A Silly Ode to October

I know the calendar says it's the month of October but there have been days when it has felt as though it were July. 

When it feels like summer I am definitely one happy camper!!  It's all I can do to stop myself from driving to the beach!!  But then there are the shorter days when it now gets dark earlier and earlier and that is difficult for me to deal with.  It's really a downer to come out of work at the end of the day and it's dark already.

Autumn may not be one of my favorite times of the year but there are a few things about October that make me smile.  And when I smile, I relax and breath deeper, which in turn releases any physical tension I may be feeling.  Here goes:

-- Sweet childhood memories.  As a child, one of my favorite things to do was to shuffle my fee through the piles of leaves and collect the leaves that had turned color and fallen to ground.  I would take the leaves home and press them between pieces of waxed paper with a warm iron.  Moving the leaves around on the waxed paper, I would create different designs and when I found the one I wanted I would place another piece of waxed paper on top of the leaves (the waxed sides facing each other inside so that they can melt together) and slowly press the iron moving it over the veins and stems of the yellow, red and orange leaves.

 

I hope young children still get involved in crafty projects of this sort but probably not, right?  I'm not even sure that children still make their own Halloween costumes anymore but I'm hoping that they do!  I remember many times when my siblings and I just went into our closets and put costumes together for trick or treating and we always made a mess but had a lot of fun!

-- Pumpkins!  I love the pumpkin flavor plus I love actual pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.  Warm pumpkin pie is hard to resist and one of my favorite muffins is a pumpkin muffin full of cinnamon and nutmeg.  So yummy! 

Have you checked out what is going on with decorating pumpkins?  People are now painting them white, silver, gold and black and decorating them with circles and other groovy designs.  Pumpkins are not just for Halloween anymore!  I've seen them as decorations as weddings and centerpieces at gala dinners.  Use your imagination.  Since October is dedicated to celebrating the medical strides made towards fighting breast cancer, you could paint your pumpkin pink!

--Every month has its own personality and when award-winning children's book author (Where The Wild Things Are) Maurice Sendak wrote Chicken Soup with Rice A Book of Months, he made up a silly rhyming story for each month.  Here is Sendak's short ode to the month October: 

 

In October I’ll be host to witches, goblins, and a ghost.

I’ll serve them chicken soup on toast.

Whoopy once, whoopy twice, whoopy chicken soup with rice.

 

My attitude is the game changer in creating a happy and fulfilling life whether it's October or July. 

October is a month filled with possibilities.  I have no idea what great things could happen next to you or to me.  

 

Let's stay open to the positive and see what happens!!





Hey, hey! It's the month of May!

Love this silly and light poem! Celebrate May Day!

 

 

 

MAY

 

By Maurice Sendak
 

In May I think it truly best
 

to be a robin lightly dressed
 

concocting soup inside my nest
 

Mix it once, mix it twice,
 

mix that Chicken soup with rice.
 

 

 

Revisiting Maurice Sendak

 

 

 

 

Maurice Sendak is known as an internationally renowned prize-winning children's book author and illustrator but he also has a message for adults too.

 

When children read his most famous book, "Where The Wild Things Are," they run around and play as if they are monsters, just like the ones in Sendak's book.  Spontaneously and instantly, children enter Sendak's world with love and abandon.

 

Adults may want to join the children in their play but their "adultness" sometimes holds them back.  "Oh, that's a child's book" or "I can't play like that" or "I shouldn't play like that" are some of the many things adults think after reading Sendak's book.

 

But Sendak's message to adults is one that children get right away: Say "I can" not "I can't."

 

One of my son's great friends sent this YouTube video to me so that I could share it with my readers.

 

It is a touching interview that NPR's Terry Gross did with Maurice Sendak near the end of his rich life.  Sadly, Sendak died last May at the age of 83 from complications of a stroke. (http://crylaughheal.blogspot.com/2012/05/maurice-sendaks-night-kitchen.html

 

In this wonderful NPR interview, Sendak talks about "the creative man" but more importantly he poignantly addresses aging and what life feels like for him at this stage.

 

To me, Sendak's message is short and sweet: Live your life!, Live your life!, Live your life!

 

Please click on the above to have a listen and watch the accompanying "wild" illustrations of artist Christoph Niemann.

Maurice Sendak's Night Kitchen

Is there anything more innocent than holding your child in your lap and reading them a book?

The emailed news alert yesterday announcing that Maurice Sendak, 83, had died of a stroke immediately made me think of that cherished time many, many years ago when my wiggly young son would sit in my lap and I would read book after book to him. 

Maurice Sendak will forever be known as the author and illustrator of his signature award-winning children's book, "Where The Wild Things Are," but in our household we knew Maurice Sendak for his other award-winning book, "In The Night Kitchen."

How many times did I read this silly, wonderful book to my son?  Over and over, we would go into  Mickey's dark bedroom and fall through the floor with him into the light of the night kitchen where the fat mustached bakers would mix, chant and stir until they put together a "Mickey cake" which was ready to be cooked in the oven.  But suddenly as the bakers open the oven door, Mickey pokes through the dough and tells the bakers, "I'm not the milk and the milk's not me! I'm Mickey!"

My son loved Sendak's large and topsy turvy drawings of Mickey flying in the kitchen in an airplane he pounded together with dough and also the idea of having cake for breakfast!

Maurice Sendak broke new ground in children's literature for the children in his stories didn't behave themselves and were always in magical worlds that didn't involve adults.  Here is what Maurice Sendak said in an interview about the fan mail he received from children:

"A little boy... sent me a charming card with a little drawing. I loved it. I answer all my children's letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, "Dear Jim: I loved your card." Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, "Jim loved your card so much he ate it." That to me was one of the highest compliments I've ever received. He didn't care that it was an original drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it."

Don't you love it?  Capturing children's imaginations is a tricky business and few authors did it as powerfully as Maurice Sendak!