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Remembering.

11 Sep

I have stayed away from most tv, radio, and internet news today, and I hesitated even to write a post. I have always been conflicted about how to pass this anniversary each year. Part of me feels that this day doesn’t belong to me–I’d only been a New Yorker for one week on 9/11/01, and I didn’t have any loved ones in or near the World Trade towers that day. But another part knows that this day belongs to all of us, because our view of the world as a city, a country, and as human beings changed ten years ago.

And one of the things that I learned on 9/11 was that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been in this city for your whole life, for months, or for only hours–if you are here in a moment in which we all need each other, you are a New Yorker, and every other New Yorker is a person you can lean on.

Today, instead of sitting in front of my tv, I lived. I had brunch with friends I’ve known since college. Two of whom have two-year-olds. I got a picture of my 7-week-old nephew in a Steelers jersey and showed him off to everyone. I watched the “Isaac & Ishmael” episode of The West Wing. I did a little work.

And what I keep coming back to is watching my friends’ kids, and my nephew, whose entire lives will be lived in a post-9/11 world, and what else they might see. This is, I imagine, something every generation feels as they watch a new one being born. And so I am glad that what I do is help to give these children stories. Because we need stories to survive. Stories about first days of school, and friends, and families, and losing a first tooth. Stories about fear and courage, loyalty, and discovering who we are. Stories that show us experiences different from our own and ideas that widen our perceptions. Stories that show us we aren’t alone.

As Josh said in the West Wing episode (and come on, who could say anything better than Josh Lyman/Aaron Sorkin?): “Learn things, be good to each other. Read the newspapers, go to the movies, go to a party, read a book. In the meantime, remember pluralism. You want to get these people? You really want to reach in and kill them where they live? Keep accepting more than one idea.”

I think as long as we have stories and each other, we’re going to be okay.

 

Belief

25 Dec

I’m a believer. I know that there are things I cannot see, or prove, or taste, touch, hear, or smell that undeniably exist. And tonight is a night when you can sense those things perhaps a little more than any other night of the year. It’s important, I think, to believe in the magic of a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, and to listen for sleigh bells chiming or a hoof pawing on the roof. There is nothing like being a kid on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. And because we can believe in this myth, we can believe in so much else–like, say, a baby being born under a star in a manger.

As the famous letter says, how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. We have to believe in the intangibles.

I believe in light in darkness.

I believe in family.

I believe in friendship.

I believe in generosity.

I believe in God.

I believe in magic, science, creativity, and inspiration.

I believe in joy.

I believe in the power of stories.

I believe in understanding someone without words, in connection, in empathy and sympathy and support, in companionship.

I believe in dedication and in trust.

I believe in laughter.

I believe in knowledge.

I believe in love.

I believe in goodness.

I believe in people.

And I most definitely believe in Santa Claus. I always have and I always will.

Some half-formed thoughts on ink…

20 Jun

I’m kind of a sucker for good tattoos, especially very graphic (design-wise, folks! get your minds out of the gutter!) ones and literary ones. I have the Contrariwise blog in my google reader, and I’ve been known to do the occasional Flickr search for typographic tattoos. A number of my friends have very cool, yet simple designs, from a connect-the-dots tattoo to a falling leaf to a bird with a keyhole to various other symbols. The Siren Music Festival down on Coney Island is one of my favorite cool tattoo-spotting places every summer.

Recently, a friend who has a few typography/literature-inspired pieces got a new one– “stet” on the back of her neck. To stet herself, as she is, which I think is such a neat idea. And another friend shared this photo that she came across. Both made me start wanting a third. (I have a Garamond italic ampersand and the lamppost from Narnia.)

When I was growing up, it seemed that tattoos were a very “badass” thing to do. But now it seems like they are so much more prevalent–and nerdy tattoos have just as much prevalence as any other. Maybe I’m totally making this up, but it seems to me that they are becoming more and more accepted. Not necessarily “mainstream” but not a much bigger deal than getting your ears pierced or your belly button pierced. (At least, my mom’s reaction to “I got another tattoo” was exactly the same as her reaction to “I didn’t fold my laundry at the laundromat.”)

And I think that is really interesting for a time when things are moving more and more to digital. Something involving ink and physical, tangible marking is just as popular as ever, if not more so. It makes me think that print isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. While the internet is has permanence (you can find anything and it could be there forever), it’s also so impermanent (the next new thing is always washing away the old). Digital is all ever-shifting pixels and light.

Ink has power. It soaks into the surface it’s used upon. It becomes part of the paper, of us. When I looked up definitions and history of tattoos as I started to think about this post, many used the word “indelible” to describe them. Indelible means “that cannot be removed, washed away, or erased.” A tattoo grows with you. Writer Michelle Delio said, “When designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but they also enhance the soul.” When you hit on the right choice for a design, even though you will change and your focus will shift as life moves on, that design will always hold something special for you. (Which is not to say that people don’t get bad tattoos for ill-advised reasons. That definitely, definitely happens.)

