Some Literary Top Tens (Journal 32)

“These books have kept me company through my long years” (from Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, p. 576).

Top 10 Children's Picture Books

1. Old Turtle and the Broken Truth by Douglas Wood
2. Three Questions by Jon Muth
3. Mole Music by David McPhail
4. Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman
5. Henry's Night by D. B. Johnson
6. Caleb's Lighthouse by Mark Kimball Moulton
7. One Grain of Sand by Pete Seeger
8. The Dump Man's Treasures by Lynne Plourde
9. Papa's Song by Kate and Jim McMullan
10.  The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg

Top 10 Intermediate or Young Adult Books

1. Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery
2. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
3. The Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson
4. Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
5. Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt
6. Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli
7. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
8. Abarat by Clive Barker
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Top 10 Novels

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
2. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
4. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
5. The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman
6. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
7. The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson
8. The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
9. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
10. A Rose inWinter by Kathleen Woodiwiss

Music to Read By: Songs for the Literate Listener (Journal 31)

“Without music, life is a journey through a desert.” --Pat Conroy, Beach Music

 

This is a track list I have created featuring songs that connect me to some of my favorite books.

“Faded Dress” by Kay Hanley (The Great Gatsby)

“Run to the Water” by Live (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)

“The Story” by Brandi Carlile (The History of Love)

“The Rain King” by Counting Crows (Henderson the Rain King)

“Left Me a Fool” by the Indigo Girls (“The Lady of Shallott)

“The Crane Wife 3” by The Decemberists (Wuthering Heights)

“Bring on the Wonder” by Susan Enan (Jane Eyre)

“Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

“Crazy Faith” By Alison Krauss and Union Station (The English Patient)

“Acoustic #3” by the Goo Goo Dolls (The Bluest Eye)

“That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart” by Aimee Mann (Until I Find You)

“Scarecrow” by Rustic Overtones (Persuasion)

“Isn't It a Pity” by the Cowboy Junkies (To Kill a Mockingbird)

“Words” by Gregory Alan Isakov (Leaves of Grass)

“Myth” by Delerium featuring Joanna Stevens (Sandman)

A Response to Literature (Journal 30)

“I put the book aside, astonished.  I don't know what I had been expecting, other than notes on the patterns that the book contained...but this sudden window into the past was like a glimpse of treasure” (from The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson, p. 33).

The Yacoubian Building

by Alaa al-Aswany

This was an amazing book.  It did take me awhile to really get into it, probably because of the episodic nature of the narrative structure.  Once I really got to know the various characters, though, I found their stories compelling.  Some of the stories were more sympathetic to me than others.  For example, I found that I really liked Zaki Bey.  He reminded me of my 83 year-old grandfather who was found to be juggling two girlfriends at his rest home.  I really liked his character.  He was polished, and never rude.  I absolutely hated his sister, Dawlat, though.  As a female reader I found I could empathize with her; she needed financial security from her brother.  I did not, however, agree with the means by which she attempted to secure that.  I was happy that Zaki Bey seemed to thwart her plans in the end by marrying Busayna – she was a woman who truly deserved a happy ending.  It was endearing to me how she ultimately came to care for Zaki Bey and how, as a result of those emotions, she abandoned her original plans.  She was a very spunky character who found a way to survive, found a way for her family to survive after her father’s death, despite hardship.  There was no way that Taha would have understood that.  Taha’s character gives insight into how religious fundamentalism works in a community such as the one described in The Yacoubian Building, but what about Radwa?  She had already lost one husband to the gihad, and now Taha.  I would have thought that as a character who underwent both emotional and physical torture he would have possessed more empathy, but he was so consumed by his need for revenge that in the end he abandoned the Organization’s plans (which admittedly took a year to hatch) in order to secure both his vengeance and his martyrdom.  I know Taha thought it was worth it, but as a reader I remain unconvinced.  I also felt more for Hatim Rasheed than I did for Abduh.  I know Abduh loved his son, but Hatim loved him.  It was a love of desperation, though, and perhaps that is why it was doomed to fail.  I was shocked in the end that Abduh felt enough rage and grief to brutally murder Hatim, but there is this sense of parallelism that develops as a result.  Abduh aligns with Taha, while Hatim aligns with the regime.  While Hatim does not explicitly torture Abduh, it is implicit.  He certainly manipulates him in order to get what he wants.  This is similar to what the regime does to Taha in order to get what they want.  Both actions compel another human being to bend to the will of another, although admittedly the severity is vastly different, the end result is still the same and lives are irreparably ruined and damaged as a result.  Along those same lines, the Sheikh and the Organization attempt to achieve those same goals, with similar results. 

