TToT: Silver, Gold, and That’s So Weird – Go Train Phenomenon, #10Thankful

To drink from the fountain
Of the little you know about love and god

—Sarah Slean

I can’t see silver and gold anymore, but at least Canada still has net neutrality.

Photo caption: Max and Auntie Kerry. My favourite picture, though I cannot see it.

I have been watching many of the holiday programs in the run-up to Christmas: Home Alone, Rudolph, and an old Frosty classic.

My jolly holiday spirit has been waxing and waning this year, all depending on the day, which is why I am still here with my third Christmas season with Ten Things, keeping the gratitude going and written for the record.

It’s funny, that the Christmas song I ended last week’s TToT post with (all about the kind of snow we get here in Canada) and then that is the one Christmas song Sarah Slean chose to perform at her concert that night, the one I am happy to report I got to enjoy. This leads me to my first thankful for this last week before Christmas finally arrives.

Ten Things of Thankful

I’m thankful for the weather holding back, if not the bitter cold, at least the blowing snow.

I live over an hour from Toronto and where most of the concerts are. I am thankful the weather cooperated and that I had family willing to make that trip, to drive me to see Sarah Slean and her band live.

December in Ontario, Canada can be unpredictable, but though it was so bitter cold, I was eventually warm inside the intimate venue, with some lovely music and a good friend.

I’m thankful for a truly uplifting early Christmas gift of a concert, with a friend and fellow writer.

Sarah sang beautifully, with a woman who doubled as backup and cello. She also had a guy on the drums, violins, and viola players. Slean herself, as well as being lead singer, played piano.

She even forgot the first line of her big single (Sarah) and had to stop the music and shout out for the lyrics. It was a sign that nobody’s perfect and we all forget things and make a mistake, if you can even call it that. We are all human. It happens. She has been writing songs for something like twenty years and her audience of all us fans were understanding.

Sarah spoke, in between songs, about the shelter she volunteers at in Toronto and the people she’s met there. The concert was raising money for food for Christmas for
St. Felix Centre on Facebook.

She spoke of the snap judgments we are all guilty of making in our daily lives, using one of many hashtags during the evening (#GOTrainPhenomenon) for what happened the night it was just her and one scary looking man on a GO Train. When you’re trapped on a moving vehicle, you have nowhere to run and hide, which can open your eyes in unexpected ways.

She considers herself something of a #SongWitch for what happens to her when a set of lyrics and piece of music come to her and become something special.

Her lyrics are heartbreakingly beautiful and wise.

Sarah Slean – Perfect Sky

I’m thankful my friend and guest (her birthday being the next day) and I could talk, even during intermission, and her spirit could be lifted just as mine was.

We struggle with writing, at times, but we shared our experiences, back and forth. I know we inspired each other to never give up and to continue on this path we’re both on.

It was different songs that spoke to the two of us, but all that matters is we got something special and unique out of it.

Mine was the first song Sarah sang, about there never being a perfect sky and right away I was listening. She had my attention for sure. I am often afraid I will one day no longer even see what sky is, but the message about not waiting for some perfection that will never come was duly noted.

For my friend, it was a song about finding the right words and that endless search to say exactly what it is any of us wants to say.

I’m thankful for more speaking up and activism from a powerful advocate and friend, after an unexpected piece of news.

I went to the Sarah Slean show, happy to avoid hearing the news of the vote in Alabama that I’d been hearing, frankly, too much about.

What happened in that state was and is a smaller scale example of the disbelief I have for who is POTUS right now. It is all so nonsensical and disgusting. I feel like I live in some kind of upside-down world, on a daily basis, even from my semi-regular life here in Canada at this time.

It’s a sign that sure things shouldn’t be assumed/presumed or counted on. It felt like all those who mocked anyone for their confidence in Hillary Clinton winning the presidency, like it was such a sure thing in 2016, were given a taste of their own medicine here in 2017. Cockiness is not such a good attitude to have when it comes to these things.

Enough people, the right people weren’t having it and I will let Kerra speak on the rest.

How black women saved Alabama — and democracy (CNN Opinion)

I am so proud to know her and that she has found this place for her opinions on the fate of her birth country.

I’m thankful for people to check on me when I’ve had a bad day and couldn’t be found.

I stay in touch with someone, as I am on my own a lot, and then I have my bad days when the pain makes me want to sleep and shut out the world.

I appreciate being left to this sometimes, but I know I am always being watched over and protected.

Whether it’s family or neighbour, it is a nice thing to know.

I’m thankful for a pleasant and successful final National Foundation of the Blind Peer Advisor conference call before the holidays.

We are a team in many ways. We support each other in our limitless pursuits. It’s a good group.

We speak, by phone, one Thursday evening each month. This was our evening to hear about holiday plans and traditions. Still, I am the only peer advisor from Canada in the group. One woman calls from Australia.

Maybe we will all meet in person one day.

I’m thankful for such fun kids in my life.

It was a wonderful pre-Christmas Saturday with my niece and nephew.

My niece has herself a dollhouse, which is actually for a family of bunny rabbits. My nephew played with his big sister and her rabbit family.

I sometimes like to join in their games. Other times, I love to just watch and listen as they play. They fight, like siblings often do, but they love to play together too. It’s super sweet to witness the fun they have with each other.

I’m thankful for Chippy.

I believe that is his name, their Elf On The Shelf, who shows up somewhere new every morning leading up to Christmas.

