I don’t know why weeks in January are so long. Probably because the days in January defy all natural laws and stretch on forever from darkness to darkness with a brief smudge of light in between. The other problem with January is that Christmas break is rapidly followed by responsibility and obligations. School. Homework. Dental exams and orthodontics appointments. Planning. Cleaning. Litres of coffee consumed over dry historical texts and modern mystery pulp in equal volume, carefully protected between down coat and half-raised arm. Snow is bad for books, and after awhile it’s bad for sanity, too.
Blah.
One of my fiction pieces is being considered for publication in my school’s Journal, which is very cool. The editorial panel’s reviews have been surprisingly positive, which is very cool. I’m not sure how this is supposed to go, though. I’m afraid to hope that they’ll actually accept it. It’s one of my, erm… darker shorts, which makes me worry a bit about what kind of image I’m setting up, out there. Some of the Fiction Project posts have openly rattled at least one of my clients, and another has so many unanswered questions I can practically see them scrolling behind her eyes.
Or maybe it’s just January….
This week, I picked up James Patterson’s Zoo from the library’s Hits to Go rack because whatever brain cells were devoted to remembering to charge my Kobo have evidently been over-written. The book was appropriately apocalyptic, but light and fast. Like gritty snow. There is often free chili available on the library’s second floor at weekend afternoons, which means the crowd exemplifies the weather. There is so much darkness in those faces. An unwashed couple took advantage of the partial seclusion of window-facing chairs and the low concrete wall, just as my tutoring session was ending. I passed security guards working hard not to crack smiles on my way to the Children’s Library.
It is always light, in there.
Packing up Bug’s beginner chapters books and Princess’s graphic novels, picture books for the crew, and ESL teaching manuals for me, and wishing hard for a caffeine IV, I trudged out into the blowing snow and thought about reading and writing and school. As an outsider, it feels like we’re doing it wrong, batch-teaching kids when we know they’re in different places developmentally, when we know that no two humans learn the same thing the same way, crowding them into classrooms, speaking of mindfulness and introducing yoga practices while sectioning off parts of the library and confiscating books deemed inappropriate for their age. Arguing about the applicability of standardized testing while anxiously awaiting those testing results…. Policy demands blanket solutions and generalized curricula. Reality is leftover chili served in styrofoam bowls to people without literacy who are being consumed by the dark.
Or, at least it is, for some.
Sorry for the rambling post, everybody. I hope the sun is shining, where you are.
I hear ya Desi, being a parent I have seen myself how our traditional educational systems have some to be desired; this teaching in batches you mention, not by skill level but by age. My son had trouble in the beginning, he had a late start. By third grade he was not reading or writing. I was told he never would. I started working with him myself over the summers and he caught up by the end of the 6th grade…credit his hard work. It seems some kids just fall through the cracks…and if there is no one to help, they become just another statistic.
Good luck on getting one of your pieces in the school journal and thanks for being there for the kids. You are a good person and Mom Desi.
I tutor adults, some of whom actually graduated highschool without the ability to read and write. It’s not too late for them, but their progress is much slower, their self-limiting anxieties and fears so much deeper – like any adult learning a skill, it simply takes more time. So, I watch my daughter negotiating first grade and I hope hard that she will never, ever be just another cog in the wheel, there. Nor my son, when it’s his turn… Blah. The system is ours, right? Sooner or later, we’ll fix it :-)
Good for you! What a worthy cause to help adults get a second chance at reading.
I like you attitude–Yes we can!
Your writing makes the sun shine, even when it doesn’t want to…
Oh, honey. If only! Thanks so much for your kindness.
Our opinions on January are much alike. I feel that there’s nothing very good about the month, that it exists because it has to, because we have to get back to doing things at some point.
I am happy to see you are continuing with the pursuit of writing. :)
Thanks! The writing tends to pursue me – a condition I thought was creepy if not total bullshit until it actually happened. As for January? My inner adult keeps trying to convince me that if we were on holidays all the time, they wouldn’t really be holidays…. It’s not working.
There must be things to do to combat the winter doldrums, if so I can’t remember doing anything but suffering through. It’s been 30 yrs. since I wintered anywhere with snow.
