Later that same day in gym class, Coach Caterpillar decided to start the year with a weight-lifting competition to test everyone’s strength. Eugene knew he wouldn’t be the strongest bug in class, but he hoped to be somewhere in the middle where he could blend in and go unnoticed.
 
                         from: Super Fly: The World’s Smallest Superhero!
                                      by Todd H. Doodler (AKA Todd Goldman)
                                           Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2015
 
       I like predictability. I like days when I can stay in my pjs. I like my 5 on a 10-scale life. Is something wrong with that? I don’t think so, but everywhere you turn, there is another superhero to emulate.
       Some people love the spotlight. Some people like to be in charge. Some people enjoy making decisions. And some people like to blend in and go unnoticed.
       Now, don’t get me wrong. I am probably not an extremely boring person. But I’m not adventurous, either. I like to read and talk with interesting people. I like to think up new ideas of my own. But I enjoy quiet days when I can watch my flowers grow.
       I remember one time my mom and dad were getting ready for parent-teacher conferences. I was in third grade and having a difficult time. I asked my mom if she could please tell my teacher that I didn’t like it when our days were out of order. She always taught all the subjects, but sometimes we had math first, sometimes reading, and sometimes something else. My mom told me she’d bring it up. Well, she must have, because my teacher (who was a good teacher) announced a schedule the next morning. And she stuck to it. I don’t think I was the only third-grader who felt relieved.
       I like order but I’ve been struggling with it since I retired several years ago. Even though my work schedule varied from day to day and week to week, I knew ahead of time whether I worked morning or evening. I could plan. Now, seems like if I manage to get a plan in mind, and I’ve planned my days (in my mind) many, many times, something worms in (maybe I invite it) to re-order or refocus my intentions.
       When I worked, I never used a calendar for my personal life. I went to work, I came home and if something out of the ordinary came up, I could remember it. Now, every day is unlike the one before. No day is ordinary. I feel like I’m back in third grade! I know part of the problem is my distractibility. My wish to do something productive is usually fighting with my real knack for putting off doing that productive thing until tomorrow.
       Predictability and order may be two sides of the same coin. Motivation can conquer fear disguised as laziness. Internal drive can conquer the desire to smell the roses that someone else planted. I guess the real questions are: What is important? and How do I show I care? Or maybe too much thinking is my biggest distraction.
       Just Do It! will be my mantra this week.      
 
My new favorite book (for grown-ups) is The Story of Arthur Truluv
by Elizabeth Berg.
(Random House, 2017)
                                                                   --stay curious!
        

the
creatures
shine with
stardust,
they’re
splashed
with
morning
dew.
in song and dance
and stillness,
they share the world
with you.
                                                          from Step Gently Out
                                                                  by Helen Frost
                                                   photographs by Rick Lieder
                                                         Candlewick Press, 2012
 
       In William Wordsworth’s sonnet “The World is Too Much With Us,” he is railing against (and grieving for) the state of the world due to overconsumption. He wrote and published that poem in the early 1800s. Here we are 200 years later, and not too much has changed.
       I’m as guilty as the rest of us, blithely blogging away, writing sometimes when it is dark, so (needlessly) consuming extra electricity. Using plastic because it is convenient (but I draw the line at Styrofoam). Wasting water. I always mean to catch the cold water as I let it run to hot for a shower or the dishes, but I forget until it is too late.
       I try to be responsible. My coffee is fair-trade, purchased from a local health food store. I recycle my newspapers (and everything else my recycler will take away). I compost my kitchen and yard scraps and use it in the garden. But I know I could do more.
       This Spring, and, sure as shootin’, Spring is coming, I’ll plant for Mother Nature. Dahlias and snapdragons for the bees, sunflowers for the birds, and I know something (oh! I hope that groundhog doesn’t come back) will probably get into my lettuces.
       I don’t plant a big garden. Besides the lettuces, just grape tomatoes in a pot, some herbs in a raised bed, and an experiment or two. One year I tried Brussels sprouts. I had a bumper crop that I harvested by flashlight when I got home from work. I rinsed them and broke them off the stalk and popped them into boiling water. That was a success! But the cucumbers never got any bigger than my little finger. The garlic failed to thrive. The peas blossomed, but didn’t produce. I planted those for their flowers anyway, so we were all happy enough.
       One year, my mom planted a row of strawberries alongside the garage. The blossoms came and we couldn’t wait for those ripe, juicy berries. The birds always beat us to them, though. I don’t remember eating even one strawberry from Mom’s crop. Last year, I planted my own strawberries in a pot. I covered them with flexible screening. The birds can help themselves to the feeder-food out front (and the sunflowers, if they grow). My strawberries are mine!    
       So when I get overwhelmed by feeling the world is too much with me, and I know I will, I’ll try to remember to  breathe deeply, sit quietly in my garden, and think of William Wordsworth, whose cure for all society’s ills is a closer relationship with Nature.
                                                                   --stay curious!
 

