How to feel dignified and content

As some will know, I've been considering my age and whether or not I'm really 'grown up' or growing up. I know that I am, but it's mostly a weird complex in which I'm not sure that I'm growing up the way I want to. However, occasionally I notice small choices that I make and how they make me feel and view the world. I notice this most with the things that I surround myself with.

1. My travel suitcase- I bought it on sale, because I don't have an actual travel bag, and this one is tapestry with botany and insects and as far as objects go, I kind of fell in love with it. It's the perfect travel size, just big enough to fit a week's worth of clothing, necessities and books, and whatever else I could possibly need. For some reason, buying it gave me hope. It reminds me of all the opportunities and the places I'll go. Recently I've been toying with the idea of moving elsewhere for summers, but at the moment, the only place I can think of is New York. It's been possessing my mind. Swirls of Coney Island, arts museums, strange plays and performance art, books and literature... Everything haunts me and clings to my mind, stating with absolute certainty that it would be a good idea. However, New York is expensive, so I'm currently just aiming for a ten day trip, so that I can feel it out and see if I like it. I think that reading Catcher In The Rye is further embedding New York City into my mind. This bag fills me with hope whenever I look at it. It's kind of like how I'm filled with wonder and adoration when I look at things that my Grandmother has given me, or the awe I get when I see old photographs of my parents. I guess I'm really fortunate to have the parents and family that I do. Both my mother and father have led extraordinary lives, and a lot of it happened when they were the age I am now. I should remind myself of that. Really, my life is interesting and I am happy with the direction it's going. Maybe I just don't look at it from an outsider's perspective often enough.

Any ways, I digress. This suitcase makes me feel grown up, but in a good way. It makes me feel like I could be on a train station platform, waiting for a train to some mysterious and beautiful place. That is a good feeling.

2. Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger- I had never read any of J.D. Salinger's writing until my cousin in the U.K. gave me two of his books. Franny and Zooey and another which I cannot remember the title of. I absolutely adored Franny and Zooey. For whatever reason, I connected with it a great deal, and I finished it in less than two days (though, it is a thin book, so maybe that's not as impressive). I've been craving to have that sense of connection to a novel again. This prompted me to buy Catcher In The Rye. I find that, even though it is more expensive, I prefer to buy books. I like buying a cheap paperback and being able to keep it in my pocket, but not have to worry about the state in which it would be returned. I do like owning massive hard cover books, but those are more for references. Paperbacks are the novels that I read on the bus, that tend to make me laugh and cry and settle into deep thought. They are the books that I can have in my messenger bag, and I pull them out on the bus. A scrap of paper acts as a bookmark, and even though I have the best intentions of reading, I tend to read and sentence, and that single sentence sends my mind reeling into thought. I just sit on the bus with my nose in the book, the pages against my cheek, staring outside of the dirty window into memories and emotions that are not visible. The paperback novels are often cheap versions of books that I read in high school, and fell in love with. Give me characters like Scout and Winston Smith. I've realized that I don't particularly like fantasy novels or things that are so beyond my world. I would much rather sink into a story so real that I feel like I could have met the characters, or even passed them on the street. The books they assign you in high school really are quite good. People just don't think that they are because they were forced to read them, under the watchful eye of a teacher they didn't particularly like.

Reading Catcher In The Rye has taken me back to how I feel when I read a book. I mean, being so immersed in a book and so connected with every word on every page that I just melt into that world. It's wonderful. It's also nice to have a book that I can read on the bus. It takes me back to being on the underground trains in London, and reading the books that my cousin suggested and pushed into my hands. Incidentally, the books that I read on the bus and train are often my favourites. There's just something nice about reading a book on transit, when the characters do the same every now and then.

3. Fisheye Lens Camera- I believe I've mentioned this before. My beautiful red camera, with its fisheye lens and 35 mm film. I do really like carrying it around, and taking photographs. It reminds me of patience and secrets. And... I quite like that.

All of these things make me feel like how I want to feel all the time. Oddly dignified, colourful, interesting, and strangely like Anne from Anne Of Green Gables. I think it's the bag. I always liked her and her carpet bag that had to be carried a particular way. I could always sympathize with Anne. Mostly because of the particular way of spelling our names.