Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

Can we just talk about how awesome Maira Kalman's books are?! And her illustrations--which the New York Times referred to as "Matisse-like." HIGH PRAISE INDEED! Just look at her illustrations in Michael Pollan's Food Rules: An Eaters Manual ! I was super excited when I saw her newest: Thomas Jefferson: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Everything because I love love loved her book, especially Looking at Lincoln , and also because I am FASCINATED by Thomas Jefferson. I. Was. Not. Disappointed! Kalman is able to introduce her young readers to her subjects with interesting and insightful information, that she cleverly presents (I love her occasional tongue in cheek comments). And aside from her fun and super duper colorful illustrations, I like that Kalman doesn't gloss over the uncomfortable history (she mentions Sally Hemmings!). I also love that she has a simple and fun way of presenting the text! But don't believe me, just check the book out already!...

Living in corn country has its advantages, namely...corn. This fall has made me homesick for beautiful New England at this time of year, and the part of Michigan where I grew up--both areas rife with beautiful foliage: fierce oranges and reds, sharp yellows; colors as crisp as the fall smell in the air. I went for a walk this past week and though these are not the most beautiful fall leaves I've ever seen, I was just glad to find some colors! I took solace in the cool evening, in the rain, and in the running into a friend and being invited in for conversation. I went home decidely less homesick. As you read this, I will still probably be in South Carolina on the ocean with my dear friends; sleeping near the ocean in a tent, enjoying weather so unlike what's happening in the Midwest...it will be hard to leave later today.  I'll bring some sand back for you...

Guess where I woke up? In Massachusetts at the Farm. My roadtrip is complete and I'm back to what I think of as home, with good friends and beautiful vistas in every direction. Summer here is too much! You Remind Me of Home - Ben Gibbard

“Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells--eventually puts you in the place you are now.” --Anne Patchett Anyone who has truly left home--ventured out into the world and tasted it; lived away , with enough distance between you and that place to forget the view of the horizon; gone long enough to remember what the city or town or village looked like--will understand the nostalgia of going back. The sadness and sinking when the city looks less like it did in your years, and more like every other city in America, suffering from that same disease which grabs hold and spreads chain restaurants and chain stores like sores. Gone are many of the Mom & Pop family owned stores, replaced by those where they pretend to know you, asking ...

B1 gave me this poem, it hangs on my fridge as a constant reminder that I came from one place and am now in another, and  those two connect me because they are connected. I'd read this poem several times when I lived in OHCity and had wondered why I never saw the mosque off of I-75. It was in the rereading that I saw my error: the mosque is off of I-75 in Ohio, not off of I-75 in Michigan--I was looking for it in the wrong place. I finally saw the mosque on my first trip back to Sticks from a weekend in Michigan, somehow it felt as though I had achieved something in the finding. Does that even make sense? Anyway, about to leave my old home for my new...look for me on I-75 S, I will be the one waving at the "corn corn corn mosque..." "A Primer" I  remember Michigan fondly as the place I go   to be in Michigan. The right hand of America waving from maps or the left pressing into clay a mold to take home from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan ...

Excited for my crazy, busy weekend that includes meals shared: dinner with my old high school teacher and his wife; brunch with an old college friend; a party at my bestie L's. A whirlwind weekend. I'm sure my head will be spinning when I get back to Sticks on Sunday, but I am so excited for the weekend away! 5pm can't get here fast enough! Getting ready to get away makes me think of this song; I love this cover, and I love the Beatles original too. The Beatles: Two of Us cover Aimee Mann, Michael Penn

After a great phone call with my dear friend Christy this morning, I am thinking of what used to be home--the Michigan of my childhood--as well as what my home in the future will look like. My dearest B1 gave me this poem and I have it hanging on my fridge, I reread it for the millionth time this morning and thought I would share it: "A Primer" I  remember Michigan fondly as the place I go to be in Michigan. The right hand of America waving from maps or the left pressing into clay a mold to take home from kindergarten to Mother. I lived in Michigan forty-three years. The state bird is a chained factory gate. The state flower is Lake Superior, which sounds egotistical though it is merely cold and deep as truth. A Midwesterner can use the word “truth,” can sincerely use the word “sincere.” In truth the Midwest is not mid or west. When I go back to Michigan I drive through Ohio. There is off I-75 in Ohio a mosque, so life goes corn corn corn mosque, I wave at I...

