Writing about writing

I shared a couple of Archer's writing camp pieces last week. Now here are a few of Cady Gray's compositions.

First thing each morning, the campers had prompts on the board and did a little writing before the official start of the schedule. The first day's quickwrite prompts were about being a fabulous writer.

What makes you a fabulous writer?
My writing is fabulous because of description and tone. I love describing objects or animals or even people, with fancy words. However, you have to keep a friendly tone, and too many fancy words spoil that tone. It is like that old saying, "Too much spice spoils the broth," or something like that. Just stay the same person throughout your writing. Don't be dramatic in some parts and casual in others. 

What could cause a writer to lose their thrill of writing?
If a writer stops writing for a while, they may pick it up again later. Then, one of two things will probably happen. One, they will "come back with fresh eyes," which means to catch things you didn't before, like spelling mistakes. Two, they will fumble a lot more and get mad at themselves, not wanting to continue and be disappointed again, and again, and again.

I think that the last day's quickwrite was about seeing a glimmer out of the corner of your eye. What happens next? You can see the influence of the YA fantasy-adventure she loves to read in this one.

I slowly creep toward the glimmer, hoping silently for gold. I reach it, and it is as if the very sun has broken through the ground to peek up at the earth. The glimmer rises from the ground, too bright to look at, and everything goes to black ...

"I am in a dream," is my first thought. A rippling effect, pink and resonating. That is what I see in front of me, all around me. A voice, soft and innocent, speaks. "Help ... you ... You must save ... our world ... You are the only one ..." A shock passes through my spine as the ripple effect becomes more violent and the pink turns to purple. Another voice, desperate and echoing, screams. "HELP!" A fuzzy vision plays in my head. An oval-spheric pink blob is there, floating above the ground. It has large eyes and a flap-like mouth. It has no nose, and purpleish spots along its sides. It is being chased by a three-headed dragon-like creature. The middle head snaps at the blob, and it all fades into white ... 

 

Birdspotting

This morning after breakfast, Archer put on his coat and headed toward the front door to play outside. And by "play," I mean "wander around spinning, jumping, and talking to himself," which is what I think of as his "autism time" -- a decompressing or centering activity that allows him some relief from the effort it takes to maintain normal behavior the rest of the time.

He stopped before opening the storm door. Then he turned and came back inside. "Cady Gray," he called, "I think I see a bird in the front yard."

Cady Gray, avid birdwatcher that she is, came running. "I see it!" she exclaimed. "Look, mom!" I looked. It was a red-bellied woodpecker, a bird we occasionally see in our front yard, but always a very special visitor amongst our usual robins, jays, cardinals, mockingbirds, chickadees, wrens, and titmice.

My daughter, thrilled, thanked her brother for calling her attention to the bird. I echoed her appreciation. "When I saw that bird, I felt like I just had to report it to Cady Gray," he explained.

It always impresses me when Archer takes someone else into account. He does this with his sister all the time, but in most cases, it's when she is right in front of him and either expressing her own preferences or reminding him, by her presence, that she has them. In this case, though, he not only noticed something in his surroundings, but made the connection to his sister's interest in birds -- something he himself has never shown interest in. Then he translated that realization into action. He set aside his own agenda long enough to alert Cady Gray to something she wouldn't want to miss.

Such attention to what others might want doesn't come naturally to Archer. But when he's close enough to someone, like his sister, it becomes part of his process. I hear evidence of it when he talked about something a particular classmate likes or is good at. Slowly, slowly, his world is expanding.

One after the other

When Grandma Libby visited over Thanksgiving, she brought something special for Cady Gray: Her portable sewing machine. Since she was upgrading, and since I've embarked on sewing this year with the usual interest from my daughter, Cady Gray got the benefit of a sturdy, small Janome 3128 of her very own.



As every weekend since then has approached, CG has asked me if we could sew with her new machine. There was only one big obstacle in the way -- my vision of a work area in the corner of her room, with a multipurpose table where the sewing machine could live and all kinds of work could be spread out when needed.



