Morning Essay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note From Nursery, Retirement Considerations, Cutting My Hair?

    What is going on with me now?  Almost the last day of January in 2015.  I am doing well? good? fine?  It is about 75 degrees here in the mornings and my shoulder is strong enough now that I can be outside and walk without the *&(#&$^*# sling.  I am back as the Nursery Leader at Church and the house is very quiet with everyone gone back home from their Christmas visit here.

Me in the Nursery before my shoulder surgery last September 2014.  One of my
favorite things is to get my iPad and take pictures of me with the children.  This
sweet boy has moved from the Ward, but I have very fond memories of him and
what I learned while I got to teach and be with him.

Skyping with Megan and Kate and Jon.  In this picture, Jon is about the same age as Megan, in the photo
below with Lauren and Nathan.

    There are two yellow butterflies chasing each other around in the side yard--I can see them from my widow when they flit from the shadows of the trees into the sunny, grass areas.  It reminds me that the hibiscus bushes along one side of the house are dying (they're more than 20 years old . . . they are allowed to expire) and I don't know what I want to put in their place.
     Classes have started again for Nate and me--Managerial Accounting and MacroEcon are the bears this semester.  I hate the wait between the start of class and the first test--cause I don't know exactly how to study for the tests . . .
     Brent is still the Stake Clerk.  He (somehow, somewhere) tore some of the ligaments (or tendons, don't remember) along the bottom of his right foot and they are taking a long time to heal.  The pain was (is) enough to keep him from going out on a fossil hunting weekend he planned over the holidays.  Anything that will keep him away from fossils is definitely serious.
     My hair is long-long and, with my right arm out of commission, it is a real bother to take care of.  Also thinking about cutting it shoulder length so it would be easier to wash and keep out of my face.  Not very interesting thoughts, eh?

Lauren (3) and Meg (5) with Nathan (about 6 months).  We were living in Bedford, TX.  1989.

     Nathan is Elders Quorum Secretary and spends Friday mornings (no school on Fridays) at the Lake Park City Hall doing work for the accounting department.  He is in charge of making the arrangements so that we can go to Tampa this summer and see what a real Lego convention is like . . . believe it or not, I am really excited.  Surrounded by all of his Lego creations here at home (his room is filled from floor to ceiling with shelves of them), I am becoming a fan myself.  I like the ones that you put together and then program to do stuff.  cool.
     Brent surprised me this week by broaching the subject of retirement.  augh.  Right now the yard costs a LOT to keep up because of all of the fancy plants that I have gathered over the last 10 years.  He asked me if we could simplify so it didn't need quite so much attention.  It is almost like when I had to give up my horse.  Every day held 4 to 5 hours at the stables--it was my sanity.  I went from that to working on the grounds around the house . . . little more than an acre, but enough to keep me with holes in the knees of my jeans, dirt under my fingernails, and trails of mulch and garden soil following me in and out of the house.  Now I can't do anything in the yard (that's how I tore my shoulder off this 4th time)--so it makes sense to scale things back.  I got used to be a grandmother without any trouble, but this makes me feel  . . .  old.
     Actually, simplifying the gardens around our home is not much like giving up my horse.  I don't feel the same rush of joy when I pull up weeds as when I rode Agraciada through the fields in Texas.

Lauren and Robert are sealed in the Ft. Lauderdale FL Temple in November 2014.  Hard to see here, but Lauren is very
round in front.  I am glad the baby was able to be there.

     On the bright side, Lauren is just 5 weeks away from her due date.  They know that they are having a boy--she predicts that he will have dark eyes and a thick thatch of dark hair when he arrives.  Her body is stretched out and her joints ache.  Her husband couldn't go with her to her doctor appointment on Wednesday, so I got to go.  They didn't do an ultra sound, but I did get to hear the baby's heart beat.  It sounds like he has a strong heart.
     I know that it will be wonderful to have him finally here where we can all do more than just pat his mom's tummy and wish him "Good night!" and "I love you!"  Which reminds me, I need to call Kate and Jon and talk to them.  They are already out and bouncing/growing about.
       

