Ginger Snapped

No Room

2011-12-12T22:16:00.000-05:00

She pulls down the box of books. She knows they have to go; there's simply too much stuff in the gingerbread house. But these books? These were the books she read over and over to her little gingerbread babies. Sitting in the rocking chair that had been her mother's, she held first one boy on her lap, then another, reading these books day after day, smelling their baby smell, reveling in their baby kisses, with their plump bottoms resting on her legs, their anxious hands grasping the thick pages.

The sweetness of the memories makes her ache. This was the book she read when they first woke up: "Hey little guys! Open your eyes! What do you say? It's a brand new day!" (Sandra Boynton) There was SQUIRREL IS HUNGRY, where she tickled tummies after reading, "Squirrel can put it in his tummy. Yum! Yum!" There were the board books that had creased corners, where the first gingerbread boy used to flick the heavy cardboard with his thumb until they bent. And then there was GOODNIGHT, MOON, always a favorite with the kittens and their mittens and that little lit-up dollhouse. It was a gift from her neighbor across the street, a librarian and a kindred spirit.

She feels as if she's packing up her boys' infancy and shipping them off somewhere else. Babies in a box, sent media mail. The smell of their graham-cracker dusted hands, their round bellies, and their chubby cheeks, off they go, wrapped in plastic, and taped securely shut.

She sighs, knowing she's being ridiculous. They're only books.

And they have to go, so she packs them up, sending them off to new owners, to new little hands who will learn to love their rhythms and their rhymes while sitting on a warm lap, rocking in a chair.

The Crystal Ball

2011-12-06T23:07:00.000-05:00

When she started out, she could see into the future. It always involved breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It involved new school clothes, a Halloween costume, a birthday cake, a Christmas tree, lots of snow, those conversation hearts in February, an Easter basket, then a long summer vacation. The future meant a grade change: first grade to second grade, second to third, third to fourth. It always involved a new teacher, new things to learn, a new classroom.

When she went to high school, things began to get a little murky. There was still breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There were still new school clothes--in fact, there were more school clothes, which was ironic considering she wore a school uniform. There was still a birthday cake, and a Christmas tree, and lots of snow. There was still an Easter basket and a long summer vacation, but the future somehow seemed closer. She could see college looming ahead, but finances made her options somewhat limited. So did her mother. And majors? Sigh. She didn't know what she wanted to do with her life.

When she went to college, the future was still something far away, but every day, it was getting closer. She knew it would include a graduation, a marriage, and some children (the number of which was TBD). Someday she'd turn 30, then 40, then 50.

Now that college was over (once, twice, and thrice), and she's been married nearly seventeen years, and her family of gingerbread boys is complete, the future seems like a great expanse, and she can see no farther than the end of her fingertips.

But it doesn't seem to matter. She'll take each day as it comes, good or bad.

A Seat at the Table

2011-11-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

In a different year, at a different table, she sat with different people. The turkey was the same, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce--all seemingly the same, but they were made by different hands, poured into different gravy boats, mashed by different arms, seasoned by a different palate.

Though she cares for the people she sits with now, it's not the same. Different stories are told, different games are played, different rolls are forgotten in a different oven. Different voices speak in different accents, and different feet walk from kitchen to dining room.

She misses the old voices, the familiar table, the cut-glass bowl of cranberry sauce. She misses the chocolate pie, the whipped cream, the relish tray with black olives.

She misses her place in the past, her role in the family, her seat at the table.

The Regulars

2011-11-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

She sits at a table in the diner. The gingerbread boys across from her, the gingerbread man next to her. She orders tomato soup, a bowl of it, and in a rare extravagance, sweet potato fries. That counts as a vegetable, doesn't it?

The eldest gingerbread boy orders two children's meals. He's at the age when he can neither decide upon one meal, nor be satisfied by it. So two it is: hamburger and fries, macaroni and cheese and apple sauce. The younger gingerbread boy orders macaroni and cheese and chicken noodle soup. The gingerbread man orders something involving spice and chicken.

They sit, coloring their place mats, while listening to the banter around them. When their food comes, they eat, marveling over hollow legs and growing bellies, and talking about the wonders they've seen on their trip so far.

The tomato soup is perfect, and is just the thing for this windy New England trip. When she is almost finished, she hears a "Psst." She turns her head, wondering who could be "psst"-ing in a diner. There's a man standing at the entry to her right. Maybe she didn't hear it. No. Ridiculous.

"Psst."

Her ears did not fail her.

"Psssst." A little louder this time.

There must have been some secret signal, because the waitress comes over to her gingerbread clan. "Would you mind moving your coats?" The gingerbread man jumps up, grabs their coats they had slung over a stool at the counter on her left, and puts them in the empty booth on the other side.

The man sits down on the vacated stool.

"Hey, Jerry. How are you tonight?" The waitress asks.

Ah, a regular, she thinks. And they are outsiders, visitors to this coastal city. Tourists, even.

"Fine. You got any tomato soup?"

Good choice, she thinks.

"I'll go check."

The waitress disappears, then comes back with a sad shake. "All out. Just finished it. But we have Tomato Florentine."

She sinks a little in her seat, the evidence set before her: the remains of the last bowl of tomato soup. Not only is she a tourist, she's a tomato-soup stealer, too.

"Nah. I'll have chicken salad on white bread, and make sure he spreads it, not scoops it."

"You want chips with that?"

"Sure, sure."

She rumples up her napkin and sets it by the side of her bowl, carefully sculpting it to hide the evidence. She's not sorry she had the soup. It was good. But she wishes there were more.

Impossibilities

2011-10-24T20:52:00.000-04:00

When a day only has 24 hours, and an hour only has 60 minutes, how can a person possibly change the world?

Running

2011-09-30T18:52:00.001-04:00

You've never been a soccer mom. More like a library mom.

But the gingerbread boy had taken up cross-country. He stays after school for practices, takes the bus to meets, and is in possession of a jersey.

So, you, de facto, become one of the sideline moms, cheering loudly. You love it. In fact, you love cross-country more than the gingerbread boy does, whose enthusiasm has waned with each footfall, each mile run.

The home meets are at an apple orchard, where the team races through paths in the forest, around ponds, past the orchard where bees drunkenly buzz circles around the runners.

You, with your childhood in the city, can only imagine the magic of running a race through a forest, through an apple orchard, past bridges and streams, past hundred-year old graveyards, in the New England autumn.

Beauty

2011-09-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

You're at the drug store searching for an alarm clock that the gingerbread boy saw on the clearance table two days ago. You realized after the fact that you really should have bought it for him. It would have been $10 toward responsibility and independence, things you can't put a price tag on.

But you didn't.

So now you're back, pawing through the heaps of staplers, car oil, extension cords, and other ephemera, hoping to find that clock. You're vaguely aware of another shopper at the next clearance table.

"Well, look at that cute red hair poking out from under that hat!" she says.

You turn to face her. You know she's referring to you, as you fit the bill: you're the only other person in that section of the store, you're wearing a baseball cap, and you've got auburn hair. But you don't know her, and you're not feeling even remotely cute. You've been canning all day, and your hair is a frizzy mess; that's why you're wearing a hat.

"Oh, and the rest of you is cute, too! You're just the cutest thing ever!"

You want to duck your head and back away, but instead you smile and say, "Thank you," and go back to pawing through the clearance items. Where is that alarm clock?

But she carries on. "You know my friends ask me if I'm in a time warp, because I'm 59, and they say I haven't changed a bit." She nods.

You're surprised, just as she expected you to be. She doesn't look 59.

"I'm closing in on forty." You offer up a small tidbit to this chatty soul.

Her eyebrows raise. "Well, you just keep on doing whatever you're doing, because you're beautiful! You're just beautiful!"

You take off down the first aid aisle, hoping for a giant ace bandage to swallow you up, feeling both pleased and mortified at the same time.

As you drive home, you recall a similar experience twenty years ago, when you were nineteen. You were at AAA on Delaware Ave., tracking down a youth hostel card because you were heading to Europe with your sister for a month. It was a sunny day, and you were wearing plaid leggings with a v-neck sweater and your black leather ankle boots that you purchased with your own money even though they were outrageously expensive.

Your mom had been sick that past year--the ER staff didn't think she would live--and over the course of six months or so, you had withered away to 104 pounds. You knew your family was worried about you, but the fact was, you simply didn't have time for feasting. School, work, dance company, and hospital were on your plate each day, leaving little room for milk and honey.

But you weren't thinking about that then; you were thinking Scotland, England, Belgium, Austria, Italy, France. Your mom was better, and you were coming up for a desperately needed gulp of air. You just required a youth hostel card. Your outrageously expensive boots walked you into AAA.

Two fifty-something women sat on chairs by the big plate glass windows. "Doesn't she look great?" one said, as you slid past them.

You smiled to yourself as you completed the necessary paperwork, and left AAA feeling like a rockstar.

While details of childhood, high school, and college have faded and become fuzzy, you remember this moment with clarity. You wonder why. When you studied mythology in eighth grade, you always wanted to be like Athena, goddess of wisdom, war, and handicrafts, never like flaky Aphrodite, whose name sounded like a classification of insect or mineral. Beauty wasn't your thing.

But Doesn't she look great? became engraved on your memory. The words come up every once in a while, on days when you feel like a big fat frumpy failure. Doesn't she look great? And the sunny day, the plaid leggings, the v-neck sweater, and those boots (Oh, those boots!) all come back to you. On those days, you think, once upon a time, someone thought I looked great.

It shouldn't matter, this sort of skin-deep approval. Your face is simply your face. You were born with it. You see out of those eyes, rarely registering even a reflection off a window. You don't consider yourself beautiful; in fact, sometimes you think you're downright ugly. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you look like. You just are and that is that. Shouldn't you feel more pleased when someone says you ARE great, rather than you LOOK great? Sure you should, but no one says that sort of thing. Instead, they say what they see.

Maybe that's why those words have become inked in your memory; those words have morphed into a generic approval. You're doing okay, girlie. Keep it up. And that's enough. That's all that you really needed to hear.

Summer afternoons

2011-08-22T18:35:00.000-04:00

The hairdryer is loud. You think of tasks, the to-do list, the grocery list, the appointments, the laundry, the unpacking, all that must happen this day. You think of the landscaping, and the work of digging out a new pathway and setting bricks, building stone walls all by yourself. You think of paint colors, and how you really should repaint the living room, and then there's the furnace and the water filter system you still need, and all that reading and critiquing you need to do, and you're overwhelmed by it all. The day still only has twenty-four hours, right?

Knock, knock.

"Come in."

"Mommy, how do you spell if?"

"Eye. Eff."

The door closes, and you flip upside down, hot air rushing around your ears. BLT's tonight? Then you can use up the leftover bacon from last night.

Knock, knock.

"How do you spell get?"

"Gee. Eee. Tee."

The door closes again. Should you make grilled pizza again this week? You add fontina to your mental grocery list. And tomatoes. You flip right side up again, your curls going a bit haywire. Cereal, you need cereal. And paper towels. And fruit, since that last watermelon was grossly over-ripe. Sandwich bags.

Knock, knock.

"How do you spell prizes?"

"Pee. Are. Eye. Zee. Eee. Ess."

"Thanks."

The door closes again. Your hair is dry enough--not completely dry, but it'll have to do. You click off the dryer, unplug it, and set it in the cabinet under the sink. Groceries, then you have to get to school to meet with the teacher at one.

"Can you read this, Mommy? Can you tell what it says?"

He holds a large sheet of paper, on which is written in blue marker:

"I If ~~you~~ If you g get a 4 tac"

You say, "If you get a four, tack."

"No, no," he says. "If you get a four, take four prizes. How do you spell prizes again?"

You tell him, and he continues to work while you put in a load of laundry.

By mid-afternoon, the enterprising young businessman is set up with a table at the end of the driveway, a half-gallon of lemonade, an envelope to collect donations for the poor, and a bean-bag toss game with a jar of candy for prizes. Like a hawker at Covent Garden in London, he shouts out, "Lemonade stand! Lemonade! Donations for the poor! Bean bag toss! Thirty cents for three bean bags, twenty cents for two bean bags, ten cents for one!"

If only the trees could pull up their roots and come quench their thirst at his little stand. If only the squirrels would pause in their commute from treetop to treetop to toss a bean bag in his carefully drawn and cut bean bag toss poster. If only the stones could change their nature through some alchemy, and hurl themselves into his envelope of donations for the poor.

But they can't.

So you gather a few quarters to play his bean bag toss game, and he carefully tallies up your points on his fingers, and says, "You get four candies!" You don't want the candies, but you take them anyway, because that's what moms do. The groceries and laundry can wait.

Shoulds

2011-08-14T16:13:00.000-04:00

She should be rewriting a chapter. She should be revising. But the sun shines, the breeze blows puffy clouds across the sky, and the summer is short.

She brings the Gingerbread Boys to the pool, and the younger one has gone to play with his brother.

First, they stand under the buckets that dump as they're filled with water. Yellow, then the green, orange, blue, and red. They move under the blue mushroom, curtains of water cascading down around them. Next, the palm tree where three spouts shoot water which they catch on their bony chests. They move to the silly face, eyebrows, eyes, nose, and red lips shooting water. The older Gingerbread boy turns the crank to increase the water flow. The younger one giggles, following right behind.

They make the circuit again, and she wonders if she should get out the camera to take a picture. Will she remember this day without an image to carry it? Like that day in Jeju-Do, when they returned to the beach and the boys rode wave after blue wave, and the sky was perfect and the sand was pink. She desperately wanted to take pictures, but the camera wasn't in her bag. Will she remember that day? The perfect colors? The motion of the sea? The arc of the spray? The glee on her children's faces? She has the camera with her today; she should take pictures while she can.

But by the time she looks up, the Gingerbread Boys have become bored with the water spray and have returned to the slide, where they are the only ones in line, so they go down again and again, each time with a big grin on their faces. How tall they are getting. How quickly they're growing up. Would a camera even capture this joie de vivre? She's certain it can't.

She should be revising, but on such a perfect day, she leaves the camera in her bag and decides to etch this image in her mind.

The Tooth Fairy

2011-07-21T08:34:00.000-04:00

When she was of a tooth-losing age, the Tooth Fairy was late collecting one of her teeth. Instead, the Tooth Fairy sent a letter apologizing, saying that she got caught in a typhoon. Or was it a monsoon? One or the other. Anyway, she loved that letter. She showed it to everyone. Imagine! Getting a letter from the Tooth Fairy! Everyone else just got quarters.

Thirty years later, she remembers that letter from the Tooth Fairy. Gingerbread Boy #1 lost a molar, and there they were, in a real live typhoon. Rain and wind and more rain. It was easy to see how the Tooth Fairy could get blown off course. Thankfully, she didn't get blown off course this time; she delivered a 1,000 won bill promptly, placing it by the note the Gingerbread Boy wrote.

Two weeks later, Gingerbread Boy #2 lost a tooth. He placed it in the drawer of a lacquered box, his prized possession here, purchased with some extra funding from mom. He carefully wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy:

"Dear Tooth Fairy,
My tooth is in the box.
Love,
[Gingerbread Boy] [heart, heart]

He let his dear mother know at bedtime that he hoped the Tooth Fairy would bring him some paper as well. The Tooth Fairy procured some paper from the reception desk at the hotel that says "Casaville Shinchon," and placed it and a 1,000 won bill by his note, along with a note of her own, saying, "I received your tooth. With thanks, Tooth Fairy. Post-script: Please find paper as requested."

