Author: alisonmcghee

Hello, Miss Wang. Greetings, Mr. Li.

Posted on by alisonmcghee

chinese-english-dictionaryHello, Miss Wang.

Hello, Mr. Li.

How are you today, Miss Wang?

I’m well. And you?

I too am well.

That makes three of us, then, who are all well, thanks, Mr. Li, thanks Miss Wang, here in this small car on a Friday morning in late September, heading west.

You have a 500-mile round trip overnight ahead of you, and in preparation you went to the library –first having combed through your children’s rooms in search of their library cards, hoping that one of theirs, unlike yours, would be “clean,” clean defined as having less than a $10 fine attached to it– to borrow some books on cd, the better to educate and entertain yourself as you drive.

You made it to your underground neighborhood library five minutes before closing –how typical– and the very kind librarian let you scurry over to the books on cd section anyway, where you chose:

Breakfast for Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut (you know you read this in high school, but you don’t remember a word of it, and what with all the Vonnegut talk these days you figure it’s time to re-up your acquaintance).

The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman, because it’s a cool idea –a virus wipes out the humans and then what happens?– and it sounds as if it might leave you a bit more knowledgeable, always a good thing.

Fierce Pajamas, a collection of New Yorker humor writing from long ago right up through now. Funny! You love funny.

Beginning Mandarin, Level One. (Or Two. Or Three. Could it possibly have been Four, even?) You spot this quiet little unassuming book-on-cd and scoop it up, for reasons that are not clear. You already know Mandarin at a Level One/Two/Three/Four, so what’s the point?

And off you go, books on cd scattered on the passenger seat next to you, bright and early on Friday, the better to give yourself plenty of time to mosey about on your way west.

Time enough to stop in a diner on the way and partake of a giant diner breakfast, time enough to stop and cash in your winning South Dakota powerball ticket ($3!) that you bought last August.

Time enough to get to the conference you’re speaking at with hours to spare before your lecture begins. Imagine that, hours to spare. What a new and exciting experience that would be for you.

(That plan is dashed to pieces 200 miles into the journey, when you realize that the conference is taking place in Sioux Falls, as opposed to Brookings. How ever did you manage to screw up so badly? This fact is discovered over a big greasy diner breakfast somewhere between Minneapolis and Brookings, necessitating an immediate and panicky departure from said diner in order to find a gas station, buy a map, and reconfigure your journey so that you have a prayer of arriving there on time for your lecture, which people are paying you good money for, a fact which only increases your anxiety.)

Breakfast of Champions: you listen to the whole thing, hoping that at some point something in you will click into gear and you will like it. That does not happen. Did you, in fact, read this book in high school? If so, did you like it back then? Moot and unanswerable questions.

You move on to Fierce Pajamas. You lean back in your seat as you speed along, endless prairie undulating as far as you can see, ready to laugh. Ready to dispel your how-could-you-screw-up-the-city-where-you’re-supposed-to-be-giving-the-lecture-so-badly self-recriminations. HA!

But the selections in Fierce Pajamas seem only mildly funny. At best. Have you lost your sense of humor entirely? First Vonnegut, now Fierce Pajamas. Two strike-outs in a row. You are a loser.

Perhaps it’s time for a little self-edification. Your hand hovers over The World Without Us. Should you? No. You are too worried, too angry at yourself (once again: what in the world made you think this conference was in Brookings? Did you not receive the conference materials months ago? Can you not read?), too focused on glancing in the rearview mirror to see if any cops have caught wind of the tiny wild car hurtling itself toward Sioux Falls. As opposed to Brookings.

And that –this combination of worry and distraction and loser-ness– is how you end up listening to the young Chinese couple as they attempt, over and over and over, to make plans for the evening.

Hello, Miss Wang.

Greetings, Mr. Li.

Ah. . . here we go. This is just the ticket. Mr. Li has such a peaceful, deep voice. Miss Wang is serious, well-spoken yet not at all ponderous.

Do you have any free time tonight, Miss Wang?

Yes, I do, Mr. Li.