Four Million Followers

MD wildflower--the ripe seed pods look like a red raspberry.

This is a response I left in the comment section of the World Wildlife Federation.  Other readers were discussing the salary of the charity's CEO.  They thought that his mid-6 figure salary was way out of line--and that they shouldn't advertise.

Maryland wildflower

   Depending on where the CEO lives, he may bring home 50% (or less) of his stated salary after Federal, State, property etc taxes.  Since the headquarters are in DC, his housing costs are outrageously expensive.  He is married with three children.  He graduated with MBA and BS from two great schools--and worked at several large corporations before coming to WWF.  It is because of this work history that he was able to accept a huge pay cut and invest his time.  In this job, he receives no stock options or yearly retention bonus.  I would image that he also contributes to charities (WWF, for one). 

Sunset clouds, FL

 As the face of the World Wildlife Fund and intimate involvement in its fund raising activities, he has to look the part (no suits from Walmart).  With the salary he is paid, he needs to support his children in school--he may even be paying off student loans himself.  Perhaps he is independently wealthy--or his wife is--or he may face high medical costs from an elderly parent or one of his children.  

Vinca, MD

   Living in Minnesota or Montana or Oregon or Texas--places with a much lower cost-of-living--would give his salary more purchasing power (Texas does not have a State Income Tax, for example, and housing costs are some of the lowest in the nation.).  
   You can't tell anything from just a number . . . especially if the number is way under a million--and does not include a yearly bonus (which is sometimes equal to or more than a year's salary for an incredible number of much less qualified CEOs and business executives across the nation).

Black crowned night heron, waiting.    FL

    As for cutting out the advertising (which is less than the 20% of the total operating budget quoted below):  you are either reaching more people every day or you are fading from public view.  Doing nothing means that you are losing potential new donations and failing to retain present contributors.  There is no standing still.  

Florida water turtle

   Compared to "charities" such as the United Way, I believe that WWF uses less money on managing personnel salaries and office costs than any other organization with such a world-wide and diverse reach.  

Coot.  Such a short, silly name for such a creative, amazing bird.  FL

   I live in a place where the student parking lot at the nearest high school is full of BMWs, Porches, sports cars and fully-loaded Ford and Chevy trucks.  The teachers' parking lot, on the other side, is populated by older, economical cars.  The local grocery store parking lot has Lamborghinis, Bentleys, a bright orange Lotus, Cadillac trucks, Humvees, and Lexus cars.  It is an unreal place.  People here do not have children--they have dogs . . . animals that they put through the hell of chemo when they become old and feeble enough to get cancer . . . and should be allowed to gently pass away.  

Cactus flower, UT

   It is all this money that is ill-spent.  Working for a mindful, organized charity that seeks to maintain a balance between preservation of our animal and natural resources--and our collective inability to see past our own self-centered noses (who do you know who would forbid the public from visiting the Galapagos 

A young pine tree frog, I think, at dusk inside a Allamanda blossom.  FL

Islands or Antartica or Australia's Great Barrier Reef because they are delicate ecosystems).  The only way to preserve as pristine the earth we live on is to live as Castro's Cuba lived for decades.  The people had nothing, no one was allowed to visit--Cuba's tropical forests are in amazing shape because the world was prohibited from developing their natural resources--everyone left them alone.
   I have not felt this strongly about anything in years.  I appreciate this forum and its space where anyone can express their opinion.

Hibiscus, FL

   I am also grateful for organizations like WWF--that seek to manage our remaining wildlife and wild lands by balancing the human need to exist and to explore in places that would be much better left untouched.  We are on this earth to learn, explore, expand and create.  It is in our "nature."  Some do it on a cosmic level--others on a microscopic level--most of us simply do it in pursuit of daily living. 

