The Heart and The Bottle

In the spirit of Thanksgiving...
This afternoon I had tea with one of my closest friends. We talked about pretty much everything and laughed about a lot, and perhaps got a little teary eyed over a few more difficult things. I'm incredibly thankful for my family and friends, I will never deny that. However, there was a dark shadow over the holiday this year and sometimes it's hard to shake the blues. After I had tea with my friend, I went to the bookstore - where I think I could spend days perusing the shelves - but I went to one of my favourite sections: the children's books. I read some new ones, glanced at some favourites and pulled out a few that I planned to add to my own growing collection. Then I found the ones by one of my favourite illustrators, Oliver Jeffers. He had a new one: Up and Down. I read it front to back and drank in all the amazing drawings.

At the back was the blurb about the author, listing all his books. I found that Up and Down wasn't his only new book - he had another - The Heart and The Bottle. I read it too, and in the store, it brought me to tears.

It's the story of a little girl full of curiousity and wonder - and then a great loss pushes her to place her heart in a bottle for safe keeping - only to find she's shut out all that makes life incredible most of her life. It's a children's book that takes on the great task of addressing a very difficult subject with immense care. It truly spoke to me.

I've tried to be very cautious about the way I approach things in my life. I'm trying to be very aware and open with people about who I am and what they mean to me. I've already gone through a period of my life where I felt separate from the world. With everything that has changed in my life, I'm trying to keep that dark cloud at bay, and sometimes its really difficult to do that. However, its moments like this - like having tea with my dear friend or reading a moving story in a quite place that I remember there are things to be thankful for - even in the darkness.