Author: Natalie Hart

Wonderful: May B

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

This is a first for me: a historical novel in verse for children. And it is marvelous.

Mavis Elizabeth Betterly (aka May B.) is a 12-year-old living in western Kansas in a soddy (a hut built out of sod stacked grass-side down and scant bits of wood) in the late 1870s. Her parents hire her out to a newly married couple because the spring wheat didn’t do well and they need the money.

Around my finger
I twist a blade of grass.
It’s what I always wanted,
to contribute,
but not this way.
If I leave,
schooling is as good as finished.
Come Christmas I’ll be home
but even farther
behind.

Her father hitches up the wagon and drives her 15 miles away. She’ll be gone from July to Christmas.

The new family is not happy, the wife only a few years older than May and from the East — unprepared for prairie life.

The sound is muffled,
like a child at her mother’s shoulder.
Just as Hiram can’t hold back laughter during family prayers,
Mrs. Oblinger’s sobs escape the blankets.

Surely Mr. Oblinger hears?
Three of us awake,
two pretending sleep.

Something happens and May is left alone. In August. The nearest neighbor is gone East. Nobody knows she’s alone and there’s no way to get word out to her father.

When the world is black,
I’m most alone,
the silence thick around me.
I pray for wind,
for rain,
for the meadowlark
to break
the constant pound of quiet.

Her only company is the reader she took with her. The only problem with that: she’s dyslexic, and every attempt to read reminds her of Teacher repeatedly humiliating her in front of the school.

The tale of how May survives months on her own is gripping and moving and inspiring (and involves hillbilly hand fishing). It’s minimally told, but each detail is the right one. If you or your child like Little House on the Prairie, this book is for you. Don’t let the verse format intimidate you. My daughter isn’t a fast reader, but she whipped through the 225 pages in a few before-bed reading sessions. It came out this year, so it’s only in hardcover, but at least try to get it from your library. It’s wonderful.

May B., Caroline Starr Rose, Schwartz & Wade Books, 2012.

How Email is Saving My Marriage

~ Natalie Hart ~ 3 Comments

Okay, that heading exaggerates. But kind of not.

Those of you who’ve been in a relationship of fairly significant duration know that there’s always a Big Nagging Issue (BNI). Some problematic way you have of relating to each other that crops up again, and again, and again, no matter how good everything else is. You knock it down, but it keeps popping up. Each time you have to knock it back, it feels like it sinks its claws in even deeper because you’re so sick of it that you wait longer and longer before you try to address it or you get more and more upset each time. Well, we’re in knocking back the BNI mode.

Frankly, it wasn’t going well, until I recently wrote my husband an email to explain, in a nonemotional setting, exactly why I’d been so upset the other night. He was out and I couldn’t sleep because my brain kept going round and round about the BNI and because there was real opportunity for confusing the issue. So I wrote the email like I used to write editorial letters: precise analysis tempered by compliments. Something I can’t do while in a face to face discussion in which my emotions have gotten out of hand (which is almost all of them regarding the BNI).

The next morning, he thanked me for the message and promised a response. A few days later, he sent me an email. And he had some requests for me. Trust me when I say this is revolutionary. I am an intense person, especially when upset. This was the first time he’d had the space to truly say his piece without me crying or jumping all over his wording. And then because this was an email, I had the chance to, privately, go through a whole cycle of upset, self-justification, and acceptance, to arrive at agreement. When I was calm, I wrote him back, asking for clarification/examples of one item.

I was thinking it’d be something minor, something tweakable. It wasn’t. It was the number one personality failing I have: my (especially lately) hair-trigger temper. This is the thing I am most ashamed of, the thing I try my hardest to contain already. It sucks to be called on your s#*!, because until you’re called on it, you can make like it’s a personal issue, not a marital or family issue. Now there’s no pretending.

Anxiety makes the problem worse, and I have a number of big things to be anxious about — imploding church, manuscripts out on query, BNI. So my church home, my potential career, and that pesky BNI are up in the air, which means that any other stressor gets a ridiculously huge response. So I take conversations with my dad way too personally and negatively. I make my kids cry about homework. My heart races at the towering household filing pile.

I don’t have a lot of power to change those big anxiety items, but I can take care of all the anklebiting items that add to it, like the household filing, the half-finished house projects lying around accusatorily, the making of summer plans for the kids. I can make sure I do my daily Bible reading and prayer. Lots of prayer. I can read things that help me put things in better perspective, like this. I can make sure I have fun with the people I love.

