2-28-18 ROYALTY

Lest you think that my mind goes to images of castles and crowns when I hear the word "royalty" (this was the word the random word generator gave me just now), let me set you straight. My kind of royalty has a dollar sign to the left of it.

My friend Retta, who lived down the street from us, told me when we first built our house that she understood we paid for it with my music royalties.

Actually, Retta, I am really flattered that anyone might even get close to that notion.

I thought I'd just note, for my posterity, what a lucrative profession making music can be these days, especially in the singer-songwriter field. I've been doing it long enough to see the royalty checks decrease as the plays increase. Seems backwards, but that's the beauty of modern technology.

I thought for about 1.3 seconds that I would write a thumbnail explanation of how a songwriter and an artist earn royalties. Then I thought that it might be nice to actually go to bed at some point tonight, so instead I thought I'd just show you a sample of one of my recent royalty statements. 

Here's a little snip of one of my recent earnings from Spotify:

According to this statement my songs were heard 35 times on Spotify during certain hours of one day in November. This earned me, the writer and the artist, eight cents. To give you a sense of how lucrative this is, I would have to have roughly 5,000 listens on Spotify in order to earn $10. And from that ten dollars, the distributor is going to take a percentage, so... yeah.  While my last royalty check, for $36.13 may have been good for the artist ego, because it meant nearly 20,000 people heard my music, it really doesn't go very far in paying off the mortgage on our house.

Occasionally I google myself to see what I am up to. It's an interesting experiment. Until very recently, what came up as often as legitimate information, were various sites offering free downloads of Cori Connors music. It pinches, like the jerky kid on the playground who stole the pretzels out of my lunchbox. It kind of stings with a sad little disappointment, like the human race is letting us down.

If you care to know, here, in a nutshell, is how to best be supportive of an independent musical artist, using my own business as an example:

If I sell a CD in person, from the milk box on my front porch, or from my website, I make 100% from that sale, meaning I get the cash, and from that I pay taxes, marketing, production and replication. This is the best way to help an independent artist to afford to make music: buy product directly from them. Downloading directly from the website also gives the artist 100%, if they have the kind of site that manages downloads directly (mine does, but it does cost to have that ability). So if you're going to purchase a download, go to the artist's site instead of iTunes or Amazon, etc. When I sell a song on iTunes I get only a percentage of the sales price. Same with all other sites. If you take your daily dose of music from providers like Spotify or Pandora, then the artist gets less-than-pennies. But even this beats taking it for free from hack sites.The last time I reviewed the number of times songs I had written were played on youTube, the total was nearly  3,000,000. That's three million. And my earnings, as a songwriter through youTube were $0. That's zero.

Creating quality recording is not cheap, so don't expect people to just give you what they used their own sweat and hard earned cash to create. Once someone came to my door and asked if I had a friends and family rate on my CD's. For once in my life I came up with the right answer on the spot and not after they left.

"Yup, I do," I said, "The album is $15 for the general public, but my family pays me $20 because they know how much it cost me."

Nowadays I sell more downloads than CD's. In fact, someone very close to me sort of made fun of me when I replicated my last CD. To audiophiles, if you don't have a pressed vinyl then all you need is the ability to download. Feels a bit snobbish to me. I mean, where would graphic artists be, and why would liner notes or album acknowledgments matter? 

We live in crazy times, don't we? Our sense of value is out of wack. My son took us to see Bob Dylan in concert a couple months ago, for which he paid hundreds of dollars...per ticket. The reason this is such a tender gift he gave us is a matter for another post. I am a fan of Bob Dylan, the songwriter.I would have liked to hear some of the backstory from him. But Dylan spoke not one single word the whole night. Literally. He only sang... sort of. And preened on stage between songs. If I didn't already know the lyrics to most of his songs I would never have guessed what he was singing. But he's an icon, and I do not begrudge him or anyone else who can get that kind of ticket price. He was the right person for the time when he spoke the truth of American youth. I'd like to get a glimpse of his royalty statements. At least someone is able to make a living in the music business. Alas, in the famous words of Bob Dylan himself:

"It aint me, babe. No, no, no, it ain't me babe."

