carolyn and brent

Red-shouldered Hawk on the Fence and a Bicycle

2011-12-26T18:16:00.012-05:00

Day After Christmas Presents

Crane in my driveway enjoying lunch.

Red-shouldered Hawk just a block away.

It has been a very long time since I let myself take time and write about everything. Of course, everything would take a great number of centuries to document, so I will skip all of the weeks that I have missed and just write about today.

It is the day after Christmas. It is Monday. Brent and Nathan went to canoe on Peace River and look for fossils. Brent is, at this moment, on the internet identifying a Pleistocene hind deer leg bone. "Well, that was easy!" (direct quote). Nathan spent much of the day feeling frustrated since there were quite a few other groups also looking for fossils in the same bend of the river. Someone would yell "Hey! I found a megladon tooth!" "Hey! I did, too!" and Nathan would groan "Augh! I'm not finding anything." just loud enough for Brent to hear. They both came home with a large bag of odd-shaped black 'rocks'. Brent had a great time looking for fossils and using his new (used, but new to us) aluminum canoe. Nathan had a good time being with Brent and splashing about in the water and mud. He is 22 and a college Junior, but still, at heart, he is the boy who used to scout around each new house we moved into until he could announce "This is my mud spot! No one else can play in this mud." Actually, I think he is in his room right now, surrounded by tubs full of Legos--which, of course, no one else can play in.

Hibiscus acetosella full bloom that I planted from wild seed.

I worked on my Hibiscus acetosella project. It has been a wonderfully fun hobby this semester. Now, though, I am late in getting a finished project ready to submit to my horticulture professor. It is an independent study--under the guise of auditing one of his Botany classes--so I con't really even have to turn anything in. My pride pricks at me, though, having promised something solid and not yet possessing a finished product to turn in.

Wild Hibiscus acetosella--two blocks away.

After a few hours of that, I had to get outside. I took my bike and pedaled slowly around the neighborhood. I passed a huge bush with glossy, deep green leaves and some really cool coral red flowers. I didn't recognize it--so I will go back later and take pictures of it so that I can do what Brent does--he with dead bones, me with Florida fauna.

The most memorable part of my day was the chance to photograph a Red Shouldered hawk who was sitting on a chain-link fence at the side of the road. He watched me ride by. I watched him as I rode by. Then I rode home and got my camera. By the time that I had cycled back, the hawk was still waiting.

The hawk and I see each other--I am impressed by him; he pretty much ignores me.

At the end of the day, this is what I see before I go back inside for the night.

Of course I put my bike back into the garage, take the camera out of the basket and bring it in to get the photographs off of the memory card and into my computer. Also, the red Jeep is in the driveway as soon as Brent and Nate get home from Peace River. The canoe comes off the Jeep, Brent and Nathan come inside for dinner, and . . . well, I don't know exactly where the crane goes for the night. I know that she'll be back tomorrow. And tomorrow I can begin to work on the huge pile of laundry that Nate and Brent brought back with them from their trip.

Pneumonia

2011-11-21T20:46:00.003-05:00

This is a picture of me being sick with pneumonia. After days and days of pills and laying around just hurting, not being able to sleep, I still feel gross. I wanted to write something, since I've done VERY little since I got home from MD.

I spent 5 wonderful days with Megan and her family. All of us but Anton came down with wicked head colds. I got on the plane with a mucky head and the change of pressure must have forced the stuff into the far reaches of my head and chest. "Just a touch of pneumonia in the left lung," the doctor at the drop-in clinic told me. With sprays for my lungs and head and pills for my lungs and head I came home. I am not impressed with my body at this point.

I am impressed with Nathan, however, has ponied up handsomely. He has fetched and carried for me. I am so glad to have had him here with me. He is good at spoiling sick people.

September 14 Post is Now Out of Editing and Up to View

2011-11-06T22:59:00.002-05:00

The Family That Made My Life Today Possible: My Husband Brent's Family

Brent's family: (top row) Penny, Russ, Brent

(middle row) Dad Dallan, Matt, Kathy

(front row) Mikie, Mom Libby

Everyone now is married--Penny is living in Utah and often spends time with my daughter Lauren. Russ is living outside of Salt Lake City, (renting a huge, gorgeous home that the owner cannot sell) where he has just taken a new job. Brent is the most incredible person--and he is mine--and I am his. Kathy lives in Colorado and is taking care of her grandchild--with the help of her two beautiful and talented daughters--Karissa and Kara. Dallan and Libby are also in Colorado--as is Mike and his family.

I love seeing photographs like this one in geneology family trees. So often all I view are photos taken of mother and fathers and sisters and lovers when they were grown and much used by life. In these tender years, the eyes are clearer and the seed of the lives they will live and will change around them have just begun to take root and begin to reach for sun and rain.

What I Do When Brent Is Gone

2011-10-27T20:43:00.014-04:00

This evening Brent is in DC; Nathan is at the stake center for Institute; I found out this afternoon that I got a 104% on the Trig test I took Tuesday . . . and this is how I celebrate my quiet, victorious evening . . .

Actually, this is not the beginning of my "celebration"--I should have gotten an image of when I first dumped the two boxes of stuff--kind of like "junk drawer" stuff--out all at once on the floor.

Roo and Murphy (one of our two sets of rabbits--each bunny came into our home at a different time, so it was a really tough balancing act to get each in and out of his/her cage so that each got enough exercise. Puting more than one out resulted in (literally) fur flying all over the room and rabbits with great bald patches on sides and faces) were in the kitchen for their "frisking" time. Roo didn't appreciate the plethora of obstacles covering her carpet in the kitchen. Murphy, however, was enchanted. He carefully noted each object--no chewing, no pooping, no pee-ing--just a thorough inventory of all the new, small stuff he'd never seen or smelled before.

I started by deciding that I would "fix" a plastic bin drawer that is filled with extra bunny toys, flea drops, brushes, etc etc. Since it is old (I have a hard time getting "new" for the rabbits--and they don't care either way), the front of the bottom drawer had cracked. I had been working with some zip ties yesterday, so I decided that I'd poke some holes through the plastic on either side of the crack--to put the ties through. I found my small Lithium household drill, but couldn't find my drill bits. Then I decided that I'd just get the tip of a screwdriver really hot in the flame of a candle and melt the holes through. After discovering that it would take me much longer and much much much more trouble to wing it, I got up and went outside to Brent's workshop where I quickly found one of his heavy duty drills and properly sized bits. I brought them into the kitchen where I sat while Nathan finished eating some soup. I had the drawer in my lap, when I began to drill through the plastic on the front of the drawer. Nate jumped up. "What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing this."

"Why? It's broken and really old." (Yes, he is a college student.) "You don't have to do that."

"I know--but I WANT to do it and I WANT to do it this way."

"Oh."

Anyway.

In the process of looking for the drill bit and then a candle and a screwdriver to heat up--I had emptied two of our "household junk" boxes out and all over the kitchen floor.

I drilled my holes and zipped up the neon yellow ties (very attractive mending job--like the cross-stitched scar up the side of Frankenstein's forehead--appropriate for Halloween . . .) so now the drawer holds together beautifully--OK, NOT beautifully, but . . . wonderfully. At this point, Nathan was going out the door on his way to Institute in Stuart (about 30-40 minutes). When he left, the floor was nicely layered with odd bits of stuff we always need and always use, but very seldom return to their original storage place.

In the first photo you'll notice pens, staples, elastic bands, hair pins, two glasses cases, some utility knives, stickers, LOTS of different kinds of tape (medical, electrical, double-sided, packing) and some circlets of craft ribbon. There were pins and one needle, paper clips, a pencil sharpener, computer screen towelettes, papers, 4 light bulbs to my sewing machine, markers, highlighters, safety pins, two pair of pliers, a big and cheap screwdriver and a tiny and expensive screwdriver. There was a black tipped feather--from a gull, I think--and an exquisite stain-glass tree that Lauren made and gave to me a few years ago. This photo is taken about the time that I had gotten all the nails and screws into one pile, the loose coins into another, and amassed a handful of those umbilical cords that connect kids ears to their music.

Usually about this time, I run out of steam--take in the vast mess for the work that it represents (in getting it put away) and then dump all of it back into the boxes from which it came. The Fates were kind this evening.

It has just begun to pour down buckets of rain outside. Sometimes I mistake the AC coming on and the rain outside for each other. The AC kicked on about 15 minutes ago now and the windows behind me are echoing the beats of rain on the patio cement floor.

PS If you look carefully, you can see Oops! our mostly white rabbit, keeping close to the hutch door--he stayed there the whole time that I was moving stuff about. Usually he prefers to keep to the darker, back corner of the double cage that he shares with Peter.

I just noticed it.

Home From Church, and I Learn Who to Ask

2011-10-03T14:30:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, I asked Brent to take a few pictures of me after we got home from Church. I don't wear anything besides shorts and t-shirts during the week--so I wanted to have a photo of me looking "nice." Brent was not happy about it. I keep forgetting that when he is tired, he has a hard time with sudden change in the regular routine of our home. It was a stressful event for him--and afterwards Nathan quietly told me that taking photographs was something that I shouldn't ask Brent to do. Instead, I should have him do that.

This is one of the many reasons that I will have a hard time when he leaves. Both Brent and I have come to depend upon him to put in movies, record Nova, BBC, the History channel and Sci-Fi channel. He knows (almost instinctually) how the screen, internet tower, three DVD players and the cable hook ups all coordinate. I am trying to learn--but it really is easier to simply ask Nathan to find a recorded show I want to watch, pull a movie off of the Netflix list, or to put in a DVD.

Right now he is reading me a list of Church signs--from the Heavy Duty Bathroom Book. "God shows no favoritism but our sign guy does: Go Cubs!" I also like "Whoever stole our lawnmower--God will get you!" Now he is waiting for me to work on homework with him--so I am done writing for the time being.

Dad, Susan, Martha, Rob, Nate Utah Summer 2011

2011-09-28T18:34:00.000-04:00

Wagstaff Family

Nathan Burton, Robert Burton,

Robert K, Martha Elizabeth,

Carolyn Eva, Susan Ellen

July 2011, Orem, Utah

From an email to Rob:

Today has been strange--I forgot to take my meds last night and so didn't sleep and have felt fragile all today. I loved seeing you and your children. I still remember hearing you and M talking about Europe and places that you had both visited. Hearing the two of you discuss things that I had only ever read about made me feel left out at first. Now, though, the memory leaves a sweet peace--that the rest of the world is being seen and cared for by others while I can stay safe and small in my own space. I love you. One of the best parts of my summer was being in Nate's house with you and dad and Susan, and Martha. I have been away from all of you for so long now. Sometimes it is like I have always been married to Brent--everything before that was just a fable or epic poem. For so long I believed that I was a very intelligent, very smart person--then I married Brent and I knew I was brilliant--then I had Meg and La and Nate and I knew that I would never really know anything at all. I love you and I look forward to watching Benjamin and Natasha grow up while you and I grow older.

*******

I actually do look forward to growing older. I have given up on growing up--and I do want to continue to grow.

OraBrush, My Dad, Singing (Not Necessarily in That Order)

2011-09-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

It's me as The OraBrush. Dad's home office is in Provo, UT and while I was there in July, he gave us a tour of the place where they make the OraBrush commercials, take orders and fill them, keep stores stocked, think up new ideas, and I haven't any idea what else.

My whole life, I have been the one on center stage. Every year at Concord Elementary school in Edina, MN, each grade had a different theme for the choral concert. I was (probably) in 4th grade and we sang songs about Indians and how they lived. I got to be an Indian Princess Mother and sang with another girl. The lullaby was first sung in the native language and then in English words. It was a soft, flowing rhythm that rolled off my tongue. I sang it to myself over and over again during the weeks before the concert. That night, I stood by the microphone and sang to the invisible, dark of the audience--and mom and dad where there to hear me do my thing. There were several years when I was part of different schools' music concerts--and mom always made any costumes I needed and mom and dad always came to hear me sing. In High School, I was in several plays. Mom and dad came to each one--whether I was in the chorus or was one of the stars.

Now, I go to YouTube and my dad is there: talking, being interviewed, explaining how OraBrush was first created and how, using YouTube, his creation has become an international feature. I am so proud of my dad. He and Cindy have put tens (if not thousands) of thousands of dollars into research and development and failed attempts over the last few years. Dad has a patent on a special kind of golf putter, and he created a nutrient supplement that makes egg yolks and broiler skin yellower. (That makes it look healthier and so we want to buy it and eat it more . . . that's what market research reported, anyway.) He has more patents that are owned by the companies that he was working for when he created them. Anyway. I think you understand what I'm talking about.

I was always proud of my dad when I was a little kid. Now that I'm a big kid, I think that he is even more wonderful.

The Only Way to Get What You Want . . . Is to Ask

2011-09-14T16:50:00.011-04:00

Self-Portrait from the computer I used during the Photography II class at

Palm Beach State, 2009.

I spent a lifetime before I married Brent, watching and learning from my mom. She had MANY talents, but used all of her time and dedicated her life to raising me, my two sisters and two brothers.

She came from a family where the Great Depression was something that they lived with every day of every year. Mom's mother (Grandma Burton) remembers in her youth that you never took a whole piece of bread at dinner because you had to eat everything you put on your plate--and even if you weren't hungry enough to finish that piece of bread you had to eat it anyway. Later on in her life, Grandma went hungry to make it through college. Later on after that, as a mom, she made all the bread her family ate--whole wheat flour she ground and then sesame seeds on the top. When she put the seeds on the top, any that fell to the counter were caught and carefully stored away to be used next time.

In grandma's home, when my mom was growing up, sweets of any kind were very rare. When grandpa would give grandma a box of chocolates as a present, she would hide them. Grandma said--and truly believed--that chocolate was poison. Mom and her brother and sisters would search every nook and cranny of the house to find those sweets, though, and when their search was a success--the chocolates were immediately bolted down. If you didn't get all you could then, there was no hope of having any left to eat later.

By the time we grandchildren arrived, Grandma had mellowed a little, food was in plentiful supply, and there was money for a few extras. For her grandkids, she would bake us one kind of treat: carrot cookies full of walnuts and a lemony glaze drizzled on top. She would make them for us to eat in the car during the long drive home. Grandpa had the only gas station in the valley and sold candy bars that were displayed in a glass case in the small room where people paid for their gas. After hugs good-bye and leaving Grandma's house, we would stop at Grandpa's gas station. We would hug him good-bye--and then he would send us off with a very large box of candy bars. It was one of the ways that Grandpa "got back" at Grandma--very strange relationship.

The biggest honour that you could get from Grandma happened while everyone pitched in to wash the dishes after each meal. There were three "stations": rinse off any food still on the plates, wash the dishes (Glasses first, silverware second, plates next and pots/pans last. The glasses and the silverware were the objects that touched our mouths when we ate--so they had to be the cleanest. Plates held the food. And then the only things left were the pots and pans.) in hot soapy water, rinse them in a tub of scalding hot water (to disinfect them), then wipe them dry and put them away. The greatest honour? Being able to rinse the dishes--this was the most important step to Grandma. In this almost-boiling water, the glasses and silverware, dishes and pots and pans were completely cleaned of any germs or bacteria. If Grandma Burton trusted you to rinse the dishes, you had arrived--almost adult status.

Once a year, before the school year started, Grandma and Grandpa Burton would go into the city and buy new clothes that were on sale. Mom hated that whatever fit you was what you got to wear for that year--even if colours and patterns didn't coordinate. Grandma was so pleased that she was able to provide "store bought" clothes for her family--a luxury she didn't even dream about when she was growing up. Anyway . . . the direction I was going with this was that mom came from a long line of people who were accustomed to asking nothing for themselves. Mom didn't take any classes, take piano lessons (which she would have loved . . . already being an incredible pianist), or a real vacation.

My reflection from the screen of the MacBook Pro Brent bought me--rather, I decided I wanted and then bought.

I have lived life based on a very different, very indulgent, philosophy. From the beginning of our marriage, Brent dedicated his life to giving me everything I asked for. I was welcome to spend as much money as I wanted--as long as we had it. My mania drove me to exceed that generosity--forcing us to the brink of bankruptcy. Depression drove me into dark, cold places where Brent continued to search for a way to rescue me.

It was only a few years ago that Brent began to correct me when I made up facts or exaggerated or lied. These were things that he had held in since we met; he told me that he was afraid that if he had said them, I would have left him.

