Colleen Conrad

One of my favorite songs is “Mystery” by the Indigo Girls.  It was released in 1994, and for a year I listened to it on repeat while lounging in adolescent angst on my bed.  But even as an adult, seventeen years later, I still go back to it again and again.  One of my favorite parts of that song reads, “So what is love then? / Is it dictated or chosen? / Does it sing like the hymns of a thousand years / Or is it just pop emotion? / And if it ever was there and it left / Does it mean it was never true?”

It would be so nice to believe that love is permanent and un-wavering.  That when you find it, you know without a doubt that it will last a lifetime.  That it’s strong enough to carry through years, distance, and hardship.  But the human heart is so much more complicated and ever-changing than that.  What if some love—most, even—is temporary? 

I don’t think that makes it any less real or significant.  It doesn’t change how all-consuming it is in the moment, or how far you’ll go to protect it.  It isn’t false or deceitful or unhealthy (necessarily).  It’s still love.

But if it was there and it left, it’s a one-hit wonder, like “Come on Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners or Hanson’s “Mmmbop.”  You still adore those songs in their heyday.  You blast them in your car, learn all the words, and gleefully dance to them at weddings.  They have a place in the musical canon; a legacy, even.  But those aren’t the songs that you reach for when you’re looking for answers in a world full of questions.  They don’t make you emote or reflect on your life in any profound way.  They don’t give you strength, or motivation, or a sense of peace.  They don’t speak to your soul.  And so, eventually, you leave them behind, seeking something deeper.  More complex.  Believing that it’s out there somewhere.

It doesn’t matter how many years pass.  Every time I hear “Mystery,” I’m moved.  It resonates with me.  It endures.  The best songs—those meaningful, poignant pieces—put a knot in your throat.  You hear something new every time you listen to them.  You understand a lyric better, or you notice the cello in the second verse, or you hear a harmony more clearly.  They’re special and powerful; as multi-dimensional as a person that you know completely…and yet sometimes not at all.

I could name a few of these songs for me—“Defying Gravity” from Wicked, Ani DiFranco’s “Both Hands”—but they’re far less common.  And maybe that’s the way love is.  Maybe that kind of raw, multifaceted love exists, but it’s a lot harder to find.  It’s the kind of relationship in which people are stripped to the core of their beings and completely vulnerable.  They look into each others’ hearts and meet there.  Connect.  They know each other completely and honestly; they understand and accept each other.  This kind of love persists because it has reserves.  It has supplies on hand—no matter how hard you have to look for them—even as people change and grow and life gets in the way.  It’s love with an arsenal.  With backup.    

But maybe that kind of depth and complexity is more exceptional than we’d like to think.  Maybe most love is a pop song.

I recently wrote about my yoga instructor’s reminder about being “open to grace.”  I determined that for me, being open to grace is about balance, truth, and love.

And that was all true.

But I’d like to add something to the list:  Time.

I have a tendency to rush.  I like things to happen now.  Or, better yet, yesterday.  And this is in distinct opposition with my writing, where I need to be patient and thoughtful, deliberate and critical.  Maybe my impatience has something to do with being an athlete.  I’ve always been a sprinter, not a distance runner.  But as I face a miasma of change in my life, I’m going to give myself time.  Take it day by day.  Remember that this isn’t a race.  Breathe like I do in yoga:  Slowly, calmly, in and out.  Sure, I may be in a hurry to have this bad day end, or that one, but maybe the next will be better.  And it’s not going to get here any faster if I tap my toe and drum my fingernails on the desk in frustration.

Because if there’s one thing that I do know about myself, it’s that I embrace emotion.  When I’m angry, I’m angry.  When I’m hurt, I’m hurt.  And so on.  I know how to be in the mess.  I accept the necessary evil of sitting, however uncomfortably, with your feelings.  Sometimes I feel the need to apologize for that.  But I’m not apologizing any more. 

The things that I’m facing right now won’t be settled in an hour, or a day, or a month, for that matter.  But if I can take it a minute at a time, I’ll get there.   To grace, that is.

A friend of mine recently said that he nearly drove—at 70 mph—head-long into a detour sign.  Twice.  Deeply lost in daydreaming, he narrowly escaped disaster only due to the frantic shouting of the passengers in the car.  He’s a musician (as well as a writer, a filmmaker, and a “cave-drawing” doodler), so I asked him what he was daydreaming about.  “There could have been some good material in there!”  I argued. 

“The Muppets,” he told me. 

