A Quote Challenge: Day 1

I was nominated by my great friend Brandewulf from Brandewijn Words for a challenge and, as we have previously established, I am not one to back down from any challenge ever. I am convinced my epitaph will reveal it was either my greatest strength or my downfall that I never have backed down. By that point, I won’t be around to care so in the meantime I’m gonna keep doing what I do and discover whatever interesting and entertaining bits that may come from this propensity of mine. Wulf knows that whatever quotes I share here will be excessively meaningful and profound for me and will likely inspire more writing which I suspect is part of why he did nominate me. If you haven’t had the chance to check out his blog I highly suggest you do. While I may have been working on my voice as a writer for nearly 2 decades now, Wulf has only been doing this for a short time but his voice even now holds a depth and passion that I think few writers find ever, let alone early on.

The challenge is to select and share 3 quotes on 3 consecutive days with explanations about why the quote is loved or how it speaks to the soul; obviously the nominator is thanked and 3 new nominations are made. Now onto the challenge!

Where there’s life there’s hope.

~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit,

Tolkien was one of the most accomplished linguists, experts on ancient British literature, and authors of the last century. Not only are his translations of ancient tales from the languages of their origin positively brilliant ~ no joke, his Gawain and the Green Knight is the phenomenal ~ but he also brought all those elements from the ancient epics into his own work, lending them an otherworldly and ancient epic quality while making them also incredibly accessible to modern readers. As a linguist he didn’t just make up fancy sounding words, he used his knowledge of ancient languages to quite literally create new languages that follow all rules of grammar. While people know who other authors are, I doubt there are many who could boast the kind of following that Tolkien does; only one author from the previous century could be compared in fandom to Tolkien and she herself was a fan of his and his influence can be seen in her works; I’m speaking of J.K. Rowling… obviously.

This quote from is one that I’ve held tightly in my heart since my first reading of The Hobbit. It wasn’t what was happening in the story that struck me so deeply with it but rather the profound truth and unwillingness to give up that these 5 words bring to my soul. I have been facing death from within a body attacking itself for years. The pain and anguish that I’ve endured were enough to nearly drive me to where I felt my sanity and will to live slipping from my fingers like sand. The knowledge that each day could be my last has been one that has lived silently inside me for years; I couldn’t say how long, exactly, because it was a truth that I denied to myself before struggling to acknowledge it. A year ago I was in the ICU fighting to survive ~ I say survive because by that point I was no longer living, I was merely existing within the shell of a broken body, unable to do most things except think and emote. I was blessed to finally have the assistance and guidance from an incredibly intelligent, compassionate, and insightful doctor shortly thereafter and I am certain that meeting and working with her saved my life; I would not have survived the last year without the her. Nevertheless, I don’t know how long I do have because the conditions I have are degenerative and without cures. So how have I made it?

Faith.

Faith and Hope.

It doesn’t matter how terrible things are in my life or my body. There is still life in me and as long as I live and breathe there is hope.

Where there’s life there’s hope.

Now my nominations for today:

1. Barrington Higgenbottom, my favorite bumbling private Dick from The Bryntin Project. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say if he can only focus long enough to not completely muck it up. I suspect he won’t even make it to the end of one day but there is always hope that he will. If Higgenbottom isnt available it is possible that Sir Norman Fosdick-Chewlightly might be available for comment; he does seem to have things a little more together!

2. John from Utahan15 is a poet and also lives in and looks at the world from the brilliance of Autism. He frequently responds to others’ work in poetry and sees depths in profound ways. I’ve always been curious about what or who speaks to him… and this is the perfect opportunity to find out, I think!

3. Walt from Walt’s Writing on Life writes poetry on life, beautiful poetry I might add. Poetry, I think, comes from the soul (at least good poetry does) so when I read a poet I often wonder what words inspire that soul the most. In poetry you can clearly see how a person, a raindrop, an emotion, a scent can bring the deluge, but I want to know what the words are that are held deeply within that help to make the deluge possible.

P.S. I’ve been listening to the soundtracks of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies while narrowing my favorite Tolkienisms to this one and while writing. True story. My favorite of all those soundtracks overall is the music inspired by the first 2 books of The Lord of the Rings which were published together under the title The Fellowship of the Ring. Yeah… the first 2… of 6… published in pairs. Only the literary fans know tidbits like that! Reasons to pick up the books.