Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Babies and animals and nesty things

Big announcement, folks.  BIG announcement:  I think we're expecting babies.  Plural.  All at once. 

In a nest.

I've been all enamored of our mama robin building her nest in a prime tree right in front of chair on the porch, which is my favorite reading spot this summer so far.  It's all wild life-y at that spot.  And me heart is a wee lot bit sad because this prime real estate is looking half dead this year, and the birds love this joint, I tell you. 

We have Chippy the chipmunk, who is a whiz I tell you at stuffing his cheeks and spitting out those seeds before scurrying off for me in a mere blink of an eye.  We've had a few bonding moments where we stare deeply into each other's (beady) eyes.   

We have Herman the hairy woodpecker, who (as it turns out) makes a delightful cheep-y sound in between whacks against the tree trunk. 

We have the sparrow gang who flocks together and nests in some tall evergreen trees just around the side of the house.  It turns out that they're little thieves who tried to raid Mama Robin's nest (somewhat successfully) as it was a work in progress.  It turns out that Mama Robin has some gutsy moves and is at least twice their size.  Her nest was well defended.

We have the darling finches that hop around in the very tippy tops of the tree and belt out the sweetest staccato chirps.  They are flashy and everyone's friend.

We have the wreniest little wrens twittering around.  These eensie little birds pack a mighty wallop of noise in their little throats. 

And, (as of today) we have Moliere, a friendly little dude with admittedly lousy eyesight.  This little mole champ practically trundled across my foot in his cute-y little way.

There's a lot of cute-y-ness going on around here.

Which leads us back to those tiny, tiny little eggs.  I. Can't. Wait.  They are my bright spot, or will be once they are there are opening and cheepy and sending me into gaggles of joy and delight.   

Friday, June 5, 2020

Today, I chose

Follow-up bit on the previous post (It's...puzzling): Finding puzzles right now is harder than finding a chicken with teeth.  Also, I like a certain kind of puzzle and have spent probably far, far too long trying to land on one that is actually available, especially when it takes a sweet forever to sift through the hundreds if not thousands of entries on an indie bookstore's site when you search for "puzzles."  I haven't yet figured out a better way to do this.

Now, a brief spot of happy(er) news: My library is open again for curbside pick-up!  Oh the joy that thoroughly filled my hands, heart and soul as I (first) danced enthusiastically around the room with The Elder and (second) quickly added almost 30 books to my holds list.  The joy that oozed out of that email announcing I had books to pick up was real and true and good.  The timing of this was also primo as I was rapidly, rapidly adding more titles to my To Be Read list following all of the everything that my eyes, ears and brain have been grappling with of late.

Good timing, indeed.  By happenstance when the library opened again, I had Beloved by Toni Morrison up next in my physical hands to read.  And then I quickly had several necessary books available to me immediately from the library.  Book serendipity is truly magical and while the content has not been exactly what I would call "a delight," it has been a delight to immediately follow Beloved with Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper and then Me and White Supremacy: Combat racism, change the world, and become a good ancestor by Lalya F. Saad this week.  The serendipity grows deeper because all of these threads came together at the same time as I had a couple of days a-l-o-n-e in the house.  Let me repeat it for those of you who think you misread: I had a full 54.5 hours alone by myself and in my house where my favorite reading places happen to be.  I wedged another book in  there as well (a bit of recon work that was a laughable clunker), but all in all was able to focus and spend honest-to-goodness time with reading.

I did virtually no work around the house in that time, which just goes to show that sacrifices were made to ensure that I had optimal reading time.

Good inter web folks: It was mind boggling how immediately relevant Beloved struck me.  This is a book about escaped slaves set in the mid-1800s.  Woe unto us that this book is still needed as part of our cultural conversations.  Both Cooper's and Saad's books discuss events that should be outdated.  But are not.  WOE UNTO US THAT THIS IS THE CASE.

My heart has been heavy and beyond words.  My heart has been convicted in reading Cooper and Saad...convicted in the best, most necessary ways.  My heart needs to learn more.

I have been taking notes and looking ahead to the start of the next school year when we will in some capacity come together again to talk race and lenses and Otherness in my literature and writing classes.  It has always been there.  I'm anxious to use my time right now to find more and better and applicable tools to use RIGHT NOW with my students.

I strongly urge you to read Cooper and Saad.  To seek out Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward and Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson and Motherhood So White: a memoir of race, gender and parenting in America by Nefertiti Austin and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson and The Nickel Boys: A Novel by Colson Whitehead.  To read along with me and challenge me and convict me.  To do better.

Saad makes a point that we are none of not racist.  Rather, the goal is to chose anti-racism each day.  We have a lot of work to do and this seems like the right time to do it.  Today, I thought consciously about it and chose anti-racism.  I invite you to do the same.