          [Mr. Scary] got the world globe off the shelf. And he asked me to carry it around to showvthe children.
          I stopped at each desk.
          “Whoa!” said Roger. “Hawaii looks like a bunch of little dots floating in the ocean.”
          I nodded. “I know it, Roger,” I said. “But my mother said the dots are bigger in person.”
                   from: Junie B. Jones first Grader at Last: Aloha Ha Ha
                                                               by Barbara Park
                                                  illustrated by Denise Brunkus
                                       Random House Children’s Books, 2006
 
       There’s supposed to be something poetic about April snow, but my daffodils and I are impatient for Spring. And while the temperature here in Ohio is about 20 degrees below normal, in Hilo, Hawai’i, it’s sunny and in the low to mid 80’s. Just right for the Merrie Monarch Festival.
        The festival ran from April 4 through 7, 2018, in Hilo, Hawai’i. It began in 1968, but didn’t gather steam until 1972, when a committee was formed to “gather the best hula dancers from all the islands, showcase Hawaiian artistry, and create a performance to serve as a rite, a celebration, a statement about Hawai’i and its people.” http://www.merriemonarch.com/history-of-the-festival/ The result was a new appreciation for Hawaiian culture among Hawaiians themselves, and the rest of the world, too.
       The festival honors King David Kalākaua, who reigned over the Hawaiian kingdom from 1874 until his death in 1891. He is best known as the “Merrie Monarch.” His name was inspired by the king’s love of music, parties, and fine food and drinks, but he is remembered most for being the king who brought pride back to the Hawaiian people. During his reign, King Kalākaua successfully restored Hawaiian cultural practices and traditions that had been suppressed for decades. Teaching Hawaiian children their native language and encouraging the continuation of cultural traditions, to me at least, sounds pretty fabulous.
       As Americans, we’re pretty big on assimilation. We aren’t very good at allowing Native or Immigrant communities to hold onto their traditions and culture, whether they were here first, or if they came here looking for freedom of one kind or another, or if they were brought here by force and didn’t experience freedom until the Emancipation Proclamation. (Even now, there’s a lot of work to do about that.)
       I am a third generation American. Both of my parents were born in the U. S. and all four of my grandparents were not.
       When I was little, I begged my great-grandmother and my grandfather to teach me some Russian words. My grandfather came to this country when he was 17. My gram was a little older. They both told me they didn’t remember any of their language. But, they all spoke Yiddish, a combination of German, Hebrew, and English, and used that to speak of things we kids were not supposed to know about. Consequently, we all learned a little Yiddish, but Russian? Nyet.
       I always suspected they knew more than they would tell me. After all, how can you forget a whole language?
       According to King Kalākaua, “Hula is the language of the heart and therefore the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people.” So whether you call it vesna (Russian transliteration) or waipuna (Hawaiian), I’m ready for Spring!
                                                     --stay (warm and) curious!
 
       

       I snuggle into her. “Yeah,” I say, “but sometimes we’re together too close. It makes me feel all jangly inside. That’s why I wanted my own private little place.”
                                        . . .
       “I’d have my own door and everything,” I say. Even Casey doesn’t have his own door!”
                                                               from: Private Lily
                                                                 by Sally Warner
                                               illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers
                                                           Alfred A. Knopf, 1998
 
       Like most little girls, I kept a diary. It was small and white with flowers on the cover. It had a little lock and a little key that I hid in my underwear drawer. I wrote about how unfair it was that I couldn’t have a pet with fur or feathers. We only kept fish and turtles. Or how my sister and I were tasked with after-dinner kitchen-duty and my brother got to watch Gilligan’s Island or Mr. Ed. or My Favorite Martian. Or why I had to wear ankle socks when the rest of the girls were allowed to wear knee-socks. I’ll probably never understand that one.
       Some people are closed books. They don’t share anything of themselves with anyone. Does this stem from having a fearful personality? Is it egocentric? Maybe a pervasive sense of cautiousness? The reason really doesn’t matter. The fact that privacy has come into the front of our collective consciousness does.
       When I decided to be “out there” I wanted social media sites to help me reconnect with friends I have lost track of. I wanted a webmaster to help me stay in touch with people who are important to me. I wanted technology to help me tell the world, “Hey, I’m here!”
        I did not want anyone to gather and send information to people and entities I don’t even know.
       Here’s what happens: I want my friends to know I found this great new restaurant (clothing store, nail salon, car mechanic. . .) So I hit a “like” button, or even maybe make a comment about the place. Suddenly, unasked for, an endless stream of ads pop up begging me to try delectable hamburgers or view swim suits or buy non-electronic kids’ toys.
       I understand. Nothing is really free. I pay for using the internet by spending some time deleting ads (or ignoring them) from companies that help pay for Yahoo and Google and Amazon. Have you read their privacy policies? Hmmm. Made sure your privacy is as protected as it can be?
       Privacy matters to me now, because my trust has been betrayed. I did not expect my tech choices to be shared with governments, domestic or foreign. Benign or malicious. Apathetic or hyper-engaged.
       I’ll be the first to admit that I depend on technology, a little. I sometimes buy stuff. I research information I’m interested in or that I think will help flesh out a piece I’m writing. I sometimes play games.
       It’s when an on-line service or company thinks it can discover my personal taste or choices or interests that I feel a little queasy.
       I’m not doing anything wrong, so why does “what’s out there” matter? The fact that someone (something) else can turn my blips and dots of information into something to use against my government is very disturbing.
       I’ll stay on Facebook, at least for now. I have a Twitter account, too. (Thanks, Ray!) but haven't started using it, yet. Besides, I like to see what you’re up to, too!
                                                   --stay curious! (and careful)
                                                      www.ShariDellaPenna.com