Should we tell her about it?
Now, what SHOULD we do?
Well . . .
What would YOU do
If your mother asked YOU?
                                             from The Cat in the Hat
                                written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss
                                                  Random House, 1957

I can do anything with a big ball of string!
                                          from A Big Ball of String
                          written and illustrated by Marion Holland
                             Beginner Books/Random House, 1958

​…Come, Boy, sit down.
Sit down and rest.”
And the boy did.
And the tree was happy.
                                             from The Giving Tree
                       written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein
                                      HarperCollinsPublishers, 1964

“Little girl, I curse you with my family’s curse! You will never be happy again!”
But
it turned out she was.
                                                  from Extra Yarn
                                          written by Mac Barnett
                                         illustrated by Joh Klassen
                   Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins Publishers, 2012


Now Mr. Tiger felt free to be himself.
And so did everyone else.
from Mr. Tiger Goes Wild
written and illustrated by Peter Brown
Little, Brown and Company, 2013


Time to cut yourself a slice. It’s going to be tough to choose, but don’t worry about getting the perfect one. Every slice of the universe is the best slice.


How could it not be? It’s ours.
from How to Bake a Universe
written by Alec Carvlin
illustrated by Brian Biggs
Norton Young Readers, 2022


    And so at the end of the calendar, I begin with endings. Since I have so many favorite picture books, I pulled several from my bookshelf, well all but one, anyway. I’ll leave it for you to guess which one* is from my local library.
    Besides their variations on a happy ending, even Mac Barnett’s Extra Yarn, they all end with a nod to the future. 
    Dr. Seuss left his readers with a literal question. One that started a controversy about parental authority (in my day) and racism today. For the record, the book encourages children to think about their actions and what kinds of behaviors are acceptable. Also, it is not racist, at least not intentionally. People make meaning from what they read and experience. That is perception. It is not Truth. 
    What new inventions will the exuberant narrator find for a big ball of string?
    We’re left wondering about Shel Silverstein’s Tree. Was she really happy?
     Will Annabelle keep knitting until the whole town is snug and warm? Then maybe her country and maybe the world? The universe?
    What will Mr. Tiger’s and his friends’ freedom look like?
    How will we treat our wonderful universe?        
    So, is every ending the chance for a new and different beginning? By the end of a successful story (novel, play, movie, or even a well-written biography) the main character has discovered how to navigate this wild, unpredictable world and has gained a new perspective. That is not to say that every story has a happy ending. Far from it. Sometimes resignation can turn into acceptance: how things are, how they’ve turned out. Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman is one example. There are many others. But even that is not all. It’s up to us, the readers, the imaginers, the planners, the do-ers to continue our stories. To discover the real, the possible.
    Several years ago, an insightful and wise rabbi gave a sermon that connected what our text of the week was with what was going on in our world. I don’t remember how long ago I heard it or even the “current event” he referenced, but the image he drew for us was not the  circle of life that Simba in The Lion King made so famous, but a cyclical life as a spiral. What if we travel, instead of around and around on a flat plane, we also travel higher and higher in a spiral? We will return to each point on our spiral-shaped cycle on a different level, with a different perspective. 
    Even when our journeys send us traveling lower and lower like Willy Loman, or even on a combination of highs and lows like an emotional roller-coaster, our cyclical, spiral journey implies no beginning, no end, just change. 
    And in the end, change is all there is.  
—be curious! (and gain a new perspective)


FB: Closing the door on 2022 feels pretty good in many ways. No crystal balls here, but a peek into 2023 feels pretty good, too.

    “Oh, I love them both,” beamed Sophie. “Both have lights and songs and special foods and presents, and what I like best is we all celebrate together.”
                                  from Eight Candles and a Tree
                                 written by Simone Bloom Nathan
                                       illustrated by Brian Barber
                                        Beaver’s Pond Press, 2014
   
