Yesterday I watched Suzan-Lori Parks work. 
The playwright sat at a table at the front of the room and she wrote.
For an hour.
On a red typewriter.

She had both water and coffee.
And some peppermints.
A few books.

Once, she stopped to check and send a text.
She took off her sweater.
She typed.

And so did I.
Because that was part of the "performance".
The audience was invited to do our own work. 
We spread out at desks and tables with journals and laptops and we wrote.

I was revising a picture book text.
A text I have written and revised and written and revised for many years now.
I can’t say the number because it horrifies me.
I have rejoiced over and cursed this text.
I have quit and restarted it.
I have had high hopes and no hope.

And yet, there I was yesterday, just working away on an ordinary Thursday, sippin’ coffee and hangin’ with Suzan-Lori Parks. I felt calm and, also, energized. I felt comforted to know that other people were working away, too, and occasionally sneaking a peppermint or a text to a friend. I felt bound to the timer at the end of the hour, knowing I wouldn’t quit before then — and wanting to work well afterwards.

So today I’m grateful for process.
I’m actually grateful that books don’t come out, all of piece, in our dreams. 
I’m grateful for the opportunity to revisit, to grow, to change.
I’m grateful for tables and timers, for new ideas and old stubborn ones.
I’m grateful for the examples of both inspiration and tenacity that remind me to sit down and open myself up to whatever comes out on the page today. 
I’m grateful.

Last night marked my last night of teaching for the semester.
And you know how it is this time of year.
I’m tempted to say, "I’m grateful for the academic calendar. For winter break. For fresh starts."
And that’d all be true, but it’s kind of tired-sounding.

The truth is, I’m also glad for the opportunity to teach. 
I’m grateful for my college and my classes and my students.
I’m grateful for the chance to share the work that I love with other people, to talk about and practice the craft with them, to witness both their glee and their struggles as they take to the page.

Each time I share a stack of library books with my students, I learn anew.
Each time I try to articulate how something can be done or why it might work, I learn anew.
Each time I critique a student’s story, I learn anew.

Teaching is good for me, as a writer and a person, and I’m grateful that I get the chance to do it.
And, yep, I’m grateful for winter break, too.

I am grateful for my running partners, without whom I would not be able to drag myself out of bed on cold, dark mornings and with whom I stretch, breathe, laugh, cry, sort out, burn off, ponder, pound and start my days off right. 

I am thankful for family dinners.

I am thankful that my grandparents — all four of them — held family dinners at their houses.
And that they passed them down, so that my mom and dad loved them and instituted them at our house, too.

(I almost said they "believed in them," but honestly, it was more deeply ingrained than that. it was just what was done.)

Not that I never resented being asked to come to the table and sit and make conversation and let the phone ring and ring and help clear and rinse and stack and all of that. I did. I was 13. And 14. And 15.

But mostly (and I swear this is not rose-colored glasses) I remember teasing and laughing and looking up words in the dictionary and events in the Encyclopedia. I remember telling long detailed stories about math class and the 3rd grade guinea pig. I remember running lines for the school play. I remember trying, for the first time, artichokes and fondue and gazpacho. I remember making placecards and coming up with wild new ways to fold napkins. I remember playing telephone and 20 questions and pig. 

And now, thank goodness, I have my own family who are more than happy to circle ’round every single night — whether we’re eating rice & beans or something more refined — to share tales from the trenches, to poke a little fun at one another, to try to understand everything from weather phenomena to Wikileaks. Sometimes it’s long and leisurely, other times someone nearly falls asleep at the table, or gets up to play piano or demonstrate a crazy playground move.

But regardless of context or even of content, the family dinner always serves as a centerpoint — a pulling in on the threads of a button so that it holds tight to the coat, a thing of both beauty and function, of comfort, of something we all can count on…

I have the sweetest floppiest limpiest funniest cuddliest oldest and most loyal dog in the world,
and I love her and am ever, ever, ever so grateful for her.
That is all. 

Today I felt grateful for so many things it’s hard to know where to start. 

I went for a run.

I spent time in an art supply store.

And a bookstore.

And I went out into the country with my husband and daughters and mother-in-law to cut a little Christmas tree.

The sun was so warm and bright and we had a picnic and the girls ran around in a maze and pet the goats and roasted marshmallows on the little log fire the farm folk keep stoked. It was so relaxed and easy and fun. 

And somehow there was still time this afternoon to read and nap and cook a really good meal and sit around the table and talk for a long, long time. Some days are like that.

And that’s what I’m grateful for.
The spaciousness of a single day.

So often we feel so constrained by the hours offered up — there aren’t enough of them, we say. We feel so rushed and harried and busy and still, at the end of it all, not enough got done and we get tired even thinking about tomorrow. So when a day like today comes along — so generously — I really notice. And feel grateful.

