It has been a fun and busy summer. I taught 4 creative writing classes for kids in the vibrant Oak Park Arts District Summer Camp. It was a joyous time! My favorite moments: Seeing one student gripped by her imagination and shaking from the excitement of the Story that was unfolding on the Page. Helping one young writer realize first drafts can be messy – very liberating. Listening to my five, six, and seven year old students play djembe and xylophone and read a poem full of sound words (onomatopoeia) they had invented. Zimbitty-zimbitty! Boom-boom!

The wild ride continues this fall. From Oct 1 – Nov 19, I’m offering a Taleblazers class called Audacious Authors (Ages 7-11), a facilitated writing group for kids who love writing. Saturdays, 2:15 – 3:45 p.m. Writing games, skits, role-plays, and examples of how professional writers play with and edit their own pieces. Encouragement, fun, and a gentle approach. Kids can come scribble & play with words! It’s a supportive way for young authors to stretch their wings. For more info and to register, go to www.thetaleblazers.com

Questions? Drop me an email at: msmg@thetaleblazers.com. Or ring me at: (708) 317-TALE.

With joy,

Mary Grace

(aka Ms. M.G.)

Mabuhay! Live!

Mary Grace

Chicago artist Sallie Wolf’s charming children’s book The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound (Charlesbridge, 2010) invites kids to get to know some of their noisiest neighbors – the birds! Young readers meet hungry baby starlings, strutting seagulls, a great horned owl, ruby red cardinals in the snow, and, of course, a laughing robin. The book’s design, by Micah Bornstein, is awesome. You feel like you’re standing right inside one of Sallie’s journals: warm water-colors, sketches, playful poetry, nature observations, and bird lists. She beautifully brings together her passion for birds and journaling. Great for kids 8 to 108.

Here’s what Sallie Wolf had to say about The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound, writing, birding, laughing robins, and getting to know the world through your own eyes:

MGB: First things first: What is a birder?

SW: Good question. A birder is someone who is interested in birds, especially someone who watches the birds he or she sees outdoors. Some birders maintain feeders in their yards to encourage birds to come closer. Some birders make field trips to special places to see birds in their habitats—bald eagles along the Mississippi, or a trip to see Sandhill Cranes, for example.

MGB: What is fun about bird-watching? Why do you do it?

SW: When I moved from the East Coast to the Chicago area I moved from a semi-rural suburban setting with remnant woods and farms, winding roads, and hills to a flat, urban grid. Bird-watching in Chicago became a way of making Chicago and the Midwest my home. I put feeders in my back yard and I had goldfinches and chickadees and cardinals in the wintertime as well as the migrants passing through in the spring and fall. Birds became more and more important to me, reminding me that even in an extremely urban setting, Nature is at work. We are a part of Nature, no matter how we alter the environment.

MGB: How do you recommend someone start out bird-watching? Do you need special equipment to become a birder?

SW: The more you pay attention, the more birds you will find–in parks, sitting on wires, perched on chimneys or rooftops, pecking along the edge of the road, feeding in yards. If you put up a bird feeder and keep it supplied with bird seed you will attract more birds, though not necessarily more different kinds of birds. I have tons of house sparrows that eat me out of house and home. As I’ve altered my garden to include more native plants I’ve improved the diversity of birds in my yard.

As you get more interested in birding you may want to buy a pair of binoculars to help you see birds who are too shy to come out in the open. A good field guide, such as the Peterson Field Guide, is helpful for learning to identify birds. I like to keep track of what birds I see in my journal, compiling a list each day. I do this to become familiar with what birds I might expect to see at what time of year.

MGB: What species can families look for in the Midwest?

SW: There are quite a few species in the Midwest, depending on the time of year and the habitat around you. Cardinals, crows, blue jays, starlings, pigeons, house sparrows, mourning doves have adapted to urban and suburban living quite well and are found year round. Gulls and Canada geese are also common. If there are big trees and some planted areas, chickadees and woodpeckers can be found. Other summer nesters are cat birds, chimney swifts, chipping sparrows, Coopers hawks, grackles, and many others. The spring migration brings a wide variety of warblers, sparrows, thrushes, and all sorts of birds moving through the Midwest. The junco comes to the Chicago area in the winter from its nesting areas in the far north and on mountain tops. There are hundreds of different species to be found in the Midwest if you know when and where to look.