We have moved often, Brent and me, throughout our married lives. Our children have had to cope with new schools and new peer groups and new homes and new languages and new cultures throughout their lives. Meg, Lauren and Nate have joined Brent in caring for me even as they were forced to adjust to constantly changing situations. They suffered when I was caught up in the tornado winds of mania--and called Brent to come home from work when I curled up in the corner of a depressed, waterless, sunless well. My extremes have been (not only tolerated, but) considered as an external condition that existed outside of who I really was. Brent never lost faith--in me or in the Lord. The storm would pass, I would come back, Brent would be still carrying me in his arms . . . shoes and socks never having been removed during the countless days and years that he nurtured me and kept me safe.

Above the emotional trauma that Brent and my family endured, was added the constant of physical danger I craved: jumping horses. The adrenaline rush supplemented the plethora of meds that worked and then didn't work. How did Brent endure all of this?

Like my parents (and grandparents before them), he denied themselves anything beyond the essentials so that I {first as a daughter and now as a wife} might be tenderly cosseted and spoiled--and protected from the cruelty and hatred of the world.

I sound so offishly over-dramatic. That is my take on things, though.

I have but had to ask, and it was given to me.

From Babies to Butterflies

2011-06-07T23:40:00.000-04:00

I had been watching Kate and Jon while Meg ran errands. When she came home, she burst through the door and immediately went to the balcony/porch and called for me to come with her. When she had stopped for gas, she had found this luna moth. Figuring that it wouldn't last long at the gas station, she looked for a way to bring it home. Someone was kind enough to provide a cleaned and dried out McDonald's cup and cup cover. Between the two of them, they were able to coax the moth into the cup.

Meg held the moth up so that I could take a few photographs before she let it go.

I got this face-on angle and a photo from above the moth. Meg then tried to get the moth to crawl onto a post or on one of the heavy clay pots on the porch. It had other ideas: it flew up and landed on Meg's shirt, began to vibrate and then took off. We thought that it would pick a light-coloured background where it could rest for the day.

It flew over the balcony railing and fluttered down to latch onto the building's side wall: a large, light green, triangular leaf--caught on the brick surface for a time.

After I two weeks of baby and toddler, this moth was a reminder to both Meg and me of the wide world that was still counting time just beyond the apartment doors.

I still can't imaging how they got the moth into a McDonald's cup for the ride home to Megan's.

Today I go to look for another car for us to use. We seem to be drawn to Jeeps and trucks--or at least that is what Brent brings to me in piles of print-outs, neatly stapled at the top left corner. I don't mind the travel to see each vehicle--I just don't trust myself to discover what is/could soon be wrong with the car and need repair. I can tell that I feel the stress because I am intensely tired--my usual reaction to stress.

When I go to to car hunt today, I'll have to bring ice water to drink and some music to sing aloud and perhaps also Nathan so that we can talk.

I got our breadmaker out from under the counter--where it has been stored for the last 6 years. Megan and Anton got me started with this. They grind their own wheat. I am torn between my promise to Brent to never feed him powdered milk or whole wheat bread (He grew up on these and harbors a profound dislike for both of them.) that I made just after we were married.

Which idea to obey: the Lord's admonition that we live off or our food storage so that we can rotate it--and my marriage vow to never offer such basic food stuffs to my companion and sweetheart. If this weren't so silly a situation, I would laugh at myself. This month in Relief Society we are suppose to bring a calendar listing all of the dinners that our families eat. Somehow I don't think that take-out pizza and salad along with take away from Cheesecake Factory will help me improve the list of foods that we store.

Never know 'til I try, though? At least I have the calendar on my fridge door. One step at a time.

My Magic Place in Maryland

2011-06-01T14:59:00.000-04:00

I am sitting outside of Jon’s door, waiting for him to fall asleep for his nap. He only takes one nap a day, and sometimes it is like trying to keep an ice cream cone from dripping once it gets too warm. You know that it is dripping somewhere, you just have to keep checking the back and sides while you are eating the front. Just when I think that he is passed out asleep, his bedroom door slowly begins to open and I see him stick his head out just enough to make sure that I am still here in the hallway—blocking his exit lane. Sometimes it is good that Meg and Anton’s apartment is so small. I don’t think that I could keep up with him were he given more potential escape routes.

My two forms of parenting (bribing the child and/or consistently having the child practice being obedient) are working well. Of course, Megan has already gotten Jon very familiar with the second method. He moves so gracefully that it is hard to perceive the moment when Jon’s actions flip from “No way in the world am I going to do THAT.” to resigned compliance with his mother’s or father’s requests. They have an “I’m going to count to three. If you can’t do/go/come, then when I say 3, I will help you do/go/come.” routine firmly established as part of their parenting routine. They are both so quiet mannered and so grateful for the other, so in love with each other, so dedicated to uplifting the other—that I love being here in their home.

Jon is still napping. I have had a lovely shower and now I am camped out along one wall of the living room, right below the wall-sized picture window. Megan found an orange—kind of a subdued pumpkin colour—fitted sheet to cover the air mattress. It has become a small oasis where I can fold clothes or work with my photos. Anton uses it for study and occasional naps. Meg feeds Kate here and at night she lays here while I massage her lower back with Shea butter cream. Jon sits here while he watches a movie on my laptop and brings me his cars to admire. I quite like the arrangement. It is an inviting kind of set-up that can only exist here and now. It is almost as if I have been given a magic place to stay in while I am here in Maryland.

One Week Later

2011-05-31T20:54:00.000-04:00

A Week Ago: Just Hatched Robin

This Afternoon: Robin Looking More Like a Robin

The top picture you have seen before. I took it about a week ago. I didn't want to spook the mother bird by going back too soon to check on the progress of the hatchling, but I did peek again today. From a little sack of red skin and hollow-stick legs, the baby now has a full beak, eyes, skin fuzz--even the beginnings of feathers on the wings! It is amazing to me that such transformations happen--and have been happening--before I was even aware of the world around me. Perhaps I got to watch while the process of egg to bird was being organized in the preexistence--no way, though, was I part of that committee.

Singing, yes. Trees, probably. Horses, certainly. Chocolate and whip cream--committee chairperson. Eggs to flabby pink blob to fuzzy red blob to scrawny pin-feathered wisp to gullet-wabbling-down to bad-feather-day plurf to flying and singing marvel--it doesn't feel like I was clued in enough even to begin to imagine such a transformation.

A week ago, when I took the first picture, I didn't know what kind of bird it was, but this time it was still light outside and a very agitated, very loudly chirping robin was hopping about on the fence near the holly tree. So . . . a baby robin. Unlike my grandchildren--who were both amazing from the first moment--baby song birds are u.g.l.y up until almost the very last moment before they morph into "real" birds.

Had I not known better, I would have thought that the newly hatched ducklings, chicks, and quail cheepers were a distinct species from baby robins, parrots, and doves.

I don't know why I'm still wandering on about this. Sometimes I take a moment and when I look--I realize that I have no clue what kind of place it is that I'm living in.

KR: Three Days of Age

This Afternoon: KR at Almost Two Weeks Old

What a strange juxtaposition that I should be able to see the first weeks growth of two fledglings. Kate, of course, growing from beauty to beauty--I am enchanted by her movements, her round-mouthed yawns, her tender-tiny-perfect ears and hands. I knew Kate's mother--I bore Kate's mother--and she was as magical and Kate is. I am still Megan's Mother here--but more often I'm known by those who live here as Jon and Kate's grandma. And Megan? She is the mother--Jon and Kate's mom. It's a title that passes from me to Meg with solemn ease.

She will never grow out of being my child, though. Crazy way of things--change that continues to stay the same even as it evolves: revolves--again and again.

I wish that my mom could be here to see.

Six Days Old

2011-05-27T18:00:00.000-04:00

The Original Three!

Meg, Jon, Anton

Megan: Artist, Friend, Vocalist, Daughter, Wife,

and Mother Extraodinaire

Kate:

The Newest Member of the Team

Good news! After a week of throwing tantrums whenever he saw his sister, Jon is now able to stay in the same room with her--as long as she doesn't move or make noise.

Progress.

Kate is now 6 pounds and 4 ounces. I'm attaching some photos of her and of Jon, Meg and Anton. The rest of my photos have been of Jon showing me one of his trucks/trains/cars--the truck/train/car right up next to the camera and a glimpse of his eyes or chin in the background. I'm not sending any of those since the only person who is fascinated with them is Jon.

I am doing wonderfully well . . . except for the usual clumsiness. I shaved my legs this morning and immediately covered a towel with blood from cuts at my ankles and knees. Megan brought me bandaids, made comforting noises, and so I am now recovering nicely.

Right how it is muggy--not as hot as Florida--but we are hours from the beach and the splash place pool does not open until 30 May. I didn't pack a swimsuit, but that is no problem since they do actually have stores here. And they accept money in exchange for their wares. It is not the wild frontier that it used to be (in the late 1700's). Progress is spread over the whole country--even if every state can't have waves and beaches with shells to collect, Target and WalMart and Cosco have made great progress in these northern reaches.

My Two Women in Zion: Brent's Mother's Day Talk 2011

2011-05-26T00:41:00.000-04:00

Women in Zion

Libby Hendry, Carolyn Hendry, Megan Rytting at Dallan and Libby Hendry's 50th Anniversary Celebration

I was asked to speak this Mother’s Day on women in Zion. What I am really going to speak about is two women in Zion. As I speak about my wife and my mother, I would like for those men in the congregation that are married to think about your spouse and ponder on those qualities that endear her to you. As I speak about my mother, think about your mother, your grandmothers, and other women who have touched your life. Reflect on the qualities in them that lifted you and helped you to become the person you are today.

We all have a mother. She may have played a role different from the standard role. She may have spent more time or less attention with her children than the average mother. However, every one of us has a mother who gave us life.

Eliza R. Snow penned the words to one of my favorite hymns “O My Father.” Her lyrics capture what we all intuitively know about our spiritual upbringing prior to coming here on earth. The words to this hymn remind us that we have a heavenly mother as well:

3. I had learned to call thee Father, Thru thy Spirit from on high,
But, until the key of knowledge Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal Tells me I’ve a mother there.

In Romans, chapter 8, verse 16, we read: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:” We are the children of Heavenly Parents. Our earthly mothers deserve the same respect and protection from the profane things of this world that our Eternal Mother has been shown by our Eternal Father.

N. Eldon Tanner once said, “A mother has far greater influence on her children than anyone else, and she must realize that every word she speaks, every act, every response, her attitude, even her appearance and manner of dress affect the lives of her children and the whole family. It is while the child is in the home that he gains from his mother the attitudes, hopes, and beliefs that will determine the kind of life he will live and the contribution he will make to society.”

I am the oldest of six children in my family. My father enlisted in the Air Force just before I was born and so there was never enough money and more than enough work to be done. My mother taught me to work. She did it by example: she was always working in the yard, gardening, canning, cooking, and cleaning. When her example was not enough to get the six of us to help around the house, she would often start reciting the following poem:

“I love you mother, said little Nell
I love you more than tongues can tell.
Then teased and pouted for half the day
Till her mother rejoiced when she went out to play.

I love you mother, said little John
Forgetting his work, his cap went on.
Then he was off to the garden swing
Leaving his mother the wood to bring

I love you mother, said little Ann
Today I'll help you all I can
Then stepping softly she took the broom
Swept the floor and tidied the room.

I love you mother, again they said
Three little children all going to bed.

Now, which one do you suppose, really loved Mother the most?”

After hearing this guilt-inducing poem a few times, we children learned to quickly go and do what we had been asked to do--before she could get past the “I love you mother said little Nell” part of the poem.

My mother was always very protective of her children. She always believed us, trusted us, and stuck up for us if there were ever any question regarding our behavior in the neighborhood or in school. When someone you love believes in you so strongly that she would protect you and stand up for you under any circumstance, it affects how you act. We never wanted to disappoint her and we tried to live in such a way that we would be worthy of that protection and trust.

My mother always acted and spoke about my going on a mission and going to college as if it were a natural and inevitable consequence of being born--even though my dad and my grandfathers had not gone on missions, nor had they gone to college as young men. I grew up assuming that she was right and that was the course I followed. My three brothers and one of my sisters all served missions as well. I can say that going on a mission and going to college have made all the difference in how my life has turned out. It allowed me to meet my wife, the mother of my children.

Mothers literally wear out their lives for us in one way or another. Sometimes it is through long years of work and dedication. Sometimes it is through sacrificing personal interests and desires, in order to teach and care for family members—sometimes it is literal. Carolyn’s grandmother died shortly after giving birth to Carolyn’s father. Carolyn is grateful to this grandmother she never met and feels a bond with her. She carries this woman’s name as her middle name. Her father told her that his mother was especially looking after her as she served her mission. Carolyn cherishes her because of the ultimate sacrifice she paid in bringing her father into this world. Today, thank your mother for all she has done for you. Thank her in person, by phone, or--if that is not possible--in your personal thoughts of gratitude.

My mother always expected the best from me and believed in me and my abilities. There was never any question in her mind that I was a good person and would have a wonderful life. I have had a wonderful life and I have tried to live up to her expectations. I have noted that this ability to expect the best from others is potentially one of the best motivators in the lives of others; but it requires a consistent belief--and it requires time. I have learned that people often live up or down to the expectations of those they care about. This can be uplifting or it can be a severe obstacle to overcome, depending on what those expectations are.

My wife and my mother are two very different individuals in terms of upbringing, experiences and interests. The one thing that they hold in common--from my selfish perspective--is that they both love me unconditionally. Because of all that they do for me and mean to me, I love them very much. To paraphrase the Apostle John, “We love our wives and our mothers, because they first loved us” 1 Jn. 4:19.

My wife is an incredible person. As I mentioned earlier, my mother always expected the best of me and believed in me and my abilities. With my mother’s basic training and her belief that I was a good person, Carolyn was in a good position to take over and make something more out of me. I am still a work in progress. To some degree I am her other child as she teaches me and often shows me the path I am to walk.

We met while going to BYU. We were married during my junior year in college. During my senior year, I happened to tell Carolyn that even though I was nearly done with my schooling, I did not feel like I could actually do anything. I wasn’t sure who would hire me, given--from my perspective--my lack of knowledge and abilities. I was a little stunned when she replied “Of course you are not ready.” She told me that I still had to go to graduate school.

Graduate school had never crossed my mind.

She had grown up with parents who expected their children not only to go to college, but to also go to graduate school and earn advanced degrees. She told me that I had two choices. Since I was getting a finance degree, I could continue on and get an MBA or, if I wanted, I could go to law school. I looked at the requirements for passing the GMAT to get into a graduate business school and I looked at the requirements for passing the LSAT to get into a law school. The LSAT had less math so I went to law school. She thought I could do it, I did not know that I could not, so that is what I did. No more planning than that was involved in my choice of career. Nonetheless, I have been blessed by a mother and a wife who believed in my abilities even when evidence of that ability did not exist.

My wife’s training also involved the little things in my life as well. One day, after a long time of not getting any flowers from me, (after I had graduated and was making some money), she got out her wallet and gave me some cash. She told me not to come home until I brought her some flowers. So I went out and brought her some flowers. When she thought too much time had transpired since the last time I brought her the flowers, she did it again. She never got mad or annoyed at my lack of thoughtfulness. She realized that I had been brought up in a different home than she had and so she worked on teaching me. After a while I would get it right and actually surprise her with flowers. I am embarrassed to say this, but she still occasionally has to, figuratively, get out her wallet and send me for flowers.

Carolyn does not get upset at my lack of manners or social graces. She knows I love her more than anything, so she never takes my thoughtlessness or idiosyncrasies personally. She carefully takes what she has been given--in terms of a husband--and works with me to make me a better, more attentive person. I do believe that I am a better person today, because of her influence, than the day we were married.

I just hope that she does not give up on me.

Carolyn has been a guiding influence in my spiritual maturation as well. When our children where small, the church started emphasizing family scripture reading. Carolyn helped me to learn how to lead our family in scripture reading. It took several years (not weeks or months) to get beyond the moaning and children picking at each other during the nightly scripture reading time. Eventually, though, we got to the point where we all enjoyed the time together. We would read and sit and discuss what we had read and what it meant to us. Sometimes we talked for a long time after we had finished reading. It was one of the best experiences we had as a family. It brought us closer together. However, if we had stopped after a few weeks or months of frustration--because it did not start out as a pleasant or spiritual experience--we would never have had the truly marvelous experiences we had later, while our children were maturing spiritually. My children and I have Carolyn to thank for those experiences and memories. Carolyn is the spiritual center of our home.

