Tuesday Slice: Mother's books

As far back as I can remember
there was always something to read

My father had his Popular Mechanics
the odd Edgar Cayce, a manual or two

But my mother...she had books upon books

Book-of-the-Month Club books
Harlequin romances--one in every room of the house
library books, New York Best Seller paperbacks

My mother could get so lost in a book
"Mom......MOM!"
you'd have to call her name twice

Of course, she bought us books
Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys
comic books and library cards
"Circle what you want from the Scholastic order
 I'll write you a check"

This leads me to wonder
if my own book hoarding
my career in the library
is really just a yearning
for Mom.

******************
Here's an early wish for a Happy Mother's Day to all moms who pass on a love of reading to their children, not just by purchasing books, but by being readers themselves.

Tuesday Slice: One sided conversations

It finally hit me last Wednesday.  The blah-ness set in.  

I had staved it off with work ethic.  I got up early, showered and dressed in cute shirts and colorful jeans. My school laptop was turned on promptly at 730a, sometimes earlier, at my designated work space in the study.  In the last four weeks (has it only been four?), I assisted with developing a help site for teachers, recorded over half a dozen read-alouds, tweeted out online author events, created library lessons for six grade levels, supported my instructional tech teacher's virtual broadcast project and attended over twenty virtual meetings.  I've watched webinars on information literacy, database accessibility, middle grade book releases with author panels.

I have enough work to keep me busy. I am blessed to have a paycheck.   

But reading aloud to a screen, without the reactions of and interaction with listeners, began to fall flat.  How can I tell if they're getting the joke, picking up the pattern, following along?  Book talking without kids present can feel like prescribing medicine without knowing the symptoms.  It's easy to say "Keep reading, students!"--but do they have access to the books that fit them, that fill their needs?  

I miss collaborating with my teachers at the circulation desk, too.  They are busy figuring out how to personalize the district-provided lessons for their classes, some navigating virtual classrooms and learning platforms for the first time.  A few pop in to my weekly "office hour" to listen to tips on connecting ebooks to Google Classroom, differentiating with database tools.  But most are up to their ears in emails from parents, virtual team meetings, and online grading--all while holding down the fort at home with their families.

I'm still getting up early, dressing for work, logging in promptly.  There's been a little more interaction with parents and students--a happy note from a suggested activity, a screencast to help a student navigate an ebook platform.  It still feels so very one-sided, though...I miss my days in the stacks.  

Tuesday Slice: Not just words

Not Just Words

Be careful when you open that old Funk & Wagnalls
(It's the same age as my brother, how did I not know that?)
Gold titles fading on spine and cover
The bindings have seen better days

Every inch of space inside the covers is used
Pronunciation key, foreign sounds, "specimen entries"
My father's name in my mother's handwriting squeezed in front
Abbreviations and weights and measures in the back

Those pressed corsages were my mother's, blackened now
Yellowed plastic containing their fragile petals
From proms or Army balls or Mothers' Days, I don't know
But they were important to her, so they are important to me

Don't throw out that folded napkin in the back!
Open it to find a list of names
Sixteen girl, eleven boy, one for either
To have at the ready for both of our babes
Genders unknown 'til they made their arrivals

So be careful when you open that old Funk & Wagnalls
(It's the same age as my brother, how did I not know that?)
Gold titles fading on spine and cover
The bindings have seen better days.

Tuesday Slice: My office romance

I am entering my third week of working from home.  He is entering his second week.

Our routines used to be more separated and defined.  My four-thirty-am alarm, his six-am.  I would be finished with my morning tasks at the computer before he entered the study, hitting the shower as he drank his coffee, kissing him goodbye before he finished his first cup.  Unless I had the day off, he was always the last to lock up the house.  We wouldn't speak to each other during the day.  I would call from the car in the late afternoon to see which one of us was running later than usual.  If he got home before me, the door would be unlocked and ever-so-slightly ajar, enough that I just had to push it open, because he knew my hands were often full.

Now we're both having trouble with consistent morning routines.  I still manage to wake up before he does, but sometimes by just a few minutes.  My eighteen minute commute, his half hour, are now shortened to thirty seconds, tops, from bedroom to desk.  My setup is at the craft table in the study; he has taken over half the kitchen table, where our college boy usually sits when he's home.  We both log in before we're dressed for the day. His first tasks are sometimes accompanied by my workouts in the living room, but once we're bent over our computers, we can't see each other from our respective "cubicles".

He is an incredibly understanding and supportive co-worker.  I pass by him several times an hour when my Fitbit reminds me to get up and walk, our small house not affording much room for movement.  I sometimes pause for a kiss, and he hasn't reported me to HR (yet).  He is quiet while I am recording read-alouds or running a Hangout, and hasn't interrupted a single virtual meeting by getting in the frame.  Come lunchtime, we'll break for a quick walk around the block together.

They say office romances don't often work out...I think we'll be fine.  Quarantine or not, it's nice to be married to a coworker with a shared work ethic.  Just don't tell the boss about those midday kisses...

