Funny faces stuck to Daddy’s back. Green milk in my coffee. A six-year-old dressed up like an aardvark, complete with pointy paper claws taped to the end of each fingernail. (I’m not sure if the joke here was that we have an aardvark for a daughter or that — surprise — she’s not really an aardvark. Either way, it was funny.)
But here’s the thing. All of these jokes unwound on Saturday. Which was March 31st.
That’s right. Our whole family spent about two hours cuttin’ it up on the wrong day. By the time Sunday rolled around, we’d exhausted our creative depths and besides, nothing is as funny as celebrating April Fool’s Day in March.
On Friday, we spent the evening soakin’ up the vibes at the annual Coffehouse and All-School Art Show at our beloved elementary school.
This is the talent show to end all talent shows. The stage steams. The crowd swoons. Reality TV quakes in its Uggs.
The objective stats: 3 hours, a coupla dozen performances, a hungry line at the pizza table all night long. But that’s not the half of it.
It’s the courage exhibited by these vivid, dynamic, uninhibited kids — singing, dancing, joking, kung fu-ing — in front of a cafeteria chock-full ofparents, teachers, neighbors, friends. The curtain opens anew on each act, and there is a 6-year-old, finding her voice; two 5th grade boys playing a ragtime duet on the piano; a couple of 8-year-olds kickin’ a Scottish dance.
To me there’s hardly a thing in the world more moving than young people courageous enough to put themselves out there and adults engaged enough to receive them with roaring applause. If there is this much heart available in your average elementary school — this much heart and imagination and humour and connection — all is not lost.
Here were some highlights of the evening:
Our daughters. Naturally.
Elder daughter played a Brahams waltz on her violin and took a deep and satisfying bow at the end; younger daughter played two songs on the piano at mock speed — I think with the hopes that she could get off the stage more quickly — but she was spot-on, and you should have seen her pink dress and her tiny feet dangling from the bench as she played.
Elder daughter also sang in a skit with 3 friends — a dramatization of Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be? — and her voice could’ve busted a goblet.
A 3rd grade boy did an original comedy routine based on the fickle, funny life of a frozen lasagne. There’s no way I could do this one justice but suffice it to say that his timing was genius and I was not the only one with tears running down my cheeks.
OK, everyone cried at this one, too. But I mean, really cried. A little boy — in 1st grade I think — singing Puff, the Magic Dragon and accompanied by his dad on guitar. He knew every slow, crushing word of every verse and he sang like a bell and the audience, little-by-little, chimed in very quietly at the chorus. All the way through the part where old Puff drags his lonely self off to a cave. It was utter heartbreak.
But then we were resuscitated by a little kindergartener doing a speed round of cup stacking. Who knew???
And then the 5th grade orchestra played Stand By Me, and there was a lovely Fur Elise on the piano and a couple of beautiful cello pieces, too. (A cello can put a lump in my throat the moment it’s set up on its end-pin.) But there was also hip-hop dancing and a sort of free-form drum solo and at least one original song — sung a cappella — through a microphone. I mean, have you ever been that brave?
The clincher, for me, was my friend Bernadette and her daughter reciting mother-daughter haiku. With their arms casually slung around each other’s waist. Haiku about their family, three walking-talking kiddos and a brand new baby, haiku about their family being its own party, about seeing each other in themselves, about love. That did me in completely.
At the end of the night, all the dads moved to fold up the tables and the kids ran wild on the darkened lawn until a few of them fell and skinned their knees. Then we reluctantly crawled away toward our own homes, not wanting to give each other up, to let go of the throbbing hum, the choir of voices, the whistles and whoops and laughter that happen when a whole group of folk comes together to celebrate the vision and voices of kids…
My only beef with National Poetry Month is the presumption that poetry be relegated to a single month — a terrible misinterpretation that would narrow the scope of the art rather than explode it wide open, which I’m sure was the founders’ intent.
So, if we all agree that reading poetry only in April would be like granting love or chocolate just 30 humble days of our attention, then we can move forward and celebrate.
Hark! The arrival of National Poetry Month, a time to truly wallow in words when ordinarily we might merely float, wade or dabble.
And for the 9th year running, Knopf makes this an especially lush immersion with their Poem-a-Day emails and podcasts. The lazy man’s poetry search engine, Knopf does the work for you — selecting and sending a single piece each day in April. Your job is just to sit back, and absorb.