I have mentioned before how my daughters--when they were little--used to do what they called “playing a play.” When they were young, they would act out plays together. One of the characters they both created was Little Mama. They represented her by two of their fingers which walked like this [show two fingers walking across palm of my other hand]. Carolyn found out about these characters one day when she wanted to take the girls across the street to a park for a picnic lunch. Normally, when crossing the street, Carolyn would have them hold onto a pocket on each side of her jeans. This time, though, they said they couldn’t hold on to her pockets because, if they did, “Little Mama will fall.” Carolyn said, “I am your mama.” They said “No, not you, you are Big Mama. This is Little Mama. If we hold on to your pocket Little Mama will fall!” Carolyn thought about that and asked if they could be very obedient when they crossed the street and stay right next to her so the Little Mamas would not fall down. They both said yes and walked right next to her across the street to have their picnic. My children have all tried to incorporate a part of Big Mama into their lives as they have grown up. She will always be a part of who they become.

Carolyn, my wife and my children’s mother, has always been interested in Megan, Lauren and Nathan as individuals with their own thoughts and interests and perspectives. She values them for who they are and what they are interested in. Every night as they grew up, until they decided they were too old, she would spend 15 to 20 minutes with each of them. Listening to their prayers and then, before they fell asleep, listening as they talked about what happened that day and any other thing they wanted to say. My children knew they were important. They knew their mother cared about them and what they thought. They fell asleep every night knowing that someone they cared about was very close. I heard a number of years ago a terrifying statistic, I may not be exact on the numbers, but the crux of the matter was that parents only spent about 7 minutes a day actually communicating with their children and much of that was negative criticism. I know my mother spent much more time than that talking to me as I grew up. She used to ask me questions about all sorts of things. If I did not have an answer or opinion, she would say “Think about it and we can talk about it tomorrow.” I grew up knowing that someone was interested in what I thought about things. My children grew up knowing someone cared about what they thought. That is a priceless blessing. That is a blessing that we can give others.

My children also learned about obedience from their mother. They learned the value of the phrase “Yes mama, I’ll do it right away”. Carolyn took some child development classes at BYU. She read books on child development and how children learn. She was the oldest in a family of five children. Consequently she has, over the years, learned what worked and did not work in teaching children. From what I can tell, what counts in teaching children is consistency and follow-through and my wife was the epitome of both. Without getting upset or angry, without raising her voice she would teach our children how to obey instructions by giving them options. Frequently you would hear the following exchange between Carolyn and our children when they were younger:

She would ask them to pick up a toy, to come when she called, or to empty the dishwasher. If Meg, Lauren or Nathan expressed a desire NOT to obey, Carolyn would ask, “Do you want to do it by yourself? Or do you want me to help you?” Very soon they learned to quickly answer, “I want to do it myself.” They responded with that answer, and then immediately began to pick up the toy or come to her or empty the dishwasher. If they did not, then Carolyn would help them do whatever it was that she asked them to do. It seemed embarrassing to my children that they would need their mother’s help, so they would do it themselves. She was always consistent, never asking anything that she was not immediately willing to do or follow up on. My children learned to believe their mother and that has made all the difference in teaching them obedience.

My wife loves life.

She is a singer, a pianist, and plays the flute. She is a choir leader, a writer, a teacher, a gardener, a collector of all things interesting, a photographer, a horse rider, animal lover, and a perpetual student. These things have had their times and seasons in her life but she is and will always be a wife and a mother.

Carolyn grew up in a home where she and her sisters and her mother would always perform in church and other venues, singing or playing the piano or the flute. So, naturally, when she married me she thought I would have the same experience and desire. She did not know what a challenge that would be. She persevered and after many months of making me sing this song over and over, we sang together in Sacrament Meeting. This was a very long time ago, but I would like to sing just the first verse of this song, usually sung by the girls in Primary.

Love Is Spoken Here,

I see my mother kneeling with our family each day.
I hear the words she whispers as she bows her head to pray.
Her plea to the Father quiets all my fears,
And I am thankful love is spoken here.

The gift of motherhood is everything to us. Today is the opportunity to give, for just a few minutes, a special token of our recognition and appreciation--for the love given and sacrifices made by every mother in Zion.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Late Afternoon Orange Juice and Late Night Photos

2011-05-15T16:14:00.000-04:00

Vivid colour contrast:

Nathan and the peels left over from my juice making in Florida.

I feel like I should have something very clever, quite pithy, really, to accompany this amazing contrast of colour and shape.

It is 1:34 am on Friday morning. I just felt that I needed to go outside and take two photographs that I'd been thinking about for the last two days. One was of a flower--one of two still left blooming on a group of bushes outside the front of Megan's apartment complex. I noticed the bushes the first day that I got here--beautiful flowers covered the bushes. Now there is only a duet of blossoms nestled deep in a recess between two of the largest plants.

I took a few shots of the pink flowers still in bloom and then a few of the rest of the bush--covered in the withered petals of the main flowering period.

The other was of a nest that I found while Jon and I were outside avoiding the baby a few days ago. Jon was occupying himself by throwing his tractor and its trailer into bushes and then waiting for them to tumble down to the bottom. Or, if they didn't fall out of the shrubbery by the sidewalk--then he would poke around inside the bush or low-trimmed tree to find them and pull them out. In the middle of one of these throw and fetch sequences, he lost interest and walked on without waiting to find where the tractor and trailer had landed.

Next day, Meg mentioned that Jon had asked about them and so we went to the tree where he had poked them into the foliage. I spread the outer branches, but couldn't see either of them. What I did see was a nest. I decided that I wanted to come back later and take a photo from the bottom of the tree. A little while ago, I was pulled from the apartment, down to the outside of the apartment building. I took a couple of the botanical photos and then went over to get a night flash photograph of the nest from the bottom of the tree--up through the branches. As I got down and got ready to take my photograph, a bird flew out of the tree--quite upset.

I carefully opened the outer branches just above the nest and was able to see a single chick. It looked dead, put perhaps it was just so young that it was still living on its yolk sack. I hope that it will be OK. I didn't touch anything, just took a few photos.

While I was outside, a dozen or so geese flew overhead--honking loudly as they flew. I didn't realize that migratory birds flew at night when it was dark. Perhaps the street lights gave enough light that this group could still navigate in the middle of the night. It was a terrifically impressive noise. Like an emergency vehicle siren, it began quickly and loudly and then intensified as they flew overhead, the noise fading almost as soon as they were out of sight in the dark sky. They were close enough that I could see their heads and bodies, wings and legs, lit from below by the parking lot lights. It was like a secret moment that no one else knew about--that no one except me and those geese knows about even now.

A Cool Caterpillar and Some Wild Flowers, Jupiter, Florida

2011-04-23T20:34:00.000-04:00

Nathan found this caterpillar eating away like crazy. Cool. It is a Ruddy Daggerwing caterpillar. Wow. The butterfly is bright, BRIGHT red--beautiful.

Cut Evening Primrose--only blooms in the evening. Jupiter, FL 20 Apr 2011

Coreopsis, the official Florida Wild Flower. Jupiter, FL
20 Apr 2011
(This one's a Beadle's Coreopsis)

Our Horticulture Taxonomy class got to go on a field trip. It was wonderful fun. These are three of the things that I took photos of. Florida is a very cool place.

I Am Always Forgetting Appoints--So Why Should I Make Them?

2011-04-21T15:20:00.000-04:00

Some Cool Pics Before I Start My Ranting

This is a tiny flower--three petals only. It is a marsh plant that I can't remember the name of . . . only three petals. Wow.

Below is a kind of poinsettia--wild flower in Florida. Wow.

On one of our Horticulture class field trips, Nathan found this clump of frog eggs. Wow.

I Am Not Thankful for Doctor Appointments

This week I am NOT thankful for doctor and physical therapy appointments. I have consistently missed so many the last three months that I am needing to pay a $50 "missed appointment" more and more often. I am so lovable and funny and kind that for the longest time my doctors and therapists cheerfully re-scheduled appointments or squeezed me in among the other patients who had been on time. After awhile, though, it became tiresome--even for me. Today I had Nathan put down all my doctor/physical therapy appointments for this week (5 of them) in his iPhone calendar. I have ordered an iPad--it should be here in the next week or so. My palms are sweating even now--just writing about it. (!) Since Brent doesn't read any of my blogs, I can tell you that the iPad I ordered for him--for his birthday this May--is already here. This fact has made me even more impatient to get mine.

This whole situation reminds me of when Brent was clerking during his law school time, there was a lawyer (woman) who was pregnant and due on the same day that I was. He would make observations about this very successful lawyer and how being pregnant was changing the way she did things--the way she fit in the office space. [He also told me about another woman at the law firm who had an Ann Klein gold hair barrette that she used to keep her hair in a ponytail--and it looked really classy. He was pleased that I had the same barrette and wore it to keep my hair in a ponytail. In fact, he mentioned it so often whenever I would use it that I began to hate it. I didn't want to remind him of someone else--especially a person who was what I had once wanted to be: a successful lawyer.] This pregnant lawyer delivered her baby two weeks early. From that moment I was ready for Megan to come . . . but she didn't . . . and then her due date came . . . and went. She was born, of course, but not on her due date: 2 October.

From her birth, if I wasn't paying full attention, I filled in school information pages with

2 October 1983 INSTEAD of 8 October 1983.

I once wrote Lauren Nichole Hendry's name as Lauren Christina (her older sister's middle name).

Even better, I sent both Lauren and her new husband Adam each a letter just after their wedding: one to Lauren Hendry; one to Adam Hendry.

Names, dates . . . in the eternities will they matter?

I hope not.

I just re-read what I wrote. I started out with the intention of illustrating how impatient I feel when someone else and myself are both waiting for the same thing to happen--and then it happens to them . . . and I have to wait. From there I waundered off onto a tangent--examples of when I mixed up names and dates.

The forgetfulness continues: I have physical therapy Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 2:30. For the last month I have had physical therapy Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 2:30. I still forget to go--I just forget. I remember just in the nick of time and arrive 10 to 15 minutes late -- which is a big deal in physical therapy because it's not a doctor's office where everyone can wait. I have a specific half hour where I get one-on-one attention from an impressively effective therapist--he eases the pain from the bulging discs in my lower back, the same in my neck, and a recently operated on knee. I come away feeling wonderful . . . and I still forget.

I went to my psychiatrist today (a re-scheduled appointment) and asked for ritalin. I've taken it before, but years ago. Others in my family need it to function more effectively. I am hoping that it will help me to focus, too. In one week, Trigonometry finals happen. I need to re-remember loads of information and formulas and when to use them. Right now, it just ain't happenin'.

I know why I started to write about all of these semi-related things: I have an iPad that is arriving in the mail soon--and I will be using it to keep my schedule--and my mind--in order.

Whew.

FIRST STANZA OF OUR FAMILY STORY

2011-04-21T00:12:00.000-04:00

There's a frog's eye in the bathtub and a hanger in my hair

There are crickets in the kitchen and they're hopping up the stair

Where a tiny sugar glider's snuggled in a house she built

In a box that's full of scraps that I was saving for a quilt.

There are mountains out in Utah where my Lauren likes to climb.

There's my Megan who will paint and draw when she can find the time.

There's my Nate who towers over me and wraps me in a hug

And studies trigonometry and loves to look at bugs.

How do you sum up your life in two lines?

2011-03-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

Elderberry bush blossoms, Frenchman's Reserve, Jupiter, FL

20 Apr 2011

I have been on the computer this evening, deciding what I want in my new iPad. I call the 1-800-MY APPLE help line to find out how delicate an iPad would be. The Apple specialist can't answer my question--since she can't assure me that carrying the iPad would be safe in my book bag with my other books and school papers. I've spoken to other Apple specialists who were wonderful and kind and very helpful. This poor girl must have just begun working there--what people who have spent hundreds of dollars for the "Apple Care" program want is to be reassured and gently taught so that they don't feel stupid for asking their questions.

What has really kept me from sending in the final order for my iPad, though, is the question of what I want to have engraved on its back. The company allows the buyer two lines of print. How do I sum up my philosophy of life; how do I distill what I always want to remember; how do I compose my soul--all in two lines?

In Family Home Evening one night--long ago when Meg and La were young teenagers and Nathan was still in middle school--the lesson proposed that the teacher ask each family member what three words s/he would want engraved on his/her gravestone. I've got all of them written down somewhere--but I remember my three words to this day. I also remember Nathan's answer because he could not be bound by the three word limit. When he died, he wanted on his gravestone: He found out what Jesus wanted, and then he did it. His sincere choice rattled me a little bit then--and still does today. I am constantly impressed and surprised by just about everything that Meg, La and Nate do and say.

So, these two lines are not my epitaph, but they will remain on the back of a pad that I fully expect to carry with me to school and Church and on my photographic explorations and on the plane when I fly and in the car when I drive, type my notes into, record my thoughts as they occasionally come, even use to see and talk with my children and my grandchildren for years to come. Technology has sped to the point where I fully expect to see and use devises I cannot even begin to imagine right now. And it is now at the point where I feel lost if I don't have my cell phone with me--or my laptop in my school bag--or my big screen desktop glowing with my downloaded photographs. I am comforted by the fact that I can call Brent whenever and where ever he might be. I love hearing the voices of my two daughters who live hundreds of miles away from me. Anyway . . . this iPad, this new part of my life, has two lines of print that I can, if I choose, put down in solid, archaic letters, a couplet to remind me of who I am, of what I believe in.

A lot of fuss for something that's to be written on the back of an over-grown iPhone. I know, though, because it has happened with iPods and iTouches we've out grown, that Meg or Lauren or Nathan will someday be using this iPad. I want them to know that it was mine, and a part of me remains with it.

After days--into weeks--I have finally ordered my iPad. On the back will be engraved:

Carolyn loves Brent.

Brent loves Carolyn.

THAT sums up my philosophy, my belief, my motto.

Weird that it took me so long to realize and capture in words what has upheld me and cheered me and comforted me for the last 28 years. Whew. Wow.

From an Email to Lauren on Tuesday

2011-01-11T15:53:00.000-05:00

My horticultural education deepens this semester with a Horticultural Taxonomy class, focusing on weeds. Florida is good at weeds. I am good at finding Florida's weeds--AND taking pictures of them close up. I'm working at getting better at taking pictures of them far away. This flower has the diameter of your littlest finger nail. It's called Wire Weed.

This is one that I worked with today. The vibrant green of the bee was just so startling that it caught me attention from way across the front yard. The plant (called "Moses in a Basket") has been damaged by the freezing bits of weather we've experienced--but the flower opened, the bee came, and I took a photograph.

FROM AN EMAIL I SENT TODAY TO LAUREN:

I've been reading your blogs from the last months--you have a distinctive feeling to your prose. Meg thinks that the up-beat cheerfulness is because the blogs are a "happy place" for you. I think that she is right. I know that spending time writing on my blogs sets me free from reality. I can see how people can get lost in the cyber world and never want to come back to work and conflict and chores and debts and a mortal body that can neither make things right with a wave of a hand nor fly effortlessly above the city [--over the power lines but lower than the helicopters]. I suppose that any kind of retreat from reality--drugs, alcohol, video games, Facebook, even just the draw of sitting for hours reading a favorite book--kind of makes your re-entry into the human place a bumpy ride, at best.

I taught Relief Society last Sunday: Keeping the Sabbath day holy. I thought that I was all prepared, but as I got further into the lesson it felt like I was just swimming around in circles--by the end of Church, a lot of us were crying, I was a nervous mess, and we had gone 5 minutes over time. I used the last of my lesson time to read an essay that I'd written after the flood in Texas . . . illustrating that the healing, rich influence of the Sabbath was one way that the Lord had given us to help us heal, allow us to become stronger, appreciate what we have a little more. There was one line--something about I had been given so much, that having lost what I had--I still more than most people would ever get during their whole lives. The more that I look back on what I've experienced, the more everything seems to converge on one thing: we only value and act upon principles that are in motion some place where we can see and understand them. At the end of the movie "Hogfather", Death speaks with his granddaughter about why it is so important for mortals to have hope and faith. He tells her that children need to begin by believing in the little lies: the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, the Hogfather, so that they can be ready to believe the big lies: kindness, faith, moral values, obedience and joy. It sounded so strange to me, but Death reminds his granddaughter that if he took all of the matter in the universe and ground it up into a powder that he could never find one molecule of love, one atom of honesty. If we do not make these "lies" real--then they disappear. While I know that the moral truths of the Gospel exist independent of this Earth's existance--we are only able to have them in our lives if we make them "come true". After all, Satan will be bound for a thousand years during the Millennium NOT because he will be literally be tied up, but because the people will be SO RIGHTEOUS that he will have no power over them.

