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~ My.Daily.Distraction

Epiphabets

Category Archives: Fiction

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 169: 1.800.SANDMAN

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Childhood, Fiction, Folklore, Health, Myths, Parenting, Stories

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Bed, Children, Fairy Tales, Folklore, Myths, Parenting, Sand, Sandman, Sleep, Sprinkle, Stories

When I was a little girl, I remember the grown ups always referring to the sandman. For example, when my parents wanted me to go to bed, they would tell me that the sandman is coming. They also told me the sandman would take some sand from his bucket and sprinkle it in my eyes to make me go to sleep.

Upon hearing this, a lot of alarm bells would go off inside my head. This sent me a lot of mixed signals, and some of them were pretty scary.

I had some serious questions about this sandman that the adults were always talking about.

Questions like:

Why would my parents allow a strange man into the house?

Will the sand hurt my eyes?

Could he be trusted?

Does he have a proper name?

Does he like to sing?

A grown man intentionally putting sand in a young child’s eyes did not seem socially acceptable to me, even in the 1960’s. If I ever sprinkled sand into my playmates eyes, I would be promptly punished. So, how does the sandman get away with it?

I remember lying awake in my bed while waiting for the sandman. I wanted to see if he was the friendly sort or not. Sometimes, I’d sit by my bedroom window and look up and down the street to see if he was coming. Unfortunately, I always fell asleep before he arrived.

To this day, I still haven’t met him.

I’m beginning to wonder if he really even exists.

So, if you ever see the sandman, could you please do me a favour and pass on the message that I’ve waited a long time to try out that sleeping sand of his.

Tell him to bring me lots of sand.

Tell him to make sure it’s the good stuff.

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 151: Lucky Stars

22 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Astronomy, Childhood, Fiction, literature, Money, Music, Poetry, saving, Science, Society, songs

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allowance, astronomy, binoculars, fathers, ice cream, money, Music, piggy bank, Science, Songs, stars, Toronto, universe

I am one of the lucky ones.

This is because when I was seven years old my Father saw to it that I had my own pair of binoculars.

First, he planted the seed that lit the spark.

He always talked about stars, and the moon and the sun. I was barely four years old when my Father would take me for evening walks down Dufferin street, in a popular Toronto suburb. As we walked, he would point to the moon and the stars and tell me how far away they were and how glorious and mysterious this universe was.

He even taught me a little German children’s song called “Weiss Du Wie Viel Sternlein Stehen.”

We would sing it together as we walked the circumference of our apartment building while out for our evening walks.

The melody was lovely, and the sentiment equally so.

Try to imagine me as a four year old child, stumbling through the following German verse:

Weißt du, wieviel Sternlein stehen
An dem blauen Himmelszelt?
Weißt du, wieviel Wolken gehen
Weithin über alle Welt?
Gott der Herr hat, sie gezählet,
Dass ihm auch nicht eines fehlet
An der ganzen großen Zahl,
An der ganzen großen Zahl.

Which in English translates into:

Do you know how many little stars there are
In the wide blue sky?
Do you know how many clouds
There are over the whole wide world?
The Lord God counted them so well,
That none are missing
From the whole big lot of them,
From the whole big lot of them.

My imagination had been sparked.

Then, I started receiving an allowance of ten cents a week when I was five years old.

My father had procured a ceramic piggy bank into which each week we would both ceremoniously insert a dime. This allowance was earned by making my bed, brushing my teeth, and generally for being a good girl.

From time to time, family and friends would give me small monetary gifts, a quarter here, a nickel there. Once, I received a dollar from a Grandparent in a birthday card.

“This is for ice cream,” read my Grandmother’s all too familiar handwriting script.

However, I knew better. Dad’s rules were that should I ever receive any money, half had to be saved. Happily, that still left me enough money for an ice cream cone at the local Dairy Queen.

By the time I was seven old I had saved six dollars. Not long after that, my Father saw a newspaper flyer advertising binoculars on sale at Canadian Tire. He told me that the magnification was very powerful, but I had no idea what that meant.

The price was $14.

Dad and I had an agreement that as long as I kept saving for a pair of binoculars he would help pay for half.

Luckily Dad was so excited about these new binoculars he was willing to throw in the last two dollars that I needed.

I remember the first time that I held those binoculars. They were heavy, shiny, black, and well made. That was a time before everything was made of plastic.

Those binoculars lasted almost fifty years.

An unfortunate fall from a high closet smashed it into two.

I was heartbroken, and kept a small piece of the leather strap as a memento.

It wasn’t until 20 years ago I read Antoine De Saint Exupery’s book, THE LITTLE PRINCE, for the first time.

He swept me away with his simple yet eloquent writer’s voice.

It was in his quiet narrative that I realized that I was indeed one of the lucky ones.

At the beginning of the book the main character explains how he once made a simple drawing.

This picture to everyone else looked like a plain ordinary fedora style hat.

But it was not a hat.

What he had actually drawn was a snake who had just eaten an elephant.

