Changed

After writing a week ago that I am generally better rested -- with some emotional complications dealing with my mother's dementia -- well, I am super tired today.

It was a combination of things. I got a cold. While I am on the upswing from that, it is not quite in the past. In addition, yesterday I spent some time sheet mulching.

In the best of times that turns me into the wimpiest weakling. Healing from a cold... and I am not even done yet. 

I gave myself permission to not do any more today, not just because of the cold but also because the forecast shows lightning. Who needs that?

(I do appreciate the rain, because thorough watering is important.)

Naturally, I am already behind schedule. Part of that is too many other things to do, but part of it is that it is much harder now to find old newspapers. There has not been a total switch to electronic media, but the change is significant. 

I am worried about how long it will take me to get the other spots laid out, and I am already confident that my initial ambitions will not be met. There will be no strawberries or potatoes this year, and we will still need some mowing. 

It is disappointing, but it is being realistic. I am not capable of doing everything that I want to do. That is true for a single day, and I have made progress by being more realistic about the individual days. There are still some things that have to drop off, even when looking at many days. Some things may fit in later, but some won't.

I can bear that because I have been able to drop (for the most part) the belief that not only should I be able to do everything, but that I must.

That is probably a big part of being able to feel less tired now overall; the responsibilities I took upon myself were ridiculous. That was mainly mental, because I was getting the things done that most needed to be done, but I was still being bugged by everything I could not do.

An accurate understanding of your abilities and what you can even control makes a huge difference.

Getting back to the paper, I mentioned last week that the "I want" and "I need" categories were exactly the same: money, love, and rest.

I am actually in a better place with all three of them, though they remain not completely resolved.

Let me bring up on more category with its entries:

I am ashamed...

• that I am fat.
• that I am poor.

The correlation between being poor and the need for money may be more obvious, but I promise you that I believed being fat had everything to do with not being loved.

I am still fat and still poor. 

Well, "poor" has a lot of nuance there. We could be worse off, I was worse off then, and there are definitely bills that will come due that need money to come in to pay them. I am mostly confident that it will work out, but there is enough uncertainty to keep things interesting. 

There are two things that help with both issues.

One of them is knowing what is not in my control.

It seems that this will require at least one other post.

1 play, 6 movies -- Black History Month 2024

Most of these I watched a while ago and really wanted to. 

Three of them were last minute additions, two of which I felt very critical of, but possibly unfairly.

The movies:

The Lovebirds (2020)

This one just looked like fun, and it was. 

I saw the trailer in the theaters, but ended up seeing it on Netflix, just seeing that I could. (That is how I ended up watching most of these.) It was nice because previously I had only seen Issa Rae in The Photograph (also 2020), which had not been fun (it was a romantic film, but very solemn and serious.). She is known for comedy, so I felt like I was missing out. Now I have seen her as President Barbie as well. 

Enjoyable, and actually some pretty realistic points about relationships.

42 (2013)

A little ponderous, but there is a good cast and it covers important material. 

There have been other media that told me more about Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, and baseball in general, but one of the really interesting and unexpected things here was the story of Wendell Smith, a Black sportswriter who faced similar obstacles and isolation to Robinson, with much less publicity.

Becoming (2020)

Behind in my viewing, I had not realized how many of these came out the same year.

Obviously you get more from the book, but this gives you the opportunity to hear from other people, the chance to observe her interacting, and a few fun surprises.

Rustin (2023)

This is where I started impulse watching and then not being sure that I was glad I had.

In this case, there were things that I worried they made worse than they needed to be for dramatic impact. That it is normal with movies -- you combine and compress -- but then I was not sure if they were making it less true. For some of the emotional things... he had been doing this for a long time by then, which doesn't mean it wasn't hard, but did they give you an accurate idea of Rustin himself?

Except... one thing they really drove home is how much work really good organizing takes, as they work out sound systems and latrines and food and temperatures and chartering buses and fundraising, all while dealing with the racism and the homophobia. (I don't think that was exaggerated.) There was so much, and while Rustin did not do it without help, he was amazing at it and a big part of motivating and instructing that help. Could they have pulled off the March on Washington without him? Maybe, but it would have been much harder.

American Symphony (2023)

Going over Jon Batiste's preparation for an upcoming symphony performance while also having an amazing year at the Grammy's and facing the recurrence of his wife's cancer. There is a lot going on.

I was not familiar with him before, and this was a good introduction.

It probably is also an indication that in my current space, I am happier with documentaries where you hear the voice of the subjects than historical features where you don't know how much is the screenwriter and crew.

