Little Free Libraries! Such a Grand Idea!

I will never forget going to the Coeur d’Alene Public Library when I was a kid.  In the 1970’s the library was on the corner of 7^th and Lakeside, in what is now the Harris Dean Insurance Agency building.  I remember the smell of the building – the sweet smell of ink and paper, wood and furniture polish – the creak of the wood floors, and climbing the grand staircase to the children’s section.  I loved the way the books were covered with glossy plastic to prolong the life of the dust jackets, I loved the potted plants that lined the window sills, and I loved the feeling of quiet and peace that enveloped me when I stepped inside the door.  I loved looking at the names written on the cards tucked into little envelopes inside the cover.  I would wonder about the people who had read the books before me, and I knew that one day someone would see my name written inside – albeit in shaky, less-than-lovely handwriting.   I absolutely got butterflies in my stomach when we visited the library.  I would check out as many books as I was allowed, and when I got home I would read and reread them several times before they had to go into the return slot.  But returning the books meant I could ascend the wide staircase to comb the shelves once again.   


Examples of Little Free Libraries from the official website.

This week I happened to open the newspaper in the staff lounge, and after perusing the headlines I found American Profile, the supplemental magazine that occasionally is included with the newspaper.  The featured story, “Little Free Library:  Sharing Books, Building Community,” gave me those familiar butterflies of my library-loving youth.  The Little Free Library “movement” started in 2009, when Todd Bol built a mini library that looked like a school house in honor of his mother.  He put the schoolhouse in his front lawn with a sign that stated, “Take a book.  Return a book.”  His neighbors discovered the literary offering, and Bol soon found that he had a lot of traffic to his schoolhouse library.  Others began making their own little libraries, and soon they began popping up elsewhere.  Like large, whimsical birdhouses, the Little Free Library housed not happy robins or sparrow, but books. 

I’ve decided I want to join a cool endeavor like this, and anyone can do it.  In fact, you can visit the website (http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/index.html) to learn how to officially join the movement.  But you can also just build your own little library, plant it in the ground, post a sign, and watch people discover the joy of reading and sharing books with others.  I have visions of people finding little book treasures when they open the door to see what’s inside.  I imagine someone falling so in love with a book they borrowed from the library that they must adopt it to live on their own bookshelf, and so she has to buy a new book to take its place in the little library.  I picture leaving little notes inside the book for the next reader to find.  To be honest, the thought of creating my own Little Free Library gives me butterflies!

Digging into Dreams

It’s no secret that I love sleep.  I love the cool sheets, the soft pillows (carefully arranged so that our cat, Boy, can sleep on one while I sleep on the other), the snuggly blanket.  I love pajamas, the awesome quilt I purchased on sale at the Cracker Barrel (yes, that’s right… the Cracker Barrel has gorgeous quilts—along with yummy food), and the way that our other cat Tippy McWetwoods curls up on the penguin Pillow Pet at the foot of the bed while our corgi Mandy snores on her dog bed next to us.  Let’s face it, my whole little family loves to sleep.  But you know what I love most about sleep?  I love dreams.
 
My gramma says that she does not dream.  I just feel awful for her, because for me dreams are an eight (preferrably ten) hour escape into a world my mind creates.  Each night is like a new adventure into the deep recesses of my brain, where many strange and wonderful things happen.  My theory is that two things happen most regularly in dreams.  In the first case, some dreams are simply weird conglomerations of things I’ve seen and heard and experienced throughout the day.  Sometimes I’ll say to my husband, “I had the weirdest dream about a spider last night…” and describe the dream.  He’ll say, “Oh, that’s because last night on television….” and proceed to debunk my dream as a byproduct of a strange commercial or something.  And he’s right.  Sometimes the weird things that sneak into my dream world came straight out of the real world.  Maybe something surprising or disturbing, or something that just stuck for whatever peculiar reason. 

