that takes its meaning from and gives its meaning to a pattern, a pattern at once in time, continuously changing until the supreme moment of death completes it, and also out of time. Since the individual lives and exists only in fragments, he can never quite know the whole pattern; but in certain moments, he can experience the pattern in miniature."
Starting last night, I was re-reading Anne Frank because today, June 12, would have been her 90th birthday.
Some interesting links to explore:
1. Anne Frank House in Amsterdam:
A. "The complete works of Anne Frank" (about them--not the full actual texts)
This page has a lot of interesting information, such as on her "Book of Beautiful Sentences" (passages she liked from what she was reading) and her starting to write "The Secret Annex" (a book that drew from her diary and she intended for people to read after the war)
B. Visual tour of the secret annex
2. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
A. Anne Frank biography in the Holocaust Encyclopedia
B. "Anne Frank: The Writer"
(exhibit hosted by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum) https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/anne-frank/htmlsite/index.html
