Always

Today makes the one year anniversary of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two premier in the U.S.

I’ve said in passing on my blog that Harry Potter is a huge, huge part of my life, and always has been.  I’ve been listening and reading and watching the stories since I was about age three.

I’m fourteen.  I missed a lot of premiers, a lot of waiting, and plotting what could come next.  But for me, Harry Potter was my childhood.  I spent hours and hours and hours playing Harry Potter with my friends, creating stories around our favorite characters, running through the backyard in my homemade cloak, using pencils as wands.

One year ago last night, I was in line, anxiously waiting to enter into my favorite theater.  I was with friends, playing Harry Potter Uno, wearing the cloak my sister made for me when I was in third grade, made ready just before the release of the final book. 

Harry Potter means a lot to me.  It shaped my childhood, and who I became.  I grew up with the idea that love is the greatest power against evil nestled securely in my heart.  I grew up running through the halls of Hogwarts, creating my own special version in my head.  I grew up creating these stories about my favorite characters and telling them to myself.  Harry Potter shaped who I am now, as a person and a writer.

I have a small section of my bedroom wall that is dedicated to Harry Potter quotes.  These are quotes I do my best to follow and to live by, quotes that I have known for years and years, and that have helped shape me into the person I am now.  This particular quote by Sirius Black is one of my favorites:  “Besides, the world isn’t split into good people and death eaters.  We’ve all got both light and dark inside us.  What matters is the part we choose to act on.  That’s who we really are.”

I know I can be mean sometimes, or annoying, or a pain to be around.  I know that.  But I do my best, for the most part, to not.  I try my best to be a good person, who is kind.  I try and act on the light side of me.  It can be hard sometimes, and I know where there are days where that just doesn’t happen.  I’m acting on the dark side of me.  But then I do try and act on the light side.  I try.  Sure, it doesn’t always work, but I try.  I try and be the light side of me.

I’ve tried to write about Harry Potter, and what it means to me, before.  It generally doesn’t work.  But today, I am.  Today, the one year anniversary of the “end of an era”.  But the thing is, how is it the end of an era?  People are still discovering Harry Potter.  Children are still loving the stories, finding their own Hogwarts, just like I did. 

To me, this quote by Nathan Fillion, about the show Firefly, rings very true with the Harry Potter community.  "When Firefly died I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen. What I realize now, ten years later, looking out onto this room, is that the worst thing that could have happened is if it’d stayed dead."  Replace Firefly with Harry Potter, and you’ve got the Harry Potter fandom.  Harry Potter may be officially finished.  But the fans are still creating stories, still creating fan art, still watching the movies and reading the books.  There are still people discovering Harry Potter.  So yes, technically Harry Potter is over, and I feel very blessed to have been able to be a part of the fandom as everything was still going, and new books and movies were coming out.  But Harry Potter has not died.  So yes.  Harry Potter is over officially.  But to the fans?  It’s never over.  It’s still there.  It’ll always be there.

{Via}

The Dandy Lioness

Bookish Nostalgia

{Via}

My childhood was filled with books.  I spent huge swaths of time reading, poring over favorite books, creating my own characters, and my own stories.  I read, and I read, and I read.  I have an entire bookshelf in my room that is devoted to books that I don't really read anymore, but have so many memories attached to them, that I couldn't possibly give them away.

The Penderwicks.
Warriors.
Hannah West.
The Tortall books, by Tamora pierce.
Harry Potter.

These books shaped my childhood.  In fact, they still shape my life, and I do still read some of the books in that list.  I spent four years reading and rereading the Warriors series (Erin Hunter), and creating my own clans, my own characters, and making up stories.  From about second grade up, I've constantly had a book in my possession, being carted around from here to there.

I spent years running through my friend's backyard, pretending to be Ginny Weasley, while she was first Hermione Granger, and then Tonks, from Harry Potter.  A few years later, and our obsession had shifted to the Warriors series, where we came up with a set of four clans, and all the cats (who we bothered to integrate into our story) in them.  We had our main characters we played, and we came up with a prophecy.

I pretended I was the fifth Penderwick sister, or occasionally Batty, or Skye.  I played this game with myself, as none of my friends had read these books, until this year, when I made one of them read The Penderwicks.    I pretended I was Hannah West, a teenage sleuth solving crimes in Seattle, another game I played alone.   Another series I adored was the Percy Jackson series, by Rick Riordan.  I spent hours pretending I went to Camp Half-Blood, that I was Annabeth, or Thalia.  I distinctly remember running around my backyard, using a short wooden dagger my sister made at pirate camp to fend off imagined enemies.

