Remembering Madeleine L'Engle (Nov 29, 1918-Sept 6, 2007)

It's not often that I can remember what I was doing exactly five years ago, but this evening I can. It was five years ago today that Madeleine L'Engle passed away, moving from this earth to glory.

She meant so much to me as a person and a writer than her loss felt huge. I spent most of this evening, five years ago, crying and re-reading favorite portions of her books ~ which still take up a proportionately large section of my shelves.

I find it interesting that this day slipped up on me almost unawares, and yet I have had Madeleine on my mind and heart almost all week, as I'm working on the outline of a book that would potentially explore her work and the work of several other authors. 

Instead of trying to say anything moving and profound tonight (when I am, quite honestly, very stressed and tired) I thought I would post a few things from my archives. I have shared about Madeleine a good bit over the years.

Here's a post I wrote in honor of A Wrinkle in Time's 50th anniversary several months ago. It's in the form of a letter to Madeleine.

And this was the initial reflection I posted the day after she died, which I entitled, "For Madeleine, May All Her Seasons Be Blessed."  As I wrote there:

Her writing has shaped me and helped me in so many ways. She helped me think about life in terms of seasons; she helped me learn to order my time and count it as precious. She taught me the importance of names and naming, and what a precious gift it is to be given the gift of someone's name. She taught me to hope and believe that marriage, even or especially in its difficult times, could still grow and flourish. She reminded me to be honest in my prayers. Time and again, she returned my focus to God's amazing love for his beloved creation, and especially turned my eyes again and again to the incarnation and the wonderful gift of Jesus.

So thankful for her life. I still miss her.

Look What We Grew! (100 Species Challenge #s 14 & 15: Zinnias and Cosmos)

Zinnias (plantae asteraceae) so vibrant, have long been one of my favorite "easy-to-grow" garden flowers. This year I accidentally picked up a package of larger variety seeds. The results have been stunning, with this huge beauty the most gorgeous so far.

We also planted cosmos this year (they also belong to the asteraceae family) and they are so lovely, especially their feathery green leaves.

Start of a New School Year

I enjoy live-blogging. I sometimes follow live blogs for sporting events, especially since we don't really have t.v. (beyond what might or might not come in on regular reception minus cable). I like being able to follow along inning by inning in a big baseball game, reading the highlights of what happened.

Most of the time I don't think of my life as something that would be worth live-blogging (can you imagine the boredom of the description? Did the dishes. Folded laundry. Read chapter. Cleaned up spill. Checked email...) but the first day of school is always a day which makes me wish I could do a live-blog feed. Not so much to chronicle all the little things we do, step by step (though that would, at least, make for slightly more interesting reading than the above) but to remind myself of all the little things that bring joy and encouragement in our homeschool life. Not to mention to provide notes to myself about what we can always "tweak" to make something in our learning life work better.

The beginning of the year always feels shiny and new, but this year, thankfully, it's felt more that way than usual, and I'm extra thankful. The summer whipped by and was filled with so much work that it almost felt (almost) as though we'd not gotten a break at all. In fact, physically and emotionally, I'm still pretty tired as I move into this new fall...and I'll admit that had me a bit worried last week as I lesson planned and thought through all the "shape of our days" sorts of things I need to think through when we move back into this season. 

But the sweet girl was rarin' to go yesterday morning, and that makes such a difference. When you have a student who loves learning and is excited about getting the adventure going, it means the world to a teacher!

I was truly amazed at the kinds of leaps she has made learning-wise. It's not just that she's reading and writing and thinking with more confidence. She's taking ownership of her learning in new ways, and that's exciting to see.

Not that we haven't hit a wall already. At least this year it took us until day two to realize, once again, that this adventure we're on is all about learning as real human beings with lots of flaws. Not that we really forget, but sometimes in the shiny newness, we discover temporary amnesia! We are trying Latin (again) after our rather dismal Latin failure two years ago. A shiny new curriculum I am excited about, but the sweet girl still has the taste of the old one in her mouth, and balked about seventeen minutes in. Sigh. But this too shall provide good food for learning, both for student and teacher. Or so I declare.

So what are we studying this year? Besides our usual morning prayer and scripture meditation, we kick off each day (Monday-Thursday) with language arts. That includes spelling, grammar, and writing.  After that we take a little break before diving into math. Right now, while we're still in shiny new school year mode (getting up early!) and the weather is nice, we're getting in a nature/exercise walk after math, sometimes followed by journaling or reading time. Then after lunch we do either history (M-W) or science (T-Th) with supplemental subjects on different days (geography, Latin, health). Fridays are devoted to art and music (with math again afterwards) and with homeschool group later in the day.

Day two done...and tired as I am, so utterly thankful we're rolling again, and especially thankful we've managed to step, with courage, into another year on this journey.

Happy 100th Birthday, Gene Kelly!

It's the centennial birthday of Eugene Curran Kelly, known affectionately as Gene. The landmark dancer, choreographer, singer, actor, director, and producer was a Pittsburgh native. His alma mater, University of Pittsburgh, marked the occasion by giving umbrellas to their 3,000+ incoming freshmen and having them dance on the lawn.

It was a sunny day here today, no rain in sight, but that didn't stop our family from singing and dancing in the rain in our hearts...and watching the celebrated movie on video.

Gene Kelly is one of my favorite screen actors of all time. I've written numerous reviews of his movies from the 1940s and 50s, but I saved Singin' in the Rain for today: the classic 1952 film he co-directed, choreographed and starred in. Here's my take on the best movie musical of all time.

And here's a high-definition video clip of the joyous and always memorable title sequence.

Happy Birthday, Gene!

A Bad Night and a Very Good Day (or Learning to Dance in the Rain)

Late Saturday night...so late that it was actually the wee small hours of Sunday (around 1:00 a.m.)...I was experiencing what I call a bad night. These happen to me occasionally. I'm tired but too wound up to sleep and can't seem to turn off my thoughts. My thoughts lead me in anxious directions, and before you know it, I'm on the border of a full-blown anxiety attack.

This doesn't happen to me often, for which I'm very thankful, but when it does, it almost always seems to happen in those dark, wee smalls when no one else in the house is awake. It's often our family's difficult financial situation that triggers the anxiety, though strangely enough there's not usually an obvious "trigger" that trips me into the anxious zone. I have been through a lot of the biggies in recent months -- things I once thought I'd never survive well, like negotiating our debt and losing my health insurance. They were big things with ongoing challenging repercussions, and yet I seemed to weather them with at least little bits of grace.

No, weirdly, it's the little things that often trip me up. A few years ago, when we first began to realize we were in the crunch for the long haul, we started tightening our belts in all sorts of ways. I remember thinking through everything we could possibly give up that would help, and one of the conclusions I reached is that I should not buy body wash anymore. Now that probably seems silly, but body wash (the scented, silky kind you use in the shower) used to be something I really enjoyed using. But it had gotten expensive, often costing several dollars a bottle, and I knew we couldn't spend that kind of money for something so non-essential, so I stopped buying it and never looked back. I remember having a mild fit of panic, not so much over the loss, but over the realization that there were only so many "small things" left like that we could cut out -- and it still wasn't going to make a huge difference.

This time around, it was another silly little thing. On Friday night we had run some errands in a nearby town, buying some groceries and back to school supplies. Cash flow was tight and I found myself trying hard to make wise decisions about what to buy without processing anything out loud (which doesn't make for a fun family outing...and the sweet girl was already having a bit of an intense evening...W-Mart brings it out in her). We had agreed to stop by a local theater to find out if they were playing the theatrical re-issue of Singin' in the Rain this coming Wednesday. It's to celebrate the film's 60th anniversary and comes on the eve of Gene Kelly's 100th birthday. Singin' in the Rain is my favorite film of all time; I have always longed to see it on the big screen. D. and S. both love it too. I knew we had next to nothing to cover tickets, but I had also heard there might be a matinee, so I was hopeful. (We saw the classic Wizard of Oz on the big screen last year for $1 each!)

So I asked the woman at the ticket counter if they were bringing the movie. She told me yes and confirmed they had a matinee, which made my heart beat faster. Then she informed me that because it was a special event, there were no special matinee prices. And then added somewhat apologetically, perhaps seeing the look on my face, that the price was also higher than their normal ticket because it was a special showing. She then proceeded to quote a price that I knew we couldn't pay. We just didn't have it.

Walking out of that theater without tickets I actually had tears in my eyes. In the grand scheme of things, it was not, is not, a huge deal. It's a movie, for goodness' sake. We have given up lots of nights out over the years for the sake of living simpler lives and being able to have the freedom to keep doing things we love -- like have me working from home so I can homeschool the sweet girl, and having D. work multiple part-time jobs so we can all continue to minister to kids in our little town. And in the midst of all the stuff we've given up have also been all the times we've been utterly surprised and blessed by gifts that we didn't absolutely need but were so blessed by -- a case in point being two recent nights in a hotel near Lake Erie.

