Becoming a "Townie" in Buena Vista - The Library

We lie in my big king-sized bed this Wednesday morning and breathe a bit as a family after the running of too many days on end and the puking in between the running.  We should be able to ignore the calendar when we are sick, but somehow we don't.

Cecily brought the virus home having picked it up on the dangerous streets of downtown Buena Vista . . . or possibly from some sneezing child at preschool - one can never be sure where they unknowingly consent to host a virus.  Cecily shared it with Ewan.  This is no surprise as Ewan is forever seeking hugs and kisses we are bound to share a bit of whatever it is that lurks on us.  Ewan shared it with Jonah.  This is no surprise as Jonah cared for Ewan so tenderly at 11pm when he was throwing up in his bed the night before.  Jonah shared it with Matt, but Matt has not puked since 1991 so his will has become stronger than any virus that has made the attempt on him in the last twenty-one years.

So far Caroline and I remain undisturbed, but for the puke on my shirt and neck, sheets, towels, floors, rugs, beds, and toilets.  It's just not my puke.  While Jonah slept in my bed yesterday Caroline and I did two math lessons.  Jonah woke up periodically and read enough to finish The Two Towers and then gently beg me the rest of the day to pick up The Return of The King for him which was on hold at our local library.

Finally, around 3:00 pm the girls and I walked into the library where Tori, the twenty-something librarian was waiting at the counter.  Before we could even say "hello" she had fetched our book for us, laid it on the counter and asked with incredulity "He's finished The Two Towers already?"

"Yep, he's been sick today, laying in bed either reading or sleeping and then begging me 'Mom, please go get my book for me' ".

"I love this kid," Tori exclaims.

I love this town, I think.  Much as I miss, pine for, yearn for, try not to think too much about the Salt Lake City Library, no one ever knew my name at that library.  We had to have been some of their most frequent patrons, but no one ever saw us come through the door and had our books picked up and checked out for us without us so much as having to produce a library card or even give our names.

Susie is the sweet forty-something librarian who is a "townie" through and through.  Which is to say she is pure Virginian, mumbles softly in southern drawl such that one westerner must lean in closely and listen hard to translate the loosely shared English.  She wears cable knit sweaters with flowers or seasonal decor such as reindeer or elves on them.  Tori calls her 'The Goddess of the Library' because she knows all the answers - even if you have to listen hard to discern them.

Several weeks ago I had all four kids at this very small library in the middle of the day.  As I was checking our books out Susie leaned in close and whispered "Your kids behave real good."
"Thank you," I replied as we watched a band of children who did not belong to me stomp through loudly, throwing fits and pulling books off the shelf.  They are not bad kids, just unsupervised kids who spend the limbo hour between school and Mom-getting-off-work at the library because they have nowhere else to go.

Recently Jonah returned a movie (The Secret of Roan Inish which you should watch if you have not).  He jumped out of the van and ran in to deposit the movie which we are not allowed to put in the book-drop.  He came back saying "Man, Tori was in there.  I wanted to stay and talk.  For several days after I kept checking our account to see when they would apply the four dollar fine I knew we owed on the movie.  When it never appeared I knew Tori must have had a hand in it.

A few months before that Susie took pity on me when I was trying to pay my library fines which, at twelve dollars, were alarmingly high to her.  Again she leaned in close to me and said very softly "Don't tell nobody, but I'm gonna take half that off for ya."
"Ok, I won't tell nobody," I whispered.  "Thank you."

So consider yourself not told, because I don't want to betray The Goddess of the Library's trust.  Bad things might happen, and we can't live without the library.

HEART AND SOUL

Dear Mr. Nelson,

All my mothers are white - the Anglo-Saxon Eve of European emigration crossing the Atlantic for as many reasons as there were crossings.  I have borne white children, but I have borne them American, and therein lies a kaleidoscopic identity louder than white.  

I am a harassed, homeschooling mother in a small library in Lexington, Virginia, carrying a baby, watching a toddler, trusting two older children to keep themselves alive among the shelves.  There is a book on display - Heart and Soul - with a woman on the cover so dark, so fierce, so determined I cannot pass her up.  I slip her and her little black baby into my bag not knowing what she will pull from us, what she will give to us over the next month.

We have read so many books.  We have learned so many important things from so many authors, but you are the first to whom we all knew we must write and say "thank you."

I grew up in the Southwest and Mountain west United States.  The history of African Americans has always felt like a story removed from me - separated by a continent, an ocean, another continent.  Having recently moved to Virginia we are feeling the tide of African American history come in around us.  Here we are immersed in the ongoing story.  Here we become part of the narrative, and you are among our first guides.

While the geographical parallels of our new home and the tortured slaves in your book settled upon my son, he cried and pleaded with me to go home, back to Utah, away from a place where these things could happen.  I can tell him there are nearly two hundred years between us and this story.  I can tell him the pages that follow offer some resolution.  But I cannot tell him that some divine panacea distilled upon the American heart making true brothers of us all.  Every heart is converted and committed to a prismatic humanity in their own single moment.  

This child, my child, this nine-year-old, white Jonah is in the midst of that moment.  He can now shed some of his own skin and try on something more human, more universal, because you taught him a little about how to respect a human being, be they any color at all.  You taught my six-year-old Caroline that no soul should be standing under the whipping tree.  And honey, you taught me that I can be brave.

