Head In My Hands, #SongLyricSunday

In high school English class, I had to write a poem about my life and something that was happening in it. I wish I were able to find that poem now.

I called it “Vice Grip” like the actual piece of equipment, but I turned it into a metaphor for life, but mostly for the physical headaches I’d begun experiencing.

It felt like a vice grip were squeezing my head so so tightly in its grasp. It felt like so much pressure, like life a lot of the time.

I put my head in my hands and sighed. I still do sometimes. Life is feeling caught a lot of the time. It’s hard for me not to think of where I was a year ago…two years…five…ten and wonder, to look back instead of looking ahead. At least, with the past, I know what happened, even if I don’t know why. With the future, the trouble with looking ahead, is that it is so wide open. This can be exciting, but it can also feel like an incredible, squeezing pressure.

As for the present…

Lines like:

“When it hurts this good you gotta play it twice.”

“Waiting on me, where the numb meets the lonely. It’s gone before it ever meets the ice. Another vice.”

And,

“Maybe I’m addicted to goodbyes”

Vice – Miranda Lambert

I thought this song probably spoke of the struggles and the pain Miranda Lambert had with a very public breakup from her country star husband.

So many people have a vice, at least one. Whether they drink their pain away, or they just move from relationship to relationship in order to avoid real commitment, that’s still a vice, is it not?

Vice like a crutch. We hold on. We fight. Vice like a grip that holds us tight.

(That’s right…I can write poetry and lyrics too, on occasion.”

🙂

😉

😦

***

Stay as a needle dropping on a vinyl
Neon singer with a jukebox title full of heartbreak
When it hurts this good you gotta play it twice
Another vice
All dressed up in a pretty black label
Sweet salvation on a dining room table
Waiting on me
Where the numb meets the lonely
It’s gone before it ever melts the ice
Another vice
Another call, another bed I shouldn’t crawl out of
At 7AM with shoes in my hand
Said I wouldn’t do it, but I did it again
And I know I’ll be back tomorrow night, oh
I’ll wear a tail like a leather jacket
When the new wears off, I don’t even pack it
If you need me
I’ll be where my reputation don’t precede me
Maybe I’m addicted to goodbyes
Another vice
Another town, where my past can’t run me down
Another life, another call, another bed I shouldn’t crawl out of
At 7AM with shoes in my hand
Said I wouldn’t do it, but I did it again
And I know I’ll be gone tomorrow night
Mmm, another vice
Standing at the sink now, looking at the mirror
Don’t know where I am or how I got here
Well the only thing that I know how to find
Is another vice
Mmm another vice
Yes, another vice
Ooh, another vice
Another vice
Another vice
Another vice

***

So there they are and here they are.

Vice Lyrics

It’s as good a time as any,

Song Lyric Sunday, #SongLyricSunday

to share that I am very much not a fan of country music, but this song was one of the several exceptions I’ve made.

I like country music that isn’t too obviously country music. I hope that means I can be met halfway and that I keep a somewhat open mind to things, musical and otherwise.

When I just happened to hear Miranda Lambert’s “Vice” for the first time last night, I thought it would be the perfect song to share here with others. I don’t often end up listening to Miranda Lambert’s music.

I try to keep an open mind, specifically when it comes to music, so I find influences from all sorts of places.

What genre of music is your last resort when you’re looking for something to listen to? What artist, band, or group? What can’t you stand? Is it important to give it a chance wherever possible?

I try, anyway.

TToT: Don’t Count Your Owls Before They Are Delivered – Now and Then, #10Thankful

ISn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive-it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?

–From “Anne of Green Gables”

Ten Things of Thankful

So, once more, a lot has changed in a week.

Canada now has a new majority government, with Justin Trudeau as the chosen one. Our twenty-third Prime Minister.

🙂

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: Canadian Election

And our Toronto Blue Jays are finished for the season.

😦

Ah well. Can’t have everything.

Two stories, big in my newsfeed this week anyway, were the 20th anniversary of the movie “Now and Then” and the date (October 21st, 2015) which Marty and Doc arrived at in Back to the Future II.

I am pretty sure I saw the first in theatres, with my friends. I’m not certain though. Funny how even twenty years can feel like a long time now. It was the perfect coming-of-age movie for young girls.

Now and Then

Then, the big deal made about Back to the Future. I personally disliked the second of the trilogy, most of all, preferring the first or the third.

