July 20, 2017 · 1:00 am

What Minecraft Has Taught Me About Mindfulness

Minecraft was frustrating when I first began to learn how to play it. It’s the kind of game that has a steep learning curve, so my avatar died in a lot of silly ways in the beginning.

I am not a big gamer in general, but Minecraft is one of those pastimes that I keep cycling back around to. I’ll play it for several months and then take a long break from it. No matter how long I’m away, though, I always come back to it eventually.

Recently, I’ve started to play it again. The other night I began to think about the lessons this game has taught me as I was putting up a stone fence around the home that some friends and I have been working on.

Pay Attention to Your Surroundings

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I got lost in Minecraft when I first began playing it. If you happen to wind up in the middle of a biome, every hill looks the same after a while. This can make it difficult to find your way home before dark when the monsters begin to spawn and the game becomes dangerous for anyone who wants their character to survive the night.

To be honest with you, I’m still not an expert at navigating my surroundings. I have gotten a lot better at knowing where I am relative to home base, though, and it’s much more rare for me to get totally lost than it used to be. A big part of the reason why this is so is because I’ve learned to pay attention to where the sun is in the sky and what landmarks are close to my home.

Even something as simple as a patch of flowers or an oddly-shaped tree can potentially be a clue that you’re almost back to a safe place to spend the night.

Live in the Moment

Minecraft is the sort of game where everything can be peaceful one moment and a life-or-death battle with an army of skeletons the next. You never know what a day will bring to you, but you also won’t progress at all if you spend all of your time assuming that there’s a skeleton lurking behind you.

Sometimes I like to watch videos of what other players have built in this game. The homes I’m able to build at the moment are simple, but I dream of the day when I, too, will be able to build a mansion without using any cheats.

In the meantime, I enjoy the skills I’ve picked up so far. I’m learning new things almost every time I play it, and I see a lot of improvement from where I was as a player when I first began.

Photo credit: Andy Dingley.

 

You Can’t Prepare for Everything

Just because the monsters usually spawn at night doesn’t mean you won’t come across any of them during the day. One time I was collecting wheat near my home when a creeper (see photo above) snuck up behind me and exploded. My avatar was injured and a piece of the fencing around the wheat was destroyed.

I’d followed all of the rules the night before by going to bed as soon as the sun set. Doing this is supposed to dramatically reduce your risk of running into a monster as they won’t spawn if you’re asleep.

You can’t prepare for everything, though. Sometimes Minecraft and real life throw you curve balls. Accepting that anything could happen at ay moment wasn’t always easy, but it did make for a better playing experience once I started to do it.

Stay Peaceful

Photo credit: Gilda from London, UK.

Like many other things in life, Minecraft operates on a cycle. It has a steady cycle of day and night modes, of course, but it also seems to shift between times when there are many monsters and when there are fewer of them.

The number of friendly creatures in this game seems to change, too. There have been times when I’ve found valleys full of sheep and pigs and other times when it was hard to find any of them at all.

Once you grow accustomed to the ebb and flow of it, it’s easier to accept that sometimes things aren’t going to go your way. A hunt for the sheep that my farm still needs might be unsuccessful today, but that doesn’t mean I won’t find any the next time I go searching for them.

If you play Minecraft, what lessons have you learned from it?

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July 17, 2017 · 1:00 am

5 Reasons Why You Should Read Science Fiction and Fantasy

This past weekend I tried to remember the first science fiction or fantasy book I ever read. After a lot of deliberation, I believe that traditional fairy tales were what originally drew me into this genre.

Some of my earliest memories about books in general involve borrowing fairy tale collections from my local library. After I’d read all of the sanitized versions of them, I moved on the dark and often gory originals.

My second clear memory of the sci-fi genre was watching reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation. There were two episodes of that show that I wanted to watch over and over again because of how much they blew my mind: Genesis and Sub Rosa. Before seeing them, I never would have imagined that people could evolve backwards or that an entity could need a candle to survive.

I don’t know how many of my readers are already fans of science fiction or fantasy, but there are several reasons why you should give them a chance if you’re not currently reading them.

