Things I love. (6)

I love the village of Hoddevik, in Norway. It is the birthplace of my great-grandfather, and it is a place that I have had the honour of visiting. Beautiful is a word too small to explain that tiny town of 30 inhabitants. I can remember that moment when you just turn the corner, go over the ridge, and then descend the mountainside in your car, on the road built by Nazi slaves, and you see the unending ocean in the background. In the foreground you are bombarded by green, grasses and mosses and lichens that grow year round in the warm, salt-infused, moist air. You see yellow houses surrounded by trees imported from British Columbia because of their resilience to wind. And I also saw a Canadian flag on a flag-pole, waving to me and welcoming me to a land that felt like home even though it was nothing like home.

Things I love. (5)

I love to play my piano. To sing and play my piano. To sit and watch somebody else sing, or play their piano, or sing and play their piano. It is the most humbling thing I have ever encountered, the piano. Nothing has caused me more heartache and excitement in the past 5 years than discovering a piece, playing it for months to the point of perfection, then hearing a recording and realizing there is so much more to learn. And then doing what I can to learn it. I love the piano.

Things I love. (4)

I love mountains.

Things I love. (3)

I love watching parents in public in that moment when their children are having too much fun, making too much noise - and just on the brink of drawing more attention to the family than the parent wants. Because I love seeing the happiness in children, I love imagining the love of that mother or father for their child, I love seeing joy. I smile - and wish I could tell the parent to let their child continue because their joy is brightening my day.

Things I love. (2)

I love the feeling when you are just leaving the gym after doing an hour of cardio. Muscle work-outs make the body cry. Cardio makes the body surge with an energy that makes you feel like you are six inches taller just for that 5 minute walk to the car. It is so refreshing.

Things I love. (1)

I love a good book. A really good book. Just "acceptable" is not worth my time - and unfortunately I have spent time reading more than a couple "acceptable" books. There are so many worlds to traverse, authors and minds, philosophies and ideas locked in the intimate papers of the imagined for me to continue spending my time with the "acceptable". Stellar books are lovely.

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle." - Frederick Douglass


An Egyptian friend of mine whose family still lives in Egypt sent me this quote yesterday.

And then he demanded of me...

"What is out there is immoral and bad. Where is it? In Egypt. What do we fight for? And are we prepared to fight? Yes, we are. But are you? Will you fight beside of us - become one more drop of water in our rushing ocean tides?" (I had to translate this from French - he does not speak English well and grew up in Quebec)

Stunning.

And then I found this on GayEgypt.com (thanks to gay persons of color):

"Egypt's gay and lesbian community has had enough of years of police brutality and torture and GayEgypt.com calls on all lesbians and gays to join their brothers and sisters on the street to peacefully express their demand for immediate change."