SOLSC '20 Day Thirty-one: Thank you notes

Dear Slicing Community,
Thank you for your inspiration, comments, and support for the last thirty-one days.  This is my eighth year of participating in the SOLSC, and the first time I never once lacked for a writing idea, even if it was just the form I would use for the day.  (This may also be due to another circumstance, but that's the next thank-you note.)  Poetry, memoir, six by six, photo walks...this community proves that true, meaningful writing is so much more than a five sentence paragraph, five paragraph essay, write-as-much-as-you-can-to-this-test-prompt-on-a-topic-you-can't-relate-to.  You held me accountable just by being present each and every day this month, commenting on my posts and responding to my comments.  You've made me a better, more thoughtful writer.  

Beyond the writing, it was the delightful search for connections with you that brightened my days.  Travels, classroom aha!s, laments, former pets, nature noticings...every day there seemed to be a shared experience.  A word in your teasers or titles would spark a memory and send me over to your blog to see what we have in common.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!--Chris

***********************************
Dear COVID-19,
Thank you for being such a source of inspiration for my eighth year of participating in the SOLSC.  On March first, I had no idea and no real plan for what to write about for thirty-one days.  (I am, after all, a seat-of-the-pants Slicer.)  But then you showed up, and bam!  Slice after slice after slice was influenced by your arrival and continuing presence.  The changes you caused grew exponentially as the days went by, first weekly, then daily, then almost hourly until they encroached on our living and working routines.  You may be a physical manifestation, but you have wreaked emotional responses by causing the separation of families and shortages in food, toilet paper, and more importantly, medical supplies.  You've also brought out the best in people, bringing tears to our eyes over displays of gratitude and acts of kindness.  And when emotions run high or low, writers write.

So thank you, COVID-19, for your persistence in controlling our lives this month.  You've given us plenty to write about.

--Chris

SOLSC '20 Day Thirty: Carney Park

"Post a picture of your travels" a friend prompted.  "We can take a virtual trip around the world."  She posted a picture from England, another from Paris.

I've lived in Paris (well, for a few months, as a baby).  And Bangkok, Naples, Stuttgart.  We took trips to wonderful places while we lived overseas, thanks to my adventurous parents.  I ran around Pompeii before I could name all our state capitals.

Wonderful trips, historic places...but the first place that popped into my head at my friend's prompt was Carney Park.

Carney Park was and still is an American military recreation center in Pozzuoli, Italy, outside of Naples.  It has the unusual distinction of being located inside an extinct volcano.  

I remember being fascinated by this fact as a child.  We would drive over what looked like a small hill into this huge park.  Standing in place and slowly spinning around, you realize that the small hills are on all sides...you really are in a crater.

We had lots of good times in this park.  My mother learned to drive stick shift in the parking lot of the drive-in movie theater as my brother and I played on a swing set.  My Girl Scout troop held annual Father-Daughter campouts on the campgrounds--it always seemed to rain on those weekends.  The Army-Navy baseball game was held on the Fourth of July, with fireworks after the game was over; I vaguely remember a streaker ran across the field one year, just before the lights went out.

I'm glad Carney Park is still up and running.  The current website shows cabins for rent now, a fitness center, wifi.  The baseball diamonds, soccer fields and golf course are still there,as well as the pool; I don't see the drive-in theater in the description or pictures.

Carney Park in Pozzuoli, Italy...my place to remember today.

SOLSC '20 Day Twenty-nine: It's only been....

• It's only been eighty-nine days since China released news about an outbreak of pneumonia.
• It's only been eighty-one days since The New York Times reported on the virus.
• It's only been forty-seven days since COVID-19 was named by the World Health Organization.
• It's only been twenty-nine days since Nicholas Kristof asked "Is This the Big One?".
• It's only been twenty-seven days since we were asked to think about international travel.
• It's only been twenty-six days since the first news of toilet paper shortages in stores.
• It's only been twenty-four days since the NICU cancelled its volunteers.
• It's only been eighteen days since our annual state library conference was cancelled, and I started receiving emails from hotel and theater chains about their sanitizing efforts.
• It's only been seventeen days since the school field day was cancelled, and our son's college announced it would close in-person classes the following week and begin transitioning to online classes.
• It's only been sixteen days since we went shopping with our collegeboy to stock him up on food and yes, toilet paper.
• It's only been fourteen days since we cut our spring break road trip short.
• It's only been thirteen days since our school district officially closed through April 3rd.
• It's only been seven days since my first online meeting with campus colleagues.
• It's only been five days since Austin enacted shelter-in-place restrictions, and I hurried to my campus to pick up supplies.
• It's only been four days since our school district extended its closure through April 13th, and online teaching and learning became a reality.
• It's only been three days since I began working with a team to put a teacher-help site together.
• It's only been a day since I finally made a video to say hi to my students, to tell them how much I miss them.

Who knows how many days it will be until I see them in person again.
I've learned that a lot can happen in only eighty-nine days, or eighteen, or four...