Motivational words from a 13-year-old

I find words of inspiration in so many places. The works of Shakespeare. The journal entries of Thoreau. The poetry of t.s. eliot and Mary Oliver. Essays by Barbara Kingsolver. Church sermons and motivational speeches. But earlier this week, it was the words of a 13-year-old from Belmont that made me reverse course and do the right thing.

The crux of my role as library volunteer coordinator is to ensure that I’ve scheduled one or two volunteers to cover each classroom shift in the school library to assist the full-time librarian. Usually it all goes smoothly until winter hits, and then random viruses, extemporaneous vacations and bad weather cause my volunteers to start dropping like flies, at which point it becomes my responsibility to step in and do it myself.

In this case, it wasn’t even a last-minute call. This particular volunteer had let me know two days in advance that she couldn’t cover her shift. I’d already depleted all my library substitute resources for the week, so I told her not to worry about it; I could cover it myself. I put it on my Google calendar and promptly forgot about it.

When the ten-minute warning alarm sounded on my iPhone midmorning, I couldn’t imagine what the warning was for. I was in the middle of drafting an article and was sure I didn’t have any appointments scheduled for the day. And it was still hours until I had to meet Holly’s bus.

But when I glanced at the screen on my phone, there it was: 11 a.m. library shift. I’d absolutely forgotten.

Can’t do it, I immediately told myself. Too busy. The school librarian can manage without me. She appreciates us volunteers helping out, but she won’t mind covering by herself this once. I won’t even tell her I was supposed to do it; I’ll just tell her that the usual volunteer had to cancel and I didn’t have anyone else to cover. She’ll never know that it was actually me who reneged on the commitment.

And then for some reason, I remembered an interview I’d done a few weeks ago. I was talking to a 13-year-old named Nelson about his decision to step forward and initiate a fundraiser for the genetic condition from which his brother suffers. This was a big step for this young man. He didn’t normally talk much about the fact that his brother was nonverbal and mobility-impaired. And in the particular group that was looking for a cause to support with a fundraiser concert – the 13-year-old’s afterschool music program – he was new and hardly knew any of the other kids yet.

There was no reason, he had previously thought, to discuss his personal life and talk about his brother’s difficult situation with them. For all they knew, his family life was just like theirs, and he was happy to keep it that way.

But then, he told me during our interview, a thought came to his head. If no one else knew about his brother, it was a sure thing that no one else was going to suggest dedicating their fundraiser to research for this condition. Nelson was the only person in the room who had the set of information necessary to propose this idea – and, he realized at that moment, if he didn’t do it, no one else would. Or, as he put it, “My philosophy is that if you’re the only person who can do something and you don’t do it, it’s not going to get done. So I just went up there and talked.”

I thought of Nelson in the moments after my calendar alarm went off. True, I could get away with skipping library duty. No terrible consequence would come of it. On the other hand, I was the only one who knew it needed to be done. In this particular case, it was more my responsibility than anyone else’s in the entire world. Just as Nelson said, if I didn’t do it, it was a sure thing that no one else would.

So I went up to the library and did my volunteer shift. As always, it was easy and fun. Yes, it took an hour out of my workday, but somehow I managed to make up for it by the time the day was over. And Nelson was absolutely right: when you’re the only person who can do a thing, you’d darn well better do it.

Lesson learned, from the most unlikely of places. I love Nelson’s philosophy. It’s a quote you might never see in calligraphy on a wall hanging or inscribed in a book. But it was a fine reminder to me of how to do the right thing, and I feel sure that the words of Nelson Barnett will stay in my mind for a long time – and, I hope, ring out loud and clear once again the next time I’m in a dilemma about whether or not to step forward.

Spending (or not-spending) Black Friday at the library

The kids and I are spending Black Friday at the library. Or this part of it, anyway.

This is for a few reasons. One is that I still like to observe Buy-Nothing Day, a tradition started by a Vancouver artist in the early 1990s and promoted by Adbusters magazine as part of their grassroots effort to de-commercialize Christmas. I used to be a lot more self-righteous about it. I used to in fact get very much on a soapbox about it, proclaiming the general hideousness of crowds flocking to the malls on the day after Thanksgiving to kick of the Christmas season with a buy-buy-buy mentality.

