the girls have arrived! We picked up our package of bees on Saturday, and introduced them to their hive that afternoon.

There are so many of them–approximately 10,000 at this point! I love to sit near the hive, on the terrace wall that Chris built, watching them come and go. I’m dying to get in there to see if they’re making comb, to see if the queen is laying, but we’re giving them their privacy for a week or so.

Surely bees don’t care if their hive is cute, but since this one sits in our front yard, I care. So it’s painted to match the house, with a totally unnecessary-but-adorable-anyway pitched copper roof. (Please disregard that temporarily unpainted stripe of a shim. You know I’m detail-crazed enough to be bothered by such a thing.)

bee art. Lulu, Mr. T and I sketched bees last week.

Then the kids became inspired to make a collage of bee art, which they later abandoned, but we did carve some rubber stamps.

Now Lulu’s thinking about making bee-themed greeting cards to sell at our Homeschool Fair in a few weeks. She spent all morning searching out bee poetry online–for lines for the cards–and I showed her some of Sylvia Plath’s bee poems. Plath wrote those poems upon keeping bees of her own for the first time, and when I read them a few years ago, I knew I’d have bees of my own someday.

learning about japan. We went to the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco’s Japantown on Monday, to see a San Francisco International Film Festival showing of Battle for Terra. (A perfect film for Mr. T as it tells the story of life on another planet which is invaded by earthlings. The planet, Terra, and its creatures are beautifully animated. The film’s director spoke afterwards, and it was fascinating to hear about his original ideas for the film, and how they developed over time.) Anyway, in addition to the film being wonderful, the location was ideal, as we’re just beginning a study of Japan.

We had a Japanese bento lunch.

We visited the Peace Pagoda.

We went to the Kinokuniya bookstore. I’d never been to one of these Japanese bookstores before–so big, so fab! There are books in Japanese, of course, but also many in English. They also have lots of those great little items that only the Japanese design, like Piperoid robot kits made up of paper rolls which are cut apart and assembled.

Mr. T put together both Goriborg and Dr. Penk with a fair amount of help from me.

The trouble is, of course, that he wants to play with them, which only makes their feet fall off.

I always hear knitters rave about Japanese knitting books. (I just listened to the Knitting Japanese episode on Stash and Burn.) Looking through that section in the store, I came across a few books by a young Japanese woman named Ayano Uchida. Despite the English titles and a few giggle-inducing, roughly translated English headings here and there, the books are otherwise written in Japanese, so I have no idea what they say. But they’re filled with photos of the author’s quirky, layered style, and I couldn’t resist buying one called Favorite Style for Four Seasons.

“Why would you buy that?” Lulu asked, offended at my foolishness. “You can’t even read it!”  I’m not quite sure why I bought it, except that I find the photographs charming. I think I find them even more charming for the fact that I don’t know what the writing says, which means I get to use my imagination. (I’m linking to Amazon’s Japanese page, in case you want to “Look Inside” the book. I haven’t been linking to Amazon these days, which you may have noticed–the reason for which is a blog post for another day. Go indie bookstores!)

Oh goodie–now it’s time for you to tell me what has you all atwitter…

So I have this crazy idea. I hesitate to write about it here for fear of jinxing it. But then I thought about my little essayist project, and how posting about it here each month has been such good incentive for me. I don’t think I would have kept up with reading these essayists if I hadn’t made the commitment on the blog. (And may I wax rhapsodic about Joan Didion once again? Have you read The Year of Magical Thinking? Wow.)

So this idea came suddenly, while I was running on a Saturday morning. It was the collision of a handful of things that had been simmering in my mind. 

The first was the fact that I’d been feeling down after receiving a couple more rejections to my essays. I’ve written about rejection before. Part of the trouble is that I’m writing what some people laughingly call creative nonfiction, some call literary nonfiction. Basically I’m writing personal essays about parenting which are too long and too writerly to find a home in mainstream magazines. Trouble is, you can count the markets for this type of writing on one hand. So the competition is devilish, and I keep coming this close to getting something published. (One editor likes my essay but the senior editor doesn’t, blah, blah, blah.) Anyway, I have three lovingly crafted essays that represent about two years of my writing life sitting on my computer doing nothing. Which stirred up a little cloud of self-pity. Poor me.

