Yesterday, the mail brought a packet of appreciations from 50-some kindergartners I visited with recently. We’d spent a morning reading A Sock is a Pocket and exploring my Writer’s Vest, (a.k.a. khaki fishing vest stuffed with pens, shells, tea bags and other little trappings of the trade).
Each time I share this book, there’s a moment when kids get it, the whole pocket-metaphor thing. And when they do, they practically have to sit on their hands to keep from levitating with ideas.
I love when that happens, partly because that’s how the writing of this manuscript was for me. Once the concept stuck in my craw, I could not look at socks or bowls or caves or breaths in the same old way. Everything became a vessel for something else. I swear to you, it’s an addictive little game, kind of like UNO only you don’t need a deck of cards.
One of the teachers, whose note accompanied the childrens’ yesterday, wrote, “They could not stop thinking about pockets all day!” She added a half-smiley face and a “thank you” tinged with tiredness and the teensiest bit of irony, like I’d introduced them to pure-sugar pixie sticks or something.
But really, there is nothing more gratifying than when kids are at their most uninhibited – both energized and attentive – so completely connected to their experience that you can almost see new synapses being clicked on.
I think it is this wakefulness that we’re most afraid of losing to standardization – and rightly so. Kids need to be players, co-creators, in their own learning. And when they are, they come up with gems like these:
Your body is a pocket for your bones.
A tree is a pocket for a scared cat.
The past is a pocket for a dragon.
Fresh, vivid metaphor. From kindergartners, mind you.
There’s been an awful lot of discussion in this country lately about who are the “deciders.” But it seems to me there is something more fundamental than decision-making. First, there is awareness, perception, taking note. Before any dotted lines are signed or buttons pushed, there is (there should be) a time for absorption, for paying very close attention
I’m making it a habit to ask kids like these kindergartners to be good “noticers,” because I think if they are – if we all are – the decision-making will become a little more organic, a little more intuitive, a little more right.
In a dark cyber-twist on things, KidLit champion Cynthia Leitich Smith has been blocked out of blogger right before the debut of her new novel Tantalize hits the shelves. Is that a bum rap, or what?
For those of you who like to keep up on all her news, views and interviews, she’s currently “guest blogging” at Greg Leitich Smith’s site http://www.greglsblog.blogspot.com/
Today, there’s a good interview up with Marian Hale, author of the new Dark Water Rising (Henry Holt, 2006). I like what she says about the importance of loving what you do, even the revision parts:
“Look at each revision as another chance to bring more clarity, to make some part of your story touch your reader more deeply and hopefully linger long after your book is back on the shelf.”
Makes it all seem like less of a slog when you put it that way, doesn’t it?
This morning I picked up a new jump-rope for my youngest, as a birthday surprise.
She turns six in just a few days, which makes her old enough to skip, hop and jump; count past 100 ; and rhyme in time. All of which makes me trip over the lump in my throat.
There’s just something about six that is so… kid-like. Y’know?
She moves around these days in a mighty body. She plunks her feet on her handlebars and steers her bike downhill. She performs acrobats on her bunkbed ladder. At school, her only disappointment is when a swing isn’t available at recess.
Meanwhile, clever witticisms burst forth like little exhales. Her dad and sister and I are her happy, captive audience and granted, we’re biased, but she’s funny!
Thus, the jump-rope – the perfect synthesis of physical vigor and brainy vim.
Here are a few skipping rope rhymes to get her started. She can make up the rest herself. Sigh.
Red hot pepper
in the pot –
gotta get over
what the leader’s got.
10… 20… 30… 40 …..
Two little dickie birds sittin’ on the wall
One named Peter, one named Paul
Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul
Don’t you come back ’till your birthday’s called
January…February…March…
Fly away, fly away, fly away all.
Raspberry, strawberry, apple jam tart.
Tell me the name of your sweet heart.
A… B… C…
Ice-cream soda, lemonade punch.
What is the name of your honeybunch?
A… B… C…
I might just have to give that rope a whirl myself. See if I can get all the way to W, in honor of the birthday girl. Happy Birthday, Honeybunch.
Vivid columnist Molly Ivins died last week, too young, after battling breast cancer three long times. I’ve been meaning to write about her for days, but the thing about Molly Ivins dying is that it can render you speechless.
