Tag: reading

The Tortoise and The Hare

Rachel AnnLeave a comment

The original story was told by Aesop. I can recall listening to my parents read it to me at around age seven or eight. If I close my eyes and concentrate I can see the shiny red dust jacket of the book, the gold embossed lettering on the paper that reflects the reading lamp. Here I am four decades later and I’m still thinking about this tale. That is why we so lovingly refer to it as a classic. 

When you read this title, what does it make you think of? The slow and steady tortoise, or the zippy zany hare racing across a meadow? I would say that in life, I have been a combination of these two characters; even at times now, well into adulthood. I find myself connecting situations to the dilemma that these two protagonists face. Parenthood has forced me to lean into my art as the tortoise. I have relearned how to move in my body, stand, sit, walk, roll from side to side with the growth, birth, postpartum experiences I was graced to carry for four years. Life is not a race kid, get in line and keep going. My father spoke wise words to me when he would repeat the following phrases, “Half of life is showing up, so show up and see what happens kiddo.” “I’ve learned that most people fall into two categories, those that do the work, and those that take the credit, line up for work one kiddo, it’s always shorter.”

For the last six years I have slowly plugged away as a writer. I don’t want to write that I was a “part time writer,” for a little over two years, because when is anyone working as part time anything? But, I digress. I enjoyed writing for two companies, one more than the other. The research component was mainly my favorite, the editing part was laborious and taught me a lot about being succinct and thoughtful when choosing the language in which I delivered information. My background as an educator for thirteen years led me to focus on writing article submissions for children’s magazines. I will admit that out of countless applications I received one potential second interview and a silly rhyming story. Invariably I received a decline and polite thank you for my submission. Here’s the thing though, I still get in line for work. I don’t focus solely on placing my eggs into one basket though. Instead, I created my own baskets. In 2021 I wrote bits and pieces of a story that would slowly unfurl like the leaves on the trees we watch transform in spring. A middle grade fantasy novel emerged from countless hours of walking around the neighborhood with a baby strapped to my chest and a toddler on a balance bike at my feet. Tread on, keep going I whispered to myself. The tortoise pace was difficult for me to settle into, but I got up and tried each day. 

After a twelve week journey with Julia Cameron’s book, The Artists Way, I set forth in 2023 to write a novel. After a very special trip to New York to see friends and family I found inspiration in the city. I told myself that if I wrote 500-1000 words per day, I could get a novel completed in roughly one year’s time. I can honestly write and say that I achieved that goal. The editing process did not come any easier with rereading that manuscript. At the end of the year I had a few more ideas, but I felt my creativity begin to wither. It took a couple seasons of Earth’s rotations before I was ready to commit to a new novel idea. This time I veered away from historical fiction and decided to venture into contemporary romance. Is the process still tortoise certified? Absolutely. I am about half way through this newest writing endeavor and every day it is equally challenging and rewarding to show up and be the scribe for the characters in my imagination. 

Why do I write all of this? 

Today I received an email that sparked a thread of hope for sharing my voice, my writing, and this journey that began as a seed when I was a child, and began to grow with each piece I was brave enough to write. Putting pen to paper, typing the words, and just getting it out as imperfectly as possible has been the constant reminder that I repeat to myself. If you’d like to continue to read my work, please consider re-sharing it on Facebook or sending it to your friends to read and share, and “subscribing,” without any payment necessary on my substack here:

https://substack.com/@singrah02

I will continue to share my writing here for a time, but I will be moving over to substack within the next year.

Thank you.

Turning the page

Rachel AnnLeave a comment

Turning the pages had become a sacred time for me, it was my form of reclaiming my time while a tiny human sustained life at my breast. I’d never really considered reading my “me” time until I was grappling at finding myself again after four straight years of growing, birthing, feeding, and recovering from two pregnancies I had fought for. 

Turning the pages of a book I found my way back to myself. I had lost the tethered rope I had once had to literature after I watched my sister, the gorgeous librarian slip away at the end of 2015 from a long battle with cancer. I went through a few years where I’d pick up a book, and I’d start crying. I couldn’t read and enjoy a book any longer in the way that I had before her death. Who did I have to share this with? Who would blog about the lovely end pages, the feeling of turning a page and knowing that a book world was on the other side of the page. I would begin books and stop fifteen pages in, tread my way through ones for work, and build stacks on my night stand set on a permanent to be read status. 

