Elder daughter woke up this morning with a fever and a raging sore throat, which is kind of unfair, what with the soccer game at 11 and the violin recital at 5 and the general melee that is spring. 

But even worse? The poor little lamb gets delirous when fevers strike. This morning there were “mice running around in her head. Not a headache exactly. Just scurrying.”

And lemme tell you, I know of what she speaks. 

Some of my most visceral childhood memories are of those mice. I used to tell my mom and dad that my mind was racing. Sometimes I’d play Really Rosie or Free to Be You and Me on my Sears record player to try to even out the tempo, although looking back, the very Sendakian Really Rosie wasn’t exactly sanity building…

I’m sure my parents thought I was just a wee loopy when I was under the influence of the hots, and they weren’t alone. One time I yelled out so desperately in the middle of the night that my sister was scared to answer my cries and I reported her kidnapped. 

Not long after that, I grew out of my ferverish rants, although I still have a doozy of a dream now and again. Last night, for example, my husband driving very, very fast toward a deep, deep canyon and only stopping when his car was teetering on the edge. But that’s another post. Or not.

Now, dadgumit, my daughter’s inherited the scurrying. This pains me, even more than the fact that both of our girls got wide feet. The acknowledgement that I passed on a really mixed bundle of genes — the good, the bad and the woo-woo — is a bitter pill, especially on the eve of mother’s day when I’d prefer feeling generous, powerful and invincible. 

So what’s a mom to do? Pull fresh sheets onto her daughter’s bed, place a wet cloth on her forehead, and try to even out the tempo of things. Which is, oddly, just what she’s done for me these 8-and-a-half years. Maybe not the clean sheets and the cool compress, but the tempo, surely. 

While I speed up into a manic whirling dervish — managing daughters, dogs, work, love and laundry — she slooows me down. Until here we are, walking together holding hands, curling together like two halves of a clam shell, falling asleep together with a book on our laps. 

I mean to say she is generous, powerful and invincible, and suddenly the gene pool isn’t looking that bad. 

The mice have left the building. 

Happy Mother’s Day…

I’m just back from my Mother’s Day Makeover and Massage, bestowed by my younger daughter in her kindergarten classroom. 

You should SEE my blue eye shadow and purple polish. Deeee-vine.

When we arrived, the powerful and mama-ish Ms. Y asked the kids, “How’re we gonna treat our mothers this morning?”

“Like the queens they are,” answered our daughters and sons.

And they did. Juice, strawberries, muffins — delivered as we sat on little chairs and let our nails dry. They’d practiced two massage techniques — chops and rubs — and they’re obvious naturals with the blusher and hair ties.

They’d also filled out personal surveys about us. Mine was almost entirely right on — my girl said that sushi was my favorite food but that I love Mexican restaurants, my favorite thing to do is write books, and my favorite movie is Eloise (as in, Eloise who lives in The Plaza Hotel). Don’t you love that? Another mom’s son said her favorite thing to do is clean house, so I’m thinking I came out waaaay ahead. 

Our children were just beamy with pride, and it was so clear that their lessons this week were on giving and gratitude. To sit there, with my baby rubbing aromatic foot lotion into my forearms while she hummed with happiness… who needs Sunday? I am full up.

Now it’s my turn to return the favor. Here’s a little ditty — reportedly Christina Rossetti’s first poem ever — for my mom, for your moms, for all of you…

To My Mother

To-day’s your natal day,
Sweet flowers I bring;
Mother, accept, I pray,
My offering.
 
And may you happy live,
And long us bless;
Receiving as you give
Great happiness. 



								

I’ve just returned from the big D where I spent a couple of days making school visits and attending other bookish events.

Dallas is quite a piece up the road as they say in Texas, so this was the first visit I’d made with my book. What was I waiting for??? Even though my big hair (crazy curly loopy bigness) isn’t what they mean when they say Big Hair in Dallas, I was welcomed with vigor and treated like queen of the hop.

