TToT: From Longest Month To Shortest #AllOverNow #10Thankful

“January so far has been a month of cold gray days, with an occasional storm whirling across the harbor and filling Spook’s Lane with drifts. But last night we had a silver thaw and today the sun shone. My maple grove was a place of unimaginable splendors. Even the commonplaces had been made lovely. Every bit of wire fencing was a wonder of crystal lace.”

Letter from Anne to Gilbert ANNE OF WINDY POPLARS

Though I took a few weeks break, I am still full of gratitude and I am finishing off the month, looking ahead to February and beyond.

Ten Things of Thankful

I am thankful for the sound of Canada geese out my window.

I heard them out in the cold January sky, just as I heard sad news from the literary world, and something about it felt less coincidental and more like a sign of a poet leaving this world.

I am thankful for poetry like that of Mary Oliver and her love of nature and the natural world, which she showed through her poems.

I am thankful for orchestral musicians and their conductor who keep up and play the beautiful music of a Harry Potter soundtrack, as I watched the movie on the big screen with a bunch of other crazed HP fans.

I am thankful for snow that’s like cotton balls, like the kind that makes me feel its cold, but also like maybe I’m living inside of one of those snow globes.

I am thankful for the energy of a productive violin lesson where I know why it is I love the instrument so much.

I am thankful for a few minutes of time with my niece playing beside me, even while on the phone. She is the sweetest, coming and sitting beside me and cuddling, then hiding under the blanket.

I am thankful for our thing together where I sing the Elton John line: I’m still standing … and she then sings the next part, yeah yeah yeah.

As cute as it is that she now does high fives and fist bumps, that’s more of a silent action, whereas the singing is an audible one.

I am thankful for new Dido music:

I am thankful for classic love songs, duets, and for beautiful musical talent.

Lots of sadness in the music world, with love song guru James Ingram dying and I end off January with one more glimpse of the voice we lost, one year ago:

RIP to them both and to Mary Oliver too.

I am thankful for the end of January and February arriving, a short month (my birthday month) now beginning.

Well, if I am living inside of a snow globe, time to shake things up! Bye bye January and hello February to come.

The Garden In Winter

Frosty-white and cold it lies
Underneath the fretful skies;
Snowflakes flutter where the red
Banners of the poppies spread,
And the drifts are wide and deep
Where the lilies fell asleep.

But the sunsets o’er it throw
Flame-like splendor, lucent glow,
And the moonshine makes it gleam
Like a wonderland of dream,
And the sharp winds all the day
Pipe and whistle shrilly gay.

Safe beneath the snowdrifts lie
Rainbow buds of by-and-by;
In the long, sweet days of spring
Music of bluebells shall ring,
And its faintly golden cup
Many a primrose will hold up.

Though the winds are keen and chill
Roses’ hearts are beating still,
And the garden tranquilly
Dreams of happy hours to be­
In the summer days of blue
All its dreamings will come true.”

—L.M. Montgomery

TToT: Foresight, Hindsight, Insight, #Problem #Solution #10Thankful

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy birthday to L.M. Montgomery, who was born 144 years ago today!

“‘Old Prince Edward Island’ is a good place in which to be born – a good place in which to spend a childhood. I can think of none better. We Prince Edward Islanders are a loyal race. In our secret soul we believe that there is no place like the little Province that gave us birth.”

– L.M. Montgomery, The Alpine Path: the Story of My Career

Caption: Kids, with Grandpa, about to blow out birthday candles.

I’m writing this on the final day of November, even though this post is dated days earlier. I missed last week’s
Ten Things of Thankful
and I’m too lazy to try to figure out how to reset dates in WP and I don’t want to bother starting a new entry for this. It works as is.

I’m thankful for my father on his 63rd birthday.

I’m thankful for my favourite writer on what would have been hers too.

Caption: The bedroom she was born in.

I got to visit that house when I was in Prince Edward Island in September.

I love that my favourite writer and my favourite father share this day.

I’m thankful for last weekend, a trial run of the 2018 KFC (Kijewski family Christmas) as we like to call it.

Caption: Grandpa and Mya watching gingerbread houses being decorated.

I’m thankful for a night out at the movies with siblings.

I’m thankful for brownies.

I’m thankful for a second
Fantastic Beasts film,
where more of the world leading to Harry Potter was revealed.

