32. THURSDAY

Thursday.

The word makes me weary.  Thursday is Gummy Day at our house.  And it’s also the day I teach guitar to anywhere between 20 and 30 students.  I’m tired every Thursday night.  I come home from guitar around 8:30 pm, usually going straight to Gram and Libby’s place.  I get a bite to eat and we settle down to watch something on TV and I inevitably doze off, regardless of how compelling a show may be.  Lately, on Thursday nights, I must rouse myself and drag my bones to the computer and think of something to write about, since I made this Lent commitment. If you look at the time stamps on these pieces of random writing, you’ll see that I usually get finished between midnight and 2 am.  I guess Thursday is not the only day I end up tired. 

I’m not as chipper as I used to be.

Calvin comes to spend the day with me around 8:30 in the morning.  Right about when he is ready for a nap it’s time to go pick up Parker from Kindergarten and Ruby from pre-school.  When we get home we make some lunch and figure out how we will spend the next 4 hours together.  It’s not usually a problem, unless I want to get anything else done.  Then I’m in trouble.  So I need to really plan my guitar lessons on Wednesdays.  I really should…but I don’t always have Wednesdays free to do that.

Anyway, last Thursday, for some reason…(maybe it was that I had tended nearly every other day that week as well) I was super tired around 2 pm.  Sleepy tired.  The kind of tired that makes you want to turn on a Disney show and give the kids some popcorn; to warm a bottle of milk for Calvin and pray he got sleepy, then tell the kids you’re going to just lie down in your room for a minute.

So that’s what I thought I’d do, before I keeled over in the family room in front of them.

I turned on a show, then went to my room, which is right next to the family room.  I fluffed a few pillows on my bed and almost got my poor numb legs settled onto a soft spot when the kids burst into the room.

Ruby was crying, hurt in the deepest part of her little girl heart by something Parker had taken from her..  It was probably something that belonged to Parker.  Ruby has big crocodile tears when she cries.  They are so sad.

I remember being a young mom.  I remember the thinking I trained my brain to undertake in times like this.  I never tried to nap as a young mom because inevitably the kids woke me, and then I was super grumpy towards them and…well, it was not pretty.

I had a choice: I could try to settle the argument and get to resting or I could force myself to get up and shake off the need for a nap.

The spirit told me to not allow myself to get into that kind of conversation with myself.  No one was going to win that argument.

So I quickly flung my left leg up into the air and then hurled it to the floor, causing my bulk of body to rise in response.

“You know what this means?”  I grumbled.

Ruby backed away from me, that look of fear in her big wet eyes.  Parker joined her.

“This means….This means…It’s time for a Big Bed Pillow Toss!”

Timothy and Anna are familiar with the Big Bed Toss.  I’ve done it to them since they were little.  They spend nights here with us fairly often, and the Big Bed Toss is a wonderful morning activity, when mommy and daddy are still asleep or gone to work, and Gumpa is off working as well.  That’s when the light from the rising sun streams through the east facing windows.  Parker and Ruby never spend the night here, since they live five minutes away.

Park, the elder of the two and a little more brave, asked what the Big Bed Pillow Toss was.

Ruby just hid behind the bed.

“Well,” I said, reaching over the down comforter to the pile of down pillows at the head of our king sized bed…”The Big Bed Pillow Toss is a very fun game. First, you have to fluff all the soft pillows and put them in a pile in the middle of the bed, like this.”

Park helped me arrange the pillows in a glorious pile.

“Then,” I said as I slipped my hands under Parker’s arms, “You pick up a little person, and as soon as they give you a kiss you TOSS them onto the pile of pillows…like THIS!”

I threw my boy up in the air and down onto the airy mound of fluff.

He giggled heartily, catching his breath as he lifted himself out of the cloud.

“THAT wath FUN!”

Ruby peeked out from behind the bed skirt. 

I lifted Park again.  He automatically kissed my puckered lips and up he went, squealing with delight, then down into the pillows he landed, laughter bubbling out of him like the jet tub filled with bubble bath.

Ruby tossed her grump across the room and wiggled her little body between me and the side of the bed. 

“My turn!”

Parker fluffed the pillows while I lifted her up.  She kissed my lips, threw her arms out, and I tossed her, a little more gently than her brother.  She jumped straight up and screamed, “AGAIN!”

