Even Brent Likes Them

Baby Squirrels' Visit

Since Nathan has begun volunteering at Busch Wildlife Refuge in Jupiter, FL, we have been able to take some of the babies home overnight for dinners and breakfasts. When Brent heard that squirrels were going to be staying with us--he was NOT thrilled. When we lived in Kansas City, MO, we had a home with a very old wooden roof. I went wild putting out seed and nuts for the wild birds--for the AMAZING wild birds--that passed through our area migrating to and from the North and South. As a result, I also attracted an excessive number of squirrels. There was plenty of food . . . but not enough trees to house all of them. They began to chew their way into any of the chinks existing in our roof. As a result, I had to climb up into the far corners of our attic and spray in that expanding-before-hardening yellow foam.

As a result, Brent is not crazy about squirrels . . . and I have learned to be discriminating in the squirrel or two to whom I choose to offer the odd peanut. My favorite for two years was a little female with a genetic quirk--her tail was only about two inches long. It looked like a puffed up pom-pom. After raising two litters, she has quietly departed the area--and probably the Earth.

After the first evening, Brent took to ferrying each squirrel back into the warming container after it was full of formula. One even fell asleep in his hands. Amazing what the love of a good man does when it is extended beyond its normal boundaries.

The smallest one is my favorite.

Snuggled together after being fed.

Lots more has been happening, too. But this is a good start to regaining my habit of writing.

Good night.

How do you sum up your life in two lines?

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.

Artist's Statement for my Intro to Photography final portfolio

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.

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

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.

Last week I was in Utah and got to visit with my oldest brother, Robbie, (43 this year) whom I hadn't seen in years and years. It was wonderful to catch up with him--new job, new home, new stuff his kids are doing. The conversation somehow began to center on blogs and blogging. When I told him that I had not only one, but two blog sites, he was so surprised that he blurted out "What do you have to blog about?" I couldn't believe how defensive I felt when he asked me--mainly because I didn't really have an answer to give him.
Since then, that question has had me thinking over and over about what I have written. My only scholarly publication was 20 years ago—about the need to have students practice writing skills: an example of a classroom lesson that I had used to allow the students to apply the principles of subjective assertions supported by objective statements. Another article was about my change in priorities from wife and student to mother. Even the book that I’m writing with Megan is just a simple story about family. I have written thousands and thousands of pages of personal essays—journal-type observations organized around distinct ideas or themes. They aren't based on scholarly research, but are peppered heavily with ideas and observations from other authors whose books I read. Usually I don’t even start an essay with an original thought of my own: I write out the reaction that I have had in response to something I’ve heard or something that I’ve read or something that Brent and I have talked about. I am not a Chaucer or DaVinci or Copernicus or Aristotle or Goethe or Einstein. I sing the songs that others write. I read the words that others have written. I write about things that I have heard or experienced in other places. I remember that Mom used to complain to me that I could do lots of things well, but I had mastered none of them.
I look at Brent’s resume and there is nothing I’ve done that can compete with that. I quit before I finished my PhD. I missed 6 weeks of my mission recuperating from operations. I have not even worked enough hours in my 50 years to qualify for social security when I turn 65. I suppose that I demonstrate a fair amount of chutzpa in leaking my thoughts onto paper or into my computer and offering them for others to read. I am self-centered enough to believe that what I think and how I present it is significant and interesting enough that others will find it worth reading.
I have not accomplished much in my 50 years that would be worth putting on a resume. I have created teaching methodologies specific to the ways that Megan and Nathan learn so that they have been able to comprehend math, composition, and science. I have learned through my own experience how to propagate (the few plants that flourish in my yard) from cuttings. I was once called a Master Teacher. I was voted Teacher of the Year at a junior college where I taught. When I was 19, a fellow ballet student told me that she loved to watch me dance. My children tell me that I have done the right things at the right times to allow them to grow up and do the things that they want to do and become the people that they wanted to be. I can play the piano and speak Spanish and sing and swim and ride horses and sew and cross-stitch and take pictures and raise rabbits and cook what needs to be cooked. Mom was right. I do lots of things—but I have not mastered any of them.
So what do I have to write about?
I guess I just write about the fact that I am still learning and doing and discovering things. I’m not an accomplished writer, but sharing what I think, try, hope, read, and believe is satisfying somehow. I suppose that I put stuff on my blogs for the purely selfish reason that I like doing it.