    I read somewhere recently that Americans celebrate fourteen different Winter holidays. That’s a lot, for sure! When I started verifying that statement, I found, well, not that many. Each holiday is different, but all have something in common. 
    First of all, the word holiday can be traced back to about 1200 CE, to Old English haligdæg, holy day. It was used to designate a variety of consecrated days including the Sabbath. One hundred years later, the meaning had broadened to include both a religious festival and a day to pause from work and recreation. By the mid 15th century, the phrase happy holidays, when used in British English, included summer vacation from school. And in American English the Christmastime greeting was popularized in 1937, in Camel cigarette ads, of all places. (etymonline.com)
    According to a a Pew Research poll from a few years ago, 90% of Americans celebrated Christmas, and only half of those who celebrated considered the religious aspects of the holiday. Most Americans say Christmas is a cultural holiday, and that number seems to be increasing.
    So what do the other 10% celebrate? Even though only about 2% of the American population identifies as Jewish, Hanukkah (with all its various transliterated spellings!) is probably the next best known. It begins at sundown on the 15th day of Kislev every year. The celebration, a re-dedication of faith, commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after it was desecrated by the Syrian Greeks in 164 BCE. 
    Practicing Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha on the 10th day of Dhul-Hijjah, the twelfth and final month of their lunar calendar. During Eid al-Adha, Muslims celebrate Abraham’s (Ibrahim’s) obedience to Gd (Allah) by preparing his son for sacrifice. Of course we all know how that story ends. Jews study the same story during the High Holy Days, Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur. 
    While Hanukkah and Eid al-Adha occur on the same day of their respective calendars, they correspond to different days of the Gregorian calendar. The new moon begins a new month on both the Hebrew and the Muslim calendars. Muslim holy days travel around the Gregorian calendar according to the number of days in each lunar month. The Hebrew calendar compensates for the fewer number of days in a lunar year by using a complicated formula to add a leap month when necessary to keep the months in sync with the seasons. This is not to say one calendar system is better than another, only that they are different.
    The custom of Yuletide goes back to the old Winter Solstice festivals first celebrated in Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe. Winter Solstice acknowledges the day with the least number of daylight hours and celebrates the sun’s return as each day gains more and more light.
    Diwali was originally a Hindu holy day. Now Jains and Sikhs and some Buddhists celebrate, too. Also called the Festival of Lights, lit candles represent the triumph of our inner light. 
    A relatively recent African-American cultural holiday is Kwanzaa. Beginning right after Christmas, a candle representing an African family- or social-value, is lit. Day by day, like the Jewish Hannukkia, the Kinara grows brighter with each new candle. Lightness and all it symbolizes: learning; knowledge; truth; wins over darkness and all it symbolizes: ignorance; lies; fear; every time.
    Whether we light candles or light colorful bulbs, whether the light comes from a Yule log, the returning sun itself, or each person’s inner glow, every day brings its own reason to celebrate. Whether we say our prayers in Latin, English, Gaelic, Arabic, Hindi, or Swahili, Americans throughout our beautiful country pray for the potential of peace. 
    During these darkest days of the calendars we use to mark time, let’s all strive to bring light to each other and ourselves.
    Happy holidays! Cheers for the immutable human spirit! 
      -—be curious (and find someone to love, yourself included!)

    (I never say “yes”—just “yeah,” all drawn out and slow like molasses, as Mrs. Semba, the librarian, described it. That’s one reason I sound so American. That, and I know a lot of slang.)
from It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel
by Firoozeh Dumas
Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2016


    Although Mom was not a grammarian in the formal sense, she spoke distinctly, purposefully, and correctly. And encouraged us to, too. My impeccable grammar was useful in elementary school where I consistently aced grammar tests. When kids asked me how I knew the correct answers, I always told the truth. It sounded right. It mostly still does. 
    Rules abound in the study of grammar and its sibling, linguistics. Most rules help make our speech and writing clear, understandable. Sometimes, even though a phrase sounds cringe-worthy to me, it doesn’t affect the meaning. Lots of people use the subjective case when their subject is plural like “Ron and I.” Here’s an example: “Frances watched a movie with Ron and I.” Oh! That really does make my skin crawl. The same person would never say Frances watched a movie with I. “Ron and me” is correct. It’s the object of the preposition “with.”
    It’s an over-correction, I get it. Like little kids say “I grew two new tooth-es” when they’re learning to speak. Teeth is irregular. Over-corrections are common and understandable. We’re told so many times in our Language Arts or English grammar class to use “I,” that many people over-correct and only use “I,” even when me is correct.
    Not all grammar comes easily to me. I still have to look up lay/lie, farther/further, and less/fewer. Does it all really matter? Well, yes, sometimes. In everyday conversation? No.
    So, why isn’t ain’t accepted as standard English? Languages evolve. Words are added, especially in new technology fields and meteorology. Unused and irrelevant words are lost or replaced. Sometimes words combine to create something new. Here's a whole list of portmanteaus, words like chortle made from chuckle and snort, or brunch, from breakfast and lunch. Does anyone call a 4:00 meal lupper? or maybe linner? Dunch?
    Ain’t has been referred to as the most stigmatized word in the English language. But in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was perfectly acceptable, even among the nobility. It was during Dickens’s popularity that the stigma began. His common and low-class characters used ain’t. Because of Dickens’s rock-star status, his words and usage gained their own status: standard speech. Ain’t fell out of favor. Who wanted to sound like a low-life Dickens character?
    Why ain’t is so stigmatized today is controversial, though. Most dictionaries and style manual consider ain’t non-standard unless the speaker/writer is using it for emphasis. Most public speakers only use it for attention, like an underline or bold print. 
    The controversy stems from the difference between prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. Both are useful. Prescriptive grammar rules became prevalent in the 1800s. An increase in written communication, Webster’s first dictionary that promoted spelling conformity, and a rise in university attendance all worked together to be promote “correct” and “standard” language usage. Descriptive rules are more a function of sociology. Their purpose is to record how people speak and write. The correctness is in the recording, not in the communication itself.
    In parts of Great Britain, ain’t is perfectly acceptable. It is used as a contraction for the negative form of “am I.” Since English tends to avoid two nasal sounds placed closely together, the m from “am” and the n from “not” did NOT come together for form amn’t I, but instead, the m fell away and formed “an’t I.” With time, “ain’t I.”
    Writers like ain’t, especially lyricists. It adds color to their writing. For example
        “Ain’t it the truth?” the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.
        “Ain’t I a woman?”  Sojourner Truth
        “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.” Bill Withers
        “Ain’t too proud to beg” The Temptations
        “Ain’t gonna rain no more” commonly attributed to Wendell Hall
        “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” The Hollies
        “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Bachman–Turner Overdrive