The Gingerbread Boy was so thrilled, he immediately set about writing long and complicated and indecipherable notes back to the Tooth Fairy, apparently directing her to put an X on a piece of paper and leave that paper over the particular item she would like to have. He spread out an array of silly bands and Korean trinkets, ready for her choosing.

After stories and prayers and lights out, he lay in bed for some time.

"Mommy? Can you do something for me?"

"What would you like me to do?"

"Can you get some more paper?"

"Why do you need more paper?"

"So the Tooth Fairy can choose five things. She needs to put an X on five pieces of paper."

"She can't possibly carry five things. She has all those teeth to carry, and she's much too small."

"But she could take one tonight, and come back every night for five nights."

How can she dampen such enthusiasm? His sweet face looks up at her in the dark, and she explains to him how the Tooth Fairy is busy, collecting teeth all over the world, and asking her to come back five times would be too difficult for her.

He accepts this, lies back down, and lets her kiss him.

Then he wiggles another tooth.

Seen Around Town...

2011-07-10T07:55:00.002-04:00

On Any Given Day

2011-07-04T22:04:00.001-04:00

You wake up because two walls of your bedroom are floor to ceiling windows. Though there are drapes covering them, they don't block out all the light. So 5:00 am, hello. The bed has no box springs; the mattress is mattress and box spring all rolled up in one. The bed is only covered with a duvet-on-comforter. No sheet, no light blanket, just a big honking comforter. The air conditioning unit is above your head and blows cold air down on you, off and on through the wee hours. Too cold without the comforter, too hot with it.

You get up for some quiet time sans children, and eat breakfast in the little kitchen. You've purchased five separate boxes of cold cereal in the hopes of finding something without sugar. No luck. Even the Special K seems sugar-coated. There is muesli, but at about $9 a bag, you'll make do with the sugary stuff. At least for now. There are several different colors of milk cartons at the grocery store; you've yet to figure out which one is skim. The last time you got pink, and just now, you realize you might have purchased strawberry-flavored milk. Hm. Maybe you'll have bread for breakfast today.

The bread you can buy is mostly either artisanal-type bread for about $4 for a very small loaf, or a spongy white bread. You rejoiced the day you found a wheat-ish type sandwich bread with sunflower seeds in it. There's no toaster in your kitchen, not even an oven, so you eat the bread untoasted, with either strawberry jam or European butter.

Time to shower. The shower is not really separated from the the rest of the bathroom. There's a shower curtain that doesn't reach the floor, but keeps much of the water contained. Koreans simply have a pair of rubber sandals they keep at the entrance to the bathroom for people to wear as they walk in to keep their feet from getting wet.

The shower is lovely, though it's tight quarters in there. You dry yourself off with the serviceable towels. Not much more can be said of them. Since the floor is all wet, you sneak into the closet next door to get dressed. The closet has a big mirror, a light, two bars for hanging clothes, two drawers, and two shelves. But only three hangers.

The gingerbread boys are up now and playing. It's time to get them moving. You pack up a snack: two containers of something crunchy and a few water bottles, the subway map, and bag of stuff: camera, Korean book, tissues, mints. You make sure you have the room key and the transit cards. One of them runs ahead to push the elevator button. There are two elevators, and a person could grow old waiting for one of them to come--or else melt, since the hallway is not air-conditioned. You ride downstairs in a packed elevator car, full of Korean women with blue-polished toenails peeking out of gladiator sandals, and Korean men checking their hair in the mirror.

Downstairs, you walk past the guard desk, and out the door. The gingerbread boys opt to go through the rotating door. To the right of the hotel is the Lotteria, Korea's answer to fast food. A speaker sits above the door and blares pop music. A bus stop is in front of you, and people wait as bus after bus arrives and then departs in a cloud of exhaust. Next to that is a fruit vendor, with neat pyramids of round plums and tomatoes. Bananas sit at the edge, striped, next to the small yellow melons.

You cross a street, and enter into the zone of street vendors. To the right is someone selling socks--piles upon piles of socks. To the left are racks of men's shirts and pants. Beyond that underwear--mens and then ladies--then tables and round racks of women's clothing, and racks of shoes. It's like K-Mart on the street, but with salespeople hawking their wares with microphone and speaker. No blue-light specials here.

Across from the clothing vendors are the food vendors, with trays of California rolls, and plates of batter-fried octopus, shrimp, sweet potato, crab, and hard-boiled eggs. Some sell boiled corn on the cob. Down the street is the roasted chestnut guy.

Finally, you reach the corner, and with that the subway station: the entrance to a sort of underground purgatory with crowds of people and heat and noise, and the beginning of an adventure.

Speak Your Language

2011-07-01T08:54:00.000-04:00

They say that almost everyone speaks some English here. What they mean is that almost no one speaks English here, and she finds herself racking up stupid American points left and right because of lack of communication: on the subway, on the bus, at the aquarium, in the lobby, at the grocery store. When she tries to ask something, she is met by a proliferation of Korean. There's no point in responding, so she doesn't; she only stares blankly, shakes her head, and feels stupid.

Her impulse is to speak Italian, and the impulse is so strong, and so ridiculous, that it makes her laugh. If Koreans don't speak English here, it's not likely they'll speak Italian. It's just that the last time she was in such a communication void, she was in Italy, and eventually, she became fluent in Italian. But here? She knows the word for "hello" and "thank you" and "grandfather" and "palace" and "rice." Today she learned the word for "salt." All she can really say is "Hello, palace grandfather. Thank you salt rice." Not exactly conversational, especially if you want to know how to get from one place to another, or if you want to know what this is on your plate, or if you want to find out where you can sit to eat a snack without offending anyone.

As she sits on the subway with the gingerbread boys, the youngest looks out the window watching for ghosts in the tunnel. The other one holds her hand and looks around. She watches the signs that light up with the names of the stations, and tries to figure out the hangeul--the Korean script--for the various letters. The hangeul is supposed to be a brilliant alphabetic system, easy to learn, but the lines and circles float around in her head, and she feels the greatest sympathy for dyslexics. She could try to learn the letters, but she doesn't know any of the rules of how to put them together to make words, and with only three and a half weeks left here, she wonders if there's any point in trying.

She stops looking at the signs announcing the stations and looks around at the other passengers on the subway. All of the younger generation are glued to their cell phones, texting or talking or playing games. A very few sleep. The older generation watch the gingerbread boys, smiling indulgently at them. There's a woman on the train who looks like the Korean version of someone she knows. In fact, she's seen several Korean versions of people she knows. She wonders if there's a Korean version of her somewhere here. Would she recognize her? Could she walk up to her and know her heart? She wouldn't be able to talk to her, because of course, her Korean self wouldn't speak English, just as she doesn't speak Korean.

But she wishes she could communicate with her...then she might not feel quite so foreign.

Ignorance is not always bliss.

Random Things

2011-06-28T03:34:00.000-04:00

Korea seems to be a BYOT: Bring Your Own Towel kind of place.

Many people have random English sayings scrawled on their tee-shirts. Things like: Shooting Sparkling Star or Fashion Makes You or Thirteen.

Men wear capris here.

Women wear high heels. The more sparkles and spangles on them, the better.

Koreans love children.

Everyone carries an umbrella, rain or shine.

The subway system is blessedly easy to navigate. All the stops are numbered. Even the exits/entrances are numbered.

The grocery store is in the basement of the department store. Upstairs Clinique and Lancome. Downstairs octopus and watermelon.

Paper towels in public bathrooms come with hearts embossed on them.

Toilet paper has pink teddy bears printed on it.

Stone Guardians

2011-06-28T03:19:00.000-04:00

Shouldn't all houses come with their own stone mascot?

Imagine if you put this little fellow on a leash and took him for a walk around the neighborhood. Everyone would be wanting one. Keeping up with the Joneses would have quite a different meaning.

If you looked out your kitchen window to see him on guard duty, would you sleep more soundly? Or less?

No shedding, for sure, but the vet bills might send you into apoplexy.

Take care

2011-06-26T09:20:00.000-04:00

The email ended with, "I see we are expecting a typhoon. It is a little earlier this year than last. Take care."

Instead of taking care, they took a taxi to church. They listened to a vehement Korean reverend sprinkle his sermon with bits of English. It reminds her of a Far Side cartoon where a dog listens to her owner speak: "Blah blah blah blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah." Except here it was "Pojanmacha beondaegi pajeon dabotap What the Lord wills seokguram bulguk-sa shupojirisan cheonghakdong."

Strangely enough, it works for her.

They are a two-religion family, so there is still more church to come. They mapquest the next church, then they proceed to wander the streets. They ask a motorcyclist-delivery guy [side note: McDonald's has motorcyclist delivery guys here; this one wasn't a McD's guy, though] for directions. He gives them very precise directions--in Korean. They try to follow along, but after several blocks of wandering through a bizarre neighborhood of arcades and bars, they end up asking another shopkeeper for directions. He not only gives them precise directions, he takes out his map, then writes everything down--in Korean--and staples it all together.

They head off again, but within two blocks, they are overtaken by the first motorcyclist delivery guy, who directs them once again.

Have I mentioned yet that it was raining? That not only was it raining, it was a typhoon? No? Feel the dripping umbrellas, and hear the squishing feet in sandals.

They walk further, with even less idea of where to go. They stop once again, and this time, they ask two young Koreans for help. The two young Koreans take pity on them, and walk with them until they come upon a corner and are uncertain where to go. A western couple walks by. She decides to follow them.

The Koreans come along too, just to make certain they deliver their poor lost bedraggled American family to their destination.

And there it is. Not just the church, but the temple, too. They're about 35 minutes late, but they are there, and that must count for something, because a general authority was there, and they were invited to stay for lunch. Real bibimbap, and real rice cake.

Day One and Day .45

2011-06-25T05:19:00.000-04:00

The first surprise was the packet of honey-roasted peanuts she got on the plane. You're not in Kansas, anymore, Toto. Peanuts. Peanuts and pineapple juice. Usually she has pretzels and tonic water with lime. No fat-free tasteless pretzels that stick in her teeth for Korean Air. Peanuts! She eats the peanuts with relish, wishing for the days when no one was allergic to peanuts, as they are the perfect airplane food. She wouldn't normally have gotten pineapple juice, but she's sitting next to the youngest gingerbread boy who loves pineapple juice, and it's easier to simply say, "Two, please."

The second surprise was the packet of toys the flight attendant gave to her gingerbread boys. One got a drawstring bag with a magnetic doodle pad in it, and the other a stuffed tiger and a blanket. Just because. Koreans love children.

After that, not much was a surprise. The flight was long. The flight was uncomfortable. The flight made her sick.

Supper was a choice of bibimbap or beef stew. She chose bibimbap. When in Rome, and all that. Might as well start now. Her neighbor gave her advice on the tube of hot pepper paste, because she added only the tiniest of squirts. The neighbor practically laughed. In fact, she did laugh. She also suggested she add the sesame oil.

So she squirted some more pepper paste, dumped some oil, and mix-mix-mixed. It wasn't bad for airplane food.

Then the flight attendants turned the lights low so they could sleep. Next thing she knew, they were bringing around trays of orange juice. She wondered what they would bring around for breakfast. What did Koreans eat for breakfast, anyway?

The youngest gingerbread boy wanted pancakes. She knew there wouldn't be pancakes. Something was cooking, though. Sausage?

Her feet felt like they were sausages from having sat in one place for so long.

No. Second supper. Apparently, they crossed the international date line. The orange juice was a nod toward breakfast, lunch was skipped entirely, and it was time for supper again, even though it was only 2:30 am. This time, they had a choice of pasta or chicken and mashed potatoes. The small foil packages reminded her of the free lunches given out to kids at her elementary school.

The first sight she had of Korea was a reflection of metal. The second sight was of sand bars and islands covered in green foliage. Then there was more land: roads, bridges, tiny little cars driving. Soon she, too, would be one of millions in a tiny little car driving toward a destination. But her eyes would be closed.

It's hard work eating supper at 2:30 am.

The Leaving

2011-06-14T21:31:00.000-04:00

When you were about ten, you started practicing. Off to camp for a week. Good-bye.

When you were thirteen, you practiced some more. Off to England for a summer. Good-bye.

When you came back, you started a new life at a new school, where you knew only three people: two girls who lived on your street and one girl from your grammar school. Good-bye grammar school people.

When you started college, you did the same thing. Good-bye high school friends.

You went to Italy for a semester. More practicing. Good-bye family. But you came back. Hello, again.

Then you transferred to a new university across the country. Good-bye again.

Then you came back for good. Good-bye college friends.

But then you got engaged and moved across the state to be closer to your love.

After a few months, you married. Good-bye maiden name. Hello, anonymous Johnson.

And you moved. Good-bye in-laws.

Then you moved again. Good-bye icky little town.

And again. Good-bye grad school. Hello hometown.

But then the job was sold, and the husband was laid off. You went to Michigan for more graduate school. But there is always an end to graduate school. You said good-bye to your dear friends and moved on.

Now you are here.

You have always left, always had one eye to the future, with little thought to what you left behind. Each time you leave, you miss your friends, and the familiarity of places and things, but time and circumstance have placed you elsewhere, so you move on. Friendships are forever, no matter where you are, right?

Now, the tables are turned. It is not you who is leaving. It is not you who leaves a hole. Time and circumstance have decreed this, and you accept it, but you wonder, what could possibly fill the gap they will leave behind? Who can take their place?

You can't imagine that anyone ever could.

Friendships are forever, no matter where you are, right?

A Quick Run

2011-06-07T23:23:00.000-04:00

You don your running shoes, and head out the door. Your ipod shuffle is full of sleeping music, and you can't get it to change playlists, but you can't bear the thought of running to Claire de Lune or Enya, so you go old-school with only the music of birds twittering and your feet slapping the pavement. At the end of the driveway, you turn left, because then you'll head down that major hill at the beginning of the run, instead of up it at the end. Right now, you know if you switch directions, you'll never make it back home, let alone any serious distance. Hah. Who are you kidding? You never do any serious distance. In fact, there was a time when you couldn't run to the end of the street without gasping. Well. Now you can. Still, the loop you run is maybe a mile. Whatever. Down you go tonight.

The sun will set soon, and the mosquitoes will come to dine, but for now, it's just you and the road and your head full of thoughts. You pass the house on the corner that's for sale. Then another one for sale. And one more. You pass a flowering bush with a perfume that nearly persuades you to give up suburban life and live in a cardboard box under its boughs. Around you go, past the path through the forest to the river. If you had paid attention, you would have seen the last of the blooms on the lady's slippers. But you missed it. Was that when you inhaled the bug? Could have been.

Here is the ditch by the road that flows every spring with run-off. It's the sort of place you would have been mesmerized with as a child. A little river for fairies. Behind it lies the house with the beautiful gardens. You would like to have a garden like that someday. You would also like to have a full-time gardener to take care of it. Neither is likely. Your low-maintenance gardens will have to do. Perennials are where it's at, honey.

The road rises to the stop sign. On the left is the army of fir trees blockading the house behind it. To the right is another house for sale. Is there a mass exodus going on? You cross the road passing the party house. It's rented by some young men who have motorcycles and snow-mobiles and the like. They've been digging a pit in the side yard for some time, lining it with stones, and you wonder what it will be? Home for a septic tank? Hot tub? Fire pit? Final resting place of a multitude of beer cans? You don't know. And actually, you don't really care either.

You think about the road that you are on. It connects to another road and another that could take you to visit people you have not seen in years. It could take you to Virginia, where you could see your best friend from high school. Or New Jersey, where you could see your best friend from dancing school. It could take you westward where you could stop to see your family. You could go even further west to see your pen-pal or your friend who is a true kindred spirit. The pavement is all connected, one road to another, like veins and arteries winding their way through a body. The thought makes you feel like the world is a bit smaller, and that your friends are really only a road (or two) away.

