I’m captive on Joni Mitchel’s carousel of time.

“We can’t return/we can only look behind from where we came/ and go round and round and round in the circle game…” she wrote.

I used to sing that song loudly, with extra emphasis on the repeated round and round and round.  Now I seem to just be going round, going through the motions, but without the song. I miss that music, but I dread it, too. For me, music makes everything faster.  And I am captive on this carousel. I feel it ticking as it turns and would so like to get off. There is much I want to do, to see, to experience, to accomplish. I don’t want it to proceed in three-quarter time. It’s fast enough now–too fast. Maybe, once upon a time I believed the ticking clock hands where merely marking time. Now I feel those hands closing, squeezing together, pushing time out like toothpaste from a tube. Day to day, round and round, every beginning the same: get up and go through the brush, wash, rinse, tone, make-up, dress routine followed by the same water with lime, coffee, cereal while I check e-mail routine. So, what? …should we stop the carousel? Remove the batteries? Unplug it? And if we succeed, what then?

“…and the seasons they go round and round/the painted ponies go up and down…”

Neighhhhhhhh.

“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any other exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.”–Henry David Thoreau* (1817-1862)

Thoreau and others like him are why we push forward with our writing, dig for the better idea, the best conclusion, the most surprising and satisfying endings. They, too, are why we suffer through revisions–including hurtful critiques and difficult rewrites. We must strive to create our best work so readers will have something worthy of their steady intention.

Those of us writing for children must try even harder. Writers of adult literature create for an audience already committed to the “noble exercise.” Childrens’ authors, however, must convince young people that learning to read well enough “to read true books in a true spirit”  is worth the rigorous training.

*Henry David Thoreau’s given name was David Henry Thoreau. Figures that he was a writer; his father was a pencil maker.

Dance, Y’all, Dance Teacher’s Guides and Activity sheets are now available for your enjoyment on my website. You’ll find them by clicking on the Activities Tab. Including!

Published by Bright Sky Press, 11-2009

Dance, Y’all, Dance Texas Teacher’s Guide, created by author, teacher, creative goddess, fellow VC grad and hostess of the Simple Saturday Craft Days (which are grand fun for everyone!), Debbie Gonzales!

Dance, Y’all Dance puzzles, mazes, word searches of varying difficulties so children of all ages can enjoy them, created by author, poet and puzzle diva Doris Fisher

Dance, Y’all, Dance Teacher’s Guide–Even More To Explore, created by Author and Literary Specialist Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. Tracie has a grand website with interviews for writers, book reviews for readers and Teaching Guides to hundreds of books, from picture books (Including Not Norman, Spider Spins a Story, and Sherlick Hound and the Valentine Mystery) to young adult which are created especially with teachers and book clubs/groups.