I really don’t know what to do with that…

But I suggested that he make a point to pull over and write down some of his musings during those deep-daydream moments.  In the interest of avoiding certain death, of course, and harvesting whatever creative juices were flowing at the time of said space-out.  He didn’t receive this suggestion well, pointing out that “Pullover Daydream Journal Breaks” were just as likely to get him killed…by his friends.  Now, I respect everyone’s right to pick their poison, but to me these creative time-outs are a win-win.  I mean, you jot down some of that fodder and preserve your life.  Unless, of course, you run with my friend’s buddies, who would apparently make you pay for that kind of touchy-feely hippie crap.

I’m prone to the same kind of lost-in-thought distraction.  I often find myself so consumed with planning and writing in my head that the world around me falls away.  I, too, have nearly missed the occasional stop sign, or—for that matter—waited at stop signs as if they were red lights, staring blankly and patiently into the intersection.  Sometimes I get so lost in thought that it’s an irritation when the phone rings and it’s my mother calling, or when the noise of the mailman at the door startles me back to the real world.  I write every day, be it scribbling down a thought or two or journaling in the car after ultimate practice.  But the times when I’m most prolific are when I completely disappear.  When I’m submerged in the work; blocking out distractions; hiding away in my stories. 

Maybe Pullover Daydream Journal Breaks aren’t the most realistic option in the world, but wouldn’t it be great if they were?  If mundane things like eating and showering and—hell, avoiding disastrous car accidents or getting pummeled by your friends—didn’t get in the way?

Who Says Librarians Can’t Have Fun?:  Reflections from TxLA 2011

Guest Post from friend and awesomely energetic librarian Christy!

 

It’s disheartening to see librarians stereotyped on TV, such as the ones in popular shows like Glee and Greek. We are not old, prim, bunned, shushing spinsters as commonly portrayed in the media. We are a tech-savvy, fun-loving, information-seeking oriented group of professionals who love what we do! 

April 12-15, Austin hosted Texas Library Association’s annual conference with pre-conference sessions being held on Tuesday. It was very gratifying to attend a cocktail dinner Tuesday night with local author Cynthia Leitich Smith as she celebrated the release of her third book, Blessed. On Wednesday, after greeting conference attendees arriving on buses from area hotels, I was able to join local librarians from Austin, Round Rock, Pflugerville, and other surrounding areas in a flash mob to welcome conference attendees from all over the state of Texas to Austin and TLA. We were up out of our seats and having a great time, making the 4^th floor of the Austin Convention Center vibrate with energy and enthusiasm! That was just to start it off…

Jamie Lee Curtis, author and actress, was our opening general session speaker and was eloquent with the way she was wearing her red kerchief around her neck… a symbol of the guillotine (or rather our government chopping our heads off within the education system)!  She went on to say how, through testing and top-down administration, we are no longer using our greatest assets… our minds, our intellect, our creativity. Our students, teachers, librarians, and those who work directly with students are not expendable; the government should be doing what they can to keep those who work directly with children.  Red was the color of the day, for after that day’s sessions, librarians traveled to the State Capitol to rally in protest of the funding cuts being made to libraries across the state and the K-12 databases that equalize the playing field for all Texas students.

From a personal angle, it was a lot of fun to volunteer for a few hours during the event, catch up with fellow Austin ISD librarians throughout different sessions, and support my AISD colleagues participating in the Book Cart Drill Team. I’m very proud to say that after a tie with Austin Public Library, AISD was able to pull off the win with audience support! It was also great to see fellow graduates and professors from the University of North Texas where I recently earned my Masters of Science in Library Science. Then there were the friends from other school districts such as Round Rock and Pflugerville who we rarely get to visit with as professionals. As librarians, we are typically the sole person on our campus in our profession and when we get time to meet with other librarians, it’s so incredibly rewarding!

Throughout the conference, I attended sessions that applied to my position as a middle school librarian and had fun downloading curriculum documents posted via QR codes. Sessions included:

• Learning Commons for School Libraries
• Cutting Out the Cutting Edge: Stories of Censorship
• Let’s Talk Books! Middle Grades Book Clubs
• Lone Star Authors Shine
• Maverick Authors Get Graphic
• Graphic Novels and Comic Books in the Library
• Librarians and Teachers Collaborate for Student Success
• YA 2.0: Marketing Your Library through Social Media (#YA2.0 on Twitter)

I was able to walk away with something from each session and was motivated to go back to the Matador Library and start making plans. One of my favorites was where authors of Lone Star books sat and talked about their writing, their ideas, what inspires them, and how incredibly rewarding it is to write for ‘Tweens. I was also inspired by David Loertscher and his concept of learning commons, where libraries are no longer storage spaces for books, but areas of learning and collaboration. A handful of us were fortunate to have dinner with him later that evening where we were able to discuss his ideas further.

