Our Terrible Stories

News comes in one ear and flies out the other, barely pausing to be filtered, to be thought about, to be noticed.

Is this a consequence of the 24-hour news cycle? There must be something to report every minute, even if that something is a story on how someone took offense to an earlier story: news about news.

Or is it a consequence of social media? By the meaning of its very words, we are all reporters—both of our lives (“Look at the pizza I’m eating right now!”) and of the world around us (“Look at my thoughts on the election!”).

Or is it that we live in a more connected era? Snaking deep in the oceans are the cables that carry all this information, like a belt cinching the earth together and squeezing every last bit out of it. Flying high above us are satellites that bounce all this information from one point to another, like a net cast over the earth to hold us all in place as we wriggle through our lives. An earthquake in India is instantly reported in Indiana as the cables and satellites ignite with information, always more information.

Our lives are filled with an ever-increasing stream of information, a trajectory that was set in motion the first time a caveman etched a drawing into the rock. We are made to communicate, to share our stories. We want to know more, be more, do more—and we know that we want more—and that’s what more or less sets us apart from the domesticated dog and the wild tiger.

Every generation has seen its technological advancement, and I sometimes wonder if, when telegrams first came to the masses, people were astounded.

“You mean I, from Chicago, can instantaneously tell my mother in Iowa which train I’ll arrive on so she knows when to come to the station?”

“You mean the New York Times can relay a story to the Los Angeles Times all the way across the county? From Atlantic to Pacific, we can all read the same news?”

It must’ve been astounding, this speed of communication, when they were used to writing letters and waiting—and waiting—for replies. (But let’s mourn just a small moment for the lost art of letter writing. The crisp paper! The formal questions and loopy handwriting! The charming sign-offs—“Always your most affectionate friend!” The proof that someone cared and that someone thought of you when that letter was delivered!)

In those early days of telegrams, it must’ve felt like the world was starting to spin faster and rush at humanity from all corners as trains picked up speed, ocean liners picked up speed—and then even saying hello picked up speed.

Now, not so many years later in the grand scheme of that little thing called history, we are not astounded by the speed of communication.

We are tired.

We are overloaded.

We are—it’s like when there’s a certain path you walk every day. You figured out that by cutting across the lawn here, you can save a few key seconds, so day after day, you cut across. A new path is worn down, and you forget that an old path ever existed. You trudge along, barely taking note of where you are, because you’re so used to where you’re going.

We are like that: we are in this time where everything new immediately feels old, and we barely notice. We keep moving forward as this news stream flies at us.

ISIS. (ISIL? DAESH?)
Black lives matter. All lives matter.
Avoid sugar to live longer. Avoid fat to live longer. No, eat fat, but only the good kind.
Killer cops. Cop killers.
Hillary’s a liar. Trump’s a demagogue. Bernie’s a sell-out.
Who is Taylor Swift dating?
Munich shooting. Orlando shooting. South Side shooting. Shooting. Shooting. Shooting.
110 dead in a suicide bombing in Syria.
Here’s a new cat video. Cats with cucumbers! Cats with lemons!
Russia has hacked us. China has hacked us. North Korea has hacked us.
The media is in the pocket of the politicians. The politicians are in the pocket of the corporations. That is a very large pocket.

On and on the news cycle goes, and I feel this urge rise up within me—like the urge to scream in a very quiet place. You know you shouldn’t do it, but you sense in a primal way that it would be so very satisfying. From deep inside as I listen to the news, the urge to bury my head in the proverbial sand rises.

I want to binge watch Friday Night Lights, where there’s anger and tension but also football and passion and Connie Britton’s enviable hair.

I want to listen to nothing but the Broadway cast recording of She Loves Me with its songs about vanilla ice cream and selling perfume and a surprising trip to the library. It is quotidian joy with Laura Benanti's coloratura soprano, and listening to it is the equivalent of a spring walk with the magnolias in bloom: you can’t help but be thrilled and content.

I want to read Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Sense & Sensibility—any book with a guaranteed happy ending.

I want to do anything but think about where the world is today, and then something like this happens: I woke up yesterday morning to the BBC World Service, as I do every morning. The announcer said, “We are now following the developing story of an attack at a church in Normandy. It’s believed that the priest has been stabbed.”

Normandy, where I used to live: what a way to wake up.

I reached for my phone—always on my bedside table overnight—and took advantage of those cables crisscrossing the oceans, the satellites in the sky, the instantaneous news world we live in, and the fact that my “phone” is really a small computer: I found out more in less time than it took to get my little pug out of her kennel for the day.