And, going back to the title of this piece, I can keep attacking the BNI via email with my husband. Social media may or may not be isolating us in the name of seeking connection, but email is my current favorite marital aide.

Wonderful: Cupcakes

~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments

So my family and I took a one-day trip to Chicago. After the marathon drive to NYC earlier this year, a 2 1/2 hour drive was nothing. We hit the Museum of Science and Industry for the Mythbusters exhibit, which was incredible. You know how exhibits always say they’re hands-on, and then you get there and there are some buttons to push and cranks to turn and that’s it? Mythbusters is not that exhibit.

We got to do all kinds of versions of some of their episodes.

Do you get wetter running or walking through rain? Our verdict: walking. But if you wear a thick, absorbent sweatshirt, then it won’t look like you got wet at all.

Can you build a house that will withstand a wind storm? Our verdict: mostly. Our best structures had the roof or a wall or two go, but most of it stayed intact.

How long can you hang from a ledge on a cliff? I would drop within fifteen seconds, the kids made it about 45, and my husband around 35.

Can you drive blind? I don’t know the answer to that, but I can tell you that I coach people into quickly crashing.

Can you whip a tablecloth off a loaded table without making the plastic dishes fly? Yes. If you don’t count a couple of cups that went on their side.

But that’s not what this post is about.

We had a near religious experience at Sprinkles Cupcakes. Many of you may know that this is, apparently, where the cupcake craze started. I thought that was at Magnolia Bakery in NYC, but I guess I was wrong — unless there’s an East Coast vs. Midwest cupcake rivalry I’m unaware of.

We were walking on the way to my husband’s pilgrimage to Urban Outfitters and saw a line of people snaking out of a storefront on a chilly, rainy day. So, this being a vacation day, we followed our whimsy and checked it out. And then had the best cupcakes we’d ever had. I love your almond cupcake, Little Pearl Cupcakes, but the lemon one I had at Sprinkles was so light and deeply flavorful. It was on a whole ‘nother level. The kids got S’more ones with graham cracker crumbs at the bottom of a chocolate cake and a dome of toasted marshmallow on top. Oh, and I forgot about the core of soft chocolate in the middle. My husband got one with chocolate cake and vanilla frosting.

Everything was perfection: it was exactly what it should be in that ideal world I normally don’t live in. But I did for a few minutes yesterday, and then a few more today when I finished my cupcake. And I was grateful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being Seen: Divine Edition

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

A couple of months ago, I wrote about Allowing Yourself to be Seen, and before that it was The Moment of Being Seen. Those posts were about “seeing” between people, but this week I remembered a great story in the Bible about being seen.

I am amazed at how little the stories in the Old Testament are whitewashed. The people are people, with all their petty and not so petty cruelties and insecurities and fears. It must’ve been tempting to make the heroes of the faith purely heroic, but most (if not all) of them are complex and real. Whatever other issues we may (or may not) have with what the writers/editors chose to include in the Scriptures, I’m grateful they kept the people pretty real.

Hagar was a servant of Sarai while she and Abram were nomads. Most people who’ve grown up Jewish or Christian know about God’s promise that Abram’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, yet, year after year, Sarai didn’t bear him any children. Well past menopause, Sarai gave up hope, and jump started the whole thing by forcing Hagar to have sex with Abram.

So when Hagar became pregnant, is anyone surprised that she didn’t bow with humble gratitude to Sarai for putting her in that situation? The Bible says she treated her mistress with contempt. I can imagine it:

“I’m sorry, since I got pregnant, the smell of your morning leban [mixture of yoghurt and wheat] makes me throw up. I wouldn’t want to put you through that. You’ll have to get your own breakfast.”

“Of course it’s easy for you to walk half the day without a break, you’re not pregnant.”

And is anyone surprised that Sarai doesn’t just accept this constant snarking as her just desserts for ordering her servant to submit to unwanted sex? Abram won’t intervene, so the Bible says Sarai treated Hagar harshly — given that their lives were already harsh, we can guess that she beat Hagar and withheld food and water.

Hagar ran away to the wilderness and an angel approached her at a spring with a crazy mixed message. It’s one of the few stories involving an angel in which the angel doesn’t first tell the person not to be afraid, so it makes me wonder how he appeared. I bet not in a blaze of glory, shining wings unfurled. I bet he appeared as another weary traveler and slumped beside her on a flat rock near the spring. And Hagar wasn’t afraid of him because she’d already been raped and beaten. What could he do to her that was worse than that?

