Lindsay Eland's Blog

Measurements.

Meters, feet, yards, centimeters, Fahrenheit, miles, liters, cups, minutes, days, hours.

We are surrounded by measurements. We need measurements. If we didn’t have them then we would be incessantly late or always early, our cakes would be disgustingly flat and bland, and we would have no idea if we needed a small, medium, or large in that cute shirt.

But sadly, we have become people obsessed by measurement. And not the “how many feet in a yard” type of measurement, but the “how can I possibly compare to…” type of measurement.

The type of measurement that leaves us always lacking, never good enough, never fully happy.

How do we hold up to the status quo?

How smart are we compared to…

How pretty are we compared to…

How generous, how faithful, how tall, how fast, how successful…

Comparing and measuring, measuring and comparing.

We hope we fit the right number on the stick. We silently pray that after measuring ourselves, we won’t find on the measuring tape the words “so sorry, not quite good enough.”

All of us humans feel this way. Our best, our hardest work, our hours of endless striving for perfection is never quite good enough for the masses. But then sometimes we feel like we have actually reached it (whatever “it” may be). “Finally!” we say. And then no sooner do the words leave our mouths then there is someone out there breaking the record, selling more, achieving more. Someone who is always taller, prettier, faster, and more successful.

But the funny thing is, in all this comparing and measuring, we find that we all use different measuring tapes. Our inches are different than the next person’s, our teaspoons don’t match, the temperature gauges are out-of-sync. Someone can look at my daughter and say that she looks exactly like me, while another questions whether I could possibly be her parent.

Different eyes seeing the same thing. Different measurements.

Our lives can become a constant comparison to someone else, so that eventually, we forget who we were to begin with—-what story we were meant to tell.

That we were never meant to be like that person, to create like that person, to fail or to achieve or to look like that person.

We were meant to be who  we are.

There can be no adventure or laughter or crying or anger or love in a book written the exact same way as another, telling the exact same story with the exact same words.

Only we can fail and win and cry and laugh and love in the unique way we were meant to. The world doesn’t need the same book, the same face, the same laughter, the same story.

This comparing and measuring is one of those things that I try to erase in my kids every single morning when I say goodbye to them and send them off to school (yes, even though three are in high school now and one is in middle school…don’t they need it most?!) drop them off at school, sending them through the doors to seven hours away from one of the only people in the world who loves them exactly as they are exactly every moment of the day.

I’ve made it a ritual.

“Thank you,” I whisper to each of them in turn. “Thank you for being Ella. You are perfectly Ella, and be perfectly Ella all day today.”

“Thank you for being Isaac.”

“You are perfectly Noah.”

“Be perfectly Gracie today.”

I hope they hear me. And not just hear me, but really hear me. And of course there will be a time when they will measure themselves. They will compare themselves like every other human being on earth has done before them and every other human being on earth will do after them.

But still, there is enough measurements in life. And if I can, for even a moment, help them to put down the measuring stick and live life uniquely in the way they were meant to—-to create their own story rather than trying to live out some one else’s, well then, I’ll be a happy Mama.

And honestly, I’d rather them focus on measuring the flour correctly…because I really like cake.

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My daughter, Ella, when she was little, asked me one morning on the way home from school, “Why do stuffed animals get ruined the more you love them?”

And when she asked me this I couldn’t help but think of the stuffed animal in question. She was holding up Gracie’s favorite stuffed animal—her  sock monkey named Jer-Jer. When Gracie was little, this monkey accompanied her everywhere and was rarely out of her embrace. And he looked it. His arms have been sewed up twice as were his legs, the yarn that was once his mouth is now a black sharpie line, he has holes in his legs and his ears and now has over 17 patches sewed or ironed onto him. He has been chewed on by a neighborhood dog, dragged through the dirt, spit-up on, and soaked with tears.

And though ruined is not quite the word I would use, in a way…it is.

He has been forever ruined by such great love.

