Bonfire of the vanities

The school holidays are here, and my workload has dipped down to part time. For the last month, my imagination has been leaping forward into this mystical neverland where all my most utopian dreams will be realised and my everlasting school holiday to-do list (which could be titled: Things That Are Not Work) will be fulfilled, every last item.

(The devil on my shoulder is laughing sardonically. You can guess how things have played out).

Nevertheless -- and we are one week into the holidays now, so I speak as an older, jaded realist -- today I broke one of the leviathan tasks on my list down into a manageable chunk. "Declutter my house, clean everything, and become one of those minimalists whose flats look fashionable and welcoming, not coldly Spartan" became, "Let's go through the files in that one cupboard under the desk."

The Files turned out to be fourteen trees' worth of printouts from my uni days. Short stories, literary theory, analyses of spiritual themes in everyone from Tolkien to Terry Pratchett, academic readings on the women of Sparta, the mechanics of dialogue, philosophy of history, Australian editorial standards, Immanuel Kant, the Bible as poetry, examinations of grief in children's literature, more, more, more. All of it sounded wonderful. All of it called out for full immersion (Drop Everything And Read was something my primary school teacher instituted and I often wish it applied to adult life). And all of it swept me into an intense state of wistfulness.

Looking at this mound (a literal mound; I took pictures) of learning, this living, breathing, inspired stack of thought, made me feel a stranger to myself. It's only been a few years, but it feels as though I don't know the Danielle who studied, who wrote academically every day, who rolled words around in her head and on her tongue and tasted for the right one. She seems more intelligent than me, and with a significantly longer attention span. She followed thoughts through from their inception to their conclusion. She had ideas. She had opinions. She dreamed. She actually expected that future Danielle would have the time to reread thousands of pages of handouts.

I had to trash those mounds of magic and mystery, and part of me felt proud of my practicality as well as appreciative of the cupboard space I'd generated. But another part of me felt like I was trashing the Danielle who once was, the girl who dreamed and wrote and had big ideas -- the girl I worry I'll never be again.

It would have been satisfyingly symbolic to make a small bonfire and let those pages burn to ash and float off on the air. It appeals to my sense of drama, and isn't there a symbolic bonfire in every great coming-of-age story?

Instead, though, I dumped them into the recycle bin -- which perhaps carries a greater symbolism. Those pages are going to be remade and turned into something new, just as former Danielle is constantly being remade and turned into something new, just as you are being remade and turned into something new. I'm reminded of the biblical 'to everything there is a season,' and the reality that although autumn turns to winter and spring turns to summer, autumn comes around again, every year.

Just now, I'm looking back at the student life with longing for the constant intellectual feast. But back then, I looked forward to being employed and actually moving into what I saw as legitimate adulthood. My friends with little ones might once have looked achingly forward to having children, but now, in the endless cycle of feed, clean up, repeat, they look back with nostalgia on the days when their schedule was their own and they could fix a quick meal at 10pm, if they wanted to. The friend who was once desperate to travel the world would now give anything to feel at home somewhere, while the friend whose struggling health keeps her at home thinks back to the teenager who would go anywhere, do anything, at the drop of a hat.

What am I saying? That there is no joy in this world that comes without a cost? Not really, though perhaps that has some truth. Nothing will ever be entirely whole in a world that is broken.

I think what I am scrabbling to articulate is that we keep all those selves inside of us, the selves that once were and the selves we are today, so that the experiences we had then become part of who we are now. Which means that nothing is lost forever. Those former selves are not gone just because life has moved on. Instead, we grow and are shaped by our experiences. Even though we are not where we once were, it doesn't mean that "once" was wasted. And because we don't know the future -- wonderful, terrible truth that this is! -- we don't know just when winter will turn to spring and we will get to experience our own renaissance as the things we once loved or excelled at become the things we again get to practice and treasure.

To everything there is a season.

Everything glorious.

This afternoon I've been revelling in my first free day in a long time. When my evening plans fell through, I moved to the piano to play around, something that happens only occasionally these days. A rare afternoon off, a rare chance to play the piano just for the joy of it, and the rare opportunity to pull out a book of songs I probably haven't touched for two years. It felt like no accident then that today, Valentine's Day, I flipped the music book open to Everything Glorious, a song by David Crowder.

'The day is brighter here with you,' the lyrics begin, 'The night is lighter than its hue would lead me to believe, which leads me to believe that you make everything glorious.'

As a single thirty-something whose experience falls somewhere and everywhere between slightly crazy Austenesque old maid and the werkin'-it-Beyonce-style single lady, being a party of one in a world of pairs often feels less than glorious. When I started writing this post, I kind of got lost recounting the ungloriousness of extended singleness. It's a list that runs the gamut from petty, first-world annoyances -- never getting to take a plus one to a party, for example, or having to deal with car stuff on your own, or wishing food processors weren't only gifts for brides -- to the loneliness of being in a situation that 95% of your peers have not experienced, and then to the very real grief that comes when you realise the narrative you've always imagined for your future -- maybe one including children -- needs to be completely rewritten.

But none of us needs another list of why extended singleness can sometimes stink. We can come up with our own lists at the drop of a hat, and recounting these griefs leads nowhere (except, possibly, to the freezer for a tub of icecream).

What we do need are songs that remind us that glory is coming -- and not the beautiful but limited vision of glory that is romance and a white gown and to have and to hold. I mean a glory that takes a broken narrative and turns it into something wonderful, a message that now is not all there is, a promise that takes our ashes and gives us beauty.

Weeping may endure for a night, but the night is lighter than its hue would lead us to believe, and joy comes in the morning. Because someone is at work making everything glorious.

The opposite of dying.

Recently I read Marina Keegan’s now-famous essay for the Yale Daily News, “The Opposite of Loneliness.”

It is famous because it’s a lovely piece. Written in 2012 in the week of Keegan's graduation from college, it embodies the tension, uncertainty, and lip-biting optimism of this season. It suggests a woman moving forward from the collegiate cocoon into the realities of the adult world. It is honest, idealistic, joyful, frightened, hopeful.

It is also famous because Marina Keegan died in a car accident just days after her graduation.

As I read it, I – like everyone else who reads the essay knowing the story – couldn’t help but delight at the beauty of her hope, and grieve at the poignancy of it. Here is a young woman who stands looking out at what she sees as the beginning of her adult life. She marvels at it. She shrinks away from the unknowns. Then she runs boldly towards them all. She says, “We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time.”

Only – she didn’t.

And that is one scary thing about death. We like to think of it as something having a proper time and a place. The time is far into the future, and the place is at the end of a full life: a gentle, welcome conclusion to a life well-lived. But death is not so tidy. It likes to sneak up on us at odd moments, and that is scary.

Another scary thing about death is that it closes the book. And wherever we were up to in our writing – even there at the half-finished sentence, the misspelt word, the angry exclamation – is where the book is done. Or undone, as the case may be.

