Giggling Angel

I've written about Aunt Sarah before.  She has been a constant in my life -- someone who offered unconditional love and support.  She died yesterday morning.  She was 102, her mind had grown fuzzy and her body weak.  Her life on Earth had become a burden to her.  It was time.

I learned a lot from her -- things that have helped me as I grew into myself and things that I want to pass on to Isaac.

From Aunt Sarah I learned that women could be independent.  She never married.  For a woman born at the beginning of the 20th Century this was unusual.  To be honest, I don't know if she stayed single by choice or if the chance to marry just never came along for her.  There were some things you just didn't ask when I was growing up. Regardless, she set an example of womanhood outside the traditional married-with-children-staying-home-keeping-house model that most women of her generation, including her sister, my grandmother, subscribed to.  She worked her whole life and was proud of her career - she often had stories to share from her days with the Steamfitters and would defend unions against the staunchest foes.  She supported herself and learned how to manage her money so that she would remain independent even in her retirement.  Whether it was her choice or just the circumstances of her life, she embraced her single state and enjoyed her independence.

From Aunt Sarah I learned that your are never too old to try something new.  As a young girl, and later as a middle aged working woman, she always relied on her feet or public transportation to get around.  She never learned how to drive.  But when she retired and prepared to move to a more rural town, that would not suffice any longer.  So, in her late 60's she took driving lessons and got her license.  After that she was never an adventurous driver, and she definitely did not like driving at night, but she had the freedom to visit family, go to the store, or do whatever else she had the mind to.  I am probably remembering her drive down the mountain to our house as longer than it really was, but I can still picture her driving along in her little Ford Escort a few times a week to bring us something or pick one of us up to spend the weekend with her or to just visit.

From Aunt Sarah I learned the value of making something new out of something less than ordinary.  Having lived through the Depression, and probably also from having to economize as a single working woman, nothing was ever wasted.  My sister and I had the best dressed Barbies on the block because Aunt Sarah used the scraps of material (left over from making her own clothes or clothes for us) to make dresses for our dolls.  We didn't have a fancy store-bought doll house, but we had a two-story mansion made from boxes, covered in wallpaper scraps, that we enjoyed playing with just as much.  She always arrived at our house with plastic bags hanging from her arms carrying whatever it was she was bringing -- whether it was groceries or her clothes for an overnight stay.  She reused everything.  Shoe boxes were covered in patterned contact paper to hold loose items. Paper towel rolls were cut down to organize cords.  She could make a fortune today blogging about her methods for repurposing.

From Aunt Sarah I learned the joy of organization.  Well, to be honest, I don't know that she was really organized --  but she did love "sorting" her many contact-paper-covered boxes of things.  After she moved in with my mother in her 90th decade, you could often find her in her room going through her things -- mostly paper and photographs, things that connected her to her family and her old friends, she loved looking through these items and reliving memories.  She had her own system of organization and it worked for her.

From Aunt Sarah I learned the importance of generosity.  She was always buying something for me or my sister or giving us money.  Big or small, it was always gifts -- never loans, never any conditions.  She always said that she would not be able to take it with her and she would prefer that it be put to good use during her lifetime.  As long as she had enough to buy food and pay rent, everything else could be given away.  Every time I was at her apartment, there was a letter thanking her for her contribution to this charity or that organization.  She wasn't indiscriminate in who she gave to -- she chose causes she felt strongly about or had a connection to or maybe sent her address labels. She gave responsibly and often.  Money was not important to her.

From Aunt Sarah I learned to love books.  She often took me to bookstores -- the dark, dusty bookstore downtown to buy old copies of Nancy Drew books or the sunny, cheerful bookstore by her apartment to buy my set of Anne of Green Gables books, one book at a time.  I can still remember visiting both stores with her and buying books that I still own.  Thinking back now, I don't recall seeing Aunt Sarah read much, though I know she did - she was a Dick Francis fan - but she definitely supported my love of books.  She would take me to the library regularly but spend as much time parallel parking outside on the Pike Street hill as I spent inside choosing books.

From Aunt Sarah I learned that going to church every Sunday is not what makes you a Christian.  I know that she was active in her church in her younger years, attending regularly and teaching Sunday School.  But I don't remember her stepping foot in a church except for weddings when she was older.  I also don't know that I have met many people with a stronger faith than hers.  She had a quiet, but strong faith.  It was important to her that we have a foundation in the church, but once she retired and moved, finding a church was not a priority.  She knew what she believed, she had her Bible and her hymns, and her faith in God was evidenced in how she treated the people around her.

From Aunt Sarah I learned the importance of family.  She gave up her youth to nurse her sick mother and take care of her widowed father.  Probably gave up any chance of having a family of her own, too.  She adopted us as her own and treated us like we were more than just great-nieces.  She moved to Florida with us to stay close.  Her mind wandered back to her early days with her family when the fuzziness started to set in.  Family was her life, her reason.  She would have done anything for us.  And us for her.

From Aunt Sarah I learned to laugh.  She had the most infectious giggle.  Oftentimes, she was laughing at herself as she recounted something silly she had done.  Most family dinners that she attended ended up with our stomachs hurting -- not from eating too much, but from laughing with her.  Sometimes the story wouldn't even be that funny, but something would set her off giggling and then we were all caught up in her mirth, with tears running down our faces, gasping for breath.

It is the laughter that I will miss the most.  There are so many other memories that have flitted through my mind as I wrote this -- watching ShaNaNa in her apartment as she cooked me a hamburger, her telling me not to stick my arm out of the window as we drove up the mountain because she had a friend whose arm was cut off doing that (yes, I believed her), her standing at the refrigerator eating out of the ice cream container (her favorite food), the homemade skirts she wore (always skirts, never pants) --but her giggle is the most vivid memory I have.

