Neville

It starts with a colorless world.

The only color comes from the belongings he’s brought with him to this foreign land.

An unsanctioned move, an unfamiliar school, and unknown classmates, who most certainly won’t become friends.

This is the bleak landscape in which a young boy finds himself at the beginning of the picture book, Neville, by Norton Juster.

At the beautifully gentle suggestion of his mother, he takes a walk down the street on the off chance of meeting someone. Reaching the end of the block, he looks skyward and bellows a name.

Neville

Is this the name of a friend he’s left behind? A pet who’s wandered off into this new neighborhood?

It’s unclear who he’s summoning, but first one, then a whole slew of children answer the call. They all begin to seek out Neville without even knowing who he is. Not exactly synchronized, but part of a collective effort to find this unknown friend.

“Hey, I don’t know anyone named Neville who lives around here. Is he new?”

“I guess so,” the boy said uncertainly. “Everyone has to be new sometimes, don’t they?”

The anxiously-sought-after Neville becomes a great source of curiosity, the children clamoring for information and hoping to meet him soon – though they’re pretty impressed with his friend, perhaps even more so than the mysteriously absent Neville.

Returning to his new house, it looks a little less bleak. Closing his eyes that night, his mother wishes Neville goodnight.

The surprise reveal of Neville’s identity is a clever twist. The entire book is a poignant look at the void a move can create; what is left behind is no longer accessible, but it’s unclear yet how to access the new resources available. The tentative way Neville approaches it all is such a realistic depiction – for children and adults alike experiencing a move. Readers will feel for Neville’s plight (even before we know it’s him), but not just because he’s a nervous kid; because he represents the ambiguity we all face when we experience a move.

We’ve all been tempted to raise our face to the sky and bellow our own name to see what comes back.

In the case of Neville, it’s all good.

Identity, Living, motherhood, parenting

Contemplative Meandering

It is 8:52 AM and I am alone in my house. I rush in with the usual sense of urgency, keys jangling, purse pulling on my arm, slouching the jacket off my shoulders and – what?

The light in the living room still has that early morning hush, shadows mixed with brilliant swathes of light. But it’s not just the light that’s hushed. The house is actually quiet. No talk radio emanating from the alarm clock radio my husband usually leaves on. No little voice accompanied by the thud of rubber-soled shoes in the middle of the floor.

The silence is deafening.

For the first time in, I don’t know, forever, I have two hours and 57 minutes to myself.

I could hand wash those clothes I’ve left languishing. I could peel the shower curtain liner from its moldy seal on the bathtub and scrub it. I could transfer summer to fall in my daughter’s clothes drawers without interruption.

Yes, those would all be worthy endeavors. Useful. Productive. Jobs easier done without little people becking and calling.

But for the first time I am alone in my house for longer than five minutes, is that what I should do with my time? It might be what I want to do, or feel I should do from some deep-seated guilt (Where does that come from anyway? Heloise’s shadow people?), but I know it’s not what I need to do. I need to decompress, to learn how to shut off these urgings when I actually do have time to myself. It’s such a foreign concept, my mind and soul freeze up at the suggestion.

And while I do write even on days my lovelies are around, it’s always with one ear to the ground. And one hand in the snack bin doling out goodies. And half my attention elsewhere. Either that, or I’m writing in such a small window that it is with a laser-like focus, barring out the kind of contemplative meanderings that we all need to do now and again.

So I’m contemplatively meandering.

That is a damn good goal in and of itself. That could sum up an entire bucket list in two succinct words.

But aside from writing, I do not know how to do that. I can feel the needle and thread pulling my hands. I hear the chipmunk squeaking in the woodpile. Even the mold growing and multiplying.

I may not achieve the ultimate level of transcendence today, but there is the desire. That is worth something, right?

Living, Photography

Seaside Scenes from September 17

As I walked onto the beach, the sand and sea elicited the same feeling in me that it did years ago on a shore many miles away. The calm, the awe, the inspiration. I could dig out the essay I’d written that day, but I dare say it’d be the same today (though hopefully a bit more linguistically advanced!).

Sometimes it’s nice when place and sense take us down a familiar path.

Block Island, full speed ahead.

A ribbon of sea and sand

Rose hips

Tides of rip . . .

Gifts from the sea

Living, Photography

Scenes from a Bumper Crop – September 16

As our closing date and the harvest approached last year, a sadness settled in. I would be leaving my garden before it came to fruition. We’d enlarged it the spring before we left, adding more and different plants. Carrots, green onions, cucumbers. At least my herbs would travel well in pots that could go from a home beside one backdoor to another.

But, I realized, the woman leaving this house probably packed a similar burden amidst her belongings. She’d left a vegetable garden even larger than our new and improved one. Hot peppers guarded the perimeter, mixed greens and a lone acorn squash hunkered down inside. A boatload of parsley and a few tomatoes. Though it was the tail-end of the season, we were able to reap the benefits of her labor the same way the man and woman who bought our house would ours.

