Monday, November 30, 2009

November: the summary

Events I want to remember from November (and a couple from October):
  1. The Thanksgiving feast held at my dad's rest home. It was so nice to see him for Thanksgiving.  My mom, sisters, and uncle were all there.  It made it a little easier that I didn't get to have him come to my house.
  2. Cooking Thanksgiving at my house.  It was so much fun. I don't know that I'll get to do it again for a while, so I'm so grateful I was able to this year.
  3. Playing Lego Rock Band with my kids.  I've never been super comfortable with them playing Rock Band; there were 2 songs I was okay with, and even one of them made me squirm a little.  But now we have a whole game with kid-friendly songs that my kids and the neighbors can play with little squirming.  Yahoo!
  4. Meeting my new great-nephew Lukas.
  5. Waching Thomas at his patriotic-themed school concert.  Those third graders did such a good job!
  6. Making a really cute Thanksgiving table runner that unfortunately didn't get finished before Thanksgiving. But it was fun making it, and will be so awesome to pull out next year when it's done.
  7. Finally being able to play O Holy Night on the piano with minimal stops.  If I can get it really good, I'm going to record it and see if I can post it on my blog. Playing Christmas songs was the original reason I wanted a piano.  It only took me two years to have one whole Christmas song down.
  8. Starting our Christmas tradition of watching a Christmas movie on Sunday night while eating dinner.  It is such a fun, peaceful way to start the week.
  9. Watching Thomas get baptized in October.  It was such a great day full of food and family.
  10. My first ever trip to Zion National Park. I wish I could have stayed a few more days to really enjoy it.
People who made me happy:
  1. Thomas, who passed off his addition facts today. Yahoo!
  2. My much-loved now retired obstetrician, who didn't think I was weird when I invited him to Thomas's baptism (he even came!  I love that man.)
  3. All the friends and family who also came to the baptism.  It wouldn't have been the same without you!
  4. Janna, for a lovely lunch and conversation.  It's so amazing to be able to step into a friendship after 6 years of no contact.
  5. My friend Rebecca, who I am so excited to say is engaged. Yay! Another of my friends who will soon be married. 
  6. Ben.  He loves to draw and write, which is so fun to watch. Man, I can't believe he is closer to 5 than 4. Sniff.
  7. The guy in the ward who showed Shane how to safely add a breaker to our breaker box. Shane wasn't electricuted. That always makes for a good day!
  8. Amy for making the Vitamin Z cd for me. It was so fun to drive home the day I got it, reliving the music that I used to sneak to listen to.  This is the thing about it: I love it, but it doesn't remind me of anything.  No boyfriends or friends or school or anything, which makes me think I must have listened to it when I was in gymnastics and had no life.
  9. Some friends from my gymnastics years that I found on Facebook. Just when you think you won't find anyone else from your past, one of them pops up.  I love that.
8 things I ate on Thanksgiving:

  1. Turkey!
  2. Green bean casserole. It took Shane 9 years of being married to me to like this, but now he's hooked.
  3. Brussels sprout casserole.  This took nearly 11 years of marriage, but Shane finally tried & liked it this year.
  4. Yams.  Oh, the buttery, brown sugary goodness. Kind of like candy in the form of a vegetable.
  5. Cranberry marshmallow jello salad.  Mmm..
  6. Thanksgiving crescent rolls. It isn't Thanksgiving unless I taste those rolls.  They are a tradition in our family.
  7. Mashed potatoes.
  8. Stuffing.  And a whole lot more.  Oh, I'm thinking I might need to make another turkey soon.
Things I got done for that big holiday coming up next month:
  1. Decorating. My heart wasn't in it a lot, but I'm glad it's all up now. 
  2. Clothes shopping for the boys.
  3. Shopping for Shane.
  4. Shopping for myself. Oh, you mean I'm not supposed to by stuff for myself? Oh well.  Shane was technically with me, even if I was doing the actual buying.
  5. Purchasing fabric for a wall hanging to make next month. Sewing is always a part of Christmas preparation, right?
  6. Toy shopping.  I feel like Scrooge when it comes to toys.  It's a good thing Shane is around, he knows what to buy better than I do.
New songs on my iPod:
  1. Fetish, Vicious Pink
  2. Take me now, Vicious Pink (are you seeing a trend? Oh, Amy, if you knew how many memories these songs bring back! Thanks for putting them on my mix CD!)
  3. Lonely is the Night, Billy Squire (heard this one on the Couples Retreat movie, and had to have it. All I can say is I'm glad the missionaries I ran past the other day didn't know what I was listening to...)
  4. Read my Mind, The Killers (I used to have this song, then lost it when I got my new iPod.  So glad to have it back!)
  5. Vitamin Z songs.  Oh, they are fun!
Things we bought that we really like:
  1. A heater for our cold basement.  The old one died last year.
  2. Lego Rock Band.
  3. Beatles Rock Band.
  4. New running shoes.  I can't wait to start wearing them!
Things I plan to do this week:
  1. Finish two sewing projects that have been lingering for far too long.
  2. Go to the Festival of Trees with my sister.
  3. Host the ward missionaries.  This should be fun.
Places I organized:
  1. Put all my sewing stuff in a tote.  I love seeing it all organized!
  2. The hall closet.  My closets are always terrible.
The one thing my kids love that I got out for Christmas:
  1. The Playmobile nativity set.  Even Thomas and his friend Chandler love playing with Mary, Joseph, and the rest.  It's always fun to see my son arming the mother of God with a sword and gun and calling her a "heavenly mother with attitude."  Boys.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Gratitude Finale!

