Magic: Lost and Found, #FTSF #JusticeForTim

I’ve always said that I think all children should get to see and experience Disney World at least once. There’s a child in all of us. Become a kid again.

Oh, sure. I was the little girl afraid of the characters (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy) who walked the park and posed for photos with families. I was the girl afraid to ride Space Mountain. I still count my family’s 1992 trip to Florida as an important childhood memory.

Our parents announced the trip to us one night at dinner. I still vaguely remember that announcement. We were eating chicken and I looked at the flowers on the old plates my mom had at the time, thrilled for two weeks off school and a giant road trip with my family.

We drove in the blue van. We stopped in Atlanta, Georgia. We went to Disney, Sea World, the ocean. It was my first time at the ocean, in my young memory.

We collected shark teeth that we found buried in the sand. We swam in pools and ate oranges. We did Florida up right.

***

In the last week alone, In Florida, a terrible mass shooting took place at a gay nightclub and a little child was killed by an alligator. I don’t mean to single out Florida, I loved my time there, the next two times as well as the first. It’s just…when was it that I realized no place is Disney perfect?

All this shock and sadness and grief and horror in Orlando.

***

When we were in Florida we visited the Everglades. We took a boat ride through the swamps. How many alligators were there in those waters around us? That is their home. How do animals and people live side-by-side and stay out of each other’s way? These are questions that plague me now. They never even crossed my mind when I was eight.

I held a baby alligator. I felt it squirm. His mouth was held closed. I couldn’t possibly grasp what a full grown version of the animal would be like. I didn’t have any fear of meeting one and not surviving the encounter. My parents would keep me safe. The alligators would know I was not food, right?

You think Florida, you think alligators. You don’t hear about a child dying from such a danger, at a resort. It is rare. It is unimaginable.

When it comes to more youthful days, I will always remember Florida with my family. For one family, a father who couldn’t hold on and a mother and sibling who were helpless on shore, Florida will never be happy.

***

I am grown now. I can’t pretend and believe in Disney magic, when the news stories just keep on coming at me.

A baby’s lifeless body was found in a dumpster in a town not far from mine just yesterday morning.

A father was taken from his wife and little girl.

It was May of 2013, and the news reported a young father was missing, after he put his truck up for sale online, and left to take it for a test drive with a few perspective buyers. Those buyers had selfish and evil intentions.

He never came home. His killers would be charged.

I heard the wife plead for her husband’s safe return, but something in me knew that would never happen.

When I heard that a little girl would never get to visit Disney, wide eyed, with her father, I was horrified. I felt ill.

When I thought how I’d feel if someone dared to take my brother away from his child, I through the big yellow envelope I was holding across the room. I couldn’t pretend that all was well and that bad things didn’t sometimes happen to decent people.

***

Today is exactly twenty-two years since that chase which was broadcast on live television. I did not have a clue who O.J. Simpson was. I hardly ever followed the news. I was only ten and I didn’t think much about the worst news stories of the nineties.

Now I know more. My eyes have been opened. I can’t go back to that ten-year-old girl I once was who was off playing, while the adults were glued to some high speed chase of a famous athlete on TV. I can’t go back to being that eight-year-old girl who was afraid of the live action characters that seemed real in some of those Disney rides. Life would soon get more frightening, the real world as it’s often known.

I do live some of my youth through the children in my life now. It keeps me sane. It keeps me believing in a little bit of magic still.

***

The verdict has come down today. After a week of horror unfolding, within seconds spread across social media, I was relieved to hear about some criminal justice done. That little girl and her mother and their family will never get their loved one back, but the killers have been found guilty of first degree murder. They are going to prison.

The power of justice. The magic of youth.

***

This week’s Finish the Sentence Friday hosts:

Finding Ninee, who is exploring reliving childhood through one’s children.

Along with her is

Deborah of Life is Like a Hand Grenade,

stepping in at the last minute.