That means that we can have the Millennium begin now. If I choose to "give up all my sins" and keep the covenants that I have made with God--following His counsel and being guided by his promptings: then Satan can have no control over me. It is overly simplistic, WAY yes. But I like the idea that I can make joy and gratitude exist simply by doing them myself. Without my actions, these eternal truths would still exist somewhere on their own--but I can have them made real for me just by deciding to live that kind of joyful and reassuring existence.

That's almost as good as flying.

"Today I Am Becoming" talk given in Church

2010-11-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

Brent and I doing something that becomes part of who I am: a trip to Mayan Ruins in September 2010.

My most handsome boyfriend and I spend time at the beach together. Palm Beach Gardens 2010.

While growing up, I often my mother say:

Today I am becoming just who I want to be, at 6 or 16, 45 or even 83.

One of my favorite authors is Mary Ellen Edmunds. Trained as a nurse, she has served in the Church for many years. When I was in the MTC, 30 years ago, she had an office there. She has continued to serve and to write about her experiences. One of the things that I clearly remember is an essay in which she expressed the desire to be the kind of person that Heavenly Father could depend upon. She pictures the Lord and other important people meeting together in heaven when suddenly they become aware of someone who needs help. They don’t even stop. With confidence Heavenly Father reassures everyone: “We don’t have to worry. It’s OK. Everything’s taken care of. Mary Ellen is on the way and she will take care of it.”

Today I am becoming just who I want to be, at 6 or 16, 45 or even 83.

That is what I want to be—someone whom the Lord can depend upon. When I was a teenager, my mother once got upset. I was asked at the last minute to sing at a Fireside because the people assigned had failed to prepare anything. "Why don't they ask you to do it in the first place?" she asked indignantly out loud to no one in particular. It was a funny question coming from a woman who had taught her five children that we were given talents in order to be of use to others. As a teenager, she was asked to accompany someone singing at a Church meeting. Even though she practiced as much as possible, she couldn't "play all the notes" in the piano score. She got someone else to do it for her--and then her replacement didn't play all of the notes, either! Grandma Burton told her that she had been given an opportunity to develop her skills as a pianist so that she could help others--it didn't matter if it was note-perfect. The Lord wasn't listening to be sure that the music was performed perfectly--so Mom shouldn't be worried about it either--just to do the best that she could.

Today I am becoming just who I want to be, at 6 or 16, 45 or even 83.

One of my favorite Old Testament stories is found in 1^st Kings.

8 ¶ And the word of the Lord came unto [Elijah], saying,

9 Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a ^awidow woman there to sustain thee.

10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.

11 And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of ^abread in thine hand.

12 And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.

13 And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.

14 For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.

15 And she ^awent and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.

In my minds eye I can see Heavenly Father in a meeting when, suddenly, the Savior tells him that they need someone to take care of his prophet Elijah. Heavenly Father immediately says,
“We don’t have to worry. It’s OK. Everything’s taken care of. The widow is there and we can depend upon her.”

Today I am becoming just who I want to be, at 6 or 16, 45 or even 83.

Over the past few years, you have had the opportunity to hear Brent talk quite a few times—and in those talks, he usually tells a story about me or one of our children. Tonight, I would like to tell you a story about Brent.

It happened several years ago while we were living in Texas. Our situation there was unusual. We belonged to a ward that covered a relatively small area—rare in Wards located out of Idaho and Utah. We were living in an unusually big house—about 4000 square feet—and because we lived very close to the chapel, we often hosted ward and missionary activities in our home. When we moved into our home, the previous owners had left their refrigerator behind—and we kept it in the garage, well stocked with food so that we could provide dinner or refreshments for a large group of people on short notice.

Now comes the part about Brent.

While sitting in Sacrament Meeting one Sunday morning, Brent was prompted to do something that made him feel very uncomfortable. As he looked around the chapel, he saw a man. Suddenly he felt that he needed to pack up a large amount of food and take it to the home of this member. This member was well-to-do and owned a large home in a very nice neighborhood. Why would this man need food? What if we arrived on his front door step that afternoon with arms full of frozen meat, vegetables, and other basic items like rice, flour, milk, and bread—and this man and his family didn’t need it? How embarrassing would that be? Brent wasn’t his Home Teacher—he didn’t even know this man all that well.

I lead the music during the meeting—so as soon as Sacrament Meeting was over, Brent found me and told me about this feeling he had experienced. It seemed like a simple thing to me—if that’s what he felt we needed to do, then we would do it.

When we got home from Church, we filled four or five paper shopping bags with basic foodstuffs and headed out to make our delivery. When we got the house, we walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. When the door was opened, it looked as if we were walking into a construction site. There were sheets of opaque white plastic stapled to the ceiling. In the living room, there were some pieces of 2 x 4 with the saw and sawhorses at the bottom of a ladder reaching into the ceiling.

We discovered that this gentleman had lost his job. Blessed with a rich and sufficient life up until then, he felt too embarrassed to ask for help. His two daughters and their families lived with him and both of his sons-in-law had lost their jobs. The house had plumbing problems and the roof had a leak in it. After a week of steady rain the ceiling of their living room had collapsed. The grandchildren living with him were eating the cheapest of MacDonald’s foods—purchased one item at a time. No one else was eating much at all. This member was about to lose his house to the bank and he had no money to repair it so that he could sell it and avoid bankruptcy.

This was a family in desperate need of just what we had brought with us—the most basic of foods. I went into the kitchen to help is daughters put away the food—each item was welcomed with the utmost joy and excitement. While I was in the kitchen, Brent went to find out what was needed so that he could call the Bishop and give him an accurate accounting of the situation. Before we left, Brent emptied his wallet and quietly gave what he had to the man—so that he would have money to get some of the materials he needed to repair his home.

The story has a happy ending—both for them and for us.

Another meeting in Heaven rescued. This time, by Brent.

Today I am becoming just who I want to be, at 6 or 16, 45 or even 83.

I’ve been asked tonight to speak about teaching our children to pay tithing.

I asked my son Nathan what he remembered about us teaching him and his sisters that we should pay tithing. Looking puzzled, he told me that it was like all of the other commandments—it was just something that we did. Like going to Church and keeping the Sabbath holy, it was just a thing that was never questioned—it just happened. It seemed to me that Nathan thought about paying tithing with the same attention he gave to breathing in and out every day—it was just something that happened.

My daughter Lauren emailed me:

“What I remember is that you encouraged us to take tithing out right away. Whenever we got allowance, I remember we always traded our money back to have the right amount to pay tithing with. I still do that. Whenever I put a check into the bank, I take tithing out in cash so we don't accidentally spend it.”

I called Megan and asked what she remembered about Brent and me teaching her to pay tithing. She told me that she remembered us talking about it sometimes when we paying bills. She remembered having a tithing “bank” and going to see the Bishop with the family for tithing settlement. She also remembers telling the Bishop that she was paying a full tithing when he asked her if she was. Like Nathan, she remembered that paying tithing was just something that we did as members of our family. She then complemented me when she told me that Brent and I were wonderful parents and always taught her and her brother and sister to obey the commandments during Family Home Evenings—and in the things she saw us doing every day.

There was a meeting in Heaven. The Lord needed someone to teach Megan, Lauren and Nathan about the law of tithing. “It’s OK. Everything’s taken care of. Brent and Carolyn can handle it.”

Our Heavenly Father needs someone to teach his children to obey his commandments. He needs people who are faithful examples. He needs people who pay their tithing with a cheerful heart as easily as if it were breathing in and out.

Our children see us. They watch us. They hear us. They love us and they want to be like us.

Today I am becoming just who I want to be, at 6 or 16, 45 or even 83.

I am the kind of person who can fill in for a musical number. The widow was the kind of person who could care for the Lord’s prophet. Brent was the kind of person who could bring food and money when it was needed. Brent and I are the kind of parents who were able to teach our children to love the Lord and to obey His commandments.

I am grateful for His many blessings and for the opportunity that I have had to become someone I can be happy with. I close with my testimony of the Lord’s love for us and of His desire for us to obey His commandments and to teach our children so that, together, we can return to Him.

Today I am becoming just who I want to be, at 6 or 16, 45 or even 83.

Who are you becoming?

Carolyn Hendry

Saturday evening Stake Conference

23 October 2010

Pizza and Pictures--and Sarah

2010-11-25T11:03:00.000-05:00

A succulent flower photographed from farther to closer up views. Tiny to begin with anyway.

The flower in half--leaves, sepal, overy stamen in realtion to petals. Cool.

Close up of flower center. Brent has gotten me some REALLY AMAZING toys to play with as I have collected and photographed plants during this semester's Plant Identification class.

I have wanted to write for this blog for the last month, but there has been so much going on that I have felt overwhelmed. I’m in the car right now, with nothing to do but watch the trees go by and take pictures of the sky to use in my Photoshop 5 class. The class was listed as “Advanced Photography” but is actually just a graphics exercise using the newest edition of Photoshop. I am having a hard time because the “Basic Photography" class was all about getting the black and white shot composed and set—a tiny bit of the world in itself. Then there was the skill and art of developing and then printing just a few of the dozens of photos that I had taken over the last 3 months. This “advanced” class is about knowing how to add a false shadow and make the original picture into a word with letters that have the picture as a pattern in them. The final portfolio is composed of a few dozen solitary items (a single flower, a chair, a frog), a half a dozen “backgrounds” (a beach, a bench in a park, the window in a house) and then some kaleidoscopic graphics as well as a final “composition” that contains a few images melded together into a surrealistic mix. It is just a few weeks before I’m done with this semester—and I am getting to know Photoshop 5 a little bit. So—not a total waste of time and money.

{And I don’t have to count the seconds that a strip of film sits in each of the 5 bathes necessary to develop it.}

{No smell either.}

Since I last wrote, I’ve had knee surgery and another round of shots down the sides of my lower spine. I also finally had some planter’s warts lazared off the bottom of my left foot—no touching the bandages or getting it wet for a week. I take baths with my left leg hanging out of the tub. I have a stylish black boot thing with long Velcro straps that keep it on. It doesn’t hurt—or itch—HURRRAH! It does feel kind of squishy, though, when I walk on it too much. (That fact grosses Brent out . . . I don’t mention it to him now when he asks how my foot feels.)

It is raining right now—a light, steady stippling that would be great on my lawn and gardens. Yes! I have a garden again. Actually it is just a flat of two different kinds of lettuce that Sarah planted for me and has watered every day for the last week. I haven’t eaten any of it yet, but she told me that it’s ready to harvest. What I haven’t told her is that I would like it to go to seed and then in a few months find little “volunteer” lettuces in odd places about the yard.

Sarah—an incredible young woman who has, in her short lifetime, been a plumber, a construction worker, a gardener and an expert on grass watering systems. She is a tiny little woman—she looks like she’s 20 years old. Her face has a pixie/faerie look about it—as if she just sprang down from the branches of one of our cypress trees. When things don’t work, she fixes them. She is the best angel that Heaven could have sent. My knee and my foot (and my back) make it impossible for me to take care of my acre and a quarter. I was energetic when we first got here and put in all sorts of “islands” of bushes and flowers and palms and a live Christmas tree that we planted when Christmas was over. I have started half a dozen avocado trees and they are already taller than me (OK, that doesn’t take much) and in another year or so should begin to produce an avocado or two. Before she came, the whole front walkway was overgrown to the point that people had to fight their way through the branches to get to our front door. I hope that she finds this area a good place to stay for a while—she has single-handedly taken the most stressful (guilt-inducing) part of my life and turned it into a grand adventure. We went to Home Depot last week and picked out some annuals that she planted in all the little poky, empty places in the front of the house to add “colour”. It has been years since I have even thought about adding colour to anything—just hanging on has been more than I could handle for a long time now.

I got to speak in Stake Conference, Saturday night session and had a wonderful time. I focused my “remarks” around the couplet (I think that Mom said that Aunt Jannie first come up with it.):

Today I am becoming just who I want to be;

At six or sixteen, forty-eight or even eighty-three.

I was supposed to talk about how to teach our children the importance of paying tithing. I think that the Stake President was hoping for a 13-minute chat about making a Tithing Bank with/for a young child and then helping the child figure out how much tithing to pay from his/her allowance. Maybe some hints for Family Home Evening lessons on the importance of paying tithing and a frequent reminder of the verses in Malachi. I did mention tithing, but only about 11 minutes into my talk. Instead I spoke about being worthy to hear the promptings of the Spirit and obedient enough to obey those directions. I read my favorite Old Testament story about the widow who obeyed the Prophet Elisha when he told her to use the last bit of meal and oil that remained in her home and “make, I pray thee, first a little cake for me.” Anyway. I’ve included my talk here—you can see for yourself. At the end of my talk, I finished by telling what Meg, La and Nate remembered about Brent and me teaching them about the law of tithing. The crux of my talk was that if they wanted their children to pay tithing—they must also pay tithing. When they attended tithing settlement at the end of every year—each child could echo proudly their parents’ account to the Bishop—and the Lord—that they were full tithe-payers.

Today I am becoming just what I want to be: Brent’s best sweetheart (Meg and La and Nate are also in his heart—but I’m his BEST love); a better friend and mother to Meg, La and Nate; a faithful Stake Primary Second Counselor; a consistent student of the Scriptures; a quieter person who can better hear the whisperings of the Lord guiding me.

I felt a quiet voice suggest that I have pizza delivered to the class I love the most—Plant Identification—this Tuesday night. Dr. Rogers approved the idea and it will be fun to have everyone eating rather than mumbling about how hungry they are because they didn’t have time for lunch or dinner.

Maybe that wasn’t the Spirit—maybe it was just a good idea to show everyone in that class how much I appreciate how they have accepted me—a non-professional-landscape-architect—into their circle. I like that I can do weird stuff like order pizza for a class of 20. They don’t know that I’m a Mormon, but if they ever meet another one I would like them to have a fond memory of one who loved being with them—and cherished the friendship that they returned.

A Cruise, An Elevator, and a Cold

2010-10-02T01:06:00.000-04:00

To celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary in September, Brent and I went on our very first cruise. We visited the Mayan ruins in Cancun, Mexico and went SNUBA diving (a cross between scuba and snorkeling) in Key West. It was short--just 5 nights.4 days--but we had a really nice time getting to know each other again. We splurged and had one of the professional photographers do some portraits--this one is my favorite. Twenty eight years. If you get a chance, ask Brent about the acupuncture . . . good stuff.

I was in the elevator yesterday and a fellow got on with me. He was about my height, dark complexioned, and very compact and strong (muscular in a way that made me think that he probably worked in a job that required strength and agility). I noticed that he had a gold necklace on and I couldn't make out what the pendant was. I asked and he held it up for me to see. He proudly told me that his wife had bought it for him after he'd shot his first 8-point deer. It struck me as a very kind and thoughtful thing for her to do. While I didn't think that his shooting a deer (although he did look like the kind of fellow who actually ate the animals he killed) was all that fantastic, it was wonderful to see the result of her thoughtfulness. As he mentioned his wife, his whole being lit up with excitement and obvious love for her. He got off the elevator a floor before me and told me that he thought she'd probably get him another pendant of a boar after he shot his first wild pig!

After the conversations I’ve had with Nathan lately, centered on how evil and self-centered people in powerful places tend to become (if they were not already)--it was charming and reassuring to be in the presence of someone who loved the things he did and who openly cherished his wife.

It is easy to get hung up on the bad stuff that happens to you. People in broadcasting and other news reporting fields have learned that crisis sells--everyone slows to see a car wreck on the highway. It is more difficult to seek out the compassionate and generous things that happen--I think mostly because they happen in small ways in quiet places. These actions are not inspired by a desire to be acknowledged, thus there are no cameramen/women hired to document the event as it happens. Unfortunately, it is also difficult for someone who has been blessed in a specific moment by the charity of others to remember the act. The majority of times when I have received help I recall only feelings of relief and reassurance and gratitude to my Heavenly Father--and warmth and tenderness for such good friends.

Most of the occasions that I have influenced someone for good came about in the course of my everyday living. Small nudges of the Spirit cause me to do something a little out of the ordinary--and it just happens to be a thing that helps someone to feel better about themselves, their lives, and the Lord. Most of the time I only learn that I have been of help when I hear the report during a testimony in Sacrament Meeting. Other times people have been moved to vocalize gratitude that that they have kept quiet in their hearts during the last days before we moved to another state. I suppose that our leaving has "forced the moment to its crisis" (The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot).

