sea salt

When we sat down to read, I had it all planned out. We had an artist-themed selection of new books, as well as continuing our progress in Help, Thanks, Wow . I would stage some lovely reading shots, come away inspired by artists, and hope to instill in Jolene a love of art, either as an observer or a maker. It would be magical, and this post would inspire you, and we would all go about our days. Instead, things did  not  go as planned, and I drew my inspiration not from the artists and writers, but from silly little Harold and his purple crayon. Why? Because his whole story is about making it up as you go along. Improvising. Drawing a hot air balloon to catch you when you start to fall. Starting with a simple, straight path but ending up having adventures instead.  What could possibly go wrong, right? He's got a path! Falling in thin air?! Thank goodness for those wits and that purple crayon. We made it through Harold and the Purple Crayon without i...

I began working on this post on Thursday afternoon. I'd spent the morning leisurely flipping through books on the shelves, looking for just the right selections for the day's reading. It was wonderful - I read some Wordsworth in an old college textbook, a few pages of a Raymond Carver story, the first and last pages of The Great Gatsby . Then, whether it was the muse, or intuition, or what one of my writing mentors used to call "the subconscious editor," I found myself pulling these 4: The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis (final chapter of The Last Battle ) Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present - Charlotte Zolotow Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes - Mem Fox Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers - Anne Lamott (prelude) We sat down to read: we savored the Caldecott-winning illustrations by Maurice Sendak in Mr. Rabbit , wiggled our toes (well, Jolene's toes) to the sing-song cadence of Ten Little Fingers , got teary-eyed reading the last par...

#ReadingWithJolene is a new series that celebrates my love of words. I'll share books I've recently read aloud to my baby daughter Jolene, why I wanted her to hear them, and how I hope to become a better mother and person in the process. There’s not much you can do with a newborn. In the early weeks of my maternity leave, I found myself bored for much of the day - completely exhausted, but bored. Jolene slept extremely well, an incredible gift for which I will always be grateful, but that meant I only had a few moments with her each day while she was actually awake - and those were usually consumed with feeding. Now and then I would pull out a couple books off the shelf and read to her while she dozed in my arms. I adore the Nancy Tillman collection, as well as the classic Eric Carle board books, but Jolene was never really alert - I was reading because I needed something to do with her, because I love words, and because it felt like the kind of thing a good mothe...

"A nuclear bomb just went off in your body. Your life has completely changed. It's ok to feel crummy." I curled up on the couch next to my mom, silent tears streaming down my face, my knees tucked up close to my body. I didn't know why I was crying. I couldn't articulate what I was feeling. All I knew was that I needed to feel close to my mom, hear her voice, simply be  right next to her until the storm passed. She knew why I was crying. I'd just had a baby, and in one week my world had been turned upside down. My husband and I were trying to figure out how to take care of our new daughter, I was still recovering from my delivery, and everyone kept talking about what amazing parents we already were and how wonderful our little girl was. Somehow all the glowing compliments made it even harder to get through the moments when I had no idea how to comfort my baby, no idea what she needed. "She's so completely needy right now. It will get bette...

I finally got my body back. It took 24 years, sometimes working to find it, but mostly trying to lose it. * I was 8 years old, and refused to sit on my teacher's lap because I thought that if I did, she would realize how fat I was. I was 10 years old, and fought my dad nearly to tears because I didn't want my picture taken with my blue ribbon after winning my swimming race; I was still wearing my bathing suit and was aching to go wrap my towel around my body so nobody would see it. I was 11 years old and trying to be anorexic, and my friends refused to sit with me at lunch because they disapproved. I was 16 years old, and stopped eating carbohydrates, quickly getting noticed by the thinner girls and sliding easily into clothes. I was 17 years old, and my mother found me throwing up in the bathroom for the first time. I was 19 years old, and after breaking up with my boyfriend, he yelled at me in the basement of our dorm and told me I was too hard to please, and...