My niece and nephew enjoy looking for him in a new spot every morning, like hanging from a light, as he was the day we were there.

I guess, I don’t really know the rules, as this wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. Still, they seem to love it. It is one of the special holiday traditions they have as a family.

I’m thankful for such smart kids in my life, asking questions.

My brother had the new Blue Planet oceans shows all downloaded and my niece was all into learning about sharks. She could become a scientist (marine biologist perhaps) or an artist. That’s what is so amazing about her. Her future, with all that curiosity and intelligence, is wide open.

My nephew is settling in at school his first year and making friends. He is so inquisitive and full of life. He makes me smile, the sweetest little soul.

They asked questions and seemed to begin to understand, more and more, about what blindness means in their aunt and their uncle.

I am glad we could share a love for marine documentaries and colours.

I’m thankful for old champaign still tasting good.

Thanks for the hospitality goes out to my brother and sister-in-law, for the snacks, and the holiday cheer.

S…A…N…T…A
S…A…N…T…A
S…A…N…T…a
And Santa is his name-o!

Jean Louise the Silent: My Review of Go Set a Watchman, Part Two

“The time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right.”
–Dr. Jack Finch

Further Character Discussion:

In Watchman there are important characters to the story, a few specific Finch relatives, those who were only briefly included in Mockingbird. This made the story of this literary family of note even more layered and interesting.

Atticus’s sister Alexandra and brother Jack are two important characters in this second story. His sister has been watching over Atticus, as he ages and grows arthritic, freeing Jean Louise from the responsibility.

By the end of Watchman, Jean Louise’s short visit home has resulted in a few battles between the proper southern lady her aunt thinks she should be and the modern woman she sees herself as. They butt heads, more than once, on matters both big and small.

“Her father’s sister came closest to setting Jean Louise’s teeth permanently on edge.”

Her respect in her well read uncle is tested when she looks to him to provide answers to the questions being back home has raised.

“As I sit here and breathe, I never thought the good God would let me live to see someone walk into the middle of a revolution, pull a lugubrious face, and say, what’s the matter?”
–Dr. Jack Finch

Uncle Jack is a doctor, but now devotes his time to being a bachelor, who loves his cat and Victorian literature. Jean Louise gets along a whole lot better with her uncle than with her aunt, usually anyway.

“Uncle Jack was one of the abiding pleasures of Maycomb.”

While one may not always understand the older generations attitudes or behaviours, they provide vital information and context for those returning characters we all know and love.

The absence of Jem (rest in peace) is made more tolerable with the new character of Henry, a youth who grew up across the street from Scout and her family from soon after the TKAM story came to an end. He is a friend of the Finch children as teenagers, a possible love interest for Jean Louise, and someone Atticus can take under his wing to possibly take over the law practise one day.

“She was easy to look at and easy to be with most of the time, but she was in no sense of the word an easy person. she was afflicted with a restlessness of spirit he could not guess at, but he knew she was the one for him. He would protect her; he would marry her.”

Will Henry and Jean Louise live happily ever after?

“Love whom you will but marry your own kind was a dictum amounting to instinct within her.”

She is stubborn and undecided

“She was almost in love with him. No, that’s impossible: either you are or you aren’t. Love’s the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it’s a you-do or you-don’t proposition with them all.”

On the other hand, when it comes to returning characters, Go Set a Watchman does not bring back someone such as Cal (the wise old African-American housekeeper from To Kill a Mockingbird) without this story taking on a whole new level of seriousness.

“Calpurnia, the Finches’ old cook, had run off the place and not come back when she learned of Jem’s death.”

Things have changed in Alabama, in the south, and in the country in twenty years and not all relationships have necessarily survived the evolution in the intervening years in tact.

“She loved us, I swear she loved us. She sat there in front of me and she didn’t see me, she saw white folks. She raised me and she doesn’t care.
It was not always like this, I swear it wasn’t. People used to trust each other for some reason, I’ve forgotten why they didn’t watch each other like hawks then.”
–Jean Louise Finch

Jean Louise is grown now, a lady, but she is unable to be the good southern lady that she could so easily have become.

It was during a scene where Alexandra has organized a gathering of Jean Louise’s “friends” and acquaintances, a group of good Christian ladies for Jean Louise to socialize with while she is visiting, where I first was given the idea for the title of this review. This scene very closely mirrors one from To Kill a Mockingbird and Jean Louise feels just as awkward and out-of-place now as young Scout did back then, expected to grow up into the perfect MAGPIE.

Jean Louise sees these women as MAGPIES and finds nothing whatsoever in common with them and their inane chatter. She becomes shy and withdrawn, distracted and unable to relate to any of her contemporaries, her equals as they might be known by some.

She sits silently, in a corner of this circle of ladies, but she can not just sit silently by, while the men of Maycomb go to their meetings and have their say on the way the world has worked or will work. Things were all cordial for everyone, just as long as the races knew their places. This begins to change, but there is a fight to come as it does.

She must make a choice: soon, sooner than she thought, now.

“I thought I was a Christian but I’m not. I’m something else and I don’t know what. Everything I have ever taken for right and wrong these people have taught me-these same, these very people. So it’s me , it’s not them. Something has happened to me.
They are all trying to tell me in some weird, echoing way that it’s all on account of the Negroes…but it’s no more the Negroes than I can fly and God knows, I might fly out the window any time now.”

