Yesterday after my regular volunteer shift at my kids’ school library, I fell into a conversation with the library director and a fourth grade teacher. I was telling them about a story I heard several months ago by NPR education correspondent Claudio Sanchez on the advantages of schools like ours that cover grades K-8. The conversation so intrigued me that I did a little more research later in the day and found out that it’s a fairly hot topic in education circles right now: the issue of trying to make more schools cover a wider range of grades, though not necessarily increasing the size of the student body. That is, a medium-sized suburb that currently has four elementary schools and two middle schools might consider still having several schools but making all of them cover all the grades rather than clustering by age.
In our town, we have a K-8 campus simply because with a town population of barely 6,000, all we need is one large school to cover 800 kids between the ages of 5 and 13. But having been through the same school myself and now watching my two children, one a second grader and one a fifth grader, go through it, I spot new advantages all the time. And talking today with the library director and the fourth grade teacher opened my eyes to even more.
As the NPR story pointed out, older kids often behave better when younger kids are around. They feel important and recognize their value as role models. This is obviously not always true; some parents of young children are apprehensive about exposing their kids to middle school behaviors, and not all middle schoolers can be trusted to carry themselves as good examples. But for the most part, the presence of young and impressionable children keeps the pre-adolescent ones a little bit more in line.
Also, younger kids feel safer and just more cared for with older siblings or older kids they know from their neighborhood around. My daughter likes spotting her older brother across the cafeteria as one shift is arriving and the other is leaving; she likes seeing his friends as well. Last year when she was in first grade, she once climbed off the bus bursting with excitement: I could see from the gleam in her eyes that something terrific had happened. Did she win an award or meet a new friend, I wondered? No, it turned out the eighth grader who lives down the street had high-fived her in the hallway outside the nurses’ office. That recognition clearly made her day.
And while younger kids may be drawing succor from the presence of older kids, the students in the older grades often derive comfort from being able to interface with the teachers from their younger years. The NPR reporter mentioned this point, and I’ve certainly witnessed it firsthand. Kids who might be going through a difficult time feel better when they can drop in on the familiar face who greeted them every morning in kindergarten. When my son was in second grade, his teacher was one of the best-loved teachers in the school, and Tim used to joke about how some mornings he had to wait in line to enter his classroom because so many of her former students had dropped by to say hello to her before the middle school bell that there wasn’t any room for the second graders until the older kids cleared out.
The library director pointed out some additional advantages I hadn’t thought about. Not only do the two principals – we have one for grades K-4 and one for grades 5-8 – have plenty of time to get to know each child and each family as a whole, but other specialists can keep track of the kids’ progress and well-being over the course of the years as well: the counselors, the school nurses, even the library director herself said she likes seeing how kids grow and change from one grade to the next.
Our school has various ways of leveraging the advantages of contact between older and younger students. They have a “buddy program” in which older classes and younger classes get together once a month or so and the kids are paired up for special projects: sometimes it’s kindergarteners with fourth graders, sometimes third graders with eighth graders, and so on. They also proactively expose the kids to the work going on in different grades. Earlier this week my son and his fifth grade classmates attended the eighth grade science fair, and when the fifth graders had their own exhibition one morning dedicated to research on Colonial America, several younger grades filed through.
I do understand that a K-8 model has its drawbacks as well. In a town with a big enough child population for several schools, it’s a more practical use of resources to cluster by grade level: it’s easier to stock any one campus with the playground structures, science lab equipment or even textbooks appropriate to just three or four grades rather than nine grades. And some parents of younger kids do worry about risks inherent in the presence of older kids; at our campus this is minimized by the fact that there are separate buses, recess times and cafeteria times for older kids and younger kids.
To me it’s a great system, but it’s also what I grew up with, so sometimes I take it for granted. The talk in the library yesterday made me recognize anew what an advantage it is. And as we wrapped up our discussion, a first grade was filing in for their library session. The library director gathered them all together and then announced their story this week would be read by a special guest: an eighth grader who would soon be graduating from the school. The kids looked fascinated as the older girl sat down to read to them. The girl herself looked poised and proud. And the library director? Beaming with pleasure at the sight of a student she had known since the age of five, now almost three times that age, sitting down to share her love of reading with a new crop of six-year-olds.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Unseasonable weather: A visit from summer
Generally, I like seasonable weather. It doesn’t matter the season; I just like weather that reflects the essence of the date on the calendar. I like heat waves in July, cool sunny days with bright blue skies in September, a chilly gray day with darkness falling early in November, a big snowstorm in January, a raw dampness in March, a soft warmth in the air in May.
But sometimes un-seasonable weather can be fun too. This week, for example, we’ve been having a taste of summer. It’s way too early to think this will last, but ever since Saturday we’ve been enjoying temperatures in the 70’s and unwavering sunshine. Yesterday the mercury rose into the mid-80’s, and it felt like the middle of July, not the beginning of April. Holly rode her bike after school. I went running in shorts and a T-shirt; Belle ran with me and waded into a stream to cool off as soon as I let her off the leash.
Unseasonable weather is like a visit from a friend you don’t see much. When it arrives, you immediately start remembering everything you like so much about it. On a day like yesterday, I remembered how great it is to go outside without piling on layers, and how pleasant it is to see the cows and sheep out grazing in the middle of the pasture rather than hovering next to the barn munching on dry hay. But it happens at other times of year too. An unseasonably chilly day in August makes me start thinking about all the benefits of back-to-school time even with school still a month away. A snowstorm in early December reminds me of how picturesque our setting is when the snow drifts high along the fences.