That was until, 2018, something clicked, while holding a nursing infant, I rekindled my love for literature. A reader and a baby were born at once on that rainy March day. I would quietly turn the pages, watching my son’s eye lashes flicker, tiny fists of fingers twitching as a book binding creaked. We found our way book by book, and page by page together. We covered picture books, nonfiction, novels, and poetry. I began a silent ritual of cracking open any book, be it for a child, or an adult by examining the copyright information first. I’d sit and ponder, “Did she read this one?” if I found a gem written before 2016 I’d be left with a crack of light spilling into my heart. I’d spin a web of questions I’d share with her, did you recommend this one in your blog? Did you know the author? What did you think of their work? What about the story arc? Did the characters meet your expectations? The questions would flood in, and I’d find myself talking to a ghost who lived in my mind. Never before had the copyright page felt like such a force field to be reckoned with. Now, ten years have spanned between losing my sister and the pages of a book feel more like a welcome friend I can turn to again and again instead of a proverbial question mark, inked with everything I desired to share.

I multiplied my parental experience by two after the birth of my second child amidst a global pandemic, coinciding with my “one year leave” from my thirteen years as an educator. My career pause turned into six years of leave and here I am today. I’m holding a new book, the pages are blank awaiting the voices of my future students I’ll soon meet, waiting for their stories, their hills to be climbed, their triumphs and their laughter to fill the pages on this next chapter. One quote from 2012 that sticks with me to this day remains unmatched by the ten year old voice who gasped, “You know Ms. B, sweat is just your fat crying.” A true gem of a human, a rough hewn edge of a tough outer shell that when broken open reveals a crystallized wonder. If only magic could be stored in a bottle. I guess that is why we write and read, isn’t it?

At times it has felt as though I could close my eyes and wave to the woman I was in 2019. This version of myself that had decided to turn away from teaching for what she thought would be a one year pause. The books that had been my leaning tower of unread TBR’s slowly but surely became my connection point to the world. One book at a time I found myself tying the knot of connection to the reader I had been and the woman I was becoming. Each page turned provided a rekindling between the written world and my open wound.

I once saw a visual image of what grief could look like if visualized, a tiny figure standing by a boulder, cut to the next spread where the boulder was now a large rock being held in their hand, next to it was a rock fit into the palm of their hand, and last, a pebble that was slid into the pocket of their jeans. I couldn’t have described it any better if I had tried. There was something about the image of holding onto the pebble of my grief and turning the pages of a book that slowly nurtured my soul. 

I’ve found myself, between the pages of many books, and here I am again. The summer of 2026 on the precipice of beginning teacher life again and where do I turn to? My classroom books of course! All ten boxes of them, stored on the high rafter shelves of my garage. My kind husband teeters on the ladder handing down each one with care as we laugh about how many times we moved these same boxes throughout my career. I rekindled my relationships with my books once again. Relationship? Perhaps that sounds bizarre, but it is what it is. I reopened each box, reviewed their contents, checked copyright dates, organized, piled, and reboxed until I had neat stacks. My books are ready for reading. They are ready for smaller hands to hold them. Turn their pages. Discuss their contents, wrestle with the characters, and debate about their viewpoints. Willing and excited to be between chapters in my own story. Here I am, on the flip side of life’s decisions, a smattering of writing work over the years, two humans grown into children, and a door re-opening on an education career. The lyrics from Natasha Bedingfield’s song play on repeat in my mind these days, “The rest is still unwritten.”

Meeting a Hero

Rachel Ann

Meeting a hero this winter…

When I was a little girl I was blessed with the best possible momma, sister, and daddy. I thought that they all walked on air from the time I was old enough to understand until today.  What you don’t realize as a child are all the little details we fixate on as adults. These are the things that make or break relationships in today’s world, and yet, why must we concern ourselves with things that are mere trifles in the grand scheme of life and the world.

What I was blessed with the most was a house hold that valued reading.