They Ask Questions Without Always Answering Them

One of the things I found soothing about fairy tales when I first began reading them is how predictable they were. It was common to have three tasks to perform, a talking animal to guide you on your journey, an old woman who would help or hinder you depending on how kindly you treated her, and a happy ending for everyone who had a pure heart.

It came as a surprise to me, then, to move into older, darker fairy tales where these things weren’t necessarily true. Sometimes the protagonist ended up with the prince, but in other stories she before they could be reunited. As I gradually switched to reading and watching more science fiction and contemporary fantasy*, this unpredictable nature of the plot only grew stronger.

I love the fact that these genres don’t always tie everything up into a neat, little bow. Sometimes the good guys win. At other times, they might lose or the line between good and evil could be drawn in more than one place depending on how one looks at the facts. The open-ended nature of what it means to be a good guy and why bad things happen to good people appeals to me quite a bit.

*See also: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and many other of Joss Whedon’s TV shows.

They Teach You Important Life Lessons

Not everyone is who they appear to be.

Always overestimate how much time you need to do something. It’s better to impress others by finishing it early than it is to disappoint them.

If you’re able to help someone in need, do it. You never know when your fortunes might reverse and you might be the one who needs help next.

Equality is for everyone.

Don’t wear the colour red if you’re out on a mission.

Dragons and old, tired arguments with the people you love must never be roused from their slumber for no good reason.

These are only a few of the life lessons I’ve learned from fantasy and science fiction. I could have easily filled this entire blog post with nothing but a list of the things I’ve learned from sci-fi. It’s not just entertainment. It can also teach you things that will last an entire lifetime.

They Introduce You to New Ideas

The sci-fi genre is the perfect place to explore things you’ve never thought about before and imagine how our world could be different than it currently is.

Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer not only introduced me to the idea that a woman could save the day, they didn’t make the genders of their heroines a big deal.

Xena and Buffy were both too busy fighting monsters to worry about whether or not other people approved of them being heroic. That was something I rarely got to see as a little girl, so I relished those glimpses of worlds where your gender didn’t affect what role you’d play in an adventure.

They Imagine the Best and the Worst Case Scenarios

At various points in my life I’ve drifted back and forth between preferring utopian and dystopian sci-fi stories. There have been times when I’ve craved the hope that can be found in imagining a world where prejudice and many other forms of inequality no longer existed.

Watching Captain Picard and his crew explore the galaxy was magical. Here was a world where your gender, race, and species didn’t have any affect at all on what jobs you were allowed to do from what I could see. Was it perfect? No, but it was whole lot better than our current world.

On the flip side, sometimes it’s interesting to explore a future version of our world where everything has fallen apart. One of the things I enjoyed the most about the first six seasons of The Walking Dead was seeing how Rick reacted when every attempt he made to keep his children and community safe eventually fell apart in the most dramatic ways possible. At what point should someone try something completely new? Is it okay to stop admitting newcomers to your safe area once they’ve betrayed you a few times?

They Prepare You For Uncertainty

Will the future be paradise or a post-apocalyptic hellhole?

Nobody knows, so we must prepare for both possibilities. I love the fact that sci-fi is so focused on showing where we’re headed as a species and how small changes in our society today could have a massive affect on whether future generations will bless or curse our names.

A few years ago I underwent some testing for a possible medical problem. (Spoiler alert – it ended up being nothing to worry about at all).

While I was waiting to hear whether or not the abnormality my regular doctor had discovered was actually something to be concerned about, science fiction and fantasy showed me how to exist in that narrow space between health and sickness.

I hope I won’t have to walk down that dark passageway again for decades to come, but I know that my stories will be there to comfort and distract me if I do.

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July 15, 2017 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: July 15, 2017

Here is this week’s list of poems, videos, comic strips, essays, and other links from my favourite corners of the web. The picture on the left reminds me of the “Choose Peace” link on this list.

7 Venn Diagrams About Teaching via JamesTheo. This made me grin.

The Photograph: A Lynching. The imagery in this poem was chillingly detailed. Lucille Clifton is a poet I’ve recently discovered, so expect to read more stuff from her in future Suggestion Saturday posts. Her writing style is gorgeous.

