Blatherskite

Foolish gibberish

recent posts

about

I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.

  • silence that isn't silence

    I found this and thought it might be an interesting blog post. I wrote it in April of 2009. It was a writing prompt from the book “The Pocket Muse.”

    When I sit here at my desk and listen I hear quite a lot. Even when it is quiet. When it is quiet, that is when I hear the most subtle of noises. The first of these noises is the clock. It is hanging above me, red and round and it ticks. I don’t really notice it during the day when I’m busy but when I am silent I hear it. And it is loud. And constant.

    When I listen past the clock I hear the sound of air. Like a fan or something whirring softly. Lightly. This is a very quiet sound that is in the background of my day, all day. I wouldn’t notice it except that when the noise stops a half an hour before the library closes, I miss hearing it. This is when the heater/air conditioning is turned off. When that sound is not going it feels empty and hollow. And cold.

    Another background sound is the beeping of the bar code readers. I have gotten used to this noise but it drives some people nuts. I’ve had people ask me whether or not that sound bothers me. It only bothers me if I know it is bothering someone else. when I really listen to it, I can see that it is a really awful sound. A high- pitched shrieky sound.

    These sounds are the constant background noise of my day. This is what I hear, constantly, when it is quiet. Which is very rare.  Much of the time i hear the sound of children throwing tantrums and crying. I hear people chatting.

    I wonder about this lack of quiet. I wonder about these background noises. How they affect me daily. See, now that I’ve noticed and and written about it the clock is driving me a little nuts. I do still like the sound of the ventilation system though. It is very calming.

    So I guess there truly is no such thing as silence, is there. There are always those background noises that don’t go away. That are always there, affecting us unconsciously.

  • The day I learned to read

    The training that I went to was about early literacy and  the skills kids need to learn in order to read later on when they are in school. This training has made me think about my own experience as a child learning to read. My mom and older siblings used to read to me and my younger brother constantly and they probably naturally did the kinds of things that I try to do consciously as a children’s librarian planning and carrying out story time with these skills in mind.

    I remember the exact day I read my first book by myself without help. I remember it very vividly and clearly. I was in 2nd grade and I was alone in my room looking at books. I used to pore over the illustrations in picture books and be entertained for hours by them. So I was by myself and looking at this picture book called The Summerfolk by Doris Burn. It had been read to me before and so I probably knew the story. But I remember closing the cover of that book and thinking to myself, “I just read this book by myself!” It was the first time I read the words of an entire book without any prompting from anyone. And it was the best feeling in the whole world. It was like something clicked in my brain and I just “got” it.

    And the rest is history. I’ve had  a book in my hand ever since.

    I think the thing for me that really made it happen was that I was read to, and it was fun. My mom made reading fun at our house. She loved picture books and she loved reading them to us  and it really showed.

    I also think that spending time looking at the book’s illustrations really made it happen for me too. Like I said, I was fascinated by the illustrations in the books that we had around the house and LOVED to look at the pictures.  (And while I’m on the subject, having books around the house was helpful too. They were there and accessible to me so I looked at them. )

    But I want to get back to the illustrations. Being able to put together a story  is SO important and for kids who are not able to  decode words yet the illustrations are how they do that. And that is what I did. I am so grateful that I  have a mom who instinctively knew this.  And I have to stop right here and say that I’m really sad to read articles like this published in the New York Times.

    When I was visiting my mom in April I was prowling around the house, looking at the old picture book collection (actually, I was looking for The Summerfolk) and I found Richard Scarry’s Best Storybook Ever. I can’t even begin to tell you the happiness I felt looking at the pictures in this book. I remember spending hours looking at the illustrations in this book when I was a child. I’m not even sure I can express in words what I felt as I looked at this book as an adult. It was like I was 3 or 4 years old again and I was looking at these amazing pictures and they were funny and colorful and they made me think. I would put together stories in my mind about what was going on on the page. The thing that was so awesome about Scarry’s books was that he had stories going on in the illustrations, not just in the text. He was speaking directly to pre-readers with his books. How incredibly thoughtful of him.

    I spent hours and hours looking at that book. I am so incredibly grateful, as an adult, to have had that experience because I know, without a doubt, that looking at Richard Scarry’s wonderful illustrations are what made me the avid reader I am today.

  • Training

    Doodles

    I had this whole other post written up and planned for today but chickened out. It’s kind of heavy. I’ll post it later on next week though.

    So instead I give you a photo I took the other day of a play-doh cat made at a children’s librarian training session. I’m sort of proud of it. 🙂

    I was really stoked when I walked into the room and at all of the places sat little packages of play-doh and pipe cleaners for us to play with during the session.

    I also got to spend the day listening to stories.

    I got paid for this!

    I love my job.

  • It’s easy to find Nirvana at the top of a mountain

    It’s easy to find Nirvana at the top of a mountain

    lupineI looked up from the viewfinder on my camera for a moment. The sun was low in the sky and the light was hitting the lupines with a violet glow. I wanted to capture this magnificent color during the Magic Hour. When I looked up I took a moment to just stand there and take it all in. The lupines seemed to glow and the colors were beautiful.

    I took a deep breath and I instantly relaxed when I took in the clean air at the top of the mountain. The cool evening air enveloped my body. I looked up and saw the peak of the mountain hovering directly above me, somehow its ancient presence making me feel safe. It was quiet and I was alone.

    I noticed a sound. It was the sound of bees buzzing. Hundreds of bees. I looked closely at the flowers and saw bumble bees buzzing around the lupines. The buzzing sound became very clear as I became aware of them. I just stood there, at the top of the mountain, by myself and watched them work hard doing what they do, collecting nectar.

    As I stood there in that moment, taking in the scene, I felt complete happiness. It was the happiest I had been in a very long time.

  • The Guest House

    Achnadrish guest house.
    Image via Wikipedia

    A couple of weeks ago I participated in a Zazenkai. I’ll write about that experience in another post. But today I wanted to share a poem that I shared with everyone that day. I think it beautifully sums up everything I’ve learned in the past few months.

    THE GUEST HOUSE

    This being human is a guest house.
    Every morning a new arrival.

    A joy, a depression, a meanness,
    some momentary awareness comes
    as an unexpected visitor.

    Welcome and entertain them all!
    Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
    who violently sweep your house
    empty of its furniture,
    still, treat each guest honorably.
    He may be clearing you out
    for some new delight.

    The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
    meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

    Be grateful for whatever comes.
    because each has been sent
    as a guide from beyond.

    — Jelaluddin Rumi,

    translation by Coleman Barks