Perhaps the ultimate message of the novel is about freedom, then.  Individuals need to be free to be themselves; they should not bend or change to meet another’s wills, nor should they force another to bend or change to meet theirs.  In the end, the only truly successful characters are Zaki Bey and Busayna, two characters who refuse to change their true identities, and in being truthful to one another, are able to find happiness and companionship in the end.  The other storylines relating to political corruption were less interesting to me, as I found it difficult to empathize with Hagg Azzam or Malak.  It seemed to me that they both got what they deserved.  Hagg Azzam blackmailed and bribed in order to achieve his high position, and then self-righteously got angry when El Fouli turned the tables and blackmailed and extorted him.  Hagg Azzam struck me as a hypocritical character who was only after his own best interests.  Furthermore, I hated him for what he did to Souad.  True, she did “break” her end of the bargain by getting pregnant, but he broke religious law in order to keep his face in society. 

Another of the novel’s messages seems to be that looks can be deceiving.  For example, people gossip about Busayna, but she remains a virgin (at least until Zaki Bey).  Also, the way that the people on the roof of the Yacoubian Building deal with Abduh relates to this message.  Because they like him, they do not judge him as harshly.  He is still committing a “sin” in their eyes, but because he is “nice” they do not see him as wicked, only as misguided.  (Hypocrisy in this society is interesting to note, too, particularly with regard to this theme.)  Malak, also, did not seem to deserve my sympathy.  He was trying to better himself, true, but the means by which he attempted to achieve this were problematic for me.  He used people, he stole space from the roof; true, he did give to charity, but he was also corrupt.  The way that religion is represent, too, is corrupt.  Here, there seems to be an alignment between the politics and the religion: they are inseparable, and they are also corrupt.  The two primary religious figures in the text are both able to bend the religious doctrines to achieve their own ends.  One of the Sheiks twists the religious discourse, causing young men and women to protest, face inhuman beatings, and ultimately martyrdom for a cause that they are brainwashed into believing.  The other Sheik is able to twist religious teachings such that Hagg Azzam is able to feel religiously justified in his forcible termination of Souad’s pregnancy.  Neither of these men seems to represent the “true Islam,” no matter how much each character seems to protest that he does.  The verisimilitude with which the author rendered these characters is truly remarkable, because as a reader you get to see through their eyes and walk a mile in their shoes.  Even if I did not agree on a personal level, as a reader I was able to understand each character’s motivations.

Recipe for a Beautiful Book (Journal 29)

He turns to the first page and instantly the tower and the sky, the desert and his very breath, his very heartbeat are snatched away and he is inside the book...the most beautiful book he has ever read” (from Keith Miller's The Book of Flying, p. 253).

Recipe for a Beautiful Book

Ingredients:

1 round, dynamic character

½ cup vivid verbs

¼ cup point of view

1 ¼ cup vibrant setting

¼ teaspoon motivation

1 ½ cup conflict

3 recurring motifs

2 pinches mood

¼ cup unsweetened symbols

1 dash atmosphere

4 tablespoons suspense

2 cups figurative language, firmly packed

1 climax, well stirred

1 cup semisweet stock characters

½ cup melted resolution (be sure to trim all loose ends)

12 archetypes, crushed

3 teaspoons tone extract

¼ cup witty dialogue

2 tablespoons allusion

Topping:

½ cup whipping theme

1 ½ cups fresh ideas, rinsed and thoroughly dried

a sprinkling of finely chopped metaphor

Baking Instructions:

   1. Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Parchment or wax paper line and grease a 12-inch round baking pan.

   2. In a medium bowl, mix together round dynamic character, vivid verbs, point of view, motivation, and conflict. Set aside.

   3. In a medium saucepan, melt recurring motifs , mood, unsweetened symbols, and atmosphere over low heat. Remove from heat. Stir in suspense, figurative language and climax. Add semisweet stock characters, blending well. Stir in melted resolution, crushed archetypes, tone, dialogue, and allusion.  Add to mixture in bowl.  Blend well.

   4. Spread mixture in prepared pan.

   5. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs. Cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack; remove parchment or wax paper. Turn right side up; cool completely.