I Don’t Accommodate Uncontrolled Men. My thoughts exactly.

30-Day Habit Challenge: How I Changed One Thing About Myself via ‪shyvish‬. What a cool experiment. I won’t tell you what habit she decided to break, but I will say it’s something that’s quite common.

Catcall. The only kind of catcalling anyone should do.

Toronto Poetry Map. The title of this link tells you exactly what it is. If I ever find maps of other cities that show where various poems about them were set, I’ll share them with you. It’s such a creative way to arrange poetry.

From Choose Peace via OneTovarysh:

You have a choice in how you live each day.

You have a choice in the thoughts you choose to harbor,

The feelings you choose to hold onto.

The choice is always yours

Because you have free will.

Choose peace.

Fair warning: some of the jokes in the video below are cringe-worthy. This is a nice overview of Canadian culture, though, if you’ve ever wondered about stuff like where the word “toonie” comes from, what kind of pizza we invented, or which part of Canada used to have a license plate that was in the shape of a polar bear.

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July 13, 2017 · 1:00 am

How Mindfulness Helps Me When I Wake Up too Early

As I’ve mentioned on this site before, my circadian rhythm is strongly affected by how many hours of daylight we have in Ontario. I can’t help but to wake up when the sun rises no matter what part of the year it is.

This process begins at about 5 a.m. in June and July, so I’m up very early indeed in mid to late summer. Since the sun doesn’t set until about 9 p.m. now, I also don’t get tired until fairly late at night as well.

That means that I don’t get as much sleep at this time of the year as I get in November or December when there are 14 to 15 hours of darkness at night.

On a positive note, I’ve experienced so many of these summers full of early mornings of that I’m now pretty used to them. It’s a cycle that will slowly begin to change now that the days are growing shorter again.

I also occasionally get to sleep in past 5:30 or 6 a.m. if the sky is overcast. The rest of the time, I do the following things to stay mindful and wait to see what will happen next.

Staying in Bed

Unless there’s a pressing need to get out of bed, I stay in it for as long as possible.

I won’t lie to you. There have been a few times when the sun woke up me so early that I deeply wanted to go back to sleep for a few more hours.

This isn’t something you can force your body to do, though, and I’ve found that the best way to encourage a mind to fall back asleep is to avoid giving it too much stimulation. I may read a book to pass the time if I truly can’t fall asleep again, but even that can be too much for my mind depending on what I’m reading.

The important thing is to stay quiet and still while I wait to see how my body reacts.

Living in the Moment

Early mornings are such a peaceful time of the day. I often hear trucks rumbling, cars honking, and all kinds of other urban sounds in the afternoon and evening, but even someplace as enormous and busy as Toronto grows quiet as night turns into morning.

5 a.m. is the perfect time to clear your mind of any thoughts of the past or the future. The only things I focus on are the ones that are happening right now:

  • The feel of the cool sheets against my skin.
  • The sound of my husband breathing as he sleeps.
  • The occasional call of a bird or other nature sound that even the city can’t erase.

Of course, this isn’t always an easy thing to do. There are times when I have to gently remind myself to stay mindful if my mind begins to jump all over the place.

Having No Expectations of Going Back to Sleep

Here’s a riddle for you: why is it so much easier to fall asleep when you’re not trying to do so?

I remember tossing and turning for a huge chunk of the night once years ago because I was so excited about a vacation to visit my parents and siblings that was beginning the next day. Some of that sleep had to made up the next night after I’d had the chance to give everyone a hug and settled into our visit.

The mornings during the summer when I close my eyes and attempt to will myself into dreamland are almost always the ones where I’m up for good at the crack of dawn.

If I can lay down quietly and neither try to stay awake or fall asleep, my mind will often settle down again and let me catch another hour of rest before the day begins for good. Even if it doesn’t happen, that quiet time is a nice way to adjust to daytime.

Putting It All Together

I’ve actually kind of come to enjoy my silent mornings now that I do my best not to expect anything from them. This is a part of the year that passes by all too quickly. By the winter holidays I’ll be sleeping like a log every night, but in the meantime….

Maybe I’ll fall back asleep in five minutes.

