Remember the colossal meltdown my daughter had a couple of weeks ago when she discovered we’d chosen a shamefully boring paint color for our new kitchen and living space?
Well, lest you think we are permanently damaging her creativity and decision-making capabilities, I’ll have you know that she and her sister picked out the paint this weekend for all the shelves and cabinets in the mudroom.
It’s no accident that I’m a mother and a teacher and that our family’s days, therefore, are governed by the schools up until a certain bright morning in June when they suddenly are not.
And also, that I’m a writer, so that the rest of my days aren’t governed, exactly, by anything. Or anyone. (Which can be problematic, but that’s a different post.)
In spring it is as if there’s a wasp in my heart — so crowded are our days with field trips and events and celebrations. A piano recital here, a field day there. A class play here, an art exhibit there. And, throw into the mix all of my own students’ portfolios awaiting my critical eye. A wasp, I tell you. It’s enough to make a person swoon.
Only in the heat of it, I realize that some of the buzzing isn’t overwhelm.
Some of it’s excitement.
We are almost to those hours of watermelon and bathing suits and playing kick-the-can long past bedtime. I can smell the sticky sweetness in the air.
And some of it is pride.
That my students created work they didn’t know they had in ’em, and revised it to levels they thought they couldn’t reach. That the school kids I visited this year all know an author now, and all have made metaphors, and all have made rhyme.
That my daughters negotiated the highs and lows of another grade. That they have an understanding of liquids and solids, and story arcs, and long division. That they have friends and teachers over whom they will cry when saying goodbye.
That we, as a family, got the lunches packed and alarms set and forms filled out, pretty close to on time, all year long.
And then some of it is wonder. At the passing of time. That I’m not as young as I once was, nor is my husband, nor our friends or colleagues or students. And, even more stunning, neither are our girls.
It’s a lot to reckon with, which is why summer vacation is a very, very good idea.
In the meantime, a poem. A poem called Graded Paper by Mark Halliday. I love this one.
Graded Paper
On the whole this is quite successful work: your main argument about the poet’s ambivalence– how he loves the very things he attacks– is most persuasive and always engaging. At the same time, there are spots where your thinking becomes, for me, alarmingly opaque, and your syntax seems to jump backwards through unnecessary hoops,
This week I made my last two school visits of the year. Gasp. Sit down. Sigh.
It is a lot to juggle — the calendar and schedule-making, the maps, the Powerpoint presentations and the book sales.
But it is also really, really fun. For one thing it’s a good idea to stand up and step away from the computer every so often. And then there are the tender and funny questions, and imaginative comments, and rapt eyes in the audience. And the big manila envelopes of thank you notes– crayons and sparkles and all.
So, now it’s my turn.
I wanted to take a moment to thank all the teachers and librarians who’ve served as my hosts and who encouraged other teachers and librarians to do the same — Thank YOU!
… and to the parents who came to school to listen, who bought books, who took the enthusiasm for reading home with them — Thank YOU!
…and to the PTAs who helped support my visits — Thank YOU!
…and to my own personal little family for being flexible and speedy and patient and forgiving on the days I’ve had to leave way too early or gotten home rather late — Thank YOU!
…and, most especially, to the many hundreds of students who listened and asked and inspired and challenged and touched and just plain cracked me up — Thank YOU!
That includes the little guy today who said, “Don’t tell me you think it’s fun to be a writer!” (I know. Call me crazy. I really do.)
It’s hard to believe that by this time next year I’ll have a whole new book and a whole new program worked out. (Since I don’t think the many pockets of my fishing vest will work quite as naturally with the next one as they have with Sock is a Pocket.) Maybe I could rent a big ol’ foam globe costume but that sounds hot and kind of bulky.
So, stay tuned… And in the meantime, happy summer everyone!
In case you’re wondering, here’s where I’ve been lately:
Friday, September 21 A visit with Austin Indepedent School District teachers and librarians at Ruta Maya Coffehouse, Austin, Texas.
Wednesday, November 14 Talking with the first graders at Brentwood Christian School, Austin, Texas.
Saturday, December 1 Selling and signing books as part of the Bouldin Creek Studio Tour. Austin, Texas.
Thursday, January 10th Young Authors’ Conference at Baranoff Elementary School, Austin, Texas.
Thursday, Feburary 21st, 2008 Young Writers’ Workshop at Travis Heights Elementary , Austin, Texas.
Thursday, March 6th Young Author’s Day at Zilker Elementary, Austin, Texas.
Monday, March 17th Readings at Brentwood Elementary School, Austin, Texas.
Tuesday, March 25th Readings at Caldwell Heights Elementary School and Bluebonnet Elementary School , Round Rock, Texas.