2-27-18 SWEET SPOT

When we built our house we added one more bedroom than we needed: A guest bedroom that could stay clean and ready for company. That room has housed a lot of people through the 2+ decades we have lived here. Sometimes people snuggle down in that antique oak bed for a night or two. It is a blessing to be able to give guests a private place to rest. More often though, our guests have stayed weeks or months at a time. Random brothers and sisters from our eternal home who needed a place to lay their heads for a while, and perhaps a regular home cooked meal. High school kids whose homes were less than hospitable sometimes, college students, foreigners who knew no one else in America, a couple homeless people I met in laundromats or when I taught the gospel of Christ in the jail, and more than a few songwriters. 

One songwriter friend who lived here for quite a while was my friend I will refer to as K. He had real talent as a singer/songwriter and guitar player, but not so much talent in the ability to manage or earn a living. There isn't much by way of a paycheck for us singer/songwriters, if that's all we are willing to work at. 

K was bright, but probably too bright for his own good. Either ADD or too much weed smoking in his youth had made it difficult for him to complete tasks and pick up a paycheck. Not only did we provide a bed and meals and other comforts, he drove our old red truck. We received parking tickets in the mail well after K had moved on, but that's beside the point.

K taught me a few meaningful and pivotal things, and I appreciate him for that. One was the physics behind harmonics on guitar. Halfway through the string, between the nut and the bridge, is the sweet spot, where the harmonics are perfect. Armed with that new found information I wrote the song Across the Wooded Hill, still one of my favorites, though it's a bit too high for me to comfortably sing nowadays. He also taught me that, like guitar strings and baseball bats and golf clubs and tennis rackets, every human also has a sweet spot, some little thing that is just perfect. "It doesn't matter how flawed, or unattractive, each person ever born has a sweet spot. "Your Kate, for instance: That platinum streak in her thick dark hair is a kiss from heaven. Her sweet spot." Carla told me once that Annie's nose was her sweet spot. "I think Annie has the perfect little nose" she told me one day when Annie was in Jr. High. To be honest, I hadn't really considered her nose before that, and when I actually looked, I thought Carla was probably right.

Most people don't realize where or what their own sweet spot is. But if you plant the thought in your head tonight, you will likely start noticing all sorts of sweet spots on other people tomorrow.

Physical sweet spots.

Personality sweet spots.

Spiritual sweet spots.

Emotional sweet spots.

It's good to be aware of them. One day, when you are thinking that you are never going to be able to survive the adolescence that sprouted from what was once your beautiful, perfect little baby, you will happen upon their sweet spot and you will have that almost imperceivable little flash of hope come floating down upon your weary head. Like the batter who just keeps striking out, and every time he swings he stares at his bat like it is not doing its job.

Then comes that one pitch where he swings and the ball finds the sweet spot, right there near the thickest part of his bat. The ball goes flying out over the head of the center fielder as he runs to the fences. All the way out to the horizon, it seems. That sweet spot can keep us going for a long time to come, once we find it.

Go on, try finding a sweet spot. 

They're all over.

2-26-18 CONVERGENCE

Bruce Burtenshaw, M.D.

He leaned over our mother's bed, his stethoscope pressed gently against her skin. He lifted his eyes to ours as we stood there around her bed, our hearts aligning with the rhythm of the oxygen machine pumping away in her bedroom. He spoke with the matter-of-fact tone that we have come to trust. "You are doing everything you should do. She's in good hands." We took his hands in ours, holding that extra portion of time that means "I love you", then Libby showed him to the front door, thanking him for coming again. Few people these days have doctors who are willing to make house calls. Bruce is an exception to many rules. Years ago he earned our confidence as a doctor. Before he was our doctor though, he was our friend and neighbor. He holds a permanent place in our hearts, not only for the loving care he gave our mother, but for the care he gave each of us. When he took our mother on as a patient, he didn't know what he was getting himself into! We are a family of loving co-dependants: All for one and one for all. He got all of us for patients, including my brothers who live counties and states away.

Bruce and Kathleen

Today I visited him in his office for the last time. Tomorrow he will retire. And in just over a month he and his wife Kathleen will leave to serve a mission for our church. He'll put his medical expertise to use in California. If you have a missionary heading to southern CA in the next year, you won't have to worry about their medical care. On the other hand, there are a bunch of us in the Hansen clan who are in a bit of a panic over losing our doc!

Bruce has been through a lot with us. For me personally, he has been there through many of my most dramatic human trials. There is a sacred bond that comes with the overseer of one's struggles. He asked today how my legs were feeling. He understands that my sorry neuro-pathetic appendages have a personality of their own. He understands what I mean when I say I wish I could just take my legs off for a couple hours. But the true believer in him also understands when I say I am grateful to have legs, even if they hurt.

