Home From Church, and I Learn Who to Ask

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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.