She lived a good, long, full life.  She was the last of her generation and now she has joined her family who went before her in Heaven.  The family she left behind will miss her, but her memories will keep her alive.  I can almost hear her laughing as she catches up Grandma and Poppy and everyone else on what they have missed since they left.  But I know, too, that she is up there watching over us.  Our own giggling angel.

Futbol!

Our summer has been dominated by the World Cup.  We have not watched every game, but we have scheduled our weeks around the games we wanted to see.  Now that it is over, Isaac and I will have to be more creative about how we fill our time.

Even though Isaac has played soccer with the YMCA since he was five, we are not a soccer household. American football has firm roots here and always will, I am sure.  But I discovered over the past few weeks that I really enjoy watching soccer.

I don't know that the World Cup would have even been on our radar had our favorite coffee shop not advertised that they would be showing the USA group matches.  Isaac saw the poster on one of our weekly visits early in June and immediately decided he wanted to watch them.  Since we do not have cable, going to Geeksboro or a sports bar was going to be the only way to do it.

At the first match, I was barely tuned in, but after the win over Ghana I got caught up in the excitement.  We went back to see the second match and then I even planned to go watch the Germany match despite the fact that Isaac was in camp and wouldn't be able to go with me.  I had to be able to give him an update, right? We watched the USA lose to Belgium in the Round of 16 and Costa Rica pull off a win after being down a player and making it through extra time to come through on penalty kicks.  Then there was their loss to The Netherlands in a similar scenario, and Netherlands loss to Argentina again on PK's, culminating in Argentina's loss to Germany in the final.  My track record held through it all -- ultimately the team I was routing for met its demise.  But it was still fun to watch.

As I told friends who talked me through some of the finer points of the game -- why the goalies' uniforms are a different color, what the yellow armbands mean, why they get a goal kick rather than a throw-in -- I know enough about soccer to sound stupid.  I love watching the constant action, but I don't yet understand the finer nuances of the game -- what will get a yellow card vs. a free kick, when the players are off-sides, though I do finally at least understand what that means, whether or not the player writhing on the ground is really injured or just buying his team some rest time.

I marvel at the athleticism of the players on the field and am amazed at their running stats at the end of the games.  Watching the game without interruptions, without ads, without stopping after every play pulled me in and let me get caught up in the rhythm of the play.  So much different than football with its stop and go motion and TV time-outs and halves that last twice as long as the clock says they do.

What really pulled me in, though, was being part of a community of soccer fans.  Watching the games at Geeksboro, many times in their intimate basement theater, cheering with a crowd, and catching the other fans' excitement is what brought me back game after game.  For a few weeks, we were part of a larger soccer family.  Even after "our" team lost in the finals yesterday afternoon, I smiled to see the Germany fan running up the Geeksboro stairs waving his team's flag and cheering.

Last fall Isaac chose to play flag football instead of soccer.  This fall he wants to play soccer again and I look forward to watching his games, though my heart will be in my throat if his coach puts him in goal again.

And the Women's World Cup is only 326 days away!

Matt Reflects on Burying Our Cat

P.S. Your Cat is Dead

Between the neverending winter, and the upcoming soccer season tying up our weekends, we needed a change of scenery so we decided to take an overnight trip to visit some friends in Charlotte. There was the normal frenzy of packing and planning for travel.  Nancy came home and cleaned the house and I packed a change of clothes and called on our neighbor to check on our pets.  As we were walking out the door, Nancy told Isaac to feed the cat.  I remembered thinking that I hadn’t seen the cat in a few days.  This was not unusual.  Our cat Angelo preferred to sleep in the sewer on cold snowy nights rather than stay inside. (I couldn’t help but take it a little personally when he would howl at the door and pee on everything until we let him out into the snow, only to disappear down the storm drain.)

Isaac asked if I had checked her hiding spot, behind a recliner in the loft.  I went upstairs and looked behind the chair, saw our motionless cat and knew right away that she was dead.  I called her name “Miss Ophelia” twice to see if it would wake her up, this method proving successful on the many many times that I assumed that our dog had died only to find out that he was, in the words of “Miracle Max,” only “mostly dead”.  

After she didn’t respond, I announced, “She is dead.”

Nancy and Isaac both came up and confirmed it.  Nancy gave me the same look she had when Isaac asked what exactly the commercial for Tampax was advertising, a look that conveyed “I am the responsible adult most of the time, but you need to deal with this one.”

I knew the vet up the street offered cremation services, and already had their number in my phone (referring back to the time the dog was only “mostly dead”).  I am not going to lie.  I was as surprised as anyone.  We had been preparing Isaac for the dog’s death since we suspect he had had a stroke, is blind, deaf, senile, and those damn vultures circle whenever he goes out in the yard.   

Miss Ophelia was our retirement pet.  She was self sufficient, pretty, sweet, funny, and loved everyone (except neighbor cats and possums).  She was also seemingly very healthy, although in retrospect she had to have been about 15 or so.  You never know with rescue cats.  She was small and you could tell that her black fur was brown when she was in bright sunlight.  

In the last few years, I had grown terribly allergic to her, my eyes itching fiercely for hours, and my hands swelling up and sprouting red blisters if I touched something that she had been lying on.  But she was loyal to Isaac, often sleeping on his bed whether he liked it or not.    

I am not sentimental about bodies.  This is a function of being in the medical profession, and my religious upbringing.  When I asked my elderly grandmother if there was any music or scripture she wanted at her funeral, her response was “Do whatever the hell you want.  I won’t be there.”  

I donned rubber gloves and spread out some waterproof table covers that we use for surgical trays.  I picked her up, and the grief that was welling up was immediately superseded by the nausea from the smell.  

