10 Books for a Desert Island

I found this prompt for 10 books you'd want with you on a desert island online and thought I'd try it. Now that I've tried it, it's a lot harder than I thought--or maybe I just made it that way.
1. Book of Mormon: isn't the reason self-explanatory?
2. Tale of Two Cities: probably my all-time favorite, or at least my favorite-the-longest. Is it the story? it must be because I don't really care for the style of writing. I think I like the story of redemption.
3. The Thirteenth Tale: I like the rhythm of this book. The language is lyrical and the story swamps me. I can't quite figure it out with one reading. But it's like listening to someone speak a language you don't understand in a soothing voice. I just want to keep listening.
4. People of the Book: I love the structure of this book: each chapter a story of a person/family who had possession of the book, through centuries, all tied together by the book curator discovering their traces in the wine stains and clothing threads left among the pages. I like the style of this writer as well. I could read this again and still find ideas I'd missed. Besides, the book makes me think about things that last, things that matter.
5. Eat Cake: I figure I'll be hungry, so a book with cake recipes and about cake and how cakes save her life and her family sounds like a pretty good choice. The main character never lets trouble get her down. On a desert island (why couldn't it be a dessert island???), that would be a good thing to remember.
6. To Kill a Mockingbird: I've probably read it more times than any other book besides scripture, and I always am happy to read it again.
7. Picnic, Lightning: Poetry makes me pay attention to the little things in the world around me. I really like Billy Collins' poetry, too.
8. Peace Like a River. Slow paced but compelling. I think I would get more out of additional readings.
9. Crossing to Safety. Stegner isn't my favorite, but my only reading of this title still leaves me thoughtful. It, too, could bear re-reading.

10. Hmmm.  I don't know how long I would be on this desert island. I think I would like at least one book I haven't read before--and it should be either something funny and/or something non-fiction: Maybe something by Mary Roach or Bill Bryson, both fun and funny non-fiction writers. I'd take recommendations.

There was a thunderstorm yesterday. It fit my mood. I watched lightning strikes across the valley from my office window--but that wasn't good enough. By the time I got home, the storm was just starting to hit there. Yes! The wind roared and the rain pounded. Big, fat drops of rain. Gabe (my 2 1/2 year old grandson) and I opened the family room doors to watch it and listen to it. I held him up so he could put his arm out into the rain without getting soaked. It was noisy. I loved it.  Gabe looked at me and said, "The rain is my friend." That's what he says all the time now when something or someone is scary: "____ is my friend." I think it comforts him to move the scary person/thing into that role. It's reassuring. I should think of that strategy myself: The audience is my friend. The article I'm trying to write is my friend. Anyway, after watching the storm for a few minutes, we closed the door, shutting out the noisiest elements. Gabe went back to playing cars, and I started dinner. A few minutes later there was a boom of thunder that shook the house. Gabe looked up: "Dinosaurs," he said with wonder. And I thought it was probably what they would sound like, especially just before they charged you. Scary.

writing myself awake

I just read an essay on NWP with the title of this post. It drew me because I feel a little asleep, but not sleepy. The author (Grosskopf) writes of how writing daily made him live his life differently: more aware and more alive. I know daily writing can do this, yet somehow I let days slip by without writing. That isn't altogether true either. I write, a lot, everyday: emails and grocery lists, syllabi and assignment prompts. But that kind of writing doesn't do what the writer of the article explained that regular reflective writing does: help us live life well.  Not as somnambulists. So, when I read the essay, I thought: I need to get back in the habit. I need to carve out the time again.  I wrote daily during Summer Institute--and it did, indeed, make me more aware of life and the moments that matter. This photo is one I took during our walk-and-write--when we stopped in Tangie's for a place to write with some atmosphere. Did the sweet roll taste better because I wrote about it? I don't know, but I know writing about it made me pay attention. And that is what I know daily informal writing can do: make me pay attention to life. So, here I am, back to my goal of writing daily and hoping that, like the author, I will, through daily writing, find "the bounty of inventiveness, and a heightened sense of possibility in my every day." And maybe another sweet roll, too.

dizzying

I was at a conference last week in Atlanta. My room was on the the 32nd floor of the hotel--which wasn't near the top--but if you knew me, you would know that that was still a problem. The center of the hotel is hollow, so you can look from the floor of the conference center (below the lobby) through to the covered skylight, nearly 50 stories above. See the picture? It made me dizzy to take it.

