Lindsay Eland - Middle Grade Author

The second place my husband and I lived in after we got married was a small two bedroom apartment with white walls, a fireplace, and a little closed-in porch. We only lived there for a year before moving out, but I can still remember the small sword holes in the ceilings and walls. (holes that must have been the reason why we did not get our “deposit” back)

And yes, I said “sword holes.”

For our second anniversary I gave my husband a replica of the sword William Wallace carries in the movie Braveheart. I am five-six and from the tip of the blade to the top of the handle it comes to rest just above my chin. It has a rustic leather handle and I’m barely able to lift it with one hand…okay, so I can’t lift it with one hand.

Every guys dream, right?

Needless to say, he loved it.

But an interesting phenomena occurred when the sword was in his hands. Quite by surprise, I was met with the nine-year-old boy hiding inside him. At once, I knew inside his mind he thought of himself riding bareback on a horse, his face covered with ruddy blue war-paint.

“Okay, Linds,” he said, holding the sword. “If I guy came in right now to rob and pillage us. This is what I’d do.” He then proceeded to wield the sword around, jamming it into the drywall and then shoving it into the ceiling.

“Wow,” I said, just like a mother would her little boy. And, just like a little boy, that “wow” gave him just enough encouragement to continue the battle with a few more thrusts of the deadly weapon.

This happened frequently and still does–usually when I express my worry on if the front door is locked.

“It is, Linds. But don’t worry. If a guy climbed up to our bedroom and opened the door.” He pulls out the sword, “this is what I’d do.” And then I get to see another display of my husbands prowess and catlike reflexes in the event an intruder actually came in.

As funny as it is, I can’t help also thinking how wonderful this is. The bits of pretending and imagination that we hold inside us. Those pieces of dreams and imagining that haven’t died due to mortgages, car payments, medical bills, or jobs.

Pieces that allow us to imagine and dream and explore the “what if’s” of life, not with a checkbook (well, I’d just offer him money and it’ll be all right) or health insurance (We’ve got health insurance so if he does hurt us, we’ll be covered) or a security system (there’s no way he’d be able to breach the fortress of our alarm system so don’t worry), but with creativity, imagination, dreaming, and a really cool sword.

Recently I finished reading Anne of Avonlea–the continuing story of one of the most beloved characters in all of literature.

We know the character of Anne by descriptions: She has hair red like carrots and freckles dotting a very distinguished nose. Anne is tall and thin, with grey eyes and the propensity to get herself into all sorts of scrapes.

But those things are not what we remember most about her once the last page is turned and the book finds its way onto our bookshelves. It is something more magical than this, and I feel like I have found it! The line is   now underlined in purple pen at the top of page 247 in my book:

She seemed to walk in an atmosphere of things about to happen.

How marvelous! 

So when I think of myself as a character in the stories of the people moving in and out of my life (for we are all characters in other’s stories) I have to wonder:

How do they remember me after I have gone? 

How do I want to be remembered?

Will I be remembered as:

beautiful?

funny?

weird? 

kind? 

thoughtful?

harsh?

strict?

impatient?

smart?

a dreamer?

I am sure I will be remembered as each one of these at some point in some one else’s story.

But more than all of these, above all else, I would like to be remembered–I hope to be remembered–as Anne is.

As a person that seems to walk in an atmosphere of things about to happen.

Anyone who knows me for even just over an hour will learn that I am completely and truly a full-blooded optimist. The glass is not only half-full, but it is overflowing and splashing delightfully onto the countertop and running onto the floor. And what a lovely puddle it makes.

I used to think while conversing with people who spoke of the downward spiral of the economy, the loss of virtue in america, the destruction of our environment, that my optimism was a form of weakness. That really I was just deluded into thinking there was really a sun above the dark clouds. That I was merely imagining goodness and beauty and hope because I just wasn’t educated enough to really know what was wrong with the world.

I even attempted to try on this cynicism. But like my 1980’s tight-rolled, size 0, stone washed jr. jeans, cynicism didn’t fit right, it didn’t feel right, and I faced the fact that it was just downright depressing.

So now I look at my optimism as one of my great strengths. Life is beautiful and pleasant and hopeful for me. But I do not feel like I look at the world through glasses that are “too good to be true.” Instead, I know that I have been blessed with eyes that are able to, at the same time, see the wretchedness, the ugliness, and the brokenness of life, yet still find the wonder, joy, beauty, and hope in the midst of it all. 

So here’s to glasses that are half-full! Here’s to eyes that can see more beauty than ugliness, to ears that can hear more laughter than weeping, and to hearts that find only wonder in the ordinary.

“I’d like to add some beauty to life. I don’t exactly want to make people know more…but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me…to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn’t been born.”

Anne Shirley (Anne of Avonlea)