So this was not me crying poor us (well, okay, maybe it was a little at first). It's just that -- well, this is Singin' in the Rain. (I know I sound crazy, but stick with me.) I have loved it as long as I can remember because it has that wonderful way of affirming the joyousness of life in the midst of everything. The scene of dear Gene dancin' and singin' in the rain has, in a strange but delightful way, become an icon for me, especially during some of our leanest and most challenging years. Somehow I thought it seemed a little bit like serendipity that we'd have a chance to see it in the theater during the week we were celebrating the 15th anniversary of our move here. And instead, it ended up being just one more thing to let go of.

So there I was, in the wee small hours, feeling anxious because I couldn't buy movie tickets (it felt like the body wash all over again) and then feeling stupid and guilty to be sad about something so trivial in a world filled with so much real deprivation and pain. From there, I moved into full-blown anxiety over the fact that movie tickets are the least of our worries in the coming month -- we've got bills I don't know how we're going to pay. Once the enemy got hold of that stick, I was really getting beaten up. I ended up having to get up for a while, going to the bathroom to have a good cry (and reading time and prayer time). A very bad night before I surrendered it all to the Lord and headed back to bed for a few hours of sleep.

And then...oh joy...yesterday was a good day, and today was even better. Outwardly nothing has changed. My appliances are struggling (and at least one threatening to quit); we're having car problems; D broke another tooth; we still have bills we can't pay including one in a few weeks we truly can't default on. But you know what? Surrendering everything to the Lord, from tears over small hurts and losses to big anxiety over very real lack of resources, makes a difference. Because when things look ridiculously hard and lean, asking God to help you choose to dance in the rain is a good way to go.

So today instead of struggling, I let go again. I chose to remember the wondrous deeds of the Lord. Instead of stressing over lack of work, I ghostwrote a web article even though it didn't pay much. I enjoyed lesson planning for fall and a beautiful walk in the sunshine with my daughter. I overjoyed to her joy and enthusiasm over writing a letter to the new child we are sponsoring through Compassion, a girl in Haiti just her age (thank you, Compassion, for helping us make this connection)! I loved the beautiful picture she drew and painted to enclose in the letter. I slowed down and took the time to cook with the sweet girl -- we roasted fresh beets picked from our own little community garden plot and made homemade scalloped potatoes. And after dinner, all three of us sat on a blanket on the floor and celebrated our 15 years in this town with a miniature tea party complete with peppermint tea, tiny bread and butter slices, and tootsie rolls that rained down yesterday from a birthday pinata of a friend. Drinking tea made us feel veddy, veddy British (and veddy, veddy silly) so we popped in a travel video we'd gotten from the library and spent half an hour oohing and ahhing over the south of England. ("I have to live there," my ten year old said passionately, precisely echoing the way I've often felt. It must be genetic.)

So very thankful for this very good day.

Pondering Teaching Literature in Mid-Grade Years: Part 1

Ten days from the start of the sweet girl's fifth grade year, I find myself pondering -- a lot -- a subject I would have suspected I'd spend very little time contemplating: how to effectively teach literature in the middle grades.

I love literature. It was one of my majors in college, and I've been a bookworm almost since before I can remember (I learned to read very early, and have only one vague recollection of not knowing how to read). I have read to the sweet girl pretty much every day of her life. Our house is full of books. Her dad loves to read, I love to read, she loves to read. She is also beginning to love writing stories, perhaps at least in part because I do too -- and we've spent a lot of time talking about how stories work. We are a story kind of family. I would have told you I had this literature thing down cold -- that it was something I didn't have to think about because reading and loving literature is just a natural part of the way we live.

That's all still true. I do think the most natural way to teach an appreciation and understanding of literature is, quite simply, to a) read a lot, and b) talk a lot about what you love to read. This natural way of teaching and learning is part of why I'm drawn to the Charlotte Mason method of education, which pretty much promotes that kind of learning across the curriculum. Learning is part of life. Approaching it in a natural way fuels learning passions and just plumb makes sense.

So I fully agree with the sentiments in articles like this one, which does a nice job of laying out, simply and clearly, the Charlotte Mason approach to teaching literature. And that is basically like the CM approach to teaching most things: read lots of living books (no twaddle) and then have your children narrate what they learn. Though this discussion of teaching literature adds two tweaks I appreciate: the fact that many books are simply read for enjoyment, not primarily for discussion/narration, and that narration can and should be shaped differently for older students. I think it's that last that I find myself pondering.

What I find myself musing about is the balance between teaching literature the natural way and yet providing my daughter with good tools for beginning analysis of literature -- both the mechanics and literary elements of good writing, and a way of learning to discern deeper meaning in the text. The one thing I don't want to do is turn literature into a dreaded subject by making analysis a heavy lifting exercise, the kind that turns books into chores or into "things" to be decoded. I always think of Billy Collins' poem "Introduction to Poetry" when I think about the way some of us have been taught to 'read', especially the ending:

I want them to waterski   

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope   

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose   

to find out what it really means.

(You can read the whole poem here.)  While I think it takes a lot of time and practice for a student to get to the place where they feel a need to "torture a confession" out of a piece of writing, that's the place where I don't want any student I teach to ultimately end up!

But back to my main reflection. I believe that works of art have inherent, intended, and sometimes even non-intended meaning -- and that the deeper layers of meaning are there for us to find and ponder. That's true of any good work of literature, be it written for children or adults. And while it's true that some works of literature don't require us to "go deeper" to fully enjoy them, many of the best ones do. So part of my job as a teacher of literature is to help students unpack those layers by giving them the knowledge and tools to dig and discern. I also think, as readers/learners get older, it can become an enjoyable thing to be able to see how a writer did something. That may be especially true if you enjoy writing -- because you find yourself beginning to understand the tricks of the trade and to appreciate more deeply the craft it takes to shape a piece of writing.

I've been reading a little book called Deconstructing Penguins where the authors, who travel around to libraries and schools promoting book discussions involving kids and parents, suggest that one way of teaching younger children literary elements/devices is to help them become "book detectives." They suggest teaching children (and they work with kids as young as second grade) elements such as protagonist/antagonist, setting, crisis/conflict/climax, theme, and point of view. They further suggest that an effective way to do so is to help kids understand those elements through discussion of particularly chosen stories, where they're guided to look for "clues" and "evidence" about the "message" of a given book and whether or not an author plays fair and writes honestly. They invite kids to figure out what a book is really "about," and they show, through reporting some of their groups' findings/experiences, some of the creative discussions this method of teaching has engendered.

On the one hand, I'm intrigued by this idea. What kid doesn't love a mystery or enjoy playing detective? There's a playfulness about the approach that I think probably helps it be effective (and from their reporting, I sense they manage to keep the discussions pretty open-ended, not always expecting everyone to come to consensus/agreement). On the other hand, the metaphor does lend itself to the idea of a book, like a mystery, being something that needs "solving" -- as though one could find the footprints and the cigarette ash on the ground and know these things will lead, without a doubt, to a "right" conclusion. (We know how the great Hercule Poirot feels about that idea!) As much as I've enjoyed reading the recaps of their discussions, I think the weakest chapter in the book so far has been the one that should be strongest, where they present their "book detective" approach. The writers themselves seem to realize, even if they don't say it aloud, that there's something intuitively more to discerning meaning than a mere connecting the dots. I think their approach shows better through their discussion recaps than it does through their attempts to explain how it works. 

So...not sure I'm up for the book detective idea, at least not entirely, though I appreciate their insights into the various literary elements, which they explain simply and well on an elementary/late elementary learning level. (Especially good is their discussion of protagonist/antagonist, where they deepen our perception of those terms from simple good guy/bad guy to character trying to push the action forward/character trying to hold the action back. I like the way they emphasize the movement of a story here and elsewhere.)

For the purposes of our learning life together this year, I think an easier and more natural approach will be to simply present literary elements pretty straightforwardly, as ways that help us understand both a story's meaning and art on a deeper level. Some of this, I realize, I've already taught without realizing fully I was teaching it -- just through discussions we've had about books as a family, and perhaps more so through the discussions we've had about the book I'm writing. The sweet girl has a good grasp of the concept of point of view and has even played with using different points of view in her own story-writing. She has begun to ask intrigued questions about certain words that have come up in our book conversations. The other day she wanted me to explain what I meant by "sub-plot" (I had used the word in reference to something we'd been reading in one of the Trixie Belden books). I fumbled around a bit on the spur of the moment, but she must have gotten it. The next day she walked in with her beloved Penderwicks on Gardam Street in hand and announced she had figured out that the main plot was the "Saving Daddy" plan and the subplot was the "Sisters and Sacrifice" play that Jane wrote for Skye. I found that a pretty astute assessment of plot and sub-plot in that particular story! 

