Beyond What Eyes Can See

 Our eyes can see a great many things; they are given to experience the world. Eyes have defined what really appears to be in front of us. However, there is no defined statement of what is real because what humans believe is most true. How beautiful it is when there is a soft hint of imagination gleaning into our world, for we live and breathe here on in fairyland as we make of it. In Pages and Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers by Anna James, Tilly and her friends wander inside books and live with the fictional characters that have laid gently in their imagination all along. One day, they realize that they are truly a part of this world. Please don't acknowledge this as a fictional story as I already know you will. All book lovers wander into books and can experience the characters in their countenance. If only our eyes were not so finite, it would have been simple. Tilly goes by the phrase, "Be brave, be curious, be kind." These words have the lessons she learns from her fictional friends. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery teaches bravery, Alice Liddel from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol demonstrates the importance of curiosity, and Sara Crewe from A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett displays a gentle sense of kindness. It is then proven that the stories we read and write create realms that are real and a part of us. In Anne of the Island, Lucy Maud Montgomery writes, "In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shores of "faery lands forlorn", where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart's Desire. And she was richer in those dreams than in reality; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal." The unseen is our interpretation of the things seen as well as a sixth sense that can see and feel far beyond our general senses. One does not need to be a reader, writer, artist, philosopher, or teacher to feel these beauties; they are so easily felt by all if we close our eyes. They are also felt with our eyes wide open. These senses are also experienced through our instincts, which animals use more than humans. Even then, there is a certain point when all living creatures rely on mere instinct. To add on to Tilly's thoughts, fictional characters are more than people on the page, for they are worlds inside us. When I wrote Ambition and Rejection, Charlotte Whister had plunged into my room as I fleshed out her character. She was a living and breathing girl outside of her story. Tilly may feel like an anomaly for having a mother from the so-called real world and a father who is fictional. Helen Keller, a blind and deaf woman that became a renowned author and activist, had made it an acknowledged fact that eyes are not required to read. Helen was taught to read, write, and communicate through her teacher, Anne Sullivan. This remarkable lady, Miss Sullivan had told Helen, "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart." Helen's disability to see and hear may have placed her in darkness for a few years, but she conjured up her light and could experience such lovely pleasures that even those with all senses could not fully feel. The world can take away almost anything from us, but there are a few things we inherently have. Some of these things include thoughts, instincts and feelings, love, and hope. Helen had learned to read and the first word she spoke was water. She wrote a beautiful story, "The Frost King" at the age of eleven about colors. This story was published when she was twelve years old. Even after being accused of plagiarism, it was validated that the story was original in its own way in the mind of Helen and Mark Twain had agreed. In Helen's memoir, The Story of My Life, she writes, "Each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth and murmuring waters, and blindness and deafness cannot rob him of this gift from past generations. This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense- a soul sense which sees, hears, and feels, all in one." She goes on to write, "Thus it is that my friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways, they have turned my limitations to beautiful privileges, and enabled me to watch serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation." Helen could actually see and feel a great many things. During her trip to a park as a teenager, she wrote in a letter, "Once, while we were out on the water, the sun went down over the rim of the earth, and threw a soft, rosy light over the White City." Helen found joy in reading because she could experience the world through the eyes of others. She writes, "In a word, literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends." She writes about infinite abilities, "Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth, Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive Of sunshine and wide air and winged things,  By sympathy of nature, so do I gave evidence of things unseen." She also writes, "Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content." Helen Keller truly had such a picturesque view of the world.  In Tilly's story, Anna James had written, "Are the things in your imagination less real than the things in front of you? Is this rose more real than you? Do the books you've read mean less to you because they haven't really happened to you? Do daydreams at midday or nightdreams at midnight mean nothing?" We must not fear what others think of us. Let us unlock our valiant strength and allow the powers to ruffle its surroundings. We shall jump to the sky's almighty. I will now share a passage written by an anonymous person who does not want to reveal herself no matter how much I ask. We will refer to her as Feline. Mind you, she is quite a descriptive writer who is well known as an author. I read her passage often even when my English teacher thinks her words are drugs. Actually, I am having trouble finding posting her writing on this post because of copyright laws. Therefore, I will have to share a poem I wrote about seeing things. Don't you understand that saucy humor? The anonymous person may have formed an image in your mind. That author is not yet as renowned as I wrote of her. She is still young with a whole life ahead of her. She is no Feline. I am actually this author and it is Shreya Ganguly. There are no copyright laws preventing me to post it here, but it is having trouble being posted in the correct format, so I will have to share it another day. I hope you will enjoy it because it is a scene of sensing the beauty and feeling wonderful things. 

My poem: 

The Pure Fog

Our eyes filled with fairy dust.

Beneath the clear, blue sky.

Our foggy eyes, unable to see.

It cannot be judged by vision.

We could see beyond the skies. 

Gazing into the immortal eyes of belief. 

What an exquisite, starry place can now be formed.