The World on a String

It was made to fly.

From the moment I hit the beach with my new kite, it struggled against my efforts to keep it grounded while I tied the string and secured the connections. When I finally released my grip, the aerodynamic array of crayons caught the wind and soared, tugging for more line, eager to ascend heights far beyond what my string would allow. My muscles strained against the upward pull, part of me afraid that I’d be swept off my feet, and all the rest hoping that I would.

To fly a kite is to experience the tension between freedom and control; letting go enough for it to fly while still managing to keep it in your grasp.

This is what it means to have the world on a string: to release something beautiful and watch, spellbound, as it takes flight-- never certain of the outcome, but exhilarated by a connection to something soaring beyond the limits of normal reach.

Conditions weren’t as favorable on my next kite-flying foray. Ill-winds buffeted my craft, sending it on frequent nosedives. One particularly nasty blast threw my kite into the clutches of the beach’s singular tree where it dangled just beyond my grasp.

Holding the limp string while my husband extracted the kite from the tangle of twigs and branches served as a grim reminder of life’s darker side: the days when we wish our ideas would take off but we end up hanging on to our dreams by nothing more than a frayed thread.

I’ve always viewed these kind of days as wasted time: sure, I might have learned a thing or two, but if I was on my “A” game, I’d already be airborne. Like many people, I’ve always viewed life as a journey. But I’m beginning to realize that despite being well-packed and eager, I’ve spent the past couple decades a bit fuzzy on the trip itinerary. I’ve skipped along under the assumption that, at least for earthly purposes, life was a one-way ticket toward some type of goal—after which, one lived like a kite on a stiff zephyr—reveling in the experience of living your purpose. Oh, of course there’d be trouble—even I’m not naive enough to doubt that—but it would all come to some sort of meaningful conclusion, not unlike that nasty flap between George Bailey and the bank examiner in It’s a Wonderful Life.


Last week, I realized that my cumulative thoughts concerning some TV viewing, a high school play and a funeral signaled a shift in the way I’m learning to view life.

Like the rest of America, I watched last week as newly-crowned American Idol David Cook sang “The Time of My Life.” A big Cook fan, I cheered along with the rest of his armchair supporters, all the time wondering just how many of us even recognize the time of our life when it happens. Chances are slim that any of us will have our defining moments documented live on national television amidst shower of confetti and thunderous applause.

Most of us can better relate to the fictional residents of Grover’s Corners, who some of my former students brought to life in a recent production of Our Town, which concerns the rather mundane comings and goings of small town life in the early 20th century. An omniscient stage manager makes it his business to keep the audience abreast of the town’s trivia, making endless wry observations along the way. “Once in a thousand times, it's interesting,” he observes at the end of the wedding scene, after giving a blow-by-blow of the humdrum minutiae Emily and George would likely weather: domestic challenges, bills, aging, and the like. When Emily later dies in childbirth--I suppose I should have issued an alert about the plot spoiler--she wistfully remembers the commonplace details of life--coffee, sunflowers, hot baths and ticking clocks—as she delivers the play’s key line: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every, every minute?”

Which brings me to the funeral. It was for our music minister—just 6 years my senior—who died unexpectedly in his sleep. He had a family, a lot of talent, and so much left to contribute to our church. Everything about his death seemed wrong. Everything but—as our senior minister ironically observed—the timing. Harmonious relationships, professional responsibilities humming along at full speed ….this man left earth with all the Important Stuff in tune. His life wasn’t defined by a single moment but by countless choices he made to touch the lives of others while seeking God’s purpose for his own. He lived in the same place as most of us: in a personal Grover’s Corners, drinking coffee, enjoying nature, and composing his own lyrics against the rhythm of the ticking clock.

It’s hard to say what will happen the next time I go kite flying. I have more string now, so maybe my kite will reach unexplored heights. It’s equally possible that I’m simply giving it more thread from which to precariously hang. Rise or fall, the story is still all about flight. Just like our lives. Whether we’ve got the world by a string or life seems to be hanging by a thread, we’re all just testing our wings against some pretty stiff wind. Fortunately, our lives aren’t measured by whether we reach the clouds or bite the dust, but by what we do with all the moments we spend on the launch pad.

We were made to fly.

Welcome to the time of your life.

A Pilgrim's Progress

“Almost there!” the old man enthused.

Palms slapping the water and legs kicking madly, my 12-year old self rallied for the final push to the Styrofoam finish line.

I filled my lungs with air and squeezed shut my eyes, expecting my fingers to make contact with the bobbing white flotation device at any second.

“You’ve got it!”

Slap. Slap. Gasp. Kick.

“Keep going!”

Seeking the encouraging sight of my fingers about to touch wet Styrofoam, I tentatively opened an eye.

Whoa. I stopped kicking and planted my feet in the lake muck. Discovering that I hadn’t spanned the anticipated gap between myself and the flotation-goal would have been grim enough. But even with my admittedly fuzzy vision-- forced as I was to swim without glasses in my pre-contact lens era—it was clear that the goal was more distant than it had ever been before.

“Oh, that Father Bill,” my aunt said of her visiting relation.

“What kind of tricks are you playing on that child?” another lake visitor demanded of the sheepish priest.

“I’m just trying to help build her stamina,” he shrugged innocently.

I have thought of this childhood anecdote from my aunt’s lakeside cottage on many occasions over the past few weeks as I gasped toward the finish line of what I long ago dubbed as “the semester that just won’t end.”

With over 50 pages worth of written material due in the span of a single week, I paced myself by assigning undo significance to a series of inconsequential milestones: the final bibliography, the last page of reading, the capstone assignment for this or that course. Constantly laboring under a premature sense of completion eventually took its toll: I was seeking an endpoint that just kept moving further from my grasp.

But despite setbacks such as the meltdown I had after a particularly gruesome 3 hour bibliography reading (one instructor's idea of a fitting final class), the end finally came—or so I thought. With classes finished and final exams complete, it seemed safe to assume that Spring ’08 was a wrap.

Until I pulled my final grades up online.

Even with my contact-lens enhanced 20/20 vision I had to blink several times, hoping some pesky floaters were responsible for what I took to be the second letter of the alphabet hanging out at the end of a perfect formation of uniform Alphas.

How could this, well, be?

With a perfect average in the bank, I’d turned in a project on The Canterbury Tales that would have made Chaucer cry. It was stamped all over with professor approval. I think she just about kissed my final draft. Really. I know I’m fuzzy with numbers, but this equation hardly seemed mathematically viable.

Without belaboring some very sketchy details, let it suffice to say that somehow this project ended up in a non-approved format, and that in order to improve my lot, I needed to buck up for a return visit to Canterbury.

The goal-shifting priest’s sneaky techniques may have been effective for building physical stamina, but let me assure you, the experience doesn’t translate to the academic realm. On the heels of my mental rigors, I currently have the attention span of a middle school boy at a poetry reading.

I’ll admit to exhibiting signs of a weak psychological fortitude at the prospect of revisiting Canterbury. But then I realized that life is full of many “finish lines” that are really arbitrary at best. Is it more important to “finish” by a certain date, or to appreciate the opportunity to reach a little further for a personal best? Where is this “end” that we’re always striving toward, and what happens once we’re there?

Besides, Chaucer’s pilgrims never even made it to Canterbury, but they still had a good time along the way—spinning yarns and swapping tales, all the while angling for a tasty free lunch.

As for me, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed sharing this story with you, and if you have a tale, just throw a comment my way. I’d love to read it. In the meantime, my daughter is up in the kitchen fixing some homemade tortellini that I’m about to smother in tomatoes and garden-fresh herbs. Like Chaucer’s pilgrims, I’m going to revel in the simple pleasures of tall tales and shared meals, and not worry too much about the rest. After all, Canterbury’s nothing but a short stop on an amazing journey I hope I’m on for a long, long time.