That's not exactly the concept I want to express--but you get the idea. I have most often recounted charity extended to me during conversations with others--rather than going to the person and thanking them directly. I am learning to change that, though. I've begun to report what a good job someone has done for me by writing notes and sending them to the place where the person works: public "thank you" that is also heard by the individual. I thank the cashier at the grocery store for working so late when I have gone in to buy bread and eggs at 9:00 pm. When we eat out and the waiter or waitress has gone out of their way to make the meal a pleasant experience, I try to tell them or leave a note on the receipt saying thank you for their taking such good care of us.

Most importantly, I have gotten into the good habit of telling Megan, Lauren and (especially, lately) Nathan (since he is still living here with Brent and me) that I appreciate the kind things they do for me, that I am proud of them, that I am grateful for their example of gracious living, that I really enjoy being with them, and that I am glad that they are my children.

Perhaps this is why the genuine satisfaction of the hunter on the elevator in sharing his testimony of how much he was loved by his wife keeps coming into my thoughts. Most of all, I have always tried to express to Brent my love for him and for the wonderful life that he makes possible. While our children were growing up, I repeatedly told them that I felt lucky to have met married such an extraordinary man--how generous, how handsome, and how thoughtful he was. Every night as we pray together, I hear him thank Heavenly Father "for my wife". When I say the prayer, thanks for Brent as my husband and companion are always the first things I express.

I am so lucky to have Brent. I think that in the pre-existence that when Heavenly Father was asking who wanted to fly through the air, experience the most joy (and its opposite, the most despair), to climb trees, to sing out loud, and to comprehend through mortal experience every extreme emotion, that I was sitting on the edge of my seat, raising and waving my arm and saying loudly "Oh, oh, yes! Pick me! Pick me!” And when the Lord decided to grant my desires, He looked around the heavens and found Brent.

Then, He asked Brent if he would take on the duty to take care of me and protect me because I really didn't know what I was asking for. At that point, as at every other time the Lord requested his service, Brent humbly accepted the calling. I think that he began, then, to practice loving me and keeping me out of trouble because he slipped quietly into that role the moment that we met.

His calm, moderate emotions balance mine. He has always been present to pick me up off of the ground, agonize over the falls I've taken, and then, because I wanted it so much, to pay for the horses that were involved in the accidents. He has, literally, saved my mortal life more than once.

He is the reason that I am still thankful for my body even when it is in painful pieces that must be sewn back together. He is the reason that I have fought every time to return from my blackest, coldest, most hopeless place. Even when I knew that Heavenly Father lived and that Christ sacrificed His life for my sins--but didn't care--I knew I could believe and trust Brent. During those times, he reminded me of that trust and that he knew that all of that mattered--so he would believe for the both of us until I could believe again on my own.

This essay actually began as a letter to Brent, but I want to share it with all of you now, too. I think it is important that we remind each other that there is good in the world--and that there is a reason for this world: we are that reason. I can reassure Nathan that even with all of the horrible things that are happening on the earth right now, for some unfathomable reason, the Lord has put us in a place where we can know the complete truth of the Gospel of Christ. He has given us resources that enable us to be healthy in both mind and body. He has allowed the five of us to be a family--and now to become the best of friends.

At this moment, I am laying in bed with the beginnings of a cold washing over me. I have an injured left shoulder that has made it necessary for me to drop the ceramics class I've been taking with Nate at the local college. Yesterday my orthopedic surgeon gave me a cortisone shot in my should so my left art feels like one be achy bruise. There is nerve damage on my upper left foot that makes walking a misery. I'm also hungry because I feel too gross to get up and fix something to eat--and Nathan is at class so he can't hover over me and keep me fed. Brent has been away in Washington DC on business all week and won't be home until Sunday night.

It has occurred to me as I have been writing, that I have the right to complain loudly to the walls that I hurt and that I miss Brent and that I am not happy. Weirdly enough though, I feel supremely at peace, grateful for the time and the place to rest and let my body repair itself. General Conference is this weekend and so I get to hear the Lord's living Prophet talk to me about how much Heavenly Father loves me and about what He needs me to be doing right now.

I especially want my family to know that I love the Lord and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be sealed to Him with Brent in an eternal union. I love the knowledge that God is part of the incredible relationship I have with Brent.

People that work with Brent are often surprised to find out that he has no real hobby except for me. His whole concern is that I am happy and feel loved. When others, envious, tell me that I have a really good life, I agree. I tell them of the promise that Brent made to me when he and the Lord decided that he needed to attend law school. He said that if I would support him through school, he would support me for the rest of my life. He has kept that promise. An especially choice friend of mine heard me say that, and then taught me something I had never considered before: that many husbands make that same promise--but do not keep it.

Thank you, Brent, for keeping all of your promises to me.

Some Really Bad Prints of a Really Nice Wedding

2010-09-09T15:00:00.000-04:00

These four photos were taken with one of those little wedding cameras that was on our table at the reception of Sam (my sister Susan's son) and Ashley. Every picture was awful. I imagine that with the overwhelming influx of quick, inexpensive digital cameras that these old 27-exposure Kodak cameras have mostly come from the backs of wedding planning and catering supply closets.

Sam and Ashley coming into the reception room: during the time between the 2:30pm wedding and the 5:00pm reception, they took time to just be together. I had to smile when they admitted that they didn't feel any different now that they were married. I think that Robert Fulghum would tell them that they had already gone through the "real" wedding months or even years before at some unremembered moment when they each discovered that they loved the other and wanted nothing more than to be together. The public joining of their lives was made legal last Saturday afternoon. The marriage of their hearts--what really keeps people together when they hurt or are angry or feel pushed aside or are disappointed by things that have happened or even disappointed in themselves--that takes place when no one is "witnessing" or officiating. Sometimes it happens before a man and a woman are married; sometimes it happens after. The saddest things is when it doesn't happen at all. In such cases, the reception is the highlight of the day since there was a party for them and presents to open--as if it were a birthday celebration.
Me and my little sister Susan. We both wore black and looked fantastic.
This is the only photo I have of dad and me together. The photos were so bad that even my correcting for red-eye didn't help the way that I looked. Awful photo. Wonderful time spent with dad.
Dad sat up at the head table with Susan and Sam and Ashley and Ashley's parents. They also took time to talk quietly.

Even though the photographs turned out grainy and badly lit, I do cherish the people and the events that these photographs remind me of. If for nothing else, they are worth keeping on file so that I can skim by them everyone once in a while and see them unexpectedly--and be back in Wichita KS again. Everyone was so cordial and kind and Sam and Ashley were so beautiful together. Both of them cried through the wedding--my favorite memory is of Sam, during the middle of the wedding service, reaching to wipe the tears off of Ashley's face--and of her turning to look at him, rather than at the Catholic priest who was officiating.

Brent and I are going on our first cruise next week. For our anniversary, he found me a Pentax UNDERWATER CAMERA!!!!! It is a coppery-orange electronic marvel--water tight and sand proof. If I flatten my hand, the camera sits quite nicely in the middle. I have been practicing with it--and have gotten used to some of the features. It doesn't photograph in RAW, but it does have a maximum quality JPG so that I need all of the space I can on the memory card. Right now I am using the 16 gb card from my Nikon D300S. I took photos while I walked the dogs this morning and am really excited to see if I've gotten good enough with the camera to get some decent shots of the birds we saw today. I'll have to post some later if they turn out.

At the least, I expect that my photographs from today will be eons better than the few I got off of the disposable camera from Sam and Ashley's wedding. I hope so, anyway.

Isn't Brent incredible? He finds the best--the most surprising--things to get for me. I am spoiled. I am adored. I am loved. I am married forever to Brent in my heart, in my dreams--as well as in the legal wedding register at the Salt Lake Utah county government offices.

My Most Handsome Man and a Fairly Cool Beetle That Nathan Saved

2010-08-30T21:45:00.000-04:00

I love this photo of Brent.

While Mary was here, Nathan kept an eye out for really cool bugs for her to take back for a friend who is enrolled in an etymology class at BYU. When he found this guy, though, he was just so energetic that Nathan didn't have the heart to immortalize him . . . but he did let me get some photos of the little guy before I let him go.

I put a couple of the beetle on my flash drive for my Digital Photography class. We're assigned to bring in images that will be easy to lift off of one image to use in another . . . everything needs to be our own art. No clip art--I'm excited to see what I can do with the Photoshop 5 program that we'll be learning. I've paid for at least three of the five versions of Photoshop, but I've never taken the time or effort to find out even a small fraction of what the program offers.

My whole life has felt like that. I have been offered so much--and I've been too weird or self-centered or mindless or turned-inward to see all the glorious potential for learning or exploring or listening or feeling. I've missed the opportunity to choose from options that I was too lame to look for--or too afraid to take on. My comfort zone still buffers me. When I'm manic or depressed or stressed, I fall back on what is easiest. It is simple for me to perform in front of an audience and much more demanding for me to approach people one on one. Personal friendships carry an emotional price that I would rather pay off in dollars--send out for pizza rather than make home-made soup--send off cards rather than take time for a personal visit. I think about how our family lives now--pool table and a well-loved baby grand piano instead of a dining room table and sofa and chairs. We don't have family dinners at night--Brent gets home and wants a few minutes to unwind from 12 hour days and then he's ready to go to sleep. Our FHEs are on Sunday evenings and take less than half an hour. Nathan gets an over-dose of me as I follow him around some of his college classes taking notes--then our evenings are spent studying, cleaning up after the bunnies, and folding clothes while Brent does his Stake clerk stuff.

I woke up this morning at 6am and had a wild energy spurt at about 8 and I vacuumed the kitchen and family room. The rabbits went wild . . . noise! motion! ACK! They are tired tonight after such an unreal start to their day.

Actually, I am tired tonight. Nathan just brought me a millipede and I am too tired to photograph it tonight . . . so I need to give it some water and tuck it into the lovely dirt that Nathan's already gathered and it can sleep in comfort tonight until I can get some pictures tomorrow.

A son who takes Spanish, Psychology and Algebra by day and takes out the garbage and brings me bugs to see at night.

No wonder Brent is tired. So am I.

I Am a Broadway Musical Married to a PBS Documentary

2010-08-19T01:57:00.000-04:00

I love this thought--almost a perfect metaphor describing Brent and me. I burst into song at odd and irregular intervals. Brent is careful and methodical and makes sure that he has all of the bases covered. I often forget where I put my bag/phone/glasses/keys/books/shoes. Brent gets up on Saturday morning and gets dressed and puts on his socks and shoes so that he is ready to go at a moment's notice.

I have much more to say about this. I am too tired right now. It is 2am Eastern Standard Time.

2010-07-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

Cleaned up photo that Nathan took at Pelican Lake in Juno Beach FL in June or early July 2010.
I was outside dumping used bunny litter where I let it get rained on before I use it as mulch and potting soil. It had been raining; I saw a neighborhood of these mushrooms. Running back into the house, I grabbed my camera and took a series of mushroom family "groups". I like this little bunch.

I love being surrounded by new things--growing things. Even when I am stagnant--propped up on the couch with my knee up--waiting to heal, the rest of the yard is busy growing and changing.

An invitation to encourage my body to to get on with the process of healing.

Happy Fourth of July!

2010-07-04T23:28:00.000-04:00

It is the 4th of July and it has been thundering and lightening-ing and everyone around us has been setting off fireworks. Lots of wet and lots of noise and I am glad that I am inside listening to it all and watching old movies and eating pretzels and petting the cat.

Expert on: Post-Op Rules

2010-07-04T23:00:00.000-04:00

After Church this morning, I spoke with a wonderful woman who is going to have to undergo surgery this coming week. As we talked, I realized that I had been operated on for the same problem. She asked me about what to expect after the surgery. Her doctor had told her that she was to stay completely flat on her back in bed for 12 weeks to allow the new tissue time to completely heal and settle into place. She asked what problems I had--and I explained that I was not as wise as she was and had felt pretty good after just 3 days in bed--so I got up and went into the kitchen to empty the dishwasher. Someone came to pick up some music and I sat with them in the living room and talked until (wonder of wonders) I began to bleed and to hurt-- A LOT. I listed for her some of the liquid-ish things that were OK to eat--and others that would seem to be OK, but that contained high amounts of fiber--which was NOT OK to eat. I recommended that she stockpile a dozen or so movies that she could watch on her laptop--so that she didn't have to get up and change the DVDs. She is smarter than I am and I am sure that she will stay down and let her body heal.

It occurred to me this evening that I am really good with infants since I have no infants to take care of myself. In the same vein, I am great at telling people what to do after surgery since I am not recovering right now myself.

Well, actually I am recovering from knee surgery.

Never mind.

I Gotta Get This Show

2010-06-28T19:17:00.000-04:00

Curly would have been labeled as a "dangerous jumper" because he did not bring both knees up together to go over the jump. I have never had more fun jumping, though, or felt safer than when I was riding him. Texas 1990

Jon loved seeing himself in the viewer screen on the back of my camera. I got this one of him, looking at us, reflected together in the mirror backing a Chinese ceramics display in the Smithsonian. Maryland 2010

Brent and Nate and I went on a road trip to Fort Lauderdale. The art museum was a WAY BIG disappointment, but at a museum collection of old Packard cars, there was more to see. Florida 2010

I did this one while trying to get ideas for a "self portrait that you didn't look like yourself in it" assignment for a black and white photography class I took at PBSC. Florida 2009

This is one of the first shots I ever took of myself in my kitchen window. After dark it is as sharply reflective as a mirror. I was wearing my favorite shirt. Florida 2008

This is a photograph, also a reflection in the kitchen window, that I took and think of as my "50th Year Old Portrait." Florida 2009

"Kiss today goodbye and point me towards tomorrow . . ."

"Every Little Step" is an old film, a retrospective (their word) on the casting process in preparation for the revival of A Chorus Line. It is a slap in my face that yells at me that I never could have done what those people did. I didn't start dancing soon enough or seriously enough. I didn't. I was too chunky as a teenager. I was. I would have killed myself had I broken through the constraints of my father's advice and lost myself in the mirror that frees and contains a dancer. I am preoccupied now with my own reflection.

Our kitchen window looks out over the sink onto the lanai and, at night, reflects my own face back at me--but softly. I have taken dozens--maybe hundreds--of photographs of myself looking back at myself. Perhaps it is the dearth of ("women's tears"--"dearth of women's tears" is a line from a war poem I studied at BYU) images from all the years when the children were growing up. Perhaps thousands of photographs--the majority of them thrown out or lost or ruined in the flood--I took. An acquaintance once said that she took so many pictures of her kids growing up so that when she got old and got Alzheimer's, she'd still be able to look back and know that she had lived a life full of people and places--even if she didn't remember that she had been there or was related to the faces in the photographs.

Nikki from Fleetwood Mac put photographs of herself posing in toe shoes and ballet costumes on the covers of her record albums (back when there were photo albums) and anyone who ever danced could tell that she's never had any real experience as a ballerina or even tried to stand "en pointe." I had. I had worn and bled into real toe shoes. Though I never got paid for dancing, after class one day, I was told by a fellow dance student at BYU: "It's beautiful to see you. I love watching you dance."

And that has always been enough for me. I am a dancer.

But I am not a professional dancer. Actually I'm not a professional anything. After finishing my Masters, I did get to teach a few semesters of college English and worked as a Legal Assistant while Brent was in law school. I have played organ and piano and sung and played flute. I have written hundreds of pages of prose--and half again as much in essay response and/or literary analysis. If I lived by "Publish or Perish," I'd be long gone and buried. My mom loved my letters and Megan is doing amazing artwork to accompany a children's narrative that I composed.

Seeing anything about the theatre always makes me feel morose and begin to self-assess based on my teenage need to face myself by losing myself in the character of a play. I got lots of chances to do that. There was little competition from others 15-to-20-year-olds who could not exist without a ready-made façade to hide behind. Desperation breeds excellence.

Especially in front of a full-length mirror.

Am I depressed tonight? No. I am just upset that I did not have the chance to ruin my body sooner in a more dramatic way. At the end of "Every Little Step," one of the actresses who got a major part was the daughter of a ballet dancer. He danced for 20 years and then blew out a knee. He thought that he was finished as a dancer--and then Baryshnikov called him and told him to get back to the theatre. In six weeks he was dancing again. At the end of the evening's performance, his dance slipper was full of blood.

But he ended his comments by telling the viewers to ask any dancer, any gymnast who participated in the Olympics--would they give up the ruined shoulders, damaged ankles, arthritic knees?

