I was sitting at the dinner table, stirring my ratatouille to melt the goat cheese, and telling my husband about this essay I read on Motherwell where a mother, who was fed up with the seemingly easy bedtime routine of Goodnight Moon, eventually noticed that the clock on every page advances ten minutes.
This is the same book we have been reading to our child every night for the last six and a half years.
“We don’t know what’s happening between the pages!”: my Eureka moment, thanks to this article. “When the book says ‘goodnight, clocks,’ the bunny is probably getting up and saying good night to every single clock in the house.”
Then I looked at my daughter next to me, who was eating plain rice with her fingers and listening intently to what I was saying (for once), and in my most serious voice, I told her: “Don’t get any ideas.”
To which she answered, “How many clocks are in our house?” She was getting ideas.
It was perfect timing that the article found me this week, as my husband had been out of town at a work conference, and I was in charge of bedtime for three nights in a row. And while two of those nights had gone just fine - she is 6, after all - one of those nights she was overtired, and the last thing a kid wants to do when they’re overtired is sleep.
By the end of our hour-long negotiations - rubbing her back, giving her crackers, getting reminders to keep the door open a crack - I was literally begging her to go to sleep. But still she cried and said she missed daddy/was too scared to sleep/couldn’t go to sleep unless I rubbed her back ALL. NIGHT. LONG.
And I’m not gonna lie. I, too, was resentful of that stupid old lady whose only tactic was to whisper “hush.” But it turns out that N. Gates and Margaret Wise Brown truly did understand the struggle to get kids to go to sleep, so long as the reader is willing to read between the lines (or speculate between the pages). And I felt not only vindicated after reading that essay, but less alone.
That’s why we read, and that’s why we write, I guess.
What if, while we step out to say goodnight to the little house and the mouse, the quiet old lady finally loses it? Maybe after the third time of seeing her bunny close her eyes and almost fall asleep, only to arch awake again, she abandons her ineffectual “hush” for a more direct approach. I envisioned her slamming her knitting to the floor, startling the kittens (who are noticeably absent from the next scene), lunging out of her rocking chair and threatening to tan that bunny’s hide if she doesn’t get her cottontail ass back into bed pronto. After all, it’s 7:50 by this time, and the bunny in the picture is either getting back into bed, or poised for another escape, depending on one’s interpretation of the visual clues.
- N. Gates
My kiddo had two snow days last week, so there was a lot of art making. I did this. I kinda like it.
This month, Margaret Atwood published an essay in The Atlantic encouraging schools and libraries to ban her book, as that will just lead to more people reading it. Prohibition didn’t stop people from drinking, banning abortions doesn’t stop people from seeking them out (and only makes them less safe, so don’t ban abortions!), and banning books will only encourage more people to read them. I am very proud of the library system I work for which has adopted a no-ban policy. And trust me, there are books on our shelves that I wouldn’t mind seeing in the trash, but I respect people’s freedoms, and besides, banning them will just bring attention, and I prefer they stay hidden among the stacks, resting quietly and undisturbed.
What was I doing reading Peyton Place on top of the garage roof when I was 16? Incest! Rape! Varicose veins! The incest and the rape weren’t news to me—they were in the Bible—but varicose veins? The Bible says nothing about them, so that was a shocker.
- Margaret Atwood
The meme blowing up Twitter this past week, tailored to my job. Because, seriously, the reference desk is EXHAUSTING. Happy to make people happy with books they want, but PHEW.
Speaking of libraries, mine has a community room where, every Tuesday, the city choir gathers to practice, and the sound drifts in through the lobby. And I heard the piano pound out the basic melody of “Hail Holy Queen,” one of my favorite Catholic hymns from my childhood. Which was odd, because I didn’t think it was a church choir. But wait. Then I heard the beat gear up, and I’ll be damned. They were performing the rendition of “Hail Holy Queen” from the movie Sister Act. And my day was made. BUT WAIT. Then they moved into a complication of Phantom of the Opera songs, and I don’t know WHAT they were doing in there, but they can keep doing it every week, if you ask me.
Michigan got covered in ice last week. We were lucky enough to not lose power, but I did fall in the driveway and give myself a fat lip. Still… it was pretty.
Just this morning, I stumbled up this article, “Why Write When There are Thousands of People Out There Not Reading Your Work,” and really, need I say more?
My five-year-old was starting to sing some song that could only be described as a ballad to her bum. I couldn’t make out all the lyrics, though, because she was laughing so hard as she belted it out.
And I realized that if I wanted to reclaim the pleasures of writing, I couldn’t worry about all those thousands of people not reading my books. Because that’s not why we write. We write for that single fleeting moment, as Merce Cunningham says, when [we] feel alive.
- Ben Berman
What I’m Watching:
This week we started the first season of Abbott Elementary, and yes, we’re late to the game, but damn, if that show isn’t funny.
What I’m Reading:
I was 80% through Hester by Laurie Albanese before my Libby loan ran out and it got yanked from my Kindle, but as a Nathaniel Hawthorn fan and a lover of witch fiction, this book was a win from the beginning. Hoping to get it back this week so I can finish it.
What I’m Cooking:
I made a simple skillet butter chicken last night with lots of garam masala, diced tomatoes, and coconut milk, and even the wee one ate her whole plate, so that’ll be going in the rotation from here on out. Served it with sweet potatoes, not cauliflower rice, because cauliflower rice is gross.
That’s it for this week!
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