Knopf has published some of the country’s most beloved poets over the years so really, you can look on it as a little survey primer. Or as a multicourse, prix fixe meal. Or as a spiritual ritual. Sort of like lighting candles only without the puddles of wax on the tablecloth.
Would you like a little taste of things to come? This, from the Knopf site and written by Franz Wright:
R e q u e s t
Please love me and I will play for you this poem upon the guitar I myself made out of cardboard and black threads when I was ten years old. Love me or else.
—Franz Wright
from THE BEFORELIFE (c) 2001 by Franz Wright
How can you resist? And why should you? Happy National Poetry Month. Bon Voyage.
On Tuesday, my voice was sufficiently humanoid for me to make good on the school visit I’d booked. I had to suck on the occasional lozenge as the day progressed but I stayed upright and I don’t believe I ever blacked out or spoke in tongues. (If I did, the audience was very polite and wrote it off as poetry.)
The school – in a bedroom community north of Austin – is tremendous! There were 250 kindergarteners, which is how many students went to my four-year high school. There’s some trivia for you. But nobody seems the least bit overwhelmed – the hallways are bright and pretty, the library is cozy, and all the adults speak with warmth and humor to the kids. All in all, a great way to emerge from my cocoon of coughs and fever.
A few highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be):
I got lost on the way to the school in the morning. One would think that East and West would be pretty self-explanatory since the main highway runs directly North-South, but apparently I need these things translated into simple Lefts and Rights. Still trying to figure out if there is any way I can blame this on my ailing health.
During one of my sessions, when I came to the line “A pocket for a farmer is a dell, hi-ho…”, I asked the kids if they recognized that, from a song. “Yeah,” answered one world-weary little guy, “but it’s also a place to work.” Oh. Right. Dell.
When I was signing books, one particularly earnest little girl asked if they were going to have to give the books back. I pointed out her name in the inscription and said that it was hers, to keep. She leapt. Like a frog. Even hung there at the top of her jump for a moment, suspended with delight.
In the midst of one rather lively question-and-answer session, a student asked about the silver sticker on the front of my book. I explained that the book had been nominated for an award, and that the label recognizes that. A discussion ensued about “all those other books that win ‘cott awards” and I laughed and said something about how happy those labels make their authors.
“So is that why you do it?” asked a boy in the back. “Is that why you write books, to get more and more labels? To win more and more awards?”
Wow.
“No,” I answered. “I write books for you. I write books because I loved reading when I was a kid, and I loved being read to, and I’m inspired to be a part of that for you! Awards are a nice bonus, but they’re not why I write.”
Pause. Deep breath. Final answer.
“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to get outta you,” he said, satisfied.
I was satisfied, too. I love a kid who knows what he wants.
I’m well aware that I may be poppin’ open a can of worms here, but nonetheless…
My daughter’s 2nd grade teacher has just earned prominent hero status in my book – for questioning the value of homework.
There is no way, with my left-over laryngitis, that I could sing hallelujah loud enough right now.
Here’s the skinny. After reading The Homework Myth by Alfie Kohn, Ms. D decided that if all the traditional justifications for homework didn’t fly, then maybe it’s not such a hot idea to keep plugging along as before.
In her letter to us parental types, she declared that kids need a break afterschool (hooray!) and that she’d still assign monthly projects (in-depth efforts like family trees and book-report dioramas – hooray!) and that all her students should still read nightly but they should read WHAT THEY LIKE and FOR AS LONG AS THEY’D LIKE TO (hip hip hooray!)
She also said she wanted our input and feedback, and what she got was a deafening show of support. Who knew that we were a classroom ready to raise a revolution with just the slightest push?
Here’s the thing, I’ve always facilitated my daughters’ homework assignments because I want to support and respect their teachers’ efforts, and I’ve never found it to be so overwhelming as to warrant protest. But I am, in my heart-of-hearts, anti-homework. Seven hours in school takes it out of a kid. I believe those few, precious hours after school are for fresh air and exercise; creative endeavors and play; family chit-chat and cuddling; and reading for pleasure.
When we were kids, we rode bikes for hours everyday afterschool – no worksheets required – and we lived to tell about it.