And, in summary, I am grateful for:
  • The run I took on Thanksgiving morning. The sun was just rising over the mountains as I ran towards it down the hill. It was cold, but there was no wind. Beautiful.
  • The awesome Thanksgiving dinner we had.  Our neighbors came over, loaded with food and kids. My mom came early and helped me cook, which was so fun.  She brought a favorite holiday food from my childhood: cinammon pie crust. Mmm.  A taste of the past brought to life.
  • All the yummy food we had. I made yams for the first time ever, and they turned out pretty tasty.  The turkey got cooked, and didn't have the neck still stuck in the cavity (which happened 2 years ago when I cooked a turkey the day after Thanksgiving. Lovely.)  Everything was so good.
  • We got a surprise visit from Shane's niece and nephew who haven't been to our house since Ben was born almost 5 years ago.  It made Shane's day to see them.
  • Chatting at the table with my mom and friend Shelly after dinner. We talked about sewing and kids and families.
  • Visiting at Shane's mom for a little while after dinner. It was fun to see her.  No matter what, we are always able to see her on Thanksgiving, which is pretty cool.
  • Shopping early on Friday morning with Melanie. I got a really good deal on new running shoes for next spring, bought lots of smelly girly things at Bath and Body Works, and spent 45 minutes waiting in line at Old Navy. Luckily Melanie met me there, and so we alternated waiting in line and perusing the store. One such perusal resuled in my getting Beatles Rockband for $20.  Hey, the guy said it was $20 and so they had to give it to me at that price. Score!!
  • Decorating my house on Friday, then spending the evening eating leftovers from 2 Thanksgiving dinners with Melanie and her family.
  • Yesterday I finished my decorating.  I don't think I left the house all day. I love days like that!
And now, Thanksgiving is over for another year. I had so much fun doing these gratitude posts.  It's nice to have a reason to focus on the things I'm grateful for.  Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Gratitude, part 9

It's just 10:00. The turkey is de-gibbletted, de-necked, seasoned, and in the pan, ready to go in the oven in 9 hours.  I've cooked the sweet potatoes, and they are waiting for their glaze and marshmallow topping tomorrow.  The rolls are in the fridge, smelling of butter and milk and flour and yeast.  I've peeled the potatoes, and they are sitting on top of the container holding the rolls.

I think I'm ready to cook my first Thanksgiving dinner ever.

I can't wait.  I'm so glad and grateful I get to host tomorrow.  I felt a pang this afternoon when emailing with Amy that I hadn't found a tablecloth or dish to dress up the table.  Maybe I can find something in the morning.  But everything is waiting and staged and I can hopefully enjoy the morning of Thanksgiving, anticipating all the yummy food and good conversation.  I can't wait!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  Whether we are friend or family or bloggy-acquaintance, I'm glad to have you in my life.  I hope your day is fabulous.

Gratitude, part 8

Subtitle: Janna, or the reason I don't go to lunch anymore, or why I had the friends I did.

I left my desk for lunch for the first time in ages. Usually I am reading a book or trolling the web, but today I had a lunch date with my friend Janna, who I haven’t seen in over 6 years.

It dawned on me why I haven’t been to lunch with a friend for so long. All my current friends have little appendages that talk and walk and require feeding. They don’t want to drag their appendages to my office and go to lunch with me while I am sans children. Sure, we meet every now and then for lunch at Mickey D’s, but we have our kids with us. No, work day lunches are a thing of the (very) distant past.

