todd rundgren - bang on the drum all day

Forty five days left before I can retire. After spending two hours stuck in traffic going to and from work today, this is how I feel. I want time to write and paint.

Friday Five

1. I recently realized something I didn't want to admit. The weather affects the way I feel about writing or painting - even teaching. Here it's only April and lately it's been feeling more like the middle of May with temperatures in the 70s and 80s and the tree and flowers bursting into blossom. After several days of this weird weather we're almost back to normal. Thank you very much, weather gods, because when it's warmer or colder than normal, I am too distracted to concentrate.

2. I have 54 more days of teaching left. I'm getting anxious about the big changes in store, yet looking forward to my new life, too.

3. My sisters are both going through a very tough time now and my hearts go out to them.

4. After some problems with exhaustion due to a change in my medications, I'm finally back to running - though still slowly. Sometimes a good workout is one of the few positive things I can salvage from a bad day.

5. My husband will be running The Boston Marathon next weekend, for his second consecutive year, and my son, Derek, will be running his first marathon in Salt Lake City where he's studying violin making at the Violin Making School of America.

Torn

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am retiring in June from my job as a school librarian. Over the years, I've met thousands of wonderful kids and had the opportunity to hold many lovely, outstanding books in my hands, books which I have in turn shared with my students. For me, there aren't too many things more important than connecting kids with great literature, in making readers out of them. But in recent years the administration has changed and instead of working in one library where I had an opportunity to get to know the kids and the staff well and to build a collection responsive to their needs, I'm now working in 3 different libraries. I feel like a vagabond traveling from school to school. It is not the job I once loved and I am exhausted from trying to keep up with everything.

As the economic conditions have deteriorated, so has the job. The administration will not be replacing me, at least not this year, leaving 3 librarians to cover 6 schools. I can't imagine how they will manage. It also means that each of the libraries will be closed several days a week.

What will you do? people have asked. That won't be a problem, I assure them. The bigger problem will be trying to decide how to divide my time to pursue my interests. Robert has informed me that he's going to expand his full time atelier program - maybe in time for the summer. I want so much to study art full time. His students have turned out some amazing work in the year since he started the program and I long to be a part of it, to see how far I can push myself.

Alas, I also want to devote more time to writing and do some traveling with Dennis. Like art or any other discipline - even running or baseball - you have to practice it nearly every day if you want to improve. The atelier program is for three years - certainly not forever - but that's three years of my life. And time is precious. That's one of the reasons I'm retiring.

I guess I'm fortunate, in a sense. When some people retire, they feel lost without their jobs. Some people, in truth, define their very existence by their jobs. Teaching was one facet of my life, not all of me, and while I will miss most of the kids and the books and my colleagues, I will not miss the bureaucrats who seem to hold Smart Boards in higher regard than school librarians.

So, onward! I have exactly 57 days left. Never thought I'd be counting down the days like this but now that I've made a decision, I want to push forward with it.

Our Book Cover and More

It's official, Marshall Cavendish, the publisher of The Poets' Garage anthology of spooky poems, has a cover, not to mention interior illustrations. Can't show you the inside but, since they posted the cover on their fall list, I think it's okay to post it on my blog. Our illustrator is the enormously talented Johan Olander, author and illustrator of The Field Guide to Monsters and, the upcoming The Field Guide to Aliens (also being released this fall).

We Garagers are ecstatic and so pleased with the whole project. The illustrations are quite spooky - yeah, downright creepy - and we're hoping kids will love them - and our poems - as much as we do.

Many many thanks to our wonderful moderators and editors, Laura Wyncoop and Jennifer Cole Judd, for never giving up in the face of rejection after rejection.

Please wish us luck!

Another Soggy Weekend

Yesterday, we had yet another nor'easter pound the island with heavy rain and 60 mph gusts. We had scattered power outages, too. It's getting depressing. Last weekend was nice - real nice - so this weekend, dammit, we pay. Along about Monday, the sun should pop out and nice weather return. Of course. It will be time for me to go back to work then. It totally stinks.

During the storm, the tide was low and the canal almost emptied out. With the winds churning in the opposite direction, the water was being pushed out of the bay. Normally during a storm, we have exceptionally high tides. Weird.

Anyhow, this morning it's uncannily quiet. The canvas is resting lopsided over the boat and the street is littered with roof shingles and branches. Don't think the roof tiles are ours. We had a new roof put on a few years back. March came in like a lion on speed. Let's hope the rest of the month is a little calmer.

The daffodils are pushing up and even the peonies are beginning to nudge their way through the soil. Last fall I planted a couple of dozen tulip bulbs so I'm excited to see how they'll look. The windowsills are filled with tubs of tomato seeds. Dennis even went out and bought raspberry bush plants. Don't know where we can plant those but in a few years we'll have fresh raspberries. Yum! Come on, spring.

The Olympics and Writing

So, I'm watching the 2010 Winter Olympics from the snugly warmth of my own couch. Julia Mancuso is hurtling down the slalom course in the fog. I ski, too, but nothing like her. Not even close. Yet I sort of know how she feels. I've skied down in the fog, barely able to see the lay of the terrain in front of me and expecting, any minute, to go careening down, head over heels, scattering my equipment in all directions. Maybe even breaking a limb or suffering a concussion. I had a concussion once from skiing (negotiating the moguls).

Most of them time, however, I don't, because I'm far too cautious. And slightly scared. When I write, however, I sort of feel like Julia or Lindsay or any one of those skiers. I'm hurtling downhill in the fog, down, down, down with the wind in my face, wondering what bumps or ruts I'm going to hit and if I will hold in there till the end. Will I fling up my arms and call it quits or keep going till I make it down to the bottom, down to the end of the trail?

Writing is a lot like flying down a ski slope, unable to see beyond the next curve in the trail. But man, what a trip!

The Power of Picture Books

Today I read Sarah Stewart's and David Small's Caldecott Honor book, The Gardener, to a group of second graders. It's a lovely, lovely book set during the Great Depression when a loaf of bread only cost a nickel and Franklin Roosevelt was the president. The story is written in the form of letters from Lydia Grace who is sent to live with her Uncle Jim until her parents' economic situation improves.

Her uncle owns a bakery in New York and never smiles. But Lydia Grace, who loves gardening, fills his window boxes with flowers and his world with beauty and in the process attracts more and more customers to his languishing bakery. She even prepares a surprise for her uncle on the rooftop of their bakery by turning it into a charming garden. Uncle Jim still doesn't crack a smile, but he makes Lydia Grace a cake decorated with flowers - "the equal of one thousand smiles" she says. At the end, Lydia Grace gets a letter stating that her papa has a new job and she's going home. Before she boards the train, her Uncle Jim gives her a big, heartfelt hug.

At that point, I started crying and my students looked at me, wondering what was wrong. "It's nothing," I said. It's just that David Small's picture of Uncle Jim hugging her was filled with so much love and feeling and it reminded me of the last time I said goodbye to my dad. He'd hugged me the same way. His diabetes had gotten worse and my mom said that he sensed his end was near. Two months later he died in his sleep.

Picture books can speak to the heart in so many ways.