One Year, Two Blogs – #tbt

One year ago, with the help of

Fresh Idea Websites,

I launched a website of my own.

Not only did I have this blog, where I wrote more from a literary perspective, but I wanted a separate place to focus on my love of travel. I thought a lot about persona and branding and I guess Her Headache wasn’t enough, wasn’t quite expressing all I had to say.

The idea came to me that previous summer. My parents were away on a whirlwind road trip out west, through Canada and the US, I had travel on the brain, and I was trying to reinvent myself.

I was sending out my writing more and more, starting to learn how to handle rejections, and trying to figure out what I was truly passionate about.

Within a few months,

The Insightful Wanderer

was borne.

So, though I think I was ahead of most when I came up with the name, I had no idea if I could handle two sites. I decided to jump in and go for it, but it’s been a year and I admit, I haven’t accomplished as much as I’d liked to.

I came across this article this morning:

Why Travel Blogging Needs More Storytelling

This is what I wanted to do. I wanted to combine my love of writing and stories with my travel obsession.

I had begun checking out all the travel blogs the Internet has to offer. I read dozens and dozens of these things. I saw the serge of these sites. I wanted to be one of them, but yet I didn’t.

I could easily have become caught up in the hype.

How do you make money as a travel blogger? How to work with brands and travel companies?

I focused on my own bucket list. I found the travel blogs, same as my more literary ones, that really spoke to me.

I ate up all they had to say about their travels. I admired their adventurous spirits. I thought

Annette White

and

Amanda Williams

were super women and I wanted to follow in their footsteps.

I didn’t want to use my blindness, but yet I saw it as the best way to express myself and capture a reader’s attention, in the travel world.

I liked my idea. The Insightful Wanderer just seemed to shape itself. I know many struggle to decide on a name for their travel blog, but the name was the easy part for me.

Then, I feared I had made a mistake. If I couldn’t be completely comfortable using my blindness as a hook, why did I think Insightful Wanderer was a good idea after all?

I’d gotten the ball rolling by then and I feared I wouldn’t be able to make something of it, but something still propelled me forward.

I had become comfortable with this blog. I had my MacJournal program, for writing my posts, and I knew how to transfer them over to WordPress.

The new site would require a whole new process. It did not seem to connect to MacJournal.

How would I do this? I barely knew how to do anything. Okay, so I was improving, but it always seemed to happen at a snail’s pace, in my own time. I haven’t had help to learn in a while, and the help I do receive is sporadic at best.

I needed a teacher, but where would I find one who knew VoiceOver?

I have had all the website work done for me. That’s why I found Fresh Idea Websites, but since then I have found it difficult to communicate with them just what I need.

I have written a handful of posts. I don’t know why I haven’t written more. I have a whole thirty years of travel I can write about. It’s all in my head and I know I could write, do what the article said, and bring the art of storytelling into the travel blogging world.

I know these things take time. I know that.

On this Throwback Thursday I needed to look back on all this, to see where I hope to be in one year from now.

I have no idea how I’m going to get there. I’d planned to work on the other site for a few months and then have this big reveal here, to connect my two sites, but this revelation has not happened.

Instead, on this one year mark and approaching two years with this here blog, I needed to say something.

I feel anxious a lot because I want to say so much, write so much, share so much. I can’t get it all out. So much was rushing to come out that there seems to be a clog somewhere, a bunch of it seems to have plugged up the line and now I hardly say any of it.

I don’t believe travel needs to be big, grand trips all the time. I’ve been to Niagara Falls and Ottawa this past year. I haven’t published about that on the website.

I still don’t feel comfortable posting over there. I have no help, as even though I say it’s not about the visual aspects, I sometimes have pictures I’d like to include.

People like Amanda travel, independently most of the time. People like Annette travel with her husband, I believe.

I have no partner who wants to experience the world with me. I know the real risk of traveling solo, as a woman who is also visually impaired.

I wanted to be this brave, tough, independent woman and do it anyway, but I continue to hesitate.

