Two of the Memories That I Hold Dear

This is a jumper that my sister Susan made for me when our family was living in Tampa, FL. I know that it took her lots of time and love to produce such a unique piece--it became one of my favorite things to wear.
Brent caught this picture of me on a sweet gelding named Curly. He was probably between 16 and 19 years old and he was the first horse that I ever leased. On him I did fly--he was so careful of me that I did not fall. On him, riding was fun--I was lucky to have such a good teacher at the beginning of my riding career. I think I was 31 or 32.

Post Christmas WOW!

I was in the middle of absolutely nothing about a week ago and I was thinking about how marvelous something was and that I needed to write about it. It had something to do with my body or Christmas or my new computer . . . I think. Anyway.

We had both sets of missionaries come for dinner yesterday (Sunday) afternoon. This means:

1. I cooked a fabulous, diverse dinner menu

2. The rabbits pretty much got ignored

3. The house is still spotless--because Brent will not have a dirty house when company is coming.

This cleaning thing is one of the most obvious differences between him and me. I was looking through a pile of photos taken earlier this year. In two of them, my Visiting Teacher is vacuuming my living room. Now this is a young mother with five young children, a very big home and yard, and a husband who has a demanding job and a Church calling that keeps him away from home way too many evenings every week. Jen Shultz, though, came and we folded laundry together. Then, we walked through the house just talking. She spotted my vacuum sitting in a corner of the room and asked me if I would mind if she vacuumed my house. Thoroughly non-plussed by a request that would have completely embarrassed my sweet husband, I happily agreed to her offer.

Brent is the person who cleans our hotel room before they come to make the beds and change the towels--so that housekeeping won't think that we are messy. I am a person who figures that these talented women (for they usually are women) have magically been provided to take care of me--and I am more than happy to leave the room the way it is so that they are free to do what they will. When I see a hotel cleaning person in the hallway, I try to waylay them for a moment so that I can thank them for taking care of me and my family. Brent would rather die than be in the hotel room when a hotel worker brings us extra towels. (OK--that is a way big exaggeration--but you understand my point?)

More about Jennifer. She ran marathons, ran her children back and forth to activities and school, played the piano for Primary and taught her children to play a three-person-six-hands-triplet (?) for an informal piano recital with friends. She has had 5 children--her oldest is now about 10 years old. I admire Jen very much and am so very blessed that she counts me among her friends.

I have vague memories of such energy and spirit in my earlier existence--half a life ago. I am slow--way slower--now. Falling off of horses too many times, dancing ballet and doing gymnastics (a whole lifetime ago), increasing deafness in my hearing, manic depression, arthritis, narcolepsy, sleep depravation, a flood, a hurricane, tornados, two operations to replace my lower left thumb joint and three major attempts to re-build my right shoulder, three pregnancies and the anguish of giving birth, my mother's death, weeks when I could not sleep and months when I slept for 22 hours a day--and months when I couldn't leave my bedroom--have worn my body and my desire to learn patience very much out. Unlike some people who say that their high school years or their missions were the best times of their lives, I consciously try to tuck the things that happened before yesterday most snuggly into their far corners of my mind.

Of course, there are other events in my life that I often pull forward to replay again and again: the moment that I said "Yes." to the question of whether I would marry Brent, flying over fences and fields on horseback, flying through the steps of a ballet exercise and jumping into the air--so close to flying, laying on the hot sand of a beach and hearing the waves softly "fuesh . . . fuesh" nearby, reading wonderful books, giving talks and speeches and teaching, singing in front of others, playing the piano, playing my flute with mom a long time ago, singing to myself as I pull up weeds, dancing to the radio when no one was around to see me, having Brent curl me up on his lap and hearing his sweet tenor voice in my ear. learning how to tease bits of plants into growing into very tall and beautiful versions of their parents, the instant before I fall into sleep with Brent's even breathing as a lullaby. Even some of the painful parts I return to--the thumb, the shoulder--have elements that I return to. I treasure the moment when I realized that I would be completely able to use my left hand again--and the sweet self-revelation that I could lift my arm to lead the music or climb to the tops of trees without pain or weakness. My children are all an essential, joyful part of each of my days--though they brought searing pain with their arrival, they have returned excitement and wonder far beyond their purchase price.

My word. I am sounding maudlin tonight.

This January I will be taking a math class and an elementary photography class--black and white film and learning to process the pictures we capture. I discovered today that the junior college also teaches flying lessons and offers preparation classes for certification in both small planes and helicopters. I have also looked into the county's Master Gardener certification program. And I have a new computer and a new camera and time to visit my sisters, brothers, my father and Cindy. Tonight we bought a Jeep Wrangler--tricked out for mudding--which means that it is pretty much useless for street transportation. I am glad that Brent knows the process for getting it into the shape and that he will let me help where I can. It will be a new, intoxicating adventure.

And I am learning how to weld!!!!!

