Beverly Cleary

I just read a fantastic article about the author of the "Ramona" books. She graduated from the University of Washington (so did I!) so she was profiled in their "Columns" magazine. The article was about her life, her writing, her family. They spoke of her life during the Great Depression where she could get 2 Ritz Crackers and tea for 2 cents that she looked forward to. She was living on $35 a month. Even with inflation that can't be much! It terrifies me to think of life in a depression and I can only pray that our economy takes a turn for the best.

Reading about her life, she wrote about sitting and writing in a rainstorm and it brought back a flood of memories. Do you feel like your life has "compartments?" I do. Like I am cruising along happy in this little world that is mine and then WHAM I'm mentally back to my days as a child laying under our glass coffee tables imagining I am walking on the ceiling. Back to the pool and back to gymnastics- being afraid and brave all at once. Feeling the intensity of the physical exertion of treading water or the perfection of feeling and knowing you did the vault correctly. I remember my written first story about an elephant and my brother's insanely beautifully illustrated books.

I still have a binder of stories. I spent so many hours filling my mind with ideas and could barely contain myself getting them onto paper. I wrote about kids my own age. With hoards of siblings. And I don't think I was ever the oldest (though I am in real life). I would write their names, ages and interests in a list. Names were always fun for me. I remember writing lists from the Baby Name books when I babysat for my own writing! The kids in my stories walked around in houses that had floorplans that I had to draw alongside the story. Guess somewhere along the line I decided I'd rather do architecture than writing. Reading that passage about Beverly Cleary really brought back those feelings of writing again in such an enjoyable way I had to share. And I loved the Ramona books. Not so much the Henry books , the ones about the Mice or Dear Mr. Henshaw. But Ramona and Beezus, I even had the PBS series on tape that I used to watch over and over.

Sigh, life is sweet. So many things to experience. I like to picture all these little life events becoming a tiny piece of who I am and indirectly becoming a piece of what I am as a mother.