Wednesday, March 26th Faculty reading at Austin Community College, South Austin Campus, Austin, Texas. Thursday and Friday, April 3rd and 4th Featured reader of The Corpus Christi Book Festival, Corpus Christi, Texas.
Sunday, April 6th Poetry reading at The Blanton Museum, Austin, Texas.
Monday, April 7th Reading at Lee Elementary, Austin, Texas.
Tuesday, April 8th A visit with students at Good Shepard Episcopal Preschool, Austin, Texas.
Tuesday, April 22nd and Thursday, April 24th Writing workshops for the 5th graders at Austin Discovery School, Austin, Texas.
Monday, April 28th A visit to Mathews Elementary, Austin, Texas.
Monday, April 28th A visit to the UT Lab School, Austin, Texas. Monday, May 19th Readings at Summitt Elementary, Austin, Texas.
Wednesday, May 21st A visit with 2nd graders at Zilker Elementary, Austin, Texas.
I’m hoping ya’ll might be able to talk me down a little here.
We just finished our latest read-aloud and everyone has gone to bed devastated. Even after decompressing with a stack of funny picture books. De.Va.Stated.
Here’s the deal.
We read every night, even though both girls then get into bed, turn on their bedside lights and rip through chapter books on their own. They are nine and seven and as far as I can tell, we may be doing this ’til they’re nineteen and seventeen. Not a one of us seems eager to give it up.
Sometimes one of us dozes off — particularly tough when the dozer is the reader. Sometimes one of us does headstands and kicks over the water glass and acts downright disengaged, until we threaten to put the book away. Sometimes one of us cries.
Over the years we’ve read everything from Stuart Little to Ramona the Brave, Anne Shirley to the Sisters Grimm, Whittington to Laura Ingalls Wilder. And, lately, Warriors.
So, here’s my forthright admission.
Fantasy? Not really my thing. Cat clans? Un-unh. Warrior codes and ceremonies and fresh kill? No thanks.
But. In spite of myself. I got sucked in.
I am the first to refer to our own housecats as ‘kittypets’ these days… and to make up nicknames that end with ‘paw’ or ‘pelt’… and to call meetings at ‘highrocks’. I’m a total sucker for story, and this one’s got us — all of us — in its claws.
So, tonight, we read waaaaaay past bedtime because there didn’t seem to be a good place to stop until, well, the end.
Which was really, really, really (to the power of ten) SAD.
Seriously, you guys. The girls were sobbing, shouting out in anger, swearing they’d never read another book like it, sobbing some more. I mean, we do tend to be a family of feelers but this was kind of extreme even for us.
So we talked.
About the varied reasons for ending the book that way… the possibilities it opened up.
About it being a story. And the fact that it must be a really good story if we were all feeling it this deeply.
About stories echoing real life — even fantastical stories about talking cat clans — and real life is sometimes hard. And sad.
And then we just bagged the conversation and grabbed the picture books. Not long after, everyone was asleep.
Well, except for me. I’m still sitting here musing on the whole thing. I kind of don’t know what to think. Plus, my head’s stuffy because I was crying, too.
Is this a beautiful thing — my daughters so full of empathy that they cry out in pain with the characters of a book?
Or was book too much for them, at their age, at their stage of open, fragile, rawness?
Or is this a beautiful thing — my daughters fully delving into the heart of literature, experiencing how deeply and completely it transports?
Or is that the end of this series for us, for now?
Or is this a beautiful thing?
Y’know, as I type this, I think I might be leaning toward the beautiful.
Tonight, our girls were safe, and the feelings were real, honest-to-goodness feelings, but in the context of story rather than real tragedy.
In the context of story — which is often where we first try out some of the toughest feelings imaginable — grief, regret, sorrow, lonliness — along with their counterpoints — relief, thrill, triumph, utter joy. I mean, if we’re lucky.
And maybe that’s what brought me to my knees tonight. Seeing my daughters wail with heartbreak, and knowing that someday I’d watch them feel this deeply outside of a book. In real life.
I can’t imagine the stack of picture books we’re gonna need to get through that…
Spring is always a vital time for birds around these parts.
We are smack-dab in the middle of the migratory flyway and even if you’re not a bird watcher, you can’t miss the songs and glimpses of vireos and orioles, blackbirds and grosbeaks, and many, many others.
This year, we’ve been more attuned than usual to the birds building nests in our workshop, stopping to rest on our roof and singing in our trees because we’ve done so much of our living outdoors. (It has been a lovely repercussion of having no inside kitchen, living room or dining room to speak of.)
So I dug up this old poem — it looks like I wrote it in 1994 or 5 — and thought I’d share it with you.
Happy Friday, friends…
Perch to Perch
Perch to perch, I cling to what peace one twig holds. – Tu Fu
A friend comes to visit with binoculars and bird books,
checkmarks by hundreds of varieties he’s seen
in Colorado, Appalachia, the BajaPeninsula,
Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi’s sand and sky, and to his joy
logs seven new species in my back yard.