I saw how relationships were made and I wanted to form these cool friendships with other female travel bloggers, to connect and travel along with them, but my lack of independent travel made this an unrealistic dream.

I know female travel bloggers are out there, that it’s not all fun and games, but that they’re making it happen. I wanted to make something happen, but I was trapped between wanting to have that life and to write about something more.

I know there is no rush and that I am on no clock, but I feel like I am. I want to write, to make a difference, to do something great with my writing, but I know I have a lot to learn.

If I’m not totally decided on what I want to do, travel or write, or both, how will I combine the two?

I know I am interested in insight. That’s why I write in the first place.

I also feel like I am wandering and how that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. That’s just where I am with my life at this time.

On the Internet radio show interview I did a few weeks back, I said that I hoped my thirties would be this whole decade of discovery, when I would get back into the world, to find what I was looking for. I hope having both these sites will be a part of that. I hope, in the next year and the years after that, I can figure all this out.

I don’t have The Insightful Wanderer as I’d like it to be, not yet. It’s hard to completely lay out how I’d like it to look, when I can’t even see it. I hear it through audio voice, reading it to me, but I don’t know how to explain my vision for it.

I still know nothing about CO and stats. I don’t write top ten articles that get travel bloggers on the map. I don’t have a mailing list. I hardly know how to handle the comments for my posts. Relaying what I’d like hasn’t been easy and it’s down to me to get that all straightened out.

I’ve met travellers who are taking a more literary approach and I would like to see if that’s where I belong, but I’m still unsure.

Maybe I’ll carve out an entirely new path for myself, doing something nobody before me has really done, and that’s why I haven’t been able to decide. I try not to focus too much on the destination, and just enjoy the journey as is said, but that’s really hard sometimes.

I like to know what’s going to happen, how things are going to turn out, but I also want to enjoy the learning process. I know that’s the only way, with writing, and that’s what I am all about, in the end.

Happy One Year Anniversary to TheIWanderer.

Sorry I’ve let you down, let myself down, but I believe in you, in us, in possibility.

TToT: At the Heart of the Star, Not the Shape of It – Ten Years and Ten Things

“Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”
–Stephen Fry

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

I think Mr. Fry and Mr. Wilde to be two incredibly wise men.

A Rainbow over Titanic Belfast.

I’ve decided to stick, somewhat, with the theme of storms and rainbows that I’ve been going with for most of the month thus far. Since we’re nearly finished with the month of August, I can start fresh next week, but I’ve added a little something more, to make this final week of summer, for the most part, its own.

10 Years Later

I have been thinking about the last ten years since Hurricane Katrina happened. My life wasn’t directly affected by that storm. I remember watching it on television, all the horrible news reports that were coming out of New Orleans, and wondering what my grandmother might have thought of it, as she had just died a few weeks earlier.

Now, I come across so many things, in the course of my week, that I want to share because they make me happy or because I just think they are note worthy.

The TToT has become a place where I can make note, as I don’t know if all the technology and extra information since my grandmother’s death and Katrina, if it’s all that good or not, but I like to share it anyway.

Ten Things of Thankful:

For the first so-called autumn evening of the season.

I know it’s not officially fall yet, but this week I felt the air coming in through m open window, and it smelled like fall.

When I say that people flip out. Yeah, I know the sooner fall comes and summer ends, the closer we are to cold and snow of winter (I know), but maybe I want fall to start now, even just a little bit, and maybe it can be an extra long one, so as to not bring on winter for months and months.

But I’ve already come across things like this, a sure sign that people are starting to think pumpkins and changing leaves:

Ontario Pumpkin Patches, Corn Mazes, Hayrides, and More, Find Halloween and Fall Fun in Ontario! – Pumpkinpatchesandmore.org

and

Haunted Mansion Drops in Price But Still No Takers

For my brother arriving back in Ontario, safe and sound, after one hell of a summer road trip through Canada’s Maritime provinces.