And isn’t that the way of God’s love and of the life he has given us? We are so much like a well-loved stuffed animal. As we make our way through each day and week and month and year we are dragged through the dirt and chewed on, we are hugged and kissed and adored, we have holes that are sewn up the best that we can, we’re missing stuffing, and sometimes even our smile.

But each one of us is loved…truly loved.

And when we reach that point in our lives when the end comes, we can either look back at our lives with a frown and say, “it’s ruined.” Or we can look at our lives and smile and know that yes, we’ve been wonderfully and beautifully ruined by a life filled with the heartache and joy, the harshness and softness of real love and abundant life.

This is how I see a lot of those used-up, tossed-out dogs in shelters and rescues. They have their own tears and holes and unfortunately their backstories are often not filled with any sort of love and kindness…but that doesn’t have to be the end of their story.

Anyone who knows me for even just over an hour will learn that I am completely and truly a full-blooded optimist. The glass is not only half-full, but it is overflowing and splashing delightfully onto the countertop, and running onto the floor. And oh, what a lovely puddle it makes.

I used to think while conversing with people who spoke of the downward spiral of the economy, the loss of virtue in America, the destruction of our environment, the constant cyncisim of a God that we can never understand, that my optimism was a form of weakness. That really I was just deluded into thinking there was really a sun above the dark clouds. That I was merely imagining goodness and beauty and hope because I just wasn’t educated enough to really know what was wrong with the world.

I even attempted to try on this cynicism. Complain a little here, focus on the cloud of smog hovering over everyone, and read more depressing stories to sober me up. But like my 1980’s tight-rolled, size 0, stone washed jr. jeans, cynicism didn’t fit right, it didn’t feel right, and I faced the fact that it was just downright depressing.

So now I look at my optimism as one of my great strengths, despite how stupid I may look with my smile and cheery disposition in the hazy smog of a broken world.

But I can’t help it. Life is beautiful and pleasant and hopeful for me. But I do not feel like I look at the world through glasses that are “too good to be true.” Instead, I’m thankful that I have been blessed with eyes that are able to, at the same time, see the wretchedness, the ugliness, and the brokenness of life, yet still find the wonder, joy, beauty, and hope in the midst of it all.

So here’s to glasses that are half-full! May you not be ashamed of your hope. May we all have eyes that can see more beauty than ugliness, ears that can hear more laughter than weeping, and hearts that find only wonder in the ordinary.

As Anne Shirley said in Anne of Avonlea: “I’d like to add some beauty to life. I don’t exactly want to make people know more…but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me…to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn’t been born.”

At 10,400 ft with an average snowfall of 14 feet per season, spring in the mountains of Colorado can look more like a brown and white mess than your normal green-fields-bursting-with-lush-grass-sunshine-and-tulips.

Here, we call Spring Mud Season, and rightly so. The feet of snow give way to rushing brown rivets of water, jeans heavy and wet with melted snow, slush, boots caked with thick mud, more slush, cars and trucks all various shades of brown, even more slush, mud-splattered-happy dogs, muddy floors, and those trails that soften during the day so that you sink to your knees freeze to a bob-sled luge overnight. And did I mention, slush?

In two words (plus an equal sign): Spring=treacherous.

Then I think of summer. Of June, July, and August. When Colorado, in my opinion, is it’s prettiest. Wildflowers scatter themselves all over mountain peaks and valleys in purples, blues, reds, pinks, yellows, and oranges. Rivers rush and burble, aspen leaves flicker and wave, pine needles crunch underfoot, lichen grows on rocks, the sun is warm, the shade is cool, and the sky is so blue it looks like if you looked hard enough you could see stars.

In two words (plus an equal sign): Summer=beauty.

Yet, you can’t have one without the other. Without the muddy mess of spring there would be no summer beauty.

That is the way of all things.

There is no happy ending without a rough and messy middle.

There is no hard-won intimacy without some down-and-dirty hurting.

No hello without there being a goodbye first.

No morning glory without the deepest black of night.

No book-on-the-shelf feeling without a lot of revising, and rejecting, and cutting, and slashing, and crying.

