For many years, the back page of Real Simpleย featured an excerpt from a book, an inspirational quote, or some final words of wisdom. In 2002-ish, when I was working as a senior editor there, we ran this:
How you been?
Busy. Howโs work?
Busy.
How was your week?
Good. Busy.
You name the question, busy is the answer. Yes, yes, I know, we are all terribly busy doing terribly important things. But I think more often than not, busy is simply the most acceptable knee-jerk response.
Certainly there are more interesting, more original and more accurate ways to answer the question โHow are you?โ Iโm hungry for a burrito; Iโm envious of my best friend; Iโm frustrated by everything thatโs broken in my house; Iโm itchy.
Yet busy stands alone as the easiest way of summarizing all that you do and all that you are. โI am busyโ is the short way of saying โ implying โ โMy time is filled, my phone does not stop ringing and you (therefore) should think well of me.โ
Have people always been this busy? Did cave men think they were busy, too? (โThis week is crazy โ Iโve got about 10 caves to draw on. Can I meet you by the fire next week?โ)
I have a hunch that there is a direct correlation between the advent of coffee bars and the increase in busy-ness. Look at us. Weโre all pros now at hailing cabs/making Xeroxes/carpooling/performing surgery with a to-go cup in hand. Weโre skittering about like hyperactive gerbils, high not just on caffeine, but on caffeineโs luscious byproduct, productivity. Ah, the joy of doing, accomplishing, crossing off.
As kids, our stock answer to most every question (โWhat did you do at school today?โ โWhatโs new?โ) was, โNothing.โ In our countryโs history there have been exactly seven kids who responded with a statement other than โnothing,โ and three of those were named Hanson. Then, somewhere on the way to adulthood, we each took a 180-degree turn. We cashed in our โnothingโ for โbusy.โ
Iโm starting to think that, like youth, the word nothing is wasted on the young. Maybe we should try re-introducing it into our grown-up vernacular. Nothing. I say it a few times and I can feel myself becoming more quiet, decaffeinated, Zen-ish. Nothing. Now Iโm picturing emptiness, a white blanket, a couple ducks gliding on a still pond. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. How did we get so far away from it?
It was my introduction to the writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who died yesterday from ovarian cancer at the age of 51. She had three kids and a husband of 26 years. Many of you were familiar with her childrensโ picture books (Little Pea, OK, Spoon, Duck! Rabbit!) which came along a little after my kids aged out of that genre.ย Millions more of you were first introduced to her last week when, on her death bed, she wrote a dating profile for her husband, Jason, in the New York Timesโ Modern Love column, โYou Might Want to Marry My Husband.โย Itโs hard to read, but you must.
Soon after I read โBusy,โ I made a point to read the memoir from which it was excerpted,ย Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. Itโs a memoir of her life in alphabetical order, but itโs really a catalog of her worldview โ her generous, optimistic, completely oddball worldview that you canโt help but fall in love with. I want to share a few examples:
Under โLโ
LOVE โ If you really love someone, you want to know what they ate for lunch or dinner without you. Hi, sweetie, how was your day, what did you have for lunch? Or if your mate was out of town on business: How was your trip, did the meeting go well, what did you do for dinner? Jason will stumble home in the wee hours from a bachelor party, and as he crawls into bed Iโll pry myself from sleep long enough to mumble, how was the party, how was the restaurant beforehand? The meal that has no bearing on the relationship appears to be breakfast. I can love you and not know that when you were in Cincinnati last Wednesday you had yogurt and a bagel.
Under โBโ
BIRTHDAY โ When I was a kid, my mom always made sure my brother and sisters and I woke up to birthday signs and her famous Krouse Klown drawing. I tried instating the Rosenthal Rabbit for my own kids, but it fizzled out because in my mind it never felt as special or as important as Krouse Klown; it felt fraudulent and satirical. For as many [of my own birthdays] as I can remember, my mom has presented me with a poem, a tender,rhyming summary of my life up to that point, and it is these gifts of verse written in her lovely Ann Krouse script that are the centerpiece of each birthday.
BUTTERSCOTCH โ I love butterscotch but rarely think to seek it out.
Under โPโ
PALINDROME โ I am overly enamored with the palindrome: Won Ton, Not Now.
PIE โ There are a few gestures kinder than a friend baking you a pie. (SEE ALSO: Woman Across the Hall.)
Under โRโ
RAINY DAY โ A rainy day comes as a relief. Rain is your pass to stay inside, to retreat. Itโs cozy and safe, hanging out on this side of the gray. But then the sun comes out in the afternoon, and thereโs disappointment, even fear, because the world will now resume, and it expects your participation. People will get dressed and leave their houses and go places and do things. Stepping out into the big, whirling, jarringly sunny world โ a world that just a few minutes ago was so confined and still and understated, and refreshingly gloomy โ seems overwhelming.
RETURNING TO LIFE AFTER BEING DEAD โ When I am feeling dreary, annoyed, and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful, or mundane. Oh, thereโs a light switch! I havenโt seen a light switch in so long! I didnโt realize how much I missed light switches! Oh! Oh! And look โ the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello cracks! Let me get a good look at you. And thereโs my neighbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what Iโm saying? Why did that bother me? Itโs soโฆendearing.
Under โSโ
SOUP โ A good soup attracts chairs. This is an African proverb. I can hear the shuffling and squeaking on the wood floor, the gathering โround. This, from just five well-chosen words.