That’s why, in Marina Keegan’s story, although there is a sense of deep sorrow at a bright young life being seemingly cut short, there is also a sense of triumph: the story ends on a rich, meaningful note, one that will have echoes far into the future. It’s not a happy ending, but it’s a great ending. Marina Keegan left her mark on the world, and it is a good mark.

Sometimes, when I’ve had a particularly lame day, overthought everything, talked too much, accidentally been a jerk to the people I love the most, and wrestled with creative paralysis, I worry that I might die in the night and the only legacy I’ll have left behind is a bad taste in people’s mouths.

I don’t think I’m alone in that. Even for those of us who believe there is life after life, we are not so much scared of death (although it can be frightening, because it is strange to us); we are scared of having not really lived. We are scared that we will not do what we were meant to do with this “one wild and precious life.” And all the unfinished projects, the untouched possibilities, the wide open relationships, the people we love the most that we haven’t loved the most – all of them are a hundred tiny swords of Damocles, suspended over our lives and ready to come crashing down at our failures.

People like Marina Keegan empower us, and they terrify us. We hope we will end well, but we can’t be sure we will. One of the gentlest men I have known once told me, “I worry that my time will be up just as I’m snapping angrily at my wife.” Even he was not immune. It seems that none of us want to be caught in the messiness of a first draft.

That’s why it’s freeing – achingly, beautifully freeing – to consider that our legacy, whether it’s a whisper or a shout, is not only about how well we lived. It’s also about how well we were loved. A life well-loved is a life well-lived. That is a rich life, and a full life. If there is one person who loves you, then you exist, you are valued, your very being is important.

Within the Christian worldview, this understanding goes even deeper. To be loved in many cases means to be lovely. To have friends requires us to be friendly. And there are days when we are not lovely. There are days where we are not friendly. There are days when we are abandoned and alone. This is, after all, the essence of the fear.

What then? What of those times? The Christian message, the message of the gospel, is for those very times. At the bleakest, at the blackest, at the most unlovely: still loved, still beloved.

The horse hairs snap, the tiny swords fall, and He is there catching them all in his bare hands, heedless of the pain and of the blood that flows from the wounds.

This is not permission for any of us to embrace the jerkdom that either hibernates within us or openly roams free. It is not permission to waste our lives; love compels us to live better lives. But it is permission to look ahead with hope and to silence the voice that tells us we must do something important in order to be important.

You may have sixty years left or you may have six. In every one of them: be loved, because you are beloved. That is the opposite of dying.

A peek into my processes*:

(Kinda-part 1 here). With thanks to James for this fun tag.

What am I working on at the moment? I work as a social media and marketing manager and also as an English tutor and workshop instructor, so commercial and editorial-style writing is part of my daily life. The real dream, however, is fiction. So when people ask me about my words, it’s stories that I think of. After I completed my Master of Arts last year (and finished up a work placement of two years just a month later), I fell into a period that felt a lot like creative paralysis. I was frozen. It wasn’t even that I had things to say but didn’t know how to say them; I was truly empty. Ideas weren’t floating in, and words weren’t flowing out.

That season lasted more than six months, and I found it terrifying. Finally I had been set free to do the thing I cared about – and it felt as if the thing no longer cared about me. I’d talked about writing since I was a kid. I didn’t know myself without that dream, without that work happening on the sidelines. And I couldn’t really do anything other than hold on and hope that whatever I’d lost would somehow return to me.

This year has been more about inching back towards that fragile creativity. I’m certainly not at the place where, as a teenager, I thought all writers lived: a flurry of words pouring out in a feverish rush, pen at the ready for ideas to strike out of nowhere. (Gosh I miss those days. The feeling of it all, I mean, not the rubbish I wrote). Rather, there’s a sort of steadiness to where I'm at with words, along with a slight sense of frustration at the constant pull between work, family, community, and creativity.

So what am I actually working on? I’m working on a screenplay treatment for a friend who works in the independent film industry. I’m in the very tentative early stages of a new story that I think is going to be novel length. And there’s a little short story that’s been simmering for two years but is close to being done. I’m writing lots of thoughts about what I’m reading lately, too, and there’s a novel first draft sitting on the backburner while I work out how to take it from A to, if not Z, then at least B, C, or D.

How does my work differ from others in my genre? My last few published pieces have been for children, some other recent stories have been a little speculative, while still another is a piece of adult fiction that is bit (a lot) autobiographical. So I’m no longer quite sure what my genre is. But my heart is with young adult fiction, always and forever.

Something that I find myself exploring, often not realising it until the work is finished, is the idea of otherness. Being other is often viewed with some awkwardness or perhaps even shame. We tend to blame ourselves for our otherness, thinking that “If I was more [whatever],” then maybe I’d belong. But otherness can have great value. It’s healthy to be able to step back from the crowd occasionally. It generates a sense of wonder. It allows us to form our own opinions. And it builds compassion within us for those who may not learn, work, look, speak, or live like ‘everyone else’ does. What’s more, I suspect most of the great men and women of history could be counted as quite “other” in one way or many. The jury’s still out on whether otherness actually turns you into a genius (or a sociopath, for the unfortunate few), but I definitely think it can help.

Of course, there’s nothing unique about exploring the other within literature. One could argue that all literature is about otherness, to some degree. So how does my work differ from others in my genre? I guess one way is that my stories tend to be light on the romance side of things. I enjoy romance, but show me friendships, too. Show me families, show me communities, show me diverse relationships that go beyond high school sweethearts. As I read or write young adult characters, I can’t help thinking that the all-consuming crush that’s occupying the character’s heart and mind might not be there in a couple of years or even a couple of months. But I hope the best friend will still be around, and I’m more interested in his or her feelings about the main character than I am in the feelings of Bad-Boy-With-A-Heart-of-Gold McSpunkypants.

Why do I write or create what I do? It recently occurred to me that I might not actually like writing. It’s really hard work. I’ve never been the sort to be able to churn out thousands of words a day, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that whirlwind frenzy of feverish inspiration and had words just fall from my fingertips. Instead, I slog and yank and tug and grimace and fight to get the words out of me and onto a page, and I’m even not sure why I do it. I only know that words are incredibly important to me, and this is the thing I want to do, even when I’m not quite certain what it’s all for.

How does my writing/creative process work? I love boundaries and feel like my creativity thrives under them. Briefs and deadlines and word limits are great. When they are in place, the scope of possibility narrows to something within my vision and, instead of being overwhelmed by the vast expanses of whatever that stretch out before me, I can look just a little way ahead and start to think. I like having themes or content requirements or specific prerequisites imposed upon me. They don’t feel like an imposition; they feel like a starting point. And when such limitations don’t exist, if I’m left with something formless, I have to impose the limitations on myself so I don’t shrivel up or drown under the weight of all that could be.

So my process begins with examining my creative boundaries or inventing some for myself. I’m a fan of pulling out a notebook and scribbling down anything relevant on an open double page spread, then examining the work for links and ideas and a proper starting place. If I can’t start at the beginning of the story, I’ll start with a scene that I know that I know, a moment that’s real for me, that reveals my characters, that might even be an instrumental moment in the story. It doesn’t matter where it comes chronologically; I can write away from it or up to it later on. The important thing is to start.

