reading with Halmoni

Halmoni and her twins

She doesn't talk much about herself, and it is a rare treat

when my mother-in-law shares stories of her childhood in Korea. 

I love when she laughs.  

I love that she sparkles when she dresses up,

that she doses our ills with great pots of spicy soup,  

that she is delightedly happy when surrounded by grandchildren. 

Halmoni.

Today is Multicultural Children's Book Day.

Multicultural Children's Book Day is an international event created by children's reading and play advocates Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen to celebrate diversity in children's books, 

and to help get diverse books into classrooms and libraries. 

The theme this year is #ReadYourWorld.

Here's to our one world and the many people and stories that make it beautiful.   

Books!

 

The Twins' Blanket - Hyewon Yum

Wave - Suzy Lee

The Name Jar - Yangsook Choi

Bee-Bim-Bop! - Linda Sue Park, illustrated by Ho Baek Lee

This is Our House - Hyewon Yum

Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match - Monica Brown, illustrated by Sara Palacios

Happy in Our Skin - Fran Manushkin, illustrated by Lauren Tobia

The Sandwich Swap - Queen Rania Al Abdullah, Kelly DiPucchio, ill. by Tricia Tusa

Thunder Boy, Jr. - Sherman Alexie, ill. by Yuyi Morales

The way we stroll...

Some of us are supposed to be getting ready for a pop-up art sale next week
but we keep getting lost the woods!

The good news: new art flashcard sets are coming!
 I'll keep you posted.

Here's to finding light and joy in the midst of the wild & woolly this week.

The Art of Mess

My camera likes to find the glowy bits, the sacred more than the dirt.

I got to talking with my sisters-in-law recently about the pressure of keeping up with
Western "mom-culture," as seen through the filters of Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and their ilk.
 
As an artist, I promote myself. I show my best side.
As media-savvy socialites, we most of us show our best sides.

We share our successes, because... who wants to share the flops?

But regular scans of others' tidy homes, clean kids, and glorious creations
can feed into a suffocating sense of failure, especially among mamas.

{It's so clean out there! So tidy! So productive! So creative! So delicious!
So overwhelming! }
With such a tide of seeming success out there, how can one stay afloat? 
In truth, my house is so messy from life and work that I don't want to open my doors.

And yet!
I think the secret to staying afloat is being honest.
Maybe the rest of everyone is as clean and productive and delicious as they seem, but I am not.
And I have a hunch that there are a few lovely souls out there like me, too.
So here is me, letting you in past the front door.
I am cobwebbed and sloppy.
I don't like to sweep or clean the windows.
I don't remember to dust.

I like to read. I love to make art. I want to write.

I love to snuggle with my family. I like to watch sunsets.
When all those things are accomplished for the day, I breathe.
Sometimes I clean up.
 
And the thing about the mess is
that we live here.

We, with all our strings and nests.

We, with our hive of buzzing. our endless scraps of paper
our mountains of books.

We, with our jars of pencils. Our oddball sorts of tape and fabric and library card and rubber band and broken watch.

We, with our shuffle-off-your-shoes and slough off the backpacks, hunker down with a good book, snuggle in for a daydream or a few minutes of escape and forget the chores.

What does our mess represent?

That dinner happens here.
Not elegant. Often blacky on the edges.
But family and chatter and real plates and silverware.

That health happens here.
Not spit-spot. Often grimy. with mildew creeping on the fringes.
But fresh, running water and soap. Running shoes. Soccer gear. Bikes. Laundry.

Music happens here. More practice than polished. But honest and earnest.

Art blooms here.
With scribbles and smudges. With paper crowding all the corners.
With story starts and muddy middles.

This is us.
This is our mess.
A haven. A canvas. A library.
for dreamers, athletes, artists, readers.

Life is a beautiful mess.
Here's to enjoying the sacred and the dirt, my friends.

What does your mess represent?

Our latest reads:

Also an Octopus by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, ill. by Benji Davies

Leaves by David Ezra Stein

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson, ill. by Tiphanie Beeke

Book Scavenger - by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

Bucket List

Things to do on your third stroke-aversary:

Sketch. 

Read.
Write.
Dig for treasure. 
My treasure might be hiding in the mountain of dirty laundry downstairs.
Or maybe in shuttling wildebeests to lessons, or practice.
Or maybe the treasure is in every speck of this beautiful daily dirt.

The sun is shining,
the flowers are out.
It's beautiful.

Being alive is good, my friends.
It's so good.

Love Your Brain?