Although we were communicating, every few days while he was gone, it was nice to receive the full rundown, both over the phone and in person.

For see shells, red rocks, and other seaside treasures.

For my brother’s effort in finding me something Anne of Green Gables related from his time on Prince Edward Island: postcards, a fridge magnet, and even a little straw hat. He says he considered, for a moment, getting me the full sized version that I could wear, but on further consideration, went with the miniature one instead.

🙂

Good idea.

For lunch out with family, even a three-year-old nephew who thinks he should stand up on the bench seat, but we block him in. He just wants to be closer to our heights at the table, and that is equal to him standing when we’re sitting. I can’t say I blame him for that.

For the perfect combination of Irish culture and Italian food.

The name Muldoon’s Pizza speaks for itself, but our waitress had a rather thick Italian accent.

For another guest posting spot:

#BeReal – KERRY KIJEWSKI

Thanks, Hasty, for the chance for being real, as this is on the list of things that scare me, thus means it’s completely worth doing.

For my returning brother’s highly appreciated assistance with technology matters this week.

He helped me figure out that I could fix one more thing, made wrong by the computer issues I dealt with back in the spring, by downloading software from the Internet.

When It Rains It Pours

I can, once more, use my scanning device, known as an EyePal, to start work on the final few high school courses I need to complete my high school diploma.

Close But No Cigar

Of course, now I have no more excuses. The only person standing in my way is me. This is something I have battled with for years, since I was unwell and unable to graduate, and I have been left feeling unaccomplished, ashamed, and embarrassed for years since that time.

I have made some progress and am half way to my goal. I have completed two out of the final four credits necessary, over these last few years, and that means I am all the more close to being finished.

This scares me because I then have to decide on what my next move should be. As long as I have something standing in my way, be that technology problems or lack of the education necessary, I don’t have to make the really tough and frightening decisions about my future.

No more excuses means facing my fears, head on!

For the chance I’ve had, of late, to get to know an old friend, a friendship that has become new again.

I attended a farewell party, a drop-in brunch as it was called, and got to wish her well as she and her husband start fresh in California.

For more opportunities to face my fears and work on my issues with crowds and unfamiliar situations.

I attended this goodbye party, with a friend, and we both faced our nervousness at these things. OFten, much of what we are afraid will happen doesn’t end up happening, and the worst turns out to be all in your mind. We wanted to wish someone well and, by going together, we had the support we needed.

Then, my friend and I were at our local county fair and we very nearly had a reunion with an old friend of ours.

She was actually a best friend. At one time, it was the three of us, inseparable. We have grown apart from this old friend and I had it on pretty good authority we may run into her, as the county fair is a common place to find her and her family every summer.

We ran into her sister and her father, but just missed her by a narrow margin. I can’t decide if this was for the best or not, unavoidable or something else altogether. Missed opportunities are disappointing, because you never know if they were meant to be, but I guess not this time.

Things have to come together, at just the precise moment in time:

You’ve Never Seen Clouds Like This Before

I don’t like to turn down things. In fact, I’m making a huge effort, in my life, to not turn down chances and opportunities when they present themselves. It’s a work-in-progress, but I am determined not to let my shyness and awkwardness win out.

The Milky Way Over Yellowstone is Impossibly Beautiful

So whether it’s the destruction of a storm (past or present) with the anniversary of Katrina or this week’s Hurricane Erica. Or maybe it’s another terrible story of a shooting of two news persons. I see no reason to shy away from living life and paying attention to the beauty of the world, all of which makes for a much brighter existence.. That’s why I write down what I’m thankful for every week.

I listened to two interesting things this week. One was a conversation between writer’s Chimamanda Adichie and Zadie Smith and the other was an interview with poet Mary Oliver.

Between the Lines: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Zadie Smith

I could listen to conversations such as these, all day long. They teach me about writing, about feminism from strong females, and about facing my fears.