I learned this was happening in St-Etienne-du-Rouvray, just across the Seine from where I lived in Rouen. I learned that the priest’s throat had been slashed while he was saying mass. I learned that ISIS was claiming responsibility and that the French president was angry and sad.

Another tragic story, but this one hit close to home, and I stopped to pay attention to the news; I didn’t let it stream right past me. I was reminded by my very small personal connection to this that we have to pay attention to these stories; they are all personal to someone. We have to hear them because it’s only by listening to each other that we have any hope of getting through this.

It is easy to say this from the safety of my kitchen in Glen Ellyn as I make puff pastry and sing along to She Loves Me. But I don’t know what else to say, and I think it’s sometimes enough to simply say: I will listen. I will pay attention. I will be present to these terrible stories because while they are terrible, they are our stories and they must be told.

why i want to yell at other people

I want to yell things at drivers.

This is my confession, although it probably doesn't seem like a very worthy/juicy one, given that everyone wants to yell at other drivers at some point.

So let's call this more of my declaration of empathy with others, which sounds like something the United Nations would pass.

Here is what I want to yell at drivers: I am a person!

It is not because I'm feeling unsure of my personhood; it is because people in my town do not understand crosswalks.

When you're in a car, you're supposed to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. This is the rule, as well as a generally non-mean-person thing to do.

Below is a list of mean people behaviors I want to yell about:

1. Ignoring the fact that if I am walking, that means I am outside in the elements, unlike a Mean Driver in their climate-controlled car. I know you may want to get to where you're going faster because it is starting to rain, but did you notice that I am in the rain and that my umbrella is not as sturdy as Mary Poppins' and does not give me the ability to fly home?
2. Glaring at me as I cross the road, as if I were a chicken in a bad joke. Why are you angry, Mean Driver? Is NPR telling you all bad news? Did your favorite song from high school just come on the radio and you were still able to sing along with every word—but then you realized it was on the oldies station? I mean, you can't possibly be upset with me for using the crosswalk. I'm not jaywalking. I'm even smiling at you. Please smile back; it'll make you feel better.
3. Speeding up when I have obviously started crossing the street. A block away from one of the crosswalks I use every day on my walk home from the train is a stop sign. I'm a smart pedestrian: I look both ways approximately 112 times before deciding it's safe enough to cross. The number of drivers who are sitting at the stop sign, see me start to cross, and then gun it through the intersection—if you knew how high that number was, you would yell, too.

I would like to warn you: If you do any of these things, I will yell* at you and put you on my Mean List.


*The yelling will be in my head. All this talk of yelling, and let's be honest, I would never actually yell at Mean Drivers. I mostly just smile at them more broadly and remind myself to be charitable towards others, even in my thoughts. And then I scurry across the road because no matter how Pollyanna/Anne of Green Gables your thoughts are, you still run a large risk of being run over in my town if you're in a crosswalk.

to try with the pug

Really Awesome Idea to Try with Little Pug

I can wear a pretty dress.

She can row the boat.

Just-picked flowers are essential to this idea, as is that hat.

I don't know, though, if I can pull off looking so bored. I'll be ON A BOAT. WITH A PUG. AND FLOWERS.

I bet tucked under that brocaded-blanket {seriously, it looks like curtains} is a copy of a Jane Austen novel—or maybe it's "The Lady of Shalott." Maybe I could have my own Anne of Green Gables re-enactment while I read "The Lady of Shalott." You know, like here:

And then Little Pug could rescue me.

These are the kinds of things, by the way, that you think about when it's such a glorious May day outside your office window.

dear trees that flower in the spring

Dear Trees that Flower in the Spring,

I love you so much.

My, such a bold way to begin this letter to you, but I cannot contain my joy and abounding love when I see you every spring.

If I could hug you without crushing your blossoms, I would. Instead, I'll just stand under you and look straight up. From that angle, it looks like the whole world has become spring.

And standing under you and looking up, I'm sure I look a little odd to the rest of the world, but you know what, Trees that Flower in the Spring? Just being near you makes me feel like Anne of Green Gables when she's driving through the White Way of Delight with Matthew for the first time, even though you come in more colors than white.

You come in pink and purple and mauve and a kind of magenta, but I still feel like Anne when I'm near you. Thank you, dear Trees, for reminding me that I don't always have to act like a grown-up. I can be a wide-eyed girl taking in all the world has to offer.

I do, however, have two little requests for you.

One, could you arrange it to always be outside my bedroom window, no matter where I live? When I lived in Normandy, if you recall, there was a the sweetest tree outside my window that blossomed pink in the spring. After surviving a rainy Normandy winter, being able to wake up every morning to a pink tree made up for those months of lonely shivering. If I could always have a Tree that Flowers in the Spring outside my window, I would always remember that I can survive soul-scratching kinds of times.