The angel knows her name, knows that she’s pregnant, tells her that she’ll have a son who’ll be “as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives” (Gen 16:12). He gives her the name of the boy: “You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress” (Gen 16:11).

And he tells her she has to go back and submit to Sarai’s authority.

I don’t know that I would’ve seen this as good news, yet she changes the name she called God to El-roi, which means “the God who sees me.” This is a personal name, more intimate than a general title. She says, I imagine with wonder in her voice, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” (Gen 16:13).

Nobody else saw her for her. Sarai saw her as the means to an end, as an insurance policy/just in case/last-ditch effort to fulfill God’s promise. Abram probably barely acknowledged her outside the deed itself, and he certainly didn’t care to do anything about her situation once she’d gotten pregnant. She was a servant. Servants aren’t seen.

So despite the mixed message of blessing and struggle, because God saw her for her, and heard her cries and sent someone to her to clue her into the bigger picture, she goes back to Sarai and has Ishmael.

Amazing, the power of being seen.

 

 

Diaries: Should They Stay or Should They Go?

~ Natalie Hart ~ 7 Comments

You know how it is when you’re not thinking about a particular thing, but then it keeps coming up from different groups of people and from different media outlets and then you can’t stop thinking about it? My husband and I had that recently with a movie, and now feel like we have to see The French Connection.

That’s also how it is with diaries lately. Not the writing in them, but the keeping. Which of your old diaries/journals do you keep? Do you keep them all for your loved ones to read after you’re dead? After all, you’re no longer able to be embarrassed by anything in there. Will the people who read them after you’re gone get to know the real you or the you at your most unpleasant (since that’s when we’re most likely to pour our hearts out)?

I have friends who’ve dealt with it differently. One person gave all her journals to her best friend to look through and glean anything that her daughter might want to read. Another tossed all her journals from before she met her now-husband and felt a glorious freedom and recommitment to her marriage after getting rid of all evidence of boyfriend angst.

I’m a keeper. Not of general crap — on the contrary, that I love to throw away. But if something has emotional value or resonance, I keep it. I have every letter ever sent to me, letters I wrote but never sent (I am the queen of good intentions and lack of follow-through), every diary I ever purchased, every poem written to me by a boy. I haven’t decided what to do with it all.

So I’m going to sift through it here, with an audience. To protect the unsuspecting, I’ll type all names as initials. If you wish to out yourself in the comments, feel free. Let’s start with my earliest entries, age 9:

10/1/1977: That afternoon there was a bazzar to raise money for my school. There were cartoons pie’s cookie’s & juice. I bought a couple of plants. That night after supper my father gave me my punishment. It was to stay in my room after our talk. I think now it was a good one, because while I was reading Higher Than the Arrow, when Francie thought about her bad feelings, I thought about mine. Showery all day miserable and dull.

10/2 had a drawing of a horse. My horse-drawing abilities have not improved in 35 years.

10/15/1977: Today day we had quite a nice day. N and R came over unexpectedly. N left at lunch time and didn’t come back in the afternoon. R stayed and we played Little House on the Prairie. We did watch some television. When R was just about ready to go we talked about the unfairness of grown ups to kids. R told me that one day she would run away to her own house that is near ours now. I said I might do some thing like that. But I knew R wouldn’t do such a thing. I started Anne Frank and like it. Even though I never read sombodys diary, I think it is the most exciting I would ever read.

10/16/1977: Dear A: R. came over today. So far she has told at least 2 or 3 lies. At church we spoke into the microphone. M was at church but she has to go back tonight. R and I are now playing house & school.

I’m sure I wasn’t as accepting or conscientious about all my punishments as I was about that one (for what, I have no idea). It’s so earnest. And dear. But, of course, also unfair, as are all grownups. There’s a lot of foot stomping in these diaries, all out of proportion to my actual treatment by the grownups in my life.

 

Rubber, Meet Road

~ Natalie Hart ~ 1 Comment

Today, I did something I’ve never done before: I gave my writing to a kid to read. Not just a kid, but one of my own kids and a bunch of others, all of whom I know. These are some opinionated kids who read a lot, so I’m thinking that they won’t be shy about telling me they were bored (fingers crossed that they won’t be).

