What I Did on My Vacation

So I was gone for nine days.  Nine days away from home, from my job, from my schoolwork.  Nine days of heaven, three states away.

And because I've been on the subject of fairy-tales lately, I wanted to discuss a motif that pops up from time to time in some fairy-tales, and more modern, realistic work that is inspired by them.  You see, one thing that comes up is the notion of "hiding one's heart" (sometimes one's soul, but usually the heart.  I suppose hearts, technically tangible, are easier to hide).  Sometimes the heart is hidden in a place you don't expect, like in a person's heel instead of his chest, or in a dusty trunk somewhere in a forgotten attic of a crumbling house.  Occasionally, it is broken into several pieces, and hidden all over...making the owner, of course, harder to kill.

Of course, it is usually the monsters, the villains that hide their hearts.  They are the ones that need to fear death, aren't they?  However, while I do not consider myself any kind of monster (except maybe Animal from The Muppets because he's pretty rad), I have split my heart in twain, as some dippy poet would say, and I have hidden half of it in my heaven that is three states away.  While it does hurt to be missing half my heart, the guardian to whom I entrusted it is very careful--in fact, he is more careful with my own heart than I am--and so I am invincible.