Susan Van Sciver

Category: books

  • Mother Earth and the Silver Lining

    Mother Earth and the Silver Lining

    Perhaps I have been accused in the past of being pessimistic, but I think I am practical – sensible, really.

    I hate when people tell me to think positive or that things will always work out.  How do they know?  Last time I checked, there are always thousands of reasons why plans get derailed or goals don’t get achieved.  There’s a whole list of phrases that really bother me:

    • Look on the bright side.
      • I tried, but I got blinded and couldn’t walk or think straight afterwards.
    • There’s always a silver lining.
      • Really, when I look up at the clouds in the sky, the lining just looks gray to me.
    • You just have to believe in yourself.
      • Sure.  I used to believe in Santa  Claus and the Easter Bunny, too.
    • Things have a way of working out
      • For whom?  Me?  I think it’s really 50/50 at best.  In what world is 50% winning??

    My husband has been telling me to think positive.  My coworker tells me, if you wake up and think things are going to happen they will.  And the books!!  Don’t get me started on the plethora of books….

    You mean all I have to do is just wake up think “I’m going to positive now!  Things will happen!”??  Let me tell you, my  negative sensible thinking has been going on for a while.  I have proof.

    Yesterday was Earth Day.  You see, over twenty years ago I wrote on this topic.  The essay was dire and dark enough for the local paper to run it.  So to prove how far I have to go from myself to becoming a super-positive person, I’m sharing with you my “Mother Earth” essay I wrote as a 12-year-old.  See below:

    Greensboro News & Record, Sunday, Nov 11, 1990

    What will our Mother Earth look like 100 years from now?  She’ll be very, very ill, for one thing. Her surface probably will be very dried out and her beautiful features will be dead or dying.  Don’t expect all her limbs to be there.  She and her children will be tired and worn. Her children will be wearing gas masks and oxygen tanks because of all the chemicals in the air.  All clothing will be cool and light since the ozone layer has vanished and it has let extreme heat come in. This is also a cause for wearing sunglasses.  Her children will have to wear sunscreen to protect their skin.  Food will be scarce because all of the crops will have died. In 100 years don’t expect life to be fun or comfortable, we’ll be living dead.  So be kind to Earth, our mother.

    Susan

    Grade 7

    Believe it or not, I was a happy kid.   I really don’t know where these dark thoughts from, and I can assure you that if I ever laid awake at night worrying it was about boys and gossip – not the environment.

    So far, almost 22 years have gone by, and I think a lot of Mother Earth’s beautiful features are thriving and most people are surviving just fine without gas masks and oxygen tanks.  Although goofy weather events, including an incredible warm winter here in the Northeast, seem to be telling us something…

    My concern for the next 78 years has less to do with the ozone layer and more to do with the economic environment – but that’s a different post…

    So, 22 years later, I’m trying to be more positive – really, I am.

    • I don’t worry about money every second of the day – just a few hours
    • I don’t worry about what people think about me – all the time
    • I am trying not to obsess about everything being perfect all the time

    I’m trying to be sunny.  In fact, someone awarded my the Sunshine Award a couple of weeks ago by TrishaDM.

     

    The blogging award comes with some rules about sharing some information about yourself and mentioning/nominating other blogs.  I’ll get to all that soon.  Right now, I’ve taken this Sunshine award as a directive  – so, yes, I will add more sunshine.  And, I vow, that my next published writing will be more upbeat and at least written in a consistent tense (I can’t overlook all flaws now…).

    By the way, I do believe there is some merit to these self-help books I mentioned above.  It would be hypocritical of me to eschew double negatives in writing and then permit myself to be doubly negative about positive-thinking books….

    Full disclosure – the only book of the bunch I read was “The Power of Now”, which was a gift from my Aunt Sherry who was a generous and fun-loving woman bright enough to light up any room.  She is truly missed.  So I think it’s about time I reread that book, which is available free as a PDF here.  I’m positively overdue for rereading it….

  • My kid is a genius: Part 1

    My kid is a genius: Part 1

    Have you ever read the book, “The Carrot Seed” by Ruth Krauss?