My favorite dreams, however, are the second variety:  Dreams that carry significant meaning either about the past or present.   My criteria for a meaningful dream is that it recurs for several nights or weeks, or it contains familiar images or important people in my life.  I find that my dreams often carry a theme for many weeks or months.  Lately there has been some body of water in every one of my dreams; an ocean, river, or lake regularly plays a prominent role.  Lately I’ve been in many different houses, either trying to clean them, rearrange them, barricade myself in them, or just live in them.  I’ve revisited my college apartment numerous times in the past several months while I sleep.  Rarely does the dream apartment match up with the real one, but in my sleep it all makes perfect sense.  I’ve been in big cities lately, trying to navigate successfully from one part of town to the other, or – much to my chagrin – escape someone dangerous who is pursuing me. 

Because I am fortunate enough to remember my dreams the next day, I also enjoy deconstructing them to figure out what it all means.  I enjoy turning over the details all day like a smooth river rock, examining the people, the events, and the feelings I had.  Most of the time I can’t come to any concrete conclusion, but it’s fun to ponder while I’m brushing my teeth.  My dad gave me a dream interpretation book for my birthday last year called The Element Encyclopedia of 20,000 Dreams by Theresa Cheung.  Essentially the book explains the meaning behind countless dream symbols.  Here’s a bit of what it says about the bodies of water that keep showing up:

• Oceans and Seas:  Represent the unconscious emotions, instincts, or urges that are influencing your attitude, approach, and reactions in waking life.  (The book then goes on to explain the meanings behind various stages or moods of the sea, further breaking down the symbolism.  This book really digs in!).
• Rivers:  Always represent the way you live your life as well as the way you see your life.  The book also indicates if the river is moving fast (which my rivers almost always are), then it indicates that I feel my life is moving too quickly (ain’t that the truth!). 
• Lakes:  Still lakes represent emotional calm.  Fish emerging to the surface indicate the emergence of your intuition.  (I don’t know about that fish one, though.  My lakes are typically teeming with fish, and those fish are big, and scary, and strange, and I typically feel really creeped out).

It’s a fun book to dig into when a particular dream plagues me, but what’s more fun is to just dig deep into my heart to try to figure out what it means to me.  I like solving puzzles, so digging into dreams is like solving a personal mystery.

But the absolute best (and sometimes worst) thing about dreams is being visited by the people who have come through my life.  Recently my grandfather, who passed away in 1991, showed up in a dream.  I don’t now recall exactly what happened, but I do recall it was a nice visit.  And when I awoke, I felt a stronger connection to him, almost like his spirit drew near to me while I slept.  On the flip side, sometimes people I didn’t ever want to see again intrude into my dreams.  Those “visits” leave me feeling agitated for the rest of the day.  Maybe it’s because I have unresolved feelings that my mind is trying to expunge.

When I was in graduate school a few years back, I had to write poetry for a workshop class.  The following poem that I wrote will serve as my conclusion to this little jaunt through dreamland.  If you are fortunate enough to remember your dreams, take a shot at digging out the meaning.  It’s pretty fun!

 

“Five Ghosts”

I.

You showed up last night quite unannounced

and to my surprise because I haven’t

seen you in six years.  I apologized

for not being willing (or able)

to heal your wounds the way that you wanted,

and you hugged me, which felt so sincere.

Your features were so vivid (you wore a red shirt)

that when I awoke I carried you

behind my eyes all day long.

II.

When you arrive all you do is scowl

and find ways to conjure guilt in me

for things you think I did (which I didn’t),

but I try to smooth it over anyway

and fail every time, which is fine

because I don’t really care either way.

III.

Who do you think you are to just barge in

whenever you feel like it even though

the doors are locked, bolted, nailed shut? 

You must slip through a gap like smoke.

And then you go around upturning the furniture

while I stand there in your old T-shirt

and watch.  This spectacle goes on for some time

before you become bored and leave,

leaving the door ajar and me

to put things together again.  But

you’ll do it again because you know

(and I know) that you were my favorite

and I will let you.

IV.

Even though I don’t know you very well

you came (uninvited) and hovered around all night,

showing your face in every scene,

just on the periphery with a silly grin

because you saw me studying you

out of the corner of my eye yesterday for an hour.

You must’ve thought

that this gave you the right

to follow me around for several nights.