I’m thankful for another episode of
Outlook,
where we interview (or he us) a lifelong friend and brother.

I’m thankful for an unforgettable night of stories performed from the heart.

I am standing up, in front of an audience, to tell my story, a dying art.

I’m thankful four of my family members could be there to see me do that.

I’m thankful for a doctor who goes above and beyond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GHXEGz3PJg

This song was playing as I left the
TAP Centre for Creativity
and I thought it fit because we all have a hunger to be heard.

Finally, RIP Bush Senior.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/21750/4-simpsons-controversies-didnt-end-lawsuits

The Simpsons has made fun of all recent Presidents (from Nixon on) and has taken a few shots at some of the famous and forgotten ones who came before, but they have a special relationship with Bush Sr. Surprisingly, this began with Barbara, who in a 1990 interview with People , said The Simpsons was “the dumbest thing [she] had ever seen.” The writers at the show had Marge send off a letter defending her family (and implying that certainly Washington had some dumber people/things to see). Mrs. Bush wrote a prompt, polite response.
The next year, 1991, the Bushes were featured in “Mr. Lisa Goes to Washington.” Barbara gave a private tour of her bathroom and George moved decisively to remove a corrupt congressman when he learned through the pipeline that “a little girl [was] losing faith in democracy.”

The real controversy began January 27th, 1992, when Bush declared to a meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters: “We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.” The Simpsons quickly wrote and animated a new sequence for “Stark Raving Dad,” which would be rerun three days later. Bart and his family watch the clip of Bush’s speech and Bart replies, “Hey, we’re just like the Waltons. We’re praying for an end of the depression, too.”

It was not until four years later that The Simpsons got the final word—in “Two Bad Neighbors,” George and Barbara move in across the street to the Simpsons. While George immediately takes a liking to Ned Flanders, he dislikes Bart, whom he sees as disrespectful.

Bush: You know, in my day, little boys didn’t call their elders by their first names. block quote level 1block quote level 1

Bart: Yeah, well, welcome to the 20th century, George. block quote level 1block quote level 1

The episode casts Bart as Dennis the Menace and George as cranky Mr. Wilson until Bart accidentally destroys Bush’s hand-typed memoirs, in which he claims, “And since I’d achieved all my goals as President in one term, there was no need for a second.”

Bush spanks Bart and won’t apologize for interfering with Homer’s parenting. This leads to an escalation of tension and pranks until the inevitable fistfight in the sewer. The Bushes move away after Barbara forces Bush to apologize in front of Mikhail Gorbachev (after which Homer demands an apology “for the tax hike”). Homer gets along much better with his next neighbor, Gerald Ford.

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

It’s satire and could be seen as mocking. I don’t approve of politicians talking about family values though, in order to win an election, as to be political you can’t possibly totally practice all that you preach. Still, I see being made into an episode as an honour and I show it as a goodbye to a man who lived a good long life:

I had to explore this, from a strictly cultural (Simpsons) point of view, because people are complicated. This show hasn’t been for everyone, a certain generation a lot less likely, but it is sad to have no sense of humour.

A man who was in charge to be forever known as the American’s With Disabilities Act president will be remembered for it. He was someone’s husband, father, and grandfather. He made decisions that not everyone would have agreed on, but he was more of a respected politician than what the US has as POTUS at the moment, by a long long shot.

Can Hardly Wait, #SecretMission #WomensTravelFest #FTSF

It’s always a good thing –
10 things I’m looking forward to
having something or some things on the horizon.

Ten things I’m looking forward to are:

Getting myself a new pair of jeans.

I have hand-me-downs and old pairs. Time for a nice, new one that fits me just right.

Presentation night at the end of the storytelling workshop I’ve been taking.

We are telling a story from our life, in front of people, and working out how to best present it to keep an audience’s attention. I thought I would take this workshop, to get more comfortable with going from writing to speaking, with amazing results from myself and the other members in the class. On the final night, we are inviting family or friends and speaking our stories to a wider group.

The new Fantastic Beasts movie.

Of course, staying at my local cinema to see this one, my older brother will have to describe what’s going on because there’s no audio description, but it’s Dumbledore as a young man. Exciting.

Starting to complete the final two credits toward my high school diploma.