What’s Afoot?
…an update on yesterday’s mishap

“It’s kind of like a preview of when you’re old,” my daughter said, as we pulled out of the Walgreens yesterday, clutching a bag containing first aid tape, ibuprofen, and crayon band-aids (I’m employing the red ones as a sort of alert, to keep a sort of safety buffer around my toe. The rest are for cheer.)

I was fumbling through my change, puzzling over some particulars of the transaction. “Why?” I asked, startled.

“You’re confused, you’re hobbling,” her voice trailed off. “I’ve decided you’ll be quite a handful.”

My daughter had spent the better part of the afternoon shuttling me to Dr. M’s office and then to the hospital for some x-rays. It seems that my toe, although fractured, will be just fine in a week or so. Toes, evidently, are “very forgiving,” according to Dr. M.

And all that nonsense about not running? What a waste of time when I own 21-speed, yellowy-orange mountain bike with great shocks and stellar tires, a package my daughter describes as “pretty intense.” Despite being thrilled to receive it as a gift a couple Christmases ago, it boasts surprisingly little road wear. That’s about to change.

Besides, the running really hasn’t been doing that much for me. It’s time for a little shake up in the routine.

Footloose

Smack.

I was flitting about the house, busily investing my new-found freedom in happy home pursuits when my forward-moving toes contacted the door frame with an ominous force. I'd been en route to the front door to investigate the source of widespread canine excitement but never made it past the kitchen where I remained crumpled in a sad little heap of pain and remorse.

I don't manage my toes well. It's as if those 10 little appendages don't really operate in concert with the rest of my body. As a result, I have built an impressive resume of stubbings, cuts, bruises and breaks--most of which eerily afflict the three center toes of my right foot.

The current carnage bears a shocking resemblance to the results of a particularly nasty accident in '03, a late May affair taking three toes--you know which ones--out of commission for the inaugural weeks of summer.

Ironically, my checkered podiatry history is not reflected in the thick chart I've amassed at my General Practitioner's office. As a hypochondriac, I'm all over a wide range of medical anomalies--vague symptoms suggestive of long term impairment or grave outcome, ocular and aural irregularities, ticks masquerading as melonomas--virtually nothing escapes my vigilance. But--pun aside--I have to admit that I find toe injuries thoroughly pedestrian. I mean, really, I know what happened, and I'm reasonably certain that, in time, I'll return to the ranks of the sure-footed.

But, nonetheless, my daughter insists that the bruised digit jutting awkwardly from my right foot needs to be "checked out" this morning.

This is bad news on several fronts. First, I'd already made a personal committment to a summer free of medical drama. Blowing it in May really seems pansy.

Secondly, I've been on a strict regimen of daily running. I figure, minus doctor involvement, I could hit the pavement again in a few days, a la Johnny Damon during the 2007 baseball season. Once doctors get involved, it's a crap shoot.

Finally, it seems a waste of a day, as illustrated by the fact that, despite not feeling really finished with this post, my daughter is jangling the keys and telling me to get in the car.

Links to Pass the Time

I'm coming back. Really. I'll post witty observations, funny stories, and inspirational tidbits. I've been saving them up. Letting them distill, culture, age like fine wine.

In the meantime, you can visit me here:

http://www.dailypress.com/features/custom/mytime/dp-mytime-cookies2,0,830621.story

and here:

http://www.dailypress.com/features/custom/mytime/dp-mytime-cookies,0,5864275.story

I'll be back soon. I promise.

Shedding

Just like my two big Labradors, I'm shedding winter bulk in the form of fuzzy assignments and hairy class requirments. I'll return to a more frequent posting schedule within the next few days.

Weighty Matters

Awhile back, I had a conversation with a woman who had managed to gain an improbable 200 pounds while pursuing some sort of advanced academic degree. Ironically, she was the first person to seriously sell me on the idea that I, too, should foray into the postgraduate realm, although it’s now clear that I didn’t connect some of the more, shall we say, ample dots in sales pitch.

This week, I realized that I am over half of the way to packing on a 5th of this woman’s impressive poundage, and I came to the grim conclusion that I need to stop acting as though academic “crunch time” means opening bags of study snacks. I realize we’re still dealing with single-digit numbers here, but we hypochondriacs don’t like leaving anything to chance when it comes to potentially debilitating physical conditions.

I began with the admittedly “soft” approach of taking on Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods as my travel-time audio book, as though I expected to become vicariously slim by way of an audio tag-along down the Appalachian Trail.

When that didn’t work, I began building a resume of modest physical accomplishments. A handful of circuits around the neighborhood. A few minutes I appropriated on the track circling my son’s soccer field while waiting for his practice to conclude. An impressively sweaty 40 minute stint on the treadmill.

In truth, this type of activity is really my normal routine. It’s just that—wouldn’t you know—graduate school seems to have me sitting on my butt way more than I think the AMA would recommend. I find it seriously hilarious that an impressive scope of organizations ranging from literacy advocacy groups to health institutions blame television for the rampant snacking and staggering obesity figures in younger Americans while promoting—get this—reading as a solution to this grave cycle of wanton inactivity.

Unlike a graduate student waddling into a library, the theory just doesn’t hold its weight.

Visit me Elsewhere Today

My interview with the Ninjas at Invictus Verbum

http://www.invictusverbum.com/blog/?p=12

Enjoy!

I Think "Court Jester" is a Great Job Title

“May I ask who’s calling?” I asked in the crisp office voice I’ve cultured ever since I was reassigned from the database to Anything But the Database.

“Prince Books.” Startled, I considered asking the caller to repeat himself, but despite the improbability of receiving a call from royalty at the graduate office, I was certain of what I’d heard.

I walked to into Dr. S’s office and asked, perhaps with a bit too much pomp and circumstance, if she could take a call from Prince Books.

For a split second, she too, looked alarmed until she paused, mentally reassigning stress to the appropriate syllables. Her lips crinkled a bit at the edges, but she quickly gained command of her composure before taking the call.

This is more than I can say for myself, as I walked back down the hall, remembering exactly what we do at the graduate office—you know, things like procuring text books from publishers, and the like.

For some reason I think the word “telephone” is about to be edited from my job description.

That Which does not Kill You Makes You Flabby and Stressed

Around 4 PM on a recent Monday, I realized that I’m definitely a real college student.

It wasn’t just a sudden acknowledgement of the five pounds of free flab I received with my registration, or the blown eardrum from the concert in the gym.

It occurred to me that my activities for the previous 24-hours included nothing more than writing a paper, playing video games, and sleeping.

It’s crunch time in my semester, and my 10-day forecast calls for papers and projects, punctuated by breaks for sanity and sleep.

The upside is that I’ve found that college life has driven my hypochondria into remission. Oh, it’s not that I’m unaffiliated; on the contrary, just in the past week, I’ve exhibited symptoms of ocular and muscular tumors, heart disease, and Bell’s Palsy, in addition to the aforementioned aural trauma. However, these days, I can do little more than shrug off or shun thoughts of medical maladies, a format that has yielded surprising results. With no time or inclination to follow up on any of these grave possibilities, the symptoms usually dissipate on their own without intervention.

College life appears, then, to be my “magic bullet” against hypochondria. Now I just need something to alleviate the side effects, lest paunch and papers become the death of me.

Something to do While We're Waiting...

...for me to have time to post.

http://www.dailylit.com/home

Five minutes (each day), no cost, unlimited enjoyment!

Happy reading!

(My progress can be tracked on the left, under my profile)

Opening Day

Summer Girl returns at 7:05 PM EST

Play ball!

Tuesdays With Morrie Became Monday's Sad Story

My daughter was mistaken for a homeless person outside the Books A Million last week, and the most shocking thing about this is that I completely missed the warning.

She went to the bookstore for some type of heated, after-school debate about a group project. Her best friend gave her a ride to the bookstore, and, true to form, my daughter talked her into running through a drive through for some chicken nuggets before dropping her off. Happily clutching her nugget bag, she headed toward the store, deciding at the last minute to eat her nuggets on the sidewalk before going in.