There is a bit of controversy here that will probably last in our family for years.  This is no slight to Nancy’s housekeeping skills, but there was a dead cat for somewhere between 2 and 5 days in the house without us noticing.  Nancy will claim 2 while Isaac’s version is 5.  

Isaac and I put the bag with the body in the back of the truck and drove up to the vet. It was a slow afternoon and the one receptionist was on a phone call, so we had to wait.  When another employee asked how she could help us, I explained the situation and asked how much cremation would cost. She looked it up on the computer and the cost came to $68.  

I called Nancy (who was home airing out the house) and she deferred to my wisdom.  I made a few calls and realized that there was no way we were getting rid of the cat cheaply.  (Footnote here….No cat is ever a “Free Cat”.)   

We live in a townhouse so don’t have 1) a yard or 2) yard tools to dig a hole.  I thought about calling friends to borrow either a bit of yard or at least some shovels, but couldn't reach any and waiting a few more hours was not an option.  Isaac, ever the pragmatist,  looked at me and said “Dad, if we pay $70 , we won’t have money for snacks on the road.”

So we drove to Home Depot to buy some shovels instead.  I asked Isaac how he was doing and he told me that he was holding in his tears until later.  I told him that he could cry whenever he wanted to.  He could be mad if he felt like it.  He could ask God “Why?” if he wanted to.  I told him that he may cry two weeks from now or not at all.  

We picked out two shovels and Isaac carried them through the store.  When he said “Two shovels?  We got ourselves a party!” my uncontrollable laughter teetered on the edge of tears.  I told him that it was okay to joke, too, to which he replied “Well….we are off to bury a dead cat!” in a fake cheerful voice.  I replied, “Easier than an alive one.”  He came back with, “Much less screechy.”  

As we walked into the woods near our house, he quipped “The time comes in everyone’s life when sooner or later they have to bury something in the woods.”  We found a spot and set to digging the hole.  He and I both dug until we had a hole that seemed more than deep enough.  

Isaac backed up to avoid the smell when I removed her from the bag and the wrappings (having heard my 15 minutes of dry heaving, he was reasonably cautious.)  We dropped her in the hole, said our goodbyes, a prayer and offered up “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.”

Isaac threw the first dirt in the hole and we set to finishing the job together.  

When we finished, he said “Our work here is finished.”

And I said, “And now the worms do theirs.”  

There are some of you who would find it disturbing to joke like this, but this is how my family chooses to deal with pain.  We name our fear, and then joke: not out of false bravado or a misguided feeling of invulnerability but a real sense that one day we will all be there, and there is nothing we can do about it.

I hope that Isaac appreciates how fragile and unexpected life is.  Death is ugly, but fearing it can make you waste your life.  I also hope he learns how to grieve in a healthy way -- by talking with people he loves and doing the work that needs to be done when someone or something dies.  

Strength and Honor,

Matt

What's for Dinner?

Two years ago, Matt and I gave up meat for Lent. We did not intend to give it up completely, just to cut back on what we ate during the 40 days (minus Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter.  But eating meat only a couple of times a week became eating no meat at all.  It had been something we had wanted to try for a long time and we were both surprised at how easy the transition happened.

Then Easter came along and we hosted our annual lunch for which I prepared a ham, and we both decided to continue to refrain from eating meat.  We were not missing it so we saw no reason to start eating it again just yet.  For the next seven or eight months, we managed to find ways to eat that did not include beef, poultry or pork products, though we did decide we were going to eat fish.

I have never considered myself a good cook.  Utilitarian is the term I have used to describe my culinary skills -- I cook well enough to keep my family fed.  I would never have said that I liked cooking, either.  It was something I did because I had to.  A survival skill.

After almost a year of subsisting on a meatless diet, I knew that if we really wanted to continue then we needed more variety.  Even when I was cooking meat, we ate similar menus every week.  It was boring.  I sometimes tried new recipes, but was particular about how many ingredients and steps they contained.  More than five of either and I skipped it.

Isaac was doing okay with no meat.  He actually kind of likes the meatless substitutes for ground beef and chicken.  And when we went out, he could choose to have chicken or beef if he wasn't in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich.  But he is almost always in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich.  He was rather a picky eater, but I was, too, and so are many kids.  But I felt like I should be trying harder to expand his options and broaden his palate, and mine.

So, at the beginning of 2013 I did something unusual for me -- I made a New Year's Resolution.  I resolved to find and try one new recipe each week to vary our diet and keep this meatless lifestyle we were trying interesting.  Matt and Isaac were supportive.  They bought me a cookbook for Christmas and our journey began.

It was an interesting year.  Some of it was a struggle, but for the most part my challenge was rewarding.  I did not become a great cook -- as evidenced by the puddle of egg and milk that ended up running down the cabinets yesterday afternoon when the quiche I was preparing overflowed.  I am a more confident one, though. I have learned how to look at a recipe and see beyond the ingredient list and multiple steps.  Honestly, I rarely follow a recipe step by step, taking shortcuts or making substitutions along the way.  I have used ingredients I never would have tried before and even discovered that maybe I do like food that is a little bit spicy.

My resolution was probably hardest on Isaac.  Matt will eat anything, so he never worried about what showed up on his plate.  But there were nights that dinner was a tense, teary affair.  I have never been willing to make Isaac a separate dinner -- our rule is that he eats what is put on his plate, then if he is still hungry he can choose an alternative.  I tried hard to never give him a large portion and there were a few nights I relaxed the rule because I knew that he would hate what we were having.  I mean, I wouldn't have eaten brussel sprouts just two years ago no matter how much cheese they were smothered in, so how could I force Isaac to eat them?