This one causes me a bunch of anxiety to talk about and embarrassment when I do, but it’s been many years and I don’t want to let my chronic pain win. I will complete these last two credits and then I can get on with the rest of my life.

Christmas.

Some years were better than others, some years harder than others, but I know I’m not alone in becoming a happier version of myself around that time of year. It makes me happy. It just does.

For the second Harry Potter movie (Chamber of Secrets) to be shown nearby, along with an in-house full orchestra.

I saw the first HP film, after missing it the first time round in theatres, last January and loved hearing the live musical score, including the string section.

Women’s Travel Fest in New York City.

Check it out and join me there to celebrate International Women’s Day, 2019.

My secret mission while I am visiting New York City.

I know how much I dislike it when people announce they have something exciting to say/something going on and yet they can’t say what that is, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, this thing I am looking forward to is quickly becoming an important part of my trip to NYC and I am not sure how it will play out. I am doing something big, new for me, but it will make a statement. I’m just not sure if I should go on and on about what it is, as I’m not sure how well it will be received. I may need some help and will need to do some research into a particularly notorious landmark in the city.

And, to finish off on a travel theme, to hopefully make it to the
Canadian Federation of the Blind’s
yearly national convention in Vancouver, British Columbia.

And, the
National Federation of the Blind’s
convention being held in Vegas for the first time.

Really, my 2019 isn’t all that well-known at this time, as I am hoping 2018 will wind down as calmly as possible in the meantime.

Keep making plans and finding things to look forward to,
along with those from Finish the Sentence Friday,
as it does a world of good and helps to boost the mood.

Here we are in November already: 2018 on its way out and 2019 on its way in.

Bad Words and Battlefields, #FTSF #SoCS

As the days grow darker, I wonder about why darker is harder for people.

Sleep and internal clocks and SAD (seasonal affective disorder) are the ones that are most felt this time of year.

I get my time from my iPhone, which turns back an extra hour automatically, (will do so again tonight) rather than the clocks on appliances. I like that hour, as there’s a time for everything, even the chance for more sleep, something I blame pain more on than anything else when I don’t get enough of it.

Darker is the start of winter, but it is summer somewhere. Australia and New Zealand are down there, waiting for me, but life goes on until then. I go in to the colder, darker season in Canada with an appreciation for where I live. Christmas means darker, but with that five o’clock darkness, come Christmas lights. Christmas makes me happy. I let the additional hours of darkness bring me peace and reflection. I try not to focus on word meaning all of the time, letting my sensitivities get the better of me, but why is dark bad and light good anyway?

Our fears hide out there, just waiting for the right moment to leap out and scare us?

I’ve written about this before and probably can’t sum it up any better now, as Daylight Savings comes upon us for another year. I do wonder why and then my answer comes, as to why blindness is feared like it is. The idea of being left in darkness for the rest of one’s life is scary, I get it. Still, black and dark are so entrenched in our consciousness as things unwanted and feared. Whether it’s skin colour of another or a state of seeing/not seeing the world. Will we ever get away from such associations?

November is one of those more difficult months for me, at certain moments at least, as I look back over past experiences with these thirty days. Things happened to me in this month I won’t ever forget, things that have left solid impressions on the person I am.

Zooming out to a broader picture, it means solemn thoughts of war for Canada, with Remembrance Day (November 11th) and this year’s 100year anniversary in particular. I feel worse about the subject of war (the lessons we’ve learned and those we yet haven’t) than I do any dark morning or evening come too soon. Just as many lives were lost in the four years of World War I during bright, daylight hours, just as much death and carnage. Likely, more, as the armies needed the daylight hours to see what they were doing. Night would have been when it was smarter to hunker down in separate trenches wherever and whenever possible.

I think of every ghost, set adrift across those European battlefields, and I am haunted by the heaviness of so many souls lost.

And I go onward to November 11th this year with a heavy heart once again, though I don’t know exactly why that is.

I think of that word often and I don’t need Halloween or a day devoted to wars to do so. This month holds memories, like the hauntings of a shadowy realm.

I have all things monsters and ghosts on my mind still, even with Halloween in the rearview mirror for another year. Darker days mean winter and winter means ice.

I had to go to the easiest accessible book to me and that was my shelf of all seven Harry Potter stories to find my random word.

I did
point
and a wintery word is what I got.

Black ice can be a danger on the roads in Canada, in the months ahead. Scary.

