Today, I worked really hard to get some writing done. I told the girls that I was working and over and over again, suggested they find something to do. Needless to say, on day 7 of no school and day 7 of no power at home and day 7 of time spent at my in-laws, the girls were getting a bit antsy. So, I may have said, about 100 times, that I had some work to finish.

Katherine had been upstairs for a bit before running up to me and saying, “Mom, I have something for your work.”

I think she may have wanted me to share this with my blog readers. What do you think?

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Especially, in NJ and NY this week, it will easy to forget to vote.

Or to think it is too tricky to vote. Too hard to get where we need to go. Too confusing to figure out where our new polling place is. Too many other things to do.

But perhaps, especially in NJ and NY this week, we need to vote.

Last week we saw our Republican Governor and our Democratic President come together. Regardless of our political views, we saw two men, politically at odds with one another, come together to do the work they were elected to do. And they each worked with grace. We elected each of these men. And to this natural disaster, they brought their skills, their strengths and their compassion to help the people who elected them.

It is our responsibility to elect a president today.

Don’t forget. Don’t put anything else first.

Vote.

 

 

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As our days without power, drag into a week, we are getting antsy.

Antsy but grateful.

We are still with Rob’s parents in their warm house, full of light and warm running water. We have lots of friends in the same position as ours but no one in our close circle who has lost a home or a loved one. Given our proximity to such enormous damage, we feel incredibly lucky. Incredibly lucky that while our worlds and those of our loved ones have been disturbed, they have not been destroyed.

All that said, we would still like to return to our home, to our schedule, to our plans.

Yesterday, I woke up and looked at my phone. On the screen was a tweet. Somehow my phone had gone to Twitter and then had clicked on a re-tweet posted by Andi Buchanan.

It read,

“Not-knowing is not easy, it’s not comfortable, it can be a place of great anxiety. But if that’s how it is, it’s what is true.”

 

-Zen Momements

So for now, this is our truth.

Living out of duffel bags. Not knowing when we will be back in our house. Not knowing when we will go back to school.

So for now, our truth is long walks, long books, lots of writing.

Our truth could be much worse…

 

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What a week this has been and it is only Wednesday.

Sandy arrived on Monday with ferocious winds. Our neighborhood has lost many, many gorgeous, old trees. It is rumored that 100 houses in our community have trees that have crashed through their roofs. This number does not include the massive number of trees lying across streets or lawns. Power is out to seventy percent of our town. Our schools have been shut down for the week.

But we are all safe.

And Rob’s parents (only 20 minutes away) have power.

So we are baking, reading, game playing and trying our best to keep in each other’s good company as it is pretty unclear how long we will be powerless.

More to come…

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We have loved all the Mouse and Mole books and A Perfect Halloween is no exception. In fact, it may be nearly my favorite. In addition to the charming friendship we witness between Mouse and Mole, we are also given a chance to celebrate books.

Poor Mole feels terribly scared by Halloween. By the costumes, the decorations, the surprises, the trick or treating.

While Mouse initially makes Moles fears worse (Boo!), she eventually comes to the rescue. And she makes it all okay in the best possible way. She reads Mole a story about characters who were once scared by Halloween and come to realize that, in fact, they are safe and can have fun. After the comfort provided by his friend and her book, Mole goes on to have  quite a happy Halloween complete with his own surprise…

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Not that I wouldn’t have loved her if she’d said something silly like math or something but boy, do I love my reading loving girl…

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Caroline attended two birthday parties this past Saturday afternoon and evening. I always feel a tad sad for Katherine when this happens so as usual, I offered to do some fun things with just her. And as usual, Katherine asked for take out pizza and movie night. She’s a pretty easy date if you ask me.

Just this week, we finished reading the very last book in Beverly Cleary’s amazingly wonderful Ramona series. I thought this would be the perfect time to watch the Beezus and Ramona movie so we eagerly checked it out of the library and settled in for a relaxing evening. Katherine was enthralled from minute one. She laughed and smiled, often noticing how scenes were similar and different from the books.

And then she came up with the latest in what is now becoming a string of super wise comments.

“Mom, that movie was sweet, sad and ok. Just like life.”

I seriously couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried…

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I’ve written here before about Rob’s habit of bringing the newspapers with him to work. If he finds nothing particularly interesting in the pages, he will recycle them in the city. If, though, he sees a Yankees article for the girls or a literacy article for me, he will bring the paper back home for us to read. This weekend, his job was simpler as he just passed an article from the Wall Street Journal across the breakfast table.