Back In Time

I’m not sure if I’d want to have the ability to go backward or forward in time, but as everyone around here have been remembering Toronto’s two World Series wins, back to back, over twenty years ago and then people are comparing what BTTF predicted the world would be like in 2015, back in the late eighties, I don’t quite know where to look. I guess I will focus on the present, or I guess the immediate past, in the week that just was.

Ten Things of Thankful:

For my right, my chance, my freedom to vote.

I wasn’t sure of this, still, as I made my way into my old high school, to the voting station set up in the gymnasium. I wondered if anything I did could really make a difference. I thought how silly it all seemed, with the ads and the fighting between parties, the lies and the broken promises, not to mention the unknown of it all.

Then I voted and I felt empowered. I felt blessed to be a Canadian. I felt satisfied with the contribution I’d just made.

When I’d learned of Justin’s win, on the same night that the Blue Jays won fabulously, I was thrilled for both, for Canada.

I guess, when the person you did not want to win comes out on top, you feel like your vote didn’t matter, but suddenly, when the winner turns out not to be that guy, that’s when you feel as if your vote just might have made a difference.

For the change that’s finally returned to Canada.

For those of us who still aren’t sure, this letter makes it clear.

Justin Trudeau is part of a political dynasty, a little like the Kennedy family, the Clinton family, or the Bush clan. Justin was born in our version of The White House, 24 Sussex Dr, but I discovered that the use of the home for the prime minister is quite recent. Pierre Trudeau was one of the first to live there as Prime Minister of Canada. I did not even know this. I was not far from this place, last winter, yet I knew little about it.

History of 24 Sussex

I am learning a lot about Canada since Justin was voted in. I guess I feel a renewed sense of pride in my country and am curious about things that are going to make a difference, as is the hope of so many fellow Canadians I believe.

For crepes with friends.

It’s a little like Words With Friends. Okay, well actually it’s not, but there were a lot of words exchanged.

🙂

I met a friend I’d made online, for the first time, in person. We went to a little restaurant in Toronto, one she’d recommended, called Crepes Club.

At first I wondered if you needed a membership or something, but turns out it was just a place with a lot of crepes, both of the first course and dessert varieties.

Here’s the interview I did with Lorraine last year.

For a delicious latte.

Nothing goes better with crepes than a latte, I think. I was told it looked pretty, with a design made with the chocolate and whipped cream on top, but all I noticed was the taste.

For a chance to tour the new Toronto location of Ronald McDonald House.

“The oldest and the most devastating pain there is: not the pain of childhood, but the remembrance of it.”

–Toni Morrison

I’d stayed in the old one, with my family, back in the late nineties. I admit, I was a little sad when I’d heard about the move, as I loved that place when we’d stayed at the old one. It made me remember those days wistfully, but things must change and the improvement was undeniable.

For the existence of just such a place, for so many families with sick children.

These families don’t need to be worrying about things like lodging and meals, when they are dealing with fear and pain, life and death.

Everything is there for them. Groups and organizations volunteer to come to the house and make meals for the families, multiple times a week, so that parents can have a break.

This is something relatively new, not available when we stayed there, but I see what a difference it makes.

For the little touches that make Ronald McDonald House feel like a home, temporary maybe, but still a home.

I liked the library, of course, but there was a giant moose on the main floor, a fireplace, big fish tank, and a colourful painting on the wall.

I could not see this painting, but it was raised and I felt the lines and the bumps. I immediately thought of that famous Bobby Ferrin song from the eighties. It’s hard to be happy and to just put on a smile, when you are feeling sick and/or scared. It’s hard to be a child and to be ill, but there is plenty to be happy about if you’ve got your family around you, nurses and doctors who care, and a place like Ronald McDonald to depend on.

For another box of my books.

After the Scars: A Second Chances Anthology

We sent for more. I’ve given a few to people and I’m waiting, still for mine, but it should be arriving, with a bunch of bookmarks.

As exciting as this still is and as thrilled as I still am about my words being in print for the first time, in published form, I want to continue to grow with my writing.

For the discovery of a local writing group in my area.

I don’t know why I waited this long to look into its existence, but it meets at the library in my town, every first and third Wednesday evening of each month.

I will go and check it out in a few weeks. I am excited to see what it is all about, what sort of people, from what age group, it is made up of.

Speaking of libraries:

Twitter battel alert: Toronto and Kansis libraries face off over Jays/Royals series

For the graceful and winning way the Toronto Blue Jays went out, with a rain delay, a bang, and in glory.