Maybe I’ll drift in and out of sleep so peacefully that it will all feel the same to me.

Maybe I’ll have some time to truly live in the moment before beginning my day.

Any of these options are acceptable, and only time will tell which one I’ll receive on any given day. I’d love to know how practicing mindfulness has had an effect on your daily life. Come tell me all about it on Twitter.

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July 10, 2017 · 1:00 am

Can a Blog Post Be Too Short?

Eliza tweeted this to me last week in response to Why I Don’t Agree with Padding Out Blog Posts. I thought it would make a great idea for a follow-up post today.

In order to answer that question, I must ask you a few more questions first: How short is a poem allowed to be? Is there a specific word count it must have to be counted as a poem?

The shortest poem I’ve ever loved was five words long. I’ve also been thrilled by other poems that are six and sixteen words long respectively.

Despite their minuscule word counts, at least one of them has become so famous that children study it in school because the people who created them spent so much time packing many layers of meaning into every single word.

The same can be said for blog posts. Just like some of them are meant to be thousands of words long, others can be much tinier than you might imagine.

For example, there is a blogger who regularly challenges himself to write 100 word blog posts. He’s written dozens of them so far, and all of them are thought-provoking because of the close attention he pays to making every single word in them has a purpose and can’t be reduced to a simpler, shorter explanation.

When you’re writing something that small and concise, there is no room for error. If you don’t cover all of the material that your post was attempting to cover, your post will be too small. If you’re able to do justice to your topic with your word count, how big it is won’t matter.

What about blog posts that are smaller than 100 words? I have heard of people blogging nothing but photographs, but I have yet to come across anyonewho has tried to limit their post count to less than 100 words. It would be fascinating to see what you came up with if you gave yourself a 70, 50, or even a 10 word limit as an experiment, though.

The Connection Between Poetry and Blog Posts

With that being said, Eliza, I’d strongly recommend reading and writing poetry if you want to routinely create very small blog posts. It’s not easy to condense your thoughts down into such a small amount of space, especially for topics that aren’t clear cut or incredibly narrow.

Figuring out how poets handle conflicting emotions and topics that could easily be expanded into a full-length book will give you all kinds of tools for trimming out unnecessary words, sharpening your vision, and making sure that what you see is also what your audience sees.

If you or anyone else is interested in learning more, start reading as many different types, styles, and lengths  of poems as you can. The hashtag #Haiku and #Poetry on Twitter are great places to start for the contemporary stuff. There are hundreds of amateur and professional poets who use those hashtags to share their work and introduce everyone to other wonderful poems that they’ve discovered.

I’m purposefully not sharing any specific usernames of Twitter poets with you because of how important it is to seek them out yourself. Poetry is a subjective field. What speaks to me might not have the same affect on you, and vice versa. I’ve also found that my favourite poets have shifted wildly over time, so I’d recommend occasionally seeking out new poets and styles of poetry even for people who have been immersed in this genre for years.

Now I will end this post with a picture of cactuses. They were my original metaphor for blog post lengths in my first draft of this post, and I can’t bear to stop typing before I show you just how much they can vary from each other as well.

May your poems, cactuses, and blog posts always be exactly as big as you need them to be.

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July 8, 2017 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: July 8, 2017

Here is this week’s list of essays and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

How Running Changed My Life via ‪mandysantos‬. One of the things I like the most about spending time on social media is running across other people whose lives have been changed for the better through regular exercise. I’m not a runner, but I  do identify with a lot of the things this blogger talks about when it comes to improving your mental and physical health in ways you weren’t expecting when you first began a specific exercise program.

Do NOT Compartmentalize How Somebody Acts Towards Another Person. I couldn’t agree with this more.

Meet Martin the Brain Weasel. What a helpful metaphor. I’m going to start using it.

25 Vegan Popsicle Recipes That You Need to Make This Summer. Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bars and Ombre Berry Yogurt Ice Pops are the ones I’m most looking forward to trying. Most of these recipes are also free of many other common allergens like soy or nuts, too.

Handshake: A Western Custom Only? via ‪KeralaMoments‬. Every section was interesting, but I like Kenya’s method of greeting the best.