Harry Potter stories use ghosts and monsters to great effect. The ice forms when the monstrous, hideous dementors show up. (Read the series to learn more about those.)

A fascinating representation of the things that scare us, threaten to remove all happiness, like the depression that is sometimes seasonal and sometimes all year round.

If you can, look at what darkness brings that is pleasant and happy, rather than those things it hides or covers up or frightens you with. Maybe, one day, we can change some of the feelings around what darkness represents.

What’s good could be bad and what’s bad could be good.

This is the weekend of
stream of consciousness prompts
for another
Finish the Sentence Friday
in early November.

I am back and taking part, after several weeks of distractions and elsewhere’s. Also, I’m writing blog posts and prompts, while avoiding something I should really be doing instead. This is okay, I suppose, but I know I need to get back to it shortly.

TToT: Lightbulbs and Lightning Strikes, #LookBackMarchForward #10Thankful

January isn’t making anything easy on me, but it too shall pass.

Somehow, I’ve had Billie Holiday on my mind as this month stretches on, painfully on and on.

Ten Things of Thankful

I’m thankful for the never ending list of ideas that come to me, as potential topics to write about.

Writer’s block, no way, at least not in the usual way of things.

When I am given the job of writing something, I may get a block, but that’s more from my fear of not being able to do the job I was asked to do, not being good enough.

I’m thankful for a return to my writing group in 2018.

It was a difficult day/week/month, but those people are there for me.

I wrote about a young woman, musician, who was hearing the news that Kurt Cobain had died, and wondering how to navigate the perils of fame.

It is a question on my mind. The group listened to my clumsy story and seemed curious, as curious as I am about what I’ve been thinking since I heard Dolores O’Riordan was gone.

I did smile and even laugh, with my group of local writer friends. Worth it.

I’m thankful for a list of tough questions to answer, to better know myself.

I am a writer, but I have a lot to learn. Sometimes, it requires that I look deep into myself, to find the truth. Otherwise, my writing will not keep on the forward momentum I hope to have.

It’s hard work, difficult and painful and sensitive stuff, but I am determined to see things more clearly on the other side.

I’m thankful for a first successful meeting of
The Canadian Federation of the Blind,
Ontario, in 2018.

I’m thankful for a contract opportunity to write about something so important to me.

Braille is not a well understood thing, for many, even as technology takes on bigger parts of all our lives.

My early literacy is thanks to my parents and to the school I was in and braille is a large part of all that.

So, to share about the value of braille is so important to me. I just hope I can do it justice and give to it as much as it has given me.

I’m thankful Canada’s government didn’t shut down.

Disfunction at the highest level.

I know very little about trade agreements, but Canada is doing the work and staying involved with other countries, while moving away from what the US seems to be heading for.

They are being run by someone who only pitches America, America First, or whatever, all things made in America. Whatever, to bring more jobs. I guess that is left to themselves, in their own country. Isolation.

If his government can’t even work together, to stay open a year after his inauguration, how well will they do, on their own, if that is what they prefer?

I’m thankful I could be in on a meeting to discuss traveling out west, for a convention in British Columbia.

The Canadian Federation of the Blind have a convention, every May, where issues important to blind Canadians are discussed.

This year, Ontario is coming to western Canada and we are going to make our mark.

I was only in B.C. in the airport, changing flights to the Yukon. I intend to go back, to speak about the project to make audio description in movie theatres a common thing, and I will see the Pacific Ocean while I’m at it.

I’m thankful that the marching continued, one year later, with all the more reason to do so.

I wondered, did worry, that it was a one year hit action/movement and those who like to criticize would be able to point at the one time visual as a sign that making our voices heard isn’t needed or productive.

I did not see all the signs, but had a few read to me. Some smart sign writers in those marches.

This is a current US president thing, true, but it is bigger than that guy. It is a stand against what has been.

It leaves a bunch of us out, those who find marching in the streets difficult, but it is heartening to me anyway.

I want things to only get better, going forward, in the years to come. I have a vested interest in that, in compassion and in empathy, for not only one gender or class or whatever.

I understand the fatigue that can set in, but we all must keep doing something, however small. I am still working out what that something is for me.

I’m thankful for a chance to listen to a local orchestra, playing my kind of a symphony and to see a movie live, that I missed the first time around.