V.

It has been fifteen years (nearly half of my life)

since I have talked with you;

you’ve only returned twice, and both times

we just walked.  Under dark green trees

side-by-side, you with your brown-checked flannel

and me with a desire to say things

you probably already know, though sometimes

I worry that I wasn’t clear enough the first time.

Out of the Mouths of Corgis....

I’m sad to admit it, but I have been caught in a complaint rut lately.  I’m becoming that person I never wanted to be:  spending each day waiting for the weekend, groaning and moaning until at least 8:30 in the morning, answering the question “How’s it going?” with more negative responses than positive.  I like to call this the 3^rd Quarter Blues.   My students’ grades typically sag in this quarter, as do their spirits.  The teachers aren’t immune, either.  Spend five seconds in the staff lounge and you’ll hear more growling about politics than you will find cheerful discussions.  Maybe it’s the weather, or the fact that we’re in a holiday slump, or just that we’re wishing for the bliss of summer.  Whatever this rut is, I want out.

The ever-jaunty Mandy-D wearing a festive Hawaiian lei

We took our 13 year old dog, a Welsh Corgi named Mandy, to the vet today to have a tooth extracted.  We discovered that she had a broken molar over two weeks ago, but the vet’s office couldn’t get her scheduled until today.  Despite having to eat watered-down kibble for the past two weeks, Mandy has been playful and cheery.  Each evening she brings me her favorite stuffed toy and tosses it at me to throw for her.   When we go outside she races up the stairs to go on a walk, and last night she barked her fool head off at 10:30 in the evening when she went outside, which probably annoyed the neighbors, but she was clearly guarding her turf, so I have to give her credit for her moxie. 

When I arrived at our vet’s office this afternoon, I asked him if the tooth was painful for her.  He replied that it most likely was, because the tooth was cracked in such a way that it had kind of sheered in half.  “It probably was painful,” he said, “but dogs are much tougher than people.”  I then asked if it was a recent injury (hoping mightily that we hadn’t failed to notice this problem and had inadvertently lengthened her suffering).  “Oh, this was definitely an old fracture,” he said.  My heart sunk.  I can’t believe poor Mandy had been eating kibble and chewing rawhides all while nursing a cracked molar.

And yet, she hadn’t ever complained.

So it looks like my 33 pound Corgi dragged me out of the rut today.  If my dog can endure sheered molars and still find time to play and have fun, then I certainly can.  My resolution for the week is that instead of answering with a knee-jerk negative, I’m going to see if I can reshape my thinking to find the sunshine first.  I’ve always called myself a “Pollyanna,” and this trait may be sometimes annoying, but it’s far better than the alternative.  Remember Pollyanna, of Disney movie fame?  She was bound and determined to win over the town grouch by being eternally kind.  He’s not too fond of her sunshiny disposition, but she finally wins him over by hanging crystal prisms in his window and showing him the multitudes of mini rainbows cast by the light.  Okay, I know:  If you’re the cynical sort, you’re probably gagging right now.  But I’ve decided that I’d rather gag on mushy things than bitter.

I’m going to practice positivity and see if I can’t battle the 3^rd Quarter Blues.  And when I start whining, I’m going to ask myself if it’s as bad as a sheered molar.  If it is, then I will make room for a nice pity party (who doesn’t love a nice pity party, right?  Especially if it’s a well-earned pity party).  But if the whining isn’t at the “sheered molar stage,” then I’ll see if I can be like my Corgi and just shake it off. 

She may be a drama queen, but our dog Mandy is pretty smart.

Of Socrates and Cadbury....

Here’s how I go about this blogging business:  All week long I keep my eyes and ears open for things that provide fodder for my brain.  I listen to people, read stories and devotions, and pay close attention to the week.  I’m pretty happy with the process because it’s not only giving me a weekly writing assignment that has a deadline (you’ve probably already noticed that I post on Friday evenings each week), but it is forcing me to be alert to my life and my thoughts.  And that’s pretty cool.  Plus, it’s helping me develop my natural writing voice (separate from writing for, say, a college class, where I have to be all stuffy and formal).  So this week I’ve been watching and thinking and waiting for just the right thing.

