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.

so many little things to enjoy

"Learn to enjoy the little things—there are so many of them."

My Kids Thot-a-Day calendar told me this yesterday, and it's been sitting with me, as the simplest things often do.

I don't think, if I may be so self-congratulatory, that I need to learn this lesson. Little things and the enjoyment of them are a specialty of mine, but sometimes I forget that, as I often do with the simplest things.

You know how it is: a work project, say, doesn't go quite right, and you can feel frustration, annoyance, and tiredness rising up in you. What had been a small, peaceful stream, a babbling brook, is suddenly under a flash flood warning because somewhere far away from you, it rained.

This flood is out of your control, and you can start to feel out of control yourself {because, well, you are—not in control, that is}.

All that rises, a rushing river of Big Things, and your quiet glade of Little Pleasures is destroyed.

Like a character from Little House on the Prairie or from Little Women or from some other diminutive book, you had plans of simply reading by the stream all day. You were going to bring a picnic, but now—now, argh and grrr and other guttural utterances of frustration and disappointment.

Then, hiding in the trees, perhaps, in the glade—high up out of reach of the flood—is a bird with this reminder: Learn to enjoy the little things—there are so many of them.

A flood will dissipate. A frustration will become less acute. A tiredness will be sated.

And then, I'm sorry to say, they will come again. But in the midst of flood, frustration, and tiredness, there are always so many little things to enjoy.

Such as {my own little list for the moment}:

• how my Little Pug curls up in front of the space heater whenever I turn it on. She sits so close I do worry that she'll burn up her fur, but she seems content and cozy for the moment.
• Christmas lights
• walks in the strangely balmy December weather
• stovetop popcorn with melted butter
• really, anything with butter
• reading in bed
• giving a friend a homemade present and having her squeal in delight

So many little things to enjoy.

It sounds trite, I know—like something more fitting come out of Marmee March's mouth than my own. But right now, on this almost-the-longest-day-of-the-year early morning, it sounds right coming out of my pen.

And now I have to ask: what are the little things you enjoy?

if only i were in Little Women: thoughts on cross-stitching

"I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship."

Amy says that in Little Women, and perhaps because I've been re-reading that here and there, I've had a hankering to cross-stitch. {Meg would probably admonish me for saying "hankering," since it sounds so slangish and colloquial.}

This cross-stitch desire has only been intensified by how I'm also re-reading Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet, when staying for several days at Netherfield while Jane is recovering from a severe cold—

Sidenote: Do you ever wish you lived in the time where you came down with a cold and it was perfectly acceptable to lay in your bed all day, maybe even for several days? A person got a headache and down in the drawing room, everyone else was all, "Oh my, shall she ever recover? Shall we take her tea? Have the pillows been fluffed? Can she have a clear broth?"

And then they rang the bell and somebody would take it up to them.

I'm suspecting what is most appealing in this scenario is the part where someone brings me stuff in bed.

I don't actually want to live in the time when medical knowledge involved leeches and bleeding out the sickness; I'd rather just have a lady's maid who brings me stuff. Maybe somebody from Downton Abbey could pop over.

So back to my point: While Elizabeth is staying at Netherfield, she, at times, takes up her needlework. She then has very witty conversations with Mr. Darcy that make him smile as he turns away {lest he betray his true feelings by, gasp, smiling at her}.

You can see the obvious link between Mr. Darcy falling in love with Elizabeth and her doing needlework, and with an example like that, who wouldn't want to go buy embroidery floss right now?

No, seriously, who wants to go? Get in the car, and we'll meet at Hobby Lobby. I'm sure that's exactly like the store where Elizabeth went in Meryton to buy her thread to do her Darcy-attracting needlework at Netherfield.

Before we go, I'll research Little Women and Jane Austen cross-stitch patterns so that we know what we're buying. I'm sure that somewhere on Etsy, someone has made a pattern for that storm quote, and maybe it's on special today since it is Louisa May Alcott's birthday.

But wait.

{I'm going to Internet shout; prepare yourself.}

LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND.

I may love Pride and Prejudice and I may love the BBC production of the story, but never, under any circumstances, do I want something like this in my home.

Also, it would take me approximately 17 years to complete, and don't you think there's something accusatory in Darcy's eyes? It's like he's saying to you, "I'm a classic character from British literature and this is what you turn me into? Why couldn't you have gone for the much more mundane and obvious choice like the one below?"