At the corner you turn left again, and pass your dear friend's home. She is among the finest women you know, and you feel blessed to know her. In fact, you're surrounded with good people, good friends.

Only half a dozen homes and you'll be back at your driveway. Arms and legs pump past house after house, until you're back in front of your own house, where the daffodils, grape hyacinths, lilacs, and lily of the valley have given way to the purple irises and heather and that one flowering tree that looks like it came directly out of a Dr. Seuss book. The foxgloves and lilies will come next, but you're not certain you'll be here to appreciate them. Oh well. Someone will appreciate them, you hope, but if not, you'll be able to greet them next year.

At the base of the steps, you lift your foot up to the stones of the retaining wall and fold forward in an exquisite stretch. Your muscles ache and the mosquitoes are out, but you are happy. How could you be otherwise?

Omni-Mom

2011-05-25T14:58:00.000-04:00

Wake up. Write. Read. Pray. Dress. Pack lunches. Eat breakfast in the car. Gym. Shake yo' booty. Shower. Pick up Gingerbread Boys. Pick up Gingerbread Man. Immunizations. One, two, three. Ow. Get sticker that says "I was brave!" Drop off Gingerbread Man. Drop off Gingerbread Boys. Home for lunch at 2:00. Breathe.

Still to come: homework time, practice time, supper time, and evening band concert.

IT'S OMNI-MOM, our favorite heroine!

Kid Fears

2011-05-18T13:16:00.000-04:00

If you were to look down, out of the sky, hovering over a small house in a city far from here, you would see a scabby-kneed girl, a serious girl, a girl too old for her biological years. You might be able to feel the fear that rose up around her like a bubble, a tangible fear, a fear that followed her wherever she went.

On trips to the beach with its soft, sandy white shores, she would sit in the shallows where the sand under her was crested from the action of the waves. There she was safe from scary things in the deep, from seaweed that stretched out toward her ankles, from fish that might nibble on her toes, from monsters and goons.

On picnics, she sat on a blanket, or on the cement if there was cement nearby, for the grass might harbor small things that would crawl or bite. It might harbor glass shards, or rusty nails, or pop cans.

At school, she listened. She wrote. She read. But she wouldn't raise her hand, for fear that someone would laugh, or worse, that someone would notice her, when really she wanted to be invisible.

At home, her fears settled over her like the sky. Darkness, dogs, the netherworld under the bed, lightning and thunder, high places, failure. She tried to imagine them away. Darkness was just the absence of light. Dogs could be vanquished with a sharp command. The only things under the bed were shoes and dust. Lightning and thunder were just manifestations of the weather. When she was nineteen and nearly invincible, she climbed the Eiffel Tower, putting one foot after the other on the open metal grillwork to prove to herself that she could conquer her fears.

But she is still surrounded by a bubble of fear, a fear of things much more personal--of pain and loss, of failure and the future--and she longs for the time when her only fears were of ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.

La Dolce Vita e Molto Caro

2011-05-03T21:57:00.001-04:00

Twenty years ago, you packed your bags. It was time to go home. Mostly you packed shirts and pants and socks, squeezing them into the corners and crevices of your suitcases. You rolled them up, not caring about the state they would arrive in. You were certain you would never want to wear any of them again, having worn them over and over and over during your months there. They had been scrubbed within an inch of their lives and hung out to dry by your faithful Italian host mama, bleached in the strong Italian sun and dried to a crisp.

You packed the camera, the film, the journal. The notebooks, the sketches.

You packed the souvenirs and gifts for your family, gathered during visits to Venice, to Florence, to Rome, to San Gimignano, to Assisi. Books, panforte, a silver Etruscan ring, a compass, Murano glass. You didn't bring back much for yourself--a green suede jacket, a book of photos, a ring, some Florentine paper.

Most of what you brought back couldn't be packed. Your fluency in Italian. Your habit of eating fruit after meals. The peculiar way you peel oranges. An appreciation for deep blue sky and ancient stone. Your love for the ridiculous shapes of cypress trees and umbrella pines. Your memories--of tap-dancing on a bridge over the Arno, of standing in the same room that Michelangelo doodled in, of lounging in the Campo, of navigating Europe by yourself. The sweetness you felt for your host family.

You also brought back your homesickness. You wouldn't need it anymore, of that you were certain. You didn't realize that Siena was also home now, and years later, you would feel the homesickness in reverse.

A Promise

2011-04-29T11:09:00.000-04:00

It's early, much earlier than she usually arises. Work first, then a promise to keep. She tiptoes out of her office after the words are written, and steps into the first Gingerbread Boy's room. He's sitting in the armchair in the dark, wide awake already.

"It's time, honey."

She tiptoes down the hall to the other Gingerbread Boy's room. He's zonked. She hates to wake him, but she promised she would. She pats his arm, rubs his cheek, whispers into his small ear. "It's starting soon."

His eyelids flutter while his brother watches from beside the bed.

They follow her to the family room, where they wrap up in blankets in the chill spring air and watch the festivities over blueberry muffins and orange juice with pulp.

So many questions they have for her, about queens and castles and cathedrals, about priests and promises, as they sit there snuggled up by her side. She answers them as best as she can, plunging into her memories of her life in London so long ago.

Perhaps years later, the Gingerbread Boys will remember this morning. Not for the muffins or juice, or even the pomp and pageantry, but for a happy morning spent with their mother and a promise she kept.

The Greening

2011-04-20T21:01:00.000-04:00

Sadness spreads like a sower scattering seeds. The seeds find fertile ground in her and land there, burrowing into her skin, into the deep down places where they sprout, nurtured unwittingly by blood and bone. Shoots spread forth growing both inward and outward, and she wonders if she will ever be able to root them all out. It is like pulling at a dandelion only to have stem detach from root and downy fluff fly off, enabling dozens more dandelions to take root.

There is no cause for the sadness; it just is, like cold in winter, like leaves in fall, like rain in April. It sits there, within her, growing bigger each day, a pregnancy gone horribly wrong, and she feels the shame of it.

But a breeze blows by, bringing different seeds, renegade seeds, hopeful seeds. They sprout in the midst of all the sadness; they choke it out. When she looks out the window today, she realizes that the world around her is greening. She decides that she will too.

She will choose joy.

A Poem for Poetry Month

2011-04-08T11:08:00.001-04:00

I eat my sadness for breakfast,
Spread it on my bread like butter,
I drink it down, a bitter juice
swilling in my soul
Cutting a hole.

It hovers over me, smothering.
No welcomed guardian angel
but a constant comrade
nonetheless
as I dress.

I bind it with letters,
written in round loops of ink
Sink it under an ocean
of crossed t's and a dotted i
I sigh.

But it slips away
Smoke and fog swirls
And I breathe it in morning and night

And it weighs me down

A corpus frown

I sink my feet into it

I put on my vest

It holds me like mud

or quicksand or water.

Its enduring daughter.

Guest Post at Jessica Leader's Blog

2011-03-31T19:42:00.000-04:00

Jessica Leader has generously offered to donate $1 to the Louisville, Kentucky library for each comment she gets on her blog this week. She asked me to guest post there today. You can see the post and comment here.

The Murky Middle

2011-03-29T12:17:00.001-04:00

She realized today that she very well might be in the middle of her life. Not the mid-life crisis middle--just the middle. One-half. The mid-point. The watershed.

The thought makes her pause. She calculates quickly, numbers flying through her mind.

Could she have already passed it? What if she was already on the other side of the hill? If she already passed it, what had she been doing? Was it something important? What if she had passed her mid-point doing something mundane like laundry? Or filing her nails? Filing her bills? Making spinach ravioli? At what point was she halfway through? Last week? Or last month? She knows that there's no answer here, that no one knows the length of her days, but still. The thought that she's already passed the mid-point stays with her.

If the average life expectancy is 78, she's already there. But maybe she comes from hearty stock. Maybe she's got good long genes in her. Heaven knows, she didn't get good long legs from her genes.

She decides to look up average life expectancy for women now, because 78 seems young still. Lo and behold, Google give her something better: a life expectancy calculator! Answer questions about habits, nutrition, family illnesses, etc, and out pops a number, the number you will reach before you need to start thinking about those pearly gates.

It's too tantalizing. The disclaimer says it only takes about 10 minutes. She can't resist. It's like shaking the magic 8 ball and seeing her future: "Outlook good."

So she answers the questions. No cigarettes, no drinking, good diet, yes exercise, blood pressure low, can't remember HDL levels, sunscreen mostly, sleep not so good, but hey, we all have room for improvement, don't we? On and on, she answers questions, and before she knows it, the test is over, and the number she receives is a number she often saw on her report card in high school. Does one's high school average correlate with life expectancy? Hm. Good thing she was on the honor roll.

She does the math again, and a stupid brand of relief comes over her. She hasn't reached the mid-point yet. Theoretically, of course. She still has years--nearly a decade--to plan something profound to mark that day, but whenever that day comes, she hopes she'll be surrounded by her boys: the Gingerbread Man and the gingerbread boys; family and friends near and far, all laughing and eating, singing and dancing, sure in the knowledge that there is more yet to come.

Transitions

2011-03-15T14:56:00.001-04:00

Where does one thing become another? Where does the sea turn into land? Where does the sun separate from the sky? How does the long winter slip away into spring? How does one life turn into two, with child in his mother's arms? How does one life melt away into nothingness?

The sweetness of change turns bitter these days, as the sea has forgotten its bounds, and flat land thinks it should be hill, and things better contained fly free through the air: Pandora's box is opened. In the midst of this, a heart a world away breaks for people who are not one thing or another, for people whose souls were firmly planted in time and place, and who now know not where they stand. Out of their former abundance, only an abundance of loss remains.

Can you come into my house? Can I give you bread and shelter? Can I smooth your hair back, and let you weep? Can I shoulder your burden for just a bit, so you can regain your strength before you return to your dose of sorrow?

If only I could.

I am troubled by your troubles.

Map of Us

2011-03-11T06:00:00.021-05:00

This is me.

This is you.

This is where I worked when we met, the downtown shop, all expensive and flowery.

This is you, driving up in your car, and here I am, waiting.

For you.

This is where we ate, our first date, and this is the song that made you pause, grinning at its serendipity.

This is the park we drove to that night, the paths we strolled down, the roses in bloom.

This is you, driving away in your car. This is me, wishing you weren't driving away.

This is my plane ticket, to return to college.

This is the telephone I spent hours on, listening to your voice coming from so very far away.

This is me, home once again. This is you, driving up in your car.

This is the place where you hugged me, hugged me so hard that you gave away your mission: one square ring box in your chest pocket.

This is the park we went to on that first date, but the roses are no longer in bloom. This is you, on your knee. This is me, smiling so hard that I cried.

This is us.

And as long as there is you and there is me, all is right with the world.

Happy anniversary, Gingerbread Man.

And the Winner Is...

2011-03-08T09:23:00.000-05:00

Natalee!!

Congratulations, Natalee! A hard-cover copy of THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE will be on its way shortly!

I Confess

2011-03-03T16:10:00.002-05:00

She drives into the city today for a hair appointment, where the girl who dries her hair has a skull and crossbones tattoo with a pink bow just under her ear. Her arms are covered in ink, and her earlobes have stretchers in them. Her lip is pieced, and if she weren't the size of a twelve-year old, she might be scary. Inked-girl does a mean style, though.

She leaves feeling like she looks better than she has in, oh, eight weeks. Since her last appointment. She walks with her head held high, without a hat on, daring the wind that comes whipping off the ocean to mess with her. She crosses the brick street, feeling a yearning that hasn't come in a while: a yearning for her city mouse roots. But there's only a half-hour before she's required Elsewhere. She sighs, tempted by the thought of a hot chocolate at the local coffee shop, but she turns toward the parking garage instead.

On days like this, where the sky is so blue it looks like she could dive in and never come up for air; when the tide is high and ice floes in the estuary look like stepping stones to another life; when a brush with civilization calls out to her until she's nearly breathless with the longing, she wishes, oddly enough, that she had employment of a different kind. Employment that might require that she actually go somewhere on a regular basis, to a place that has a water cooler, people standing around it, and 80s music playing on a tinny radio. Where she would have to put on clothes that match, not just stay in her pjs until a scandalous time of day. Where she could sport her new haircut and it might matter. Where she wouldn't have to face the empty page each day.

It's a dumb thought, she knows, but she can't help wishing for a little less solitude. She pulls out of the parking garage and turns on the radio. Her ears perk to the sound of the Rolling Stones singing on the radio: "You can't always get what you wa-ant. You can't always get what you wa-ant. You can't always get what you wa-ant. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you nee-eed."

She laughs at the irony--a message from Mick--telling her that she would despise a job that required a daily schedule, a commute, W-2 forms, cubicles, even the need to do her hair every day. Blaugh. Even worse than that, she would despise not being able to be with her gingerbread boys. If the truth be told, that is where she is required this afternoon: hanging with gingerbread boy #2 and his fellow first graders during writing time, those small trusting souls who still make their J's backwards.

But on a day like this, with the sky so blue, she wishes she could have it both ways.

The Sky is Everywhere Contest!

2011-02-26T22:26:00.002-05:00

I first heard Jandy Nelson read an excerpt from The Sky is Everywhere during her graduate reading at Vermont College of Fine Arts. The words absolutely sizzled from her lips, and I couldn't wait to read the whole thing. Unfortunately, I had to wait until the publishing world caught up. When I read the finished book, I started it over and read it again. Then I bought a copy to give to my sister. (Yes, I GAVE it to my sister.) Now, thanks to a pay-it-forward contest, I am soon to have my very own copy and give away yet another copy.

Casey McCormick began a pay-it-forward book contest for The Sky is Everywhere in an effort to spread the love, and to generate new sales for a talented author. Her contest inspired other contests, one of which was sponsored by Melissa Writes Fiction, and I won that contest. Yippee!

So, to make good on my promise, here is my own pay-it-forward contest.

Please read the rules below, because this contest is a bit different. The most important condition is that if you win, you MUST buy a new hardcover of the copy and give it away on your blog.

Just comment on this post (1 entry), tweet about this post (1 entry), put this post on your Facebook wall (1 entry), and you will have a chance (or two or three) to win your very own brand new copy of THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE. Please be sure to let me know in your comment if you have tweeted or posted on Facebook.

So the rules:

1. You MUST have a blog where you can give the book away.

2. You MUST be willing to hold this exact giveaway on your blog in which you purchase this book for someone else (or give away the one you receive from me, IF you don’t love it) and require that YOUR winner do the same. Preferably within TWO WEEKS of receiving the book from me.

3. If you win, PLEASE enter your giveaway into the linky widget on Casey McCormick's blog and have YOUR winner do the same. Then Casey can track how long the chain lasts and how many purchases result from this give-away.

4. Open to US residents only.

5. The contest will run February 28th to March 7th MIDNIGHT EST. I will announce the winner on March 8th and the chain will continue.

If you don't want to enter the contest, but want to give away a book on your own blog, head over to Casey's blog and add yourself to the linky at the bottom.

Jandy is a brilliant writer (and she also has a pair of black shoes with round heels that I covet); I'm thrilled to be able to support her work this way.