Every day there are the common, routine things. There is still laundry and dishes--though Nate pitches in and pretty much takes care of the kitchen. I am still full time tutor for him--but I like that part of our relationship. We are becoming better and better friends. He is trying to teach me how to play Mario Brothers on our Wii. Tonight he ended up carrying me a good chunk of the time so that I didn't keep dying. He tells me which moves I should make when we make chess so that I can beat him--and he just came in to ask if I wanted dinner--he will call me when it is done.

It bothers me that I don't have the same athletic body I did twenty years ago and I hate that I have to keep constantly aware to guard against the manic or the depression that a med failure allows. BUT I love that I am a size 6 and that I have a pool table and a very old baby grand piano in my living room instead of a couch and two end tables with lamps. I especially love that Brent thinks that I am beautiful and talented and wonderful and that I could never do anything that would push him away from me. I love that I have my own "nesting area" where it is OK for me to keep things in a relative chaos and where I am comfortable and can be creative. I love that I have a pool and a huge yard and three bunnies that I can push around in a pet stroller when I go for a walk with Brent in the evening.

I'm still not all that excited about being short. The absent minded thing can be a real inconvenience, too.

I am excited about Meg and La coming in a week and about Brent sitting with me on the couch later on while we watch The Big Bang or a Netflix movie. I love that I can dress up or wear my grubby garden clothes--and that Brent thinks that I am incredible no matter how I look.

New year's resolutions? Definitely not to petition, or to practice, patience. I know I would like to find more time to spend with Brent--just being with him--and more time with the Lord--just listening to Him. Two good ones to start with.

This is one of the presents that Lauren made for Brent and me to give to the people that he works with every day. The majority are sweater monsters and hand-bound books with incredible cover creations. I like this shadow box. It reminds me of when we had a horse while living in Tampa, FL. Meg and La would ride bareback and once in a while one of them would start to slide a little bit sideways and then a little bit more and then a little bit more and then BPOOMP! land on the ground. Both were so casual about it--they just got back up and went on their way. Now Lauren and Megan and Nathan are all grown up. When people ask me what I'm doing now . . . I can tell them about classes I'm taking at the local junior college and about the plants I'm working with in my yard . . . and about my three dwarf rabbits. It doesn't feel like I have all that much to do anymore. My sister Martha talked with me on the phone this morning and she described all the things that her four boys were involved with and where they were all going this summer. I am still stuck in a vision of me holding an infant Nathan in my arms and crossing the street with Megan holding onto my jeans pocket one one side and Lauren holding onto my jeans pocket on my other side.

I can remember twenty five years ago like it was yesterday, but I have a hard time remembering if I have an appointment tomorrow. I went to see a doctor who worked with Alzheimer's patients--I was driving myself crazy with all of the doctor appointments and Church activities and school deadlines I was forgetting. He had his assistant do a battery of tests with me. He came in and asked me why I was there. He admitted to me that on one of the tests I had gotten 100% correct--something that had never happened before. I did not have Alzheimer's or any other form of dementia--I was just busy thinking about lots of stuff--stuff that didn't have to do with day-to-day commitments. So . . . I'm not going crazy. I'm just not paying attention to the world around me. Perhaps I'm just on a parallel plane with the world that everyone else around me inhabits and I just happen to be very visible in both places . . . Christmas is coming and I get to have all of my children with me for New Year's. I shall try very hard to be tuned into this world by the time that they arrive.

I keep thinking about all the things that I would like to be writing about . . . and then jotting them down on the empty pages of my day timer or on the next clean page in the spiral notebook that I have with me or on scraps of paper that I know I will remember later. And I don't. I just have to go on record before the end of this year to tell those who will read this that I am very content with who and where and what I am. I spent so much of my life preparing for . . . something . . . that I knew was coming . . . sometime . . . somehow. I have finished preparing and I am living. I am beautiful. I am beloved. I am talented. I am blessed. I have everything to offer. I have been given everything.

Tonight Brent and Nate were with me at the mall. There were hundreds of people there--a welcome contrast to the echoing walls that met us when we shopped there a month ago. Nate went to buy me a Christmas present and Brent went with him. I went on to the Hallmark place and found the Christmas gift bags and tissue paper that I needed to finish preparing Brent's office people gifts for this year. Before I had paid for my purchase, Brent was there in the store looking for me. We walked to the end of the mall where Nathan was shopping and Brent went in to see if Nate was almost done. In the mean time, I rode the escalators up and down--several times--and watched some 5 or six year old boys throwing pennies into one of the mall's many fountains. I actually stopped and began to get some change out so that I could "make a wish" along with them. I thought for a moment, and then continued walking--there was nothing that I would wish for.

Megan is in Maryland tonight and they have cancelled Church tomorrow and school--some classes in the middle of finals--for Monday. She says that there hasn't been this much snow in Maryland for years. She is home and safe, though, and has much to do to prepare for their family trip to California to visit Anton's mom, Ann, for Christmas. I called her on Thursday? Friday? to let her know that her Christmas package was in the mail. I felt so clueless when she told me that they would be gone from Monday until she returned from visiting us in mid-January. I thought that I would be getting everything there early--and she won't be able to open anything until two weeks after New Years.