And being reminded of the upcoming season has practical benefits too. Temperatures in the 80’s yesterday inspired me to look over my summer wardrobe and think about what was worth keeping. A snowstorm in November gets everyone to the hardware store to buy shovels. Even a cold autumnal air front in the summer reminds me to buy the kids’ school supplies.
But also like a visiting guest, the unseasonable weather reminds us quickly not only of what we like about the season it hearkens to but also what we might not like so much about it. I never remember over the winter or early spring how much less energy I have in the hot weather; yesterday I was reminded generously, when I started feeling sluggish by late afternoon, the time I normally gear up to make dinner and start non-work related household tasks. Insects have started whirling in through the screens, too.
According to the forecast, our summer preview ends today and we’ll be back to early spring weather. We’ll miss summer, and we’ll look forward to seeing her again in another couple of months. In the meantime, we’ll get back to the cool windy days typical of April.
Last month during the flooding, when we had to park on the cul-de-sac behind us and walk through the woods to get to the cars because the driveway washed out, Tim commented, “it’s actually kind of fun going through the woods instead of the usual way,” and my father responded to him that any time things are different from the norm, it’s kind of fun. For kids I think this is particularly true. These days, something as trivial as an hour-long dentist appointment during the time of day that I normally write is enough to make me irritable, but I still remember how excited I was during a particularly massive blizzard in my childhood when we lost electricity for three days. Now when we lose electricity even for three hours, I get a little bit frustrated by the inconvenience, even though I know how intransigent that is of me, but back then, just living without lights on was a thrill.
And for Tim, walking through the woods to get to the car last month was a novelty. He’s right: exceptions to the regular routine are exciting. We had fun visiting with summer this week. It was great to get our bikes out and wear t-shirts and shorts. Soon enough the high heat of summer will return, only more in season. And we’ll be all the more ready for it, thanks to this week’s preview.
But sometimes un-seasonable weather can be fun too. This week, for example, we’ve been having a taste of summer. It’s way too early to think this will last, but ever since Saturday we’ve been enjoying temperatures in the 70’s and unwavering sunshine. Yesterday the mercury rose into the mid-80’s, and it felt like the middle of July, not the beginning of April. Holly rode her bike after school. I went running in shorts and a T-shirt; Belle ran with me and waded into a stream to cool off as soon as I let her off the leash.
Unseasonable weather is like a visit from a friend you don’t see much. When it arrives, you immediately start remembering everything you like so much about it. On a day like yesterday, I remembered how great it is to go outside without piling on layers, and how pleasant it is to see the cows and sheep out grazing in the middle of the pasture rather than hovering next to the barn munching on dry hay. But it happens at other times of year too. An unseasonably chilly day in August makes me start thinking about all the benefits of back-to-school time even with school still a month away. A snowstorm in early December reminds me of how picturesque our setting is when the snow drifts high along the fences.
And being reminded of the upcoming season has practical benefits too. Temperatures in the 80’s yesterday inspired me to look over my summer wardrobe and think about what was worth keeping. A snowstorm in November gets everyone to the hardware store to buy shovels. Even a cold autumnal air front in the summer reminds me to buy the kids’ school supplies.
But also like a visiting guest, the unseasonable weather reminds us quickly not only of what we like about the season it hearkens to but also what we might not like so much about it. I never remember over the winter or early spring how much less energy I have in the hot weather; yesterday I was reminded generously, when I started feeling sluggish by late afternoon, the time I normally gear up to make dinner and start non-work related household tasks. Insects have started whirling in through the screens, too.
According to the forecast, our summer preview ends today and we’ll be back to early spring weather. We’ll miss summer, and we’ll look forward to seeing her again in another couple of months. In the meantime, we’ll get back to the cool windy days typical of April.
Last month during the flooding, when we had to park on the cul-de-sac behind us and walk through the woods to get to the cars because the driveway washed out, Tim commented, “it’s actually kind of fun going through the woods instead of the usual way,” and my father responded to him that any time things are different from the norm, it’s kind of fun. For kids I think this is particularly true. These days, something as trivial as an hour-long dentist appointment during the time of day that I normally write is enough to make me irritable, but I still remember how excited I was during a particularly massive blizzard in my childhood when we lost electricity for three days. Now when we lose electricity even for three hours, I get a little bit frustrated by the inconvenience, even though I know how intransigent that is of me, but back then, just living without lights on was a thrill.
And for Tim, walking through the woods to get to the car last month was a novelty. He’s right: exceptions to the regular routine are exciting. We had fun visiting with summer this week. It was great to get our bikes out and wear t-shirts and shorts. Soon enough the high heat of summer will return, only more in season. And we’ll be all the more ready for it, thanks to this week’s preview.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
When you're too busy to go running...go running anyway
I was too busy to run yesterday. So I did the best thing to do when you’re too busy to run. Avid runners will know exactly what I’m talking about. What’s the best thing to do when you’re too busy to go running? No, not use the treadmill. Not take the day off and double your workout the next day. Not even concede gracefully to the reality that there are days into which a run just might not fit and refuse to dwell on the fact that you didn’t go.
No. At least speaking for myself, the best thing to do when I’m too busy to run is…go running.
I may seem like the wrong person to talk about making a choice to run. As a USRSA-registered streak runner, I’ve committed to run a mile or more every day. In another month, if all goes well, my running streak with be one thousand days long. But yesterday was one of those days when it was so tempting to tell myself, “Okay, but just a mile today. You can spare ten minutes, but that’s it. You have way too much to do to fit in a good run. Just do that mile and get back to your desk…your kitchen…your telephone…your errands list.”