The Art of Sitting and Being via ‪AmyL_Henry‬. Ooh, I like this.

Animal Folklore: Chasing Hares Through Stories, Myths, and Legends via ‪LariDonWriter‬. Did you know that there were so many old tales about hares out there? I had no idea, but it was very interesting to read about all of the different cultures who tell stories about this creature.

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July 6, 2017 · 1:00 am

6 Tips for Exercising Safely Outdoors in Hot Weather

The long, hot, and humid days of July have begun here in Toronto.

If you’ve never been to Ontario at this time of the year, imagine feeling like you’ve stepped into an oven every time you go outside.

The heat can be adjusted to eventually, but the unrelenting humidity in July and August is one of the few things I truly dislike about living in this part of North America. It’s inescapable, and it can make 30°C (86°F) feel like 40°C. (104°F).

Exercising in the depths of summer comes with its own unique challenges. Today I wanted to talk about some of my favorite ways to stay fit when the weather is much warmer than normal.

Take a Hot Bath First

This was by far one of the most surprising tips I discovered while working on this blog post. Last month there was a study published on the effects of taking a hot bath before being asked to exercise in a hot, humid room. The runners who were assigned to this part of the study became acclimated to the heat faster and ran farther than the participants who were cooled down before they ran.

That study reminded me of that old wives’ tale about drinking hot beverages during heat waves to help your body cool down more efficiently. There have been a few smaller studies that showed this was effective, but the data about them was pretty scarce while I was doing my research on this.

Pick the Right Time of Day

As you might have already guessed, I’m not a big fan of heat waves, but there is some relief to be found even in the depths of August if you’re willing to save your workouts for times when the sun is either not shining or is very low in the sky.

Evenings are much more comfortable times for exercising on all but the hottest of days. Once the sun begins to set, Toronto breathes a sign of relief. Our sidewalks and parks become flooded with people and pets enjoying the cooler weather.

Alternatively, early mornings are also a good time to squeeze in a workout because the sidewalks and ground in general have had all night to release the heat from the day before. Sometimes early summer mornings can even feel a little chilly if you head out early enough.

Pick the Right Activity

I’m a fan of street hockey, but it’s not the kind of game I’d want to play on a 40°C day. A walk would be the most strenuous form of exercise I’d feel comfortable doing when the weather was that hot, and even then I’d prefer to do it in the shade or at a cooler part of the day.

You can become dehydrated quickly at those temperatures, so I dial my activity back when it’s that warm outside even if I’m carrying a bottle of water with me.

With that being said, it is safe to exercise in hot weather if you acclimate yourself to it and tailor your workout to your age, fitness level, and weather. The article I just linked to was talking specifically about jogging, but the general principles of it can be applied to any other form of more strenuous exercise as well.

Stay Hydrated

Am I the only person who sometimes forgets to drink enough water on hot days?

One of the biggest dangers of exercising outdoors at this time of the year – other than getting a sunburn, if you’re fair-skinned – is accidentally becoming dehydrated. It can happen faster than you might think if it’s very humid outside or if the hot weather has dampened your urge to eat and drink like it does for me.

My parents live in the desert Southwest, so they are accustomed to bringing a bottle of water from home wherever they go. I’ve been thinking about getting into this habit as well this summer.

There are public drinking fountains in Toronto, but there aren’t as many of them as I’d like to see and there are barely any of them in our parks at all. Carrying my own water is something I need to do if I’m going to be spending time outdoors in July and August.

Wear Breathable, Comfortable Clothing

The other day I was browsing through a rack of workout clothing. I was surprised to see how many of the pieces were made from fabric blends that included rayon or polyester.

Synthetic fabrics like these are good for chillier seasons, but they’re the last thing I’d ever want to wear when the weather is hot and humid because they don’t absorb sweat or breathe the same way that cotton does.

I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do at this time of the year is wear anything that’s going to make me perspire even more than I already am.

Pace Yourself

Listening to your body is always a good idea, but it’s even more important when you’re pushing yourself more than normal.

Skipping or shortening one workout isn’t going to have an effect on your longterm fitness goals. It’s much more important to stay safe than it is to ignore potentially dangerous symptoms like dizziness if your regular workout is too much when the weather is hotter than usual.