Nothing can really compare to being in a place with 6000+ other librarians who love what they do and continue to show enthusiasm and interest in the ever dynamic field of library and information science. The atmosphere was buzzing, the sessions were relevant, and the synergy was unbelievable! It might just be the geek in me, but I couldn’t get enough, even with the information overload. For a recap of conference events, search #txla11 on Twitter.

Flash Mob:  Danced to “I Gotta Feeling”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg-kcLS-yTc

AISD Book Cart Drill Team Performance:  A political take on the song “I Will Survive”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzlFWcgx-gE

Austin Public Library Book Cart Drill Team Performance:  A fight for intellectual freedom and rights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tHeUEWCpu0&feature=related

Round Rock Book Cart Drill Team Performance:  Breaking stereotypes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJQPa9NwTRc

Texas Library Association Conference Coverage:

http://txla.org/annual-conference

Matador Library on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Matador-Library/205667736117997

Matador Library on Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/MatadorLibrary 

 

THE SCHOOL LIBRARIAN SURVIVAL SONG

Lyrics by Shannon Pearce

 

First I was afraid;

I was petrified

school librarians would be cut,

and then just cast aside.

But I knew deep in my heart

we could prove that would be wrong,

because we’re strong,

and we know how to bring it on!

 

We won’t sit back

and let it be.

We will speak out and then we’ll mobilize

the whole community.

And those who just don’t get it

can go sit down and shush,

if they think for just one second

they can close the book on us!

 

Oh no, we won’t

walk out the door!

It might save money,

but all our students need us more.

Aren’t we the ones who teach the skills they really need

for the future?

So if we want them to succeed,

 

We will survive.

We will survive.

We’ll teach those research skills

and keep the love of books alive.

We’ve got campus goals to reach,

We’ve got every kid to teach,

and we’ll survive.

We will survive,

Hey, hey.

 

They tried to say librarians

are obsolete –

That eBooks and the Internet

are all you need.

And we’re not keeping up

with technology, they say.

No we’re not keeping up –

we’re the ones leading the way!

 

Now you see, we

are something new!

We tweet and blog and Facebook,

and we have tattoos.

And yes, we still tell stories,

and we love the printed page,

but we’re the superheroes

of the Information Age.

 

So no, we won’t walk out the door!

It might save money,

but all our students need us more.

Yes, we’re the ones who teach the skills they really need

for the future,

and we help them to succeed.

 

So we’ll survive.

We will survive.

We’ll teach those research skills

and keep the love of books alive.

We’ve got campus goals to reach,

We’ve got every kid to teach,

and we’ll survive.

We will survive,

Hey, hey.

 

An interview with my good friend Hannah, A.K.A. “Future Children’s Librarian”!

CC:  Congratulations on being accepted to graduate school for Library and Information Science!  What made you decide that this is what you want to do?

FCL:  While I was working overseas as an English teacher in northern Somalia, I had the opportunity to help a local boarding school by turning a donation of 20,000 books into a lending library.   That experience made me realize that I didn’t just want to work in libraries as a side job or as a hobby- I wanted to do it all the time!  I loved helping students find books that got them excited about reading.  

CC:  What an incredible experience.  That answers some of my next question, but why do you think libraries are so important? 

FCL:  Libraries exist to serve the community and to foster and facilitate learning.  They offer free access to a huge pool of knowledge and resources.  I think when we’re so used to having the internet at our fingertips with laptops and smart phones, we tend to take access to information for granted.  So, to many people today, libraries are the place where you find a good beach novel to take on vacation – pure entertainment.  Which is one of their functions, sure. But there are people all over the world who can’t afford cutting-edge technology, and many who can’t even afford to buy just one book.  For those people, libraries and the information they provide access to can level the playing field.   Knowledge should not be a privilege afforded only to those with the means to pay for it.  It should be a universal right.  Libraries help make that possible. 

CC:  Speaking of vacation reading, what are you reading right now? 

FCL:  Right now I’m reading Cast in Fury by Michelle West and The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan.

CC:  I have Riordan’s The Lost Hero in my “to-read” pile, actually!  What books are in that pile for you?