Whether it's an effect of the Recession of part of the natural mellowing that occurs in most of us with age, I'm not up on a soapbox about Buy-Nothing Day anymore. Now, rather than self-righteously condeming Christmas shoppers, I recognize how many people's livelihoods depend on commercial consumption of this kind: not only the retailers, manufacturers and shippers, but also the coffee shop and restaurant employees who benefit when more people are out for the day shopping. In these Recessionary times, the sight of other people out shopping makes me feel happy for those whose livelihoods are being supported as a result, rather than critical of the consumerism it represents.

Besides, some people find it fun, and -- again, the mellowing-with-age factor -- I'm no longer so inclined as I once was to look down on the way other people choose to have fun. My sister-in-law adores Black Friday shopping; she's one of the many who sets her alarm at 4 AM to get in line. ("Could you give me Holly's Christmas wish list?" she asked me yesterday as we were cleaning up from Thanksgiving dinner. "Sure, I'll send it to you," I answered casually. "Could I have it right now?" she pressed. "I start shopping in less than twelve hours.") My sister-in-law has a full-time job more grueling than anything I've ever done: she runs a residential center for emotionally unstable teenagers. It's enormously stressful work, both physically and emotionally, yet I've never heard her complain about it. If she finds it fun to spend the day after Thanksgiving shopping, I'm hardly in a position to question her choice. I'm glad she has found things she enjoys doing so much when she's away from work. She's earned that time off.

But as for me, it's a long-time habit to cocoon on the day after Thanksgiving. I'd be happy to stay home all day, sorting through Thanksgiving leftovers and planning my December baking regime. But it seemed to me to be important to get the kids out of the house today, and with Day 3 of our refrigerator repair under way at home, Rick needed to stay put, so the kids and I headed for our favorite destination, one that's not at all like Black Friday shopping: our local library.

We love our library. The kids just have fun browsing through books and playing computer games, but to me it's a nearly hallowed place because I never get over my amazement at how many resources it contains. It's not a very big library by most communities' standards, but the selection of new books is terrific. Plus there's a wide range of magazines and newspapers for browsing, and free Internet access for still more browsing and reading. In the first few months after Holly was born, the library was my great escape. I'd be home taking care of her all day, and then after dinner I'd sometimes sneak out for an hour or two at the library. I could have gone elsewhere but I couldn't think of a better destination: the library just has so many more choices than any other single stop.

Today at the library it seems that all around me are reminders of other things I should be doing. The book exhibit right next to the carrel where I'm writing features the theme of desserts, reminding me I could be home starting my holiday baking; nearby magazines proclaim Christmas craft ideas I could peruse for ideas for the kids; front pages of the New York Times and two local papers remind me that I could be boning up on current events. The whole bank of computers is unoccupied right now, reminding me I could even be working.

Instead, I'm just soaking in the library ambience. Other people are standing in line or locating gifts or driving from store to store. I do hope they're enjoying themselves, and I know there are things I could be seeing to at home right now (though the dishes are done, I'm not completely cleaned up yet from our Thanksgiving dinner, and I really do need to start reusing those leftovers before it's too late).

But the kids are happily browsing and I'm happily writing, so for this particular hour of this particular Black Friday, this is all we want.

The end of browsing

Charles Rosen blogged earlier this week for the New York Review of Books on the lost pleasure of browsing, likening the experience of buying a book online -- and therefore unseen and untouched -- to purchasing a mail-order bride. Carolyn Kellogg then explored Rosen’s discussion with her own blog entry in the Los Angeles Times.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately too. Like Rosen, I used to choose books by physically finding them at bookstores, libraries or other people’s houses. (I once attended an open house for prospective home-buyers and spent the whole time I was there in the master bedroom copying titles from what was evidently the wife’s bookshelf. The house didn’t interest me much, but what great taste she had in reading!) These days, I’m much more likely to choose what I want to read based on a book review, a book blog, an interview on NPR or a personal recommendation, and order the book online from a bookstore or library. What this means is no more trawling the shelves and no more “stumbles” – no more chancing across books whose covers or titles catch my attention before I know anything else about them.

