Journaling

November 6, 2013 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

While I try to blog as often as I can, I truly try to do this every single day … journal. I’d been journaling in the past, but what cinched my greater commitment to it was when I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. She gives her creative readers two assignments, the first of which is to journal daily. I start early and journal first thing before life about me is afoot. Well, right after making coffee and feeding very insistent animals. I curl up and prepare for my day … journal, some spiritual work, enlightening reading … whatever gets me on track.

Journaling and blogging have two entirely different functions. When I blog, I try to bring something enjoyable, enlightening and/or perhaps educational to my visitors. I’d like to make your stopping by worth your while, always knowing not everything I write will appeal to everyone. I enjoy writing and love photography, and hope that what I share appeals in some way.

When I journal? I am doing what Julia Cameron refers to as a “morning dump,” that is, getting rid of all the crap that is running around in my head – whatever needs to be pulled out and gotten rid of. She suggest writing – always by hand, of course – 3 full pages. I have no strict limits, but write until I’m done, when I’ve committed to paper what I don’t want in my head. It’s surprising what a difference it can make to leave our trials and tribulations on the page. It’s quiet when I journal … most are not yet up … this time is mine. And so my day begins.

What do I journal in? That has varied as well, but what I’ve found I prefer most is something with a spiral binding so I can fold it back and write easily while balancing a coffee mug and maybe an earlier-mentioned animal who has their own additions to make to the journaling process. These journals can be had inexpensively at the local supermarket, (see above), or at times I’ve treated myself to a more exotic journal in gold and what looks like silk that I’d gotten from Two Buttons awhile back.

I wholeheartedly recommend journaling for anyone. You don’t have to like writing nor be good at it; you only have to want to clear out your head for the day ahead. It can make a difference. Do I go back and read what I’ve written? Rarely. My journal also isn’t a memoir. Merely a way to make my day a happier and/or more sane one, and who wouldn’t like that?

A Truly Don’t-Miss Book – Maniac Magee

September 11, 2013September 11, 2013 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

How did Jerry Spinelli manage to cover the subjects of race, homelessness, bullying, friendship and the loneliness of the elderly all in one middle grade novel AND do it with humor, insight and compassion? This book was a revelation to me, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants an excellent, (and fast), read even though it’s hero is 12 year old Jeffrey (Maniac) Magee.

I began to read Maniac Magee and found quickly that Maniac was into sports – how fast he could run, how far he could throw a football – and I thought it might not be for rather unsporty me. Was I wrong. It’s not about sports; it’s about an orphaned kid on his own who encounters a variety of life’s toughest situations, (aside from losing his parents), and how he deals with them. He finds more than his share of challenges, some friends and/or admirers along the way, and some pretty scary antagonists. Maniac/Jeffrey loses some of his naiveté but his optimism always prevails.

Spinelli writes in a beyond-engaging style. His word choices and phrases and his sense of humor had me turning the pages and never wanting to put the book down. Every character is developed beautifully, but of course, especially Maniac. It’s no wonder this book earned Spinelli a Newbery Award.

And what’s also surprising is that although Maniac Magee was written in 1995, it is totally contemporary. Somehow Spinelli wrote a timeless tale – almost a folk tale or legend – that is as meaningful right now – maybe even more so – as it was back then. I am in awe of this author and in love with this story. Walk – no, run – to your library or bookstore and get Maniac Magee.

p.s. I have also read Stargirl, Eggs and Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli – all worthwhile reads as well.

Children’s Books to Movies

September 7, 2013 / still a dreamer

As I’m sure you might agree, books that have been made into movies can have a rather spotty success rate. In my experience, rarely has a movie based on a book been as fulfilling as the book itself though there certainly have been some, and a few surprisingly good at that. There also have been some disastrous movies that had I not read the book first would have dissuaded me from ever reading it. But what about children’s books?