A couple of years ago a friend introduced me to the idea of the writing sprints, and, quite seriously, they've really changed how I write. Now, when I have a project to complete, I set a timer for 15 mins and write fast and furiously just for that fifteen. I don’t pause to look up words, to self-edit, to ponder the decisions I’m making for my characters. I just write. If I’m unsure of a word or a direction to take something, I can fill in that space with nothing words. (I have written BLAH BLAH SOMETHING HERE more times than I could say). After the fifteen minutes is up, of course there’s time to go back and tweak things or check the outline to see if the story is on track, but it’s amazing how many words one can spout when the timer is going. And it’s inspiring to just hit reset and go for another round. I can’t tell you how much easier it is to write in four fifteen-minute bursts than it is to write for an hour.

The primary advantage to this is that words get onto paper. Then there’s the fact that I don’t waste time self-censoring or overthinking my writing decisions. Finally, it’s a way to write even when I think I don’t have time for writing. One of my projects lately is being written in ten-minute snatches, just a few days a week. You can’t do a lot in ten minutes, but you can do something, and it keeps the story (and the hope) alive.

*not a double entendre. 

So... that's a little peek into my creative process. Now I'm going to invite two writerly ladies, Jodie and Katie, to answer these questions for themselves. I'm looking forward to hearing more about what makes your wild mind bloom!

Rock pools and sketches and notebooks, oh my.

As a kid, I loved to read books that were about people making books. There were two in particular that I read a lot, one in comic-strip style about the building of a picture book from start to finish, and another about the actual manual work of collating and binding a book of your own. I borrowed these books from the local public library so often that I’m sure a little part of me felt that the librarian should just take pity on me and give them to me for keeps. 

These days we’d say that reading books about writing, illustrating, and making books is kind of meta, but childhood me had no such word for it. I only knew that these books provided a peek into a process that was like drawing aside a magical curtain and opening up the world beyond, like lifting the lid of an upright piano and seeing the intricate innards of the instrument, like peering past the surface of the water to the microcosmic life of the rockpool beneath. Looking at the processes behind books was mesmerising.

I still feel the same sense of fascination with these backstage tours. I have a small but serious collection of books that each explore someone else's creative processes. One of my favourites is about the writer andillustrator Eric Carle; it has a giant fold-out page that shows the step-by-step process Carle uses to create his trademark collages. Another book shows pages from EH Shepard’s childhood sketchbook, with annotations in a scratchy, childish hand. I can’t really explain their fascination for me; I only know that processes are delicious. Show me your first drafts, your sketchbooks, your outlines, and I’m a little bit in awe.

For that reason, it’s been fun to follow the trail of bloggers passing along the Blog Tour Award and talking about their creative processes. (And gosh, reading about how people write is so much easier and more fun than actually writing.) I was nominated to take part in the fun by James Cooper, chief editor of the author.docx blog and lecturer at Tabor College in Adelaide (you can read his answers here). I took several units under James when I was studying my BA, and loved them all. In fact, James’s recommendation introduced me to Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer, one of the best books about books I’ve ever read.

The idea of the blog tour is to answer a series of questions about my own creative processes, and to nominate up to four other bloggers to do the same. I was supposed to post my answers today, but I have a busy house full of local and interstate guests so I’ll be back with my answers tomorrow.

In the meantime, though, I have a question for you: are you a process person? What processes inspire you with a desire to create, do, or become?

A half-circle of light.

Last night was black and stormy. I was driving home from my friends' house, a route that cuts a winding path through a swathe of unlit bush. As I rounded a bend, a tiny car up ahead of me swung out round a further bend. It was one of those moments where, for just a second, the mask of humdrum falls away and you get to see life for the poetry that it really is.

The car was just a gleam in the dark, a flash of glossy black with an arc of yellow light from the headlights, filling out a semicircle in front of it. It looked like a tiny beetle with a torch strapped to its head. It was brave. There was something fierce in the way it cut a path through the darkness before it, seeing only a few metres ahead at a time.

I'm not a fan of that way of doing things. I don't want to see only a few metres ahead. I'd like to live with the high beam switched on. Better yet, I want to drive in full sun, where I can see the path stretched before me, where I can look ahead to the horizon. I like to estimate the bumps in the road before I reach them. I want to plot a course so I can stay on track. I'd like to avoid potholes instead of coming across them in the dark and being forced to swerve. I want to be ready in case a kangaroo leaps from a shrubby block of shadows. I want to be in control.

There's nothing brave, though, about being in control. It requires no courage. A life lived in full sun is a charmed life; the real world has some dark patches. And though my anxious heart wants to see what's waiting around the corner, I'm glad for the tiny half-circle of light stretched out before me. It's just enough brightness to keep me chugging on.

Ice cream.

Last week, I made up a new batch of music flash cards for my younger students. I drew cards for all the usual stuff: quavers, semibreves, crotchet rests, treble clefs, various notes on the stave. Then, on one of the cards I drew an icecream, a yellow cone with a pink scoop and blue sprinkles. I don't even really know why I did it; it was just a random moment of whimsy to surprise the kids, I guess.

This week I've been trialling the new cards and the kids have been enjoying it. Anything that's a bit new is a little surprise all of its own. But the first time I took one of my students through the new flashcards, I was the one who was surprised. "Minim," my little student said. "Bass clef. Mezzo forte. Ice cream. Middle C." She just sailed right on by the ice cream cone without skipping a beat.

She wasn't the only one. It's happened with every single student so far. Some of them grin. Some of them laugh a little as they speak the word. But not one of them blinks when the unexpected thing appears. That to me is itself unexpected, and it's delightful.

I think this probably wouldn't happen with adults. I think that, if I showed the flashcards to my friends, they'd say, "Why'd you put the ice cream in there? What's that got to do with anything?" At the very least, they might say, "Ice cream?" with their voice sliding up on the end to suggest the question. Not the emphatic and certain "Ice cream" I've heard from each of the kids.

It feels like there's a metaphor in there somewhere. Something about hope or miracles or even having the faith of a little child. Something about not yet being so programmed to think that everything must make sense, that there must be a proper order for everything.

But I'm just gonna let it sit and simmer for a while. And I'll keep grinning as the little ones go through their music terminology and without skipping a beat shout out "Icecream!" every time.

To you:

We live in an era that applauds the big stuff. We celebrate the ones who win, who are the best, who do the most. And we celebrate each other on milestones like graduating, or getting married, or having babies. But life is the thing that is lived in the spaces between the Kodak moments, and excellence really just looks like doing the unseen stuff well. It takes strength to be faithful in the little things.

So good on you, today, my friend.

