Sunshine and Mirrors

"Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves." ~James M. Barrie

Sunshine

"Sunshine, sunshine in my soul today." Don't you just love the sunshine songs in the church hymn books? Don't you just love the sunshine, especially in the winter time? 

The change from Daylight Savings Time this week has me noticing how the night comes quicker. Too quick, most people say. I know that we actually have the same amount of daylight today as we did last week. It's only our clocks we have messed with, but somehow when it starts getting dark an hour earlier, according to those turned back clocks, you notice the night coming more. But we do have plenty of sunshine if you can get outside to enjoy it before the daytime slides away. I took the above sunny picture last fall. Plenty of bright sunlight then. 

The Norway town of RJukan

But it's not that way for everybody. Enter this little town in Norway, Rjukan, tucked in between some mountains so that for six months out of the year, the residents have to take a cable car up the mountain to see any sunshine. The town has quite a history. It was established by industrialist Sam Eyde to provide workers for a hydroelectric plant he located at the foot of a nearby waterfall. 

Mirrors to the rescue

Photo by Terje Bendiksby, AP

A hundred years ago, Eyde came up with the plan to put mirrors on top the mountain to reflect sunlight down into the town. He never saw that idea come to fruition, but now it has. On Wednesday, sunlight reflected off three 183-foot mirrors reached the town square and for the first time ever the residents felt the winter sun in the town. The residents cheered, wore sunglasses, played volleyball and some even brought out their lounge chairs to sit and soak up the reflected sunshine. 

A Town with a History

This wasn't the first time this little town made the news. The town was occupied by the Germans during World War II and Hitler was using the factory to try to develop the atomic bomb. Twelve Norwegian saboteurs parachuted into the nearby tundra and survived the freezing temperatures to destroy the factory's "heavy water" plant. Their bravery inspired a Hollywood movie in 1965 and now a TV series is planned. 

The Surprises of Research 

You start out looking for one thing and then oftentimes, you find something even more interesting that you weren't expecting. I'd heard the mirrors reflecting the sunshine down on their town square mentioned on the radio last week, and then I find out the role this little town and its people played in the history of the world. That's the way research is and what makes it fun for the historical writer.   

So the town has known dark days not related to the lack of sunshine, but they've also known dark winter months every year. But now, the sun shines from the mirrors down into their town square. The lady I heard on the radio said the townspeople would be willing to share the spot of sun with one another.

 Some days you just have to create your own sunshine. ~Sam Sundquist

If you want to read more about the little town of Rjukan, here are a couple of links where I found my information.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/10/30/norway-town-sun-stavanger/3313105/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/rjukan-norway-sun-mirror_n_4177006.html

Again, thanks to all of you who played my mystery photo game. I have one of my winners, Sharon, but I haven't heard from Mary Preston. Mary, if you read this, please either leave info here on how to contact you or contact me at annhgabhart(at)yahoo(dot)com. If I don't hear from you before Sunday, I'll have to draw a new winner. 

Thanks for reading. Wishing for plenty of sunshine to shine down on you. And me too!  

Live in the Sunshine

--Live in the sunshine - that's a phrase out of a song the Patriot Quartet sang last night at their homecoming that so caught my imagination I put it on my Facebook page and now I'm putting it here. What great advice! Live in the sunshine of hope and joy and leave behind the shadows of doubts and fear.

--Today was a great day to think about living in the sunshine. I love being out in the woods on a beautiful day in October. The picture is one I took when I went on my long walk down the creek last week. Today we went tree sightseeing in the car - my mom and my sister and me. We looped around through the countryside and came back up the road where Dad owned a lot of farmland when I was young. We remembered wheat in this field and tobacco in that field and strawberries in another. The strawberries, by far, were the best memory. But the countryside has changed a lot since my sister and I were kids riding the school bus around that road every day fall, winter and spring. We kept wondering if that was where so and so's house used to be and was this or that house there back then and where exactly on the cliffside was that spring that ran with such cool clear water to fill up our water jugs. Things we thought we'd never forget are foggy shadows on the edge of remembrance.