But it’s not only with books that I find a reduction in my browsing habits. As most of my friends would attest to, I’m an NPR fanatic. I used to listen to hours of NPR: when cooking or doing housework, when driving, and when out running. Then I acquired an iPod and discovered podcasts. Suddenly every single one of my favorite NPR shows was available to me as a download 24 hours a day. Telling other people about what this discovery has meant to me, I echo the famous credit card commercial: “Never again being stuck on a 7-mile run listening to Car Talk: priceless!” (Car Talk is one of the most popular NPR shows ever, and I don’t mean to knock it, but trust me when I tell you it’s one of the few forms of entertainment that can actually make a long run feel longer.)

Nonetheless, back when I used to be stuck with whatever NPR show hit the airwaves at the particular time I was out running or driving, I occasionally found myself listening with interest to something that I was initially certain I wouldn’t like. Not being a sports fan, I tried to avoid “Only a Game,” and yet dozens of times I would be stuck listening to it anyway and discover a story about a high school team facing an unusual challenge or a new book about female basketball players and find myself really intrigued. Now that I can choose only those broadcasts I most want to hear rather than “browsing” the radio, I never have to listen to anything boring, but I also never find myself surprised by things I thought would be boring (sports stories, technology stories, BBC features) but aren’t.

This is one reason I’ve refused to give up my newspaper subscription even though I know the same content in available on line. Once I can click directly on the articles I know I want to read, I’ll lose the benefit of random headlines: my eye first skimming over a headline, then going back for a closer look, then reading the entire article. I’d spend a lot less time reading an on-line newspaper, knowing precisely which topics and sections matter most to me. But I’d skip a lot too, the same things that now I sometimes plan to skip and find myself reading anyway.

Being able to home in directly on what it is that you want to read or listen to definitely saves time. Back when I used to browse the library or bookstore shelves, there were a lot of misses. Fifty pages into a book (I always make myself stick with the first 50 pages), I’d often decide I wasn’t sufficiently engrossed to continue. Now that I read pre-selected books, that doesn’t happen much anymore; I almost never waste time on a book I don’t end up finishing.

But I also miss a lot. A few weeks ago, I found myself in the unusual position of having nothing left in my “to be read” stack and nothing in yet at the library from my reserve list. So I headed to the bookstore to browse, just to see what might look interesting that I hadn’t already decided I wanted to read. And I re-discovered how satisfying it was to gaze at all the possibilities, the hundreds of books I could choose to read or not read, all the volumes to pick up, glance through, put back or keep. It may not be the most efficient use of time, but on that particular afternoon it felt great to be browsing again.

Giving kids the (library) privacy they deserve

I am about to send out an e-mail that won’t do anything to boost my popularity rating. It goes back to the conflict most of us experience for the first time no later than second grade: being popular versus being ethical. The stakes are low this time, but what I have to say won’t win me any friends and will probably brand me as the library prig. Still, I maintain it’s the right thing to do.

The story is this: I am the library volunteer coordinator for my children's school, which is grades K-8. Recently I found out – not from my own kids but from a comment dropped casually by one of their friends, and another time from my own observation – that a few volunteers at the circulation desk like to comment on the kids’ choices as they check out their books. And that raises a red flag for me. Even if the intent is harmless enough – and there’s no question here that the intent is one hundred percent harmless – I maintain that it’s poor library protocol, and therefore my responsibility as the volunteer coordinator to say something.

One reason I’m so attuned to this issue is that the staff members at our local public library are unfailingly scrupulous about never commenting on a patron’s choices. At times it feels almost as if they’ve taken a vow of silence, though I realize what they are actually doing is adhering to a prescribed professional standard. They exchange pleasantries with patrons, but they don’t comment on books. On occasion I’ve checked out a book I was really eager to read and then asked the librarian scanning my card whether she had read it. “Just last week, and I absolutely loved it,” the librarian might answer, her familiarity with and affection for the book, suppressed until I ask, underscoring in my mind how seriously they take their commitment to never offer an unsolicited comment.