Two, could you flower all the time and not just in spring? Or maybe you could just flower all the time until the fall and then presto magic, you could flip out your glorious and rich autumn colors.

I realize I'm really messing with nature here, and I also know that if you were here all the time, I wouldn't appreciate you as much. You'd become like grass, which is a deep, beautiful color {assuming there isn't a drought} and always feels so cool on the feet. But by about April 15, when it's greened up for the season, I stop seeing it and appreciating it: it's just another thing in the world.

And I guess I don't want you to become another thing, Trees that Flower in the Spring. Thanks for being such a special thing.

Ever pretending to be Anne of Green Gables,
Kamiah

all things great

What I've had in my head for several days:

All things great are wound up with all things little.
{Lucy Maud Montgomery, or just Maud, as I like to call her ever since I visited Green Gables and learned that that's what all her family and close friends called her. Maud.}

I suppose it's been in my head because I also have it on a Post-it Note on my computer at work. It's hard to ignore something when it's next to your task list {unless it's a task that you really don't want to do; then it's easy to ignore, isn't it?}.

Can I not stop thinking about it because at the beginning of the year, I'm more aware than at other times that big things {goals, resolutions, re-inventions of yourself as you turn the calendar page} often get tripped up by little things {actually implementing those goals on a daily basis}?

Is it because to achieve big dreams, you have to be willing to celebrate little victories along the way {keeps motivation up, you know}?

I don't know why I can't stop thinking about it, so I decided to get it out of my head and off of my computer—and onto my own little corner of the Internet.

And perhaps into your head to ponder.

that's a lot of potatoes

Before coming to Prince Edward Island, I knew two things about it:

• OH MY WORD, GREEN GABLES {follow that link to read more about Anne and more specifically, more about me visiting Anne. I mean Green Gables.}
• I would be running a half-marathon here.

And the rest, I thought, was just gravy, not realizing how appropriate that expression is when applied to PEI.

Prince Edward Island is the potato capital of Canada, and in the town of O'Leary in the western part of the province, there's a museum called the Prince Edward Island Potato Museum. As my guidebook says, "Don't be put off by the name; this museum is an interesting stop that depicts the history of Prince Edward Island's most famous crop."

Despite the guidebook encouraging me to not judge a book by its cover {to not judge a potato by its skin?}, I was cautious of that tepid, faint praise word: interesting. I half-expected the book to add: "No, for real, guys, it's a good museum. Not kidding at all. Seriously, you'll love it."

And then the book would snicker, if it could.

An interesting potato museum would probably be some styrofoam models of potatoes: and here is a new potato, and here is a Russett. They'd be painted with that craft paint you get at Hobby Lobby, the kind that costs $1 for 12 bottles.

A rather interesting potato museum would include some digs at Idaho, the potato capital of America.

Any way you slice it, a potato museum doesn't sound all that interesting on its own, even if you do make French fries out of it.

My mama wanted to go to the potato museum, though, off in Prince County on the western side of PEI, so on an overcast day—and after eating a four-course breakfast at our inn in Kensington—we pulled onto Highway 2.

As a sidenote, directions on this entire Island are given as if you were in a small town: Get on Highway 2—it's the only road that goes all the way across the Island—and when you cross the river and there's a park on your left and a church on your right, veer to the left there. If you reach the woolen mill, you've gone too far, and you can turn around in the building that used to be the Community Centre.

But then we arrived at the potato museum, and I was handed a brochure that read:

Prince Edward Island Potato Museum featuring
The National Amazing Potato Interpretive Centre,
Machine Gallery,
and O'Leary Community Museum

National Amazing Potato!

Interpretive Centre! {How British, that spelling! Doesn't the -re make it look more dignified?!?}

Put it all together now: The National Amazing Potato Interpretive Centre.

There is no hint of a bland interesting in a title like that.

And it turns out that the Prince Edward Island Potato Museum is fascinating, insightful, educational, and hungry-making.

