I need your help on books

One of the great pleasures in having children is the way you get to revisit elements of your own childhood. This is nowhere more true than in reading. I have loved getting down from my mother's shelves the worn copies of books she read to me, to share with my own children.

When I started writing this post, there were three books that I loved reading as a child, whose titles and authors I can't remember. I thought you might be able to help, Bloggy Friends. A lot of you were avid childhood readers, I'm sure.

I say "when I started writing this post", because the three has been reduced to two. With the magic of blogging, as I was describing one of them, I remembered its identity. Ta-da! It's Thursday's Child, by Noel Streatfield. I have such strong memories of that one. I loved it. A girl runs away from an orphanage, and joins a family who lives and works on a canal barge. I remember how her job was to lead the horse along the towpath, how hard the work was, how affected by the weather, and I remember a scene which describes how she helped propel the barge through a tunnel, which had to be done by having two people lying on boards, one each side, and walking along the side walls, pushing the barge as they went. (Noel Streatfield describes that much better than I've done.) I remember that she is called Margaret Thursday because she was left at the orphanage on a Thursday, and how she fantasises that she is from a noble family, because she was left with finely embroidered linens.

So that was book number one. I highly recommend it for girls aged 8 to 12 (at a guess - it was a long time ago that I read it). Especially if you live near a canal, as I did.

Book number two is about a boy who befriends a dolphin calf called Wiki-wiki. I think it might be set in Hawai'i (do they have dolphins in Hawai'i?) One day there is what we would now call a tsunami, but in the book it's called a tidal wave, and Wiki-wiki is left stranded on the beach. The boy and his friends manage to rescue her. I loved that book. I read it several times. Can you help me track it down?

Book number three I remember very little of at all. It's about a girl who is something of a misfit, grumpy about life. She hears the most beautiful haunting music, played on a flute. The man playing the flute tells her it's by Debussy, and is called L'Apres-midi d'un Faune. The first time I heard that Debussy piece, in my early twenties, I suddenly recalled the book from my childhood, and thought "no wonder the girl was so captivated by this music - it's beautiful". I have never been able to hear that piece without thinking of the book. Do any of you know it? I would love to find it again. I haven't given you much to go on, but perhaps someone out there will recognise it.

While we're on the subject of books, I've just read one which I couldn't put down. It's called Cinderella Ate My Daughter (what a great title), by Peggy Orenstein. You should read it, whether you are in the business of bringing up daughters or sons, or just for interest. I can do no better (it's late, I'm tired) than quote from Amazon:

Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source — the source — of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.

But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway—especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality—or an unwitting captive to it?

It's really well written, witty and clever, and very easy to read. A little depressing in one way (who would choose today's highly sexualised culture as a context for raising their daughter?), but I liked the opportunity to think about the issues head-on. I highly recommend it, and I've enjoyed the author's webpage too.

Guess what I've just done?

Oh alright then. I'll tell you.

I've just booked my ticket for BritMums Live! Even though I don't like that exclamation mark. Couldn't it just be BritMums Live please? I had to put that "please" in, because otherwise it looked like I'd replaced the exclamation mark with a question mark, though come to think of it BritMums Live? has a certain pleasing ironic tone to it. Anyway... whatever... I've booked. (And I have to add that I prefer the title to CyberMummy.)

Do you know who is responsible? My big brother. Yes. Charlesinparis. When we were in Chicago a few weeks ago, and he was generally looking after me and being fabulous, we got talking about blogging. And he said

"What on earth was all that about?"

And I said

"What?"

And he said

"All that [putting on a little girlie voice at this point and waggling head] Oh, I don't know if I'm going to go to the conference or not. We all KNEW you were going to go. Of course you were going to go."

I started protesting, because honestly, last time round, (and the time before, come to think of it), I really didn't know whether I wanted to go, but the more I used the word "honestly", or the word "really", the more he waggled his head and shrugged his shoulders and went all older brother-ish on me.

Maybe he had a point. Anyway, the net result is that this time, I've signed up super-early. So early that it's frankly a bit silly. I mean, I don't even know if we'll be in England next June. And there's no returning the ticket back to BritMums Live! if I turn out not to be (in England, I mean, not Live!... I certainly hope to be Live!) However, I can sell it on to someone else, and I'm hoping there's enough Goodwill Live! in the blogosphere that I'll be helped out and I won't be saddled with a ticket to an event I can't get to. I'm hoping.

It was the yoga session, and the promise of cake and wine, that finally tipped the balance for me. Oooh. I've just thought of a much better name for the event. CakeMums WineLive! Doesn't that sound more appealing? Really. Have the organisers got no marketing expertise at all?

.

What I would love about my blog if I were you

A cheeky little title, I know.

This is what I would love about reading Iota's blog, if I were one of you. When I started blogging, it was because I was struggling to make sense of living in a new culture. I was beginning to make 'real life' friends, but that seems to take forever in a new place, and I was lonely. Blogging was an addiction, which in itself isn't bad (hey, who'd be reading this if blogging wasn't a little addictive now and again?), but at that time, I think the addiction spoke of isolation and unhappiness.

Then I had cancer. Remember that? I guess my blog was hard to read at that time. You must have been holding your breath, wondering what the next thing was going to be. Hoping I was going to be ok. Feeling the fear in my situation, even though I was so darn upbeat and jolly about it all, and trying not to let those fears of mine hook into your own buried ones.

