I leave tomorrow morning for a couple of days down on the Gulf Coast. 

I’m doing a book festival in Corpus Christi, and a signing, and a school visit. 

But apparently I’ve already checked out of things around here.

Today I missed my yoga session in my older daughter’s classroom — and I don’t mean cancelled, I mean I totally spaced.
And I deleted a whole slew of emails I was meant to answer (Hello. Dr. Freud.)
And I swear I almost left my car at the oil change place. 
That’s impossible, right?

A couple of years ago I drove away from the gas station with the hose still in my gas tank. 
I kind of thought that was impossible, too.
So today was not unprecedented. 
I’m just saying.

The thing is, I didn’t really think that’s the sort of thing I’d do as a grown up.
I mean, I have bank cards in my name, people.
I have children!

But I also have a life that keeps me in many different worlds at once.
Teaching and parenting and writing and volunteering and running. (Running a household and running literally, I mean.)

Some of these roles require that my feet be firmly planted and others, that I cut all tethers and float.
Honestly, on good weeks that makes for a pretty swell combination. 
But you can’t expect me to remember to put the nozzle back in its cradle everytime, can you?

The one that really killed me today, of course, was the yoga.
I was nearly groveling when I picked up my tall one up from school.
She was fine. Apparently her teacher had a lot to tackle so they used the time well. 
But I felt like, “She has a mom who blew it. Who blows many things. That’s who she got. Poor little thing.”

Then, tonight at dinner (I do still manage to get them fed), we were talking about all those myriad options for what to do when we grow up. And she said, “I think I’ll be a writer. And a photographer. And I’ll travel around — like you, Mama — only further. Like to Indonesia.”

So, I’m thinking she’s fine now.

I’m gonna go pack…
Trailing off….

As if writing incredibly emotionally authentic novels for teens wasn’t enough, the illustrious Carrie Jones has decided to run for the Maine legislature. 

I’m not sure if she has more hours in her day or more substantial bones in her body or what, but suffice it to say that she is a powerhouse who is getting a little well deserved hoo-rah from the children’s literature blogging community today. 

I am pleased as punch to join in…

I love April.

And not just ’cause it’s my birthday month.

And my husband’s birthday month.

And the month when all the highways in Texas are lined with wildflowers, far as the eye can see.

It’s more than all that.

Starting tomorrow (and I’m not foolin’) the school kids and the bloggers and the booksellers and folks like you and me are given free rein to read, write and talk about poetry every single day for 30 days.

!!!!!!

So, in anticipation, here’s something I told ya’ll about last year but it bears repeating:

Knopf will place a little poem in your email inbox each day in April.
All you need to do is sign up here.

Why wouldn’t you?

My first grader is finishing up a poetry unit at school — reading and writing — and she’s shared a bit with me.
I’ve decided I have no choice but to display her fabulousness here.
I know I’m biased, but really….

Stage Fright

My stomach is like a pancake
when I step on stage
It just flips and flips and flips
and then I am afraid

I think it’s getting me right between the eyes today especially, because tonight is Coffeehouse up at our little school. Coffeehouse is a full-blown, all-hands-on-deck talent show. Last year there was everything from comedy to hula hooping to haiku, and tonight’ll be more of the same, I assure you. My small one is playing the piano and she seems really excited. In fact the other day she told me she wished she were playing two songs instead of one. 

But, inside all that bravado, a pancake…

I held my tongue for awhile. 
I mean, for me, an eternity. 

I’m a talk-before-I-thinker, usually.
Holding my tongue is not my default setting.  
I tend to have, um, thoughts on things.
And swallowing them may make me spiritually stronger in the end but in the meantime, I get kind of itchy. 
And owly. 
And mad.

So. Speaking up now.
A few words about Allyn Johnston.

Allyn is an amazingly insightful, intimate and visionary editor who literally loves books into existance, all the while making the authors and artists she works with feel… well… rather golden. 

I can attest to this since that’s what she’s been doing for some of my books and me.

And that’s what she did for 22 years at Harcourt Children’s Books… until last week when she became a casuality of corporate acquisitions and bottom-line decision making (that don’t necessarily take into account things like love. Or books.) 

I had a bunch of thoughts on that, but I’m kind of glad I waited because I’d rather write now that Simon and Schuster has announced that Allyn will be heading up her own imprint for them, starting next week. 

So, today, instead of any sort of rant or tongue-holding, I can just say a deep and resonant hallelujah because this world of books is a braver, brighter place with her set firmly in it.

 … It’s school visit season. 

I’m serious. 
You should see my calendar, and it’s not even complete yet.

It’s like a game of Jenga. I’m never very good at assessing when I’ve piled on one block too many.

The upside is that if I hit the deck, it’ll be in a school library — surrounded by books and kindly book lovers.

Until then, I’ll carry on and fulfill my obligations. 
(BTW, how DO teachers do it? Y’know, the all-day everyday thing? And why aren’t they richer than Midas for their efforts???)

Really, though, there were a lot of great moments today:

At one point, when I’m plowing through the pockets in my writer’s vest, I take out a pair of wooden castinets. I ask the kids if anyone knows what they are. “They look like they’re made in China,” says a wry little voice from the back of the room.

