TToT: Morning Doves and Purple April Rain, #10Thankful

Love looks not with they eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

–William Shakespeare

My laptop is incredibly slow, but still allowing me to get this done.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

For the first sound I heard the other morning, as I awoke.

The cooing of the morning dove.

I love that sound and it was fitting, for what was to come, along with the April rain.

For different viewpoints, from a friend.

We had a nice early morning talk, when we both couldn’t sleep.

She knows me as only one of a few blind friends. She thought a site called “The Blind Writer” would get me read. She was only trying to help.

Not my thing. Had to follow my heart, but the site could turn into something, even if I don’t take on the name myself. There are lots of writers who don’t know what they are doing. That word “blind” can mean many things.

For a lot of interesting writing discussion.

The group at the library was a few short, but we still managed to have some excellent Writer’s Circle talk, even though our table was more of a square.

😉

Also, I asked them a question, to get their opinions, as I am starting to trust them.

I asked about what they think of me as “The Blind Writer.” They answered same as me. Just confirmed my thoughts already.

They are writers too. They love writing too. They know me as Kerry now and understand I want my writing to stand on its own.

For another successful violin lesson.

I drift a lot, when I lose concentration or a bit of the strength I’m building in my arm, but when I am in that little room I block out all the rest of life’s stressors.

For 80s music.

With the death of Prince, I am reminded why I love the music of that decade so much.

It is nostalgia and a flashback to my childhood, from the earliest days, as I wasn’t even born until halfway through those ten years, but my family was all younger then.

Seems now like a simpler time, even if that is simply an illusion.

For the newest Michael Moore film.

Some would say pure propaganda, but he makes excellent points, makes you laugh, and moves you throughout.

For our earth, and my favourite oceans, on this Earth Day.

For my brother’s completion of the year of his current college semester, for the most part.

When it began, back in January, he’d just had his accident. we weren’t sure what would happen, but he is almost done and has some big plans.

For William Shakespeare.

All this time, 400 years on, his work still resonates. Even if I don’t know it all. Something lasting the test of time must have something special to offer us all.

For literary children’s programs.
With it being 400 years since William Shakespeare, language is a valuable lesson, even language a child is too young to comprehend.

My nephew is three, already so curious, and on his way with the alphabet.

The word was “flustered” and my nephew was repeating it, even if he didn’t know it had meaning.

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”

–Kate Chopin, “The Awakening”, 1899

View From Above, #SoCS #EarthDay #Shakespeare400

Wilt thee…thy…thou?

Let’s talk about Shakespeare and our planet.

Many don’t appreciate William Shakespeare and his language, just as not enough of us value our planet. Both have given and still give us so much.

Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart.

Yesterday was Earth Day and today Shakespeare is being celebrated.

I am watching a show about the opinions of those who have looked down on the planet from a perspective I will likely never get.

It is the same view on the earth during the time of William Shakespeare, if man or woman had been looking down from above.

That’s remarkable. Sure, things have changed, sometimes not for the better, but in other ways definitely. Still, the earth continues. It started long before and will likely be here long after I’ll be gone.

That is outstanding.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday

We are not really above the earth. We are not better than it or in control of it. We are a part of it. We are just observers. We aren’t meant to be above nature and the planet. Earth. We should not aim to conquer, control, overtake.

I will never see the earth like those astronauts or most people, for that matter. I know I want to leave it healthier for those I love, even 400 years in the future.

That is all I know for sure.

Day in the Museum: Part Two, Shakespeare’s First Folio

I just happened to be watching the news the other night when I heard something that immediately caught my attention…

Stratford, Ontario is a short drive from me and known as a lovely quaint tourist town, the claim to its fame being Stratford Festival. There they are known for their elaborate and brilliant performances of some of Shakespeare’s best-known and well-loved plays.

Celebrating the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, The Stratford Festival arranged to display something of great value in honour of the occasion. This item was so valuable that it was only at the museum for two days. It only arrived as people lined up to see it Saturday morning and, according to the museum employee at the entrance to the exhibit, would be leaving not at five, but at ten minutes to five.