But Janna is single. She doesn’t have kids to keep her away from nice restaurants in the middle of the day. She picked me up in front of my building, and we spent almost two hours talking. Really talking. Janna is like a truth serum; she won’t accept BS. When she asks how you are, how your marriage/kids/whatever is, she really wants to know. Not the happy face you give to the world, not the easy breezy “Great! How are you?” I found myself telling her the real stuff, the stuff that takes more time and sits closer to my soul. She told me who she is, the real Janna, the stuff that people in my conservative world don’t talk about or consider.

I met Janna when I was 18 and had been living in Salt Lake for about 5 months. She was very recently 18 herself, yet had been on her own for sometime already. She fit very well into the group of friends that I had established. She even lived with me for a few months, which was interesting, since it meant that there were three girls (me, Cindy, and now Janna) sharing space in the same small bedroom. I couldn’t help but think about those memories today once I got back from lunch. I thought about Janna and our friendship and the friendships that she became a part of when she joined us, and I realized something big.

We were all broken. That is why I found Angie, Rebecca, Cindy, Janna. I could list the specifics of why we were all broken; chalk it up to divorces, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, miscommunications, dysfunctional families, too high of expectations, too much competition; you get the picture. Once we found each other, we felt a kinship that allowed us to be whole together.

We didn't bond with whole people. The girls at school didn't have anything in common with my brand of brokenness, so without knowing it, I sought out those who were like me. The boys who were whole and wanted to go on dates and take girls to the prom weren't interested in me. They were a dream, and the vultures that were my friends sought to break those boys, to show them who was tougher. I went along with them because even though I secretly wanted to be liked by those boys, I knew in my heart I wasn't worthy. So, in high school we made football players cry; they couldn't understand anyone being mean to them, because no one ever had. In college we found ourselves with boys who had long hair and smelly habits so that we could be broken together.

The girls surrounding us were better than us and we knew it. They could be secure and smug because they didn't have to be broken like us. We didn't have much to talk about with them, so we ridiculed and reviled them. We took pleasure in being the girls who were broken (though we didn't know it) and felt a pride that being whole wouldn't have given us. Rebellion was a second skin that strengthened our ability to hide the scars within.

Now Janna, Angie, Rebecca, Cindy and I are older. We are all in states of mending. Janna uses her brokenness to dominate those who pay her; in her private life, she can be whole with a boy who can love her for who she is. Angie fixes children and in the process tries to fix herself. Rebecca has healed enough to want to start a new life with a person who sees her worth, and I think she can see it, too. Cindy lives out there, somewhere, fixing herself and her husband, and I hope she is okay. She is the only one I can't account for.

And me. I've made my peace with my brokenness. I'm never going to be the girl the popular girls seek out (because, in every world, ward, neighborhood, and church there are always the popular ones.) But I have friends who were never broken, and I don't resent them. I'm amazed at their strength; wonder at the resilience they have to want to be my friend now when we would never have been before. I can't say exactly what broke me, but I do know what has helped me to start to be whole. I don't have to hide my spirituality under a bushel. I also don't have to wear it around on my sleeve. I can look at the places I’ve been and the choices I’ve made with a little more clarity. I can show the people in my life who I really am, and be okay with them seeing me as I am, not who I think they want me to be.

I’m not sure why all this came up today, after what should have been a simple lunch with an old friend. There aren’t many people like Janna; the life she lives now would break many, but it helps her to be whole. I don’t know how she does it, but I admire her for it.  I guess we are all broken. But I am grateful I was broken, just so I can know how it feels when I’m finally not.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Gratitude, part 7

I was 11 when my first niece came into the world. The event happened while my parents, Amy and I were in Lake Powell. We arrived at Bullfrog Marina, made a phone call, and found out Kayci had arrived. Suddenly, I was an aunt. She looked like this after a few weeks.


Kayci, circa 1986.

The event (becoming an aunt) repeated itself once a year for 4 years (pretty effortlessly on my part, since it was my sisters having children, not me. Becoming an aunt is lots easier than becoming a mom!) We had a collection of little girls ranging from 4 to newborn who frequently came over to our house and made things crazy. One year, one of them spilled gun solvent on her new Christmas outfit (you can partly blame a grandpa who didn’t put stuff away for that one!).



  Kayci and Jacqui, circa 1989


Lyndsay and Britteny, circa 1991

In retrospect, it seemed like the era first four grandkids lasted forever. Kayci, Lyndsay, Jaqui, and Britteny were in countless pictures together, sometimes dressed alike in Christmas swearshirts. They fought, they played, they grew, and etched a permanent place in their youngest aunt’s heart.