About halfway through the bag, she was startled when a passer-by of about four years old shrieked out a gleeful request for a nugget only to receive a stern scolding from her scandalized mother. “She’s homeless, dear,” the mother said, giving my daughter a wide berth while steering her child in the opposite direction. “We don’t take food from the homeless!”

We figured the unfortunate mistake was the result of the anteater-at-a-picnic style with which the kid tends to attack a bag of nuggets. It also could have had something to do with the oversized pieces of art and the graffiti-covered gear she had in tow. I’m sure the B-B-Q sauce stains on her sleeves didn’t help.

However, it wasn’t until today that I realized that my daughter's appearance, though undoubtedly a contributing factor, may not have been the primary reason the woman assumed her to be homeless. My working theory is that she probably lives near the Books A Million and sees this kind of thing all the time. Just as the streets of Vegas are populated by those unfortunate souls who pass the time idly feeding the nickel slots, the sidewalks in front of the Books A Million are doubtless strewn with those who count their wealth soely in terms of pages turned. Proximity to the bookstore won't let this vigilant woman lose sight of a fact that I had forgotten:

Reading is addictive.

Although one seldom hears cautionary tales about the pitfalls of reading, I submit here in this forum that, as far as compulsive behaviors go, reading habits need to be regarded with the same concern as gluttony, or off-track betting.

Not that I’m a stranger to reading—-indeed, books are a part of my daily life. It’s just that in recent years, I have managed to convince myself that I don’t have much time to read for pleasure.

I’m not sure how it happened. I grew up consuming Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden on a book-a-day basis. I absorbed Michael Bond and CS Lewis, their British influences infusing my own speech and writing with phrases like “Crikey!” and “there was a row in the queue,” and the tendency to use the favoured spelling of the Monarchy.

It’s just that responsible adult life isn’t designed to accommodate addictive behavior. Even when it masquerades as a wholesome, educational pursuit.

Ironically, my love for literature was rekindled when I got desperately behind on some in-class reading and my husband got me hooked on listening to CD books on my commutes. Eventually, I became so adept at employing CD literature that I got ahead in my reading, and discovered that I had time to listen to other books, too, just for fun.

But I got greedy, which is how I came to find myself crouched in the nonfiction aisle of the Books A Million, sucking up chapters of Tuesdays With Morrie like my daughter on a bag of chicken nuggets.

Remembering the triple digit page count I faced in the form of weekend reading homework, I prudently slid the book back on the shelf when my daughter was ready to go home.

But when I woke up in the morning, Morrie was still with me. I had know what happened, how his talks about life, and love, and death progressed, and how many of Mitch’s questions would be answered before Morrie’s Final Chapter.

I went to the library, ostensibly to pick up a book for school, which I forgot, and left with Morrie, who is far more interesting than linguistics, Chaucer, or that horrible book I have to read for my multicultural literature class. Morrie slam-dunks anything in my sociology book (although, he was, ironically, a sociology professor). Needless to say, Morrie trumps laundry, and dusting, and, to be honest, I read him behind my own booth at the Virginia Festival of the Book on Saturday.

I stayed with Morrie clear through to the end, and all I have to say is that it’s a good thing Morrie’s account wasn’t contained in a lengthier tome.

It’s also fortunate that my husband has a good job, because although my daughter was mistaken for a homeless person, I'd otherwise be in danger of becoming one, especially since my daughter's group is meeting at the Books A Million again tomorrow and I have to pick her up. The truth is, I could come home with anything, and be well on my way to a downward spiral. Indeed, I could even now, be in the final chapters of Responsible Living.

Come to think of it, I think I’ll just wait for her on the sidewalk outside the store and eat a snack.

Brownies, Bunny Cake, and Brewed Coffee (Grounds)

This a quick little post about Monday baked goods and an update for those concerned about the much-maligned New York Capri Pants.

Last week’s photo shoot was a wonderful success. The photographer followed the girls through the entire brownie process: licking the batter, sliding the pan into the oven, eating the proceeds before they cooled. He even sat though our lesson while the brownies baked. My editor sent the final layout to me yesterday, and the piece looks great. She even added an editor’s note, with links to my new website and books.

My son volunteered to take pictures so all of you could join in the fun. I’m sure these images will make you feel like you were right here with us.





Don’t you just feel like you were sitting right here?

This week, I decided to bake bunny cakes instead of brownies. I’m sure you’ll understand why I’m relieved that not only were no reporters on site, no one else showed up, either:



And the word on the Capri pants is that they emerged from beneath the grounds unscathed. If any staining did occur, the overall brown patina of the fabric rendered any defects invisible to the naked eye, a merit not enjoyed by all baked goods.

Resurrection

On this Easter Sunday, I would be remiss not to make mention of two facts of note. The first is an update on the ill-fated New York Capri Pants . Evidently, a concerned bystander pulled them from the trash, although I have yet to visually verify this fact, and there is no word yet on how they fared amidst the coffee grounds.

The second is that answers came to clarifycertain uncertainties with which I've been struggling.

New life has been breathed into some stagnant dreams. Isn't redemption a wonderful thing?

Stay tuned.

Lessons of the Pants

For several consecutive Spring Breaks—I’d guess four—I’d fallen into the habit of reading whatever one of the Traveling Pants books was hottest from the presses.

Having read the final installment in the account of the globetrotting jeans last year, this spring left me with no choice but to reflect upon Pants mishaps of my own design.

I’m sad to report that the New York Capri Pants didn’t make it. They were last seen mingling with the coffee grounds in the bottom of my trash can.

There are reasons for the extreme fate of The Pants. For starters, who knew that lugging two layers of shimmery fabric around your waist could be a workout? I should have donated them to NASA for astronauts to use during zero gravity experiments. As far as Earth-bound applications, I suppose you could use them as a paperweight, but my next point will illustrate why you wouldn’t want to.

They’re enormous. The pattern size I measured for was more than double the size stamped on clothes I buy off the rack. “Sewing sizes are different, mother,” my daughter kept insisting. All I know is that the New York Capri Pants could provide shade and shelter over a large portion of Central Park.

Then there’s the fact that every line I tried to sew kept moving—slipping and sliding all over the place, until the midsection looked more like a licorice whip than a waistband.

But the writer in me isn’t content to just let the unfortunate events rest unexamined. No, the ill-fated Pants must be infused with some sort of Greater Meaning, they must inspire, instruct and inform. They must have Purpose.

I wouldn’t blame you for asking why, but the reason is quite simple. It’s the only way I can cope with the personal failure, waste of expensive fabric, and loss of many hours that could have been invested in more productive pursuits.

What then, can the Pants teach us from their gritty grave?

My husband would say that, too, is simple: I can’t sew.

I say it’s a little of that, and a lot of I don’t know when to quit. I don’t know when quitting is good, or when quitting is bad. It seems that there are times for both, but just like a little kid who hasn’t figured out what strangers are OK to talk to (Policemen? The hairdresser? That creepy guy who drives the ice cream truck?) I’m still learning the rules.

That’s what I learned from the Pants. That, and I can’t sew.

Tomorrow Comes Early Every Monday

Every Monday at 6:30 PM, it suddenly becomes Tuesday at my house.

The smell of baking brownies and sounds of canine excitement signal the weekly time warp. Tails wag as teen girls, hungry for a combined spiritual and sugar rush, file through the front door. This weekly ritual played out every Tuesday night for ten years until I started my Masters program. After Tuesday evening classes forced a move to Mondays, everyone cheerfully adjusted to the time change, but not a name change. We’re still the Tuesday Night Bible Study. We just happen to meet on Monday.

What’s different about tonight is that instead of making the brownies ahead of time, I’m waiting for the girls to arrive so we can bake them together. The format change is for the benefit of a photographer who is coming to take pictures for a story about our group which will run in a local women’s’ magazine and, apparently, the newspaper as well. The brownie making angle is a concession to the fact that, for photography purposes, taking pictures of us baking would be more interesting than pictures of us sitting around on couches eating the brownies, which is what we usually do.

I won’t have the pictures to post, but, as I happened to write the article, I’d be happy to give you a sneak peek at it.

