1st-week-of-spring birthdays--the second installment

These babies know how to help Mama (March 22nd), Daddy, (March 25th), and Nonny (March 26th) celebrate!

bABY, lOOK AT yOU nOW ! ! !

Shhhhh,
don't
tELL
. . .

I'm supposed to be too old for this child's play, me and my brittle bones and out-of-practice self. But, hey, that's why this baby has only one gear and pedalinreverse brakes! I can pool all my mental reserves into remembering how to do what, they say, you never do forget!

Yes, like Campbell, I could forget to watch where I'm going, fall down, break something, learn to write left-handed . . . again! He did , at 7. And I did at 12 (only it was roller skates for me). His cast comes off on Thursday . . . and we're going to, one day soon, ride, ride, ride!

Bet this would make an awesome beach bike . . . Maybe this summer???

Couldn't go for that test bikeride today. . . I was wearing dress shoes and dressy pants and who could bike in that attire? Except my 7-year-old former self, all those birthday years ago, who learned to ride her 26" Huffy in dress shoes and a dressy dress!


Happy Easter!

Happy birthday!

Happy spring!

Thank you Mama and Daddy and Michelle and Rick and Mason and Campbell for touching this child's heart--then and now.

I've got a secret. . .

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Spring slipped in this morning

while we were sleeping.

Tomorrow, Aries!

Birthdays-all-in-a-row.

Pink knockout roses on the doorstep.

Time to breathe it all in.

Spring

break

at last . . .

tell me. . .

Should the boy squish the ant? What do you think, Michael?

Tell me, Nonny.

The kitchen's on fire. William in his bathtub is riding a tidal wave down the stairs. What do you think will happen next, Michael?

Tell me, Nonny.

So much of my life, my work, is about coaching others to tell me what they think.

But this morning, looking into Michael's eyes, I knew that this time it really was all right to tell him what I was thinking. . .

Except for these two questions.

Michael will have to make his own way through the moral minefield of squishing ants, just as grandbabies before him have been invited and expected to.

And, even at not quite four, given enough of a story recap to think with, he was able, this morning, to predict that the tidal wave from the broken faucet upstairs would put out the fire. Which it did, in that picture book world.

But for all those other times this morning , all Michael's other invitations to

Tell me, Nonny,

I did--and very much enjoyed (while I still may) being allowed to--tell.

did you know. . .

that March was once the first month of the calendar year?

Think about it: septem(7)ber, oct(8)ber, novem(9)ber, decem(10)ber . . .

I wouldn't have minded a year or more of no trudging through the minefields of january and february. . .but what might life have been without the january babies, Daddy and Grandmaman Yvonne, and without know-no-fear Mason, february and firstborn grandson?

Maybe I need those reminders that life isn't all about spring, reminders that cause me to appreciate all the more that

TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF MARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a jigsaw story

Science has always been a puzzle to me. This time, though, science taught me something about puzzles, puzzles of the jigsaw variety.

A student's science fair project compared how long it took several individuals to assemble several jigsaw puzzle. On the computer!!!

Where have I been? Working too hard? I had no clue!

I assembled my first one online this morning--38 minutes (I hope it was rated HARD).

Challenging? You bet!

At least it wasn't a Ravensburger . . . or 3000 pieces!

of dealing and blessing . . .

. . . and last year's resolutions.

Had to laugh when resolution time rolled around a few weeks ago. I was still wedged uncomfortably in the throes of 2007's three top-rated resolutions. Never mind the rest of the list--the usual stuff like exercising semi-regularly or replacing porch railings or thiswouldbetheyearI'dgobacktoFrance. . . I was into major league resolutions: taking stock of life, health, career. 2008's only resolution? Keep plugging away at 2007's five-year plan . . .

That's meant dealing. Delving into scary places, inside and out. Stepping out into the unknown, hoping I'll know how to fly when the footing fails me. Facing life's limitations and admitting their very existence. Trusting in a higher power, in someone watching over me, somewhere. . .

That's meant blessing. Reaching out. Drinking from deep wells of support, of caring. Filling heart and soul with peace--peace in the depths of winter . . .

Amazing!

this should be on my other blog. . .

. . . where I have nothing posted! I did have a letter there--draft mode only. A response to a long-ago episode (being rejected for a freshman creative writing class with a famous author) that deflated my aspirations of becoming a famous author in my own right. . . I did share that experience with colleagues, and the author, last fall.

Enough said on that account!

Writing that letter last June was catharsis. I understand now that the decision not to write was and is mine. Which may be why, the last morning of this week's state conference, I sat among writers and wanna-be-writers to soak in the wisdom and experiences and advice of yet another published author, author of adult novels such as those I aspired so long ago to write.

It's no longer so much about being a published writer as it is about understanding how one gets there--the process. And about figuring out where, at seventeen, I went wrong.

This is some of what I learned.

• Don't base a novel on personal experiences. Who would care except me, anyway? And the danger is that, like in most of my writing, I'd be writing just for that audience of one: me. That's OK in a blog or writer's notebook but would be a profound waste of time over 10 drafts of a 300-page novel, don't you think? I do. . .
• Capitalize on my strengths as a researcher: that was sooooooooooooo validated yesterday :-)
• Make the audience (and, first of all, myself) really care about my characters. That matters more than anything.
• Let the setting lead (a place to use some of that research) and the characters react to it.
• Keep chapters short, even in a long book, and avoid long stretches of description or dialogue.
• Use simile to show the native intelligence and wit of characters whose spoken language is not SAE. Use dialect sparingly, if at all.
• When you don't know what to write next, write about the weather. . .
• When you don't know what to write next, read.
• READ NOVELS WRITTEN FOR ADULTS BY AUTHORS WHOSE CRAFT IS WORTH STUDYING (which means varying my too-longstanding diet of YA novels and professional texts).
• Read a lot of poetry.

I'm sure there's more in my notes, but this is what I still remember, one day and one cover-to-cover professional book later.

Will I ever publish that best-selling adult novel?

Probably not. . .

Do I feel more validated, more empowered, understanding what the process of getting there would (or would have) required?

Yes!

admitting my mother was right. . .

. . . gets no easier with age, I'm afraid. But I had to call her this afternoon, knowing I was fueling her lifelong passion for "I told you so." I did call. She did say, "I told you so."


I don't like (some people actually do, weird as it seems) going to the doctor. So mostly I don't. The last few years have been so crazy, so full, that it was always next week or month or year that I was going to schedule that long overdue physical, with the myriad of tests sure to be exacted of someone my age. I'd have almost convinced myself that this was the week, when my mother would ask me if I'd made that appointment. I'm contrary that way. Nag me about something and I'm out the door, in the next county or country, doing everything but what you want.


This summer I finally cut her a deal: stop nagging and I'll make the appointment. She did. I did.


Doctor, lawyer (another story for another day), Indian chief was the first installment. This is hopefully the last.


I think the label is Tis. . . looked surprisingly inocuous as I watched it being snared (my insides on wide screen TV and I was loopy enogh to be fascinated!) and glimpsed it again in its zip-loc bag. Just eight days ago. An innocent little time bomb, as it turned out. Perfect timing on my part, as it turned out.


But my mother was right. And I had to tell her so. And I did. . .

New Year's Eve, part 3