But I didn’t. I’d spent the first 90 minutes of the day up at the elementary school attending Holly’s class’s Iditarod presentation. And while I love being invited into the classroom, starting my work day 90 minutes late is never something that feels great to me, devotee of routine that I am. I was feeling frazzled by waiting to hear from two different sources for two different articles whose input I urgently needed in order to complete and file my stories. When I got back from the classroom event, I had three e-mails saying that school library volunteers had to reschedule their shifts, which is my responsibility as library volunteer coordinator. I wasn’t at all sure that my older child had finished a big homework assignment due later this week, and I hadn’t even started the brainstorming part of an essay I promised an editor I’d draft in the early part of this week.
That was just the deskwork part. On the domestic front, I had committed to make two batches of oatmeal cookies for events taking place that afternoon, and we’d invited a guest to dinner. Though I had a general idea of the menu, I hadn’t done any of the cooking yet. I hadn’t even checked very carefully to ensure we had the ingredients I needed.
And, of course, as a streak-runner, I knew I had to fit in my run at some point. Even if it was only ten minutes long.
Instead, I took a leap of faith. I said to myself, “Deadlines, dinner menus, kids’ homework, housework…no. Just go running. So you don’t have time to run. Just Go Anyway.”
So I set off on my favorite weekday loop. But instead of getting more frazzled as the time away from my desk and home unspooled, I found that the opposite was happening. As I ran, I thought about the dinner menu and what I’d need to prepare when, in order to be ready when our guest arrived. I remembered that I hadn’t bought any salad ingredients but I did have some leftover steamed broccoli, which I could sauté with tomatoes and corn in place of a salad. I mulled over ideas for the essay I’d promised my editor. I reassured myself that the two story sources I urgently needed to hear from would probably call later in the day. I reminded myself that now Tim is in fifth grade, he almost always gets his assignments done without asking for a lot of help or making a big deal of it, and this was probably one of those times.
Seasoned runners will be able to anticipate how this ended: when I returned home after the run, even though I’d squandered a half-hour that I really didn’t have to spare, I felt better about all of it. I was all set to start dinner preparations, having planned out in my mind what needed to be done. With my brain rejuvenated, I felt that I could call the tardy story sources and ask them for the information I was waiting on, and I could at least start jotting down ideas for the essay even if I didn’t start drafting it yet.
So, once again, the best thing to do when I was too frazzled to fit in a run was to fit in that run. After that, time seemed to shift and work its way into my hands again, where I felt capable of organizing it the way I needed to. I’d run the frazzle goblins right into the ground. Literally. Mentally refreshed, my afternoon no longer seemed quite so overbooked. I felt great. And not even all that busy after all.
No. At least speaking for myself, the best thing to do when I’m too busy to run is…go running.
I may seem like the wrong person to talk about making a choice to run. As a USRSA-registered streak runner, I’ve committed to run a mile or more every day. In another month, if all goes well, my running streak with be one thousand days long. But yesterday was one of those days when it was so tempting to tell myself, “Okay, but just a mile today. You can spare ten minutes, but that’s it. You have way too much to do to fit in a good run. Just do that mile and get back to your desk…your kitchen…your telephone…your errands list.”
But I didn’t. I’d spent the first 90 minutes of the day up at the elementary school attending Holly’s class’s Iditarod presentation. And while I love being invited into the classroom, starting my work day 90 minutes late is never something that feels great to me, devotee of routine that I am. I was feeling frazzled by waiting to hear from two different sources for two different articles whose input I urgently needed in order to complete and file my stories. When I got back from the classroom event, I had three e-mails saying that school library volunteers had to reschedule their shifts, which is my responsibility as library volunteer coordinator. I wasn’t at all sure that my older child had finished a big homework assignment due later this week, and I hadn’t even started the brainstorming part of an essay I promised an editor I’d draft in the early part of this week.
That was just the deskwork part. On the domestic front, I had committed to make two batches of oatmeal cookies for events taking place that afternoon, and we’d invited a guest to dinner. Though I had a general idea of the menu, I hadn’t done any of the cooking yet. I hadn’t even checked very carefully to ensure we had the ingredients I needed.
And, of course, as a streak-runner, I knew I had to fit in my run at some point. Even if it was only ten minutes long.
Instead, I took a leap of faith. I said to myself, “Deadlines, dinner menus, kids’ homework, housework…no. Just go running. So you don’t have time to run. Just Go Anyway.”
So I set off on my favorite weekday loop. But instead of getting more frazzled as the time away from my desk and home unspooled, I found that the opposite was happening. As I ran, I thought about the dinner menu and what I’d need to prepare when, in order to be ready when our guest arrived. I remembered that I hadn’t bought any salad ingredients but I did have some leftover steamed broccoli, which I could sauté with tomatoes and corn in place of a salad. I mulled over ideas for the essay I’d promised my editor. I reassured myself that the two story sources I urgently needed to hear from would probably call later in the day. I reminded myself that now Tim is in fifth grade, he almost always gets his assignments done without asking for a lot of help or making a big deal of it, and this was probably one of those times.
Seasoned runners will be able to anticipate how this ended: when I returned home after the run, even though I’d squandered a half-hour that I really didn’t have to spare, I felt better about all of it. I was all set to start dinner preparations, having planned out in my mind what needed to be done. With my brain rejuvenated, I felt that I could call the tardy story sources and ask them for the information I was waiting on, and I could at least start jotting down ideas for the essay even if I didn’t start drafting it yet.