I learned that:

• the Incans used to preserve their potatoes by leaving them outside and waiting for the first freeze. Then they'd walk on top of them and squish them down to get all the water out. And bam, freeze-dried potatoes. I'm glad we've advanced beyond that, and I can now pull tater tots out of my freezer and know they haven't been stepped on by anyone.
• Sir Walter Raleigh is often credited with bringing potatoes to Britain, but that's a total lie. {He did, however, bring back tobacco. It'd be better to be known for potatoes, of course.}
• 2008 was the Year of the Potato, according to the United Nations. Why did I not know this? I could've celebrated by eating potatoes every day. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't know.
• The Irish refused to plant potatoes when they were first introduced to the country. They thought they were unholy because they weren't mentioned in the Bible. The Catholics sprinkled some holy water on them and called it good, although if they could've foreseen the Irish Potato Famine, they maybe would've stuck with the whole "of the devil" thing.
• Antoine-Auguste Parmentier, a French guy, in case you couldn't tell from his name, made potatoes ridiculously popular in France in the 1700s—and whatever was popular in France then soon became popular everywhere because who wouldn't want to be like the fancy French?
  
  The story is that he ate potatoes while in a Prussian prisoner of war camp, and he was all, "Oh la la, these things are actually good! And here I thought they caused leprosy!" {Seriously, French people at the time thought that.}
  
  When he got out of prison, he started this personal campaign to get French people to love potatoes, and he went to such drastic measures as hosting dinner parties where the only thing on the menu was potatoes and inviting people like Benjamin Franklin and you know, famous French people.
  
  He was helped out in his campaign by a famine; potatoes were the only thing that would grow, leaving Parmentier free to say things like, "Even God loves potatoes more than any other crop. You better eat them, or you'll be smitted...smitten...smoted...by God." {Please note, he didn't actually say that. I totally just made that up, but I like to believe that that would've been a convincing argument.}
  
  It also didn't hurt that he gave a bouquet of potato blossoms to the Queen.
  
  In the end, Antoine-Auguste convinced the French to love something they had previously distrusted, and now he's buried in Pere-Lachaise Cemetery {where Jim Morrison is}, and if a dish has the word "parmentier" in it, it most likely involves potatoes.
  
  And that, my friends, is how you change the French language.

I learned more, but everything I learned doesn't compare to the amount of potatoes I ate on PEI, as you can see below. So, so many potatoes. Like potatoes at every meal. I felt like I was channeling my Irish ancestors {before they got kicked out of the country by the famine}.

curled up in a chair after a run

I'm curled up in a Victorian antiquey-looking chair in the Shipwright Inn in Charlottetown, PEI.

This morning, I ran a half-marathon past mansions and big box stores.

Down a crushed gravel path that used to be the train line here on the Island.

Through farmland and industrial parks.

And into the maritime wind—I should most definitely point that out.

Whipping off the ocean and zipping up University Avenue, the wind was constant for 5 miles, and it's hard to know how to make yourself aerodynamic.

Head down? Head up into the wind, into the adversity? {Is that reading too much into the wind?}

Is it worth it to pump your arms, or is that wasting precious energy? Perhaps I should just flail my arms?

I considered at one point giving some sort of Tarzan yell into the wind {maybe a Jane yell?}, but I knew it would only whip back in my face, and it probably wouldn't sound as ferocious as I intended.

This morning, it was sunny, and I pushed into the wall of wind with all my force but I didn't give a Tarzan yell. I finished the race slower than my goal time, but a Midwesterner like me is not made for maritime winds. Nothing like today's wind ever whips off the Mississippi back home in Iowa, and there is a great sense of accomplishment in subduing and conquering the wind.

Right now, it's raining out, and I'm curled up in a chair that probably was not designed for curling. The designer of this carved-wood, straight-backed, cream-upholstery-covered chair probably had ideas of excellent posture and crossed ankles and bone china cups and saucers held delicately.

I am ignoring its design and settling in for comfort, French press coffee on the table in front of me and a window to the rain behind me.

A tree in all its autumnal glory is shaking its leaves, and I imagine what it would be like to be sitting in that tree on a sun-bright day, curled up in the branches instead of in this chair. It wouldn't be comfortable, I know, but I like to pretend that it would be.

Pitter-patter goes the rain outside this house that was built in the 1870s. If it weren't for the telephone wire crossing my view, I could also be in the 1870s, although if I were, I would not have run a race into the wind this morning and I would not be sitting very improperly in this antiquey-looking chair. If I were in the 1870s, it would just be called a chair, of course—no need for old qualifiers.

in which i become anne of green gables

Why, yes, I am wearing red braids attached to a straw hat.*

And behind me is the carriage that Matthew used to drive Anne home to Green Gables from Bright River.**

The carriage is blocking the actual Green Gables, but don't worry: I took approximately 4 bajillion pictures of the house. And I will make you come to my house and watch a slideshow of them, all 4 bajillion of them, and you will love it.