We went antiquing and flea-marketing a couple of weekends ago to see if we could make the vision happen. And there at our last stop was this used table sitting in a warehouse. Fifty bucks, said the man. We'll take it, we said.



That very day we started sewing. First some practice sewing straight, guided by stripes on fabric. The next day, armed with more scraps and the tail-end of a bag of lentils, and made a quick bean bag.



Before the next weekend arrived, she prompted me to start looking for a project we could do. I saw this felt garland project on a blog I follow, and I knew it was perfect. Straight to the sewing after cutting -- no ironing and measuring and clipping. And once I got CG started, she could sew as many miles as she wanted without supervision.



I pulled out this beautiful hand-finished circle-marking tool from the folks at WindFire Designs and started drawing circles for her to cut. As the circles piled up, she got more and more confident using the scissors we had gotten to be hers alone.



One right after the other. Maximum machine time, minimum fuss.



The garland piled up on the other side of the machine.



By the time she worked through the entire stack, the string was nine feet long.



And irresistible.



We hung it up near her ceiling, spanning a corner right above her new work table where the sewing machine waits for its next project. Thanks, Grandma Libby!

Relatively spooky

I had a long weekend due to my college's two-day Fall Break this week. And I saved up all the Halloween prep accordingly. Including the jack o' lantern!



We asked the kids whether they wanted two jack o' lanterns, one for each of them, as we've done in the past (mostly because in the past we've gone to pumpkin patches and let them each pick out a pumpkin--not applicable this year since Noel was going to get the pumpkin at the supermarket). As we suspected, Archer said one was fine. After reassuring Cady Gray that this meant she was in complete charge of the sole jack o' lantern, we were good to go.



More than 200 seeds came out of this thing. CG regards the counting of seeds as an important part of the Halloween ritual.



CG's design was inspired by a pumpkin she saw somewhere with a math equation carved into it. She picked her favorite equation and added nerdy spectacles and a big happy mouth just for fun.



I drew the line at carving out "HAPPY," especially since it was so close to the top opening, but executed the rest of her design exactly as drafted. It came out great!



Let others have their jack o' lanterns that are "scary" and "traditional" and "coherent as a collection of elements." CG's design couldn't be more perfect for this family.

What I see is so much more than I can say

Yesterday I posted a lengthy and photo-rich account of some overdyeing experiments. You can read it all at Toxophily, or if you aren't interested in the details, just revel in the eye candy.



But I know that what Noel and other family members are craving isn't pictures of yarn. So to go along with the above photo snapped as we were heading toward the exhibits at EcoFest 2012, here's a short piece of writing that Cady Gray brought home from school.

The Tye-Dye

Once upon a time, I went to Tennessee with my Grandma Libby. We Tye-Dyed one day with a tye-dye kit. We did three swirl patterns and two bullseyes. I did a freehand and one of the swirls. I did a swirl pair of socks and a pair of splatter socks too. We used a neon color kit, but we have a primary one at home. I hope I get to do it again someday.

Eight years ago today

Earlier today I read this post about how time seems to move more slowly when you are taking in lots of new information. That's why childhood days seem so long, and the years fly by the more routine and less engaging your life becomes.

I'll say one thing for routine, though. If you do the same kinds of things at the same time every year, and a momentous occasion happens to coincide with one of them, you get an annual reminder of that occasion whenever that part of your annual schedule comes up. As long as the momentous occasion is a good thing, it's a wonderful chance to remember.

The routine in which I was engaged eight years ago today is something we call PPP -- Professors, Pizza and Pie. The dozen or so freshmen in my Honors seminar meet in the evening with me and the program's dean for some food and conversation. Over the course of a couple of weeks early in the semester, all the freshman seminars will do this, with the dean and their instructors.

Eight years and ten hours ago, I had just come home from my group's PPP. I immediately put on my pajamas and was helping Archer get ready for bed. And my water broke. Copiously. We called a friend to come stay with Archer, I changed into something that wasn't soaked with amniotic fluid (I'm pretty sure it was a muumuu-like swimsuit coverup), and Noel drove me to the hospital. And just a couple of hours later, Cady Gray was born.

