Skipping Town

Friday, October 3 Big day in the Littell house, with Taylor Swift's new release dropping at midnight Thursday night. The kids stayed up for it, making friendship bracelets and listening to the new album in the basement (I was asleep). Friday night, the girls and I drove to the Waterfront to see the Life of a Showgirl behind-the-scenes documentary. We had dinner at Bravo then went to the theater, where they traded a couple of friendship bracelets--they were so excited at this tiny nod back to the Eras Tour.  My life was an absolute horror show during that concert, and most of that weekend is a blur that I've pretty much repressed, but I will always be glad we made that concert happen despite it all. Just one of many experiences that I will not let this curse take away from us. Saturday, October 4 Lucia caught a bus at school at 7am to go out to Ohio for the Legends XC meet, and Greta and I hit the road not long after. This was an enormous meet at a big fairgrounds in Cortland, a...

This morning, I came across an article in Slate featuring the top 25 picture books over the past 25 years. The article was partly in response to an old article in the NYT about how picture books were no longer a vital part of children's lives, how children's books were dead, etc etc. Articles like that always surprise me, because picture books were such a crucial part of my kids' childhood that I can honestly say the books I selected and read to them made them who they are. We read together for hours each day. We had books for each season and holiday, and a new selection of books every summer that we read only on the porch. A couple of the books from this Slate list are in our own library; but our favorites are generally not the type of book that would make an appearance on a list like this. (For example: the incredibly odd and somewhat disturbing Three Little Horses.) Recently, Greta and I dug through all of our picture books, pulling out our very favorites. This task was ...

Greta had a XC race on Tuesday in Schenley, a very low-stakes race with just three schools. She came in seventh. Tuesday also involved XC practice for Lucia, piano lessons for both kids, then Lucia's tutoring.  Wednesday was October 1! The start of my favorite month, and it finally was just cool enough to feel like fall. Of course, October inspires, and it's time to reshare my favorite poem, "A Vagabond Song" by Bliss Carman, which I heard for the first time when I was sixteen years old and which, a quarter-century later, offered the gift of a title and epigraph for my first novel: A Vagabond Song There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood— Touch of manner, hint of mood; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time. The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by. And my lonely spirit thrills To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills. There is something in October sets the gy...