But we finally seemed to turn a corner late last year.  Isaac tries things much more willingly, now.  He is either discovering that food with color isn't that bad or that it's not worth the fight.  Either way, dinner has been much more pleasant recently.  I have also started buying him chicken and ham occasionally because I know that his dietary needs as a growing boy are different than mine and Matt's.  I even make him bacon many mornings before school.  There have even been nights, however, when he declared that whatever it was that I made was the "best" thing he had ever had.  And he asked for seconds!

It was a bit of a relief to come to the end of 2013 and be able to relax my weekly recipe search.  I have not given it up completely, though.  I still spend most of my time on Pinterest hunting for recipes to try.  My resolution kept us at home for dinner more often, which is something we definitely want to continue.  I have found that I really like knowing what goes into my food, so I have stopped buying items like salad dressings, hummus and guacamole and started making my own.  Last summer I finally managed to grow some herbs on our back porch and used them in my cooking.  I am already eager to begin this year's herb garden (if only the weather would cooperate).

I kept a list of all of the recipes I tried last year.  Most were main courses or side dishes for our dinner, but some were desserts or snacks.  Some were variations of a meal that we used to eat with meat, but many were new foods or contained an ingredient I had never used before.  But none of the recipes were hard -- I still mainly keep to my five ingredients and five steps rule.  I may have surpassed the basic survival skill level of cooking, but I am still a working mom with about 30 minutes to get dinner ready each night.  The act of cooking, though, no longer causes me stress.  I have actually come to like the time I spend getting dinner ready, puddles of egg and all.  I never thought I would have said that at the end of 2012.

So here is what we ate last year -- some months I cooked more than others, but I averaged about 2 new recipes a week.  Isaac's favorites are the desserts.

January- Butternut squash apple gratin Meatballs with apricot almond couscous Baked gnocchi Slow cooker vegetarian lasagna  Italian mushroom polenta bake Spicy polenta black bean casserole Roasted stuffed peppers Mediterranean flatbread Bell Pepper and ricotta calzones Shrimp fried rice Polenta with sautéed vegetables and spaghetti sauce Creamy mushroom quinoa with asparagus and olives Vegetable enchilada casserole	April- Pecan honey crusted grilled shrimp  Asparagus "delight" Penne fresca pasta salad Garlic dill baked salmon Hummus cups Roasted veggie tacos Lentil sloppy joes Black bean quinoa casserole  Lemony red potatoes and green beans Smashed potato lettuce wraps	July- Spring vegetable risotto Summer squash tartine with ricotta rosemary and lemon Zucchini rounds with tomato and feta Crispy polenta with sautéed vegetables Eggplant, tomato and feta stacks Leek and asparagus quiche Cheesy vegetable crescent rolls Cast-iron charred corn Tomato corn quiche Zuchini fritters Onion dipping sauce Bell pepper salad	October- Potato kale enchiladas Open face feta omelets Pumpkin pecan dessert bars Pineapple cheesecake dessert bars Shrimp couscous Crunchy baked taco casserole Acorn squash soup Harvest cheddar soup Pumpkin blossoms- chocolate and vanilla Parmesan crusted tilapia Corn potato gratin Mexican style eggs in a nest
February- Black bean and rice skillet with roasted carrots Veggie pita pizzas Spaghetti with homemade lemon pesto Mujaddara with quinoa fatoush salad Veggie gyros with lemon dill couscous Tomato tart Veggie Korean pancakes	May- Buttery garlic spaghetti with herbs Strawberry tomato bruschetta  5 layer Greek dip with toasted pita chips Spaghetti squash with apples, pecans and goat cheese Crockpot tortellini Roasted veggie hummus wrap Red pepper goat cheese frittata Black bean mango quinoa salad Spaghetti squash bake Edamame rice bowl (quinoa instead of rice) Creamy shrimp rigatoni	August- Frying pan donuts  Baked eggplant parmesan Baked zuchini sticks Roasted eggplant penne with basil pine nut crumble Eggplant rollups Salmon with sriracha sauce Roasted eggplant with potatoes Calabacitas with zuchini and corn Peach salsa Siracha hummus	November- Broccoli cheese soup Quinoa omelette breakfast cups Ranch dressing Skillet hash browns  Tatsoi cheese spread Banana egg pancakes Mama samberg's cranberry relish Pecan bars
March- Lemon broccoli pilaf  Lentil scallion fritters with feta  Meatball mozarella biscuits Stuffed portobellos  Spaghetti squash quinoa bake Potato Brussels sprout frittata  Brussels sprout gratin Roasted broccoli chick pea orzo salad Pea ricotta spread Phyllo bird nests	June- Cilantro lime fried egg on sourdough bread Quinoa burgers Tofu pineapple stir fry  Honey lime slaw with salmon tacos  Cheesy chile quilles with fried egg  Broccoli pesto braid Creamy polenta with poached eggs and olive-herb pesto	September- Breakfast potatoes Butternut squash penne Spinach mushroom cups Parmesan baked tomatoes Crestless spinach zucchini mushroom feta quiche Angel hair with roasted eggplant and yellow squash Black bean yellow squash boats Spaghetti squash caprese Grilled peaches with margarita cream Eggplant pizzas Pumpkin spice white chocolate chip cookies	December- Jamaican patties Greek yogurt Mac and cheese with spinach Kale goat cheese frittata Polenta cheese bars Corn cheddar quiche Coconut candies Two ingredient oatmeal cookies Creamy hash brown frittata

Teaching Failure

It can be hard teaching your child to fail.  Not that you actively teach him to do his worst and seek out defeat.  But he needs to learn how to fail because there are times that he will.  Matt and I have tried to approach failure realistically, letting Isaac know that we have both failed more times than we can count.  But we are also teaching him to find his strengths and to find success in results that other people may view as failings.