How nice. What might Mr. Li have in mind? A movie, perhaps? Maybe a stroll in the park, followed by a bite to eat? Judging from the innocent bubble that seems to comprise his and Miss Wang’s world, there will surely not be anything more than that.

Would you like to get something to eat tonight, Miss Wang?

Maybe, Mr. Li. What time were you thinking?

Aha. Exactly as you had assumed. Mr. Li and Miss Wang will be dining together tonight. How happy this makes you. They seem like such nice people, and look how polite they are to each other, carefully considering the other’s schedule, hoping for a date but making no assumptions.

How about 9 o’clock, Miss Wang?

I’m sorry, Mr. Li. That’s a little too late for me.

You’re sorry to hear this. But how can you blame Miss Wang? You yourself wouldn’t want to sit down to a meal at 9 p.m. You’d have to drag your food-filled belly to bed only a few hours later, and you prefer to go to bed empty-stomached. Well, maybe a little Jim Beam. But a big dinner that late? No. Sorry.

Do you have free time tomorrow, Miss Wang?

Perfect! Kudos to you, Mr. Li. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. But please do re-think that 9 p.m. dinner time.

I might have some free time tomorrow, Mr. Li. How about you?

Oh, Mr. Li, this is your lucky day. How about 7? That’s a more reasonable dinner time.

The miles roll by. The minutes tick away and the time of your lecture draws ever closer, but where is Sioux Falls? The tiny car speeds ever faster, and the rearview mirror gets a visual workout.

Do you have some free time at 7 p.m. to get something to eat, Miss Wang?

Yay! You drum your hands on the steering wheel in happiness and relief.

This, the knowledge that Mr. Li and Miss Wang are both willing to work together to make this date happen, is the only thing keeping you sane right now.

Think about it. Mr. Li was turned down for dinner tonight –and rightly so, given the lateness of the hour– but Miss Wang is willing to give him a second chance. And who in this life doesn’t want a second chance? Here in this tinny little car, on the last 100 miles of this hellbent drive, there is hope for the future. If Miss Wang and Mr. Li can do it, so, perhaps, can you.

Sioux Falls is somewhere out there, somewhere on the horizon. Onward.

The People Who Learned to Hide

Posted on by alisonmcghee

snowmageddon-3Minneapolis has just lived through the fifth biggest blizzard of all time. “Lived through” is something of a misnomer; many streets still haven’t been plowed, and once we’d finally unburied the garage (a two-day endeavor), the car got stuck thirty feet down the alley, requiring the assistance of five Good Samaritans to become unstuck.

But they were there, those Good Samaritans, and later in the day we returned the favor to three more cars. That’s what happens, at least sometimes, when a bunch of human beings are facing something bigger than any one of us, or any all of us.

This blog entry made me think of all those in my city, my country, my own block, who feel themselves alone. Every entry on this blog –Your Man for Fun in Rapidan– is a keeper, but once in a while he hits one out of the park.

And now I’m going to call my 86-year-old neighbor, who has been snowed in for the past four days, to see if she might like a bit of toffee, delivered to her back door.

Bless the feet

Posted on by alisonmcghee

feet-on-bedBless the feet, for they are the weary warriors of the body, blistered, bandaged, and unsung.

Bless the toes, the arches, the heels, for they are the neglected servant hands of the legs and spine.

Bless the tendons and sinew and blood and bone of the carpals and metacarpals, for they are the rivers and tributaries of the peninsulas of the body.

Bless the abacus toes, for they are what we count on when we do not know we are counting.

Bless the long strong feet, tree roots pulling sustenance from the earth.

Bless these feet, steel springs of the body, pale and hidden soles of our souls.