I mean, really, what’s to say about a voice that was so dang good at speaking up for herself, and for all the rest of us? And when I say us, I mean everyone who needed a little hoist up onto the old soapbox. The women and children, the artistic and illiterate, the black and brown, the broke and beaten, the neighbors and nations a long ways away. Us.
Molly Ivins was wicked funny and deeply thoughtful at the same time – a capacity I admire more than any other, I think.
Where plenty of funny folk use humour as an escape ‘chute (and who can blame ‘em), Molly used it to plot a direct path in deeper to whatever pesky, troublesome business was at hand.
And where plenty of deep intellectuals and well-intended political thinkers are solemn (and self-important) enough to shut our receptors down, Molly cracked jokes to keep us on our toes. Hers was a single-handed call-to-action; a plan you wanted in on.
And that’s the thing. Molly Ivins glowed and crackled, not unlike her sister-Texan Ann Richards (whom we also lost to cancer this year). These women politicized other women, they chastised apathetic youth, they shook up the steady center, they triggered movement – and movements. These were voices capable of lighting fires under just about anyone.
I had a grandmother like that – all full of intention and charisma. My husband once said of her, “Mame is the only person I know who makes you feel lucky when she asks you to do her a favor.” If you get a whole family or a whole readership or a whole constituency feeling that way, stuff is gonna get done.
Molly Ivins moved on with that charge in her wake. In her last column, in which she pushes a populist crusade to end the war in Iraq, she says, “Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous.” It’s a call to Shakespeare’s fools, to the emperor’s tailors, to us. Hone your rapier wit. Git ‘er done.
The very idea that the dramatic conflict is the constant striving to write a better poem! Isn’t that delicious?
Myers grapples with all sorts of abstractions — the muse, revision, patronage, and writing a poem for its own sake — with humour and, dare I say, suspense.
My girls love the trickster and the struggle to Get It Right.
I love the reminder that our best work “flows into (us) and out of (us)” and that all the effort in the world won’t impress a fox (or an editor or the madding crowds) unless the act of creation is that natural, that inevitable, even.
Like the moon blooming or a deep breath, in and out words take their places.
Recently around our dinner table, we discussed the relative merits of forks, spoons and knives.
Which are most useful? Most dangerous? Most breakable? Which would you want if you were lost in the wilderness? Which are most portable or smoothest on the teeth?
(I know, I know. But we’d been iced in for days. Cabin fever does damaging things to the rational mind.)
Our conclusions:
The side of a fork cuts… tines stab… flat slats scoop. Very versatile.
A knife cuts and stabs and pokes and slices. Especially good in the wilderness.
A spoon? A spoon shines like a mirror or a moon.
A spoon – little egg-shaped puddle-keeper – scoops and dips and pours and drips.
Versatility and disaster preparedness aside, none is prettier than a spoon.
(When just one person at the table orders a ramekin of warm crème brulèe, the rest of us ask for extra spoons. Right?)
Naturally, this got me thinking about books. About what we want to read, about why, when and where we want to read them. (Remember the cabin fever? It spared none of us…)
So, drum roll please, here are my own literary utensils:
My Forks (versatile enough for airplanes or waiting rooms, beaches or bedtime):
Short story anthologies (preferably with some Alice Munro, Annie Proulx and Jim Harrison)
The summer fiction issue of the New Yorker
An episodic novel or two, to be read in fits and starts if necessary (maybe Willa Cather’s Death Comes to the Archbishop and the new Black Swan Green by David Mitchell)
My Knives (books I wouldn’t want to get caught in the wild without):
A few meaty classics (The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, Fagles’ translation of The Odyssey, and something by both Dickens and Austen)
Some humour (Essays by David Sedaris, poetry by Billy Collins and maybe a Tom Robbins novel or two)
Some wilderness reading (Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey)
My Spoons (pure pleasure)
Beautiful poetry (by Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Louise Gluck, Marie Howe, Jane Kenyon, Dickinson, Whitman, Basho. How many am I allowed to pick?)
Beautiful picture books (by Cynthia Rylant, Patricia Polacco, Maurice Sendek, Peter H. Reynolds, Jane Yolen. I can’t stop!!!)
Really, wouldn’t it be torture to have to work with one single utensil for the rest of your days? (And I haven’t even gone into my chopsticks here, or egg slicers!)