The Male Bakeoff theme for this year was something to do with the beach (I can't remember the exact wording, but it involved clever wordplay).  Upon hearing what the theme was, Isaac decided he wanted to make "Sharknado."  Very loose beach connection, but why not?  So, he and Matt worked out a plan and they created their masterpiece out of rice crispie treats, cotton candy and gummy sharks.  It was pretty impressive. (It was also recreated after a major structural fail the morning of the Bakeoff, but that is another story.)

One thing to note about the planning that goes into the Cravey men's Bakeoff entries -- how edible it will be is not necessarily considered.  I am not sure if the judges actually tasted the "Sharknado," but they were impressed enough by its appearance to award it the "Weirdness Cup."  Isaac was thrilled.  And he now has a mug to match his dad's set.

Later that week, the "People's Choice" awards for the Bakeoff were announced and Isaac got his second trophy -- 3rd Place People's Choice.  You would have thought that he had won the lottery, he was so excited.

After the Bakeoff, we turned our attention to the Pinewood Derby.  There are incidents in Matt's past that caused him great anxiety about this event, and since neither of us are skilled with power tools, we were not looking forward to it.  Isaac and I browsed Pinterest for inspiration and he found a car design that I felt confident we, with our limited skills, could handle.  Thankfully, we had help from some very generous fellow scouts and church members and managed to get the car ready for the big day.  We knew it probably wouldn't win any races, but Matt and I were keeping our fingers crossed that it would at least not be last in every race.

Isaac was visibly nervous before his first run, so I don't think he heard the race announcer comment that car #61 was one of the most original he had seen in all of his years working with the Derby.  Isaac's car placed 4th in his Den, so no racing trophy.  But later that day, when the final awards were announced, he walked out with a monster of a "Most Original Car" trophy, and a huge grin on his face.

In case you can't tell from the picture, Isaac's car was an ice cream sandwich.  Thank goodness for Pinterest and for Paul Hicks!

To put both events in the perspective of our family's view of competitions like these, the harder other people try to take it seriously, the harder we try to make it fun.  This is not to say that we are not competitive.  Put a board game on the table and the claws come out!  But we know our strengths, and we play to them well.  We know that we will not be the best tasting, the fastest, the most polished, professional looking competitor.  But we can make something that will be memorable.  We find success in bringing humor to what can become a tense competition and putting smiles on people's faces.  

Isaac is a smart, talented kid.  But there are things he is not good at, too, and he needs to learn to accept those weaknesses so that he can make the most of his strengths.  This is something that Matt and I are still learning how to do ourselves, so maybe Isaac could have better teachers.  But we are what he was given, so we will do our best to teach him to fail with humor and grace.  If we can do that, then we will have succeeded.

Little Nudges

I have fallen off the wagon and am finding it very hard to catch up and climb back on.  I think about posting often, but then do not find the time to sit down and get it done.  I started this post weeks ago, but after a couple of paragraphs it just sounded whiny so I made myself stop until I could get in a better frame of mind. No one wants to read a whiny blog, though I am sure this one has devolved into that tone often enough.  I have thought about just not bothering anymore, but an experience at a conference last weekend made me think again.  It was a small moment, but I have been remembering it all week.  One of the session leaders briefly shared the blog she had started just a few months before.  Browsing through it, I skimmed her first post where she outlined why she was finally jumping into blogging.  She stated that she had always struggled with wondering what she had to say that people would want to read.  A sentiment I can closely relate to.  But she realized that blogging isn't, or shouldn't be, about what other people will want to hear.  You write for yourself, not for the readers.

That statement has been nagging at me all week and it is why I am writing this today.  I am not writing this blog for you or anyone else reading.  I am writing it for me, and for Isaac and Matt.  Matt used to keep a blog when Isaac was young.  He stopped writing about the time I started.  Together, our posts chronicle Isaac's life and are a way of holding on to memories.  Isaac's development as a reader and the books we share is a major part of his growth and saving these moments is valuable to us.  And that is reason enough to find the time to keep posting here.

Not that I kid myself into believing that I will be posting with any more regularity than I have been in recent months.  The stress of 3rd grade is kicking this mom and librarian in the butt.  The high stakes have been set and policies have been adopted to ensure that all students are meeting the goal.  We are assessing and testing and setting nightly reading goals all while trying not to pass the stress on to the kids.  I can't keep up with what we are supposed to be doing each night.  Add to that the afternoons spent at GOFAR or board game club or mad science or church or drum lessons and often it is Thursday before I remember to ask if we are ready for the weekly spelling test.  Most weeks the answer is "no."

Added to the day-to-day stress is my struggle not to pass my angst on to Isaac.  I have had to remind myself many times since August that just because I was never satisfied with less than an "A" does not mean that Isaac has the same mindset.  He wants to do well and he is a solid student, but he can easily accept an average grade whereas "B's" to me always meant "bad."  It has been a hard lesson for me this year to learn how to set expectations that are realistic for Isaac's ability and personality.

The worry among many educators who are in the trenches, seeing the students every day, is that we are killing their love of reading.  Isaac is a good reader, falling right where he should for his age and grade level.  He likes to read, though it is not his favorite thing to do.  Most of the time the nightly reading gets done willingly.  I have come to the realization this year, though, that sometimes the best thing I can do to ensure that he likes to read, is to let him skip a day or two of the "30 minutes every day" routine.  Life is busy, as much as Matt and I try to keep a balance between work and down time.  And, though we (teachers) are trying not to pass the stress on to the kids, it seeps down.  A month or so ago it hit me, in the midst of an evening breakdown during which Isaac was in tears because he hadn't had time to play and here we were telling him he had to go to bed, that he is stressed.  He doesn't know how to articulate that, but the signs are in his behavior.