I bet those eyes of Darcy follow you wherever you go in the room, and that has made up my mind: a Little Women cross-stitch project is the only way to go.

i've got plenty to be thankful for

If I could, I would make a quilt out of tradition and sit under it all winter.

This plan is dependent on me being able to quilt, which I can't do, and it's also dependent on being able to take intangible but comforting things and make them into fabric, which sounds like something Rumpelstiltskin would be peddling.

Of course I'm thinking about tradition as we approach Thanksgiving, that very traditional holiday where most of us eat the same thing at the same time, a feat that doesn't happen on many other days.

With other holidays, there's leeway in the menu: some people eat ham at Christmas, for example, while others might go for Christmas goose. My family has never done that, but doesn't it sound like something that would happen in Little Women—if, I guess, they hadn't been so poor and given away their scant Christmas dinner to an even-poorer family so that the girls {and their readers for generations to come} could learn generosity?

The Fourth of July might involve hot dogs or hamburgers or, if you're in Morning Sun, Iowa, with me, pulled pork sandwiches and a lot of potato salad.

Thanksgiving, though: it's hard to mess with Thanksgiving, as evidenced by this conversation with my mom.

Me, the Ever-helpful Daughter: Hey, do you want me to make anything for Thanksgiving this year? I could bring home my recipe book.

Mama, She Who Has Hosted Thanksgiving Forever: No, I think we're all set. Just so you know, though, we aren't having the creamed corn this year.

Me, the Rooted-in-Tradition Daughter: [Long, long pause] What do you mean? I don't understand. We're from Iowa. Isn't there a law that says we have to eat corn?

Mama, Who Probably Should've Mentioned This to Me Earlier: Your aunt wants to bring cauliflower gratin.

Me, the Doubter: Is this because of the drought affecting the corn crop? I just watched that new Ken Burns documentary on PBS about the Dust Bowl, and so I'm in tune with these agricultural disasters. Is there not enough corn to feed us all?

Mama, Who, After Almost 31 Years Should've Figured Out I'm Not Good with Last Minute Change: Of course there's enough corn. We just thought we'd try something new.

Me, Trying to Change the Subject: Speaking of things that are new, FDR's New Deal brought in a lot of change that helped mitigate the effects of the Dust Bowl. Can we talk about major government programs now instead of how you want to step on the face of Thanksgiving tradition? That's like stepping on the face of a pilgrim, fyi.

Oh, I do like my tradition, but the thing is, I also like cauliflower gratin. The Barefoot Contessa has a very good recipe for it that I've made several times, and hey, it involves cheese. Most things are better with either cheese, bacon, or chocolate added to it—sometimes all three {but certainly not in the case of cauliflower}.

This corn-less Thanksgiving will still be Thanksgiving, I know, and I do have plenty to be thankful for—a phrase that makes me think of Bing Crosby and Holiday Inn and another Thanksgiving tradition.

When I was in high school, my friends and I would march {oh, yes, we were band nerds} in the Lighted Holiday Parade on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I have many pictures of me in a band uniform {with very square shoulders: the shoulder pads in that thing were impressive}, wearing a Santa Claus hat, holding my flugle, and getting ready to step off down Jefferson Street playing a jazzy {yet marchable} version of "The Little Drummer Boy."

{And no, I don't plan on going to the work of scanning any of those pictures and then posting them. No need for that to be seen.}

Afterwards, we'd all eat Christmas cookies and watch Holiday Inn at my friend Sara's house. It was the beginning of Christmas, as we'd warm up with hot cocoa and sing along with Bing. It was normal and cozy and the kind of Saturday night activity that band nerds are prone to do.

Perhaps to get over the lack of corn, I should watch Holiday Inn this year. At the very least, I should watch the "I've Got Plenty to Be Thanksful For" clip from the Thanksgiving part of the movie.

You should watch it, too: here's a link.

---------------

And bonus connection to talking about FDR and the New Deal earlier in an attempt to change the subject with my mother {it's below the line so you're not required to read this history fact if you don't want to learn something awesome}: You'll see at the beginning of this clip, there's a little cartoon turkey who moves back and forth between two Thursdays in November.

That's because in 1939, FDR moved Thanksgiving to the second-to-last Thursday in November—not the last Thursday as it had been since Abraham Lincoln set it. And as we all know, you do not mess with anything Abraham Lincoln did.

He did it to give more shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas—the country was still pulling out of the Depression, you know, and the more time for shopping, the better. Incidentally, that phrase was also in the running to replace the E Pluribus Unum slogan for America: The more time for shopping, the better.