Wasp after the rain, FL

For the first time, yesterday I heard of a man who has 4 million people following his every selfie and 6-second looped movie.  He is living in response to the question:  "You are on your deathbed, you have the chance to come back to right now . . . what do you do?"  He is single, without commitment, openly avowing that he is living according to that creed.  He has no wife, no children, no job that helps society to be better educated, better fed; freer from want, freer from disease.  A company offered him $1,000,000 to hawk their wares and he dismissed them (which I think he should have--dumb to hook your star to a corporation that has even less scruples than you do) with the public statement that he did not want anyone telling him what to do.  
   To be a father, you have to keep a job.  To be a mother, you have to wash dishes and read to your children.  To be a teacher, you have to prepare lesson plans.  To build houses, you have to put on roofs when it is hot outside.  To be a grocer, you have to go to the same place everyday and stock shelves. 
   You get the simplified idea.  

Graphic of photo I took.  Half-circle of Ibis.  FL

   I like the question that this man related about the deathbed ability to come back and go in another direction.  I have thought about the same question every day of my life since I was a child.  It is why I practiced the piano.  It is why I never smoked or drank.  It is why I went to Church.  It is why I went to college.  It is why I served a mission.  It is why I fell in love.  It is why I got married.  It is why I had children. It is why I sang and rode horses and did homework with my children and taught school and went back to graduate school and do laundry and pay bills and plant my gardens.

Stag-horn beetle, FL

    It is why my husband has gone to work as a contract lawyer to supported me and our three children for the last 32 years--when he would much rather have painted and sculpted and sketched out the visions in his head.  
   Were I on my deathbed and had the chance to go back to today and live my life again--I would do the same things I have already done and hope to continue to do.  When I die, I want to feel that I have done all I can to love, to teach, to encourage, to inspire, to discipline, to support, and to cheer everyone who I have every met or known.  

Red-bellied woodpecker.  One of a mating pair.   FL

  I do not want to be like the man with 4 million followers who is tromping throughout the world doing what he likes.  I want to be more like the people who work with the WWF.  I want to leave this earth better than I found it.

"Only Living Flesh Can Suffer"--over-dramatic thoughts of a Sunday evening

Brent took this of me during our stay in NY a few years ago.  He wants me to print
a copy of it to have in his office.

Before leaving to lead tours
through the  Ft. Lauderdale Temple, FL
before it was dedicated.  May 2014.

I have been putting off writing anything for the last months because I have felt so overwhelmed.  We have started serving as temple workers on Friday from 3 to 11:30pm at the newly opened Ft. Lauderdale Temple.  My 25-year-old son, my husband, and I all go together—and it is a wonderful way to finish the week—once we get there.  Before that there are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning.  Then after that . . . there is Nursery.

Luna moth, Maryland, 2011.

A few years ago I served as the Nursery leader (class for children 18 months to 3 years old for two hours every Sunday) and I loved it.  I spent up to 40 hours a week preparing. 

We had two snack times and after working with the children for a few months, they cheerfully and actively helped to clean up between each activity. 

They learned that the toys and materials in the Nursery belonged to the Teacher and that I was sharing them with each member of the Nursery.  

This meant that each child asked to play with a certain toy or set (Noah’s ark or a magnetic farm book, for example) and then returned it to me when they had finished—to trade for something else. 

We had a Bean Box—a long, under-bed storage container filled with small navy beans.  We laid out a large vinyl table cover on the floor and opened the container.  Everyone gathered around it and we played with converted sand toys. 

We had time using home-made play dough in different colours . . . the children got to pick which they wanted to use.   We had cookie cutters and small plates and small plastic animals for the children to use. 

A few times we made ice cream. 

That was before iPads. 

That was before two hand surgeries, a knee surgery, and a third shoulder reconstruction.   

That was before a daughter’s divorce, return to live with us for more than a year, and her second marriage to a wonderful young man. 

Last day of class in May 2014.

That was before seven years of full-time college classes with my son who has Asperger’s Syndrome.  Writing papers with him, taking notes for him, tutoring him to help him prepare for his tests:  all of that has been pure joy—but also taken energy.