***

“Had she been able to think, Jean Louise might have prevented events to come by considering the day’s occurrences in terms of a recurring story as old as time: the chapter which concerned her began two hundred years ago and was played out in a proud society the bloodiest war and harshest peace in modern history could not destroy, returning to be played out again on private ground in the twilight of a civilization no wars and no peace could save.
Had she insight, could she have pierced the barriers of her highly selective, insular world, she may have discovered that all her life she had been with a visual defect which had gone unnoticed and neglected by herself and by those closest to her: she was born color blind.”

All character discussion thus far leads up to the bigger question – the big question really, for so many readers who’ve claimed To Kill a Mockingbird as their own moral compass over the last fifty-five years.

“She crossed the room again to straighten the stack of books on his lamp table, and was doing so when a pamphlet the size of a business envelope caught her eye.
On its cover was a drawing of an anthropophagous Negro; above the drawing was printed The Black Plague.”

There is one main reason so many people did not want to read Go Set a Watchman or regretted it when they did.

Both Atticus and Henry are members of The Maycomb Citizens Counsel. Jean Louise discovers this and she takes her place, that familiar place, up in the balcony of the courthouse where, as kids, her and Jem watched from above, as her father defended Tom Robinson.

“He walked out of the courtroom in the middle of the day, walked home, and took a steaming bath. He never counted what it cost him; he never looked back. He never knew two pairs of eyes like his own were watching him from the balcony.”

Now she is here again, looking down on white trash and respectable Maycomb men gathered together, discussing the preservation of segregation and of southern values.

“The one human being she had ever fully and wholeheartedly trusted had failed her; the only man she had ever known to whom she could point and say with expert knowledge, he is a gentleman, in his heart he is a gentleman, had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly.”

Would this newly revealed piece of the puzzle taint the beloved hero status Atticus Finch has held for so many, for so long, like it did poor Jean Louise?

Do these things change the man Atticus was, as a father and a man, in Jean Louise’s eyes.

“She knew little of the affairs of men, but she knew that her father’s presence at the table with a man who spewed such filth from his mouth-did that make it less filthy? No. It condoned. She felt sick.”

Whether Harper Lee completely meant to show Watchman off to readers or keep it hidden and buried – would this bring an end to the love and admiration?

I saw, just the other day, a Hollywood actress named her son Atticus. Others who had done the same seemed to regret choosing the name in the first place, as rumours of Watchman’s Atticus began to surface. Was he the same Atticus they knew and loved? Was he the complete opposite, a cold, bigoted, racist old man?

“Her nausea returned with redoubled violence when she remembered the scene in the courthouse, but she had nothing left to part with. If you had only spat in my face…It could be, might be, still was a horrible mistake. Her mind refused to register what her eyes and ears told it.”

Like the drunken and abusive liar of a man who spat in Atticus’s face all those years earlier.

***

I admit this was my main curiosity for going ahead and reading Watchman. I guess these rumours did help spread word and drum up publicity for the July 15th release.

After all, it’s all about sales and hype and even controversy.

Not for me.

For me, it’s all about the writing. It’s about relatable characters and the way in which they interact with one another.

It’s about the story.

“The novel must tell a story,” as Uncle Jack says vaguely to Jean Louise. That’s all Watchman must needs do, no matter what some readers may think or feel, which ever story came before, after, or during.

To be clear, I do not think of GSAW as a sequel, in any of the ways we all know a sequel to be. True, it takes place twenty years after Mockingbird and yes, it is being released more than fifty years after Mockingbird, but it was written a few years before. The timeline may feel dizzying as it is laid out, but it makes for an interesting study of Lee’s writing.

Lee’s publisher wanted more of the flashbacks, with the children, and less of what Watchman would have been back then. But it feels meant to be seen, if not then, then now, and here we are.

I would imagine English literature classes will be discussing and debating the merits and the classification for this book, as compared to Mockingbird, for years to come.

Literary scholars will do the same.

As someone who loves literature, I wanted to read Watchman because it is Harper Lee’s contribution, no matter how we ended up with it or what it might say about the American south in the 1950s.

I don’t know the ins and outs of the publishing world. I don’t know what it takes to bring a novel to fruition. I am not aware what the process entails. I would have liked to witness this particular process though, over those five or so years where Go Set a Watchman evolved into the bestseller that To Kill a Mockingbird became.

People like to label things and put them in their proper places. They like things to follow an order and they like to be able to map things out.

You can’t do that here. However the publishers may have marketed GSAW, read it for yourself before making up your own mind.

I am glad this story got to see the light of literary day. My enjoyment of each and every chapter was immense and a little unexpected, after my less than expected love of the classic elements of Mockingbird. As someone who prides herself on loving literature, I was pleasantly surprised that I took to Watchman as entirely as I did throughout.

Harper Lee dedicates Go Set a Watchman to her father (Mr. Lee) and sister )Alice.

Is her beloved character of Atticus (whom she said was based on her father) tarnished in the reader’s eyes forever? What might this mean about the kind of man Mr. Lee was?

What would Alice have to say about this book’s release, if she were still alive?

These questions aren’t ones I can answer here, in my little old Watchman review, but I am sure they will both be debated in the future, as a little time and distance offers perspective.

“Even his enemies loved him, because Atticus never acknowledged that they were his enemies.”

For my part, this line perfectly sums up what’s truly in his heart and intentions all along. Not sure others will see it that way or be able to let it go at that because he was a man of his time, whether I myself can accept that or not.

As much attention as is put on Atticus’s shoulders, Scout steals the show here. This does not mean the actions of America’s heroic father figure are of no importance. History and humans are rarely ever that simple, even though I wish they were, that I could snap my fingers and make them that way.

