Ginger Snapped

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...

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 .

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 b...

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.

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.

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 castl...

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...