The Closest Book

I've decided to partake in this new meme going around. I heard about it from Marilyn of The Stair Landing who decided to participate in it.

The rules are as follows:

Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence, as well as two to five sentences following.

The closest book to me is called The Dreamstone by C.J. Cherryh and I haven't begun it yet so technically I'll be reading ahead a bit to do this meme. lol. The book is a fantasy and it's from the early 80s so I'm not sure what the quality of writing will be like. Here's the selected passage below:

She brought out food of her own store, a gift of trees and bees and whatsoever things felt no hurt at sharing. She gave him a share, and he took it with a desperate dread and hunger.
"It's good," he pronounced quickly and laughed a little, and finished it all. He licked the very last from his fingers, and now there was relief in his eyes, of hunger, of fear, of so many burdens. He gave great sigh and she smiled a warmer smile than she was wont, remembrance of a brighter world.
"Play for me," she wished him.
He played for her then, idly and softly, heart-healing songs, and slept again, for bright day in Ealdwood counseled sleep, when the sun burned its warmth through the tangled branches and brambles and the air hung still, nothing breathing, least of all the wind.

Anyone else who would like to do this meme just follow the rules and let me know so I can come and check it out on your blog!

Happy Canada Day!

Throughout the ages Canada has meant a lot of things to a great many people. To the "first" explorers it was a new world, to generations of immigrants it has been a chance for a new beginning, to the First Nations people who have been here since the beginning it's home - and it is home for me too.

I've lived in Canada my entire life and I often dream about travelling the world and seeing the wonders of different lands and interesting cultures, but when it gets right down to it Canada is the place for me.

There's so much to love about Canada. The artwork of the Group of Seven and Emily Carr, the poetry and writings of Margaret Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen and so many others, the forests and lakes, the call of loons right after a midnight storm. There is something in the landscape of Canada that inhabits Canadians, some invisible golden thread that stretches and follows us as we travel and live our lives, that - no matter where we live, visit or are - that connects us to the land where we originated and causes us to forever think of Canada as home ... at least, that's the case for me.

I know Canada has its problems like any other nation in the world but I love this country with every fibre of my being. So I'll leave you with my favourite poem by my favourite Canadian poet:

Dark Pines Under Water
Gwendolyn MacEwen

This land like a mirror turns you inward
And you become a forest in a furtive lake;
The dark pines of your mind reach downward,
You dream in the green of your time,
Your memory is now a row of sinking pines.

Explorer, you tell yourself this is not what you came for
Although it is good here, and green;
You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,
You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper
And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper
In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told.