Sweetness

2011-02-14T13:03:00.003-05:00

This morning, she arose early, went downstairs to pack lunches, and was surprised by the youngest gingerbread boy padding downstairs in his red jammies, gently holding a creation of paper, glue, and glitter that has been languishing in his room for days. He held it out to her with such pride and such love. "Happy Valentine's day, Mommy! I made this for you!" What sweeter gift is there than a piece of newsprint, heavy with the contents of six vials of multicolored glitter, each piece reflecting facets of unimaginable love.

A New Hampshire Love Song

2011-02-09T21:44:00.003-05:00

She has decided that she is in love with the place she now calls home. Not the actual dwelling, not the structure, four-walls-and-a-roof-square-footage-and-attached-garage. No, the home is fine, but she means the whole she-bang: home, yard, neighborhood, town, county, state, New England, east coast.

She remembers the day the moving truck arrived, so very humid, and the overgrown bushes lining the front walk that fwapped you in the legs each time you passed by carrying something.

She remembers looking out into the expanse of forest in the back, and feeling slightly...nervous. All those trees.

She remembers hating it here. Ticks, and leaking toilets, and driving half an hour to get anywhere. Why isn't there a place to buy shoelaces here? You mean there's no garbage pick-up?

So very different from what she was used to.

But, now...

There's freedom here. There's beauty. There's space. There's safety. There's peace. There are streams and forests and paths and islands and beaches and sunshine and moss.

Live free or die. That's me.

All Shades of Brilliant White

2011-01-23T22:40:00.006-05:00

Snow pants. Boots. Coat. Hat. Mittens.

Snow.

The gingerbread boys are building a snow fort, complete with spy holes, so she decides to walk down to the pond to visit the fish. She doesn't know if there are even any fish in there still, but she wants to walk, so down the path she goes.

Last year, they moved their poor lone fish, Angst, inside for the winter. His fishy antics kept her company while she tippety-tap typed on her laptop. When spring came, they returned him to the pond, along with several other new fishy friends.

Sadly, Angst didn't make it through the summer. At least she thinks he didn't. She hasn't seen him in a long time. Maybe he made a break for freedom through the trench leading from the pond to the stream. She doesn't know. He could be hiding under the lily pad, though his bright orange bulk would be hard to disguise.

This year, disheartened by the fate of Angst, they didn't collect Cardinal, Goldene, Blackie, and the rest. Survival of the fittest, she thinks. Emotional attachment to a 29 cent Wal-mart feeder fish is an entanglement sometimes better left alone.

She arrives at the pond, but there are no fish to be seen--big surprise--so she keeps walking, following the trench to the stream. It's nearly frozen, a thin skin formed over the trickling water. Mounds of snow are heaped up on the banks, and the evidence of both deer and little boys dot the snowy land, their tracks leading out in lines and circles. She's relieved to see that the tracks of the little boys go to the tree that bridges the stream, but no farther.

She turns around and decides to blaze a trail through the deep snow to the ford. How much easier this would be in snow shoes, she thinks.

But not as much fun.

She feels like a little girl again, ten or eleven, snow pants and all, crunching through the top layer of frozen snow to the fluff beneath, sinking down, and slogging through. When she reaches the ford, she's a bit breathless, and there's a mound of snow where the sitting stone should be, so she sits down, and the snow holds her. She leans back, looking out at the snow-covered forest. How beautiful this all is--the trees, the white hills and valleys of snow, the blue hour as the sun sets.

She used to hate winter. But winter in a city is full of cloudy skies, slushy streets, and bitterly cold wind. Winter in farm country and forest is completely different. It's all shades of brilliant white. The sun shines here, the snow sparkles, and inside, there's always a fire in the wood stove. She lies on her back, and looks up at the sky. She's surrounded by peace. She needs to go back, but she wants to stay here a little bit longer, in this cocoon of peace where the only sound is the faint trickle of the stream.

The gingerbread man calls to her, following her footprints to where she lies in the snow. He reminds her that the sled run he built needs to be broken in. She passed it on her walk to the ford: it dives down the trail, twists from side to side, before shuttling through two saplings toward the stream. The gingerbread boys are now up in a pine tree somewhere, hollering out to whomever is around.

Dinner can wait. She takes the red sled and decides to stay eleven for a bit longer.

A Happy Friday

2011-01-21T21:06:00.002-05:00

And even though this week ended in much the same way it began (no school), it was a happy Friday. Why? Because I remembered to turn off the phones last night, so the blasted 5:30 am phone alert system wouldn't pull me from my happy place, like it did on Wednesday, when not only did I stumble across the room to the phone in a bleary, blurry lurch, I also fell into the drying rack (curse those all-cotton shrinkables!), as well as the laundry basket. Ok, I didn't actually fall into the laundry basket; I keeled over it and fell into the side of the bed. Ow.

But that was Wednesday.

I think.

Monday was, of course, a national holiday, so naturally we went sledding, cheering for civil rights each time we went down the hill.

On Tuesday, I fully expected a snow day, but the call never came. The email never came. So gingerbread boy #1 got ready, lugged his trombone up the driveway and waited for the bus. And waited. And waited some more. Then he came inside. The gingerbread man drove him to school, only to find out that school was cancelled because of the weather. Phone alert system. Fail. The antidote? Make chocolate chip cookies, of course.

And Wednesday. You heard about Wednesday. We shall not talk about Wednesday. Except to say that the call wasn't even for a snow day; it was for a two-hour delay. Grnack. That's the sound of me gnashing my teeth. Phone alert system. Fail again. Thankfully, we still had some cookies.

Thursday came. School? Oh yes. We remember that.

Vaguely.

Which brings us to today. Friday. Guess what? Another snow day. But today, I was not to be fooled. Last night, I turned off the phones again! Do you see me smirk in glee? Ha ha! I beat you, phone alert system!

Arising at a blessed hour, we filled our day with legos. With paints and new paintbrushes. With a search through old magazines for pictures to go along with poetry: vernal pools, yo-yos, and basset hounds. Diamonds, talc, and surfboards. Some children write about dogs or cats, or seasons of the year. Mine write about yo-yos.

And then there was snow. Lots and lots and lots of snow.

Next Monday is a scheduled day off--a teacher workshop day. And next Tuesday? Another storm is predicted. Maybe we'll make oatmeal cookies.

Lines and Circles

2011-01-04T19:06:00.004-05:00

In some strange synesthesia-thing, she sees the year as a line stretching from January to December, which means that January always comes as a surprise. The line of each year stretches far, far out--way down the block--and then suddenly it stops. Ah. January. Here you are. Time for resolutions. Time for resolve.

Well. She can make a goal to finish a draft of the next novel. That's an easy goal to set. Not to achieve, but to set. And, um, hrm. There was that goal last year of taking vitamins and calcium that got side-swiped by all the medical tests at the beginning of the year. She figured back then that she should have her blood and urine unadulterated by even over-the-counter vitamins. And somehow, she never returned to it, even after all the testing was done. Then there was that goal about posture. Too much time spent huddling over the computer, huddling over babies, huddling over her books. Posture. She goes to yoga class--does that count? She decides it does. Good. Career goals. Check. Physical goals. Check. What about mental or emotional goals?

She thinks and thinks. Resolutions are supposed to be about developing good habits. Or undeveloping bad ones. What habits are needed? She already exercises. See? Here she sits in her car, yoga mat at her side, water bottle at the ready, multi-tasking! Mental boost, physical strength, and posture, all rolled up into one hour a week! She unrolls her mat in a teeny space at the back of the studio. The class is full of new goal-setters. Her teacher knows it and gives them an extra-difficult class, as if to weed out the wimps. After shaking muscles and lots of breathing, she lies flat on the mat in corpse pose, nearly dead after all that breathing and all that posing, and inspiration strikes. Here she had been trying to find balance by figuratively dancing on a plank laid on top of a pipe. Balance isn't to be found that way. She needs to be linear. She needs her life to be a straight line, on a flat surface. She needs to be a straight line. Like her mental image of the year. But how does one make a goal to be linear?

Most days, she goes in circles. Around and around, doing things that get undone. Shopping for food, cooking it, consuming it, dirtying dishes. Net result: calories. Washing herself, which only dirties the bathroom. Cleaning the bathroom, which in turn, dirties her. She washes clothes, only to wear them, and get them dirty again. And this doesn't take into account the gingerbread boys. The circle goes around and around and around. She needs to get somewhere. From point A to point B. Start to finish. She needs to find the end to something. December is an end. January is a beginning. Sure, they can be connected, but there's a period there, not just a semi-colon.

Back home, she folds the third load of laundry of the day, while dinner is cooking. The oldest gingerbread boy practices piano, playing a mixture of Bach's Inventions, Coldplay, and Do You Know the Muffin Man? Over and over he plays, song after song, circling back to Bach after playing the others. Doing and redoing and undoing all of these things makes her tired. Depression chips away at the lines in her life, until she's left with a dot, a sorry excuse for a circle.

Yes, she needs lines right now, not circles. Beginnings with happy endings. She's done with twirling around, spinning like a whirling dervish.

On the Eve of My Birth

2010-12-21T18:26:00.003-05:00

How lucky she is to be born on such a day. Most people cluck and shake their heads. "Rotten luck," they say. "Gypped on the presents." But no one she knows has ever been stingy with giving.

Is she the only one to recognize that she was born on a day of hope, in a season of hope? The winter solstice, smack dab in the middle of the Christmas season. The days are brimming with glorias and good cheer, with peace on earth, good will toward men.

This year is an odd year. Not odd as in strange, but odd, as in numbers. She thinks of the other odd years. Ten years ago, she was at the hospital with her baby, sharing birthday cake with the nurses. Twenty years ago, she was packing to go to Italy for a semester. She got married in an odd year. She graduated high school in an odd year. She graduated with her MFA in an odd year. She gave birth to her second son in an odd year.

She wonders what this year will hold for her. Something beyond the ordinary? Well, at least she hopes for it. After all, starting tomorrow the rays from the sun won't have to stretch quite so far to touch her.

Why I Write for Children, Part I

2010-12-20T15:05:00.002-05:00

The stage is clear. The microphone is ready. The girl, in second or third grade, stands there in a black shirt, ripped-up jeans, and high-heel black boots. The music starts. She shakes, she shimmies, she moves around from stage left to stage right, back and forth, clearly mimicking the rock star du jour, strutting and prancing.

My heart aches for her. Be ten, little girl, be ten. Exchange those high-heel boots for mary janes. Take off the ripped jeans and don overalls. Spend your time climbing trees instead of memorizing bad pop lyrics. Play with your dolls. Write a letter to Santa. Stay young while you can. Don't wish away your childhood. Before you know it, you'll grow up.

Things Learned Over the Past Two Weeks

2010-12-16T16:31:00.005-05:00

Number one:
When her mother was afflicted with a headache, the story goes, her grandmother stomped on her mother's foot to take her mind off her headache. Or something like that. Perhaps she only offered to stomp on her foot? Anyway, the theory behind it is apt: the greater pain makes the lesser one fade away. While her mind has been anxiety-ridden, awaiting news, she decided to figuratively stomp on her own foot. Throw a party. Invite everyone. Suddenly other worries take back-seat to figuring out how to squeeze a zillion people into her house.

Number two:
Her right arm is shorter than her left arm. With thanks to Power yoga for this tidbit.

Number three:
Her left foot is bigger than her right foot. New Dansko shoes. Thanks to the shoe salesperson who humored her and took out three different pairs of the same size so she could try them all on. Still, it leaves her wondering if her left side is gargantuan in comparison to her right side? Does she look unbalanced?

Number four:
Mutes for trombones do not make good missiles. They dent the walls, and break the glass in framed pictures. Lesson provided by Gingerbread boy #1.

Number five:
Tempering semisweet chocolate is much easier than tempering dark chocolate.

Number six:
You can still plant daffodil bulbs in December in New Hampshire (she has yet to learn if daffodil bulbs planted in December actually grow, though).

Number seven:
Pine pitch comes off one's hands with a vigorous application of olive oil, followed by soap.

Number eight:
The secret to a fuss-free breakfast for the ten and under crowd is, apparently, Healthy Mornings with red berries.

Number nine:
Living with a broken furnace is costly. Being able to regulate the temperature of one's home is priceless. But it really only cost $309.

Number ten:
Audrey Hepburn's sparkly eye shadow in "How to Steal a Million" is available for purchase at your local drugstore. Now, if only she could buy Audrey Hepburn's secret to removing sparkly eye shadow...

Sweetness

2010-11-22T13:12:00.002-05:00

Today is a day of sweetness. It is a day of smiling. You feel it as you drive home, infusing your body and your soul.

Is it because of the woman walking out of the gym, the woman holding on to a walker, ready to blazon her way out of the double doors? You hold the door for her. She thanks you, then says, "If I don't see you before then, have a happy Thanksgiving!"

You can't imagine seeing her before then; you haven't seen her before today, but you wish her a happy Thanksgiving, too.

"Oh, I plan on it! I definitely plan on it!" she says, as she struggles with her walker.

"There's much to be thankful for, isn't there?" you say.

"Yes, indeed. There sure is," she says.

Much to be thankful for. Is it hypocritical of you to say that when you have the easy use of all your limbs, and she struggles with some sort of degenerative disease? When you have felt very little gratitude lately, and it nearly oozes out of this woman's pores? It echoes in your mind as you walk through the parking lot. You get in the car, and The Song is on--the song that is the song that you listened to with your husband, back before he was your husband. You sat in the airport, waiting for the boarding call, his boarding call, and shared ear buds listening to this song, this sweet song, with tears streaming down your face, knowing that he would be flying across the country, and you would be staying put. That, too, happened at Thanksgiving time. What were you thankful for then? The telephone? This new thing called email?

The sweetness takes root deep within as you listen to this song, infinitely thankful for your husband, who you giggled with last night, until you wept and your belly ached. You simmer in the sweetness.

You stop at the store to pick up some wrapping paper, some tape, some more Christmas presents, and when you find yourself back in the parking lot, there is a woman struggling with her shopping cart. She asks for your help, so you hold the cart as she unloads an awkward card table into the back of her van. How sweet it is to help someone.

Back at home, the fire glows hot, and the leftover pizza and chocolate toffee crackers feed your body. You decide not to worry today. Not about your children, not about upcoming festivities, not about news you wait for.

Today is a day for sweetness, a day for love, a day of gentleness and kindness.

Small Miracles and Large

2010-11-15T17:10:00.004-05:00

She walks behind a waterfall, the water pelting down a hundred feet while she edges her way along the limestone cliff underneath it. Behind and above her are layers and layers of rock that had been worn down over time, so that the rock looks like stacks of books or carpet squares one atop another, rising up to form the escarpment.

She feels so very small at the edge of that path as the mist from the waterfall surrounds her. She often feels that way, like she's one small person in the midst of so many needs, so many sorrows. What can she do, really? She can't take away hunger, or pain, or sickness. She can't even find change to drop into the Salvation Army bell-ringer's bucket most days.

Just one small person.

On one side of her, the darkness of a narrow cave looms; on the other, a grandeur that makes her speechless. A cave is an ideal place to hold small things, small people. She ducks in there for a minute, but its closeness makes her uncomfortable. The darkness presses against her, and she doesn't stay. She turns, instead, toward the glory of the water, shimmering, falling, diving into the air, dancing with the sunlight, racing over the stones. She wants to reach out to touch the water, but it is too far.

They hike to the top of the escarpment and look out over the landscape below them. Farms, trees, a patchwork quilt of cleared land rolls out over an enormous bed frame proportioned for a giant with the distant Adirondack Mountains as the pillow. The waterfall is the giant's shower, she thinks, and we are nothing more than ants. They continue hiking the path until they reach the source of the waterfall.

It's just a small stream.