It goes something like this:

Who knew when I sat down in my living room one late spring evening with two teen girls, a pan of double chocolate brownies and a Bible that my life was about to change? Sure, I was excited about building relationships with some of the girls at church, but I had no idea I was beginning a chapter of my life that would be peopled by dozens of teenagers who would bring me not only encouragement and joy, but also inspiration in the pursuit of a lifelong dream.

But that’s exactly what happened. Our weekly living room sessions around the brownie pan are now eleven years strong. Over the years, I’ve been in two weddings, and another
two marriages exist because of friendships that formed in Tuesday Night Bible Study.

Along the way, we’ve prayed together over lost loves, sick pets, and plummeting grades. We once sat and cried together at a funeral, too. Sometimes the older girls come back from college or married life and get to know the new girls. It’s a continuous thread.

I was a late bloomer, of sorts. A caution-to-the-wind kind of gal with a flair for the dramatic and a penchant for impulsive road trips during school hours. Having managed to survive into my twenties, I felt a responsibility to extend a map of sorts to my younger sisters—a guide marking the best stepping stones around the tough neighborhoods.

But even my husband, who has been a constant source of encouragement in endeavors ranging from international travel to the ill-advised adoptions of numerous strays, was skeptical.

“It’s a great idea,” he said. “But I’m not sure if you’ll get them to come. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

But come they did—sometimes in trickles, others in droves. And our group quickly expanded as the girls brought their friends. Soon girls from all over the community began showing up at my door each week for a dose of scripture, a listening ear, and, of course, a brownie.

I keep a few trophies—but not the kind you have to polish. My favorite is a little Ziploc baggie full of “contraband” a couple of girls unexpectedly gave me one night at the end of a study. Not even 24’s Jack Bauer could get me to divulge the contents of the bag, but I promise you, it was worth way more than every chocolate chip I’ve ever had to buy and every hour that stretched beyond our usual two.

And that lifelong dream I mentioned? My experiences with the girls actually gave me the nudge I needed to jumpstart my frustrated writing ambitions! It began as a chapter-a-week online saga featuring a protagonist who, as one girl put it, “is a little bit of all of us.” The experiment grew into two young adult novels that have opened doors for me to talk with girls who would never have the opportunity to walk through my door on a Tuesday night.

Those who come usually hit the door with a single question: “Are there brownies tonight?” They claim my super-chocolaty recipe has “ruined” ordinary brownies for them.

I understand. A brownie isn’t just a brownie for me anymore, either. It’s a warm, gooey celebration of enduring friendship and the unexpected joys of giving.

Cynthia Davis is pursuing an MAT in English at Christopher Newport University. To contact her or learn more about her work, visit http://www.runningwithletters.com

Maybe you'd like the brownie recipe?

Bible Study Brownies (Nestle Double Chocolate Brownies)
This is the recipe for the authentic Tuesday night brownies!
3/4 cup unsifted flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 package Nestle semi-sweet morsels
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In small bowl combine flour, baking soda, and salt--set aside. In small saucepan, combine butter, sugar, and water. Bring just to a boil, then remove from heat. Add 1/2 package of morsels and vanilla. Stir until morsels melt and mixture is smooth. Transfer to large bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually blend in flour mixture. Stir in remaining morsels. Spread into greased 9 inch pan. Bake 30-35 minutes.

Enjoy!

Knowing When to Say "When"

“Don’t end up at Barnes and Noble,” my daughter pleaded at the end of a cell phone conversation right before my husband came home from work on Friday.

We were going out on a date—spring break item #7, for those who are counting—and if history was any indication, about one troubled meal and ninety minutes away from aimless aisle wandering and a video on the couch.

My husband had given this date a pretty good trailer, though, so I’d looked forward to it with some anticipation. I’d categorized it in the “mystery” genre, as I had next to nothing to go on, but when he came through the door carrying a slender manila folder, I started thinking along the lines of James Bond, or Mission Impossible.

Inside the folder were three columns of numbered sticky notes with the headlines “Dinner,” “Shopping,” and “Film.” The rules, he said, were simple. Once an option was uncovered, I had to decide to accept it or move on, but the catch was, I couldn’t go back.

Twelve possibilities for dinner, seven for shopping—each with varying funds I could spend—and nine potential movies—what fun! I quickly removed the starting options in each category—obvious throw-aways (McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and a movie called “Jumper,” which may be a perfectly fine film, but not one with which I was familiar.)

I kept going.

The options got better—a nice Mexican restaurant, a decent Target allowance, a fun romantic comedy. But all those uncovered options...what might I miss?

I continued peeling Post-its.

From bar and grill fare, Barnes and Nobel (“I can’t go home and tell our daughter I ended up at Barnes and Nobel”) and a well-reviewed drama, I wound up with: “Bag Lunch—PBJ,” “$25 at K-Mart” and some really scary sounding flick called “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.”

There was nothing I could do but keep peeling.

It’s a good thing my husband knows me well, that he’s no stranger to my “grass must be greener” urges. Because brown-bagging it in K-Mart duds at a B-movie is what people like me typically come to in the end. By the time I’d reached a tidy, three digit sum at Macy’s and WAS STILL THINKING my date had tuned into “Deal or No Deal” and I was the contestant poised to reject a massive payday and go home with a penny.

But my husband knows I can’t stand the unknown. That I have to know “what could have been,” that I struggle with understanding that the best things are the ones that you have.

Knowing it would likely get to that point, my husband saved some sweet options for the end, allowing me to enjoy a piping hot pot pie, a shopping spree at the mall (variety!) and the same romantic comedy I reluctantly passed by in the number four spot.

He says it won’t go down this way next time. He says I need to learn when to embrace what’s before me and stop second guessing my choices.

Otherwise, next time I’ll be wiping peanut butter off my Wal-Mart T-shirt as I trudge into the video store.

Singed Finger Stymies Blogger

Readers,

I had a post planned for tonight, but getting ready to settle in to type, I made some tea, severly burning a finger in the process. You wouldn't believe how long it is taking me just to post this simple announcement: pauses to cool the digit on a cube of ice, repeated backspacing to correct myriad typos--I should have just left them as testament to the scope of my infirmity.

If I don't make it back tonight, I hope you'll stop by to check in on me tomorrow.

Need ice...

...But What Can I Get for the Thousand Words?

It's not a good writing week. On the heels of yesterday's Upset with The Editor , The Antiques Roadshow series came to a screeching halt when the subject ended up with a broken foot. Although my editor--not the one who thinks it's "wierd" to pay for assigned work--still wants the stories when the subject is back on both feet, early projections are that the coverage will fall when I'm wallowing ankle-deep in school work. My relationship with the paper could, if fact, be on its last leg.

In the aftermath of all the literary trouble, I decided it was the perfect time to focus on list item #10:

http://athousandwordstospare.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Tension at the Seams

I cringed as a sunbeam cut through the roughly-hewn piece of cloth I held in front of me. "Do you think this might be a little see-though?" I asked my daughter, hoping she couldn't see me behind the cloth sheath.

She could, right down to my frown of disappointment.

And, just like that, I discovered another way I’d like to imitate Jesus. According to the Gospel of John, (19:23, to be exact) he wore clothes without seams.

While my fascination with this fact may not speak to some of the more crucial ways I need to emulate Christ, it was this detail upon which I found myself fixated as I struggled with my efforts toward eleven eleven list item #1, finish sewing the New York Capri pants.

I’d like to report that the hours of cutting, sewing, and pinning resulted in a happy, stylish conclusion. I’d like to post a photo of the finished product, or better yet, of me looking sharp modeling the finished product, but really, all I have to offer is a sad tale punctuated by events like the shattering of my glass button jar across the tile floor, and an emergency trip to the fabric store when the sunny conditions of my working environment revealed the transparent nature of the smooth, flowing fabric and I realized that some type of liner would need to be fashioned.

Now, common sense will tell you that if I’m struggling with implementing the basic pattern, the skills required to improvise a liner are way off my map. Furthermore, a liner for a smooth, slick garment must be cut from fabric that mirrors those qualities in order to retain the free-flowing characteristics of the piece.

