Author Archives: Jennifer Butler Basile

Children, Literacy, Poetry, Weekend Write-Off, Writing

Sky Magic

I grew up with many students who hated poetry.  Talented students.  Intelligent students.  Students who could write well themselves.  But understand what a poem was really saying?  And enjoy the process?  No way.

And then I became a teacher.  I worked with many teachers who avoided poetry, either because they had experiences similar to my former fellow students or because they figured their students would react in much the same way.

Somewhere between the playful lyricism of picture books and class study of extended texts, readers lose the magic of words, metaphor, and imagery, which is a missed opportunity for all.  Poetry uses words in beautiful and economical ways, providing teachable moments for literary terms and succinct expression.

That’s why when I find a children’s anthology of poetry, I am more than happy to check it out.  The latest one I’ve discovered is Sky Magic, a compilation by Lee Bennett Hopkins.  His volume, My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States, with lovely illustrations by Stephen Alcorn, once part of my classroom library, is now part of the special collection I plan to share with my own children.  So I was eager to check out this other volume, illustrated by Mariusz Stawarski.

Every poem in Sky Magic evokes the dreamy nature of stargazing and sunny mornings.  Every one is accessible, even those written by ‘adult’ authors.  An excerpt from Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo mixes well with a poem by children’s author and poet Rebecca Kai Dotlich (whose poems in There’s No Place Like School, compiled by Jack Prelutsky, I love).  All are accessible because they use sparse language to tell stories.  All good poetry does so, through phrases and symbols, examples and metaphors.  And there is no child – young or old – who cannot appreciate a story.  Poetry anthologies made specifically for children have the added bonus of illustrations to add yet another dimension to the story.  Stawarski’s paintings are so evocative of dreamy days and nights, they bring figurative language to literal life.

Share a book such as Sky Magic with the young readers in your life – or the poetry phobes – and usher in the dawn of a new era: another form of storytelling and verbal vision accessible to all.

Legends

In the language of stars
lie stories of old
brilliant legends
told; retold.

Spelling out sagas,
spilling out light,
a mythical manuscript
filling the night.
– Avis Harley

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anxiety, Identity, Living

Lowest Common Denominator

We’re taught to see the big picture.  The interrelationship of all things.  This keeps us all on the same page, united in our humanity, celebrating our differences in their similarities.  It helps us make meaning and induces awe.  I get it.  I value it.

But this mindset is antithetical to a ‘one day at a time’ mentality; a live in the moment attitude; that ever-present push for mindfulness.

Especially for an anxiety-ridden person such as myself.

How can I not ‘sweat the small stuff’, when it adds up to a whole mess of stuff?  Each tiny bit of tedium I must attend to throughout the day fills up the entire day.  I cannot shut off the mechanism in my mind that fits each peg into its hole in the mosaic of my life.

X leads to Y then to Z and every consonant clamors in dissonance.  I can’t hear the letter for the alphabet.

I’ll always be an English major, though I graduated a number of years ago.  I’ll always be a book reviewer.  An English/Language Arts teacher.  A writer.  A critical reader.  A literary theorist.  All this is type-set into my skin.  I eat, sleep, and breathe words, letters; their combinations, their phraseology.

I am forever searching for ways to form patterns, find themes, stack layer upon layer of meaning.

But what about when I need to reduce?  To distill an idea down to its purest form?  Base.  Primitive.  The smallest atom of an idea.  I need to reverse operations.  How do I learn to do that?

“The proper, wise balancing
of one’s whole life may depend upon the
feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.”
― Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

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anxiety, Living, parenting

Allergic Christmas-itis

I’m allergic to Christmas trees.

I may have inherited my father’s nasal repulsion to the pine pinnacle of the holiday season.  There is, in fact, a very high likelihood of that, as I start sneezing as soon as I sit near it.

But that’s not the only form of allergic reaction there is.

The other kind begins round about the time the plastic totes of Christmas decorations pile up in the living room. Upon their appearance, the kids descend in a maelstrom of grabby fingers and fists like the clutching, covetous old sinner himself.  But it’s me that’s more like Scrooge in my demeanor.  I can’t handle the tissue paper strewn, the fragile ornaments bounced, the stockings splayed when they are not to be hung by the chimney at all right now – never mind with care.  They wanted to trim the tree three days ago; their father and I have to attach tiny twinkle lights to the end of each tree branch with a slight gap in tiny twisted wires before even one ornament can be hung.

