OK, OK. I get it.

Summer’s over.

September is drawing nigh.

I get it, but it ain’t easy. 
I love the pace and the sunshine and the mandated fun that is summer. 
It’s hard to hang up the swimsuits and move on. 

That said, I also love a fresh start. A clean sheet. A blank page.
And — January 1st notwithstanding — there is no fresh start like a new school year. 

I worship the academic calendar for its intuitive sense of when we need a breather and when we’re ready to kick it in.
(Well, maybe not ready-ready but, um, willing to get ready. Like, um, now.)

Here goes. 
I’m jumping in. 

Back to blogging on a nearly daily basis. If you haven’t all given up on me by now. I had no earrthly idea that I wanted or needed a break from blogging until this summer when I just pretty well stopped. And it turned out to be a relief. Go figure. That said, I have three big ol’ purple post-its here with all the things I’m eager to post about so consider yourselves warned.

Back to teaching new students who come armed with new words and new questions that make me think. Nothing keeps me on my toes more than teaching. Well, okay, parenting, I guess. But for the same reason. I often have a plan — a good plan, I think to myself — and yet there is always the unanticipated loop that gets thrown when humanity and creativity are involved. I love that loop. When it doesn’t drive me to the brink.

Back to packing lunches, signing papers and biking the girls up to school in the mornings. As of yesterday we have a 2nd and a 4th grader at our house. Which is staggering to me, but they don’t seem the least bit flustered. They could not stop stepping on each other’s toes afterschool, so eager were they to tell me about their new teachers and tablemates and the surprising thing that happened to so-and-so over the summer. I might have to implement a buzzer system if this giddy greek chorus keeps up.

Back to my desk. September is like Christmas for me. I get to unwrap the ideas I’ve been gifted by the muse these last few months and I get to try ’em out. I get to see if they spin, fly, hold water and laugh & cry like a real baby.

Happy New Year!

When I was a kid, we didn’t have TV until I was about 9.

We lived way up in the mountains and there weren’t yet the radio waves or satellite signals necessary to reach us. (Which was, of course, a blessing in that my sister and I had to entertain ourselves with hokey throwbacks like books, board games and playing outside.)

But then, all in one fell swoop, television arrived.
And so did the Olympics.

This was back in the day when the Olympics were every four years — both summer and winter — rather than the alternating two year schedule we’re on now. Meaning: it was a very, very big deal.

At our house, we not only got a TV — we got TV tables.
We ate our casserole dinner and drank our milk and watched Dorothy Hamill take the gold.
We thought we’d died and gone to heaven.

Then, a couple of weeks later, the Olympics wrapped up and suddenly (shocker!) there was nothing on TV.

We’d been duped.

We thought TV was dramatic. Thrilling. Heart-wrenching. True.
But it wasn’t. 
It was just a big, black box with too many commericals and a lot of flat-looking shows we weren’t allowed to watch.
We felt the agony of defeat, to be sure.

That was a little over 32 years ago and I still feel pretty much the same way:
TV is a lousy con game, but I love the Olympics.

Really, they’re more like a good book, a good board game or playing outside.
They’re compelling, competitive, exciting, unpredictable. 
They’re real, true human drama, which is what the reality TV folks have been trying to fake for the past 5 years.
They’re inspiring, which I’m a sucker for.

So, I’ve got my eye on the prize. 
This weekend.
Beijing.
A place that’s really too polluted and too controversial to be hosting.
But the Olympics are the great equalizer.
They can be held in Sarajevo or Salt Lake.
Jamaicans can ride the bob sleds and 41-year-old moms like me (well, okay, not exactly like me) can go for broke.

This weekend there’s finally something on TV…

In my day-to-day life, I’m surrounded by an amazing abundance of good people — people I’ve chosen and people who’ve chosen me. 
Honorary aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers.
Honorary children I get to mother with my own.