    So use ain’t, if you want. It’s a real word. It’s a useful and efficient negative contraction of every state-of-being verb: am, are, was, had, been… plus a singular or plural pronoun. I ain’t kidding!
    Incidentally,
    When I spoke to my daughter on her way to work this morning, I told her about the four deer I saw gallop through my yard. Wait. What? Do deer gallop? I found a list of animals that gallop on Wild Explained. Those on the list use a three-step gait like a horse. Alas, deer are not on that list. They do gallop, though. They use a rotary style of movement. The difference is pretty muscularly scientific and the videos went by pretty fast. I might come back to this if I can find something in slo-mo. Ooh! a portmanteau!
Be curious! (and love language)


FB: Although I haven’t deleted my Twitter account, I haven’t posted my blog there for several weeks. If you find me here on FaceBook, please let me know. I’ll keep posting if you keep reading! Have a great week!




    

    … if you don’t specifically say This piece of land can never be used for anything but enjoying nature, it will eventually turn into a Dunkin-Donuts, a car dealership, or a nail salon.
    Not many people visit the preserve…It’s one huge chunk of beautiful land…[with] woods surrounding it all.
                              from The First Rule of Climate Club
                                         written by Carry Firestone
                 G. P. Putnam’s Sons/Penguin Random House, 2022

    Two weeks ago 198 nations met in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss Climate Change. You might remember The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015. Or the Kyoto Protocol, its precursor. 
    As early as 1992, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recognized the need to pay attention to our environment and made plans to slow the rate of change. The participating governments agreed “that mobilizing stronger and more ambitious climate action is urgently required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.” UNFCCC 
    Several countries on the global stage did not send their leaders: Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Turkey, China, and Russia. Indonesia, one of the most vulnerable countries, sent its Vice-President.
    The participating countries reaffirmed their commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The goal was the target of the Paris Agreement.
    Scientists say that allowing the global temperature to rise only 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times (1850-1900) will avert the worst calamities brought about by a warming earth. The United Nations established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 to provide a framework for measuring climate change. It defines terms like “pre-industrial” and standardizes tools to measure not only Earth’s overall temperature, but what progress is being made in carbon-emission reductions, or not, and how close we’re getting to the 1.5 degree threshold. As of 2017, Earth has warmed one degree.
    Our Earth is large and multi-faceted. When climate scientists describe 1.5, glaciers and glacier-melt combine with equatorial deserts and tropical forests to provide an average. According to NASA, “the strongest warming is happening in the Arctic during its cool seasons, and in Earth’s mid-latitude regions during the warm season.” Some areas are more vulnerable than others. Some island-nations are already experiencing catastrophic conditions.    
    Even we in the United States are not immune to hurricanes, tornadoes, record snowfall, droughts, and wildfires. 
    At 1.5, NASA projects that 14% of Earth’s population will be exposed to heatwaves at least once every five years. Early this past September, 2022, the western US saw a massive heat dome that fueled wildfires, stressed the power grid, and caused death. 
    At 1.5, sea-levels will continue to rise, given the rate of glacial melt, although the rise will be slower if we reduce our carbon emissions. The inevitable increase in acidification of the oceans will be slower, too, if oceans absorb less carbon.
    Maybe the best news for our shared world was the announcement of the new Loss and Damage Funding. It will provide money to vulnerable countries already experiencing climate catastrophes. Pledges totaling more than 230 million US Dollars were made to the Adaptation Fund. The Funding Committee is scheduled to meet in March, 2023, and a report will be considered at COP28 next year.
    Known as the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, at least four to six trillion US Dollars per year ($4,000,000,000,000.00 - $6,000,000,000,000.00) are required. That’s a lot of money. Where it will come from is still being determined. 
    All countries have obligations to their citizens. All governments need to protect their own economies. All leaders need to balance the needs of the individual with society as a whole.
    But the only way we citizens of the world can help stabilize our world is to convince our leaders to work together. COP27 is a step in the right direction.
               -—be curious! (and show Mother Earth your love)