We fluffed and kissed and tossed until old Gummy’s arms got so tired.  That’s when I suggested we revert to the old standard.  Actually, I didn’t so much suggest it with words as I did with a blast on Parker’s head. A puffy soft blast of a fluffy down pillow.  He grabbed one and hit me back.  Rubes found one of her own and we went at it, laughing so hard our bellies hurt. We went at it until finally, exhausted, the three of us flopped over on the bed, their little chests rising and falling from the exertion.  

This, I told myself, is what every weary old woman needs when she wants a pick-me-up.  Not coffee.  Not a Diet Coke.  Not a bowl of ice cream, though that has been proven an effective afternoon energizer.  No, a tired and semi-grumpy old Gummy just needs a good king sized bed with a nice down comforter and a good pile of pillows. 

Oh, and a couple munchkins willing to kiss her.

I realize today is only Monday...well, actually Tuesday at this point.  Don't ask me why I'm writing about Thursday.I  guess some of the things that wear us out the most will be the most memorable for us one day.

31. BEING THERE

Annie stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning out baby Calvin’s bottle.

“Are you going to Summer’s grandma’s funeral?” I asked.  Summer was a sister-friend to Annie growing up.  They were room mates in college and Annie was a bridesmaid at Summer’s wedding. 

Annie turned toward me, setting the bottle on the counter top. She slumped her shoulders, her eyes welled up, and she struggled to find the words:

“Mom, do you know how much I hate funerals?  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but they hurt so much. I get physically sick. And then it takes me a week to get over it. I just can’t stop thinking about it, and I cry all the time, and it’s just so hard for me.”

I know Annie pretty well.  I’ve known her longer than any human being has known her. I know her tender heart and her sensitivities.  She is as kind and loving as any person I have ever met, and she has a sixth sense that makes her pause and ask me if I’m OK when other people think I’m just fine.  Sometime’s peoples’ actions appear to be insensitive, when in reality they are the result of ultra-sensitivity. She feels sorrow as deeply as she feels joy.

“I know, Nanners,” I said, shifting over to the counter to give her a hug. “I know it’s so much harder for you than the average person.  So much harder than for me.  But I also know that there are times when we just plain need to be there.”

The spirit assigned to directing mothers whispered that this was enough, and I did not belabor it. I am no longer the boss of her.  She gets to make her own decisions.

I’ve lived a long time now.  And in that long time I have discovered that I am a believer  in being there.  Not that I always am, and not that I always can be.  But in general, there are some times and circumstances that have divine light around them and we miss so much when we don’t attend.  We miss the chance to receive, and we miss the chance to give.

Being there for a birthday lunch…that’s nice, and thoughtfully kind. That kind of being there is important, mostly because it sends a message, a little reminder that we are important to each other.

But there are other times when being there is a washing of feet; a 40 day fast; a pair of hands over the head of a lifeless child.  We minister with our presence.  In those moments when the rest of the world is stripped away, when the only thing holding us together is the grace of God; the mere presence of those we love is a type of consecrated oil on a wounded head. Whether it is the physical exchange of energy, or if it is angels speaking to angels, or if it’s only an easing of the mind to know we are not alone, I don’t know.  But there is definitely something about someone simply being with us in our deepest grief and our greatest joy that makes it more bearable and more complete.

I’ll not forget being up in Midway, Utah, a distant city and large canyon drive away from our home in Farmington.  We were weary with sorrow at the passing of our young nephew, Clayton, after a tragic motorcycle accident. I’ll not forget seeing our Farmington neighbors, Doug Asay, Connie and Dave Bailey, Cindy Gardner and Sue Denham walk in.  While they did not personally know Clayton or his parents, they knew we loved him, and they knew the depth of grief in his passing.  Even now it makes me weep.  My heart feels seared to theirs because of their presence.  It is no comment on others who could not be there, I’ve been in situations when I could not be there for people I love, and I pass no judgment.  I just know what it is like to feel like you’ve been ministered to, simply by someone showing up.

Yesterday morning I picked Dave up at the airport after a rather unusual trip he had taken. 

A couple months ago Dave received a letter from Yale University Track and Field Association, inviting him to attend their annual senior awards banquet at the Yale Club in NYC.  Dave participated in football and track at Yale, even lettering in track, but he hasn’t really done that much with the association since graduation, especially since we live thousands of miles away from New Haven, CT.  But this event was particularly enticing because Dave’s old friend and fellow Yalie, Peter Diamond, was being honored. 

