Spring fever

On Monday, February 16, I sent every last word of the Book ms. electronically to the editor.  Wow, what a feeling!  Is this why we write?  Because it feels so good when we stop?  I know it's not quite over yet; there will still be those grueling author queries from the copy editor.   But for now it was time to celebrate.

This is what I did over the next week:  saw four movies (in preparation for the Academy Awards ceremony), went to a concert at the Disney Hall, enlisted my teenage granddaughter to help me do some serious gardening, and hosted an intimate Oscar party.

It was sheer giddy bliss.  This was what I had THOUGHT retirement would be like.

Even the weather is cooperating.  It is sunny and warm, and everything is blooming, even the flamboyant amaryllis that was just a bulb in a pot when I got it for Christmas.  When it finally flowered this week, the stem was more than three feet tall, and it was so top-heavy that it kept capsizing.  I finally had to cut it off and put it in a vase.  

The daffodils are nearly finished, but the wisteria vine is beginning to dazzle with its purple

 flowers that are so glorious for their brief life each spring.  

I even tackled the rampant bougainvillea in the backyard, hacking off diseased limbs until the green recycle bin would hold no more.  

And today I committed to another writing project.  I'll be doing an article about library teen employment programs for Library Trends, using my work with the LEAP program at the Free Library of Philadelphia as a kind of case study. Flowers want to grow.   Words want to be written.

Hogamus higamus

I think it was Dorothy Parker who reportedly woke up in the middle of the night with an inspiration.  The words that came to her were so brilliant and insightful that she instantly wrote them down, certain that she had unlocked the key to a wise and wonderful poem.  She woke up the next day and read what she had written:  "Hogamus higamus, men are polygamous.  Higamus hogamus, women monogamous."  (My friend Theresa has had a similar experience, but that is her story to tell.)

I felt like I was channeling Dorothy Parker last night.  I had finished everything but the last chapter of the Book, which I had optimistically titled "Claiming the Future."  When I sat down to put words to that title, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what to say.  It was one of those paralyzing moments we writers come to dread.  Sometimes we know what we want to say but don't know how to say it.  That we can manage.  That's all about writing and rewriting until you get it right.  But this is worse:  not knowing what to say.

I closed the Word file.  I listened to some music.  I ate supper.  I finished reading The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle.  I tried not to fret.  I went back to the computer, opened up Chapter 6 and read those words again:  "Claiming the Future."

Words from the powerful, evocative poetry of Margarita Engle that I had just been reading came flooding back; and suddenly I knew that it wasn't up to librarians to claim the future as I had been thinking (and somehow knowing it was wrong).  It is the children who must claim the future, and we librarians who give them the support to do so.  

So I wrote in one of those white heats of inspiration in which the words flow like lava.  I referred to Engle's book.  The Surrender Tree is a book of poems that tells the story of Cuba's wars for independence from Spain, fought from 1850 to 1899.   The dominant voice is Rosa's, a slave who escaped to the forest and joined the freedom fighters there.  She becomes a legendary healer, using her knowledge of medicinal plants to ease the pain and suffering of wounded men on both sides of the fighting.   A young girl named Silvia  escapes from the reconcentration camps established by the Spanish government to control the peasant population on the island.  She joins Rosa, who has grown old while the wars rage on endlessly.  Rosa teaches Silvia one cure at time.  She introduces the girl to the Simple Verses of Jose Marti, the poet who first inspired her to hope; and she watches as the girl becomes a skilled healer in her own right.  Rosa thinks that she and her husband are like the rock-hard wood of the guayacan tree, so heavy that it cannot float while young people are like the wood of a balsa tree, light and airy.

Young people drift on airy daydreams.

Old people help hold them in place (p. 113).

That was it.  I had the beginning of the final chapter of my book.  I saved my work, sent a copy to my friend and colleague Elaine for her feedback, shut down the computer, and withdrew into a video of Devil in a Blue Dress.  When I woke up this morning, I was afraid that I might have had my own "hogamus  higamus" moment last night.  I was fearful about reading again what I had written, but Elaine's email was encouraging.

I took a deep breath, opened the file, and read what I had written.  It worked.  I decided that this was an occasion for "less is more" and just wrote enough to wrap it up and to clarify the idea that librarians can be the anchors for the next generations dreams and dreamers, not holding them back but lifting them up.

Now all I need to do is figure out some way to add a little sparkle to chapter five, write an introduction -- and I'm done with this puppy.

Comfort

It's another cold, rainy day in paradise.  The Book is nearing completion.  I should be happy that the weather does not tempt me outdoors.  Why not glue myself to the Aeron chair in front of my computer when most other options involve slogging through the rain?  Still, when the writing doesn't go well and I feel like I'm pushing my way through molasses with nothing to show for it but treacly, gooey prose, I need comfort.   Actually, I need comfort even when the writing is going nicely.  And comfort usually means food.

I was especially stressed this morning.  The good news is that I wrapped up the all-important chapter on re-imagining childhood.  This is really the heart of the book,  and it required a lot of careful thought and precise language so I was feeling pretty good.   The next chapter should be relatively straight-forward.  I'll be using the model of outcome-based planning and evaluation described in Dynamic Youth Services through Outcome-Based Planning and Evaluation by Eliza Dresang, Melissa Gross, and Leslie Edmonds Holt to suggest a more intentional way of delivering library services to kids.  I reached for my copy on the shelf where it should have been:  no book.  I looked to the left of me.  No book.  I looked to the right of me.  No book.  I even looked up into the tree.  No book.  Not even any monkeys.  I looked EVERYWHERE.  

I checked the LAPL online catalog:  not there!  Why didn't they buy this book?????  I checked the UCLA online catalog:  checked out.  Finally in desperation, I logged onto Amazon.com and ordered a copy to arrive overnight on Saturday with some insanely high delivery charge.   Then as I was walking from my office to the kitchen to make lunch, I spotted my copy of the book wedged between American Children's Literature and the Construction of Childhood and Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children.  I had looked there in my panicky search but hadn't seen it. 

Oh, well.  After tomorrow I will own two copies of this useful book.  But for now I needed comfort.  There are some foods that ooze comfort.  Chocolate is one, of course.  But when I need a comfort lunch, I revert back to childhood pleasures.  These are meals that would cause a foodie or someone on a low-carb diet (that would be me) to run screaming from the table:  potato patties made with mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches made with Velveeta, Campbell's cream of tomato soup served with so many saltine crackers that it should more accurately be called saltine crackers soaked in cream of tomato soup.  All of those meals have comforted me in the past.  Today I made one of my mother's favorites:  a scrambled egg sandwich with ketchup on white bread.  She sometimes added onions or green peppers and called it a Denver Sandwich.  

I prepared it.  I ate it.  It was delicious, and now I am fortified for another afternoon of writing.