The Wonder of Books

 One of the wonderful women who opened my childhood to a world of stories, Beverly Clearly, recently left this realm at 104 years young.  Apparently I was not alone, as I saw very many touching tributes to her and her beloved characters like Ramona Quimby.  Like many, I also thought of Judy Blume who will always remain my first favorite author.  Both of these remarkable women and storytellers will forever be a piece of my childhood, and I am grateful for both of them.  I am also grateful for the love of reading that these special books had in my childhood.  I remember a lot of things, but I can't remember exactly which was the first Beverly Cleary book I read and in which grade.  What I do remember is in third grade, my wonderful teacher had a big tree along the wall with a cutout of our names.  There were a lot of branches, and the goal was to get to 125 books read by the end of the year, moving up the branches in increments of five.  I quickly jumped out to 15 books, ahead of all of my other classmates.  I moved steady up the tree the whole year, and I was the first student to make it to 125 books. I also had the highest number of books read the whole year.  That year, I wrote my own book, illustrated it, and my teacher helped me laminate the cover.  I sewed the pages together with yarn, took it to our wonderful school librarian, and she put it on display in our library.  I just always loved reading.  I love stories, whether creating them myself or reading others.  

I specifically remember the first time I met Judy Blume.  My fourth grade teacher started reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.  She read chapter one for us, and I was hooked.  It happened to be the weekend, so on a trip to our mall I went to Waldenbooks and purchased it myself.  I read the whole book that weekend.  Then came Superfudge, Iggie's House, Deenie, Blubber, Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret.  A few years later, Just As Long As We're Together.  Judy's books reminded me in many ways of my own life, and she had such a keen way of articulating the ups, downs, joys and challenges of childhood.  She never shied away from tackling subjects which were considered taboo, but were nonetheless important for children to think about and discuss.  Thankfully, Judy ventured into writing for adults, so we are never without stories from her at any age in our lives.

The other books in my later childhood and teenage years which defined those years were Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators.  When I was 12, I ventured into the library one summer and found The Mystery of The Moaning Cave.  I read it and couldn't get enough of the books.  I always loved mysteries, and these did not disappoint.  The creator, Robert Arthur, wrote mysteries for radio programs.  He imagined a world of children where they solved crimes without today's luxuries like a computer, GPS, tracking devices, etc.  I was taken back to southern California in the 1960s and 1970s where three intelligent, gutsy boys who tangled with art thieves, jewel thieves, international men of mystery and even royalty.  The books are still very much a part of my adult life.  I collected them around 15 years ago through the gift that is Ebay and still read them every summer.  In around a month or so, I will get them out and enjoy them on hot, sweaty summer evenings.  They are fun to read outside in your yard when it gets dark, or late at night like I used to do on summer nights.  

As an adult, I have read just about everything-biographies/autobiographies, mysteries, fiction, historical fiction, true stories, some crime novels and political memoirs.  I belong to a book club and we have had several hosts over the years.  One thing that they have had in common was that despite their own preferences, they always picked books which spoke to me.  I swear, there have been books which have helped me to answer some of the deeper questions we all have in life.  Some have provided healing for me and helped me to end what seemed like years of not being able to accept some of the events that I had no control over in my childhood and teenage years.  Within the last year, I have had the opportunity to read some excellent books which spoke to me in profound ways.  The first of those was Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano.  The protagonist in the book was the sole survivor of a plane crash.  While this was fictionalized, Ann found inspiration in the 2010 story of a young man who was the sole survivor of a plane crash.  She, like me, enjoys creating the end of stories for people who she finds curious.  The book explored the bigger questions of tragedy, healing afterwards, and about what path you find yourself on in this life because of it.  I recently finished Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey which spoke to me about the importance of knowing yourself, trusting your gut, and understanding which way to go in your life.  I have always considered myself to have a strong gut and understanding of myself, but sometimes life gets in the way.  What I learned from Greenlights is that when we do understand ourselves, it is the right path to follow. At this moment in time, I find myself in a very difficult position with my job. It was a reinforcement for me to know that I know what is best for me and to keep moving forward.  And then there was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  It is a book about a young girl whose mother was not able to properly take care of her in World War II Germany.  It is not a book for the faint of heart.  It is grueling and narrated by death.  But it also dares to go there and tries to give a voice to all of the horror of that time.  Most importantly, the protagonist in the books learned how to survive almost impossible circumstances.  Despite the theme of death, there was a lot of wisdom and hope of survival in this book.  There are many more I could write about, but those in particular really spoke to me in a strong and meaningful way.

I just love books.  When I go to a library or a bookstore, I walk out feeling invigorated.  I am excited and felt like I experienced the whole world.  You can experience the whole world in books.  You can see faraway lands, learn about cultures you never knew about, and still link the common humanity of all of us.  I enjoy biographies and autobiographies because I always love to learn about who people are, the experiences that shaped them, and how they find resilience.  I love fiction because someone had such creativity to birth characters and stories that entertain us or educate us.  I love stories which inspire me or provide me with some kind of wisdom.  Most importantly, I love the authors who have stories in them and need to tell them.  

THANK YOU to all of the wonderful authors who have touched my life.  You have given me so much. I had an author I really respect tell me that I have the soul of a writer.  Where does it go?  To be continued... 