I mentioned to Bruce today that this is quite a convergence of pivotal events in his life: he is retiring after decades of service, he is leaving their lovely home for 18 months to live in a small apartment in California. He and Kathleen will be together 24/7, which has got to be an adjustment, regardless of how much you love your spouse! Their youngest child is expecting his first child a week after they leave for their mission. And to top it off, Kathleen's mother passed away last week. This is only the stuff I know about. 

My husband, sisters and a friend drove down to Pleasant Grove Saturday to pay our respects and attend the funeral for Kathleen's mom. Attending funerals generally trumps all events for me. It is one of the last tokens of respect we give people in their earthly voyage. We wove our way through the old pioneer houses tucked between new housing developments, past what used to be the Fugal plantation once covered with grazing sheep, to the church where Venice Fugal's large posterity had gathered to lay her body to rest. Her nine children had all born children, who also bore children, so that by the time her body had filled the measure of its creation, the whole chapel was filled with Fugal's. Bruce and his son-in-law sang a beautiful song, and Kathleen and her sisters painted a picture of the woman we had only known through the reflection in her daughter, whom we love. We sat there in the back, behind that massive convergence of lives, and I pondered what diverse goodness had come, relatively quickly, from one good woman. I mentioned to Bruce today how sweet it was that Venice's grandson had just last week been set apart as bishop of her home ward, and was therefore conducting the funeral. Bruce agreed, telling me that hers was his nephew's first funeral as a bishop, and that hers was also the last death certificate Bruce ever signed. Divinely orchestrated convergence. This must have been some powerful woman!

The Fugal clan

Our family holds what I call appropriate reverence for Dr. Burtenshaw. His name appears on our mother's death certificate. He has been a good caregiver to all of us. And a good friend. 

The picture I hold most dear is that blessed Sabbath day when our large family had gathered around our mother's bed, our guitars and our little ones pressed close to our hearts, watching our mother's chest rise and fall in shallow spurts. We comforted each other with song. The young Priests and their leaders had come to offer the sacrament. Bruce, as Priests Quorum advisor, led the young men down the familiar path to our Mom's bedside. Two beautiful teenage boys knelt at the hope chest at the foot of her bed, blessing broken bread and water. The silence and the holiness of that space remains most sacred to us. Bruce stood outside our mother's door, his head bowed, his hands folded across his chest. There and then I thanked the Lord for the divine convergence of the Burtenshaw house,our house, and my sister's house, all situated on this little dot on His great earth at the same time. 

I am repeatedly reminded that what may appear to be coincidence is more likely divinely orchestrated convergence. Our lives criss-cross in our separate paths, so often and so beautifully that in the end we become bound together inseparably; threads in our Father's holy fabric.

2-25-18 MAKE ME LIKE JOE

Lent 2018 - Sundays, during Lent, rather than doing my own daily writing exercise, I share stories or thoughts I have collected through the years. This story about a man named Joe is a long time favorite.

Joe was a drunk who was miraculously converted at a Bowery New York City mission. Prior to his conversion, he had gained the reputation of being a dirty wino for which there was no hope, only a miserable existence in the ghetto. But following his conversion to a new life in Christ, everything changed. 

Joe became the most caring person that anyone associated with the mission had ever known. Joe spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission doing whatever needed to be done. There was never anything that he was asked to do that he considered beneath him --- whether it was cleaning up the vomit left by some violently sick alcoholic or scrubbing toilets. Joe did what was asked with a smile on his face and beaming gratitude for the chance to help. He could be counted on to feed whoever wandered off the street and into the mission. He faithfully tucked into bed men who were stoned or drunk and unable to take care of themselves.

One evening, when the director of the mission was delivering an evangelistic message the usual crowd of sullen men with drooped heads was present to hear --- there was one frequenter in the bunch who stood up in answer to the alter call. He came down the aisle and knelt to pray at the altar. He was crying out to God to help him change. The repentant drunk kept shouting, "Oh God --- Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe!"

The director of the mission leaned over and said to the man as he knelt at the altar, "Son, I think it would be better if you prayed, make me like Jesus." The man looked up at the director with a quizzical expression on his face and asked, "Is he like Joe?"

