Third Quarter Covid 19

It's the 9th month of Covid 19. Seems like it's time to make a few lists!

World Events

1. JOE BIDEN defeated Trump. A few times, actually. There have been a few recounts in a few states that just keep yielding more votes for Biden. Can't wait for Trump to leave in 50 days. 
2. I wore every bracelet I own for good energy for Biden on election day. We spent election night at soccer practice, watching the returns for Trump looking like he would do it again. We left soccer and drove home in silence, the weight of the idea of 4 more years under the inanity nearly overwhelming me. We got home and the TV returns were more promising. I watched the states all turn towards Biden as the week went on - Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. The red mirage faded! Then Saturday morning that the Pennsylvania lead got statistically unbeatable - they called it for Biden as we watched MSNBC. It was a wonderful, joyous moment! 
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. The US elected a woman for Vice President.
4. We also continue to have no strategy for the Covid pandemic, no assistance from the government to feed or help house those who have lost their income because of Covid, nor a plan to keep us all safe until the vaccines come later this month.
5. There are 2 vaccines that will arrive this month.

Halloween and Thanksgiving recap

1. Other than decorating for Halloween, there wasn't any celebration of it this year.
2. We spent the late afternoon/early evening at soccer practice (we were preparing to go to Las Vegas for a tournament that eventually got cancelled). We didn't have any trick or treaters, which was sad. We spent the evening watching TV.
3. The day after Halloween we put up our trees. They got decorated a week later. The decor was a bit schizophrenic until after Thanksgiving when all the decorations changed from Halloween/Harvest/Christmas to all Christmas.
4. I've decorated 4 trees. I keep buying mini ones at Target, along with ornaments that make me feel joyous. There's a tiny one I put upstairs with mom's fairy decorations and some cute stuffed animal ones I got at Target.
   
   
   
5. Thanksgiving was quiet. Vonnay visited for a few minutes on Wednesday. I made rolls and 3 pies (lemon meringue, pecan, and pumpkin) on Thanksgiving Eve
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. I messaged with a few friends in the morning. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and then our wonderful next door neighbors brought over a little pumpkin cake and a center piece. Their generosity pulled me out of my gloom and I had a great day!
7. Shane and I ran a 5k around the neighborhood/Lodestone Park
8. We ate around 4:30. Thomas claimed the rolls were like candy. We all tried the yams. I tried the fruit salad. Boys refused to eat the beans. I enjoyed Vonnay's cranberry relish.
9. We ate pie around 8, still so stuffed we could hardly stand it
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11. Reminisced a bit about last year, when we ate together at the buffet in Las Vegas. That was a treasured memory, funny as that sounds. I was glad to not do the drive, but I wanted to travel again this year, especially with how weird everything is with my family

Therapy updates (these are mostly vague intentionally)

1. Had some eye opening appointments, one about bullies in my life. 
2. I'm trying to find the grey spaces in my life. Some of the characters in the black are ones that I want to move to the grey space, where I can take what they do less personally and just wish them well
3. I did the thing I never thought I would. It was as ugly as I worried it would be. Still figuring out what to do in the aftermath, but it's a relief in almost all the ways, but weighs on me/fucks with my head a lot still.
4. Had the appointment about the salt, and the cliff that can't hurt me with its shadow. Salt has savor and in small doses makes life sweeter
5. I'm trying to remember to walk in line with my people in the rich dark vibrant tropical landscape with the volcano in the distance

Books I've been reading/listening to

1. Magic Lessons - Alice Hoffman - Loved it so much
2. 19th Wife - was ok. It was fun to read with Cindy and Rebecca
3. Harry Potter #1
4. Disloyal
5. Melania and Me
6. Caste
7. Cassandra Speaks

Things we've done in pandemic quarter 3

1. 2 Trips to Desolation trail to snow hike with all of us and the dog. I love these little hikes, even though there hasn't been much snow.
   
2. Dinner with Eugenia and Fred
3. Soccer practices at Real Academy
4. State cup tournament in North Salt Lake - Ben had some great goals
5. Library opened for in-person visits
6. Fabric store visits were mostly for Halloween fabric. I finished the mini quilts for Janna, Cindy, Rebecca, and Camie. I got most of the Halloween panel quilt put together. A few masks. Want to make some tree skirts for the mini trees. 
7. Thomas grew a beard for No Shave November, and finished his Math 1050 class!
   
   
   
8. Ben started making chicken during his almost-all-of-November online school experience.
9. I got my laptop and 2nd screen for WFH. So much more efficient! 
   