Long Time Passing

Posted on by alisonmcghee

toddler-doug-in-doorwayHere is what you remember from the 60’s:

1. Some of the high schoolers, who were huge and terrifying to the elementary- school you, wore black armbands.
2. At the yearly high school talent show, something you lived for because you idolized those huge and terrifying high schoolers, a girl with long dark hair and a muslin granny dress sat in the center of the stage with a spotlight shining down on her head and played a guitar and sang “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
3. At night the news had a running count of how many soldiers had died in the Vietnam War. Note: you think you remember this, but it’s possible that you don’t – it’s possible that you read about that somewhere and turned it into a semi-memory, which seems to be the case with much of what you think you remember.
4. Drawing peace signs and writing LOVE and LUV in big squishy letters in your notebooks. Note: This might actually have happened in the 70’s. You just can’t be sure.
5. An organic farm commune a few miles away from your home, named “Earthdance.” You and your family had your own giant, mostly-organic vegetable garden, but you sometimes went to Earthdance to buy homemade bread. This was in the days before Sister #2 set out on her quest to become the New York State Bread Baking Champion and began filling the house with homemade bread.

Here is what you do not remember about the 60’s:
1. The day that JFK was shot.
2. Peace marches.
3. A sense of anger on the part of youth against their elders.
It all went right over your head, pretty much, the entire decade of the 60’s. And then one day the 60’s were over, and it was the 70’s, and you were in middle school. You were growing wildly, so fast that your bones literally hurt. You lay curled in bed at night, holding your thighs and knees, which sparked with pain. You lost weight because you were growing so fast.

Here is what you remember from the 70’s:

The 60’s were just past. It was the bare beginning of the 70’s. But you knew that you had missed out, and you wanted what you had missed. It was your goal to be a hippie. You decoupaged Desiderata and hung it in your room. You tie-dyed some clothes, including a yellow hat which your sisters scoffed at mercilessly. You tried to teach yourself how to play the recorder, the better to sit in a field of daisies playing  “Blowin’ In the Wind” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
Hippies sat in fields of daisies, living in the moment and playing the recorder, didn’t they? They did. Surely they did. And they wore tie-dye yellow hats.

Sister #1: Where are you going in that yellow tie-dye hat?
You: For a walk.
Sister #1: In that yellow tie-dye hat?
You: Yes.
Sister #1: What’s that under your arm?
You: Nothing.
Sister #1: Oh my God. Is that your recorder?
You: (no response)
Sister #1: Oh my God. Are you going out in back of the barn to sit in the field and play that thing?
You: (no response)
Sister #1: Oh my God. Sister #2! She’s heading out into the field again to play that recorder!
Sister #2 (from kitchen, where she is kneading bread): Is she wearing the yellow tie-dye hat?
Sister #1: Mais oui!
Sister #2: Oh my God.

So it went, that summer. Something about a recorder, something about a field of daisies, something about a yellow tie-dye hat. Sister #2 went on to become the New York State Bread Baking Champion that year. To the best of your memory she never baked another loaf, once the trophy was hers. Sister #1 made a granny dress out of checked orange and white cotton. And in the face of steadfast opposition, you kept wearing your yellow tie-dye hat.

Mayhap you, too, wish to reinvigorate certain words of your acquaintance?

Posted on by alisonmcghee

hubbard-squashThat there to the left is a Hubbard squash. Have you ever seen one? They’re bluish, lumpy, and extremely large. They belong in the prehistoric section of the farmer’s market, along with certain heirloom tomatoes, turtles, and blue, green and purple potatoes.

Did you notice I slipped “turtles” in there? I did, because turtles have always struck me as prehistoric, and certainly deserving of their own section in a farmer’s market.

Neither Hubbard squash nor turtles have anything to do with the topic of today’s post, though. Neither does the title, although I would like to take this opportunity to urge you all to devote some time and energy to bringing back a good word, a word to your personal liking, a word that may even as we speak be lying in a dusty attic, forgotten, ignored.

A word that hasn’t been asked to dance in a long time. A word that even now is leaning back against the wall and mayhap thinking something along the lines of I knew I shouldn’t have worn this dress and Why would anyone ask me to dance? I wouldn’t even ask me to dance, were I someone other than myself. I am the sort of word wanted by no one, desired by no one, not even for the tiniest of flings.

Take a word like mayhap. Mayhap is a fine, fine word, in my estimation. Mayhap you agree? Mayhap you too shall decide to strike a blow for justice, and begin using mayhap in your everyday speech.