Later on, my obsessions shifted once again, this time to Tamora Pierce's Totall series.  I would pretend I was Alanna, or Daine.  It took me a while to like Kel as much as I liked the other two, but I do like her now, though I rarely pretended I was her.  This is one of my more recent obsessions.

I still have all these stories.  All these books I adored as a child, that swept me up in fangirling over them for years.  I remember distinct moments from playing each of them.  Do you have any distinct memories from books like these, that you adored as a child, and have read seemingly a hundred times each?  Did you ever pretend you were a certain character, be it one from the book, or one you made up?

The Dandy Lioness

Changes

Hello again!

Sorry I've been missing lately-- I just haven't gotten around to blogging.

I'm sure you've noticed by now, that there's a new background and header.  I decided to spruce up my blog in honor of spring.  Being averse to change, it took a whole lot of convincing myself that this was a good idea, and that no, I shouldn't just change the header, etc.  I'm still thinking of going back to that sort of gray, tiled background I had before.  Thoughts?  Anyways.  I'm quite happy with how it turned out, even if I am a bit iffy on the background.  The header took me ages (I had to redo it three times today.  I also made two other ones, and now I have five different ones to choose from, once summer rolls around.)

Am I the only one who's rather averse to change?  I kept finding myself wavering, as I would stare at my background and header.  Spring is coming up, and I have a snowy tree as my header.  I should change it, one little voice would say.  But then another would pipe up, saying, No, no, this one is good.  I like it.  You shouldn't change it.  Ever.  And they would get into a bit of a war with each other.

I find myself not wanting to change many things in my life.  But what if I don't like the new one?  I wonder.  What if I like the old one better?  It's part of why I haven't changed my room up recently, even as I longingly flip through PB Teen, thinking, Oh, that's nice.  It would look good in my room.


I'm averse to change.  But I know that I need to get over that.  In my life, many things will come and go.  Rooms will be rearranged, or redecorated, I'll switch schools, I'll grow older, and my responsibilities will change.  But I find myself clinging to the old things, the old me, as I grow, and get older.  Change is something I will experience many times in my life.  I need to learn to accept it.  Even if I don't want to.

The Dandy Lioness

Soft Shoes, Hard Shoes

{Via}

Hop, and over-two-three, over-two-three-four-five, over two-three-four-five, over-two-three-four-five.  

The whispers of dance shoes against the floor.

The giggles of girls, their backs to the window.

Rhythmic, bouncing Irish music.

"Heels up!"

"Carriage!"

"Eyes up!"

Girls, talking, and laughing.  Hard shoes clatter against the floor, as they are tugged onto feet, and the soft shoes fall to the ground with only a soft whisper.

One girl stands, and stands in the middle of the room.  She waits, until she is joined by several others, and soon, the room is filled with chattering voices and clattering shoes.

"Stand on the tape lines, girls!" 

{Via}

Shoes tap against the ground.  Girls rush to position themselves.

"We're doing rallies, now."

Click-click-clack.  Click-click-clack.

"Heels up, girls!"

"Diamonds!"

"Louder!  Louder!  Wake the baby!"

The sound intensifies, but the little baby boy just keeps sleeping.

The music ends, and the teacher smiles.  

"My only complaint is that you didn't wake the baby," she says with a wink.

The music starts, and soon the room is filled with rhythmic clattering, timed perfectly to the music.

The Dandy Lioness

Fairy Tale Nostalgia

While cleaning out one of the closets in my house the other day, I came across a gem in the form of a book.

"The Fairy Tale Book".

Though it's spine is well-worn, and broken, it's no less beautiful.  It's gorgeous.  Full page illustrations, twenty-eight stories, little birds and trees drawn on every page.

I found this inscription on the inside cover.  "From Grandma & Grandpa.  12/25/68".  Isn't this cool?  My great-grandparents gave my dad this for Christmas when he was a kid.

The copy that we have is from the seventh printing, in 1966, and it's absolutely fantastic.

"The Sleeping Beauty" has always been one of my favorite stories.

Is it possible to go wrong with fairy tales like these?

"Beauty and the Beast", another favorite.

One of Cinderella's mice, sitting atop a clock.

Have you felt any fairy tale nostalgia recently?

The Dandy Lioness