In other words:

Never Surrender – Cory Hart

So whether it’s the beautifully explored character development in and of a novel or the splendid simplicity of nature in poetry – I liked the idea of examining a star, or anything for that matter, not only by the shape or form it comes in, but by what’s at its heart. You never know what you’ll find in both.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

–Mary Oliver

TToT: Second Chance Stories

“He’s so precious!”

We were sitting in the lobby of the long-term care facility where my aunt now resides. We were spending the morning with her and we wanted to get her out of her room, bring her somewhere else, so she could watch people and we’d already determined that the wind was too much for her outside.

Suddenly a voice spoke and my head jerked upward at the words.

Who was that? Whom were they referring to? Who was just so precious?

The lady who spoke walked over toward my father who was sitting to my left.

“I’m going to give you a hug,” she said.

Then she blew kisses to us all and went on her way. It was time for lunch.

Ten Things of Thankful

Sunday: Happy 18th Birthday Malala!

For a strong example of what truly matters in this world and the greatest hope we have for the future.

Malala Yousafzai has been through hell and back and is fighting using words and education, against the violence and hatred shown toward her, to come out on the other side to fight for–

BOOKS NOT BULLETS

sounds like the best idea I’ve ever heard.

That is the outcry and the call to action of one tough young woman.

Monday: first dates sometimes lead to second ones.

For the chance to meet someone new.

It’s not so easy, for me at least, to find someone I can talk to and click with.

I am grateful for a connection made and a new friend, at the very least.

Wednesday: Happy Second Anniversary Bri.

For selfless angels who give the ultimate gift and for the strength shown from their family too.

On July 15th, 2013, my brother received a kidney from a selfless angel.

I’d watched him attached to dialysis machines and unwell, unable to move forward with his life for years.

Finally, he could start to live his life again.

For a long awaited release and a dream of mine that I have now checked off my bucket list.

On my blog I wrote about my short story and the reason why I wrote about love, loss, and starting over.

One Last Kiss

I am very proud of my story and the anthology it can be found in.

After the Scars: A Second Chances Anthology

Thursday: sometimes travel brings unexpected things.

For the unexpected stop on a road trip.

Me and a giant apple.

Enough said.

For old buildings and holding onto history.

I have always had a a phobia of old places and things. I remember it from an early age. Visiting a local pioneer village was not my idea of fun. I disliked secondhand stores and antique shops.

Now I try to introduce myself to the past because it matters.

On my latest few days away I stayed in a bed and breakfast, an old house which has been turned into a lovely place to stay.

Where I stayed was up on the second floor. It had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and small sitting room. Plus, it had a nice porch.

This house would have been over 100 years old. It felt very homey and comfortable, even for someone as picky as myself. I slept well there and stood at the window, in the morning, enjoying the warm sunshine on my face.

Friday: life does not stand still and we all age.

For another chance to visit with my aunt. She’s not in an ideal situation. She is unable to take care of herself now and must be in a long-term care facility.

I worry about her there, for her days of endless monotony. She will be there for the rest of her life, more than likely. I wish she wouldn’t have to.

For the chance to have met her, made possible by my parents, who believed that distance (whether physical or emotional) shouldn’t prevent family from getting to know each other.

My family visited her several times over the past 25 years and made some memories I’ll always cherish.

I hope, if she can hold onto a memory, that she remembers that we care, always.

For a lovely lunch, provided by my cousin.

She is full of energy and so is her daughter. They offered lovely conversation and a delicious meal.

I’d never had a dill pickle wrap before.

I’m glad we got to know them and could spend the afternoon together, catching up.

For a spectacular view, even if I can’t see it and must take other people’s word for it.

We ate our lunch at the golf course, with an amazing view of the Ottawa River in the background.

I can not see these views anymore, but I can imagine them and I can feel their presence. I will never forget or take that for granted.

Whether it’s the woman from my story earlier, girls wanting an education, the little anecdotes revealed when entering into any new relationship, or a book of stories (part fiction and part non) we all have inside our imaginations – I am grateful for my own and for the learning and discovering of others.