Henry tells her, “You’re gonna see change, you’re gonna see Maycomb change its face completely in our lifetime. Your trouble, now, you want to have your cake and eat it: you want to stop the clock, but you can’t. Sooner or later you’ll have to decide whether it’s Maycomb or New York.”
–Henry Clinton

She is stuck between two worlds and the past and future going forward.

“She looked at Maycomb, and her throat tightened. Maycomb was looking back at her.
Go away, the old buildings said. There is no place for you here. You are not wanted. We have secrets.”

Jean Louise can never remain silent, but this also means she can not remain in Maycomb either, or that is what she will end up being, unless she can find some way to make peace with things as they are, even work to make a better, more equal future for everyone. Her and her brother were raised by a white man and a black woman and yet, sadly, life’s rarely so black and white itself.

She has received the most important quality from her father, for good or bad, and that is conviction.

“She did not stand alone, but what stood behind her, the most potent moral force in her life was the love of her father. She never questioned it, never thought about it, never even realized that before she made any decision of importance the reflex, “what would Atticus do? passed through her unconscious; she never realized what made her dig in her feet and stand firm whenever she did was her father; that whatever was decent and of good report in her character was put there by her father.”

She can not remain in Alabama and silent to an ever changing world. This makes her the heroine of this story in my estimation, of her story, which she is finally getting to tell.

For thus hath the Lord said unto me: Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he seeth!
–Isaiah 21:6

***

Wow. I must end my review here, for now, but there is still so much I could say, so many lines from the book that spoke to me and of which I wish I could include here, to prove my points.

But I realize that then this darn thing would end up being several thousand words long. And who knows if anyone’s even made it this far, managed to stick around to the end anyway.

One last piece of Go Set a Watchman wisdom if you’ve read to the end:

“I’m only trying to make you see beyond men’s acts to their motives. A man can appear to be a part of something not-so-good on its face, but don’t take it upon yourself to judge him unless you know his motives as well. A man can be boiling inside, but he knows a mild answer works better than showing his rage. A man can condemn his enemies, but it’s wiser to know them.”

Jean Louise the Silent: My Review of Go Set a Watchman, Part One

“It’s always easy to look back and see what we were yesterday, ten years ago. It is hard to see what we are. If you can master that trick, you’ll get along.”
–Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

I thought I’d heard it all, as far as negative news since Go Set a Watchman’s release, until I read this of course:

Disappointed by Go Set a Watchman? Sorry, that’s the risk inherent in fiction. – The Guardian

A bookstore actually offered to refund the price of the book, if someone wasn’t happy with its contents.

What?

John Mullan and The Guardian are correct. How many theatres will give me a refund if I don’t like the movie I’ve just seen on their screen? This is a ridiculous thing for a bookstore to do. I don’t care how many complaints they received.

I wanted to start my review off with this story because it illustrated the unique craziness circling around the release of Harper Lee’s first book in over fifty years.

No matter how funny, touching, or smart a book is, there will always be someone who didn’t see those things in its pages.

I saw it all and more.

I am the first to admit I was unnerved and hesitant when I first heard of GSAW’s existence. I worried that this was some greedy scheme and that the aging author might be unaware of its upcoming publication. I thought long and hard about whether or not I could even read it. With so many unanswered questions about the road to this release, I would hate to find out Harper Lee was completely unable to consent to her pre-Mockingbird manuscript being published after so long.

Big News For Harper Lee Fans Everywhere

This would be the only reason I might want my money back for this book.

Then I wondered at so many people’s determination to not take part in this phenomenon. They assumed Lee must be incapable of making this decision, of having any competent ability at all. Her stroke, blindness, deafness are all reasons for contemplation and caution, of course; however, I let my curiosity get the better of those doubts. I would shake her hand and tell her how much this book touched me personally, give her the money directly, if I could.

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”
–Dr. Jack Finch

***

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

I first discovered to Kill a Mockingbird, as required reading, when I was in high school. I read it again last winter, wanting to see if my feelings might be different after more than fifteen years, and in preparation for the summer release, just in case I decided to join the crowd.

It’s a Sin to Kill a Mockingbird

I did not take the book to heart, that first reading, like so many have. For a lot of people, To Kill a Mockingbird is near and dear to their hearts, with the messages it speaks. It is a snapshot of America in the 20th century and before. It was fiction that illustrated what it was like, race in the south.

As a white girl living in Canada, at the turn of this new century, I hadn’t encountered a whole lot of the racial issues so many others had. I could relate on the question of equal rights for all, being born with a visible disability, and so that I knew something about.

Admittedly, I found the book to drag in spots. It felt like short stories woven together. I did enjoy the childhood point of view, main character Scout’s toughness, and father Atticus and his admirable attempt at freeing an innocent black man from the injustice that was so much a part of the south at that time.

Dusty Old Books

Those are the things that stuck with me over the years. It was never at the top of my list of favourite books, but it left its mark. When I heard this was happening, I wanted to reread TKAM so I could make that connection a fresh.

GO SET A WATCHMAN

Note: possible spoilers may be ahead, but I try to avoid this in my reviews, as I don’t want to discourage anyone from reading. However, my ultimate goal is to intrigue the reader, just the right amount, to get you to give the book a chance, to sell it to you on its brilliance and poignancy.

“INTEGRITY, HUMOUR, AND patience were the three words for Atticus Finch.”

