"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.

REally Flying!!!!

Our 31st wedding anniversary was Monday--September 16--and Brent planned a surprise trip for us.  He drove us up to Orlando, we checked into our hotel and we began to drive around.  We passed . . . no, I'm not going to list the stuff that happened now . . . end result?

This is me getting in my iFly suit!!!!!!  

The building looks like a huge silo with the top cut off.  It is, in effect, a vertical wind tunnel.  Rides last only a minute--it is an exhausting experience.  

Brent got me 4 minutes on Friday.  After I flew (I really did fly!), they offered another minute . . . and so I got 5 chances to float on air.

After I finished, Brent asked me what I wanted to do on Saturday.  He had plans to fly in a helicopter or to go up in a bi-plane . . . or I could come back and fly again.

There was no hesitation.  On Saturday we returned and I flew for 6 minutes more.

  

By the time I finished, I could fly stable, go up and down, spin to the right and left.  I am excited to return and fly again.

When Megan was a young she wanted two things: to grow up and be a bunny--and to fly.

I have had a chance to do something that has filled my dreams since I can remember dreaming.  

What was it like?  

I had to concentrate on holding my arms and legs in position--while relaxing all of my muscles.  It was an exercise in contradictions.  Tiny movements of my hands and forearms turned me around in circles; tightening my stomach muscles increased the area of my body so that I floated up higher; and allowing my spine to relax let me drop lower, hovering  over the mesh bottom of the enclosure.  

Time didn't exist.  I leaned into the flow of wind and moments later I was pushed through the doorway--heavied by gravity again.

The memory is in the same corner of my mind as as the jumps I've gone over with my horse.  It is next to the moment I saw Brent for the first time. 

There are a few other points in time that hover over me continually:  
Nathan was 7, we were sitting in Stake Conference in Houston and I wrote him a note:  
        "Do you have a testimony that Joseph Smith is a prophet and restored Christ's Church?"  
He though about it for a minute and then wrote back.  
       "Not yet."  
I wrote back:  
       "Is that OK?"  
He didn't even think about it:
       "I don't have my own testimony yet.  I know I can borrow you and dad's until I get one of my     
       own."

When Lauren was a toddler and would wake up, she waited quietly until Brent and I came to get her up.  I would open the door and she would see me, standing up at the side of her crib, with her arms held up toward me.  As I lifted her up and held her close to me, she would melt onto me; her arm draped over my shoulder and her head tucked firmly below my ear.  I feel that warmth against my body even as I  write about it.

And Megan.  When she was only about two months old, I remember sitting with her on my lap.  Brent and I were both in school full time and working part-time.  We traded Meg between us--Brent took her to class while I was at work.  I did homework with her on my lap.  There were few moments that were quiet and private.  Meg wiggled and I held her up so that she was facing me.  All of a sudden Megan's face lit up like the sun and she reached for me.  She smiled and I heard in my spirit that she loved me.  


While flying wasn't the emotional benchmarks I've described above, what was made my heart fill with joy was the fact that Brent was as thrilled for me to fly as I was.  His present for our anniversary was watching my thrill at being airborne.  He found joy in my own. 
                      
I imagine that the Lord was trying to tell us when he had his prophet write:  
For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

                             Moses 1:39

As I learn more of Brent, I begin to understand more of what Heavenly Father and Christ are like.

Closest to Flying

This is the closest I will probably get to flying . . . (and Brent can't understand why I love to swim).

These were taken yesterday evening in our pool.  Either Nate or Lauren took them of me.  It has been raining and blowing outside lately--and we brought down a lot of air bubbles.

I Am Thankful for Free Agency: Washcloths and Pink Foam Curlers.

I Am Thankful for Free Agency

I choose to cry for things lost.

One of the classes I registered for while I was working on my Masters degree was Developmental Psychology. During the semester, the professor  gave an assignment to the class, directing us that we were to act in a way that defied commonly accepted social norms.  At the time, I was choir director in our Ward. On Sunday's when we were to perform, we met before Sacrament Meeting to rehearse. I chose, as my assignment for this class, to wear pink foam curlers in my bangs during rehearsal. No one said anything, but I did get some strange looks.

Since this time, I have incorporated this principle of social unconventionality whenever I step into an elevator with other people. I make it a point to smile and make eye contact with everyone around me.    I tried to ask a short question about any children someone may have with them or about something they are wearing or carrying in their hand.

Of course, I stand to the side of the elevator rather than standing in front of the door and turning to meet people from straight on.  My goal is not to confront but, rather, engage those around me.  I do this in an effort to create a feeling of unity amongst the people around me.  Since I am short and slender, I do not think that I appear threatening. Usually my advances are met with polite acceptance, if not gladness, of the interruption of what they expected to be a quiet ride between floors. My husband is 6'4" tall, and while he is a gentle soul with a kindly countenance, I think that his height puts him at a disadvantage in this kind of situation. Because of my size, and long unruly hair, I think that I appear more childlike than adult.