I guess what I'm getting at is that many literary elements have come up naturally as we discuss stories we've read and stories we're writing, and I'd like to find a way to tap into that natural learning to make it a little more intentional and explicit. I've thought of having a literary element of the month and using it as a lens to explore whatever books we're reading together as a family (which would likely influence my choice of when we read certain books this year). 

I've been looking for some books and resources that might help me play with this idea and have found at least a couple that look potentially helpful. This post has already gotten very long, so I think I'll save those ideas for part 2.

A Different Kind of Week

I'm feeling wonderfully thankful today in the midst of a very tired week. Not at all the sort of week I was expecting...but sometimes God stops us in our tracks, gently moves aside our well-laid plans, and says, "here, have THIS kind of week instead."

I thought I would be at VBS every evening this week, but thus far I've not made it once. (And they have made it just fine without me. It's going well.) That's because over the weekend I came down with terrible congestion and a croupy cough, a couple of weeks behind the sweet girl (who is finally getting over it). My summer cold immediately seemed to take a dive into sinus infection territory. Awful pain and pressure behind my eyes and in my right ear. My whole face has been aching, especially on the right side, and it's seemed to move into all sorts of muscles so that my neck and shoulder hurt too. And I just keep coughing...

But wait! you cry. This was supposed to be a thankful post! Why yes, it is.

I'm thankful that I've actually had to slow down in the midst of a summer that's had so little time to slow down. The sweet girl and I spent Monday cutting out dozens of small pieces of craft foam for a VBS project (while I coughed and coughed and coughed...) and we've watched tons of the Olympics on our t.v. without cable that hardly *ever* gets decent reception but for some reason this time around is. Most of the time. Except when we have to stand in one spot to the left of the set when it decides to get the hiccups. And sometimes stand on one leg like storks or wiggle our bodies in a strange kind of olympic dance. But even that's been sort of fun.

It's been fun letting my ten year old girl stay up extra late a couple of nights so we can watch gymnastics. We've turned off all the lights except for the television and cuddled on the couch in our pajamas (while coughing, coughing, coughing...) and she has been enthralled by the women's gymnastics team. An unabashed Gabby Douglas fan (a picture of Gabby went up in her room today, and she spent part of the afternoon practicing tumbling on makeshift mats) and yet I've been happy to see that her love of the sport is not limited by her love of country. She has been highly impressed with the Russian gymnasts (that's my post-Cold War era kid!) and she worries about the morale of anyone who falls off beam or takes a big hop on a landing. I've loved hearing her chatter knowledgeably about routines and apparatuses, using the jargon she's picked up from commentators.

Then there's been the fact that, try as I might to get writing, cleaning, and lesson-planning work done this week, all the stuff I'm a month behind on, sometimes when you're feeling this miserable, you've just gotta read. Not that I need an excuse to read, but it's nice to be able to cushion your aching head and give in. I've been winging my way through Deborah Crombie's Kincaid/James series since spring, and I do mean winging. I finished the 9th book in the series this past week (Now May You Weep, another great one) and can't wait to pick up the 10th. Gemma is my favorite character, but I'm a little in love with Duncan (which makes sense, since Gemma is too). I've also been enjoying more P.D. James, both by book and video. I just finished the third Adam Dalgliesh book Unnatural Causes, and D. and I have been very slowly wending our way, mostly on weekends, through the mid 1980s mini-series adaptation of Cover Her Face based on the first Dalgliesh book.

And finally, are you ready for this? We're getting a vacation this month! Two nights/three days!  Courtesy of several members of my extended family who know we are tired (and broke) and who want to bless us. I  am so utterly grateful. Time to breathe, to enjoy some fresh air and green, to see some dear friends. I am very much looking forward to it.

There are other things that have blessed this week...Ted Kooser poetry, Simone Dinnerstein playing Bach on piano (on my CD player), a note from a dear friend who sent two lovely little keepsakes to the sweet girl from a recent trip to Italy. A sister visiting Martha's Vineyard, the island where D. and I honeymooned 20+ years ago in what feels like a fairy-tale from another age (and the chance to look at the pictures from that magical week...were we really ever that young?)! An early reader's copy of an Eerdman's picture book for me to review. Not having to cook much all week because everyone else is eating at VBS and I don't much care what I eat when I'm sick. Even some of the harder things -- a challenging and unexpected email conversation with a friend, a time or two when I've been tired enough to lose my patience with the sweet girl's worry struggles -- well, even in the harder things, I am feeling blessed to know I am growing and learning and God is still shaping me.

So...not the kind of week I was expecting at all. But the kind of week God wanted to give me. The kind I've been glad to receive.

Read-Alouds for the Coming School Year

It's that time of year again...the time when I begin to compile my book lists for the coming fall. Actually, I usually do this in June or July, but this summer has been so busy I'm just now getting to it in August. And that thanks mostly to a sinus infection! (Silver lining, anyone?)

In the past, I've discovered that, as I look ahead to the next school year, I'm really compiling several lists. There are books I want to recommend to the sweet girl for independent reading. Her reading totally took off this summer -- she has been swallowing books whole, and actually completed the entire booklet for the library summer reading program (all 36 hours). Then there are books that I know I either want her to read independently or us to read together -- books that tie into subject matter we're tackling. This year the subject list contains ancient history, late elementary/early mid-grade biology, Middle Eastern geography, ancient art, and the orchestra, just to cover the biggies.

But then there's the really fun list: the list of read-alouds we do as a family, mostly in the evenings and on car-trips if we end up traveling during holidays. We've always tried to keep this a mix of fun things that we all just really want to read (which can include light and fluffy reading, especially during the summer) and literary classics (which may or may not always fall under the "we really want to read this" but we try to do them anyway). I like this list because we can really stretch it. Since we're reading the books together, we don't have to worry too much if the content or style is "over" the sweet girl's head -- because we can talk about it together. Sometimes it's good to pitch high even if the throw ends up a bit wild.

So I'm trying to compile a list of potential good reads for this coming year, when our dear daughter is ten and will be working through fifth grade work. A few possibilities so far include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Railway Children (to follow up on our Nesbit read from last year -- Five Children and It); The Blue Fairy Book; Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh; Swallows and Amazons; Bella at Midnight; Little White Horse; Wind in the Willows; Little Women; Anne of Avonlea (sequel to Anne of Green Gables, which she loved last year); Bambi; Black Beauty. Ah, and we want to do more Shakespeare from the Lambs and from Nesbit (more on that another time when I finally get around to finishing my post about this summer and King Lear).And we plan to read the last Martha book in Melissa Wiley's wonderful series, and maybe venture into the Charlotte books too.

The jury is still out on whether or not we will venture more into Kipling -- we did big portions of Jungle Book and Just-So Stories last year. Captains Courageous? Kim? Poetry? And I'm not yet sure if we'll do more Twain past Tom Sawyer yet (maybe The Prince and the Pauper)? The sweet girl loved both The Secret Garden and A Little Princess, so should we try Little Lord Fauntleroy (one I've not yet read...)? How about Peter Pan? Sherlock Holmes (abridged or not abridged, that is the question...) My husband and I have been discussing Dickens -- all we've read aloud together so far is A Christmas Carol. What do you think: would a ten year old be up for Oliver Twist?

I know I am leaving off tons of good things...so please, please recommend more books. We may have read them already, we may have considered but forgotten them, or we may already have them on a list for later, but regardless, I'd love to hear some of the gems you think our little family would love.

The Beauty of Discipline

Our family has been catching as much of the Olympics as time and our awful television reception will allow. Actually it's been coming in better than I anticipated, though we've had some fun moments of needing to stand (yes, stand) in a very specific place to the left of the t.v. set in order to improve reception! The sweet girl and I have been experimenting with occasional movement to see if that helps. We call it our Olympic dance.

I've been really struck by something during these games in London, and that is the beauty of discipline. There is something truly lovely, sometimes even awe-inspiring, about seeing someone do so well at something that takes a great deal of skill, practice, and dedication. Watching Kenya's Tiruenesh Dibaba win the women's 10,000 meter race this afternoon, with such grace, poise, and joy, I found myself in tears -- and thinking of Eric Liddell's phrase "When I run, I feel his pleasure."

Watching a great athlete perform with tremendous skill reminds me of those moments I have sometimes as a reader or listener. When you read a beautiful stanza of poetry or elegantly crafted passage of prose, when you hear a motif in a piece of music that pulls through your heart like a bow gently pulled across violin strings, there is something wondrous about it. Sometimes those moments happen when we're experiencing tried and true classics, but other times they sneak up on us suddenly -- in the middle of just a solidly crafted piece of work. I had it happen to me the other day when reading the detective novelist P.D. James. I waded into a descriptive paragraph and by the time I got the end of it, I was just filled with delight that someone had crafted words that carefully and well.

