Emily Vander Ark

Thinking Back

Working in a library surrounded by page after page of information, one begins to wonder about things. The kids that come into the library regularly are always the same kids, and even in just the short amount of time that I’ve been around, I’ve gotten to know their faces. i know which kids are good, strong readers, and which ones make a beeline for the graphic novels. (Nothing wrong with that!) I know what each person likes to check out before they place their items on the counter.

As a kid, I was an avid library user, and I took full advantage of my library’s services. I placed holds and found them later on the shelf with my name and the date I needed to pick them up by. (E. Hemphill, 10/23.) I saw the library as my place, and I knew the librarians – which ones I liked and which ones were grouchy. It never occurred to me, however, that those librarians might know who I was, too.

Now I think back and wonder, did they know me like I know the kids who come into my library? Did they notice what I checked out and what I put on hold? Did they know when they rang up my books what my name was and what I liked to read? My childhood library was much bigger than the library where I work, but each time I place a paper around a book and write someone’s name on it for pick up from the holds shelf, I wonder.

I wonder, too, if of all the books that we process and place on the new shelf, one of them might someday have my name on the cover. We see a lot of books come through. Many of them are wonderful, but as many or more I could never bear to read. The thought all aspiring authors have flashes through my mind regularly –

If these people can get published, certainly so can I.

If it were only so simple!

Here’s to libraries, to child readers, and to the ones who grow up to supply the libraries with new books for new readers.

Pensworth 2014

Some of you might be familiar with the annual publication put out by the University of the Cumberlands’ English Department – Pensworth, a journal of student art and writing. Although I did not have the privilege of acting as a student editor this year, I think the journal looks lovely! April is a fitting month for the journal’s publication, for me, because even though I haven’t celebrated Poetry Month this April the fruits of last year’s inspiration made it into the journal. My creative nonfiction piece which won the 2013 Creative Writing Award also appears among the work of many other talented writers! Please enjoy!

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You can read last year’s issue here, or visit my post from last April.

P.S. Happy Earth Day! Go plant something!

What Blind Men See

Sometimes everything falls into place in the strangest way you never expected. Sometimes I have nothing to say, no words to write, nothing to share, until in an instant of connectedness I realize that I do, and thoughts pour in from so many places to fill an empty mold of the perfect size and shape that I never knew was there.

Recently I’ve been reading Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek for the first time. Published in 1974 and the recipient of a Pulitzer, Pilgrim is nothing new. Even in 1974, groundbreaking as it was, I believe it was not that the book was new that made it great. Rather, Dillard’s examination and enjoyment of the world, at once both careful and giddy, teaches her readers to look in new ways at what has been there for them to see all along.

Dillard herself learns this lesson in the course of writing Pilgrim, when she learns to see the egg case of a praying mantis. “Now that I can see [them],” she writes, “I’m embarrassed to realize how many I must have missed all along.” Life is often just like this.

She writes, too, about seeing in a literal sense; about how the invention of a successful surgery to be performed on those who suffered from blinding cataracts led to unexpected results that were at once disappointing for the doctors and terrifying for the patients. Concepts such as size, depth, shape, and color, which we learn by exploring objects as babies, are lost to those who are blind from birth. To have their eyes opened to reveal so many colors and shapes and lights that change and move is a strange and startling experience – one that is not always welcome. Some adjust to it and react to the astonishing beauty before them in ways that we who have always seen never do. Dillard wishes these newly-sighted people had been painters, and that we “could all see the color-patches … Eden before Adam gave names.”

At the very same time I have been reading Pilgrim for pleasure, I have been studying John 9, titled in my Bible “Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind.” Despite this bolded text it was not until I heard another woman speak aloud that I realize what this man was going through – thanks to Dillard. Blind for decades, this man has been miraculously healed by a man who, as far as the text says, does nothing but touch his eyes and tell him to go and wash. He does so, and receives his sight – experiences the color-patches and the moving lights that he has no way to comprehend. Despite this shock, he is dragged by the Pharisees to the temple for questioning about the man who healed his eyes.

Dillard argues that even for us who have always had sight there are two ways to see. “When I walk with a camera I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment’s light prints on my own silver gut.” It is this cameraless, open shutter-gut sight that Dillard seeks when she writes,

“If I thought he could teach me to find [the secret of seeing] and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred desserts after any lunatic at all. … I cannot cause light, I can only stand in it’s beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind.”