So many novels use tattoos in powerful ways, too. In Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, they are spells, and they can shift and move. There’s Melissa Marr’s books, too. Sometimes it isn’t good, as in The Diary of Pelly D by L.J. Adlington, when everyone must be marked with their genetic line. But back to the good, in Amanda Davis’s novel Wonder When You’ll Miss Me, the “painted” young man in the circus says, “Tattoos are weird, you know. They’re, like, addictive. You fall in love with them and then you want to cover yourself. It’s like you’re reclaiming your body or something. Marking it up just for yourself.”

Who knows whether I’ll have the lightning strike “OH!” idea for a new design anytime soon. Or ever. Maybe rather than being addictive, it’s more that once you have one tattoo, you’re more open to that lightning striking. The ink’s become part of you, and the permanence is no longer scary. But you’ve got to be selective about it.

Anyway. This is all just to say that I wonder if there’s a connection between people of my generation getting more tattoos and the move to digital. Even while we are smitten with the technology and gadgets, and see how they will be important to our futures, are we also grounding ourselves in something real, something that can be touched? Something indelible?

“Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places, the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille.” –Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

A Good Argument

21 Mar

Yesterday on my run, I listened to last week’s episode of This American Life. It’s called “Save the Day,” and the last act is about the Life Raft Debate at a university in Alabama–basically, the students gather once a year, and professors from various disciplines must convince them that, if they were all on a life raft when the world had been obliterated as we know it, their discipline is the one to save. And it had become more about showmanship than good argument over the years. Until the Devil’s Advocate a few years ago–the person who’s job is to say the student shouldn’t save any of the disciplines–pointed out this fact, and told the students they deserved better. They deserved good arguments, not to be coddled or simply entertained. And he pointed out, too, that a good argument doesn’t have to be boring–it can be funny and entertaining but also engaging on an intellectual level.

It reminded me of a moment in The West Wing when President Bartlet says that if nothing else, they will raise the level of public discourse in the country.

Not to get too political, but this is one of the big reasons I voted for Obama. Because he made good arguments. He didn’t pander, didn’t talk down, and didn’t rely on easy catchphrases and showmanship. I felt that he wanted to engage our minds, he wanted us to think, to form our opinions, regardless of whether we agreed with him or not.

I started to think about this blog post right after listening to This American Life yesterday morning, and it seems particularly timely given tonight’s health care debate.

I think however much we all want to be entertained, we also thirst for a good argument, for the debates, the statements, the information that makes us think. And I can tie it all back into books for children and teens, too. (Of course!) One of the reasons I love working on books for young people is that they have that hunger to know and understand things. A good book opens the world and challenges even while it entertains. It doesn’t talk down, but talks to its audience. It holds that audience in high regard. A good book gives everything, and I think that as a result, all of us and our world give everything back in return. We become engaged with ourselves and with each other.

A Fine Romance

15 Feb

I’m a sucker for a good romantic storyline. In books, movies, tv shows, songs . . . whatever. But what makes a romance plot thread a good one? I mean, I know it when I see it, but I’ve been letting this question percolate for a while to try to articulate the answer a little. And two things that have crossed my path in the last few weeks have helped to clarify it for me a little.

The first: Entanglement Theory. If you wikipedia that, you’ll come across a pretty dry definition. But I was clued into it by the To the Best of Our Knowledge podcast from January 23, “The Wonder of Physics.” At the end of the episode a writer explained it as the quantum physics theory that when two subatomic particles are spend a significant amount of time in each other’s orbits, they shadow each other . . . even after they are separated. If one spins a certain way, the other will, even if it’s moved far, far away. It gives me little goosebumps when I think about applying it to us, too, and the people we let enter our orbits–whether romantic, platonic, or family.

The second: the poem that Molly posted yesterday, “Those Who Love” by Sara Teasdale.

Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.

And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.

But without further ado, here’s what I’ve come up with as some keys to a good romance. I’m sure there are things I’ve missed, or exceptions to the rule. Feel free to point those out in the comments!

1. The main story–the orbit–has to be about something other than the romance itself. Love stories are best when they’re subplots. The characters need an orbit to be in with each other, after all.

2. The two characters have some sort of immediate connection. Not necessarily a good one, but something that fascinates, intrigues, or challenges.

3. Their interaction is neither neat nor easy. There are complications, heartbreaks, arguments. The two of them don’t necessarily even know that they are in love, or that it’s going to work out. (Are you thinking Darcy & Elizabeth Bennet with these last two? I sure am. And West Wing‘s Josh & Donna, and MWT’s Eugenides & Attolia, and Graceling‘s Katsa & Po, and DWJ’s Howl & Sophie, and Sarah Dessen’s Wes & Macy, and . . .  see, I told you I’m a sucker for romance.)