 

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July 3, 2017 · 1:00 am

Why I Don’t Agree with Padding Out Blog Posts

As I promised last week, today I will be discussing why I’m so against the idea of padding out a blog post in order to reach a specific word count.

One of the most widespread trends in the blogosphere these past few years has been to write incredibly long posts. Yes,  I know that this is happening because longer articles give a site a better chance of being highly ranked by Google search engines, but I don’t like how this trend is changing the blogosphere.

 

Clean It Up

I really don’t like it when a blogger stretches what could have been a concise, 500-word post into something several times larger than that.

Not every topic is going to require that much explanation, and readers can tell when you’ve stretched out your points or repeated the same idea in several different ways in order to reach a specific word count.

When I run across posts like this, I skim them. I’m also much less likely to share them because It’s  irritating to read something so padded out.  The pacing of posts like these often becomes sloppy and uneven no matter how well written they are otherwise.

Many of my posts hover around the 1000 word mark, but some of them do not because the topic I chose for that day didn’t require that many words. I’ve read spectacular posts on other sites that only needed a few sentences to get their point across. If you genuinely require 2,000 or 5,000 words instead for a complex topic, that’s also wonderful.

The important thing is to match your ideas to how you express them.

Mix It Up

Some of my favourite blogs are the ones that mix up their writing styles. They might write 2000 word essays most of the time, but they’re also not at all afraid to push out something much longer or shorter than that if their subject requires it.

I trust them so much that I don’t hesitate to read whatever it is they publish. If they’re giving me a 3000 word post today, I know every paragraph in it is going to be crisp and concise.

 

Basically, this all boils down to looking out for your audience instead of worrying about SEO analytics in situations where bigger isn’t better.

 

 

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July 1, 2017 · 12:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: July 1, 2017

Happy Canada Day to my Canadian readers, and Happy Fourth of July to my American readers! Here is this week’s list of poems and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Fourth of July. The vivid descriptions in this poem were fantastic.

My Father Spent 30 Years in Prison. Now He’s Out. Last week I shared another essay from this writer about red velvet cake. She was such a good storyteller that I had to promote her again. It would be so hard to grow up with a dad who couldn’t be around for any of your milestones.

Blogging About Your Own Life via NicolaG01‬. What I found most interesting about this were all of the links to other posts this author has written about life with cerebral palsy. Definitely take the time to check them out after you’ve read that post.

The Highs and Lows of Diabetes via ‪HerMelness‬. I’d never thought about this symptom of diabetes before. It was so interesting.

Rock Cakes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Just like the Turkish Delight in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, I assumed that rock cakes were a made-up food the first time I read Harry Potter. It’s so neat to see that they actually exist in this world. Will any of you be trying this recipe, I wonder?

Battling Bullying by Building Empathy via ‪Bunny__Scout‬. Aww, I love the idea of teaching empathy to kids with rabbit role models.

Dublin LGBT Pride Was Asking for Feedback. I Gave Them Some. What struck me the most about this post was how easy it is to make assumptions about what others want, especially when it comes to a majority group attempting to speak for everyone. This would have annoyed me, too, but it also makes me think of the times when my assumptions have inadvertently annoyed others. So my sympathies lie with both the blogger and the people who put this event together and didn’t realize how their work was coming across.

Inspirobot. This is an AI who creates inspirational posters for you. For example…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is the weirdest and funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. I can’t recommend it highly enough. (Fair warning, though – some of the computer-generated sayings are socially inappropriate as well, so don’t share this link with kids).

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June 29, 2017 · 1:00 am

The Handmaid’s Tale: Night


This post includes spoilers for “Night” (Season 1, Episode 10) of The Handmaid’s Tale. As usual, the link on the left has full summaries of all of the episodes.

Wow.

Just wow.

It took me longer than usual to write this post because of how much I loved the season 1 finale of The Handmaid’s Tale. It set up so many possible storylines for season 2 that I don’t even know where to begin.