No one that I've encountered seems to mind questions from children. When my own children were preschool and elementary school aged, their curiosity and resulting questions, often amused and pleasantly surprised the adults they spoke with.

Back to my psychology assignment – in class on the following Monday, we were asked to report on our experiences. As each student told of the results of their experiment, the rest of the people in the classroom laughed as the most students recounted reactions of those around them.

As we finished, the professor commented on the fact that he was a powerful man. Without thinking, I blurted out, "No you're not!"   His response has stayed in my memory since that moment.

"I got you to wear curlers in your hair to Church yesterday, didn't I?"

 I had allowed that psychology professor to have power over my actions. I was not coerced, but did choose follow his instructions.  I accepted his authority when I  changed my behavior in compliance with this assignment.

I had been duped. Thinking that my friends and family, who would experience my unaccustomed actions, where the object of this experiment – I had been fooled. I was the guinea pig. This man had gotten  me to change my actions. He was right, I had allowed him power over me.

From that psychology  experience, I have since learned to be more careful in who I decide will dictate my actions.

In the book of Joshua, verse 22, he says "Choose ye this day whom you will serve, but as for my house, we will serve the Lord."

Psalms 119: 30, sings " I have chosen the way of truth!"

I choose to dance.

In Luke 10: 42, Christ tells Martha that "Thou art careful and troubled about many things:  But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which cannot be taken away from her."

That psychology class experience has influenced how I interact with my children.  It has reinforced my desire to fortify each of them.  Even more than choosing to avoid sin, I have hoped that they might have the vision to choose the best of the options available to them.

Kate chooses a hat.

The prophet Isaiah speaks about those in his day who lived wicked, disobedient lives. "Yeah, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations." (Isaiah 66:3)  This life is not a black and white, wrong and right, sinful or obedient succession of choices. There are other choices when my children can make that are not only good, but better than the alternatives. Christ taught us that often the choice is not between good and bad – but between what is good and what is better.

Jon chooses to celebrate life.

I went, not too long ago, to buy new washcloths. As I looked over the selection in the store, I noticed that the side of the description of each object was an additional word. Each was marked as GOOD, BETTER or BEST.   The three alternatives, of course, reflected the quality of each item.  Those marked GOOD were serviceable – made of thinner fabric, with hastily finished, unevenly zigzagged edges.  Some were not cut truly square. They were roughen in texture and to the tag attached to each was a lightweight, plastic-like material printed in faded black ink.

 On the other extreme,  the BEST quality washcloths were neatly hemmed and felt plush and soft to the touch. They were of much heavier material than the GOOD washcloths and most had rich, embrordered designs along one edge. Most were large perfect rectangles.  The tags were of a sturdy cloth: the brand name and instructions for care beautifully woven into the small loop of fabric.

Such a difference between those labeled GOOD and those labeled BEST!

 Both were destined to fulfill the same function. I've used them to clean faces, kitchen sinks, scratched up knees, dining room tables, tiled bathroom floors, sticky fingers, plates and cups and forks and spoons.

Both filled the same need – one kind was hastily manufactured and the other was created with meticulous care. Both were appropriate to their function. I was faced with the decision of which to choose.

In Christ's time, two women also face  a similar situation.  Our Redeemer had come to the home of Mary and Martha to spend time with them. Mary, a good woman, was moved to be a good hostess, trying to prepare so that their home would be a comfortable, welcoming place for Christ. She chose to do good things – to clean and cook. Mary, on the other hand, chose the better alternative. She chose to sit and listen as Jesus spoke and taught of the best things that were and that would come.

I imagine that both Mary and Martha had worked together before Jesus arrived to make their home ready for his visit. Once their guest had arrived, though, Mary put away the good things she had busied herself with and chose the best alternative: to sit and hear Christ's counsel.

Good and Best – neither one was useless or destructive; however, there was one alternative that was the better of the two.

 Mary chose to listen, to learn, to gain the only things that we can bring back with us to our Heavenly Father after this life is over. Her decision was the B E S T of the two – the clean house in the prepared food were good things, but were temporary.

About the washcloths? I chose to buy some of both: the GOOD quality ones to scrub the tub and the kitchen floor with and the BEST quality ones to use in bathing my children and to offer for guests of our home to use.

 And the lesson that I learned from my psychology professor? I have heeded the counsel of my own mother to heart:  instead of keeping my house spotless, I chose to spend time with my children when they were small; to read to them at night before they went to sleep; to listen to them when they were excited or troubled and would do me the honor of sharing their feelings with me

I choose to notice the small things around me.

.

I'm so grateful that I followed my mother's instructions to spend time with my children rather than keeping an immaculate home. My oldest daughter now has two children of her own. She has been smart enough to follow the example that I tried to set. Her children are young now and when they are asleep at night she tidies the house and cleans the kitchen. But when they are awake during the day, she plays in the sandbox with them, takes them with her on long rambles through the woods behind their home, and spends hours reading books and doing projects with them. She is choosing the better part and my grandchildren are maturing into the same kind and wise people that their mother is: they are learning to choose the BEST part.