4. Most of the romance is not directly talked about. It’s there in gestures, actions, reactions, and feelings, but rather than telling the reader how the characters feel, the writing makes us feel it along with them. As the poem points out, do the strongest loves need words? Are there even any words that could contain it right, anyway? Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t any direct declarations. There have to be one or two scenes when one of the characters holds a stereo over his head, or tells the other “how ardently he admires and loves her.” It’s payoff for all the signals and longing–and we do need to know that the characters realize what they feel for each other.

5. Along the same lines, a lot of the romance occurs in small, subtle details. It’s the build up of those everyday moments that make the grand gestures mean something. (I know I for one always think about the moment at the end of Lioness Rampant when George is there to catch Alanna before she even knows her knees are going to give out.)

6. There’s build up, yearning, tension as the characters circle each other, sometimes coming closer, sometimes further apart.

7. The ending isn’t a “happily ever after” that’s all sunshine and marshmallow fluff. Rather, it’s a hopeful choice that both characters are making together. They are a team by the end, a team that will take on whatever comes next, which is bound to be imperfect, but good because they can count on one another.

So, what do you think? Is this list a good start?

Belonging

13 Feb

A couple of weeks ago, I got to learn and participate a little in an African drum circle. Which isn’t something I would have ever sought out myself, probably, but I’m really glad the opportunity came my way. The man leading us made sure we understood that a drum circle is just that–a circle, a community. You can’t just take a drum and go off in a corner by yourself (because that would clearly annoy your neighbors pretty quickly); you have to be with a group, practicing a rhythm and beat together. It’s about belonging to something larger than yourself, and connection.

The African word he taught us is “ubuntu.” Which, as he explained it, means: I am me because of you, and you are you because of me. So simple, and yet . . . not. In a time of year when ads want us to believe that love and connection can be shown with things–things as superficial as a mass-produced necklace or an overused saying–I think ubuntu stands out as even more real and solid. A day, a life, has meaning because of the people who are connected to it and to us. The memories, traditions, gestures, and affections.

I am me because of the writers who have shared their stories with me; because of my family and friends; because of my teachers and mentors; because of the people who have loved me, and the people who have hurt me; the people who are here, and the ones who’ve gone; the ones near and those far; those I’ve known forever and those I’ve known only briefly.

One of the other things being part of a drum circle, even for only a few minutes, highlighted is that I have absolutely no rhythm. (Which isn’t a new discovery at all.) Think about it too much, and I completely lose the rhythm of drumming (or dancing or clapping or . . . well, anything). But if I stop thinking, and just listen to everyone around me, I can totally stay with them. With them, I can find the beat. Ubuntu.

Science=Magic

14 Dec

About a month ago, I read two articles by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times that kind of blew my mind. I keep thinking about them. And now Dennis Overbye’s on my list of must-read columnists/reporters.

The thing is, science is fascinating. (Hence, my love for RadioLab on WYNC.) Physics is especially fascinating, because it’s also a little crazy. I never got to take a physics class in high school or college, though I would’ve liked to, but what very, very, very basic knowledge of it I have seems to say that it’s largely based on the question “What if?” Which is the question that leads to the most interesting answers, and stories.

One article, “Setting Sail into Space, Propelled by Sunshine,” is about an organization that’s planning to launch satellites that will sail on sunlight once it is in orbit. Like boats sail with wind. Because “light carries not just energy but also momentum–a story told by every comet tail, which consists of dust blown by sunlight from a comet’s core.” Tell me that is not super cool.

The other is an essay about the Large Hadron Collider, “The Collider, the Particle and a Theory about Fate.” This is the one that I kind of can’t get over. It talks about how the hadron collider–an experiment in Switzerland that is trying to cause protons to crash and show how the Big Bang may have occurred–is basically sabotaging itself. Through time travel. Which is a legitimate vein of research. For reals. There are scientists who say that these particles colliding “might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.” So because what results from the particles colliding might be so bad, that result is somehow traveling through time to stop itself.

I can’t quite wrap my mind around it, and yet I also can’t get it out of my mind–and so I guess it makes sense that A Wrinkle in Time and The Time Traveler’s Wife have had the same effect.

In school science classes, the general take on science always seemed to be that it’s the opposite of magic. It’s orderly. It’s explainable, and classifiable, and cut and dry. But I never really bought that. Sure, we can go smaller and smaller from organism to cell to parts of a cell to atoms to protons and neutrons and electrons. We can give everything a name. But does that really explain anything? We can ask “Where did the protons come from?” And maybe we’ll even have an answer to that eventually, if the hadron collider stops sabotaging itself. Still…will we ever truly know why one thing happens instead of another? Why one molecule forms instead of another? It’s all still magic, even if we put a name on it.