10. Spent a day in the office - so strange to be there. I left my little acorn tops from 2019 for the end of the pandemic/return to work.
    
11. Got to order Skirt Sports stuff again! 
12. Bucket got her cyst cut off. She looks so much better!

Places we've been eating

1. Zao (one will open soon in Jordan Landing)
2. Noodles and Company
   
3. Rumbi (on Thursday nights with Ben driving)
4. JCWs in Herriman - I'm a sucker for their turkey avocado
5. Costa Vida - the delicious chili verde returned in October/November
6. Buffalo Wild Wings a few times
7. Jersey Mikes

Workout stuff

1. Need to do more Yoga
2. Speed/intervals on Sundays on the big treadmills are my favorite, followed by a cooldown 10 minute run and some strength by the mirrors
   
3. 
   Ran a few times on Grizzly Way in the leaves.
4. Remembered how much I love watching Willow get a bite of snow when it's snowy and we are running together
5. Am really enjoying the Peloton app. it's been my companion since almost day 1 of the pandemic

Re-entry: What I bring verses what I take away

“Hello! Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me…is there anyone at home?” Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged. I don’t feel bad about that, other than I wish I’d been able to document the past year better. Although I write a little every day on a calendar journal I have, I don’t always capture the whole picture, be it little things that are too many words to write longhand, or the normal things (for right now) that I think will always be the same so why mention, or big things that just are too much to capture at night when I’m tired and I just want a few minutes more to spend in a book.

In July, we went to Hawaii. I’ve been wanting to do a big trip this summer to commemorate our family before it “changes” and we landed there. I don’t know what else to say about that, other than it was wonderful, horrible, frustrating, gorgeous, memorable, busy, heartbreaking, and spiritual all at once.

I had thought we would go to Europe this summer. All I wanted last year was to take my family to London. I was pissed I couldn’t do that, not actively angry, but just mad at life that it wasn’t possible. Then late in June a friend from elementary school shared pics from her Hawaiian vacation and I knew I needed to go there. Her photo shoot of her family on the beach, of zip lining on the north shore, of ringing a bell at a Buddhist temple called to me so strongly. So I brazenly copied her and yet had my very own Hawaiian vacation.

What drew me most was a place called Byodo-In Temple. It’s a replica of a 900 year Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. It’s also a place that many Buddhists have chosen for their cremains. When were there, my family got to enter the space where the cremains are held and it was one of the most impactful events I’ve ever had. It was powerful there. It was spiritual in a way I don’t want to define with words. I felt the peace there and I realized how in trying to find balance, I’m actually experiencing unbalance.

After we walked through the sanctuary, we wandered the grounds and I kept thinking the same thing – My Qi is off. I don’t even know really what Qi is, I just knew that in stopping attendance to the Mormon church over the past 10 months, I’ve lost my spiritual practice. While I have every intention of meditating (my current connection to quiet and spirit) I rarely meditate. I think – I should do that. But I also say that about reading more, sewing, making dinner every night, reaching out to family, doing yoga. You name it, I’m actively saying I should do it and then staying busy so I don’t have to.

The death of my mom hit me upside the head in a way I didn’t ever know it would. It’s not about the realities of grief but more about the absolute feeling of aloneness, of orphanness. I know I’m not alone – but the loss of both parents untethers you from more things than your childhood home and whose in-laws you eat Thanksgiving with. There’s no longer a singular person – or pair of persons – who have to love you. There are only so many mementos you can stuff your house with, only so many rings you can wear on your fingers, blankets to drape over couches and rocking chairs, Barbie dolls to stuff in bins for future grandchildren hands to play with until you realize:

Nothing has value. Except relationships.

At first I wanted all the things. I brought them home and put them in places, some temporary, some permanent. I sobbed the day I brought home my grandma’s end table and lamps. Sobbed hard in my closet on a freshly washed afagan my mom had made. Because the only damn reason that table and those lamps would be in my house is if my mom was dead, and my dad was dead, which means my grandma and grandpa are dead too. Their deadness however long doesn’t matter because the lamps are in my damn house now. They are all gone and one day someone else will get them and I’ll be dead too.

See, nothing has value. It stays, and the owner goes. My relationship to those lamps – and their owners – means more than the lamps. And that doesn’t translate, no matter how long they are in my house, no matter who gets them after me.

As I walked in the sanctuary at Byodo-In, all I could think about was managing the barrage of spiritual feelings coming at me. My family could listen intently to the docent and notice the mementos behind the glass next to the cremains. Shane and the boys saw the Bud Light can behind the glass, I only tell the story of it being there and imagine it. But what I experienced was the potently charged air, the crowdedness of the empty hall and sanctuary, the close feeling. It didn’t scare me, it brought out feeling in a rush of tears. I remember the smell of the incense and the ringing of the singing bowl, my family all being there barefoot and sweaty in front of an altar.

