Kate DiCamillo's Blog, page 34

Can I tell you another story about my Aunt Ann? Twenty-five years ago, I took...

Can I tell you another story about my Aunt Ann?
Twenty-five years ago, I took the train from Florida to Washington D.C. to visit her; and she took me to see the National Cathedral.
When I got home, I rolled a note card into my typewriter and wrote her a thank you note. I described to her what it was like for me to stand and look up in that cathedral, how I felt impossibly small and improbably safe. I worked hard to find the right words.
I knew, then, at twenty-three years old that I wanted...

I like the idea of “forward motion.” I am inordinately fond of the illusion tha...

I like the idea of “forward motion.” I am inordinately fond of the illusion that I am getting somewhere. Because of this, writing is often frustrating for me. I move so slowly (two pages a day) that sometimes I don’t feel like I’m moving at all.
It was pleasing, then, to gather up all the drafts of the novel (due out next year!) and see them piled high on my desk.
I felt like I had done something.
I felt like I was getting somewhere.
And seeing that pile of paper made it easier to get up thi...

Here is my mother, Betty, in 1960. The dog in the passenger seat is Una. The c...

Here is my mother, Betty, in 1960. The dog in the passenger seat is Una. The cat beside the car is Abigail. By the time I came along, both Abigail and Una were gone. But I heard stories: how fiercely the cat had guarded my brother in his playpen, how the dog had loved to go for rides in the Triumph, sitting up tall and staring straight-ahead.
The cat, the dog, the car, my mother, all of them are gone now.
But still, here they are: vital, alive, smiling, suspended in this square of light.
I...

In the mailbag:An astonishing collection of kite-letters from Roseanne Vallely...

In the mailbag:
An astonishing collection of kite-letters from Roseanne Vallely’s third graders at Martin Luther King Elementary in Edison, New Jersey.
Each letter is in the shape of a kite; each corner of the kite is inscribed with the name of a book. And when you lift the flap, you reveal the student’s favorite quote(s) from the book.
Pictured here is Shivani’s kite. Underneath The Tale of Despereaux flap are these words: “Everything as you well know (having lived in this world long enough...

There is a painting I love by Vuillard called “The Artist’s Mother Opening a Doo...

There is a painting I love by Vuillard called “The Artist’s Mother Opening a Door.” Whenever I go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I seek it out. I’m not sure why the painting moves me so. I think that it has something to do with the door being only halfway open, and the figure of the mother being so bent. And the light. The light behind that half-opened door is so radiant.
Every time I look at the painting, I can feel something swing wide in me; and I believe, suddenly and absolutely, i...

I spent the weekend with my Aunt Ann. She is eighty-two years old; and on the l...

I spent the weekend with my Aunt Ann. She is eighty-two years old; and on the last night of our visit, she taught me how to twirl my spaghetti on a spoon.
She said, “This is how my father, your grandfather, ate his spaghetti. You need to learn how to do this, too.”
I said, “I’m forty-eight years old, Aunt Ann. I don’t need to learn how to twirl my spaghetti on a spoon.”
She said, “Yes. You do.”
I was in the kitchen of her apartment. We were standing side by side. It was early evening, and t...

I got a new poetry book, a little anthology called Finding the Way Home, and whe...

I got a new poetry book, a little anthology called Finding the Way Home, and when I was out walking early this morning I heard crickets singing in the bushes and it made me think of “Bugs in a Bowl” by David Budbill.

The poem begins with the words of the Chinese poet Han Shan, “We’re just like bugs in a bowl.”

And it ends this way:

“Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands,
cry, moan, feel sorry for yourself.

Or. Look around. See your fellow bugs.
Walk around.

Say, Hey, how you...

This mouse is a gift from a friend. He is intended to hold a candle. He sits...

This mouse is a gift from a friend.
He is intended to hold a candle. He sits on my desk with his paws outstretched and his empty bowl aloft.
I like him as he is, without the candle.
He looks to me as if he is asking for something and patiently waiting for it.
I keep him in front of me to remind myself that it is good to ask, that it is okay to wait, and that the bowl will be filled.

I’ve been reading the essays of E.B. White. Here are some lines from an essay e...

I’ve been reading the essays of E.B. White. Here are some lines from an essay entitled “Home-Coming.”
“Swallows, I have noticed, never use any feather but a white one in their nest-building, and they always leave a lot of it showing, which makes me believe that that they are interested not in the feather’s insulating power but in its reflecting power, so that when they skim into the dark barn from the bright outdoors they will have a beacon to steer by.”
I love so many words from these lines:...

Yesterday, I sat on the back steps with Henry and ate a peach. It was a very go...

Yesterday, I sat on the back steps with Henry and ate a peach. It was a very good peach and I shared some of it with Henry; and then I put the peach pit on the top steps and went off to move the sprinkler and when I came back, a gigantic moth was perched on top of what remained of the peach. I have never seen such a big moth. He was dusty brown with purple spots on his wings and as he worked on the peach, his wings moved up and down in a thoughtful and deeply pleased way, as if he were saying...