The four girls with my mom.

Of course, they were joined by other nieces and later some nephews who also are very dear to me (I love all of you!)

My nieces and oldest nephew, Easter 1996



All my nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and a grandnephew, Christmas 2008 (oh, and two blond boys that belong to me.)

But I have to say that those first few years with the girls were just amazing.

Now the four girls all grown up. They all are getting married and having kids of their own. A new great-nephew joined our family yesterday, thanks to Lyndsay. Britteny and Kayci will have babies in 2010. Jacqui will get married in January (on my 11th wedding anniversary!)


But, no matter how much they have grown, I still remember those little girls playing in my room with my old Barbie dolls, eating tomato macaroni soup on Saturdays, and wearing my old retainer during sleepovers (which is just gross; all I can ask is why?). I am grateful I was able to build so many memories with them as we grew up together.

Thanks, beautiful girls for letting me be your aunt. I love holding your baby boys and girls, I love seeing your older babies playing with my boys, I love the phone calls I get and the Facebook updates I read.  You have all turned out so wonderful. I am grateful for you.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Gratitude, part 6

I can't tell you how excited I am.

Back when I was a teenager and had an awesome older sister who hated it when I went in her room, I used to frequently sneak into said sister's room and listen to her cassette tapes.  She never knew about it until a few months ago, we were talking about old music.  I was trying to think of a band that I loved but had since forgotten the name of.

Oh, the attempts Amy and I made at figuring out this band.  I could remember the feeling of one of the songs, but none of the lyrics (helpful, I know.)  I kept telling her that I thought the band name started with the letter S, but couldn't go any farther.  We have wracked our brains.  She even gifted me a CD from the band Xymox, sure that it would turn out my desired band.  And while I enjoyed the Xymox CD very much, it failed to deliver the song I wanted.

Every now and again, Amy would call me and come up with random band names.  Each time I would have to say no.  I've wracked my brains on this since April.  April!

And now, to my intense pleasure and astonishment, I've had one of those moments.  You know, like the one Elizabeth Smart's sister had when she finally remembered her sister's kidnapper's name. A part of a song came back to me: "Save me, from the cold stone rain." (It should have been "sharp stone rain."  I must have been thinking of ice cream.  Mmmm, Cold Stone....)  I was sitting at work, in my cozy cubicle, and the words just sprung to mind.  I hurried and wrote them down on a piece of paper that I intended to come back to later on.

I recycled the paper when I left work, and never got the words off.  Ah!!

But, I knew that the breakthough had come.  I knew it had to do somehow with the word "stone, " so while on a drive through the neighborhood, the words came back to me, and I left them on Amy's answering machine.  Oh, the satisfaction.  I googled the words to the song, but couldn't find the band name (because of the unfortunate "cold stone"), so I was only partly satisfied.  That is, until today when the name of the band came to me: Vitamin Z.  Vitamin Z released a few albums back in the 80's, one of which my sister (obviously) bought.  I looked through the lyrics, and I found the songs I had been looking for.  Hooray for the internet!

So, today I am grateful for the tricks of memory that allow big sisters to come home, and little sisters to get the music they once risked sisterly wrath to listen to.  And I'm grateful I'll see Amy on Thursday, and the listening fest can begin.

So, did you ever sneak into your siblings rooms and do forbidden things?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Book reviews: Year of the Flood and Her Fearful Symmetry

I'm behind on a few book reviews, so, having gotten today's gratitude post written, I'll talk about a couple of the books I couldn't stop squealing over a few weeks ago.

First, I want to talk about Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. Did you know a few years ago, Amy and I met Margaret Atwood? She came to Salt Lake City, and we listened to her read out of Oryx and Crake. It was so cool. I’m a fan of Margaret Atwood, but Amy absolutely loves her and breathes her books, so it was something we literally could not miss. We each got our copy of Oryx and Crake signed and we went on our way. Fun, fun.

So anyway, back to talking about the actual books. I liked Oryx and Crake, but I absolutely LOVED Year of the Flood. It takes you back to the same setting that populated O&C. Society is hurtling towards an end that promises to be ugly and completely man-made. In the midst, we meet two characters who seem unlikely to survive the storm. My favorite of the two was Brenda. Brenda was in O&C as Snowman’s high school girlfriend, and so we get to see him and Crake from her perspective (she is a far more sympathetic character than either Snowman or Crake). Part of her childhood was spent with a religious group called God’s Gardeners. They try to live as purely as they can within the decadent society that surrounds them. God’s Gardeners is populated with leaders who are all called Adams and Eves, who teach the children and teenagers living among them survival skills. Brenda likes her life with the Gardeners, but she has to leave it when her mom gets fed up with the man she is living with, and goes back to Brenda’s dad. After a few years, Brenda ends up as a trapeze artist in a sex club.