As I writer, I've not had many moments like this -- but there have been a few. And I'm convinced that those moments happen more frequently when I am in the most disciplined seasons of crafting. Talent matters in all sorts of endeavors -- from running to writing to making music -- but the discipline of working at a skill day after day after day eventually pays off. And so does the ability to abandon oneself to the sheer joy of doing something well, even if (on any given, particular day) we don't win a gold medal."When I write, I feel his pleasure." Those are the most golden days of all.

Meeting Trixie Belden (A Good Reading Summer Continues)

We are on the eve of our last day of arts camp. Our last day! Seven weeks ago, I would have told you, fainthearted as I am, that we would never make it. But the last day is tomorrow, the closing program tomorrow night, and by this time tomorrow we will all, I hope, be exhausted but happy. Instead of just plain exhausted.

Seriously, it's been a good but highly tiring summer. I'm battling a headache and sore throat and feel like I am limping to the finish line, so I will save my lengthier arts camp ruminations for another time. Tonight I just had to pop in to celebrate the ongoing richness of our family's reading summer. Because the sweet girl has fallen in love with the Trixie Belden books.

To fully understand my glee over this, you'd have to be transported back to a pink bedroom circa 1976. There's a rocking chair in there, a window overlooking the back patio, a record player in a tan plastic case, and a shelf full of Trixie Belden books I'd inherited from my oldest sister.

How I loved those books. I read the eight we had -- devoured would be the better word -- and then began scooping up more. Fortunately there were lots to be had in the 1970s because Trixie was back "in" -- so much so that they'd begun writing new books in the series. I read them all and loved them all (well, except for the last four or five) and I still have some of my old copies, including the battered cameos I got from my sister. How I wish I had them all.

Random House reissued some of the earlier books in the series back a few years ago, and I picked up the first two to give as gifts to the sweet girl. I put them in a closet and -- well, I didn't forget about them exactly, but somehow they faded from prominence (stuff in closets tends to do that). The time finally felt right this summer and she got them for her 10th birthday. We were in the middle of our Prydain summer at the time, so everything else had to go on hold, but a couple of weeks or so ago, we took the dive. Knowing how much these books meant to me in my childhood, the sweet girl asked if we could begin them aloud -- and it has been SO much fun to read these to her. I practically know the first half-dozen books (written by original author Julie Campbell) by heart, and reading them aloud has been terrific fun.

And she's fallen in love with them too. At first I thought she was being extra kind to Mommy -- but no, I can tell. She's laughing in all the same places I laughed and on the edge of her seat in all the same places too. Honey is her favorite character so far, though she just met Brian and Mart, Trixie's older brothers, last night. (We're in the middle of Gatehouse, the third book and my favorite.) We've got Mysterious Visitor, the fourth book, on hold at the library already. (My copy, one of the "uglies" from the 1970s, is in too bad a shape to read -- those were the cheaply made hardbacks that tended to fall apart after your read them twice.)

It's been such a delight to introduce Trixie to my daughter. I had a lot of literary friends when I was a girl, a lot of them far more high-brow than Trixie, but she was the girl I could most easily picture myself actually being friends with. And the books were such a constant of my pre-teen years that I have distinct seasonal memories from a lot of the books -- times when I read Trixie in a patch of grass in the summertime yard, or curled up next to a small space heater in winter, or -- and I'm pretty sure this is a real memory -- after eating a thanksgiving dinner.

Now I can add another reading memory -- sitting on the front step of our little apartment, reading Gatehouse in the twilight while the sweet girl sipped tea in the big folding chair on the sidewalk and a bright moon smiled at us over the sycamores across the street. I hope there will be lots more Trixie reading memories to come.

100 Species Challenge #13: Gerbera Daisies

I've always loved Gerbera daisies, but just recently learned that they are one of a number of household plants that actually help improve air quality significantly. Just another reason to love them!


I haven't done the 100 Species Challenge in so long I couldn't remember what number I was on and had to go back to the archives to check. If anyone could win a prize for the slowest gathering of 100 plants/flowers/trees ever, it would be me. The funny thing is that I've taken many photos over the past few years ~ I just haven't gotten around to posting them. Perhaps I should remedy that.


These luscious pink Gerberas were at the Phipps this past spring. Don't they look friendly and cheerful?

Sketching (An Original Poem)

Our fourth week of arts camp came to a close Friday, and found me limping -- figuratively speaking. I am worn out and weary as we round the corner on week five, and I've been trying to find some small ways to replenish my energy reserves this weekend. Listening to Elgar, watching a brief but refreshing rain, reading...they've all helped.

I was looking through my drawing folder (a little portfolio I began to keep a year or so ago when I was sketching more) looking for a scrap of artwork I might build on to make my Daddy's 80th birthday card, when I came upon a poem I'd written and forgot about. Bits and pieces of poems are tucked all over my drawing folder because I find that sketching frees me up to poem and vice versa -- the two activities are clearly connected, and doing one often inspires me to spend time doing the other. This poem captured my imagination today not only because it reminded me of the year I spent more time drawing, and what I learned through "re-learning" how to draw, but because it's what I wish I could tell some of the older kids in our arts camp. I've been amazed at how differently younger and slightly older children approach drawing. There really is a certain age -- it's probably different for each kid -- where self-consciousness and worry about doing art "right" works its way into the minds of most children. They become cautious with the pencil or predictable in what they draw, sticking to one thing they think they know how to do well.

Here's what I wish I could tell kids -- and the grown-ups who tend to freeze up when faced with a blank page. I think one of the enemy's great lies to people of all ages is to get them to doubt that they can draw, write, paint, poem, dance, sing, or that if they try, it will be stupid or a failure or wrong or not as good as the next person's. I'm not saying that there isn't an inner critic in all of us that recognizes the difference between what we envision in our minds and what we're actually able to do, but I am saying how sad it is that we can be so crippled by the notion that we can't do it that we don't even try, don't even start. And we miss out then on one of the wondrous gifts God has given us, the gift of creativity. That's why it's such a noxious lie of the enemy.  He tells us we're not creative, or he gets us to limit the idea of creativity (the person who can draw is creative, but I can only knit or cook, and that's not creative) when the reality is, we are made in the image of a boisterously, wonderfully creative God. And he has given each one of us creative gifts to explore, enjoy, and use for his glory.

Sketching

Don't freeze, flow.
Let your hand go.
Unclench your fingers
and your fears
and follow the lines.
Don't worry if
your eyes move more
quickly than your
skill can keep pace with.
Shade, center, curve,
back up, move again,
pause, re-look,
re-think, re-dream,
and start again.
For today, banish erasers
from your thoughts.
If the line won't work
where it stands,
leave it till you can
decide how to work
it back into
this newly imagined
world.
Incorporate
it all, every mistake,
lines thin and tall
and squat and wide
and all
the shaky lines
you try to hide.
Don't freeze, flow.
Look. Look! Love.
And let you hand go.

~EMP (4/11)

Community Gardens (Our Little Patch of Green in the City)

Although this summer has been almost completely taken up with arts camp, we are involved in a few other things. For the second summer in a row, we're participating in the local Community Gardens project.

I love having a garden again. Having grown up with one (the big one my parents always planted in the backyard, and my own little garden space) I have spent the past nearly two decades yardless and so missing the chance to plant and grow things. We've got a good sized plot in a raised bed, and we're trying all sorts of things this year -- zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, basil, a few flowers (the sweet girl loves to sprinkle flowers in amongst the veggies, and I'm happy to oblige with easy growing zinnias and cosmos). We attempted carrots -- twice, from seeds -- but they didn't come up either time. We failed with carrots last year too and I thought perhaps it was because we sowed too late in the season. But this year we were well within planting time, and from everything I can tell, we should have been able to get in more than one planting. Still nada. Apparently we are not destined to grow carrots.

The terrible heat wave we recently went through (along with much of the rest of the country) pretty much wiped out our largest zucchini plant, but then it had flourished early, threatening to take over the whole bed, and has already given us several large, delicious squashes. So it has served its purpose. We need to dig out the drying plant soon which will leave room to try something else.

I'm so utterly thankful for this little garden plot. Though I have tried hard to adapt to my urban transplanting and to root out ingratitude wherever it tries to take over the garden plot of my heart, there is just something in my genetic makeup that has made almost fifteen years surrounded by asphalt really hard. I can get physically worn down by the constancy of pavement, tar, and traffic -- the sights, smells, and sounds can make me feel so weary. And I am realizing anew lately how physical weariness can feed into spiritual weariness -- our bodies, minds, and spirits are so connected.

So having a small patch of green and soil I can head to whenever I need to is a true blessing.

 The Garden glows
And 'gainst its walls the city's heart still beats.
And out from it each summer wind that blows
Carries some sweetness to the tired streets.