FCL:  Oh my gosh, so many! But probably first up is the next book in The Chronicles of Elantra series by Michelle West, and also Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, whose Mistborn series ranks pretty high among my favorite books ever!

CC:  Who would be your biggest fictional-character crush?

FCL:  OH! So easy! Bran, from Juliette Marillier’s Son of The Shadows!  Well, or maybe Domitan Masbolle, from Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small Series.  Or George Cooper, from her Alanna series! And I can’t deny a soft spot for Teddy Lawrence, from Little Women. All right, so maybe it’s not so easy!

CC:  Mmm…Teddy Lawrence.  So dreamy!  On another note, what is your fondest in-library memory?

FCL:  My best library memory is the moment I realized we really truly had built a library in Abaarso, Somalia.  I was shelving books one day and I saw students lounging everywhere, reading books on art, studying the Koran, having a book club meeting, and working on the trivia question someone had written on the whiteboard.  It was amazing. I don’t know how to describe it without sounding cheesy!  It stopped me in my tracks. 

CC:  I know that this is a near-impossible question, but who are some of your favorite authors and why?

Juliette Marillier, Tamora Pierce, and Brandon Sanderson are probably my top three. Although there are many many books and authors that I love, these three have written series that I can read over and over again.  All three write fantasy books, and for me what makes their books so riveting is that they completely succeed in creating entire worlds that exist in such detail you can totally lose yourself in the story, never questioning it once.  It’s more than entertainment.  It’s a journey to somewhere absolutely foreign!

CC:  Same idea — What are your favorite books?  (I’m giving you multiple, because I know that picking just one is painful!)

FCL:  Well, the series I referred to in the question before must obviously rank at the top of my list: Sevenwaters, Tortall, and Mistborn, respectively.  I also love Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore, The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper, and Juniper by Monica Furlong.  As far as classics go (yes, I don’t read ONLY fantasy!) I like Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, and I Served the King of England by Hrabal.

CC:  I think we first bonded over Graceling, if I’m not mistaken!  Fond memories!  Now, if you could be a character in any novel, which would you choose and why?  (And you could be yourself, or a specific character from that book.)

FCL:  That’s so hard! I think I would be Aly, from Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen.  She’s always one step ahead of everyone and her mind perceives things in a way few others do.  Also, to me, she’s believable in a way many main-character women aren’t.  Most are just TOO perfect.  And too unaware of how great everyone else seems to think they are.  Aly is always completely aware of who she is and what other people think of her.  She’s smart, sly, and charming.  I wish I was her!

CC:  If you could have any character-sidekick in real life, who would you choose and why?

FCL:  Hermione Granger!  She counts as a sidekick, right?  She’s brave and super smart and ALWAYS knows a million esoteric spells you didn’t even know existed.  And she likes muggles so I’d definitely be in luck there.

CC:  I couldn’t agree more.  And she’s so loyal, too!  I heart her.  Anyway,  last question.  Fast-forward five years and imagine the library where you’ll work.  What will it look like?  Feel like?  How will you run it and get kids excited about reading?

FCL:  I hope I’m working at a big public library!  I want it to be inviting and homey, like you want to curl up and read a book there all day.  Our community library at home in Wisconsin is like that.  I love it.  And we’ve had the same librarians forever, so they know you and your family and all the books you like to read.  I love to visit there whenever I travel back home.  As for getting kids excited, I want to run programs with local schools.  I volunteer at an Austin elementary school, and I’ve witnessed huge success with book readings and book clubs.  Especially when the adults get really excited and goofy about reading the books, kids react so enthusiastically! And I want to have weekly or daily activities like story time and discussion and bring-a-lunch book club, especially in the summer when kids have lots of free time.  Sure, it may seem cliché or cheesy, but they work!  And in addition to getting people started reading, they offer opportunities for people who already love reading to meet up and form friendships with that as their bond.  Everyone wins!

 

Thanks so much for guest-starring here, Hannah!  I want to live in your library one day! 

My yoga instructor, Mandy, says that the first principle of Anusara Yoga is “open to grace.” 

I love her class.  I mean, love it.  But some days, I’m more graceful than others.  There are times when I feel like a ballet dancer; a figure skater; a bird.  And then there are the days when I’m clumsy and clunky, stumbling around like a drunken frat boy. 