Shirley (2024)

This is again one where I was not sure how well they were representing, and worried by that.

On one level, I felt like it was kind of portraying her as Bernie Sanders -- too honest and ornery to succeed, at least in getting elected president. However, in the text at the end they show her as an effective legislator, bringing forward a lot of legislation, so the comparison ends there. 

It did bring home how difficult campaigns can be, especially for family members.

The Play:

Seven Guitars 

Well, the August Wilson play debuted in 1995, but it's set in 1948, and I saw it in 2023. 

My eventual goal is to have seen Wilson's entire Pittsburgh Cycle. This put me at 30%. I will say that after some online searching trying to understand what was going on with the rooster, I understand some things about Fences better. There was no rooster in Fences, but getting some ideas into the symbolism made Troy Maxson's arc and the ending more clear.

Note: I did also see Origin this year -- which is super current for me -- but I think I will write about it at a  different time.

Limbo

I mentioned the different categories on the paper last week, but I did not mention that two of them were exactly alike.

I want..

• money
• love
• rest

I need...

• money
• love
• rest

I was so tired then. 

That is still a factor in our lives, but the difference is still notable.

When I was caregiving for Mom, I had an official diagnosis of "Caregiver Burnout" (which is still on my chart). I had never thought we would put her in a facility, but then it was what she needed, and it was right, but it still had a lot of hard emotions associated with it. Once she was gone, I immediately had to start job hunting, and that was a very discouraging process. 

I don't remember ever feeling good.

Going from another time of burnout (this time from the call center) to job hunting could easily have been terrible, but there have been differences.

I didn't have the same level of emotional attachment to my job as to my mother, so that can only help. I also gave myself a cushion so there could be some time to get into the job search slowly. Then, some really cool things have been happening. 

I feel pretty good.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/03/in-good-place.html

There is still a tiredness relating to Mom, and the whole household has that.

Currently, she has been in hospice since July, so that has been a while.

If we count back further, to when she went into the facility, or when she no longer remembered us, or when she could no longer be left alone... there is a long trail of discouraging milestones.

For the terminology that is used in psychological reading, you can always have grief, but mourning is part of healing, and that can't begin until the loss is done. 

I swear I remember someone referring to Alzheimer's as the never-ending death once, but that's not true; at some point it will end. The more accurate expression seems to be "the long goodbye".

We miss her, but there is a time when we will miss her more, or differently, and we don't know when that will happen, so it's just always hanging there.

There are still goof things that happen, and we have been blessed in a lot of ways, but there is also this one factor that is always there, dragging along behind.

 That won't get better until it gets worse.

Other works for younger readers -- Black History Month 2024

I wanted to go over a few more books, in a few more categories.

Picture Books that are not by Pinkneys:

Big by Vashti Harrison

Bedtime Bonnet by Nancy Redd, illustrated by Nneka Myers

Cape by Kevin Johnson, illustrated by Kitt Thomas

First of all, I cannot adequately express how beautiful and needed Big is.

Vashti Harrison has appeared before as the illustrator of Sulwe and Hair Love. She is a wonderful illustrator, but this is all her, written with sensitivity and love.

Cape is good for dealing with grief. It hurts, but for children who are hurting it may help.

Bedtime Bonnet is a fun book about a girl searching for her bonnet at bedtime. In the process, we see other ways of caring for hair, and get a laugh at the eventual location.

Longer Picture Books:

Curve & Flow: The Elegant Vision of L.A. Architect Paul R. Williams by Andrea J. Lonely, illustrated by Keith Mallett

I saw this at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, which incorporates some of Williams' work. He did more design in Los Angeles, but it would be easy to not know about him, and it is good to know anyway.

Swish! The Slam-Dunking, Alley-Ooping, High Flying Harlem Globetrotters by Suzanne Slade, illustrated by Don Tate

Even though I watched the cartoon, saw them visit Gilligan's Island, and even saw them live once as a kid, there was a lot that I never knew about the Harlem Globetrotters, including how long they had been around. I saw them live again a few months after reading this, and it gave me a greater appreciation.

Chapter Books:

Just Like Martin by Ossie Davis

I think this originally ended up on my reading list because there is an edition where Andrea Davis Pinkney did the foreword. That was not the edition I read, but it is a good treatment of non-violence and commitment, suitable for (probably) ages 10 and up.

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin 

Just Like Martin is historical fiction, but The Port Chicago 50 is non-fiction, and again, it is something that it would be easy not to know about, but that we should know about.