Would they still be applicable after finishing Go Set a Watchman?

I, too, was nervous at what version of Mr. Atticus Finch I would find in the pages of this newly unearthed manuscript, but I was highly curious and reading on to find out.

There’s a lot going on when this story begins, with all the news articles, the NAACP, and the white supremacists.

Miss Jean Louise (Scout) Finch must decide “if she can’t beat em or join em” either, when her community is held up, south against her new northern place of residence. Her father has been held to impossible standards, ever since he became her world when she was left without a mother, as a small child. Now she sees her perfect role model as a man, someone with faults and weaknesses, but still with the strong conviction he’s always held.

The climactic scene between Jean Louise and Atticus is powerful and a different sort to what any reader may have been used to from To Kill a Mockingbird. She is no longer a child and Atticus is revealing himself to her, while still desperately pleading for his daughter’s understanding and compassion.

***

Surprises on reading:

**I was taken aback by its length. When I got to the end I automatically thought, is that all?

I thought that, not in any “thank goodness that’s over” sort of way. It was the complete opposite of that, actually. I wanted the sageness to continue on, a few pages more.

**I was stunned by some invisible club of the sort I’d heard of with readers of Mockingbird. I have felt it about very few books over the years.

Scout’s Back with a Bang!

Scout is charming and loveable, even though she is now an adult. There’s a glimpse of the strong child she once was, especially with the flashbacks Lee had planted throughout.

“She was a person who, when confronted with an easy way out, always took the hard way.”

She is tough and headstrong, but it’s obvious, adult Jean Louise can still get herself into the craziest predicaments, even when she isn’t trying.

**My main shock comes on hearing about the death of Jem from the same illness which took Atticus’s wife. This, I fully admit, I had not been expecting. I wondered how this might effect my enjoyment of the rest of the book. I wondered why Lee had chosen to kill off one of the Finch children.

Okay, so that counts as a “spoiler”, does it? Oops, but please do read on.

🙂

I will try not to do it again. Promise. But you knew that one already, right?

**I was pleasantly surprised by the frequent passages filled with humour and wit. I actually laughed out loud a few times, which I honestly did not do with TKAM, but Jean Louise (whether as a child or an adult) is always saying the shocking thing, improper southern lady behaviour, or she’s standing out and accused of not holding her tongue.

Whether it’s the incident where she gets herself folded up in the train’s wall-mounted bed, only half clothed. Or else, on her return to Alabama and the play fight between Jean Louise and Henry (her suitor) which resulted in the two of them ending up in the river, fully clothed.

“Right now I’d just as soon push you in as look at you.”

Would the town of Maycomb be able to resist the spreading of rumours and passing along of gossip, which entailed them being naked in that river?

In one flashback, there’s the instance where Scout, still struggling with her perceived farewell to being a tomboy and struggling with being a young woman, walked around for days, believing another girl’s story that being French kissed lead to being impregnated. Or one flashback in particular, of a teenage Scout, where her underwear ended up high on a school billboard, with Henry coming to the rescue in a big way.

Other flashbacks, scattered throughout, brought a little piece of Mockingbird to this new tale and make the absence of Jem a little bit easier to swallow.

These flashbacks, such as a pretend revival and a baptism, resulting in Scout ending up in her neighbour’s fish pond and being caught by real life clergymen, make the perfect melding of past and present.

Well loved characters, mentioned only in passing in Watchman, such as Dill Harris bring To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman together rather nicely when flashbacks are included as they are.

It was wonderful to discover Harper Lee’s humorous side, with Jean Louise as the central component, which is a nice alternative to the more serious sociological writing she shares, with Atticus as the moral barometer for so many.

Will Atticus fall from grace? Does Jean Louise find a way to live harmoniously in Maycomb, Alabama?

“I can take anything anybody calls me so long as it’s not true.”
–Atticus Finch

Stay tuned for Part Two.

TToT: Summer Solstice

“Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
–Henry James

This week started off and ended with a number of holidays, occasions, and celebrations.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

Sunday: Father’s Day

For my amazing father.

Last June was the first opportunity, on my then relatively new blog, to let my own dad know what he meant to me and I did that by writing about a particularly meaningful memory from almost twenty years ago.

Father

I have recently, for TToT, explained the incredible things my father has done for me and I hope he always knows what he means to our whole family.

For the longest day of the year and for another summer to come around.

I pushed through last summer, though my heart really wasn’t in it, and I have good reason to believe this one will be vastly better then the last.

I am already trying new things, determined to live my life in different ways, and hopefully have more to add to these thankfuls in the weeks to come.

For National Aboriginal Day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Aboriginal_Day

I consider myself lucky to live in a country full of all of the people who share it with me.

Monday: For the sweetest words in the whole world.

“I wuve you Keree.”

My nephew turns three this summer and he has begun saying these words to, not only his parents and his favourite toys and movies, but to his Auntie Kerry.

🙂

When he cuddles with me and I hear him tell me he loves me, I know how lucky I am that I get to see him, at least once a week.

I miss my other nephew and my niece. They don’t live that far away, but far enough that our contact is less frequent than I would like, but we always come back together as a family in the end.

Tuesday: My Heart Will Go On

For the unforgettable music of composer James Horner.

I was obsessed with all things Titanic in the eighth grade, with the release of the film just that Christmas. I was so excited when my parents gave me the soundtrack for my fourteenth birthday.

James Horner Dies In Plane Crash

That is not the part I’m thankful for, obviously.