The past couple of years have seen a rebuilding of life. But I'm not just back where I started. That was something I really resented about cancer. I was wailing internally "I just want my life back", while at the same time knowing that it was never going to be the same again. But ooh, get me (as they say... well... as I say anyway). I like my life a lot a lot a lot now. I've got a green card. I've got a job (I mistyped that as "I've got a nob", which made me laugh). I love my job. I'm doing a Masters degree. I love my Masters degree. I love how you always see it written with a capital M. Why is that, I wonder? I don't see why it deserves a capital. I actually love living in America (I hear the gasps of surprise followed by the cheering). I am happy. I am content.

You've probably spotted that I don't blog as much. You've guessed that I'm just too busy at the moment. The recycling of a couple of old posts was a bit of a giveaway. Yes, I'm busy, and my blog is getting a little neglected. But don't you even love that about it?

So that's what I would love about my blog if I were you. It's the story of a chunk of a life's journey that was a down and an up, a valley and a journey out of it. I would find that hopeful and heartening. It's more than that, though. It's the story within the story that I like. I feel a difference in myself. I've grown as a person so much over the past 4.5 years (yup, that's how long I've been blogging). I like myself more than I used to. I wonder if you can tell. I wonder if you sniff it out, in the gaps between the words on the screen, in the spaces between one post and the next.

And of course that's what I love about your blogs I've followed over the years. The tales of your lives: the narratives, but more so, the stories of who you are, who you were, and who you're becoming, which somehow, through the magic of writing, leak through the typewritten word.

Autumn: part ll

Look at this lovely carpet of leaves in my back yard. (It's worth clicking to enlarge).


You can almost hear them whispering “don’t sweep us up, don’t sweep us up” can’t you?

You will probably remember that what impresses me so much about the trees here is their ability to multi-colour (ooh, a new verb is born). Well, the leaves do it too.

These leaves have decided that those of them on one branch will be yellow, those on another will be green. How do they do that? A fine example of peaceful democracy.



Here, they’re all mixed up together.



I wonder if that creates more friction between them, or if they still happily co-exist, green and yellow, at such close quarters. Does the tree engineer the design and control when each leaf may change from green to yellow, or does each leaf have free will?

Look here, though, how within a single leaf, the multi-colour effect is achieved. These do that clever thing that the trees do, holding on to one colour in the middle while letting a new colour creep in at the edges.



This one is a work of art. Deep red veins traced against that subtle orange background, on an even deeper red stem. Perfect.



A couple of final glorious pictures, just because I can’t resist, and it’s going to be at least 10 months till autumn comes round again.






And don’t you just love this song? (a rather clunky version of it!)



To me, it captures the whole essence of the way our lives are marked by change. The seasons are a part of that. The music somehow manages to be both melancholy and cheery at the same time, which is masterly, for change is, surely, both our enemy and our friend, a stealer and a giver.

.

Autumn

I absolutely love autumn. And I absolutely love autumn here. The colours are amazing, and the days can still be warm. Even if the weather isn't warm, it's usually sunny and bright, and the light has a particular quality to it. I love it.

Three years ago, (that long?), I did a couple of blog posts about autumn, with pictures of trees and leaves, and I'm going to re-run them here. It's interesting to see how then I was busy comparing autumn here with autumn in the UK. It's a sign of how long I've lived here, that I no longer do that. I just enjoy autumn for what it is, and I enjoy the familiarity of it. I know what to expect.

Three years ago, I wrote this:

Trees in Britain have to get their shows done so quickly, and in the damp. A few days, and they need to get from green foliage to bare twigs. They manage a little colour, but have to speed on through to dead brown leaves pretty fast. The trees here have the luxury of week after week of slowly fading temperatures, and still have the energy to choreograph their colour changes with finesse. What impresses me most, is the way one tree can exhibit different colours at the same time. We had two trees in our garden that were, for days on end, red at the top, yellow in the middle, and still green at the bottom. Traffic lights. I couldn’t get far enough away from them to photograph them, more’s the pity, but here are some other examples I found.

Look how this tree shades itself from orange to green, left to right.



This one decided to do it from top to bottom.



These ones do it from the inside out. See how they’re red at the ends of their branches, but still green at the core, as if holding on to summer in their hearts while bravely waving their hands at the oncoming autumn.



Impressed? Just wait till you see this. Group choreography. These five babies have got together for a chorus line performance.



Great show, gals. (That isn't a floating roof, by the way. It's just that someone painted their store the exact same shade of blue as the autumn sky.)

Some trees are just too bursting with their own creativity to bother with that shading effect, and they mix up the colours in a great effusion. This one gives us a beautiful two-tone green and yellow.



I left in that stunning little red bush for you to see. What an effort it made – the least I could do was not to crop it out of the picture.

This one couldn’t wait to decide which colours to go for, so threw them all in together and mingled them up. The photo doesn’t do it justice. Click on it to enlarge it - go on, you know you want to.



To finish, here is a glorious display of autumnal splendour.



Look at the rich red, the startling yellow, the mellow ochre, the luscious green. Even that little shrub in the front is shimmering in maroon and silver.


Which one? Well, it's a bit small, I admit. You probably can't appreciate it properly.



I'll enlarge it for you - I'm sure it's well worth a closer look.




Those lovely autumn tones...




Hang on...









It’s a fire hydrant. I’m getting carried away here.

This post was trees. The next is going to be leaves.

.