I join him in the Adirondack chairs that were a wedding gift,
pointing at wagging, trilling trees for him to name since nothing’s
new or curious inside the house — my love and I nit-picking,
circling in a many-dayed quarrel, each collecting small bits of refuge
and defense, only opening our mouths to speak in different languages.
Carolina chickadee, my bird friend says, and Carolina wren.
Inca doves flock a tree like velvet, and down by the water
coots wade, lesser scaup swim. The titmouse sings
and even prattling grackles sound celebratory, auspicious to my shut eyes, delighted
to have found enough sustenance at our feet to stay awhile.
I really want to see a widgeon, says bird watcher, binoculars
trained on a trunk at the stream’s edge, as if the desired and elusive might suddenly land. And though I don’t think omens work that way, I open my eyes again. Looking. Hopeful.
We were all snuggled still in our beds when the wind began to roar like a freight train and the hail (did I mention there was hail) descended upon us like apples in an angry orchard.
The dog whimpered.
The cats whimpered.
The kids… well, the kids slept through it. Seriously.
So, my husband and I felt it was our duty to do their worrying for them.
We worried about trees falling. They didn’t, although hubby spent a good chunk of this evening on the roof with a chainsaw, dispatching of various limbs.
We worried about the windows blowing in. They didn’t, although all the old ones leaked.
We worried about our makeshift outdoor kitchen coming crashing down around us. It didn’t, although a number of boxes of tea (including my most favorite licorice) have devolved into soggy matter.
We worried about the power going out. It did.
And then, this morning, things dried out a bit and the lights came on and neighbors pulled branches out of the street. We got the kids to school. The pets curled up on various beds to sleep, a little muddy but none the worse for wear. It was over.
Meanwhile, the aftershocks of the quake in China and the cyclone in Myanmar continue to reverberate.
Wildlife has been decimated, villages destroyed, infrastructures fractured. Everyone is short on food, shelter and clean water. Many, many (tens of thousands, and probably well over 100,000) people are dead.
So much for our worries. It’s all a matter of perspective.
So today, we sit here soggy but safe, thinking about Myanmar and China and all the many places in the world in need of milk, medicines and a little hope.
A couple of folk have dropped me a line asking for an update on our remodel. So, here goes…
The good news: We have walls, windows and lights.
The bad news: They are, apparently, boring. The walls, in particular.
I learned this last weekend in the paint aisle of the Home Depot, which is where our youngest had her most dramatic, all-out meltdown since toddlerhood. Seriously. People were skirting us like we might be contagious. I thought for a bit that the store manager might put up crime-scene tape. It was ugly.
It turns out that the paint color we chose (which is a very, very, very pale yellow — although she would insist that it is white) is horribly, appallingly, shockingly boring.
Why even DO the remodel?
What are colors even FOR?
We might as well just keep our eyes closed!!
Direct quotes, friends. Direct quotes.
Now can I just say in my defense that we have, currently, one turquoise bedroom, one red bedroom and one pale purple bathroom? And that the new kitchen floor will be green and orange? Green and orange! I mean, people, do these facts count for nothing???
So, here we are in the paint aisle of the Home Depot and she is sobbing and thrusting paint chips toward me. Paint chips of midnight blue, neon green, fuschia, rose. I tell her that I love how much she cares about our house, and that I admire her bold sense of color. I explain that these new walls will be serving as the backdrop to all the color we’ll add to the space. I ask her if she will just have faith in me.
She’s having none of it.
She does not have faith.
She believes we’ve made a horrific mistake.
Which is how it is sometimes when you’re seven and somebody else is pretty much in charge of everything. Not just what’s for breakfast, but what color is in the air as you eat your breakfast.
That kind of breaks my heart, but honestly — I don’t want my walls to be midnight blue. I really don’t.
So instead I sit here thinking of all the myriad ways I try to make space for her and for her voice. I think of the stacks of paper and bins of pencils and pens on her desk. I think of the things she does choose for herself — from what to wear to what to play. I think of the way we move around our dinner table, round-robin style, for each person’s take on their day.
Still, it’s got to be hard to be 7 and have parents who are so old & obtuse that they’d choose boring paint for the walls. It’s got to be hard.
And I’m thinking that my job, as a mom and as a writer, is to remember that.
Last night, I was invited to an amazing gathering of women, to celebrate, reflect upon and act out the many faces of mothering.
The event, called Mothering: The Act Of, was the brainchild of two Austin mamas with a background in interactive theater. It was an evening of altar building and embroidery* and cocktails and potlucking and spoken word and blogging.