~Margarent Deland

Yes, and some sweetness to tired me. 

Just Because...

Just because...
I needed some beauty in this day and thought you might too.

Just because...
I forgot to post my annual flower photos from my birthday trip to the conservatory back in March. (This is one of many I took that day...)

Just because...
I recently remembered how much I love cymbidium orchids.

Just because...
you can never have enough flowers.

The Summer of Prydain

"And, in time, only the bards knew the truth of it."

I read this sentence last night a little before 10 pm. It's the last sentence of The High King, the last book in Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain.

The sweet girl was up that late because how could we stop a chapter short of the very end? Especially with so much still at stake? We've been journeying as a family through Prydain since the beginning of March, with only a brief break for another book or two near the beginning of the series. Once we hit The Black Cauldron, the sweet girl didn't want us to turn to the left or the right. She wanted to go straight through Prydain without looking back.

Not that there weren't moments of struggle. A nine (newly turned 10) year old is still on the early age edge for these books. But she struggled in totally appropriate ways, was challenged by what should have challenged her, and is there anything one can say better about a beloved book?

And she loved them. She really loved them. I know how she feels. I didn't find these books till a few years ago, but I instantly knew, my first time through, that I would have loved them when I was ten. And I knew I wanted to share them with my family.

We hit brief snags in both The Black Cauldron and Taran Wanderer. In the Black Cauldron, her intensity levels were running high -- both in real life and in the way she was identifying with the story (and somehow that's always connected for most of us). As I shared with a friend back in May: "She was desperately worried about the characters and what would happen, and was struggling because she wanted to see certain characters as "all bad" when Alexander gives at least one baddie a real shot at redemption (bless him). We kept telling her to trust the storyteller. She persevered, and BAM! those last chapters were just priceless. I felt like writing a love letter to Lloyd Alexander to thank him -- he anticipated everything she needed and he delivered."

Great story-tellers, I'm beginning to realize, are like that. They truly anticipate the questions that readers/listeners will ask, as though they are there in the room with you eavesdropping. And the narrative goes where it needs to go to answer those questions. The sweet girl could not believe that one of the characters, so sneering and mean, could ever do the right thing, the brave thing, the big thing, the one thing needed. His complexity startled her and wowed her. She knew a sacrifice was going to be required. She was terrified that it would be a character she loved. But she couldn't believe it was a character who had seemed so incapable of love. That's growth, I wanted to tell her, that's how it really works in life sometimes. But I didn't need to tell her. Alexander's story already had.

He's so very good at showing growth and change in characters. Nowhere is that more true than in the character of Taran himself. I marveled anew when we came to the end last night at just how far Taran had come: from a young boy who dreams of glory but doesn't understand it to a man who accepts a noble destiny -- deeply prepared and yet somewhat reluctant because he has learned not to scorn the beauties and blessedness of the daily, the ordinary. Taran himself is like the sword he forges in Taran Wanderer -- a little misshapen, thin, and bent, and yet true as steel, of powerfully strong mettle and worth, a worth that has been shaped at great cost and effort.

Taran Wanderer, the fourth book in the series, is so important to his inner growth and learning -- but I think that's what made it a particularly difficult book for a ten year old. It moved much more slowly, with much of the action taking place inside Taran. She also missed Eilonwy, who is absent for the entire narrative (except from Taran's thoughts). Since Eilonwy is the only major girl character (and the only sympathetic female character in the series) that felt like a big loss. I know I missed her too, especially her wit and sparkle!

These books feel important to me as an adult, perhaps because the lessons they teach so beautifully through story are lessons we all need to learn, re-learn, and remember no matter how old we grow. Lessons about love and courage and valor and faithfulness. This time through, reading them aloud as I worked on my own growing Four Princesses narrative, I also had a strange sense of being apprenticed to Lloyd Alexander. I think I've learned a lot from him about how to shape a narrative (especially relatively short chapters) for younger readers -- with exciting dialogue, plot, action that nevertheless never sacrifices the richness of symbol and theme. 

I'll miss our Prydain summer.

On the Way to Ten

We had an exhausting but wonderful weekend. The sweet girl is swiftly approaching the epic double-digit birthday, and we had her party yesterday, a few days early. We were blessed by a visit from my next-oldest sister and her two youngest girls (now 9 and 15) so it was a wonderful day filled with aunt and cousin love as well as regular birthday festivities. They even got to worship with us in church and meet some of our church family. It doesn't get much better than that!

My sister's visit was almost "coincidental" (if I believed in such a thing). They were traveling back from vacation time spent in Virginia and Maryland. It just happened that they could be in our neck of the woods in time for the tenth birthday party. How good of God to bless us in just that way! We have been famished for family. Hugging my sister yesterday was literally good for my soul...and so was laughing with her. I really cut loose and laugh with my siblings in a way I do with hardly anyone else. They are kindred spirits.

The whole weekend was filled with festivities. One of the sweet girl's very best friends, who happens to be exactly one week older than she is, had his birthday celebration on Friday evening. They always share in each other's celebrations in one way or another, and that's become a definite mark of another year passing. Then another friend (this one an adult friend) had a 40th birthday celebration on Saturday. I missed that one, home baking and cleaning for Sunday, but the sweet girl and her dad were there most of the afternoon. So they had three parties in three days!

Given the breathless, tiring pace of the rest of our summer, having a couple of days just to unwind and celebrate with friends and family felt very good -- and far more "summery" than anything else this season has held so far.

Although we've already had the party, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that S is turning 10. Perhaps it will hit me full-force on Wednesday. Should be a regular day of camp and busy-ness, but we've saved out a couple of presents, and we plan to go out to dinner. Chipotle. Her choice.

I wonder if the next ten years will go by as quickly as these ten have...

Arts Camp, Week One

Well, we've reached the end of our first week of arts camp. You may have thought I'd fallen off the planet, but in truth, I have just been running up and down three flights of stairs in between doing art with fifteen-twenty 4-11 year olds.(Technically camp is for 6-14 year olds, but we've not been pulling in older kids, and we've been allowing a few younger siblings to come with older ones if the older ones are responsible and mature enough to help their younger sib out.)

My husband is the director of the camp for the third year, and while in previous years I have helped out occasionally (and mostly behind the scenes) this year a lack of volunteers has meant I am in the thick of things. That would be in the thick of excited, wiggling, yelling, laughing, joking, mostly fairly attentive kids who have varying degrees of interest in art, but who are mostly just happy to be there. It's been fun to welcome them -- a lot of them returnees -- and to watch their creativity blossom.

We've been doing art projects inspired by different world cultures each day. Turkey, Morocco, the Vikings, Mexico, and China were this week's cultures. We've done projects with paint, paper, yarn, clay, cardboard, beads, pen and ink. Some of the kids have produced some pretty cool things.

A few observations I've made this week -- in no particular order.

Ministries need prayer. If we weren't steeped in prayer, things would probably have been a lot crazier than they have been, especially with not enough staff. We're on a real shoestring in all kinds of ways this year, and I've been enjoying seeing the ways God is at work -- sometimes before we ask. My favorite prayer instance this week came yesterday. We had just found out that the pizza place that normally donates free pizza for our park event with the campers and their families each week could not do that this year. They cut us a deal for half-off, which we appreciated, but we had no $ for pizza in the budget. We decided to announce the park event anyway, and before the end of the day, a local family/friends of the camp had donated what we needed to cover this week and next. When I got home and checked my email, I found a message my husband had sent me in the morning (but which I hadn't seen) informing me of the need and asking me to pray for God's provision. I found myself very grateful that God doesn't need to check his email (but even if he did, he'd stay on top of it).

Ministries need people. Heads, hearts, hands, and feet. There is a lot of work to be done in a ministry like this, most of it not glamorous. Carrying things up and down the stairs, setting up and cleaning up messy art stations, handing out snacks, making sure the kids wash their hands and don't poke each other in the eye or drive each other completely nuts with teasing (or screaming). Ministries with kids need people who can be really patient and who can encourage kids who are timid and nervous and think they can't do something as well as help calm down kids who feel a need to be running things and in other kids' faces. We've been blessed with the help of one family who is very good at all those things -- the unglamorous work that has to be done and the ministry of encouragement.

Ministries need money. I know, I know, it's obvious, but boy, is it true.

Kids need encouragement of different sorts (see above) depending on the situation and the kid. And wow, is it ever true that age makes a huge difference in how a child approaches a learning situation. One of the things that's fascinated me this week is watching the difference in the very youngest campers (the four, five, and six year olds) who tend to throw themselves into things with rather joyful abandon, heedless of the mess or the results. This versus the seven-eight-nines, who often want you to repeat instructions and who are more concerned about making mistakes, and even more differently are the ten-elevens who either a) work painstakingly and with great attention or b) give up quickly if they think they "can't" do something and ask if they can do something else instead. I know a lot depends on a child's temperament and learning style too, but age is still a very important factor as we contemplate how to teach.