   6. In a small bowl, beat whipping theme until stiff peaks form. Spread over top of cake and top with fresh ideas and metaphor. Refrigerate until serving time.

Makes 1 entertaining read.

Allusion Poem (Journal 28)

“What I want to tell you is this: the story was so perfectly, flawlessly written that it wrought drastic change in my life” (from Walter Moers' The City of Dreaming Books, p. 19).

"Reflections On Why I Never Played Sports"

I never tried out for little league,

Or pee-wee gymnastics like my little sister,

I had too many other things on my mind,

Like wondering if mice could really skate on paperclips

Or what it would be like to sleep in an ancient art museum bed

I never participated in intra-murals,

Or even took dance lessons or karate,

I was far too busy hollowing out a tree for my new home,

Or making friends with spiders and giants,

Sometimes,  I was even too sad to go play outside,

Like when Billy told me what happened to Ann and Dan,

Or when I let Jess cry his heart out on my shoulder,

I certainly didn’t have any time left for field hockey,

I had to help Tim get his father’s gun back,

Or I was too busy on the spruce barrens with Emily and the gossamer-clad Wind Woman,

Obviously no one expected me to play basketball,

I’m honestly not tall enough, and besides,

I had to help Sara with her extra chores – no matter what Miss Minchin said,

And I could not possibly have been expected to miss Anne and Gilbert’s wedding,

I had waited far too long for that,

I never conceived of being a cheerleader, either,

I guess Karana had taught me too much about what an independent woman could do that I simply could not stand to be around those airheads,

I never tried fencing, either,

I just had to reuinte Josh and Joey,

And help Mary unlock the secrets of the forgotten garden,

Volleyball was out of the question,

I had to empty my mother’s china cabinet just to see

If it had the power to give life,

And I could never have practiced archery,

Not after learning the lesson of compassion from Beauty,

I was even too busy for bowling,

I was practicing with Louis and Sam Beaver,

And as far as the tennis team, well,

You would have to ask Meg or Calvin or Charles Wallace,

Because you certainly wouldn’t believe me.

Flash Fiction (Journal 27)

“When something terrible happens to someone else, people often use the word 'unbearable.'  Living through a child's death, a spouse's, enduring some other kind of permanent loss – it's unbearable, it's too awful to be borne, and the person or people to whom it's happened take on a kind of horrible glow in your mind, because they are in fact bearing it, or trying to: doing the thing that it's impossible to do.  The glow can be blinding at first – it can be all you see – and although it diminishes as years pass it never goes out entirely, so that late some night when you are wandering the back pathways of your mind you may stop at the sudden sight of someone up ahea, signaling even now with a faint but terrible light” (from The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer, p. 9)

“An Author's Betrayal: A Story for Ann Packer”

Tossing and turning fitfully, sheets tangled around my ankles, I dreamed.  I screamed. 

“How could you let it end that way?”

Annie Wilkes challenged Paul Sheldon the way I wish I could challenge you, minus the sledgehammer, of course.  Either way, the end is misery.

“What were you thinking?”

Even in my dream I felt ripped off, bereft, and spoiled for a fight. 

“With Kilroy, she could've been happy.  She didn't even love Mike anymore, had almost forgotten her guilt, forgotten that she might burn in hell for dumping a quadriplegic.”

I had finished the novel before going to bed, and my mind was stewing; I felt betrayed. 

“You have to rewrite the ending.”

In my dreams, I confronted you.  You had ruined Carrie's life and deserved to be punished.   

“Is there a jail cell or a circle in hell reserved for authors who murder their characters' spirits?”  I asked.

“Who cares if it's mere fiction?  You forced Carrie to abandon her dreams, her ambitions, her hopes for love – all to take care of a wheelchair-bound man who could never satisfy her.”

“What were you thinking?”

“Carrie and Kilroy were two people each trying to survive tragedies named Mike, and they could have, together, but you, in all your cruelty, just wouldn't let them.  And now Carrie's left, holding Mike's sandwich up to his mouth, her other hand cupped beneath his chin to catch the crumbs.  How could you possibly think that she didn't deserve more?  Maybe he does, too, but he's not the one I'm concerned with at the moment.”

“What kind of message were you trying to send, anyway?  You can't be happy, you shouldn't leave home, you don't deserve love, you can't escape your past?  The world really isn't bigger than Madison?”

