Hand in Hand

May 22, 2008 admin MGuhlin.net, Transparency, Writing

Often, when I’m seeking inspiration, I go to a blog called Crossroad
Dispatches. It is unfettered, and there is a joy in reading the
blogger’s words. Tonight is no exception. As I write to exorcise the
haunt of Pat Conroy’s beautiful storytelling from my mind, I find my
ways to Crossroad Dispatches. The blogger quotes from A Bridge to
Terabithia, a book I eschewed when young and a movie I found
depressing (it appeared to be sci-fi or fantastical but wasn’t).

Miss Edmunds picked up a few odd chords and then began to sing, more
quietly than usual for that particular song:

"I see a land bright
and clear
And the time’s coming near
When we’ll live in this land
You
and me, hand in hand…"

People began to join in, quietly at
first to match her mood, but as the song built up at the end, their
voices did as well, so that by the time they got to the final "Free to
be you and me," the whole school could hear them. Caught in the pure
delight of it, Jess turned and his eyes met Leslie’s. He smiled at her.
What the heck? There wasn’t any reason he couldn’t.

What was he
scared of anyhow? Lord. Sometimes he acted like the original
yellow-bellied sapsucker. He nodded and smiled again. She smiled back.
He felt there in the teachers’ room that it was the beginning of a new
season in his life, and he chose deliberately to make it so.
- The
Bridge to Terebithia, Katherine Paterson