At the time of this pity-fest, I was also writing a proposal for a workshop I’d like to give at my local homeschool conference this summer. I gave a workshop on helping parents facilitate writing workshops last year, and I enjoyed it, so in addition to proposing that workshop again, I toyed around with the idea for a new one and came up with something called Nurturing Young Writers.

And guess where the idea for this workshop came from? Why from you, my wonderful handful of regular readers! I started thinking about a few posts I wrote here, on invented spelling and taking dictation. And I thought about all the insightful comments you left me, and it occurred to me that people are interested in small aspects of writing like this.

I have a lot of ideas about writing. Simple ideas which I sort of take for granted. Ideas which maybe germinated when I was a teacher, but really came to life when I started working with my kids and their original, opinionated minds. But I think what’s influenced my thinking most has been my own quest to try to learn to write. That sometimes pathetic, multi-year project which I refer to as homeschooling my MFA. I write and I think about writing and the writing process an awful lot. And I suppose that’s worked its way into the time I spend with my kids. 

I think there are many ways you can nurture writing in kids–oftentimes without them having to write at all. There’s dictation, which I’ve been pondering since that post, and I’m coming to believe is an even more powerful tool than I’d originally considered. There are conversations about writing that can happen organically as you and your kids read together, or listen to audiobooks. There are lots of little ideas like this, which cumulatively can help form a young writer–without curriculum, without assignments, without writing prompts.

And as I ran that Saturday morning, all these thoughts swirled together in the pot of vegetarian soup that is my brain and here’s the audacious idea that came to the surface: There might be a book here.

I know, I know, what do I know about writing a book? I can’t even get my danged essays published! And I’ve never been interested in writing how-to stuff anyway. How-to writing is dry. It’s boring. And how can I presume to tell someone how to do something, when I’m constantly discovering new ideas myself?

But I kept running, kept thinking. What if I presented a collection of ideas as just that: ideas? Not a curriculum, not a method. Just a collection of options which might get a parent thinking, which might work for a particular kid. 

And then–and here was the big epiphany moment for me–I started thinking about my favorite books on writing. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, of course. And Poemcrazy, by Susan Wooldridge. And all of Ralph Fletcher’s books, especially the ones written for kids about the craft of writing. All of those books actually read less like how-to books, and more like collections of personal essays. They not only offer fantastic ideas about writing, they model good writing.

This was when my simmering brain started boiling over.

What if, instead of using my writing time to write unpublishable essays, I spent that time writing personal essays that might actually help someone? 

Last year for my birthday, my parents gave me a lovely journal from Levenger, and it’s been sitting around waiting for the right project. It’s called a Circa journal, and what’s cool about it is that the pages are removable. You can pull them out, and move them around. It’s also nice and big, and it opens flat. So right after my run I started jotting down notes. I made a separate page for each “chapter” that had already come to mind, knowing I could just jot down ideas as they come, adding pages as necessary.

So yes, I think it would be a little audacious to say that I’m writing a book. But I’m excited about the notion, and at least I’m busy at work on a new essay. I worked on it four mornings last week and one evening, which felt great. That kept the work alive in my mind all day, and I jotted down some notes as I did other things–which is the only way to make progress with a piece of writing.

I worry about trying to balance a project like this with blogging. Writing posts and responding to other blogs can get time-consuming, as many of you know. On the other hand, I think my blog-writing led directly to this project, so I don’t want to give it up! But there may be more posts here about writing–both mine and the kids’. And more posts about the creative process, which is something I hope to make more time for in my days. A past interview on the Writers on Writing podcast with “creativity coach” Eric Maisel was inspiring…

Here’s hoping that this post serves as a commitment rather than a curse.

snow pea blossom

We had a few more fabulous days in Los Angeles. Took a tour of USC, including the new School of Cinematic Arts, built courtesy of a $175 million dollar donation from George Lucas. The outside of the building is just stunning; the inside, with all the makings of an actual Hollywood studio, is enough to give a film-loving 16-year-old serious college-lust. 

Wish him lots of luck and scholarships when he applies in December.