The article titled “My 6, 128 Favorite Books” is an excerpt from Joe Queenan, One For the Books, to be published this week.

Two ideas presented in this article were intriguing to me.

One of the article’s first premises is that people read to escape a unfulfilling reality.

Queenan writes,

“If you have read 6,000 books in your lifetime, or even 600, it’s probably because at some level you find “reality” a bit of a disappointment.”

and

“No matter what they may tell themselves, book lovers do not read primarily to obtain information or to while away the time. They read to escape to a more exciting, more rewarding world. A world where they do not hate their jobs, their spouses, their governments, their lives.”

Goodness. If this is true, I am one unhappy girl. And I’m not. Am I occasionally unhappy? Certainly. But am I generally dissatisfied with my reality? No.

I believe that I read to escape, yes but also to empathize, enjoy, laugh, cry and just to be.

And then Queenan goes on to strongly express his opinion on e-readers.

He writes,

People who need to possess the physical copy of a book, not merely an electronic version, believe that the objects themselves are sacred. Some people may find this attitude baffling, arguing that books are merely objects that take up space. This is true but so are Prague and your kids and the Sistine Chapel…

The world is changing but I am not changing with it. There is no e-reader or Kindle in my future. My philosophy is simple: Certain things are perfect the way they are. The sky, the Pacific Ocean, procreation and the Goldberg Variations all fit this bill, and so do books. Books are sublimely visceral, emotionally evocative objects that convey a perfect delivery system…

Books that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on. Books that make us believe, for however short a time, that we shall all live happily ever after.

And goodness again. I resisted the Kindle for a long time. I loved books after all. I felt for a time as Queenan does. Why mess with perfection? But then I started to realize that it wasn’t always the books I loved. In fact, I was coming to realize that our small house was being overrun with books. That often books I loved while I was reading them became books I hated when I was done for the clutter they were helping to grow. What I was in love with was the story. Exactly the piece that I celebrate above. The story that allows for the escape, for the empathy, for the laugher and the tears. That story lives in a Kindle just as fully as it does in a book.

So for now, I will agree to disagree with Queenan. I will continue to love my books on my Kindle for more than an escape from a reality that makes me pretty happy much of the time.

 

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Lois Lowry has done a great job marketing her latest book, Son. For a few weeks now, I haven’t been able to open a newspaper, turn on NPR or read through favorite blogs without hearing something about the final book in The Giver quartet. A few weeks, ago, I got an e-mail from my mom with a link to her Goodreads newsletter and read about Son again.

I decided that this book was a must read.

At the same time, though, I decided I should start at the very beginning. Somehow, I had never read The Giver or its companions, Gathering Blue or the Messenger. For the past few weeks, I have lived in magical worlds. From a community lacking all emotion, to a place where artists are valued but manipulated, to a terrifying land where evil reigns and finally to new worlds and old where love overcomes all.

While each of these books are said to stand alone, I am so happy to have had a chance to read them all at once. To have watched as one world weaves in to another, as one character meets another and then another, their worlds coming together. What a gift these books are to readers. If you, like me, can climb into these worlds and settle in for a while, please do. The experience will remind you of why you are a reader.

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My dear friend Lindsey sent me a link this week. She wrote, “Have you seen this? It made me think of you.”

I love that a beautiful collection of picture books made Lindsey think of me. That made me smile.

And then the list made me smile even more.

Michael Petrilli, the Executive Vice President of the Thomas Fordham Institute, wrote a post titled The Kindergarten Canon in which he collected, all the titles, old and new, that he believed each and every pre-schooler should know.

I am proud to say that I have read 96 out of the 100 titles.

How about you?

I have not read Goggles by Ezra Jack Keats, Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire, The Story About Ping by Margorie Flack & Kurt Wiese and Tootle by Gertrude Crampton & Tibor Gergley.

And of course, while this is a gorgeously amazing list, I have to mention a few that I would add.

Maryann Hoberman’s Seven Silly Eaters, Jane O’Connor’s Fancy Nancy, Bonny Becker’s A Visitor for Bear, Phillip Stead’s A Sick Day for Amos McGee and on and on and on…

And you? What would you add to this fantastic list?

 

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