Our girls have been asking for a blessing before dinner, especially since our visit to Seattle a couple of weeks ago where we discovered my in-laws singing the same lyrical little grace I sang at summer camp, back in the day.

So I found what I thought was the perfect answer to their wishes — 
a little rhyme by Ralph Waldo Emerson that goes like this:

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

That pretty much covers the bases, I think. 
Plus, it rhymes so it’s easy to memorize.
And it’s short so nobody’ll get hungry waiting.

But here’s the thing.
As we recited it tonight — a few times to get it good & sticky in our brains — I heard my small one carefully substituting phrases from my next picture book.

(Which is in rhyme, coincidentally, so is easy to memorize.
And is short, so nobody’s going hungry while waiting.)

Her sister and dad heard her, too. 

And before long it had been decided — 
Ralph Waldo out (beloved though you may be), Mama in (biased though they may be).

I feel a little funny being the pen behind our dinnertime blessing but it made everyone else kind of blushy-happy, so I’m going along with it for now. Until someone decides we oughta switch to the old ditty ’bout the appleseed…

Yesterday, I closed my post with a note of gratitude.

So I figured, what better place to start today?

The thing about kindnesses is that they can be complicated…
when they come with strings attached and what not.

And then the subsequent gratitude gets a little murky, too.
Sometimes a bit begrudging or embarrassed. Y’know?

I prefer the pure kind — of kindnesses and gratitudes. 

Pure, unfettered giving and receiving and thank you thank you thank you.
Like that.

No big white elephant in the middle of the room.

Just you. 
And me.
And thank you.

Here’s what Louise Gluck has to say about all that:

Gratitude

Do not think I am not grateful for your small
kindness to me.
I like small kindnesses.

(Read the rest here.)

Lately I’ve found myself asking of others quite frequently.

And on the days I’m not asking, I tend to accept help when it is offered. 

When, for instance, my best chums say that they will take turns delivering dinner once a week while we are without a kitchen?

I say, um, yes.

And when my kids are at a neighbors all morning and they offer to keep them all afternoon?

I say yes. 

Dogsitting?

Yes.

Advice?

Yes.

Get out of jail free?

Yes, thank you. 

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And then, at two a.m., the voices in my head (who are all sort of pull yourself up by your own dang bootstraps kinda folk) say to me:

How ya gonna make good on this, Missy?
How ya gonna pay these people back?

And they sit there sneering, the voices, waiting for the paroxysms of guilt and shame.

And I teeter.

And they sneer and twitter with anticipation.

And I waver.

And they are lovin’ this! 

“Look at her,” they say. “Needy and wobbly as a two-legged stool.”

And that is when I plant my third leg firmly on the ground —
this is a benefit of yoga, my friends (third eye, third leg, all sorts of extras that balance and enrich) —
firmly on the ground, I plant it.

And I say, “I am not going to pay these people back. Their gifts are not about me. Their gifts are reflective of them. They are just good folk.  I am blessed and surrounded by a hundred very fine friends with open hearts. And sometimes when you are faced with open heartedness, it’s best to be open handed. That is the third leg of the stool called love. Tomorrow, it is my turn. Tomorrow, I will offer my ear to the person who needs to talk, my car to the person who needs a ride, my bag of pecans to the squirrels. And in the meantime? I will say thank you.”

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have to admit that I usually say no, thank you to memes.

I think it’s sort of appalling how much 80s music is still alive in my head; I don’t want to feed the beast by talking about it. 

Ditto — bad haircuts, bad habits and most embarrassing memories.

But the lovely Jen Robinson tagged me to talk about summer goals, and since it is nearly one hundred degrees here in the heart o’ Texas, it seems like the appropriate time to give it a thought.

Numero uno:

My top priority this summer is to put down the laptop and step away from the overwhelm. 
I want to be present and joyful with my kids and my husband, my family and my friends, and myself. 

I want to swim. 
A lot. 

Nap. 
Quite frequently. 

Read.
A ton.

Blog.
A bit.

Talk. 
Freely. 

Listen. 
Carefully.

I want to single- rather than multi-task, say no when I need to and yes when I want to, and generally enjoy the fact that I have the health and the time and the privelege to take it down a notch this season.

Numero dos:
I’m only teaching one class this summer.
It’s online, and I want to enjoy it. 

I want to wallow in my students’ evolving work, share with them what I’m able to share, and try to convey the joy of poetry as viscerally as the nuts & bolts of the craft.

Tres:
Since Jen called me out specifically in regards to exercise, I’d better rise to the occasion.

This summer I want to keep my mileage up and running shoes handy, I want to take my yoga practice with me on vacation, and I want to swim. Pretty much every day. That’s the plan.

Quatro:
Read, read, read. 
The novels on my bedside table and then some.
Plenty of good adult fodder but also, like last summer, I want to read any of the big award winners I haven’t gotten to yet. 

And I’m starting at the library.
Tonight.

Now then.
If you want to put a little thought into your summer, consider yourself tagged!