I had cataracts removed from both eyes last year and the lenses replaced in each.  I had the surgery done because of the degeneration of my sight in my left eye and constant headaches.  Now the headaches are done with, but I still juggle glasses with squinting and finding bright light to read by.

Now there are four to six (occasionally up to eight) little boys.  One girl has just turned 18 months old, but has spent the last two weeks napping on her father’s shoulder during Nursery time.  The boys have listened to families on DVDs instead of conversing with their own and seen animals in educational “games” instead of running after them outside.  We didn’t have a TV until our oldest was 5 years old. 

And there are some of the parents . . . who do not like the way that I do things.  I have been accustomed to being assigned a calling and then fulfilling it as I felt was right. 

My people skills often do not translate into adult-level interactions.  And having spent the last seven years one-on-one, 24-7, working on college classes with my son, I have not needed to extend myself beyond our small, comfortable world. 

*************

I have just re-read what I’ve written.  This started off as an essay, but it has turned, instead, into a journal entry listing my complaints and frustrations. 

*************

Another challenge for me has been the opportunity to work with the Relief Society President in fulfilling the food orders that are made every two weeks.  I have finally gotten a handle on the paperwork.  Kind of. 

Red-bellied woodpecker Pelican Lake, Juno Beach, FL  2012.

I look at others lately with the same sort of pity and interest that concentrated my view of the world just after my mother died.  There are so many things that weigh on me right now.  None of them are bad or even difficult – there are just so many of them.   My right hand is in a brace because it has still not completely healed and strengthened.  My eyes bother me after a day of study—staring at the computer screen and textbook, at worksheets and calculator.  My body has taken certain exception to the previous treatment it has undergone—I am getting old.  I have two rabbits that need attention, but do not like to be cuddled . . . after years of being treated as intelligent beings, they get huffy when I give them baths and do not allow them free access to cords and corners of the TV room.  My sweet husband is under pressure from his work and Church responsibilities—and his body hurts more often than not . . . and I hate it when he is in pain and I can do nothing to help.

All these things are good things:  my eyes still see, my mind still learns, my body still works, the rabbits love to have their heads rubbed, my husband adores me.

Pileated woodpeckers, Busch Wildlife Sanctuary, Jupiter, FL  2014

I got to go and take photos at the nearby golf club last week—and I got so beautiful shots of heron, ibis, native trees and weeds . . . I even got photos of a red-winged blackbird—I’ve never see one before.  I got video of two pileated woodpeckers a month ago.  My daughter and I picked two pineapples from the yard this evening and we have a stalk of bananas from one of our trees ripening on the porch. 

I am safe.  I am loved.  I have money and time to do things that make me happy and give me satisfaction.  When my back hurts too much, I have a pain management team to administer shots so that I can continue to walk, swim, dance and exercise.  My son does the dishes and helps with cooking and the laundry.  I have a pool outside my back door and there is a nest of mockingbird eggs in a tree in the side yard.  I have dozens of people who care enough about me to keep track of where I am and what I am doing and wish me happy birthday on Facebook . . . and in person.

Life is full and I am blessed.  I have so much.  I can do so much . . . I would not change my life even if I could.

I just get tired sometimes.  But that is OK.  It means that I am up and alive and doing.

In college, I remember reading a poem about a person who spent an evening at a dinner party, listening to soul-less chatter.  As he left the place, he pressed his hands onto the spikes of the gate—satisfied that he felt pain for “only living flesh can suffer.”

And after I consider all of this—like the Nursery children—I also have an iPad.

While Visions of Integrals Danced In My Head

Homework!

This afternoon I go in to take the fourth Calculus 1 test of the semester.  The first three went well.  I am bragging, but I do have an A average in the class so far.  This one isn't any different, really--but it is.  It is kind of like Christmas when I was a kid.  

I took a series of black and white photos like these to overlay when I was in a Photography I class.  We learned how to develop our own film and printed our own photos from the negatives.  When I tried to add photos to this entry, this came up as an option.  I don't now why it is continually running--but with these 8 or 9 photos it looks kind of cool.

