I'll be Back!

I have been busy.  And since I know all 6 of you are desperate for an update here are some stats from my life.

Books Read since my last post: 7 - most are middle grade and most of those are realistic.  I am soooo tired of books about friends who grow apart in 6th or 7th grade. I just am. On the other hand, most of these books are worthy of attention.  Loved "Strange Birds", for instance.  I promise you will get a full update.

Weird Story created with a very-close-to-eight-year old.  "Unicorn Poop". We took turns moving the action along.  Totally not as bad as the title suggests.

Days Off from School or Early Dismissals in the last three weeks. 3 
and next week is another early dismissal and there's a day off in the NEXT week and they all seem to fall on Nana and Gramps days.

Stories read to Stuffies - a quad thousand or maybe only 100.
I have to find scary stories to share with the Halloween Scary Story listeners.  Stuffies are a great first audience.

Number of Craft events that I and a handful of Friends are coordinating tomorrow - 1.  I wonder if I will sleep tonight. 4116 Bath Pike, Bethlehem, PA 18017 - Lehigh Valley Quakers - 10 to 2.

Trick or Treaters that I and the above mentioned not-quite-eight-year old handed candy to tonight.- 80.

Halloween Events  that I will take part in as a story teller next week - 3.  
Catasauqua Public Library - Monday, October  28th at 6 pm. Families welcome.
Godfrey Daniels - Wednesday, October 30th at 7 pm. ADULTS ONLY.
Emmaus Public Library - Thursday, October 31st  at 7:30 pm.

I plan to sleep until 10 am on Friday, November 1st - the day that above mentioned not-quite-eight-year old turns EIGHT!! 

Sunday Selfie - a day late

Today, I picked up my mother (93) and my Aunt  Mary (96) from their volunteer work counting the Sunday collection at their church. I drove around the block to my aunt's house.

"Don't get out!" Aunt Mary insisted. "Your mother can help me to the door."

I listen to my elders. I stayed in the car. I watched as my mother supported her big sister, step by step, up the walk. Two old women, gray and slow, side by side, walked together, as I imagine they have walked their entire lives.

I feel privileged to have seen the abiding sisterly love between them. It's unspoken.

Then, having delivered her sister safely to her home, my mother made her way, more quickly and surely back to the car. I drove her to her home where we wrestled empty recycling bins back into their places in the carport.

It is Fall.  We notice the empty places in our garden. We anticipate shorter days, colder nights and darkness. We look forward to loss and if we can stretch our imagination, to the growth that covers the bare spaces.

 Still, today is a good day because, for now, I still can watch these two sisters walk together.

Naked Mole Rat Saves the World - October 15th

Middle school is seriously bad enough without turning into a small hairless rodent in times of duress.

And is it true that a Naked Mole Rat Saves the World (by Karen Rivers) (Out on October 15th!)

Though kit (with a small k) has her own problems, such as having NO HAIR since birth, she needs to make life easier for her mom. kit's Mom had a brush with fame with a musical one-hit wonder. Now, she is afraid to leave their building.  So, kit picks up take-out. She goes to her doctor's appointments with a grown-up friend. Luckily, her mother's place of employment is right downstairs on the first floor. Luckily, kit has good friends who seem to understand without explanation.

Then, Clem falls, or is dropped by her twin, Jorge - on nationwide TV - as kit watched, at hom. They failed at their chance at fame as aerialists AND Clem is badly hurt.  In a matter of seconds kit is - whoosh - gone! A naked mole rat races through the building and out on the street. The first time it happens, kit - and probably the reader - wonders if it's not just kit's imagination. Then, it happens again - and again.

 How can kit get her Mom to go outside? How can she help Clem get back to being Clem after that awful fall? There is the small thing about Jackson, too, and the awful thing he told kit. And Jorge, what's his secret? What really happened that day on the tv show? Who is kit's dad? How can turning into a naked mole rat even be a thing?????

These are engaging characters with relatable problems. Readers will see themselves in kit and her struggles. In middle school, all students feel out of place. Friendships WILL change. Kids WILL question their roots. People will say hurtful or thoughtless things. Our parents and our siblings ARE the weirdest. BUT, true friends will remain true. Love will draw families closer together. We all evolve!

Hopefully, we won't all evolve into small hairless rodents.

Sunday Selfie - Time - The Little Prince

I wrote this last night after a day of not doing much. I titled it "Fugit"

It is all about the time
that stretch between sprout and compost -
between droplet and the sea.

All about time...
The broom sweeps
the dust returns.

Time...
The pen scribbles racing against,
but keeping pace with,
Time.

Eyes closed-
blanket clenched -
waiting -
all about time.

---------------------
I worked through several fairy/folk tale collections with my stuffie friends. So, two nights ago, I started reading The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry). Last night, I came to this paragraph.

"The fact is, I don't want my book to be taken lightly. Telling these memories is so painful to me. It's already been six years since my friend went away, taking his sheep with him. If I try to describe him here, it's so I won't forget him..."

Time.

I found tears running down my face as I read that. That paragraph is not at the end of the book when we know where the Little Prince went and how he got there. No, it comes not all that far into the book, right before we learn of the Little Prince's journey through the planets.

I know how the book ends. I know why the narrator is in pain. And I know what happened to the author, He met the same fate as thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of pilots during WWII.

No wonder I cried.

Time. There is no chance to go back, no do-overs, no insight that allows a gunner to lower his barrel. Or a chance for a word to be unspoken. Or the joy of a pleasure to be lived again for the first time.

