Journal
Finding, Figuring Out, Fine Dining & a Crystal Song
Overhead of some of my cord hoard
Dear
Megan,
About the only time that I go through
my "hoarding boxes” is when I’m trying to find something that I can’t find – in
other words something that I have lost. This morning I am going through
everything trying to find the earbuds that your dad and your brother gave me
for Christmas last year. While I was rummaging around, I found a headphone/speaker.
Actually it is just what I need to put on my head in order to dictate into
the computer. I can’t believe the difference that it makes in how accurate the
text is.
I spent the majority of my time
yesterday making cards so that I can have something on hand when your dad wants
me to send a note to someone. Both of us have been surprised at how often that
has happened in the last month.
I have also come to a conclusion about the
question:“Why do I spend hours sitting in the bathroom, either listening to
scriptures or studying Spanish or playing a mindless game on my phone or my
iPad?”
I think it has to do with the fact that while
I am in the TV room with your dad and Nathan, in the evenings, the TV is always
on. Most of the nights, Nathan has his headphones on and is working on
something on his phone and your dad is asleep. I need to find a way to discuss
with them the reason for the TV during these times. Perhaps for Dad, it’s like my
Dad when I was growing up. On Sunday
afternoons my dad would turn on a golf tournament and then lay down on the
floor and go to sleep. If someone tried to turn off the TV or to change the
channel, he would wake up and tell them to put the golf game back on—and then
go back to sleep.
Your sister, Lauren, who has a hard
time falling asleep, does so more easily if she has background static with the
volume turned up to what sounds like a freight car rushing past you as you wait
at the railroad tracks. Your dad also turns on white noise when he goes to bed
at night. I haven’t been able to duplicate that pattern. But the meds I take
for my manic depression push me to sleep whether I want to go or not.
Different subject.
At the grocery store last week, they
had a darling, miniature, gardenia plant. The leaves could not have been a
deeper satin green or the plant covered with more buds, ready to bloom. I
brought it home with me and then watered it once and forgot about it. Even
though it was in the front hallway by the door, I didn’t really see it. Your
dad came in this morning and told me that he wasn’t sure, but he thought that
the little green plant by the door was dying.
He was correct.
I have it now soaking in water so that the
soil will not harden. I will need to go in a few minutes and pull it out so
that the roots do not drown. All around
me, I sense that I have surrounded myself with hundreds of things that need
doing but that I do not do because they have been there for so long. They are
just part of the landscape.
Every other week I have two women who
come and clean the bathrooms, the kitchen and do all of the floors. The day
before, and on the morning of their arrival, I am pushed into a flurry of what
I call “cleaning before the cleaners come.”
My mom and dad used to do exactly the
same thing the day before we had a house full of company. One Thanksgiving not
only was mother baking furiously and cleaning the upstairs, my dad was
downstairs carpeting the main hallway and the biggest room. When the 50-or-so
people arrived the next day, the house was spotless. The meal was incredibly
wonderful, and after everything was eaten, the dishes were washed up, and
people were going back for dessert, mom and dad put away all of the tables and
chairs from the guests that had eaten downstairs and everyone sat on the couch,
on pillows one the flood, and also sprawled out on the carpet and we watched a
Thanksgiving movie.
I have no idea how many of them fell
asleep while watching the movie, but I imagine they were quite a few.
One of the movies that we have was
while we were living in Edina, Minnesota. While we were there, I attended first
through sixth grade at Concord Elementary school. Every once in a while, dad
would get out a movie camera and take silent videos of special occasions. One
of these was a family Thanksgiving dinner served in the formal dining room.
Everyone had changed into nice, clean clothes for the meal. And dad took a
picture of the turkey and of mother coming in, and all of us sitting down
around the table.
New subject.
He also took a video of us as we
danced to a song playing on the radio that was in a huge, beautiful, console
made of finished wood, that also contained a record player and speakers. In the
day, it was the pinnacle of audio listening equipment. Susan, Martha and I were
dressed in our nightgowns, and as we twirl around, they billowed out around us.
Another Minnesota memory was of a
Christmas morning that I have written of other times. Again, we were in our
pajamas as we rushed into the living room, where the tree stood almost touching
the ceiling, and covered with lights and ornaments. What I have never thought
about on paper before was that dad was going to surprise mom with a full set of
silver gilded porcelain dishes. I don’t
remember if he got her a set of 12 crystal goblets with them or if those came
later. He had hidden them in the
garage. After all 5 of us children had
riffled through our Santa hoard and opened all the gifts, he brought in the
huge box. He filmed as mom opened it up
and was gratified, I’m sure, by her happy reaction to his gift. Of course, since we kids were young, we didn’t
understand the significance of the gift. 
This is the china that Brent bought for me that I am too scared/too lazy to use.
Mom graduated in Home and Family
Science—back then, Home Economics. In
her sorority (Lambda Delta Sigma), they practiced gracious dining: setting the table, making conversation,
planning meals that had two different coloured vegetables—cauliflower and
mashed potatoes were never to be served together. One of the things that Mom taught all of us
was how to properly set a table: plate
in the center, forks on the left, knife and spoons on the right in descending
order of use, and a dessert spoon or fork placed horizontally above the plate,
to the right of the small salad and/or dinner roll plate. The glass was on the right, just above the
knife and spoons.
Dad’s gift gave mother the proper
tools to follow that polite, correct procedure/tradition. She really was thrilled with the China
dinnerware. It came out for every
Thanksgiving and Christmas meal from then on.
Here I am, surrounded by piles and
piles of fire wire, USB-C, USB, and a whole lot of other kinds of connecting
wires. As technology marches forward, I have to either throw out my old cords (which
are not damaged in any way), and get new ones with the correct endings OR order
adapters. The new telephones, iPads, laptops, and computers all come with cords
of their own. Over the last 20 years, we have amassed a very large plastic
container, filled to the brim with electronic cords. There’s another one, even
bigger, also filled to bursting with cords that no longer connect to anything
we own—but that used to be necessary to hook up VCR/DVD/Internet devices to the
TV or to the Internet.
I got to teach Sunday School last
Sunday, and, as part of my closing testimony shared the fact that I was
grateful for technology that would allow me to talk to you and your sister and
your children almost anytime I wanted to. The miracle that I could see them and
hear them over a telephone thrills me to the bone.