I am lucky to have this family, because I live a long, long way from the family I was born to.
Most of them live half way across the country and some live half way across the world.

This summer I am with lots of that distant family, the family I grew up with.
We’ve come together to do the things our moms & dads and grandmothers & grandfathers did when they were our age. 
We’ve come together to teach our kiddos to swim and eat sweet corn and talk.
We’ve come together to see stars and hear crickets.
We’ve come together to choose each other.

I am lucky to have this family. 
Miles don’t seem to matter as much you’d think they would, so long as we can come together every now and again.

It helps to have a rambly old wooden cottage with a long sleeping porch and a deep lake.
It helps to have favorite foods and funny sayings and old family card games.
It helps to have a little vacation time and some frequent flier miles.

That’s what’s summer’s for, if you ask me.

But come September?
Blogs and books.
Puttin’  the time/space continuum to shame.

I’ve missed ya’ll, and I just spent the last hour or so catching up on blog reading.
Another fine, fine way to come together… 

I am lucky.

Hello, Friends.

I wasn’t exactly planning to take a blog vacation.

It just sorta happened.

I’ve been on the road.

My wireless went out.

And when I got it up and running I needed to devote my computer time to communicating with my students.

And when I wasn’t doing that I wanted to swim.
And water ski.
And play with my kids.
And play with my husband.
And play with my sister.
And play with my cousins.
And go to the farmer’s market.
And fish.
And sail.
And kayak.
And read.
And even, occasionally, nap.

Blogging went by the by.

But it seems I worried a few folk since I didn’t announce my departure.

So today I’m checking in to say that I’m alive and well and tucked into a rambley old cottage on a tree-ringed lake in Wisconsin. The hummingbirds empty the feeder every other day, the sky is blue and there are no motor boats allowed on Sundays. 

Really, you don’t need to worry about me…

Today we went to the water park because dang nabbit, we’d had it.

With city inspections and work emails and tweaked backs and packing for vacation and Morning Edition and the whole lot of it.

Chuck it, we said.

And the next thing you know we’re wearing wrist bands and deciding which water slides are the scariest and how quickly can we get there.

Actually, at first, it appeared we were going to be a little risk averse. 

We won’t do the very, very craziest rides, okay, Mama? said Tall One.

And I’d like a life jacket, said Small One.

Say wha?!?!

This is the child who has no pain threshold, no sense of mortality and a keen eye for the extreme. 
A life jacket???

But okay.

So we started tenderly. On a lazy-river-kind-of-thing that was, well, boring.

So which water slides are the scariest? And how quickly can we get there?

That’s how we spent the rest of the day. 

And when we stopped for lunch (which was at 3 o’clock because we could not bring ourselves to stop until we were faint of heart and spirit) we pulled out a map, circled all the things we’d already done and plotted out what we’d hit before nightfall. 

On the way home we talked about our favorites and “it turns out,” said Small, ” that the ones that make you kind of nervous are the best.”

And that’s the thing about life and waterslides, isn’t it?

I mean, parenthood, for one. 

Or writing.

Or showing somebody your writing.

Might as well go headfirst down a speed chute.

Whoopin’ and hollerin’ the whole way….

Hello, Houston.
We have a kitchen.

And when I say a kitchen, I mean:

Indoors.

Running Water.

Refrigeration.

Gas burners worthy of a rocket launch.

And… it’s cute, to boot.

Personally, when it comes to creative endeavours I prefer the 2 dimensional kind — words on paper, that sorta thing. But it does feel good to know that we’ve pumped a little new life into an old bungalow and we’re still upright, speaking to one another and — ta da — eating home cooked meals again! Wahooo!!!!!

We are just home from the 
Best.
Fireworks.
Ever.

I kid you not.

We were out in our canoe on Ladybird Lake. 

I had to ride like Cleopatra in the middle of the boat due to my tweaky back.

