That title has dual meaning. After a prolonged absence, I expect it will take me a bit of time to get my bearings again as we greet a new season. Our travels to Ireland and Wales were more than I could have expected or hoped for, and there is so much to write about. Not only travel pieces, but I encountered so much in way of soul-seeking, and the blessing of findng spirituality and pilgrimage in several unexpected things and places.
However, I couldn’t let today pass unnoticed.
Today is the First of September, the traditional beginning of the Wizarding School Year. Today all the young witches and wizards who received their attendance letters from Hogwarts are busily arriving at Kings Cross Station in London to catch the Hogwarts Express.
Today’s Express is a little different, though.
This is the last day – the official last day of the original Harry Potter series.
1 September 2017
Nineteen Years Later.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Ginny, and Draco all arrive to put their children on the Hogwarts Express. They give parental advice, hugs and laughter abound among the childhood anxiety of something new, a nod here or there to their old classmates.
Nineteen years ago I read the first book, and I was entranced. It was everythng I wanted in a book. My oldest son was a baby, and it was my reading material for that year’s Rosh Hashanah.
When I finished the last book, the seventh book, The Deathly Hallows, I remember sitting in my cozy overstuffed chair, my mother-in-law on the sofa across from me. We’ve just returned – it’s barely been a week – from spending the last two weeks visiting my mother-in-law’s home and family, and putting her ashes to rest in Belfast. Time is a delicate mistress. I remember that day relatively clearly, or at least a moment of that day, trying to keep myself composed as the book took over.
No spoilers, but Fred.
This could not be over! What do you mean all was well? I wanted more.
I needed more.
And through some googling, I found Live Journal, and that opened up an entire world of reading, and then writing fan fiction, and brought me into this amazing, exciting, creative place called the Internet. It began another chapter in my life that is continual and continuing today.
Nineteen years later…all was well.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 