There was a laptop station where people could sit and type. And the blog was projected on the wall so when people added posts, they’d pop up as part of this dynamic, intimate, but virtual conversation. Sometimes I just love technology.
So now I want to invite you to jump on over and read some of the bits from last night but also add your own thoughts in the comments section of the top post. We’ll then pull the text out and give your stories posts of their own so the conversation can keep on growing…
* But before you go, I just have to tell you about the embroidery element of the evening. Picture a circle of chairs… a wide swath of soft organic cotton… numerous emroidery hoops. Picture each woman in each chair tracing her hand onto the fabric and then stitching the lines with her colored floss. Now, today, imagine all those hands being cut down into small, sweet circles and stitched onto soft flannel backing and given to mothers in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital. The mothers, then, can put the fabric against their skin until it holds the particular scent that will speak to their babies at the most sensual level. And that’s what happens next. The soft sweet circles are put in with the tiny babies as their lungs mature and their skin and bones and eyes strengthen and they grow. Don’t you just love that?
Today, their Friend Friday post features our Crown Sonnet project!
You can find a re-telling of our story right up top, and then stay to explore the back posts. Back and Forth is a really exciting concept, borne of a children’s book project but exploded open into discussions of creativity and connecting with one another via art.
Thanks, gals, for including us!
Second, I just have to try to describe to you what it was like seeing my 3rd grader and her buddies performing scenes from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night yesterday. Let’s start with the presumption that there’s no way I can do it justice. I’m serious, folks.
Here’s the deal.
At our school, the 3rd and 4th graders are lucky enough to study Shakespeare through performance, thanks to an amazing outreach program. (They’ve recently been working on Comedy of Errors and even I have some of Egeon’s lines memorized.)
The man who runs the program happens to be a dad at our school, so this year he developed an afterschool master class for those kids who just couldn’t get enough of fair William. Count my tall one among those.
At first it was hard. Really hard. “I love acting, but not memorizing,” my girl said. The language was, well, rather foreign.
But then, in spite of themselves, they started absorbing it. The whole lot of ’em. And the results were stunning.
As we gathered in the library yesterday afternoon, the kids donned their wigs and vests and velvet caps. And then, began.
They knew all of their lines. All. Of. Them.
And the ones that were supposed to be funny? They were hilarious!
The ones that were meant to be sarcastic? They were biting!
The ones that were written to be beautiful? They were staggering!
I didn’t look to see but I’m pretty certain I’m not the only one who cried.
There was something so moving about our 9- & 10- & 11-year-olds holding this poetry in their mouths and in their bodies. Actually, more than just hold. They held and truly felt. They embodied.
Today, I’m awash in gratitude for the UT Shakespeare at Winedale program, and their teacher — the beloved Mr. S. And for our school librarian and, oh heck, William Shakespeare for starting the whole darn thing…
So here, for your reading pleasure, is one of my daughter’s bits as Viola from Twelfth Night. Read it aloud, just for kicks:
Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty,–I pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her: I would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it. Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to the least sinister usage.
I’ve been thinking lately about the mysterious marriage of craft and intuition. Both for myself and for my students.
I think writing without intuition lacks heart, but writing without craft lacks an open door for the reader — no matter how magically intuitive the idea is. You need both, the way a firefighter needs a hose and a heat-proof suit. The problem is, the one that can be taught and practiced doesn’t seem to compel the budding writer as much as the other.
Most folks would love to be visited by the muse — dressed in diaphanous gowns — and left with a story that just unwound itself on the page. Who wouldn’t?
I have to say that the books I’ve sold have all been born of very gut-level, semiconscious tugs that took hold of me like freight trains in a melodrama.
But.
It was the next many weeks — spent taking words out, putting them back, cutting here, tightening there, reading aloud, reading aloud, reading aloud — that really took those tugs and turned them into books.
And I wore leggings and old t-shirts. Not diaphanous gowns.
Still, I have a hunch that it’s the exhilarating taste of those tugs — like some sort of sublime confection — that keeps us nose to the grindstone, craft-wise. It’s not really that commas are that much fun (although somedays I cannot stop with the tweaking) but that we think we may be on the verge of true passion, any day, at any moment. That can sustain a person for a good long while.
I know, because I’ve been in deadline and revision mode lately and it’s been kind of like cleaning the bathtub. Hard, repetitive work. The occasional glint of futility. Unappreciated.
But I kind of liked it anyway. Because maybe I’m on the verge. Right?
Meanwhile, I have students — some of whom say they’ve been waiting forever. (It really feels that way sometimes…) Or that they’ve been visited for years, but as soon as they were asked to write for a class, on deadline, it all dried up. Or that their ideas can’t find their way to paper.
Tomorrow night is our last class and I want them to leave feeling inspired. With the energy to carry on.
I want just a little bit of sweet confection to offer them….