When my mom died, I talked at her funeral about what we bring. “How do we show up in our lives, and our loved ones lives.” I followed that feeling throughout the clearing, cleaning, and selling of my mom’s house. I went to Hawaii to connect with her in a way I didn’t know I needed to. There was something left of her visit there from 1985 that still was there for me to pick up in 2019. Maybe it was in the sand at Waimea Beach. Maybe she’d left it somewhere on Kam Highway going to the North Shore. Maybe I didn’t find it at all, but drove past it and just smelled it on the wind. Suellen Was Here.

Now post-Hawaii, my talk has changed to “What do I take away?” Do I keep being hard on myself? Do I just keep doing what I’ve always done? Hiding my feelings. Pretending things don’t hurt. Waiting for the permission to live the life I want to live. What do I take away from knowing my qi is off? Do I blame my weight gain on it and eat some more potato chips? Yes, I do, some days. Others I really do meditate and then I feel like I have a gold star for effort and I’m “back on track.” I’m in a hurry to get *there* where I’ve learned all the things and am better for it, instead of patiently (and impatiently) making stabs at it, trying to figure out what works.

On Expectations

On the July 4th while Amy, Kayci, and I were running down University Avenue in Provo, I commented on the Provo City Library. When I was young - probably kindergarten or so - I had a dream about it, when it was the abandonded BYU Academy. I remember being in the building, and there was a bridge that I crossed and went down some stairs. It's mostly just a snippet, but I rarely pass it now without thinking of the dream. In my mind, the inside looks like what I imagined through years of dream and memory and story.

I told Amy and Kayci my dream and how I've always wanted to go in, and Kayci told me that I should visit, that the library is really cool and she loved visiting there when she lived in Provo. I didn't expect to ever go in, but on Saturday, Shane and I had some time to kill in Provo and so we visited. I was really excited to see it finally.

It was nothing how I imagined. I had hoped I could look out of the western-facing windows onto University Avenue. I wanted it to feel like an old building and have eccentric quirks that usually come along with old buildings. In other words, I was hoping that it would feel just a little how it did in my dream.

I heard a quote yesterday while getting ready for my Sunday School lesson that said, "Expectations are disappointments waiting to happen." It's so true. I didn't enjoy the gorgeous tile on the stairs and third floor. I didn't explore the tiny art gallery off of the main hall. I wasn't interested in crossing into the new section on the east side of the building to see the main part of the library, nor the what I imagine is an amazing children's collection on the west. I just wanted to see something impossible.  I wasn't seeing what I wanted to see, so everything it was - and wasn't - was lost to me.

For so long after my anxiety started 2 years ago, I wanted to just be able to drive to work without being scared. I would spend all morning with a pit in my stomach, fearing what I thought was inevitable. If I could have magicked the fear out of me, I would have. Every day that I drove on the freeway I followed a pattern that became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Whenever I would have a good drive to work, I didn't trust it because I didn't know if I could do it again the next day. When I would have a bad drive, I let it ruin my whole day, because my expectations were that if I didn't have a perfect drive to work without anxiety, everything was lost.. My overarching expectation was really that I could go back to being who I was before I freaked out, and that driving was going to all of a sudden become not a problem, and I could move on and never look back.

But life doesn't let you go back. There is also no around or over or under or even across. There is only through. Once I started accepting my fear, instead of avoiding it and then punishing myself for it later, my relationship to it changed. When I finally had some space in my head and my heart, I found a way through. I stopped expecting to be afraid, I stopped fighting my fear, and instead just said hello to it when it happened. I stopped believing every stupid, irrational thought that sent my heart racing. Challenging those thoughts, not believing them, was one of the bravest things I've ever had to do.

Life doesn't really meet our expectations. But that doesn't mean it isn't great, or that we can't hope for things. Acceptance is counter intuitive. But once I got brave enough for it, it's changed so much in me.

I'm sad I visited the building. Not because I lost the imagined interior, or my dream. But I lost the hope that that place existed. And I lost the ability to see the library for the beauty that it really truly is. Maybe one day I'll go back. I'll go back so I can see the tile, and look out the northern windows. I'll go and smell the books and think about the old Provo Library that my grandma used to take me to. I'll recognize that some things will break my heart no matter what, and that's ok, especially if I remember that I still have choices, that nothing stays the same, that most things aren't permanent.