First, I’ve got a set of very funny, thoughtful, loving cousins there – and did I mention funny?!?! One night they served a spectacular seafood lasagna with a very fine Sonoma Syrah, and what better to accompany the meal than pirate-themed paper napkins? All while their Labrador swam in the pool out back. I love whimsy.

Second, I got me a little free-time (I’m serious – FREE time; can you fathom?) so I visited the Sixth Floor Museum (aka The Dallas Book Depository) which delivers history, political intrigue, and a good cry all in one fell swoop. Jackie, in her pink suit, leaning toward JFK almost as if she planned to kiss him, tender and totally present before hurling herself over the seat onto the trunk of the car in utter terror. And the folks on the grassy knoll running or hunkering down, sure that shots had rung out from there, too. Between the audio tour and the photographs, I was pretty well clobbered.

Third, reading with kids continues to be one of my purest joys. On this visit, I spent a day at The Hockaday School with their pre-K, kinder and primer students. Hockaday’s an all-girl’s school that just sparkles and pops with attentiveness and energy and name tags. I really wish more school kids wore nametags when guests visit. It is such an easy intimacy, being able to converse with the audience that way. Nametags aside, the groups were large, so I did my PowerPoint thang, bringing everyone up close and personal. And we sang songs about pockets and rifled through my fishing vest and had an all-around hoot. Even the question and answer session was fun. (I mean, sometimes this age group’s questions are “My uncle works at a library” and “My mom has those same shoes”).

Then, yesterday afternoon, I read and signed at an event sponsored by Educational First Steps – a truly noble organization dedicated to enhancing early childhood educational opportunities for kids who are likely to slip through cracks. The tea (for staff, board, donors, clients) was on the 69^th floor of a bank building downtown (my ears popped on the elevator, I kid you not), and was proper (strawberries and clotted cream, tiny tarts, sugar lumps). I got barely a nibble, but what a delight to sign book after book after book for my tiny audience members, to read to them, to get them giggling.

I scurried straight from the tea to DFW in order to catch a flight and make it back to Austin in time to wrap up my semester at ACC.  Suffice it to say, I took a nap today. A happy one. Don’t you love doing what you dream of?

This morning, our elder daughter’s class capped off a month of Greek mythology study with their 
God & Goddess Fashion Show. 

Believe me, Project Runway’s got nothing on these 2nd graders. From Zeus and Hera to Hades and Eres, they were bedecked in silver and white swags of fabric, strappy sandals and shiny beads. Accessories included snakes, flowers and papier mache tridents that I wouldn’t want to mess with, being a mere mortal.

My personal favorite (I’ll bet you can’t guess why) was Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory.

First, I had no idea that mnemonic devices were named after a goddess, did you!?! 
New found respect, to be sure.  

Second, Mnemosyne was mother to the muses. ALL of them! Can you fathom the spelling bees, poetry slams and recitals she had to attend? Hello, Stage Mama. But really, the muses. What offspring.

Third, I’ve got a pretty crummy memory so I figure I could use all the help I can get. 
If that means cozying up to an ancient mythological diety, so be it.

Fourth, the actress depicting Mnemosyne was none other than my own personal 8-year-old. 
What did you expect from me, utter objectivity?

Anyway, our shared study of Mnemosyne got me to thinking about poetry and how it used to be recited from memory. My dad can still recollect a piece or two he learned in grammar school. Maybe someone rapped him on the knuckles to get ’em to sink in, but I think it’s pretty slick that he’s always had a little brain space devoted to poetry. 

These days, nobody memorizes much poetry and I’m okay with that. I think there are other rich and visceral ways to absorb and embody art. But regardless, I’ve set myself a little goal this week: To memorize a poem. 