It was worth it. What ever was lost--it was worth it.

And really . . . I feel the same way about all the injuries I sustained from my horseback riding time. And even now after surgery on my left knee, I hate laying on my back on the couch, with my knee above my heart, doing needlework and watching old movies and writing in my blogs and trying to remember when to take the extra meds and make appointments for the doctors and physical therapy. But . . . still, offered the chance, I would not have given up a single moment of flying over the earth, of becoming all the mass and grace of a 700 pound horse. I would not. Blood in my slipper. Scars on my shoulder. Bone spurs on my spine. Concussive bruise marks on the inside of my skull.

I would do it all again.

I have not gotten any wiser as I have gotten older. Half a century and I still cling to the memory of the feeling of being on a horse--of having someone who thought it was beautiful when she saw me dance.

One moment of being a dancer.

"Kiss today--"

I don't want to be pointed only toward tomorrow--not if it means that I have to leave my past behind.

I feel much better now.

It's Friday Night and I Got Me a Bum Knee

2010-06-25T22:37:00.000-04:00

I am sitting at home, in the family room, with my feet in my husband's lap, and we are watching (a past season of a thriller series called) Kidnapped. It is a collection of episodes based on the kidnap of a wealthy man's son where everyone has a shady past and the most unexpected friendships surface at the most unexpected moments. The rich man had an affair with a less-rich woman who adored him while he and his wife were separated. The separated wife apparently visited the less-rich girl and no one ever saw her again--the wife paid the girl to walk away--"to save my family." This is day 9 and Leo (the kidnapped teenager who seems to be the only one in the whole show who knew what was important in life) is appearing to everyone and talking to them--especially the dad. Everyone--FBI especially (the ex-FBI and FBI)--there's this one young FBI agent who looks really open and honest, but he has just been bumped up the ladder from Alaska to NYC. Since he looks squeeky-clean he has to be someone who has already done something crooked. People get beat up and then beat up those people who beat them up.

It is all a bit over the top for me. I am one of the little people who would have sent $10 and a sympathy card to the rich family telling them that I was sorry that their son was kidnapped and that their $40 million got blown up.

Now they've got smoke bomb in a bottle of water. I understand now why they wouldn't let anyone even take water with them onto an airplane after 9-11.

New Knee

2010-06-23T15:55:00.000-04:00

This is a curly tailed lizard that was trying to climb up a tree--he kept slipping.

Here's a view of the whole plant that received a graft (a homework assignment in my propagation class this summer.)

This graft isn't mine. It was done by a fellow named David. When the professor saw it he did the teacher-equivalent of cheer. It was a beautifully healed graft.

The scaring was thorough and complete. Beautiful.

Trees heal, now it's my turn.

Monday my orthopaedic surgeon went in and arthroscopicly cleaned out my left knee. I'd put in a picture, but right now all my knee looks like is a tan-mottled-purple softball with three stars of paper tape stuck over the three incision locations. I do, however, have lots of time to write--since I am going to be starting a new habit with this operation. New? Yes, I will be laying about with my knee lifted above my heart for days rather than hours--before I start physical therapy or even do much traveling about the house. I have been doing the three exercises that the post-op nurse told me to do from the very beginning . . . while laying on my back with my knee raised above the level of my heart.

I have finished Susan's ribbon pants and a pair of shorts that I really liked, but wore once too many times while gardening--the left knee split through. (Ummmm . . . could be a clue to the mystery of how my knee fell apart in the first place?) All of my plants from my plant propagation class are safely huddled in the lanai, next to the house so that Nathan has to go out every other day and water them. The rabbits are also under the care of (mostly) Nathan who lets them out in the kitchen to frolic and meet for face washing sessions. Brent helps with the clean up in the evening. Nate feels kind of sorry for them and so offers more treats than they usually get. They have been cooperating amazingly well--no secret pee spots in the corners of the kitchen.

It reminds me of the frequent times that I was sick or in the hospital or away from home while Meg, La and Nathan were all still home. The house was spotless when I got home and then, as soon as I entered, the 1st law of thermodynamics (everything tends to go from order to disorder) set in. In the matter of a day, the house was cluttered and the sink was full of dishes. I am proud of my children's abilities to cope on their own. Sue, the woman who is in charge of the college plant nursery, told me that she always did the dishes and the laundry and the cooking--even when her kids were teenagers--and they have now left the "nest" without the ability to take care of themselves. I know that with a mother like Sue they will learn quickly to manage for themselves--memories of her examples will surface when panic sets in. I am so proud of my own children, though, who began college knowing how to do the mundane, daily tasks associated with surviving in the world.

I hear people saying that they wish that they could go back and begin again at 16 or 20--that they would do a better job of managing life. I do not have to imagine this--I am watching my children go through their 20's and doing a much better job than I could do myself.

Now that I am 51 (fifty one, sequenta uno, 25+25+1) I am impressed with not only my children and the way that they live their lives--but also with myself and the way that I have learned from and loved them. I would prefer a body that still bounced back from my adventures like it used to--but I am glad for the adventures that have brought me to the place where I am and the things that I am learning to do.

I am thirsty. I think that I will ask Nathan to bring me some of the orange strawberry slushy drink that Brent blended for me last night. Unbending (ha!) knees have few advantages right now, but there are still a few. Brent folded the laundry that Nathan washed and dried yesterday. All challenges with my body aside, I really do have an incredible life.

Everything is OK, Expensive, but OK

2010-06-10T09:48:00.000-04:00

Here is the dead hot water heater sitting quietly at the back of the garage.

My right foot is all healed up from its run-in with the blender that I dropped on it. You see a happy foot because it has some garden dirt on it--which means that it was just outside in the garden.

The only ducklings to hatch at the lake are growing up fast. One of them injured its leg, but is able to keep up with the others. There are so many people who come and provide feed for the birds and animals there that I think its chances to grow up healthy and strong are good.

One of the cowbirds that nested in the marshy reeds that surround one side of the lake. It was overcast enough so that I could get a picture of her head and her eye. It was a hot day, even with water all around, the birds were still panting in the heat.

Well, it looks like this week is going to be one of rather huge expenses. The car is in the shop--with AC and a transmission system leak. The hot water heater died last night, and while doing so completely flooded the garage. As I speak, the AC & Heating person is on his way to pick up a replacement so that he can muscle out the old one and delicately implant the new. My left knee has an acute meniscus tear--and some deformity of the cartilage. Don't remember WHEN that happened.

On the up side: When the hot water heater overflowed, all of the water ran through the garage and down the driveway instead of pooling up and flooding the house. My knee injury happened when I was asleep or out of it (perhaps, Brent thinks, the night that I fell and smacked my face against the bedpost) so that it needs mending, but I didn't have to feel the hurt of the injury. I am able to put off the surgery until after my horticulture propagation class is over. And as I sit here, it doesn't hurt or itch at all. And the car? When we get it back, the AC will again be ice cold even when it is above 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 100% humidity outside. I think that about covers it.

Also--my foot is recovered with only minimal scarring. The blender, however, is definitely a goner.

Oh! On the most uppest side: Brent is home from Houston and everything went well and he didn't get sick while he was there.

Volvo Transmission Blues, With Chocolate on the Side

2010-06-07T17:57:00.000-04:00

I have just gotten off the phone with Brent and feel quite sheepish about the car repairs that will need to be done on his Volvo. The fellow who usually takes care of us called this morning and told me about the AC (which was why we brought the car in to be looked at) and about something else and then something else about the transmission (fluid leaking) and something else about the brakes (I think). Anyway. When Volvo Tony was talking to me this morning, everything he said made sense. When Brent asked me about it, I can’t remember anything that was on the list of things to fix—except the price. I do remember the price. Which was the least ambiguous and most startling thing about the whole conversation. It felt weird, though, because without all the details, the money REALLY seems big. Kind of like someone telling me that I’m pregnant with triplets when I didn’t even know who the father was or that I was married yet.

Not quite that bad.

But close.

On a cheaper note, I have discovered the Family Home Evening notebooks in which we wrote the minutes from each week’s meeting. I remember looking forward to my turn to be the scribe—if the lesson was boring, I could doodle in the margins. Perhaps that is where Meg got her first desire to draw from—a remnant of my own, bored scribblings. I am getting that way more and more now. I have a hard time just sitting through Sacrament Meeting or Sunday School lessons without a notebook and a project. One of my on-going ones is the simplified re-telling of the Parable of the Olive Tree from the Book of Mormon. I read and re-read the verses and try to recount their contents as if I were explaining the story to Meg, La and Nate during our nightly scripture readings—lots of lots of years ago.

Megan calls me now and I hear Jon in the background, sing-talking to himself with a magazine in one hand and a truck (Ca! Ca! Ca!) in the other. She is going to make lentil and onion soup for dinner “because it is simple and delicious!” I never made lentil and anything soup for dinner in my life. Her life is so different from anything that I could have imagined for her—but just in the details. I was able to see her on the floor of her living room and playing/teaching/loving her young children. The important things I have been able to know about for Meg, La and Nathan. Some I see for Brent—but I do not see for me. A good thing, perhaps, since I have trouble remembering what needs fixing on the Volvo only hours after having someone list each item out slowly for me. Much more than that and I would probably overload and need repeated administrations of dark chocolate and warm cookies, just from the oven. WAIT! That is what I need NOW. I hope that someone is writing down all the stuff I have been told and forgotten. Some day, I hope to be ready to hear and remember it all—with a perfected mind and steady focus.

Someday.

Week in Paradise

2010-05-01T23:35:00.000-04:00

I have really enjoyed the time I've had to spend with Megan and her family. Anton went into work a week ago last Saturday so that he could have time to go with us to the Smithsonian's National Gallery of Art. There was an exhibition, "The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700," that she wanted us to see. After breakfast and Jonathan's morning nap, we met Anton at College Park (where he works) and took the metro down to the Smithsonian Mall. It was a great adventure--Meg, Anton, Jonathan and me--middle of the day and with a cool breeze blowing--we sat on benches and ate sandwiches Meg had packed. The Washington Memorial was at one end of the park and the White House at the other. Jon waundered happily up and down the grass as Anton gradually herded us across the Mall, through the Sculpture Garden, and into the National Gallery of Art.

Now began the most charming part of the day. Megan and Anton and I started looking at different exhibits as we came into the building, kind-of-sort-of heading in the general direction of the exhibition we had come to see. We meandered back and forth, seeing each other and then suddenly I had no idea where Meg and Anton were. I had Jonathan and the stroller. They both had a moment of freedom. It was a good trade.

I wasn't worried about finding them--or about making sure that I had lots of time to see the "Sacred Made Real" presentation. What I did get to do was to follow Jonathan around and watch him take in the people and sights he had never experienced before. I also got to take lots of pictures. Lots of pictures. It was cool inside and there were enough of the-people-in-charge-of-telling-the-people-who-are-lost-which-direction-they-need-to-go located around Jon and me that I didn't really ever feel anxious about ultimately discovering the location we needed to find. We went up in elevators and down some moving walk-ways. We sauntered through both of the Art Gallery gift shops. A bathroom magically appeared just as Jonathan needed a diaper change--and brass-fitted water fountains provided drink and momentary distraction as I got a few sips of water and Jonathan got both hands wet playing with the faucet.

I finally got to a place where both Meg and I had reception and I was able to reach her cell phone. Unwilling to try and find out where Jon and I were located so that she and Anton could join us, I told her that we would meet them at the Spanish exhibit we had made the trip to experience. When we all caught up with each other, Jonathan laughed with excitement as he sang to Megan all about the wonderful stuff that he had seen since he had last been with her. He hugged her and then began to "Ahhhheeahhhheeahhhh!" up and down his three note scale. People around us looked startled as Jon's sudden cascade of high pitched warbling hit the air. The people who were guarding the exhibit also looked worried--were we going to take this small, LOUD, person into the "Sacred Made Real" enclave? The three of us stood together with Jon--who by now had lapsed in to quiet as he scampered about, charging up and down the length of the two story window that made up the wall of the huge hallway. There were cars there and trucks there and people and cars and cars and CARS! Anton and I went in first and I walked quickly about the small collection--I came back out and sent Megan in to join Anton. Jon and I watched the cars drive along the street below us and then I allowed him the forbidden treasure of my cell phone. He stood right next to me as I sat on the floor. I had the phone in my hand and he saw it. Reaching for it hesitantly, he looked at me: "Can I see it? Can I touch it?" I handed it to him and he sat down next to me--silent as the night, wonder ablaze on his small face.

I got tired of it before he did, so we got up and began to walk across the great spaces of the open cross-walk. There were bright reds above us in an immense geometric mobile and before us, a set of three giant, open-center disks balanced on their vertical edges in front of a two-story glass window. Megan and Anton finished walking through the exhibit and came to meet us. We made our way back to one of the endless dining areas and shared an apple-walnut muffin and four different kinds of gelato. It was very late for Jonathan by then--of course no afternoon nap.

We arrived home in time for Meg to feed and then bathe Jonathan before he collapsed in bed. I settled down to edit my photographs. Anton and Megan did Anton and Megan stuff. It was an entirely satisfactory day. I came to help Megan to get ready for her trip to Europe--but I am going home rested and ready to face what my home in Florida holds for me. I have a math final on Monday evening, an Intro to Photography critique session on Tuesday morning--and all of the laundry that hasn't been washed, dried, folded or put away while I have been in Maryland, Brent has been working long hours, and Nathan has been studying for his own finals coming up next week.

It has been a sweet experience for me to see Megan instruct and interact with Jonathan on such an intimate, quiet level. The two of them flow together as one unit--rejoicing in the discoveries they each make during their days together. Anton is an attentive and worried father--finding frustration in not having enough hours in each day to do everything that he would want to do as he works his full-time job, fulfills his calling as the Bishop's executive secretary, spends time at home as Megan's husband and sweetheart and Jonathan's father. It is an uncomfortable balancing act that I don't think every really becomes easier--only different, as the years pass and his abilities--and his responsibilities--increase.

Megan and I got to work on our Ernest project, too. I have downloaded a sketch of Ernest's family that Meg has done--charming characters. We worked through the story prose, too. I like it more and more. Tonight she expressed delight at the chance to work creatively with someone on her art. Her days are filled with Jon's needs. It is easy to let go of the personal interests and skills that also require time and effort and attention. I do not think that she will be as lazy as I have been. Her spirit clings to her artistic, inventive compulsions--I think that it is one of the things that keeps her able to focus and remember who she is: an individual of immense talent and great nobility. I am excited to hear what she has to teach me about Ernest's new game: robin rocks.

Artist's Statement for my Intro to Photography final portfolio

2010-04-22T21:22:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of my final portfolio project for my Introduction to Photography class this semester, we are required to have an "Artist's Statement." While this sort of grand introduction to my work effectively assumes that my work is worthy of the title of an "artist," my joy in writing leaves no room for false modesty. I am an artist. I have always been an artist and will always be so. Just as I will always be a "dancer" and a "master teacher"--titles that I cherish, I could never have been anything but an artist from the moment that I was born to parents who, themselves, made every day a creative masterpiece.

I like how this turned out. Nathan read it and offered me the supreme compliment: "Mom, I don't know anyone who writes like you do. You make the reader feel what you are saying." Trust me when I admit that I am a more accomplished writer than I am black and white photographer--but at this point I am better at composing and taking a photograph on black and white film, developing that film myself, and then making prints from those negatives than I was when I began this class. I much prefer writing about the experience to actually slodging through the whole thing . . . it takes time and skill that I don't care to invest.

But learning that is a good thing to know.

Artist’s Statement

While I was in high school, I felt a compulsion to learn and do everything possible. I danced, ran, wrote in my journal, composed essays, sang in choirs and as a soloist, played the flute and the piano, acted in plays, edited our high school yearbook, read voraciously, painted with watercolours, stenciled butterflies along the walls of my bedroom and sketched (mostly horses) in the margins of my calculus and chemistry homework. I was—I realize now—obsessed with the need to make sense of (and to find a plausible reality within) the constantly changing sensibilities of my teenage world. Our family moved often because of my father’s work. I attended three different schools my 8^th grade year. Outside of me, there was nothing stable—inside of me, I could find order and completeness. I could not know where I might be living next year, but I could learn how to safeguard my feelings by closely reading the faces of new classmates and to immerse myself in a protective cocoon of music, books, words and art.