Good on you for consistently making your bed in the morning.
Good on you for buying celery last time you went grocery shopping.
Good on you for returning your mother's calls.
Good on you for taking a cup of tea to your husband.
Good on you for singing when you want to complain.
Good on you for smiling at the bank teller.
Good on you for dealing with constant sleep deprivation because you are working two jobs in order to pay your rent.
Good on you for crying with that friend.
Good on you for respecting your boss.
Good on you for walking into a new church alone.
Good on you for quietly writing that story in your spare moments.
Good on you for getting up at 5 to spend time with God.
Good on you for doing a lame job well.
Good on you for playing checkers with your little brother when you really just want to veg in front of the tv.
Good on you for tithing off the small amount that you earn.
Good on you for dropping everything to babysit your niece and nephew.
Good on you for going to that party because, even though you hate parties, you love the person the party was for.
Good on you for walking your dog when you feel absolutely wiped out.
Good on you for sending encouraging text messages.
Good on you for being thankful.
Good on you for loving that person when they are being unlovable.
Good on you for being a listener.
Good on you for not betraying confidences.
Good on you for teaching yourself to cook.
Good on you for returning the change you were overpaid.

'If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.' Good on you.

The temporal death that is loneliness:

As a child, I equated loneliness with being alone. It wasn't so much that if you were alone, you were lonely but, rather, that you could only be lonely when you were alone. People are the cure for the disease that is loneliness. This is what I thought.

But as an adult, I now recognise that loneliness is no respecter of persons or relationships. Most of those times that loneliness has weighed heaviest on me are moments when I am quite literally surrounded by people. Because there is not just one type of loneliness. There are dozens, perhaps even hundreds of lonelinesses.

There is the loneliness of being in the middle of a crowd that is engaged in watching or singing or being, and you are somehow disconnected from it all. There is the loneliness of being at a gathering where everyone is sharing and talking and laughing, but you can't speak because tears are close to the surface and to speak would make them spill over. Then there is its counterpart, that other, seemingly irrational loneliness that hopes someone will intuitively know what's up, seek you out, help -- care.

There is the loneliness of evolving friendships, of someone who was once very dear in your life slowly moving out of it. There is the loneliness of not having someone's hand to hold as the clock ticks over midnight and the fireworks blaze up into technicolour life. There is the loneliness of heading north while everyone else is headed south. There is the loneliness of someone saying "I wish I could help you," and then the deeper loneliness of someone saying, "I don't want to help you."

There is loneliness in unfulfilled expectations. There is loneliness in having to keep quiet when you want to speak. There is loneliness in fighting a battle that no one else around you is fighting. There is loneliness in the dying off of traditions. There is loneliness in frailty and loneliness in weakness. There is the loneliness of someone laughing at your dream, and the loneliness of endless rain.

There are perhaps as many different lonelinesses as there are happinesses, and each one of them feels like a small death -- a death of belonging, a death of hope, a death of security. But perhaps that is the very thing that is redemptive about loneliness, too: that just as it can come out of nowhere and make your throat tighten with unfelt feelings and uncried tears, so too can happiness. Just as unexpected, just as powerful.

In the loneliness, though, joy feels far away. Joy feels impossible. In those moments, I have to talk to my soul, to remind it that tomorrow, or next week, or next month, the sun will come out. I remind my soul that loneliness is a side effect of being human. I'm lonely because I'm alive -- which is, after all, the complete opposite of death.

[this post was inspired by the Life Captured Project]

The Sunday Currently

I'm stealing the format for The Sunday Currently from Carina, who in turn found it somewhere else. I like the idea of a simple check-in, a way to orient one's heart- and head-space at the end of one week and the beginning of another. It's also the perfect chance to switch gears from my last two kind of heavier/more analytical type posts (and thank you all for your really thoughtful and affirming comments, by the way). Here's what's current in my world:

Reading
As always, I'm deep in too many books at the same time. But the two I've spent time with most recently (hello, Sunday afternoon; today you were made of wonderfulness) are Fredrick Backman's A Man Called Ove and Anna Funder's All That I Am. Ove is my local book club's pick for this month and, to summarise it super briefly, it's about a grumpy old Swedish fellow who nevertheless has some endearing redeeming qualities. For the first thirty pages I hated it -- hated his constant grumbling and his almost cartoonish old-mannish ways. Then on page 31 something happened and I suddenly loved this character. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the story develops. And I literally only started All That I Am today, but already it's proving wonderful. Anna Funder's non-fiction work Stasiland was amazing, and I feel confident her fiction will be just as good.

Writing
I'm working on a short story at the moment. It's been in the works for most of the year, and I keep pulling it out when it forcibly impresses itself on my memory. I'm also dipping a tentative toe back into journalling. I haven't done it for so long that I confess I'm quite scared by the whole process.

Listening
I'm all about putting my iPod on shuffle these days. To my shame, sometimes I discover stuff I haven't ever heard before. I'm also not above skipping tracks I'm not in the mood for. Current/always/forever favourites are Josh Garrels and The Civil Wars (who are, sadly, officially disbanding), while Citizens & Saints are my newest favourite. Musically, their stuff is like gentler hard rock, if that's even a thing. Lyrically, their songs are exquisitely literary contemporary Psalms. So good.

Thinking
Oh, what a wide brown land that word encompasses. I'm thinking a lot about being faithful in the little things, about reconciling the present with the future, and the interesting dynamics of share-housing (I've only ever shared with my sister; I'm so intrigued as to how people share a living space with someone they're either not related to nor in love with).

Smelling
Bushfire smoke and a cool breeze.

Wishing
[withheld, because] 

Hoping
...to get better at hope; to find the delicate space between idealism and cynicism; for more cool breezes; to ignore the chocolate cake in my fridge; to connect with people I need to connect with.

Wearing
Post-church, Sunday night daggies. If only I'd written this a half hour ago, when it was a black sheath dress, gladiator sandals, and a diamante collar necklace.

Loving
The feeling that life is maybe finding a rhythm again after several months of really intense busyness.

Wanting
A little more job security, perhaps.

Needing
To go through my walk-in-robe-slash-storeroom-space and overhaul everything.

Feeling
Grateful to be on the mend and getting my energy back after a really prolonged flu. 

Clicking
Here for adorable German words translated into adorable line drawings. Here for cute Israeli cops lip-syncing to The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Here to watch the latest episodes of Doctor Who. And here because there's always something good to read.

You?

"Be more attractive."

Yesterday a friend sent me the link to a recent post on the Boundless blog. The tagline to the post reads: “If no one’s asking you out, here’s the solution: Be more attractive.” Author Josh Loke offers three ways for women to attain this attractiveness: demonstrate respect, look good, and be fun. Specifically, he adds, “If girls are looking for a guy with humor, kindness, stability and initiative, etc., guys are looking for a girl who’s hot.”

Somebody hold my flower.

A blog post like this presupposes that a woman’s one goal in life is to find a date (or enough dates in order to up the numbers and somehow statistically find The One). But let’s bypass that red flag in order to concentrate on what the injunction to “be attractive” actually says to women everywhere. It says that your success as a person and a woman is measured only by externals. It says that you have ‘arrived’ only when men are asking you out. It says that if this isn’t happening, then it’s for no other reason than that you are not enough. It says that your flaws – both the ones you can change as well as the ones you can’t – make you unlovable and unworthy of love. It says that whatever you are already doing, no matter if it’s your best, it isn’t good enough.