They played a great bunch of games, coming back from where they’d been during the summer, to give Toronto and all of Canada something to hope for and cheer for, all the way into OCtober.

Sure, there was disappointment, the to-be-expected claims of tampering and fixing of the game, conspiracies, outcries, but for the most part, we accepted our loss with pride and resignation, with renewed hope for next year.

It was just nice to see us all being proud of our team, our players, ourselves and the coming together of so many, big sports fans and regular fans, like me I would say. I felt the disappointment, going to bed before the final score came down, so I can only imagine how one of the die hard fans took the news.

Geez! I really hope my going off to bed didn’t jinx them or something. Imagine if the whole loss was all down to me and something I did or did not do?

We still handled it well and it was a great few weeks we had there.

Bobby McFerrin – Don’t Worry Be Happy

Success is not final, Failure is not fatal: it’s the courage to continue that counts.

Winston Churchill

The TToT is brought to you by: The Internet – all those wires running at the bottom of the ocean

Would you go back in time, or ahead, into the future, if you had the chance?

Now and then: I can get just as drawn into what once was as the next person, I often can’t stop thinking and worrying about the future, but I am trying to zoom in more on what’s going on in the here and now.

Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

–Doris Lessing

This Is Bogus, #SoCS

I have a beef for you.

SoCS

I was surprised with this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt.

http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-2315/

I thought, immediately about my mom’s beef, which is one of my favourite things she makes, and she makes a lot of delicious things.

I thought about how weird we all found it when our favourite Swiss Chalet, chicken restaurant, started selling rotisserie beef too. Weird for my family, yes, as that has been one of our favourite family restaurants and they are known for their chicken. They have sold hamburgers and fish and chips for a long time, so not really so weird. I tried the beef a few weeks back. Not as good as my mothers’ but still tasty.

But then one of my favourite movies of all-time came on the TV and a beef began to form, the non red meat kind.

Big Daddy will always remind me of a double date I went on, back in high school, and we went to see this one, one of Adam Sandler’s best.

It just recently came on NetFlix and I was happy then, but I can’t pass up a movie when it comes on television, even with the annoying commercials, which should be beef enough.

Then there’s the second most annoying part of movies when they are aired on TV and that’s the deletion of all swear words.

Butt instead of ass.

Of course, it’s a young child in the main role. In the film he says “assholes” and in the dubbed version he says “jackasses”.

Are they horrible stage parents, neglectful, who let their kid actor child say bad words?

How does the movie community get away with that, but we can’t let those words be said when the film arrives on television?

As for Adam Sandler: he can’t say “piss” when he sees how much of a puddle there’s in the bed-wetting scene. They dub over Adam Sandler’s voice completely, replacing “that’s a lot of piss” with something about lake Michigan. In that case, to me it sounds like it’s not even Adam’s voice saying the words. They must have gotten someone else to say that one, assuming we wouldn’t care or notice. I notice.

He’s allowed to tell the little boy to “shut up” still, but he can no longer shout “horse shit” like he does in the McDonald’s scene.

They can’t talk about testicles. God forbid you use the proper names for things, but using women )the “weaker sex”) to prove a point about not being manly and that’s just fine.

This made me wonder, again, about our society and what it deems appropriate.

We have violence, with a warning, or a later airing, usually after nine at night.

As for a movie playing in the middle of the afternoon, well it’s perfectly fine for the old man in this one to say to Adam:

“Bring it on Woman!”

It’s meant as a name he’s calling him. I could call that sexism. I could say that, although subtle and less shocking in the moment, it could be instilling the wrong kind of beliefs and feelings in young viewers, or even making such name calling okay for adults too.

In the film, the little boy learns bad behaviours from Adam’s character, until he starts teaching him better. We are afraid of teaching our children words, we think are inappropriate, “ass” for example. Then we go ahead and teach them to use “woman” as a negative name to call someone.

I am not saying one thing is worse or better. They are not the end of the world either. I just don’t understand our priorities sometimes. I don’t know what the right answer is.

Just my beef for the day. Interested to hear other peoples’ and I am sure there will be some, as this is a common use of the word. PErhaps I should have delved into the whole vegetarian debate instead.

Sweet Child

Oh well…there’s always next time.

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.

SoCS: Close But No Cigar

Time for another instalment of Stream of Consciousness Saturday:

http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-3015/

***

Okay, so this post isn’t about cigars. I figured I should say that, right off the bat. There is no mention of a cigar anywhere, from here on out. I just liked the phrase.