Sewing pieces of slippery material together is even harder than cutting slippery material, which, I can assure you, is no job for a stay-within-the lines perfectionist.

Further complicating my attempts at the harmonious fusing of fabric was the fact that I was coming unglued by events unfolding outside the perimeter of frayed threads in which I’d been hemmed.

Seems that a new editor with whom I’d been excited to work found my request for payment for assigned work to be “weird.” (This is not the Antiques Roadshow series, referenced earlier, but, rather, even more promising work that apparently will not transpire.)

Pondering what led to this unsettling turn, I realized that my difficulty with seams extends way beyond the ten pieces of fabric with which I was wrestling. I don’t know how—or if—school fits into my life. The penny-pinching turbulence at the newspaper is evidently worse than I realized (I’ve been called weird before, but it’s usually for something like organizing the wares of store shelves into ROY G BIV order while I shop, but never for collecting a paycheck). I don’t know where to focus my future writing efforts.

It should really come as no surprise that seams are troublesome. Why else would we use the phrase “seamless” in admiration of work strangely free of flaws? Seams are where things come together, the intersection of incongruous elements, and are, therefore, inherently challenging.

If seams were simple, we wouldn’t talk about things “coming apart" at them, and “popping a seam” wouldn’t be viewed as a problem. Sewing kits wouldn’t come stocked with forked tools known as “seam rippers.”

Seams aren’t simple because they represent transitions, and if you’ve written as much as a high school essay, you know how elusive it can be to craft a smooth shift.

Seams are the creaky joints where the frayed edges of our lives converge. We jockey, we pin; tentatively at first, testing to see how the fit squares with the pattern we’re aiming to craft from the bits and pieces with which we have to work. Opportunities, ambitions, longings and hopes—these are the elements we must reconcile with the resources available: our skills, time, and tools. It’s arduous work, and success is never guaranteed.

Today, I need to spend some time contemplating my patterns—-the one printed on newsprint to guide me through the transitions of trousers, and the other to write upon my heart as I seek to become more Seamless.

Documenting my Wanderlust

I’ve always had it—it’s what ignited my ill-fated bid to summer in Cabrini Green when I was 13. It’s why I’ve never been able to hold down a job involving attendance in the mid-calendar months. It was behind the urges that led me to Africa and Mexico. It’s the force whispering into my ear even now, taunting and tempting me into the unknown.

Wanderlust is a powerful mixture of idealism, curiosity, and passion for life. It’s an urge that’s satisfied only through acts that leave your hands dirty and feet sore. It’s never safe, usually risky, and always deeply fulfilling. At its best it’s spiritual, at its worst, it is self-destructive, even fatal.

I’ve been listening to the CD book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer’s account of the early 1990s explorations of Christopher McCandless, a young wanderer whose quest to quench his internal cravings led to a grim conclusion in the Alaskan bush. At times, excerpts from his journal read eerily like my own; his yearning for “unfiltered experience,” his belief that there’s “more” out there than most people allow themselves to discover.

My current efforts toward fulfillment of eleven eleven list item #3—start cross country scrapbook—have turned my thoughts toward open spaces. Not just in the “go west” sense, but in the direction of self examination, of understanding the role and purpose of dreams, longings, and cravings, and what to do with mine.

Recent educational developments have caused me to reconsider the path on which I’ve embarked with my masters program. I had to drop the in-depth-examination-of-a-middle-school “lab”class—unexpected field work requirements in my other classes left me with no time to even start the time consuming project. Dropping that led to a realistic look at my remaining course requirements, and two important discoveries: that I definitely have to extend the program, and I’m not sure how much I want to. There’s a lot more field work, for one. More importantly, the field work I have done has led to the conclusion that as nice as a little part-time, private school teaching gig can be, Being a Teacher isn’t something I’m all that jazzed about. Perhaps the biggest doubts have originated from some professors I’ve consulted who have questioned the compatibility of my personal goals with this particular program.

In short, I can build a convincing case for staying, and an equally convincing one for cutting my losses. However, another semester will take me past the point of no return, and I have just a couple weeks to decide: is this just wanderlust, luring me away from the conventions of society? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve run from confinement at the first sign of longer days and warmer climes.

Or is the voice I hear the weak gasp of an author and journalist crushed beneath the weight of assignments I’ve turned down and projects I can’t pursue due to the demands of academia?

Oh, and did I mention that my old, very part-time job as a private school art teacher is available once again?

Abandoning free education—I’m studying on a full-ride scholarship— with the ideation of major success in print somehow doesn’t make me feel much wiser than McCandless. Armed with meager provisions and no charted course, he was last seen heading into the unknown, blissfully happy but thoroughly deluded.
The story of my own temptation to embark Deep Into the Literary Wild—and the results thereof— will unfold here, soon enough. If I don’t make it, just tell the authorities you last saw me with a pair of scissors, some colorful Sharpies, and a stack of photos of the Grand Canyon.

Sharing Dinner

I wish you could have joined us for dinner last night. A creamy blend of three cheeses and fresh picked parsley wrapped in paper-thin crepes beneath a layer of homemade sauce…manicotti as it's meant to be enjoyed. I satisfied eleven eleven list item #5—recreate my favorite dinner for my family—with a humble attempt at manicotti in the tradition of The Little Venice.

Throughout my childhood, I looked forward to the times when the sluggish pace of a rural Saturday—monitoring motor vehicle sightings past the property, blowing a pickle-shaped Burger King piccolo to summon the neighbor boy, that sort of thing—was broken by my grandfather’s voice from the Ham radio on the kitchen counter, announcing that we were going out for dinner.

He’d pull up in front of the house with my grandmother in his Lincoln Town car, and we’d all get in—my parents, my sister and I—for the half hour ride to Binghamton. I never liked any of my grandfather’s Town cars—the ride was too smooth—but I loved the 8-tracks he’d play: John Denver, Kenny Price, and Loudon Wainwright III’s big hit, Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.

At the restaurant, there was never any question that the food was authentic, top-notch, and plentiful. I don’t remember everything I used to order, but I know I must have had my fair share of manicotti, because no rendition of the dish has ever sufficed since. Whenever I see it on the menu at an Italian restaurant, I always ask if they make their own crepes, or use pre-fabbed tubes. It’s invariably the tubes, and it’s a shame. The extra effort for the crepes isn’t just a nice touch—I won’t even bother ordering the dish sans crepes.

The really exciting thing is that I had the opportunity to revisit Little Venice in adulthood several years back—and I can report with complete certainty that the manicotti is every bit as good as I remember it as a kid. Well worth the trip to Binghamton if you live in North America.

Recognizing that real life prevents most of us from making the pilgrimage to the land flowing with marinara sauce and manicotti, I offer the following recipe, adapted from our friends at Taste of Home magazine:

Crepes:

1 ½ cups flour
1 cup milk
3 eggs
½ t. salt

Filling:
2 lbs Ricotta Cheese
½ cup Romano
½ cup Parmesan (not the stuff in the green shaker can!)
1 egg
1-2 Tbs. fresh chopped parsley (dried will do in a pinch)
(make ahead and chill in fridge for best results)

Sauce:
I use my home made sauce that involves crushing Italian tomatoes in a food mill and adding fresh herbs (basil, oregano, etc.), a pinch of brown sugar, salt, pepper and garlic to taste. Feel free to experiment, improvise, what have you, but please don’t resort to jarred sauce. You’ve come this far—don’t skimp here.

Mix crepe ingredients in a bowl. Spoon about two tablespoons into a hot skillet. Use spoon to spread into a paper thin 5 inch circle. Do not flip or brown. Set aside on paper plate, and continue making crepes until batter runs out.

Spread sauce on bottom of 13x9 and other various pans you may need to deploy. Spoon cheese mixture into crepes and place, seam down in pan. Top with more sauce and grated cheeses. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake 20 minutes more or until heated through and bubbling.