MGB: What’s your favorite bird to watch? Why?

SW: This is almost like asking, “Which of your children do you like best?” But there are certain birds which I get a real kick out of. I love the juncos which come in the winter. They are very beautiful birds in an austere grey and white way–very elegant coloring. I also love the robins. They are the first bird I learned to identify. They signal that spring is really coming. They have a pretty song and interesting calls, such as the laughing sound which inspired the title of my book. Their eggs are a beautiful blue.

MGB: The Robin Makes A Laughing Sound shows journal entries where you’re trying to identify birds. How can you tell birds apart? What do you look for?

SW: It is helpful to learn which birds are likely to be in your area at which time. I learn this from looking at bird lists handed out by the Audubon Society or the Arboretum, some museums, or the Botanical Gardens. I also talk to other birders about what they are seeing. Size and silhouette are key to identifying birds. Is it bigger than a robin? Bigger than a crow? Small, like a sparrow?

Then you look for the most distinguishing marks–is the breast clear or striped? Does it have any stripes on its head or around its eye? Does it have wing bars? I’ll make a note of any identifying marks–a patch of white, a pattern of stripes on the head—and maybe sketch the bird in my journal. That helps me remember what I saw and sometimes I am able to figure out its name long after I saw it.

MGB: Your journal is full of questions like: “Do owls migrate?” and “where do birds sleep at night?” and “who made that sound?” Did you get answers to your questions?

SW: I may be better at asking questions than answering them. I checked the Peterson Field Guide to find out if owls migrate. The answer is some do and some don’t. I’m still not sure where birds sleep at night, once the eggs have hatched and the babies have left the nest. And as to who made that sound–I think it turned out to be a squirrel scolding me.

MGB: Your artwork shows a lot of birds and phases of the moon. How does observing nature inspire your creativity?

SW: One effect of drawing from observation is that my eyes get sharper and sharper at picking out details. I see things differently now than I did before I began to draw. I hope I am building a stronger visual memory. Before there were photographs, copying machines, TVs, and computers, before books were plentiful, drawing was the best way to convey what something looked like, and people’s visual memories were much stronger than today.

Another inspiration I get from nature has to do with color. Insects, birds, sea shells, fish, animals, and flowers have the most amazing color combinations. I have always been attracted to color and I love to observe and paint the patterns I see in Nature.

MGB: Some artists say that when they draw something, they “know” it better. Writers often feel the same way. How does drawing and journaling about birds make you feel and think about them?

SW: Over time I’ve begun to recognize shifts in behavior, so that not only can I recognize a bird, but I’m becoming tuned in to its life cycle—this must be courting behavior; or, I bet it has a nest and babies nearby; or, these birds are gathering together to migrate soon. My drawing and writing, my close observation, have taught me to trust my instincts. I can teach myself a lot just by paying close attention and spending time looking with my own eyes. I do not need a book or the internet to tell me everything.

MGB: Is there anything special you’d like readers to know about your work?

SW: I hope that when readers look at my book, The Robin Makes A Laughing Sound, their response will be something like, “I can do that!” Better still, maybe they’ll say, “I want to do that!” You can draw what you see and care about–it doesn’t have to be birds. You can make observations about what you are interested in. You can spend time letting your words and drawings grow in your journals. I have been drawing the same things over and over again for a long period of time. Just the way you get better and better at riding a bike the more you practice, you also get better and better at drawing, better and better at writing, better and better at seeing, even. It is the practice, not the end product, that is of value.

MGB: One final question: The title of your book is The Robin Makes A Laughing Sound. What is that sound?

