[fiction, instead of lies]

Good grief, these soldiers! Always sassy, that 6888th.

I thought I’d posted this about a year ago, but found that I never did! So – enjoy. And imagine Mare…

Revision. Because it means I’ve sold another book, and I’m working, being a writer. Which is just exceptionally cool.

The countdown of “almost done” for Kelly’s Jane poems, and knowing that yet another of my dearest friends will soon be in print.

New story ideas and fun historical research. And poison.

The light at the end of the tunnel for Tech Boy’s PhD.

Actually, the endless rain. Because I’d rather be dreary than too hot, at this point. (This may change.)

Other happiness will surface, but those are the thoughts as of this moment. Also: that Tales of Mere Existence is somewhat addictive, and very depressingly funny.

(Today’s my Dad’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dad!)

I subscribe to the Smithsonian Institute’s photostream on Flickr, and let me tell you, they have archived some of the COOLEST things. This week, it’s the artwork of William H. Johnson. Born in South Carolina in 1901, he started out dirt poor, and moved to New York to pursue work at the age of seventeen. That’s a familiar enough story — country boy heads to the big city to find work, right?

But this man found work, saved money, and went to art school.

There are so many stories that we don’t know. So many dreams that people had, that they quietly strove for, while the wheels of history rolled on. William H. Johnson died unlauded, despite critics hailing his artwork as being as good as Van Gogh’s. I’m really glad that the Smithsonian has preserved some of his artwork, and that we can know a few of this man’s dreams.

Like many artists, he never achieved financial security. Tragedy and disease caused him grief, and ended his career. Like many, he lived with the concerns of making ends meet, and never knew his own greatness in his lifetime. But he never stopped trying.

Hold on to your dreams.

William H. Johnson

1901-1971

Congratulations, Fellow Bloomers!

The 2010 Amelia Bloomer List has been up since Tuesday! The Amelia Bloomer Project, as I blogged in September when I was nominated, is part of the Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association, and being on their annual list is an honor MARE’S WAR shares with some awesome people. This honor has a special place of pride for me, as an MFA alum of Mills College, which is the oldest women’s college west of the Rockies.

I’d like to especially congratulate Laurie Halse Anderson for WINTERGIRLS, Marilyn Nelson for SWEETHEARTS OF RHYTHM, John Scalzi for ZOE’S TALE and Sherri L. Smith for FLYGIRL. (Big WOOT for my friend Sherri!)

We’re hoping to interview Gentleman Scalzi for our next series of Blog Blast Tours, and you don’t want to miss Wonderland’s interview with our Sherri. FLYGIRL, by Sherri L. Smith is a truly intense, insightful book about the American struggle with race and identity as wrapped up in the story of a fair-skinned African American girl who was light enough to “pass,” and joined the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). The book simply deserves to be read and honored by thoughtful people, so pick it up.

Amelia Bloomer, Mare and all the other girls who brave the bloomers salute you!

nataliedee.com

It still amazes me that Thursday rolls on as an ordinary day here. Because no one else celebrates Thanksgiving, last year we didn’t try for a special dinner or anything, just… called the family, watched everyone hold up their food, and waved.

Not nearly as much fun as hearing the good-natured grousing about which dressing is better, cornbread or non-cornbread, and watching my father fidget until he can leave the table and get back to football and/or a hike somewhere far, far away from the rest of us. (You see I come by this introversion honestly).

Joy to you, as you are grateful for what you have in whatever way you choose to show it. I am grateful for good lamps, snuggly fleece, and time for books. And did I not mention? YOU.

Happy Thanksgiving.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Newsflash: your brain knows things you don’t know it knows. It knows how to sing. It knows how to dance. All you have to do is let your body follow.

You’re more than you think, you’re better than you know, you’re more fabulous than you can ever understand. Take that final step, and believe it.

Carry on, dears.

Today, the Horn Book newsletter came out, and I noted a selection of war stories. Featured was Sara Lewis Holmes’ OPERATION YES, — woot! — and two for older readers I hadn’t heard of, PURPLE HEART by Patricia McCormick, and TRUCE, by Jim Murphy. I guess MARE’S WAR isn’t considered a war novel for whatever reason, but it was a nice salute to Veteran’s Day to see some new ones about different wars and different aspects of American conflicts.