Oh, and one more thing…this recipe lends itself nicely to a sweet ending I remember fondly—a tall, thin, crème de menthe parfait.

If you don’t have time to cook, feel free to stop by for leftovers. We have plenty, and they’re even better the next day.

Happy Welsh Heritage and Antique Guitar Appreciation Day

“Well, you would be headed in the right direction if we were open today,” the security guard cheerfully informed me, “but today’s a holiday.”

My random adventure with the kids was off to a shaky start. I had to think fast. Yesterday, when I posed the idea of an adventure, both children announced that there was nothing new to see in our city. When I suggested they join me in eleven eleven list item # 6—fly a kite on the beach—they scoffed, claiming kite flying doesn’t qualify as an adventure. Tough crowd.

Undaunted, I asked them, over dinner, to each write down three things about which they wanted learn more. “Oh, no, research,” one child groaned, while the other dutifully scrambled for a library card.

“Who said anything about reading,” I demanded, mentally scrapping the library from my plans.

I used the kids’ reported interests—ranging from playing the guitar to native American history—as inspiration for some local, low-cost experiences. A quick internet search revealed a free museum with impressive Native American holdings less than 2 miles from our front door. Hidden within the campus of Hampton University—an instructional institution with which we are largely unfamiliar—the museum qualified as both something new to see and a non-print source of interest. Bingo!

But here we were, turned away at the gate, victims of some holiday of which we were not privy.

I was doubly surprised by the holiday angle, since I’d already scoured my mental database to identify the reason why both my kids and I were all off on the same day. In former times, those sweet days when all three of our lives included only one small school where I taught and they learned, we’d grown accustomed to having an entire week off together each spring. We’d usually tackle some project—one year we painted my daughter’s room, another year mine—and we’d scrub the kitchen floor, all the while listening to a carefully selected book on CD. In the afternoons, we’d visit parks and friends and libraries—good times that, this year, must be compressed into a single day, now that the three of us are all at different schools, each with a different spring break.

Although I’ll confess to being slightly stymied by the museum’s closure, I recovered quickly, dashing into another museum around the corner (we’re loaded with ‘em here, what with all water, European colonization, and all) arming myself with tourist brochures, all of which highlighted the merits of places the kids have already been, none offering a single new lead.

My big break came in the form of a serendipitous parking place in front of a storefront sporting a British flag. Recalling the upset that ensued last spring when the children discovered their Welsh roots, I herded them into the store in hopes of helping them connect with their newfound heritage.

I knew I struck gold when the friendly lilt of a British accent greeted us at the door. The shop owner pulled out maps, recalling tales and recounting customs. The concept of tartans, plaid patterns worn by family groups, totally captivated the children to the extent that they went home and researched theirs.


We stocked up on British junk food for the afternoon—sodas and chips of unique flavour—and continued on to our next stop, involving an elderly guitar—a weathered electric cast off abandoned by my nephew—about which there has been much recent ado. Just that morning, my son had been strumming its 5 poorly tuned strings as it hung precariously from his neck by a broken leather belt sporting several dozen bent staples.

We drove to a cluttered but well-stocked guitar shop. You know the kind—dark and a little dated, managed by a Woodstock-era hippie strumming out peace and love on a battered acoustic. He replaced the missing string, gave the old clunker a good prognosis (“might even be a collector’s item someday, if you hold onto it”), and infused the kids with a good dose of fascinated inspiration. Today, they’ve got it plugged into some old stereo equipment and were last seen with a chord chart and some slightly roughed-up fingertips.

Although a second glance at the calendar still didn’t corroborate the security guard’s holiday story, I still think I might side with him on this one. Although we may well be among the select few who knew, the day certainly proved itself worthy of special commemoration.

Eleven Eleven

For reasons that have remained unclear and largely unexamined, I have, since childhood, taken an odd delight in noticing when it’s 11:11. Identical pairs of slender neon digits lined across the display of the clock radio or dashboard, the unassuming numbers never fail (twice each day!) to remain noteworthy. Maybe it’s an aesthetic appreciation for the element of line. Perhaps I’ve come to associate the hour with lunch, or repose. I suppose there’s even the specter of psychological disorder, which would be especially concerning, as I’ve recently learned that the affectation is apparently genetic. Seems my daughter sends a text message to her best friend twice daily to alert him of the time of day, but since he actually appreciates this service, I figure the habit is less weird than it initially appears.

Clocks aside, today finds me doubly enamored with the number eleven. Tomorrow morning, I begin eleven days of spring break, and, in celebration, I’ve created a list of eleven things I want to do. The plan is to tackle one each day (although there’ll be some overlap) and post the progress here.

In no particular order, here’s what we’re dealing with:

1) Finish sewing the New York print Capri pants I started last winter, and promptly abandoned once I realized they’re supposed to have a zipper.

2) Make amends for the mosaic-wedding gift mirror I managed to ruin during the final grouting last fall (a full 16 months after said wedding) by designing and beginning a replacement.

3) Use all the stuff I bought that time I emptied the scrapbooking shelves during that sale at Target to begin the scrapbook of last summer’s cross country trip.

4) Complete an assignment for a pair of articles about the Antiques Roadshow

5) Recreate my favorite dinner for my family

6) Fly a kite on the beach

7) Attempt a real date with my husband

8) Plant flowers in my window boxes

9) Stay up late watching movies

10) Start a new photo blog

11) Take the kids on a random adventure

Perhaps by now you're a little overwhelmed. You might even think you misunderstood, that I’m taking off the entire Spring season, that I must have said eleven weeks, not days. No need to scroll back for clarification—as usual, my expectations exceed reality. I figure at the very least, it'll make for interesting reading. Stay tuned.

Kicking it to the Curb

A couple weeks ago, I did something new; liberating; even brave: I took a deep breath and heaved a large percentage of my clothing into an oversized goodwill bag.

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, dreamed of it even, as I stared blankly each morning into a cloth maze of marginal pants, iffy blouses, and unloved dresses. You know the stuff, it’s in your closet, too: the pair of khakis with the grease stain from a hasty drive-thru lunch in late ‘06; the off-shade blouse you’ll find something perfect to wear with “someday”; the misshapen sweater Aunt Lib knitted for you several Christmases ago; the tired T’s.

I’d wade through the sea of fabric, eventually settling on trusted anchor pieces upon which I can always depend: a trio of jeans, dark solid tops, a shapely sweater, or, if the occasion called for it, a staple pair of slacks or skirt.

What with my daily deliberations and reliance on the thin ranks of the tried and true, I was convinced that purging my wardrobe would leave me with nothing to wear. This, of course, is the thinking pattern of those psychotic “hoarders” one sees from time to time on the evening news. The illusion of a vast and varied wardrobe imparted a false sense of security with which I was reluctant to part.

But part I did with a massive heave-ho to the curb on a recent Friday morning. Two factors joined forces in inspiring this bold move: a trip to the antique store and some financial backing in the form of Christmas funds.

The antique store trip was prompted by a do-it-yourself decorating book I picked up on the discount table at Barnes and Noble. According to the text, the antique store was my low cost, one-stop solution to all my household needs. With clothes in all stages of cleanliness spilling from laundry baskets and hampers bursting at the seams, I figured some sort of rustic shelving or chest of drawers would present a decorative-yet- functional storage option. The financial backing served as a safety net against public nudity should I get carried away in my zeal.

Sadly, the book was only half right. While I did find an attractive piece of functional furniture, I can hardly label the turn-of-the-twentieth-century walnut armoire as “low cost.” Let me skip over the droll financial deliberations (I, not my husband, was the reticent party) to say that my decision to limit my wardrobe to what could be contained within the armoire's confines was as solid as the piece itself.

True, I purchased a few new items, and, better yet, salvaged a few with the aid of a seamstress. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit to keeping a few ridiculous items, like the scoop-backed tuxedo tank I’ve always wanted to pair with a classy black jacket for some sort of day/night affair (“From boardroom to ballroom,” my husband mused, when I attempted describe the socially-improbable occasion that would prompt such garb).