I can't think of a single day since that hasn't been more magical because of her presence. I sound like a typical parent when I say it, but I don't know of any way to get across her all-around wonderfulness. She is brilliant, creative, hilarious, sweeter than honey, and beautiful beyond anything that we could have possible contributed to producing. There's a light in her eyes that illuminates the world.

Yesterday, the day before her birthday, I was jokingly bemoaning the fact that seven-year-old Cady Gray was going to go away forever, and I would always miss her. Cady Gray wrapped her arms around me as she does dozens of times a day. "Seven-year-old Cady Gray will still be here," she said. "It's just that there will be a little bit more."

And I was strangely comforted. Yes, the child I love will always be there, receding perhaps under layers of additional years and experience, but never gone. I'll stay connected to her as long as I'm still having pizza and pie with new students, telling them the story of how the dean almost had to assist in her birth, laughing, remembering, and silently giving thanks.

Feathered friends

Last time we spent a few days at Noel's parents' house, Cady Gray couldn't get enough of Grandma Libby's bird feeder. She watched through the living room and kitchen windows as the birds flitted on and off the deck, collecting sightings and assigning personalities to the various species.

I filed that experience away in the back of my head. And when I saw a bird feeder recommended on Kevin Kelly's marvelously useful Cool Tools site, I decided to bring it home.

Since then, Cady Gray comes to me daily with reports of what bird has made an appearance at the feeder. We've had our share of sparrows and wrens and Carolina chickadees and tufted titmouses, as well as the abundant cardinals in our neighborhood.  Both of us have marveled at how many house finches live around us, and have thrilled to the brilliant neon flash of eastern bluebirds. And most exciting, we've often been visited by a pair of downy woodpeckers and even the occasional hairy woodpecker.

Last week, passing through our front room with the big bay windows, I was startled to see a hummingbird buzz by -- and then another. Hoping to attract more, Cady Gray and I acquired a little feeder to stick on the window. Then we waited. Day after day we watched. And yesterday evening, Noel and I were rewarded with a visit from a couple of hummingbirds. I reported to Cady Gray that our feeder had been found, and before we took off for language camp this morning she insisted on watching for a bit. Not two minutes passed before she came running to report her first hummingbird sighting to me.

We've learned that the ruby-throated hummingbird summers in Arkansas, and it appears that we've been visited by both females (who lack the red patch on the throat) and at least one male (who I saw just this afternoon).

I love the excitement that dawns on Cady Gray's face when she tells me about the species she's collected, and describes their behavior. It gives her a pride in expertise, too, as she adopts the role of my guide to Arkansas' bird life. What an unexpected delight, these series of moments prompted by the nature Cady Gray loves so much.

She is dancing away from me now

Today's post about a highly unlikely shawl is at Toxophily.



Three separate people -- well, one married couple and another person -- have mentioned that they miss this blog. Message received, universe! I've got a lot of Toxophily posts in the queue, but I'll also try to do some prose writing here, too.

Just an old sweet song

Back from our trip to the place of Noel's birth, to the metropolis where we played and absorbed culture during our University of Georgia days, to the team that haunts our childhoods and commands our undying loyalty. Back from Atlanta, where we seized the excuse provided by a colleague's wedding to introduce our children to some of the city's riches. Here are a few highlights.



We got to experience two, count 'em, two Staybridge Suites about a mile apart! This photo was taken outside the first one.




Walking the downtown streets.




Archer utterly confused this attendant at the World of Coca-Cola's secret formula vault exhibit with a robotboy question.




Granny Lou and Papa were with us for a couple of days, and the kids worked hard to give them enough love to last until the next visit.




We may not have eaten very healthy, but we ate very happy, including this Johnny Rockets lunch ...




... followed by rock candy on a stick.




We got to hang with old friends from our UGA days.




These are the kinds of smiles that happen inside a Legoland Discovery Center.