We also spent time at The Getty Center, one of my favorite places in Los Angeles. 

I admit to enjoying the buildings and the gardens perhaps more then the art itself. I’m not sure how J. Paul Getty would feel about that. I’ve been reading Joan Didion for My Year of Excellent Essayists project–what a joy it is to read her words–and in her essay, “The Getty”, she writes, “He refused to pay for any ‘tinted-glass-and-stainless-steel-monstrosity’.” The travertine stone used in the Getty is a far cry from stainless steel; still it’s a very modern structure. It was built after Getty died–who knows what he would have thought.

The gardens are gorgeous, and always make me want to get back into my own yard. I love those oversized allium.

Last time we were in Los Angeles, we visited The Getty Villa, which was the original site of the Getty Museum. A few years ago it was completely refurbished, and it too is amazing. It’s modeled after a Roman Villa, complete with open-air courtyards. If you’ve ever studied the Romans and the Greeks with your kids, the museum is a particular treat. Both museums have nice education rooms for families. 

Oh, and did I mention that both are free?

If you’re considering going to the Getty Center, you must read Going to the Getty by J. Otto Seibold and Vivian Walsh. (Whenever I see the book I have to sing the title to the tune of the Rolling Stone’s version of “Going to a Go-Go.” I was careful to only sing it quietly as we took the tram up to the museum.) The book is a little wacky, very informative, and illustrated by one of our favorite kid book artists. Very fun.

City of Angels is another great book about Los Angeles, illustrated by Elisa Kleven, who also did the art in The City by the Bay. Lots of info about places to visit, plus detailed, whimsical pictures.

It was fun to be away together for a few days. I was little sad to see Chris off to work, and H off to school yesterday. But the So Cal weather here the past few days is making it seem a little like it’s still vacation.

We’re hanging out at the beach.

And doing all the touristy stuff.

And being silly.

It’s kinda fun, visiting places from my college days. Even though that was ages ago, some spots are still the same.

Tomorrow, USC’s film school.

Happy Easter!

We take an old pan, and fill it with soil. We add a “tree” cut from the branch of a real tree, a dry pond, some gravel paths and a cave which H. made long ago, when he was about five. Then we scatter wheat grass seeds throughout, sprinkle on a little more soil, and water the garden.

We add a caterpillar to the cave, and leave him there in the dark, waiting to metamorphose.

It makes for an austere, colorless lenten scene, which is just the effect we’re after. Because, in a matter of days, everything will change.

Working with Mr. T yesterday, I realized that after more than ten years of making this Easter garden, this is probably one of the last times one of my kids will want to help me. It’s a little kid activity. Then again, it’s a tradition, and maybe I’ll be able to wrangle some help, simply for old time’s sake. Either way, I’ll probably keep up the tradition on my own because the garden so beautifully symbolizes Easter, with a simplicity that may work for little kids, but with a depth that can reach anyone.

I’ll post pictures in a few days, to show how our garden transforms.

The latest installment in My Year of Excellent Essayists project.

random notes:

You may or may not have heard of Sue Hubbell. I chose her because she wrote a wonderful book called A Book of Bees…and How to Keep Them, which I read a couple of years ago when I became curious about beekeeping. Since we’re getting our bees this month, I figured that rereading Hubbell would be a nice opportunity to both study her writing, and delve into the world of bees. 

Hubbell was a librarian before she moved to a farm in the Missouri Ozarks, and began keeping bees. Her words read just as you might expect from a librarian-turned-farmer. Her writing is straightforward and mostly unembellished: the voice of a no-nonsense farmer. It’s also full of allusions to literature, poetry and the classics, which you might expect from a former librarian. 

A Kirkus Reviews’ quote from the back of the book says it’s “A melodious mix of memoir, nature journal and beekeeping manual.” She presents a lot of practical information about beekeeping, laced with her own stories and experiences. Her voice is easygoing and familiar; she makes you feel as if you’re sitting beside her under a tree, chatting and drinking coffee from a thermos while watching a hive, as she does so often throughout the book. As I read, I did my usual highlighting routine. Trouble was, I made two types of highlights: favorite lines, as usual, but also insightful information about beekeeping. I should have used different-colored pens–there are lots of highlights.