If we manage to fend them off long enough to get the lights on, once the first ornament is lifted, all bets are off.  Look at this one, Mommy. When did I get this one? Is this yours? Daddy’s? Can I put this one up? Do you have a hook? Is this one okay here? Ooh, pretty.

Half of these comments are in response to a family heirloom made of blown glass teetering on the brink of extinction.  It’s like they tag-team you: one grabbing the fuzzy, innocent lamb so the other can grab the cut-glass crystal pendant while your back is turned.  Wait, what. No, not that one. Don’t do that. Mommy will do that one. Stop. Don’t touch. Daaaaaaaaadddyyyyyy!

My husband actually got me on video last year mid-rant as I tried to control the chaos.  It didn’t work and it didn’t make for fun family movies.  This year was slightly better.  We put the tree in its stand one day (after smearing the ceiling with pine sap and chopping the perfectly tapered spire from the top so it would fit); did the lights and ornaments the next.  The plan was to light a fire, put on Christmas carols, and take our time.  The kids ended up nagging us for the better part of the day while we attended to family business and I still ended up twitching.

At one point, as I stared down into my four-story ornament organizer, I actually contemplated dropping small squares of paper into each compartment so I would remember where each ornament belonged upon dismantling of the tree. That’s when I figured I was probably taking things too far.

a. I am way too concerned about the level of organization for my out-of-season decorations.
b. That means I probably have too many decorations.
c. That also means proves that I’m a control freak.
d. And anal-retentive, type A . . . .
e. By fitting things, stuff, multiple objects into compact little boxes to contain them, I’m trying to establish some sort of order on a time/situation/season when I apparently feel overwhelmed.
f. My head is so full of stuff nowadays (several years now) that it can’t hold it anymore/together.

Instead of singing along to the soothing sounds of Bing Crosby’s crooning, I want to stab an ice pick in my eye. Instead of reliving the memories of each ornament and the story it tells, I’m making horrible memories for my children as I snap at them. It’s too much all at once. And there’s that expectation of being so flippin’ merry. There’s the pressure to recreate Currier and Ives. Instead of taking it slow and easy, everything needs to be a production with the stage set and the characters in play.

photo by Jennifer Basile

Do you ever feel like this during the holidays!?

So, yes, I’m allergic to my Christmas tree. Yes, I hate trimming the tree. Don’t send the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future to my door; I’d probably just yell at them for pawing the ornaments anyway.

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Identity, Living, motherhood, parenting

Pop IS a Weasel

Whatever our proclivities in music, whether we like it or not, pop music is infectious.  It’s catchy, has a funky beat to it, and makes us want to move our bodies – most of the time.  Pop is, after all, an abbreviated form of popular.

I, however, shunned this mainstream music sometime around tenth grade, when Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder burst on the scene with their unapologetically noisy and angsty music.  Bubble gum and lip gloss and boyfriends?  Ugh.  Gritty guitar and grunge and pissed-off people?  Yes!

I scoffed at the perfectly polished, canned rhythms and the lifestyle it seemed to eschew.  I slapped a bumper sticker for the local ‘modern rock’ radio station on my car and changed the channel for, oh, about 25 years.

And then my children discovered how the controls on the radio worked.  They discovered the bouncy, syncopated beats.  They called out from their belted backseat bastions for the bastions of popular culture.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

from www.nursery-rhymes.org

Who me?

It was only a matter of time, really.  I remember belting out every single word to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” as a kindergartener.  They only want what feels good and sounds good, with none of the prejudicies of high art vs. low, sophistication vs. simplicity.

However, it is in being forced to listening to these songs and music that I’ve made an important cultural discovery. There’s a whole lot of people walking around completely clueless of their personal worth.

Listen to One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” (I’d post the link but that totally crosses the line of my personal philosophy. Sorry – you’ll have to find it on your own).  “You’re insecure” is the first line of the song.  You don’t know you’re beautiful? Looking at the ground when someone looks at her?  The entire song is these young men pointing out to the female subject that everything about her is what makes her beautiful.

Bruno Mars’ “Treasure”: a song worth it just for his Jackson 5/Early Michael Jackson-esque singing, but that also has a theme of not knowing one’s worth.  Despite being wonderful and flawless, the subject “walk[s] around here like you wanna be someone else”.  He tells her, “you should be smiling.  A girl like you should never look so blue.”

So what is it about our society that we need pop artists to tell us we should be content with who we are; that we should be happy?  What is so lacking that even the airwaves rush in to fill the void?