As an English major, I’m not much for clichés, but if I did adhere to shop-worm maxims, my current wardrobe would certainly be a case of “less is more.”

Recent mornings, it seems I have more choices than ever, and they’re all good. My drawers are full, but not stuffed, and everything in them makes me smile.

In fact, my style’s so polished I’m looking for ways to extend the streamlined concept to every area of life, and I’m not just talking closets. I’m eyeing bloated corners in every arena and I’m poised to toss.

Friday...

Rain.
No school.
Fingers eager for the keyboard.
Stay tuned.

Musings Over a Warm Mug

Glug, glug, sputter, pshhh…glug glug…the coffee was brewing.

My son, his hastily packed lunch, my daughter, her buzzing cell phone, and my frazzled husband were miles down the road en route to school and work.

I was alone. This is an important fact to file away at this point, because momentarily, you’ll want to foist responsibility for subsequent phenomena upon someone—anyone actually—in an attempt to maintain your sense of structure and order. But I’m going to take that from you here, at the outset, because I never had the sense that what happened inside my kitchen cabinet was normal, so I’m not going to let you think, or even suspect, it , either.

Because it’s simply not normal to reach into your cabinet for your favorite coffee mug, the one you always reach for when it’s clean because your daughter got it for you when she was seven and it makes you smile—it’s just not normal to wrap your hand around the mug and discover that it’s already hot.

I’m not talking maybe-some-stray-sunbeam-seeped-in-though-a-crack-in- the-cabinet hot. I’m talking just-came-out-of-the-kiln hot. So hot that the shelf beneath it is warm to the touch and the surrounding mugs have soaked in its heat sort of hot.

Now, of course, the first thing I’m thinking is fire, because it’s not like I haven’t been right in that very spot of the kitchen, warming leftovers with my walls on fire. It happens. And I’m feeling a little more confident about fires ever since I met a new friend at church who is a firefighter and says he’s totally got my back if I ever set the kitchen aflame, as I'm so prone to do. So I’m kind of looking for the source of the fire, wondering why I didn’t have the presence of mind to put Firefighter Friend on speed dial, when I realize that the cabinet is adjacent to another cabinet containing nothing but--what else--books— in this case stone cold books. All the other dishes in the burning mug cabinet—pots, pans, glasses, and plastics—were all behaving in their typical, cool-to-the-touch manner on the surrounding shelves.

Curious, I cradled the mug in my hands, enjoying the mystery of it’s warmth—which, I must note, did not measurably subside during the entire time I waited for my coffee to brew—even after I poured cream into the bottom.

See, as disturbing as it is to have an inexplicably toasty mug in my kitchen cabinet, I know better than to question the event. No good will come of it. There are no answers, any more than there were during that disturbing incident in the late eighties when I dozed off while watching a daytime drama and awoke to find that a wardrobe—complete with all my clothes, on hangers—had appeared in my dorm room.

It didn’t matter, then, how many times I retraced the events of that afternoon, meticulously interviewing witnesses and establishing timelines like a Crime Scene Investigator on a tricky case—there were no answers to be had. Yes, witnesses could verify that my clothes had been draped over chairs and heaped in corners for weeks prior to the arrival of the Mysterious Wardrobe. Yes, others had been watching the same daytime drama, and verified that indeed, I’d missed mere minutes of the eposode. Yes, everyone could plainly see the large wardrobe and my neatly hanging clothes, situated in the room. But not a single soul knew how, or when, it happened.

It’s the same now, with the mug. It’s one of those mystifying events in life that defies rationalization. I’ve decided to embrace this ambiguity, and count it among the blessings of life. The random, unexplained events of life keep me interested and engaged—on my toes. In fact, if there is an explanation, I don’t think I even want to know. I'd rather spare myself the discovery that life might be mundane, because I’d find the news unbearably devastating.

I’m currently not inclined to view the semi-burning mug as any sort of sign. If I wake up tomorrow to find my bushes aflame, I’ll reconsider.

An Issue of Issues

Kids need to be surrounded by good literature.

My husband and I began our family firmly committed to this shared foundational belief.

Accordingly, our children have grown up in a veritable sea of printed matter. Not only did we both bring every Little Golden Book either of us ever owned into our union, we fervently undertook acquisitions for the Davis Family Library before we even had furniture.

To my knowledge, neither of us has ever sold a single college textbook, a fact which in itself represents the bulk of our educational shelves, considering my husband has, like, 3 bachelor’s degrees and an MBA, and I’m working on my masters. (Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that my daughter just put Don Quixote on ebay.)

In early marriage we were members of book-of-the month clubs—yes, plural—the proceedings of which we read from lawn chairs in our aforementioned unfurnished apartment.

When our daughter was born, we showered her with chunky books, waterproof tubby books, and, as she grew, pop-ups and books with tapes.

Even our son, the poorly read black sheep of a fellow who only reads under the duress of an assigned book report, boasts numerous (and pristine) tomes. He’ll tell you he reads—and, who am I to say, maybe he does, at say, 3 AM, or perhaps in the bathroom.
Our personal collection numbers safely in the thousands, with our holdings typically supplemented by any number of grossly overdue library materials, but we won’t go into that. Off hand, I don’t really know how many book cases we have in the house, but we snatched up another one on sale at Target last week.

And did I ever mention our penchant to subscribe to magazines?

I’ve thought on occasion—and shared freely in this forum—that our magazine situation might be a tad out of control. At least, if you think it’s an issue to have every nook and cranny stuffed with periodicals. Personally, I find it comforting to have a wealth of knowledge right at my fingertips no matter where I am in the home.

Why, consider what happened to my husband one fateful day last spring, when he volunteered to cover an hour of two of our daughter’s babysitting shift. Seemed like a simple sort of thing—until I picked him up, and found him pale and off kilter.

“I forgot my book,” he lamented, “and there wasn’t anything at all to read in that house—nothing.”

“Don’t be silly,” I told him, knowing the mother was a teacher. “There must have been something.”

“Well, sort of,” he admitted, gasping something about a Billy Graham coffee table picture book.

If you’ve ever seen the shaken, pasty pall of a man deprived of meaty literature, you, too would regard a ready stash of printed matter as a medical necessity. (And I don’t mean to elude here that we don’t find Billy Graham meaty—it’s just that it was, well, a picture book.)

However, recent events have caused me to wonder if it’s time for a purge. See, I like a neat and tidy appearance around the home, and, although you can totally decorate with books, the look just doesn’t translate with magazines. They’re spilling out of every conceivable basket, end table, and magazine rack in the house—and that’s after I scooped some of the older ones into a stray laundry basket and hid them in the attic.

Worse, I’m now having some organizational trouble and it occurs to me that I might need the space for, say, file folders, or clear, labled containers like the moms in the magazines use.

I spent the better part of a day last week and a good chunk of the day before that searching though stacks of magazines for my son’s missing school pictures. When I failed to find them where they were supposed to be, I figured they must have gotten caught up in some kind of emergency coffee table sweep and stashed in a basket. I kept thumbing through the stacks, expecting at any moment to see my son’s face grinning back at me from the glossy pages of a National Geographic or Smithsonian.

As regular readers might remember, I tend to get obsessive and weird when things go missing. Adding to my trouble was the fact that every place I looked for the pictures, I discovered the absence of more and more things that weren’t where I expected.

So I decided it might be time to gather up all the magazines and you, know, see what we’re really dealing with. So I emptied all the baskets and gathered up all the stray piles and lined them up on the countertop in my studio area. Here’s what we have, minus the contents of the laundry basket, which have either become deeply engulfed within the attic or fell victim to foul play. Here's an aerial view:
For a few lucid moments, I thought about recycling the whole thing and starting fresh. Then I knew I’d really need to read them before I could part with them in good conscious. After making it through 1.5 issues of National Wildlife in about the same number of hours, I became discouraged with the plan. Besides, the mailman came while I was reading, and now I’ve got three more magazines in my pile.