Hubby and girls paddled and we found ourselves amidst the most spectacular floatilla of canoes, kayaks, inflatable rafts and other seaworthy craft.

Everyone, it seemed, had a glow bracelet or two, a cooler of watermelon and a zest for all things pyrotechnic.

The symphony played. 
The cannons blasted. 
The wind blew. 

It was chilly. 
In Texas. 
In July.

And then, just as the show began (so close we could smell the sulfur), a train moved over the water behind us.
And stopped.
To watch. 

They just shut that baby down and we all sat under the spell of sparks and swishes and booms.

The grand finale went on forever.

And as we turned our boat to paddle home, the engineer blew a long, happy whistle.

Good night….

Goodnight
By Carl Sandburg

Many ways to say good night.

(Read the rest here…)

I never really knew what people meant when they said, “I threw out my back.”

Now I do.

I was moving a small bench and something went zoing and now I can’t put my own shoes on.

Yesterday we were supposed to go to a waterpark with another family for some serious fun.
I hate rollercoasters, but I loooove waterslides.
So I gimped into the car, determined to carry on.

Even though I winced when I shut the door.
Even though one of our friends’ daughters had possible pinkeye.
Even though all signs pointed toward postponement.

Fortunately for those of us with rocks in our head, determined to ignore signs, a huge thunderclap sounded as we exited for the park and a deluge began. It was not to be…

We went back to our friends’ house and I was tucked into the guest room where I fell sound asleep while the kids wrote an original musical about a gypsy and a wily fox.

The waterpark can wait.
It’s me that’s a little impatient…

Marla Frazee (sometimes referred to — in moments of euphoric elation — as my own personal illustrator, not to mention a kindred spirit in the hair department) is interviewed today on Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup.

She shares some terrific art, and lots of great photos, and even gives a nod to our upcoming collaboration.

Run — don’t walk — to check it out….

As a writer and a mama, one of the things I do to stay sane is lower my expectations, writing-wise, during summer vacation. 
And when I say lower, think basement. 
Like, um, a coupla grocery lists, a few emails with my editor and lots of trips to the library.

Because honestly, I’m already teaching a class that requires a whole lot of critiquing, and the girls are only out of school for a couple of months, and there are popsicles to be eaten. The last thing I need is a constantly-running brain hum:

You are not worth your weight in pencil lead… everyone else in the known universe has written reams this week, except you… time is running out — all books need to be finished in the next 24 hours… your brain will be mush by September… you’d better review some basic vocabulary words… you’d better review the alphabet.

Nope.
Not gonna go there.
Instead, I just aim low and enjoy any surprises that come my way.

Last summer it was my trip to L.A. for the SCBWI conference that shot my expectations out of the water.
And then a fevered, late-summer writing binge that resulted in my next picture book.

Now, already, I’ve crushed this season’s delusions of nothingness.

Here’s how:

I spent most of the past 72 hours with a most extrordinary group of children’s writers.

Months ago, nearly 30 of us exchanged manuscripts and started reading.
Friday morning, we gathered at the gracious home of Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith & we barely budged for 3 days.

(Well, okay. Unless you count the grand party thrown at the fabulous, view-happy home of workshoppee Helen Hemphill on Saturday night. We did not suffer…)

Each and every piece was critiqued with meticulous attention, ideas and admiration (and I’m telling you guys, these are some fine, fine budding books.)

Everyone was so interested and interesting, generous, thoughtful, careful, honest.
And everyone was funny, to boot.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only writer who was a little weepy when things broke up on Sunday and we returned to our real lives. I mean, of course. Right?  

But here’s the beautiful part.

This is my real life. 
This is my real community. 
These are real people who are real good with real words and generous hearts and I’ve got them in my real life. 

Which is why, instead of coming crashing back down today amidst errands and chores, I’m still floatin’.

(Thanks, Greg, Cyn, Donna, Carmen, Tim, Julie, Helen and all the rest of you amazing voices for a heckuva weekend…)