"You're alive...That means you have infinite potential."

- Neil Gaiman

Two weeks ago,  I had a stroke. 

I was alone on a walk, phone-less, in the middle of nowhere.

I got wobbly. My vision went out. I thought I would faint.

I crouched on the ground, trying to recover,

couldn't lift my arm, and my head hurt all on one side.

They say a stroke can happen to anyone, at any age.
Anyone.


I diet and exercise like a heart-healthy zealot, rarely drink, don't smoke, and yet...

After more doctors and hospitals than I ever thought I'd need, I'm home.
Fuzzy and shaken. Tripping over my own feet.
Headache-y.

And so beyond thankful
that I still have words and sight, and everything!

I tried to explain this to my hubs, tried to tell him
how important my words, my wit, my thoughts, all of it,
how essential it is to me,
and he patted my hand,
"We all love our brains, honey."

We do. We love our brains!
But do we realize?

It's my revelation of the year.
Would you rather have brains or beauty?

39 years,
many of them obsessed with cals and carbs,
grapefruit juice and healthy exercise...
and guess what?

When it all flashes in front of you,
who cares if you are a size 2 or a size 20?
Alive!

Love that mirror.
Enjoy it. Every inch of yourself, no matter your size,
no matter your foibles.
Enjoy your bumps and lumps, your warts, your wrinkles.
You are a living masterpiece.

Enjoy your messes, your arguments, your in-laws, your guffaws.
Family? Snuggle with them!
Friends? Keep warm by them!

Not published yet? Not a beauty queen?
Our measure of success can be so misleading.
Alive!

It took a stroke to remind me again of my SACRED DIRT -
this life, every blessed day of it,
dishes, mismatched socks, paper piles,
my beautiful, beautiful life.

I have coherent sentences,
the ability to wipe tears
and kiss each sticky face,

even if sometimes things change,
even if it takes a while to paddle back out and find my rhythm,

what a beautiful, sacred dirt I stand in
every day.

Alive!

 

If you get anything from this post, please get this:

Anyone can have a stroke. 

If you or someone you know has an episode 

with ANY of these symptoms, 

call a doctor, or 911 immediately. 

They have ways to reverse a stroke
if they catch it right away.
Learn the signs.
You might save a life...
even your own!

Thank you to my dear ones who have reached out 

during this time.

Bless you, bless you.

Your love brings strength.

 

Who's Your Mummy?

Peanut shell sarcopha-guys. 

Yes, I know. 

We're nuts.

I like to think of research as
permission to plunge overboard,
to get lost in your story world
in order to find it.
 
Some people tape maps to the walls
and wear fuzzy Russian hats.
Others swear by magazine clippings.
Hungarian folk music.
Books on fly fishing.
French chocolate.

We wear pipe cleaner headdresses. 

 

What's your research quirk? 


Can you tell what we're into these days?
It helps that King Tut's treasure is only a ferry ride away.

We said our howdies to the Pharaohs

and hopped home, hot about Egypt.

I buried old pottery shards for a "Dig."


Kids + Dirt = Heaven!

When I was sixteen, my parents took us to Egypt.

Valley of the Kings, pyramids and the Sphinx
all did their dazzling best. 


And then there was this old dump,
littered with broken scraps.
At the time, mum and dad seemed so very un-cool
sifting through that Egyptian dump,
selecting a few shards to bring home.
 
But who's my mummy now?
Oh yeah!
There has never been such excitement in our backyard.

My fake gold necklace
came in handy
as the crowning discovery.

Treasure!
 

  
Hieroglyphs + Clay  = Name cartouches!
 

Sarcophagi:

Our wee coffins

are nothing more than

peanut shells, paint, 

and gold pens for a little extra pizazz.

That's it in a nutshell.



So many great books to share with you!

The 5,000-Year-Old Puzzle - Claudia Logan, Melissa Sweet
Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile - Tomie dePaola
The Egyptian Cinderella - Shirley Climo, Ruth Heller
The Secret Room - Uri Shulevitz
Zekmet, the Stone Carver - Mary Stoltz, Deborah Nourse Lattimore
How the Sphinx Got to the Museum - Jessie Hartland
The Three Princes - Eric A. Kimmel, Leonard Everett Fisher
One City, Two Brothers - Chris Smith, Aurelia Fronty
Exodus - Brian Wildsmith
I, Crocodile - Frank Marcellino
The Shipwrecked Sailor - Tamara Bower
The Jewel Fish of Karnak - Graeme Base