😦

The world has lost a wonderful talent.

Thank you, James, for some beautiful music I will never forget.

Wednesday: For the incredible advances in medicine in recent years.

I am amazed, as I hold my nephew close, just what these advances have brought to our lives.

No matter what, we are lucky to have him, and we owe it all to these things, unheard-of only a few decades ago.

I dare anyone to look at the beautiful little boy I speak of and say one bad word on what some like to term, “playing God”.

Whatever is to thank, it is miraculous, what doctors can do.

For family dinners out.

We went to a place we’ve gone to for years. It was a common family dinner spot for my own family, for as far back as I can recall.

I am forever a child there, ordering my shirley temples, but my nephew only wanted the orange slice at the bottom of his glass.

Thursday: medical technology isn’t the only wonderful technology. There’s always the phone.

For the chance to reconnect with a friend. We ended up talking, on the phone, for over two hours.

She helped me tick an important item off of my bucket list last year.

And, who knows – we could embark on more adventures together in the future.

That is only some of what we talked about. She shared some important resources with me for the Canada Day blog post I’m working on about Aboriginal issues.

She is a ball of energy and enthusiasm. Speaking with her is like a tonic, getting me to look positively forward.

Friday: Supreme Court recognizes equal rights for all.

For the ruling that came down, in the US, giving all people the right to marry whomever they love.

The White House and other landmarks light up in rainbow colours.

I simply want all people to be treated equally and I hope what happened in my neighbouring country is a step in the right direction.

Saturday: Happy Birthday Helen Keller.

For the important role she has played in my life, ever since I was introduced to her in school as a young girl.

Helen Keller was born, on June 27th, 1880 in Alabama. She suddenly lost her sight and hearing, during a fever, as an infant.

She was lost and locked away in the darkness and the silence, until her teacher came into her life at age seven, and from there she was unstoppable. She learned how to speak with her hands. She went on to become a first in so many things.

She was a feminist, spokesperson for social issues, disability rights activist, and an author who traveled all over the world.

She lived life to the fullest, as much as she possibly could, and she has taught me a lot about perseverance and resilience.

I give Helen the last word for the week…
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”

International Women’s Day 2015: Making It Happen

GET ON YOUR FEET (Make It Happen) – Gloria Estefan on YouTube

“One day’s commemoration, no matter how special, is not enough. We know the march is not over. We know the race is not yet run.”
—Barack Obama

The above quote is from the president’s speech at the 50th anniversary of the march at Selma, Alabama, that took place this weekend and which was a defining moment for civil rights in the US all those years ago.

However, as much of what was said was directed to racial equality in America, much of what he said I thought applied very well to all such pushes for equality, to be found anywhere.

This is why I included it here for my March 8th post on

International Women’s Day.

The biggest things I am hearing today, not unlike any time feminism of any kind is discussed, are as follows:

**Both men and women like to ask why we need a day to talk about or celebrate women? Shouldn’t women be celebrated every day of the year? What good does singling girls and women out on just one day out of the year do?

I ask these questions too. I hear the same basic question asked about Black History Month, for example. I wonder it every time a day is set aside to focus on anything disability related. I wish I wasn’t scooped up, as far as my blindness goes, into one day.

The day is only a brief twenty-four hours long and then it is back to the status quo. A lot of the rest of the time I feel ignored and misrepresented all the others.

In my more negative moments I ask myself what any of these days actually accomplish.

Is it those who are the first to call out feminism of any kind as a movement for separation and blame that is the problem? Do certain people not want equal rights for women talked about because that might actually make a difference for change in the future? Why does that threaten so many, so very much?

Why should we be ashamed and made to feel like we, men or women, are either bragging, or whining, or making too much of the issue?

**This day is being turned into a silly day of fluff and commercialized and that it should be just about the serious.

Of course a lot of what is talked about is serious stuff. It is an international problem that we need to work on together, internationally. It shouldn’t be taken lightly or for granted, that we even have this day be what it now is.

More than twenty years ago there was nothing like it to celebrate, not like we have it now. That is not so long ago still.

Right now I am reading a lot about women traveling safely because I am hoping to travel more myself. I have both that and the fact of my disability to contend with when traveling and this is not a small thing.

Again, I feel like I am being silly or making more of it than I really should. Why do I feel like that?

I am about to watch the highly controversial documentary about the brutal gang rape and death of a woman on a bus in India.

I will be writing about my thoughts on the documentary this week, once I’ve seen for myself how the matter was dealt with in the film.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating.

I am lucky to have been born where I was and living where I do. Canada is not somewhere I feel unsafe on a daily basis. I know a big part of that is how I was raised and the blessings I have had, although things aren’t always perfect, but I want to help speak out here because I have the right to do that and am not being persecuted or censored like so many.

Girls need a fair chance at living without violence, receiving the same educational opportunities as boys, and of course equal pay for equal work is a big topic in the news.

I don’t want to hide and bury my head in the sand about any of these issues and, although I am unsure about hearing more on the crime that was perpetrated in India on this documentary, I believe we need to hear about it and to use any day that we can to talk openly about what we all deserve for our world.

I have a niece who deserves to be treated equally. I want that for her future.

I also have nephews who will hopefully grow up in a more accepting world and I know they will learn that women should be valued and appreciated. I know this because I know what amazing and capable parents they have, but not all children are so lucky.

As long as we allow ourselves to feel silly or overly sensitive, all stereotypes and negative treatments will continue to be permitted all over the world.