Now summers? Summers are what we suffer with down here in the south, and between the gnats, mosquitoes, yellow flies, humidity and +90°F temps for 2-3 months at a time…whew… I psyched myself out, my heart is racing. LOL.
Ugh. We might see temperatures in the 90s for a couple of weeks at a time, out here, and by the end of it we’re limp and grouchy shells of our former selves, inclined to getting sunburnt drinking beer on the deck and picking arguments for the hell of it. If it’s hot AND humid, the city sets up cooling stations with free bottled water, fans and shade tents…. Hahaha! And yet we laugh at our southern neighbours who shut their cities down when they get an inch of snow. Irony!
I know, right? From one extreme to the other. :)
Reblogged this on 19angwenyi's Blog.
No sun Buffalo-way, but your post still served to brighten my day!
And no, I didn’t actually intend on rhyming just then.
Heh heh. Good to know there are a few frozen poets kicking around in Buffalo, too. Bring on the sunshine, t!
Awesome about having your piece accepted to the school journal.
And your library serves chili? Wow. On one of my brief working stints at the downtown library here, I was informed that part of my duty was to prevent homeless people from sitting at the study tables on the upper floor, taking illegal naps. No sleeping in the library. Never mind free chili. I think I like yours better (even if you have to pay for your library cards).
It hasn’t been accepted, they’re just reviewing it to see if it’s appropriate, well-written, etc., etc. So, for now, it’s wait and see. The positive feedback is good news, though.
Our library is less tolerant of homeless people when the weather is mild. When it’s really cold outside, though, as it has been these last couple of weekends (or really, really hot outside, as happens at the height of summer), I imagine that given the choice between (a) sending people outside to die and, (b) letting them come in, take a nap, and get warm or cool off and hydrate, EPL chooses the latter. Ditto the chili. One of the library programs involves cooking chili, somehow, and when it’s really cold outside they just happen to cook ten or eleven times as much chili as the program requires. And we don’t have to pay for library cards. They’re free for kids up to age 18 and free for any adult who chooses not to pay. I think libraries have always toed the line between “information exchange” and “human services”. Recently, EPL has put a lot more intentional emphasis on the human part.
I commiserate with your blah about January and snow. If it weren’t that a couple of my favourite people were born in it, I’d just hibernate. While I love a new year, the open possibilities it brings, I hate that it starts in this month. Cold, dark, grimy when the Chinooks hit. Too bad new years didn’t begin in June. Then again, I hate the heat… :D
Hahahaha! God, yes, the heat in August out here is almost worse than freezing in January or watching cars figure-skate the day after a good Chinook. I’m told the weather is more moderate out on the West Coast… Maybe I’ll go out there and try it one, one day :-)
I just finished writing a comment on someones post -”In Canada we blame everything on the snow and winter. In summer we have to be creative. Snow is replaced by mosquitoes and black flies. Thirty million Canadians cannot be wrong, can we”………..Canadiana, you do us proud.
Hahaha! It’s TRUE! We don’t have black flies out here on the prairies, but sometimes the mosquitoes look about the right size to carry off a small child, yet remain small enough to get caught in the back of your throat during bike rides. Aaah, Canada. Only here can one wax truly poetic about hypothermia and blood-sucking parasites =D
Blood sucking parasites, dam it, I forgot to include politicians.
You mentioned Zoo, but have you ever read Rockbound. I just finished it. Published in 1928 , written by Frank Parker Day. Till I read this, I could count on one hand Canadian books of fiction that captured and held my attention. With this one I have moved to the second hand for counting.
Hahahaha! No, I haven’t read Rockbound, but I’m going to get my hands on it, now. Cheers to the end of dreary, slow-moving, “artistic” Canadian fiction. Google Books is calling it “A David and Goliath battle to the finish”. Woot!!! If your recommendation weren’t enough on its own, that would sell it for me, for sure. Off to check Overdrive….
Think about the time in which this written. Think about the big boys who were writing at that time. It is that good.
I’m on it. I’ve got it on hold at the library, and it should be ready for pick-up within a few days. I’m excited!