Nancy Kathleen Burton Wagstaff

Star Valley High School graduation portrait

My mother, who was herself a gifted teacher, pianist, musician, writer, seamstress, and artist, set the standard for my personal expectations. We were given talents, she reminded us, so that we could serve and share with others. That attitude freed me from the need to create perfect works of art, play perfect piano sonatas, or understand completely a subject matter—before I could enjoy and share my discoveries.

Carolyn Eva Wagstaff Hendry

Self Portrait for 50^th Birthday

“Reflection”

This freedom has permitted me to find joy in the process of taking, developing and printing black and white photographs. I am not good at patience, but I have become good this semester at finding satisfaction in the slow, steady improvement of my ability to create in this medium. It is a medium that requires skill and attention to detail. It is a medium that I am beginning to grasp and starting to enjoy for its own sake. Working with black and white photography has increased my attention to how light and shadow interact and to intricate shapes in nature and in my own man-made surroundings. I am far from being an accomplished black and white photographer. I am closer, though, to seeing better, yet another aspect of who I am and what I may yet become.

Rating Books

2010-04-14T23:06:00.000-04:00

Today in American History, the lecture touched on the subject of the 1st Amendment right that is violated when some one's voice is censured. Book banning--particularly the prohibition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's UNCLE TOM'S CABIN in the Southern states before the Civil War began. Apparently there is one book that, at the moment, is being banned from libraries. I can't remember the name--and the explicit subject matter of the book isn't one that I care to repeat (and thus increase its "fame") but it is being taken (or kept) off of many library shelves. CATCHER IN THE RYE and LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER are two novels that received a disproportionate amount of attention when they were on the "forbidden book" list.

Wouldn't it be great--and I am not being sarcastic here--if we had the resources, dedication and wisdom to devise a system for rating books? I do not want to see movies that are gory or violent or explicitly sexual. The movie business has been required to declare a rating before each movie that is released into public theatres. My son has shown me sites where I can read about a picture's storyline, character list, and reviews. I can also see exactly WHY a movie is rated PG or R--down to the swear words present in the dialogue and the precise moments in the plot where an actor smokes a cigarette or pulls a knife to stab someone. There are even sites that discuss what themes and moral statements are manifest in a movie, with surprising candor and absence of prejudice, and suggestions about how parents and children (or teachers in their classrooms) might discuss the words or impressions or implications of the actors' costumed, the plot entangled, the dialogue uttered, the setting utilized or the social climate inferred. And all this before the film even comes out in "a theatre near you!"

With a B.A. and a Masters degree in English--both attained by reading and writing about a large number of books combined by attendance at an amazingly huge number of hours spent talking about and listening to professors talk about BOOKS. Even now, at 50 years of age, I read very little that isn't found in the Youth section of the bookstore. I don't want people to swear at me or around me in my everyday life--why waste time that could be used actually communicating thought or wonder or excitement or doubt or uncertainty by limiting conversation to an amazingly small collection of trite couplets or meaningless expositions that mean nothing? Some of my most hated are:

"That's what I'm talking about!"

"I, like, can't, like, even believe, like, that she would say/think/do that!"

"S**t!" "D**n!" "H**l!"

"Yeah, I'm into it."

"Dude!"

"Friggin' ****!"

"Yo' mama!"

"I getcha!"

"You bet a rat's a**!"

I hear ALL of these "expressions" used in context to denote excitement, amazement, disappointment, threat, embarrassment, flirtation, exasperation, despair, and in place of the routine "Hi!" I walk down the hallway and hear the same words repeated by people--correct that--by every person--whose conversations are loudly broadcast, impossible to miss as I pass by. The same words over and over. augh.

Were there a rating system for books, I would want the publications that repeat the meaningless kind of gibberish a clear rating: predictable theme, boring dialogue, and insipid characters. The books that are composed with care and panache (the poetry of Emily Dickinson: "zero at the bone"!); with whimsy and drama (A Wrinkle in Time: tesseracts!); with imagination and wonder (Robin McKinley's Beast and Honour); with insight and compassion (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Princess School). As I think of it, though, I would want a system that would tell me if the author intends to appeal to my sexual desires or to inflame my prejudices or woo my political morals to shift closer to the right or the middle or the left. I would want a book that I could talk about with others, that I would buy in hardback, that I would give away to my best friends, that I would collect and carry with me every time I moved from one place to another.

I think that I am reaching far beyond what anyone can tell me about what I could read, should think about, must act upon. It is too late for me to finish this tonight. I am afraid to look behind me at the clock--I am sure that it is past midnight, past the time when I should be asleep and dreaming about what I am writing about. As my fingers move across the keyboard, faces, adventures, tragedies, heroes, villages, continents all flash behind my eyes. They are from the books that I have read recently--today. They are from books that I have re-read dozens of times over the past four dozen years. They are from books that I am still looking to discover--books that "outpace" even one of Whitman's "magnificent stallions."

I must go and dream now--think more about this concept of rating literature--or perhaps just finding a way to weed out the garbage that debase the marvel that written words are capable of.

But, I digress. Were books to be rated as movies are, then I could look on the covers of books from early in my reading career (I was reading aloud the poetry from The Hobbit and The Ring Trilogy in seventh grade) and after a great many years of reading books. There are "Beginning to Read" and "For Intermediate Readers" and "For Advanced Readers" on the covers of quite a number of books printed for children. I guess, though, I am looking for something that I don't know how to express. I want to know if the book is exciting, well-composed, thought provoking, satisfying to my imagination and an asset to add to my sense of reality.

Some judge a book's value by how many copies sold--the place that some announce as the "Best Seller's List." Liking a book that millions of others have bought, just because others have paid money for it is a lot like being happy with your weight when your body fat percentage matches the "average" for your height and age. The vast majority of people who are as tall and as old as I am are overweight. Somehow being overweight like everyone else just doesn't make feel good about my level of physical fitness. I am somewhat of a snob, I think. I don't want to fit into the "popular' or "cool" group anymore. I was not allowed into that echelon when I was a teenager and desperately wanted to belong. I have finally become wise enough to be thankful for that exclusion.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) has always encouraged its members to be a "peculiar people." We are to decide what to wear, what to read, who to associate with, and where to marry with an eye to the eternity beyond this lifetime. I walk down the halls of the college where I am taking classes now and hear the "popular" groups loudly swear at each other and laugh in short, nervous outbursts. I waunder through the mall and am embarrassed for young women and those my own age who are waddling about in jeans two sizes too small with little fleshy "fat belts" pushing out beneath the bottoms of their tee shirts and tops of their pants. I walk the beach and see boys and men whose shorts are so baggy that they are forced to walk with a "hitch" so that they can hike up their pants between steps--keeping them from falling completely down--or whose Speedo swimsuits are so small that from a distance they are completely hidden beneath well-tanned beer bellies. I know that the most extremely dressed and the loudest talking people are the most easily noticed.

I am just re-discovering that the link between being judged "good" or "best" or "most popular" or "best seller" has nothing to do with what is actually the most entertaining or challenging or interesting. Though I pity them, I will never comprehend how a video game can consume someone's mind and whole life. I cannot fathom how a world completely created and controlled by someone else can be more compelling than the opportunity to create and control my own world. Why would someone buy and play a video game that is given the highest recommendation: "You gotta play this! It is as one of the most addicting games ever! You can't miss it!" ?

I do not want someone else to dictate what I want and how much of it I must have to feel satisfied. I am glad that I cannot understand the draw of such things.

The prevailing "free thinkers" of my age challenged others to "walk to the beat of a different drum."

I don't have a drum in the orchestra that creates the music I hear as I dance through every day.

Read books rated by others? Language is such a rarified medium. Novels and biographies and fantasies and fictions and non-fictions . . . it is a good exercise in debate to think and talk about how to rate books as "good" or "bad." After exercise, though, it is time to rest and replenish our vital balance by reading what up-lifts and cheers and pleases. After the work, the dessert.

Marsh Hens in Love

2010-04-06T21:20:00.001-04:00

There are three new families of marsh hens at the lake. Yesterday Nathan and I saw chicks from all three families, but I didn't have my camera. Today as I got near the nests, I heard the pair calling to each other to warn that danger (me) was coming. I could see the chicks moving the grasses around, but couldn't get a clear glimpse of them. I did see, though, this pair of parents who called to one another. The mother checked on the babies and then came to meet her companion. They groomed each other carefully, tenderly. After a minute or so, they then separated--the mother returning to the nest and the father continuing to call warning "Wheewhoot!" until he saw that I had moved away. Cool. Maybe they'll show off their chicks while I'm there tomorrow.

First Day of Summer

2010-04-06T20:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first official day of summer for me. If you look up "signs of summer" on the internet, you find people who tell about birds feeding their young, sudden proliferation of blooms in a garden, temperatures that soar from 70 degrees to 95 degrees over night, and the change of how the earth smells--spring carries a damply-cool scent; while summer is marked by a dry-rose-gardenia aroma. At our house, the beginning of summer is determined by the first day that someone goes swimming in the pool.

All of Florida's short winter, the pool is a frosty 68-to-70 degrees. By the time that summer hits, the pool has only warmed by 8 or 9 degrees--still too cold for Brent or Nathan to even think of jumping in. And, to tell the truth, it is still too frigid for me to consider swimming laps. However, once summer is here, after a few hours of working in the yard, I am so hot that the cold sluice of wet water--layering me above and below in layers of frosty relief--becomes a delicious hunger. It is as if the sweat peels away as I dive in--starting at my fingertips, running up my arms to my face, roiling over my stomach and back, finally pinching off at the ends of my toes. A being that was hot and prickly with exhaustion and dust is reborn: I climb out of the pool as if I had just emerged from a long, musty hibernation. It is the first experience of summer that allows me to imagine something of what a butterfly feels as it breaks open from its cocoon--unfolding wings that will carry its now-nearly-weightless body aloft on currents of invisible air.

I am suppose to be at the photography lab tonight. Tuesday evenings and from 9 to 9 on Friday are all the hours of access I have to be in a lab where I can print from my black and white negatives. Brent has indulged me in the space and costs of developing my film here at home. It is tedious work--a process that requires precise temperatures and measured intervals of change. I do it at night, while I am watching a movie with Brent, so it isn't really something that I mind. After the immediate result of digital photography, though, I GREATLY dislike having to wait to see if any of my pictures turned out as I wanted them to. Shortly after the start of the semester I began to research what a good, used enlarger would cost. I quickly realized that (first) I do not even LIKE any of the black and white prints I have developed (some of which dislike is borne of the fact that I have not [l]earned the patience to perfect this very difficult art) and (second) it would take extensive study for me to determine what a "good, used enlarger" would be. I will be done with the semester in just four weeks, so I have made an executive-type decision to try to make it to as many lab hours as I can and then return full-time to the digital photos that I love working with. ANYWAY . . . that means that I should be at the college right now, elbow-deep in stop bath and fixer. I am too restless inside through. I worked for three hours this morning getting a final, good print of an "architectural detail"--one of our final assignments. One of the buildings I photographed had columns in the front. I laid on my back and took pictures of the tops of the columns and the detailed ceiling above them. I already have finished (to my satisfaction and the approval of my instructor) the "detail and light" and "architecture" (translate: photograph of a cool building) assignments. Earlier today I finished setting up the background for the latest assignment: an abstract self-portrait.

We are to turn . . .

At this moment my 21 year-old son is poking my arm and singing "Whoo-hoo! Do the hokey-pokey! Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo!" I imagine this strange slip from his normal, sedate demeanor to be caused by the successful completion of his homework and a 93% grade on a Chemistry quiz today.

. . . in a photograph that expresses who we are--but doesn't really look like us. It is an effort to get us to think beyond the obvious--made more difficult by the fact that since we are THE OBJECT or the photo, we must be creative in finding a way to--at the same time--be the PHOTOGRAPHER OF THAT OBJECT. Not a problem if you have an especially long self-timer or a remote depressor.

We shall see, I suppose.

It is getting dark outside. It is time to get Nate to do another load of dishes and for me to put in a load of laundry. It is time for Brent to begin to think about coming home. Too late for yard work. Too cold for a swim in the pool. Just right for picking out a movie to watch and waiting for Brent to come home to cuddle with me on the couch.

Some of the Images . . . and Events From My Yesterday.

2010-03-03T22:23:00.001-05:00

Me--reflected in the night window of my kitchen in Florida.
Honey bee on the blossoms of the Key lime tree in my Florida yard.
Great blue heron at the lake where I walk the dogs.
Sandhill crane smooths his feathers in the driveway in front of my home.

Let me tell you about yesterday, 2nd of March 2010. It was one of those super filled, uber weird days with just about everything in it: sorrow, danger, joy, panic, creation, and death. It was a Tuesday. That morning I went in to take notes for Nathan in his American History class. I learned about the Bill of Rights and Madison's Promise and George Washington and the Constitution and James Pickney and indigo dye and yeomen farmers. Like most lecture classes, it was a fairly calm affair.

The teacher is cool and tells good stories--though he tends to talk a little too fast, which is probably a reaction to years of students about to lose interest in what he is saying. I do the same thing when I am speaking to a group and I sense that someone isn't following the point I'm trying to make. It's almost as if by putting out more words, there is a bigger chance that somehow I'll include the magic words to help my listeners understand better.

After class, Nathan took his car and went to walk dogs for a friend. Just as I'd gotten home and found something to drink, put the bunnies out on the porch and sat down at my computer, I looked at the clock and realized that I had about an hour and a half before I needed to be out the door to go to a funeral--THE funeral of the sister who owns the dogs that Nathan and I walk most afternoons. Realizing that my time was limited, I decided to look at what bills were due.

At that moment, Nathan called me in a panic. It was like one of those 911 calls that you hear the TV news replay when something awful has happened and everyone is all terrified about what's going on because no one can tell exactly what IS going on. Nathan was bleeding . . . there was so much blood . . . he couldn't drive . . . he had the dogs in the back of the car . . . there was blood everywhere . . . the dogs were barking and trying to jump from the back of the Jeep into the seats between them and Nathan . . . "No! Get back you two!" . . . can't drive . . . blood all over the place . . .

I listened for perhaps 30 seconds, until he took a breath. "What happened?"

"I hit a squirrel on the back leg and it was still alive. I got out of the car and tried to pick it up and it bit me. I'm bleeding all over. I can't stand it. I can't drive!"

"Where are you? Are you at the park?"

"No. I'm not there. I've stopped by the side of the street."

"Are you still in the subdivision? Is the squirrel still alive?"

"Yes. I'm just a block from the house. Yes. I have him wrapped up in my windbreaker here on the front seat."

"How close to the park are you?"

"I'm just a few blocks away from their house. I can't drive. There's too much blood everywhere."

"OK. OK. I'm putting on my shoes and getting the keys and going out the door. Just stay where you are and I'll be there in just a few minutes. Just stay where you are and I'm coming."

"OK, mom. OK."

At this point I pull on some shoes and grab the car keys, going through the garage toward the car parked in the driveway. I realized that he will need to rinse off the blood so I run back into the house and pull a case of bottled water from under Nate's bed--left over from the hurricane season supplies. I also look around for some towels--glad that the ones I find the quickest are some of the oldest we have. I open the trunk and heft everything into it--slamming it and jumping into the driver's seat.

Now I am in the car, driving. I take a big breath and let it out slowly. My cell phone rings.

"It's me, mom. I got the bleeding stopped. I drove back to the house."

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah. Just get here as quick as you can, OK?"

"I'm on my way. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"OK. I'll be waiting."

When I get to the house, his car is in the driveway, driver's door open and he is half standing/sitting in the front seat. The dogs have jumped from the back into the middle seats. There is blood on the driveway and he is holding a huge wad of tissues around the fingers of his left hand. The dogs haven't been walked, of course. Nathan is in no state to walk them or to wait for me to take them to the park for the half-hour walk. We decide that I'll take the dogs up and down the sidewalk until they are able to relieve themselves and then we'll take the squirrel to the Wildlife Refuge about 15 minutes from where we are and then I'll go with him to the Urgent Care Center down the street from our house.

The dogs get short shrift that day and Nathan follows me in his car to the Refuge.

Brent calls me and tells me that the funeral is at 3pm instead of 4. He'll leave from work and go straight to the service. I will miss it--the final celebration and farewell to the sister of a dear friend--into whose home I have just returned her dogs, whose front door I have just quietly pulled shut.

I haven't seen the squirrel itself yet. We park and I walk back to where Nathan is just opening his door. I have an old towel and start to transfer the wounded squirrel from his windbreaker into it. Nathan then realizes that he hasn't looked to see if the squirrel is still alive. He carefully opens the cocoon of coat fabric back farther from the tiny nose and mouth. It does not move. We both shake our heads and carefully unwrap and the rewrap the squirrel into the towel. I take the small bundle and drive with it in my front seat to the Urgent Care Center.