Such beauty, such grandeur comes from one small stream, barely five feet across? She's five feet tall. Well, five feet, three inches. There seems to be a correlation here. Can something that big come from something that little? She looks down at the water rolling over the edge. It can.

Small miracle or large?

You decide.

Somewhere

2010-11-08T15:11:00.007-05:00

Someone somewhere is washing dishes right now, plunging her hands into hot, soapy water, feeling the sludge on the bottom of a pan that used to be the drippings from a pound of bacon fried up crisp. Her strong arm scrubs out her frustration as bubbles lift up into the air.

Somewhere else is a new mother nursing her baby, her nipples sore and cracked. The baby's wobbly head holds still against her chest, and his sweet scent soothes the tired mother. She wishes her baby would sleep. She wishes she could sleep.

In another part of town, a mechanic tightens a gasket and wishes once again that he could move to Austin.

An aerobics instructor leads a step class, the microphone loose around her head. She wishes the gym would get a better one, so she wouldn't have to keep adjusting it.

A teacher grades her last papers of the day. She is underwhelmed by this lot. Of course, she was underwhelmed by the last lot, and the lot before that. She wonders if it's time to retire.

A clerk at the grocery store scans cat food (bleep!), nasal spray (bleep!), breath mints (bleep!), and paper towels (bleep!). After scanning the order, the clerk thinks his life is marginally better than the guy in front of him, if only in comparison to what the poor bloke just bought.

And someone somewhere waits. That is not all she does; in fact, she has a long list of tasks to accomplish to keep her mind off of the telephone. She does laundry, she shops, she plans a birthday party, she writes a long overdue letter. She plans a new scene, though she doesn't yet gather the courage to write it. She plucks the leaves off stalks of thyme that she dried from the summer's harvest. Leaf by leaf by leaf until her nose clogs with the scent of it and her hands become sticky with the oil...killing time with thyme.

Leaves

2010-11-03T14:55:00.006-04:00

The falling leaves look like God's confetti from some divine parade.

If the leaves are confetti, then she's on street sweeper duty, raking, raking, raking. She wonders under what circumstances God would arrange a parade. Would there be a brass band, New Orleans-style? Ticker tape, as well as confetti? Perhaps someone would be throwing candy. Would there be floats, manned by angels waving majestically? She decides she'd like to be at that parade, even if only as a humble street sweeper.

White and Black and Yellow

2010-10-25T15:16:00.006-04:00

"I need to go to the bathroom."

Innocuous words, unless spoken, say, on a full elevator, or in the middle of rush-hour traffic, or especially on the subway, as they were that day.

The subway car rumbled to a stop, but not their stop.

"Can you hold it?" she asked.

"Yes." But the brown eyes looking up at her seemed just a wee bit desperate.

The train started up again. Two more stops. Hopefully there would be some place with a public toilet aboveground, some building that had a big neon sign flashing "TOILET! TOILET!"

The train lurched to a stop, and they jumped up out of their seats to make their way out of the train, out of the station. Stairs up and up and up to a street in Brooklyn, just like any other street in Brooklyn.

There were no flashing neon signs.

"I really need to go," he said.

There was a furniture shop, a bakery, and a small grocery. The grocery looked the most promising.

They stepped in, "Do you have a restroom?" she asked the man behind the counter. "He really needs to go." She pointed to the small gingerbread boy dancing next to her.

He smiled at them, took out a key, and led the way to the back of the store. A trap door leading down to a basement was opened, and another man stood by it, talking on the phone, making an order.

"I got four of them," he said.

"Four? Why'd you get four? We only need two a week," their rescuer said.

"Two then. We'll just get two," he said into the phone.

The man on the phone got out of the way, and the first man put the trapdoor down, and unlocked a door behind it. A mop stood propped in a bucket in front of a toilet in a bathroom smaller than a broom closet.

While the gingerbread boy found relief in the small bathroom, she waited with her older gingerbread boy.

"Why'd you let them back there?" she overheard the man who had been on the phone ask the other one.

"They're white."

She heard only snippets more: black man and shoot and white people, though she can't say what order they came in as she was still musing on the first bit.

They're white?

She never really thinks about her skin color, except in terms of skin cancer awareness. She only thinks she has people-colored skin. Isn't that enough? Doesn't he have people-colored skin, too? And the man on the phone? Isn't he people-colored?

Once, she worked at the Madame Walker Theater Center, a theater honoring African-American work. When she was hired, she thought she would be the token white girl, but when she left, she felt like part of the family--a large family of people.

And now? She feels sad that anyone would treat her differently because she's white, that anyone would treat the gingerbread boy differently because of the color of his skin, not the level of his desperation.

On their way back to the front of the store, she opened a refrigerator case and picked out a carton of orange juice. They could meet over orange juice: darker than her skin, lighter than his.

"Thanks," she said, paying in cash, as the gingerbread boys waved good-bye, unaware of what really just happened.

A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama

2010-10-15T10:55:00.003-04:00

Every Sunday night, she makes a list. Two lists, actually. One: groceries. Two: menu. She didn't do that this week, and now she has a refrigerator full of food needing attention, and a freezer full of food uselessly frozen.Note: thaw sirloin. Make beef and mushroom soup. What's the plan, Stan?

She has a double batch of applesauce out on the porch awaiting attention, because she forgot about it yesterday. It wasn't on her list of things to do. Note: can applesauce

Why is it that she is so dependent upon her lists? Note: mail packages. Buy stamps. Pick up box at post office. Pick up letters with insufficient postage. Why can't she remember even the most rudimentary tasks? Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Oh, and dishes, too. Are they not important? Why is it that she has to schedule in things like exercise? Emails to send? Volunteering? She was lucky that her brain came through yesterday because she forgot she was supposed to be in her son's classroom. Of course, the brain only gave her fifteen minute's notice and she was still in her pajamas when she remembered... Still. She made it, even if slightly disheveled.

Is it just that she's over-scheduled? Bring guitar to shop to have string replaced. Is it that everyone in the Gingerbread House is over-scheduled? Make a snack to share at the pack meeting tonight. It makes it hard to see the forest for the trees.

She thinks of the palindrome, "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!" She loves plans. Plans make her feel comfortable. They give her a fence and a boundary, a place to start. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama! If you start with a plan, you can accomplish great things. Is that what it teaches us? Or is it that in moving forward, you eventually return to exactly where you were before, just like a boomerang? A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. Right in the middle is the 'c,' rolling around. If it rolls back far enough, it turns into a 'u,' a nice cushy spot for a nap. Or a place to write a list.

Skip the canning, and bring applesauce for a snack at the pack meeting.

The National Virus Service

2010-10-06T20:29:00.002-04:00

Since it is the beginning of the cold season, she decides that she will name her colds, just like the National Weather Service names tropical storms and hurricanes. It seems appropriate, does it not?

Virus #1 should be named Adam--Adam being the first man and all--but she's partial to Abel. Virus Adam. Hm. Virus Abel. 'B' comes before 'D', so if we're going strictly alphabetical, we'll have to stick with Virus Abel. Next year she can start with Adam.

She offered to name virus #2 after her sister, Beth. Her sister suggested that she name the virus Bertram. She said it had a much more nasally sound to it than Beth. Truly, though, she suspects that her sister never got over being named after the March sister who dies in Little Women. The problem with Bertram, of course, is that it's a boy name. Abel's a boy name, and the pattern is boy-girl-boy-girl, isn't it? So she needs a girl name.

Bathsheba. That's a good one. Sneeze-sounding, if ever a name could sound like a sneeze.

She'll have to wait for virus #3 to rear its ugly head before committing to a name. Feel out its personality, so to speak. Carlyle? Canute? Cassius?

Gesundheit.

A Little Light, Please

2010-09-25T10:23:00.003-04:00

Her head pounds. Her body aches. Her nose runs and her eyes water. The day is long. She reads a book. She finishes the book. She emails. She Facebooks. She reads blogs. She blows her nose. A lot.

The next day is the same, so is the one after that.

As she lies there, she thinks about all the images and words she's consumed over the past 72 hours: a starlet off to prison, a dishonest businessman, a dozen trapped miners deep underground, a challenged book. This is news. This is entertainment. They are one and the same.

An acorn hits her roof. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk. It rolls down, picking up speed before it hurtles over the edge.

Why is it, she wonders, that the media feeds us darkness, when there is light yet to be had? Why do they glorify the hopeless, the hellbound, the dark, the demon, the despair? Why has the world been populated entirely with vampires and zombies and werewolves? Why is pop culture stuck on murders and mayhem, or the sexually scintillating? What happened to Donna Reed? Where is Fred Astaire when you need him?

Is this really what society thinks of as entertainment? She wonders what her great-grandparents would think--they who were professional entertainers, the stock of Vaudeville. Isn't there anything better than this?

She's thankful that colds only last an average of ten days. Not too much longer before she can return to her regularly scheduled programming.

Te Deum

2010-09-06T11:54:00.001-04:00

By Charles Reznikoff

Not because of victories
I sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largess of the spring.

Not for victory
but for the day’s work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common room.

The Power of Two

2010-08-22T21:57:00.000-04:00

The Gingerbread boy walks into the kitchen. "I really want to go upstairs to brush my teeth, but I'm too scared," he says.

Gingerbread Boy #2 leaves his bowl of unnaturally colored cereal without a word and accompanies his older brother up the stairs.

She watches them go, astounded at their brief truce.

Here in a simple moment, compassion triumphs over cold cereal. Fear seeks out friend, and the fighting ends for a brief time, all for the want of clean teeth. The power of two.

She watches them pad up the steps, and with each step, she sees them turning into gangly boys, then teenagers, then young men; by the time they reach the second floor, they're tax-paying adults. Before long, she thinks, her two will seek out two of their own: two new families, and her family of four will be down to two again.

She remembers the night when she and he became we. When a welcome hug gave away a hidden ring box in a pocket, and she couldn't stop smiling. The day she joined ranks with the anonymous Johnsons.

One and one equals two.
Then three.
Then four.

Before long the chiasmus will begin. Four will become three, then two, then one.

And then the cheese stands alone.

But she doesn't want to think about that now. There is work to be done before then. Time is so short, she thinks. There is so much left for them to learn before they're ready to fly out of the nest. There is so much left for her to teach them. How to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch. How to iron a shirt. How to ask a girl on a date. How to floss properly. How to build a fire. One never knows when one will need to build a fire. Long division. How to match colors. How to balance a checkbook. Negotiation. How to handle heartbreak. How to go upstairs to brush your teeth without being scared. The list seems endless. The list seems overwhelming.

She hears them whispering and giggling upstairs. Come back down the stairs, boys! Be six for a little while. Let me hold you on my lap. Let me hug you still before you push me away. The lessons can wait until tomorrow.

She'll start with chocolate chip cookies first.

Coloring Outside the Lines

2010-08-08T21:47:00.001-04:00

Sometimes nothing brings joy the way a blank piece of paper does, its creamy whiteness stretching out for what seems eternity, waiting for colors from markers to rain down upon it in lines and dots, swirls and scribbles.

What is to be created? Does it matter? They take the colored sharpies in hand and draw at the kitchen table. Markers and a big piece of paper. Magic.

She draws girls and boys--girls with triangle dresses, boys with inverted triangle bodies. She draws a playground with swings and teeter-totter, children going down slides, children jumping ropes. She even draws camels at the request of the Gingerbread Man to go along with the stories he tells the gingerbread boys of Ahmad and his whistling camel.

The gingerbread boys color in her line drawings, turning pigtails red and green. One draws a piano. The other draws a great pool of blue.

She thinks she should do this more often. Big blank sheet of paper. Fresh markers. No expectations. No judgment.

Going Home

2010-07-26T21:19:00.001-04:00

She went home this month. Not to the home she grew up in--that home had the crab-apple tree she swung from like a veritable monkey, pheasants in the back yard, and the smell of pot roast and bread baking rising from the kitchen. The home she would stampede up the stairs, and stampede back down. The home where her glasses would steam up when she walked in the door after making snow angels in the yard.

That home exists only in her mind now.

Nor did she go to the home she lived in during high school, where she would unlock the milk delivery door before school because she always lost her keys, and if she unlocked the delivery door, she could stretch her hand into the hallway and unlock the regular door. That home was where she and her sister would sleep outside on lounge chairs on the porch upstairs during hot summer nights, hidden from view by the huge maple tree, and be unhappily serenaded by the birds at 4 am. The home where the dining room was permanently speckled with glitter and sequins from so many dance recital costumes. The home where she could look out her bedroom window on sleepless nights and watch a red light blinking on and off, on and off at the very top of a radio tower.

That home, too, only exists in her mind now.

Nor did she return to her college homes--the one where she lived in the attic, or the Hippie House, or the apartment in Italy. She didn't visit her first apartment (where she was burglarized even though there was nothing to steal) or her second apartment (where she wasn't burglarized even though there was marginally more to steal). Not her first home, owned as an adult, where she built a stone wall in the front garden; nor her second home, where she would count the fireflies flashing as they hovered over the ground during the long summer evenings.

Those spaces are all inaccessible to her.

No. She traveled, visiting some places she'd long been familiar with, and visiting others she'd never been before. She drove, flew, cruised, bussed, subway-ed, ferried, and trained it. And in the craziness of three weeks of consecutive travel, she found herself strangely at home in the oddest places: standing on the bow of the ship with the wind holding her up, rushing at her, whipping her hair into funnels around her head. She sucked in this air, feeling as if she could lift off, and fly, completely at home in the sky. She wanted to stay here--in the air--forever. The air outside called to the air within her lungs, to the oxygen flowing through her body. Join us! it said. And she wanted to--oh, how she wanted to. The sun could shine down, the sea could rise up, and regardless of anything else, she could stand in the vortex of rushing air, feeling its power, like her dreams of flying, lifting up, looking down, being carried along by a power that was not her own.

She found herself at home in the blue, blue sea, buoyed up by saltwater waves, rising and falling, rising and falling, surrounded by water that could not possibly be this blue. Water that swirled into the pink sand, water that pushed at her, soaking her when she fought against it. Water that loved her, that enfolded her in its beauty.

She found herself at home driving across a range of mountains on her way to a campus full of talent and love, of colleagues and friends, a place that she suspects has always felt like home, a place that will always feel like home. Surrounded by words and ideas, she contemplated all things that had brought her to this point--all the many homes she has had, the homes she will yet have--for nothing about her is settled. Her blood calls to her to move on. Perhaps that is why she felt so at home within the rushing wind and the churning waves. Nothing is settled. Nothing stands still. She least of all.

Picking up the vegetables

2010-06-24T15:58:00.001-04:00

Wednesdays are CSA days. She drives to the farm with her bags, picks up the week's produce from a structure that has yet to be roofed, while the gingerbread boys feed the goats grass they pluck from the edge of the fencing.

This week: swiss chard, scallions, garlic scapes, beets, mesclun, red lettuce, green lettuce. Driving down the pitted dirt road back home, she realizes how similar farming is to writing. The work is never done. There's always something to do.

The soil preparation. The plowing. The seeding. The composting. The praying for rain and sunshine. The weeding, the pruning.

It's all the same.

The outlining. The research. The character building. The world building. The praying for inspiration. The revision.

Does the farmer get discouraged like she does? Does it rain when he wants sun? Does the sun shine down in harsh rays when he hopes for rain? Do his seeds rot in the ground? Are his plants overrun with slugs the way her brain feels overrun with slugs?

Hm.

She turns off the dirt road back onto the paved road, and continues the drive home, the gingerbread boys plotting what we'll eat first.*

She could only wish the fruits of her cerebral farming were as crisp as what she picks up each week.