And what a better place to start than Averno, Louise Gluck’s exquisite re-telling of the Persephone myth. The story laments Persephone’s loss of innocence — a different tone than today’s rollicking fashion show, though our children’s characters came to terms with patricide and unanswered love, incest and

OK, I’ll admit to being a little slow on the uptake on this one. If anyone’s been waiting with bated breath, you can let ‘er out.

My Golden Compass Daemon is (drum roll, please) Olin, the Crow. 

In Native American lore, Crow is the keeper of all sacred law, which is kind of a tall order if you ask me. 

But there’re some bennies, too. Crow gets to bend the laws of the physical universe and shape shift in order to see that higher order laws (like peace and harmony and integrity) get attended to. (I think when they say “bend the laws of the physical universe” they mean something more than just driving against the arrows at the Whole Foods, don’t you?) 

I’m not exactly sure how all this fits with my daemon crow, although “assertive” could be another word for law bender. Regardless, I like that my daemon’s got wings and a good strong voice. Not necessarily melodic, I’ll admit. But strong.

Check it out, and while you’re at it, take the nifty little quiz and see who’s embodying you!

“If there would be a recipe for a poem, these would be the ingredients: word sounds, rhythm, description, feeling, memory, rhyme, and imagination. They can be put together a thousand different ways, a thousand, thousand… more.” – Karla Kuskin

So for the past 27 days, teachers coast to coast have been featuring poetry, front and center, in the classroom. It’s National Poetry Month and dadgumit, these kids are gonna make poems.

We’ve got acrostic poems and concrete poems and haiku. We’ve got Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. We’ve got simile and alliteration. And we’ve got the little one in the back row, raising his hand and pleading, “But what exactly IS poetry?”

Is it short or long? Is it rhymed or unrhymed? Is it about love or nature or brushing your teeth? 

And the teachers knead their furrowed brows and mutter, “Is is May yet?”

But, really. What exactly IS poetry?

I tend to make camp with the Moving Us Deeply campers. This school of thought defines poetry as an attempt to make sense of the world in human terms and, in so doing, arousing kindred emotions in its readers. Poetry says the unsayable, discovers the undiscoverable, touches the untouchable. “A poem,” says Frost, “begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness….” 

But if you leave it at that, all the eager, budding poets will write rivers of verse about Love (capital L), Grief (capital G), Faith, Sorrow, and Exaltation (capital F, S, E), and we’ll be wishing we’d said something about concrete imagery, tangible metaphor, or red, red wheelbarrows.

Or mud puddles, as the case may be: 

“Never forget that the subject is as important as your feeling; the mud puddle itself is as important as your pleasure in looking at it or splashing through it…. in many ways, the mud puddle is the poetry.” — Valerie Worth

So what distinguishes poetry and, at the same time, allies these perspectives? I’m pretty sure the answer is little instead of big, and simple rather than overwhelming. 

I think it is conscious, concentrated language, such that whatever the subject, it is evocative. 
Whatever the form, it will resonate, echo and sing. 
In poetry, language is semantic and notational, but also metaphoric, aesthetic and emotional. 

Who knew words could do all that?!
How strange. 
How magical. 
Like “a dragonfly catching fire,” says Ferlinghetti, or “a rope… a real canary… a passionfruit.” 

Yeah. Like that. Something like that. 

I don’t have time for much musing this morning, since I’m off for the TLA Conference in San Antonio! So excited to see what’s front-and-center on publishers’ tables, and to bump shoulders with librarians (aka Writers’ Guardian Angels).

So, in the interest of time — and nepotism notwithstanding — two poems, both written by my daughters when they were each, respectively, five:

Fall Poem

The Spring is green
All over 
In the woods

And then leaves drop
From the trees
Because it’s autumn

And branches want 
To soon be 
In the snowy banks below

The Arrow

I mean, I recognize my bias but these have characteristics I try to encourage in college students — vivid imagery, confidence of voice, and a sense of discovery and surprise. 

I think this is why I write for and with children. And why I’m a mom…