I think one of my favorite moments this week was seeing the very youngest camper -- a four year old with sparkling eyes -- gamely hold up her wooden disk. The kids were making Viking shields, and some of them did rather intricate designs. This little girl had covered the whole thing in layers of paint, front and back, and her hands were covered in layers of paint too! But oh the delight on her face as she grinned in triumph! (And yes, I took her to wash her hands, though I first helped her out of her smock, an oversized shirt which was so long it looked like a floor-length dress.)

An exhausting week in many ways, but a good one...connecting kids with creativity and reminding them that creativity is a loving gift of their Creator.

One week down. Five to go.

Summer Recipes: Spaghetti Primavera With Basil (Or "Green Saute")

The other day I got my taste up for a pasta primavera. I had one in mind that I ate at a restaurant years ago, but when I went looking for recipes online, I decided I'd better try to find something simple, family-friendly, and with ingredients I could easily have on hand. What I found was this recipe for "Spaghetti Primavera with Basil" at realsimple.com.

You can click on the link if interested in proportions and cooking directions, but it basically calls for sauteing a number of green vegetables in olive oil and garlic and tossing them with spaghetti and a bit of salt and pepper. The recipe called for broccoli florets, bell pepper, zucchini, and fresh basil. Alas, I had no fresh basil -- we didn't get our windowsill pot started in the spring as we usually do, and our garden basil is still a recently planted seedling from the farmer's market. I substituted with dry basil (because I love the flavor of basil) but there is no doubt in my mind this recipe would be ten times better with fresh. I make a zucchini/fresh basil pesto in the summer that our whole family loves.

I cook with green bell peppers often, but I wasn't sure they were the very best complement for this dish. The zucchini and broccoli might go better with asparagus, green beans, or sugar snap peas (a few of the "optional" additions listed at the bottom, which I didn't see when I first found the recipe).

I also was out of spaghetti -- believe it or not! -- and had to substitute angel hair, which always seems to get a bit clumpy/sticky. Spaghetti would definitely be a better choice, or perhaps rotini, which would soak up the olive oil/garlic nicely in all its curly pasta crevices. 

What I did like was the lovely green color that permeated the meal. The bright greens of the veggies looked lovely stirred into the pasta and I served it on the table in a clear glass bowl.

It didn't satisfy my craving for the pasta primavera I remembered (which I think had a cream based sauce) but it was a nice, light summer dish -- one I wouldn't mind tweaking and trying again. My family seemed to enjoy it, and my nine year old ate it well.

Visual Book (for my Work-in-Progress)

I read a wonderful idea the other day that has me very inspired. The suggestion I spotted online, from a fellow writer, was to create a "visual book" on the fictional world of your current work-in-progress.

Now the fun thing about this idea is that I've been doing it for ages without really realizing I was doing it. And not just with the current WIP. I remember many, many years ago now (about 25 of them) working on a novel and finding myself drawn to the look of a girl whose photograph I saw in a catalog. She looked the way I imagined my main character looked, so I cut the picture out and tucked it inside my writing folder.

It seems even more crucial when you're creating a fictional world and characters that look noticeably different than your own. My current story, a mid-grade fairy-tale, is set in a fictional land and in a setting I call "roughly medieval." I have some mental time guidelines I'm seeking to follow, in terms of what centuries I'm drawing inspiration from, but since it is a fictional place and I'm not setting it in a very specific year, I'm not sweating tiny inconsistencies regarding language and fashion. Still, I have some very decided opinions about what my characters look like and what kind of landscape they're adventuring in.

A few months ago, when I was in a sort of writing fever on this particular story, I spent about a week working my way through an enormous library book I got on hold. It was a book of castles and it was almost big enough to be one. I could have happily crawled inside and lived there anyway! I went through pages and pages of photographs before I finally found "my" castle. And when I found it, I knew I'd found it. That simply was it -- where my four princesses and their mother lived.

The terrific thing about the world wide web is how easy it is to find other photos once you've got a baseline one to work with. Armed with the name and location of the castle, I was able to find more photographs of it -- in different seasons, from different angles. It is still a castle one can visit today and I found a site with pictures of some of the inner rooms. I got a feel for the spiral stairway and the stonework. It has truly helped me to understand how the characters would walk through these spaces and how living in such a place might make you feel.

I've also collected a photo of a dress that I'm sure Princess Serenity wears to an important event in the story. And I've drawn Queen Harmony -- partly based on a figure in The Chronicles of Western Fashion (a book that has helped me think through clothes).

So I've been playing with this idea for months really -- saving photos to individual computer files within the larger file folder that contains my actual story drafts (and back story matter, lists of names, etc.) What had never occurred to me is the wonderfully simple idea that I could pull it all together into a "visual book." That's what I'm planning to do now -- print these things out and put them in a binder, one I can flip through when I need visual inspiration or just a reminder of the physical spaces my characters are walking through or the weight and drape and color of their clothing.

And now that I've cottoned onto the whole idea, I just can't stop. I've started looking for other images related to my story. Una, Princess Winifred's white horse, is important -- and I've had a real sense in my mind of what she would look like. So I've begun hunting down images of white horses online.

It's a delightful exercise -- and I suspect will be a very helpful one.

Out of Sorts

So I was up really, really late last night reading and marking a student paper (just a couple more to go). In between reading and marking, I was trying to advance my way, slowly, through the Pottermore site. It's a beautiful, creative site, but my ancient computer, which has connectivity/page load problems, was not happy. I would often have to begin loading things, skip off the site, work for a while, then go back when the page had fully loaded.

With one thing and another, I didn't hit the "sorting ceremony" until 1:30 am.

A word to the wise. Do not let yourself be sorted in your Hogwarts house at 1:30 am.

Another word to the wise. Go with your first gut instinct on responses. Do not second-guess yourself and try to be whimsical (which relates to "do not do this at 1:30 in the morning").

And a final word to the wise: don't take the sorting hat quiz when you've been reading Martin Luther. I know, I know, I'm probably the only person on the planet who would mix these two activities...but still. I mean, Luther was wonderful, but he did have that "sin boldly" thing going on, which may account for the fact that the darn website put me into...

Slytherin!

Are you through laughing?

Me neither.

This is just such a riot. I am so not Slytherin. And I don't say it just because all the baddies came from there. There is nothing about the Slytherin temperament, even its stronger, more positive aspects, that feels remotely like me.

I am not ambitious.

I view power very cautiously (believing that in the human realm, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely...and loving that in the kingdom realm, God the all powerful shows us his power by being freely willing to give it up).

I do not feel tempted by the dark arts. They make me angry. They repel me. When I am feeling especially full of spiritual health and vigor, I am most tempted to laugh at them because I recognize how pitiful and derivative they are.

And my view of "greatness" (since Slytherin is all about seeing "greatness" in its students)? Well, my favorite picture of greatness is Jesus picking up the basin and towel.

So tell me...how did I end up being chosen for Slytherin? Perhaps it's my deep love for the colors green and silver (for real...I do love those colors...but of course colors weren't part of the quiz, so I don't think that could really be it).

Or maybe it's all that poetry I wrote about Snape seeping back through my consciousness.Or perhaps it's that answering irrevocable questions at 1:30 in the morning thing.

If you've not been sorted into Pottermore yet, take my advice -- go into it fresh as a daisy and answer with your first instincts. Because now I'll never know if I'm really a Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Gryffindor, and I know I'm one of the three. I've always suspected Hufflepuff (not intelligent enough for R, not brave enough for G, and deeply, truly prize faithfuless and behind the scenes perseverance).

Summer Recipes: Peach Vanilla Smoothie

I love seasonal cooking. Summer and autumn are my favorite times of year to cook, mostly because they both yield such wonderful vegetables and fruits. As much as I love autumn/winter veggies though, I must say that summer reigns as produce queen. There's such a plethora of inexpensive fresh fruits and veggies at the grocery and farmer's market right now, it's almost an embarrassment of riches.

I'm determined to experiment more with meals and snacks this summer, to use more fresh fruits and veggies in a variety of different, simple ways. I say simple partly because my family (perhaps especially my nine year old, but me too) has simple tastes in food, and also because I love simple cooking. You don't have to add tons of things to fresh produce to make it taste good or look good -- it already does.

I'm going to try to keep track of some of my recipe experiments here on the blog, even the very simplest ones. In that spirit, I kick things off with the Peach Vanilla Smoothie that the sweet girl and I have had at breakfast twice in the past week. It's a keeper.

I based this on a recipe I found in a cereal box a couple of years ago -- admittedly not the place where I usually get my recipes! But I'm always on the lookout for tasty looking smoothie recipes, no matter where I happen to find them. I tweaked this one a bit and I think it could be tweaked still further if you wanted to "health it up" more.