I had first met Peter the night before Dave and I were married.  We had travelled to Washington DC to be married in the Mormon Temple there.  The night before we were wed, Dave’s parents provided a delightful evening at the Blair Mansion, where nearly 100 people shared a fabulous meal and warm conversation.  At some point in the evening a group of young men rose and came to the front, taking me by the arms and whisking me to a small room apart from the party. They blindfolded me and put me in the center of the darkened room, where David was also situated, then they gathered in a circle around us.  They began to hum, rather eerily I might add, then broke into song. The title and lyric to the song I cannot disclose.  It is old...very old...and particular to their fellowship in an old traditional society of brothers well known at Yale, which name I am also forbidden to disclose. Dave had been tapped with 14 other Juniors when he was at Yale, and his senior year there was spent with a diverse and talented group of “brothers” who shared much that is confidential to them.  These brothers, after singing to me, one by one rubbed their knuckles over the top of my head, much like my obnoxious brother did when he was teasing me, so that my pre-wedding night hair was all ratted by the time they were done.  I was actually somewhat frightened by all of it, until they removed my blindfold and I saw the genuine smiles and true kindness on their faces as they welcomed me to their circle. One by one they kissed me on the cheek and congratulated David.  Dave was the first of that group to be married.  They gave us a beautiful clock, an heirloom, which to this day chimes in David’s study in our home. 

Peter Diamond was in that circle.  We don’t see him, or any of the others from that group very often.  After college they all scattered to various positions or graduate studies, or Peace Corps service in far flung places.  David left for Italy the week after he graduated, serving for two years there as a missionary.  Peter took a position with ABC Sports as a researcher for the Innsbruck Olympics. Peter has been with ABC and now NBC as a producer for every Olympic game since then.  He has received 13 Emmy awards and is now the Senior Vice President of Programs at NBC Olympics.  He is responsible for programming NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games, and has overseen more Olympic programs than any broadcast network executive in television history. The Yale Track association is wise to have chosen to honor him.

“I think I’d really like to try to go to this,” Dave said, after reading the letter of invitation.  The problem was that he had a trial scheduled for Thursday, the banquet was on a Friday, and Saturday our granddaughter Sophie was being baptized. 

“Do you think I’m crazy to want to go?”  He waited for my response. 

Well, sort of…is what I thought. I mean, how was he going to do this?  We live 3000 miles away.  There just weren’t enough hours between all the things he wanted to attend, and too many miles as well.

But what I said was: “You do what your heart tells you to do.”

So he bought a ticket.

Thursday he had to be there for his trial.  He is, after all, the judge. So the ticket he purchased had him leaving Salt Lake City at 12:50 am Friday morning.  I dropped him off at the airport at midnight, wishing I had insisted on him taking a pillow in his bag.  He arrived in NYC Friday morning, got himself a bowl of Chinese Sesame Noodles at one of his old favorite restaurants in the city, walked around for a while, then showed up at the Yale Club, where he spent a portion of the afternoon nestled among shelves of wonderful old books in the library.  He had contacted some of their “brothers” who were in or near New York, and they joined together that evening in the dining hall of that brilliant old building, where tradition and honor and history hover around the beveled glass and thick soft leather and finely polished wood. Peter was genuinely astonished at their presence.  Stunned, actually, that David would travel from Utah.  I imagine it was a heart swelling kind of night for Dave, being there in that familiar place, with those familiar spirits from days gone by.

Dave sat next to Brian, another of the brothers, who had suffered a profound personal loss eight years ago.  His wife, a warm and well respected business woman and the mother of their two young sons, had died in a tragic fire in a Virginia Inn, where she was staying for a recruiting trip for her law firm. I cannot imagine the sorrow.  Truly.  David had travelled back east for the memorial service.

Dave hadn’t seen Brian since that time.  They were able to share meaningful conversation Friday night; clapping appropriately for Peter, and cheering for the track seniors.  As the evening drew to a close, Brian leaned over to Dave and looked him in the eye.  Quoting some unknown philosopher, he said these words:

 “There are friends.  And there are friends who show up.”

I know Dave well enough to imagine the man tears welling in his eyes.  I imagine them in Brian's eyes as well.

Peter invited Dave to stay in his place in Manhattan before his return flight, but Dave would have had to leave for the airport at 4 am, so he thanked him and said it was no problem to just wait a while at the airport. 

“Thanks for being here, Dave.  I really cannot believe you came all this way. I’ll never forget it.”

Dave spent the night trying to find a comfortable position in the stiff metal seats at JFK airport. His flight left New York early Saturday morning.  I picked him up just in time for him to shower and change into his suit for Sophie’s baptism early Saturday afternoon.  He had not laid down since Wednesday night.