Perhaps for the man in John 9, whose eyes have already been opened in a literal sense by the one who causes light, it is easier for him to both stand in the beam and rig his sail. Throughout the questioning, this man stays true to his healer, claiming that Jesus is a prophet of God, who does the will of his father – in spite of the common knowledge that these claims could mark him as an enemy of the Jews. The anger he causes gets him thrown out of the temple, but that’s not the end of the story.

When Jesus heard what happened, he found the man and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man answered, “Who is he, sir? I want to believe in him.” “You have seen him,” Jesus said, “and he is speaking to you!” “Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus. – John 9:35-38

Concluding her beautiful passage on the once-blind, Dillard shares how a girl was blindfolded and led to a garden and asked to describe what she saw. “The tree with the lights in it,” she said. As you rest in this Holy week – whether in a literal or figurative sense – think about the once-blind man and his opened eyes. The secret of seeing is within reach – many called Jesus a lunatic, and many followed him. Stand in the beam of the light that he causes, and rejoice that the tree we mourn on Friday has lights in it, and the Light will rise again on Sunday.

Country Manor Adventures

Last week Caleb and I had the fun task of house sitting for some friends of ours while they were away on a medical mission trip. Their house is lovely, and living above ground again made it even sadder that spring was not yet here. Each day we looked out of as many windows as we could ever hope to have at a (usually sunny!) garden and fields to go walking in – but the temperature was still nippy enough to keep me mostly inside.

We did venture out one day and head up to the town of Niles, MI. (We went to see Noah, but you can ask Caleb about that one.) There’s a little secondhand and antique bookshop in the downtown area that I love, called A. Casperson Books. It’s one of the few really magical bookshops left to be found anymore, and we make a point of stopping in whenever we’re in Niles for a movie or anything. Books line the shelves, walls, floors – every nook and cranny – so there is always something exciting to find.

Not everyone knows that for several years now I have been collecting the old Nancy Drew books. They have blue board covers with orange titles and silhouettes of one of my favorite childhood companions printed on the front cover. I have several of them now, but they can be pretty hard to find (in the antique/rare book world, they are considered “scarce.”) A. Casperson’s is special because the first time I went the owner had two of these books with intact dust jackets on display – it is immensely harder to find these books with dust jackets than without. I’ve found more, at least of the orange titles, reliably on every visit to the shop.

Last week, however, I was blown away by how many of these books were on a shelf behind the checkout desk. There were more than a dozen without dust jackets, and three with them – many more than I’ve ever before seen in one place. The other difficult thing with these old books is that there are so many different editions, some with only minor changes, that it can be really difficult to tell whether or not a book is a first edition (the very scarce). On this trip, however, I finally found my first first edition – and it is a copy of the first book in the series, too! Now if only it had a dust jacket… 🙂 I left a happy camper.

We had a great week in the house of many windows, and because were dog-sitting, too, I got some quality canine snuggles in. The availability of natural light from windows that provide great views of the countryside was a great aid for me with the writing I needed to do (that and the awesome-if-nerdy event of finding my first first edition). My first residency for the MFA program I’m in is at the end of May, and this week was the deadline for turning in our first writing sample to be discussed in workshop at the residency. I sent mine of today – not without a bit of fear and trembling.

In the meantime, the temperatures are rising! Soon I’ll be suggesting you go enjoy a good book – first edition or not – out of doors.

Not Yet Spring at Spring Institute

April has begun, and though the average temperature is still in the 40’s, we’ve at least chased away most of the snow. Even so, when I had the pleasure last week of attending the Michigan Library Association’s Spring Institute – a conference for youth and children’s librarians and library staff – the view from my 15th floor window showed a few too many specks of white falling past.

Since I am so new to library work, last week was both especially fun and increasingly tough. We started the week off by closing the library to train the staff for the catalog migration that was implemented on Wednesday. Then, soon after the migration we discovered that well over 1,000 patron records had been compromised during the switch and went about fixing them. While everyone else continued working on that for the rest of the week, I got to travel up to Battle Creek, MI for Spring Institute, where six talks per day informed me of the latest innovations in the younger generations’ library services. Talk about a lot of learning!

SI was incredibly fun, and I got to meet fun authors like Susin Nielsen and Jim Benton. Nielsen’s book The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen won the MLA Thumbs Up Award this year. (I’ve since read it, and it’s quite good!) I also met many other fun people who work in libraries all over the state of Michigan – including one library that services an entire county, including a real-life ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE that has 30 students K-8th grade! Who knew places like that still existed?