Now is when I discover whether what I’ve worked on so hard for the last 14 months does what I set out to do: novelize the story of David and Saul so a kid can experience it with a level of excitement that approaches Percy Jackson or Harry Potter. Note that I said “approaches.” I may be confident in my writing, but I’m not delusional.

This is where the rubber meets the road, the s#*! hits the fan, and any other cliche you can think of. I’ll put my plastic shield up and wait for their responses.

Travel By Map

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

I was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade night on TV. At one point, they document a long plane ride by showing the red line of their journey across a map. They did this in the most recent Muppet Movie, too. When faced with a long trip and not much time to do it in, they decide to “travel by map” so it’ll go faster.

I find myself wishing I could travel by map — not location, but time. My church is in a tough spot. People are drifting away. Those who already worked hard, are working even harder. We’ve gone through this before, and we rallied. Twice. But it’s not clear that we’ll be able to rally this time. I want to travel by map so I can just find out the endpoint.

But there’s no such thing.

In my head, I know that the journey is important. My faithfulness, my trust in the Lord, my patience will be exercised and built up. (And between you and me, my patience can do with some building up.) I have the chance to be obedient, to continue to serve the Lord in the ministries I’m passionate about. Those things can only be good for me.

The unanswered/unanswerable questions still nag me, though. Will we close? If so, when? If not, how will we continue? Who will remain to continue? Will I remain to continue? What will we tell the kids? Where would we go?

I know it’s silly to be made so sad by that speedy line of travel in those movies. But I really want to travel by map.

Anyone else in a situation they want to rush to the end of?

Wonderful: Holy Laughter

~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments

I don’t always appreciate puns, but I love this book title: Between Heaven and Mirth. Appropriately, given the title, it’s about Why Joy, Humor and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life. I requested this book after seeing the author on the Colbert Report. It’s wonderful: full of jokes, but also discussion of why Christians have often thought they needed to be dour, and analysis of Scripture to restore what would’ve been funny to the people at the time.

It also reminds me of one of the best prayers I’ve been part of. When we lived in New York City, we belonged to All Angel’s Episcopal Church and were part of a great small group that met once a week for talk, Bible study and prayer. This night, we’d broken up into smaller groups for prayer. I was with two friends in a little hallway by the washing machine. One friend was praising God for His sweetness, which was lovely, but when she went on, “for your sweetness, your gooeyness, your frothy goodness,” we cracked up. Our friend was trying to give up sugar and, momentarily related all goodness to desserts. We couldn’t stop giggling and ended up thanking God for laughter and calling it a night. That prayer makes me happy every time I think of it.

Several years ago, on a tough Sunday of children’s church, unstoppable laughter during prayer was exactly what I needed. It was the first Sunday for a new three-year-old. A sweet little girl who didn’t care at all about what we were doing. She just wanted to do her own thing and explore the room and talk constantly about what she was experiencing. Which would have been fine, except that I also had to deal with 9-year-olds in the same group, and try to tell the story and keep order. I also believe no teenagers were in church that Sunday, so I didn’t have a helper. By the end of the service, I was frazzled. And then, during our intercessory prayer time, that same little girl burped. It was such an adorable little noise that I laughed. And, of course, the kids laughed. It was a cleansing laugh. I thanked God for it at the time, and I still do.

More recently (and before I read Between Heaven and Mirth), I went against type in my portrayal of the prophets in the David and Saul book. The usual image of an Old Testament prophet is of an angry man yelling at people to repent. My prophets are lighthearted and quick to laugh, not out of frivolity, but out of security.

David has escaped out his back window in the middle of the night and run away from King Saul, straight to the prophet Samuel. Saul figures out where David is and sends soldiers to capture him, but things take a surprising turn:

Samuel and Caleb strode towards the well, gathering other men along the way. There were fourteen of them by the time they reached Ramah’s outskirts. As the soldiers got closer, all the prophets did was stand arm-in-arm in a circle and sing. David couldn’t tell what they were singing, but snatches of melody made their way back to him and raised the hair on his forearms.

The army commander gave the signal, and the soldiers spread out in formation and unsheathed their weapons. The bronze and iron glinted like lightning in the sunshine, but the prophets didn’t acknowledge the soldiers in any way. When Saul’s men were mere steps away, the prophets broke apart and formed a line, but it was like no defensive line David knew of. Some of them stood with their arms raised to the heavens, others fell on the ground, pounding the earth with their fists, and still others whirled in wild circles, the hems of their robes flashing above their knees.

