Little Prince - Part Two - Chapter 27

This is the final part of the book. I want to share it, because we all have our own Little Princes somewhere out there that we miss dearly. We all have someone that when we look at the sky in the night, we wonder if they are looking at the same stars as we. We all have someone that when we think they do, we are suddenly happy, and when we think they don't, we are suddenly sad. 

And now six years have already gone by...
I have never yet told this story. The companions who met me on my return were well content to see me alive. I was sad, but I told them: "I am tired."
Now my sorrow is comforted a little. That is to say-- not entirely. But I know that he did go back to his planet, because I did not find his body at daybreak. It was not such a heavy body... and at night I love to listen to the stars. It is like five hundred million little bells...
But there is one extraordinary thing... when I drew the muzzle for the little prince, I forgot to add the leather strap to it. He will never have been able to fasten it on his sheep. So now I keep wondering: what is happening on his planet? Perhaps the sheep has eaten the flower...
At one time I say to myself: "Surely not! The little prince shuts his flower under her glass globe every night, and he watches over his sheep very carefully..." Then I am happy. And there is sweetness in the laughter of all the stars.
But at another time I say to myself: "At some moment or other one is absent-minded, and that is enough! On some one evening he forgot the glass globe, or the sheep got out, without making any noise, in the night..." And then the little bells are changed to tears...

Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has-- yes or no?-- eaten a rose...
Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes...
And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!

This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared.
Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognize it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.

Little Prince - Part One - Chapter 21

Little Prince is still one of my favorite books of all time. Whenever I read it, it doesn't matter which state I'm in, I'm always filled with ease and comfort. It's incredible how you can learn so much about life from a children's book. And this, Chapter 21, is one of my favorite chapters:

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," said the fox.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean-- 'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean-- 'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean-- 'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me..."

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.

"On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on this planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.

But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please-- tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me..."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me-- like that-- in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you-- the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have spent for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have spent for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

A Must for a Girl's Blog: The Beast.

If I were to ask Gollum a riddle, I'd ask this: What's small, cute and pink? Yes, a uterus! But, we girls know that things are actually not what they seem to be from outside.. or inside. The uterus is in fact deadly. It is a nightmare living inside us that we can't get rid of. It sleeps quietly until it's ready to pounce, and once every month, it wakes up and shreds you into pieces. And that's why I call it "The Beast".  

When The Beast is almost ready to wake up, you experience some physical and emotional changes. The physical ones are easy to describe: your face is covered with acne like a teenager, you gain weight, your breasts grow one cup bigger than they normally are, which makes you want to toss your bras in the garbage can, because they do not fit anymore. 

As for the emotional ones, they are not really that easy to describe, because during this time, you transform into something else, but I'll try anyway: You're super jealous. You're easily offended. You're extremely moody. You're very unhappy and you don't know why. You're restless. You make a huge deal out of smallest things, unlike other times. Your libido goes berserk. You get too emotional. You realize how much you love everyone and you start to cry. 10 minutes later, you realize how much you hate everyone and you continue to cry. Then, you accuse yourself of being a bad person for thinking those things and you cry some more. After a while, you don't even know why you're crying anymore, you just do, because you feel like it. You become too attached and dependent on things and people, and this makes you feel weak. You feel like you're the ugliest person in the world. You become obsessed with the things you couldn't achieve in life and think you are a failure, which fucks up your self esteem and self confidence. You get angry quite easily. You hurt the ones you love the most. You yell at everyone. You burst into laughter and end up crying. You feel like you are a mentally ill person who needs to be locked up in a hospital. But fear not my fellow warrior! You're not a maniac. You're just having PMS.

When the PMS ends and your period begins, if you think you've overcome another month, you're dead wrong, my friend. Because the most dangerous part starts now: The Beast attacks, and it's time for you to meet the worst of the worstest pain in the world. On your period, while writhing in pain on your bathroom floor, there will be a time where you'll doubt if you're having your period or actually dying. Every month, at least once, you'll think "maybe I had a disease or a tumor all along and I didn't notice it's symptoms and now it strikes and this is how I die." And those cramps, nausea and backache will be so unbearable that you will wish you were dead.

But why does The Beast do this? We know that violence is in its nature, however, The Beast actually wants you to have a hundred babies. Because in its own way, The Beast thinks this will make you happy. And when it realizes that it's not gonna happen this month either, The Beast feels betrayed. Because another month's work is for nothing again. With the anger running through its veins, The Beast thrusts its paws into you fiercely.

Although you can't really tame The Beast, you can still compromise with it, try to make it docile. Eat a lot of chocolate, ice cream and candies. Also, lock yourself up into your room, and never go out unless it's really necessary. Don't even answer your phone. Don't chat with people online, either. Spare people of the inconvenience you'll cause. One day, you will be free of The Beast's curse again, but for now, The Beast is all you have. And until then, together, you will be The Beauty and The Beast. Ha! Ha-ha. Punny. Or not.