The shots that they gave me in my back two weeks ago have made such a bit difference. I get up and I see things that need to be done--and then I just go and do them. No longer is my entire allotment of energy squandered on getting out of bed, getting dressed, eating more than twice a day--and getting both morning pills and evening pills into me at pretty close to the prescribed time of day. We planted plants this morning--I point out where I want Brent and Nathan to dig the holes for me. I add a little cured bunny litter and shavings and water--lots of water. This paradise . . . I just dosed offf tjinningkkk aviyt gett ubg Neoesd , Giid ujjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjZZ

So I didn't post this last night. I am ready for Church before Nathan and Brent this morning, however, and so I will finish this entry now. It is cold enough outside today that Nathan came and asked me if I had a sweater that he could wear--his suit is in the cleaners. Unfortunately, (or fortunately--depending on your view of the situation) he is 6' tall and weighs 178 pounds and I am 5'2" and weigh 127 pounds--and so, even though I do have several very-plain-could-be-worn-by-a-male-type-person, I didn't have anything to offer him. I think that the snow Maryland got Friday night and yesterday--closing just about everything, including Sunday this morning--might have finally pushed out the 80-90 degree weather we've experienced lately down into cooler temps that at least begin to put a United States/Scandinavian Christmas tradition into the hearts of all us Floridians.

Yesterday was wonderful. We planted stuff in the gardens around our home and then went to see AVITAR--an incredible experience (even though we saw it in 2-D rather than 3-D) that still fills my memory and floats just at the edge of my vision. After that--mall and then gas in the car and then shopping at Publix for stuff. Then we came home and I played with my rabbits while Brent and Nathan unloaded the groceries. It was a glorious day. If yesterday were my last day on Earth, that is the day that I would have chosen.

Today is going to be another day like yesterday. I am almost breathless in anticipation as I try to imagine what will be in it.

Playing With Fire

I have finally downloaded the Photoshop program that came with my drawing pad. I had it on my computer, but I didn't have the time or the interest to figure out how to use it. Last week I was messing around and came out with this picture. I know that Brent doesn't like it when I alter images. For him, photographs are photographs--a picture that captures a particular moment or event. I like trying new things with the photos that I have downloaded or scanned into my picture files. It makes me feel like an artist. I am changing reality and making it into something else. Dangerous? Changing my view of the past can be unsettling for some, I guess. My memories have never been precise images of what actually transpired--no one does. It is amazing to me that any of us can communicate with each other about shared events. State of mind, self image, focus, vocabulary differences, age and purpose all tweek "reality" to fit into our memories--who we are now. Changing pictorial expressions of what was before, crisp photographs, lets me feel that I am in control of my future. Changing the heat--the bad things, the lonely things, the embarrassing things--that produced me imbues me with the ability of a creator--an artisan who can, with incredible heat and force,dd take weak metal and layer and pound out the bad spots and make me stronger than I was before. The difficulties that have been part of my past are gone, but I can take what is there and use it to shape what I do, who I am, today.

Less is Better

This is the picture I was trying to upload. I guess the interior fixed its error.
I just tried to upload an image of my Brent and me when we were in Maryland, visiting my daughter and her husband when her first baby was born. The blog says that an internal error prevented the upload. I will try later.

I am watching Modern Marvels on the History channel and one of the commercial that just played was one of Magic Johnson--an athlete that I had held in high esteem because of what I have read and heard about him. He was selling the Rent to Own program as a source of "what's best for your family" because you don't need to worry about having no credit or even bad credit. I have known families that "buy" from this company and the things they invest in are huge TVs or stereo systems that they pay on until things get (more) economically difficult these things are repossessed--leaving them nothing for their years of payments. I have a hard time seeing Johnson hyping this company using the example of his mother working two jobs and raising a family at the same time. I just don't think that she was working to afford a 60-inch screen plasma TV for her kids to watch when they got home from school.

Most of the other commercials have to do with "spending smarter." Buy a new computer at WalMart because it's cheaper there. Buy a new car that gives you a year of gas so that you spend less on fuel that first year. Change your insurance from one company to another because you pay less--but EVERYONE can't cost less--eventually it would get to the point where it was free--or the next stage, where the company paid YOU to let them provide insurance coverage. No one talks about the fact that most elementary, high school and even college students need a 2-pound, 1/2-inch thick, 36-inch screen computer to do the word processing and simple internet communicating that they really need to succeed. Keep the car you already have and save the money you'd be paying on a new car payment--or even better, take the bus, your bike, or walk. Buy less so that you have less to insure.

People spend money on strange things--I am no different. When Brent wanted a metal detector--we bought him one. When I wanted to visit my sisters in Minnesota--we bought me a plane ticket. When Nathan needed motivation to finish geometry--I bribed him with a Wii. When a movie that we want to see first comes out--we pay full price and see it in the theatre rather than waiting for it to come out in DVD.