    It’s incredibly simple and woefully bland to look at.  It is 12 pages of simple words and filled with only 4 dull colors – brown, white, beige and 70’s yellow.

    Surprisingly, my kid loves it.  Lately he has been making me read it to him 3 times before he falls asleep.  Why this book above the other more colorful books?  I initially had no idea.

    I understand wanting to read “Good Night Moon” – it’s a cool little story.  I really enjoy the newly illustrated “The Little Engine that Could” because I like to do the sound effects and it’s beautiful to look at.  But “The Carrot Seed”? After reading the first few pages, I’m ready to crawl into the crib and head for a snoozefest.

    Let me condense an already fairly short book for you:

    A kid wants to plant a carrot seed.

    One by one his family members tell him that it won’t grow.

    He doesn’t listen and waters the plant anyway.

    Nothing grows for a couple of days.  Then one day a carrot grows.

    The End

    Mesmerizing, right?

    So why do I think my kid is a genius again?

    He makes me read this book multiple times.  The other night after the second reading, he looked at me to make sure I was getting it.  I think he thought I was just going through the motions.  He sensed I wasn’t entirely “in the moment”, so he made me do it again.  Then a light bulb went off in my head – this is a story about persistence.

    Slight dramatization of the actual exchange:

    Owen turns to me and cups my chin in his hand.  He turns it slightly to face him.  With eyes wide he pleads, “Read it again.”

    I flip back to the cover and begin to read it again.  This time paying attention to the words and looking at the very simple drawings and simple colors.

    “And then, one day, a carrot came up just as the little boy had known it would.” I read aloud.

    Together we looked at the young boy carting off his giant carrot in his wheel barrow holding his head high.

    Owen turns to me and says, “He didn’t give up mom.”

    “You’re right.  He really kept at it even when it seemed like it was unlikely to happen.”

    The all-knowing blue eyes stared at me to make sure I got the message.

    “Yes, Owen.  Giving up can be easy.  I should keep at it and make sure it happens despite how hard it may seem.”

    My kid might be onto something.  Perhaps he sensed my defeatist attitude about my job lately.  Maybe he knew that I could do it but that I needed to be patient and keep at it until one day success would come.  By day I was getting pushed around by 200 lb men.  By night I was being put in my place by a 26 lb bundle of wisdom.

    So, I’m keeping at it and hoping to cart home a giant carrot one day, just as my little boy had known I would.

    Yep, my kid is a genius.

  • Do Bee a Dick

    Do Bee a Dick

    I wrote a while ago about  my love of books.  I claimed it started with the Nancy Drew series, but maybe it really started with Golden Books.

       

    They were colorful and had this beautiful gold strip lining the binding.  I am told they occupied quite a bit of my time when I was little.

    Another childhood favorite was the Do Bee Books.

    I loved these, as well. They were guideline books telling little ones how to be good little girls and boys or “Do Bees”.  I wanted to be a “Do Bee” and not be a “Don’t Bee”.

    I think these books largely did their job.  I grew up a fairly considerate kid and, I think, a well-mannered and diligent adult.  Even today I think of trying to be  “Do Bee”.

    More seriously, I try to be like the best “Do Bee” I ever knew, my father.  My father’s name was Richard, but everyone called him Dick.  It’s not a very popular nickname now.  In fact the derogatory nature of that nickname is something I encounter on a regular basis.  I work on Wall Street.  I encounter Dicks everywhere I turn and very few of them are actually named Richard.

    When we were little my cousins wondered what they should call their uncle.  And so they asked my mother, Aunt Helen, if it was okay to call their uncle, Uncle Dick.  She said yes.

    My father, Dick was a very practical, well-read and economical man.  I always admired him, and when said with the right tone, I am flattered to be called “Little Dick”.

    Unfortunately, my father is no longer here, but his legacy remains.  I find myself constantly trying to be a “Little Dick”.  I think Big Dick would love that I created a website about sensible things.  Sensibility is one of the many traits we had in common.  I think if I had to write my own children’s book of manners I might entertain the idea of  using the title “Do Bee a Dick”…then I might come to my sense and rework that title…

    Perhaps a better way to honor him is to start another category on this site – “Do Bee a Dick”.