I recently took the plunge and watched movies based on two of my very favorite children’s books, both middle grade – Skellig by David Almond and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. That the Skellig movie had to add on a tag after the title – “the Owl Man” – should have been my first tip off, but I was open. David Almond is a brilliant writer and won the Printz Award for this particular novel. One of the things that sets him apart is the sense of the unexpected, of magic, that he brings to everything he writes. Where this movie failed for me is that in attempting to reach its audience it felt it necessary to define and explain the unexplainable. The beauty of Skellig the novel was that you were left at the end still not knowing who – or what – Skellig was. Was he a man? both man and bird? an angel? The reader never knows. In the movie, he is more or less defined. And then there were several hokey, (to me anyway), visual machinations, such as Skelling taking Michael for a ride on his back while he flies, and in two instances a kind of spinning in the air where he heals Michael’s hand and later the baby sister. Plus the movie barely touches upon the wonderful and unique character of Mina and her relationship with Michael , nor of that with his friends. In sum, there were interesting things about the movie, but as a reflection of the novel, Skellig the movie fell far short for me.

A Wrinkle in Time fared a bit better in my estimation, but again, the movie couldn’t really compare to the book. I think the movie did a pretty good job of showing the characters of Meg and Charles Wallace, and I enjoyed Alfre Woodard as Mrs. Whatsit, Alison Elliott as Mrs. Who and Kate Nelligan as Mrs. Which. The visuals of the children traveling through the tesseract to get to the different planets couldn’t have had too many ways to show it, I suppose, but it was a stretch. The interesting thing about this movie, made in 2003, is that it was a made-for-TV movie. I suspect it could have been more successful if actually made as a true movie. A Wrinkle in Time, like Skellig, raises bigger issues than the surface story, in this case, an adventure to save the children’s father. It’s a coming of age story for Meg but also asks what’s most important in life and how can evil be overcome. I think the movie did a very good job of making that clear, especially in the scene where Meg is able to pull Charles Wallace back from the tenacious evil of It. What I particularly enjoyed is that in the Bonus Features that were on the DVD there is an interview with the late Madeleine L’Engle. That alone may have been worth getting the DVD.

Fishing for Heartbreak

July 22, 2013July 22, 2013 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

When I was a child of 10 or 11, my Dad suggested we all go fishing at Cooper’s Pond in the town nearby. He made it sound like fun, so off we went.

Cooper’s Pond was a lovely park, the same place our family went to enjoy picnics or walking. On these outings, I brought along my Brownie camera that I’d been given at 9 years old, and I loved taking photos of the ducks on the pond as well as feeding them. What wouldn’t be enjoyable about fishing?

We didn’t have real fishing poles, just long sticks to which my Dad had secured some kind of line, maybe string, with a hook on the end. On the hooks, we put a piece of bread, and then we cast our lines into the water. It didn’t take long before I got a nibble, and something tugged at my line. My father got all excited, and instructed me to pull it toward me and then lift it out of the water.

There on the end of my line was a carp, probably only about 7″ long, writhing and twisting to free itself of the hook I had managed to snag in its sensitive mouth. I was horrified that I was the cause of this poor creature to be flailing about so, and I immediately began to cry, screaming, “Daddy, take it off! Daddy, take it off!” Daddy removed the hook from the fish and gently let him go back in the water, but I was inconsolable.

Who was I to have caused this animal such pain and make him fight for his life? As a child, I had not been able to make the connection between “having fun fishing” and the reality of a fish writhing on the end of my hook until I saw the results firsthand. I was heartbroken, I who fed all the ducks in that exact same spot, I who loved all animals from the earliest age I can remember.

It wasn’t until many years later, even still, that I made the next major connection that the meat or fish I cooked and ate had once been a sentient being. This is not what we’re ever told as children. The meat or fish served at meals appeared as a finished dish, prepared in some usually delicious way. One had nothing to do with the other.

The constantly evolving realization over time that the food on my plate had indeed been a living creature … and one who most likely suffered enormously before getting to my plate … enabled me to gradually eliminate almost all meat and fish from my diet in recent years. This is a plus as I move along the path to becoming vegan, but the earliest seeds of this transformation were sown when a little girl went fishing and found a humble carp to be her teacher.

Here is a dilemma I ponder nowadays … how, in writing children’s books, can I impart to young readers, without scaring them to death, of course, that the animals they eat for dinner are no different in their capacity for contentment or pain than the animals they love as pets? That animals from chickens to elephants, honeybees to pigs, have complex lives of their own, social structures, families, attachments to their babies, and that maybe it’s not the right thing – the kind thing – to use them for our own ends, to cause them such suffering. Is it enough to simply engender a love and appreciation of animals?