So what, exactly, does it mean to be “open to grace”?  My life is in a state of flux right now.  I’m running into changes—planned and unplanned, expected and unexpected—that could easily throw me into a tailspin.  But at the moment, I feel oddly peaceful about things, like I’m waking up from a really good, long sleep.  I can only guess that Mandy’s words are getting through.  I’m feeling open to grace in and outside of class, and I’m thinking about what that looks like in my life.  Here’s how I’m breaking it down.

Truth:  It’s easy to get caught up in the trappings of your circumstances.  To feel bound by your relationships and your environment.  To let those connections cloud how you feel about yourself and the decisions that you make.  I’m taking the time to think critically and personally about what’s really going on in my life and how I truly feel about it.  I’m trying to be honest with myself and with the people around me.  A hard truth about me is that I (regrettably) worry a lot about what people think.  Right now, I’m determined to set aside concern for how others see me and for the expectations that I think they have so that I can make the best decisions possible.  And so that I can see the Truth in those choices. 

Balance:  A few years ago a colleague of mine went through a traumatic event, and I didn’t find out until well after it had occurred.  I was so impressed with the level of composure that she’d maintained in the workplace, despite the chaos she’d been experiencing in her life outside of the office.  A friend described it as “equilibrium.”  I’m hoping that I can develop my own sense of stability in the fray.  We can’t always control the circumstances in our lives, but we can decide how we respond to them.  I don’t intend to hide my emotions or pretend like I’m unaffected, but I think that there are ways to preserve a sense of calm in the storm.  I want to be level-headed despite the mess.  If I commit to taking it day-by-day, I think that I can do it.  It isn’t about making everything perfect, or “fixing” things immediately.  It’s about keeping a clear head and checking in with myself.  It’s about taking care of my heart as best I can.

Love:  I’ve been in Austin for almost eight years, and it’s remarkable how much love I have for this city, and for the family that I’ve grown here.  I’m embracing that love right now, and I’m dedicated to loving myself, too.  I’m typically very focused on obligations, responsibilities, commitments.  But first and foremost, I’m going to commit to myself.  I’m choosing me.  I’m going to honor the things that I need to be happy—both tangible and intangible.  Physical and theoretical.  Artistic and practical.  Of course, at the same time that I honor my own needs and feelings, I want to be thoughtful about other people’s hearts and emotions.  (After all, I can’t love myself if I don’t like myself.)  There’s always a balance between respecting what you need and what others need from you.  But if I make choices out of love and for love, I’d like to think that I can’t go wrong.

…My hope is that grace is somewhere in the crosshairs between truth, balance, and love.  And if it isn’t, I’ll just have to find it elsewhere.

This is my first of several entries in recognition of libraries.  With the Texas Librarians Association annual conference this week, I want to reflect on the ways that libraries have influenced and enriched my life.  

 

Library Memories 

Fall 1993

I was in junior high, and I’d just made the decision to take “advanced” social studies—a class that had daunted and thwarted many a student before me.  But we were working on a group research project on Ancient Egypt, and the atmosphere in the expansive library was electric.  (Did I really just refer to the atmosphere in a library as “electric?”)  My junior high library had high ceilings and windows that stretched long and tall, letting light fall across the room in sweeping arcs even in the dead of winter.  Across the table from me, my would-be boyfriend bent his head over an encyclopedia.  My best friend doodled on her notes with a practiced hand.  Our fearless, authoritative, but somehow good-humored teacher calmly walked between tables, looking over our shoulders and nodding quietly.  Studying was cool in this class, and I felt more at home than I’d ever anticipated.

Spring 1997

My high school library was unfortunately cramped and small.  We hadn’t transitioned yet to digital cataloguing, which made it feel even further outdated.  I was looking for reading on feminism, and stumbled across an old, tattered copy of The Feminine Mystique in the stacks.  I thumbed through it while sitting across from the impossibly-cute but hilariously-geeky Antone, who was avidly pounding away at the keys on his calculator.  (Antone would later be voted “Class Calculator.”  And I’m not kidding.)  I was intrigued by the book I’d just picked up, but I wasn’t sure how to access it yet.  Second-wave feminism?  The 1960’s?  It all felt so foreign to me.  Who knew that roughly ten years later I’d return to the Friedan text as a graduate student and devour it like a bag of Doritos?

Spring 2001

I was a senior in college, living off-campus, desperately in need of a quiet study space.  And I was lucky enough to have a library that was every bit as old-school as my liberal arts college.  It was filled with long, heavy wooden tables, marble floors and columns, and vaulted ceilings.  It was breathtaking to the point of distraction.  So of course it also had the requisite study carols, where I’d hide away with my laptop and push through my undergraduate thesis.  After hours of interviews, I was assembling stories about adolescent female athletes.  It was as much a process of self-reflection as it was a piece about other girls’ experiences, and I learned about myself as well in that library.  I learned who I was as a student, as a female, and as an athlete.  I could argue that I became an adult there, too, but I still don’t feel like an adult now…So that’s out.