🙂

Every damn time, it felt like, I got so close and then the floor just dropped out from underfoot.

I could see where I wanted to go, where I wanted to end up, but somehow I missed the mark, every time.

I had gone to school for years, fighting so many obstacles, and it had been both rewarding and hard work.

I almost got held back while my friends were off to high school, but I had managed to avoid that at least.

But now, I was almost at the end, but not quite. I guess “almost” is a relative term, because I actually only had half the credits I needed to graduate, but in the grand scheme of things it felt close enough to my mind.

Right around this time a song came out that I would equate with this feeling of frustration, that I couldn’t quite do it. I had been almost at the end of the road, but I had to face the fact that I would be left behind.

I’d lost everything. It felt like I had nothing to show for all that hard work. How was I supposed to get over this disappointment I felt?

The anger in the song mirrored the anger I felt at myself, for almost making it to the milestone, one so many parents celebrate for their children, but I had fallen short.

I was almost certain I was letting everyone down: my parents, the teachers that had helped me along the way, and myself of course.

Almost wasn’t good enough. I hadn’t been good enough.

***

Next would come two relationships. Two years. Two-and-a-half. Same disappointment. That’s life sometimes, I suppose.
I could blame it on my bad health and illness, bad luck, or maybe it was me.

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

Schoolwork

During last Monday’s post for

The Redefining Disability Awareness Challenge

I described a typical

Day in the Life,

for me, someone who just happens to be visually impaired. I explained how I do the everyday things we all must do.

In contrast, my school and work experiences haven’t been typical at all.

***

Q: Is your work or school life affected by disability? Describe some of these challenges.

A: Simply put … yes.

This may be the most difficult question I have answered for this challenge yet. It involves a lot of what my educational history has been and a lot of the fears I have for my future.

As a writer who uses writing to convey my feelings and thoughts in, what should be a clear and concise manner, I am not sure where to begin or what to focus on here. I am under know obligation to even answer if I don’t want to, (the option to simply skip over any questions I find difficult to respond to), but then how would I ever come close to figuring out how school and work have or will affect me in future? It’s through the writing that I come to find the answers I seek.

My parents, my mother had to fight hard to get me educated along with my peers in my neighbourhood school system. I did not feel it when I was young, but there was great pressure to prove all that hard work worth it and to show people I was just as capable as any other child.

Things became complex when my situation was made even more complicated by additional health problems. I was in sixth grade and over time everything began to suffer: my schoolwork, my social development, my physical health and state of mind. At first glance it appeared the stress and the pressure had finally gotten to me and maybe it was all too much.

After I was finally diagnosed with kidney disease my blindness suddenly seemed like nothing at all in comparison.

Would I make it to high school? Would I graduate?

It’s years later and I did make it to high school. I made it through a year of dialysis and a kidney transplant and I battled back to be ready for the next stage of my life. They wanted to hold me back because they thought I wasn’t ready. They were wrong, but I couldn’t possibly know what life had in store for me.

I did not graduate. This isn’t easy to talk about, but I have to.

Again my blindness was overshadowed by the other medical issues that plagued me through my teen years and beyond. I could not concentrate on completing high school when I could barely get through a day without pain.

I became isolated. I faded from view. I fell behind.

Now I am thirty and I feel like ever getting a degree or a job is way far off and, many days, I simply can not see either one happening for me. I know, however, that this is just the fear talking. The fear that I can’t hack it is a constant companion.

The truth is that my blindness has been an issue, but it hasn’t been my biggest one. This isn’t to say it hasn’t been a challenge and that it won’t present problems for me in going forward, but what else is there to do but fight for the future I know I deserve.

We are coming to the end of October in a few short days and with this the final few days of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. I wrote about the part we as a society all must play to find a way to bring people with disabilities such as blindness into the work force a few weeks back:

National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

This is possible, I believe, and necessary for a more inclusive world.

I hope to return to completion of additional education as I enter into the decade that is my thirties. Better late than never.

I will get my high school diploma. I will strive for a degree in English literature, creative writing, or tourism. These are my passions and any disability I have dealt with in my life has made me dream bigger, able to see how far I have come and to feel appreciative for all those who have helped me along the way all the more.

I will do my part in showing the world that I can learn and work just as hard as anybody else who looks for fulfilment through a useful degree or a worthwhile job.