It is the beautiful things that come from dust and mud and rain and clouds and slush.

So during those times…those messy, muddy spring days when you think that June flowers may never come, slip on those boots, roll up those jeans, and realize that as surely as there will be spring next year at this time, the summer, too, comes. Not necessarily when we wish it would…but it comes nonetheless.

Might as well try and dance in the rain, slosh in the slush, and make some mud pies.

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Check out this great article from an amazing fellow author!

http://chapterbookchat.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/chapter-book-vs-middle-grade/

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Summer time.

For some reason when I picture summer evenings, I often think of porch lights—that little glow in the evening dusk and on into the thick night. Porch lights are a little smile on a house, a twinkle that blinks a warm welcome to neighbors or passersby.

My parents have talked about these.

How porch lights turned on every evening and the adults pulled out deck chairs or settled onto swings to watch the kids gather around in the summer evenings, scheming. Neighbors took walks and stopped by a porch-lit home to chat, share a cup of coffee, a laugh, some talk about the football game, gossip about this and that. It was a coming-together.

But those sorts of porch lights—collecting stray bugs and bits of moonlight—are more or less a thing of the past.

We live farther from each other, retreat into our homes for our evening routines of television shows, movies, coffee, or checking the latest on Facebook, Youtube, Itunes, Twitter or our favorite blogs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not lamenting these times—they are my times, and each time has it’s own beauty and it’s own ugly—like in every bit of change.

But where are the porch lights now? Is there any left shining out in the darkness?

Because we humans need light—we crave it.

In winter, light offers warmth. In the spring the promise of growing. In the summer, light means long days and late nights. In fall, light is the orange glow of a pumpkin or candles on a Thanksgiving table.

“Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light.” The Tale of Despereaux by Kate Dicamillo

I couldn’t’ve said it better.

Books—stories—are lights.

They do not ignore the darkness, but scatter it with light.

They illuminate life, ignite dreams, expand our creativity, and tickle our imaginations. They connect us together in ways that nothing else can—in ways that nothing ever can.

They criss-cross time and space and people and cultures and ages like nothing else and allow us to share and experience and touch something magical with another human being—with millions of other human beings.

They tell us all that life was, and is, and can be, and is meant to be.

And libraries–beautiful, lovely, sweet-smelling (you know the smell I’m talking about), magical libraries—have always been places filled with that light of ideas, people, culture, knowledge, and creativity. A place that brings us humans—in all our Facebooking and blogging and watching, and texting—together. Libraries are like lighthouses—shining out across a stormy, unpredictable sea.

Sunday, the main character in my book, A Summer of Sundays, knows the power of libraries to bring communities together. Through remodeling the local library, she sees friendships healed, friendships made, ideas, secrets and lives exchanged, and she discovers herself and where she fits in her world.

So where are those glowing porch lights now?

They’re there.

They’re called The Little Free Library.

Have you heard of them?

They are beginning to pop up everywhere—in the middle of neighborhoods, by the entrance to the dog parks, on the corner of an intersection, by the swing set at the playground.

The Little Free Libraries are a movement that has sprung up from those book lovers who know the power of books and whose desire is to connect people with literature, with information, with stories, and with humanity itself.

And these little libraries are giving people what libraries have always given and offered and shared—a place to bring ideas together, strengthen communities, and enrich lives.

They are small little boxes—almost like large birdhouses—with books inside. You take a book in exchange for a book that you slip inside for someone else. Sharing with each other.

Some neighborhoods decide on a theme for their library: mysteries, children’s books, books by a specific author, sci-fi books, books on a specific culture, books that all have a title that starts with a letter of the alphabet.

These Little Free Libraries are the new porch lights.

People are beginning to emerge from their houses, from behind their screens, and gathering around these libraries, chatting with each other about books. And chatting about books (as it always has) brings up ideas and discussions, laughter and sharing, friendships and creativity—bringing people together.

It’s really extraordinary, isn’t it? This power of light—the power of books—the power of libraries—in not only the great wide world, but in our own small world of a few neighborhood blocks.