Fall 2004

I was in graduate school and feeling absolutely shredded by the intense reading load and academic politics.  My brain needed a break, so I went to the undergraduate library and headed straight for the fiction section.  Picking up a copy of Wicked, I sought refuge in an imaginary world on an industrial couch in a library that was far more institutional than the one I’d known at my own undergraduate institution.  I buried myself in Gregory MaGuire’s version of Oz, and quickly fell asleep to the hum of fluorescent lights and pencils on notebook paper.  When I woke up, I wondered if I was too old to be taking naps in academic libraries.  But I quickly decided that you’re never too old for naps…Or for libraries, for that matter.

Summer 2010

Through some email listserve or another, I’d heard about a reading at my newly-opened neighborhood library.  I’d returned to fiction-writing with greater conviction roughly six months before, and I was trying to access as much of the writing world in Austin as I could.  A massive summer thunderstorm blew through just before the event was slated to begin, but I was determined to make it there.  I slipped and staggered my way through the sliding doors, shaking rainwater off my sandaled feet and out of my hair, just in time.  The author was warm and gracious, and the crowd was small enough that I learned everyone’s name and chatted comfortably.  By the end of it, I’d met someone who is now a very dear friend and critique partner.  My local library gave me yet another gift that summer.  It wasn’t a book, but it was something infinitely more valuable.

 Winter 2010

I was a language arts teacher, putting on a play with my classes just before the winter holidays, as I’d done for the last five years.  But this year, I had an incredible librarian who opened up her space to my classes, and we changed the format.  We turned the library into a theater, with rowed seating and flashing lights.  We had a staging area, props, sound, and a “lobby” where parents arrived with food and donations to our clothing drive.  The library was an open, welcoming, lively place for our performance.  The old notion of a library being stuffy and quiet was thoroughly debunked by the energy of 150 seventh-graders, their pre-holiday frenzy, and the adult enthusiasm that mirrored them.  There wasn’t a “shush” in the house that day.

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.”

–Victor Hugo

Among the many things that I love about Austin, I really appreciate the tremendous talent here and the often small-town feel.  A few months ago I had the pleasure of lending some female vocals to a cover band comprised entirely of Ultimate players.  Had I known the level of talent and professionalism of the other people in the group, I may have been too intimidated to accept the invitation.  Thankfully, I lived in blissful ignorance until rehearsals began, and it was too late to back out! 

Among the fray of frisbee/music people was a pair of brothers who make up half of the Austin band, Full Service.  Hoag and Bonesaw are ridiculously talented, but they’re also incorrigibly funny, generous with praise, and admirably positive.  Following our show, I checked out their website (and you should, too!) and learned a few key things right off the bat:

1. Their most recent album is an acoustic turn titled Roaming Dragons.  
2. Their next tour is acoustic and entirely fan-booked.
3. This fall they did a show in an English classroom that doubled as a lesson on lyrical interpretation.

This chance meeting, crossed with these facts, led up to a very exciting start to National Poetry Month in my class.

As luck would have it, I was just about to start a seven-week unit on poetry when I stumbled into the Full Service circle.  And I hadn’t planned so much as a day of the curriculum yet.  It had occurred to me to infuse the lessons with music, though, so it seemed that this opportunity was too good to pass up.

Enter Bonesaw, who not only taught middle school history for several years prior to starting the band, but who also functions as the structure of the Full Service system.  In just a few days he and I set a date, and I put a plan in place to bring the guys into the classroom. 

In the weeks that followed, I worked with my students on poetic beat, meter, and rhythm.  We used poetry by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Frost, Shel Silverstein and others to discuss tone, mood, theme, symbolism and imagery.  Then I introduced the Full Service music and lyrics (focusing on Roaming Dragons), and the lessons came alive.  The kids completely bought in.  The combination of poetry and sound was an ideal way to analyze tone (the feelings of the author) and mood (the emotion created in the reader), and there’s simply nothing like music playing in a classroom.  It was like daily therapy.  And trust me–coming from a middle school teacher, that’s really saying something.