I am trying to be more aware of how our home routines are structured to help him deal with his anxiety, because the school routines are not going to ease up.  And if there are evenings when the choice is to force him to spend his last 30 minutes before bed reading or let him play a video game with Matt or watch an episode of Adventure Time, then reading may get pushed aside.  The next night he may choose reading over the game or the TV show, but ultimately it has to be his choice.  If I want him to choose reading later, then I need to allow him to make other choices now.

The effort he puts into school and the time he spends reading are his decisions.  All I can really do is encourage, help, set examples and nudge.  And record our memories along the way.

Beginning Again

It is the beginning of a new year.  Summer usually refreshes me and by the middle of August I am ready to return to the routine of the school year.  But, this year, as I looked toward the week of teacher workdays and the first day of school, I was already tired.  It has been a hard summer for educators in North Carolina.  I worried, as I prepared to work with my colleagues to get ready for our students, what the atmosphere will be like.  Will morale be low?  Will everyone be stressed out before we even begin?  The other day as I drove through town I wondered how much longer I could or would do this.  Maybe, I thought, it is time to find something new.

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This morning at church our friend Daniel preached about leaving work unfinished.  Often we grieve or feel guilty that we have not accomplished what we set out to.  We focus on the result.  Daniel reminded us that we need to focus on the process of our work, rather than look for an end to it.  

Teaching is a process.  We are one stop along our students' paths and we may or may not find out where they end up.  August is not the beginning of something new as much as it is a continuation of what came before.  June does not bring an end to our work.  It is merely a pause in the process.  

I am fortunate that my position allows me to follow students through their elementary years and see how they grow from chubby kindergartners to sophisticated pre-teens.  I can follow their progress throughout the year, wish them well for the summer, and welcome them back in the fall.  Eventually they move on to middle school, but the work has not ended.  The process continues. 

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We started camping again this summer.  We took weekend trips, slept in a tent, cooked over a camp fire, went to bed shortly after sunset and rose shortly after sunrise.  I left my e-reader on my nightstand and read "real" books.  On a couple of the trips I even left my phone at home.  I floated in a lake, sat in a camp chair and watched the flames dance in the fire pit, gazed at the stars, and enjoyed the sound of the crickets.

I allowed my body to set the schedule on these trips rather than the clock.  I enjoyed sitting and doing nothing.  I disconnected from the world and reconnected with my family and myself.  I didn't worry about what had to get done.  I left things at home unfinished and was okay with that.

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Daniel's message was exactly what I needed to hear this morning.  I needed the reminder that I will not get up tomorrow and every day after and go to school to finish my work.  I will go to engage in a process that is valuable, if sometimes not valued.  I will not see the results of my work in a few days or weeks or months and that is okay.  

And I needed to remind myself that it is okay to take the time to recharge and disconnect, to withdraw from the process briefly so that I can more fully engage in it when I return.  

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Isaac is excited about going to school.  He wishes he started tomorrow rather than next Monday.  I may not be able to muster the same level of excitement.  It would, after all, be nice to be back in the tent tonight listening to the crickets with my alarm clock far away, able to wake up with the sun, not before it.

But I will get up in the morning and I will get ready for the work ahead.  I will remind myself that my purpose is not to be finished at the end of the day, it is simply to be ready to keep going.  It's true, you know, "a teacher's work is never done."   Daniel reminded me this morning to be thankful for that.  

Who are Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman? A letter to Isaac explaining as best I can.

Dear Isaac,

Last Sunday on the way to church, you asked that question in response to a story we heard on NPR.  It was the big news of the morning because the jury had come to a decision the night before and many people in the country had been waiting for the verdict.

Your father and I explained the basic facts of the case and what the jury had decided. But they do not come close to explaining who Trayvon Martin was, who George Zimmerman is, or what the case was really about.  Based on what the law says and the evidence that was presented for the jurors in the courtroom, I believe that the decision that was handed down was the right one.  That does not mean that I also think that what George Zimmerman did was right or that I defend his actions.  But we are a nation that is governed by the rule of law and a system is in place to ensure that the actions of men and women in our country are brought before our courts.  A person's guilt or innocence is decided based on facts, not emotions or biases. If the facts prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the person is punished in a way that has already been determined by the law.  If the facts do not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the person is free. This system protects people from being punished for crimes they did not commit or from being punished too harshly.

But Isaac, we have to remember that our government and our laws were created, written and are carried out by people who are not perfect, who make mistakes and who view the world through their own sets of biases and beliefs.  The system does not always work and our laws are not always fair.  Though I know that it does not always work the way it was meant to, I believe that our system of government is a good and just one.  It is people who corrupt it and people who hurt others.  There are a few questions that I hope will be looked at more closely as a result of this case by people who come to the table with a mind to heal the hurts, not simply bandage the wound.

Why was George Zimmerman patrolling his neighborhood with a loaded gun?  This is an important question for me.  I don't want you to think that I don't want people to own guns, but knowing that someone is walking around our neighborhood with a loaded gun looking for troublemakers would not make me feel safe.  Zimmerman's gun gave him the power to protect himself at the cost of Trayvon Martin's life.  But what if the gun had gone off during the altercation and killed an innocent bystander?  By having a gun, Zimmerman felt powerful.  That power, possibly, made him engage in an interaction that he otherwise would have avoided.  It is one thing to drive around your neighborhood and make sure nothing "funny" is going on and alert the authorities if you see anything that looks suspicious.  It is another to take on the role of neighborhood protector/defender.  Isaac, if you ever own a gun -- and let's face it, since you are your father's son, you probably will at some point in your life -- you need to remember that ownership of a gun means that you need to be more careful, not less so.  Having a gun does not mean you are automatically protected against threats.  It means that you need to take great care to protect others against the threat you pose once you hold that weapon in your hands.