Comic Books:

Twins by Varian Johnson and Shannon Wright

As the older sister of twins, I may have felt the angst a little more here. Francine is trying to differentiate herself from Maureen, and Maureen takes it hard. Themes of finding yourself and growing up.

Run: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell, and L. Fury

I loved the March series, and John Lewis in general. This is a good book, but I can't help but feel the loss of the other two books that surely should have come if he had lived longer.

Cheer up; it may never happen!

In sorting through old things, I came upon something that I knew I needed to spend more time on.

I originally started using those big at-a-glace calendars because I liked that they could hold a lot of notes (maybe small drawings) and were easy to read. I later began liking them even more for those big empty back sides, which I would sometimes use more creatively.

I have one that I filled up with short statements.

The date on the front is July 2019. Based on what I wrote, it was definitely after October 2018 and before July 2020. I guess this was right in the middle.

When I say "filled", there are 70 statements, in groups starting with things like "I am sad...", "I am angry...", "I need..." and things like that. 

It's a good record of where I was at the time. 

I knew I wanted to capture it in my journal, but as I did that there was so much emotion and so much growth, that it is also getting at least one blog post.

The first thing that stands out is that the biggest category-- with 25 statements -- is "I am afraid":

• I am afraid that I will never get out of debt.
• I am afraid that we will go into foreclosure again.
• I am afraid that it will never get any better -- just sadness and drudgery from here on out.

A lot of them have to do with Mom, and were pretty specific:

• I am afraid that Mom will accidentally let Adele (our dog) out.
• I am afraid that Mom will take off without me knowing, maybe when I am in the shower or asleep.
• I am afraid that Mom will lock me out of the house when I go to get the mail.
• I am afraid that she will become non-verbal and be unhappy but won't be able to tell me.
• I am afraid that something will happen where I don't know what to do.

Therefore, the most wonderful thing about this is how much of it never happened.

I still think it was valuable going over it. Sometimes you need to get things out, and sometimes it is good to realize that you should never leave the house -- even just to go to the mailbox -- without taking keys.

Not everything is definitively resolved. I am not out of debt, I am not positive that I have not permanently damaged my health. While Biden did get elected I am not positive that democracy has fully recovered. (Not all of my fears were about Mom.)

I could still end up having to be a caretaker for other family members. Some of them have much worse personalities than Mom.

However, my friends are still my friends, I have been on vacations. While things were often difficult, Mom has stayed safe. 

I was always given clarity of thought on what needed to be done.

Even though the fear was real, it wasn't all I felt.

From other sections...

• I am grateful that we have made it this far.
• I trust that I will not injure Mom, or desert her, or do anything terrible.
  

Spotlight on Brian Pinkney: Black History Month 2024

I have reached another milestone in my attempts to read everything by the Pinkney family.

There is a lot here, even with all of his work that was already covered. 

I have broken it down into different categories for easier perusal. 

By himself:

Puppy Truck
Time For Kenny
Jojo's Flying Sidekick
The Adventures of Sparrowboy
On the Ball
Hey Otter! Hey Beaver!
Thumbelina
Hush, Little Baby

There are two main art styles that Pinkney switches between, and you can see both of them in this selection, and get an idea of how the different styles may serve different types of stories. 

Sparrowboy is done kind of comic book style, while still primarily being a picture book. That makes sense for the subject matter. 

Puppy Truck was surprisingly charming.

With Andrea Davis Pinkney:

Hey, Baby Girl!

I was confused that I had missed this, because it seems to fit in perfectly with the Bright Brown Baby books, but I forgot how recent they were. Hey, Baby Girl! came out in October 2023, months after I posted https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/06/spotlight-on-andrea-davis-pinkney.html.

What I will add is that even if your baby is not brown, these types of books -- loving and affirming -- are good. Even white babies will be helped, not harmed, but seeing this kind of representation.

With Robert D. San Souci:

Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella
Sukey and the Mermaid
The Boy and the Ghost
The Faithful Friend
Cut From the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend, and Tall Tales

I have mainly enjoyed these, but with his priority on being a folklorist, San Souci is often a bit wordy for children's books.

With Patricia McKissack:

Let's Clap, Jump, Sing and Shout: Dance, Spin, and Turn It Out!
The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural

I kind of associate McKissack with San Souci, though I think it is fair to call her more of a historian than a folklorist. Also, I like her writing better.