2-24-18 VOICE

Both my sister and my daughter are speech language pathologists.They are trained and experienced in evaluating impediments and teaching people how to communicate with language. They both specialize in children. Sherry worked in Elementary schools  in California for over three decades. Both Sherry and Annie will tell you that if you want your kids to learn to talk, you need to basically do one thing; talk to your children. More specifically, talk to your babies. Not in baby talk either. Just talk. Tell them stories you know they cannot understand. Whisper sweet nothings in their ears. And when they get a little older, don't dumb-down your word selection for them. Let them rise to yours, hearing words in the correct context.

Like most eternal truths, if you want something - offer the same. If you want love, then love. If you want a fight, come out fighting. If I want a kiss from four-year-old Walter, I just need to pucker up my lips and get in his face.

I suspect it is no accident that Annie's first child spoke in full sentences before he could walk. And I am always moved when I see Sherry looking straight into the eyes of our Littles, telling them very long and interesting stories, full of detailed images and exciting verbs, moving her head from side to side with the ebb and flow of the tale. Our mother used to do the same with her  Littles, my own Treasures. When I was young I used to sit on the edge of Mom's bed after school and listen to her talk on the telephone. The lilt of her voice was like a lullaby to me.

I like to think that my own voice is the compilation of all the voices I ever heard. I inhaled all of them and held them deep down in the mysterious gathering place near my heart. They reappear in certain songs, and in stories, and recipes I recite to myself. And perhaps, I like to think that this is possible, I also carry the voice of the angels who speak to me at night; the grandmother I never knew, old friends who are gone, my dear aunts, and other family members whose voices I can conjure up at this very moment. They rise from that unknown place within me, up through my brain. Though the timbre and tone may not be the same, and the word selection may be different, when I speak truth, I believe I speak them. The truest parts of us remain, I suspect, and they manifest in those whose lives we touch.We are their voice.And if we speak well, perhaps one day someone we love will speak our voice as well.

2-23-18 TELEGRAM

If you could hear her, my mother-in-law Helen would likely tell you herself that she was glad to have died before the creation of smart phones. She almost refused to use answering machines back in the day. She was one for one-on-one communication. It would have appalled her to watch the Olympics this year and see the athletes in the “podium waiting area” with their eyes fixated on their cell phones. Those palm sized machines are the great neutralizer these days. They numb all our profound and unique experiences by taking our focus from the moment.

Helen Connors (right) with Dave's sister, Jill

Helen Roy Connors was a liberated woman before being liberated was cool. But she was also a nurturing mother, a responsible citizen and a loving friend. She was a child of the Great Depression and had deep respect for our freedoms and the every-day gifts so many of us take for granted now. Her parents had made a a good living in world terms, by her father’s creativity and work ethic and her mother’s devotion and tenacity. Still, when Helen and Don married in 1950, her parents gave them two 50 pound sacks of Michigan Navy beans as a wedding gift. She had been raised with a good solid foundation of Christian values.

I’m not sure Helen would have been a fan of social media in any form. Trump would have totally done her in with his Tweets! I’m afraid it would have been much more than his Tweets that would have stirred her up.

Helen preferred to communicate by voice, or through lovely hand written cards with paintings by the great Impressionist artists printed on the front. She did tell me once, however, that she sent one telegram in her life.

It was in the early 1970’s, just after the draft lottery was published. Her two sons were of age for being drafted. On one fateful day of the year the Selective Service drew little blue capsules out of a box. Each capsule contained a birthdate, 366 in total. Young men gathered in their college dorms and friend’s houses to listen to live TV and radio broadcasts, telling them what their draft number would be. Parents sat solemnly in their living rooms, their hearts pounding, repeating their children’s’ birthdates in the back of their heads. Young men were sent to Vietnam as randomly as little balls rolled out of a bingo cage. The teenager who would one day be my husband, born on March 30, 1952, drew the number 191. His older brother, Mark, had his number drawn the year before, but chose to bypass the lottery and enlist. Helen and Don had lived through wars before. Awful ones, that altered their lives. It wasn’t that she was not patriotic. She just did not see any divine purpose for the Vietnam war, and she certainly was not a fan of the man in the White House.

I like to imagine the day Helen got into her car, drove to town, and marched into the telegraph office, determined to make herself heard. At least determined to speak, even if no one listened. I imagine her giving the information to the clerk: Her address, and the address of the recipient, and the message.

The recipient was Richard Millhouse Nixon, President of the United States.

The message was four words.

STOP THIS DAMN WAR.

You can say a whole lot more with 4 words than with a lengthy diatribe.