I saw Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the film, on a big screen at a sport stadium.

Then, I saw the soundtrack being played by live orchestra. It was a strange experience of my senses.

I heard parts of the soundtrack, differently than I’d ever heard them, when blended into the background of the movie on DVD at home.

Int was strange, seeing with a crowd of other major Harry Potter fans, with all the cheers and the comments made by nearby fans.

The bells and the percussion section and the other main instruments that make up that famously known and heard Harry Potter musical sound.

I’m thankful for things that happen (or don’t happen) for a reason.

Maybe I don’t get what I want, in one moment, but that leads me to something else. Maybe I am getting what I can handle, what I need to teach me what I need to know.

Who knows.

I resisted the “door/window” line of optimism.

I am ending, this week, with another comforting song from The Cranberries, the Irish band that was and is no more.

My brother generously added it to his playlist on the radio show he hosts, every Friday morning, on a college radio station in London, Ontario.

TToT: Shrill Robots and Thumb Slam, #10Thankful

“I dreamed I saw a great wave climbing over green lands and above the hills. I stood upon the brink. It was utterly dark in the abyss before my feet. A light shown behind me, but I could not turn. I could only stand there, waiting.”

—Lord of the Rings

I was recently brought back to my love of LOTR and this quote jumped out at me when I heard it again. I feel this way a lot now.

People tell me not to be scared, but I can’t help it. I can take up violin and yoga and other things, to keep focused on the positive, but I feel this quote intensely and I wish people would stop trying to make me feel something that has taken root and is, for better or for worse, how I feel.

It’s nearly Christmas and I am making my way through these last few weeks before it arrives upon us. The news around the world, this week, was not much improved from previous ones.

Here in Canada, in the last week or so…
a young man was only trying to stand up for someone else
and he lost his life.

Then, another man and his family were targeted,
in a racially motivated attack,
by a man with a bat in a WAL-MART parking lot.

And this was just in Ontario mind you.

So, I sometimes start off my weekly TToT post sharing my fears and concerns and the things that feel so out of my control and which are so often wildly unfair about the world.

Then I list what I am thankful for, to help me get through the week and focus on the beautiful things and the magic to be found all around me.

Ten Things of Thankful

I am thankful for a quick reply/acceptance.

From last week’s TToT…the audio piece I did with my brother will be included in the holiday marathon radio show.

The man in charge asked how to pronounce our last name. He isn’t the first to ask that. He also asked how we’d like to be billed and the question was a new one, hadn’t been asked that way before.

Whose name should go first?

I am thankful for more writing support/discussion with those who know and understand.

My two writer friends, I originally found on Facebook, are such a pleasure to spend a few hours with.

We talk writing and I found out one of them wrote a children’s book about Helen Keller.

The other is a knowledgeable scientist/science writer.

I learn so much from them, have learned so much, in this last year since we first met.

I am thankful for a pleasant holiday mall experience.

I found a bright and friendly deer.

I found my favourite holiday scent, vanilla bean. I got myself some hand soap, shower gel, and body spray.

I found a few gifts in my favourite store, that which is full of mostly books, but not all.

I went in for books and came out with a super soft blanket. Still, I hope bookstores never disappear like Blockbuster has.

Santa was, of course, also there.

My Grownup Letter For Santa

I am thankful for my writing group on a bad day.

My internet was causing me problems and I was stressed out by the events of the world. I needed to escape to “The Elsewhere Region” for a few hours.

These people are clever, creative, and fun. It cheered me up in a major way, just being in their presence.

I am thankful for a most pleasant surprise gift from the heart.

Anything coloured or any sort of writing/drawing tool makes me sad, as someone who once lived for colours and drawing colourful pictures.

Still, it was a sweet gesture and a bit of an inside joke/had to know the giver, to fully get how meaningful it really was.

Mine is yellow and you can write on just about anything with it. It’s gel and smells like heaven in crayon form.

I am thankful for an enjoyable lunch with a new friend.

On a limited amount of time, a lunch break, I found it hard to both eat and be able to say all the things I wanted to say.

She started out as my travel agent when I went to Mexico, but we formed a kind of special connection since then.

I trust her now, as I plan out future travels in the years to come.

I am thankful for my violin teacher’s invite to an all strings concert.

I knew little about baroque music and I still don’t.

I would have recorded the actual concert I attended, but I was advised against it.

