I once had a job as a barista. Not the famous bikini-clad gals that keep the Pacific Northwest men driving 20 minutes out of the way for a quick and casual Cafe-Au-Lait, but an old school Starbucks girl working in, of all places, Saugus Mass. It was 1996ish and Barnes and Noble was a new bookstore on Route 1.I cannot remember what possessed me to apply for a job there, although I suspect my salary from the Malden Public Schools might have had something to do with it. I also feel pretty sure that I did not apply specifically to don the green apron, I think I wanted to work in the Children's Section memorizing Dr. Seuss and filling boring moments rifling through Mad Libs. Anyway, that's not how it all went down. Somehow this girl, a girl who, mind you, hates coffee, got a night job working at the Starbucks inside Barnes and Noble. Things started out slow, or slowly for you adverb freaks, but within a week or so a handsome stranger walked into the cafe and a new love affair was born.
Okay, okay, he wasn't handsome; he was short and heavy-set with thick square glasses, a wide red nose and a slight drooling problem. No matter though, he had in one hand a thick hardcover book and in the other a porcelain mug of steamy cappuccino. He sunk into one of those cushy chairs at the edge of the cafe, cracked his book and stayed. He read and read into the wee hours of the night (that would be 9:30 in retail-speak). He rarely moved, but to wipe the occasional string of saliva hanging from his significant chin. Call me romantic, but I just couldn't keep my eyes off of this stranger. Alright, you've got me, it wasn't the man I was looking at…it was the book.
Sure, I had seen books before, thousands of them. Strewn on the floor of my bedroom, stacked 26 floors high at the UMASS library, squeezed into nooks and crannies of the apartment where I grew up, in my classroom, at my friends' houses, in doctors’ offices, in cars, on top of coffee tables and don't forget in the bathroom; for what's a bathroom without a good stack of books? So what was it that struck me that night? I suppose it was that the man in front of me was reading for choice, for recreation, for the enjoyment of a good story. It had been a while since I had done such a thing.
As a child I absolutely loved reading and as I grew older it wasn't so much that I stopped enjoying it, it was more that other things came to the forefront. By the time I was in 8th or 9th grade reading was done only for schoolwork purposes. Friends, boys, movies, friends, socializing, shopping, dances, phone calls, parties and the like were my focus for free time. Once in college I could find a bit of time here and there for some literature, I took a few really fantastic com-lit classes, but reading for just the pure love of it, well those times were few and far between. And so it wasn’t really love-at-first-sight at the café, it was a reunion. Literature and I were back together-reunited and it felt so good.
I think my first book in the rekindled romance was She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb. And for a while I was all about Oprah’s book list and of course B&N employee recommendations ( somewhat bitter note: we back in the café never could recommend a thing except a 1300 calorie shortbread cookie to go with your latte, but the booksellers could throw any old title out there and call it a must-read). I eventually expanded my horizons; falling in love with biographies, classics, memoirs and humor. I adore the feeling you get again and again when you comprehend you’re reading a really good book and the afterglow of finishing one. I love the moment that you realize there’s no way you can put your book down. The deals you start making with yourself when you know you have real world responsibilities, but you’ll just die if you don’t know what happened next. Will she ever find her mother? Did he really hide his son for all those years? Who really was there that night? And of course, how in the world did David Sedaris made it out of the nudist camp?
Six or seven years ago I started a book club with some friends in Connecticut. We loved reading, drinking wine, eating good food, visiting each other’s homes and discussing our books. I loved our little group and though two women dropped out explaining that we were not intellectually stimulating enough, I thought we had remarkable conversations. Well, remarkable for a bunch of dunces anyway.
So nowadays I am not in a face to face book club, which is kind of a bummer, but every once in a while I can stumble upon a good book conversation on Facebook. It’s not the same as sitting around a table drinking wine, eating chocolate and discussing Amy Tan, but it works for now. I have received quite a few good recommendations via friends on FB. This week there have been several posts about books and it put me in the mood to chronicle my own love affair with the printed word.
It’s the classic love story if you think about it. We found each other when I was young and naive, we grew apart and then one seemingly ordinary day, in a little café outside of Boston, we found each other again. The romance continues…
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Good Momma?
You should have seen me two hours ago. I was sitting there in sweaty exercise clothes, wisps of curls peeking out from under my Red Sox hat, head in my hands sitting on the floor of our office, crying. After a morning jog with friends I came home to a long, complicated and not-so-successful homework session with a certain overachieving ten year old. She had been working on a writing project for a long time and suddenly one of us was in tears. It wasn’t me; that came later. Frustration at the homework turned to anger and then suddenly our sweet ten year old was talking to me like a disrespectful 16 year old. So--long story short privileges were taken away. When I told Mike what privileges were lost and for how long (not very) he made the innocent mistake of saying I was taking it too easy on her. This is what sent me into my own tantrum of tears. I felt guilty for “punishing” her in the first place, she was clearly spent and frustrated. On the other hand, her tone of voice and attitude were so poor, I had no choice. I felt so lost and frustrated, just as Maddee had felt a few minutes earlier.
