My first grader is finishing up a poetry unit at school — reading and writing — and she’s shared a bit with me. I’ve decided I have no choice but to display her fabulousness here. I know I’m biased, but really….
Stage Fright
My stomach is like a pancake when I step on stage It just flips and flips and flips and then I am afraid
I think it’s getting me right between the eyes today especially, because tonight is Coffeehouse up at our little school. Coffeehouse is a full-blown, all-hands-on-deck talent show. Last year there was everything from comedy to hula hooping to haiku, and tonight’ll be more of the same, I assure you. My small one is playing the piano and she seems really excited. In fact the other day she told me she wished she were playing two songs instead of one.
I held my tongue for awhile. I mean, for me, an eternity.
I’m a talk-before-I-thinker, usually. Holding my tongue is not my default setting. I tend to have, um, thoughts on things. And swallowing them may make me spiritually stronger in the end but in the meantime, I get kind of itchy. And owly. And mad.
So. Speaking up now. A few words about Allyn Johnston.
Allyn is an amazingly insightful, intimate and visionary editor who literally loves books into existance, all the while making the authors and artists she works with feel… well… rather golden.
I can attest to this since that’s what she’s been doing for some of my books and me.
And that’s what she did for 22 years at Harcourt Children’s Books… until last week when she became a casuality of corporate acquisitions and bottom-line decision making (that don’t necessarily take into account things like love. Or books.)
I had a bunch of thoughts on that, but I’m kind of glad I waited because I’d rather write now that Simon and Schuster has announced that Allyn will be heading up her own imprint for them, starting next week.
So, today, instead of any sort of rant or tongue-holding, I can just say a deep and resonant hallelujah because this world of books is a braver, brighter place with her set firmly in it.
I’m serious. You should see my calendar, and it’s not even complete yet.
It’s like a game of Jenga. I’m never very good at assessing when I’ve piled on one block too many.
The upside is that if I hit the deck, it’ll be in a school library — surrounded by books and kindly book lovers.
Until then, I’ll carry on and fulfill my obligations. (BTW, how DO teachers do it? Y’know, the all-day everyday thing? And why aren’t they richer than Midas for their efforts???)
Really, though, there were a lot of great moments today:
At one point, when I’m plowing through the pockets in my writer’s vest, I take out a pair of wooden castinets. I ask the kids if anyone knows what they are. “They look like they’re made in China,” says a wry little voice from the back of the room.
When I ask if anyone knows the difference between an author and illustrator, a little girl says, “The illustrator does the middle of the book. The author does both ends.”
About half-way through a session, a particularly chatty little friend near the front stops me and says, “See, this is the part I don’t get. Why did you write this page this way? It’s like you repeat the same line twice.” I went on a little spin about how it’s sort of like a refrain in a song, but really? I thought he was brilliant. A totally engaged reader, looking critically at what he’s being asked to absorb. I’ve had students about 20 years his senior who’ve not shared that sort of insight…
Another little guy asked me to sign his book “to the greatest football player ever.” I don’t feel necessarily qualified to judge, but what the hey. Dream a little.
Speaking of which, two first graders told me today that they were going to be writers when they grew up. Because they love books.
On Saturday night we went to a big ol’ hootenanny hoe-down in the hill country outside of Austin.
There were a coupla hundred folk there — kids and grown-ups — more than a few dogs and a potluck that stretched about the length of a football field. We all set up tents in the scrub around the rambling wooden dance hall that served as the centerpoint of the night, and then set up chairs around our tents for some serious sittin’ and shootin’ the breeze.
The kids wandered endlessly — playing hide-n-go-seek and collecting cool rocks and old bottles. One of ours stopped by to ask, incredulously, if they had any boundaries at all.
At sundown, we all piled into the hall for two-stepping lessons (shuffle, shuffle, walk, walk) and from there we rolled right into a long night of rockabilly honky-tonking by Two Tons of Steel. The kinda thing that can bruise the bottoms of your feet after awhile.
(A few years back, my husband and I took about six weeks of dance lessons — western swing — because, well, we live here and we thought we oughta. But we could take six years of dance lessons and not move like some of these people born to it. I’d be really jealous if they weren’t so fun to watch.)
So the greatest thing about this party is that it’s basically hippie viral marketing. The party started 8 years ago and each year there are a whole heap o’ hosts who each invite ten couples and chip in some money and help string some lights. A little of that and a little of this and voila, you’ve got yourself a bash to behold. There’s a rowdie late night camping area and a family camping area and less than 6 degrees of separation all over the place. Nobody’s a stranger even though most folk have never met.
It gets you to thinking about new forms of international diplomacy, I’ll tell you what…
One thing I’ve come to know is how often I’m the designer and builder of my own walls and windows. We all are. And it is in leaping, in going for it, in saying yes, that we open up all the possibilities of our lives.
Here’s a poem (by Kaylin Haught) that gives us permission to do just that. Seems right for this new season that is spring…
God Says Yes To Me
Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic and she said yes I asked her if it was okay to be short and she said it sure is I asked her if I could wear nail polish or not wear nail polish and she said honey she calls me that sometimes….
