The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Goodbye, Harry
Last Friday, my ten-year old neighbor and I, high on Coca Cola and chocolate frosted cookies, joined the impatient pack of costumed children, teens and their designated drivers to mark the end of one small lifetime of magic.
As we crowded into the local bookstore, serving chocolate cake and pumpkin juice, the noise was raucous and constant, the costumes bright and serious. Parents and children discussed in earnest the possibility of which characters would die, and which secrets might remain unanswered in the final installment of the Harry Potter series.
The mood was festive. Goodwill abounded. Everyone chatted, able to join conversations on any aspect of plot or outcome with eight-year olds or grandparents. Together, we all counted down with the televised clock to midnight, collectively whooping as each minute dropped away, edging us to the ecstasy of wrapping our arms around the pudgy orange book.
As my neighbor and I tried out an iPhone offered from the soccer mom in a full-length Gryffindor cloak ahead of us in line, a group of surly teens argued beside us about their certainty of the story’s outcome. I watched them, posturing and daring each other sarcastically with smirks. But the tension was rife with innocence as evidenced by the lightning scars drawn on their oily foreheads with eyeliner.
Just kids, here for a moment in history. All of us wanted to say goodbye, publicly to this fictional boy we all loved.
After a year of deadening dissertation writing in 1999, I boycotted reading anything involving more neural pathways than required to follow an episode of Law & Order. Sweet little Harry Potter. The Sorcerer’s Stone was the first book I could read compulsively. The innocence of Rowling’s magical story took me out of my burnout and back to reading gluttonously.
All of us at the bookstore that night were enthralled by our beloved little fictional wizard, who pushed himself past what he feared and let himself move from isolation to love. What he reminded me of, and the final book proved about him, was the glowing purity of his heart. Down to the bitter end, he declined to become a killer, regardless of his exigent circumstances or the malevolence of his foe.
He is a universal hero in this regard, triumphant without bloodshed, unblemished despite exposure to too much ugliness. What he found inside himself is the most mothers can wish for our kids in a complicated and ravenous world.
A center of what is true.
So farewell and thank you, Harry!!!
By Avvy Mar
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As we crowded into the local bookstore, serving chocolate cake and pumpkin juice, the noise was raucous and constant, the costumes bright and serious. Parents and children discussed in earnest the possibility of which characters would die, and which secrets might remain unanswered in the final installment of the Harry Potter series.
The mood was festive. Goodwill abounded. Everyone chatted, able to join conversations on any aspect of plot or outcome with eight-year olds or grandparents. Together, we all counted down with the televised clock to midnight, collectively whooping as each minute dropped away, edging us to the ecstasy of wrapping our arms around the pudgy orange book.
As my neighbor and I tried out an iPhone offered from the soccer mom in a full-length Gryffindor cloak ahead of us in line, a group of surly teens argued beside us about their certainty of the story’s outcome. I watched them, posturing and daring each other sarcastically with smirks. But the tension was rife with innocence as evidenced by the lightning scars drawn on their oily foreheads with eyeliner.
Just kids, here for a moment in history. All of us wanted to say goodbye, publicly to this fictional boy we all loved.
After a year of deadening dissertation writing in 1999, I boycotted reading anything involving more neural pathways than required to follow an episode of Law & Order. Sweet little Harry Potter. The Sorcerer’s Stone was the first book I could read compulsively. The innocence of Rowling’s magical story took me out of my burnout and back to reading gluttonously.
All of us at the bookstore that night were enthralled by our beloved little fictional wizard, who pushed himself past what he feared and let himself move from isolation to love. What he reminded me of, and the final book proved about him, was the glowing purity of his heart. Down to the bitter end, he declined to become a killer, regardless of his exigent circumstances or the malevolence of his foe.
He is a universal hero in this regard, triumphant without bloodshed, unblemished despite exposure to too much ugliness. What he found inside himself is the most mothers can wish for our kids in a complicated and ravenous world.
A center of what is true.
So farewell and thank you, Harry!!!
By Avvy Mar
Labels: By Avvy Mar
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Beautifully written. I have my copy of Harry's last book sitting on my night stand. I've promised myself not to open it until my last class this weekend. He waits there for me like a patient friend. I get teary thinking it may be the last time we meet.
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