Happy Saturday, friends.
Namaste.

I have a lot of truly inspiring women in my circles.
I don’t know if I’m just crazy-lucky, or if brilliant, generous, funny, creative, inspiring women really are a dime a dozen, but for now I won’t question, just appreciate.

Appreciation, in fact, is the name of the game today — thanks to Jote Khalsa, the wonder-mistress behind the blog bless her heart. Jote had this idea to close out the year with 30 days of Gratitude, and she asked folks if they’d like to play along. Now, I am truly abysmal at baseball and frisbie, but gratitude? I’m in!

But, alas, you say, there are only 29 days left in the year!
Yes, I say. That’s the thing about me. I tend to run a little late. But honestly. 29 days is still a lot of gratitude and Jote won’t mind.

So, without further ado, today I’m grateful for poetry. 
I’m grateful for its beauty and for what it offers the mind. 
I’m grateful for what it evokes and for what it confirms.
I’m grateful for the way it can startle and the way it can comfort.
I’m grateful.

And I’m pretty sure Anne Sexton was grateful for it, too, even though it wasn’t able to save her in the end.
I mean really, what’s mother-broth for all the people but poetry?
Poetry.

Yellow

When they turn the sun
on again, I’ll plant children
under it, I’ll light up my soul
with a match and let it sing, I’ll
take my mother and soap her up, I’ll
take my bones and polish them, I’ll
vacuum up my stale hair, I’ll
pay all my neighbours bad debts, I’ll
write a poem called Yellow and put
my lips down to drink it up, I’ll
feed myself spoonfuls of heat and
everyone will be home playing with
their wings and the planet will
shudder with all those smiles and
there will be no poison anywhere, no plague
in the sky and there will be mother-broth
for all the people, and we will
never die, not one of us, we’ll go on
won’t we?

Anne Sexton

(It goes without saying that I’m always thankful for Poetry Friday and, on this day especially, our lovely hostess Tricia at Miss Rumphius. Go read allllll the poetry she’s rounding up today. The world is rapidly becoming a more beautiful place…)

Wow. 
‘Tis the season.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve visited five different schools and spoken with hundreds of kids.
It has been as it always is with these things — hilarious and humbling.

The mind of a seven-year-old is so open and the imagination so vivid that all adult content pales in comparison.
I mean, I try to slide in a thing or two or value but honestly, I wouldn’t mind just giving them the floor. 

For example:

During our discussion of how to fit All the World into a little picture book, a boy reassured me that "the world may seem like a big place to us but in the universe we’re really quite small."

And while making up our own pocket ideas, another little one said, "I’m not sure if this is really real or what, but ‘the sky is a pocket for God’?"

And at one point we were talking about original ideas vs. plagiarism when a young girl (who is apparently going to grow up to be a trial attorney) said, "Well, you may not be able to copy somebody else’s story but you can adapt it."

See what I mean????
Why do I even bother when they are this good?

And then, this morning, I receive this very funny and tender video — the son of one of the librarians I visited with, "reading" A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes. Not a bad grasp on metaphor for a preschooler, huh?

Oh, lucky lucky lucky me…

I’m just recently back from Dallas where I did three different school visits
and a big literacy event at the zoo.

The whole darn thing was delightful, partly because I was staying with my funny, fascinating and open-hearted cousins… partly because I didn’t have to pack any lunches, take anyone to school, or run a single load of laundry… and partly because reading to that many kids in the span of a few short days is some sort of joy elixir.

The event at the zoo was sponsored by Educational First Steps — a really inspiring organization devoted to high-quality early childhood education for the kids who need it most. A few thousand kids giggled over penguins, fed giraffes, watched puppet shows and went home with books of their own. I did five different readings on a little patio tucked into the "African Savannah" — pitting me against trumpeting elephants and a really randy zebra. This means, of course, that the kids may have no recollection of me being there at all, but I remember them…

The school visits were all slightly less dramatic in terms of setting, but just as sweet. At all three schools we ran out of time before the kids ran out of questions — kind of a thrilling problem to have. One of the funnier moments? During my presentation, I put up a slide of All the World illustrator Marla Frazee. "You and your illustrator growed the same hair!" called out one perceptive kindergartner, almost like our curls were a marketing ploy.

And now here’s a really dear blog post about my visit by one of the school librarians.
Check out the AMAZING banner the kids made me!

Now I’m back home, packing lunches, running loads of laundry and counting my lucky stars that I get to do the kind of work I get to do. (Thank you Barb and Dan, EFS, Hockaday, Lamplighter and Parish Episcopal!)

Perfectly timed with President Obama’s trip to Korea is the Korean translation
of All the World that arrived in my mailbox yesterday!
It was like opening a little miniature art museum in a padded envelope, honestly. 

I don’t even care what it says, it’s so pretty….