Other folklore:

The Ballad of Belle Dorcas by William H. Hooks
A Wave in Her Pocket: Stories from Trinidad by Lynn Joseph
The Elephant's Wrestling Match by Judy Sierra
The Story Teller by Derrick Gantt
In the Time of the Drums by Kim L. Siegelson
Busy-Busy Little Chick by Janice N. Harrington

I would probably recommend A Wave in Her Pocket and Busy-Busy Little Chick most out of this group.

History:

Jackie's Bat by Marybeth Lorbiecki
The Stone Lamp: Eight Stories of Hanukkah Through History by Karen Hesse
Happy Birthday Martin Luther King Jr. by Jean Marzolla
Harriet Tubman and Black History Month (Let's Celebrate) by Polly Carter
Julie Brown: Racing with the World by R.R. Knudsen

The last one may be questionable as "history" as this is a fairly recent athlete, but Julie Brown is a real person. I did not love her story, but that was more due to her coaches. Otherwise these are mostly fine, though none of them were my favorites.

For history, I find his work with Andrea to be more interesting. They make a good team.

With Carol Boston Weatherford:

Dreams for a Daughter
In Your Hands

Weatherford's writing is beautiful and inspirational.  

With music:

We Are One by Ysaye M. Barnwell
Little Diva by LaChanze
Hip-Hop Lollipop by Susan McElroy Monanari

Well, the last one does not have an official recording, but you can listen to it read aloud with a pretty good bass track, kind of like "Rapper's Delight":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhTTV6GjcIw&t=70s

There is also a similarly named song with Bootsy Collins and Fantaazma that I do not believe has any affiliation, but I also can't recommend it because to work in the lollipop they infantilize Fantaazma. Without being at all familiar with her, I think it sets a bad precedent.

With Maxine Rose Schur:

Day of Delight: A Jewish Sabbath in Ethiopia
When I Left My Village

The first book is an interesting account of a closely knit group and their communal Sabbath worship. That makes the disruption of the community by prejudice, governmental land changes, and necessary flight more heartbreaking.The protagonist's eventual arrival in Israel is supposed to be a happy resolution, but the displaced Ethopian Jews have historically faced prejudice in Israel as well, even without taking the current situation into account.

By Linda Sue Park:

Nya's Long Walk: One Step At a Time
A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story 

Pinkney did not illustrate the second book, which is a chapter book rather than a picture book. However, it was interesting to have the expanded story. We have another refugee story here, this time from Sudan.

Poetry Illustrations:

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, by Langston Hughes
The Lost Zoo, by Countee Cullen
Jump Back Honey: The Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, with Ashley Brian, Carole Byard, Jan Spivey Gilchrist, and Jerry Pinkney

Honestly The Lost Zoo was a little too silly/not lyrical enough for me, though when Cullen is describing his relationship with his cat it strikes a chord. The other two collections are better, and of course overall these are some really important poets.

Pathways:

Where Does the Trail Lead? by Burton Albert
A Walk in the Woods by Nikki Grimes, with Jerry Pinkney

If Where Does the Trail Lead? (which I enjoyed) fit anywhere else, I would have put A Walk in the Woods by itself. 

I might have classified it under "working with family", but of course we have Brian's work with Andrea (his wife) and he collaborates with Jerry (his father) on Jump Back. In addition, there will be a later spotlight (next year) on work with his mother, Gloria Jean Pinkney. (Jerry will get his own spotlight then too.)

However, this one is different, and hits hard. 

Grimes was originally working on the book with Jerry Pinkney, who had completed the sketches but not added color when he died. Brian finished his father's work, and he finished it on a book about a boy grieving the loss of his father. 

It hurts but it is ultimately beautiful.

Plodding along

About a month later, I am no longer giddy. 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/03/in-good-place.html

I am not unhappy, but the euphoria has worn off. 

Part of this is that every thing I do seems to lead to more things to do. Sometimes there is a lot of hurry up and wait.

I had indicated this before, but I had a long list of jobs and programs that I wanted to look into, even before I quit.

Now I am doing that, but of course if you look into one program, and then you apply, you may have to wait for your application to be examined, or submit other materials.

Also, while I have not applied for that many jobs yet, I am getting a few rejections. They were expected, so that is not terrible, but that's why I'm not giddy.

I am guided by that long list.

Every Sunday I create a set of goals for the coming week. Then, each morning I figure out what things should be done today. (I will sometimes sort that out before I go to bed as well.)

I am getting a little better at setting realistic goals, but I am still not the most patient person.

This is the thing that is cool, though, and the reason I am sharing it.

A long list of things to do could be something that would weigh me down. If I did not have time to work at it, it would.

Instead, it is acting more like ballast. 

