Finding a Way

Here in State College it rains a lot.  When I say a lot what I mean is all the time especially in these past "spring" months.  Penn State has a large campus so students often have to walk long distances to get to class.  As soon as it starts to rain everyone reaches into their bag and pulls out their umbrella.  It rains so much that nobody even thinks about walking anywhere without an umbrella-even if it looks sunny when you leave (I made that mistake once...never again).  

Billie Jo, from Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust, has the opposite problem.  She lives in Oklahoma during the Great Depression and her life is spent waiting for rain.  Instead dust covers everything.  Plates and glasses are set face down on the table and only turned over immediately before food/drink is put on/in them in hopes of minimizing the amount of dust in the food.  The dust is everywhere seeping into every surface.  Occasionally there are dust storms forcing people inside where they try to block out the swirling dust and prevent it from entering their home.

Most of the people in this dust filled society are farmers so their life is spent waiting for rain-trying to get crops to come up out of the dust.  But this tale is not really about farmers it is about young Billie Jo as she struggles with her mothers death and her own injuries.  The book is a series of poems written from Billie Jo's perspective.  I didn't think I would like it but I ended up really enjoying the way the poems shaped the flow of the narrative.

Billie Jo and I do have one thing in common.  We both play piano.  Billie Jo describes it as heaven, "how supremely heaven playing piano can be."  I know the feeling.  When you forget about every stress, everything that's left on your to do list, you forget that there is a world out there besides you and the piano and you make beautiful music.  It may be in front of a crowd or it may be just for you, but for those moments you have found heaven.  I think everyone needs something like this in their life.  Something they can surrender themselves to and find their own slice of heaven.  What's your heaven?

Finding a way out of the dust, finding your slice of heaven...that's kids stuff.