You will love it because every picture will involve commentary such as this:

Oh my word, I WENT TO GREEN GABLES! Sorry for shouting; I really can't help myself. I don't know how I stayed quiet when actually visiting the place. It probably had to do with the busload of retirees who'd just been dropped off. No need to embarrass myself in front of sweet retirees from Georgia, but OH MY WORD, GREEN GABLES. I can totally embarrass myself in front of you.

And this is a picture of the house from the front
back
east side
west side
side that Anne was standing on when this happened in the book
side that faces the Haunted Woods
etc.

Do you want me to re-enact a scene from the book? Do you want me to re-enact me seeing the house for the first time? It went like this: OH MY WORD, GREEN GABLES. I'VE LOVED YOU SINCE I WAS 8..

I have more thoughts on Green Gables and Prince Edward Island in general—thoughts that maybe even LM Montgomery herself {she of the gossamer-lined prose} would be proud of.

But all I can get out now is: OH MY WORD, GREEN GABLES.

* But no, I didn't buy the hat. I may love Anne, but I don't love useless souvenirs. And nothing screams useless like a wig that isn't even a full wig—it's just braids in a hair color that was clearly not made for my complexion.

** Just wanted to reassure you, once again, that I do know the difference between reality and fiction. Matthew and Anne didn't exist, but the carriage placed strategically outside of Green Gables {it practically begs you to take a picture} does. Got it.

Actually, little sidenote to my asterisked footnote here, the Green Gables of today does an excellent job of helping you separate reality and fiction.

You come here dreaming of a bucolic, pastoral, idyllic little hamlet. You come here seeming to remember a past that you couldn't have lived—a one room schoolhouse and when driving to Charlottetown {20km away} was enough of an event to talk about for two weeks.

You come here dreaming all of that, and Green Gables is a preserved slice of that life. But it's a thin slice. Walk five minutes down Lover's Lane and the tree line opens up enough to reveal golf carts zipping along on a path not ten feet away.

There you are trying to re-connect with nature and calm your soul, and there is a man worrying about par on the next hole.

But isn't one of Anne's main lessons that it's possible to find the good in every day and every situation and every person? Doesn't she teach us that if you try hard enough and look close enough, you can see a sprinkling of fairy dust possibilities everywhere?

So I applied Anne's lesson at Green Gables yesterday: my modern-day reality may involve a golf cart zipping through what should be the Dryad's Bubble, but that doesn't mean I can't turn my head and see a clump of birch trees, silver bark curling off and fire-orange leaves clinging to the branches. I can make the most of where I find myself.

OH MY WORD, GREEN GABLES

a note about phlegm

Look, I'm going to warn you now: if you don't like reading about phlegm, this is not the post for you. Maybe you could try reading about my nerdiness via Downton Abbey if you'd rather not read about my very unladylike behavior I demonstrated along the Prairie Path in Wheaton today.

Last week, I actually took a half a sick day. I say "actually" because it just doesn't happen all that often, this taking of a sick day. I mostly say things to myself like, 'I mean, really, is it that bad? Can you still sit at your desk? Are you still able to focus your eyes? Could your cough be something of a conversation topic in the office because Lord knows we need something to talk about besides work?'

I have, after all, the constitution of a horse {assuming horses are very healthy creatures} and the work ethic of a protestant {because, well, I am one. Oh my, I just realized that when you talk about "protestant work ethic," you're totally insulting the Catholics who, in my experience, do work hard. I should stick with the "puritan work ethic" because I don't know any puritans I could potentially be insulting. And probably when puritans are insulted, they take it as a sign of God's favor. Persecution = favor, you know.}.

So I don't often allow myself sick days, or, as I cheerfully and judgmentally like to call them, weakness days or wussy days.

One of my fall projects, though, is trying to learn how to be kinder to myself.

I'm pretty sure this "fall project" is going to last FOREVER {who can learn to be kinder to themselves in one season?}, which means that it will be eternally autumn for me and doesn't that sound like bliss? To always have crisp nights and visual reminders of change around you at all times?

When I woke up last Tuesday with an "I can't breathe very well" throat, I decided to act on my fall project and take a half-day—after going to work in the morning to keep some projects moving along.

Stop judging my inability to slow down and just let myself be sick. Fall just started a few weeks ago, okay? Yeah, maybe I should've taken a whole day, but let's just let me celebrate the half-day victory. Sheesh. Cut me some slack here, people.

{Maybe being kinder to myself is making me less kind to other people around me. Oh my, I hope that isn't true.}

I was back at work on Wednesday morning in such a perky mood that my boss found it necessary to ask, "Are you this perky at home, too, when it's just you and the pug?"

Of course. Of course I am.