At that point, I realized that today it’s just my son’s picture that’s missing, but if this thing goes unchecked, maybe one day I won’t be able to find him. That would take the concept of surrounding the kids with literature to the ever-soaring heights of my hastily stacked periodicals.

It could be that this is one of those "less is more" cases, but I think I'll err on the side of good literary caution and just see if Target is having another sale. I’m sure I can squeeze a new bookcase in somewhere.

It's All in the Spin

Six weeks. The words have been running in a constant loop through my thoughts for, well, the past five weeks.

My first semester of masters work ended five weeks and one day ago, after thousands of pages of reading, approximately 24,243 words worth of papers, and couple of last minute saves--including an emergency real-time edit of a presentation in progress (an offhanded comment by a professor exposed a critical misreading of a piece of literature as a classmate and I made our way to the podium to present the merits of said piece. Good thing I wore my hip waders and packed a shovel that day...)

Six glorious weeks between the end of my fall semester and the beginning of the spring term seemed like a Christmas gift that could best the entire contents of Santa's sleigh.

Six weeks! At first, the words swelled in my head like the Hallelujah Chorus. Every morning when I woke up, it seemed like the entire Boys Choir of Harlem sang out the refrain, complete with the backing if the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

No papers!

No research!

No vital up-or-downloads!

No Don Quixote!

You'd think that the last thing I'd want to do during this soul-cleansing time of catharsis would be to write. But write, I did. First, for the newspaper--that's right, I remembered, I used to get paid to write. And then, for my sadly neglected but dearly beloved YA fiction venture, as appeared in my previous post. Yes, I remembered, writing is beautiful, when you write what you love.

But it was more than the joy of writing for profit and pleasure that resonated in between the notes of my Ode to Freedom. There have been so many other facets of my hijacked life that I've been able to resuscitate, such as warm, homemade meals on our dinner table: Tuscan chicken, stromboli, risotto, pots and pots of minestrone--tonight we're having lasagna.

Then there's the world of friends and entertaining, into which I wholeheartedly delved one evening just prior to Christmas. Can you imagine ending a meal for 6 adults and 13 children around a chocolate fountain? I can, and the memories are precious.


Oh, and I can't neglect to mention the nearly lost art of reading for pleasure. That book that's been sitting on my must-read list for the past 6 months? Read it, and relished every word like a the last bite of a Hershey's Special Dark bar.

Looking back, it's kind of hard to believe the amount of things I've packed in around Christmas and a week-long New Year's trip to Pennsylvania. Those professional headshots? Done. Undecorating from Christmas and redecorating for winter? Done. Rearranging most of the major furniture in the house? Done. Book signings and school visits? Done. Done.
(See, here I am looking a little more authorly than I usually do, toting around my stuffed tiger):
Maybe all this activity is because that looping refrain in my head morphed into more of a cadence. The Boys Choir moved out last week, making way for The Corporal. The Corporal is intimately aware of the passage of time, and the parameters of the upcoming mission. Spring '08, I believe they call it. The Corporal is big into belting out marching orders, repeating the whole six week loop with a decidedly do-or-die flair.

The Corporal has me shooting off emails to my friends, informing them that it's now or never if they want to get that lunch, or catch up over coffee. The Corporal rides me hard if I sit, staring blankly, as I'm prone to do when overwhelmed. Don't just sit there, he barks, Six weeks, six weeks, that's all you have, six weeks. The Corporal's responsible for all references to the commencement of my studies sounding like the musings of one reporting for a court-appointed prison term, or beginning treatment in an Iron Lung.

Bad news is, an email from Dr P, a Spring '08 Sergent--er, professor, has now sent even The Corporal packing. Dr. P is teaching this pesky one credit "lab" --a "gimme" my son would call it. In the grand scheme of everything else I've signed up for, I didn't view the lab as anything worth much worry. Something about visiting classrooms. No problem.

Dr. P was kind enough to send her syllabus along early. I got bleary-eyed somewhere around page three, and a few paragraphs after that The Corporal's cadence morphed into a dirge.

Among other things, the syllabus outlined various tasks I am to complete during the course of no less than 15 visits to a local school where I will apparently become something of a fixture. These tasks range in complexity and scope. During the course of my tenure, I'll be expected to participate in parent conferences, attend extra-curricular events, observe student hallway interactions, and, perhaps, attend a PTA meeting. I will also be required to conduct interviews with teachers, substitutes, and--I'm not even embellishing here--bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and janitors. Essentially, I'll be examining the school from the ground up. At this point in my reading, the drone of the mourners silenced even The Corporal's most rousing calls.

The worst of it? I'm not even sure I want to teach, at least not in the full-time, public-school capacity.

See, I am, at once, an appreciative but reluctant student. I didn't really set out to return to school full time. Oh, I always intended to get my masters degree someday...after the kids were out of the house, and I got bored with all of my other pursuits. It's just that seeds of restlessness and dissatisfaction began to sprout in the drear, dank sunlessness of last winter, and one blustery February afternoon found me wandering aimlessly around the campus where I now attend. I thought I might pick up a catalogue, browse some selections, and sign up for a course or two; something to spark some new thoughts, that sort of thing.

I left that day with an offer for a full ride.

Suddenly, someday was upon me.

Some days I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity. Other days, I'm simply overwhelmed.

I even tried to quit once, when it looked like the timing of certain course offerings were going to tip life too far out of balance, with non-stop course work all summer long. The prof I work for wouldn't hear of it, and is teaching me the ill-timed course herself, just her and me. How could I quit, in the face of that kind of confidence and commitment to my success?

The trouble is, I'm a writer, and although this program will give me a masters degree in English, it's also a teaching program. I have a love-hate relationship with teaching. I love being with students. I love discussing deep topics, engaging them in life and learning. But I think it's a little like being a grandparent--it's great as a part time gig.

I love swooping in as a substitute, keeping things spick and span like an educational Mary Poppins--and flying away on my umbrella when the day is done. I love going into classrooms as a special guest, sharing my novels with students, listening to their questions and interpretations of my work, and inspiring them toward their own aspirations. Go in, stir things up a bit, go home. In and out.

Real teaching kind of looks like the anti-writing from where I'm sitting. Grading papers? No, thanks. Calling parents? I don't even call my friends! Attending staff development sessions? Arsenic seems like a more expedient way to go.

Which is why all this business about interviewing safety guards and grading surplus tests really packed a punch. I'm a writer, darn it, a writer. A writer who doesn't go to her own kids' PTA meetings because she'd rather be home, playing with them. I awoke this morning to the lamentation of the mourners. Six weeks, almost gone, six weeks, moving on.

Writers don't interview lunch ladies, I told myself. They don't do grunt work for teachers. They don't rove up and down hallways listening to students gripe, I insisted.

About this point, the journalist in me kicks in. I'm picturing myself walking all over the school with my digital voice recorder and notebook, making copious notes in hallways. We call that "getting the story."

Then it hits me. I write for teens, and I've been given an all access pass to their daily stomping grounds. This is research at it's best! I'm a writer, darn it, and I'm going in.

Someone had better call VH 1 and find out where the Spin Doctors are now, because I think I'm going to need them to pick up the refrain. It goes something like:

One week until I begin research on my upcoming novel!

A Little Story in the Spirit of the Season

Here's a link to a short story I wrote freaturing the characters from my YA novels.

Enjoy!


http://www.greenroombooks.com/ACampEdsonChristmas.html

Whittier, and Why I'm Not

Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--John Greenleaf Whittier

Thus concludes every email sent by one of the university professors for which I work. Today, these poetic words summon memories of witty, incisive commentary I planned to post but have since been lost to the avalanche of research that descended upon me in violent fashion.

Forever lost to literary discourse are several humorous school foibles, a marvellous Thanksgiving Eve piece (half written) concerning some culinary misfortunes involving several lumps of substandard pie crust, and at least one semi-poignant epiphany of the life-appreciation vein.

I had pictures, too--beautiful photos of fall and food, fun and feasting.

But alas, the sad word emitting from my metaphoric pen is simply that there is but an empty void in cyberspace where words should have been.