I am not as adventurous a cultivator as the previous occupant. Nor as zealous a waterer apparently. And I don’t fertilize. BUT we’re still eating fresh green beans and have cucumbers coming out of our ears. I tried to capture the beautiful purple pattern of a lone green bean as I prepped dinner. Then I broke out a few beans with the idea that I’d dry them as seed for next year. That’s when things got crazy 🙂

Hey, why garden if it’s not fun!

Mmm, mmm, green (and purple)

Have a green day!

Depression, Mental Health, Uncategorized

The Advantages of Having Depression

Wow. Great treatment of depression, humor, and how it all ties together.

A Manic World

Author: Humans Are Weird

Depression isn’t a thing that people ever yearn for, or wish to acquire.

Those who experience this malevolent juggernaut of a psychosis don’t have “depression appreciation” days. We don’t congregate in throngs to throw our sad hands up in the air and praise depression’s forlorn overlord.

Nope. Depression’s the sort of thing that people usually despise. It’s an emotion, a train of thought, a feeling – a self-destructive entity living inside of us – that we, the Depressos, wish would leave us alone, and never return.

It’s abusive. It makes us hurt. It makes us cry. It tells us that we’re worthless. It smells funny. And ultimately, its happiness is contingent on our misery.

But today, I thought I’d do something a little bit different. Instead of poo-pooing depression, and all that it encompasses, I thought I’d outline the benefits that live inside of depression’s hapless…

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Living, Photography, Spirituality

Spiritual Scenes from September 15

A large part of beauty is light. The camera doesn’t always capture it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Shepherding shadow

Portulaca sprouts out from a thin crack in the concrete

The spirit descended

Intersection

Charity

Children, Living, Photography

Scene from September 14

The first time we viewed this house, our realtor said she could picture our girls climbing all over this boulder on the property. Mere seconds later, their little bodies ranged all over it. She apologized for jinxing us! After removing several trees from the yard and only recently removing the leftover wood, the girls rediscovered it and, today, turned it into their canvas. Remembering that first day and seeing how they’ve made it their own, I can’t help but see the cyclical quality of this year’s passage and how our little corner of the world becomes home.

Calcium carbonate comes home

Living, Photography

Non-superstitious Scenes from September 13

I set out on an errand with no particular subject in mind for today’s photos, but camera safely stowed in the passenger seat. Then I spied this scene on the side of the road.

I couldn’t decide between this shot, wild grasses and golden rod framing it out . . .

Or this one with the focus on the reds and reflections.

Children, Literacy

First the Egg

My newly minted six year-old, about to enter first grade, chose this book from the bins at the library.

I often wonder at her book selection process, as it seems to be hunt and peck, plucking a book after rifling through just a few. Maybe something about the cover piques her interest, sometimes it’s one I later find out she’d read with her beloved kindergarten teacher – once, it was because it had the country Swaziland in the title, whose name sent her into peals of laughter the first time she heard it pronounced (no disrespect, Swaziland). But most times, it seems she chooses a book simply because it seems as good as any other, with a shrug, an impatience with the process.

Whatever her motivation, First the Egg was a great choice.

Starting with a spin on the proverbial question of origin, First the Egg introduces and reinforces many important literacy skills.

Cause and effect, Sequencing, Prediction, Sight words/recognition for emerging/early readers, Parts of a Whole.

Graphically, it is a treat. Cut-outs on each page hint at what comes next, further reinforcing prediction skills and creating excitement, anticipation for young readers. Sequencing and staging of processes is reinforced as well, for on every ‘then’ page, there is an illustration in the middle of the phase. For example, the egg hatching before the chicken appears on its own page. My favorite, of course, is the Word > Story series. So exciting to see all that typeface take shape into a story.

And my six year-old isn’t the only one who can read it. My three year-old, after hearing it a few times from her sister, started “reading” it. It most likely was memorization and parroting, but I can’t help but feel that she’s starting to put those patterns together.

Ironically, when I took a break from writing this post, my daughter told me that she had, indeed, read this in kindergarten. So she may not be as brilliant as I thought in picking out this book, but maybe her teacher is! And at least the lessons stuck with her. Most importantly, the joy of a good book.

Living, Photography

Scenes from September 12

We all grow mold and mildew the longer we hang around so I guess today’s subject is appropo for my birthday. But my daughter did say the fungi issuing from the sides of this tree were fairy steps. Perhaps I also can inspire imagination and delight on some level. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I blow out my candles.

You say fungi, I say fairy steps

Chopping Potatoes

and other metaphors for motherhood

Author Archives: Jennifer Butler Basile

Neville

Neville

Contemplative Meandering

Seaside Scenes from September 17

Scenes from a Bumper Crop – September 16

The Advantages of Having Depression

Spiritual Scenes from September 15

Scene from September 14

Non-superstitious Scenes from September 13

First the Egg

Cause and effect, Sequencing, Prediction, Sight words/recognition for emerging/early readers, Parts of a Whole.

Scenes from September 12