SW: Oooh–I wish I could write that sound. I can’t even make that sound. I was walking home one day and heard this noise. I stopped, looked up, searched a tree until I found the bird, a robin, which was making the sound. And then as I continued on my walk I began to think how could I describe that sound? It makes me think of my neighbor’s guinea pigs, the little, not quite squeaky sound they make. It makes me think of the word chuckle. Chortle? It is a quiet, subdued, repeated sound, not a song, not a whistle, that robins make to alert other birds.

As I walked I discovered the first line of the poem — “The robin makes a laughing sound.” The rhythm of that line matches the rhythm of my walking gait. I continued to compose the poem all the way home.

MGB: Thanks, Sallie, for your time, your art, and for sharing your birding and journaling tips!

Illustrations © 2010 by Sallie Wolf from The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound.

It’s taking a while to get back into the F L O W of home…though it is lovely to be someplace where I have mastery over the language!

But I came home to the August 2010 issue of Our Own Voice, a literary ezine of the Filipino diaspora. This special issue was edited by the dynamic Leny Strobel, director of the Center for Babaylan Studies and by OOV editor Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto, poet of the exquisite. It is dedicated to exploring and celebrating babaylans, indigenous Filipino healers and shamans. The zine’s frontis piece took my breath away.

One of my own pieces, “Honoring Our Ancestors,” is included in this issue. (Note: It is not for the squeamish; I am unabashed about the mysticism. Read at your own risk.) I share my experience of attending the First International Babaylan Conference which happened last April. But, more importantly, the piece is about the tradition of staying connected to those who have gone before us. Mine is only one voice in this chorus, this chant. I am privileged to be in such company, especially Frances Santiago’s “Pintada,” M. Evelina Galang’s Lola Amonita Balajadia and the Counselors of Light,” and Leny’s From the Editors Laptop column. Check out the issue! (And if you do, try reading while listening to Grace Nono’s song “Panangpit.”)

Now that I’m back, there’ll be more coming in the blog…particularly around art that celebrates nature and encourages us all to connect…

Mabuhay, live,

Mary Grace

ABC News reported that there were 215,000 Chicagoans without power this morning. I’ll tell you how we spent our evening. We’re one of the suburbs just west of Chicago. It was a very quiet night. With no electricity, there wasn’t the hum of the fridge or the roar of central air. I came inside and my husband had lit all the candles and wall sconces he could find in our teeny brick bungalow. It struck me…I’m so used to the noises inside my house — the whir of the laptops — it’s sort of a relief to hear the quiet in our home.

I pulled our boy outside with his harp thinking that our neighborhood might enjoy a little home-made music. So he sat in his jammies jammin on his harp. *lol* Our awesome next-door-neighbors came over and B. played his silver trumpet. A duet of trumpet and harp, two boys adding peace to the ragged edges of the storm. They played a little “Paruparong Bukid” (Filipino folk song), “Star Wars”, “A Whole New World”, and did a sweet duet of “Twinkle-twinkle Little Star”.

It was nice to hang out with our neighbors on our front stoop, enjoying our boys, and their music. Don’t get me wrong. I did worry about whether the lack of our sump-pump would flood our basement or if the food in the fridge would all go bad and whether the the temperatures would soar the next day leaving us trapped in an pressure-cooker of a house.

But the aftermath of the storm brought its pleasures, too. The quiet of the night. The boys’ music. Conversation with neighbors. A certain relaxed pace. I fell asleep to the voices of the men next door trying to figure out if they could get the garage door up and working.

Best line I heard yesterday, hands down, came from two boys cruising our hood on foot to take in the devastation:

Boy #1: “Whoooaaa! Look at that!” (He points to our neighbor’s house engulfed in tree limbs.)

Boy #2: “Told you. It’s better’n'cable!”

See what can happen when we’re unplugged?