Once upon a time, I lived in a place where colour TV was a big deal; mobil phones, Post-It notes, and velcro hadn't even been invented; computers were just a gleam in Steve Job's eye; I actually used a slide rule for math; Autism, depression, and indecision were were shameful things no one talked about; and AIDS hadn't been discovered yet. I was 11 years old--and didn't even know to wonder what life would be like when I was 55.    

I hated school.  Our family moved, on the average, every two years and so I was always the "new kid."  On my first day of class in one school, I sat in the "most popular" girl's chair by mistake. The other kids told me I'd better move or she would beat me up.  (I knew she wouldn't--because I moved before she arrived in class and she turned out to be a nice person, though she never knew who I was.)  In another school, when it was discovered that I liked a certain boy, he sat behind me and whispered mean things about my clothes and my shoes while the teacher presented the lesson.  

Kind of a geometric image.

I was luckier than most kids in my position, though, because I was smart, good in school, and the teachers would talk to me like a person.  I also lived in a dream world--floating above myself and looking down on the events of every day.  I was forced to be an actor at the mercy of the kids around me, but I was also safely ensconced in the audience--distant and safe in the balcony section.

Watching myself.

Through these years, Christmas was a shining moment--wonderful because there was no school, and exciting because even though I knew there was no Santa for real, he still existed for my younger brothers and sisters.   I loved being home--it was a safe place for both my body and my spirit.  At Christmas, though, the uncertainty of Christmas morning put me on edge.  I knew that no matter what I got, I would be disappointed.  Nothing real could match the fantasy of my undefinable hopes.        

Essentially, I didn't know what I wanted and so no matter what I received, it could never be right.  

The agony of that hazy expectation is much like what I am feeling this morning.

More homework!

I know that I will make mistakes on the test, but I don't know what they will be.  I prepare and practice, but I am not sure what I should spend my last few hours reviewing.  

It is an amazing mix of dread, excitement and wonder that I could be learning a way of thinking that lets me measure the area of shapes with curved surfaces and discover how fast an object is falling at any specific point in time.  I am not studying "math," but a way of describing the world around me by using symbols and relationships between numbers.  

After walking through the Ft Lauderdale Temple, training for Open House tour guide.
April 2014

It is like the moment when I discovered that I could "write" a circle with letters and numbers.  Studying math is like studying a new language that attempts to capture the vastness of space, and also the unseeable movement of electrons.  

It is magic--except it is real.

February, Wet Hair and a Cloud Harp

I couldn't get Nathan in the same pic with us--he was busy preparing to be bored . . . 

          Saturday night Brent and Nathan and I went to see the Earth Harp in concert.  Nate actually enjoyed the evening and the music.  It was a good change of pace for all three of us.

The harp strings are connected to the balcony and back walls of the theater.  The circle of drums he called his Cloud Drums and when the drummer went to town on them it was incredible.

  

          I hope that your Valentine’s month provided some good memories.  Even though I usually find the constant prompts from stores to buy candy and ugly stuffed animals that have strange messages printed on signs attached to their hands or printed on their t-shirt (only in Florida do red flamingos with bulging eyes plead to be someone’s sweetheart . . . or at least, I hope it only happens in Florida)—currently I don’t notice my favorite grocery store posting any signs urging me to fulfill my duty to swell the national economic spending reports.  So, I have concentrated on looking for new snack foods as I meander through the aisles looking the items on my shopping list.

         Saturday is our “traditional” grocery-shopping day for the week.  As Brent pushed the cart through the store tonight, picking out our weekly staples, I remembered that I needed shampoo.  When I got there, I also thought that I needed conditioner and lotion.  As I passed the brushes and hair stuff, my eye was caught by a new kind of brush with blue micro-fibres among the short, knobby bristles—a brush that helped to dry my hair more quickly!