Parenting is hard work. Really tough stuff. I always thought I would be very good at it, but lately I have felt like a failure on more than one occasion. I have all the makings of a good parent—patience, humor, a whole lotta education and child development classes under my belt, positive attitude, empathy-but sometimes I just can’t bring it all together in the right combination. I know I have felt like this at different times over the past ten years, and it always gets better, but in the moment it’s so hard to not blame myself for my children's heartache, poor behavior, setbacks or whatever the case may be. I know I am not alone, of course as parents we all want what’s best for our children.
Mike and I really want our children to be happy, confident, caring, respectful, intelligent contributing members of society. We want them to have the ability to solve problems, to hold their own in a group setting, to speak up for what they believe in and to respect and listen to what others believe in too. We want them to work toward the adults they are going to be, while still really enjoying their childhood. We know we can’t dictate what road, or roads, they take to get to be well-adjusted contributing adults, but we can guide them and more importantly we can be models for them. My crying jag today might not have been great modeling, then again we could say that showing a range of emotions is the best form of modeling.
Both of our children can be perfectionists (this trait absolutely, positively did not come from me), can put a lot of pressure on themselves, yet at the same time both of them really love learning and are well-rounded students. Just like so many other things in life, it’s all about balance. For me, I am okay with them continuously pushing themselves, as long as they don’t lose their love for learning, for questioning and for being children. On the other hand, I expect them to persevere, even when they are doing something they don't love.
My friends Mary, Micki and I went to see the movie The Race to Nowhere a couple of weeks ago. That movie really made an impression on me as both a parent and a teacher. (okay the movie made more than an impression—I am totally obsessed with it and think everyone should see it--check out their website for a screening near you www.racetonowhere.com). The movie is all about the academic pressures children in the US face. I can see Madison in some of these children and I guess right now I am overly sensitive to this. I actually wrote about 4 additional paragraphs here, but I decided to delete them, it was kind of getting off track. Just go see the movie if you can. If not email me and I will serve up a nice eight hundred word piece on why we need to be more aware of the academic pressure placed on this generation of children.
Speaking of children, my four-legged nephew is barking so loudly in my ear right now that I think it’s time to wrap it up and give him some much needed attention. (This would be the same four-legged friend from my August Long Strange Trip Blog)
Thanks for reading my blog even though it wasn’t filled with my usual wit and humor (yes my other entries are supposed to be witty, really). I just want this blog to be a reflection of where I am today as a parent, what I think is important for my children and really as a therapy of sorts for my rough afternoon. So thanks for reading it, give your children (human or animal) an extra big hug today as I will give mine. And remember to check out the Race to Nowhere website.
Parenting is hard work. Really tough stuff. I always thought I would be very good at it, but lately I have felt like a failure on more than one occasion. I have all the makings of a good parent—patience, humor, a whole lotta education and child development classes under my belt, positive attitude, empathy-but sometimes I just can’t bring it all together in the right combination. I know I have felt like this at different times over the past ten years, and it always gets better, but in the moment it’s so hard to not blame myself for my children's heartache, poor behavior, setbacks or whatever the case may be. I know I am not alone, of course as parents we all want what’s best for our children.
Mike and I really want our children to be happy, confident, caring, respectful, intelligent contributing members of society. We want them to have the ability to solve problems, to hold their own in a group setting, to speak up for what they believe in and to respect and listen to what others believe in too. We want them to work toward the adults they are going to be, while still really enjoying their childhood. We know we can’t dictate what road, or roads, they take to get to be well-adjusted contributing adults, but we can guide them and more importantly we can be models for them. My crying jag today might not have been great modeling, then again we could say that showing a range of emotions is the best form of modeling.
Both of our children can be perfectionists (this trait absolutely, positively did not come from me), can put a lot of pressure on themselves, yet at the same time both of them really love learning and are well-rounded students. Just like so many other things in life, it’s all about balance. For me, I am okay with them continuously pushing themselves, as long as they don’t lose their love for learning, for questioning and for being children. On the other hand, I expect them to persevere, even when they are doing something they don't love.
My friends Mary, Micki and I went to see the movie The Race to Nowhere a couple of weeks ago. That movie really made an impression on me as both a parent and a teacher. (okay the movie made more than an impression—I am totally obsessed with it and think everyone should see it--check out their website for a screening near you www.racetonowhere.com). The movie is all about the academic pressures children in the US face. I can see Madison in some of these children and I guess right now I am overly sensitive to this. I actually wrote about 4 additional paragraphs here, but I decided to delete them, it was kind of getting off track. Just go see the movie if you can. If not email me and I will serve up a nice eight hundred word piece on why we need to be more aware of the academic pressure placed on this generation of children.
Speaking of children, my four-legged nephew is barking so loudly in my ear right now that I think it’s time to wrap it up and give him some much needed attention. (This would be the same four-legged friend from my August Long Strange Trip Blog)
Thanks for reading my blog even though it wasn’t filled with my usual wit and humor (yes my other entries are supposed to be witty, really). I just want this blog to be a reflection of where I am today as a parent, what I think is important for my children and really as a therapy of sorts for my rough afternoon. So thanks for reading it, give your children (human or animal) an extra big hug today as I will give mine. And remember to check out the Race to Nowhere website.
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