I suppose one could argue that this is a memoir, rather than a series of essays. (Although the distinction between personal essay and memoir always seems to get a little murky.) I also read some of Hubbell’s essays from her collection From Here to There and Back Again. I found myself drawn most to the essays that took place in the country, on her farm, like A Book of Bees does. Somehow, she seems most at home out there. I’d like to read  A Country Year, which is more about her life in the Ozarks.

a few lines to love:

“For a long, long time–for nearly forty years–I never had any bees. I can’t think why. Everyone should have two or three hives of bees.”

This is how she starts the book. Her down-to-earth writing voice comes through right off.

“The first rule of country living is to leave gates the way one finds them: open when they are open, closed when they are closed.”

Her writing is full of aphorisms like this one, which make country living seem both simple and complicated. She’s figured out how to do it.

“When only a few flowers are blooming the bees fly around in a desultory way, and often, if the weather is warm, they hang aimlessly on the front of the hive or stand in bunches on the alighting board.”

Typical beekeeping manuals don’t say it so elegantly.

On joining other farmers at the coffee shop: “I pour a cup of coffee and sit with them. I don’t know their names, but they know mine: Bee Lady. A middle-aged woman in baggy white coveralls who smells of burnt baling twine is a standout in any crowd.”

Funny.

“The only time I ever believed that knew all there was to know about beekeeping was the first year I was keeping them. Every year since I’ve known less and less and have accepted the humbling truth that bees know more about making honey than I do.”

I love this. (And I find myself thinking that the same notion applies to my experiences as a homeschooler, with my kids and their learning substituted for the bees and their honey.)

On watching the bees on a cold winter day: “The textbooks say bees cannot fly unless it is 10 degrees Celsius or more. The bees have not read the textbooks and often fly out for their cleansing flights on days like today.”

Another (witty) way to show that humans haven’t mastered the bee.

“Beekeeping is farming for intellectuals.”

Well, of course! (She follows this up with examples of beekeeping in literature, starting with Aristeus, the Greek god of beekeeping.)

“A single sunbeam and a lone wildflower mean springtime to an Italian bee.”

Reads like poetry.

On talking to new beekeepers to whom she’s given a box of her bees: “Last spring I began listening to myself talk and noticed what I sound like. I sound like a mother relinquishing her firstborn to the kindergarten teacher. I sound like a writer handing her manuscript to her editor. I sound like a Republican tax assessor turning over the job to a Democrat.”

Love the examples.

“Strictly speaking, one never “keeps” bees–one comes to terms with their wild nature.”

Sounds like good advice for a new “beekeeper” like me.

I could go on, but I’ll stop.  If you’re lusting after a beehive, I recommend A Book of Bees as a fine way of learning about bees and getting your fix.  And if you have hives but haven’t read it, you must.

More than anything, I appreciated Hubbell’s ability to convey practical information in a captivating way. 

the plan for april:

We’re taking a trip to Los Angeles, to visit colleges with H. I think it’s time for some Didion.

I have my own fond memories from the 70′s of checking out armloads of Ed Emberley books from the bookmobile that parked near the tennis courts, in the suburban tract where I lived. I never thought of myself as able to draw, but with Ed’s simple step-by-steps, I could. My favorite was Make A World–all those tiny, tiny things, which I put together into great scenes.

Mr. T has no issues with his drawing abilities; still he’s having a fabulous time with Emberley’s Drawing Book of Faces. He’s been working on a series of faces within a graph paper grid. 

Check out that pencil grip! Check out those filthy fingernails!

He’s having as much fun drawing the faces as he’s having trying to read the character’s alliterative names. Conceited Conroy. Puzzled Polly. Black Eye Bob. His reading skills are just blooming these days, and it’s fun to hear him trying to figure out those names as he draws. His favorite is Monster Melvin.

Writing this post, I came across a link to Ed Emberley’s own site. Unfortunately, I can’t get it to run with the Flash Player I have, but the little flickers I could see of it look very cool. Somehow I was surprised to see that Ed is still alive. It seemed that someone who was writing books that were such a big part of my childhood would be gone by now.

Viva Ed Emberley!