So, once again, the best thing to do when I was too frazzled to fit in a run was to fit in that run. After that, time seemed to shift and work its way into my hands again, where I felt capable of organizing it the way I needed to. I’d run the frazzle goblins right into the ground. Literally. Mentally refreshed, my afternoon no longer seemed quite so overbooked. I felt great. And not even all that busy after all.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The cover-up: How do we judge a book by its cover when there's no need for a cover?
Motoko Rich wrote a very interesting essay in the New York Times last week in which she made the point that book covers, and the whole sub-industry of book cover design, risk becoming collateral damage in the ebook revolution.
Rich is a New Yorker, and she alludes frequently to the urban experience of unobtrusively checking out the cover of a book that a fellow subway rider might be reading – a book she then might decide to seek out for herself. She opens her essay with a sketch of a woman who does a micro-version of niche market profiling by noticing that the woman across from her on the subway, who is immersed in a novel, not only looks her age and has clothes and accessories similar to those she might wear but is also carrying a yoga mat. The observer is indeed a yoga enthusiast herself, and before the day is over she has purchased the same book in which the subway rider was engrossed.
The issue of e-books lacking the transparency of hard-copy books with which avid readers assess what other people are reading has been bandied about a fair amount since the advent of e-books. I read an essay last year about a woman who always judges new acquaintances, upon being invited to their homes, by what books they have on their shelves. Asking to look at the directory on someone’s Kindle isn’t exactly the same as glancing at the bookshelves as you walk to the powder room, she pointed out.
I agree that there’s a great deal to be learned from having visibility into what other people are reading. We make assessments of them, even if they are strangers; we also get passive book recommendations, like the woman on the subway. Once my college roommate and I were taking a walk on the beach just beyond the front yard of her summer house. “See that woman on the lawn chair over there?” she asked me. “I’ve been trying to get a peek at the title of her book all day. She’s been sitting there reading for hours, and I really want to know what it is.”
It’s potentially a loss for book cover designers, too. For artists and illustrators, book cover design is a profitable arena. Though many of the published authors I know have professed not to like the covers of their books, I think it would be fascinating to see how a visual artist interpreted my work with a design statement. Not being a published author, I’ve never had the opportunity, but I do have some familiarity with what it’s like to work as a writer in tandem with a design professional because I’m a journalist who writes feature stories, and I’m all too aware of how the photo that runs with my story can make or break its visibility in terms of how big and how high up on the page the editor chooses to place it based on how enticing the photo is.
There are so many ways in which it will be interesting to see how the literary world changes in response to ebooks; the question of cover design is just one of many to ask about this emerging technology. For now, while I’m still reading hard copies of books, I think I’ll develop even more appreciation for their cover designs, knowing it might eventually become a lost art. And I’ll scrutinize what other people are reading in airports and cafes more than ever. If they’re brave enough to let the world see what they’re reading, I’m more than willing to take advantage of that opportunity.
Rich is a New Yorker, and she alludes frequently to the urban experience of unobtrusively checking out the cover of a book that a fellow subway rider might be reading – a book she then might decide to seek out for herself. She opens her essay with a sketch of a woman who does a micro-version of niche market profiling by noticing that the woman across from her on the subway, who is immersed in a novel, not only looks her age and has clothes and accessories similar to those she might wear but is also carrying a yoga mat. The observer is indeed a yoga enthusiast herself, and before the day is over she has purchased the same book in which the subway rider was engrossed.
The issue of e-books lacking the transparency of hard-copy books with which avid readers assess what other people are reading has been bandied about a fair amount since the advent of e-books. I read an essay last year about a woman who always judges new acquaintances, upon being invited to their homes, by what books they have on their shelves. Asking to look at the directory on someone’s Kindle isn’t exactly the same as glancing at the bookshelves as you walk to the powder room, she pointed out.
I agree that there’s a great deal to be learned from having visibility into what other people are reading. We make assessments of them, even if they are strangers; we also get passive book recommendations, like the woman on the subway. Once my college roommate and I were taking a walk on the beach just beyond the front yard of her summer house. “See that woman on the lawn chair over there?” she asked me. “I’ve been trying to get a peek at the title of her book all day. She’s been sitting there reading for hours, and I really want to know what it is.”
It’s potentially a loss for book cover designers, too. For artists and illustrators, book cover design is a profitable arena. Though many of the published authors I know have professed not to like the covers of their books, I think it would be fascinating to see how a visual artist interpreted my work with a design statement. Not being a published author, I’ve never had the opportunity, but I do have some familiarity with what it’s like to work as a writer in tandem with a design professional because I’m a journalist who writes feature stories, and I’m all too aware of how the photo that runs with my story can make or break its visibility in terms of how big and how high up on the page the editor chooses to place it based on how enticing the photo is.
There are so many ways in which it will be interesting to see how the literary world changes in response to ebooks; the question of cover design is just one of many to ask about this emerging technology. For now, while I’m still reading hard copies of books, I think I’ll develop even more appreciation for their cover designs, knowing it might eventually become a lost art. And I’ll scrutinize what other people are reading in airports and cafes more than ever. If they’re brave enough to let the world see what they’re reading, I’m more than willing to take advantage of that opportunity.
Easter and the Barrymores
Growing up in a household that combined Jewish observances, Unitarian ideals and a generally secular humanist mood, I was never entirely clear on Easter’s meaning.