Visit www.littlefreelibrary.org and find out how you can turn on your own glowing porch light in your neighborhood. Then watch what happens.

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Summers are long and thick and lazy and sticky and beachy and full of water-gun, sunshine-y, read aloud fun.

“Read aloud fun?” you ask. “That’s a little random.”

Yep and . . . yes, a little.

We are a read-aloud sort-of-family. I’ve read aloud to each of my four kids since they couldn’t even lift up their heads and I’d have to hold a burp-cloth under their little baby chins. While my husband romps on the trampoline (Mama’s stomach doesn’t do the trampoline) and shoots hockey pucks in our basement (good bye drywall), my special thing with them has always been reading. I’ve even begun to read aloud to my husband and myself while he sits at the kitchen table and ties his flies for his fly-fishing adventures. It’s a shared sort-of magic that we have together.

And there’s no better time than in the lazy summer heat, during an afternoon thunderstorm, or on cool summer evenings to pick up a book and start to read . . . aloud.

So, I’m going to give you some of my favorite—and my kids favorite—read-alouds. And since I’m a middle grade author and middle grade books tend to be the very best read aloud books for the widest audience around, that’s what I’m going to give you. I’ve also tested each of these on my four chickens and they agree. So without further ado…

Summer . . . (and Fall and Winter and Spring) . . . Read Alouds:

Matilda by Roald Dahl (and pretty much all of his books: The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc): Well, ever since I was in fifth grade, this book had been my all-time favorite book around. It’s perfect in so many ways and if you could’ve seen the look on my kids faces when they found out The Trunchbull was Ms. Honey’s aunt, well, it would bring tears to your eyes and a lump to your throat. The power of story…whew!

Harry Potter by JK Rowling…all 7 of them…yes, all 7 of them: I just finished reading the very last one to my kids about a week ago. Wow. Ummm . . . yeah, there isn’t much else that I can say without sounding like the Potter-crazy-34-year-old-mom that I am. So just read them aloud . . . all 7 of them. (I LOVE you, RONALD WEASLEY)

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech: This book, in and of itself, is beautiful, but read aloud it is even more magical. My kids loved it and of course, I cried and blubbered through the end.

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate Dicamillo: For those of you who haven’t read this book, I have a mixture of feelings towards you. It’s between pity that you haven’t experienced it’s magic yet, and jealousy that you get to read the magic for the first time. This is a beautiful story and is probably one of the most perfect read-aloud books on the planet.

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry: this is perfect for anyone who loves adventure, humor, mystery, and magic. The chapters are short, the plot is complex, and it’s just all-around fun, fun, fun. I adore this book so much and it’s perfect with all the different voices.

Wait Til Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn: Okay, so I haven’t actually read this one aloud to my kids. The only reason being that they wouldn’t sleep for a month…or probably a year. But I still remember sitting on the carpet in fifth grade listening to Mrs. Baughman read this book and even today, I still can’t walk by an old pond and not imagine Helen emerging from the depths and waving (insert creepy chills). It’s so deliciously eerie…perfect for a girl or boy or adult who likes ghost stories.

So as July bounces along like a big multi-colored beach ball, grab a lemonade, cuddle up on the couch, clear that throat and enjoy some of your very own shared-summer-magic.

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Transitions. They are the name-of-the-game for middle grade authors and readers and the reason that I love writing for this age so very, very much.

Fifth grade was one of the most magical times of growing up for me. It was when I was introduced by my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Baughman, to books like Bridge to Terebithia, Matilda, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and Trumpet of the Swan.

It was when my best friend and I made a fort in a small patch of woods, exchanged locks of hair and became blood sisters.

It was when my friends and I played MASH–You know, the Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House game with the hidden hope that maybe someday…someday…we would really marry that movie star and live in a mansion in Paris with four children.

It was when I sat on the ledge between my parents and my friends and decided on my own whose voice I would listen to.