The thing is, there’s nothing new about this message. It isn’t some earth-shattering revelation. Culture screams it from every poster on the side of a bus, highway overhang banner, and prime time commercial. It’s something that many women tend to believe about themselves anyway. It’s knitted into our culture and it can often be woven into our psyches. So we don’t need to hear it from people whose stated goal is to encourage and inspire. What’s more, the principle behind the idea isn’t even true.

I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who didn’t want to be the best version of their self. Most of us are actively working at this in smaller or greater measure in various ways. For many of us, this ‘best possible version’ includes looking after our bodies and expressing our personalities through the way we present our faces and bodies to the world. I like wearing makeup. I like cute dresses. I like spending a little time on my hair of a morning. It makes me feel ready for life, like the cheeriest, most confident version of myself. A bright lip colour and tamed hair and suddenly I am Joan of Arc. It would be certainly be cool if my personal version of beauty caught someone's eye. But that isn't why I do it.

And in many ways it’s irrelevant anyway because no matter how much effort I put into my personal attractiveness, no matter how much effort you put into yours, there's still going to be an arbitrary line in the critical sand of our culture which has beautiful people on one side, and those who fall short on the other.

I was born with a slight physical disability. It’s only a minor one as far as they go but it means I have some impressive scars and my attempts to learn how to jog keep getting pulled up by injury. I have weird feet and I’ll never be able to wear sexy heels. This is certainly a mark against me in what begins to seem like a high-stakes attractiveness contest. Add to this mark the flaws that I could correct with surgery if I had the money (which I don’t) and I believed I could justify it (which I also don't). Then of course there are all the basics: nose too big, eyes too small, skin too flawed, and twenty-five other things I’d be able to list off because we all get so good at recognising where we fail to come up to snuff.

There is nothing unique about me in this respect. Most of us could rattle off a list of our own remarkable failures to be beautiful. But vague hand-wavy ideas like “be more attractive” imply that with just a little more effort anyone can achieve the nirvana of beauty and finally catch the eye of a passing gentleman. And when people say “be more attractive”, we believe it to be true. If I could pull together all my components and recompose myself into my picture of the ideal externally beautiful woman, I would be tall, slim, elegant, and graceful. I would have narrow shoulders, sleek straight hair, and devastating cheekbones. My skin would be flawless, my hands small and strong. I would be athletic without really trying. But the thing is, I know girls exactly like this. What is more, their inner beauty is just as powerful and profound as their luminous external beauty. Yet they, too, are wondering, “What’s wrong with me? What do I need to do?”

The standard for physical beauty is ridiculously subjective. It is trend-driven and culturally specific. It also has a tendency to be wealth-privileged, ageist, ableist, and exclusionary. Some of us, no matter how much effort we put in, will never be typically beautifully. And that is okay. Every single one of us is far more than our face or our breasts or our waistline. And it’s a little beside the point that I am hoping to make but perhaps it’s worth a reminder: ugly people get married. Awkward people get married. Overweight people get married. Flawed people get married.

One commenter on the post illustrates why telling women to “be more attractive and boys will like you” is an unhelpful mindset:

“I've never ever been asked out over the entire course of my life, and neither have either of my two sisters. We all love Jesus and are very active in our church(es), and we are all perfectly fit (run marathons). We look attractive (well, maybe I'm not, but my sisters are both super cute in my opinion). We are also employed (or studying to be employed) in meaningful ways (medicine, actuarial science, and/or music). We all have hobbies that we are really good at and enjoy. We all would like to be committed, godly wives and mothers someday. We may be a bit reserved in public/around people we don't know well, but in reality, we've got to be the funniest, most hilarious bunch of girls on the planet (in my opinion). We live in a fairly large town near one of the largest cities in our state.

But, I'm trying to remind myself that there's always room for improvement. Maybe what I need is to improve my looks. Or could it be that I don't think of anything to crack a joke over during the 10 minutes of coffee hour after church (this period of time is always truncated for me because I'm either playing a postlude on the organ or teaching Sunday school--sometimes I don't even show up at coffee hour at all!)? Could it be our academic/professional interests that put people off? Could it be that we're Asian?? Could it be that we were homeschooled? Anyway, I'm trying not to think that we all happen to have the gift of singleness...although, of course, it is possible."

This commenter sounds like an awesome, well-rounded, fascinating person. And her first paragraph asserts that. However, she moves from these confident observations -- I am a strong, intelligent, beautiful woman who has a full and creative life -- to the almost apologetic confession that ‘there’s always room for improvement.’ And in one sense she is right: all of us can be better. We can all grow. That’s one of the things that makes life so interesting and the Christian walk so challenging. But the standard imposed upon her by this blog post has it wrong: the assumption is that because no man has asked her out, then there must be room for improvement.

When someone says “What is wrong with me?” to my mind it rarely arises out of personal conviction and a passion for growth. Rather, it’s steeped in despair and shame. People who force us to ask “what is wrong with me?” are not being helpful; they’re being bullies. “How can I be a better person?” is getting closer to the mark. But “How can I be a better person so I attract the attention of a man?” is so far off-base.

Taking care of oneself is good for the soul. It enhances the lives of those we care about because we are happier and healthier as a result. It gives us courage and personal freedom. It sets us loose to more freely care for others. It allows us to be our authentic selves.

So be healthy for you and for the people you already love. Be healthy because your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Be your own form of beautiful because your creativity reflects the splendour of the creator’s hand. Don’t strive to reinvent yourself in order to attract the eye of every possible good guy who passes you by. If your personal brand of beauty is bohemian layers and hippie hair, do that. If it’s farm girl chic with dungarees, boots, and a bare face, do that. If you believe external details are mere periphery in a world where people are hungry and dying, then act on that. Be your own form of beautiful because to do so for any other reason is illusory and transient and it might work -- but it might not work, too.

Be your best you. But be it for you, for the one who made you, and for the people who already love you. If that fails to capture someone's attention, it says less about you than you think. Be great, but be great because life is now, not because it will begin once someone notices how truly lovely you are. The world doesn't magically move out of black and white with true love’s first kiss. Life is already happening and it’s in full colour. Shine bright.

A hug for the third wheels:

One of the challenges of extended singleness that’s not often discussed is the idea that you are no one’s special person.

I realise, even as I write, that this seems glaringly obvious.

But there is a subtlety to this idea that I’ve not seen explored in the singleness discussions that I’ve encountered. There can be a loneliness to being alone, sure. That much is obvious. But there is a unique, entirely other kind of loneliness to being alone when everyone around you has their one person – that person who is their responsibility, their care, their focus. It's the one they check in with, the one whose opinion they will defer to, the one whose schedule they will shape their lives around.

It is lonely to have nobody, but it is another kind of loneliness to be nobody’s somebody.