I looked out the window of my room once or twice. I did better if I didn't stand close. It was a lovely view, as you can see from the picture, but it made me too dizzy.

The elevators were see through, so going up or down made me dizzy. Made my ears pop. Made my stomach tumble. But I was at this conference with people who also made me dizzy: dizzy with how much they knew and how interesting their ideas were and what questions they were asking. Dizzy with their interest in life and in writing. They were interested in all sorts of things beyond writing, too, which explains why on the evening the conference ended I found myself on a ghost tour of Atlanta with them(walking around the city at night and learning about its history was fun; no ghosts showed themselves)and eating yummy dessert at midnight (see mine in the picture? dizzying in a different way, right?).

So, although the physical surroundings made me dizzy in spells, I think that the conference as a whole will make me dizzy for a while with the ideas that are swirling in my head. And that's a good thing, right? For a teacher to be dizzy with learning and ideas. I think so.

snowy april

I want spring--and spring is on its way. I can feel it. I can see the daffodils and hyacinths beginning to bloom, and the tulips are not far behind. Some of the willows are starting to leaf, and there is sometimes a hint of summer warmth in the air. And then, Sunday morning, this is what I saw out the back door: Beautiful, but Not Spring. Luckily, it didn't last long. Today, Tuesday, there is hardly anything left except a few cotton puffs of snow here and there. Soon, I hope, we'll use the picnic table for eating outdoors in the warm. And I will remember that sometimes things we don't wish for happen to us anyway, or they happen when we don't want them--after all, this would be very welcome on December 24. I will try to see beauty in life's unexpected (and unwanted) events, but I will probably still wish they will go away as quickly as a spring snowfall.

DC

So I had lunch in the basement of the Senate building today--along with a jillion other people. Then, before my appointment with my Congressman (I got there early), I visited the basement of his building, too. Again, LOTS of people. And hardly anyone on the streets. I know because I couldn't find my way back to the hotel and tried to find people to ask for help. Amazing how few people there were! One of the Senator's chief of staff told us the building was like an anthill. Everything they need is there: food, laundry, gym, mail. . . So I was wondering if being inside all the time makes a person look at the world differently. I mean, it's a grey, misty day here in DC. I have a picture that I can't seem to upload. But it's pretty. The cherry trees are in bloom. Does anyone who works here see?

losing community

I do a lot of reading about online communities: what creates them, how "real" they are, their dangers, and so on. I have not really participated actively in one until this month. And I'm thinking today about the online communities that have been created by the SOLS challenge.
I "slice" with my students, too, and I have noticed an effect from this activity. About half of the class participates--it isn't mandatory--and I see a difference in the way those of us who are participating interact in class. We KNOW things about each other--our fears, our challenges, the details of life that don't usually get shared in class. I feel closer to my students, and I think they feel closer to each other because of the online community we have built outside of class. It's what I always hope for in a writing class--and we've built it. Through writing, yes, but outside of class. Interesting.
In addition, I feel that I have some online "friends" who respond to my posts with some regularity and whose posts I respond to. I have found myself doing some things I never anticipated I would: replying to others' blogs and looking forward to the comments that follow mine, wondering what I wrote that might spark a response in others. I don't know these people in the sense that I would recognize them on the street or that I know what they do or where they live. I only know them because for a few moments in March, we had connections: our lives intersected and were enriched because of the words (ideas) we shared. How cool is that?! I never would have anticipated it. I joined because I needed to get back into the habit of daily writing. I got that. . . and so much more.
A few weeks ago, one of my students wrote that he thought he would miss this SOLS connection when it ended. I am feeling that way today. I am flying to Washington D. C. to try to talk to legislators about funding for National Writing Project. I don't know what my online access will be in the next two days. I hope I will be able to "slice." If not, I will miss it even sooner than I intended.