~ MGB

But it was one mean storm. When we arrived home, ten minutes later, here is what we saw:

Two major trees fell on our street

Transformer knocked out by a fallen branch

A branch shatters our neighbor's window

This used to be a streetlamp - top knocked off

Our neighbor's house engulfed by a fallen tree

On our street, everyone is okay. It’s amazing what 10 minutes of nature’s power can unleash. One neighbor had heard that the winds downtown were going at 75 m.p.h. Some saw the transformer spark and explode in our alley. The power is out for several blocks around us — but not in our house or the one next door. (So I have to post this fast before ComEd closes the lines completely to get them back up.) Another friend down the street saw branches flying through the air and heard the sound of trees ripping in half. (Poor trees!)

The beautiful thing is that everyone came outside to check on each other. I love the Midwest for its neighborliness and kindness. It’s good to see that everyone is okay. There’s a bulldozer outside, and police lines & officers guarding to keep people away from the live wires. That’s it for now…hoping everyone is home and cozy…

p.s.

My boy was worried about “our babies”, the seedlings in the veg garden. Gotta love it. Yes, the “babies” are okay. I checked.

If you feel moved to do so, text 20222 to donate $10 to the National Wildlife Federation. And while you’re at it, send out a prayer, some positive energy, some mindful attention to help with the healing…

Salamat, thanks!

M.G.B.

National Wildlife Federation – Gulf Spill footage

I’m not out in Chicago’s urban wilds; this time it’s just my postage stamp of a backyard. Still, it’s amazing what you can do even in a teeny space.

Ignacio Francisco Alcina, a seventeenth century Spanish friar and chronicler, described the cultivation methods of our ancestors in the Philippines: A row of men would take a heavy digging stick, heavy on top and pointed on the bottom, and pound it into the ground. A row of women would follow, dropping a seed into the holes and then use their toes to cover the seeds with soil. The speed of this sowing, according to anthropologist William Henry Scott, amazed Spanish colonizers for three centuries.

I’d bet it amazed our Native Ancestors, too. The act of raising and creating your own food, with the forces and spirits of nature to aid you is quite a cool thing — keeps families fed, boating villages alive, and the datu/chieftain paid his share. And how ’bout this: digging stick + toe planting was organic & green long before Wholefoods (which, okay, *love* it) broke out with its food revolution.

So my foremothers wiggled their speedy toes and grew organic camotes (yams), dry rice, and maize (corn). But me? Early twenty-first century Pinay in America, I’m reading The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening and Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens.

The desire to grow vegetables came when, last fall, my son discovered a vine  growing in our backyard. He checked on it every day. He marveled at the flower. What was it? He was convinced it would grow a pumpkin. It did not. It was an acorn squash. Still, the happenstance magic of that calabasa appearing in our yard compelled my boy more than any of my rants & raves about organics and nature or even taking him to the botanic gardens. We watched the vine grow not knowing what would happen, what would appear. He was captivated. And that’s the mystery of the Cosmos at work, no?

Then our local, crotchety facacta neighborhood squirrel (you know who I mean, the one neighbors feed so that now he feels entitled to harass you on your doorstep & throw the evil eye upon you), came and ate the beautiful round, ridged gourd we never asked for and didn’t plan to eat.  My boy was pissed.

So, this year, we are planting a pumpkin intentionally. And we are asking all the Spirits of Wind and Rain, Sun and Soil, and the nameless Ineffable One for whatever aid they will give. (The more mundane spirit of mojitos helped me yesterday.) Alongside the pumpkin, we pray for chard…carrots…climbing beans…goliath tomatoes…mint from Papa’s garden…basil…green garlic…corn…peppers. Something ought to grow, di ba?

Til then, the nature altar in our backyard stands, replenished with water. The bumble bees, robins, and mourning doves dalaw (visit), and my head is filled with dreams of green things growing and good organic veggies to eat.

~ M.G.B.

p.s.

Keep reading. This is a NEW thread I’m calling “The Digging Stick”.

Growing Up Filipino II

I was 10 when someone gave me my first diary. It was small, hard-backed, had a teddy bear on it and, most importantly, a lock. What more could a kid want than a space where she could say anything she wanted? Crushes, rants, dreams, magic, love songs. It was all in there. What my first diary meant to me can be summed up in one delicious word: FREEDOM! I was hooked on recording the details of my life, the soaring search for the right word, playing with poems and stories from that moment onward.