Those larger projects we’ve still been promised – interviews, science fair projects, genealogy? They offer up rich opportunities for individualized critical thinking and exploration, and I’m on board all the way. (I still remember making a fabulous topographic map as a kid with rows and rows of chocolate chip mountain ranges. I got a little sick off of the sweetened coconut I used as snow, but it was better than eating paste.)
And reading? Look, I totally recognize the need to bone up on reading comprehension. My daughter’s been bringing home little mimeographed books all year that she reads and then is “quizzed on”. They’re fine – just this side of dull – and she’s gotten pretty good at them. But has anyone ever noticed those aren’t what kids want to read by flashlight at bedtime? That’s when Junie B. and BabyMouse and the Capital Mysteries Series come out. Technically they don’t “count” for anything, but you could have fooled me.
Now, all our at-home reading is being returned to us and our whims. How delicious.
So I’m offering a deep bow and a tip of the ol’ hat to the divine Ms. D, for her willingness to think this through so deeply… to be flexible and creative enough to change course mid-stream… and to put her thoughts out there and ask for input. I don’t know that many teachers – or professionals in other fields, for that matter – who would be so amenable to opening up the thought process, risking controversy and change, and putting the effort into revamping a practice that’s become standardized. This is how systems evolve – one classroom at a time.
Inquiring minds want to know which blogs I busy myself with (did someone say procrastinate??) besides the usual suspects (i.e. children’s authors, librarians and reviewers…)
Well, ahem:
My swankio designer chums, Shannon Lowry of Round Robin Press and Kathie Sever of Ramonsterwear both post blogs that are more visual than verbal. Feast yer eyes….
I like stopping in to read the latest commentary on MOMbo (broadcasting the everyday truth about motherhood in order to save the world) and, since February, MOMbo host Nanci Oelsen’s been blogging, too.
Facing Inward — my favorite yoga blog because it’s also about motherhood and marriage, making it accessible for yogamamas like me.
World Nomads Adventure, if I’m feeling restless. Lotta lotta lotta travel blogs. Yearning, lusting, checking the balance on our frequent flier accounts…
And for all my other daily nutritional needs, Salon. Not technically a blog, I know, but gimme a break here.
Just a few bitty blurbs on our local book scene this morning:
1. Since I had no choice but to spend the week bouncing from bed to bath and back again — tissue and lozenges in hand — what better way to spend a day than reading Tantalize, by Cynthia Leitich Smith? She gifted us with beautiful hardbook copies at her book launch party a few weeks back — and mine’s been sitting here, tempting me. Now I know why I saved it!
First, a disclaimer. This is sooo not my genre. I never went through an Anne Rice stage. Or a Bram Stoker stage. And I’ve even had to switch from a red wine drinker to a white because of headaches. But, whoa Betty, was this a fun ride! I won’t be doing any spoiling here, but suffice it to say that you’re gonna be looking askance at folks out there for a few days after reading this. Ca-REEEEPY. Now, lay in some seriously sensual props and food stuffs, and get reading. In my case, this consisted of tomato soup, raspberry jello and some nasty tasting tincture. You can do better, folks.
2. I’ve been waiting for A Seed is Sleepy ever since An Egg is Quiet hit the shelves. Things of utter beauty, these books. Our dear Dianna Aston is one of the great noticers I was talking about recently, and she’s clearly found a sister in Sylvia Long. The thing I love about these books is that you can use them in so many ways — as a poetic little lullaby; as some wholly palatable science; for pure, pictorial pleasure, or as a matching game from front cover to back. Yea! Spring is here…
3. Drum roll, please. Next Friday, March 30, Robin Preiss Glasser, the deeply talented illustrator of A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes, will be at BookPeople, our big-and-beautiful independent bookseller downtown! She’s visiting with author Jane O’Connor in celebration of their newest Fancy Nancy title. There are sure to be some boas and tiaras in the crowd.
I might wear a tutu myself, and here’s why. Although we’ve struck up a really lovely long-distance friendship over the years, we’ve never met in person! This is like a blind date, only we’ve already married and had a baby together. Tee hee. Giddy, giddy, giddy. See you Austinites at BookPeople at 11 a.m.
So the American Psychological Association has issued a big report on the “sexualization” of younger and younger girls, thanks to R-rated dolls, clothing, games, music and whatnot. And, linking the effects to eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression in girls and women. Oi.
Anyone find this a tad bit ironic, in the days of don’t-say-scrotum and such? We are one confused group of folk when it comes to bodies, health and sexuality.
