Post by Hazel Augustine May on Jun 12, 2012 1:45:54 GMT -5
I know there's California, Oklahoma
And all of the places I ain't ever been to but
Down in the valley with whiskey rivers[/color][/i]
These are the places you will find me hidin'
These are the places I will always go[/color]
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It was beautiful, the library. Don't get her wrong, it was tiny. But it was beautiful nonetheless. Quiet, calm. The polar opposite of every other setting in Hazel's life. Her home was full of noise. The sounds of drinking and giving up long ago. The sounds of struggling and chaos. The sounds of a family that had been splintered and pieced back together, grown stronger despite the absence which could be so obviously felt. Sounds of love and love lost, unanswered questions and responsibility, and above all the sounds of a young family trying to make it work when they had so little. The hospital was full of noise. The sounds of grieving and begging, anger and denial; faith, hope, joy and more often then not, loss. She loved her job, she did. But it was hard. It was hard to watch people wither away into dust. It was even harder to watch the people that cared for them leave that place with nothing but pain and someone slipping through their fingers they were defiantly trying to hold on to. Some people believe in fate. Some people rely on destiny, it's all in God's plan, to make it through it all. Some people turn from faith toward cold hard reason. Some people believe in the absurdity of life; it's all random. Hazel....she believed in hard work, and people. She believed in fighting, and doing thongs for yourself. And when there was no more fight left, she didn't know what she believed in. Four years of school had never really prepared her for her job. Sure, she could place IV's and give meds, read charts. But how do you comfort the dying? God, she was trying. But she was only 22! Still so young. Older than most her age, life wizened her. But still so unprepared for what she had been thrown into.
So she turned to books. For answers. For solitude. For escape. For quiet. The library was her small oasis in this small town. She didn't have much time to herself, what with working full time and then some at the hospital and caring for her three siblings who still lived at home. But they were all older now, a relief and a scare. Hazel no longer had to stand over their shoulder every second of every day but they were off on their own for the most part. She had built her whole life around raising those kids, and when that was gone, what was left? Everything she had done, every choice was for them. Was she even anything without them? She tried not to think about it, besides they still needed her now anyway. Not as much as a few years ago, but yet still.
It was nice to have a few hours a week for Hazel to pursue something that was just her own. She had her garden, and she would play the piano. But above all, books. Every chance she got, she tucked herself into the sunny corner, her favorite worn in spot in the library, book in hand. Sometimes fiction, sometimes a memoir, or Shakespeare, philosophy, history book, or book of science. She read all she could get her hands on. Trying to escape the noises that surrounded her, trying to find answers to her problems in the ramblings and problems of others. They helped. They worked. Sometimes it seemed as if books were her best friend. Since she had so little time for friends of the human kind. At least those that she was close enough to that they could understand, inform and comfort her like Dave Eggers or Henry David Thoreau could.
That's where she found herself on that warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. In her favorite, familiar spot in the library, in the arms of the latest John Green novel, whose main character shared her name. Hazel paused from her reading, looking up to examine the world around her for a minute. She checked the phone tucked into her purse in case Hope or Hayden or Hattie had called. They hadn't. She wasn't due home for another hour and a half before she would start dinner and perhaps try and peel her father off the couch. Until then she could forget them and jump into the alternate world of John Green's Hazel Lancaster.
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tagged:Open
lyrics: Down In The Valley-The Head & The Heart
outfit: We do it over and over and over again
status: donezoid
notes: 721 words[/font]