To me, it’s a disturbing trend.  Someone, something has failed in our current system of being if there is a trend like this among music.  I’m not saying it’s bad to build people up; I’m wondering why there are so many walking around already beaten down.

Were we not loved as children?  Were we not told of our innate worth through hugs and hand-holding and ‘I love you’s?  Have we suffered a spiritual crisis that has let us forget that we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’?  As a special deacon used to tell me, “God made me and He don’t make no junk.”  We all have our worth.  We are all someone’s treasure – even if no one else’s on earth, at least our own, and certainly to God.  Our very existence is enough to make us beautiful.

Looking closely at these songs has also tipped me off to one other disturbing nuance: the fact that, in both songs, males are telling females their worth.  As a woman and mother of three girls, it scares me that the lyrics could be construed as a lesson to value oneself through the lens of male approval.  There is something very special about finding a partner who will value you and point out beneficial qualities you may have missed in yourself.  But to look solely to an outside – especially sexual – source for self-worth is dangerous.  The fact that pop music is so infectious and seemingly feel-good could slide such messages right under the radar without young people even realizing their transmission.

And here I was scared that my kids liked pop over some other style of music.  It runs much deeper than that.  Now I really have a reason to go listen to angsty music.  But, if I haven’t ruined the carefree nature of pop music, I could go listen to that for a pick-me-up.  Whatever it is, we all have to move our feet in time to the rhythm and pick each other up if we fall.

* Disclaimer: I must acknowledge that my grunge/alternative music is not so uplifting and self-affirming either.  It was born, in fact, of a self-loathing and misery.  And among its measures are certainly misogynistic ideas and mistreatment.  But pop certainly presents its off-color ideas in a much more appealing package.  Plus, ‘modern rock’ is not in heavy rotation like Top 40.

** Weasel image from nursery-rhymes.org

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Children, motherhood, parenting

The Elf on the Shelf: Blessing or Curse?

Children all over the world have been scared into submission by Santa for centuries. Starting with December 1, if not sooner, parents have had a disciplinary lever in Kris Kringle to shove their little ones under their thumbs. And then came the Elf on the Shelf. Holy holly berries! Now there was tangible proof of Santa knowing each child’s every misdeed. Never mind the millions the mother/daughter team likely made exploiting their family tradition and the warped fun parents can have placing their elf in compromising positions each day, this was parenting gold.

Image from mommyofamonster.com

We could scare the shit out of our kids with that freaky little face and make them work for their gifts, putting the merry back into a season usually packed with mania.

Until the morning you wander downstairs, still in a fog of sleep, and are met by the faces of your little cherubs who want to know why Mikey is in the same spot. Because Mommy has more important things to do than move a felt-covered elf with his hands and feet sewn together, that’s why! But, no, that’s not what you say. You weave some elaborate story about how he must have been so tired from all his work that he had to rest last night instead of flying back to Santa. Or you just feign ignorance. Oh, I don’t know! Maybe he’s really cozy there. You don’t tell them that Mikey had too much eggnog and couldn’t find his way back to the North Pole.

Or until he shows up for the first time this season and uber-scares the shit out of your sensitive child. Perching him above the newly acquired bunk beds so he can check them out may not have been such a good idea as he appears to be giving her the hairy eyeball as she tries to sleep mere inches from him on the top bunk. Her younger sister alights the bunk to stare lovingly into his rosy-cheeked face, agog at this Christmas marvel. But as bedtime approaches, the sensitive one dissolves into tears and you want to rip the friggin’ thing off the ceiling fan and fling it. But then he’d lose his magic! Luckily, your husband has the brilliant idea of rotating the fan blades to avert his gaze.

About fifty times between dinnertime and your little ones’ bedtime, you look at Mikey and say, Must remember to move him before I go to bed, and wrack your brain for some creative spot for him (with the new added stress this year of one that won’t cause your sensitive child irreparable psychological damage). Once the children are in bed, like the magic that flies Mikey back to the North Pole and that allows the Weeping Angels to sneak up on us, some memory sweeping phenomenon takes place and Mikey doesn’t get a new home.

That is, until 1:41 AM when you bolt upright in bed and realize you didn’t move him. After the obligatory mid-night bladder deballast that occurs in all mothers, you drag a dining chair to the foyer and remove Mikey from the chandelier. You manage to complete this feat of physical prowess while still half-asleep and live to see your pillow again, but you wake with no recollection of it. When your child asks you where Mikey is this morning, you freak out all over again. You raise your eyes reluctantly to his perch from yesterday, dreading that your child has already seen that flash of flannel. But he’s not there. How can it be? Oh, you did move him. Imagine that.

