Care to swim with the sea turtles, soar high above the earth with regal hawks, or hear wondrous tales of heroic voyagers navigating the Pacific by wind and stars?
Then join a young Hawaiian girl as she takes a magical journey around the Islands in this gorgeous new picture book, Aloha Everything by Kaylin Melia George and Mae Waite (Red Comet Press, 2024). Through the traditional storytelling dance of the hula, she learns about the history, culture, and folklore of her homeland while embracing the true meaning of “Aloha.”
We first meet little Ano one enchanted night:
In the hush of the night with the moon still aglow, a small baby was born where the koa trees grow,
where lehua blooms bright, where the mo'o give chase, where the ocean spray's kiss meets the sky's close embrace.
With her curls kapa soft, breath like breadfruit so sweet, this dear child evermore shared the island's heartbeat.
This fierce-spirited, courageous child, so swift and smart, grew in both mind and heart. She was indeed special, but still had much to learn. What did hula teach her with its generations of treasured stories and rich lore?
First, she learned how the islands were formed, and about the evolution of plants and wildlife. As “humble seeds burst to blooms,” and “rock eroded to sand . . . a world born ablaze turned to lush wonderland.” Soon creatures filled the land, sea and sky from “mauka to makai.” Clinging to a hawk’s wings, the girl surveyed all these wonders from her perch amid the clouds, while the majestic bird imparted his wisdom: “To our ‘āina be just./When we care for our earth,/then our earth cares for us.”
Ruff ruff! The sun’s out and the water’s fine. Let’s dip into some of Karen Fields’s happy-making paintings.
Based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, Karen’s been interested in art since childhood. When she was little, she’d watch her dad at his drafting table in his attic studio. When he wasn’t looking, she’d use his shape templates to create drawings of her own.
“I always have this imagination, something I want to use. I don’t understand the idea of leisure time.” ~ Cher Wang
“Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney” by Robert Henri (1916).
PAJAMA DAYS
by Joanna Zarkadas
Here's to pajama days,
And the people who celebrate them.
Here's to comfort over style,
Uncombed hair and faces without makeup.
Hats off to reading all day
Or binge watching the latest Netflix series.
Kudos to cold pizza for breakfast,
Or hot buttered popcorn for dinner.
Blue ribbons for long phone conversations with friends,
And lazy couch lounging by the fire.
Gold medals for forgetting about "to do" lists,
Bathrooms that need cleaning,
Or bills that need paying.
Cheers to taking a day off every now and again
Without remorse, without guilt, without judgment.
High fives to sometimes doing whatever you want,
When you want, and
Eating whatever suits your fancy,
No matter the carb count or sugar content.
Here's to pajama days,
And a round of applause for those who know they deserve them!
~ as posted at Your Daily Poem (September 7, 2023).
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“The Green Pajamas” by Leopold Gould Seyffert (1932).
Ah, I can just see it now — me in my jade green silk pajamas reclining on a chaise lounge, sipping a nice cup of darjeeling, dipping in and out of the latest Jenny Colgan novel, bossa nova music softly playing in the background. Secret husband Colin Firth (dressed in his Mr Darcy finest) drifts in at regular intervals with a tray of freshly baked French pastries. Not a care in the world, I feel thoroughly pampered.
If only.
I’m certainly in favor of “reading all day,” and know I’m adequately skilled at “lounging by the fire,” i.e., hanging around in general (years of practice). 😀 As for the pajamas, it’s kind of my daily uniform anyway. Skip cleaning the bathroom and paying bills? Count me in!
About those “long phone conversations with friends.” Um, no thank you (read about my love-hate relationship with phones here).
But it would be nice nibbling on chocolates and sipping tea while binge watching The Great British Baking Show or All Creatures Great and Small.
“Mademoiselle Mink Breakfasts in Bed” by Janet Hill.
Yet . . . could I really enjoy doing these things sans guilt and remorse? Or would I be thinking of the extra calories I can’t afford, how not fun it will be to play catch-up the following day? Will my never-ending to-do list hover in the background even as I wait for Paul Hollywood to shake a contestant’s hand? I was never a zen person, firmly believing in planning ahead, being prepared. Yep, a real stick-in-the mud.
I do think part of it is the aging thing. The older I get, the longer it takes to get simple stuff done — stuff I could whiz through twice as fast twenty years ago. So, it’s important that I keep to plan. I’ve settled on a sensible compromise: give myself small breaks throughout the day (quick YouTube fix, drown in a fave tune from my iTunes playlist, reach for a cookie, read a poem, arrange flowers).
“The Bath” by Alfred Stevens (1873).
I’m simply not capable of giving myself an entire day off, even if I can convince myself I deserve it. Call me crazy, but I’d much rather feel productive. Alternating work + play = much less guilt. 🙂
How about you?When was the last time you gave yourself an entire day off? Any advice for how to lessen the guilt?Maybe in my next life I can be ‘devil may care’ Jama. 😀
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Lovely and talented Michelle Kogan is hosting the Roundup at MoreArt4All. Be sure to zip on over to check out the full menu of poetic goodness being served up around the blogosphere this week. Have a good Memorial Day weekend!
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“Breakfast in Bed” by Miki De Goodaboom.
“I’d rather spend my leisure time doing what some people call my work and I call my fun.” ~ Jared Diamond
Hungry for a donut? This friendly blue robot is ready to take your order. Thanks to San Francisco artist Eric Joyner, they’re all baked to perfection fresh on the premises.
Pre-Joyner, I was pretty ho hum about robots. They seemed cold, mechanical, and well . . . robotic. Nothing warm and fuzzy there.
But the more I looked at Eric’s playfully surreal, uber imaginative, sometimes bizarre paintings, the more fascinated I became with his pop/sci-fi/nostalgic world showing robots and donuts interacting in all kinds of fascinating scenarios.
So why robots and donuts, and how did they become his signature motif?
Veggie lovers: grab your trowels, spades, and watering cans. Warm weather’s here and it’s time to make delicious things grow.
In Miss MacDonald Has a Farm by Kalee Gwarjanski and Elizabet Vuković (Doubleday BFYR, 2024), we’re all invited to tag along with busy Miss MacDonald as she cultivates, harvests, and then cooks colorful crops of healthy, flavorful produce. With a pick-pick here, and a shuck-shuck there, she takes us from seed to table with hard work, patience, and careful tending.
Debut author Gwarjanski’s upbeat female-centric spin on the traditional “Old MacDonald” song, with its rhythmic, rollicking text, is equally fun to sing or read aloud. Since the verse scans so well, those familiar with the song will likely find it hard to resist vocalizing, especially with the jaunty tagline “E-I-E-I-GROW.”
So what is Miss MacDonald actually growing? Lettuce, peas, tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, potatoes, corn and pumpkins. She begins by planting lettuce:
Miss MacDonald has a farm. She loves things that grow.
And on that farm, she has some lettuce.
E-I-E-I-GROW
With a seed-seed here and a sow-throw there,
here it shoots, there it sprouts, everywhere it sprout-sprouts.
Miss MacDonald has a farm. She loves things that grow.
(I can hear you singing!) 🙂
She then goes on to complete a different task for each of the other vegetables: waters her peas, weeds her tomato plants, picks her green beans, prunes her zucchini, hills her potatoes, shucks her corn, and finally washes and cans her pumpkins.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 