I did not expect to like Brenda. "Why would I like a prostitute?" was my original thinking. But as I got to know her, I loved her. Despite the life she has to lead, she is still the kind girl she was growing up with the Gardeners. It reminded me that no one choses such a life out of desire, but out of necessity. The social commentary that Atwood uses to describe Brenda’s life was what struck me the most. She lives in a world that is driven by science, greed, and lust. To retain a degree of purity in such a world the way Brenda did makes for awesome writing.

Some of the best parts of the book were the sermons given by the main Adam in the God’s Gardeners. Nearly every day for the Gardeners was a day of celebration of some saint. Adam One would give a discourse/sermon on the day’s saint, and at the end, they would sing a song. The songs were hilarious and clever. I shared the one about embracing our inner australopithecus a few entries ago. She cleverly places commentary and judgment on our own society in the songs, which made me love Margaret Atwood even more.

If you haven’t read it, I highly, highly recommend it. I now need to reread Oryx and Crake just so I can find Brenda again through other character’s eyes.

The other book is Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. Now, if you are expecting another experience like The Time Traveler’s Wife, you will be (I almost guarantee it) disappointed. Read this book on its own merits, not the love you may or may not have for TTW. They are vastly different.

That being said, I liked HFS a lot. It tells the story of two sets of twins. The younger set of twins inherits an apartment in London from their aunt (their mother’s twin). In London, they meet the other inhabitants of their apartment, including their dead aunt (I don’t think saying that will spoil a lot. But if it does, I’m sorry!). The interaction between the twins and the aunt (whose name is Elspeth) is interesting, to say the least. Trailing through the story is Highgate Cemetery, an actual cemetery in London that the girl’s apartment is attached to. Throw in an OCD upstairs neighbor, a grieving downstairs neighbor (who was the dead aunt’s lover) and you have quite the cast of characters.

I think this is the thing with Niffenegger’s books: you have to suspend a part of reality (time travel in TTW, ghosts who play with kittens in HFS) to enjoy the book. If you can do that, you can enjoy her novels. When I try too hard to figure out how Henry didn’t know he would end up in the cage during that one scene in TTW, it makes my brain hurt. When I think of the idea that a person could wake up after having recently died, and become aware of herself and her apartment and the knowledge that she is stuck, stuck, stuck in that reality, I get uncomfortable. But, suspending that part of myself, I can appreciate the way Niffenegger sets up the worlds in her books. There are laws, and time and space apply in her worlds. Elspeth cannot leave the bounds of her apartment. She can blow up light bulbs with energy, but she can’t open a book. It works.

I think the strongest character in the book was the OCD neighbor, Martin. The bounds of his life which he has meticulously created are so poignant. He wants so badly to leave his life and join his estranged wife, whom he loves, but he simply can’t. The love that is shown between him and his wife has echoes of Henry and Clare. I was extremely happy for Martin in the end.

I will say this: HFS is a lot cleaner than TTW. I didn’t, don’t, and will never mind the blatant sexuality that is TTW, but it is problematic when recommending it to others. But HFS also lacks some critical element that TTW had. The characters are compelling, but I didn’t want to crawl into their lives the way I did with Henry and Clare. I also realize they are different novels, different stories, and set out to fulfill different intentions. So I’m okay with HFS not being another version of TTW. I kind of have the opinion that many authors have one book that they are destined to write. For Barbara Kingsolver, it was Poisonwood Bible. For Anita Diamont, it was The Red Tent. For Larry McMurtry, it was Lonesome Dove (in my opinion; I hated Terms of Endearment). They told THAT story, the one that kept them up at night for years for the want of telling it. I think that Time Traveler’s Wife was that book for Niffenegger. She definitely hasn’t lost her ability for achingly beautiful prose, or the talent to write about relationships that tear at your heart.

Gratitude, part 5

It's a little like camping.

You know how it is. You go to the mountains/beach/desert, and set up your tent. The canvas, poles, and stakes combine to make a little home-away-from-home. You move your stuff in, and then look around at the other campers. Maybe your best friend's tent is a few trees away, so you visit their tent. A kind of canvas neighborhood is established, and good feelings abound.

This is how I feel about my neighborhood. It took a few years for us to have good neighbor-neighbors (like the ones that live right next door, or across the street) but it happened. My house is in the midst of other houses with people who I appreciate and love so much.