“I mean, really, authors like you should be shot.”

And then I woke up.  It was just a dream; nothing changed.  I flipped to the last page of the book, and those same haunting words remained.  Sometimes, bad things do happen to good characters.

(Note: this brief story was written after I finished reading Packer's The Dive From Clausen's Pier, not a book I would necessarily recommend, unless you enjoy unhappy endings...)

My Reading Credo (Journal 26)

“When you read a manuscript that has been damaged by water, fire, light or just the passing of the years, your eye needs to study not just the shape of the letters but other marks of production.  The speed of the pen.  The pressure of the hand on the page.  Breaks and releases in the flow.  You must relax.  Think of nothing.  Until you wake into a dream where you are at once a pen flying over vellum and the vellum itself with the touch of ink tickling your surface.  Then you can read it.  The intention of the writer, his thoughts, his hesitations, his longings and his meaning.  You can read as clearly as if you were the very candlelight illuminating the page as the pen speeds over it” (from The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, p. 4).

 

My Reading Credo:

I believe in entering a book, walking around inside it, communing with the characters, and in becoming the candlelight that illuminates the page.

I believe in always finishing a book, no matter if it seems hopeless or trite; something of worth may be found in every story.

I believe unreliable narrators are the best; they are the most human.

I believe prose should sound poetic.

I believe the best writers are subtle, practiced; they have internalized the devices and conventions so that they flow naturally onto the page and into the heart and mind of the reader.

I believe picture books are full of wisdom for readers of all ages.

I believe in stopping reading to look up a word.

I believe in always having a book at hand.

I believe it's not cheating to be reading more than one book at a time.

I believe in rereading.

I believe in writing in books and marking favorite passages.

I believe in reading a book from its beginning; it is unethical to read the last page first or to skip ahead.

I believe that sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.

I believe stand-alone novels are superior to series.

I believe in “movie reads” on rainy weekends.

I believe in reading in the bubble bath (just don't drop the book).

I believe in reading at least a chapter a night before going to bed.

I believe in the canon – there are books everyone should read.

I believe in owning books – lots of them.

I believe there are worse things I could spend my money on than books.

I believe books make the best gifts.

I believe reading is knowledge and power.

I believe reading can transport you.

I believe reading can teach you things you didn't know and remind you of things you'd long since forgotten.

I believe in my favorite authors.

I believe books can cheer you up and be your friend, or console you and let you know that you're not alone.

I believe the book is always better than the movie.

I believe in the power of story to change the world (or even a person's mind).

I believe that there is no such thing as too many books.

I believe books can change your life, your mood, your outlook, your thinking.

I believe in recommending books and helping people find the right book.

I believe you shouldn't break the binding when you read or fold down the pages.

I believe in pretty bookmarks.

I believe readers make the best writers.

The Most Important Invention (Journal 25)

This one is a no brainer for me.  The most important invention in all the world is, of course, the printing press.  Without the advent of Gutenberg's press, reading might still be available only to the upper classes or those affiliated with the church.  Middle and lower class individuals might be deprived the privilege of owning books or even reading.  Most families would not be able to afford books.  Most individuals would not be taught the joys of reading, let alone the skills associated with the past-time.  Information (and entertainment) garnered from reading would be much more limited.  Without the printing press, books would still be copied out by hand and story would be the sole purview of traveling scops or minstrels or troubadours.  It would be up to individuals to remember what they heard and hold onto it in the recesses of their minds and memories.  Writers would not exist today in the numbers they do without the printing press, either.  Writing itself might have remained an occupation for the wealthy instead of a past time that anyone could enjoy.  Without this vital invention, the human race would have missed out on some very important and entertaining tales.

The Songs of My Life (Journal 24)

As a small girl, my music tastes were largely influenced by my parents, my mom mostly.  Whenever she cleaned the house, she would put on a movie, usually a musical.  Her favorites were The Jazz Singer, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Grease, and The Sound of Music.  I remember loving The Jazz Singer and Neil Diamond.  When I was three I had a door-sized poster of Neil Diamond on my bedroom door; my aunt had brought it back from a concert.  I used to listen to the song “America” over and over again.

In junior high, it was Poison, Def Leppard, and Bon Jovi.  I remember making up a dance to “Pour Some Sugar on Me” with my friend Danielle.  At junior high dances, Warrant's “Heaven” was the song my boyfriend and I called our own.