Essayist Judith Warner answered to this report with her thoughts on mothers, and our body image and sexuality. Here’s an excerpt of what she had to say:
Excerpted from Hot Tots, and Moms Hot to Trot By JUDITH WARNER NY Times March 17, 2007
…I think it’s fair, even necessary, to wonder: how can we expect our daughters to navigate the cultural rapids of becoming sexual beings when we ourselves are flying blind? How can we teach them to inhabit their bodies with grace and pleasure if we spend our own lives locked in hateful battles of control, mastery and self-improvement?
We all tend to talk a good game now on things like body image and sexual empowerment. We buy the American Girl body book, “The Care and Keeping of You,” promote a “healthy” diet and exercise, and wax rhapsodic about team sports. But do we practice what we preach?
Not when we walk around the house sucking in our stomachs in front of the mirrors. Not when we obsessively regulate the contents of our refrigerators in the name of “purity.”
… Our girls see right through all our righteousness. And they hear the hypocrisy, too, when we dish out all kinds of pabulum about a “positive body image,” then go on to trash our own thighs.
… Maybe it’s time to take a break from bashing the media and start to take a long, hard look instead at the issue of mothers’ sexuality, which is, apparently, after a long and well-documented dormancy, enjoying a kind of rebirth — thanks, it is said, to things like pole dancing classes and sports club stripteases. These new evening antics of the erstwhile book club set are supposed to be fabulous because they give sexless moms a new kind of erotic identity. But what a disaster they really are: an admission that we’ve failed utterly, as adult women, to figure out what it means to look and feel sexy with dignity. We’ve created an aesthetic void. Should we be surprised that stores like Limited Too are rushing in to fill it? (Now on sale: a T-shirt with two luscious cherries and the slogan “Double trouble.”)
In opposing the tot-trash ethos, we shouldn’t comfort ourselves with “co-watching” TV or throwing out the Barbies. Instead, we ought to learn to find comfort inside our own skins.
What do you think? Skin comfort sounds good, hunh?
We read right through to the bottom of our book piles last week. Here are some highlights:
Babymice — Elder daughter re-read Queen of the World and Our Hero… a few times. Much discussion ensued about the good old days of Dodgeball and the comeuppance Ms. Felicia Furrypaws inevitably faces.
The Sisters Grimm — We read the first in this series aloud, with much edge-of-our-seats hilarity. Sisters Daphne and Sabrina discover they’re descendents of the great Grimm brothers, and then must come to terms with the family baggage — a mysterious and uneasy alliance with the Everafters (fairy tale characters) living in rural New York. Personally, I found some of the literary allusions a bit forced, but the girls were delighted and are begging to start on book #2 right away.
The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean — I really adore reading Alexander McCall Smith, from The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series to the Akimbo books for kids. He’s a master at subtle humour and wisdom, and his books are eminently readable. Harriet Bean is a departure — more high hilarity and madcap mischief of the Pippi Longstocking variety — but still fun.
Amazing Whales — Younger daughter checked this out at her school library and read it three times through during our week away. She’s still a beginning reader and was bursting with pride at reading science. The series (which includes Amazing Snakes, Gorillas, Tigers and more) is the brainchild of The Wildlife Conservation Society, a preeminent player in the conservation world and, incidentally, employer of my dear brother-in-law, fighting the good fight in the wilds of Tanzania.
A Pale View of Hills — One of the books I read to myself when kids were sleeping or otherwise occupied. It’s a quiet and trecherous little read that touches on everything from Japanese society to a woman’s role in the 1940’s to the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Not uplifting — it’s full of heartache and tragedy — but beautiful like poetry.
Who I Was Supposed to Be: Short Stories — More adult reading. I’m a huge short-story fan and these were some goodies. There’s something a little voyeuristic about them, peeking in on the quirky underbelly of everyday folk. But they’re mostly compassionate and dang compelling. More Lorrie Moore than Alice Munro (and not quite as good as either of them), I zipped through ’em in a day.
The New Yorker — I completely caught up on my mag reading, including a really moving piece about the Miami Police Chief, Seymour Hirsch’s latest on our efforts in the Middle East, and some very, very funny cartoons. My husband, by the way, still hasn’t won the cartoon caption contest, his fruitful muse notwithstanding. Wish him luck.