We drive old cars. We fly coach. We have never been on a cruise or to Europe on vacation. We don't wear designer clothes or live in a big house. Our biggest splurge is in keeping the house extra cool during the summer and in having a house with a pool so that I can swim when I want. Brent also lets me buy flowers to plant in our yard when it would be cheaper to keep everything grass and just mow it every week. We spend hundreds of dollars on meds and doctors every month to keep us sane and pain free and healthy.

We all chose our own poison, I guess . . . and if I had to chose only one, mine would be Brent.

Sisters and Handprints

I love this picture of Susan leading Fever and Zak from the pasture to the barn.

Martha really does not like horses -- she has been afraid of them since she was 12 when a horse ran away with her. But she was very brave and she humored Susan and me and actually rode around a little bit after she got on her horse. Her son told her that he was expecting a photo of her on a horse.

The three of us.

I love this photo of Fever looking through the slats that surround the pasture.

It seems a lifetime ago when dad poured cement and had each of our children put their hand prints in them. They stayed at the house in West Des Moines, Iowa, until Mom died and the house was sold. Susan has placed them at the side of the front of her home in Minnesota, underneath a beautiful tree and bush.

I have hundreds of thoughts and feelings that I want to express in words about the week that I had to spend with my sisters at the barn my sister manages in Minnesota. None of them come to me when I actually have time to sit down and type.

Minnesota Reunion with My Sisters

The TV is repeating a cooking show that has already aired twice today. I have it on because I am the only one awake in Susan’s apartment. I didn’t pack enough underwear and so I am waiting for the washer to finish so that I can put the load in the dryer. It has been such a wonderful day. Martha arrived this afternoon and she is so fun to be with. She looks great—confident and certain of herself. She says that they’ll be in Saudi Arabia for 13 more years. She is teaching Seminary—early morning—for the fourth time this year. This next year is Church History . . . her first year was with the D & C. I hadn’t known that Susan also taught early morning Seminary. “The best thing about it is that you really have to study the scriptures every day,” she said. She really enjoyed it, and agreed with Martha that it was one of the most challenging, overwhelming callings she had ever fulfilled. I feel left out—muddling through Seminary with Nathan during the years that he was home isn’t quite the same thing. I never thought about having to study for an hour everyday so that I could be ready to work with Nate the next day. He often couldn’t handle much more than 5 or 10 minutes worth—but even if he could have focused for a longer time, I didn’t really have much to offer him.
I went to ride with Susan and Nancy this evening. The temperature was cooler than yesterday and the wind was calm. Susan and Nancy laughed and talked and teased each other and then laughed some more. It made me lonely for Meg and La. As we were beginning to ride, I got a phone call from Brent. He told me about the supplies he had gotten to finish Nate’s bathroom and the glue and roller we’ll need to put up the stylized rabbit border around the room just below the ceiling. After being with Susan and coming to know more of the challenges that fill her days, I am so glad that I am me and have the problems that I have. Mine isn’t the life I would have wished for even a decade before—but I wouldn’t even dream of trading what I was facing for the difficulties that Susan has gone through. Nor would I consider exchanging lives with Martha. Exotic travels and insular living would push me into panicked anxiety about what I could not understand and what I could not control.
I met Susan’s grandson Evan today. He is 3 years old and an adroit manager of his domain. Susan confides that Evan is expert at “pushing his parents’ buttons.” I think that she sees what she has known before in her life. She became an expert at pushing mom and dad’s buttons herself when she was younger . . . as well as mine and M’s. The magic of the whole process is that it allows her an especially clear view of the situation now. “Inter-Family Dynamics” should have been required to graduate from high school, to get married, or to interact with any family member at anytime in the future.
*******Tuesday, 27 July 2009 noon
Nathan called me yesterday afternoon. He was at the pet store to buy shavings for the bunnies. “What kind of shavings do I get? Aspen, pine, the vacuum packed kind? One of the sacks looks like one of the bags at home, but it feels like there are just little pellets inside. Am I at the right store? And the bunnies have started to pee on the floor of their cage—what am I suppose to do about that?” There was no panic in his voice, but I could tell that he took the responsibility to care for our three buns very seriously. He is determinedly precise about anything that he undertakes. He attributes this characteristic to his Asperger’s Syndrome. I think that that may be a part of it—but he is also dedicated to making the environment around him better. Either way, I am grateful that he is as he is.
I miss Brent horribly. I have been away from him before, but I keep thinking that he would really enjoy hiking through the woods here. It is mostly flat land he could easily walk beside me as I rode one of Susan’s horses through the woods and meadows. Connections via cell phone are tenuous at best and we are often cut off in the middle of conversations, necessitating a quick re-dial so that we can finish our dialogue. It is OK though because we now say the most important things at the beginning of the call instead of waiting for the last moments before we hang up. To quote Martha Stewart: It’s a good thing.
Martha brought us both quilts. In Saudi she is the president of the quilting group that meets to make, amazingly, quilts. They are painstaking works of art: a sweet reminder that she loves both Susan and me and thinks about us when all of us are apart. I like that.

Dream Job

I have discovered today, after just a day and a half with my sister Susan, something that I could never have imagined.

