Saturday, August 10, 2013

Another Reason Procrastination Can Be Awesome! How Avoiding Dreaded FORMS Led To Discovery Of Magical Musings On Reading by my M, First Grade Poet, by Allison

So as a reward to myself for slogging through FORMS,
 and calendars and volleyball practice schedules,
 and dance rehearsal schedules and play performance nights,
 and the trillion other nightmare organizational horrors,
 that are exponentially breeding in piles around me,

I decide to do fun stuff I like instead.

I love it when I decide that as a plan of action, it is always fun.

Giant purple headphones on, first item on Agenda of Fun:
Plot band shows,
scribble scrabbled on envelope since it seemed to work last year -

And yay whee there is some cool music I have scribble scrabbled.

I hope I do not lose that envelope amongst health FORMS and registrations.

And that was a delightful bit of procrastination.

Or reward for trying pathetically to figure out how to get which girl where when how.
That is something I really, really am horrible at doing.
Need Intern. Maybe several.

But as I am attempting to turn over new leaf and not lose my mind over FORMS,
I go back to the piles of FORMS to give it another go;
before I can procrastinate some more.

But the piles and FORMS had multiplied while I wrote up my concert schedule for the fall.
And I cannot deal.

Clearly, I need to procrastinate a little bit longer.

So next item on Agenda of Fun:
I am reading more of M the seven year old stylist's journal she kept during school in the first grade.

I love that thing and I read it in little bits, to savor it.
And am keeping it as emergency in case of FORM insanity or such.

I read, cried, wrote, and was flabbergasted by the awesome of her journal entry on music a bit ago(http://www.iwantanintern.com/2013/06/i-am-speechless-and-mostly-wordless.html) -
because it totally ruled,
and to see how music affects her and how gorgeously she, at age seven, can express that was like, bestest thing ever ever.

I kind of didn't want to read the whole journal at once because after the music entry,
I was so joyful and whee yay tra la la,
I didn't want the next entry to be like "Why Can't My Mom Fill Out FORMS?" or worse.

But mostly,
I save reading it for emergency situations like aforementioned FORMS overload,
or Kindle revolt resulting in me not having my books and driving me batty (http://www.iwantanintern.com/2013/07/what-nourishes-me-destroys-me-or.html )
so M's journal to the rescue!

And tonight, as I am still having Kindle war,
and newly acquired stack of actual books are hanging out like eager understudies, ready so I don't suffer through a no reading nightmare while traitor Kindles decide who is the boss of them.
(For the record, the answer to that question is always Allison,  you better give her her books, Kindles.)

I find a journal entry M the seven year old stylist wrote in the middle of first grade.

About her love of reading.

This kid is killing me here.
This journal entry is joining her music one as Bestest Thing Ever Ever Ever, Ever.

M, first grader, on reading:
With picture of a book drawn above.



Reading is . . .

Penguins in the desert.

Mysterious, like an ice cream cone that doesn't melt.

Maybe an ocean without fish.

A forest without trees.

Could be a school with no teachers.

And that's what reading is.



How in the world she can capture the feeling of entering a different world when you are reading?

How it takes you outside of yourself, transports you?

Sigh. I totally don't even need a book or a cooperative Kindle.

Am going to read and re-read M's journal.

No FORMS in this lovely journal, and as celebration of the inventive and expansive mind of M the seven year old stylist, I am totally not looking at those tedious FORMS.

Am writing an Ode to M instead.