Morning Essay

Brent and I went to New York City a few years back and he took this picture of me as we stood on the top floor of The Castle in Central Park.  The wind was wicked sharp and cold, which made my eyes water.  I know I've posted this before, but it fits how I feel right now . . . 

This morning I cannot sleep.  I got up to use the bathroom at 5:40 am--and sweet husband of mine is snoring steady, quiet rumblings and so I cannot get back to sleep.  I go into the kitchen and open the refrigerator door.  Raspberries . . . the last of the season.  There are four small, square, clear containers and I fish two of them out from the bottom produce drawer.  I immediately begin to eat, just standing there in the middle of the room.  I check each one to see if it has begun to  mold yet--that black goo that melts the berries together from the bottom up, but leaves the top with the delicious satin-deep-red landscape of healthy fruit.  I am in luck--these were fresh enough when I bought them a few days ago that they are still lovely and sweet (and ever-so-slightly prickly as if I had just picked them from my Grandma Burton's raspberry patch). 

I also swallow one of the last amoxicillin the doctor prescribed last Saturday for a run of  bronchitis that has turned out to be viral--but I still need to finish the antibiotics so that I don't harbor one of those "super bugs" that becomes immune to medicine.  The pills are white, hard-pressed ovals that stick in my throat if I don't "take with food."  I guess I am stuck with the cough and breathlessness that characterize my own brand of bronchitis for another few weeks . . . the one "going around" has a reputation for lingering about eight weeks or so before leaving.

The rabbits are restless this morning--ringing the bell that hangs from the top of their cage, chewing at the new toys I put in with them this morning.  They are currently shedding--their internal clocks pushing out old  and replacing it with a new down-like undercoat--even though they are (with rare exception) always kept inside the house where it is sixty-eight degrees.  Yesterday Nathan got Murphy out and we trimmed his nails and around his tail where he has a hard time keeping clean.  Brent also needs me to trim his hair this weekend--perhaps the rabbits are not so off-kilter as I believe.

Where was I? . . . yes . . . 6 am and raspberries.  Then, because right hamstring is still raw from a fall on Monday, I waunder into the TV/study room and slide up onto a double-pillow cushion nestled in one of the big leather side-chairs.  I look around and think about doing some more accounting ("managerial" this semester) homework because there is a test next Thursday and I still have to look at my notes to finish the practice examples correctly.  I can turn on the TV, I think, and work with the background noise to cover the loud "ta-TAK" of the kitchen clock.   And because it is a habit to have it on all the time now.  We record the few shows we like and watch them end-to-end, sometimes for hours at a stretch.  

But, instead, I look to my right and see some of the few books that I still keep on the shelf.  We have been purging the house of anything loose we find that we don't mind not keeping.  It is a beginning at downsizing . . . a VERY beginning.  There are children's books: The Cat in the Hat, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Princess Smartypants, The View from Saturday and a few "grown-up" books I will have a very hard time letting myself get rid of:  Beauty by Robin McKinley and Lewis Thomas' Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler . . . and two by Mitch Albom:  For One More Day, and Tuesdays With Morrie.  

I am in a mellow mood, restless as sit because of the angry tendons connecting the muscles of my right back leg to the bones underneath my right bun.  I have the house to myself--Nathan is away, dog-sitting for some people while they travel--Brent is still sleeping.  I am in the mood to think deep thoughts and to cry just a little bit.

I reach over and pick out Tuesdays With Morrie.  It is a quick read and before I know it, I am into the parts where I want to remember the words and so I reach for a pen and mark the lines.  They are about how hundreds of thousands of people are glued to their TV screens, following the O. J. Simpson trial instead of living lives of their own.  (The only thing I remember about the proceedings is that several lawyers made millions and a white SUV was trailed through the freeway system by police cars with their flashing lights on.)

The point is made that none of these people know Simpson--he certainly doesn't know any of them--yet they spend their entire lives on him.  Crazy.  

I know why they did this, though, it is because personal relationships take energy, thought and time.  People can tread on our emotions and, often, our hearts--at least in the relationships that really matter.  Individuals, however, can experience emotions by watching someone else show theirs--without having to invest anything of their own.  It is much less taxing--much easier.  I do not have many close friends--in fact, my closest friends are pretty much found in my own home and within the circle of my close family.  

I think that is why Facebook and Pintrest are able to consume so many.  Look!  I have 147 "friends". Look!  More than a thousand people "like" the picture I posted yesterday--they "like" me!  They send me pigs and sheep and invite me to play "Candy Crush."  Inane, angry birds have been hurled into the toy stores and Saturday cartoons.  Lego fans make short movies out of Legos and put them up on YouTube.  The dialogue is corny and flat---and on the few I've seen are pretty much pointless.   They are well done, however, and I would much rather watch a few of those than the sitcom re-runs dredged up from the 70's and 80's.  

I think that one of the reasons Albom's book compels me so is that the main character, a college professor named Morrie, fills his life with giving.  It is almost as if the more he gives, the more he has.  When Albom describes Morrie, he recounts the classes he took, the conversations they had, a 50 page Senior thesis Morrie helped him write.  There are no material gifts--what I throw at people instead of offering time and a listening ear.  

I yearn to leave something behind me that will mean that I have left a mark--a good change--on this Earth.  When the Earth is burned to purify it for Christ's coming, I want Heavenly Father to sigh for just a second before burning a spot that I have made better than it would have otherwise been.  

Perhaps our yard will be that spot.  Over the last ten years, Brent has allowed me to spend thousands of dollars on worker hours, soil, fertilizer, mulch (oh, so much mulch) and countless plants and trees.  Many of the plants have come from seedlings or cuttings that I started.  It is a source of satisfaction for me that this is so.  I trim back the hedge that follows the back and side walkways knowing that I stuck bits of twigs in the ground--and they grew!  

Morrie also talks about emotions--especially ones usually considered negative:  self-pity, helplessness, hopelessness, depression, sorrow, grief.  He says that he has to let himself experience them, recognize them, and then let them go so that he can continue on to fill his day with love and friendship and wisdom.   

I know that I have done this with pain.  I know how it feels, how my soul cringes from it, how it hangs over my mind and clouds my vision.  When I experience it, though, it is getting easier to deal with.  I no longer wallow in it--but am able to know it and then look through it to the people and tasks that face me.  Grief, guilt--I know them, but still have a hard time facing them, embracing them, and then leaving them so that I can go on with the things I want to do.

Brent is up now and Valley cat is meowing to be let back in from being outside on the porch (It's raining steadily--no birds or lizards to watch through the screen.).

In the Book of Mormon, I'm in 3rd Nephi--just after Christ has been crucified and there have been three days of black, suffocating grief as the Earth mourned the death of Her Creator.  Whole cities buried under mountains, swallowed by the sea, burned by fire--and then His voice chiding the "least wicked" because He sent His prophets to teach them, to prepare them--and they killed them.  At the end of the chapter, though, He welcomes them to come to Him and repent "for my arms are reached out still."  How can a planet know Her Creator is being killed?  What is there in the soil that calls out because it has been soaked by the blood of the righteous?  And how can an Earth now accept us and prosper us?  

My Lauren half-jokes, half-laments that her "Mom can put a stick in the ground and it grows!" while the herbs outside her front door wither away and die.  She has gotten an orchid to bloom, though--which is a very rare occurrence at my house.  I think we all have our own strengths.

It is after 9 am now and I am fully awake.  Papers to get notarized, Visiting Teaching to make a stab at, more stuff to go through and get rid of, homework . . . 

. . . and still a few more raspberries to enjoy.