*Garlic scape pesto, red leaf lettuce salad with scallions.

Take me out to the ball game

2010-06-08T22:26:00.000-04:00

Irritation flows through her veins. She reads something peaceful in hopes that she can blow the stink off, as Great-Aunt Julia used to say. It doesn't work. She takes a walk. She takes a shower afterward. She's still irritated. No, she's no longer irritated, she's downright mad. She wants to drop-kick something.

She doesn't though. She makes lunch, she washes the dishes, she takes the gingerbread boy to the doctor's, she reads books to him.

After dinner, the gingerbread boys beg to play baseball.

She takes the whiffle ball in hand and steps up to the pitcher's mound--an uneven spot in the driveway, formerly marked by a chalk circle. She tosses the ball, again and again, as little arms discover the joy of bat connecting with ball.

And, then, only then, does the stink blow away, thrown with the whiffle ball, and hit far into the outfield.

False Starts

2010-06-01T22:35:00.000-04:00

Where to begin? Begin at the beginning, she thinks. But when is the beginning? Chapter one is the beginning. She looks down at her hands, hands at rest upon the keyboard, hands that grow old. Hands that should be typing. What should be in chapter one?

The beginning.

The skin on her hands no longer looks taut. It looks like well-worn linen. When did that happen? When was the beginning of the end? With her first breath decades ago, did the aging process start? Or was it when she found her first grey hair at 21? Or when "anti-wrinkle" anything became a permanent fixture in the bathroom cabinet? When she began taking calcium to fend off osteoporosis?

The end is so much clearer than the beginning, she thinks.

She tells her hands to type. When they move so fast at the keyboard, she doesn't notice their similarity to linen. Perhaps by the end, she will know where the beginning is.

City Mouse, Country Mouse

2010-05-24T14:50:00.000-04:00

Two and a half hours.

Choice: grocery shop or flaneur. Feed the body or feed the soul.

She choses to feed the soul.

She drives a half hour to the closest city--a city which she is certain real city-dwellers would laugh at. Nevertheless, it is city enough for her. She parks the car, locks the doors, and walks down a brick sidewalk. She is joined at the crosswalk by a man in khaki shorts and two greyhounds. At least, she thinks they are greyhounds. They've got funky stripes, and they walk with a spring in their steps, like they're used to running.

If she lived in a city, she thinks, in a loft with big windows and an open floor plan, where friends would gather for impromptu dinner parties featuring things like pancetta and fried squash blossoms, she would have a dog like that. But she doesn't, so she won't.

She keeps walking, over the bridge with the river's water churning below, past the cafe, past the bank, the toy store, the lawyers' offices. She arrives at an antique store. Inside, there are bottles of sea glass, children's roll-top desks, oak tables, nine-foot half-round windows, wicker loveseats, and fabric samples. A framed Leonardo da Vinci poster leans against a glass-fronted cabinet.

She roams through the store, reveling in the benches, the kitchen tables, the chairs. How many pie crusts were rolled out on this farm table? Where is the child who sat in this desk? Who filled this bookcase with books? Were they spy novels? Romances? Farmer's almanacs?

How much she would like to fill her house with this furniture!

But, with a sigh, she knows she cannot. The time-space continuum works against her. Mostly the space continuum.

On her way out, she sees a desk cubby. It will fit on her desk. Perhaps it might even bring some order to the chaos. She will use it to file manuscripts in, to hold stones, and sharp pencils, and rubber-bands.

As she drives back home, she realizes she needed a mini-vacation. While it's true there was no actual progress made on the manuscript itself, she feels balanced. Now that she lives in Small Town, New England, she sometimes gets homesick for city life, for the whiff of diesel, the honk of a horn, a chance to brush up against other people. City mouse, country mouse. Today was a day for sunshine streaming down on city streets. Tonight she will tackle those revisions. Tonight she will count words under a sky dense with stars and a moon that knows all.

Fish is Fish

2010-05-16T22:16:00.000-04:00

Last summer, the Gingerbread Man put nine goldfish in the pond. It was a very small pond, fed by a very small spring, bordered by sticks and stones, mostly. Moss, ferns, iris, and marsh marigolds grew on its edges. Week by week went by, and each time she looked, it seemed as if there were fewer and fewer goldfish.

By summer's end, only one goldfish survived. More clever than the others, this goldfish would hide under the leaves that fell on the surface of the water. They named him Angst and took him in to winter over in a glass bowl set on a bookcase by an east window. He sickened in the bowl almost immediately, turning black on stem and stern. They fretted over him, researched goldfish diseases, took action. Angst eventually got better, returning to his normal orange shimmer. They were relieved, happy in his goldfish antics, his goldfish shine. He grew bigger and bigger over the winter, fed on a daily diet of fish pellets.

When the sunshine became a bit more regular, they returned him to the pond, now inhabited by a frog. Angst was quite large now, for a twenty-five cent goldfish, anyway. They worried that he wouldn't be able to hide under the fronds of the ferns that hang down to the water's edge. When they went to visit him in the blue hour of the day, they couldn't find him. She worried again. A large fish in a small pond is a dangerous thing to be, what with raccoons and fisher cats trolling the woods.

She thinks about Angst as she drives home now, after being gone for several days, hoping he has simply been playing hide and seek with them. She remembers her mother saying certain people were big fish in little ponds when she was growing up. It was her mother's way of saying that people weren't really as important as they thought they were. She wonders if she is a big fish in a small pond, growing larger on a daily diet of pellets--a suspect means of nutrition. It's a dangerous place to be, with the fisher cats and raccoons of the world on the prowl.

She doesn't want to be a big fish in a small pond. She doesn't even want to be a big fish in a big pond. She's happy in her own corner, doing what she likes to do. She ruminates on this as the tires speed over the asphalt, mile after mile. When she reaches the exit for her town, she decides she's not a fish at all, big or little.

She's the keeper of the pond.

The Tipping Point

2010-05-06T22:29:00.000-04:00

Remember the swing
Remember the crab-apple tree
Remember the lilacs and the pussy-willows,
The pheasants and the squirrels
Remember the joy of pumping legs,
Swinging so high your stomach dropped down--
The exhilaration of flying.
Remember the rough brown bark
Ants climbing tree
Side by side to knee and elbow
Remember hanging upside down on branch
Hair swinging free
Blood rushing to face,
The tipping point.

Missing Alice

2010-04-29T17:35:00.000-04:00

On a windy spring day, she drives down a winding road. Dry oak leaves blow in front of the car as if someone forgot to tell the leaves that it was spring, not autumn. She thinks about death during her drive; she kills off not one or two characters in her novel, but a whole slew of them. She's worried that she hasn't written the emotion to carry the deaths. But her lack in narrative emotion, she realizes, comes as a result of strong faith. She knows there's a heaven. When people die, they don't just die. When people die, there's sadness and missing, but not devastation. They don't disappear for good.

When she reaches home, she's met with news of a death. A woman nearly fifty years her senior, a woman she visited regularly. A woman she brought homemade peach jam to, who welcomed the gingerbread boy with blocks, who showed her newspaper clippings. In fact, she visited this woman in the hospital not four days prior. The woman's family was there, all gathered around that day. She had to wear latex gloves during the visit, but as she left, she squeezed the woman's hand--a squeeze as if to say, "I love you, dear one," for she did love the woman. A squeeze as if to say, "I'm sorry you're suffering."

And now she's gone.

And now she misses her.

The woman requested two specific songs to be sung at her funeral, two choral pieces that would be a challenge under the best of circumstances. She tries to learn the songs, though the notes are much too high for comfort. She sings them anyway. She makes a cake for after the funeral, and a pasta salad. But she is still sad.

In the afternoon, she goes out to the woods, urged by the Gingerbread Man. There she finds dozens of jack-in-the-pulpit. Maybe they'll preach to her, tell her that the woman flew through the wind that day, carried along by the oak leaves, flew away to join her husband. She lifts the leaf covering the small Jack. All is well, he says. All is well.

The Menu

2010-04-18T20:55:00.000-04:00

Supper's late.

The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, so instead of making supper, they go down to the river. She sits on the naked roots of a tree that weaves in and out of the bank, overhanging the water. How odd to look down and see water rushing underneath. Next to her is a sapling sheared down by beaver teeth and left to rot. The sky is blue, and the air is fresh.

When the gingerbread boys return from explorations over the stream that feeds the river, they all clamber over an old and massive stone wall, thick with moss and lichen. Where the forest floor was the tan of bleached leaves only a week ago, now wild lily of the valley carpets it. Ferns curl upward, lifting their fronds to the sky, stretching after a long winter's nap. Parchment berries spot the ground, specks of red amidst the green. Soon, she thinks, the lady's slippers will rise, ready to dance.

But now, supper.

At home, she measures the spices and stirs. She boils water for the rice, She roasts the vegetables. She whips the cream for the chocolate pie. And in the other room, the gingerbread boys giggle together snuggled up on a chair.

"What was that you said in the forest?" the younger one asks.

"I said that I'd always love you, even if I was angry."

"Oh, yeah."

"And I said that if you were hurt, I'd never leave you. Unless Daddy called me for supper."

Ah, yes, supper. She finishes cooking, while the gingerbread man sets the table. All is well in the gingerbread house, full of steam and good things to eat. Love is on the menu tonight, and for that, she is thankful.

Saturdays at Lockwood

2010-04-07T15:41:00.000-04:00

She remembers long Saturday afternoons spent in Lockwood Library: Mom at the copier with piles of coins, sister claiming the best of the blocky chairs available. The options were limited. Ride the elevator up and down, up and down. Run out to the vending machines, having first snatched a quarter from her mother's towering pile. Quarter in, press F8, curly-cue swivels around, out pops frosted nut brownie.

Or there were the stacks.

Mostly, she spent time in the stacks. The one row of children's books, mostly books that sported shiny gold Newbery stickers. Somehow she got her hands on a bookmark that listed all the Newbery award winners, and she decided she would read them. Some of her favorite books were Newberies: A Wrinkle in Time, Tuck Everlasting, Bridge to Terabithia, The Westing Game, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. She thinks she read these books long before those Saturday afternoons, though. They were quickly joined by Summer of the Swans, My Side of the Mountain, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Great Gilly Hopkins, A Ring of Endless Light.

She remembers, though, mostly spending those afternoons with E.L. Konigsburg. Oh, they weren't on a first-name basis, but nevertheless, she became great friends with Claudia and Jamie, wishing more than anything that she could stay in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that she could go to an automat (What was an automat, anyway?). She thrilled to the sound of Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. She gobbled up About the B'nai Bagels, while developing A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. She even became Father's Arcane Daughter for a while.

But she could only read those books so many times before she would dutifully return to her Newbery list, wanting to check another one off her bookmark. But some Newbery books she just couldn't get into. She would try one, then another, but the stack of Newbery books that didn't interest her grew and grew, and she would return to her trusted friend, E.L.

Last week, at the school book fair, she came across used copies of some of those Newbery books that she hadn't read those many years ago. Now's the time, she thinks, and shells out her quarters for several, determined to give them their due.

Roman Skies

2010-03-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

What is it about spring that makes her long to wander through European streets, through cobblestone alleys with little cafes that are tucked in between book shops and walled cemeteries? Where skies above are so blue that they seem unreal? Where bridges can lead not just across a river, but to an adventure awaiting on the other side?

There's no wandering through European streets in her future, so she must resign herself to blue skies over New England, to rough paths through the forest, to tiny cemeteries hidden amongst birch trees and maples, to adventure found by crossing a ford through the stream out back.

Maybe she'll buy a baguette tomorrow.

In Honor of Friendship

2010-03-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

After reading Facebook status updates, she thinks how much she loves her friends--her friends who make giant batches of sauce so big that they need two pots, her friends who adopt children from Russia, her friends who celebrate Pi day, her friends who write books and her friends who don't, her friends who have songs stuck in their heads, and her friends who eat cereal with half and half.

She loves her friends who worry about her, her friends who bring her chocolate, her friends who call "just to say hi." She loves her friends she's known since forever, and her friends who she has only just met. She loves her friends who live down the street and her friends who live across the world. She loves her friends who pick raspberries and can with her, and her friends who buy raspberries and haven't a clue about canning. She loves her knitting friends, and her reading friends, and her friends who do spa parties.

She loves her friends who remember the exact place they met when they were freshmen in high school. She loves her friends who came to the hospital after a car accident, and her friends who offered to donate blood for her family members. She loves her S3Q2 friends, and her WTHS friends, her HAA friends, and her BYU friends, her IUPUI friends, and her VCFA friends.

She loves her friends who have cried with her, and her friends who have laughed with her.

And laughed at her.

She has been blessed with a lifetime of good friends. Thank you, dear friends.

Magic Eight Balls

2010-03-10T23:03:00.001-05:00

Sometimes she wishes more than anything that she had a crystal ball--so she might know what to expect, so she can plan.

Because, boy, is she a planner. Lists galore. Lists by her bedside. Lists on the refrigerator door. Lists in her bags and in her head. Things to do. Things to buy. Things to bring. Menus. Activities. It's her small way of taking control, of making order, of prioritizing.

Mail taxes.

Mexican rice w/chicken.

Cotton balls.

A crystal ball would be so helpful, she thinks. Priorities would be set, neat lines with small check marks after each one. Time would be wisely spent. Order would reign in her small bubble, where everywhere else lies chaos.

Lentil and bulghur soup.

Cheesebread.

Order more checks.

Sometimes she just wishes she knew what was in store. When would this problem sort itself out? When would she finish her novel? If only she knew, then she could be calm.

Toothpaste.

Lasagna Bolognese.

Call cable company.

But on the way home from the doctor's office, she realizes that sometimes one doesn't want to know what's in store. One doesn't want to know the future, especially if the future is laid out with clarity.

One shake of the magic eight ball. Do you want to know the future?

"Don't count on it."

She pulls out a piece of scrap paper. Time for a new list.

Calm Sunday Afternoons

2010-02-21T20:19:00.000-05:00

The sap is running. The maples are tapped. Five gallons collected already.

They go outside to check the containers and find themselves pulled toward the stream, pulled by its frozen allure, pulled by sound of the trickle of water over and around the stones of the ford, pulled by the desire to smash the ice, even as they stand on it.

Snow covers the frozen stream; it is no longer smooth and skate-worthy. It's crunchy, and it echoes underneath in the space between the flowing water and the ice ceiling. But in most places, the ice is still several inches thick, so they walk along it anyway, occasionally stepping onto the banks of the stream where it has cracked, following the tracks of deer who smartly skip from the bank of one side to the safety on the other side.

They walk to the island, then they keep going--all the way to the marshy pond, where cattails rise up out of the ice like an army protecting its territory with seed head ammunition exploding into fluff.

She thinks the marshy pond would be better named the cemetery of trees, for it is populated by dead trees. The year they moved here, beavers dammed up the stream, flooded the marshy pond, and built a lodge. Evidence of strong teeth is everywhere. He points to one such tree, a foot and a half in diameter, gnawed down on one side by the industrious beavers.

"What were they thinking?" he asks. "How did they expect to move that?"

Optimism! she thinks.

While they examine beaver industry, young arms whack smaller trees with sticks. The spindly trees fall, which is even more satisfying than breaking up the ice on the stream.

One of the dead trees has been spray-painted with the word "BUTTER." The one next to it spells out "GOD." This reminds her of other graffiti in places she's been: "Make tea, not war." "17 1/2 minutes of Nixon buried here."

They wander through the cattails, through the dead trees, through the snow and ice. They hear a woodpecker clattering away in the distance. Spring approaches.

But for now, it is still cold.