The biggest hoot for me this Veteran’s Day was the discovery of …my grandmother’s military service. A young woman by the name of Mary L. Rogers, born in Alabama, enlisted and joined the WAC’s on the 30th of June in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1944.

Now, initially, when I was searching for my grandmother for my MFA project, I looked in military archives for one Mary Lee Rogers, or Rodgers — spelling seemed to vary so much back in the day –! I thought there would be records in the Navy. My grandmother spent most of her adult life in Pensacola, and I assumed Florida would be Navyland Central, surrounded, as it is, with all that water. I couldn’t find a thing, of course; African American women were not allowed to serve in Naval forces until almost the end of 1944, and the first WAVES were trained in the Northeast — Massachusetts and New York. Keeping in mind that my grandmother was essentially broke and on her own, that seemed a long way for her to go. Also, I was looking at a specific time line for her life, and that didn’t fit. I found nothing for any Mary Lee, and no one who matched with either spelling of Rogers. I was bummed.

I gave up that search, and went on to write MARE’S WAR (fiction being more workable than the truth), but who knew a chance meeting with Ancestry.com today would bring me the truth — and gobsmacking proof, that she actually was in the service!? We just happened to hear that they’re allowing closed military records and ship rolls from long ago to be searched for free, in honor of Veteran’s Day. We just happened to put in Mary L., instead of writing out her full name, and — bingo. Who would have thought such a minor detail would make such a big difference?!

My grandmother did not travel to the European Theater. She only served for two and a half years, and received a dishonorable discharge. Much of America was ambivalent about women in the military, and my grandmother was discharged because she was starting a family. That was enough to get you booted out, even if you were married. I don’t believe my grandmother was, sad to say. She loved uniforms and the rank and file her whole life; I don’t think she ever got it out of her blood.

I wish I could say she’d be proud of MARE’S WAR, but I think she’d be embarrassed, mostly, and a little peeved that I’d made something up (again. I don’t think she was much impressed with my disinclination for telling the truth). Never mind. I am so proud that she served, and proud of every member of my family who had the chutzpah to follow orders and stand up straight in whatever branch, for however long.

Thank-you, WAC’s, WAVES, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National/Coast Guard.

It’s that week of the year where we celebrate the freedom to read and think. It’s easy to say that I don’t get it when people challenge books and object to them for not only their child, but for the children of their school district, city, or state, every year I take a moment to reflect and admit: I actually do understand. My childhood was spent with people who controlled what I read — in an effort to control what I thought, what I heard and saw and felt. I know it was a well-intentioned effort, and even now I observe my younger siblings being raised a different way. While I have no children of my own, I love my siblings, niece and nephewlets to bits, and understand what it’s like to want to control the world they inhabit. You only want good things for them. You want to keep out the bad.

Parents who ban and challenge books, I get it. I really do understand.

Bad things happen. You could point to any story in the news this week, and say for sure that bad things do happen. It’s so easy to want to close our eyes and make the bad things disappear. And even better, if we can close our kids’ eyes, and their classmates eyes, and the eyes of all the kids our kids might come to know in the district. It would be so much easier to teach our kids just what we wanted them to know about certain things if we were the only ones talking to them. If they didn’t hear about it from a kid who’d read Twilight or from Lauren Myracle’s new book, Love Ya Bunches, or from John Green or Laurie Halse Anderson or Ellen Hopkins or Alex Sanchez…

I understand you, Challenging Parents, too well, because I was well tutored in fear, and how it makes you want to control everything. Worse than that, it makes kids who feel fearful and out of control just being out in the world. They want to find the rules and follow them, and never deviate. They want to be right at the cost of being spontaneous or thoughtful or open or forgiving or inventive. But perfection is a fallacy and control an illusion: we walk through this world at constant risk of falling.

And that’s okay. Some of us have faith to hold us up, which is no small, insignificant thing. Others of us have reason and routine and target practice and music — whatever helps us make it through. It’s okay for us to acknowledge the fear and the hopes for future of your children, and to spend time praying and hoping and wishing for the world to treat them better.

As long as we’re not lying to ourselves. As long as we don’t think that censoring books about rape will safeguard a kid against ever being forced. As long as we don’t think that whiting out swear words will mean no one ever says them, or that keeping boys about gay kids in a confined collection will mean that there will be no one else born gay. As long as we don’t fool ourselves into believing that keeping a book away from a child means keeping information from existence.

