Peg Kerr's Journal

I had an idea for a card that seemed to embody EVERYTHING about this week: Exhaustion.

The sleep disorder continues to be a struggle. The medication I'm taking helps me sleep better, but only sometimes and only slightly: I still have episodes of wakefulness at night, and now I'm barely half-awake during the day. I kept throwing in the towel all week with what I wanted to do. The toe has healed enough that I could finally get together with my walking mates I meet regularly, but I bailed on the after-walk coffee because I couldn't keep my eyes open. I took sick time on Tuesday because, again, I was actually dozing off at my desk.

Then there was this week's stint of heat and humidity. I have a portable air conditioner in the bedroom, but no central air. On Thursday, overwhelmed, I retreated to the bedroom and just lay on the bed and read for most of the day.

Today, the temperature is lower, but I spent the morning moving four wheelbarrows full of dirt (to re-grade my foundation) from a neighbor who lives three blocks away. Again, complete exhaustion.

But I decided not to do that card.

You know what, I'm sick of talking about my sleep disorder. It's impacting my life terribly, but I don't want to waste yet another collage on it. I don't want to be yet another aging woman who does nothing but grouse about her physical problems.

As for the heat, who wants to hear about that? We've all been feeling it.

What's more, I've been thinking this week about my own privilege. Who am I to complain?

My sister-in-law lives in Phoenix, where it has been 110 degrees for over three weeks--she finally had to get out of town and drive up north to see her mother. Millions of people all over this country are suffering even higher temperatures than we have here in Minnesota. And others are suffering temperatures yet higher still in other parts of the world.

I feel so put upon dealing with an un-air-conditioned house, but my own daughter worked this week in an un-air-conditioned warehouse, 100 degrees, with full body coverage clothing and steel-toed boots. They keep the doors propped open to let the trucks in and out, so she has to do with the smokey air, too. Is what I've had to bear anything close to that?

Or the homeless woman I gave some money to outside the co-op where I stopped earlier this week? I went into an air-conditioned place to eat my lunch, while she stayed out there, roasting in the sun.

I decided, instead, to do a card about dealing with this kind of stress and depletion.

I decided to do a card about Fortitude.

I started thinking of an essay I wrote years ago for one of the Harry Potter conferences that HPEF held. I was tracing the seven deadly sins and the seven heavenly virtues through the Harry Potter books. I'm disgusted with Rowling, so I'm not going to pull the examples from the books themselves that I used in the paper, but I'm putting some excerpts of the essay here:

Fortitude means strength, courage, endurance, and resoluteness. Some might term it “grit” or “guts.” This virtue is the first of the Seven Heavenly Virtues derived from what the Greeks termed the cardinal virtues. Note the etymology: the words “fort” and “fortify” are derived from the same Latin root, “fortis,” meaning “strong.” Like a fort, fortitude is something that shields the hero under siege. Fortitude thus is a protective virtue, both for individuals and groups. Groups survive best under siege when they cooperate....Fortitude manifests itself both in active and passive forms. Passive fortitude means bearing things (ranging from the merely vexing to the dreadful) without giving up or giving in....Passive fortitude stands against two of the greatest tools of evil: fear and despair....Fortitude’s natural ally is Hope. Passive fortitude, the ability to wait out a siege, is strongest when hope is there to sustain. Conversely, then, the strongest fortitude—and perhaps the most critical in resisting evil—is resistance which continues when all hope is gone.

The other kind of fortitude, which manifests itself actively, can be called courage. If passive fortitude is the fortress in which the hero waits out the siege, then its active manifestation, courage, is what drives the hero from the safety of the fortress to engage the enemy in the field. Fortitude stands resolute in the face of fear and despair; courage keeps moving without giving up.

I'm trying to show some fortitude. I'm trying to have some courage.

As much as I now loathe J. K. Rowling and have lost all respect for her, I am a Gryffindor, after all.

Wishing fortitude for you, too.

Image description: Bottom center: a castle with high siege walls against a brilliantly blue sky with puffy clouds. The semi-transparent head and shoulders of a visored knight rise above the castle, center left. Center right: a knight on horseback with a flying pennant raised above its head.

Fortitude



Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.

Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.

We had a Weasley clock that Delia made and gave me for Christmas that hangs in our bedroom. Tonight, I took down Rob's clock hand, and I mounted and hung it under the clock.

I may have been sorted into Gryffindor on Pottermore, but today I am not nearly as brave as I need to be.

Edited to add: After I wrote this, this was the first thing to come up on my playlist

Dark and Difficult Times Lie Ahead




I need to make an icon like that: Dark and Difficult Times Lie Ahead.

*adds to the list*

This one is actually pretty good. It's a prequel about a pivotal scene between Dumbledore, Aberforth, Grindelwold and Arianna.

An interesting piece on textual analysis comparing most common words/sentences/etc. in Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Hunger Games trilogy: It includes the bit:

"Like the distinctive word lists, these sentences suggest something about each author’s style. Rowling’s betray her reliance on suspense: “Harry looked around,” “He waited,” “Harry stared.” (A list of her most frequently used sentences could be repurposed into a script for an absurdist play called Waiting for Voldemort.)"

I think I mentioned one of my Christmas gifts from Delia: a felt wall hanging/Weasley clock. However, she didn't quite finish it, because she wasn't sure how to design the hands. So I designed and finished those. It's about 98% done: I just need to darken the lettering on the clock face and get a longer central brad to affix the clock hands. But I think it looks great, don't you? What a wonderful Christmas/Mother's Day gift!

Two of them, actually, an academic one for $2,500 and an arts scholarship for $5,000. Fiona's applying to both.

Deadline is April 15.

Not Literally has finally gotten around to my House!

Not Literally are on Facebook here and on Twitter at @TheNotLiterally.

Here is the mood set on Livejournal and here it is on Dreamwidth.

Do you think a different quote would suit the mood better? Let me know in the comments. I do have some alternative thoughts myself.

I am going to be posting the Harry Potter icons I have been working on the last several days, which has been a very nice, distracting project. I messed around with trying to do them with the Lumos font or the Harry Potter font, but they just didn't look good: too blurry. Finally, I hit upon the idea of using the font I used last time when I created my Lord of the Rings icons, the Ringbearer font.

If you have suggestions for other quotes to include, let me know. You are very welcome to take any icons you like, just credit me. A comment here would be nice, to let me know which ones you like. Also leave a comment if you have quotes to suggest that I can add.

I have also made a custom mood set, and that will be a separate post.

( Here are the A-L icons )