We park our cars and walk together into the Center. He signs in and I help fill out the paperwork. They get to us quickly. The nurse is so sympathetic. Her husband once brought back a wounded bird for them to take care of. After the bird healed, they released it back into the wild. She quietly admires Nathan for having a tender heart.

He doesn't need stitches. They give him a tetanus shot and a prescription for oral antibiotics to prevent any infection. While we wait for the pharmacist, I get some zucchini and chicken to saute for dinner. I also find some British ginger lemon cookies that I open and eat as I drive home, Nathan just behind me.

When we get home, it is time for me to leave again.

On Tuesday evenings, the photo lab is open at school. It is the only chance I'll have to make some images for class next Monday. I usually love leaving the house and heading to the local college campus in the evening. It is easy to find a parking place. It is cool outside. It feels like I have been invited to a very select event--in a place where I am able to finally see the photographs I have taken during the past week. I can, and do, develop my black and white film at home. I do not have the enlarger (nor do I even want to look for one for myself--next semester I can take a more advanced photography class, using my digital camera.) at home. I can hold the negatives up to the light and squint at them or use a light board and handheld magnifying lens to peer at them--but there is no way I can tell exactly what image I have captured. Fuzzy, out of shadow, blurred edges, sometimes sharp and crisp--I have learned more patience that I ever wanted this semester.

Usually I go to use the lab with a feeling of excitement for the discoveries that I will be able to make. Today, though, I haven't seen Brent since he prayed over me and left for work that morning. Nathan has had a traumatic, stressful day--with mid-term exams coming in just a few days that he needs to, but can't, study for, when his mind and spirit have been stretched so tightly with blood and death and disappointment. I didn't have time to prepare dinner for Brent. He will come home to a place where Nathan is still uneasy and there is no one ready and waiting just for him after a long, emotional day at work and then a funeral and then back to work.

The lab is quiet--only three and then four and then three of us in the dark room. Out of three hours work and dozens of prints made, I get 4 or 5 good images to take home with me. I call to tell Brent that I am on my way home.

I pull up in the driveway. Nathan and Brent have both had full, stressful days. There is a dead squirrel wrapped up in a towel placed in a quiet corner of the front porch. Animal Control might want to see the body if there is any possibility of rabies or sickness in animals in that area--so the tiny corpse awaits burial (and me) at home.

I open the garage door from the car and gather my supplies to go inside. As I get close to the garage, Brent comes out and gathers me in his arms and lifts me up, carrying me inside. He is so glad to see me, so glad that I am OK and that I had a good time at the lab. I wonder that he doesn't resent me--him having to work all day and then come home to an empty kitchen and a son still slightly dazed by the events of the last 12 hours. He tells me that he is so glad that I have found something that I love doing--especially something that doesn't endanger my health. He reminds me that usually my hobbies include falling from horses or falling over my roller blades or falling out of trees. Finally I have found something that lets me enjoy myself with my feet "on the ground."

It was a full day, yesterday.

And then today . . . no blood, no death, with time to make dinner, time to run errands. From a few hours over-filled with so much emotion to a day filled with a long, easy walk around the lake park with two familiar dogs, calm study with Nathan, quiet petting quiet bunnies--a slow go around the block with Nathan in roller blades--during which I do not fall or bleed or hurt.

It is late. Much later than I wanted to be up. Tomorrow I need to be at the Volvo dealership at 7:30 am so that they can replace the oxygen sensor that was ordered and arrived two days ago. Then I will need to go and take notes for Nathan in Chemistry--and I still need to see what bills have come due. Today seems like yesterday couldn't have been all that it was. But it was. And now it is past.

That is why I write . . . to remember yesterday's events that, today, appear so impossible. It is like the pictures I take--images from yesterdays that I will never be able to see unless I take the time and make the effort to develop, preserve and protect what surrounded me--if only for (and from) a moment.

Photographs from the last month

2010-02-12T23:21:00.001-05:00

These are two portraits of me with my latest adventure into pain. I tripped and smacked the edge of our four poster bed. Stitches are out now and it just looks like I put some dark purple eye shadow on the wrong side of my eye.
The squirrel photos and me holding the orange are three that I did for my Photography class.

My son, Nathan, actually snapped these two photographs of Meg and me. (January 2010) I used my Photoshop to finish the pictures like this. I look much better in a fuzzy light.

Photographs from life and from my photography class

2010-02-12T22:56:00.002-05:00

The Mid-Winter Blahs

2010-02-12T22:22:00.001-05:00

It is the middle of February and I feel like crawling into a corner with a good book, Gueradilli Double hot chocolate, and a plate of plain, fresh cake donuts. I am impatient with the cat. She was out of food and so she "Meeee-ow!" at me over and over again. I finally caught on and filled up her bowl. Other times, though, she seems to be bugging me about nothing--she doesn't want to be petted, she doesn't want out, she doesn't want in, she does want to be petted BUT NOT touched. Since she is the most vocal of the pets, she kind of gets the most attention. The rabbits will thump and growl at unpleasant moments in their lives and the lizards are on a happy, but endless trip around and around and around their tank. Sara runs with her belly on the glass and her back against one of the rocks in her enclosure--then she instantly stops--belly flat to the glass and her eyes closed. A few moments later, I can hear her scrabbling around the tank again. I started to clean yesterday. A wild, unbridled furor of sweeping, dusting, vacuuming, throwing away, recycling, repositioning, redistributing and de-cluttering that lasted the whole of one day.

During that time, I got Brent's side of the bedroom clean--spotless actually. Then I had to use the bathroom and went into Nathan's bathroom and immediately closed down. A place that needed immediate and extensive scrubbing and rinsing--overpowered my fragile will to impose order upon my living quarters. My next energy burst will be spent in: algebra homework, organizing the table full of photography stuff that I can't bring myself to actually look at as I walk past, writing and doing the visuals for a "Using Music in the Classroom" demonstration that I will be giving to the Primary Presidents and staff that will be at the Stake Leadership Training meeting this coming Thursday. 20 minutes. I've got 20 hours worth of stuff here--some of it from my own two stints as Primary President (long, long ago)--it's just the winnowing and polishing and Xeroxing that need to be done.

I would also like to get my half of the bedroom cleaned. And maybe the corners of my bathroom and dressing room. Also I would like to be thinner and more athletic and not fall down as often and quit bruising every time the wind rubs against me. augh.

I have loved the cold weather. It is actually a huge relief to have the yard's growth stunted by the extreme freezes we've had in the last month. Apparently the sustained cold killed off all of the iguanas round about these parts. I am sorry for that--one less wildlife form to photograph in black and white.

I have been re-reading (along with two other books and an anthology of American literature) the Twilight series. So much of the prose is stilted and sentimental--but as Bella describes her feelings for Edward, I remember those same words that I have spoken and written to Brent. Both Bella and I bruise at the drop of a hat and fall off and over things on a regular basis. She is a weird combination of self-doubt and bravado and, most compelling of all, has come from the mind of a woman who has somehow experienced prolonged bouts of both mania and depression. It is like reading "An Unquiet Mind" all over again. And like re-reading my own 50 year narrative of letters, journal entries, talks and presentations. She has also, though, been loved by a man who is both Edward and Jacob--and who loved her with the ardor of those two characters combined--even amplified. While Brent is gone most of the time at work or Church callings, I return again and again to Twilight's descriptions of relationships defined by loyalty, friendship, passion and surprise.

Valentine's Day is coming. I have heard the radio ads and seen the stores draped in pink and red hearts. Again, I know that I will never have language sufficient to express to Brent all that he is--that my most prized possession on this earth is the eternal tie that surrounds and supports us. His promises are perfect. His loyalty complete. His vision, thankfully, somewhat rose-coloured when he looks at me. It is nice to know that forever he will love me and think that I am beautiful.

It has taken me 50 years, but I am finally beautiful. I am beginning to become the woman that he saw in me when he asked me to marry him.

Progress. wow.

Inspiration from Facebook

2010-01-26T23:03:00.000-05:00

This is the photo I just uploaded on Nat Geo's web site. Cool place. Even cooler picture.

A very wonderful person named Ellen found me through Facebook and regaled me with compliments and a sweet review of our shared past. It was as if we never left for BYU or got married--or that I was pregnant or in Iowa. I just successfully posted one of my photographs on the National Geo web site. I have been taking a photography class--but they make you start with a black and white SLR camera. On the bright side, I have learned to develop my own film here at home. Brent has suggested that we get the materials for me to go from negative to photograph. I don't know that I want to invest in the stuff I'd need. One of the fellows in the class has a father who already has a dark room for printing up photos. Maybe a bunch of us could get together and all put in for the chemicals. Anyway.

Back to Ellen--as she has done, I have also home schooled. I began with Nathan after his break down in 5th grade. Extreme bullying by a classmate and even more egregious idiocy by his teacher and the school administration pushed him over the edge. His efforts to forgive others and defend others and not to get in trouble for disrupting class just quashed his spirit and his heart. It took him years to heal. He will always bear the scars of that cruelty.

He is taking classes at the local college--preparing to graduate in Engineering. Now he's in chemistry classes that will help him decide what field of Engineering he'll pursue. He has Asperger's and panic attacks and . . . and so he won't be able to go on a full time mission. The Bishop and Stake President are working with the Stake Genealogy program to see if he can serve on a full-time-part-time basis; called to be a full-time missionary for at least 6 months.

I am quietly pleased with the parallel lines that both Ellen and my lives have taken. I cannot help but see our children who are bright and kind and observant and careful of those around them. The music that is an integral part of our children's lives came from our own hearts. In fact, I will be using the "Dear Friends, Dear Friends" song, that Ellen taught me, in a workshop for the Stake Primary Stake Training meeting next month. We're talking about using music in the classroom. Neither the President or the First Counselor have much affinity for music, which is not to say that they do not both sing with much energy! They are dear women with family challenges beyond my keen. I love them and love to be involved with them in providing a resource for the Primary leadership in the Wards and Branches in our Stake. I still use at least 2 toothbrushes. I have also begun to string them throughout the house and leave them in all of the cars. If I am running late, I just put a bit of toothpaste on a toothbrush (a new one if I can't find one of my existing ones) and rush out to the car with keys and bag in one hand, books and notes in the other, and toothbrush firmly held between my jaws. I know that it looks ludicrous--but there have been times when I sucked my thumb as I drove through town doing my errands (bad mental/emotional days)--so a toothbrush doesn't turn either Nathan or Brent's heads. I did feel kind of silly a few months ago when I found myself picking out bread in the bakery--while unconsciously, yet energetically, chewing on the head of a toothbrush. Just as wearing pink bunny slippers beyond the driveway is a vividly ridiculous act; chewing on a toothbrush in the bakery department of the grocery store is a thoughtlessly gross thing to be doing around people who are buying rolls and French bread and bagels--all comestibles out in the open exactly where I have been walking about and fiercely masticating a toothbrush between my teeth. That was an extremely long sentence--which means that I am up past my composition bedtime. I love you. People who are meeting me for the first time ask what I do--I answer that the last time I was paid for my time, I taught College composition and literature classes. Since then, I have jumped horses, roofed houses, watched three children grow from infants into incredibly useful adults, had my right shoulder repaired three times and my lower left thumb joint replaced twice. I propagate plants and swim and play with my three dwarf rabbits . . . and try to look good for Brent when he comes home in the evenings. Right now I am also taking an advanced Algebra class and a photography class. What I need to tell them is that I am someone who loves you.

That would say it all.

Love always, Carolyn

2010-01-19T22:45:00.000-05:00

This is Fred. I write about him at the very last of my entry for today. He is big and noisy and Brent is helping him to learn some manners.
When everyone was here for Christmas, I got us all together and snapped a photo. I am really wishing now that I had gotten a professional to come in. This one gets all of our faces, but it looks really, really dumb. Especially me.
This photo, on the other hand, is a wonderful, wonderful memory of Brent and me a year ago when we went to visit Megan and Anton when Jon was born. I had forgotten that I even had it. I like it so much that I am going to print it off--along with the photo below--and send it to Brent for his office. I know that he doesn't like the one that he has there now--it is tucked away in a funny corner wall of his office. I will make this one HUGE so that everyone can see how handsome he is and how perfect we are together.
Earlier tonight, about 5 pm, I spoke with Brent while he was still at work. Then I took the bunnies with me on the porch and moved all of the plants out of the huddle that had protected them from the freezing temperatures we had last week. It was like I was stretching my own legs out and reaching my face up to the sky to feel the sun. I transplanted some new babies and gave just about everyone some new soil. I'll fertilize more later, when the plants have had a chance to settle down. A few days ago, I visited Lowe's garden section (after two nights of below freezing temperatures) and found these dainty, perfectly proportioned miniature roses. There were also some bougainvillea with blossoms that were a water colour mix of orchid pink and nectarine orange. Nice plants, yes. BUT the most amazing part of the whole experience was that when I saw them, I realized that THEY had SURVIVED the FREEZE OUT DOORS AT LOWE'S!!!

So, I now have some bougainvillea (isn't that a wonderful word to spell???) in odd places about my yard and some tea roses in clusters of pots around the lanai.

Tonight I was filling some pots and with soil from the bottom pan of the small "hot house" that Brent fashioned for me--and with each handful of dirt, I kept scooping up these fat, lethargic earthworms. The soil had been dry, but deep enough to keep them from freezing or dehydrating. I picked them up and held each one in my hand--and each one began to move around! It was like a miracle. I know that it wasn't, but it felt that way. And I know that they are only earthworms--but they are earthworms that squirm among the roots of my newest plants and help them to grow--so they are MY earthworms. After placing each worm in a pot of soil, I gave each some water and watched them burrow down below the surface.

After spending New Year's with my own children and my grandson, I've been feeling very old and kind of dried up. The cold has kept me in and I didn't cover one of my favorite plants in the front yard well enough--so it is now limp and, well, dead. The rabbits run around and frisk me for treats and come for pats when they are feeling mellow. I feed the cat and let her in when she scratches at the glass doors on the porch. My son has me do Chemistry and History and Math with him. My husband lets me get him something to eat when he comes home at 9:30 at night after 14 hours of a day trying to help to fix a HUGE, but ACCIDENTAL, mistake someone else made. I do a lot of motions that have to do with a lot of people around me, but, mostly, I am not all that essential to the lives of those who live around me.

I did save some earthworms today, though, and that makes me like myself a bit better than I would have otherwise.

Felicia is in town showing her stallion at the horse shows going on over the next few weeks in Wellington--about a 30 minute drive from my house. She still cares for my own Agraciada who lives with her in Texas. I hope that we can spend some time together while she is here. It will give me another chance to connect with a person and with memories that are important to me.

Megan and I made cards while she was here--she sends lots of them out to lots of people who need her care and support where she lives in Maryland. I made a lot of them, too, but I don't really have people who need me like she is needed. Both Meg and Lauren are amazing people. I hear about and watch them go about their business and remember that I used to be that busy and ernest and focused and dedicated. Now, I think that I am mostly tired.

That is allowed me, though. Brent took me to the walk-in clinic here and they put me on antibiotics and some steroid breathing therapy. After a week of coughing and grouching and feeling itchy and hollow inside, I find out that I have the equivalent of walking pneumonia. So. We have a three day weekend and I have lots of time to sleep and muffle about the house while Brent works on our newest baby: Fred.

The Grand Cherokee is dying: the bearings are going out, so Brent bought a huge "mudder" Jeep. His heart is 1976 and most of his body is 1990. He is a golden pumpkin bronze and has 33 inch tires.

So Brent works on civilizing Fred so that I can drive him while I sleep and cough and snort and wheeze--and admire Brent's work and order the parts that Brent needs on-line.

It is late now. Brent is asleep, breathing quietly, while I finish this. Happy New Year. It's OK to be tired and old every now and again . . . especially when Brent is fixing up a new Jeep for us to drive when I feel better and have energy and am young again.

!!!!!

Two of the Memories That I Hold Dear

2009-12-28T22:52:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-12-28T18:57:00.000-05:00

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.

2009-12-21T13:26:00.000-05:00

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.

2009-12-20T01:34:00.000-05:00

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

2009-09-30T13:55:00.000-04:00

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

2009-08-11T19:05:00.000-04:00

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

2009-08-07T22:35:00.000-04:00

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

2009-07-28T20:01:00.000-04:00

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.