What is self-defense?  Your father and I have told you that we would support you if you struck back at someone who hits you first.  You would be defending yourself. (But, please never do this on school grounds, at least not at as long as I am still teaching.)  But if you hit someone because you believed they were about to hit you, then, I am sorry son, you would be in a world of trouble.  But, by definition of the law as it stands in Florida (and other states), you would be within your rights.  By law, George Zimmerman did not have to be in imminent danger, he just had to believe that he was in imminent danger before he defended himself, in this case with a lethal weapon.  We were not there.  We do not know what was actually happening -- who was the aggressor, who hit whom first, who was holding whom down.  But to take violent action against someone because you think he might be a threat to your life is not self-defense.  Not by my definition.  And this, Isaac, is where I think the law is wrong.  But I am not a legal expert.  That is simply my gut feeling.  And if someone walked into our house and I thought he was going to hurt you, I cannot say that I would not find a weapon and make sure he could do no harm to you or anyone else, ever.  And I would probably claim self-defense. I do not know what it feels like to wonder if I am going to live through the next few minutes, and I pray that I will never know what it feels like to wonder if you will live to see your next birthday.

Why do we have gated communities?  I think this is the most troubling of the questions that I have asked myself as the incident was flushed out through various news outlets, and as the trial went on, and now as the analysis of the process and the various opinions are written in the aftermath.  Throughout history there have been the "haves" and the "have-nots."  There have been the privileged classes who live inside their walls so they do not have to interact with the lower classes.  George Zimmerman was patrolling his gated community because there had been break-ins and trouble from, supposedly, people who did not belong in the neighborhood.  He saw Trayvon Martin and assumed he was one of the people on whom these "troubles" could be blamed.  Martin did not belong there.  He was an outsider and Zimmerman was suspicious of anyone who was not part of his community.  Now in reality, Isaac, Trayvon Marton, was visiting a friend, had walked to the store and was on his way back to the house he was visiting.  He was a guest in that community.  Instead of inquiring where he was going and trying to interact with this guest, Zimmerman was suspicious and angry that Martin had come within the boundaries of his safe haven.  Martin was unknown and therefore not to be trusted.  Isaac, I hope your father and I have taught you to be open and welcoming to people outside your "group."  If our society continues to put up walls, then there will be more Trayvon Martin's and more George Zimmerman's.  You are being raised in a church family, Isaac.  And it is a church family that, I believe, is good at opening its doors to outsiders.  It will be up to your generation to take down the gates and the walls and the tracks that divide society.  As long as they stand, the message of love and tolerance and equality that we are supposed to take to heart will be muted by the false boundaries that these boundaries erect.

What image do you project to society?  This, Isaac, is where I go a bit right-wing on you.  Brace yourself.  You are not quite eight as I write this and we have not had major battles about how you dress.  I do not fuss about whether your athletic shorts match your t-shirt and I only make you "dress-up" for special occasions.  I try to respect who you are and what makes you comfortable.  Thus far, you have probably assumed that I sympathize with the people who are angered by Trayvon Martin's death and George Zimmerman's acquittal.  This is where I switch things up.  Trayvon Martin was wearing a "hoodie" pulled up over his head and "walking slowly" the night Zimmerman confronted him and was shot.  What Martin did after that we will never know because he is not here to tell us.  What we can assume, though Zimmerman did not take the stand to testify to this, is that what he saw when he looked at Martin walking down the street was a young man who was part of a culture that was identified with unlawful activity.  In short, a "thug."  Isaac, I am not sure you have caught on yet, but I do censor what you wear.  I will never buy you a t-shirt with a slogan that I think portrays an attitude of disrespect or angst.  And I will never let you buy one.  It may not be fair, but "you are what you wear."   If you show society an image that is subversive or antagonistic, then you will be thought of as subversive and antagonistic.  If you dress to emulate a certain culture then you will be seen as belonging to that culture.  I do not know whether or not Trayvon Martin was a thug, but he was dressed like one.  Is it fair to judge him for that?  No, but society does and Zimmerman did.  If he had been dressed in a polo shirt, khakis and a peacoat with a pair of loafers on his feet, I would not be writing this to you today.  Isaac, know this -- you will be judged by the culture with which you choose to identify -- rightly or wrongly.  Choose wisely and make sure your actions always emulate the values that you have been taught.  And if you try to walk out of the house wearing something I deem inappropriate, then game on, son.  If you will not safeguard your image, then I will.

Isaac, I wish there were easy answers to your questions and I wish that I could say that the jury's verdict was the final word.  But there aren't and it most certainly is not.  I wish that I could say I believed that by the time you were raising children of your own that cases like this would not exist.  But I don't.  All I can say is that I hope you will keep asking questions because that is how you learn about the world around you - the good and the bad, the right and the wrong.  Be open to new experiences and be curious before you give in to suspicion.

And I pray that you will always feel like you can ask me or your father anything.  If we don't know the answers, then we will discover them with you.

Love,
Mom

Visiting the City That Never Sleeps One Book at a Time

You can take the children's librarian away from her books, but you can't stop her from associating everything she sees with a children's book.

We were on vacation in New York City last week.  We spent seven days wandering around, seeing sights, navigating the subway, and having our senses overloaded with new images, good food and interesting characters.  One thing I realized during the trip is how much what I do for a living informs how I experience the world around me, especially new places.  I had grown up visiting NYC on field trips with school and scouts, and on occasional family trips, but most of the places we went on this trip were new for me.  And at every spot I had a children's book to associate with it.