Christmas, I understood. Observers of all nature of religions and sects can still agree – though admittedly not all do – that Jesus was born and that his presence in history is significant, regardless of where their beliefs fall in relation to the Holy Trinity. So the meaning of Christmas was always clear to me: a celebration of Jesus’ birth, whether you consider Jesus the son of God, a prophet, or a fine and eloquent teacher.
But Easter is different. Without adhering to the idea of the Resurrection, how do we justify our right to observe it? While the oft-repeated secular idea of a holiday, whatever its name, honoring rebirth and the new life that springtime symbolizes is appealing, I’ve never understood why Easter should be specifically identified as that day.
As a child, I barely knew about Good Friday, and only last month did I finally familiarize myself with the meaning of Palm Sunday. That was because I had to teach a Sunday School lesson on it at the Unitarian church that my children and I attend. There, we make an effort to understand and educate our children about as many different forms of religion and personal belief as possible; in Sunday school, after we discussed Passover, Palm Sunday and the Spring Equinox, we made a poster showing all the different symbols associated with springtime and the holidays, from eggs to rabbits to the Christian cross to the Passover matzoh.
None of which quite explains why my discussion with my children yesterday afternoon centered on Drew Barrymore.
It was yet another one of those conversations with my children when if I take so much as a split second to step back and listen to myself talk, I can only ask with figurative dropped jaw, “How did I get myself into this?”
We were driving home from my in-laws’ house, where we’d had an Easter feast that included both an egg hunt and Grace before dinner: traditions both secular and religious. My 7-year-old looked out at all the cars with families returning from similar celebrations and asked why so many people celebrate Easter.
"Because no matter what your religious beliefs are, it's a good day to spend with your family," I said. "Major holidays are a nice time for everyone to take a break from what they normally do and get together with family instead."
“I feel sorry for all the American Idol finalists," she mused. "They had to miss out on spending Easter with their families because they’re still in Hollywood.”
“Not everyone spends Easter with their families,” I amended. “Some people spend it with their friends.”
“Well, I guess that’s what they did, then,” Holly persisted, still fixated on American Idol, “because by this time in the season, all the finalists are friends with each other. So they spent Easter together.”
Though American Idol finalist is one of the last roles I can imagine holding, I can hardly feel too sorry for them for their Easter logistics. I’m guessing they’re perfectly happy to be holed up in their practice sessions and wardrobe appointments this weekend. “Besides, some people consider their friends to be family,” I continued. “For example, Drew Barrymore.”
This spontaneous comment was the result of an interview I heard with Drew Barrymore on Fresh Air last year, in which she told Terry Gross that she no longer has a relationship with her mother but she has friends who are just like family to her and so, she assured Terry, it was okay about the rift with her famously problematic mother.
“Who’s Drew Barrymore?” both kids wanted to know.
“She’s an actress.”
“Why are her friends like her family?”
“Because she doesn’t get along with her mother.”
“Why not?”
As a journalist, there is no one in the world I hold in higher professional regard than Terry Gross. And once I start recounting things I heard on Fresh Air, I’m pretty much on automatic pilot. “Well, because she was very successful right from childhood, from when she was your age. And I think that now she feels like her mother didn’t necessarily help her or give her good advice.”
“Like about what to do with the money she made?” my eleven-year-old asked.
“Yes, and what roles to take. But she told Terry Gross that she has such good friends that they’re like a family to her.”
My husband shot me a look at this point. “Remind me again of what the rift between Drew and Jaid Barrymore has to do with Easter?”
Okay, nothing. That’s what happens when you try to explain things to kids. You get so sidetracked that you end up not quite able to believe what you hear yourself saying. We’ve all done it at some time or another. My mother once found herself actively competing with my then five-year-old niece and my niece’s friend over who knew someone with fewer limbs, and I famously once defended Tim by telling another mom that Tim was much more like a girl than her son was.
The kids didn’t have any further questions, though. Not about the Barrymores and not about the Resurrection. Which is fortunate because I didn’t have any more answers. Although if they want to know anything about Palm Sunday, I’m all set.
Christmas, I understood. Observers of all nature of religions and sects can still agree – though admittedly not all do – that Jesus was born and that his presence in history is significant, regardless of where their beliefs fall in relation to the Holy Trinity. So the meaning of Christmas was always clear to me: a celebration of Jesus’ birth, whether you consider Jesus the son of God, a prophet, or a fine and eloquent teacher.
But Easter is different. Without adhering to the idea of the Resurrection, how do we justify our right to observe it? While the oft-repeated secular idea of a holiday, whatever its name, honoring rebirth and the new life that springtime symbolizes is appealing, I’ve never understood why Easter should be specifically identified as that day.
As a child, I barely knew about Good Friday, and only last month did I finally familiarize myself with the meaning of Palm Sunday. That was because I had to teach a Sunday School lesson on it at the Unitarian church that my children and I attend. There, we make an effort to understand and educate our children about as many different forms of religion and personal belief as possible; in Sunday school, after we discussed Passover, Palm Sunday and the Spring Equinox, we made a poster showing all the different symbols associated with springtime and the holidays, from eggs to rabbits to the Christian cross to the Passover matzoh.
None of which quite explains why my discussion with my children yesterday afternoon centered on Drew Barrymore.
It was yet another one of those conversations with my children when if I take so much as a split second to step back and listen to myself talk, I can only ask with figurative dropped jaw, “How did I get myself into this?”
We were driving home from my in-laws’ house, where we’d had an Easter feast that included both an egg hunt and Grace before dinner: traditions both secular and religious. My 7-year-old looked out at all the cars with families returning from similar celebrations and asked why so many people celebrate Easter.