My whole life has been dominated by the desire to be with horses: riding then, jumping them, showing them, brushing them, and loving them. My sister Susan has the job that—were I given the choice—I thought I would always want. She manages a horse stable and trains horses and teaches riding. After only thirty six-hours with her, though, I find that (were I given the opportunity to join Susan in her work) I would quickly become worn out and dissatisfied at the immense volume of effort, planning, self-discipline and sheer willpower that it takes to do what she does. In other words: I would hate it.

In living my life as I have, I have left myself with only the ability to pretend at doing what I love. I hear again my mom’s old complaint that I am good at lots of things, but master of none. What I really want is the life that I have—but with time and a horse to ride every day. I have become accustomed to being cosseted by Brent and protected by him from the grit needed to face the public and a real job.

At one time I think I could have worked as most people must, keeping to a time schedule, doing tasks that others have set for me to do, and being who my job needs me to be. I was ruthless in my approach to the “business” of running a family and keeping finances in order. Brent observed that in getting things done, I was unfeeling and aggressive. After almost twenty years of fighting the school system to get what my children needed, stomping down the feelings of others to get through the red tape, crashing through “established channels” to identify the person who could actually make the decision I wanted made, bullying the health insurance department manager into covering the surgery-meds-office visits-procedure-psychologist costs—after almost twenty years of this I was very good at it. But Brent asked me to please stop. I was becoming this “efficient” and “single minded” entity ALL the time—not just when on the phone or in the meetings. He wanted me to become me again. It was not worth the money I saved or the corporate compliance I achieved—my way of getting things done on schedule and under budget was turning me into something and someone that I was not.

So I stopped.

I do not think that I could go back to that “self” and ever come out again. I do not have the miraculous talent that Susan has to take care of business during business hours—and to take care of Susan during Susan hours. I have lost the ability to dichotomize. Brent can be at work and be an attorney and a manager—and still come home and be my husband and sweetheart. Both he and Susan can “leave the office at the office.” I have (if I ever really did have it) lost that ability. Everything I am is connected to everything that I do and think and feel and say and hear and ponder and read and desire. And at this moment of self-discovery, I don’t feel sad at the loss—only a great admiration for both my sister and my husband.

I am still smarting at Rob’s question of what I have that is worth putting on a blog. The only answer that I have, the only response that is genuine, is the contentment that consumes me as I put into physical form an approximation of the complex interchange necessary for my mind and heart to make sense of what my eyes and ears take in. I blog because I love to write . . .

. . . and because someday I hope I might make a difference with the words that I craft and send out into the wide expanse of the internet.

The Good Old Days

Vicories for today: first bloom from a cutting of my favorite flowering bush that died last winter AND a blossom from one of the potted camilla trees I started from cuttings two years ago.

It is strange to see myself now as I think others must see me. I see someone who ends to hunch over when I sit at the computer and the grey in my hair is artificially covered. I don't like loud music and I drive slower than most when it is raining really hard. I don't like being around noisy children and when I want to be alone, I have no problem letting others know.

I remember being cheerful and smart and flexible and energetic and thin--with smooth skin.

Of course, like "the good old days" that never were good or all that old, just as soon as I start to write about how I used to be, I remember dozens of things that have also been true of me during my life: pregnant and swollen and grumpy, stick thin without the ability to digest food and also in such a depressed state that I stayed in my bedroom (a huge place with 20-foot tall ceilings, a library, our computer desks and TV) for three months, just a year or so ago I was 30 pounds heavier than I am today, sick to my stomach with the flu, flat in bed with my right leg above my head so that a clot wouldn't block the blood to my foot or to my leg, sleeping by sitting sraight in an old recliner for two months after the first reconstruction of my right shoulder, left hand immobilized in a cast, in labour with Megan, in labour with Lauren, in labour with Nathan, in the hospital on continuous IV antibiotics to take down the infection in the left side of my face, walking across Ricks College campus in -20 degree weather, singing aloud as I walked home from a flubbed audition for a performing group that was visiting BYU, waiting in the airport after having missed two flights, driving--lost and frantic--around the back approach to the airport just an hour after dad had called and told me that mom was dieing, sitting in the back corner of the clothes closet sucking my thumb, hearing my children call Brent and telling him that I was curled up on the floor of the kitchen and couldn't stop crying, laying in the hospital in Ohio with food poisoning and infection raging in the skin of my right arm and side and face, missing Brent so badly when he has had to be away for work or church or with his family somewhere else, sitting on the floor by Megan's crib and patting her back while we both cried because we both had the stomach flu and I was too sick to pick her up, having to work on Thanksgiving Day at a grocery store in Texas while I was pregnant with Nathan because we needed the money, walking to teach an evening class at Drake and eating a peanutbutter sandwich and meeting one of my students who had just come from a really nice restaurant, listening to Meg call a classmate and asking if she could come to play and hearing her say "OK, well how about tomorrow? OK, well how about Saturday. OK. OK, good bye then," hanging up the phone from talking to Lauren and knowing that she was sick with mono and that she didn't want me to come and take care of her or bring her home to get better, sitting in a planning meeting with the administrators and counselors and teachers at Nathan's school and then beginning to yell very determinedly that THEY didn't know what my son needed THEY had not even known him or spoken to him more than an hour THEY were to teach math and history and english and NOT independence to a child who had been promised protection and help from school administrators and counselors and teachers and then abandoned after leaving the counselor a note on her door that said: I am having a VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY BAD DAY please come get me to talk.