After a full week of workplace learning, I almost feel like I need to learn it all again. So much was crammed into my head in so short a time that it’s hard to tell if anything stuck! But one thing I know for sure that I learned, and won’t be soon forgetting, is that I love that I’ve been given the opportunity to work among such an awesome group of people. Library people are awesome! They are people who love to knit and craft and do cool science-y stuff with kids. They love the work they do and love going to conferences to chat with others who do the same kind of stuff. But they’re also the kind of people who can write the entirety of The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock from memory during a one hour session that doesn’t interest them. Prufrock!

In short I can safely say that for the first time ever I’m glad I work where I do, with the kind of people who really like working there, too. Yay libraries!

Even the Winter

My whole life, I’ve always felt that the four seasons I was lucky enough to experience in Maryland had a big impact on who I am. Whether it was summer or winter has a big impact on my attitude, my personality, and even to some degree who I am as a person. Some people, I know, are unaffected by lack of sunlight and don’t mind the winter at all. But I’ve always been quick to notice it’s absence, and quick to welcome the cool rain of early March that means spring is following close behind. Summer is usually a time of working for me, but also a time of traveling, exploring, and having fun enjoying the familiar. It is a chance to recharge and recuperate and prepare to go inside for the winter again. It is the season during which life is actually lived; the winter is a hibernation period of waiting for life to return.

Last summer, everything above was present – work, play, travel, exploration, and fun. It was an unusual experience for me, however, because instead of spending the summer in Maryland, for the first time I was away for the entire summer working on an internship in southwest Michigan. Despite Caleb’s assurances that Michigan summers actually were very warm, the temperature was rarely above 73 degrees – spring weather to me. It was the coldest summer in a long time, everyone said, but to me it was a spring without a summer. When I got back to school in Kentucky in August, the weather was the warmest I had experienced since the summer before. Of course, it was only a little more than a month before fall came, and then winter, and then in January a move to Michigan in the middle of what would become the coldest, snowiest winter in a long time (people say).

It’s March 25th today, and there is still snow on the ground that has been there longer than I have been in MI. I still wear my winter coat everywhere I go. I still don’t know what to expect when I go out to my car to go to work – a dusting of snow, perhaps? a thick frost that is worse because it’s harder to clear off of the windows, maybe? Seats in the car so cold that I don’t want to sit down and an engine so cold that in 10+ minutes the heater barely comes on?

I’m not sure how much this winter has truly affected my personhood, but I have to wonder. Like the trees who have no leaves, the flowers that are absent of buds, and the birds who regret their return and rarely sing, why would I open up, fly, or sing at signs of spring in the earth or those around me if tomorrow the frost might bite again, and the cold might shut me in?

I’m ready for a really good spring that has a nice, blistery summer behind it. I’m ready to live a little more. And thanks to this young lady, I think I might finally be ready to hope for the sunshine I want to badly.

When You Need the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, Ask a Librarian

A few months ago when I was out shopping, I picked up a LEGO mini-figure for Caleb as a surprise. If you don’t know how mini-figures work, they are purchased unassembled in unmarked little packages (made of foil, so you can’t see through), and you never know which little guy you will end up with until you get home (or past the checkout counter) and open the package. I felt around through every package, hoping to pick out a really cool one that Caleb would love (this series included a Roman soldier, Medusa, and a paintball player). When Caleb opened the package at home, however, inside was the mini-figure pictured above.

Hermione? I thought. Wish I’d gotten her for myself!

But Caleb said, “It’s a librarian. I think she looks like you.” And he put her together and stood her up on his desk.

This was a while ago, before we graduated college, got married, and moved out into the scary world on our own. A week ago we were still both jobless, as we’d been in the area only a week and half. What reminded me of this little LEGO librarian, however, was that I was hired to do the first and only job I applied for during that week and am now a Youth Services Librarian!

Sometimes (often), life is a lot more exciting and a lot less scary than grownups say it is.

P. S. – The LEGO Movie was “awesome”! I love 1980-Something Space Guy more than anything! It’s true. I’m so glad he got to build his SPACESHIP!

Constancy of Purpose

When I graduated and left school in December, my life became a constant swirl of crazy. With tons to do to get ready for a wedding followed by a 12 hour move, my writing habits were voluntarily chucked out the proverbial window, and the most successful and fulfilling months of writing I’d had in a very long time were followed by some of the most wordless.