Despite my best efforts, nothing this week has broken through the clouds in a chorus of angel-song.  Sigh.

Oh don’t get me wrong; I have PLENTY on my mind this week.  Some of it is not too pleasant.  But I’m still trying to process my thoughts and understand them before I use them for blog fodder.

Today I drove home after having spent a lovely 6^th period with my Honors Ancient Literature students participating in “Socrates Café,” a wonderful invention by my fellow colleague.  We meandered around listening to our 14 and 15 year old students discuss all the unanswerable questions:  “What is the difference between fear and respect?” and “Should we follow our hearts or our minds?” and “What is justice?”  Some pretty mind-blowing questions.  On the drive home, as I wound along Cougar Bay I saw what my heart longs to see:  A pair of Tundra Swan drifting on the water.  Hurray!  Spring is coming!  And because my brain was all juiced up from Socrates Café, I began pondering why I love spring with all my heart.  I decided it’s the same reason I love the first snowfall, or the first daffodil pushing up through the snow, or the first autumn leaf turning on our maple tree:  I love new beginnings.  I love the way the first ANYTHING feels.  There’s a kind of anticipation to all that is going to follow after that first snowflake, leaf-fall, or flower-sprout.  It’s why my favorite holiday is actually the space between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  All that anticipation which promises new and good things.  Doesn’t it just get your heart fluttering a bit? 

When I hear the first Redwing blackbirds chattering in our trees my heart swells.  When the spring frogs thaw out in the bay and start croaking, there is so much promise and hope and joy in those croaking calls of awakening.  When I see the first Cadbury Crème Eggs on the shelves at Super 1 Foods, I have to refrain from doing a dance in the aisle. 

And this train of thought, as I drove my adorable Subaru Outback (which just turned over 200,000 miles recently), lead me to my official blog post for this week.  Are you ready?  Can you handle the mind-blowing, philosophical, higher-order thinking that is about to come?

Prepare yourselves.

What I offer you is this:  The world’s best thing to do with Cadbury Mini Eggs!  I forgot to mention that I stopped by the grocery store on the way home, made a bee-line for the Easter candy aisle, refrained from buying an adorable stuffed lamb and pig, and grabbed the largest bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs I could find (oh, and I also stocked up on a handful of Cadbury Crème Eggs.  Oh yes, the season of spring is upon us!).   Okay, here you go.  This, my friends, is my gift for you this week:  A secret trick I mastered at the tender age of 8, when my Saturdays consisted of lying on the couch in the living room, reading Ramona Quimby books, and eating a pounder bag of M n M’s.  This trick translates beautifully to Cadbury Mini Eggs.  Now, to be clear, I am talking about the egg-shaped, candy-coated chocolates that are a cousin to M n M’s, not a mini version of the Crème Egg (which is also lovely).  Here’s what you do:  Place a nice quantity of Mini Eggs in a bowl.  Find your hairdryer (just roll with me on this), and, using the higher heat setting, blow-dry the heck out of your Mini Eggs.  (Be sure to move the hairdryer away from your bowl every now and then or your hairdryer will overheat and shut off – speaking from experience here).  Do this until the luscious candy shell cracks.  Put away the hairdryer, grab a good book and your bowl of heated eggs, find a cozy blanket, and settle in.  You will find that the candy shell holds the now melty chocolate sufficiently enough for you to transport the candy from the bowl to your mouth.  There you will find a melty, chocolaty heaven.  For those of you thinking that just using the microwave will garnish the same results…well, would Auguste Rodin use a crowbar to carve his most famous sculpture?  (The answer, of course, is no!).  Nor would a Cadbury lover use a microwave.  How Barbarian! 

Please, dear friends, have a wonderful weekend.  Watch the world change bit by bit, ponder your own thoughts and feelings, and find a way to enjoy simple pleasures when the world seems only to be comprised of complicated afflictions.  Meanwhile, I will continue to ponder the greater questions in life and get back to you next week (all while eating far too many hairdryer-heated Mini Eggs).