Oddly Shaped Pearl

I researched the word and found out that is what Baroque means.

I am thankful for a new possible public writing spot.

Burnt Brick Cafe

I am thankful for my mom’s delicate and detailed Christmas care.

Clever, original, and inventive.

She decorates my home, even though I can’t see much. I don’t put in the work and she comes over and makes the place feel like Christmas.

This year she only made the pine branches she had look the shape of a Christmas tree, but soft pine this time. I see the bright white lights she adds and then comes the star.

No photo can capture it, but the star wouldn’t stay up on such a soft pine branched tree and so she used one of my old white canes. She put it up the back and this was enough to steady the star on top.

I am constantly in awe at the things she comes up with. It’s always been that way, as long as I can remember.

That’s my mom alright, all three of those, the exact definition of ingenious.

I am thankful for a second favourite Christmas gift.

My sister loves Pinterest and found a Harry Potter quote, printed it out and framed it for me.

This has been the week of surprises, let’s call them semi Christmas presents, both I was not expecting.

As for another Christmas present I was given early, Canada and all the snow might want to put a damper on that one tonight.

Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV4F2yfEt9o&app=desktop

Just not on this day/night…okay? Please! I wanted to go to Toronto.

More on that next week, if I actually get there that is.

Phoenix Force #SongLyricSunday #IDPD2017

December 3rd is
International Day of Persons with Disabilities
and this year’s theme for IDPD 2017: “Transformation towards sustainable and resilient society for all.”

All this takes courage.

Each year I live through is a lesson in courage.

But I have hope and this song makes me want to keep fighting to find my courage, through rain and winter cold and into next summer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMdyiFubOTE

With each successive year that comes and goes I keep trying and finding my faith in all things, most things anyway.

I am going to see Sarah Slean live next week, as an early Christmas gift. She is a treasure of Canada and our lesser known music scene and on the list of some unfamiliar artists and performers.

***

Sarah, gone are the days of the lonesome dove
So solitary you are tangled in love now
With layers so deep and a reach so wide
You can’t escape it and so,
Goodbye, yeah it hurts like hell
But you could not love him
And not lie to yourself, Sarah.

Sarah, falling apart at the seams this time
You lost your bearings so
Put roots in the earth now and close up the Windows, the rain has come
And tears will follow and so bear down to the Winter cold,
Come this summer this phoenix will unfold.
Just wait and see.

This is not the end.
You will be loved again.

Sarah, be not afraid of the wounded one
Who comes with poems and
To drink from the fountain
Of the little you know about love and god
And letting go but oh,
He’s been to the Shadowlands.
Still you want to love him, want to hold those Hands and hear him say “Sarah…”

This is not the end.
You will be loved again.

This is not the end.
You will be loved again.

Lyrics found here.

***

I have been playing this song on repeat lately, replacing “Sarah” with “Kerry” as I listen.

This week’s
Song Lyric Sunday
is all about courage.

I’ve needed courage to move on from love, to find it again, or to trust in loving myself alone. I’ve needed courage to take a big life step with my dreams of becoming a writer. I’ve needed courage to go on without someone I’ve loved and lost. I’ve needed courage to speak, stand, or even step. I’ve needed courage to travel unknown places.

The courage for survival. Life is about rising and falling and rising once more, rising like the phoenix bird in Harry Potter.

TToT: Managing The Mischief of Life – Zipping Along #WildPlayNiagara #HarryPotter20 #10Thankful

It’s over and done with. As the month of June comes to a close, so does my month long celebration of twenty years since my kidney transplant.

It’s like I’ve reached some invisible, yet important marker: Now what?

Why not a photo of what is wild and free? (Wild Horses) This makes me think of the expression: “Wild horses could not drag me away from you.” Wow. Just Wow is all I have to say.

Well, there is another event that would shape my life going forward, that took place in 1997, though I had no idea of it occurring.

Read ahead for more on the 20th anniversary of magic as I now know it.

Before I continue, I am including this ink here, rather than trying to add two posts to the linkup.

A Bold Sea of Red – Hiraeth

Check it out if you want to see a few more photos. I had trouble posting because of a few of them causing trouble. The program wouldn’t accept them and I missed the TToT deadline for last week.

I thought about making this a entirely HarryPotter20 thankful post, but I have so many more things to be thankful for this week.