Enjoying my last moments of vacation before I go to bed and wake up early for breakfast duty. My first day  back was HOT...not St. John, VI, hot, but sticky. Got down to my garden and HOLY CATS; spent some time picking tomatoes and more tomatoes and eating lots of what I picked; cucumbers are not doing so well as last year, bummed about that. Pictures soon. It's good to be home! "Home" How brightly glistening in the sun The woodland ivy plays! While yonder beeches from their barks Reflect his silver rays. That sun surveys a lovely scene From softly smiling skies; And wildly through unnumbered trees The wind of winter sighs: Now loud, it thunders o'er my head, And now in distance dies. But give me back my barren hills Where colder breezes rise; Where scarce the scattered, stunted trees Can yield an answering swell, But where a wilderness of heath Returns the sound as well. For yonder garden, fair and wide, With groves of evergreen, Long windin...

This is where I was And this is where I live

I return to the Farm late tonight/early tomorrow morning. I will drive from the fume-infused, roaring aired airport into the thick, insect-orchestrated music that is the sleeping world of the Farm. It will feel good to be home; to march about my home, like a dog, taking it all in; snuffing out what is mine; finally circling a few times and dropping down onto my bed, stretching out and feeling my body down to the tips of my  toes and into the shoots of my fingers. Everything will be familiar. Everything will be being home.   "On the Grasshopper and Cricket" The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper's--he takes the lead In summer luxury,--he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with fun He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter ev...

I was so glad to get home yesterday. I enjoyed my time in Michigan, seeing family and friends, but there is nothing like coming home; leaving the airport to drive now familiar highways; watch as the winter afternoon slowly melted into night, burgeoning a bright yellow orb. It felt wonderful to sit in my snug cabin, tucked in by two feet of snow, read the pile of library books and magazines I checked out before I left. Can't wait to get back to the Kitchen and cooking tomorrow. "Winter Trees" All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold. ~ William Carlos Williams

Southeastern Michigan, particularly Detroit, gets revved up every January for the North American International Auto Show . Growing up in Michigan, which is still the leading auto producing state in the U.S.; living for a time in Detroit, a.k.a. the Motor City; growing up within a family (grandfather and father among others) whose members worked for all of the Big Three at some point; I have always been interested in cars. Thinking about the NAI Auto Show made me recall the shows I've been to in the past with my best friend Kim--teenagers excited to go to the show with Kim's Dad, a GM Industrial Designer. One year in particular, when oh, the glory I felt when I slide behind the wheel of the cherry red 1994 Mustang--the then 30 years removed heir to my *still* dream car, a 1964 Mustang. I remember sleeping under a huge poster of that very car, dreaming things 13 year old girls dream. Ah, that all seems a million years away now. Yet, hearing about the NAI Auto Show...

I am here in the Mitten State. The state that breeds Michiganders/Michiganians who use our hands as maps. Oh, yes. We actually do it. Seriously. My friend didn't believe me until she saw it with her own eyes. Been back since Friday and my time here has been a whirlwind of seeing lots of friends and familly and spending lots of time in my bro A3's truck driving all over the place (since everyone lives all over SE MI).  Some highlights include: College K and Jesse's Engagement Party/wine tasting. (This turned into drinks followed by more drinks and karoke. Ah, how I was craving some good ole' Midwest karoke!) Staying with one of my favorite Aunties Sledding with Monster Niece S and Monster Nephew A (now 6 and 4.5 years respectfully) My Dad's side of the family's belated Christmas party Lunch with my priest Father J--one of the coolest people I know Seeing True Grit with Mom, A3 and A3's fiancee Dayna--AWESOME movie!! Seeing HP7 again,...