Sometimes the thing that matters most is that you just show up.

Three weeks ago I loaded my guitar into my car, heading out to sing at Summer’s grandma’s funeral.  When the garage door opened there stood Annie, her little Calvin dressed in his Sunday best.  We drove together, quietly, up the road…the long path of love…that led to the place where we could minister. 

No words necessary. 

We just needed to show up.

  

True friendship isn't about being there when it's convenient;

it's about being there when it's not.

Anon.

30. BEGINNINGS

What a beautiful day this was; a Saturday in early spring, when the crocuses and daffodils have peeked out from under their winter veils and the sunshine sits comfortably on the skin, cooled to the perfect temperature by air as fresh as a newborn baby.  This day was about beginnings. 

We stood at the side of a deep pool of water and bowed our heads as our firstborn dipped his firstborn into the waters of baptism.  Sophie was radiant in her pretty white dress, her eyes all asparkle with the wonder of this first step into a grown up world.  She was full of reverence and delight, a rare balance that is so refreshing to us old stuffy people. Tomorrow her dad will stand at the pulpit, where he is a member of the bishopric, and introduce her and her good friend Alivia as the newest members of their ward. I sense that she knows that, while she is the same girl she was last Sunday, she is also somehow changed.  Tears flowed freely on this day; this kind of day when time converges into one whole and the past meets the future and we see all of it clearly through the lens of love.

I drove over to Sophie’s house last night, calling her on the way.

“Hi Soph.  You still up?”

“Yup”, she responded, “The little kids are in bed but I get to stay up and help get ready for my baptism party tomorrow.”

I smiled at the conversation, thinking how charming it was to hear an eight year old talk about the little kids as if they were another category of person.

I took her two little gifts: a new camera to record the people who love her on this special day, and a pair of earrings. 

“These are special earrings, Sophie.  They belonged to your Great Grandma Connors.  Since you never got to meet her, I thought you should have these for your baptism tomorrow.  She would have loved you, and you would have loved her.”

The earrings were small gold clusters with a tiny pearl in the middle, perfect with her pretty white dress.  I had worn them to John and Ashley’s wedding years before, willing Helen to be there with us on that day as well. I thought of those earrings getting a new start on this day of Sophie’s new life. Sophie reminded me that my membership in our church is a great blessing.   

After the baptism and gathering at John and Ashley’s house, my sisters and I drove over to our neighbor Victoria’s for another celebration.  Two days ago Victoria stood with a couple hundred fellow immigrants and raised her arm to the square, taking an oath of citizenship as an American.  She was so excited, she threw a party.  We sat there in a little circle of folding chairs in her family room and reviewed her test for American citizenship. We all decided if we had not been born American citizens we sure wouldn’t be able to call ourselves Americans, because, except for Libby, we all failed the test. Victoria reminded us that what feels old and common to us is fabulously new to her and cause for celebration.

Then tonight we drove down to Salt Lake City for a 50^th wedding anniversary celebration for Steve and Pat Beus.  Steve was bishop of Pittsburgh Second Ward when we were growing up, and when Dave and I returned from living in New York, he was our Stake President.  He and Pat were pivotal in our lives.  Perhaps another day I will dig into the deep crevices of my heart and tell more about that.  But on this night we who love them came together to celebrate their union, begun half a century ago.  They are preparing to leave soon for a new beginning.  They will serve as missionaries in Japan for a year and a half.  Steve and Pat reminded me that life is a series of new beginnings.

Tomorrow I will rise as usual. I will cleanse my skin and dress myself in reverent clothing.  I will join my husband and sisters and friends and neighbors. We will sing praise, and bow our heads, and then, in the quiet of the chapel, we will each raise our hands, one by one, by our own choice, and allow ourselves to be born again through the holy sacrament of our Lord. 

Renewed, by His grace, and blessedly refreshed.

29. GARBAGE CAKE

When an adolescent child is free of abuse and addiction they can be wonderful to behold.  Aside from their typical hormonally driven emotional dips and spurts , they are full of newness.  John at 13, discovered Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.  He found Wordsworth and Kerouac.  He developed calluses on his fingertips from playing guitar.  And he decided he wanted to learn to cook.  He became rather masterful at it, actually.  He made crepes regularly, and perfected saute’ing mushrooms and caramelizing onions.  He pulled out my cookbook and tried his hand at whatever his taste buds led him to.  We did not suffer through his experiments, because he understood the value of a recipe. 