I had a few must-sees for the trip, the 9/11 Memorial being one of them.  It was an emotional experience, as I suspected it would be.  Matt and I both walked around with tears in our eyes as we viewed the pools that have taken the place of the towers and read the names of those who lost their lives.  I have visited the Vietnam Memorial in DC a handful of times, and it struck me how much more visceral my response was to the 9/11 Memorial. They are very similar experiences, reading names of the dead carved in stone.  But having lived through 9/11, having watched it unfold on TV, and having experienced the aftermath gave me a different association with the Memorial.  We did not take a family picture at the Memorial.  It didn't feel right to pose together with smiles on our faces in this place that made us feel so somber, despite the many families around us doing just that.  I couldn't help, though, thinking of some of the children's books that I pull off the shelves each September.  We visited just a week after Nick Wallenda walked across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope.  Since that image was in my head, I thought of the book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein about Phillipe Petit who walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center Towers in 1974.  And I thought of the many who came to help that day, some of which are written about in Maira Kalman's Fireboat about the John J. Harvey and her crew who were called into service.  They are both stories about determination and hope and the indomitable spirit that our nation showed during the tragedy of 9/11.

Another must-see, for me, was the New York Public Library.  Fortuitously, the day we visited was the last day they had the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights on display, documents that are rarely on show simultaneously.  That was another emotional experience, seeing these two documents, written hundreds of years ago, that are the foundation of the freedoms that are at the heart of who we are as a country.  Visiting on the heels of the recent Supreme Court Rulings concerning DOMA and California's Proposition 8, I was reminded that, though our laws do not always reflect it, our country was founded on the principles of equality and fairness and eventually we will figure out how to apply those beliefs to every one of our citizens.  Also at the time of our visit to the NYPL, there was a special exhibit on children's books called The ABC of It: Why Children's Books Matter.  It was an historical perspective on the importance of children's books to childrens' development and how they have evolved and been used over the past couple hundred years to educate, indoctrinate and entertain.  Examples of English 18th century readers were on display along with books from other countries and comic books from earlier this century.  They also had examples of original artwork by illustrators.  I pointed out to Isaac an especially complicated collage by Ashley Bryan so he could see what the picture looks like before it shows up as a flat image in the book Let It Shine.  Throughout the exhibit the curators had posted quotes from educational theorists and explanations of the evolution of how children's books are seen to fit into a child's education and emotional development.  That visit was very affirming for me -- the two exhibits reminded me to be hopeful that Isaac will one day live in a country that truly does give all of its people their God-given rights and to be thankful for the opportunity to be in a profession whose purpose is to share the joy of books with children.

The Highline was a must-see for both Matt and I, having heard about it on NPR, read about it online and been told about it by friends who live in the city.  It is a reclaimed rail line that has been made into a public park.  To me, it is a wonderful example of how the initiative of a few people can take root and become a movement that benefits all.  It is another example of a place that is filled with hope and a spirit of determination.  There isn't anything to do on The Highline but walk and sit and soak up the atmosphere.  Outside the edges of the park the bustle of the city was taking place, but inside the boundaries was a calm oasis created by and for the people to preserve the city's history and offer respite from its present.  I remembered the book Home by Jeannie Baker.  It is a wordless book that tells the story of a family that moves into a run-down city neighborhood and slowly helps transform it into a vibrant community where trees grow, children play in grass-filled yards and neighbors help and support each other.  It is about community, and I think that is what the Highline is about -- finding and preserving community.

Matt and I were doing most of the planning on the trip -- deciding where we would go and when.  But Isaac had a couple of must-sees, as well.  One of his was the American Museum of Natural History.  He specifically wanted to visit the Planetarium.  I was interested in visiting, too -- that was one place that I had visited as a child that I wanted to experience again, and there was a book connection that I had in my mind the entire time we were there. Finally after watching Journey to the Stars, seeing various exhibits on ancient cultures, and viewing the Squid and the Whale, I told Matt I had to find the wolf diorama.  If you have read Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick then you know the importance of this exhibit to the story.  If you have not read it, I will not give it away.  But seeing the actual diorama and remembering the narrator's description of it from the book brought the story alive for me in a new way.  That was one of my geekier moments on the trip.  I think I could have walked straight to that small hallway, viewed the wolves, and walked right back out and felt like I had gotten my money's worth from my visit.  But I think that is something that books do for us -- they help us experience the world around us, sometimes by broadening our perspective and other times by helping us hone in on specific experiences.  I may not remember anything else from our visit to the AMNH, but I will remember those wolves.

We filled our days in NYC and visited other spots.  Another must-see for Isaac was a baseball game.  We opted for a minor league Brooklyn Cyclones game over the Yankees or the Mets. And I was reciting "Casey at the Bat" in my head while we watched the game.  We chose to go to the Prospect Park Zoo rather than travel out to The Bronx Zoo, and I was picturing Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny books since we were in his neighborhood.  Matt had to visit the Museum of the Moving Image and the old film equipment brought to mind another Brian Selznick book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  We were guided around the Metropolitan Museum of Art by our friend who works there and, of course, I was thinking of Konigsburg's classic book From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

And then there was the night, July 4th, when the friends we were staying with fired up the charcoal grill, Isaac and I played badminton in the backyard, Isaac caught fireflies in a mason jar, and we all ran down the street following the music of the ice cream truck.  We listened to the fireworks going off around the neighborhood, enjoyed the company of friends, and relaxed in lawn chairs until Isaac declared it was time for bed.  It was a peaceful evening in the middle of a busy, adventure-filled week.  And it was just about perfect.