No, on second thought, I am healthy, my children are all safe and well, Brent will be home soon from work, I get to go and spend a week with both of my sisters next week--there is money in savings, Brent has a good job, I am thin and tan and stable on my meds.

The internet is up, the thunderstorm that is over now has watered the yard, the lights are still on, all three cars work well, Nate has already taken the garbage out for collection tomorrow morning.

I have wrinkles underneath my eyes and on the back of my hands.

There has been no time better than right now. Today is the "good old days."

While I was in Utah last week, my daughter Lauren and I went to see the play area that my dad had built for the children in his neighborhood. We played on the teeter-totter. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to be weightless in the air.

Last week I was in Utah and got to visit with my oldest brother, Robbie, (43 this year) whom I hadn't seen in years and years. It was wonderful to catch up with him--new job, new home, new stuff his kids are doing. The conversation somehow began to center on blogs and blogging. When I told him that I had not only one, but two blog sites, he was so surprised that he blurted out "What do you have to blog about?" I couldn't believe how defensive I felt when he asked me--mainly because I didn't really have an answer to give him.
Since then, that question has had me thinking over and over about what I have written. My only scholarly publication was 20 years ago—about the need to have students practice writing skills: an example of a classroom lesson that I had used to allow the students to apply the principles of subjective assertions supported by objective statements. Another article was about my change in priorities from wife and student to mother. Even the book that I’m writing with Megan is just a simple story about family. I have written thousands and thousands of pages of personal essays—journal-type observations organized around distinct ideas or themes. They aren't based on scholarly research, but are peppered heavily with ideas and observations from other authors whose books I read. Usually I don’t even start an essay with an original thought of my own: I write out the reaction that I have had in response to something I’ve heard or something that I’ve read or something that Brent and I have talked about. I am not a Chaucer or DaVinci or Copernicus or Aristotle or Goethe or Einstein. I sing the songs that others write. I read the words that others have written. I write about things that I have heard or experienced in other places. I remember that Mom used to complain to me that I could do lots of things well, but I had mastered none of them.
I look at Brent’s resume and there is nothing I’ve done that can compete with that. I quit before I finished my PhD. I missed 6 weeks of my mission recuperating from operations. I have not even worked enough hours in my 50 years to qualify for social security when I turn 65. I suppose that I demonstrate a fair amount of chutzpa in leaking my thoughts onto paper or into my computer and offering them for others to read. I am self-centered enough to believe that what I think and how I present it is significant and interesting enough that others will find it worth reading.
I have not accomplished much in my 50 years that would be worth putting on a resume. I have created teaching methodologies specific to the ways that Megan and Nathan learn so that they have been able to comprehend math, composition, and science. I have learned through my own experience how to propagate (the few plants that flourish in my yard) from cuttings. I was once called a Master Teacher. I was voted Teacher of the Year at a junior college where I taught. When I was 19, a fellow ballet student told me that she loved to watch me dance. My children tell me that I have done the right things at the right times to allow them to grow up and do the things that they want to do and become the people that they wanted to be. I can play the piano and speak Spanish and sing and swim and ride horses and sew and cross-stitch and take pictures and raise rabbits and cook what needs to be cooked. Mom was right. I do lots of things—but I have not mastered any of them.
So what do I have to write about?
I guess I just write about the fact that I am still learning and doing and discovering things. I’m not an accomplished writer, but sharing what I think, try, hope, read, and believe is satisfying somehow. I suppose that I put stuff on my blogs for the purely selfish reason that I like doing it.

Ironing Board Cheese Sandwiches

In some cultures a man is defined by his relationship to cheese.
Sam, "Benny and Joon"

Mashing potatoes with a tennis racquet.

Ironing board toasted cheese sandwiches.

A cat who wants to be cuddled but can't bear to be touched and won't let my hand go.

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more to be the man who walks 5000 miles to fall down at your door. "5oo Miles," Paul Loco

Michael Jackson died of a heart attack today. He was 50. I am 50.

Nathan has trained Peter rabbit to hop up onto his lap and get a treat, then hop back down to the floor and back up again for another treat.

I think that Pater is very satisfied with Nathan's progress.

I know that I am.

It is good to be alive and to be me.