Eden’s gate or Pandora’s Box was opened ages ago, and the troubles of the world are out there. In this battle, knowledge is power. I would rather send my younger sibs out knowing everything they can know, and how to ask about what they don’t; wouldn’t you prefer that for your kids? Books are weapons, in that they hold the battle plans of someone else who has been this way before. Don’t give in to the fear and try to keep the world at bay by hiding it. Read with your kids. Talk to them. Send them out armed. Pass them a book.

Can I say I’m impressed? I am. Kimberly Anyadike took off from Compton the first week of July with an adult safety pilot and Levi Thornhill, an 87-year-old who served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. They flew to Newport News, Va., making about a dozen stops along the way. Kimberly is thought to be the youngest African American girl to have flown herself across the country.

She started flying when she was twelve.

It gives me goosebumps to hear what young adults can do. Tip of the hat to C.K., who sent me this awesome news via the Feministing website.

Sometimes when I hear stories about the amazing accomplishments of young adults, I find that I’m dabbing my toe in a big puddle of self-pity. If only, I think. If only I’d been more than average. If only our family had had the kind of money that it takes to do x, y, and z. If only people wouldn’t have looked at me and thought, “Oh, it’s just another one of those Davis girls.” If only I wasn’t so shy. I could have done stuff like that, if only…

If I could, I’d snap myself out of it by scoffing, “Dude, you’re envying a ten year old,” or something equally cutting, but that doesn’t work. Most of the time, when you’re on a “if only” jag like that, you like the idea of living your life backwards, of stepping into the timestream with the “if I knew then what I know now,” safely stored in your brain. You’d right old wrongs, make sure you never wore a bad outfit, clean up your acne and come out shining, with a surefire cure for every ill, and a major publishing contract when you’re twenty-one. You’d be everyone’s Girl Friday.

And we’d all live Happily Ever After. Or something.

The world worships youth culture (but disrespects young adults most of the time), and that love leads us into bad places sometimes. It lets us believe that we have nothing in the now, that “If Only” and regret are our only options. It leads us to believe that since the prom is over, so is everything sparkly and good and fun in life. We can only imitate and reminisce and rally ’round the Botox. And that’s a lie. You know this. And I know.

The problem with those “if only”-ies, too, is that I think sometimes we’re asking ourselves. “Could I have done that? Could I be so awesome?” The answer, invariably, is yes.

Tech Boy introduced me to the blog of a very intelligent person, CJ Cherryh, who has written over forty science fiction novels, won the Hugo Award four times, among other awards, and is generally dusted with starlight and sugar sprinkles as far as the SFF world is concerned. Like anyone, she’s not had everything her own way in life, but she’s worked with what she has. What impresses me about her is that she’s doing what she wants now. She and her best friend started taking ice skating in their fifth and sixth decade of life. And not just ice skating — figure skating. This summer, they’ve taken canoe lessons, and after a bit, managed to stay in the canoe. They figured out how to use a tractor and dug themselves a pond. They constantly amuse and amaze, and they don’t sit around thinking “if only.” They do things. And that’s the difference between having a life and dreaming about one. That’s the difference between my teen self, and any other teen who was moving and shaking and inventing boy bands or whatever. Usually, living means you just do something. And the good news is, it’s never too late to get a life. I’m so counting on that.

I’m not yet in my fifth or sixth decade– I’m just getting comfortable with my third. But I feel like I have a lot to do, and no time to lose. I don’t think I want to fly a plane by myself, but I think I’d like to try parasailing. I’ve already got a snake, but I think I want a big lizard. I’ll probably dye a blue streak in my hair, and wear checkerboard tights. Maybe learn interpretive dance, along with ASL. Possibly tap dance, and learn to salsa. Be in a musical. Wear fake lashes. Have a greenhouse. Grow vanilla. Go snow camping. Survive a blizzard (preferably not whilst snow camping.) Learn to play the cello, the ukulele (I’ve priced one!), and get a real wooden recorder. Do sand art with Tibetan monks. Make Robin’s chocolate zucchini bread with cherries…

This culture of regret is overrated.

Hola to all of my friends in India, China and Japan, who are today witnessing the longest total eclipse of the 21st century. Eclipses both excited me and freaked me right out when I was a kid, but they always passed too quickly. This one is going to hang around for six minutes!

Jama always inspires me — but her Poetry Friday thoughts this week just blew me away. I had to copy down this poem.

May yout dance with your muse be your salvation this week.