Life was magical and confusing and filled with so much emotion on every extreme.

It was a delicate time when my friends—both girls and boys—were transitioning in so many ways.

And Middle grade writers, like middle grade readers must see the silly humor in boogers and farts as well as feel the intense pain of a lonely lunch table or a goodbye to a friend who is moving or the loss of a grandparent we never thought could die. Though Young Adult may be hot and show no signs of slowing down, we remain on the outskirts much like our readers themselves who hang in the balance between elementary school and high school, of childhood and young adulthood, innocence and experience, dependence and independence.

So how do we write stories for this age? How do we create stories that make them laugh and forget, that make them cry and remember, that make them look at the murky muddy mess of change and transition with hope?

We must approach our writing with 3 things as vital to our writing toolbox as the correct brand of jeans, the clean backpack, and the meticulously picked folders are for our audience.

And that’s the first thing we as middle grade writers must have when we write…respect.

Every event, every moment with friends, teachers, parents, family, or the first sparks of romance is felt at such an extreme with middle graders.

I remember waking up and feeling excited, despaired, annoyed, giggly, worried, hopeful, insecure, confident, dreamy, nightmarish, awful, wonderful ugly, beautiful, popular, unpopular, stupid, and smart, all within the first 15 minutes of walking through the heavy double doors of my school.

And all of those feelings were real and true for me and they are real and true for our readers at any given moment. So to have a teacher roll their eyes or a parent say “you’re just being emotional,” or another adult shrug off their feelings as silly is not only disrespectful, but it is hurtful and puts a wall in between us and our readers that may not come down.

No one wants their feelings to be laughed at, mocked, looked down on, or considered silly so we must be careful to treat our main characters and our audience with the respect that they yearn for and the respect they deserve.

And then we must remember our own middle grade years with perhaps not necessarily a fondness but with a profound respect—a respect for all that we went through and all that it helped us to become—good and bad.

Yep, we must respect our own middle grade years.

Oh yes, I said it. And that is the second thing we need to have as middle grade writers.

Cause how can we respect our readers, their feelings, and their experiences, if we don’t respect our own journey through the bowels of middle grade knowing that we made it through to the other side?

This, of course, means pulling out the hideous pictures of big bangs, perms, tight-rolled stone washed jeans and finding in them the beauty of what we went through of what our audience is going through now.

We must see our years as middle graders as kind of like a mosaic.

Bits and pieces of colored and broken glass put together in a way that you’d never think could be possible when you look at the mess on the floor.

We have to remember the bits of words—the ones that hurt and the ones that redeemed, the scent of the humid cafeteria, a fleeting vision of walking down the hallway either alone or accompanied on either side, a snippet of whispered dialogue of she likes me/he likes me.

Whether we like it or not, those middle grade memories, both ugly and beautiful, are a part of who we are and they always will be.

So what do we do with them?

As middle grade writers we must smile at all our broken misshappen pieces lying on the ground, pick them up and make a mosaic—a work of art—out of them.

And art that brings hope…cause that’s what those broken pieces represent, don’t they?

And that’s one of the aspects I adore most about writing and reading middle grade fiction is the hope that can be found somewhere inside. Hidden inside the wardrobe with a lion named Aslan, near platform 9 and 3 quarters, with a dog named Winn Dixie, a spider named Charlotte, and three unearthly strangers named Mrs Whatis, Mrs. Who and Mrs Which.

There is hope in the midst of that transition.

Like all of us, middle grade readers need hope and maybe they need even more than us since they are at a time when they are first learning to navigate all the tremors of life all on their own.

They need to know that “this too shall pass” that somewhere beyond their bickering parents, their broken hearts, or their ruined friendships that there is still hope and that yes, they can make it through this and they can overcome and come out on the other side.

We need to infuse hope into our novels, however thin a thread it may be, cause really it could be the thread that our readers hold onto and follow through the darkness of the cave until they are out into the light of day.

So yeah, those transitions are pretty important, deserving of respect. And they’re also the reason why I write and read middle grade fiction.

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