I need to teach myself to write as concisely as my mother-in-law.

David spent part of his freshman year at Yale
attending Dump Nixon rallies on the east coast.
The apple does not fall far from the tree.

2-22-18 HIGH FIVE

If you've seen her dance, you will know. You will instinctively know the soul of my friend Sarah Robinette. She must have been one of those spirits who was chomping at the bit to get her body, because even though she is a petite little thing,  there is a gigantic spirit in there. That presence manifests in her dance, in her irresistible smile, and in every task she undertakes. All this magnificence vibrates in her being, in spite of struggles that repeatedly attack her and try to pull her down. She is hope personified.

Sarah and her husband Mark live north of us, in Fruit Heights, UT. Both Sarah and Mark are my musical cohorts. For years I have shared the stage with Mark at most of my concerts, and for Clytie Adams Ballet School recitals. Sarah is a guitar teacher's dream! She practises, even when she's feeling the weight of other burdens, and she just plain shows up. She's been showing up  at our Girls with Guitars classes for years, and it shows. She's a dandy guitar player.

A few years back Sarah and Mark spent a sweet summer night partying with their neighbors in an annual neighborhood BBQ. They ate yummy food and shared crazy stories, played music and danced and watched a movie on a big outdoor screen. It's one of their favorite annual activities, mostly because they really love the people in their neck of the woods.

The next morning, Sunday, Sarah and Mark drove to church separately, partly because Mark can't stand being late, and Sarah is more on my kind of time clock. The Robinette's are most often found sitting near the front, on one of the side sections where the pews line up against the chapel walls.  Mark sat on the inside, next to the wall. (I suspect that the wall is a good place to rest his head, but I am just guessing). Church had already started by the time Sarah arrived. The bishop was at the pulpit. As he spoke, Sarah tried to quietly sneak in, shimmying past a pew full of her neighbors to sit next to Mark. Just as she tried to squeeze past the first person on the bench, her friend raised his hand up, palm facing Sarah. Feeling the residual camaraderie from the previous night's gathering, she gave him a high-five. The person sitting next to him did the same thing. All the way down the bench Sarah slapped the hands of her good neighbors, smiling her huge sparkling smile, feeling the love. When she finally got to Mark, who was sitting next to the wall, he had his head down, pressed between his hands, shaking it back and forth. That was the point Sarah heard the bishop say; "Any opposed?"

You would have to be familiar with the Mormon Church to understand the humor in this. Our church has a lay ministry, which means all of us volunteer our service. Our leaders in the stake and ward organizations, which are basically our local congregations, prayerfully consider people and positions that need to be filled. They "call" members to serve in various positions, referred to as "callings". When a person accepts a calling, the person's name is put before the congregation and members are asked to sustain each one by raising their right hand. What Sarah had thought was a friendly "Hey, Friend!" was actually members raising their hands to sustain someone in a new calling.

Every time I raise my hand now, which is basically every Sunday, I get a little giggle going, thinking about Sarah Robinette. 

It seems quite fitting, to think that raising our hands to sustain each other is like giving them a big high-five. We don't raise our hands to indicate we are voting for someone to do a certain job; we raise our right hands, like we do before our legal courts, to make a commitment. We promise to sustain each other; to support, and pray for, and cheer them on. We essentially whisper, spirit to spirit: "You are called to teach the twelve-year-olds? Oh man, I will pray for you! You're gonna do great! If you need a sub, I'm here! If you feel overwhelmed and just want to talk, give me a buzz! If I find a couple of your students roaming around in the hallway during class, I'll help them find their way back!" (Notice how there are so many exclamation marks here? That's the grammatical version of a high-five!)

A few years ago, when part of our ward combined with another to create a brand new ward, I got up and dressed and drove to church for 8 a.m. choir practice. I was not super happy about it, being that I tend to get better sleep in the morning hours rather than late night hours. But I was there because, well, I figure if God gave me a voice I should use it to praise him. When I got there my friend Regan Tingey was there too, and both of us looked for the choir in every room that had a piano . Turned out practice was supposed to be at 8:30. While we waited for the rest of the choir  I asked Regan, "What compels you to be here so early Sunday morning?" He responded, "Well, when Patricia was called to lead the choir, I seem to recall raising my hand to sustain her."
Not only does Regan "get it" - putting his figurative money where his mouth is - he also has a lovely tenor voice. Basically Regan didn't just sit there in a Sabbath stupor and think he was voting for Patricia Anderson to do the choir thing if she wanted. He made an active decision to raise his right hand with his full heart, holding it up there for Patricia and everyone else to see, shouting without words "You GO, Patricia! I'm with you! High-five!"
I'm with Regan: High-five to everyone willing to serve! Rock on, Christian Soldiers!

