Sugar cube learning. 

Written by Kate LaDew

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Read by Jenny Curtis 

Kate LaDew lives and works in the town of Graham, North Carolina.  She writes poems and short stories and is currently working on her first novel, I Am Not Beautiful.

A statement from Kate: 

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“I was looking for ways to stay busy during quarantine, and one of the craft projects that came up was a sugar cube igloo.  I remembered making these in the winter when the teacher ran out of things for us to do. It was fun because it was not related to anything we were studying, so it didn't seem like school and there was no way not to get an 'A'. I also remember noticing we had all made the same thing but none of them were exactly the same because different hands created them. Maybe I wasn't that insightful as a kid, but no two igloos were alike. 

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Another way I've been staying busy is reading everything I can that has nothing to do with the current situation. I usually use snippets from articles as inspirations for poems and I was just not in the mood to write about COVID-19. After a few days of writer's block, I realized there's nothing that doesn't have something to do with the current situation.  History has been leading us to this moment and we can only handle the situation with the tools we have. Science may change but emotions and ways of coping do not. A brand new way of thinking is not going to spring out of this, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad.  

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Everything boils down to people, and whether we see ourselves as completely separate individuals or inextricably connected. I've settled on the latter because, no matter how corny or sentimental it sounds, we need each other.  When you look at the little structure you've made with the toothpick American flag flying over it, do you see separate sugar cubes or an igloo?”