Sometimes, the elf on the shelf hides so well, no one can find him. Not even the mommy who placed him in the Elf Protection Program so his ruse of returning to the North Pole upon hearing Santa’s bell wouldn’t be blown. Mommy rips apart the bins of Christmas shmagma in the basement while Daddy keeps the cherubs busy upstairs – after she forgot to locate and place the elf while they were out of the house – surprise, surprise.

All those elves perched on the shelves of holiday houses throughout the land aren’t really keeping mischievous kids in line; they’re slowly driving parents crazy. Instead of scaring the shit out of misbehavers, they’re scaring the shit out of memory-challenged mothers and fathers. The shock of coal in the stocking is nothing compared to that early morning shock of parents who forgot to move the elf! In a world where parents can’t even go to the bathroom by themselves, stealing a spare minute or two to feign a flying elf is a Christmas miracle in and of itself.

And that’s really why we do it, isn’t it?

Preserving the childlike wonder of Christmas is part of all these machinations. Seeing the awe in their eyes makes it all worthwhile. If we can get them to behave – while avoiding nightmares – it’s all good. Just don’t ask me how I feel about it at 3 o’clock tomorrow morning.

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Children, Literacy, Weekend Write-Off

On My Way to Buy Eggs

“May I go outside and play?” Shau-yu asks.
“I need you to go to the store first,” her father replies.

On My Way to Buy Eggs by Chih-Yuan Chen starts simply enough.  In this father-daughter exchange, it seems Shau-yu’s intentions for the day are reversed, but her trip to the store becomes the play, not a postponement of it.  She chases shadows, greets neighborhood animals, transforms found objects into treasures and the back alley ways of her surrounding area into magical places.  Imagination allows her to see her ordinary path in a new light – that and the discovery of a blue marble and lost pair of glasses.

The everyday nature of this story is where its power lies.  Not only does it showcase childlike wonder and the power of play, On My Way to Buy Eggs proves that life occurs in the small moments.  The true experiences occur in the in-between.

Shau-Yu returns home at the end of the book.  The two final pages of the book, a spread of illustration, show her playing in the background while her father prepares supper with the eggs in the foreground.  The wordless scene incorporates all the facets of her journey.  Whimsy and the necessary intersect.  Real life and the imaginary merge.

Children form identity through a sense of belonging, a place to call home, a combination of play, responsibility, and autonomy – all of which Shau-Yu encounters on her way to buy eggs.

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Children, Identity, motherhood

Skating Away . . .

Putting a woman who has given birth three times, the last time nearly splitting her in two, on roller skates probably isn’t the best idea. But that’s what I did this past weekend at my friend’s daughter’s birthday party.

My eight year-old was fine once she remembered what she’d tentatively learned at other parties, but my four and six year-olds needed assistance and my there was no way my husband was getting out there.  The last time he skated was the ice variety and let’s say the ice nearly melted from the heat of pain-induced oaths he uttered.  Plus, I enjoy skating. I loved it as a girl, forcing the wheels over the pebbly asphalt of my street, gliding along the multi-layered laquer of roller rinks.  There was a freedom and euphoria in the way the wind pushed my hair back and the music thumped as I floated along.  I thought I was the cat’s pajamas when I mastered cross-overs.

But that was when I was young and nimble; limber and loose.

The other day I used muscles I hadn’t used since childbirth – or at least since the physical therapy following childbirth to put me back together.  Keeping my feet from drifting too far apart, I had to pull those adductor muscles to attention and, oh, that got my attention.  I managed to haul my foot over for one cross-over before I felt the other one start to slide out.  The thought of my pelvis in the aftermath if I ended up in a split on the floor was enough to dissuade me from trying any more.  My groin muscles were already pulling; I didn’t want to strain any of their neighbors.

But, when one of my girls took a break, or refused to take my hand, I would speed up, feeling the familiar rush of air. My godson, brother of the birthday girl, took a shine to the disco ball at the center of the rink and kept gravitating toward it whether he had skates on or not.  When his father went out to be sure he stayed in the center, out of the melee of circling skaters, an impromptu dance party popped up.  His brother and sister, my girls, and husband sans skates, joined us and grooved to Daft Punk disco-style.  It still had the same effect as my favorite Michael Jackson song way back when.skates

I don’t know if it’s the act of skating itself or the associations it engenders, but it’s a whole lot of fun.  There’s no way I could last as long as I used to when I could feel myself rolling around the rink even after I’d taken off my skates.  And I’m sure my body wouldn’t forgive me either if I tried.  But as the birthday girl asked me as she rolled by, “How’s your skating going? Is it going good?”, I can say, “Yes, yes it is.”