And it is time to leave the cattail army, the graffiti-trees.

The sun shines down from its blue heaven, and for just a moment, all is right in her small world.

Pieces and Parts

2010-02-09T21:04:00.000-05:00

On the way home from the doctor's office, she thinks about anatomy--tissues and membranes, and how these thin walls keep everything from falling out. Veins keep the blood in, membranes keep the organs in, skin holds it all together. Amazing.

But sometimes these pieces and parts fail. Sometimes something springs a leak, or stops working, and there's only a thin membrane the width of one's skin stuck holding the pieces and parts together.

Peat and Repeat

2010-02-04T19:44:00.000-05:00

Just in case you wanted to know:

10 Questions NOT to Ask a Writer

Ice

2010-02-02T20:39:00.001-05:00

The snow gives way to the cold. The backyard which has been home to a sled run through the trees down to the pond, now has other allures.

The stream has frozen almost solid. Solid enough to walk on. Solid enough to skate on--if you have skates. If you don't have skates, a sturdy pair of boots does almost as well. Slipping and sliding, pretending to turn and spin, bypassing pine cones and leaves frozen to the surface.

The ice downstream of the springs is clear, glass-clear. So clear that she can see the water flowing underneath, see the detritus being pushed by invisible forces. Her son even saw a tadpole swimming under the ice a few days ago. How can that be? she wonders. It's six degrees out.

The ice upstream is cloudy, filled with tiny bubbles. Though it lacks the clarity of its cousin downstream, it is flat. Flat and perfect for sliding.

Back and forth they go, up and down, wary of the few areas where the ice is cracked and bubbled. Grabbing at trees to stay upright.

Pretending. Lost in the magic of an icy winter afternoon.

Gratitudes, with gratitude to Alison McGhee for Inspiration

2010-01-29T20:44:00.000-05:00

She skipped being grateful for the entire month of November. Instead, she was sick. Should she be grateful now? Now, when the wind howls outside, and it's so cold that the snow squeaks when you step on it? Now, when she's been stuck inside for days, listening only to the sound of the fan on the fireplace insert whir and the goldfish flip-flapping in his tank (how does he do that?)? Now when she thinks bears have it made (for hibernation purposes only, raw fish eating habits excluded)?

No time like the present.

An alphabet of gratitudes:

A. Alligators? No. Alimony? Definitely not. Axes? Yes. Axes that split wood that burns brightly and keeps the fan on the fireplace insert whirring.

B. Bandannas? Sure, why not. Headpiece of choice while camping.

C. Chocolate. Dark chocolate with sea salt, milk chocolate with peanuts, hot fudge, chocolate shakes, chocolate mousse cake...it's all good.

D. Date night with the Gingerbread Man. ("Not the gumdrop buttons!")

E. Elephants. The Magician's Elephant in particular. She is grateful for book discussions with a community of brilliant writers.

F. Flip-flops. She hates flip-flops; she hates things between her toes. Don't get her started on those little thingies they put in between your toes during a pedicure. But when wearing the hat of "happy mother taking children to swim lessons and then showering them afterward," it helps to have flip-flops.

G. Ginger.
a.) She's grown accustomed to her name. It suits.
b.) Fresh ginger in home-made egg rolls which is what she had for dinner.
c.) Gingerbread. And Gingerbread Men. :)

H. Hot-tubs, hoses, hair-dryers. HOUSE! Being somewhat of a hermit by nature, she's grateful she doesn't have to live in a hermitage, or on top of a pole, or in a cave somewhere. Hibernating with a raw-fish-eating bear.

I. Ink. She loves ink. She loves Italy. She loves Italian ink.

J. Jazz. She remembers years and years of dance classes: ballet, tap, jazz, pointe, chorus-line tap. But she loved jazz the best--until she discovered modern. And folk.

K. Kindergarten, Kellogg's, Kicks, Kazakhstan. She remembers when her son could find Kazakhstan on a map. When he was two. He could also find a myriad of other obscure countries. One of his special gifts.

L. Lemonade. The last time she had lemonade, real lemonade, was at the village country fair--the kind of fair where you can see sheep, enter in an apple-peeling contest, and throw darts at balloons. Where you can walk in a parade, see a beekeeper's display, and listen to a real fiddler. And on a blistering hot day, you can drink a tall glass of lemonade, and know that life is good.

M. Macs. Yes, she is thankful for her computer. She loves her computer. She would consider marrying her computer, but she's already attached.

N. Hm. She can't think of an 'N' word. No. Nottingham. Nincompoop. Nasty. Nothing. Nothing is something to be grateful for. Sometimes nothing is exactly what she wants. Exactly what she needs.

O. Olives. Black olives on her fingers, green olives in arroz con pollo. Olive bread. Olive oil.

P. Post office. She loves getting mail. She loves special paper and envelopes with decorative papers on their flaps. She loves beautiful stamps. She wishes she sent letters more often. She wishes she received letters more often. Thankfully, her friends far away forgive her for not writing real letters, just as she forgives them for not writing real letters. Maybe she'll write a real letter this weekend. Maybe it will be to you.

Q. Quiet. She loves the quiet. She loves the things you can hear in the quiet.

R. Real whipped cream. The kind served over hot chocolate (see 'C' above) at Romeo's in Buffalo, where she went with the Gingerbread Man on date night ('G' and 'D' respectively). Whipped cream so thick you could almost cut it.

S. Slippers. No Christmas presents could be opened without slippers on feet and fresh-squeezed orange juice in hand when she was a child. While the fresh-squeezed orange juice has gone the way of Tropicana, slippers have become an essential.

T. Trunks. The turtleback trunk she got from her mother and grandfather when she was sixteen was her first real piece of furniture. Inside is the original decorative paper, flaking off onto the blankets stored there, the velvet crazy-quilt, the afghan, the down comforter. The inside of the trunk smells like the cedar tray that her grandfather built to replace the one missing. The refinished outside was a labor of love--the wood stripped, sanded, and stained; the decorative raised tin sanded and painted. Of all the furniture in her house, she loves this trunk probably the best.

U. Uvula, because isn't it a great word?

V. Why are all the V words adjectives? Venerate, vicious, variable. Voluptuous. Hah. Victorious. But then she thinks value. Not just the monetary kind, but the old-fashioned kind. Values, like scruples. Like the Young Women's values. She wishes such values were more valued.

W. Water. She is infinitely grateful for water. The hot kind in winter, the cold kind in summer. The frozen kind for ice-skating, the liquid kind for swimming.

X. Xanthan gum. Really. When the Kazakhstan-finding son was diagnosed with multiple food allergies, xanthan gum came to the rescue! She could bake with rice flour and the baked items would actually hold together! A food miracle!

Y. Yarn. Her fingers can fly in two places: the keyboard, and with knitting needles (two 'K' words. Hm. And all she could think of for 'K' was Kazakhstan?). But yarn? Oh, the deliciousness of it all. Angora, alpaca, iguana. Ok, not really, but it sounds good. The shades, the textures, the weights. Rapture.

Z. Zippers. Where would the world be without zippers? XYZ!

And now she is grateful.

Friday thoughts

2010-01-22T11:01:00.000-05:00

Just when I thought I was on the homestretch with this novel, I discovered I need to change the setting. Need, Ginger? Really?

Yes, really.

And this morning, after I had gotten accustomed to this need, I discovered I need to change my point of view. And this revision, my friends, is much more intense that simply changing the setting.

Needs and wants. Needs and wants. Why do I keep going back to needs and wants...

Great

2010-01-07T10:35:00.000-05:00

Flipping through websites, I saw a blip on yahoo that said female singers make history. There was a headshot of three of them. I don't know who they are because I live under a rock, nor do I know what sort of history they made.

In that split second after I read that headline, the thought flew through my mind that I want to do something great. Not for glory or money or massive amounts of chocolate or to get my picture on yahoo with the headline "Female person makes history," but just because. I want to do something great to make the world just a little bit better than it was before.

Is that an odd desire? I don't know. So I sit here wondering if all people have the desire to do something great. And what do they do about it?

And what constitutes greatness anyway?

It's not all peace treaties and stock market victories, speed records, Hollywood contracts, and entertainment achievements.

On some days, it seems like patiently assisting with the homework of a very frustrated child constitutes greatness.

Or cooking a glorious meal. Or holding the hand of a suffering friend. Remembering to find the tap shoes your sister asked you to send to her.

Can there be greatness without love?

Needs and Wants

2009-12-09T18:59:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about the difference between needs and wants--as if anyone couldn't think about it with the season of commercialism upon us.

Like is it a want or a need to make chocolate toffee crack(er)s for the teachers in my life?

Are new socks a want or a need?

What about time? Is it a want or a need to make the time to go to the gym? To write? To not write? To do laundry? To read a book?

Lately, everything seems like a need.

Favorites on a Friday

2009-12-04T18:53:00.000-05:00

1. Birthday cake (son #1)
2. Sleep (didn't get much last night)
3. Silly traditions (candles on ALL holidays, including birthdays, and other important ones like Groundhog Day)
4. Groundhog Day (the movie and the holiday)
5. My fireplace
6. 60 degrees in December (which seems to negate #5)
7. The first snow (haven't seen it yet)
8. Bubble baths (does a bubble bath ever need an explanation?)
9. Candied walnuts (crockpot recipe)
10. Time off (I'm letting my incomplete manuscript sit for a month, or until I can't stand not writing anymore)

NaNoWriMo Check In

2009-11-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

Now that it is almost the middle of the month, it's time for a check-in. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Though I didn't sign on for the full experience (a new 50,000 word novel written during November; 1667 words a day), I made a goal with my peeps from the Super-Secret Society of Quirk and Quill to finish my draft of Into the Trees by Thanksgiving, or at the very least, by the end of the month.

I began with 30,040 words, a hazy outline, and a slight addiction to Facebook. I now have close to 38,000 words (in addition to having shelved about 3,000 words in the course of revising). My outline has expanded significantly (um, like I have a middle now), and I have had several plot epiphanies. And I have turned my addictions to Lindt's Chili Dark Chocolate Bars. They're more productive.

Winning

2009-11-03T10:21:00.000-05:00

I've won a book! A picture book! Though this doesn't make up for the fact that in the course of 24 hours last week, my boiler was diagnosed with a debilitating disease, and my children have torn and outgrown so many pieces of clothing that they practically need new wardrobes.

Still.

A new book. A nice book. A book that I like.

I shall bear the title of "winner" all day now, simply because I tweeted a small tweet.

And perhaps that will make all the difference.

Thank you, PenguinUSA.

Dress up

2009-10-31T23:42:00.000-04:00

Why is it so enticing to don a pair of black and white striped tights, and pretend to be someone else? So enticing that on a drive through a windy night with a nearly-full moon, you can practically taste the night air as you soar through it on a broom racing through the falling oak leaves?

What is it about putting on a flapper hat with a long feather that makes your eyes shine a bit brighter and your smile stretch a bit wider? That makes you laugh differently?

What is it about wearing a tiara or a feather boa or a long string of jet beads or even a bandana to take on a persona that is so far removed from your everyday jeans and tee-shirt?

Some things never change; they only grow with time. The dress-up box grows up to be a closet, and the little girl grows up to be a witch. Heh.

A Number, Not a Name

2009-10-07T20:31:00.000-04:00

You, too, can scan yourself at the local grocery store, should you be so inclined.

However, don't blame me if you come back as "unknown code."

by Barcodes Inc

Ideas

2009-09-30T16:42:00.000-04:00

Eating a ripe apple on a fall day: Good idea.

Buying a bushel of apples to make apple sauce, apple butter, apple juice: Ok idea.

Buying a second bushel of apples to make more apple sauce, apple butter, apple juice: Bad idea.

*****

Buying some peaches to can: Good idea.

Buying a box of peaches to make peach jam: Ok idea.

Buying a second box of peaches to make more peach jam: Bad idea.

*****

Canning tomatoes: Good idea.

Canning a bushel of tomatoes: Ok idea.

Canning a second bushel of tomatoes: Bad idea.

*****
A pattern emerges.

I think I'm ready to hibernate.

At the Top of the World

2009-09-09T16:44:00.000-04:00

At the top of the world, roads look like toothpicks. Forests of trees become moss. Boulders are pebbles. People are insubstantial, insignificant.

At the top of the world, you can see where God took a scoop out of the hillside with a giant hand, and scattered pebbles along the way, sifting them through his fingers.

At the top of the world, you can dance with the clouds, breathe them in, breathe them out. Watch them swirl over a ridge.

At the top of the world, you can see the land, the sky, the curve of the earth cradled in the palm of the heavens.

I know. I was there.

Blueberry Hill

2009-08-07T20:45:00.000-04:00

Bucket in hand, ku-plink, ku-plank, ku-plunk, the sound of blueberries dropping in, one by one, then handful by handful. She had no intention of picking blueberries this year, but a free morning, a clear blue day, and a nearby farm called to the deep-down parts of her that pleaded with her to fill the nest with bottled fruit, canned jams, pickled beans--food storage for the hard winters.

So she went. Edging her way through the rows of bushes higher than her head, squinting up at cluster of berries, ku-plink, ku-plank, ku-plunk, into the bucket they go. And before she knew it, four pounds of berries nestled together in the bucket awaiting pectin.

Pomp and Circumstance

2009-07-24T08:55:00.000-04:00

The pomp was provided by the bagpipe. The circumstance? Three small letters that represent hundreds of thousands of others written, pages and pages of prose boiled down: MFA.

But there was no "Pomp and Circumstance" at this graduation. There was "Scotland the Brave" instead. There were the dozen brave, the members of S3Q2 who took the long walk down the aisle, smiling, smiling, around the fan, up the center, a squeeze of a hand, love tangible. Chairs to the right of the ornate organ.

There was the heat of the full chapel, the walk to the microphone. "Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free. Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight." Words of gratitude for the givers of the gift.

The speech, the readings, the hooding, the hugging. The diploma. Ginger Johnson, MFA. "O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!" She chortled in her joy.

Watery

2009-06-28T16:45:00.000-04:00

Drip. Drip. Drip. Water comes down from the sky, wrung out of the grey clouds until the air is heavy with rain, and the ground is saturated. Drops roll down the driveway, dodging fallen pine needles, bits of lichen, twigs. The drops gather with other drops, merging together until streams run through the detritus, mob-like, bullying a way down to the oak tree, through the ferns, down to the stream.

Puddles in the grass. Puddles in gardens. Puddles on the paving stones and the benches. Leaves hang heavy, wet, sagging. Swings droop, forgotten. Spirits sag. If only the rain would stop! we think. If only there were some sun! we wish.

We swim inside in a man-made pool, watching the grey clouds gathering through the windows. When we finish swimming inside, we swim outside through the heaven-made pool to the car. Drops roll down the windowpanes, they swish from the windshield wipers, they form a topographical map on the hood of the car.

But a new morning dawns.

Clear blue sky.

The sun shines.

The beach calls.

We drive through town, past the market, by picket fences and window boxes. Hot sand under toes to the tide line, where the water, the ocean water, the cold, cold water takes refuge in the sand, refusing to give heed to the pull of the moon. Tiny drops surround grains of sand, forming a putty for small builders equipped with shovel and pail.

Courageous souls brave the salty water. Screams of girls and gulls fly through the air.

A tiny crab is discovered and captured, its miniature legs moving ferociously across a small palm. When fully prodded and examined, it is released back into the sea, back to its home, and inquisitive eyes search for new discoveries.

Stones, shells, snails washed by the sea, bathed by the water. All are fodder for a day at the beach, until the mist rolls in with the tide. The water in the air bows down to meet the water on the ground, and we, mere mortals, are in the middle, desperate to escape water from above, only to find refuge in it from below.