In high school, the grunge scene hit, but the song I remember the most is an oldie and goodie.  On my sixteenth birthday, my dad called the radio station and dedicated Neil Sedaka's “Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen” to me.  I still cry every time I hear that song.

My college years were all about Live and MeatLoaf.  I loved (and still do) MeatLoaf.  I saw him three times in concert.  I skipped an entire day of classes to drive all the way to Boston to go to a book signing he was doing for his memoir, To Hell and Back.  I stuck around to get his autograph after seeing him in concert at the Hamden Beach Casino, but I remain disappointed to this day that I never heard him play my favorite song live: “For Crying Out Loud.”  I love that song.  I thought I might have a chance to request it when I saw him at the Orpheum for his VH-1 Storytellers Tour.  Instead, the microphone went to the couple one row to my left.  They talked about how they danced to one of Meat's songs at their wedding.  He asked which one, and then disparaged them mercilessly when they told him.  It was “Two Out of Three Ain't Bad,” the chorus of which is “I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you, but don't be sad, 'cause two outta three ain't bad.”  What kind of wedding song is that, anyway?

As an adult, I stayed true to my love of great lyrics.  I fell mostly for chick rock at this point in my life.  If you come to a stop next to me at a red light and look over, you'll see me singing along, probably to Brandi Carlile.  Her song, “The Story” is one of my favorites.  It really is all about how all of the disappointing choices in a person's life can ultimately lead to happiness.  I like that message. 

When I got married, I walked down the aisle to Peter Gabriel's “Book of Love,” and my husband and I shared our first dance as a married couple to “The Gift” by Collin Raye.  These are two of the songs that mean the most to me and that identify who I am now, as a partner and a wife.

Now that I'm a mom, though, I have the soundtrack to Disney's Frozen perpetually stuck in my head, and I find myself making up finny songs about brushing teeth or setting our address to music so my daughter can learn it more easily.  "Hush Little Baby" remains a bedtime favorite for my daughter, too, and now she can sing it with me.  I love the way her little girl's voice mingles with mine - that's probably my favorite kind of music.

The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Done (Journal 23)

Prompt: What's the dumbest thing I've ever done?

The dumbest thing I've ever done was motivated by childish optimism.  I was three and a half at the time, and my favorite television show and my favorite character was Wonder Woman.  I watched the show with my dad, curled up on the orange and brown and white plaid couch.  It was 1980, after all.  I even had the underoos, an under shirt and panties set that was made to look like Wonder Woman's costume.  I wore them around the house all the time and pretended that I was Wonder Woman, that glorious Amazon who always swooped in to save the day.  The invisible plane was the easiest to pull off, but I often got in trouble for hitting my little sister with the piece of thick yellow yarn I used as my magic lasso.  At the time, my family and I were living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and we were getting ready to move back to Maine.  My sister was one and a half, and she and I shared a room.  Our parents had taken apart our beds, so that only the box springs and mattresses rested on the floor, on opposite sides of the room.  I was pretending to save the day, as usual, sneaking around piles of cardboard boxes that resembled city skyscrapers to my child's imagination.  As I tracked that vile criminal, always played by my sister, into our bedroom, I was overcome.  I figured that if Wonder Woman could fly, then so could I.  I took a flying leap from one stack of mattresses to the other – all the way across the room in pursuit of the evil-doer.  Instead of catching my arch-nemesis, though, I instead caught the wall – with my face.  As I smacked my face into the wall, I drove my two front teeth straight back against the roof of my mouth.  I was rushed to the dentist, and they were both pulled out.  I was mollified with my favorite snack: grape popsicles, as many as I wanted, per dentist's orders.  What I didn't foresee at the time were the far-reaching consequences that followed me until my new front teeth grew in at the beginning of the third grade.  At every Christmas pageant, whether at school or at the community center or even at church, I was forced for three years to sing “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth.”  Every year I threw tantrums to try to get out of it, and every Christmas, my parents told me that having to sing that song was part of the lesson I had to learn: I was a very special girl, but I was certainly no superhero.

The Snow Man (Journal 22)

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter 


To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 


The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind 


That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds 


Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

***

Write about “The Snow Man.”

