the decrescendos. the fiddling. the cello.

my stars.

Lewis’s Silver Chair is not my favorite of the series, but this passage from Jill’s (mis)adventures in Giant Land has always had a peculiar hold on my imagination:

If you could swim (as Jill could) a giant bath is a lovely thing. And giant towels, though a bit rough and coarse, are lovely too, because there are acres of them. In fact you don’t need to dry at all, you just roll about on them in front of a fire and enjoy yourself.

Is it strange that drying off after a swim is one of my very favorite things? C gave me a fluffy lavender towel for my birthday because she knows me entirely too well. The word acres in reference to a towel is still one of the most delightful bits I’ve ever read.

Juxtapose the towel bit with this quote from the Four Loves:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

Sometimes I look around my yellow room, at the things I like, teal watercolors, green mugs of tea, crackle candles, overflowing bookshelves, and english wool blankets, and I begin to rethink my love of the giant towels. Jill was, after all, in giant land rolling around in a giant towel as a direct consequence of disobedience. And, although she didn’t know it rolling around in the towel, she was shaping up to be a delectable hors d’oeuvre for the giant feast. I do not wish to be a giant snack, acres of towel or no.