When I ask if anyone knows the difference between an author and illustrator, a little girl says, “The illustrator does the middle of the book. The author does both ends.”

About half-way through a session, a particularly chatty little friend near the front stops me and says, “See, this is the part I don’t get. Why did you write this page this way? It’s like you repeat the same line twice.” I went on a little spin about how it’s sort of like a refrain in a song, but really? I thought he was brilliant. A totally engaged reader, looking critically at what he’s being asked to absorb. I’ve had students about 20 years his senior who’ve not shared that sort of insight…

Another little guy asked me to sign his book “to the greatest football player ever.” I don’t feel necessarily qualified to judge, but what the hey. Dream a little.

Speaking of which, two first graders told me today that they were going to be writers when they grew up. 
Because they love books.

And that’s a wrap…

On Saturday night we went to a big ol’ hootenanny hoe-down in the hill country outside of Austin.

There were a coupla hundred folk there — kids and grown-ups — more than a few dogs and a potluck that stretched about the length of a football field.  We all set up tents in the scrub around the rambling wooden dance hall that served as the centerpoint of the night, and then set up chairs around our tents for some serious sittin’ and shootin’ the breeze.

The kids wandered endlessly — playing hide-n-go-seek and collecting cool rocks and old bottles. 
One of ours stopped by to ask, incredulously, if they had any boundaries at all.

At sundown, we all piled into the hall for two-stepping lessons (shuffle, shuffle, walk, walk) and from there we rolled right into a long night of rockabilly honky-tonking by Two Tons of Steel. The kinda thing that can bruise the bottoms of your feet after awhile.

(A few years back, my husband and I took about six weeks of dance lessons — western swing — because, well, we live here and we thought we oughta. But we could take six years of dance lessons and not move like some of these people born to it. I’d be really jealous if they weren’t so fun to watch.)

So the greatest thing about this party is that it’s basically hippie viral marketing. The party started 8 years ago and each year there are a whole heap o’ hosts who each invite ten couples and chip in some money and help string some lights. A little of that and a little of this and voila, you’ve got yourself a bash to behold. There’s a rowdie late night camping area and a family camping area and less than 6 degrees of separation all over the place. Nobody’s a stranger even though most folk have never met.

It gets you to thinking about new forms of international diplomacy, I’ll tell you what…
 

Some days are brick walls.

Others are wide open windows.

I much prefer the latter, don’t you?

One thing I’ve come to know is how often I’m the designer and builder of my own walls and windows. We all are.
And it is in leaping, in going for it, in saying yes, that we open up all the possibilities of our lives.

Here’s a poem (by Kaylin Haught) that gives us permission to do just that.
Seems right for this new season that is spring…

God Says Yes To Me

Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes….

(Read the rest right here)

National Breast Cancer Awarness month is October, 
but women come face-to-face with the disease everyday.

We prevent it everyday, are diagnosed with it everyday, recover from it everyday, rage against it everyday.

Yesterday, at 40, I had my first mammogram. 

We’ve had plenty of cancer in our family, but no breast cancer.
So, my risk was minimal and the mammogram was just the standard recommended screening. 

It’s true what they say — it’s not a wildly comfortable procedure. But it’s quick, and if it can catch early illness in me or my sister, my mother or my girlfriends or, someday, my daughters, hallelujah.

One of the most disheartening things in Michael Moore’s movie Sicko was  the dearth of preventative care in this country, and the corresponding gaps in mortality rates. People — mammograms are one of the ways we can close the gap. Mammograms and self exams, supplements and exercise. 

Sometimes, it’s that easy.

Take care of yourself, friends. 
Not just in October…

The Breast Cancer Site — Click to give free mammograms

National Breast Cancer Foundation

Susan G. Komen for the Cure

Did  y’all read the recent article by Ursula K. Le Guin in Harpers?
She has a thing or two to say about the world of publishing. 

Whoa, boy.

Here’s one of the many close-to-the-bone observations she makes about the state of the industry:

“…the relationship of art to capitalism is, to put it mildly, vexed. It has not been a happy marriage. Amused contempt is about the pleasantest emotion either partner feels for the other. Their definitions of what profiteth a man are too different.” 

You know what really kills me about this? 
It reminds of something I believed at 22.
And 28. 
And then I spent years convincing myself otherwise. 
Partly because I wanted to pursue my own passion and, at the same time, have health insurance with a decent deductible. I wanted to believe that I could; that the world valued what I valued enough to make it work.

I mean, is that so crazy? 

But I’ve come back around to Ms. Le Guin’s way of thinking. 
I still want the passion and the perks (pedestrian though they may be), but not at any cost.

We all deserve our just rewards, but if the mediation between the separate beds of art and commerce is going to result in homogeneous schlock printed on thin paper with bad ink and sold out of one great big book stall in the sky, no thanks. Not only do you and I not want to write that stuff, but people don’t want to read it. 

Maybe it’s why the folks cited in Le Guin’s article are falling asleep instead of turning the pages with wild abandon. 
Which is, forgive my bossiness, how we oughta write…