Ten Things of Thankful

I am thankful for summer solstice.

I got to be in the Yukon just before summer was quite official and it opened my eyes to the differences of the latitude I may be at, all in my own country, and how the sun affects us all.

I’m thankful for a most unexpected gift of a writing deadline extension.

I am writing a short story, one I want to hopefully help move forward our ideas of diverse characters and stories.

Then things got away from me in this chaotic month and the deadline for this was coming up fast.

Suddenly, as I was about to give up because my story wasn’t complete in time, I read about an extension the contest decided on.

I now have until the end of the week and the pressure is mounting once again. I know I can meet that challenge, thanks to something I know I won’t always be able to count on magically appearing when I’m feeling I won’t make the deadline set.

I am thankful for Niagara Falls.

I may have included this before, but once again it surprises and delights me.

I got to experience it from a entirely new vantage point, going along it on a zip line.

It constantly takes my breath away.

I’m thankful for my brother who captures everything I now miss, with his love for photos, that makes me want to cry every time I think about it.

Don’t misunderstand. I am grateful for him, but I feel everything I can not see is the beauty he expertly and lovingly captures with his camera.

I do appreciate the attention he put into documenting our zip lining day in pictures. He will work on them, to make them the best they can be in his eyes, and I will write about what June 24th, 2017 meant to me, as soon as I get through a few other pressing deadlines in these next few weeks.

I am thankful for everyone who took the time out to come with me, to help me celebrate.

They overcame any reservations they may have had and they went zipping down that wire with me.

They even put up with a sudden downpour/hailstorm with me on our way back.

I am thankful said weather event decided to make an appearance right after we completed our mission.

We were all separated, into groups from our bigger group of fifteen, kids in strollers included.

Some of us took shelter inside arcades and some were caught out in it. I was under an awning, with my father and brother-in-law and the two kids, and we just barely stayed dry, but were already soaked anyway.

Dark clouds are a part of life. If you’ve never been soaked and caught in a rainstorm, you’ve not experienced the magic of nature in its entirety.

I am thankful for my mother and my niece and nephew’s other grandma for staying down on the ground to watch the kids.

I know they had their hands full, more than one bathroom visit included.

I am thankful for the last twenty years.

In that time: I got my kidney and Harry Potter was written.

What more than that could I want/need?

I am thankful for what Harry Potter has brought into my life.

20 years later, Harry Potter’s power is still strong (Toronto Star)

It all comes down to the magic. I can venture through adulthood without sacrificing my childlike view of the world, the one I wish was and work for.

J.K. Rowling has had amazing success with the books ever since. That must be a difficult load to carry, the pressure that goes along with success like Harry Potter has brought. On the other hand, it has brought her many great things as a result.

https://wearelumos.org

I sometimes want to keep Harry Potter to myself and then I want to hear how it has touched other reader’s lives like it has mine.

We can share in it. Magic is ageless and timeless and this story gives me hope and brings me a kind of faith, I suppose as a religion in a way. This may sound strange to those who never did read Harry Potter, but it feels as real as anything, though it stands as the most successful of fictional worlds.

I realize it means considerably less to some and to some nothing at all, only a book, not representing everyone. I am glad books are constantly being written that could bring people the kind of joy this one has brought me.

Thankful to my friend Kerra for directing me
here
as I explore diversity in my own and other stories.

Something Just Like This

Now,onto big decisions for my future. There was a discussion about making some changes. I want to share photos here, for my sighted viewers, but recently was having some trouble with that. Also, it was discussed whether me publishing my pictures here makes them property of WP and if I should move all my writing to a site all my own. I am thankful I have a friend who knows what he’s talking about, even a bit, when it comes to all that.

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

—Albus Dumbledore, “Harry Potter)

I Knew Not #HarryPotter #AtoZChallenge

Wine. Water. Whales. Writing.

These were all contenders. Nope. None of these. Instead, why not go with a little blasphemy?

The A to Z Challenge – W is for Witchcraft and Wizardry

As in…

Hogwarts: School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Feminists today speak of being descendants of those witches once tried for practicing witchcraft and burnt at the stake.

I see Emma Watson on TV and walking the red carpet with Tom Hanks. She’s doing just fine after playing one on screen for a decade.

I knew very little about witchcraft until I was in my mid twenties. I always heard the word and thought of black magic, frowned upon by God.

