Life gets difficult. We get older and we experience things that are impossible to reconcile with that utopian part of our brains that believes everything makes sense.

Sometimes it is helpful to listen closely to children who still see the world in terms of “right and wrong”. Who still believe that goodness prevails and that anything is possible.

Sometimes, it’s helpful to reconnect with that little part of ourselves where ignorance was bliss. Before we knew that sometimes justice doesn’t prevail. And that sometimes bad things do happen to good people. Before anyone betrayed us, or hurt us, or disappointed us. Before people we loved died. Before we had to experience the agony of watching loved ones suffer. Back when we thought that everything had its place and the world would deliver everything we wanted.

In that spirit I share with you some quotes from children on their ‘future dreams’.

“My first dream, which is to be a pharmacist, is a big thing. Since it’s a big thing, I need a big plan.”

“My dream is to be the host of Family Feud. For all my years of being on this planet I have never seen a female host on Family Feud….What’s good about this job is you can crack jokes when someone gives a weird answer.”

“Then when I’m in my fifties I will stop my cooking career and go on to my coaching career in the National Hockey League.”

“My dream is to travel around the world…I will travel by ship because if I travel by plane I would have to be at my seat too much.”

“My dream is to have super powers. Having super powers would be cool but I still have to remember with great powers comes great responsibility. I have to remember I could get sued for causing so much damage.”

And my two personal favourites…..

“When I see garbage on the ground I just feel sad because people are littering and making the world less green. This is what inspired me to write about my dream which is to be a sanitation engineer.”

“If my dreams don’t come true, it’s okay. I just want to be happy. I want to be happy with my friends and family. That way my dreams come true in my mind even if not in the world.”

The wonderful, blissful ignorance of childhood. I love it.

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I was inspired to write this today by an excerpt I read from a new book entitled Big Questions from Little People & Simple Answers from Great Minds. The author, Gemma Elwin Harris, asked children aged 4 to 12 to send in their most restless questions. She then enlisted prominent scientists, philosophers and writers to answer them. This answer from author Jeanette Winterson touched something inside me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

How do we fall in love?

You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall like falling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear. It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signalled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.) And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. That’s it.
PS You have to be brave.

So there you have it. Hope you all smiled like I did.

Lots of love,
The Inconsistent Blogger

As I was saying in my last post, I spent a week in London with my brother and his family. I took my eldest son along with me and we had the time of our lives.

My favourite picture.

I noticed when watching CTV that they use this shot as part of their montage when referring to “London 2012″. I think it is very cool that I took the exact same shot.

We visited Westminster Abbey – so amazing to walk across ground that has seen every British monarch crowned over the last one thousand years or so. It has also seen the funerals of royalty including Princess Diana. And, most recently of course, it was the place of the nuptial ceremony between Prince William and the lovely Kate Middleton.

My favourite place of all was The Tower of London. The original tower – The White Tower – was built in the year 1066. Ann Boleyn was held here and executed in the inner courtyard. Ann, as you know, was King Henry VIII’s second wife – and the reason Henry broke from the Catholic church and created the Church of England. Henry was married to Catherine of Arragon, who was not doing a great job providing him with a son, and he fell in love (lust) with Ann Boleyn. Ann would not become his mistress which left Henry no choice but to break away from the Catholic church so that he could divorce Catherine and marry Ann. Quite remarkable really that a change as vast as that came about largely because Henry wanted to “know” (in the biblical sense) Ann. What people will do when sexually frustrated……..incredible really, isn’t it?!

A portion of the White Tower on a rare (particularly this summer) sunny day in London, England.

Unfortunately, along with the wonderful memories, I will always also have a rather traumatizing memory.

Colin and I were walking toward Westminster Abbey one day when I spotted a woman coming toward us who was being pushed in a wheelchair. Her sunglasses were sitting slightly agee on her face. My spidey senses went up and I thought to myself “There is something wrong with this woman. Majorly wrong.” As we drew closer I got a brief glimpse at her face. There was a hole in her face. It was about the size of a large marble and you could not see anything inside. It was like staring into a very dark cave. To make matters worse, the flesh surrounding the hole was inflamed and infected. It was as red as the double-decker bus that passed by and it was weeping. Weeping the most awful thick, whitish liquid I have ever seen. In all honesty, I don’t think she had eyes or a nose either – but it was the blank hole and the surrounding sickly flesh that horrified me. I will never be able to erase the sight from my memory. She was a stark reminder that some people’s troubles are far worse than others.

So there you have it. Some old sites, some history, some blue skies and a woman with a hole in her face. Never a dull moment.

To help you wipe out the visual presented above, I will leave you with a more pleasing image.

London preparing for the Summer Olympics 2012.