We prevent it everyday, are diagnosed with it everyday, recover from it everyday, rage against it everyday.
Yesterday, at 40, I had my first mammogram.
We’ve had plenty of cancer in our family, but no breast cancer. So, my risk was minimal and the mammogram was just the standard recommended screening.
It’s true what they say — it’s not a wildly comfortable procedure. But it’s quick, and if it can catch early illness in me or my sister, my mother or my girlfriends or, someday, my daughters, hallelujah.
One of the most disheartening things in Michael Moore’s movie Sicko was the dearth of preventative care in this country, and the corresponding gaps in mortality rates. People — mammograms are one of the ways we can close the gap. Mammograms and self exams, supplements and exercise.
Sometimes, it’s that easy.
Take care of yourself, friends. Not just in October…
Did y’all read the recent article by Ursula K. Le Guin in Harpers? She has a thing or two to say about the world of publishing.
Whoa, boy.
Here’s one of the many close-to-the-bone observations she makes about the state of the industry:
“…the relationship of art to capitalism is, to put it mildly, vexed. It has not been a happy marriage. Amused contempt is about the pleasantest emotion either partner feels for the other. Their definitions of what profiteth a man are too different.”
You know what really kills me about this? It reminds of something I believed at 22. And 28. And then I spent years convincing myself otherwise. Partly because I wanted to pursue my own passion and, at the same time, have health insurance with a decent deductible. I wanted to believe that I could; that the world valued what I valued enough to make it work.
I mean, is that so crazy?
But I’ve come back around to Ms. Le Guin’s way of thinking. I still want the passion and the perks (pedestrian though they may be), but not at any cost.
We all deserve our just rewards, but if the mediation between the separate beds of art and commerce is going to result in homogeneous schlock printed on thin paper with bad ink and sold out of one great big book stall in the sky, no thanks. Not only do you and I not want to write that stuff, but people don’t want to read it.
Maybe it’s why the folks cited in Le Guin’s article are falling asleep instead of turning the pages with wild abandon. Which is, forgive my bossiness, how we oughta write…
Because I’ve leapt into my previously-avoided revisions (and have thus ceased having original thoughts), and because my refrigerator is now in my dining room (or what would be my dining room if we actually still had walls and rooms at our house), and because my girls have been on spring break this week (which means I’ve had to devote a good portion of my days to, um, frivolous fun), coming up with something thoughtful for Poetry Friday was going to be a stretch.
But lucky for me, Jama “Like a Rolling Stone” Rattigan offered up a writing prompt for today’s Poetry roundup! She wants some Bob Dylan lyrics, because afterall, Dylan considers himself a poet first and a musician second.
Bob Dylan lyrics. Poetry for everyman. That I can do.
I went through the requisite Bob Dylan obsession in college like the rest of ya’ll (in between takes of The Police and Fleetwood Mac and Journey and REM and The Grateful Dead. What a weird decade the 80s was.) I was particularly fascinated by his Joan Baez years. (I read that section of her memoir twice.) The idea of that much creative energy in one relationship is really compelling, even though they didn’t live happily ever after together forever (or even for very long).
I’m pretty sure I don’t have a favorite Dylan song; there are too many. But Boots of Spanish Leather is right up there. Here’s a little sampling:
Oh, I’m sailin’ away my own true love, I’m sailin’ away in the morning. Is there something I can send you from across the sea, From the place that I’ll be landing?
No, there’s nothin’ you can send me, my own true love, There’s nothin’ I wish to be ownin’. Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled, From across that lonesome ocean.
Predictably, things do not go well from here. The speaker keeps offering up gifts, even as she (or he) wanders ever deeper into the great beyond. The lover always answers, No, nothing, thank you. Just you, please. Only he (or she) says it more poetically, of course. Like this:
Oh, how can, how can you ask me again, It only brings me sorrow. The same thing I want from you today, I would want again tomorrow.
And then, in the end, when realizing that the wanderer is not coming home soon — or at all — he asks for a pair of boots.
Spanish boots. Of Spanish leather.
There is something so just and, at the same time, so heartbreaking about those boots.
And if you go here, you can watch a slideshow of Dylan snaps set to the song. (Joan Baez makes the cut.) So, I’m happy. Nostalgic. Satisfied. And itching for a long trip across the deepest ocean. How about you?
So I’m supposed to be revising a picture book text.
It is short — the shortest piece I’ve ever written and turned in — so what’s the big deal, right?
I’ve had the first batch of editorial notes for nearly three weeks and plenty of opportunities to tweak.
But noooo.
It has apparently been more crucial that I wipe down the outside of my washer and drier (?!?!!) — during a remodel no less. And switch out the containers for the cat and dog food. And make spring rolls from scratch.
I mean, the spring rolls were yummy but give me a break. What should I do tomorrow — make puppets out of all the bachelorette socks in my drawer???
Sometimes it occurs to me — when I realize that I’m the boss who’s got to keep myself accountable — that I’m not cut out for managerial positions.
Somebody tell me to sit down, shut up and kick it into gear!!!
(Well, maybe not shut up since I have to read aloud. But you know what I mean…)