I knew not.

Now I picture that giant castle (Hogwarts) and I wish I could have received my letter.

A classic tale of good vs evil, but as the story eventually makes clear, none of us have only, strictly one or the other inside of us.

All those religious groups and parenting groups who protested the Harry Potter books and movies originally thought of evil too, without reading the books themselves, to see what treasures were waiting to be discovered.

Claiming Godliness does not automatically make one an all good person. I think Harry Potter and the many witches and wizards throughout his fictional world can teach valuable lessons about what is right and what true decency looks like.

For fiction, this story was wonderful. It was a magical world, coexisting alongside the non magic world, both containing good and bad. The power of witchcraft had terrible misinformation attached, leading people to judge something without getting to know more about it. Rowling did a wonderful thing, an important thing, in bringing these subjects into the mainstream.

I am particularly affected by the themes in the HP series, as being misjudged is never a welcome place to find oneself.. I don’t want to judge anything unfairly, if I’ve hardly even given it a chance. I would hope all of us could learn from the witches and wizards in the story that J.K. Rowling created.

I sure wish I could wave a wand right now and make things different from what they are, in several areas.

Don’t you?

***This is my first year of joining the A to Z Challenge and so I’ve decided to post randomly, as a way for new visitors to my blog to get to know me a little better. I look forward to discovering some interesting new blogs too.

Hourglass With Flowing Sand, #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange #SongLyricSunday

“What about deprivation, gluttony, the human nation?”

Another from my all-time favourite: The Cranberries.

For this week’s
Song Lyric Sunday,
the theme is time.

Is it ticking out on us? Are we running out of it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AJsLkRbQ74

Tick…tick…tick…tick.

***

We’d better think about the things we say
We’d better think about the games we play
The world went round, around and round
We’d better think about the consequences
We’d better think about the global senses
The time went out, the time went out
What about Chernobyl? What about radiation?
We don’t know, we don’t know
What about deprivation? Gluttony, the human nation?
We don’t know, we don’t know
For me love is all, for me love is all
For me love is all, for me love is all
Time is ticking out
Looks like we screwed up the ozone layer I wonder if the politicians care
And time went out, and time went out
What about our children then? Is there nothing left for them?
We don’t know, we don’t know
For me love is all, for me love is all
For me love is all, for me love is all
Ahh they need oxygen, ahh they need oxygen
For me love is all, for me love is all
For me love is all, for me love is all
Time is ticking out yeah
The time is ticking out

LYRICS

***

More global warming talk…or is it climate change we’re calling it now?

I don’t care what you call it. How much of it did we cause and how much of it can we control or help? How long will science be ignored by religion or plain old ignorance of the mess we’ve made?

I worry about what other governments do. I worry about the oceans not being protected. I worry about what another government and country does or doesn’t do, especially when EPA regulations are being rolled back and we share an amazing natural resource: The Great Lakes.

I wrote about this increasing temperature change thing that’s becoming hard to dispute (though some continue trying anyway).

It was the day in February that my new niece was born, and the weather was so warm that people all over Toronto, on the news, they were ecstatic to be waring t-shirts in the middle of winter. Me…not so much. I wondered just what kind of a situation we were cheering, that my niece and the other children will be inheriting from us older generations.

Are we so selfish and only interested in our comfort levels in the moment that we don’t see, can’t see, won’t see?

Tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…like a clock, counting down the minutes.

And, before you know it, we’re living to see the next ice age. Okay, who knows, but that’s my problem. None of us know what we might be in store for, least of all is me, as I know very little about possible food shortages, famines (already in progress in parts of the world), and more extreme weather patterns and super storms, which we’re seeing all over the place.

If we all want to continue living in a fantasy world of never ending natural resources, this song won’t stop that. I just thought it was poignant, almost twenty years ago when it came out, and we’re reaping the benefits of human greed. What does time change, really?

I’m not going to use the term “blind” to describe what we, as the human species, refuse to see about our time on earth. I can’t see and I am still worried, worried about what a slippery slope it is we may be walking.

I picture that hourglass from The Wizard of Oz. I see the sand or the coloured jewels (red, yellow, green, and blue) like in Harry Potter. I hear the silent sound of grains of sand, falling from top to bottom in that hourglass, singling time we can never ever get back.