As nobody’s somebody, you become the dispensable variable in relational equations. It is you who might have to change your intended meetup time to fit better with what your girlfriend’s boyfriend wants. Your sister might need to pause in the middle of a deep and meaningful conversation with you to take a call from her husband at work. Your plans with a friend will fall through because her toddler is teething. If you don’t know your guy friend’s new love interest, chances are you won’t know your guy friend for much longer, either. You will grow accustomed to being the third person, or fifth, or seventh in gatherings where all the other attendees are pairs.

All of this is good and fine. It’s healthy, even. It’s sanctifying and humanising to be reminded that our own needs are not paramount. It is good to be adaptable, and to learn to hold things loosely. It’s good to know that others’ lives don’t carry the same freedoms that singleness does.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt to be reminded that everybody you care about most is aligning their lives closely to another person’s, moulding their days and hours and moments to fit another’s, but that person is not you. You are loved by many but not at the top of anyone’s priority list.

Is it selfish to mourn that a little? Is it greedy to even notice? I don’t think so. It is a genuinely difficult thing to be nobody’s main priority and to have a multiplicity of primary priorities yourself. It’s even harder to talk or write about it without seeming small-minded and petulant. But the sorrow is real, I think, and it is okay to acknowledge its existence.

What’s more important, though, is to acknowledge how significantly you (me, we) are loved in spite of the fact that we aren’t anybody’s significant other. We are surrounded by people who care, and if their care must be broken into pieces and scheduled around parents and children and spouses, that does not make the love any less genuine; it just makes it real.

And in reverse, we can treasure the opportunity to pour our own unfettered love into the lives of others, with all the freedom and creativity that the unattached life gives. It brings its own challenges, this season, but there are also some very cool pluses. We need to remember those in the moments when the other stuff aches.

"Answers to all the questions and a tale to tell": an interview with Darren Groth, author of 'Are You Seeing Me?'

As most of you already know -- because I flailed about it from here to instagram and everywhere in between -- I really enjoyed reading Darren Groth's recent release, Are You Seeing Me? 

From the back of the book:

Justine and Perry are embarking on the road trip of a lifetime. It's been more than a year since they watched their dad lose his battle with cancer, leaving nineteen-year-old Justine as the sole carer for her disabled brother. Now, the twins' reliance on each other is set to shift. Before they go their separate ways, they're seeking to create the perfect memory. For Perry, the trip is a glorious celebration of his favourite things: mythical sea monsters, Jackie Chan movies, and the study of earthquakes. For Justine, it's a chance to "free" her twin, to see who she is without her boyfriend, Marc -- and to offer their mother to chance to atone for past wrongs.

This sums up the story beautifully. I suppose it's not the done thing to also add sentences to the effect of: 'a beautiful emotional story that somehow manages never to descend into melodrama,' or 'finally a love story that's more about familial love than the romantic type,' or 'characters you'll wish were actually real so you could give them a big hug (if they were up for it of course).' These are the kind of postscripts I'd tack on if it was my job to write a blurb for this book -- which tells you what a good thing it is that this isn't my job.

Are You Seeing Me? is set partly in Brisbane and partly in Vancouver, Canada, echoing the author's own background. Darren Groth is a Queenslander now writing from Vancouver, where he lives with his wife and thirteen-year-old twins. Recently I got to chat with Darren about his work.

Before talking about the text itself, a process question because I'm fascinated by the processes of creativity and the rituals (or lack of them) that creators employ. What does your writing process look like? And how long did it take to write AYSM, from idea to final draft?

My process is pretty organic. I'm not a huge planner of a novel -- a lot of the details reside in my head and unfold on the page. I tend to start with a simple idea or scenario which, through the thousand and one questions that result, ends up becoming a full blown story.

With AYSM, it began with an idea close to home for me: a set of twins -- one with a disability, the other without -- left on their own after their father's passing and their mother's departure many years ago. From that basic premise, the questions commenced: who are they? Where are they at in their lives? What happened to the father? Where is the mother now? Eventually, I had answers to all the questions and a tale to tell.

The first draft of AYSM took almost a year to write. Unfortunately, it would turn out to be the first of many. Final draft would come after six previous! I think it turned out for the best, though.

I'd agree with that.

The relationship between AYSM and your own family story is quite clear. When did you first realise you wanted to write a book like this? Did you wrestle at all with finding a balance between following the story you were writing versus exploring the story you are living?

I knew soon after the release of my previous novel, Kindling, that I would do AYSM. I wanted to write a book that would be a gift to my daughter and explored the idea of a young woman trying to find her own way while caring for her brother. As you mentioned, there were plenty of touch-points I could bring from my own family's circumstances -- not enough that you would call the work "faction", though. Historically, I've tended to do that with my novels: I'll use compelling narratives from my own experience, add lots of made-up stuff, give it all to caracters I create, and then see where it ends up.

This makes perfect sense. And I suspect we can't help but imbue our fiction with some of our own history, even if we are writing in worlds completely different to our own.

Have your children read the story? Did they offer any feedback?

My kids are thirteen; neither has read the story yet. My daughter will read it one day -- as it's dedicated to her, I hope she loves it. She's more into The Hunger Games and The Simpsons at the moment. My son, due to his ASD, may never be able to read AYSM or Kindling (the book that was my gift to him). He has progressed very well over the years, though, so never say never!

It's very important to AYSM that both Justine and Perry have a voice. It's not solely Justine's story; neither is it solely Perry's. Did you always intend to tell the story like this, even from its inception? And did you encounter any special challenges in writing a story with two protagonists?

For a while, I entertained just writing AYSM from Justine's perspective. Not far into it, I understood Perry needed to be heard, too. He was actually far easier to write than his sister. Justine is far more nuanced than Perry and required a lot more care during editing to ensure her voice was consistent and authentic. Putting Perry on the page involved a greater amount of research (everything I now know about earthquakes, sea monsters, and Jackie Chan movies, I owe to him), but he was a dream to author.

The editing and crafting shines through. Justine's character is gently deep and manages to authentically straddle the sometimes awkward divide between youth and adulthood.

Speaking of divides, the book, with its dual settings of Brisbane and Canada, has a very strong sense of place. How important to you is this sense of place in what you read and write? Is it always as significant within the text as with AYSM? How does being an Australian living in another country help (or challenge) you as a writer?

Place, when done particularly well, is like another character. One of my favourite reads of all time is I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti, and the backdrop for that -- a remote rural town in southern Italy -- is remarkable and plays as much of a role in proceedings as any of the protagonists. If my sense of place in AYSM is half as good as Ammaniti's then I'm rapt.

Regarding living in Canada as an Aussie, I think it offers a different stimulus to my work than I otherwise would've had remaining in Brisbane. As Justine herself might put it: no better or worse -- just different.

Beautifully said. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts and background on this important story. Good luck with all your future work!

The season of love:

I got to spend most of this past week down south with my precious friend Meaghan as she prepared to marry her true love handsomeface manperson. It felt like such a privilege being behind the scenes of all that pre-wedding busyness -- and then to actually walk down the aisle ahead of the bride's sister and niece and then the bride herself.