The Healer's Art

2009-06-14T14:21:00.000-04:00

The olive oil sizzles in the pan, a sprinkling of red pepper flakes bubbling within. A crush of garlic, a twist of pepper, a handful of salt await the cook's whim.

When discouragement comes calling, the tomatoes never judge. Onions become your friend, chopped and ready, weepy and weeping.

Watching and waiting, wooden spoon lies at the ready.

At the end, when all has been done, when there is nothing left to chop, and the salt has been returned to the pantry, pasta entreats you, steam rising into your face, a balm to your hurt, real or imagined.

Images

2009-06-07T21:07:00.000-04:00

An image of me came my way this week--came flying through the airless space, the ether of hypertext and social networking. An image of the ghost of me past, the me who was. The me before babies, before marriage, before graduate school, before travel. The me before life.

The innocent me.

The me who wanted a new dress to wear to the church dance.

And a hat to go with it.

And this image, for some reason, demands to be acknowledged.

So I acknowledge you, my sixteen-year old self. But you really should have helped out with the dishes more often. You should have told your family you loved them more often. You should have been a tad bit less self-absorbed (says the 37-year old me who is writing an *entire* post on herself). You should have worried less.

But some things you got right, by serendipitous chance or by absolute design. Whether by one or the other, I am grateful.

And now my sixteen-year old self tells me--can't you see the look on her face?--as I am now, you once were. As you are now, I will become.

I look into the airless ether to that future self, wondering what the ghost of me yet to come would say to the me right now. Undoubtedly, she will tell me that I should have worried less.

Time is a funny thing. You can never step in the same river twice, or so says Heraclitus, the grand master of the idea that each moment is its own universe. But there is my face. And here I am--dipping into the river again and again.

Lady's Slipper

2009-05-30T21:12:00.000-04:00

Up the driveway, around the curve, down a hill, past the barking Dalmatians, through shadow and shade to the brilliant sun. We step carefully, for the road is full of fuzzy caterpillars. Half a mile in, we come to the turn-off, the path to the river. Grassy, muddy, mossy, we're in the tunnel of the trees where all is silent and holy. Past the pond, the full-sun pond with cattails and croaking frogs. We come to the deck built over the wetlands, then we're in the trees.

Grass gives way to moss-covered roots, forget-me-nots, star flowers, parchment berries, wild lily of the valley. Oaks, maples, pines above. At our sides, ferns whisper, poison ivy tangles with blueberry bushes.

"Look! There's a lady's slipper!" We count them on the way to the river. Two, three, four.

We are underwater, we are in a dungeon, we are in a cathedral. We sing at the top of our lungs and the sound echoes. We would dance, but the roots and stones stop us, caution us to slow down, to see what accompanies us on our walk. We sniff the air, so sweet and full.

And then. Oh, then. Wall of trees hiding, hiding, hiding, but we know. Oh, yes, we know. There's no secret here. Water rushing, water gurgling, shining sun pressing down. A flash of gossamer light: fly-fisherman in the middle of the river, looping, cajoling, caressing, a tempter of what swims below.

The path continues, fallen pine needles, trodden, trodden, tread. Tread lightly, says the lady's slipper by the river's bank. And when the wind picks up, when the fisherman wades ashore, when the explorers have explored, we step lightly back through the brown and the green, out from the cathedral, out from the dungeon, back to the brightness of the day beyond.

But there--
Where?
There!
By the side of the road
Between those two trees
Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
An even dozen.
Pink lady's slippers dancing dainty, bobbing on their stems.

A Good Book

2009-05-29T17:09:00.000-04:00

It's cold here. And wet. Very wet. The perfect sort of evening to curl under a blanket with a good book. So here are my latest recommendations:

1. The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams and not just because Carol is a friend. The writing is brilliant; the story is disturbing. The book will leave you aching.

2. The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages. Again, beautifully written. If you're in the mood for a WWII-era historical novel about two unusual girls, this might fit the bill.

As for me, I've got Little Brother by Cory Doctorow up, then I'm going backwards in time: Owl in Love (which is not really that old), Tom's Midnight Garden, Peter Pan, and Five Children and It.

Memories

2009-05-26T20:52:00.000-04:00

There is something to a physical memory. Yes, the mind remembers things: the Jabberwocky ("'Twas brillig and the slithy toves...", my college phone number (377-PUKE), the lyrics to "Jingle Bells" in Latin, the radius of a circle. But after years and years and years of dance training, practice, hammering away at technique, I can verify that the body remembers things too, all on its own. Though I'm about twenty years past my last dance class at the studio, my body remembers these things without me even thinking about them.

I can say this because in a burst of energy, I took a cardio-dance-fusion class on Saturday. As soon as the teacher began calling out stretches, it became hard to remember that I'm really not nineteen anymore, that those days are long gone. Three days later, and I can now walk up and down the stairs, mostly free from pain. Ahem. Mostly.

Those long hours in the dance studio are apparently part of my DNA, fused into me, the way a branch is grafted into a tree. You can take Ginger out of the dance studio, but you can't take the dance studio out of Ginger.

I think of these things, because life is about to change again. After two years of monthly packet deadlines, punctuated by ten-day writing residencies, I am about to graduate. Again. And while I certainly haven't yet worked my 10,000 hours advocated by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers: The Story of Success, I can only hope that the hours I have spent in training, practicing, hammering away at a different kind of technique, has culminated in a new me--that the neurons in my mind have shifted a bit to welcome something new, so that the words I dance with now are not only an integral part of me, but that they are something greater than me, something more than just words.

And, maybe, just maybe writing won't be quite as painful as dancing has become.

Did I Write That?

2009-05-08T20:35:00.000-04:00

See below.

Really, did I write that?

Could *not* have had a more different experience today. Completely hit a wall. Chapter four awaits me.

And....nothing. All day. Kept my rear in my chair, but nothing. Nada. Niente.

Sigh.

Capricious employment, this writing thing. Maybe it's time to pull out my tap shoes. Some street corner somewhere awaits me.

Revision, Re-Vision

2009-05-06T12:36:00.000-04:00

In my fourth packet of the semester, I have been requested to revise the first six chapters of Spectrum. So I toil away. Sometimes revision is so tedious, and other times, revision becomes re-vision, where the blinders come off and I can see so clearly what's at fault, what's missing, and what's superfluous.

Today the revision has been re-vision.

I've been reading my childhood favorites: Bridge to Terabithia, A Wrinkle in Time, and Tuck Everlasting. Maybe that's what has been giving me clearer vision. Nothing like returning to your childhood self in order to see what's what.

Apples to Oranges

2009-04-30T14:50:00.000-04:00

So last night my son asked me to read to him because he has pinkeye and really isn't willing to have his eyes open for any length of time unless he absolutely has to. His current book is one of the Hardy Boys' mysteries.

As I'm reading along, my mouth is saying the words, but my head is thinking, "Yikes! Dated!" It made me laugh because my best friend in high school and I used to joke about our "Nancy Drew words": things like sedan, pocketbook, davenport, slacks. AND THERE THEY WERE! Right before my very eyes!

And it got me thinking about the difference between classic literature and dated literature. What makes a book like I Capture the Castle a beautiful, classic book, when Hardy Boys, a poor stepchild, is the object of lexicon jokes?

Well, ok, it's not really a fair comparison.

Still, it's relevant to me as a writer. I want my scribblings to be classic in fifty years, not dated. Something to ponder.

A small FYI...you CAN BUY a castle. I looked at several online yesterday as a way to extend my fictional dream. I, too, could be a destitute writer living in a castle.

Reading

2009-04-29T15:40:00.000-04:00

I just finished re-reading I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. The first time I read it (years ago), my sister loaned it to me insisting that I would love it. I hate to say that I didn't particularly love it. It wasn't exactly what I expected. It didn't hit me with any emotional force.

How time does change us.

I'm not sure why, but this time I felt like I had been hit by an emotional mack truck upon finishing it. Timing? Stress level? A much closer read this time around? I can't say, but I came away from finishing it with a very real sense of catharsis.

Not to mention, a deep desire to live in a ramshackle castle in the English countryside...

SCBWI

2009-04-27T09:37:00.000-04:00

I'm back! Did you miss me? Yeah, whatever. I know.

Anyway, conference report: thumbs up. Sadly, though, I did not take a single photo. I wanted to...I almost did...but then I thought I really shouldn't take a picture of Cynthia Lord without asking permission and I just didn't have the guts to ask her. I asked her to sign my copy of Rules and that about exhausted the wee bit of moxie that I have.

Sometimes a conference is all about catching up with old friends, sometimes it's about networking, sometimes it's about the sessions. This conference was a bit of all three for me.

I got to see Julie Berry, longtime friend, as well as several familiar faces from Vermont College (Anandita, Sarah, Joanie, Ann, Tam, Trinity, Cindy, Erin).

I met some new friends at Friday night's Schmooze at the Muse (Phoebe, Erin, Alisa, Scott, Marjorie). I had a critique with Erica Zappy, associate editor at Houghton Mifflin, on Friday and had such a positive and encouraging conversation with her. I had lunch with Pam Glauber, assistant editor at Holiday House, who looks like a combination of two of my friends--sort of a strawberry-blonde version of Samara.

And then there was the meat of the conference... Cynthia Lord and Floyd Cooper were the keynote speakers and such generous and talented people they are. Cynthia Lord spoke about the plusses and perils of writing what you know. Floyd Cooper showed us his subtractive method of producing his illustrations. Truly impressive.

Jacqueline Davies spoke about creating an unreliable narrator. I learned so much and I was so persuaded by her analysis that I'm putting this on the backburner for project #3, turning one of my straightforward characters into an unreliable narrator.

I also went to a picture book workshop given by Toni Buzzeo and Jennifer Ward, in which they so clearly outlined the structure and organization of picture books. We analyzed a PB manuscript of our own for the various aspects we discussed. So valuable.

Cynthia Lord and Linda Urban gave a workshop on theme. Again, so useful for me, particularly with the piece I'm working on for my creative thesis.

Agents Barry Goldblatt, Tracey Adams, and Jennifer Laughran presented a Q & A panel regarding agents. It was great to hear these agents in person, as "listening" to them online only tells you so much.

All in all, I had a great weekend. And now, back to work!

NE-SCBWI

2009-04-24T10:25:00.000-04:00

Off to the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference. Pictures to follow. I hope.

The Muse is In

2009-04-19T19:32:00.001-04:00

This morning, after having stewed for three days, inspiration finally struck. The clock is ticking and workshop materials will be due next month...and there's no time like post-packet to fit in writing something new.

I've been wanting to write something humorous, considering I've sandwiched fighting evil in between death and disease in the projects I've currently got going. The last three days, I've tossed aside one idea after another, finally coming to the sad conclusion that I just wasn't funny anymore. Well, yeah, I'm funny, but not that way. It was a sad conclusion to come to, indeed. Have I lost my sense of humor? Did my children drag it out of me?

But huzzah! Inspiration. A new story idea. Funny? Maybe. But definitely different from the other three projects I've got in the fire.

I'll likely be quiet this week, as it's spring break and this weekend is the New England SCBWI conference. Looking forward to it.

And the Verdict Is...

2009-04-17T19:13:00.001-04:00

Positive. The Amazing and Brilliant Tim Wynne-Jones liked my excerpt from Into the Trees, my first novel-in-progress, and agreed that I should use it for part of my creative thesis. And as for Spectrum, well, it needs more work. But that was no big surprise. I'm just so very happy that he can spot, diagnose, and prescribe treatment for so many of my narrative woes.

And now, only two packets left.

Another Dream

2009-04-16T15:22:00.000-04:00

I swear that someday I'll stop posting my dreams, but I simply can't help myself right now. I dreamt last night that I was walking by this enormous Victorian house--mansion, really--and I wanted to own it. The fact that it wasn't for sale didn't phase me. I walked in and began counting rooms. I got stuck upstairs when I saw the library. Oh, the library. Ah, the library. Two stories tall, floor to ceiling bookshelves (at least I think it was ceiling--they seemed to go on into infinity), mammoth room, fireplace. And then there was the kitchen downstairs. Oh, the kitchen. Ah, the kitchen. Space. Cupboards. Pantries. Counters.

I like dreams like these.

Perhaps I was dreaming such a dream because I sent my third packet to my advisor last night? My tightly-reigned in imagination was allowed to set off in fanciful pathways, since it was freed from the chains of my various fictions.

Oh, the library. Ah, the kitchen.

Another One Out the Door

2009-04-15T20:34:00.000-04:00

I just sent in my third packet of the semester. Meaning that the semester is three-fifths of the way done. Scary. Two more packets until I graduate. Two packets, and a lecture. Oh, ok, two packets, a lecture, AND a creative thesis signed off.

So onto happier news, the costumes for the Fairy Tale Ball are all settled. I am going as Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. Son #1 is going as the Beanstalk (truly, he is rather a beanpole). Son #2 is going as a court jester (type-casting, no doubt about it), and the Gingerbread Man is going as a fairy godmother. He's wearing my tiara and my son's fairy wings. He got a wand and some fake tattoos, and he hasn't shaved. Hilarious.

Clicked

2009-04-14T17:10:00.001-04:00

After going to bed last night rather dejected because I hadn't written much of anything new for this packet (just revised stuff), something clicked for me today. Pieces are coming together. No, I haven't written 52 pages of new stuff this month like I did last month, but I am pulling it together. And that's almost as satisfying. In fact, maybe it's more satisfying, because the beginning of this draft is beginning to feel like a manuscript. Gasp.

Besides that?

I'm recovering from Easter. I made these. Don't make them. Really. You'll only regret it. Especially if you have a high school reunion quickly approaching.

Yum.

Or if you have a Fairy Tale Ball to attend this week. In costume. Even if it's with a group of second-graders. Perhaps everyone will be so dazzled by my tiara they won't notice the crumbs strewn across my dress.

Perfect Pitch

2009-04-10T10:16:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was piano lesson day. I sat on the sofa in the adjoining room listening in as my son showed his stuff.

After playing a few notes, he turned to his teacher. "Did you get your piano tuned?" he asked.

Surprised, she said, "Yes, I did! How did you know?"

"It sounded different. I could just tell."

This might not have been a surprising dialogue, if the piano student had been taking lessons for quite some time. Or if he was old. Or accustomed to that particular piano. Or if it was wickedly out of tune.

It was surprising because it was my son's third lesson. Ever. He'd only played that piano twice before. And did I mention? He's eight.

What makes him able to hear the difference when a sound is a little too sharp and when it's just perfect? I can guarantee you that it's not genetics. Does he have perfect pitch? I don't know. I guess time will tell.

As I sit here revising and revising for my next packet (due the 16th), I'm wishing I could tell the difference between a scene that is a little too sharp and one that's just perfect. Unfortunately, my eyes are too used to seeing these particular words on the screen. The words blur together and I can't tell if they dance with the beauty of marbled colors or they squat with the reality of mud. Rainbow or mud pie? I'll let you know.

My Fair Godmother

2009-04-06T20:55:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison, a delightful romp through fairy-tale land sponsored by Chrysanthemum Everstar, a so-so fairy godmother (therefore, just "fair"). When Savannah's boyfriend breaks up with her to start dating her older sister, Savannah wishes for a prince to take her to a ball and Chrissy (the only fair godmother) turns her into Cinderella--eight months before the ball.

Cute book. Well done. No loose threads. No heaving bosoms. No vampires. What more could a girl ask for these days?

Next up:The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd.