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Beverly Cleary, 1916-2021

 I'm writing today in gratitude for Beverly Cleary, who was a "spiritual" writer. She didn't talk about God (at least not much, in my memory), but she was aware of powerful, overlooked currents in everyday life, and her writing was wondrous.

One of my favorites, among Cleary's inventions, is Leigh Botts. He is lonely in California, and he writes to the humor-novelist Boyd Henshaw, who basically says: "You have a shitty situation, but why don't you stop waiting for change? Why don't you yourself make some changes?"

Leigh begins to write, and his writing makes him a deeper reader, and his reading makes him inventive and empathic. The world around him doesn't get notably "better," but Leigh himself becomes stronger, and the lost, powerless page-one kid begins to seem like a distant memory. 

The book seems like a magic trick: Cleary describes personal change over time, and she doesn't make you aware of her machinations and tricks. The furniture glides on and off mid-scene, as in a well-staged play. You're in a dream.

The other moment I like very much is Ramona and Beezus with their mother. Beezus is royally pissed because she doesn't want an at-home haircut. Why must she be sensible all the time?

We expect Mom to blow her fuse. But--in an audacious twist--Mom empathizes. "I know what you mean," she says. "I hate being sensible all the time."

The girls are stunned.

Mrs. Quimby: "I'd like to go sit outside and blow dandelion fluff all over the yard."

Beezus is so shocked, she forgets that she was formerly looking for an *insensible* ally. "You CAN'T blow fluff on the yard!" she says. "YOU WOULD CAUSE THE GROWTH OF WEEDS!"

Mrs. Quimby smiles.

Ramona--made shy by Mrs. Q's self-disclosure--has a thought. She admits (quietly): "I'd like to blow dandelion fluff with you....Mom...."

Cleary wrote about universal human experience, and she wrote with an eye on minutiae, and she gave one long master-class--book after book after book--on how to tell a story.

To a gifted humorist/philosopher/memoirist/fabulist/mom/librarian: Goodbye, rest well, and thanks.
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