I first met Wallace Stevens as an undergraduate.  I liked him.  He was more enigmatic and complicated than some other poets I had met; this man had depth.  I teach this poem as part of my sophomore poetry unit, and I ask my students to think critically about the poem's title and structure.  “The Snow Man” structurally is made up of five unrhymed tercets, but only one long sentence.  Each stanza seems stacked, one on the other, like a snowman, evoking the title, but also suggesting something different.  It is not, as the title may be misread to indicate, about a snowman.  The two word title is significant and should work to evoke something more sophisticated than “Frosty.” 

Whenever I read this poem, I think of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  One of the chapters is about the nature of winter.  While winter archetypally represents death and barrenness, Dillard sees it as a season full of life.  She focuses on the living and the vitality in the midst of the snow, rather than the frozen hibernatory quietness and death the season usually represents.  Stevens' point is similar in this poem as he contemplates the true nature of the season.  Although, his point is somewhat paradoxical.  In the final stanza, Stevens speaks of the “nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”  The listener somehow has to transcend human discomfort and even the human condition (“and nothing himself”) to truly behold winter-ness.

I often ask my students to reflect about what Stevens means when he speaks of a “mind of winter.”  What does it mean to have a “mind of winter,” and how might it be different from a “mind of summer”?  Add that to the requirement of the second stanza that requires one to “have been cold a long time” in order to truly appreciate the winter-ness of the scene, the junipers and the spruces.  I ask them to notice that the “January sun” of the third stanza is juxtaposed against the coldness of the second stanza.  And I ask them to think about the significance of the final line and what it truly says about the connection between man and nature and the almost symbiotic connection between man's imagination (as opposed to the frailty of the human condition) and his ability to truly perceive nature.

Observation Journal (Journal 21)

Prompt:

For fifteen minutes sit and observe your classroom, a meeting, a sporting event, the library, an airport, the mall, a doctor’s office…. Then write. Take note of the small details of the room, the people, the colors, sounds, smells…. Your jurnal entry may end up being a simple list or you may create the story of the moment. 

I completed my observation journal on a recent trip to Target.  Here is what I observed:

squeaking wheels of shopping carts

the scent of popcorn and pretzels

the hissing squeal of the espresso machine in the Starbucks

beeping registers, loud talking, swishing and crumpling register papers

multi-colored bags hanging from silver hooks, one in yellow-striped canvas

scarves hang, multi-colored in the next aisle, all bright pinks and yellows and bright greens, one in a grayish-blue

shiny silvers and golds in the jewelry case, earrings hang on the wall, sunglasses glint at the back of the section

a stylishly dressed woman, straight brown, shoulder length hair, pulled back on her left side with one barrette, wearing dark blue jeans and a greenish-brown turtleneck sweater, her tan jacket hangs open as she pushes her red cart – curtain rods overhang the back

my own reflection

DVDs on sale for $9 – I have seen most of them

a young woman in a red short and khakis rushes by, speaking into her walkie talkie

tiny tropical colored bathing suits hang from several racks

folded t-shirts in three tiers, spring colors

converse sneakers in many colors

ladies lined up by the changing room

girls chatting behind a large red desk, handing out small plastic tickets with numbers and answering the telephone

men's clothing racks give way to electronics

          a man in a black shirt, faded sneakers and jeans, black wool jacket shops among hanging shirts,   
             all button-down

DVDs faced out in striped racks, people make their ways up and down the skinny aisles

video and other cameras under lock on silvery ropes

TVs are turned on, playing silent music videos and blockbuster previews

a woman carrying a lime green shoulder bag shops

a man speaking loudly into his bluetooth, something about car repairs

a woman slaps her son's hand, says no forcefully

“excuse me”

small children's clothes in pinks and oranges, a yellow Easter dress

gender-separated toy section: Play Doh and board games give way to Strawberry Shortcake dolls and My Little Ponies, then action figures and guns

a whining girl begins to cry, she's about three years old

a woman in too-tight leggings shops for a yoga mat

marked-down Valentine candies and stuffed animals, all hearts and reds and pinks

women examine products carefully for sale prices, one squints at a bar code

the grocery section: boxes of rice dinners, cookies, cereal, bags of potato chips

a woman in hanging turquoise earrings and red lipstick, bangs hang heavy over her forehead

a heavy red beaded necklace hangs in the opening of a black and white printed winter jacket, it has a belt, but it is open and untied; she pushes a cart toward the pet food aisle

cosmetics and jumbo shampoo bottles on sale

hair brushes and hair elastics on one side; hair colors in many hues, some natural, some not on the other side of the aisle