Neighbors are who you call when your kid is sick and you have a meeting at work that you can't get out of. They check him out of school for you (because neighbors are always on the "safe" list of other people who can check out your children), bring him home, and get him set up to wait until you can arrive. They feed your cats for you when you go on vacation. They are always there in a pinch when you need a can of beans to finish dinner, or a random spice for a new recipe. They are who you see when you go to Kohls at 9pm to do some Christmas shopping; they find the bliss of quiet, kid-free browsing as therapeutic as you do. And when you see them 15 minutes later talking to another more distant neighbor, you aren't surprised. They become friends who are indispensible. Their kids are your kids, and vice-versa.

I love my neighbors, and neighborhood. Sure there are things I could complain about (like entire packages of raw hot dogs thrown over my fence in 100+ degree weather, only to be found a week later while mowing; blech!), but the good things about the people I live near outweigh the bad. It is satisfying to walk across the street in my pajamas to have a good chat. I can't count how many barbecues, game nights, visits to the park, and plates of cookies I've enjoyed in the 10 years we have lived here. I just know how happy I am for the families who live near me, and grateful that I get to associate with them on a day-to-day, year-after-year basis.

So, as I sit in my kitchen and look outside my "tent" window at all the other "tents" lining my street, I'm glad we are all wound up in the same windy, hilly, out-of-the-way campground. The camping is pretty good around here.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Gratitude, part 4.

(Can I first say that the new editor on blogspot has an undo button, but no spell check? What the???)

I'm kind of a nerd (news, I know!). When I was 14, my mom and sister would drive up to Salt Lake City to get their hair cut, and my mom would drop me off at the genealogy library. I would spend a few hours, printing family group sheets and pedigree charts and whatnot. It was seriously something I loved doing and looked forward to. (Yeah, my gymnastics years took me a back a few social levels, obviously.)

Anyway, I totally had the genealogy bug. You could ask me anything about anyone within a few generations and I could tell you about them. I compiled all my stuff into a binder and added to it whenever I could. It kept me entertained for a while until I had actual friends. Ahem.

So, I don't spend a lot of time doing genealogy these days. But, due to a lesson last week at church, I found myself googling some names of those long-remembered but neglected names I learned in my teens. Google is the coolest (my husband can spend hours singing its praises. I'm learning, honey, I'm learning.) Did you know you can google an ancestor's name and all sorts of information about them will come up? Ok, sure, some of isn't relevant, but a lot of it is. I found out a lot of cool stuff about some people who previously had just been names on a pretty pedigree chart.

One of the cool stories was about a grandfather on my mom's side. I had been interested in his wife ever since I learned her name (Elizabeth), but I didn't know much about his family except that they settled Santaquin, Utah. I found out that his family (mother, father, and six or so brothers and sisters) came from England on a ship called the Horizon. They arrived in America only to hook up with the Martin Handcart Company. Now, any mormon knows that real, authentic, dyed-in-the-wool mormons are related to people in the handcart companies. I've always sort of tolerated stories about these companies (is this terrible of me to admit!!!???) because, while the stories are sad and faith-building and all of the rest of it, they weren't personal. I wasn't the one in sacrament meeting talking about great Aunt Sally and her sister, pushing the handcart. But suddenly, with the help of a little googling, I discovered I should sit up and pay a little more attention to such stories. They suddenly are personal to me. Me, a heathen by all accounts, has ancestors in the mother lode of pioneer lore. Who knew?

Actually, it's pretty amazing. My grandfather's brother wrote a daily journal from the time they left England to when they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, six months later. I haven't finished reading the whole account, but what I've read has left me a little in awe of this branch of the family. They left their ancestral home to journey to a place far, far away, suffering horrible tribulations along the way, all because of their faith. I found out another grandfather received his endowment in the Nauvoo Temple in January of 1846, a few months or weeks before he would uproot his family and jaunt across the plains with his family.

The whole experience has got me thinking of all the people who have lived before me. They weren't any better or worse than me (okay, they probably were a lot better, but you know what I mean.) They lived, married, had a few children who lived and those children repeated the cycle down the ages until I showed up. And here I am, following suit. I like to think of the symmetry of our lives; we are the singular grain of sand, suspended in the center point of the hourglass. Above us is our past, our ancestors who made their choices, making our lives possible. Pouring down away from us are our own children, and their children, and so on, who will exist because of us. Even though we are all moving in different directions, we all are held together by the hourglass itself, until we all end up together at the bottom, a sea of individuals with collective bonds.