"Because no matter what your religious beliefs are, it's a good day to spend with your family," I said. "Major holidays are a nice time for everyone to take a break from what they normally do and get together with family instead."
“I feel sorry for all the American Idol finalists," she mused. "They had to miss out on spending Easter with their families because they’re still in Hollywood.”
“Not everyone spends Easter with their families,” I amended. “Some people spend it with their friends.”
“Well, I guess that’s what they did, then,” Holly persisted, still fixated on American Idol, “because by this time in the season, all the finalists are friends with each other. So they spent Easter together.”
Though American Idol finalist is one of the last roles I can imagine holding, I can hardly feel too sorry for them for their Easter logistics. I’m guessing they’re perfectly happy to be holed up in their practice sessions and wardrobe appointments this weekend. “Besides, some people consider their friends to be family,” I continued. “For example, Drew Barrymore.”
This spontaneous comment was the result of an interview I heard with Drew Barrymore on Fresh Air last year, in which she told Terry Gross that she no longer has a relationship with her mother but she has friends who are just like family to her and so, she assured Terry, it was okay about the rift with her famously problematic mother.
“Who’s Drew Barrymore?” both kids wanted to know.
“She’s an actress.”
“Why are her friends like her family?”
“Because she doesn’t get along with her mother.”
“Why not?”
As a journalist, there is no one in the world I hold in higher professional regard than Terry Gross. And once I start recounting things I heard on Fresh Air, I’m pretty much on automatic pilot. “Well, because she was very successful right from childhood, from when she was your age. And I think that now she feels like her mother didn’t necessarily help her or give her good advice.”
“Like about what to do with the money she made?” my eleven-year-old asked.
“Yes, and what roles to take. But she told Terry Gross that she has such good friends that they’re like a family to her.”
My husband shot me a look at this point. “Remind me again of what the rift between Drew and Jaid Barrymore has to do with Easter?”
Okay, nothing. That’s what happens when you try to explain things to kids. You get so sidetracked that you end up not quite able to believe what you hear yourself saying. We’ve all done it at some time or another. My mother once found herself actively competing with my then five-year-old niece and my niece’s friend over who knew someone with fewer limbs, and I famously once defended Tim by telling another mom that Tim was much more like a girl than her son was.
The kids didn’t have any further questions, though. Not about the Barrymores and not about the Resurrection. Which is fortunate because I didn’t have any more answers. Although if they want to know anything about Palm Sunday, I’m all set.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Playing hooky
Yesterday I played hooky. After an hour of desk work, I shut down my computer and went for a three-hour bike ride. What a treat.
The sense of novelty that came with being out enjoying the sunshine rather than sitting at my desk reminded me of a tradition from my childhood. Every year, I was allowed to miss one day of school to go into Boston with my mother on the train. We’d go shopping and eat lunch at a restaurant, and although we could have done the same thing on a weekend or a school vacation day, it wouldn’t have been the same. Feeling sneaky, feeling special, the whole sense of doing something exceptional, was what made it so much fun.
And yesterday I discovered that playing hooky still feels special, even though being self-employed means that I no longer have to ask anyone’s permission to spend a day outside instead of at my desk. My 12-year-old niece Phoebe is visiting this week from Pennsylvania, and because she’s such a good athlete, I knew this was my opportunity to do the kind of bike ride my kids are still too small to do. Given the beautiful weather, I grabbed that opportunity.
We set off on the Minuteman Bikeway at 11. We rode steadily for an hour until we reached the Alewife Station at the end of the Bikeway; then we threaded our way along the extension to Davis Square, where we rewarded ourselves with a fabulous lunch of burritos and guacamole at Anna’s Tacqueria in Davis Square. In both directions of the ride, covering 24 miles round-trip, there was so much to see. Flooded swamps and back yards in Bedford and Lexington. The shimmering expanse of Spy Pond in Arlington. Brooks running through the still leafless woods. Along the Bikeway, women pushing infants in strollers, a preschooler using a scooter, dog-walkers whose multiple charges contrasted amusingly in size and breed, a middle-aged father riding his bike with two small kids in a trailer, an elderly couple walking slowly and stiffly together. It wasn’t crowded the way a sunny Saturday on the Bikeway would be, but there were plenty of people out enjoying some exercise and recreation.
By coincidence, I returned to the same town where our bike ride began in the evening for a different reason: I was writing a feature story on a hobby group that meets at the veteran’s hospital in Bedford. I spent the evening talking to some of the men who live in the hospital: men in their seventies and eighties, many missing limbs, some semi-immobilized by strokes or muscular disease, most in wheelchairs. They seemed to be enjoying their club, which was a fly-tying group, but the volunteers who were helping them tie flies all told me the same thing: it’s not about the fishing, it’s about the companionship. The men are just happy to have company and have people taking an interest in them.
I thought about that a lot while I observed the fun they were having. Even the ones who could barely speak or respond were smiling. All of them were once soldiers, deemed fit and able enough to go to war. Now they sit in wheelchairs in an industrial cafeteria with Easter bunny cut-outs pasted to the windows, glad for volunteers who come to help them tie flies for fishing excursions that the men are not physically able to take.
So it was a day of contrasts: physical fitness under a bright sun after three days of rain, all of us out enjoying a beautifully designed recreational trail; and then the VA hospital, with the men so physically compromised but still happy to have company. Yet as different as they were, both experiences reminded me that sometimes there is no more blessed way to spend a sunny day than skipping work or school to bask in the fresh air.