The poem is one that I originally wrote while my mom was still alive. It was for a Mother's Day talk on 17 May 1987. I was 28. Only two of my three children born: Meg, 3 1/2 and Lauren, 2, and Brent and I had been married almost 5 years.
I revised and read this version of the poem in Church for Mother's Day. My children are all grown: Meg will be 26 in October, BA in Fine Arts, married with a baby of her own; La is 24, BA in English, married and has her own on-line craft store; Nathan is 20, in college with an unofficial major in Engineering. Brent is a managing attorney for Florida Power and Light, keeping the house in one piece, our cars running smoothly and me happy.
I am 50 this year. I won't list the things that my body has been able to experience--but I am now in one piece, back to my normal weight, and free of pain. I could never have imagined being able to feel this content and excited about living my life.
And I know that my parents had a great deal to do with making that possible. Happy Mother's Day and Happy Father's Day. It is a good time to have a mother and father who love me and to be a mother who loves her children.
When my phone turns on, there is a phrase that appears on the screen: And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. (2 Nephi 5:27)

It Doesn't Matter

It Doesn't Matter

Canto I 1987

She nurtured me through cradle time, I babbled -- she replied.
She held me in her arms and rocked to soothe me when I cried.
She fed and bathed and dressed me warm; she watched me stand in fall;
And as I learned to say her name, she came when I would call.

It doesn't matter who she was -- queen or president.
What matters is my memory of the mother Heaven sent.

He held me nights when I was sick, and blessed me to be strong.
As audience, he listened to my simple, piano songs.
He led us in a family prayer both morning and at night --
And when I made mistakes, he helped me see with keener sight.

It doesn't matter who he is -- king or president.
What matters is my memory of the father Heaven sent.

She drove me to activities. She taught in Primary.
She helped me to love books and took me to the library.
She sewed my costumes for the plays she came to sit and watch.
She gave me time when she had none -- I'll never know how much.

It doesn't matter who she was -- queen or president.
What matters is my memory of the mother Heaven sent.

From carpet tubes, he made lights for a dance he chaperoned.
I learned to shun the practices that he did not condone.
He wrote me letters when I left to try a college life.
He sent me love and courage and he helped me love the light.

It doesn't matter who he is -- king or president.
What matters is my memory of the father Heaven sent.

She came to see me graduate. She sewed my wedding dress.
When Meg was born, she came to love and clean a baby's mess.
She sang with me. We played our flutes. We talked of future fears.
She brought me gifts and tender care and comforts, still, my tears.

It doesn't matter who she was -- queen or president.
What matters is my memory of the mother Heaven sent.

He offers timely, sound advice and gives a father's blessing.
And he listens calmly, when his patience I am testing.
He brags about my children and about the things I do.
He loves me lots, I hope he knows how much I love him, too.

It doesn't matter who he is -- king or president.
What matters is my memory of the father Heaven sent.

Canto II 2009

Today I think about the children Heaven sent to me --
How we read books and cared for pets and climbed up tall, tall trees.
Do they recall the walks, we took? And scriptures that we read?
And how each night I heard them talk as they were tucked in bed?

It doesn't matter who I am, queen or president.
What matters are the memories of the children Heaven sent.

When they stand before the Lord, and all their lives review --
Will I, as mother, be revealed as one who loved them true?
Will they be glad they knew me? Did they want to be near me --
Because within my eyes they saw their own divinity?

It doesn't matter who I am, queen or president.
What matters are the memories of the children Heaven sent.

This is my favorite picture from our trip to Colorado. Brent's parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and everyone came out to celebrate with them. I met some of the people that Brent knew as a teenager. One of the best treats was to have a few moments to visit with Brent's best friend in high school and his best man at our wedding--Don. Lauren and Meg, Anton and Jonathan were there. I tend to dread being with big groups of people--even people who I love very much--but it was a wonderful time. I turned 50 years old the day before the anniversary. It is strange to remember that I was born before Brent's parents were even married. Better to remember that he was born, grew up, and was smart enough--kind enough--to pick me to marry.

A month ago continued

I left off my last entry in the middle of the night. My sweet husband came to get me and so I didn't finish. I was writing about how everything I experience exists on the same plane. The heros in the novels, the prophets in the scriptures, the images in poems--what is good about one is good about all. Truth, for me, is found in all of my world, both "real" and "imaginary." I have a life described by Whitman's "gigantic beauty of a stallion, . . . Head high in the forehead, . . . tail dusting the ground, . . . His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, . . . we race around and return. I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you."

The most passionate moments in my life have existed using both my real body and my creative mind. Jumping my horse over a real fence is just as vivid as reading about Whitman's stallion. I live both in motion and in thought--for which I am grateful. When I leave this Earth, I will take only what I can remember, what I am. This means that I will take my whole life with me, leaving nothing behind.

A month ago today

I noticed that it had been exactly a month since I last posted on this site. My other blog tends to lend itself to everyday inspiration--bunnies that have peed in the wrong corner, dishes, homework, cat-hair-dust-bunnies in the corners, rose mildew, over-due library books, the shedding habits of two Uromastyx lizards . . .