Wedded bliss might signal the end of our epic Meaghan-and-Danielle weekends (usually an annual occurence), and I will undoubtedly grieve the subtle shift of things, but at the same time, I'm rejoicing for her and for the great man she has married. Lives change all the time, every moment of every day, but it's very cool to get to watch and observe one of those new chapters as it begins. (Plus, pretty dresses and 1938 Fords were involved!).

Added to all that was the fact that so many wonderful people came together to celebrate Meaghan and Geoff, and we -- the guests -- took advantage of the cool company to catch up with friends and family we see only too rarely. Love was in the air, and not just wedding-love!

"Are You Seeing Me?"; one of my favourite reads of 2014 so far.

I've been in something of a heavy duty reading/writing/creating slump since July. But this week I read Darren Groth's Are You Seeing Me?, which was a completely spontaneous purchase on National Bookshop Day, and I loved it.

For a summary, check out Goodreads. In the meantime, here's a hastily-scribbled impressionistic list of reasons why I think this book is great:

1) it's beautifully-written. From the get-go, the prose is lovely -- gentle, literary, but never over-written. Here's a taste, from page 37, as twins Perry and Justine step out into the Canadian sun for the first time and stop to take a selfie: "The snap is more than money -- it is perfect. Our eyes are ablaze. Our grins are starlight. Despite the fifteen-hour flight and lack of sleep, we have been captured at some sort of fission point; the release permitting the very best of our past, present and future to burst through for a nanosecond. As I stand there, spellbound, breathing the gluggy Vancouver air, the photograph materialises in other places, other times..." On top of that, it's a good story. It's possible to have great words but a bad tale; happily, this is not one of those books. It works.

2) it's contemporary YA literature that manages to avoid cliches and tropey-ness. First off, there's not a love triangle in sight. In fact, there's only a glimmer of romance and what's there is honest, real, and not composed of pink-tinged warm fuzzies. Secondly, there's very little space given to what the characters look like or wear, or their appraisal of others' appearances. The story isn't about school or work or rivalry or the boy next door (none of which are wrong, all of which have been done a thousand times before). Finally, at 19 years old and functioning as the primary carer for her brother, Justine is the exact definition of YA: a young adult. She is wrestling with responsibility, decisions about the future, relationships, the way others perceive her brother's disability. Her experiences are ones readers will relate to no matter what their age.

3) Perry and Justine live in Brisbane, and there is something so I-don't-know-what-it-is-but-I-like-it about reading a book with links to a place you know and love. It's a feeling akin to belonging, or even ownership. Having looked out onto the same bridge, same river, same bookstore cafe that the characters are also seeing makes their story that much more real, more tangible. And for me, it brought up all my fledgling feelings of Queensland patriotism, which have taken eight years to generate.

 4) it punched me right in the heart. My little brother has down syndrome, so I get what it's like to walk through life with an answer waiting on the edge of your tongue, ready to explain away anything that people find unusual or unsettling. There's 17 years and three other siblings between me and him, but the others all live away and I live right next door, and that feeling of the two of us out to face the world is something I can relate to deeply. Sometimes I have dreams of disasters happening and the one person I always try to find in the midst of the tsunami or the earthquake, the one person I have to reach to make sure he's safe, is my brother Tain. I could understand Justine's fierce love for her brother because I feel that for my brother, too. At the same time, I felt a little envious of these characters. Perry -- who narrates part of the story -- is articulate and expressive. He's able to explain himself clearly. He has defined tastes and interests, special skill sets, and knowledge that can impress others. There is no external sign of his disability. Though people might be startled or feel uncomfortable because of the way Perry responds to situations, he can also blend into a crowd. No one can look at him and, simply by evaluating his physical characteristics, make assumptions about his abilities, his personality, his worth. I envied that in Perry and wished momentarily for some of those things for my brother. This was a new experience for me, but at the same time it reminded me that things always look different from the outside looking in.

5) finally, it inspired me to love better, which is one of the best things a book can do.

The warrior virtue.

I got home from work today and just wanted to cry. It was nothing particularly to do with work and nothing particularly to do with home. I just felt tired from the inside out, and it suddenly caught up with me. Everything I had to do felt too difficult and too awful, and the few things I’m looking forward to over the next little while all seemed so wrapped up in other things that terrify me that it felt/feels impossible to separate the yay from the unyay in order to really enjoy them.

While the physical reality of this hit with a fresh intensity, the vibe wasn’t exactly new. I’ll admit it: a certain sense of cynicism has crept into my soul lately. I didn’t notice it happening. I didn’t intentionally stamp out the flames of optimism. Suddenly I just realised: I’m not such a hopeful person anymore. I’m more skeptical. I’m more doubtful. I have less of a sense of anticipation about the future. And every time I watch the news, I regret it.

 I used to be Pollyanna, but these days I feel more like Daria. Without the funny bits.

 As it turned out, my teaching appointment was cancelled for the afternoon, and I was able to collapse onto my couch instead, shutting my mind to the million other things I’m supposed to be doing this week. I put my iPod on shuffle, and Mumford & Sons’ Thistle and Weeds came on. It’s not my favourite of their songs, so I hadn’t given it as much attention as some of the others that caught at me from the very first listen. Today, though, the words made me stop:

Plant your hope with good seeds / Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds

I was arrested by this image of hope as a garden, a garden that requires cultivation, energy, pruning, and watering. I thought of how cynicism and snark can spring up like thistles and weeds, and how once the weeds take over a patch, it’s so much harder for the good seeds to grow there.

Then came the chorus:

But I will hold on / I will hold on hope.

Hope is such a small word. A slight word. A simple word. I equated it with Pollyanna before, and sometimes I suspect that is how we think of it: as the sunshiny stuff of children’s stories from last century. But there’s a reason the image of the anchor has come to represent hope: hope is the weight that can keep the soul from being dragged away by the rips and currents that yank it off course. Hope strains under its own strength. Hope pulls, hope catches, hope preserves, and hope keeps alive.

Hope saves us from shipwreck. Hope is fierce. It has guts, and it has muscles. Hope is the stuff of warriors.

Last week, I got a text from a friend I rarely see or talk to, but who is one of those steadfast, true, and excellent people in my life. She reminded me that the last time we’d caught up was for New Year’s Eve. We danced and sweated our way into 2014 in my tiny Housie living room, and we talked about Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s resolutions from 1943. The one that stood out to her was the call to action, Wake Up And Fight. The one that leapt up and smacked me on the nose was this: Keep the Hoping Machine Running.

I loved it so much that I painted it on the front of my moleskine planner. That way, I’d see it daily all through 2014. But after my friend’s text, I saw those words anew, with a jolt. My hope machine hasn’t been running at full horsepower. In fact, I think I’ve let the fuel tank run low. My little hope machine has been coughing by on mere fumes. Time for some jumper cables, I think.

Considering hope as this thing that can be fed or starved, fuelled or run dry, may seem oddly contradictory. After all, we can’t just magic our way into joy or click our red-shoed heels and find ourselves there. So is hope fake?

