New Knee

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.

Volvo Transmission Blues, With Chocolate on the Side

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.

Inspiration from Facebook

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

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

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