Thursday, June 20, 2013

Another Lesson from The Lord of the Rings

Good morning! Another beautiful day out. No clouds, lots of blue sky, nice temperature (59°). I have an onion and mushrooms sautéing on the stove and a heart cut up ready to go as soon as the onion and mushrooms are. The other poor people in the family are eating cereal. Poor, poor, people.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. In the  morning I did my bike riding and Pilates. I thought about riding more in order to finish The Return of the King but decided against it. There isn’t much left but it will be good today or tomorrow.
I went to kindergarten for Joseph’s end of the year ice-cream party. They had so much candy it was unreal. Most of them had bags they took home. I took Joseph’s home for him. One little girl came up to me and said, “Mrs. Pam, look, I have crooked teeth!” Joseph lost a tooth the day before and lost it so I think the whole class was talking about teeth yesterday.
I looked and said, “Guess what? I have crooked teeth, too.”
She said, “I’m going to need braces.”
I smiled. “Good for you. I never got any.”
Those kids are so darn cute. I am looking forward to volunteering in at least Joseph’s class next year. Hopefully Seth will get a teacher who is amenable to parent help in the classroom.
While I was there yesterday, Mrs. Maroux wrote a note to the tooth fairy because Joseph lost his tooth. It says, “Dear Tooth Fairy—Joseph has lost his tooth! Please accept this not in place of the tooth. Thank you! Mrs. Marcoux” So cute. She was telling me that when her daughter was younger (she’s in Cedric’s grade now), a friend told her that if you lose a tooth on your birthday, the Tooth Fairy would bring you a fairy doll. She posted something on Facebook about it and the mother of the other girl said she didn’t know where that came from because the Tooth Fairy at their house didn’t bring anything special if you lost a tooth on your birthday. Mrs. Marcoux was relieved because her daughter had a tooth hanging by a thread and purposely waited until her birthday to pull it out. The things kids come up with.
In the afternoon I came home and read for a bit. Then I was super sleepy so I went upstairs thinking that I’d take a little nap. It would have to be little because it was nearly 3:00. I made the bed and lay down and it’s amazing the way inspiration hits. I had an idea for the story I’m working on and it wouldn’t leave me alone so I got up and wrote a couple of sentences so I’d remember. Then I just had to sit down and start writing while it was fresh in my mind. I only had about 15 minutes before the bus arrived but I made use of it. Then I made use of a few minutes here and there until I had more than 1,500 words written before Joanna took Cedric, Seth and Amena off to their various activities for the evening. They left at about 6:25. Then Joseph and I had some supper and I let him finish watching Home on the Range even though the bedroom isn’t clean and I wrote more. Whenever I decided I had had enough, between 9:30 and 10:00, I had written over 3,000 words. I think that is pretty darn good.
The amazing thing is that I definitely had an idea of how it was going to turn out. I had an idea of this conversation between a character and his father. The tone and the content were fixed in my mind. The end result, or what I remember of it (I haven’t looked at it yet this morning) is completely different. When I’m done with this and breakfast, I’ll take a look.
On with the story.
“Forth, and fear no darkness!” says Théoden as the riders of Rohan prepare to join the battle for Minas Tirith. “Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered ... A sword day, a red day , ‘ere the sun rises!” They are not looking forward to a leisurely day of picnics, are they? “Ride now, ride now, ride, ride for ruin, and the world's ending!”
Mind you, Théoden did not think they had a chance of winning this battle. After Aragorn had left to take the Dimholt road and summon the dead, Gamling expresses his opinion that “We cannot defeat the armies of Mordor.”
“No,” Théoden agrees, “We cannot... But we will meet them in battle, nonetheless.”
So, Theoden and those who have come, numbering 6,000, face the army of orcs attacking Minas Tirith. There are 50,000 under orc command. This does not look to be a battle that they can win but they muster their strength and their courage and they fight. They fight to defend truth and right; their families and their peoples. Their fight is the good fight. They are successful in fighting off the orcs enough that that Théoden yells, “Make safe the city!”
Then, of course, the Haradrim appear riding their mûmakil. They fight against these, but they are gigantic and the battle appears to be turning against Théoden and his people. Indeed, now the nazgûl and their riders have joined the battle. At this point, all would seem to be hopelessly lost, but Aragorn has been successful and gathering the dead and they appear on ships that the orcs thought would bear reinforcements for them. This arm of dead turns the tide and the battle is won.
What can we learn from this? Never give up. It matters not where in the story you happen to be; if you need help, if you are the help. Never get up. You might be the help that someone needs. You might be the person that someone needs to help. Never give up.
And that is all for today. There were more things I wanted to write about from The Return of the King but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Have a wonderful day!

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