press, swipe, tap
March 3, 2016 § 3 Comments
It’s practically muscle memory, this distracted passivity; a disenchanted voyeurism born of boredom and restless curiosity. Life condensed to witty statements and filtered images.
Tonight I am gifting myself time unraveled from tangled threads of thought in exchange for a moment of rest. Closing my computer, stretching my phone just out of grasp.
Turning pages in a crisp new book and listening for the texture as my fingers brush and bend their weight for inspiration. Looking inside words for images; hefting the cumbersome shape of an old-fashioned joy to still me in a first love.
dear charles
February 27, 2016 § 5 Comments
When you left this space, you did not linger in goodbye. You shared your decision with the same warmth you unraveled memories and left us to honor your choice. It was an inarguable fact, an abrupt impossibility and a reminder of the relationship between writer and reader.
In your absence old stories remain, your easy humor and generous sentiment; this is the magic of the written word. Still, I envy those who stumble upon your work the newness of their discovery in your legacy.
Near the end, you shared a revelation; you offered us a complicated understanding of someone we presumed to know then tore the pages from the ending – leaving us to wonder what comes of second chances and happily ever after.
In the time since your goodbye you have become a grandfather, an experience you had only just introduced to us, your audience of readers. I like to wonder what stories you whisper to ward off silence and welcome sleep in this new experience of life. What mischief and magic await these new tellings.
Mostly, I wish you joy in new adventures and hope that one day I will see a familiar face peeking from a bookstore shelf.
Sincerely, Marie
reading & righting
February 19, 2016 § 9 Comments
Confession: I’ve never read “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
As an avid reader and English major it would seem an unlikely truth, an illogical possibility, that I could have avoided this inevitability.
For years, when others spoke to me in broad sweeping assumptions, I relished the misconception that I must have done something I knew too well I hadn’t.
This passive accomplishment became a bit of a private delight and guilty secret. I liked being other than others assumed.
Until this year, today, when I unceremoniously purchased a paperback copy.
I cannot explain the timing of my choice other than it suddenly felt urgent and necessary. Personal.
A penance for my sin.
reading & retirement
March 14, 2015 § 3 Comments
Five years ago our daughter couldn’t read. Despite our best efforts and expensive programs she was slipping further behind her peers academically and her self-esteem was drowning in the shame of self-awareness. In a procedural pairing with a Reading to Intervention school program our daughter began to navigate her struggle to literacy with a hope that became the cornerstone of every set back.
One woman, a quiet spoken, kindhearted soul created a safe space for our daughter to succeed among her errors. The work of reading became an adventure and along the way we fell in love with the educator whose lessons tethered our lives with stories long after our daughter graduated from her company.
This is our daughter’s last year of elementary school and our friend’s last year guiding struggling readers through the emotions and mechanics of reading challenges. It is an impossible and inevitable truth of change and yet, I cannot imagine our lives without this woman. We are better versions of ourselves for the smile that makes us all sit up a little straighter in our efforts.
When I shared with our daughter her former teacher would soon retire, there was an immediate shock that quickly spiraled into grief, wide eyes with tears that threatened to spill unchecked. That’s impossible! Who would they ever get to replace her? What about all the other kids that won’t ever get to work with her? Then, a stubborn nod of her head. She must be moving to another school to help other kids.
This is my wish for so many of the irreplaceable educators who have shared our path, that you know the boundless love of the children whose lives are better for the lessons that extend beyond the school day. Thank you.
trading places
June 18, 2013 § 4 Comments
Peeking in my daughter’s doorway at bedtime I found her form curled over a heavy volume of poetry, her fingers drawing an invisible line as her eyes searched the dense table of contents for titles. Next door her brother was playing a game. I paused in the tiny space between both worlds marveling at the unpredictable experience of my children trading places. Stacks of books still litter my son’s bedroom floor and pockets of cluttered play spill across my daughter’s room, but the child whose face was always tucked within a book was otherwise distracted and the child who struggled to find her way into reading was caught in the pages of a book.
I was immediately reminded of a time long past, a memory of a day under the sun as my children navigated a park. My son’s small form racing ahead towards a new discovery, my daughter toddling unsteady at a different pace in a separate direction. With one hand I reach to draw one child back while guiding the other forward. Standing outside my children’s rooms I could feel my daughter racing forward, stories and poetry drawing her into discoveries. Letting her chase words onto a new path I turned to my son silently promising to guide him toward new stories, reaching one hand back while ever mindful of the path ahead.
to my daughter at bedtime
March 6, 2013 § Leave a comment
However our days unfold, evenings have always held the promise of stillness and stories. Tucked together between quiet minutes we have unraveled countless stories as we tiptoed closer to dreams.
The past three years you have shared your own story as a developing reader. Unlike your brother who slipped seamlessly from listening to reading, your journey has been an experience fraught with frustration. Your fears and my worries lingered beneath broken efforts as we gathered books and expectations into disorderly stacks. Each reading was a partnership in hope and perseverance. Each evening I mindfully noted your emotions, trying to encourage you without suffocating the joy from the act of reading.
Your earliest success still lingers in my mind. I can see your mouth moving around the shape of the words forcing them intentionally from page to sound. Slowly words linked into sentences, then pages. Each effort was met honestly with determination, but little joy.
Last Wednesday you finished your first chapter book and I held your accomplishment with the breathless wonder I witnessed other firsts. However, unlike your first steps which quickly collected into an endless path of discovery, this new milestone seemed stuck in a moment. Until last night.
