March Music Challenge - Day 7

The Day 7  March Music Challenge is to choose a song that reminds you of your childhood. My childhood was filled with music. My mom played the organ, sang at church, and filled our house with hits from Jesus Christ Superstar to Petula Clark's Downtown that she played on a then state-of-the-art record player and sang along to -- it's difficult to pick just one song. For some unknown reason, I have been thinking a lot about the novella and music of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I recently re-read the novella written by Richard Bach and published in 1970, which tells the story of a seagull who becomes disenchanted with the conflict and materialism of his flock. Jonathan follows his passion for flying practicing and perfecting his flying abilities until he finally leaves the flock and is taken to a higher plane where he is mentored by a generous and skilled teacher. Jonathan realizes that his journey is not complete until he can find the forgiveness he needs to return to his original flock and continues his journey towards flight by taking his own students and spreading his wings so to speak. It's a beautiful story of the search for our true passion, self-fulfillment, and teaching and learning. In a truly enlightened situation, the positions of teacher and student constantly shift as the teacher often learns from the student and vice versa.

The soundtrack sung by Neil Diamond is equally moving winning the 1974 Grammy for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special.

Not the typical childhood song but then I didn't have a typical childhood mom.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

I knew little about this book when I picked it up. It's one of my favourite things about reading -- having something amazing unfold itself slowly before my very eyes. I chose it because I knew and loved the author, Sue Monk Kidd. Initially captivated by her writing and spirit in The Secret Life of Bees. My graduate work led me to her work in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and eventually to Traveling with Pomegranates. I seem to naturally find my way to works about mothers and daughters. Traveling with Pomegranates at once made me sad -- that I hadn't been able to travel more with my mother -- and hopeful -- for the days when Katie and I could travel together.

The Invention of Wings was so much more than I could ever have imagined, could ever have hoped for. It's intertextuality, whether purposeful or coming naturally from the fundamental feminist works, Kidd echoes Virginia Woolf's voice in A Room of One's Own in Lucretia Mott's "odd little nook of a room. A studio ... [t]he room was not for cooking or sewing or childcare or entertaining" (273). Lucretia's room belongs to her and is not shared with any of the typical womanly tasks but rather a place to study, read, and create. It is within the walls of this room that Sarah, realizes what she envies most about Lucretia -- her sense of belonging. It's the perfect setting for Sarah's question, "Why would God plant such deep yearnings in us ... if they only come to nothing?". This truly is the question that whole book is set upon --answering to that we yearn for and the price that must be paid for dreams.

The other piece of intertextuality -- again whether deliberate on Kidd's part or not -- that resonated with me was a piece by Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens". Walker speaks to the creativity found in all of us and how even in the harshest circumstances this creativity manifested itself for black slave women through singing, quilting, and gardening. Walker recalls how black women were called "'the mule of the world,' because [they] have been handed the burdens that everyone else -- everyone else refused to carry" (91). Despite Handful's small physical stature, she is left to carry the burdens of others, especially her mother and sister. But like the mule, Charlotte personifies the stubbornness of the mule in her desire for freedom and journey back to Handful.

In the same way that Kidd was inspired by the quilts of Harriet Powers, "an enslaved woman from Georgia who used African applique technique to tell stories" and whose last remaining quilts are part of the collection at the National Museum of American History. Walker's essay also refers to a quilt on display at the Smithsonian Institute, "unlike any other in the world ... it follows no known pattern of quilt-making, and though it is made of bits and pieces of worthless rags, it is obviously the work of a person of powerful imagination and deep spiritual feeling" (92-3). The artist of this quilt "an anonymous Black woman in Alabama, a hundred years ago" (93). Kidd captures the importance of the quilt Charlotte sews not only as an expression of her artistry, but as a way to tell her life story in the only language she knows -- sewing, "[g]oing picture to picture, felt like I was turning the pages in a book she'd left behind, one that held her last words?" (147). The quilt also stands as a symbol of hope for the future -- a place to hide their dreams. I think it is particularly poignant when the quilt is unintentionally revealed to Mary -- laying bare the harshness of Charlotte's life for "her owner" to see. Where Handful and Charlotte express their artistry in cloth, Sky's expression is through the soil and her gardens.

It wasn't until the end of the book that I learned how much of this book was based in fact, on the letters, diaries, and writings of the real sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke. I think it was more powerful for me to come to this realization at the end, rather than the beginning, of the book. I can only imagine their courage and the hardships they faced.

"History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own" ~ Julius Lester (quoted in The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd)

Welcome to my perfect imperfect life ...

It's taken me a really long time to become comfortable with myself - close to 50 years in fact - but I can actually say that I am pretty happy with my life and myself. I don't have a perfect life and I'm far from a perfect person but I love the life I have created.

This blog will share my loves, passions, lessons, and interests - everything from yarn crafts, cooking, travel, painting, writing, reading, thoughts, tips, and tricks to creating a life I feel comfortable living.

A little bit about me to introduce myself. I'm a mom, a friend, a teacher, a learner, a wife, a dog lover, a cook, a traveler, a dreamer, a reader, a listener, a connector, a creator, an environmentalist, who is passionately curious about the world around me. I love learning and I love helping others learn.

Always wanting to complete a university degree, I went back to formal school when my daughter started kindergarten. I started at the local community college with a couple of courses and this ignited my passion for learning. Since that time, 1999, I have completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature, a Masters degree in Library and Information Science, and am working on a diploma program, the Provincial Instructor's diploma, and a second Masters degree in Children's Literature.

Alongside of school, with the support of my amazing husband, I have worked at an out of the home job and raised my family. Often people comment, I don't know how you do it! The truth is I have a lot of support and I have learned a lot of tricks along the way. But like all things, it came with a cost. For me that was internalized stress and constantly striving to be perfect and losing the ability to relax and being too hard on myself. It's taken me a long time to start to figure it all out and have some balance, my sincerest hope is that this blog may help make someone else's life a little bit better, easier, more comfortable - not perfect but imperfectly beautiful.