I should be in bed, but now I am wide awake. 4am will come too early; the time for getting up, getting ready, trudging suitcases up my snowy road; walking along the river who's tricklings will send me off. I will climb into a cold car, bundled for winter, head out past the boundaries of my home here. I will travel away from the Farm and into a big city with thoughts turned towards an airport, a plane and then the embrace of the friend who will pick me up in Detroit.

While, I am sure, the ED of the Farm sent this out to inspire even greater greatness in our work here at the Farm, I can't help but wonder how to keep all the balls in the air. Reading this today made me reflect on the past weekend; a five day weekend back in Michigan, which proved to be a little more stressful than I planned for. It seems like my sister and I have mastered the art of scuffing the glass ball of family, making me think that being an adult can be so tiring, can't it? Anyway, I made the drive in record time, somehow turning the usually 10.5-11 hour drive into a 9.5 hour drive; enjoyed the buddings of fall colors, which are already springing up along I90 in New York State and Massachusetts; listened to books on CD; enjoyed the solitude. And then I was back in community. A slow introduction back into life here, I fortunately had today off. A quiet day. A day of accomplishments: canned 7 quarts of homemade salsa (made with my tomatoes!) presently making apple...

As much as I might fight it, it is still home. "Michigan" I feel the calling of the land, The trees and summer streams; The thunderstorms and sun-drenched lakes, The land of boyhood dreams. The little town where someone’s dad Owned every shop and store; And every face you saw you knew And welcomed at your door. A forest full of mystery, An undiscovered find That flexed imagination In an adolescent mind. The place my seed was rooted In fields where I once grew; The home of every memory Of everything once new. Beneath the sea of motion, Beneath the waves and foam, I rest on its foundation - Michigan is home. ~ Matthew Ashbrook

Not to the wild west. The midwest. The place of my birth. The mindset which still steers the way I think. Home, not so home anymore. Every time I go home I can't help but feel a little like Jane Austen's Fanny Price in Mansfield Park , sans the Sir Thomas-sending-me-away part. I leave behind a place of comfort and familiarity for the place from whence I came, but which increasingly holds little connection, save familial. I was thinking about this today as I walked home from lunch and enjoyed the cool air on my skin; the cloudy, foreboding sky promising rain; the smell of the apples--fallen from the trees and crushed under foot. I was thinking too that today is a perfect day for a roadtrip. I leave this afternoon, making the 10.5 hour drive to Michigan. To family. To dearest friends. I only wish that, like Fanny Price, I could make my trip in a carriage. Let somebody else do the driving.

"A community is a group of people united by the common objects of their love." -St. Augustine, The City of God Spending time at home always makes me realize a couple of things: 1. Though I love spending time with my family and friends in Michigan, I love my home at the Farm; I love having my own space and I miss it while I am away from it. 2. I love community. I love living in community, I love knowing and being friends with my neighbors, I love that as a community we care for each other. Community is what I missed after I left the Farm, but for whatever reason, this time being at home made me really aware of the little communities I had created for myself when I wasn't at the Farm. My small community of college friends, my community at church, my community of the besties--the group of friends I hold most dear here in Michigan. All of these communities, groups, urban families. There is something to be said about the ability to connect with people on some level, cal...

Visited the farm where I used to work over the weekend. Went out Thursday-early Sunday a.m. and was devastated (as always) that I had to leave. Thursday was lovely. Airports are the most exciting places in the world, well, that is after foreign countries on my top three list... 1. Foreign countries 2. Airports 3. Naughty novelty shops Anyway, there is nothing so wonderful as flying...when you are looking forward to the destination, as I was Thursday morning. This inspired me to think (and find) great words of wisdom about flight: "Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives."~ Socrates "The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine." ~ Plato , ' Phaedrus ' " The air up there in the clouds...