Of course I spent my sick day being perky to my pug. It went like this:

"Miss Daisy!" {said in a sing-song voice}

"It's sweatpants and orange juice time! No, baby, don't look so confused about why I'm home in the middle of the day and why I'm singing to you. Let's just cuddle on the couch and watch Anne of Green Gables, or ooh! We could take a nap!"

Yes, perky.

The truth is I was extra perky on Wednesday because 1) I was feeling guilty about taking a half-day {shut up, puritan work ethic!}, and 2) I was trying to fool my body into thinking it was better. As you may have picked up on, I'm going to Prince Edward Island on vacation this week, and I just had to get better. I did not want to be sick and moaning and being bleary-eyed in pictures at Green Gables.

If ever there was a time to be clear-eyed, it's when visiting a house with gables.

My body may have felt slightly better after its sick day, but I needed to marshal my emotional forces—my perkiness—to start feeling all better.

You're probably thinking—that's silly, Kamiah. You can't force yourself to get better, just by chipperness.

And to that I say: I'm all better now, aren't I?

Granted, this may have something to do with the fact that even when I was sick and clogged up, I went running anyway.

You can chastise me for this {how do you run when you can't breathe?}, but my view is that if you're clogged up with phlegm, there's nothing like a autumn morning run to jostle everything around so that you cough it up. What else was a fall morning made for?

Spitting into a pile of orange-gold leaves just feels right, you know? You feel like a real runner and a little bit like a cowboy or like someone who chews tobacco, which sounds like a terrible idea if you're a runner.

I do try to wait until there's no one else around me on the Prairie Path to do this hawking and spitting and coughing, but today, these two college guys snuck up on me. Probably I couldn't hear them because I was coughing.

I was just turning my head to spit this mouthful of phlegm
this expectoration of sickness
this need to be kind to myself

I was just turning my head to spit when they came flying past.

As I spit, I imagined that they were a little impressed with my distance and general rough-and-tumble girl attitude, spitting on the Prairie Path like that.

But then I realized that they're probably 18, and I maybe shouldn't be so worried about impressing them.

And then I coughed a lot more, which most likely decreased any attractiveness factor I'd built up.

But oh, did I ever feel good, spitting and running on the Prairie Path this morning.

countdown to anne of green gables

Next Tuesday night, I'm leaving for Prince Edward Island.

Enter squeals of delight about Anne of Green Gables.

Or maybe you're squealing in delight yourself, in which case I hope you're somewhere private and not at work or in a library or on the train. If you are, pull yourself together. Think of Marilla giving you a stern look; that always works.

I have wanted to go to PEI since I was a very little girl. I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time when I was eight or so {I'm looking to my mother for corroboration here}. We were on vacation out West somewhere, and so in the middle of the desert and in the mountains, I spent my days reading about this charmed Canadian island and a girl who used words that were too big for her.

And by "spent my days reading" I clearly mean "spent my days pretending to be the girl who used words too big for her."

I acted out conversations with Diana Barry, aka my/Anne's best friend.

I sat next to a stream and tried to come up with a fairytale-inspired name for it, just like Anne would've done. Dryad's Bubble? Excluding the fact that I just stole that from the book, I thought it was a rather perfect name.

I made plans to memorize "The Lady of Shalot" and potentially act it out if I could talk any of my real friends—not just imaginary Diana Barry—into it.

I thought way more than I should have about puffed sleeves and pinafores. It's hopeless to think about clothes like that when:

• a1a) it's the late 80s. Shoulder pads are not the same thing as puffed sleeves.
• b2b) you're in Utah or Colorado and you've been camping for 2 weeks straight, changing clothes only every third day or so. Why bother? was the family motto. Get one set of clothes as dirty as possible; it's not like you're taking a shower every day when you're camping in a place with just pit toilets. Or no toilets at all.
• c3c) it's 100 degrees in the shade. I managed to focus all my energy on the puffed sleeves and ignore the rest of the clothes requirements that come with wanting to pretend to be Anne of Green Gables, ie, wool stockings and petticoats and collars up to way-too-high and corsets. Basically, I just wanted to wear a pretty dress and go to a dance. Or maybe recite "The Lady of Shalot." And have Gilbert Blythe clap for me.

After I read Anne, I gave the book to my mom to read. We then had a now-famous* conversation:

*I mean famous in the "we tell this story at family functions" kind of famous. Clearly not famous in the Justin Bieber kind of way. OMG, I can't believe I just mentioned Justin Bieber on my blog with Jane Austen in the title. Now there's a mash-up.

Little Mia: Mom, why are you crying?

I should, before going on, point out that I remember this conversation taking place in a field of poppies. That may not be correct, although I do know that on one of our trips, we stopped in a field of poppies on our way back from an attempted space shuttle landing.