  • How to Literally Exercise Self-Control

    How to Literally Exercise Self-Control

    I have always thought that the world was divided into people with good self-control and the rest of us.  There are those who workout every day at 5:00am and the rest of us.  There are those who stay focused and ignore the office chitchat, and there’s the rest of us.  There are those who don’t watch the Real Housewives of Fill in the Blank City, and there’s the rest of us.

    Self-control for me has always been like a flaky friend.  I am always hopeful it will show up, but I never count on it.  Even when it does come through, I can never be sure when I will see it again…

    So I am always looking for ways to get that elusive self-control.  I am not a huge fan of self-help books, but I do like science and I can always appreciate research.  I recently read a great book called “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength”.  It is written by psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and NY Times science writer John Tierney.  They believe the key to self-control is willpower and that willpower is actually a muscle.  Like any other muscle, willpower needs glucose and willpower can strengthen with exercise.

     

    I was initially very excited to hear about this glucose thing.  Could this be another excuse to eat and not feel bad about the extra calories, like when I was breastfeeding?  Yes and no.  Not surprisingly, the authors suggest maintaining a healthy diet as key to strengthening willpower.  Apparently, that old wisdom of eating a good breakfast before school has some science behind it.  The authors believe that we lose self-control when our glucose is low, and that’s when we make poor decisions.

    The book gives real life examples of people (including some famous people) and their experiences with willpower (or lack of).   I found these stories fascinating, particularly the one about a former street performance artist.  There’s also an interesting section on Eric Clapton and his struggles with addiction.

    Once again, a lot of what I read in this book seemed like common sense.  For example, some of this stuff sounds like “practice makes perfect”.  That’s nothing new, but what is interesting is that practicing in one area of your life may be making you better in more than one area because you’ve strengthened your willpower muscle.  The authors caution against trying to tackle more than one area for improvement at a time because when you’re trying to build the willpower muscle, you don’t want to strain it until it is stronger.  This is the same philosophy behind telling drug addicts to wait to quit smoking until they’ve kicked their drug habit.  I am using this guidance as an excuse to continue pursuing hobbies.  If being disciplined about doing Sudoku makes me a better Sudoku player, then maybe it will make me a better worker in general…

    The authors also give examples of ways to exercise the willpower muscle that seem very easy and can be applicable to most people.

    One of my resolutions last year was to read more non-fiction books, and I am glad that I read this one.  It’s a quick read.  I read it almost as fast as the first Hunger Games book.

    Now I feel like I have the tools to get that self-control I have always been after.  Apparently, I just need to literally exercise it!

  • Characters are People Too

    Characters are People Too

    Have you a read a book that changed your life?  For me, that book was The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene.

    I got this book from Santa in 1987 – the year that I really wanted a computer.   The home computer was not popular just yet, so I knew I was dreaming when I put it on my list.  However, my mother, I mean Santa, knew that this book would be better for me than any piece of technology.  Despite its old-fashioned image on the front, I decided to read it.  It was love at first read.

    It wasn’t the plot line of the book that had a direct impact on me, but it was the character of Nancy Drew.  She was attractive, smart and polished.  She was everything I wished I could be.  Nancy Drew made me a book lover, and I read every book in the series.

    Once I became an adult, I had to leave behind childish things like the Nancy Drew books.  Now it is increasingly hard to justify reading fictional characters doing fictional things when there are millions of real people living real lives.  On my iPad, I feel compelled to read each newspaper app and consolidated news app before letting myself dig into pretend worlds on my Kindle app.

    So last week, I was reading one of those news apps and discovered the following article:

    The Business Case for Reading Novels by Anne Kreamer

    Apparently there is a scientific reason to read novels again since reading about people in the fictional world can help us relate to people in the real world.  This is great news for us book lovers.  I can now justify reading any 99¢ option on my Kindle even if it isn’t a historical biography or business book.

    I hope everyone has a similar story about a life-changing book or character.  If you haven’t, I highly recommend the Nancy Drew books.  After all these years, I still think Nancy Drew makes a much more sensible role model than any pop star, movie star or Kardashian.