If my school and work life have or will be affected by my disabilities it’s all the inspiration and motivation I will ever need to carve my own spot in future.

And I will celebrate by announcing it here when I do achieve these goals. Disability does affect all these parts of life, but it does not have to define who I am and predict what future success I may have.

IT CAN BE DONE.

***

For next week:

Is your family life affected by disability? In what ways?

A brand new month and maybe a brand new perspective.

I will think about this and may once more return to asking those family members involved.

She’s The Bomb

Say what you wanna say. And let the words fall out. Honestly, I wanna see you be brave.
– Brave, Sara Bareilles

With all this talk over the past few days of feminism, what with the speech heard around the world by Emma Watson at The United Nations, I thought today was a good time to share this.

There is a website I like to read, which posts interesting articles by young women with unique points-of-view.

I would call myself a feminist, but I too have had a hard time defining what that meant. Here is someone who knows a little something about it.

She is the creator of

TheFBomb.org.

She is a feminist, a blogger, and an author.

I contacted her a while back about doing an interview with me, to find out what feminism means to her and what she aims to do with the website.

Welcome Julie.

***

K: What is the FBomb.org?

J: The FBomb is a feminist blog written by and for young women and men who believe in equality. While I founded and edit the FBomb, the blog is really an open platform and community based on submissions and exists as a space for a younger generation to define what feminism means to us.

The blog is called (the FBomb) to poke fun at the way the term “feminist” is often vilified, in the hope that socially aware and passionate readers and contributors could reclaim this negative stereotype and show the world that feminism is really a beautiful, positive movement that, at the end of the day, is about the pursuit of equality.

K: How did you decide to start this site?

J: I first became interested in feminism in 8th grade when I started to research the movement and specific feminist issues for a required speech. With the guidance of some great teachers my freshman year of high school, I discovered the world of feminist blogging. I was so inspired and excited by bloggers who took feminist issues seriously while maintaining a sense of humour. the only issue I had with such blogs was that the teenage perspective on most issues – even issues that directly impacted us, like sex education, for example — was missing.

Additionally, I really wanted to create a community where young feminist-minded women and men could come together, share our ideas and offer each other support and advice. It was important to me that an adult or a corporation create this community, but that it was authentically peer-driven.

K: What are your hopes for this site, its future, and what it can do for women and men alike?

J: The FBomb just partnered with the Women’s Media Center, the non-profit organization founded by Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan, which aims to make more women visible and powerful in the media. I think this partnership will help this goal by allowing young women and feminist-minded men to develop and use their voices and giving them a platform from which they can add diverse and vital perspectives to the blogosphere and media at large.

On a more personal level though, I think the FBomb has and continues to allow young feminists to find a community and develop a stronger sense of identity as well.

K: What does feminism mean in your eyes?

J: Feminism is, on the most basic level, the pursuit of equality. Feminism as a worldview is about recognizing that people face a variety of different kinds of oppression due to their personal standing in the world (based on socioeconomic factors like race, class, religion, ability, etc.) that intersect to create unique experiences, but that any type of oppression is unjust and must be critically analyzed and pushed back against.

K: What do you think are still some of the biggest battles or issues women face in our world today?

J: I think it’s difficult to isolate certain issues because every woman, based on her perspective and place in the world — faces a unique intersection of challenges and this is why the feminist movement looks, feels, and serves a different purpose for everybody depending on where they’re coming from and who they are.

However, sexual assault and gender-based violence generally is an incredibly pervasive issue that impacts women young and old. For example, as many as 1 out of every 4 college women will experience attempted or completed rape during their time at school. Issues related to body image (including eating disorders, unrealistic standards of beauty in the media, etc.) are also incredibly pervasive amongst young women and an issue many teen feminists focus on.

K: Do you have any idols or role models in particular for yourself or for feminism as a whole? Do you see any women who are making positive changes and providing examples for young women to look up to?

J: Like most feminists, I always have and always will admire Gloria Steinem. She’s such an incredible icon for this movement. She’s an incredibly intelligent and charismatic leader and it’s undeniable that she completely changed and continues to change the way our society views women.

Female politicians – like Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren – are also doing fantastic work to advocate for women. and there are also plenty of women doing incredible things around the world – Leymah Gbowee’s work with Liberian women is astonishing, Zainab Salbi’s work with women for Women International is vital, and there are so many more.

the bottom line is there are plenty of people doing incredible feminist work and making positive change in the world: they just don’t always get the widespread recognition and media attention they deserve.