It is an oddity of the writer that we live immersed in a world of words and yet sometimes can think of not a thing to say…

or the thing we do think of is not quite right…

or we don’t have the time to do justice to all that needs saying.

Because really, is there ever enough time to do it all justice or get it quite right?

Caedmon 
— Denise Levertov

My tall one finishes 3rd grade today.

She made her teacher a card that said: 
We had a great year and a great relationship.

Which is true, and I just think it’s a beautiful thing that she knows that.

My small one finishes 1st grade today. 

She’s already talking about the school-type work she plans to do over the summer.

Journaling. Reading. Higher math. 

She’s kind of an overachiever, but still… I’ll believe it when I see it. 
It is summer, after all. 

I have very vivid memories of my own summer vacations as a kid.

Cousins.
Swimming.
Horseback riding.
Waterskiing.
Kick the can.
Rag tag.
Popsicles.
Rootbeer.
A thick smear of zinc oxide on my nose.

There were no bedtimes and no alarm clocks. 

Time was virtually suspended for three months and then, suddenly, come the first of September, I was older.
Not a day older — a whole grade older.
A whole new set of rules and expectations, priveleges and opportunties.
A whole new me.

Which is where my girls are going to find themselves in a few months, in 2nd and 4th grades with the rest of the big kids.

It nearly brings me to my knees with nostalgia and the dizzying speed of it all.

Fortunately, though, as of 3 o’clock this afternoon we are in that nebulous land where clocks and calendars cease to matter and there’s nothing much to do but catch caterpillars, paint rocks and shake the sand out of our bathing suits.  

We’ll deal with that growing up business all in good time…

We went away for the weekend.

No biggie.

A drive rather than a flight.

A home rather than a hotel.

Bathing suits rather than, well, clothes.

The kids had kids to play with. 
The dog had dogs to play with.
We had grown ups to play with.
(…and discuss candidates and delegates with, and schools and sports and religion and grandmothers and art.)  

We enjoyed a yard.
A pool.
An actual kitchen.

I could feel myself wind down at the cellular level. 

And when that happens, the mind unravels.
I mean, in a good way.
All the everyday knots and plans and preconceptions spread out into a sort of marshy meadow.
Idea-ready.

It was a quirky little slip of the tongue — in the midst of one of our quirky little conversations — but there it was.

Just ripe for the taking.

A word.
That could be name.
That could be a character.

I’m trying to maintain a little marsh state here, to see where it takes me…

Really, I’d love for you to take a look at my post from yesterday — 
a pictorial view of our school’s literacy parade. 

Poetry in pictures, to my mind. 

I mean, c’mon people. 
Floats based on books???

As for today, we are ready for vacation at our house.
This is the first year our school year has stretched into June and it’s killin’ us.

Here’s what my small one has to say about it, and don’t tell me she’s alone in this:

School

I sit there in

a dark blue chair

listening to directions

But in my little

 tiny head

I wish I was

 on vacation

Why Do You Write For Children?

So parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles can read to them.

So teachers and librarians can read to them.

So they can read to themselves.

So they can fall in love with books.

Which is a way to fall in love with life.

Right?

They — the kids — are the whole point.
A point driven home today during the annual Literacy Parade at my daughters’ school.

It opened with a rousing rendition of Teach Your Children Well, sung by a motley crew of kids, teachers and parents…

Then the parade kicked off with a pledge to read over the summer…

… followed by the class floats, each in honor of a book!

The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan

How I Became a Pirate, by Melinda Long

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo

Henry and Beezus, by Beverly Cleary

The People of Sparks, by Jeanne DuPrau

The Poppy Stories, by Avi

I could go on but I’ve far exceeded my “add image to blog” capability here, so I best go lie down.

But you get it, right? 

Kids LOVE these books.

They talk about these books.
They celebrate these books.
They remember these books.

Which is, I’ll reiterate, the whole point.

(From The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein) 

Up — The Sun

Down — Sunburns

Up — Swimming 

Down — Swimmer’s ear

Up — Travel

Down — Travel Expenses

Up — No School

Down — No School

Y’know what I mean? 

I have to say, I relish not packing another lunch bag or filling out another form or helping with another sheet of homework.
I relish reading longer and later each night since the alarm won’t be going off at the crack of dawn.
I relish hangin’ with my girls — in the kitchen, in the water, on our roadtrips.
I relish the sponaneity of it all.

But.
There is the teeny tiny matter of time and space to write. 
And really, I’m talking about headspace here more than anything. 
Not so much a room of my own, as a minute or two. 

See, the thing that worries me is that my muse is highly unpredictable.
What if she comes wafting through with one of those ideas that keeps me at my kitchen table ’til noon — 
still in my jammies, hair like a tumbleweed, writing like a mad woman? 

My kids just might have a little issue with that.

Talk about upside, downside.

I guess if I grunt and point with enough oomph, they’ll go grab their clay and pens and join me in the rush of it all?
One can hope.
Stay tuned…