Why isn't something happening? Well, you still haven't done these things, Gina. In fact, there are some key things you won't get to until next week, and there are some important things for the week after that.

That is keeping me fairly well aligned, and that is helpful.

Plus, all the bills for this month are paid, we are well-stocked on groceries, and I take time to lay down with cats every day.

Those things really help, but so do achievable goals!

Spotlight on Amanda Gorman: Black History Month 2024

I had gotten out of the habit of reading poetry with these months, but this time around it occurred to me to read through Amanda Gorman.

Now, if I look at her Wikipedia entry there is some other work listed, but this was all I could find in books:

The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country

Call Us What We Carry: Poems

Something, Someday (illustrated by Christian Robinson)

Change Sings: A Children's Anthem (illustrated by Loren Long)

I suspect that her other work may have appeared in literary magazines and student publications, so may not be too easy to locate.

What I found I enjoyed a lot.

I want to focus on Call Us What We Carry. 

If felt very much like a part of student work, but not because of the quality level. The quality was amazing.

As it was, the different sections played with different formats, and there were classical allusions but also bits of history and science. It reminded me of that mix of being a college student with so much information available all around you.

It was invigorating.

At the same time, it was a record of the pandemic, and the grief and fear that went with that.

It was emotional, and I felt that, but then what stuck with me was the ability to pull from so many sources and combine them into new, interesting, and evocative forms.

Gorman is incredibly skilled and so young that it is wonderful to think that we could have her and new work from her for many years. 

Opening up

Recently I wrote about noticing people having unmet needs for talking:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/03/shortcuts-in-speech.html 

I have a lot of sympathy for that, but there was something else recently that gave me some trepidation:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15307068/ 

The Mother of All Lies is a 2023 Moroccan film that recently played at the Cascade Festival of African Films. 

The film is not linear.  

In 1981, heavy price increases for basic food supplies led to the Casablanca Bread Riots, which inspired a heavy government crackdown. The official government death toll was 66, but the opposition reported 637, which seems more likely.

To protect that lie, bodies were taken and dumped in a mass grave, buried over and locked away. 

One thing that aided the government's ability to tell their lie is that there is only one known photograph, and it doesn't show much.

The movie starts with a much simpler lie. When she was a child, director and narrator Asmae ElMoudir wondered why there were no pictures of her. Her mother said there was and brought her a photo, but it was a photo of three strangers.

Later it turns out that her mother stole that photo from the school, so her daughter would have something. There were no photos because grandmother (Asmae's mother's mother-in-law) forbade them. 

One early segment of the film reenacts young Asmae sneaking out and getting a photo taken and hiding it, the only photo of her when young.

From what we know at that point, Grandma is an old bag -- that is made clear early on -- and there is a nasty scene of her calling Asmae's mother a thief and a liar. The mother doesn't even deny those words, just repeating that it's her daughter and she will tell her what she wants. When her mother sees the picture Asmae took all those years ago, she commends her. "Good for you."

Still later we learn that the grandmother was married when she was twelve and gave birth to twins, who died shortly after having their photo taken.

Some rules about idolatry can seem to forbid photos of humans, but most people don't interpret them that way, perhaps unless the worst happens.

For Asmae, at the time she felt like with no photos you have no history. One can see how she got into film. 

As we go over national and family history, the re-enactments are done with little clay figures in a small replica of the neighborhood. Asmae's trip to the photographer happened there, but so did the Bread Riots, the subsequent arrests, and the disappearances.

Being in the space away from home (at home the walls have ears) and having those visual reminders -- to jog the memory but also to provide some distance -- is how Asmae gets her family members and two of their neighbors to talk about what happened. 

You would hope that over forty years later there would be no fear in talking about it, but even with a memorial, there are still protesters trying to get more information. They wave photos of their dead. One woman cannot get her sister declared dead unless she affirms that she died of natural causes. 

Using toys or drawings or other ways to get at trauma is not unknown, but the area where I started to get nervous was as people did start talking about the events, and how much it hurt them. One wished he were dead. 

They were struggling as they faced these memories, and I worried for them; were they gong to be okay?

There is so much more in the movie than that, but that was when I was most alarmed. Could they bear up under facing that past and speaking their pain?

I remember a period in my life when I felt so fragile that a kind word would have shattered me into a million pieces. I was just trying to hold it together.

And yet, in that non-linear film, it did seem that everyone was a bit lighter after they came out on the other side, including Grandma.

It can be okay, but it can be a messy process getting there. 

There can be a lot of drama that does not result in healing, but sometimes the only way to healing is through mess.

We need to be able to make space for that.