I want to recognize some truly wonderful women that I know, on this day:

My mother is at the top of the list. She is strong and wise and she always knows what’s best. Okay, so maybe that “mother’s know everything” line is a lot of pressure to put on anyone, but she handles it quite well.

🙂

I want to declare what amazing mothers my two sisters are. They are both quite new at the whole thing, five years or less of experience yet, but they have raised the sweetest and best children and they love with grace, bravery, and warmth.

I was able to take part in a blogging project centred around compassion, what we women are supposed to be pretty good at, and the ladies who first began 1000 Voices For Compassion are prime examples:

Reflections On 1000 Voices Speak For Compassion

I recently wrote a blog post where I mention several female bloggers and writers who kick ass at what they do. I wanted to include them again,

Kind and Generous

I have written a good number of posts over the past year, highlighting women doing spectacular things, of whom I admire:

He For She and Equality,

Bigger Than Sheezus,

Lucky Ones,

and

Up We Go.

These are some perfect examples of why I do not only wait for one day a year to bring attention to the incredible women to be found everywhere. I have my blog for just this very reason and I will continue to write about as many as I possibly can, right here.

Just as parenting bloggers come together to find strength and support in the words of one another, I have done this with so many brave female bloggers and that is why they deserve to be mentioned here and on this day.

Whatever the issue may be: equal rights, empathy in love in relationships, or whatever it may be I think we feel better when we speak up and really listen to each other.

The silences must be broken like the bursting of a dam.

For additional info on IWD:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/happy-international-womens-day-google-doodle-celebrates-female-achievement-across-the-globe-10093489.html

http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/06/portraits-of-strength-seven-extraordinary-women/

http://canadacouncil.ca/council/blog/2015/03/internationalwomensdayletscelebratetodaysstrengthsandtomorrowsaspirations

It’s a Sin To Kill a Mockingbird

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit “em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
—To Kill a Mockingbird

**Note: All quotes below were taken from this novel.**

In the previous Fiction Friday I wrote a piece about the literary news of the year so far:

Big NEws For Harper LEe Fans Everywhere,

where I spoke about the announcement of her recently-discovered manuscript from before the release of To Kill a Mockingbird and the suspicions some have had about the whole thing coming out now, after all this time.

This time instead, rather than focusing on the part of our human nature which is being suspicious of others, I wanted to focus on the compassion that our world could always use more of.

This week I wanted to tie in more about this classic with the blogging project I have been participating in.

It is called 1000 Voices Speak For Compassion, and what story is more about that word than To Kill a Mockingbird?

I suddenly wanted to showcase all the ways in which compassion is illustrated, but first I had to reread the novel, which I hadn’t read since high school.

🙂

***

If I could choose one word to define what To Kill a Mockingbird is about, it would certainly have to be:

COMPASSION

The above quote is the most famous of them all throughout this classic work of fiction.

This novel has more than one “mockingbird”: Tom Robinson and Arthur (Boo) Radley.

Throughout this period of a few summers in the 30s, mid-depression era Alabama, brother and sister Jem and Scout, along with friend Dill, learn several life lessons.

They learn compassion.

In the beginning Jem says something about how turtles can’t feel pain.

Soon he must pay off a debt of punishment by sitting and reading to an elderly and dying neighbour. He starts out thinking she is an evil, unbearable old lady, but his father, Atticus, he teaches his son that people aren’t always what they seem and that those we think are the worst human beings of them all are, more often than not, dealing with pain we did not see. We all experience pain sometime.

The children are fascinated by a spooky house, a few doors down the street. It is rumoured to house a raving mad young man. He is never seen and this provides a vast span of imaginary possibilities in the children’s mind’s eye.

They see this frightful phantom of a neighbour as a monster in the shadows and the house he hides in, “inhabited by an unknown entity”.

As long as they kept seeing this neighbour and this house in this light, their compassion for what else could be going on wouldn’t be permitted to grow.

Their father works hard to help them see that things aren’t always so black and white.

Scout is naive and quick to speak without thinking. She is quick to anger and soon her and her brother must develop tough skin, when their father, a lawyer, is appointed to defend an African-American man against charges of raping a young white woman.

Scout fights children, at school, who call her father ugly names for his doing his job. She fights them and must learn to get her emotions under control.

The children slowly learn about what compassion means, throughout the novel, but with Atticus as their father, they really can’t fail at this.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.
Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Okay, despite the slightly gross imagery here about people in other people’s skin (yes, I am very literal), this line is the second most poignant line from “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

Scout is able to find compassion for Mayella Ewell, the young woman who accused her negro neighbour of rape.

This girl is obviously lying, even evident to Scout at her young age, which makes Mayella the enemy of Scout’s father, who is defending Tom Robinson.

“I wondered if anybody had ever called her “ma”am,” or “Miss Mayella” in her life; probably not, as she took offence to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like? I soon would find out.”

Scout suddenly realizes what a tough life this young lady has had, feeling sympathy for her, even after everything.

This compassionate muscle is being developed in Scout, by experiences like this, all throughout the novel.

Atticus has taken on a case, which in the 30s is unwinnible, but he takes it anyway. He puts his children and himself through so much for this case. People, even his own sister think he’s doomed to failure and just plain foolish.

“If a man like Atticus Finch wants to butt his head against a stone wall it’s his head.”

When the case is lost, both Jem and Atticus allow themselves to give in to the bitterness, for a while:

I peeks at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each “guilty” was a separate stab between them.

How could they do it, how could they?