Choose shmoose. I like the versatile, the capable and the pretty, myself. A well-laid table. What about you?
The rules: Each participant shares five little-known facts about themselves and selects five new folks to be tagged, listing their names and letting them know they’ve been tagged.
So here’re mine:
As a teen, I got a perm. You have to know me to fully appreciate the absurdity of this. Hello, Medusa. There was no need, I assure you. But it was the ‘80s and I was trying to follow that old “When in Rome…” adage to the letter. Fortunately there’s scanty photographic evidence that this took place. (I also tried a Dorothy Hammill haircut once. Ditto everything above except it was the 70’s rather than 80’s. Trends should have gatekeepers, don’t you think?)
In 5th grade, I wanted to play the drums but the band teacher told me, “Girls don’t play drums; you can choose the flute or clarinet.” I choose flute, polished it a bunch and got the only solid F of my academic career. These days I mostly clap and hum.
I read Love Story every summer from age 11 ‘til age 16 and each time I thought Jennifer might not die this time. Oliver thought so, too.
My lucky number is 4. To note: my birthday (4/4); number of people in my family (4); number of people in the family I grew up in (4); the terminal number of many of my addresses over the years (674, 124, 324, 604 and two Apt. #4s); not to mention elements on earth, arrows on a compass, quarters to a dollar and seasons in a year. OK, maybe not in Texas. But technically, right?
Once, I pulled away from the gas pump without taking the nozzle out of my tank and I pulled the hose off with me. Did you know that those hoses are designed to disconnect? Still, I’ve been trying to pay better attention since then…
Now, how about some of my peeps? What’s up with youse guys?
That’s what they say about half marathons, even though it really doesn’t feel like half of anything.
Quibbles aside, 13.1 miles is the perfect middle distance — far surpassing your average 5- or 10K, in training regimen and sense of accomplishment, but without a marathon’s joint torture or Saturday suck.
I cannot imagine the wife mother writer teacher sleeper getter-upper driver neighbor citizen I’d be without the fresh air, exercise and endorphines of a good run. I mean, really. Duck and cover. It’s a bad day without exercise.
Yesterday was Austin’s 3M Half Marathon, my hands-down favorite run of the year. (Okay, mine’s more like a jog than a run, but who’s timing?)
Here are highlights:
The good folks at Embassy Suites taking pity as we waited at the start in the cold, cold dark. They seemed not-at-all frazzled by the thousand-some runners stretching hamstrings in their lobby and lining up to use a bathroom that wasn’t a bright blue tippable box.
Turning the corner at mile 2 so that headwinds became tailwinds.
Friends and family at mile 8 with a big ole’ sign, hugs, whoops and hollers. Even my running partner (who’s benched with a hip injury) braved the morning chill to cheer me on. Talk about a second wind. Some folks suck on a little tube of goo to recharge, but who needs it when you get a dose of love this palpable?
The perfect playlist my husband built for my iPod (aptly titled Run Liz, Run). Warmed up to Elaine Elias, Zap Mama and Culture; moved onto a podcast of This American Life; and finished out with Fountains of Wayne, ABBA, Jane’s Addiction and other delicious stuff. One particular strong spot had me singing I Am Woman (out loud) with Helen Reddy — while running downhill, no less. Crossing the finish line to Passionate Kisses wadn’t bad either.
Meditating (or hallunicating — I’m not sure which) from mile 9 to mile 11. “I love this. This feels good. I’m so happy. I’m so lucky.” Repeat. “I love this. This feels good. I’m so happy. I’m so lucky.” To those who weren’t in my altered state it may have looked as if speedier folk were passing me by but I know better. I was flying…
The bagpipe player, jugglers, cowbell ringers, brass band and steel drum afficianado scattered along the course. On a cold morning, for no good reason but the joy of it.
Finishing up — a few minutes quicker than I’d hoped for, with a few songs left on my playlist. (Actually, just finishing, period, felt dang good. Like putting the final touches on a final draft.)
Nothing could dampen the spirits, not even the sinewy soul who said to me, right after the race, “That was so short and easy compared to the ultra marathons I’ve been doing!”
Short and easy? Mmm hmmm. Kind of like writing literature for kids. Who’s hallucinating now?