And these are the kind that happen when you're in the home of Hammerin' Hank.




Look at that form!




He's trying to stretch it to three! Really testing the arm of that right fielder!




More old friends at the ball game.




Our tomahawk chop took a while to get coordinated.




Cady Gray insisted on keeping score.




An enthusiastic rendering of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame."




Outside Staybridge Suites #2. It's a long story.




The Georgia Aquarium mesmerized Cady Gray.




Peeking at penguins.




There was even a fish for Archer.




CG picked up so many feathers for her collection that I was sure she would fly away on our many long walks.




Our friend Stephen probably wears suits frequently. This is the first time Noel's been in one in many a year.




MARTA was Archer's favorite Atlanta attraction. Goodbye, Peach City -- we'll see you again soon!

How tough must we be to ask for more now?

Today's post about a hat by choice it at Toxophily.



Normally I'd put a picture of the hat here. But CG was being very silly during our modeling session. Most of my shots feature the buck teeth she's growing more prominently than the hat. So here'a a throwback shot of her on the swingset last weekend -- reminding me of how many of those pictures I took of her swinging in earlier years. How she's grown!

When you know down inside that I really do

Today's post about dressing a growing girl for summer is at Toxophily.



And summer it almost is, at least by the holiday calendar here in the U.S. Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

Paper and string

Cady Gray is in an origami phase these days. I keep her regularly supplied with paper (ordered from Amazon in various patterns), and she fills our house with animals, objects, and geometric figures. She was introduced to string figures by a beloved babysitter, and practices the movements carefully.

I remember spending hours in the same pursuits when I was her age. I checked out every book in the various libraries to which I have access, creased them open, and crouched over them on my floor trying to interpret the various arrows and dotted lines in the line drawings.

It wasn't long before I (a) ran out of origami and string figure books, and (b) ran into frustration with directions I couldn't squint into clarity. And that was that. There was no place for me to go to make progress. And eventually, all those skills faded. I can't even remember how to make a teacup with a loop of string anymore.

Cady Gray is in a much more favorable position to keep learning and keep developing those habits in her hands. The reason is the internet. Origami sites -- not to mention paper planes, string figures, whatever you want to make out of those simple materials -- are plentiful. Best of all, you can follow along with illustrative photographs or videos (even better!) not limited in number or size by a paper publication.

I love to watch her create. And just by trying so many things, and practicing the basic skills over and over, she's able to develop a sense of the craft that helps her understand and attempt more advanced maneuvers. Who knows whether she'll outgrown paper and string like I did, or at about the same time? The important thing is that while her interest remains high, she has so many more options, so much better instruction, and is able to accomplish so much more.

You must be my lucky star

Stars fell on Conway today. Their arrival was facilitated by an origami-obsessed seven-year-old, who taught her mom how to make them. We filled a jar in a few hours of folding.




Cady Gray watched the skies for more.




Her brother tried to estimate how many we'd caught.




It's not often you get to hold the stars in your hand.




Each one as individual as its creator -- as plump, as wry, as sparkling.




If you keep your eyes peeled the next time you pass a patch of mossy ground, maybe you'll find a star of your own soon.

The hut theory

We went out to dinner tonight prior to heading over to Archer's school for a math and science exhibition. As we left the restaurant, we started talking about the Republican primaries.

I happened to have heard a piece on NPR about the history of the primary system, so I told the kids about how primaries changed after 1968. Noel then talked about what happens if a candidate, like Newt Gingrich, drops out of the race -- the delegates become free to support someone else.

"It's like if the delegates are in little huts," Cady Gray began explaining. "And if one of the huts gets knocked down, the people inside are free to roam around the village."

"Usually the person who drops out endorses one of the other candidates," I explained, adding that the delegates are then likely to go to that person.

"It's like, to continue my analogy," Cady Gray went on, "the prisoners in the hut that is destroyed have a chance to go to any of the other huts that they want."