I was one of those kids who loved her English teachers and was wide-eyed with wonder (and a little intimidated!) at these wise-owl women we called librarians. In L.A., in the 1980′s, there really weren’t too many stories with Filipino or Filipino American kids on the bookshelves. In third or fourth grade, I had an assignment to write a report on my heritage. When I went to the public library, the librarian wasn’t able to find any books that mentioned Filipino culture. She shook her head sympathetically. The invisibility of my culture in books  sank into my consciousness quietly, stealthily. Because I never saw an author of my heritage, I’d assumed that people like me didn’t have any worthwhile stories. Hey, if my beloved English teachers and the wise librarians didn’t have stories of families like mine on the shelves, the stories couldn’t possibly exist, right? Kid logic.

So I wrote, secretly. I was a writer before I even had a word for it. No one in my family and no one we knew wrote stories. The grown-ups in my family were all nurses and navy men, vendors at  sari-sari stores, and med techs who worked long hours and relaxed by watching TV and movies and feasting at potlucks. No books for pleasure, only text books for saving patients’ lives. I thought I was weird for writing my stories and kept my weirdness private. But, man, the joy of locking my bedroom door, curling up on my window-seat with flowery cushions, turning on the radio, and letting my black felt-tip pen glide in loops and swoops across the page!

The first time I ever met a Filipino writer, I was already 19, studying at UCLA, and firmly convinced we had no stories. It was one of the most awesome moments of my life to learn, at last, that someone from my background was an author. His existence showed me that dreams are possible (and that, perhaps, I wasn’t so weird after all). The writer happened to be N.V.M. Gonzalez, who is considered a national treasure and one of the founders of literature in the Philippines. He was also a keen teacher who respected his young students greatly. N.V.M. didn’t make a big deal about himself. Humble, like the characters in his short stories.

So it’s with the greatest pleasure that I share with you all the U.S. launch of the anthology Growing Up Filipino II, edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard. Cecilia is tireless in publishing stories from the Filipino diaspora — a fancy word that simply means my sea-faring, adventurous, and  hard-working community has traveled and settled around the world. It’s filled with 27 stories from writers of Filipino descent who grew up in the Philippines, the United States, and Canada. There are wonderful writers like Marianne Villanueva, Paulino Lim, Jr., and Cecilia Brainard. One of my own YA short stories, “Shiny Black Boots,” is included in Growing Up Filipino II. And I count myself lucky to be in such fantastic literary company.

I think the me who was the L.A. Valley Girl in the 1980′s would have loved to see Growing Up Filipino II on the bookshelves. I wouldn’t have had to wait so long to learn that we, too, had stories worth reading. And to my friends who, also, never knew that Filipino stories existed, this is a great time to introduce them to your teens. As a kid I loved Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Stories of survival and resourcefulness, creating bonds of friendship, and taking care of your family are universal.   James Baldwin said it best in his 1984 Paris Review interview: “Your self and your people are indistinguishable from each other, really, in spite of the quarrels you may have, and your people are all people.”

- MGB

-MGB

“Cory in Yellow”

by Mary Grace Bertulfo

Here on EDSA

there is a statue

of Mama Mary,

her hands outstretched

in blessings over Manila.

It is to help us

remember

the place

where peace won out.

Cory in yellow,

I saw her on TV,

she looked like my mom,

short, permed hair

and glasses.

But she marched

in front on EDSA

making an “L” with her fingers.

“Laban! Laban!”

Fight! Fight!

She led her people

to walk and face the police

who guarded the dictator.

Her people swarmed

behind her,

Cory in yellow

who fought greed and killing

with peaceful marching

and prayers

instead of guns and fists.

They stormed Malacanyang Palace

The police gave way

the dictator fled.

Cory in yellow

made the victory sign.

Cory in yellow.

Aquino.

They called it

the Bloodless Revolution.