Mayhap you will find yourself pleasantly surprised by how subtly enriched your life becomes, once you branch out beyond the everyday.

Where was I going with this? Originally, nowhere. All I wanted to do was use  “mayhap” in a sentence, if only to remind myself of my vow to restore it to common parlance. And yet now I have used it in many a sentence, mayhap too many, if you’ve managed to read this far.

And what of the Hubbard squash, you ask? Expecteth thou a recipe? I hope not, because thou shalt not be getting one, at least in this blog, at least not of the Hubbard squash variety. Nay, sir, I think not. Should you require a recipe for Mister H I urge you to consult a blog more food-ish than mine.

While I do not wish to disappoint any Hubbard-ites out there, the sole reason this particular photo appears to the upper left of this entry is because I was searching through my files and came upon Lord Hubbard, above, and decided to include him on the off-chance that he, too, was lonely. That he, too, had spent too much time propped amongst the spiderwebs and old trunks. That he, too, had suffered the long indignity of a dance during which he stood next to the refreshment table, drink in hand, smiling brightly as the couples spun past.

And now the hour grows late, the fire burns to ashes, the raven is tap-tapping at the window, and the Victorian speech mannerisms are beginning to bug even me.

Forsooth! It is too late to think of writing the post that I opened up this page with every intention of writing.

Mayhap I’ll write it on the morrow.

One-day workshop on picture book writing, this Saturday, November 20

Posted on by alisonmcghee

typewriter-have-a-wonderful-dayDo any of you local Twin Citians harbor a secret desire to write a picture book? I’m teaching a one-day workshop on “The Puzzle of Picture Books” this Saturday, November 20, from 12:30-4:30 p.m. at the beautiful Loft in downtown Minneapolis.

Picture books are usually written with children in mind, but not always – for example, I think of my own book Someday as being for adults more than children. And So Many Days and Only a Witch Can Fly are as much for grownups as children, too.

In fact, I’d like to see a new bookstore section – maybe the size of a goodsized bookcase – devoted only to picture books for grownups. I mean, who doesn’t enjoy a few pictures along with the words?

There’s still room in the class and I’d love to see you there. If you’re interested, click here for all the details.

Is This Where We Are?

Posted on by alisonmcghee

little-luke-and-devUntil about half an hour ago I would have responded, had you asked me if I kept a journal, “No. I don’t keep a journal.”

Because I don’t.

If you had persisted, and asked me, “Did you ever keep a journal?” I would have said, “Yeah, when I was in fifth grade. It was one of those tiny little diaries that you lock with a tiny little key, and every entry was about a) the boy I had a crush on from kindergarten through senior year, or b) my tiny little baby brother, just born that year, whom I adored.”

I might then have followed it up by saying,  “But as an adult? No. I never kept a journal” –

forgetting entirely about the years when, in fact, I did keep a journal. They were what I think of as the years of blurred-ness, back in the nineties mostly, when I had the three tiny little kids and I was trying to do a million different things at once. Which I still am, but in a slightly less blurred fashion. Or so I hope.

Anyway, back to the subject. Which was what? Oh yes, something to do with keeping a journal. I was looking through old files, of which there are perhaps thirty trillion or so on my computer, and which I figuratively drag from one computer to another computer as soon as the old one breaks down, which, if you’re me, is a maximum of every two years because I am to computers what some people are to watches. They stop working in my presence, possibly because they know I need them so damn much.

Back to the subject again, which is the fact that I do have journal entries, quite a few, dating back many years, journal entries that I had completely forgotten about. And I’m here to tell you that it can be simultaneously horrifying and comforting to see how much you haven’t changed, deep down, lo these many years.

Have my children changed? I’m talking about inside, way down deep, from the beings they used to be, housed in those tiny little bodies that now are bigger than mine.

I’m guessing not. I remember being tiny, and wondering about the same things that I wonder about now, a lifetime later. These are the wonderings of my son, then age six.

“Mom, somewhere in the world, right now, a ship is sinking, a house is on fire, and a person is being robbed.”

“What if there was no time?  What if there was no past and no future?”