The sense of novelty that came with being out enjoying the sunshine rather than sitting at my desk reminded me of a tradition from my childhood. Every year, I was allowed to miss one day of school to go into Boston with my mother on the train. We’d go shopping and eat lunch at a restaurant, and although we could have done the same thing on a weekend or a school vacation day, it wouldn’t have been the same. Feeling sneaky, feeling special, the whole sense of doing something exceptional, was what made it so much fun.
And yesterday I discovered that playing hooky still feels special, even though being self-employed means that I no longer have to ask anyone’s permission to spend a day outside instead of at my desk. My 12-year-old niece Phoebe is visiting this week from Pennsylvania, and because she’s such a good athlete, I knew this was my opportunity to do the kind of bike ride my kids are still too small to do. Given the beautiful weather, I grabbed that opportunity.
We set off on the Minuteman Bikeway at 11. We rode steadily for an hour until we reached the Alewife Station at the end of the Bikeway; then we threaded our way along the extension to Davis Square, where we rewarded ourselves with a fabulous lunch of burritos and guacamole at Anna’s Tacqueria in Davis Square. In both directions of the ride, covering 24 miles round-trip, there was so much to see. Flooded swamps and back yards in Bedford and Lexington. The shimmering expanse of Spy Pond in Arlington. Brooks running through the still leafless woods. Along the Bikeway, women pushing infants in strollers, a preschooler using a scooter, dog-walkers whose multiple charges contrasted amusingly in size and breed, a middle-aged father riding his bike with two small kids in a trailer, an elderly couple walking slowly and stiffly together. It wasn’t crowded the way a sunny Saturday on the Bikeway would be, but there were plenty of people out enjoying some exercise and recreation.
By coincidence, I returned to the same town where our bike ride began in the evening for a different reason: I was writing a feature story on a hobby group that meets at the veteran’s hospital in Bedford. I spent the evening talking to some of the men who live in the hospital: men in their seventies and eighties, many missing limbs, some semi-immobilized by strokes or muscular disease, most in wheelchairs. They seemed to be enjoying their club, which was a fly-tying group, but the volunteers who were helping them tie flies all told me the same thing: it’s not about the fishing, it’s about the companionship. The men are just happy to have company and have people taking an interest in them.
I thought about that a lot while I observed the fun they were having. Even the ones who could barely speak or respond were smiling. All of them were once soldiers, deemed fit and able enough to go to war. Now they sit in wheelchairs in an industrial cafeteria with Easter bunny cut-outs pasted to the windows, glad for volunteers who come to help them tie flies for fishing excursions that the men are not physically able to take.
So it was a day of contrasts: physical fitness under a bright sun after three days of rain, all of us out enjoying a beautifully designed recreational trail; and then the VA hospital, with the men so physically compromised but still happy to have company. Yet as different as they were, both experiences reminded me that sometimes there is no more blessed way to spend a sunny day than skipping work or school to bask in the fresh air.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
One thousand tweets: A retrospective
It’s a great feature on Twitter that everyone’s home page keeps track of their tally of tweets. With my affinity for metrics and counting and tracking, I like knowing exactly how many times I’ve put pen to paper – I mean fingers to keyboard – to generate those 140 characters. And what I just discovered when I logged in is that as of right now, that number is 999. Announcing my daily blog entry with a tweet, as I always do, will make it Tweet #1000.
One thousand tweets, I find myself thinking. Wow. What exactly is the take-home message from knowing I’ve written one thousand tweets?
As I blogged about early on in my relationship with Twitter – which began last August -- at first the 140-character limit was so tough for me. As a journalist, word count is my nemesis. It’s no exaggeration to say that per story, I exert more effort cutting out words from successive drafts to match an editor’s prescribed word count than I spend identifying a story topic, contacting subjects, researching the story’s background, conducting interviews and writing up a first draft. In sum, it is really difficult for me to limit my words. And most of the time an article allows me space for eight hundred or so words. So how, I wondered, could I possibly adapt to Twitter’s 140-character limit?
It will come as no surprise to any editors who read this that I quickly learned that the more you have to cut, the more you realize how much of what you thought you needed to say was extraneous anyway. I can say all kinds of things in 140 characters. I once summarized the plot of Hamlet in a 140-character tweet. I use no more than 140 characters to track my daily running streak – including not only the day of the streak but also the distance I ran, the route, and a few notes specific to that run – and less than 140 characters every day to sum up my daily blog topic, since I need to leave some space left for the characters in the link text.
Like a lot of Twitter users, once I started to build momentum, I found that other communications became more abbreviated as well. Especially if I’ve just been on Twitter, I often write emails that would fit into the 140-character box even when they don’t need to. I have a little less trouble limiting word count in article drafts than I used to. I just find it easier to distill a point than I once did. And I’m really hoping this newfound ability seeps into my blog eventually, since my entries here still trend toward close to one thousand words most days.
But speaking of one thousand words, back to the one thousand tweets and what I’ve learned in the process. Well, for one thing, I’m careful on Twitter, and that’s a good lesson in itself. I type something and then, if it seems to carry the potential to be misconstrued, I erase rather than post. If I’m trying to be witty or sardonic and it’s not absolutely clear to me that that intent carries through, I erase. Wish I could be so circumspect and self-restrained in my spoken communications.