I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it seems that only children weep. Good night.

The reference to “only children weep” is why these children in this novel are at centre stage in learning these lessons on compassion and empathy.

It takes a motherly neighbour’s wise words to help Jem deal with his anger at the injustice he’s learning exists:

“I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.”

Atticus is able to move forward from his loss in court and for a poor innocent man, finding compassion even for the last person to deserve any:

“Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I’d rather it be me than that houseful of children out there. You understand?”

When the children finally do come across Boo Radley, it turns out he was nothing as outrageous as they had been picturing him to be.

Scout discovered things about him that surprised her and she received one more lesson on how things aren’t what they seem always and her compassion and threshold for empathy grew once more.

I took him by the hand, a hand surprisingly warm for its whiteness. I tugged him a little, and he allowed me to lead him to Jem’s bed.

Jem’s life was saved by Boo Radley, pretty well vilified by their young minds all that time.

“I had never seen the neighbourhood from this Angle.”

Scout received one final bit of perspective, as the novel came to a close, and her compassion, just like her fathers’, had been imprinted on her heart.

“Atticus was right. One time he said you don’t really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.”

***

The countdown is on with less than one week to go until the 20th and

1000 Voices Speak For Compassion: My 1000 Voices Speak Reveal.

There have been some wonderful contributions, from fellow bloggers, leading up to the day we all post for compassion.

I wish I could recognize them all, and I have been doing my best to share as many as I could on

TWITTER,

but here are just a few, before I wrap up the post for today:

But I CAN help THIS one (a #1000Speak story)

and

THREE FLOORS BELOW.

Jewel, Hands, on YouTube

Dusty Old Books

        This week on Fiction Friday I wanted to mention a story about Harper Lee I had been hearing. It wasn’t until I thought about her and looked into her more that I learned some really fascinating facts I did not know before.

        Nelle Harper Lee turned eighty-eight just the other day and she used her birthday to announce that finally, after all this time, she has decided to catch up with the rest of the world.

        The Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction has, up until now, kept a pretty tight hold on the rights for To Kill A Mockingbird. She finally agreed to release it as an E-book.

        Lee has said: “I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.

        This I can totally relate to. I feel the exact same way. There’s just something not quite right about some of the greatest stories of all-time displayed on screens. Where did all the books go? I know they are still everywhere, but sometimes it feels like they are slipping through our fingers.

        Harper Lee wrote an open letter to Oprah Winfrey and inside she is candid about how times have changed.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/10/some-things-should-happen-on-soft-pages.html

        I read To Kill A Mockingbird when I was in high school. She writes it as if it were a series of short stories, of life in a southern US town, during the Depression. Wasn’t I surprised when I read she had started it out that way, before it became the novel we know it as today.

        I must admit I found parts of it boring and slow-paced, as if the lazy humid days in the story, based in Alabama, were bleeding out onto the pages. I felt parts of it drew on and on, away from the story at its heart, the part I loved and which has stayed with me ever since.

        Lee’s main character, the narrator, the young girl Finch Scout is loveable and maddening and full of adventure and life. She ties the whole story together. I have come to love her so much by the end that I couldn’t help worrying about her and fearing for her safety, not only physically, but emotionally as a young and impressionable girl at such a turbulent time of injustice. It is clear by the end of the story that she has grown up and her character has been developed through all she has seen.

        The father and lawyer for the side of good, Atticus Finch, is quite possibly the best character in literature. He is a man and only human, but he is pretty close to perfect. He is calm and gentle. HE is a symbol for justice and decency. I learned a lot about humanity from him and from Lee’s story.

        His closing arguments during the trial of Tom Robinson, the black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman, touched me and shook me to my core. Fictional though it is, I compare it to real life speeches such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have A Dream speech for it’s power and impact.

        I feel unfit to make this sweeping judgement, but I must say that in my opinion, this is one of those rare occasions where the movie could top the book. It is a rare thing, but the movie takes all the best parts of the novel and pulls them together perfectly. The actors cast for the roles were magic. Gregory Peck is Atticus and always will be.

        I did not know that Nelle Harper Lee was good childhood friends with a young Truman Capote. It is clear they both influenced one another’s writing: supposedly he was the basis for the Finch’s neighbour boy Dill and it’s said that Capote writes from his relationship with Lee and uses her for a character for In Cold Blood.

        As I strive to become a writer, I love learning the most interesting things about the writers I look up to. Harper Lee always was and remains a reclusive person. She had something to say and she said it through To Kill A Mockingbird and then, other than a few essays and rumoured attempts at other novels, she basically never published anything again. Most writers, once they get a taste of life as an author, want to keep writing and putting out more and more books. Not her. I want to know how she could resist.

        She is now in an assisted living facility, after suffering a stroke; she is in a wheelchair and going deaf and blind. I hope, wherever she is, that she realizes the impact that story has had on the world. As far as books about race and prejudice go, hers is at the top of the list. It is the perfect snapshot of a moment in history, a moment in time.

        Hers is one of my all-time favourite book titles. As someone who loves to explore the symbolism writers layer throughout their stories, TKAM is filled with lots of it. The Boo Radleys’ of the world need to be recognized and valued. The sweetest most gentle souls in the world are constantly at risk of being walked all over. It seems Harper Lee had something to say, a message which she gave to us all and then was satisfied with that, glad to fade away into the background. She has made this most recent decision after hoping the pages and cover of a book never will.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/29/living/harper-lee-mockingbird-digital-book/