K: What do you think are the misconceptions people have about all things feminism?

J: In my experience, I’ve found that the biggest reason young women shy away from identifying as feminist is because they don’t feel that they really understand what the movement is or what that word means. Plenty of people still associate feminism with negative stereotypes, but I think more than anything else misconceptions about the movement stem from a lack of education about and exposure to it.

I find that my generation is more willing to identify with and support feminist issues than any other generation in the past (and the statistics back me up on that – according to advocates for youth, 74% of millennials support gay marriage, 68% support access to abortion and 88% support to comprehensive sex education) but more often than not, unfortunately, they don’t realize that that’s what the feminist movement is all about.

K: What’s your best advice for a woman with a disability like myself, or women with other additional challenges in general?

J: My best advice for women facing any challenge is to speak up about it. I started the FBomb so that young adults could find a place to feel that their stories and perspectives are valuable and that speaking out about our individual challenges will help us feel less alone and hopefully work to demystify and eventually eradicate prejudice based on ignorance. I truly believe in that mission: every voice deserves to be heard and the most radical thing one can do is to use theirs to advocate for change.

***

Thank you so much Julie for answering my questions and for everything you do to speak up for women’s rights and equality for all.

To find out more about Julie you can check her out

HEre,

or at her website:

http://juliezeilinger.com

and you can read more on The FBomb, on

Facebook,

or On

Twitter.

and I will be submitting something to the FBomb to speak up, just like Julie suggested because I too feel like I am tired of remaining so shy and staying so quiet.

BRAVE

What are your thoughts on feminism and what it means to be called a feminist in our world today?

Lumos

It has been an emotional month, or a few months actually. I don’t know how I am feeling from moment to moment still. When what I thought my life was going to be suddenly changed I had to pick up the pieces from a broken heart and decide what I would do. This might all sound cliche, but it is true nonetheless.

This is why when I suddenly decided to get a kitten and when I told my family they thought I was nuts, even a bit concerned for me probably. I have been thinking about getting one in the past. We talked about it. So last week when the opportunity suddenly presented itself, I jumped at it.

We were dog people growing up in my household. There was the mysterious stray who would magically appear out of the bushes on our back patio when I was young. It only seemed to like me and my brother and would run away again when other members of the family would come out. We played with it and fed it and I even started bringing it inside. This came to a tragic end when we came home one day to find the door of the bird cage wide open, our bird nowhere to be found, except for some scattered feathers. Oops!

Then there was the stray who showed up a few times when I was in high school. I begged my mom to keep him and I named him Homey, but he didn’t stick around for long.

Finally there was the neighbourhood cat who began sunning itself on the warm stones of our front walk last summer and soon moved on to the comfort of the front porch swing. I began to come out to find it hanging out, every day at around noon and we became fast friends. It never made it into the house and soon the coldest of cold winters would drive it back to whichever nearby house it lived.

There is debate now why I got Lumos and if I truly know of the extra responsibility this will place on my shoulders. Dobby is already a handful and sending him to live with my sister and brother-in-law is no longer an option like in the past. I love them both now and it’s the three of us against the world.

I ask myself why like the others. Is it because I had been drinking at my brother’s open mic the night before and I was still a mess from a hang-over, not thinking clearly? Is it because I am still reeling from loss and rejection, causing me to made a rash decision which I will one day regret? Is it because I fear I will never have children, a family of my own, and someone to love and Dobby and Lumos are my way of having someone to take care of? Or is it that I am one step away from turning into

Crazy Cat Lady

from The Simpsons?

Perhaps it is some of this or none at all. We all have skeletons in the closet, monsters under the bed, and those voices inside our heads. Mine nag at me and taunt me and tell me I am no good and destined to end up alone. I have been using writing to help me cope and perhaps having the two of them to wake up in the morning for, knowing they need me…maybe that is what I need right now. Whatever else is to come I want to be someone who takes chances and experiences life. I know a lot of times I am the introverted writer who writes and reads about other people experiencing all the world has to offer, but I am constantly working on putting myself out there to have the kinds of experiences, in love and life, that will help me write with more clarity and direction.

I was reminded about all the cat hair I would have to clean up and I hear that person’s reminder loud and clear. Sometimes I care and I see how it is important to clean, if I ever want to have guests over. It is hard though, sometimes, to care too much about it. When I go about my day, most times, I don’t see the hair building in corners and all over the floor. It isn’t until I get down on the ground that I notice it. I often go about my day and think there are more important things to worry about. I am often stuck in my own head and unaware of my external environment. I look at the big picture and I now have one of each.

