Morning pages ~ A Warm Monday and Spending time in Hogwarts

When I stepped out of the office yesterday around 4:30 p.m., I was immediately wrapped in warmth. I hadn’t realized how nice a day it was outside. It’s customary for me to take a short walking break, to soak up the fresh air, to look up into the sky, searching for picturesque clouds, scanning the trees and wires for crows and other small feathered friends.

But somehow I was caught up in the work of the day and hardly stepped outside until much too late. As I continued walking, on my way home, I allowed the warm air to settle on me and what I saw and felt in my mind’s eye was a lovely white bird, holding the sun between his feathers and fanning me with the glow of his light. I was like a small fire that the mighty white feathers were kindling—a beautiful warm air blowing on embers to reveal a golden glow. All season I haven’t felt the air in quite this way. It was magical and I won’t forget it—I don’t want to forget it.

The Harry Potter book’s entered my world or rather I entered their world or her world…I had no intention of ever reading the books. It could be that when it was quite popular, I lost interest. I had seen the first movie and I can’t recall if I saw the second movie. I think I may have tried to read the first book many years ago and wasn’t in the mood. But recently, I started to read A Wrinkle in Time so that I wouldn’t miss this young reader classic; this, and other small things, conversations, other reading, led me back to the Harry Potter books. I set aside A Wrinkle in Time, checked out the first book in the Harry Potter series, and to my surprise, I was immediately hooked.

I started on Friday night, but couldn’t keep my eyes open past page 50. Saturday morning came and I finished. I wasn’t planning on reading all seven books and I haven’t yet—but I did rushed to the library on Saturday late morning to checkout the second book. I finished that on Sunday and proceeded to check out the third book. I checked the library’s e-book catalog this time and lo and behold, they had the books for downloading to my Kindle. I finished the third book on Monday and downloaded the fourth that same day. I can only say that I’m enjoying the books immensely and we’ll see how I do on book four. It’s 800 plus pages compared to the first three books which were in the 300 page mark, so I’m glad I’m reading it on Kindle; otherwise, my arms would be in pain. Who would have known that right now in the month of November these books would open themselves to me and that I would gladly enter?

I do hope to get back to Wrinkle soon. Things were starting to get interesting.

I have tried diligently to record the title of each book I’ve started to read and the date I finish it in an App called Evernote. I used to do this in an Excel spreadsheet and also include a column for recording my thoughts about the book, but for 2012 I had not transferred the titles over to it. So, last week I decided to take the titles that I’ve been recording and start entering them with my summary/reaction into the spreadsheet, starting with the first book of the year. I did this for a bit in the morning on two days and thought I’d tackle writing my reaction for ten books each day. I wanted to do it everyday, but I got sidetracked. I’ve enjoyed getting back to that spreadsheet. It’s been interesting to recall what the books have been about and how they affected me. One book in particular I hardly remember; some have been left unfinished to come back to; and so many others I remember with great affection.