William Shakespeare’s First Folio is the first book of his plays, published by his friends and fellow members of The Chamberlain’s Men: John Heminge and Henry Condell. It was published seven years after Shakespeare’s death; before that it was common to find fraudulent versions in circulation.

What’s a folio you ask…well I will tell you because I honestly didn’t know myself, until recently: Folio is Latin for leaf:

“Usually means a leaf in a manuscript. But in printers’ jargon it had another sense: it referred to page size more than one page was printed at the same time on a single large sheet of paper, which was then folded into pages. When the sheet was folded once to form two leaves, making four pages, the page and book size was described as folio. A folio page is usually about 38 centimetres (15 inches) tall.”

Driving into the parking lot of the museum – a police security presence was obvious. This was serious stuff, not that they had any fear of me attempting a theft of such an artifact. I am not that gutsy, but imagine if I had pulled that off? Sounds like a good idea for a story, just fiction of course.

We arrived at a good time, a lull in the lineup. Only ten people were being permitted in the room at one time. I was glad to hear that cameras were allowed inside, but no flash was permitted. Any direct bright light could damage this centuries old document. Anything to be done to prevent fading of the writing of this special piece of literature was being done.

On entering I heard the hushed conversations of the other people and a humming of what turned out to be a dehumidifier. This book needed to be in just the right environment, which included temperature and lighting. It couldn’t be too humid and any lights were not aimed directly at or on it.

I tried to take in my surroundings then. I knew it could turn out to be rather pointless, me here to see some old book hidden in a case. What was I going to get out of this anyway?

A few old photos and the dresses worn in past performances of Shakespeare’s plays were on display in the room.

My knowledge of actress Maggie Smith is fairly recent, with her starring roles in the Harry Potter films and more recently still in Downton Abbey. This photo didn’t even look like her, according to my sister, but it was from her performance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1977 and that was almost thirty years ago.

The drawers in the cabinet held the separate pages of the folio. It was hard for me to comprehend and my sister read some of it to me, a lot made difficult by the old English writing. I felt like I was in a jewelry store, with the glass cabinets holding precious jewels. This time I was looking in at something so much more precious to me: words.

An introduction by fellow playwright, poet, and literary critic Ben Jonson. This was all taking me back to a time I can not possibly grasp. It’s hard to even imagine what it was like back in the seventeenth century, of which Shakespeare himself was only alive to see the first sixteen years. His plays were mostly written and performed in the final years of the 1500s, at the open-air playhouse The Globe Theatre, on the south bank of The thames.

 

Also in the room was a photo, included in the folio, of William Shakespeare himself. Recently, with the 450th anniversary, there has been a lot of debate about this likeness. Is it truly him?

 

The artist responsible was only fifteen when Shakespeare died so it is unlikely he knew the man, but more likely he knew people who did and must have seen a photograph from the time or had someone describe what Shakespeare looked like in life.

I find it almost impossible, even in the face of some of the most proven methods, to truly believe that any of this has survived or is the truth. That is the part of history that both baffles and enthrals me. I would love to own something as precious as a book from so long ago. Even hearing it explained how something made of paper with ink imprinted on the pages lasts centuries I can’t quite fathom how. The diaries I own of my grandmother are only barely fifty years old and already some of them are so worn and delicate. How does anything make it this far through time?

Luck must play a big part in this, but you simply can not discount the care someone must have taken over the years. On our way out I hear a voice speaking with authority, or with something like it. This voice sounds young, but unmistakably informed. I pause to listen and speak to her.

She is only a summer student here and she reiterates that she is no expert: “Just someone who enjoyed researching all this.”

Through something called
Young Canada Works
she was given this opportunity for the summer, and she had clearly already done the sort of research I was relieved of having to do myself.

Her knowledge as a student, receiving her Masters and her interest in rare old books was evident. I could feel her passion for the subject matter and I could see why. It was something like that which drew me to this museum to see this famous piece of English literature. Within hours it would be back to its home at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Finally, on my last post for this week I will speak about my trip upstairs in the museum to check out the World War exhibit.

Sources:

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/landprint/shakespeare/

http://fisher.library.utoronto.ca/about-us/brief-history-department