But here's what we've been doing:

Orange Juice (a cup and a half or so)
Fresh peaches (about two, peeled and chunked)
About six dollops of french vanilla yogurt
Ice Cubes (about four)

The original recipe called for frozen peaches, which would be a fine substitute in the off-season, but with peaches fresh, cheap and plentiful at market right now, why do anything else?  The fresh peach juice really comes through when you blend this.

I do like smoothies ice cold, which is why we added the ice (since we weren't doing frozen fruit). The recipe called for more yogurt too, but we've found a half dozen spoonfuls sufficient -- it adds a creamy texture and a nice hint of vanilla without overpowering the peach/orange. The whole thing has a bit of a creamsicle taste.

We've been using Yoplait french vanilla yogurt, which is sweetened. You could health this up by using plain yogurt (a good kind like Stonyfield Farms) or plain greek yogurt and then adding honey or agave nectar if you wanted a more natural sweetener.

I suspect this would also be good (though different) with other flavored yogurts like raspberry.

"I'm a Doctor, Not a..."

It's been Trek time at our house lately, and it's been so much fun. I've been a Star Trek fan for as long as I can remember, but this is the first time we've ever shown episodes to the sweet girl. We're starting with the original series for her -- geeky purists that we are -- and she's fallen in love with them all, especially Mr. Spock.

She's also cracking up over some of the corny lines. They're there in spades, spouted by many of the characters, but I'd almost forgotten just how wonderfully funny DeForest Kelly is as Dr. McCoy. His crusty, curmudgeonly personality is set off brilliantly in the trio of Kirk/Spock/McCoy. I also love the way the writers gave him standard lines. Is there an episode where he doesn't announce: "he's dead..." in dramatic tones? And then, of course, the iconic, "I'm a doctor, not a..." lines, which always make the sweet girl giggle madly. Our favorite so far came in the second season episode "Friday's Child," when McCoy is trying to pull a struggling pregnant woman up a hill (they're being chased by baddies, of course). Spock tries to help and the woman resists, only wanting the doctor's help, whereupon McCoy snaps: "I'm a doctor, not an escalator!"

Which begs the question, what will escalators be like in the 23rd century anyway?

Dear Madeleine

I've been wanting to do more of my Wrinkle in Time re-read posts, but alas, life keeps getting in the way. But I thought I would go on and post this journal entry I wrote the other day, in the form of a letter to Madeleine L'Engle. I had a very rare quiet morning to read when my family was out of town, and I found myself drawn to the final chapters of Wrinkle. Then I just needed to thank Madeleine one more time for this lovely book that has meant so much to me through the years.

*******

Dear Madeleine,

I missed you today.

Despite your passing on to greater life almost five years ago, I often still have a sense of your presence. After all, your books have graced my life for decades. And they grace my shelves…two shelves, in fact, full of almost every book you ever wrote, all crowded together, sandwiched right in between Harper Lee and C.S. Lewis (who then crowds the next two shelves…I guess you can tell who the writers of my heart are).

But I both felt your presence more deeply than usual, and missed you more, while reading today. I’m having an extremely rare day alone, all to myself, and found myself picking up the 50^th anniversary copy of A Wrinkle in Time that my sister bought for my recent birthday. Its lovely red jacket, an homage to the original cover, feels smooth in my hands. It’s a hardback, and I’m not used to holding such weight when I read Wrinkle – since for years the only copy I’ve ever read was my read-to-literal-tatters paperback, the same paperback copy I first read at the age of eleven.

I don’t know if it was reading a brand new copy (one with lovely pictures of you in the back, along with that draft chapter that shows your edits that just delight me to see) or because I was all alone with more space and time than usual to intently focus, but I fell into Wrinkle in ways I hadn’t in years. Oh, I’ve read it numerous times in the thirty-three years (wow, is that really possible?) since I first discovered it. But you know, perhaps, how it feels to read a well-loved and much-read story. It’s like visiting with an old friend, knowing the stories she delights in repeating, being able to finish her sentences for her. That’s usually how I feel when I go back to Wrinkle, and it’s a lovely, comforting thing.

Today it felt almost new. I had been re-reading my way at a leisurely pace, and suddenly I was in the final few chapters and couldn’t put them down. Again, a odd quirk of my life (an out of town funeral that my husband and daughter are attending, while I stayed here with work deadlines) enabled me to read with more attention and time than I can usually give these days. I was not rushing to get breakfast on the table or needing to dive into errands or starting my daughter’s school day. I was able to just fall head first into the story and keep reading. I took the book back to bed, curled up with my soft comforter, and kept reading…much as I would have…could have…did…read when I was eleven. By the time I finished the story, and finish it I did, I was crying.

To read with that young-girl intensity, and yet to read with this middle-aged woman’s heart – well, it was a powerful combination. I remember you saying once that we are all the ages we have ever been, and that’s so profoundly true. So I read with little girl freshness and grown-up eyes together – a little bit like wearing Mrs. Who’s glasses, I suppose, and marveling as I see the atoms re-arrange.

I found myself resonating with parts of the story I never had so fully before. Mr. Murry’s character – you did so much with him in such a little amount of space and time – especially spoke to my heart. My own almost ten year old is several states away today, experiencing her first funeral, and all her struggles and seasons lately – with anxieties and insecurities, hopes and dreams, independence and dependence – seemed to play into every scene I read between Mr. Murry and Meg. I understood Meg’s anger at her father for not being perfect and not taking care of everything in one heroic sweep. I understood Mr. Murry’s frustrations and helplessness as he realized that, as much as he would like to, he couldn’t do everything, couldn’t be the strong, perfect parent she wanted him to be. I had always thought, when I was a child, than nothing was more powerful than that final scene when Meg loves Charles Wallace out of the clutches of IT – and yet where does Meg learn to love like that? I found myself in awe of her father’s love for her. I love how you showed him as limited and flawed and yet willing to have a child-like trust in a love and power greater than his own. I love how he was willing to put his daughter in greater hands than his and let his daughter do what needed to be done. The last part of the story – it’s not just about Meg growing up and choosing the hard but right way. It’s about a father (who himself needed rescuing by a trio of young people) learning to let go of control, learning to trust. I suspect that lesson was a hard-won lesson for Mr. Murry, trapped in his dark column, his cloven pine.

And oh, Calvin. How I loved those small moments of potentially blooming romance between Calvin and Meg when I was closer to their age, and I still do. But it’s not just about a boy and a girl meeting and finding one another attractive. It’s about two young people shaped by the same call and helping each other find courage to do what needs to be done. That kiss Calvin gives Meg? The one that brightens her eyes? It’s not a prince waking up a princess kiss, or a kiss of adolescent ardor. It’s a let me kiss you before you go into battle kiss, a kiss of encouragement and strength.

I don’t think I’d ever realized how beautifully steeped in Pauline theology those final chapters were either. Yes, I recognized all the scriptural quotes, but they are so carefully chosen, so integrated into the story you’re telling. I love the way that all those gospel steeped elements are spoken by various characters – not just the three Mrs. Ws (who clearly stand in as angelic messengers) but by Aunt Beast. The God who shapes us for his purposes, who makes all things work together for good, who makes the foolish things of the world shame the wise – is the God of the universe. And so it’s so utterly right that the translation of the song of the winged creatures on Uriel comes through as a Psalm of praise.

And the disembodied brain – not just an homage to Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, not just a “heart defeats brain” moment.  It’s disembodied. As in non-incarnate. And only incarnated love – love willing to do what needs to be done to rescue the one in thrall to the darkness – only incarnated love can triumph. Meg’s act here is a Christ-like act, from the moment she pushes through the cold and darkness to the moment she catches Charles up in a tear-soaked embrace.

Oh Madeleine, I missed you today. And yet I also found myself feeling as though you’d come to visit. I’m so glad you did.

Blessings.

Girl With a Watering Can (Diamante Poem)

As an end of the year treat, since she finished her grammar text early this year, the sweet girl is getting extra language arts time to work on poems and stories. We've been working with some terrific poem starters from Joyce Sidman -- ideas and forms that are really inspiring us.

Today we worked with the diamante form. You're supposed to start and end with a noun, but I gave us some leeway -- sometimes we went with an adjective. The line format is built on number of words. The form is 1,2,3,5,3,2,1 ~ sounds like a waltz, doesn't it? So the lines get successively longer at first, it's all balanced by a long beam of a line (like a rafter) in the middle, and then the lines decrease in the back half.

Sidman suggested using a picture to inspire the diamante. The sweet girl has been enjoying the gorgeous Child's Book of Art by Lucy Micklethwait again. She looked through and chose several pictures to work with. I was really tickled with all the results, but I especially liked this one she wrote based on Renoir's Girl With a Watering Can.