People got upset. Really upset. That FDR, he thought he could do anything, even change holidays. What was next? Christmas in July?

Since the states also have some power in these United States of ours, some states decided to reject FDR's Thanksgiving Proclamation and can you imagine the confusion? When do you get off work? What if your family was in a different state? What would the pilgrims think?

Seriously, this was a serious issue, and it went on for a couple of years—until Congress passed a law that Thanksgiving would always be the fourth Thursday in November.

I know that our current Congress has really important things to be doing {STOP holding press conferences about how you're looking forward to a bipartisan solution to the fiscal cliff and fix the dang cliff}, but I would appreciate it if they would, at some point soon, pass a law saying that creamed corn will always be served at Iowa Thanksgivings.

baby jesus is naughty

I don't remember how I broke baby Jesus.

Most likely, I was playing with him. There was a lack of toys at Grandma and Grandpa Walker's house, and my options were: wooden blocks or paper for drawing/hat making/confetti making.

Baby Jesus, as I called the statue when I was a 3ish-year-old, was always out in the living room, looking a lot like a little porcelain doll and therefore a lot like a toy. He wasn't actually Jesus as a baby—more Jesus as an angelic-looking toddler, which may be why my grandma kept him out when I was over: to give me an example of a good little child.

I may have been only 3, but I'd already provided my family with enough stories of "the time Kamiah showed off her strong will and intense personality" to last a lifetime. Certainly enough to last my lifetime, seeing as these stories are still brought up at many a family gathering:

• The time Kamiah screamed every five minutes for no apparent reason on a several hour car ride—aka, the time the family wanted to attach me to the roof of the car
• The time Kamiah threw a temper tantrum at a soccer match at the 1984 Olympics because her dad wouldn't buy her—little 2-year-old her—a king-size Snickers bar all for herself
• The time(s) Kamiah screamed without stopping for a breath—and then passed out, only to wake up a few minutes later the picture of contrition, a cuddly little thing who rivaled Beth from Little Women for sweetness

Most of these stories end with the summary: "My gosh..."

{This usually said in the very Iowan accent of "My gaish"}

"My gosh, she was a little hellion."

As a 3-year-old, I already had a bit too much of the hell-raiser in me, so my grandma probably encouraged me to play with baby Jesus; perhaps his general heavenly character would rub off on me.

Or maybe I'd want to start imitating his sweetly innocent face—smiling as if he had never thought he deserved a candy bar that was bigger than his head—and then for once in my life, I'd have my mouth shut and I wouldn't be screaming.

So I was playing with baby Jesus. Given my obsession with cheerleading and gymnastics at that time, I was probably making him do triple back flips with a double twist. This meant I was throwing him in the air and then hoping my chubby little fingers would catch him, iffy hand-eye coordination notwithstanding.

Or maybe I was making him be the top of the pyramid during the cheerleaders' big halftime routine. Maybe his teammates were St. Francis of Assisi and the Holy Mother, and they, I'm sorry to say, let him down, not supporting baby Jesus well enough while he gave a big "GO, TEAM!"

Down down down our Lord and Savior tumbled because his cheerleading squad didn't have very good spotters, people positioned to catch Jesus, should he ever fall. Peter was probably his spotter, but it maybe would've been smart to make Mary the spotter, seeing as she did stay at the foot of the cross until they lowered his body. She totally would've caught baby Jesus the cheerleader who took a tumble from the top of the pyramid.

Regardless of how it happened, I broke baby Jesus. His head came right off, and my grandma walked into the living room to see me standing there with his body in one hand and his head in another.

I looked up at her and then hid baby Jesus' head and body behind my back. If she couldn't see him, then he didn't exist, right?

"Kamiah! You broke baby Jesus! You are a very naughty girl!" My grandmother stood with her hands on her hips, the time-honored posture for angry grandmothers. A finger-wagging may have also been involved.

I glared right back at her and snapped, "Baby Jesus is broke; baby Jesus is naughty!"

At that, I'm sure my very, very Catholic grandmother crossed herself and started going through the rosary in an attempt to make God forget what her next-door-to-a-heathen granddaughter had just said.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, and I'm sorry that girl is being raised Pentecostal and not Catholic and that she just said your son is naughty after she decapitated him.
Blessed art thou among women, and if you forgive her, I promise I'll try to make her become Catholic, especially in about 20 years when she starts to attend an Anglican church.
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who, just for the record, I don't think is naughty.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, but mostly for that little hellion who just killed your son.

Amen.

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...."