If you are curious about the lay ministry of our church, here's a little synopsis of how it works:

Mormon Lay Ministry

2-21-18 CORN SILK (My Beth)

My Beth 

She held my hand as we walked to the door, moaning that she did not want to leave, even though she had been here at Gummy and Gumpa's house most of the last two days.

"But Bethy, you're coming back tomorrow morning with your pre-school."

She let go of my hand as I bent down to talk to her. Her eyes lit with irresistible sparkles as she squealed, "Oh, I am so excited for my friends to meet you!"

Her hair is the human version of corn silk, platinum with highlights of gold, soft and straight, floating down over her little shoulders.

Today Gummy's house was the destination for the pre-school field trip. Beth's momma, my Annie, was in charge. Yesterday, however, was Annie's last day of work. It turned into a 13 hour day, with all sorts of emotions and exhaustion. I had told her that I would happily make this house into a field-trip-worthy spot. So I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning preparing songs and activities and such. Then, considerably earlier than I would have preferred, I was up and welcoming five delightful four-year-olds and their mommas for a morning of music.

After everyone had left, and we had vacuumed up all the spilled popcorn and emptied the musical water goblets, Annie put Tessa down for a nap in my bedroom and left to pick up Calvin from his own kindergarten field trip. I plunked myself down in our comfy leather recliner and sighed. Repeatedly.

As I sat in my stupor I looked over at my little silky-haired girl.

She is purity, and innocence and hope in a pale pink wrapping, her little bony knees curled up under her as she sat on my couch.

"How 'bout you come over here and let me snuggle you?" I asked, my heart pumping Gummy love faster and faster to my brain. She accommodated, climbing up into my lap and laying her golden head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her, breathing her in, praying that automatic prayer grand-women pray when they hold their treasures. Those kind of prayers do not use words. They speak the divine language of the heart alone. I sat there holding my Beth, consciously silent, allowing the communication to be true and pure and unfettered. She reached her little arms up to my neck and pulled me in closer. I cradled her slender body around my soft belly, holding her the way I hold her baby sister when I am feeding her a bottle of her mamma's milk. I patted her little bottom, the rhythmic pattern that my own mother used to use on me, and then my babies, then their babies. Beth's little girl fingers took up the beat and tenderly patted my shoulder as well. We danced this dance of love, up there off the floor, until her mom returned and Calvin bounded into the house ready to create his own musical shaker like the ones we had made with Beth's pre-school class.

Beth's Birth Day

Beth is just learning how to love me, really. She moved away to Spokane just after she was born. So far away from the regular visits to both of her sets of grandparents' houses. Each time we visited, she had to learn who we were, and how to feel as emotionally safe with us as her big brother did. Calvin had spent much time with all of us before he moved. With his steel-trap memory, he remembered every detail, good and bad, of his interactions with us since before he could talk. But Bethy; we were strangers that her family loved, and so she trusted and tried, but by the time she felt comfortable, we had to go home. Finally, late last summer, their daddy was promoted and moved to the Salt Lake branch and the Merrill kids had their own drawer in the dresser full of grandkids pj's and other emergency clothes at Gummy's house. They live seven minutes away, just on the other side of Farmington, at the base of the foothill under Flag Rock.

Calvin and Beth welcome baby Tessa

Monday, when Gumpa and I spent the day helping at Annie's house, Beth and I cleaned her room. I pulled out all of the shoes on the floor of her closet. She tried on every pair in an attempt to weed out the ones that were too small. I took those that did not pass the test and put them in a basket on the closet shelf. Day-after-tomorrow Tessa will be wearing those shoes. She will be sitting on my couch watching Octonauts or whatever the show-of-the-day might be, and I will call to her and ask her for a snuggle. By then Beth will be in second grade. I will snuggle her little sister until school is out, and then, if I am lucky, Tessa will scooch over and let Beth share my lap. And if I am very, very lucky, my wrinkled old neck will find those eight-year old arms thrown around it, her delicate mane of corn silk hair falling across my shoulder, with nothing but love spoken between us.

The Princess of Manito Park