Some of the most valuable bits
Marjorie gave an excellent session at the retreat about concrete ways to improve a piece. I am a lousy editor (trying so hard to get better) and as she outlined her suggestions I could feel myself turning optimistic and excited. These are things I need — definite how-tos to start walking me through the process of tightening up my writing.
I missed very busy Becca an awful lot there. On a writerly note, she can always — seemingly without effort — take her red pencil to anything I give her and make it a thousand times better. Whenever I get a piece back from her, I scroll through Word hitting “accept” as I move my mouse over her changes. She’s so damn good and generous with her abilities. On a friendly note, it would have been a thousand times more fun to have her there because she is wise and witty with a cut-to-the-chase way of conversation. I know how much everyone else would have loved her and that made me miss that she’s moved even though I didn’t get to see her all that much while she was here (or nearby here).
Oh well. Nostalgia.
Also I felt like some of the most knowledgable among us may not have had quite as many “aha” inspirational moments as the rest of us. I appreciated their presence all the more since maybe they left regretting the effort to get there.
Today I’m nursing a sore throat and making pumpkin cookies (recipe courtesy of Beanmom) and trying to clear out the mess we left on Friday. Noah dressed Madison so she is wearing yellow striped bottoms and a black striped top — he wanted her to look like a bumblebee. She does, too, all round and buzzy. She has added “too” (as in also) to her repetoire.
“Me cookie too!” she cries, clambering up into her highchair after spotting her brother swiping a cooling cookie off the rack.
The things she can say with her limited vocabulary astonishes me.
“Night moon?” she asked before nap. I was rocking her and she spotted the book in the reading basket next to our chair. “Night yady, hush. Moon too me.” (That last line to indicate that she wanted it read to her.)
At the retreat she wanted in Wilder’s carseat, which was enticingly hooked up to one of those stroller attachments to make it easy to run through an airport. Wilder was being rocked in it, tipped way back.
“Baby carseat whoa!” she told me. “Me carseat too! Poosh! No. Baby seep. Nah-nah.”
How clear she’s become! The baby is in the carseat, leaning way back, looking precarious to her toddler eyes. She wants in, too, and she wants to push that lovely, easy-rolling seat but understands that first comes the baby’s sleep. Night-night, baby!
She kisses things she loves — the dog, her brother, my knee, a cookie, a book, the rocking chair, the picture of J up on the bookshelf far out of reach, the window since it’s as close as she can get to the rain outside.
I’m feeling maudlin and lucky today.
What’s “Night yady”?
“good night, lady whispering hush,” right? the old lady in the corner who whispers hush?
can you tell I have read that book once or twice?
dawn, anyway you could share marjorie’s tips? I’d love to hear them.
Goodnight Moon.
We read that 47 kabillion times.
Nice, evocative piece.
What you wrote, not the Moon book so much.
wow, Madison’s talking leaves me open mouthed every time!! She’s pretty amazing! My sons love _Goodnight Moon_ and I do too…