I can’t believe that it is. Jesus notched its importance up there right alongside faith and love. And through humanity’s long history of messes and flaws, it has been the thing telling people to walk on. So it makes sense that sometimes we have to tell our hope itself to hope on, too. The Psalmist literally told his soul to keep hoping. And Dory did the same thing when she sang that magical phrase, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”

If hope is a garden, we must weed it. If hope is an anchor, we must cling to it. If hope is a machine, we must keep it running. Just keep swimming.

Books for 10 and 11 year-olds (kind of):

Book recommendations are quite a personal thing. You know a friend would love a certain book because she's totally into dystopia, but you also know it would keep another friend up all night freaking out. One friend might be fine with a few cuss words here and there, but it would totally spoil the reading experience for a different friend.

The recommendation lines are drawn even more finely when it comes to sharing books with kids. This one might be a perfect read-alone for one particular ten-year-old, but to another, it's just too much sorrow and might only work as a read-aloud with time to pause in order to discuss issues as they arise. A book may have some wonderful themes and ideas, but the occasional violent imagery upsets some parents. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to sharing books.

I was not a discerning reader when I was ten. I read anything I could lay my hands on, and I don't think it messed me up too much. But there are definitely things I probably shouldn't have read when I was quite so young -- or maybe I've just turned all mother-hen in my relative old age? Because I am much more cautious in my approach to throwing books at kids than I was in my approach to catching said books when I was a kid.

All of which is my really long-winded way of saying that a book that's great for one kid may not be so for another. It might be too mature for one and too young for another; you know how it goes. That being said, one of my favourite ways to engage with books and find great new things to read or share is in talking about them. And recently I've had a few people ask me for recommendations for grade five/six readers. Which can only mean... BOOKLIST TIME!

I have erred on the side of delicacy here, which means that these are books meant for young readers. You may be fine with your eleven-year-old reading The Fault in Our Stars (at this point, I wouldn't be), but there won't be anything that grown-up in my list. The ones I am sharing, though, are books I've engaged with predominantly as an adult reader -- which tells you they are good books (to me, at least) because their appeal and quality is enduring regardless of age. I've split the books into two segments based on the fact that one friend requested some lighter, happier reads. Again, such distinctions might be arbitrary; what one reader finds heavy, another reader might consider fluff. It's all relative, and many serious books can be written lightly and gently, so feel free to make up your own mind. Regardless, all of these books are ones I consider fairly gentle, even though many of them tackle difficult topics. Categorisations are hard!

Feel free, also, to throw your own recommendations at me. Inspired by swellvalleybloodpulse's snappy instagram book reviews (check them out; they are like delicious little bookish word-poems!), I've taken just a few words to describe each text:

Slightly lighter:

• Collins, Suzanne -- urban fantasy, a kidnapped little sister, giant talking cockroaches, and high adventure underground in The Underland Chronicles.
• DiCamillo, Kate -- small town USA, dogs, preteen years, unsual characters, and single parents in Because of Winn-Dixie.
• Hirsch, Odo -- mysteries, adventure, a cast of lively characters, everyday life, and beautiful turns of phrases in the Hazel Green books, the Bartlett books, the Darius Bell books, and FrankelMouse.
• Holm, Jennifer L -- the great depression, Florida Keys, family belonging, and ingenuity in Turtle in Paradise.
• L'Engle, Madeleine -- family, fantasy, time travel, connection, and allegory in A Wrinkle in Time.
• Peterson, Andrew -- family fantasy, mythical beasts, an epic journey, and lost jewels in On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness.
• Sachar, Louis -- everyday coming-of-age with fantastical elements, tall tale, racism, bullying, buried treasure, and family in Holes.
• Spinelli, Jerry -- being different, social acceptance, school life, creativity, and wonder in Eggs and Loser.
• Stead, Rebecca -- moving into the teen years, middle school, family relationships, agoraphobia, spying, and a twist in the tale in Liar & Spy.

Slightly heavier:

• Avi -- the medieval period, Catholicism, hierarchy, the Black Death, and minstrel life in Crispin: the Cross of Lead.
• Bauer, Michael Gerard -- Brisbane setting, local community, family relationships, PTSD in The Running Man.
• George, Elizabeth -- the Middle East during the time of Christ, parentless children, disability, faith, and conflict in The Bronze Bow.
• Kerr, Judith -- world war II, Germany and France, nominal Judaism, belonging, coming-of-age, and family in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.
• Palacio, RJ -- disability, social acceptance, friendship, family, and multiple POVs in Wonder.
• Serraillier, Ian -- world war II, refugees, families separated, Poland during the German occupation, all in The Silver Sword.

The day of wreckening.

I would say I'm sorry for the terrible pun up there in the post title, only I'm not. Bad puns make the world a better place. So, too, do bad art projects.

I say 'bad' not because there is some inherent morality attached to the Wreck This Journal project I've been doing with my students, but because discussions of art are so often about good art versus bad art, about achievement versus failure. The 'good' or 'bad' of art is generally a question of quality or aesthetic value, and it finds its meaning in the finished work of the piece. Of course, in reality, the meaning is also ascribed to (or taken away from) the art mostly by its observers and critics. It has meaning and value to the artist who lovingly (or angrily or frustratedly or carelessly) laboured over it, but it gains its social and artistic value primarily from others.

For nearly two years, my students and I have been working on wrecking our own journals. It's not something we do every week or have a fixed timeframe for working on; we pull them out if the more typical school business of English and history are done, or if we need an injection of randomness in our day. Using Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal as a guide, we'll flip to a page and then follow its (sometimes bizarre or vaguely uncomfortable) instructions in our own tacky exercise books. Sometimes we come across a page we've already done, and we challenge each other to complete the same exercise again, but differently.

I think I've mentioned before that the kids were wary of the journal-wrecking approach when we first started. I heard a lot of "Am I really allowed to do this?" followed by, "But what if it looks lame?" These days, they are wrecking pros. They will smear glue all over a page without a second thought. They will substitute an "ugly" piece of paper when the "pretty" ones are all gone. They will scribble madly over something already completed. And each time we add another half-dozen pages to our books, we look at the fat, awkward, warped shape of the volume with satisfaction.

The coolest part of the Wreck This Journal project is that the emphasis falls more heavily on process than on results. There are very few realms of life in which this happens. Results are what we find important, and we tailor our processes in order to achieve optimal results. It doesn't work like that with Wreck This Journal -- the creative play is the end goal; perfection is off-limits -- and if the result is something that makes us wrinkle our nose, we shrug and move along. Working to achieve something is healthy and good. But sometimes it is just as healthy to play and make for the joy of playing and making, entirely divorcing the process from the results.

Which could be kind of a metaphor for childhood or something, if only I wasn't too hungry to really sit down and think it through.

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Conversations:

• Asea -- yes! That's the copy of Winter Book that you sent me! I figured that this cold season was the perfect time to pull it out again. I love revisiting books seasonally :)
• Emily Dempster -- your life sounds so full and happy right now! I'm delighting with you in all the cool stuff that's going on!