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Children, Literacy, Weekend Write-Off, Writing

Under the Big Sky

Apparently I’m drawn to morbid and depressing children’s books.  Save a sweep of the memoir section on our walk in, the children’s section is the only one I get a chance to truly explore while at the library.  So perhaps it is some deep-seated need for adult content even if it must come in child format.

Ironically, I try to keep my ‘child’ selections from my own children, keeping them with my books rather than their stack of picture books.  But if they look like ducks . . . my kids expect them to waddle like ducks and inevitably find them.

One such duck is Under the Big Sky by Trevor Romain.  The main character is sent on a journey by his grandfather, approaching the end of his years, to discover the secret of life.  If he does so, the boy will receive all of his grandfather’s riches.  Not a bad carrot to waddle after, and so, the boy sets off, querying objects, animals, and people as he goes.  The answers he collects are rich examples of metaphors, which present wonderfully teachable moments for young readers in trying to suss out both their literal and figurative meanings.

Understandably, there is no one easy or straightforward answer.  Expecting that there was one, the boy becomes discouraged.  He finally crosses the world and many years, searching.  Upon his return to his grandfather (who, honestly, I was surprised had not died by this point), he reports that he has not found the secret of life.

“But you did find it,” said his grandfather.  “Your journey itself was the secret of life.  And along the way you have learned everything you will need to enjoy a full and rich life.”

And so the boy does attain his grandfather’s riches; in fact, he had them all along.  As do all of us on this journey of life. Apparently it takes an adult reading of a child’s book to remember this.  Who knows?  Perhaps if children do read books like this, they will discover the secret sooner.

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Living, Spirituality

The Secret to Happiness

I ordered a gift subscription to an inspirational magazine for my great aunt last year.  I signed myself up for their email newsletter as well.  Free spiritual advice and inspiration? Why not?

Over the year, I’ve amassed quite a collection of unread inspirational emails.  Their subject lines lure me enough to prevent deleting them, but not to click and read.  Usually, I save them to read at another time when I can devote my undivided attention to them.  We know how that usually goes.  It would be better to do a cursory review, pausing on a point that piqued my interest, rather than not at all.  Plus, most times, the title is the most appealing part of the missive, much like a short story that does not live up to the promises its title made to its readers, which I would find out if I took two seconds to glance at it.

Still, I let the siren song of one entitled “The Secret to Happiness” captivate me and I clicked – not right away, but the other day I finally did.  There’s a simple secret to happiness?  Do tell.  I must apply this magic solution as a salve to my weary soul.  My cynical side did cry out, saying it’s a spiritual newsletter, you dolt.  Of course, they mean to pray and worship and turn everything over to God – like you’ve been avoiding doing, but know you should.  You already know the secret to happiness, but refuse to do anything about it.  But, like most weak humans, I would much rather find a simple solution outside myself than do any real work inside myself.  I viewed the video expectantly.

 

Surprisingly, there was no explicit reference to spirituality except for one man’s personal testament in which he cited Jesus Christ as his Savior.  However, there were allusions to spirituality all over it; transcendent precepts such as gratitude, thoughtfulness, mindfulness, treating others as you’d like to be treated.  By not directly referring to it, the filmmakers even more strongly prove that spirituality must be woven into the fabric of everything we do, every interaction.  It must be innate, unconscious.  It will lead us to things like gratitude, which apparently is the secret to happiness.

The day that I watched the video, I had tried three times to get a snarky post out of my system.  While not full-strength, there was still some venom bubbling in my veins from residual stress and I wanted to purge it.  But the fits and starts of writing and watching of this video gave me pause.  Maybe what I needed to get it out of my system was to shift my mindset and get grateful!  Being so gosh-darn cranky, I wasn’t feeling it and I sure as hell didn’t feel like writing a letter to the person I was most grateful for, let alone calling them to read it.  But maybe just the shift in the current, the river rock blocking the stream, can divert enough to at least create the space for a change.

However, if in the meantime you should come across any quick-fix secrets to happiness, let me know 😉

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