David watched, slack-jawed, as, one by one, the soldiers dropped their weapons and joined the men of God in their worship. Tears fell unchecked as he watched these rough soldiers be overcome by the Spirit of the Lord.

And then he laughed – not because the soldiers were making fools of themselves, but out of utter security in the Lord’s protection.

Anyone got any funny church stories to share?

 

 

Stealing from Life

~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments

I’m a thief.

I’ve stolen one line from a famous family story and used it in the novel I’m working on. Here’s the story in its more accurate version (to be followed by the pithier version that’s usually told).

In the last year of World War II, my father’s family fled the city of Utrecht (in the Netherlands) to his Tante Nell’s house, where they were also joined by his Tante Uut’s family. There were 25 people living/being hidden in this country house and Nell ran the place with military precision. One night, it was one of the kid’s jobs to do the dishes. He preferred not to. When Nell found the dishes undone, she went all over the house looking for the culprit. When it was determined that he was hiding in the little bathroom under the stairs, she stood in front of the door and made a speech about how it was important for everyone to do their job when it was required of them, and if they had to use the bathroom, they should do that on their own time.

The version my uncles always told was more dramatic. In that one, Tante Nell pounded on the door of the bathroom, yelling [language cleaned up a bit], “Poop on your own time!”

I stole just the last bit for a scene between Saul and David. They’ve both just returned from the battle after David killed Goliath. Saul was unable to sleep that night, obsessing about the song the women of every village they passed sang: “Saul has killed his thousands, but David his ten thousands,” which was literally impossible at that time, so it really burned.

Near dawn, Saul demands David be fetched to see whether the boy’s music will calm him down like it always used to:

The sky was still mostly dark when David finally arrived.

“You’re across the courtyard. What took so long?”

David cleared his throat. “My morning, um, attentions, my lord.”

“Piss on your own time,” Saul said. “Now that you’re a great hero and the new hope of all Israel, are you too important to play the harp for your king?”

It’s such a tiny thing, just five words, but I love slipping family lore into my works in progress. There’ll be more of these in the future, some funny, some more dramatic.

Feel free to tell me some of your family lore in return.

 

Wonderful: Funny Message Books and Gummy Vitamins

~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

Vitamins are good for you. I accept this. I used to buy vitamins, but they always sat in their plastic bottles making me feel guilty because I spent the money but hated swallowing those giant pills. And then last year, I looked to the left of the gummy vitamins I bought for the kids: adult gummy vitamins. Not weird like those chocolate calcium chews I tried once. Real gummy candy. Real vitamins.

Similarly, I tend to shy away from entertainment that’s Good For Me, but the novel I just finished, The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex, is the gummy vitamin of message books. I’d call it a Comic Allegory.

Gratuity (“Tip”) Tucci is an 11-year-old African-American-Italian girl. Her mother is abducted by the aliens who’d been sending her messages through a glowing purple mole on her neck. Shortly after this, the alien Boov “discover” Earth and rename it Smekland, because, if you discover something, you get to rename it and kick people out of their homes so you have somewhere to live. They herd all the Noble Savages of Smekland into one state, and expect the Noble Savages to be grateful.

Sound familiar?

So Tip and her cat Pig head off in the family car to find her mother. In an abandoned convenience store, she runs across a fugitive Boov named J.Lo (male) who winds up modifying her car so it can hover. From here, it becomes a road trip book. They hover across the country, first to Florida, through Roswell, NM, and then Arizona, getting into trouble, learning about each other’s cultures, and growing to appreciate each other.

Other, even worse aliens invade, and Tip and J.Lo team up to rid the world of them.

There were tons of silly touches, like multiple groups of boys who form organizations called B.O.O.B., despite the fact that the acronym doesn’t quite fit the actual group name. Lots of alternate names for familiar things, mangled English from J.Lo, bickering, disguises, funky alien technology. Tip’s personality is vivid and real. Here’s a little taste from the beginning:

I’d drained our bank account, and there was less than I’d expected in the rainy-day fund that Mom kept at the bottom of an underwear drawer in a panty hose egg labeled “DEAD SPIDERS.” As if I hadn’t always known it was there. As if I wouldn’t have wanted to look at dead spiders.

I’ve never read a book that functions so successfully as a comic novel and an allegory. It’s a wonderful middle grade novel. I loved  it. If you’re an adult and enjoy middle grade stuff, you might enjoy it, too. Or just get it for your kids.