Brent sent me the site for an article about how people tend to open up on-line and expose things that they would never think they would (or I think they never should), but that article itself came from an on-line blog. For me, the world has always been one big blur. Literature, the tops of trees, a cake recipe, the plays that I have been in, trimming our pets' nails, science fiction stories, folding clothes, doctor appointments, laying by the pool and watching my rabbits explore behind my potted plants, movies I have seen--and movies that I have only heard about--

Brent and me Orlando Science Center Fall 08

I was looking for a picture of me--just me--that made me look the way I wanted to look--fresh, happy, without wrinkles and lines. Couldn't find one--doesn't exist. Nathan took some of me outside--but I had a wierd look on my face. The best one of that batch was the one that he took of himself, upside-down. It has come back to the point where I was 20 years ago: my children looked back on photographs of our family and would ask me why wasn't I there? Didn't I like being with them?
Time again for pictures of mom.

Frustration, teaching, donuts, friends

I can hear the voices of some 2 dozen people behind me. I can smell coffee and burnt toast. I am sitting on a fairly uncomfortable chair. I am in the Palm Beach Community College's cafeteria/student center. There is the ubiquitous cafeteria and a new Dunkin' Donut counter. (Guess where most people buy food?) Nathan treated me to breakfast this morning. I had two cake donuts and a medium hot chocolate (combo 1) and a milk. Nathan bought a coffee roll (a large glazed donut with cinnamon throughout) which he at most of. He also purchased a medium hot chocolate and breakfast egg-and-cheese-and-sausage-on-a-slightly-squashed-croussant. Neither of which he ate. A good lesson to remember next time he has to spend his own money on food. Since living in Argentina, I have ceased to look at how much food cost. There, if you could find something you wanted, you bought all that they had. There was no way to know how many months (or years) would pass before they were able to import more of the same. Foods like cheddar cheese, saltine crackers, cranberry juice, good granola bars (and sometimes even root beer)--I horded all that I could find. I still find myself buying four instead of one--gallons when I need cups--a case when I need a can. I suppose it is like the body's response when it finds itself in starvation mode--save all that you can, expend as little as possible. We are learning about diets and body training right now in Health. Nate needs it for his GE requirements and I'm in there to take notes. The professor is a former college gymnast, coach and personal trainer who is probably my age (about 50) who possesses a singularly dry sense of humor. He names our class his favorite--and the kids are starting to open up in response to his 1/2 teasing 1/2 serious presentations. He is overly careful not to preach about whether people should eat empty calories, take steroids, or get inoculated for the HPV. Especially he wishes that they would stop smoking--but he couches his warnings of the its effects in phrases like "I'm not telling you to stop smoking, BUT those who do reduce their risk of heart attack by 25% (or whatever the number is)." I have come to appreciate his precarious position--official spokesman for PBCC and bound by its policy of "non-interferience" in the lives of his students. But, as a teacher, isn't he suppose to be an influence on them? It seems that this idea is the essence of what it means to teach. All of my life, I have dreamed of changing those around me--even those who never knew me--for the better by the things I do. My children constantly affirm that I have been a good mother and am a good friend--which pleases me in ways I cannot express. I would hope that those who pass through the classes that I teach and who read the things that I write would also come away with more insite into themselves, more curiousity about the world around them, more compassion for those around them. I would always want to be a good teacher.

Mike: These are the photos that I had on my hard drive. I'll be scanning and posting more as I find them. Thank you for taking on this project for Libby and Dallan. I know that they will both really love it.
The picture of Brent, Nate and Dallan was taken in 2006 (?) in Topeka, KS. The others are at Meg (Columbus, OH) and La (Provo, UT)'s weddings in 2006.

NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT

When my husband and I have talked about blogs, he tells me that he can't understand why anyone would want to write personal things and then post them for everyone in the world to see. I've tried to explain that what people blog about--at least the bloggers who have people continue to check in and see what they're thinking about--isn't the deeply sacred things of their soul. The blogs that I love to read are the kind of writing that I would find in a family letter or a book of personal essays. Writers like Lewis Thomas (The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher) and Robert Fulghum (It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It) are two that come to mind. I know that my husband worries at the back of his mind that I will say something to embarrass him. He is my beloved and determined avoider of conflict (a trait that makes him incredibly adept at what he does at work every day).

He is so much a part of me--after 27 years married to him--that I can't really seperate what and who I am from who he is. Everything that I write, everything that I think, everything that I see, is influenced by the fact that I know he loves and cherishes me more than any other person on this earth. He is the one who taught me what it means to be selfless. He, literally, always takes the smaller piece of cake and the broken cookie so that I can have the bigger and the whole. He has shown me that I can trust him with my secrets, my worries, my shortcomings--and he will love me all the more for confiding in him. When something goes wrong, he never fixes blame, but instead works with me to fix the problem. There is no one who could ever love me better.

I didn't know what to start this blog with. Usually I am seen in the context of what I am doing or who my children are--a teacher, a student, Megan's mom, Lauren's mom, Nathan's mom. It is only fitting, then, that I begin with my husband--the Brent of carolynandbrent.

I have more to say: about manic depression, horsebackriding, cancer, English composition, Argentina, teenagers, math, moving, sandhill cranes, and the piano. Among other things--