So today, I'm pretty grateful for ancestors, and their stories that make them real.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Gratitude, Part 3

Today, I'm grateful for bonds.

I've always thought people are connected by invisible strands. Like those times when you know you need to call your sister, despite the fact that you just talked to her the day before and everything was fine. Like the way you just know that your boss, who usually arrives after you, is already at work, and you are late. When you feel the mischievousness of your husband, who is stalking you with a cup of cold water to dump onto you while you shower. Call it bonds, call it the Holy Ghost, call it ESP: they are there.

Yesterday I visited my dad. I don't go see him as often as I should. After a few weeks, it starts to wear on me. I'll end up thinking about him at night, when I'm in my cozy bed, and I wish he was in his own cozy bed at home, the home where he lived for over 30 years. My visits are usually short; it's hard to keep up a one-sided conversation for too long. But I try to visit.

It's always a little nerve-wracking when I arrive. If Dad is in his room, there is no telling what sort of state he will be in. So I always hope he's in the TV room, and that is where I found him yesterday. It's amazing to me to watch him see me. I wonder if he will recognize me: he always does. Even though his face doesn't light up, there is an expectation there in his face that I am there for him. We left the crowded TV room for a quiet, empty patient room. I sat next to him on the couch and showed him videos from our San Diego trip. I don't know if he knew who we were, but he seemed to enjoy the images of his grandsons playing in the sand and dodging waves at the beach.

I don't know how it happened, but I found myself next to Dad, telling him how much he still means to me. He started to cry. It wasn't a cry like you would expect, more of a sob that escaped the bonds that keep him from talking. It made me cry, and before I knew it, I was telling him all the things I could fit in, because I knew that for once, he was listening. He was there in the most powerful way he has been in over a year. He couldn't talk back to me, but I think he felt relief (hope, grief?) that someone knew he was in there, aware. We both sat there with tears running down our faces, wishing the moment could stretch on forever. I didn't want to keep making him sad, but some of the things I said I had wanted to say for a long time, and I did not regret them.

At one point, he was looking at me, and I could see him in his brown eyes. The person I knew before was there. He was right there, and I almost thought he was going to break through the sticky layers of proteins that keep him from us. It was so close, but in the end, he was too enmeshed to break out. The moment passed, and he went back to closing his eyes and clasping his hands. But the bond was there. I felt his love, even if he couldn't express it in words.

I doubt I could ever duplicate the visit. I was powerfully reminded of the Holy Ghost, and I felt that even in his condition, the Spirit hasn't forgotten my dad. Just as a blanket brings warmth, the Spirit continues to comfort him. I know that was what allowed my dad to be there for me yesterday, that the feeling of love I felt was helped along by the Spirit. How grateful I am for that, for the bonds that made that moment and expression possible. It is one of the tender mercies I will be able to take with me, one last expression of love from my dad. I will always be grateful for that visit.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Gratitude, part 2

When I first read the book Possession by AS Byatt, I didn't finish it. I read part of it, enjoying it all the while, but for some reason it got put by the wayside and I didn't finish it. It wasn't until I was talking with Amy a few years later when she mentioned it. I vaguely recalled it, and I went back to the library soon after and restarted it, promptly finished it, and loved every overly detailed moment.

I've looked forward to so many books that came out this fall, one of them being AS Byatt's new novel, The Children's Book. After reading (and loving) Catching Fire, Year of the Flood, and Her Fearful Symmetry, I eagerly went on to The Children's Book. It had me for a few pages, and then I started feeling a strange sense of deja vu. Unfortunately, I wasn't being reminded of Possession, but another AS Byatt I'd read called The Virgin in the Garden. I hated Virgin. I read all of it's 400+ pages because I wanted to be smart enough to read an AS Byatt novel that wasn't Possession. But big deal. I didn't feel smarter after I read it, just relieved that it was over.

Last week read a few reviews of The Children's Book. I found out that she has said that she wrote Possession in an attempt to "show off," (the exact quote from Barnes & Noble is this: "I knew people would like it," Byatt told The New York Times. "It's the only one I've written to be liked, and I did it partly to show off.").

How does that make me feel as a reader? Pretty crappy, actually. It makes me resent her for throwing off amazing, Booker-prize winning books like they don't matter, just to show that she can. Am I jealous? Of course. But is that the kind of author I want to read? Not so much. I'm not saying she has to write a book that will appeal to every style of reader; every author fills a niche somewhere for someone. That's why we have Dan Brown books and Danielle Steel books and Steven King books, right?