Girl:
watering plants,
picking white daisies.
She's just watered the garden.
Buttons on dress,
red bow,
peaceful.

(SBP, 5/28/12)

She really liked this way of poeming and I must say I do too. Setting word limits helped her to really focus on what she was seeing and what she wanted to say. That's an exercise that's good for all writers ~ no matter what our ages!

Between Alrighty and Almighty

I had one of those funny skim reading slips the other day. A friend had posted a prayer on facebook (where I often tend to be in skim read mode) and it began with the words "Almighty God." But my hurrying glance took the phrase in too quickly and I read it as "Alrighty God..." which sounded like the beginning of a much more casual conversation.

The slip made me chuckle, but it's also caused me to reflect on the fact that many of my prayers, depending on their time and place, could probably be characterized either as "almighty" or "alrighty" prayers.

The prayers I read from others, particularly in the prayer book, help me to center in on the powerful reality of who God is. Those prayers carefully name the Triune God, reminding me of who he is -- awesome in power and majesty, full of strength and loving kindness. He is indeed Almighty God, and I need to remember that and to address him, head and heart bowed, as such....and often. Whether I am reading a prayer, joining my voice to other faithful pray-ers now and across the years, or letting my personal prayers and petitions be shaped by that kind of language, I need a lot of time steeped in "almighty" kinds of prayers.

But there is perhaps a time and a place for "alrighty" prayers too...the kinds of prayer I often find myself uttering in the midst of a busy and stressed day, or in the midst of a daily repeated chore that feels like sheer drudgery -- the kind of prayer that begins in a more casual way, as befits one friend just speaking from her heart to a friend who knows and loves her and wants to listen, even if all she has to say is something akin to "Alrighty God, I know I need to get through this next few minutes...please help me!"

Of course the beauty of it all is that it's because the Friend we address is the Almighty King of the universe (able to do all that needed to be done to bridge the chasm and bring us from the far off kingdom of darkness to the near to his heart kingdom of light) we can enter into real and intimately loving conversation with him -- conversation sometimes as casual and simple as any ordinary conversation can be. It is because he is mighty to save that we are rescued, and because we rescued that we are given access -- real and amazing access -- to his presence. Where often we bow, face down to the ground, in humble worship, but where we also sometimes find ourselves drawn to sit right next to the king on his throne, snuggled under his arm, just because we love to have him hold us -- and because he delights to do so.

Raising a Reader

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” That quote from Louisa May Alcott has always made me chuckle. The wonderful thing about books, of course, is that they do literally “turn our brains” – in new directions.

In addition to all the books I want to read, or in some cases feel I need to read, my ever growing TBR pile is expanding in a new way. The sweet girl (fast heading for her tenth birthday) has begun to recommend books to me.

It happened just the other day, and not for the first time. She and her dad were out of town last week for her step-grandad’s funeral. She took along her big pink backpack filled with books and art supplies for the car. On Sunday, unpacking the bag, she kept bringing out books and telling me what she’d read while they were gone. One of them was a book called Funny Frank by the delightful Dick King-Smith. I had pointed her in the direction of the King-Smith shelf at the library (we do love his books) but this isn’t one I’ve read before. “It’s hilarious,” she told me. “You need to read it.”

Yes, I have a new recommending reading friend – my daughter. I find this both delicious and a little strange. How did this happen so fast? Wasn’t she just chewing on her copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar last week?

Yes, we’ve raised a reader – in both conscious and unconscious ways.  We’ve read books to this child from day one – okay, actually from well before day one, if you count all the reading aloud we did when she was in utero.

There have been so many good reading memories since. I recall D. reading to her from the book of Genesis when she was about a week old. I remember the beauty of watching her lie on her little gymani playmat, when she was perhaps four or five months old, and seeing her eyes trail over to the tiny little “Baby Einstein” board books she loved so much her first year – their chunky square size a perfect fit for her hands, their cardboard so good to chew, and all those great photographs to stare at! Then there were the accompanying sound effects stage…oh, how we all loved Moo, Baa, La La La.  

I remember countless repeated readings of beloved bedtime stories (Everywhere Babies, Goodnight Me, Goodnight You, Guess How Much I Love You) and later on, reading myself hoarse on repeat requests of longer favorites – Flopsy Bunnies, Make Way for Ducklings, The Seven Silly Eaters, the chapter in Winnie the Pooh where Piglet gets a bath. (Oh, and anything by Jane Hissey. The above picture, taken almost five years ago, was a path the sweet girl made in our kitchen...a path of Jane Hissey books. I called it the Jane Hissey path to success!) And poetry, poetry, poetry. Later on came read-aloud upon read-aloud of longer books…snuggled on the couch or on the bed, shoulder to shoulder on park benches in town, read by flashlight on the car on long trips as we wended our way through Heidi, A Little Princess, the Ramona and Henry books, the Narnia books, the Hobbit, and so many other wonderful books. (We still do this and always will…we were a read-aloud family before we became parents! Check my sidebar for our family’s current read-aloud books.)

In recent years, since the sweet girl became an independent reader, there has also been the joy of seeing her curled up with a good book. From the first halting attempts to get through Hop on Pop to seeing her sprawled on the bed or curled up in a windowsill reading Sarah Plain and Tall or Jenny and the Cat Club or Betsy, Tacy and Tib, I have loved every second of watching my girl become a reader.

But it still throws me when she reads something that I haven’t. I know the novelty of this will soon pass – as she grows and reads even on her own, it will happen more often. I will not always be the navigator and trail-guide, though I will hold onto that role for as long as I possibly can, and then trust to the fact that she has been so steeped in good, rich literature her whole life that she will make good choices about what to read (and be able to discern why she doesn’t like something as well as why she does).

Mostly when she shares a book, it’s because she loves it – and that’s a great joy to me, that she is learning by osmosis that good stories are gifts. Only once so far has she asked me to read a book because she wasn’t entirely sure how much she liked it – and she wanted my opinion. I read it and had a mixed opinion too. I saw places in the story that I wasn’t sure she’d been ready for, that I figured went over her head or simply didn’t “register.” And that’s okay. That will happen sometimes too. Once again, I have to trust that what she’s learned through reading and listening to the good, deep, rich stories will hold her firmly in place as she encounters new reading territory.

But for now, I think I’ve got to make a new and special place in my reading stack for the books she recommends. I may not always feel like I have time to add one more thing to that stack, but I treasure that she wants to gift me with the stories she’s enjoying, and I treasure even more that she still wants us to share that reading experience so we can talk  about it. So onto the reading stack goes Funny Frank this week. Thank you, sweet reader girl, for taking the time to recommend another book to your reader mom.

Writing to Elgar

The family is on the way home (yay!) and I've spent this ultra quiet Saturday gardening and cleaning. In this last bit of time to myself, I'm trying to dive into some writing...specifically working on my mid-grade fairytale again. No, I didn't finish all the work I needed to do during these past couple of days, but enough to give myself a little writing break.

Reading over the manuscript yesterday -- the back story that's not quite complete and the first three chapters I wrote in January/February -- I have to say this. I like it! (Whew!) Taking two months away from the project has been really hard, and I'm still not sure how the summer is shaping up and if I'll have any significant time to devote to writing it again, but oh, I've missed these characters and this story. Now that I've dipped my toes back into the project, I guess I can call it a WIP again (work in progress)...

The other thing that's making me smile is how much I associate listening to Elgar with writing on this manuscript. I wonder if other writers do this -- have a particular composer or piece of work that seems to just "go" with the writing on a particular project? My whole winter was steeped in Elgar, especially the Enigma Variations (though I am starting to love some of his other work dearly too) and that's when I was doing most of the writing on this story. I associate Elgar so much with this story that I have named the fictional river near my castle the River Elgar.

Alas, I had to return a couple of the Enigma versions I've been enjoying to the library, but I now own a couple as well (okay, three to be precise). Today I dug out the Bernstein, which I tend to listen to less than the others. It had been a while since I'd played it, so I found myself puzzling anew (ah, the great mysteries of life) why Bernstein slowed the tempo down in the Nimrod movement so drastically. Seven minutes! As my husband pointed out when he first heard it, it sounds like a slow sunrise. He's right, it does. And while I don't find it totally absurd as some music critics do -- there's something so majestic and beautiful in the music that it manages to find its way through even this drastic sort of re-interpretation -- I confess I am completely puzzled as to why he did it. Grandstanding? Playing? Experimenting? Or did he really think there was something inherent in the music itself that called for this kind of slow, languorous, cat-like stretching? The question has me really curious. I suspect it always will.

Writing to Elgar again...no matter what conductor, it just feels good. Among other things, it's helping provide me with continuity of mood when I dive into this story, and that's no small thing considering how long it's been since I've worked on it.