First of all, I never expected Offred and the other handmaids to refuse to stone Janine/Ofwarren for attempting to murder her child in the previous episode. Aunt Lydia’s horrified, angry expression was priceless when she realized that the handmaids weren’t willing to murder someone who had clearly been pushed past the breaking point a long time ago.

It’s going to be interesting to see what the punishment is for that for all of the handmaids. I’ve heard rumours that Janine is going to be back next season, but I have no idea if that is true or how it might happen.

The only spoiler I’d accidentally read for this episode had to do with Moira making it safely to Canada. At first I was a little disappointed that we barely saw any of her journey north, but there were so many other things going on in the plot that I understood why that part had to be shrunken down so much.

It was fun to see her brush snow off of the license plate of a car and realize that she’d made safely it to Canada! I’m going to assume that the people who owned that car found her, treated her kindly, and gave her a nice, hot meal before letting the authorities know that another refugee had made it across the border.

Moira’s reaction to being given simple life choices in Canada was heartbreaking. She couldn’t handle the thought of being allowed to read a book, decide what to eat, or choose what she wanted to do in general. The only thing I enjoyed more than seeing her realize how much freedom she had was watching her reunite with Luke after she told her social worker that she didn’t have any family in Canada.

The fact that Luke has marked her down as a family member really brought their friendship full circle. They’ve had more than their share differences in the past, but I’m pleased that she’s going to have someone looking out for her as she deals with all of the emotional fallout from her experiences in Gilead. The way Moira was acting reminded me of many of the symptoms of PTSD, so I can’t imagine that she’ll have an easy adjustment to life in Toronto.

It was Offred’s storyline that kept me on the edge of my seat this week, though. The revelation of her pregnancy was a bit of a surprise. The final scene of the book mentioned it as a possibility, but I wasn’t sure if the creators of this show were planning to explore that part of the plot so early on. At this point, I’m going to assume that the pregnancy goes full term and she has a healthy baby. This show doesn’t seem to be willing to harm babies that come from main cast members, so I’m guessing that trend will  continue despite the fact that 80% of pregnancies in this universe don’t turn out that way.

The last thing I was expecting was for Offred to see – but not touch or speak with – her daughter again this episode. How did Serena Joy figure out where Hannah was? I was surprised that she’d threaten to harm Hannah if anything happened to the fetus Offred was carrying. Serena Joy has done abusive things in the past, but this seemed beyond the pale even for her.

This did give me hope that we’ll see Hannah again next season. It will be fascinating to see how much she remembers about her parents and what the authorities told her about what happened to them. I have plenty of memories from the age of five, but three years is a long time for a child to be separated from her family. Who knows how much she’s changed since then!

I was thrilled to see that the last scene in this show was exactly the same as it was in the book, from Offred’s thoughts about what would happen to her to the description of her climbing out of the light and into the dark shadows in the van. The fact that Nick whispered, “just go with them. Trust me.” to her before The Eyes lead her into the black van was taken straight from the book as well.

I think I trust Nick on this one, although I’m not too sure that this is going to be how Offred gets out of Gilead. It seems too simplistic after all she’s been through.

Final Thoughts on Season One

While there were a few minor things I would have tweaked in season one of The Handmaid’s Tale, I was thrilled with  it overall. The writers clearly understood the source material incredibly well, especially when it came to Offred’s quiet grief and desperation in a household that denied her the ability to ever express those emotions openly.

One of my biggest questions when I first heard that this series was going to be made was, “how will they flesh this world out?” The book itself didn’t always explain how certain parts of Gilead like the Colonies worked because they weren’t things that Offred had seen and her perspective was so limited.

It was wonderful to see this world expanded. I loved almost every single change the writers made in order to expand the original material. It was especially nice to learn what happened to Luke as this was one of the biggest unanswered questions in Offred’s life.

The people who made this show couldn’t have done a better job at bringing Offred’s story to the small screen. I am incredibly happy with their work, and I can’t wait to see what happens in season two next year.

In the meantime, posts here will go back to their regular rotation of topics. If you haven’t read the book or seen this series yet, I highly recommend doing so.

Previous posts in this series:

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

Introducing Offred’s World

Gender Treachery

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

Faithful

A Woman’s Place

The Other Side

Jezebels

The Bridge

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