I know some of the school volunteers disagree with me; they think they’re just being friendly and encouraging children to read by commenting “My son loved that book!” or “Oh, did you read the newest one by this author?” They’re right; that is friendly, and I’m all for making adults accessible to kids in our roles at the school. But kids need to feel that they can read whatever they want without oversight or editorializing from their friends’ parents.

Though I’m not well-versed in our school library’s collection, I’m sure we can all think of examples where a kid might want to read about something without a random adult observing: physical development, for example. But that’s only the most obvious possibility. Wouldn’t you as a parent want your kids to know they could check out “What it’s like when your parents divorce” (all of these are hypothetical examples) or “How to make friends after you move to a new town” without another parent in the class remarking on it? Maybe those are too obvious as well; no library volunteer would make a tactless remark about any of those topics. But suppose you are a kid who knows your parents always boast about what an advanced reader or insightful scholar you are…and on this particular day you just really feel like indulging in a little Captain Underpants. That child should likewise have the confidence that the choice will be politely ignored by the adult at circulation.

Ultimately, it just makes sense to give the kids a sense of autonomy when they choose their reading material. Many people feel that libraries are the last bastion of privacy in our society, given the stand they took nationally against computer searches and other aspects of the Patriot Act. Not only do we owe the kids the same privacy, but we also might as well take this earliest opportunity to start implanting the message that libraries are a place where confidentiality is always respected, in any situation, for every library user.

Biking to school

Two weeks into the school year, Tim has fallen into a very satisfying routine of riding his bike to school. Fifth grade is the first year the kids are, as I like to say, “released on their own recognizance.” In the earlier grades they have to be either on a bus or met by an adult at the end of the day; starting in fifth grade they simply walk out the door once class is dismissed. Tim likes to ride his bike the short distance into the town center, pick up a snack at Ferns Country Store using his new Ferns charge card -- which he has to earn the money to refill -- and then settle in at the library to start his homework and, though I might wish it otherwise, play a computer game or two.

I love this routine because it gives him such a sense of independence, and that’s one thing about Carlisle that has not changed since I was his age thirty years ago. In such a small town, there are so few ways for kids to develop their independence in the way city kids do, by going places on their own or making any plans at all that don’t involve adults. Back in the 1970s, when I was in fifth grade, the middle schoolers queueing up after school at the country store – which had a different name then, and no charge cards – was a daily tradition, and it still is. Tim tells me in the morning what time he’ll be home, and he’s on his honor to leave the library at the right time to make that happen. He doesn’t have a cell phone; he just has to use good judgment and keep track of the clock, like I did back in the 1970s. (And I actually think he has better judgment about snack choices than I ever did at his age.) When he gets home, he’s buoyed by the independence and invigorated by the biking, and he has also usually finished most of his homework.

My pleasure in seeing Tim ride his bike reminds me of something that came up in an article I wrote three years ago about a family who categorically decided to give up use of their car. They live in a community near Cambridge that is much more mixed-use than ours; halfway between the suburbs and the city geographically as well as infrastructurally, it has sidewalks, neighborhood schools, and public buses. So they decided that they would rely on walking, biking or public transportation, even though their two children were under the age of ten at the time.

What interested me most in the interview was when the mom, Sarah, talked about how the family dynamic had changed somewhat once they gave up the car and rode their bikes to school, lessons and playdates instead. And it wasn’t exactly a matter of physical independence: at the age of about 8, her elder child still wasn’t old enough to pedal around town by himself. She still accompanied him, on her own bike, to his various activities. But dropping him off by bike was different. Merely by giving up the role of mom-as-chauffeur, she found that things had changed. Her children didn’t seem to have quite the same perspective on her as their means of conveyance. Even when she went with them, if they were on their own bikes doing their own pedaling, it lent a sort of egalitarianism to the relationship.

I found that insight so interesting, and that, more than environmental or financial reasons, has influenced me to try to cut back on driving the kids around. Even if I’m still with them when they bike or walk – as in Holly’s case I always am – I want them to see that kids don’t need to rely on grown-ups to orchestrate every activity and plan. As the children in the article about going car-free learned very early, kids do have the power to get where they want to go. Literally, and in some ways figuratively too.