Kingston by Starlight

“…all lovers have a duty to be generous to those that share their emotions.”

Seriously.  Can you have a crush on a book?  ‘Cause I’ve got nothing but big cartoon hearts for Kingston by Starlight.

I don’t know if its reading about a tropical locale as I shiver under a down comforter hiding from the wind chill that “feels like zero” according to Al Roker.  Maybe I’m just a sucker for stories involving bad-ass drag-wearing, cutlass-carrying, rum-swilling, fist-pumping female pirates living their lives of adventure.  I suppose the copious quantities of Benadryl I’ve consumed in the past thirty-six hours might be influencing my judgment a tidge, too.

“We stumble through our youth like fools in blinding sunlight, and, when twilight comes, we remember the day and exult that we got even one thing right in our vast and bless’d and inexcusable ignorance.”

It’s filled with such moving and beautiful passages.  I want to build a ship out of the book’s beauty and float away on the sea, occasionally diving into the restless waves just so I can gaze on such beauty from afar, but always returning to the vessel of loveliness to revel in its every detail.  Such is the beauty of Christopher John Farley’s tale.

“In every relationship, something in someone dies, and it is almost invariably within the woman.”

It actually made me a little sad when I realized the writer was a he.  I would have expected such insights could only come from a woman.  Farley is surprisingly insightful and profound.  Fortunately he isn’t funny so I don’t have to leave Rocco after all.

Whatevs.  The moral of the story is I like this book.  A lot.  A lot, a lot.  So I will share another lengthy quote to bookend your weekend.  Ta-frickin-dah.

In the voyage of our lives, there is a shadow-line, before which our thoughts are focused more on opportunities to be gain’d, and beyond which our concerns are ever after more concentrated on dreams that have slipped from our grasp. And so our ship sails on, carried by a sadder wind than it was before it transversed the divide. Ahh — the people we could have been haunt us like ghosts; we see ourselves with other lovers, in other countries, kinds and queens of nations of our own imagination. There can be little joy in living when one resides in a graveyard of passed lives. All we need, by my faith, is this: to have a life that’s worth a story. For who are we but the tales we tell? Bodies wither, wealth erodes, the things we build inevitably fall to ruin, and the inventions we devise are eventually surpassed, for such is the nature of things scientific. Only stories last forever, or at least as long as there are voices around to tell them, which is plenty long enough.

—Christopher John Farley

I suppose it isn’t a real stretch to see how that quote might resonate with a crazy independent gal recovering from a little life changing incident by exploring her new favorite medium of writing, eh?

Look Mom — a whole post without the word vagina.  Oh, wait…my bad.  Whoops.