Corner of a Globe

It grabbed me!

The story about the small geek with goggled eyes who was forced into a huge life-assignment right from his first year of living and who hadn’t got much other than courage, a big heart and a sence of justice to work with – oh, and a little something-something like … he’s a wizard!

But it’s not all it took to make the books interesting for me.

It’s also the way J.K.Rowling describes children from the age 11 till 17 – as well as the world surrounding them, that I find quite amazing. She really gets it, that children have abilities that are often not recognized by grown-ups. In Real-Life (RL) children are mostly either not heard or they are heard in a wrong way – “too much” – allowing them to be brats.

I look at my own child and I do recognise that she has many abilities to choose from and it makes it very interesting to be around her, to observe her and try to be a facilitator when things get too complicated and/or I see her go in a direction not good/suited for her. Teenagers can be a hand-full and mine is neither better nor worse than others, but my handling the situations has to constantly be done thoughtfully and undergo development. She cannot have the last word, but I’m willing to hear her take on things while I remain in charge.

Then there is the author’s ability to push buttons in my RL. Not only is the fate of Harry Potter recognizable but to me it is scaringly close to home.

I used to use a light tone when asked about parts of my life saying: I have experienced all but war and natural disasters up front and in person. But it’s reality for me, that of anything and everything man can imagine doing regarding cruelty to each others, I’ve experienced a version of it. And after I got grown-up (hm “ponder”) fate or what-ever wasn’t done with me, so now I’m not hard to throw off my feet!

At the time when I started out reading the books, I – along with friends, family and family-physician – thought I was on the way into a depression! Two years earlier I had had a nervous breakdown but that was due to things needing to change in the family structure and was solved once we had gotten separate housings! I had spend 20 years sharing house with my mother-in-law (we lost my husband 10 years before the split).

Now however I suddenly thought whether it really was the family structure or if it had been me all along going bonkers!

It came to where I thought thoroughly about ending my life, because I saw myself as a huge hindrance to my daughter’s chance of being happy, and I couldn’t see a way out except into the light.

7 years before this winter I’m referring to, I had an injury to my spinal chord after a disc-hernia going all wrong and all the wrong way, and I live now with pains un-imaginable to people who hasn’t experienced anything like it! Unfortunately I’m among the approx. 25% with nerve pains that can’t be helped with medicine, so I had refused to use any medications that wouldn’t help me thoroughly. That is, help me get able to get back to work!

Only three years previously had my mother-in-law found an article about a new drug that helped patients with nerve pains and it did take the upper top – what I call “the screaming top” – but didn’t get me back to work. It did however make it easier for me to get sort of a life and be a mom for my daughter.

Now back to the winter 2007 where we all agreed (kind a’) that I was going into a depression my personaly physician wasn’t quite convinced about the depression so we agreed to wait before medicating. I read the books, I saw the movies, I read, I cried, I hoped and praid to whom-ever-would-listen even! (and I’m not usually a praying type). Then late winter/early spring my physician got the idea that maybe we should try do something about the pain! But I was almost at the maximum dosis for the medicin I already had so she suggested we made the cocktail contain yet another ingredient – and it worked! I got slowly but steadily out of the dark and into the life! It had been my level of pain that had grown without me noticing. Also Harry Potter had helped me hang in there and he kept on being a big help.

The fantasy-world I let myself into in Harry Potter, I used as stimulation in my RL’s dreams and longings, and it also gave me a time-out here and there that made reality just a tad brighter. I saw the scenery my way, that the writer had tried to create for her readers and could laugh when I discovered that the instructor(s) of the movie-version actually saw a lot of things the same way – or was/is it the other way around? ^_^ I even painted some of the elements I saw in ways that was not described in the movies.

There was a huge difference between the danish version – my daughter had the first 5 books in danish – so when I read the two last books in english I realised, that I had to read the whole series in english – and once again – it became 15 times in just 6 months after I had the english version!

Funny enough I had as much pleasure of reading them the third and the …. 15.th. time, because there are new details each time I read as well as happy reunions with chapters or details! That is a sign for good quality to me.

On the official site of J.K.Rowling I also had lots of fun with oozing around, then I went for other sites and first used the links provided by the author. It became a nice way to spend hours during the nights where I couldn’t sleep and I still frequently visit several fan-sites.

The nicest thing about fan-sites is that I meet others with the same “addiction” – well it might as well have been stamp-collecting or opera, but now it’s Harry Potter and it came at a really dark time of my life.

By now however I am not to be stopped! Not only Harry Potter had gotten to me but the fandom too. Leaky Cauldron has become my “other home”.

I now spend most of my nights online “working” while having a ball. I’ve accepted to be part of the staff behind a reading group and keep learning new tricks! My daughter is laughing at me – and to me – she refuses to hear or read book 7 just to see me writher from anticipation and try all the tricks I can think of to get her to end the story, but she’s a very strong person and so far her biggest entertainment-value is watching my frustration! Cute cookie!