“I feel short.  I feel very, very short.”

“What kinds of things haven’t been invented yet?”

“I feel nothing.  I feel as if I weigh nothing, as if I feel nothing, as if I can think of nothing.  Nothing.”

“Mom, what if we’re all, all of us, just characters in a book, and someone is writing us right now?”

“Where do spirits live?”

“How high is heaven?  Does it come before outer space?  Is it lower than the clouds?”

I wonder how I answered him, back then. Did I answer at all?

Or did I just listen and then, late at night or at dawn the next morning, write it all down.

Let Us Begin with Coffee

Posted on by alisonmcghee

mexican-mug-with-coffee-filter Do you like coffee? Excellent. We have French Roast available for your drinking pleasure.

Should you prefer add-ons, we have heavy cream, half ‘n half, and 2% milk in the refrigerator to your left. Sugar can be found in the baking supplies cupboard directly above the counter where I am carefully pouring boiling water through the small camping coffee filter positioned above your mug.

Notice that I am giving you the very first cup. This is hard for me, because I myself prefer the very first cup –after all, I drink but half of one small cup of coffee per day— and yet I am magnanimous and am giving it to you. That is because you are my guest.

And how happy I am to have you here with me, in this quiet kitchen at dawn. Because it’s November, the sun has yet to come up. This is a situation which is only going to get worse until we reach the end of December, at which point the days will — thank God— start to get longer again, but we shall not think about that now.

Cream?

Half ‘n half?

2% milk?

Sugar? Or perhaps some blue agave nectar?

None, you say? None at all? Interesting. Would you characterize yourself as ascetic, that is to say, a disciplined, semi-monastic type of person?

Come, sit with me here at the kitchen table, which was purchased at a garage sale some years back, along with four matching chairs, three of which have subsequently broken. Perhaps they were not intended for the large heft of the modern American, or perhaps they were cheaply made out of inferior wood and glue.

At any rate, nought but one remains, and there it is, right there next to the stairs, serving as a way station for items which need to be brought up to the second floor of the house. You may sit instead in one of these four wicker chairs originally intended for outdoor use, but which to my mind work perfectly well as indoor kitchen table chairs. Not to mention that all four were purchased at a season-end clearance sale, always a plus.

Let us first give thanks.

Thank you for this day. Thank you for this life. Thank you for my family, and my friends, and my students, and thank you also for the animals.

You can fill in your own thanks above. I will not write down what you say, as we here at the garage sale kitchen table believe that some things are best kept private.

Notice that we do not speak of regret, here at the kitchen table at dawn. There is plenty of room for regret in a day, not to mention a life, and yet just for this day we will keep regret at bay, the reason being that if later, later in this very day which has barely begun, an airplane or other large, airborne mass such as a giant mutant raptor with enormous talons suddenly swept down out of the sky and obliterated you from existence, would you want your last feeling to have been one of regret?

No, me neither.  Enjoy your coffee.

Why I Started Writing for Children (instead of just grownups)

Posted on by alisonmcghee

pinky-on-scooterWhen I first moved to Minneapolis, I took a job teaching Chinese at a big public city school. I was new to teaching, and teaching–especially grades K-12– is wonderful but exhausting. I would power-teach three to four days a week and then ease into the weekend by reading aloud to my students for the last half hour of every class on Friday. I rationalized this activity by choosing only books–novels, memoirs, collections of stories and essays–that had something to do with China.

I had made a bunch of giant pillows out of corduroy and foam, and every Friday these big old teenagers–the hockey players, football players, cheerleaders, loud kids, shy kids, street kids, rich kids, kids who barely spoke English–would arrange themselves on the floor, and I would begin to read. There was never a sound in the room, but all eyes were on me and everyone was listening.

Those were peaceful, happy Fridays. I sat on my desk swinging my legs and reading. There were no windows in the room, and I had brought in lots of lamps so as to avoid the overhead fluorescence, and the lamplight pooled on my students’ faces, which in that light and that time were beautiful, every one of them. . .

(The above is part of a guest blog I wrote for Pippin Properties. For the full blog, please click here.)