--So many years ago. And yet even then I knew I wanted to write stories down. I wanted to string words together and pile page upon page until the story was told. I could never have imagined how many books I might write. I might not even be able to imagine that now. I'm hoping several more in the years ahead.

--Writing isn't easy. You sometimes hope it will be or imagine it will be or want it to be, but many days the words have to be coaxed out of the black ooze of the mind where stories hide. Or tugged out laboriously one at a time. And yet no matter how difficult the task sometimes is, that's what I want to do. What I have always wanted to do. Write.

--I'm in the beginning stages of my new story now. I'm getting acquainted with my characters. Wondering where they went to school or church. What their parents and siblings were like. What work they did or do. And on and on. So much to learn about these new people I've just met and want to know. So it's good to take long walks with them and listen to what they have to tell me about themselves. October is a good month for that.

--These next few weeks are busy. We're going to be taking a few days to enjoy visiting with family in the mountains. Then I have several book events coming up. The Kentucky Book Fair is just a couple of weeks away on Saturday, November 7. That's always a fun day when so many writers and readers show up to celebrate reading. I enjoy talking to the reading friends I've made there over the years. I'll be doing a panel on "Fiction Writers Unite!" at 12:30 that day with Karen Robards, Jan Watson and Mary Ann Taylor-Hall with Jim Tomlinson moderating. That should be fun. It's always interesting to hear how other writers come up with their stories. So if you're in the area come on down to the Frankfort Civic Center and meet a hundred plus writers who would love to sign one of their books for you. An autographed book makes a unique and special Christmas present. I'm looking forward to doing some Christmas shopping myself and to meeting some writers in person that up until now I've only met via internet like Laura Frantz whose book about Kentucky, A Frontiersman's Daughter, has gotten great reviews and is sure to be a reader favorite at the fair.

--Hope you have an absolutely wonderful last week of October and live in the sunshine.

A Chair in the Sun

We're having a sunny Sunday today and that's very welcome after last week when winter came to visit. We even had snow on the ground one night. It's still chilly, but the sun feels fantastic. As humans, I think we're wired to need the sunshine. I know we need the rain and maybe if it was sunny all the time, we'd miss the gray skies. Maybe. But sunshine puts a spring in our step and a smile on our faces. It makes some of us want to get outside and clean something while others want to go fishing. Me - well, in spite of being a dog person, I get to thinking sort of like a cat when I see a chair beside a sunny window. I immediately want to curl up in that warm spot with a good book and spend an hour or so reading before the sun shifts to another window.

Not that I ever have the time to actually do that. I need to learn to be a better manager of my time. But with Christmas weeks away, I know every minute will be scheduled and I'll be rushing to get everything done the way I always do this time of the year. Plus I went to the library Friday and got a whole stack of history books to help me figure out what was happening in the time period I've picked for my next Shaker book. So maybe I should be curling up in that chair with a history book, but if the history wasn't riveting, I'd probably just doze off in that warm sunshine. Guess I'll just keep typing here instead.


Some fun news. My new Shaker book The Believer is out on Amazon.com and other internet sites for pre-sale. Not that I think anyone will be buying it this soon, but if you're interested you can go out there and check out the cover and some info on the story. I'll be posting the cover on my website sometime soon, but I haven't yet. I do like the cover with the Shaker buildings in the background and the stormy sky. I especially like the guy. He's a good Ethan and Ethan is the Believer in the story. The Outsider was released August 1 this year and looks as if The Believer will follow suit in 2009. By then I should have my next and perhaps last Shaker book finished and off to the publishers. I will if I meet my deadline. So I'd better get at those history books.


We had a great day at Goshen today. Br. Fred preached on Psalm 107 "O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good." He told us about a word in that first verse. A Hebrew word 'hesedth' that is translated in many Bibles as 'lovingkindness.' He says there isn't any good way to translate it word for word into our language but that the closest you might come is a combination of all the good greeting words in the world wrapped together. All the blessings and goodwill anybody might want to wish to you and it's all coming from the Lord. Hesedth. May you be wrapped in that loving kindness this week as you pause in your busy schedules to seek out that spot in the sunshine of the Lord's love to warm your spirit and count your blessings.

You are one of the blessings I will be counting this week. Thanks for reading.