And since I don’t always know who’s reading me on Twitter, I’m more prudent about whether what I’m saying is worthwhile. It’s not that my tweets have to be profound. They never are. It’s just that knowing my tweets are filling up someone else’s queue, I make a genuine effort to try to justify whatever I say before I post it. My running streak may not be of interest to anyone else, but I’ve decided it’s worthwhile to me to post it daily. I post links to my blog in the blatant wish to get more people to read my blog. Again, perhaps not honorable, but worthwhile to me.
I tell funny anecdotes about farm life and the kids, but I try to judge whether they are actually anything that anyone else will gain even the tiniest grain of amusement, entertainment or wisdom from. Occasionally I’ll start to post a cute comment made by one of the kids or an observation of my own that I consider particularly trenchant, only to stop myself and think, “Am I saying this just to say it? Or because I honestly think anyone else’s life will be enriched, even the tiniest bit, even for just a few seconds, by reading it?”
Sometimes I have to admit that whatever I’m saying in those 140 characters really won’t do anything but make me feel clever, important or like an admirable parent for a few seconds. And then I scratch the tweet rather than post it.
I’m always surprised by how often I’ll draft a tweet in Twitter’s character-counting box only to see the character counter at zero when I’m done. It’s like karma when what I want to say on Twitter fits like a glove. But it’s not really just karma. It’s really that saying things in 140 characters continues to be a great exercise for me. When it comes out perfectly, with no need to go back and cut words or even letters, I feel like I’m finally making progress: learning to form my thoughts in more concise and pithy phrases thanks to Twitter.
So here I am at Tweet One Thousand, looking back on seven months with amusement and pleasure. Calling it pride would be going too far. There’s nothing to be overtly proud of in my Twitter feed. It’s just fun to have learned something important these six months: How to write – and yes, how to speak and even how to think – in more concise, more direct terms. It’s still fun, 140,000 characters later.
One thousand tweets, I find myself thinking. Wow. What exactly is the take-home message from knowing I’ve written one thousand tweets?
As I blogged about early on in my relationship with Twitter – which began last August -- at first the 140-character limit was so tough for me. As a journalist, word count is my nemesis. It’s no exaggeration to say that per story, I exert more effort cutting out words from successive drafts to match an editor’s prescribed word count than I spend identifying a story topic, contacting subjects, researching the story’s background, conducting interviews and writing up a first draft. In sum, it is really difficult for me to limit my words. And most of the time an article allows me space for eight hundred or so words. So how, I wondered, could I possibly adapt to Twitter’s 140-character limit?
It will come as no surprise to any editors who read this that I quickly learned that the more you have to cut, the more you realize how much of what you thought you needed to say was extraneous anyway. I can say all kinds of things in 140 characters. I once summarized the plot of Hamlet in a 140-character tweet. I use no more than 140 characters to track my daily running streak – including not only the day of the streak but also the distance I ran, the route, and a few notes specific to that run – and less than 140 characters every day to sum up my daily blog topic, since I need to leave some space left for the characters in the link text.
Like a lot of Twitter users, once I started to build momentum, I found that other communications became more abbreviated as well. Especially if I’ve just been on Twitter, I often write emails that would fit into the 140-character box even when they don’t need to. I have a little less trouble limiting word count in article drafts than I used to. I just find it easier to distill a point than I once did. And I’m really hoping this newfound ability seeps into my blog eventually, since my entries here still trend toward close to one thousand words most days.
But speaking of one thousand words, back to the one thousand tweets and what I’ve learned in the process. Well, for one thing, I’m careful on Twitter, and that’s a good lesson in itself. I type something and then, if it seems to carry the potential to be misconstrued, I erase rather than post. If I’m trying to be witty or sardonic and it’s not absolutely clear to me that that intent carries through, I erase. Wish I could be so circumspect and self-restrained in my spoken communications.
And since I don’t always know who’s reading me on Twitter, I’m more prudent about whether what I’m saying is worthwhile. It’s not that my tweets have to be profound. They never are. It’s just that knowing my tweets are filling up someone else’s queue, I make a genuine effort to try to justify whatever I say before I post it. My running streak may not be of interest to anyone else, but I’ve decided it’s worthwhile to me to post it daily. I post links to my blog in the blatant wish to get more people to read my blog. Again, perhaps not honorable, but worthwhile to me.
I tell funny anecdotes about farm life and the kids, but I try to judge whether they are actually anything that anyone else will gain even the tiniest grain of amusement, entertainment or wisdom from. Occasionally I’ll start to post a cute comment made by one of the kids or an observation of my own that I consider particularly trenchant, only to stop myself and think, “Am I saying this just to say it? Or because I honestly think anyone else’s life will be enriched, even the tiniest bit, even for just a few seconds, by reading it?”
Sometimes I have to admit that whatever I’m saying in those 140 characters really won’t do anything but make me feel clever, important or like an admirable parent for a few seconds. And then I scratch the tweet rather than post it.
I’m always surprised by how often I’ll draft a tweet in Twitter’s character-counting box only to see the character counter at zero when I’m done. It’s like karma when what I want to say on Twitter fits like a glove. But it’s not really just karma. It’s really that saying things in 140 characters continues to be a great exercise for me. When it comes out perfectly, with no need to go back and cut words or even letters, I feel like I’m finally making progress: learning to form my thoughts in more concise and pithy phrases thanks to Twitter.
So here I am at Tweet One Thousand, looking back on seven months with amusement and pleasure. Calling it pride would be going too far. There’s nothing to be overtly proud of in my Twitter feed. It’s just fun to have learned something important these six months: How to write – and yes, how to speak and even how to think – in more concise, more direct terms. It’s still fun, 140,000 characters later.
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