Archer followed this up with another primary metaphor -- that it's like playing Coin Runners in Mario Kart, where when a person drops out all their coins become available for the other players to pick up. But to be honest, I doubt I'll be able to think of the primaries from here on out without picturing delegates locked in a series of huts.

Body and mind

While driving Cady Gray to her school today, I was the recipient of an excited discourse from the back seat about P.E.  She loves to play games and dash about, in school or out. Anytime she's moving from room to room, she not only does so at a run, but also throws in random leaps and dance moves. It's a unique, syncopated rhythm.

As she was telling me how excited she was to have P.E. today, I responded with my pleasure in seeing her enjoy all kinds of movement. Not only major physical exercise, but also the fine movements of her hands that make beautiful origami for me, and those that twist yarn into crocheted hearts and knit snowflowers.

So much of what I find rewarding these days has to do with the movement of our physical bodies in the world. To run, to measure, to cut, to stitch, to knit, to walk, to wind, to embrace. It's quite a change from the first four decades of my life, which were all about the mind. And now when I look at my students sitting in class, doing their best to be disembodied as if that's what fulfilling their potential is obviously about, I wonder. Are they better integrated than I was at their age? Do they accept and understand and embrace their future as moving, working bodies, not just hosts for the dance of ideas?

I hope they won't wait as long as I did to learn the potential of my hands, my muscles, my senses. It is a shame that as we grow up, those topics are more and more segregated into classes like P.E. or art, away from the training of the mind which is thought to be purer the less it is connected to movements in space.

A tough lesson

Cady Gray loves playing on Tinkatolli, a great online world for kids that encourages offline creativity.  A few weeks ago, she decided to make a toy bed in response to a Tinkatolli challenge.  I helped her find materials and put some of the parts together (although she'd completed a lot of it before I got involved.  Then I took some pictures of it for her, and she uploaded it into her scrapbook and entered it in the Tinka Fair.

Yesterday she came to me with a plan to delete her project, use another photo, and resubmit it, because she thought that she had submitted too early to be a part of the Tinka Fair.  Then she returned excited and thrilled because she found that her project had been accepted and had garnered several votes already.  The conversation for the rest of the day was about her competition, the votes she'd gotten, and her chances of getting more.

Just a few minutes ago Cady Gray walked into the living room with the crumpled face of a seven-year-old about to burst into tears.  When I asked what was wrong, she said that she actually had deleted her project yesterday before she discovered the Tinka Fair acceptance, and that her bed and all its votes had disappeared from the Fair.  She was crushed.  The idea that site users she didn't know had looked at the picture and thought enough of it to give it a vote had been a huge revelation to her the day before.  She had been looking forward to finding out if her position had improved.  And now it was all gone, with no chance to get it back that she could see.

Anybody who's accidentally deleted work or lost something irreplaceable or missed a chance long hoped for will understand how she felt.  I haven't seen her this bereft in ages.  I told her I understood her disappointment and was sorry, but that there would be other chances.  And just now, about 10 minutes later, she came out with dry eyes to ask for a little more time on the computer, and told me she felt better.  Tinkatolli had a new challenge she'd just discovered, and she was focused on trying to accomplish it.

We've all had those days or weeks when one downer after another has us wondering if we'll ever start back up.  My kids -- and my whole family, really -- have so much going for them.  Most of our time is spent in a really happy place.  That makes me treat setbacks with anxiety and fear; is this negative incident the start of a avalanche?

The message to a kid weeping over a deleted file and a lost contest is that she has plenty of creativity left to make more things, and plenty of other contests to enter.  Archer responded to Cady Gray's distress in typical fashion -- by asking about the limits of the situation.  "Could there ever be a problem that has no solution?" he asked, after I reminded him that there's always another chance to do better.  "Yes," I said as honestly as I could, "but they're rare. Almost always we can try again and work to improve." The message to myself when things don't go my way is the same: Tomorrow is another day.