Even time is fluid. That article quotes Einstein: “For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion.”

I think maybe I like physics because there’s a sense of wonder, and a sense that a crazy theory just might be the right one. It reminds me of a quote by Roald Dahl that I’ve always liked:

Above all, watch with glittering eyes the great world around you, because dreams are always hidden in the most unlikely of places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

This may be a reach.

21 Oct

So. I’ve had Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” playing continuously in my head since last Thursday.* (Thanks, Vampire Diaries.) In pondering why it’s so catchy, I realized that the refrain has something in common with another song that often gets stuck in my head, “Ultimatum” by The Long Winters.

Now, I know that the main reason these songs are earworms** has to do with the music. But both also involve the idea of reaching and holding.

Ultimatum:
My arms miss you
My hands miss you.

Enjoy the Silence:
All I ever wanted,
all I ever needed,
Is here, in my arms.

Maybe this also has something to do with why they stick in my head. The concept of reaching out and holding and connecting. It’s such an important part of life. And is it perhaps also why book jackets with images of hands are so compelling and appealing?

Or is that a crazy theory?

——

* There may also have been some secret apartment singing and dancing involved.
**I hate the word earworms. I can’t believe I used it.

With a Little Help from My Friends

21 Sep

“A friend is one who walks in when everyone else walks out.”

“Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power, or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.”

“Wherever you are, it is your friends who make your world.”

“A best friend, in my opinion, is someone who you can be foolish in front of, you know, be yourself.”

“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can hope to find in our travels is an honest friend.” -Robert Louis Stevenson

” ‘You have been my friends,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.’” –E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise.” –Samuel Johnson

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” –Aristotle

“The greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved–loved for ourselves, or rather, in spite of ourselves.” –Victor Hugo

“Friends may change and friendships evolve, but they never truly end because they are not merely the destinations of a passing moment but the journeys of a lifetime.”

“A friend is a person who reaches for your hand and touches your soul.”

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

“There are not many things in life so beautiful as true friendship, and not many things more uncommon.”

“I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.” –Walt Whitman

“The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.” –Edward Everett Hale

“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When the are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.” –Emerson

“Nothing makes the earth seems so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and the longitudes.” –Thoreau

“It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” –Marlene Dietrich

“My God, this is a hell of a job. I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my goddamn friends. They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor at night.” –Warren G. Harding

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” –Bernard Meltzer

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” –E. M. Forster

“Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other’s little failings.” –Jean de la Bruyere

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” –Mohammed Ali

“The most beautiful discover true friends can make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.”

“People say true friends must always hold hands, but true friends don’t need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there.”

“Friendship is certainly the balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” –Jane Austen

“Meaning that if someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don’t change because of it. It’s just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.” –Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“It struck her that she was very lucky in her life’s people.” –Kristin Cashore, Fire

A Decade’s Worth of Random Thoughts

22 Aug

Two days ago, I opened up the little black moleskine I keep in my purse to make a note, and realized I had only one page left. I bought this moleskine just before I left for my junior year abroad . . . almost exactly ten years ago. And it’s one of the things, along with my wallet, keys, and a pen, that I always make sure I have with me before leaving the house.

Reaching the end made me stop to think about everything that has happened in life since I first cracked it open: the year studying in England, my first broken heart, graduating from college, moving to NYC to start my career, family dramas, world dramas, friends made and lost, apartment hunting and moving, books read, re-read, loved, recommended, or abandoned, discoveries of all kinds, friends and family members’ weddings & babies. Basically, the period of life in which I grew up. It’s neat to compare what’s written here with the journals I’ve kept during the last ten years, too. There’s a lot of telling in the journals, but the random snippets from the moleskine are just as revealing and memory-triggering. It’s full of notes from talks I’ve gone to, brainstorming for talks I’ve given, lines from articles or books I like, funny things friends have said, t-shirt ideas, lines of poetry (most of which never became anything more than that), illustrators I like, authors I want to read, shopping lists, and other random thoughts and observations.

Here are just a few:

words I like: chthonic, tiptoe, lamppost, unfurled

the curl of pianist’s back

open by chance or appointment

Umberto Eco: “‘who dunnit?’ is a theological question”

things i don’t have keys to

Ira Glass: “notice the people who won’t go away”

grocery list: milk, butter, eggs, whipping cream, raspberries, dark chocolate

shopping list: shelves, hammock stand, pillows

Friend: “I don’t like worms, but leeches concern me.”

At final Harry Potter book street party at Scholastic:
Woman 1: “So what’s going on here besides the book releasing?”
Woman 2: “Oh, the book releasing. That explains the capes.”

How do you share ebooks? If one sibling finishes book and starts another, how do you pass the finished one to other kid?

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