Some Good

Familiarity breeds comfort. I talk about this quite often because I don’t only believe it, I live it.

It’s difficult to find the familiar in a new city, among new people and new situations. But there are some things that stay constant. I find one of my constants in the books I grew up with – the characters who always taught me that I was not alone. They do the same today.

During my daily lunchtime Twitter scroll today, I discovered that it was Tolkien Reading Day (celebrated by the society on the day that the one ring was said to have been destroyed) and got thinking about my annual re-listen of the audio books and a quote from the ever gallant Samwise Gamgee.

I’ve read it more times than I can remember, but each time I see the words and understand their meaning, my heart feels full. I share this hoping that it might be make you swell with strength – in yourself, in time, and in all that is good.

“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”