Time is funny - funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. It can feel, as it did yesterday, that we putter to just fill up the time, "between sprout and compost". Then, we read something that shows just how active time is against us - taking our memories, our only defense against erosion.

Sit under the autumn trees tomorrow. Walk in the crisp leaves. If time is only that stretch between, fill it with images that will sustain you as you slide toward the end.

Love widely. Work for others. Play hard. Sing. Dance. Read.

Take that, Time. I can fill you to the brim.

Slay! Read this book.

I finished Brittney Morris's book, Slay, two or three days ago. I worried that I'd be at sea in this book because I am not a person of color - seriously, I am so very, very white that I have to be loud and silly just so I don't disappear -, a teen, or a gamer. Morris kept me afloat with her smooth narration.

So here's the story. After a few racist incidents on popular virtual reality-role play games, Kiera creates a game for people of color. The game is called "Slay" because of the double entendre of the word - to dominate, or to kill.  Players challenge each other to duels. Their moves are determined by cards dealt at the beginning of each duel and by their cleverness in playing those cards. The cards all refer to Black American icons, heroes, and culture. Auntie's Potato Salad, anyone? Success or failure in the duels raises or lowers a player's status and can earn the player "coins".

Then, someone is killed over a misuse of "coins" and status, out here in the real world. Suddenly, the game is all over the news and Kiera - who has kept her identity as the co-creator of the game a secret from everyone around her -even her boyfriend, Malcolm, - hears the game vilified all over the media.  Life gets very interesting after this.

I mentioned this book in an earlier post and I mentioned that I was not happy with Malcolm.  Malcolm and his behavior make me sad. That is all I will say about that.

The book was an eye opener because of my demographic. Although every page showed me something new about gaming or color, even about teen life, I never felt excluded by Morris's prose. There is a universality about Kiera's desire to create something that shields her people from abuse, and in her horror that this creation is misunderstood. The arguments for and against allowing people of one group or another to have their own space are everywhere. Is it better for girls if we educate them without boys in their classes? Do Italian Americans need their own social clubs? When must these clubs, schools, activities be open to everyone? Discuss among yourselves.

One of Kiera's classmates is incensed that this game is closed to anyone who is not black. This limit, regardless of its intentions, even effects (is that the right word?) the game's co-creator who describes herself as bi-racial, though everyone around her thinks she's "African".

Race is a minefield. Morris points out so many different shapes of these explosives. Then, she leads the reader through the field with barely a scratch  - or with assumptions shattered.

Kudos, Brittney Morris, and thank you.

Note: I read a paperback advanced reader's copy that I picked up at The Book & Puppet Company in Easton, PA.  This book comes out on September 24th, 2019. Order it now. Just saying.

Remembrance - 9/11/01

I wrote this on September 12th, 2001. It was meant to soothe children when things - big or small - go wrong. The song does NOT address the event that evoked it.  I have no clue how to encompass the hugeness of that loss in a song. It has a melody to go with it.

When the world breaks in two -
now, I don't want to scare you
but skies always blue
are in stories alone -
well, you get out the glue and
you patch things together.
That's what you do 
when you have to move on.

Though your life's rearranged
and your smile may falter,
The stars will still shine in the sky.

With a crack in your heart,
or a scratch on your finger,
toys all in parts
or a friendship gone wrong -
Morning will come and
you'll pull it together.
One step at a time, you'll go on.

When the world breaks in two,
with my love as the glue,
you'll get by.

Authors try to help kids process big events.  Here is a list of books written about the terror strikes on 9/11/2001.

Remember. Look for the helpers, as Mr. Rogers' mother always told him. And whenever you can, be a helper.

Sunday Selfie

I spend the week between the young and the old.

My mother called me last Sunday when she got stung by a hornet. She was fine except for the pain She called the doctor - my brother - so I got to talk to him when I got to the house.

On Tuesday, she got an odd message when she tried to pay a bill online. I went over and called the bank for her because I know the "trick" of getting a human to answer the call. Mom did everything right. But now, she knows why she got that message.

We went greeting card shopping on Thursday. So many people have birthdays, need condolences or reassurances. Then we picked up Gramps (my hubby) and went out to lunch.

Yesterday, we played Scrabble. I have been winning lately but only by a few points. I relish those wins. My Mom still plays a mean game of Scrabble.

She'll be in upstate NY this week with my brother, the doctor. She left this morning. I already miss her.

My granddaughter, on the other hand, is still in town. (She lives nearby.) She slept over last Saturday. We did not get to sleep until midnight and it was NOT her fault.

On Tuesday afternoon, we picked her up from school and for an hour and a half she played with me.

We pretend to text various stuffed animals when Gramps drives us to D's piano lessons.

D likes to mix things together - like glue and peanut butter - to see what happens, usually with no rhyme or reason. I'm a Nana so that's ok with me.

I let the toys lie where they land for a full day before I pick them up. These days will pass too quickly.

The resemblances between these two ladies fill me with awe and with melancholy. They both live life with joy, laugh at mistakes, worry about changes. One smiles because her life is full of memories. The other smiles because she has so much to do.

Today, after worship, someone asked me how I spent my summer. I told them I spent it with these two awesome people.

"One will grow up," I said. "One will leave me forever. I hope they stagger these huge changes so I don't find myself bereft all at once."

As the days shorten, I am grateful that I still have my mother. I rejoice in my granddaughter. And I appreciate the others, the quiet steady ones, my husband, my son and his wife, who stand by.