The fact that the band came in on April 1^st—the first day of National Poetry Month—was sheer coincidence.  But it was perfect.  The 90-minute “in-school field trip” flew by.  The kids were engrossed, and I joked later that they made me look good with their attentiveness and insightful questions.  They prompted Hoag to identify the symbolism behind his lyrics on the album’s title track.  At one point there was an impromptu haiku war (think seventeen-syllable rap battle), as requested by a particularly feisty student.  The discussion ranged from intense, like the actual emotions and experiences that inspired “Rocketships,” to playful, like the audience participation in “Chickens” and “Trumpets” and the Snow White reference in “Hi Ho.”  The band made poetry relatable and approachable for the kids with their down-to-earth attitudes and easy rapport with the audience.  In short, it became personal.  It wasn’t just academic material anymore; it meant something to them.

It was difficult to go back to a regular lesson, to say the least.

The student response following the show was overwhelmingly positive, and it was clear to me that they’d really connected emotionally with the material.  I realized that it was an academic experience many of them will never forget, and of course my hope, then, is that they’ll remember the skills and literary elements that went along with it.  The merging of music and poetry made the curriculum resonate with them, to the point where they were truly entertained.  Both the kids and the Full Service foursome of Bonesaw, Hoag, Smell and Twinky-P brought sheer joy to the activity.

The best writing makes the reader feel and connect, and poetry is no exception.  There’s no question in my mind that, on the first day of National Poetry Month, my students had an emotional experience.  What more could I ask for?

You want to know why I write primarily about girl athletes?

This week, one of the female Ultimate players on the middle school team that I coach was feeling left out.  Our team is almost entirely comprised of boys, and while I’ve had a largely positive experience coaching them over the last six years, I know that it can be difficult for the girls to find their figurative place on co-ed teams at this level.    

I don’t think that the boys set out not to throw to the girls, but I think that some of them have a knack for developing tunnel vision.  Male and female athletes have different styles and particular strengths.  No matter how open a girl may be, there are boys who will look her off every time without even realizing it.  I was seeing this habit play out at my practice on Wednesday, and my heart went out to my new player.  Not only is she new to the team, or new to the sport.  She’s new to team sports in general, and I realized that this could be a critical moment in her budding athletic career.

I suggested that she attend a college women’s Ultimate tournament that was in town this weekend.  Women’s Centex has become one of the premier tournaments in the country, and this weekend it welcomed 52 teams from across the United States and Canada.  The top 32 were closely matched, and all were impressively athletic and well-trained.  I imagined that it might be good for my young protégé to see the talent, the support, and the camaraderie on these teams.  While her current team is co-ed, I thought that she might like to see that there are opportunities for girls to play with other girls exclusively.  And that women’s sports are, undoubtedly, different.  I wanted her to see that there’s more Ultimate in her future, if she wants it.

I hosted the University of Michigan at my house for the tournament.  Twenty girls piled into my house beginning on Thursday night, sprawling out on every open space.  We had sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, air mattresses, cleats, field bags, dirty uniforms and water bottles scattered throughout every room.  And I loved it.

I woke up on Saturday morning to the sound of excited chatter outside my bedroom door.  My dog had adopted the girls overnight, opting to curl up in someone’s sleeping bag rather than my bed.  I heard captains reminding their teammates to start drinking water now, to remember their sunscreen, to figure out who was riding in which car.  They talked about the blue-and-yellow nail polish that they were all wearing. 

One girl asked, “Is there any chance in the world that it will rain today?,” and she was met with a resounding NO when her peers looked outside at the sunny, 75-degree Texas day.  “I’m going to kill all of you who said no if it does!” she sniped.  But there was no question that she was laughing through the statement. 

Another player talked about frantically slamming a moth in her laptop in the middle of the night, much to the delight of her hysterical teammates. 

My favorite part?  Before leaving, the girls opened a batch of banana-nut muffins, baked by someone that I assumed to be a former teammate or coach, or perhaps an injured teammate who couldn’t be there.  She’d attached individual messages for the girls, and one for the entire team.  The team message had four directives for the weekend:

1.        Respect yourself.

2.       Respect your teammates.

3.       Respect your opponents.

4.       F**k them up!

Why do I love this message so much?  Because it embodies one of the great things about women’s sports:  That you can have integrity, maintain pride, be supportive, and show respect…at the same time that you are aggressive, competitive, and confident.  And there was no denying the emotional connection between these young women as they each opened and read their personal notes.  These girls are all unique and different, but they have a true affection and respect for each other.  They are loyal, true friends.