She was a lover of words โ the way they sounded, the physical way they fit together. She made a career of finding happiness and a life philosophy in the random, the absurd, the sophomoric. Encyclopedia also includes things like charts that show the progression of going from a good mood to a bad mood; yearbook signatures that summarize high school; tables titled โThings That Confused Me for Way too Longโ (As a kid she thought grown-ups were saying ten-year, not tenure); illustrations that show what she might look in a โWantedโ poster. She was the master of flipping conventions upside down. Think about writing a dating profile for your husband for after you are gone. And ending with an empty space where he can start a new love story. Think about how generous and full of grace and clear-headed and loving and funny that is.
I donโt know what exactly this is all adding up to today. I wish I could be more philosophical about her treatise on โNothing.โ (Are we paying attention? Should her death be a critical reminder for all of us to aspire to more Nothing?) Except to say that Iโm so deeply sad to hear that sheโs gone. When I read that Modern Love essay, I had no idea she was dying. And though I had the briefest of relationships with her when I tried to assign her something as an editor, my only legitimate connection to her is from reading โ and remembering โ her words as I go about my day, flipping a light switch, baking a pie for someone, asking my husband what he had for lunch. I guess I just want to make sure as many people as possible do the same.
Here is her official website.
Here is her obituary.
Here, again, is โYou Might Want to Marry My Husband.โ
Here is Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.
Here is her newest memoir, Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal, written before her diagnosis.
Fans of her childrensโ books, please leave your recommendations in the comment field.
P.S. What have you been putting off doing/starting/creating? I mean seriously, what are we all waiting for? Start it today. Start it now. In her honor.
I am sitting at my laptop, crying as I read this. I loved AKRโs work, her view from where she stood, her love of her family, her willingness to make beautiful things with words. I did not know she was ill. What a profound loss. Her _Encyclopediaโฆ_ is absolutely perfect, and we read _Little Pea_ for years, as pairs, as trios, until we were five, and still we read. Iโm so sorry to hear she is gone.
What a nice post and introduction, for me, to this woman. Love the โNothingโ piece and the excerpts you posted. Putting her memoir on my list.
As a 1st grade teacher โ I only knew AKR through her Childrenโs books. My #1 favorite is Plant a Kiss. This book is short and sweet, given to us as a baby gift for our daughter. It was the first book she gravitated to when bedtime stories became a nightly ritual. My husband and I can recite the text by heart, and occasionally do when the moment strikes. Riley loves the book also for the tactile glitter that dots each page where the planted kiss sprouts. We are now continuing this tradition of reading, and feeling the little plant bloom with her little brother Cooper. It is a special book for us. Other favorites include Friendshape, which I gave to my two team-teacher colleagues upon my โretirementโ to stay home with my kids. Her words inspire heartfelt emotion and love and need to be shared. Thanks for this post.
BUSY! I feel exactly the same way. what a great woman. X
Just four words: Thank you so much
Spoon is our absolute favorite โ I read it nightly more times than I can count but it never got old for me or my son who requested it. Recently his teacher asked them to share a favorite picture book, preferably with a message and without hesitation he picked Spoonโฆsince he is now 10, I panicked thinking it would take us some time to find it on one of our bookshelves, but it was still in a little book copyright near his bedโฆ.
How sad that someone with such talent is gone from this world. I will definitely order her two books.
Yes Day has always been a favorite of my kids (who doesnโt want a day full of yes??) What a loss.
โThis Plus That: Lifeโs Little Equationsโ was my daughterโs favorite book. We read it weekly if not daily for years.
The Little Pea, Little Hoot and Little Oink board book box set is my go to baby shower/first birthday gift. My childrenโs chewed up, ripped and spine cracked copy of these books is something I will keep always.
It is impossible to pick just one of Amy Krouse Rosenthalโs childrenโs books. A favorite is Friendscape which talks about the value of friends. Exclamation Mark is classic Amy, urging the reader to go out and make their mark. And I scream, Ice Cream makes you laugh with all the play on words. I own over 20 of her childrenโs books and use them often in my job as an elementary school counselor.
This was a beautiful tribute, now Iโm crying all over again. Spoon. I read it to my kids and each morning my daughter asks to spoon when we snuggle together and talk about the book. I want to tell her about losing Amy, but since weโre the same age I donโt want her to get scared. The fact that so many of these comments listed different titles is a true testament to how prolific she was, and how each book was special and unique. Thank you again for your eloquence and for the quotes.
I discovered Amy K R after reading โYou Might Want to Marry My Husbandโ (quite by accident) last week. I have since read โTextbook Amy Krouse Rosenthalโ, and her โEncyclopedia of an Ordinary Lifeโ came in the mail today. Your tribute was beautiful. She left this Earth too soon.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this wonderful article about Amy Krouse Rosenthal. As a former first grade teacher I loved sharing Amyโs books with my students year after year, but I had not read her adult writingโฆand then I read her โYou Might Want to Marry My Husbandโ in the NYTimes. I was terribly saddened to hear of her death, a terrible loss in so many ways and my heart goes out to her family. Thank you for sharing, I will be reading Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life soon!
Compliments on the post.
Iโm glad someone finally said it: Think about how generous and clear-headed and loving and funny that is.
What Amy did was so unconditionally loving that Iโm still stunned that we humans are capable of empathy even at our last moments. I had no idea who she was but now am reading everything.
Thank you for sharing this touching tribute to the talented Amy. I didnโt know her but her words ring true with me, and I too, lost a dear, brilliant college friend this year to cancer. Stay tuned for what I start in her honor.
Iโve been a longtime fan of AKR, without really knowing much about her. Weโve loved the โLittle Peaโ trilogy for years! My two year old twins were gifted โI Wish You Moreโ over the holidays, and it was only after reading The NY Times article that I made the correlation. She left this world way too soon, but boy, did she leave her mark for generations of future readers.
This is a sad news. I just finished reading one of her book last night and went online to find more about her, but this is one of the top news that came out. Nevertheless, her legacy will surely last for generations.