I was read to from womb until I left the house at age eighteen.

My father told me stories of his childhood at bed time, he read to me from the chapter books I selected as a pre-teen and continually read every book I was reading into high school.

My mother fostered a love for literature from infancy. I loved being read to by both of my parents and my sister. Those were some of the most vivid memories I can still feel when I slip into my mind’s eye today. The feeling of swinging in my mother’s skirt while holding the pages of the book up so she could read to me about Peter Rabbit or Benjamin Bunny.

While covered in chicken pox, facing another round of bronchitis at the age of six my sister waltzed into our folks bedroom and presented from behind her back, “Rescue Rangers,” the story of two brave little mice that save another fellow creature and jewel. I can still see her smile, tumbles of curls spilling over her shoulder while saying in a passing breath, “Here you can pass the time reading this with me, and you’ll soon look like this, once again,” as she passed my framed school photograph from the year before. Ha! Just what you want to be told when you feel like the creature from the blue lagoon.

Why share all of these strings of connectivity and literature?

Tonight I met a heroine of ours, my mom’s, my sister’s and mine. Patricia Polacco. Her book, “Mrs. Katz and Tush,” was a beloved favorite that I chose often at bedtime. I remember reading it to my nephew upon a sleep over occasion. We’ll have to revisit it sometime soon. Hearing her candid words about her youth, her learning disabilities, and her remarkable family, friends, and neighbors brought tears to my eyes this evening.

Happy tears.

Tears that made me smile, and nod, and spring forth a new well of emotions within me. Especially when she described her fourteenth year of life. The year that her deepest, darkest fear came to light, and a teacher reached out a hand to help guide her towards climbing a hurtle she had always felt was so formidable. The fear that she could not read.

She went on to describe Mr. Falker, who was really Mr. Felker in her junior high classroom in California.

I was brought back to my second grade year when my amazing mother said, “I’ve had enough of this not reading and not doing anything about it with your current school, we’re doing something now.” My mother researched, and read, and found a program at a private school that had major results for children with dyslexia.

I was the child in the classroom that had a keen ability to hear, see, and listen.  I memorized text. I repeated it, I evaded being called upon. I stumbled through the sounding out of words. I was being educated in the “whole language” classroom environment, and nothing clicked with phonics and phonemic awareness. I saw shapes, and negative space when told to sound out the word. It was not until the moment when with repeated practice, isolation of words into boxed in shape I could recognize these shapes as letters, then digraphs, and vowel combinations. Finally the sounds and the letters connected.

Patricia spoke of the moment when she finally made sense of the negative spaces that surrounded these “letters,” and the feeling of elation that followed. Realizing that a whole new world had opened up to her.

I can recall the first library chapter book I read that felt, I liken to climbing Everest. I had the best parents in the world. The most patient, supportive, and loving humans. They provided me with the tools for knowledge and they put in the work that needed to be done with me in order for my goals to be achieved. Without that reading program, Mrs. Lau, and my parents, I would not be a teacher today. I am not quite sure where I would be. But I do know that I wrote to my third grade teacher every year of my public school education. Every few years I send her a letter, and I receive a card in reply. When I graduated with my masters degree in teaching, the first person I wrote to after my sister, was Mrs. Lau, my third grade teacher. The woman who taught me how to read, and helped me make sense of the puzzle pieces that I finally knew where to place.

Thank you Patricia Polacco for sharing your stories all these years. I met you once in 1997 at the Lusac Public Library in Anchorage, Alaska. I can still see your face, your bun, and the back drop of the maroon curtains behind you in the basement hall. Life has a funny way of coming full circle. Tonight I showed you my book, signed by you in 1997, and I thanked you for doing what you do. Your stories have been read to every single class of mine every year. Each year before I read aloud her stories, especially in the winter months, I tell my students the following:

“I’m going to share with you one of my heroes. Now, this hero is an author. This author helped me feel like I was not alone. When I was a little girl I could not read, until third grade. Patricia Polacco’s words, her family, and her stories are one of my greatest joys to share in life, and now, I will introduce you to her work.”

You might wonder what the children think of her work? I’ll leave you with one word: riveted.

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