No, not like we were landing the space shuttle. Like—it was supposed to land in California, but high winds or something diverted it to Florida or perhaps Texas. We were not there, in Florida or Texas; we were in California, and my mama had thought it would be cool to show her nerdy daughters a space shuttle landing. And it clearly would've been; by that point in the trip, I obviously needed something to pull me back to present-day America, and nothing says America like space, the final frontier.

So I'm pretty sure that we stopped in a field of poppies on that trip, although now that I think about it, poppies have opioid-like properties, don't they? For all I know, I was drugged by the poppies and now have incredibly muddled memories. Or maybe I'm thinking of The Wizard of Oz.

Let's just assume we were, in fact, in a field of poppies having this conversation.

Mama: [holding a Kleenex to her nose] It's because of this book.
Little Mia: That book? The Anne book? That's not a sad book. There's puffed sleeves! And a little girl with a temper, just like me!
Mama: [pulling Kleenex away from her nose, staring at her youngest daughter with something like, "I'm not actually sure you came out of me" on her face] She's an orphan and no one wants her! That's sad, don't you think?
Little Mia: Yeah, I guess. But that's nothing to cry over, is it? It's not like you're an orphan, and besides, she gets to live in Green Gables in a room with a big window that looks out on to a tree, just as if she were sleeping in the tree.

I should also point out that it was my dream to have a room on the second floor of our house. I was on the first floor, and while it was all right, I felt that I belonged up high. After reading Anne, I was sold even more on the idea of having a tree right outside my big window.

Mama: Well, I'm still sad about it.
Little Mia: Do you think the Wicked Witch of the West is flying over us in this field of poppies?

And that, friends, is when my family figured out that I'm not really a "crier." And started to worry a little bit about the state of my emotions.

Next week at this time, I'll be in Anneland, preferably wearing puffed sleeves and making overly-dramatic statements. Heck, even if just one of those things turned out to happen, I'd be thrilled. My money is on the puffed sleeves thing coming true.

oh, tulips

Every spring, I notice something new. This is slightly different from Anne of Green Gables' thought that every spring, everything is new.

What I mean is: every spring, I notice something new in all the newness of life around me.

Of course it isn't really new. Redbuds aren't new. But this spring, I've been looking at them as if I've never seen them before.

Have these trees always been here? What a silly thought. Yes, they have, but for years, my eyes must've glossed over them. Skipped straight from bare branches to small green buds to full leaves creating shade and dappling the sidewalk underneath with cool repose.

I've been stopping and staring so much at the redbuds this year that, for the first time in 3 years, I was late to work one Thursday morning.

I couldn't take the hurrying anymore, off to the office, off to the day, off to the projects. And so I'd walked a little more slowly, breathed a little more deeply on my morning walk with little pug.

The price of those 5 minutes was a look from my boss—you know the one—but that's a small price to pay. Insignificant when you realize that you bought more pleasure, more joy, more life with that one look.

But I never miss the tulips in the spring.

I have never not noticed tulips popping up red and yellow, black and white. Like daffodils, they are spring to me.

Daffodils are spring's first hint, first promise; tulips are its full celebration, a cacophony of unnecessary color.

For the tulips today—tulips dressing up this gray day—I have two homages:

A picture I took on a sunny morning walk.

And a poem from William Carlos Williams, that master of capturing small charms of the everyday life.

I hope you like them. I hope they make you feel springy today.

The Tulip Bed
William Carlos Williams


The May sun—whom
all things imitate—
that glues small leaves to
the wooden trees
shone from the sky
through bluegauze clouds
upon the ground.
Under the leafy trees
where the suburban streets
lay crossed,
with houses on each corner,
tangled shadows had begun
to join
the roadway and the lawns.
With excellent precision
the tulip bed
inside the iron fence
upreared its gaudy
yellow, white and red,
rimmed round with grass,
reposedly.

everything is new in the spring

Continuing my spring countdown, I turn today to my Anne. Anne of Green Gables, of course, the girl who never disappoints when you want effusions on a season.

{Given my recent rapture on spring—and earlier raptures on fall glories and winter pleasures—I may be the girl who never stops effusing about the seasons. God knew what he was doing when he made me from the Midwest.}

This excerpt isn't actually from Anne of Green Gables. It's Anne of the Island, where Anne is a bit older, a bit more grown-up. But Anne never outgrew those over-dramatic bursts on weather and flowers and the breeze and the smell of every moment.

She was enamoured of the world we find ourselves in, and when I start to get too humdrum, I think of my Anne. I call on the part of me that still wants to be Anne of Green Gables and then I wonder that I could've ever found any day humdrum.