After nearly two months without writing anything at all, it’s been difficult to get myself back into the good habits that I’d developed during my last semester of school. I have to keep reminding myself of all of the “writer’s truths” that helped me get into those habits in the first place, as well as some newer ones I’ve discovered. The one I display on my desk most prominently is the following quote:

The secret of success is constancy of purpose. – Benjamin Disraeli

I have to remind myself what my purpose in writing is, and keep the end goal in mind while viewing the path to getting there realistically.

Speaking of that path, my first story was published in something (just slightly) bigger than my alma matter’s departmental English journal! (You can read it online at TWJ Magazine.) I’ve used this bit of success recently to tell myself, “See, I’m a writer!” But now I have to remind myself of another favorite bit of writing advice:

Don’t be a writer. Be writing. – William Faulkner

So I am.

What Light Through Yonder “Window” Breaks?

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. …It was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.

In the weeks leading up to our marriage, my now husband and I were provided with the opportunity to rent a basement apartment from some friends at a great price. Since we were both unemployed (and still are!) we saw this as a wonderful opportunity. The apartment was mostly furnished, came with all of the necessary appliances, and had a private entry that would allow us to be totally separate from the main house. We took the deal.

Only later did we realize that the private entry was not a walkout, but a basement door that came with it’s own set of outdoor stairs. The apartment, which is otherwise perfect in every way, is entirely below ground – in the entire floor plan there are only two tiny egress windows to let us know when the sun has risen or set, and what the weather might be like above our heads. For a sun-lover like me, the thought of living somewhere with such windows long-term was entirely depressing.

When we reached the apartment last week, we discovered that one of the tiny “windows” is in the bedroom, and the previous inhabitants had covered it with a cardboard cut out for lack of curtain. I nearly panicked when closer inspection revealed that the children who’d lived here had clumsily drawn their sprawling interpretations of the sun, moon, and stars, and labeled the heavenly bodies with awkward letters. Was I moving into a dungeon, where the only way to remember natural light was to draw pictures of the spheres that gave them?

I wasn’t, though, as I discovered on the first morning when I saw the gray light that filled the great room. There wasn’t a lot of it, but it certainly lit the room and helped me to wake up. This light came from the second egress window, in the living room. Through it, when you stand in just the right spot, you can see a bird feeder in the front yard, and the tops of the trees beyond – a happy contrast to the bedroom window. I’ve found that this tiny pane of glass causes me to look out more often than I might have otherwise – I have to make a point to look up and out, to see if I can find any birds, or to find out if the snow has melted.

Which brings me to another of our little burrow’s many benefits – we are never, ever cold. The basement is cozy and warm, despite temperatures that have often reached the negative teens outside. As I am usually always cold, this is a huge plus. Perhaps I shall just hibernate for the winter? All this snow says that is not a bad idea. It’s a dangerous business going out your door, after all, even if you have a door of your own.

Christmas Cheer: It’s the Little Things

It’s that time of year again! Yes, of course I mean time for Christmas, for Advent, for choosing the perfect gifts for the people who mean the most to us. But also the time for way too many cookies, for a schedule full of parties with friends, for playing Christmas music until it’s (almost) annoying, for watching the movies that only make us cry once a year. But also the time for final exams, and leaving some places to go back to others, and often for our lives to change with the season.

As I’ve been enjoying this season, sipping cocoa and wishing for snow that sticks to more than just the roofs, this year I’ve also been noticing things. This is the fourth December I’ve spent in Williamsburg, Kentucky, and realizing that it is also the last has put my ability to notice things in overdrive. From the beauty of a brown leaf skeleton-etched with frost lying in the grass as I walk to my last classes to the almost-warmth of the winter sun that shines bright and clear but cannot thaw even my nose, everything around me has taken on a surreal quality that it never had before. Each time I notice a thing of beauty on this campus I realize how likely it is that I will never see that particular thing in that particular place again – that as the Christmas season is beginning another season in my life is ending.

Take some time this month to reflect, to really take in your surroundings, and to enjoy the tiny details that we often miss due to the busyness of our crazy, wonderful lives. You never know when those tiny things might turn out to be just what you need.

Have a blessed Christmas everyone!

For some more thoughts about the Christmas season from a writing cast that includes some great talent, check out this Advent booklet put out by the Missions and Ministry Department at the University of the Cumberlands.