I debated over the name and, predictably, I went with a literary name to match the dog. I decided, in the end, to stick with the Harry Potter theme. I have previously written )on HerHeadache) with such titles as:

The Dark Mark

and

Dementor

I thought it was time I used a term from J. K. Rowling’s novels for something sweet and adorable. Lumos is a spell which is used to produce light with a wizard’s wand. I like to think of my new little kitten as a bright spot of light in some of the darkness I have been experiencing lately and hope, with the love and companionship of both animals, to climb out of some of that darkness and find my way forward.

National Volunteer Week 2014

At the time I thought it an odd paring, Ronald McDonald House right next door to a shelter for run-away teens and street kids. I must admit, as a fourteen-year-old I was nervous to walk by there on my way to and from visiting Sick Kids Hospital. There were always teenagers mingling around on the sidewalk and I didn’t know what to make of them. I was in a huge city and there was so much going on, I had no idea at the time what to make of the paring.

On this Throw-back Thursday I think back to fifteen years ago this month. I was with my family, yet again, staying in Toronto while this time it was my younger brother who was the transplant patient and it was my mother’s turn to give one of her children the ultimate gift any parent could ever give.
Once again my family rallied around us. My grandparents were staying with us. They loved stepping up and taking care of us all, and the experience once more of staying at Ronald McDonald House in Toronto.

I had completed most of my first year in high school. After a year of high school firsts: new courses, new friends, and a surgery of my own we were staying at the Ronald MCDonald House on Gerrard Street for the second time. I had been dealing with chronic headaches all year and nothing could be found to explain why.
After many neurologist appointments and tests all my doctors hoped a surgery to correct scoliosis would fix the problem.
It seemed to be working. I was leaving the role of patient behind and taking up the role of care giver to my mother and brother. I was out of the pressure of high school, drama, and dating and into an environment and a role I was much better fitted for.

Back in our room at the house I stood under the hot water of the shower, letting the stress of only the first few hours of the morning of the surgery melt away, I hoped all was going well in the two separate operating rooms just down the street.
For the next few days we would walk back and forth from hospital to Ronald McDonald House, several times a day, passing those homeless youth, my guide dog Croche soon memorizing the route from one to the other. Those April days seemed to fly by, of course I wasn’t the one in hospital and hooked up to iv’s this time, but I also had no clue how much it meant to the teens just next door to even get a hot shower everyday.

Clang! As the little gate would shut and I would be past the fear I felt when walking by those meandering kids, the safety of the locked and secure Ronald McDonald House door was always waiting. Only families who were registered there with children who were sick could have the pass code to get in.
Once that door closed behind us we felt at home. I felt like this was just another family vacation we were all on and this was a hotel we were guests of.

Right in the heart of downtown Toronto was this haven for my family and myself, always there when we needed a place to stay. Sure, it was only after my brother or myself underwent serious operations, but it always meant the world that this place existed. With everything else we had to worry about, finding some place to stay wasn’t an issue. We had a place we could stay as a family, to be together when we needed to be nearby for my brother and mother both.

Heaven forbid anyone ever need it, but it is there when they do. It wasn’t until years later that I found the irony in the home for families with sick children, (a home away from home as it’s sometimes called) and the home for children who have no family to rally about them or even know it when they’re in trouble, being side by side. I realize now the connection between these two much needed refuges: the people who make them possible: the volunteers.

I want to thank all the giving individuals who selflessly offer their time and their energies. These are only two examples of organizations for children which do incredible work each and every day for our world’s most vulnerable, those most in need. I understand now why in an odd sort of way, the two houses belong beside each other, two houses full of dedicated staff and volunteers, put there to help frightened and in need children. I had a family to support me, while lots of those kids did not. Your family doesn’t have to be related by blood for it to make a difference.

These are just two of the wonderful organizations, specifically to help out children and young people. Please check out their websites, I’ve listed below, plus two more. Volunteers make a lot of the services and programs run by these organizations possible. They deserve some recognition and Covenant House and Ronald McDonald House will be around for a long time to come with the generosity of those who volunteer.

http://www.rmhtoronto.org

http://www.covenanthouse.org/homeless-charity/toronto

http://www.sickkids.ca

http://volunteer.ca/nvw2014