         I digress here to let you see my fascination with this technology.  I have had thick hair—grown long—for the majority of my life.  When I was in high school, I swam and danced ballet—so I washed my hair every night.  There were weeks when my hair stayed continually damp—blow drying it took 40 minutes or more but braiding is back only took ten.  So, after a lifetime of draping my hair over my pillow at night—seeing a brush that might speed up the process and actually get my hair dry between shampoos was an item I was more than willing to try.

         So—now I am waundering the aisles with slick, odd-shaped containers clutched in my arms . . . each of which takes its turn slipping out of from under the rest and falling to the ground. 

         I arrive, still watching for Brent and the cart, at the meat department.  Three days before, I had seen a small packet with a picture of a lovely looking rib roast on the front.  With this packet (at home on the kitchen table by an open Calculus text book and pages of half-finished homework) in my mind, I approach the meat counter and select a very small, very beautiful prime rib roast. 

         Now, as I walk, I am kind of slouching sideward, curled over and around my varied items with this roast clutched in my trembling right hand.

         Finally, I see Brent and lurch toward him—unceremoniously dumping my arm-full into the cart.

         I have spent most of my life as a spectator—watching me do what I am doing from the sidelines.  I see this event in my memory right now and smile as I see Brent’s face light up when I finally find him.  He does not inspect my choices and tell me to go and put the strange-looking brush back.  He does not remind me that we have lots of other lotions already at home.

         He simply smiles at me—glad that I am with him.

CRAZY: Building Character vs. Hurting and Hating It.

Me, Martha and Nathan . . . about as character-built as we will ever get.  Summer 2013, Utah.

This is from a Facebook post to Sam Graves, Susan's son.
Sam,
     A few months ago you wrote a long note to me about hurting.  Susan told you that I had bulging discs and arthritis in my back as well as 2 bulging discs in my neck.  Landing without the horse while jumping had offered me the chance to have doctors re-construct my right shoulder 3 times in the last 5 years.  I have lost the bone and the base of both thumbs to surgery and had knee surgery last year.  I do still hurt if I am not careful.  
     We painted the house last weekend and I pulled my right shoulder out of place while trying to tape off some ceiling edges on the porch--so now I do not use my right arm for a while and hope that I only stretched the ligaments rather than tearing them.
      I am in remarkably little pain--enough so that most days I do not calendar my activities depending upon how much I hurt in what joints.  All the credit for that goes to my pilates instructor, Bonnie.
She has worked with me for an hour, one-on-one, three mornings every week at 7am.  She listens to what is hurting and what makes it hurt . . . and then works around those places to strengthen the muscles that are available to move.  
      She knows how to build slowly and is patient with me when I am not moving so good.  
I am so sorry that you hurt.  I know that I have spent years locked away from, literally, everyone and everything because I was hurting physically or mentally.  Narcolepsy stole years--I slept for 22 hours a day.  Depression and mania stole even more--I curled into myself and didn't know anything but cold, silent, paralyzing black.  
     Grandpa Wagstaff used to tell your mom and me (and Aunt Martha, Uncle Rob and Nate) that doing things like mowing the lawn and doing the dishes would build character.  I tried the same line on my children and they all regularly assured me that they were happy with the character they already had.  
I don't think that pain is a growing kind of challenge.  It just is.  I do know, though, that there are people around you right now who have the experience, training and skill to help you build your body back up if you are willing to ferret them out (they are often hard to find because they are not in the places that you usually look) and work SLOWLY to just (at first) keep from getting worse and then, to get stronger so that, finally, your body can hold itself strong to keep it from letting the pain receptors rule your reactions and your life.
     This is sounding more and more like a testimony.  I guess it kind of is.
I love your mom.  She is an amazing woman with a giving, unconquerable heart.  Do good by her.


Not many people have ever asked for my advice on something I actually know much about.  School, I am OK with, unless it's history dates.  Planting and propagating and pruning plants--I have lots to tell about those things now.  How to raise children?  Mine are grow up . . . and so, of course, I know all about that . . .

Lauren gets married in two weeks.  I have no idea whatsoever about how to get a wedding planned and prepared without going crazy.

I am also, however, a certified professional when it comes to being crazy.