Opening to the first page in a new chapter you read diligently to the last page. It is the first step in our evening dance, as we exchange roles as reader and listener. Upon reaching the end of your chapter we settled into our routine, I slipped downstairs to replenish the water for your bedside before gathering my book to share. Returning to your room, I paused at the top of the stairs listening to the sound of your voice reading ahead. Lost to the story, moving blindly forward without tallying the pages kept I waited out of sight cautious not to break the spell.
When at last you were quiet I entered your room to the most endearing exclamation: Mom, you are never going to believe what happened! Want to hear what you missed?
You then contextualized the missing piece of the story for me, punctuating facts with dramatic voices and the toothless grin that has become the hallmark of your elementary years. When you fumbled between the pages for a particular passage my heart burst in a million pieces for the shared experience of seeking and sharing a written treasure. Our evening unfolded into five more chapters, trading places only when you could no longer keep from yawning between words.
Yours is my favorite bedtime story. I could not be more proud or humbled to witness your journey, page by page.
Love, Mom
old habits
January 15, 2012 § 2 Comments
Little things and comfortable routines, bookstores and baked goods. When my son was little I would take him, swaddled in a stroller to our local bookstore where I could browse heavy hardcovers for myself. Once home I would nestle him in my arms are read aloud to share my first love with my tiny new love.
As my son grew older and more independent he would gather near the bookshelves quietly captivated by the images that danced among the pages of picture books. The hands of time stopped marking minutes while we browsed shelves for hidden treasures. Later we gathered my daughter into our adventures. Once our books were purchased we would celebrate with a small treat, stretching an errand into an event.
Trips to the bookstore were something we took for granted. Nearby and diverse in their offerings we filled rainy days, snow days, summer days and quiet days in familiar chairs. Employees were friends and the colorful walls of books landmarks by which we could find favorite stories and recall old memories. Our local stores now closed, we have found new stores for old habits.
Last night we made our way to our new bookstore, each child quickly found their places and curled into stories. Sitting among rows of colorful book displays and small children bent over books my heart was full for the easy friendship among readers; the shared solitude and community of dreamers.
We celebrated our findings over a simple meal at a nearby bakery; my son hiding his new books on his lap beneath the table unable to leave them unattended and my daughter eagerly reaching for and hovering over her brother’s selection desperate to share. The books were closed only to eat. The car ride home was quiet as each child held open books in their arms stealing a moment in the glow of a dome light. A flurry of footsteps marked our return home as both children scurried upstairs to their rooms eager to finish new books and joyful with old habits.
reading into words
December 20, 2011 § 3 Comments
Eagerly and forcefully my daughter thrusts herself among the pages of books. Frustration and determination clatter noisily, the air around her sparks with energy. Books stacked haphazardly in the window of her room are silent witnesses to her journey, friends she has accumulated along the way.
She began a quiet companion. When I read aloud, my daughter’s eyes would measure my words as I pulled them from the pages of another’s telling. She would watch my mouth willing the story into the air around us. I would monitor her enthusiasm under my lashes bemused by her posture as she leaned into the author’s spell.
In turn, slowly, I became the audience. I celebrated my daughter’s growth, noting her furrowed brow as she curled over the lines of language, conjuring voices, and breathing life into each page. She has journeyed from listener to storyteller, winding her way around self-doubt with perseverance.
Most recently she set aside fiction gathering a dictionary to her side as she nestled into bed. She fell asleep having carefully bookmarked pages with small toys. In the morning she shared each dogeared word with me like colors, twisting and turning them in the light of day so that I might see them more completely.
I am eager for my daughter to paint her world with words, to see through her lens. I am eager for the reader to become the writer.
graffiti
May 2, 2011 § 1 Comment
Stepping in to the shower I tugged the curtain back exposing a colorful explosion of words and numbers scrawled in the markedly flamboyant and determined hand of my daughter. 12345six78910… the numbers chasing one another across the tiles in brilliant blues, bold reds, and burnt orange; her tally stretching to 100 with six continually spelled out neatly amidst the numeric symbols, a simple nod to my daughter’s age. Words plucked from labels of shampoo and body wash bottles accompany her numbers; marketing and accounting scribbled in a child’s hand.
My daughter’s reading and math skills were slow to blossom, but her energy and determination ever-present. She captures words and numbers on papers and walls, with pen, chalk, paint and now bathtub markers. She pulls these ideas from around her, trapping each concept and making them her own; like a firefly nestled in a mason jar gifting light and admiration to those wishing for a glimmer of illumination.
I love her spontaneous sharing and for a moment I am delightfully lost to the unexpected graffiti in my shower; absorbing the light her joy brings to my days.
bedtime
April 9, 2011 § Leave a comment
Somewhere between the colorful illustrations of a picture book and the independent efforts of chapter books, lies a special time when shared pages of longer stories sweep parent and child in to the enchanting space of a story. Curled next to my daughter, reading a gifted author, I endearingly note she watches my lips move, eyes wide as the pictureless story weaves from words to voice, becoming. In the quiet moments before bedtime we share the magic of a book.
There will come a time when she will navigate these voyages between chapters on her own. I wonder if she will tuck her book under her pillow dreaming of the characters she has come to know or if she will stow away beneath her bedding gathering the story close by the glow of a flashlight. For now, she happily listens to the stories I select. It will be curious to see the titles she will find for herself.
Like her big brother before her, she has made space in her days and her heart for possibility between the pages of a book.
scribblechic 