Thank you for this story.  Thank you for the paintings you gave us to go with your words.  Thank you for all the things we will now see, the places we will go, the things we will read and learn because we first read Heart and Soul.

          

Your Sister,

Jessica

The Dickens' Debate

Her 5th birthday started with all of us laying in my bed.

This is how pretty much every day starts at the moment.

After many years of grappling with A Tale of Two Cities, I was determined to finish the last thirty pages before I committed my mind and body to any of the heavy duties of the day - like feeding everyone breakfast.

Jonah asked me to read aloud. His request came in the most critical, emotional, purposeful pages of the book. I read with tears barely held at bay. I gave voice to Sydney Carton as the unlikely Christ figure. We rode with the tumbrils through Paris to meet Madame La Guillotine. We followed the clicking, knitting Defarge en route to an unexpected encounter with Miss Pross. We were jostled in the heart thumping carriage of the little party desperate to abandon la vie francaise. Jonah held on to every word - enraptured. Caroline said, "When can I open my presents?"

What!?

Presents?

Oh yeah. . . it's her birthday.

"Caroline," Jonah retorted with frustration, "we have to find out what happens."

"But I want to open my presents from Granny."

"Ugh," he replies, "if only you understood the glory of books."

"I know the glory of books," Caroline demands.

"No, I mean like, figuring out something new, and . . . the magical way the author tells the story."

"Well, I just want to open my presents."

And it is her birthday, so Dickens will have to wait another ten minutes to render the conclusion of his tale that has taken me nearly fifteen years to read.

We open presents.

We play.

We finally come to that famous sentence:

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

How did he do it - Dickens that is - The first and last sentence of this book are arguably the most famous in English literature - except for maybe a few of Shakespeare's.

We eat pancakes per birthday request.

The culmination of our birthday celebration came in the evening when I used Caroline's new curling iron to put curls in her hair, dress in her fanciest dress, take a picture in the front garden, and dine at the Olive Garden - a very rare outing for our family.

Books are good. A Tale of Two Cities might be one of the best. But someday Jonah will also know the glory of children - his own - a little girl turning five. Even Dickens would have yielded to that glory.

I'm No Princess, But I Can Eat Invisible Food

I know there was a time - a pitifully far distant time - when I knew how to play make believe.

Today, this is how I pretend...

Cecily comes at me with a miniature bowl and spoon.

She shoves the spoon into my mouth,

and I say "Mmmmm" and pretend to chew whatever piece of delectable, albeit invisible food she just gave me.

The End

My kids must think I am so totally hopeless. "Mom doesn't even know how to be Princess Lea, or Queen Amadala, or Mary Lennox, or little Laura Ingles Wilder."

"Yeah," the other responds, "all she knows how to be is Mom."

Of course, even this is left in the terrible open ended question....whether or not I actually know how to be Mom, that is. But that's my own question, not theirs.

I know that playing make believe is developmental, and although I may not have moved past other parts of my child hood (like not wanting to wash the dishes), I have actually left the phase of imaginative play. I marvel at my children's ability to engage in this ongoing drama for hours.

They write the script as they go.

Jonah: "Pretend I was a prince, but you didn't know because I lived in this little cottage in the forest."

Caroline: "Pretend I couldn't breathe and I could still live because oxygen could get in through my ears."

Jonah: "And one day you found my cottage."

Caroline: "And you thought I was dead because it looked like I couldn't breathe."

Jonah: "And you found a letter in a trunk in the attic from my father that said I was a prince."

Caroline: "And we got married and our kids could breathe through their ears."

This volley of commensurate dialogue will go on ad nauseum.

In their minds they may be existing in very different imaginary universes and somehow still satiate each other's desire for recognition of the next event in the story. Jonah doesn't mind that the girl who found him in the cottage can only breathe through her ears. He doesn't need to dwell on it so long as she is willing to be in the cottage with him. Caroline sees no problem with finding the letter that reveals he is a prince so long as he says "OK" in response to her frequent and completely bizarre contributions to the plot.

But yesterday they came to me in full felicity, mentally paralleled in their game. I opened the window from my bedroom to the back yard where they were digging up my wintered garden with spades.

"Mom, mom! Look what we're doing"

"You're digging up my garden?"

"No, we're digging up Pompeii"

"Oh, what have you found so far?"

"Well, we found Noelle, and Maren, and Jenny, and Tanner, and......"

And the list goes on for some time.

In fact, if Jonah and Caroline know your name they likely found your mummified body in the Pompeii of our back yard.

Caroline is jumping up and down, giggling, rosy cheeked, holding her spade aloft. "Yeah, we dug up Tanner, Mom."

"You guys are doing a good job." I assure them. "Come in when it gets too cold."

"OK Mom, but we have A LOT more to discover first."

Books are beautiful. Books make me think things like -

There is hope for humanity.

or

I won't get bored while I wait an hour for my turn at the DMV.

or

Life can be lived without television.

or

Hey, my older kid can read to my younger kid while I take a fifteen minute nap.

or

A book taught my children about Vesuvius and Pompeii and now they can excavate my back yard, unearthing the magic of knowledge wedded to imagination.

All this during the hours they might otherwise have been down the street eating school lunch, or swinging their legs under a vandalized desk.

Not that I don't make them regularly sit at a desk. But Cecily is our only vandal, and at 19 months she hasn't mastered the art of offense.