The Good Side of Social Media

 There have always been two things that are true of me: 1. I have always been late to participating in trends and 2. I am a very private person.  Both of those things are not conducive to being a social media type of person.  I always perceived social media as more negative than positive.  I saw lots of fighting, opinions, and downright nastiness towards strangers. That isn't me off of a computer, and it is certainly not me behind screen, either.  Also, if you deal with difficult people in real life (as we all do), you may not want to subject yourself to that on an extended basis.  I did participate in message boards.  (For those young people reading, a message board was a place where you could interact with other Internet users lol.  Just kidding!  You probably know, but they are pretty much a thing of the past)  I enjoyed message boards because you talk about literally anything which interested you with other like-minded people.  Or not.  You might have shared a common hobby or interest, and all kinds of discussions broke out about other topics. Message boards afforded you privacy. If you chose to put pictures up of yourself, it was completely your choice. You could interact with others at your discretion.  I did meet some nice people over the years, but message boards started to die out in lieu of platforms like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.  I resisted for a long time, even though it meant I couldn't keep up with people like others do. It wasn't worth it to me to lose my privacy.  I did start reading some public pages, especially Twitter.  There were sportscasters in particular who provided up-to-date information that I appreciated.  It was nice to quickly find information.  Most of my family encouraged me to just sign up, never post anything, just get some information.

Fast forward to summer 2020.  I was grieving, having a really bad day, and I made a crazy for me decision.  I joined Twitter.  I joked with myself and said that people have done a lot worse.  I never intended to really post anything, just get some more streamlined information. But,  I got the opportunity to meet lots of nice Mets fans there.  I got to follow some of my favorite authors who have Twitter pages, I got much more up-to-the minute astronomy news than I ever did before.  And I started posting!  It was like the world's biggest message board.  Literally anything I could think of I could post about.  I have always enjoyed, even without a social media account, reading up-to-date reactions from people about TV shows, sporting events, and the news. On 9/11, I found myself drawn to the countless thousands of stories that were being posted, pictures of people at the World Trade Center during happier times.  It was like I could experience a collective experience with many others who felt the same way I did.  On January 6, I got on with thousands more, reading their real-time reactions to what was happening.  I really do like to connect with others over shared experiences.  I suspect a lot of other people do as well.  And I had a way to do it.  All of these things are good things for me.  I also decided going into it that anything in life is what you make of it.  If things got too intense, I reserved the right not to participate in discussions, etc.  And even though I am passionate about politics, I limit myself because lord knows I have enough discussions off of the computer.

I am not sure how what thread or who I was reading, but I came across a Twitter user whose goal was to end homelessness.  He had studied the issue over years and was in the process of starting a non-profit to put a program into place.  I have been working with the homeless population as well as those who are living in poverty since I graduated high school.  The first thing I did when I graduated was take a weeklong trip to New York City.  I got to see firsthand the lives of those living on the streets in the largest city in our country. A city with so much wealth, yet there was an out-of-control homeless population for whom little was being done. And we certainly have this problem in every city, including my own. Through my previous employment, I got to work with those living in poverty.  Things have only gotten worse over this past year.  And things will continue unless we have visionaries who really want to tackle this problem. I was not sure of the name of the poster, I knew his Twitter name.  I followed him, and I really looked forward to hearing his proposals. He kept people up-to-date on the progress he was making on his non-profit becoming a reality.  I thought that perhaps in the future he would be a voice that we would hear more from.  Perhaps our paths would even cross in real life.

On Easter morning, I was reading Twitter when a post came in from our advocate friend.  As it turns out, his real name was Scott.  I do not know his last name, just that his name was Scott.  Scott's sister came onto Twitter to tell us that he had passed away overnight.  Even though I never met Scott, I felt quite saddened by the news.  Scott had a real vision, and he was working to make this world a better place.  Nobody really knows much about him, and we all were wondering what might have happened.  What I do know is that Scott indeed was a real person like all of us, and I also know that he was a very dedicated son.  He took care of his mother very well, helping her get a COVID vaccination and took care of her when she recently broke her ribs.  Scott shared all of those experiences with us.  I shared my sadness with Scott's sister and now, there are over 2,000 messages on that thread.  Scott and his life touched many people, even though most of us only knew him via social media.  I ended up gaining a lot of followers that day as well.  They all seemed to be kind, caring people who shared the same values as Scott.  I am sad for Scott's family that they will always associate a holiday with his passing.  

The truth is, every single one of us is a living, breathing person behind a screen.  Whereas many people see a user online maybe as their screen name, or someone living far from them, we are not.  Even though some people see an opportunity to be a prick, most of us are glad to connect with others. We can meet people with common interests, and it can turn into something good.  It did for me.  Social media in a very backwards way helped me navigate a very difficult time in my life.  I had always wanted to start a blog, and now I am doing so.  The world is big, and having the ability to connect with anyone anywhere is nothing short of amazing.  I am so glad that I made that crazy for me decision to join Twitter.  It really has been good.  It helped me connect with wonderful people like Scott.

Godspeed, Scott.  You touched the lives of many people in ways you probably did not understand.  Rest assured, we will continue the work that you started in your life.  May you rest in peace, and your spirit will certainly live on.