So somewhere, there is a niche for overly-erudite books like Virgin and Children's Book, and people to fill it. But I don't fit into that niche. Does that make me dumb? Maybe. Probably. But I figure there are enough writers out there who would give their blood, sweat, and tears to write a book like Possession, without resenting the fact that they wrote a book that people liked. Perish the thought.

So, tonight I'm grateful for two things: for the authors I love, who write me a story that I can wrap myself in. That teach me a lesson from their words, that build me a world that I crawl into during my breaks and lunches, that use language to build a reality that enriches my world.

And, I'm grateful I don't have to finish a book just because I started it. The library return slot doesn't know the difference.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

November is here! Time for some gratitude...

I can't believe it is November. I love November for a few reasons...but one of them is that I do November Gratitudes all month. So, I'm going to try and put something I am grateful into each and every post.

Although, I can't promise I won't have some grumbling, too.

But anyway, to start out this glorious, burnt-orange gratitude month out, I have to start with a story (did you expect anything different from me?).

In March of 2001, I had my 20 week ultrasound to get my first look at Thomas. I had known for many years that my first child would be a son, so I wasn't surprised at all when they said he was a boy. They seemed to do all the normal ultrasound-y stuff; nothing really set off any alarms. But when the ultrasound techs asked me and Shane to come back in to the ultrasound room with the radiologist, I knew something was wrong. They started looking at Thomas' feet again, and the first question I asked was: Does he have a clubfoot? I think the doctor was a little shocked that I asked, but he answered "yes" right away. It was the first inkling I had of what would soon be our reality with Thomas' foot. It wasn't completely foreign to me, since I had a clubfoot when I was born as well. I knew Thomas would walk, I knew he would play and run and do all the things that boys do. I just didn't know how we would get to that point.

After the initial shock, I began looking up methods for treating clubfoot on the Internet. I found out about a doctor named Ignacio Ponseti. Then 86 (86!), Ponseti was a doctor who had perfected a gentle, non-invasive method for treating clubfoot. His method included positioning the foot within days of birth, casting the foot to hold the position, then repeating the process each week for 6 - 8 weeks. At the end of the casting, the Achilles tendon would be clipped during a clinic visit (the foot was numbed, no anesthesia necessary) which would bring the foot up into a 90 degree angle. A cast would hold the position for 3 weeks. After that, the child would wear special shoes attached to a bar that would keep the corrected foot turned out for the duration of a few months.

Finding information about this technique was an answer to my furtive, soon-to-be-a-mother prayers. I found a wonderful doctor at the Salt Lake Shriners Hospital (seriously, wonderful; he's like family! Love, love him!) who had learned from Ponseti how to treat children like my sweet Thomas. Although our treatment varied a little from what was expected (Thomas had something like 22 casts, and had 2 surgeries instead of the tendon clipping; of course we would be in the 5% who have more than the 6- 8 casts!), his foot was treated with what I think of as the most humane way of treating this common birth defect.


5-day old Thomas, getting his first cast.


Not-so-high tech: plain old plaster cast, some manipulation, a few extra hands thrown in to help.

A few years ago, I wrote a few articles for a local newspaper. I did one article about the doctors at Shriners who were using the Ponseti method. During my research, I called the clinic in Iowa where Ponseti practiced. I asked a few questions of his nurse before she asked me, "Would you like to talk to Dr. Ponseti? He's right here." Before I knew it, I was talking to him. I felt so humbled, listening to his gentle voice, his accent coloring our conversation, as we talked about our experience with his method. He asked about my son, about his treatment, about how happy I was with our doctor here in Utah. It was the closest I've ever came to talking to a celebrity.

I learned a few weeks ago that Ponseti had passed away. It made me incredibly sad that such a giant had passed from our midst. He was 95 years old. I know that I will be eternally grateful to him for his determination to make his technique succeed. That he was willing to against the grain of his contemporaries, who treated clubfoot surgically. That he reached out to other doctors to teach them his method. That he was willing to talk to a silly first time mother in Utah and show concern for her son who had been helped by something he created. Grateful that his legacy has helped my son to be able to play soccer and learn karate and run around the block. Our life will never be the same because this man lived. And that he will keep helping children, even my own great-nephew who we found out a few weeks ago will have clubfeet, through the doctors he has trained while here on earth.

If you would like to read more about Dr. Ponseti, here is an awesome article in the NY Times. There is also a website, http://www.ponseti.info/v1/.

Thank you, Ignacio Ponseti, and God bless you. I know that your reception on the other side was glorious, thanks to all those who you have helped around the world.