Take this excerpt, for instance. Anne's friend Priscilla talks about that fashion transition from winter to spring.

{So okay, it isn't Anne talking about it, but it's one of her very good friends, and you can tell a lot about a person by who they choose to surround themselves with, can't you?}

I felt that transition yesterday when I wore my flowered shoes and a kicky skirt—and most importantly, no tights. Pale legged but with a skip in my step: this is how I face spring.

If you learn to find joy in small changes, it's easier to find joy in big changes. I am a firm believer in this, and I think I learned it from Anne.

And in this passage, too, she talks about how every spring is new. Doesn't it feel like that? When you see the first bud on a tree, doesn't it always feel like you've never seen that before?

You have, of course, but one of the delights of spring is the surprise of the known.

That's what Anne is talking about here. That's what I'm feeling now, three days before official spring.

She says, "No spring is ever just like any other spring."

And that makes me wonder: what will be special about this spring? What do I hope for this spring {because of all the seasons, isn't spring the one most about hope}?

-----


The fresh chill air was faintly charged with the aroma of pine balsam, and the sky above was crystal clear and blue—a great inverted cup of blessing.

"Spring is singing in my blood today, and the lure of April is abroad on the air. I'm seeing visions and dreaming dreams, Pris. That's because the wind is from the west. I do love the west wind. It sings of hope and gladness, doesn't it? When the east wind blows I always think of sorrowful rain on the eaves and sad waves on a gray shore. When I get old I shall have rheumatism when the wind is east."

"And isn't it jolly when you discard furs and winter garments for the first time and sally forth, like this, in spring attire?" laughed Priscilla. "Don't you feel as if you had been made over new?"

"Everything is new in the spring," said Anne. "Springs themselves are always so new, too. No spring is ever just like any other spring. It always has something of its own to be its own peculiar sweetness. See how green the grass is around that little pond, and how the willow buds are bursting."

birthdays and a sharp tongue

I realized that I've been writing about Christmas a lot recently—well, 'tis the season and all that.

However, I'm taking a break from Christmas today, and instead going on a little literary diversion.

Did you know that LM Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott's birthdays were last week?

No?

Well, I didn't, either. Then Twitter, that source of knowledge and wasted time, taught me something. Louisa's was November 29 and LM's was November 30.

I should've had a party, and I am, I must say, slightly disappointed that I missed a chance to have a literary nerdy party.

Next year. There's always next year. I'll start planning my costume now. You should, too.

As if wanting to further cement this LM and Louisa connection—and their separate but similar effects on my life—someone got to my blog by searching "little women and anne of green gables similarities."

Google sent them here, and while yes, I have written a little about both Jo and Anne, I like to think of it this way: Google knows that I am the embodiment of both Jo and Anne. The search results prove it, people. What do Little Women and Anne of Green Gables have in common? ME.

To celebrate—belatedly—I'm offering an excerpt from Little Women, one that has been particularly helpful to me today.

Jo, Anne, and I have this in common: Wayward tongues. Sharp tones. Tempers.

We have the ability to slice with our words and the knowledge that we can cut people down with well-placed verbs.

But we also share an earnest desire to control the sharpness. To use our words to build others up or to make them laugh. To be practiced in the art of thinking before we speak.

When I have days when my tongue has been sharper than a doubled-edged sword {and not in the Word of God way}, that's when I need to turn to Marilla or Marmee. I need to read, in tough love language, that this will be a life-long challenge—this learning to rein in my words—but that it is worth it. That other people struggle with this. That every time you speak harshly, that is an opportunity to speak kindly in apology—to carefully consider those words so that you can suture up the wound you caused in a friendship or relationship.

I spoke out of turn today, but I know that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it {there's my tribute to Anne}. And I need to read again what Marmee says to Jo about controlling her tongue.

-----

"It's my dreadful temper! I try to cure it; I think I have, and then it breaks out worse than ever. Oh, mother, what shall I do? What shall I do?" cried poor Jo, in despair.

"Watch and pray, dear; never get tired of trying; and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault," said Mrs. March, kissing the wet cheek so tenderly that Jo cried harder than ever.

"You don't know, and you can't guess how bad it is! It seems as if I could do anything when I'm in a passion; I get so savage, I could hurt anyone, and enjoy it. I'm afraid I shall do something dreadful someday, and spoil my life, and make everybody hate me. Oh, mother, help me, do help me!"

"I will, my child, I will. Don't cry so bitterly, but remember this day, and resolve, with all your soul, that you will never know another like it. Jo, dear, we all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them...."