Another highlight of Centex began during my first season playing college Ultimate.  That spring, my team bet another that we’d win the next time that our teams faced off.  We agreed that the losing team had to perform an interpretive dance at Centex a few months later.  We won the game, so indeed the other women came to Austin prepared with an elaborate dance…and much to everyone’s joy, it was a spectacle and a hit.  The next year, a few other teams arrived at the tournament with choreographed routines.  And since then, the Centex Dance-Off has morphed into a full-blown tradition that includes the vast majority of the attending teams, props, costumes, and a prize for the best routine.  It represents a sense of community among female athletes.  The girls go out and fight hard against each other all day on Saturday, cheer each other on in the dance-off after dinner, and then go back to the mattresses first thing Sunday.    

I wanted my young player to see the beauty of Ultimate as a sport, and the special connections on women’s teams. 

Is there really any question, then, why I write about girl athletes?

Last summer, my fabulous friend Allison me a copy of Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann.  It was accompanied with a birthday card that read something like this…

Outside: 

A good friend will visit you in jail. 

A great friend will bail you out.

Inside:  (With a note at the top from Allison in her typical purple script that said, “Let’s just call a spade a spade…”) 

A friend like me will be in the next cell.

That’s Allison in a nutshell, and it explains part of why I adore her.  Needless to say, I don’t take her book recommendations lightly.  When she gifted me American Girl I was sure that it would be a keeper.    I put the book in my extensive “to read” pile and let it percolate there for a while. 

Last month, I finally arrived at it, and I’m now roughly 1/3 of the way through.  Normally I tear through books much faster than this, but Hamann’s tale just isn’t that kind of a read. 

I read a lot of young adult fiction.  I mean, a lot.  So I’m used to a particular vernacular, a specific style, and a very different pace.  Right off the bat, it was clear that this book would require commitment.  The novel follows Eveline, a girl on the brink of adulthood on Long Island and then in New York City in the late 70s and early 80s.  She’s artistic and almost painfully observant of the world around her.  At times she comes across as merely a passive watcher.  She’s so vastly different from who I am, and who I was at that age, that it took me some time to adjust to the frustration of letting this character stumble.  I still have to work hard not to scream at the pages, Why doesn’t she do anything?!  And in fact, very little actually happens.  The plot is arguably slow, and the language dense.  At first, I would read bits aloud, rolling my eyes at the laborious vocabulary. 

But I trusted Allison, and I persevered.

And, indeed, I’ve found that the book speaks to me.  It isn’t a page-turner.  I’m taking my time with it.  I’m surrendering to the language and the narrative arch, without letting the book become an action item.  As a writer, I’m often told to read everything—even the bad stuff—and so there are times when I push through a text that I’m not enjoying for the sake of finishing it, analyzing it, and determining why it wasn’t successful. 

This isn’t like that.  It’s rich.  Packed with gems that I remember long after turning the page.  I let the words roll around in my head—and my mouth, at times—as they work their magic.  The tone is haunting and dark.  Now, I’m hard-pressed to find sections that I find so irritatingly wordy.  I’m fully engaged in the world that Hamann has created. 

Unlike much of what I read and write, Anthropology of an American Girl is an adult novel about a teenage girl.  (And I expect that this will become even more pronounced as Eveline ages in the novel and faces more adult conflicts and situations.)  In this way, it reminds me of Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, in which an adult woman reflects back on her high school years.  I’m used to reading books written about teenagers, for teenagers.  This is another obstacle that I initially faced when I came to the American Girl.  Hamann’s work is wrought with adolescent angst, but I’m confident that Eveline navigates the same issues of identity as many adults.  She’s confined by the relationships around her, even as she wrestles against them. 

Here I am, more than a decade out of high school, and I still wonder who I am.  I battle the assumptions and limitations placed on me by the other people in my life and my relationship to them.  For that matter, I struggle with my own expectations of myself and others.  Hamann taps into the reality that, as humans, we are inextricably connected to other people.  We’re bound by the culture in which we’re raised; to the schools we attend; to the country where we live.  This interconnectedness is simultaneously glorious and wonderful, limiting and agonizing.  Eveline never stops looking inside at who she is, individually, outside the definitions of these relationships.  Indeed, should any of us?

Read more about the book and the author here:  http://www.anthropologyofanamericangirl.com

And more about Curtis Sittenfeld and her books here:  http://www.curtissittenfeld.com

And don’t forget to check out Allison (a.k.a. Fortune Cookie Junkie)’s blog at http://www.notafortune.com/