Then he writes:

I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them.

Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my drawing number one, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say: that is a hat. Then I would nevertalk to him about Boa constrictors, or primeval forest, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.

This passage was an epoch in my life.

For years, I felt myself strange that I could sit in a circle of women at work who were endlessly discussing their searches for store coupons, pretty window dressings, the latest gossip, and feel completely alone. They became silent when I voiced my passion for social justice, reading, writing, and science.

In time, I began to eat alone.

That’s when I began to seek out like minded people, who In St. Exupery’s words I could about talk about…

Boa constrictors, or primeval forest, or stars…

I found them, or rather, we found each other.

Yes, I am one of the lucky ones…

I have been since I was four years old when my Father taught me a song about stars during an evening walk that lit the spark that led to a love of astronomy, primevil forests, children’s songs, and Antoine De Saint Exupery.

Thank you Father.

Thank you Friends.

X

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Post 113: Thank You Peter Pan

12 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by duckykoren in Authors, Books, Classics, Entertainment, Fiction, Movies

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Books, Childhood, Christopher Newton, Fairies, Fiction, J.M. Barrie, Niagara On The Lake, Peter Pan, Shaw Festival, Theatre

Artistic Director Christopher Newton was at the helm during the Shaw Festival’s iconic production of Peter Pan.

On the day that my daughter and I went to see the play in Niagara On The Lake, I received a theatre program. Inside, Christopher Newton shared his thoughts on his love for author J.M. Barrie’s book, Peter Pan.

As I read it, he conveyed to me some Peter Pan magic of his own.

In an effort to prepare for directing Peter Pan, Christopher decided to visit the town he grew up in. What better place to find some insight into his boyhood roots he thought.

After all, Peter Pan is best known as the boy who never grew up.

His first stop was the home he had lived in while he was a young boy.

Of course, the house looked familiar as he viewed it from the sidewalk standing by the front gate. But somehow, the scene seemed all wrong.

The magic that he had anticipated at the thought of visiting his childhood home just wasn’t materializing.

After a few moments, he had a thought.

As he stood by the gate, he squatted down to half his size.

Then he grabbed the steel rungs just like he did as a boy.

He continued to peer into the front yard.

Gazing at his old house at the same height he would have been at ten years old he could feel his boyhood visions fall back into place.

Suddenly, the insight that had failed him only moments ago flooded back into his memory and he was ten years old again.

All it took was a simple adjustment to his vantage point.

As I read this narrative, it occurred to me that even the slightest shift in viewpoint can lead to a path on which I might find my own elusive magic moment.

Thank you Christopher Newton…
Thank you J.M. Barrie…
And of course,

Thank you Peter Pan…

Thank you for validating what I have believed all along…

Even as an adult, when the moment is right it’s okay to to affirm to myself that:

“I do believe in fairies.”

My.Daily.Distraction ~ Part 22: How To Turn Scraps Into Gold

20 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by duckykoren in Authors, Fiction, Writing

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Authors, Books, Broadcaster, Clark Gable, Fiction, Gold, Journalist, Margaret Mitchell, Movies, Paul Harvey, Radio, Scarlett, Scraps, Viviene Leigh, Writers

Several years back while driving to work I listened to a short commentary by American radio broadcaster Paul Harvey. He was best known for his famous radio segments called “The Rest Of The Story” which was fortunately carried by Canadian radio stations.

When I was very young I had the good fortune to see Paul Harvey speak in person.

He appeared as a guest speaker at Toronto’s ‘People’s Church’.

His appearance at the church became quite the controversy when during the service it was established that he was not a secular Christian.

In his defence, he never claimed to be one to begin with.

But I digress…

Back to my car and my drive into work:

One day, as I listened on the radio Paul Harvey had an exceptional tale to tell.

He told the story of a young woman who was born in 1900.

Fiercely independent, she insisted on working outside of the home.

This continued until she unfortunately severely injured her leg and was unable to work for several years.

As Paul Harvey describes it, this woman became very bored while convalescing at home.

Housebound and with limited mobility, she one day took a long look around her home and noticed that she had accumulated hundreds of small scraps of paper which were strewn all around her house.

They were everywhere. There were bits of paper stuffed in books, inside drawers, vases, cupboards, anywhere you could possibly imagine.

She had hand written on each slip of paper a story of some kind.

These were stories that she had heard throughout her years. Some stories came from family members and some came from friends. Some stories were experiences that she herself had. There were stories that she had read in the newspaper while others were considered local legends.

Any story that she found remotely interesting would be jot down on a piece of paper and saved for later use.

As history would have it, the time eventually came for her to put all these stories to good use.

The name of this woman was Margaret Mitchell.

It took her several years to skillfully put all these stories together into a book which became very popular. In turn, this book then led to one of the greatest motion pictures of all time.

Perhaps you’ve heard of this book.

It was called…

Gone With The Wind.

And so, how many slips of paper have you got hidden around your home?

Like Margaret, I have accumulated quite the collection…

And her story has given me hope.

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