That awkward age

I probably use the word "awkward" more than most English speakers.  That's because it's one of the words I write most often on student papers.  My high-ability freshmen suffer from chronic overwriting; they use twenty words when two would do, and twist them into the most convoluted and often nonsensical students you can imagine.  "Awkward construction" I write on a sentence that contains three unnecessary dependent clauses.  "Awkward pronoun usage" I write on a sentence that turns itself inside out trying not to commit to the gender of a hypothetical person.  "Awkward" I write, just plain "awkward," on any sentence that would cause someone reading aloud to stumble or backtrack.

On the last day of school before the winter break, both kids were invited to wear their pajamas to school.  I drove Cady Gray there, as I usually do.  "This feels awkward," she kept saying in the back seat, referring to the sensation of wearing inside clothes outside.

This afternoon, Noel enlisted Cady Gray's help with some holiday baking.  She sampled the batter for some primal cocoa and nut bites.  "This tastes awkward," she giggled, unfamiliar with the texture of unbaked batter and non-flour-based treats alike.

I'm not sure where she's picked up that word, but it strikes me as the perfect adjective for the situations where she used it.  Awkward is not fitting into the usual categories, the well-worn tracks of our lives.  Awkward is out of place, square pegs in round holes.  But awkward isn't necessarily wrong.  It should be noticed, but maybe sometimes it should be embraced.

Now bring us some figgy pudding

Some of the folks at our church organized a small caroling expedition this evening.  It wasn't a highly structured affair -- a list of shut-in members to visit, a series of nursing homes.  And there weren't many of us, and we weren't rehearsed, and we didn't have accompaniment.  (At one of the nursing homes we walked in right on the heels of a large Methodist youth group that had brought music stands and guitars.  Is that really in the spirit of caroling, which is in my experience an a capella endeavor?)

But we had heart, and a lyric sheet, and some strong voices.  Most of all, we had a desire to participate in one of the most iconic forms of giving that the season affords, or at least the Victorian version of the season that we all treasure.  And we had a cherubic little girl giving it her all.  We made sure to put Cady Gray, our only child participant, front and center so that our lack of professionalism and preparation would be offset by her indomitable cuteness.

Cady Gray, for her part, took it as seriously as I would have taken it at her age.  I used to love any occasion where I was the only child doing something with a bunch of teens or adults.  It made me feel like they had neglected to notice that I was a child for a moment, and included me in something usually reserved for people twice my age.  I always tried to act casual, like I belonged.  And I saw that with Cady Gray singing tonight.  She wasn't a retiring flower; I could hear her belting it out even over the big booming sounds of the choir members and youth group stalwarts who carried our tune -- even over my very loud voice, and I was singing as loudly as I could.  She studied the lyric sheet carefully and practiced in the back seat as we drove from location to location.

Noel is big on occasions where we can "make memories" for the kids.  This is the kind of memory I treasure, and the kind I want Cady Gray to keep with her long after she leaves childhood behind.  Singing with the grown-ups, bringing smiles to the faces of elderly and infirm community members, standing in a nursing home common area and having resident after resident wheel themselves up to listen in and sing along.  I hope she remembers how easy it is for her to make people happy, and never doubts her power to give so much joy with just a tiny investment of herself.

Konichiwa, Masako

You remember a few months ago when I visited Tokyo and got to spend time with my dear student Tamami's mother, Masako.

This week Masako has repaid the favor.  She is visiting Conway on the occasion of Tamami's graduation.  And she brought gifts for my children.  I'can't describe how kind and generous she's been to them, even having never met them.

On Tuesday she did get a chance to become acquainted with Cady Gray. Tamami urged me to bring CG to Knitwise, our crafting club.  Masako had a surprise for her.



It's this beautiful kimono, complete with a matching bag containing a tiny bunny doll which is itself wearing a kimono and carrying a bag ... I'm not sure how far down it goes.

Aren't they beautiful? Am I not lucky to have a student who loves my daughter, who shares that love with her mother, who works so hard to bring special things from halfway around the world?

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name

Today's post about a hat for a girl who deserves all the love in the world -- like we all do -- is at Toxophily.



She just gets more beautiful every day, doesn't she?