One evening Dave and I went out on a date and John was left in charge of the kids.  As we were leaving, John and his buddy Jason were mixing a chocolate cake.  You’ll not find cake mixes in our pantry, nor commercially prepared dinners in our freezer.  You will find, however, good quality cocoa and flour, natural sugar and vanilla.   John was using my best chocolate cake recipe, the one that calls for real butter and 4 eggs and buttermilk and 24% cocoa from France, which I had purchased in a fifty pound bag. I figured cocoa is the perfect food storage item. I divided the bag and sealed it 5 pounds at a time in metal cans at the church cannery. Everyone else has wheat in their food storage, but in a crisis they will want chocolate! I presume the average American will be more than willing to trade a good portion of flour and sugar for a few cups of cocoa.  Purchasing 50 lbs. of good European cocoa was an investment, I decided, and I have never regretted the purchase.  I am currently on my second 50 pound bag.

John lifted the beaters from the mixing bowl. I dipped my finger in the creamy batter and licked it, telling myself that this was going to be the perfect ending to our date.

Later that evening Dave and I hurried home to top things off with a piece of that made from scratch chocolate cake.  When we walked in we could smell the trailings of chocolate, but there was no cake to be found.  The boys were in the back yard playing ball. They hadn’t seriously eaten that whole cake, had they?

 I walked out onto the deck and yelled:

“Hey, where’s the chocolate cake you guys?”

John was back by the stream and couldn’t hear me. Jason drew the ball out of his mitt, tossed it out to John, and called back,

“It burnt. We were playing ball and forgot about it, so it burnt.”

“Oh.”  I said, really disappointed.  That poor delicious batter… robbed of its rightful measure of fulfillment.

“So what did you do with it?” I yelled back out to him.

“We threw it away.”

I turned back to the door, opened the screen, and entered the kitchen to tell Dave we were out of luck.  That’s when I saw Dave leaning over the open garbage container strategically situated next to the fridge.  An empty cereal box had been smashed down on top of the garbage, and on top of that box, upside down, was the rejected cake. Dave looked up at me, his back bent over the garbage, his mouth full of chocolate cake…

“Doethn’t tathte burnt to me,” he mumbled, the cake muffling his words.

I, being the supportive wife, scurried over to the garbage and joined him.

Since then we have lovingly called this yummy cake Garbage Cake.  People who don’t know the story think it has some weird combination of ingredients tossed together like garbage.  Not so.  It is a well crafted recipe that likes to be followed with relative exactness.

And now, lucky you, you can make it yourself!

CONNORS’ GARBAGE CAKE

1 c. butter (room temp) 

2 ½ c. sugar
4 eggs (room temp)
1 ½ vanilla

2 c. buttermilk or sour milk (milk plus 2T vinegar)

2 ¾ c. flour
2 t. soda
½ t. salt
½ t. baking powder

1 c. cocoa (bitter, not the drinking kind)

(sift all these dry ingredients together)

Beat butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla about 5 minutes.
Add dry mixture, alternating with buttermilk.
Bake 350 degrees for 35 minutes in rectangular pan, or 25-30 minutes in round pans.
Frost with Buttercream Frosting if you want.

Yum.

BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons whipping cream or milk

dash of salt

Directions

with an electric mixer, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended. Add vanilla, cream and and dash of salt. Continue to beat on medium to high speed for 10 minutes more, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency. Beating it this long will make a nice light consistency. 

28. CHANGE

Time softly sifting like sand in an hourglass is a lie.  It shifts in spurts, thrusting us forward unexpectedly, whether we’re prepared or not. I think about the changes that have come in my lifetime, mostly technological, and just thinking about it makes me motion sick. 

 It used to be we had to find a pay phone in order to call home and check on the kids when we were out on a date.  Then Dave, because of his work, got one of those first generation cell phones.  It looked pretty much like a masculinized princess phone, attached to a box inside the car with a typical telephone coiled cord.  A funny little antenna was installed on top of Dave’s puny old Toyota.  A friend once told us how incongruous that looked…the latest hip product being installed on an old subcompact car.  Antenna’s for cellular telephones were usually exclusive to shiny little sports cars or Bentleys.  For Dave it was purely functional. It cost dollars per minute to use it, so he only used it for work and we still looked for pay phones to check in with the babysitter when we were out. Wireless cell phones didn’t become available to the average cost conscious American until our kids were almost grown, less than 10 years ago.  I can only remember one time when there was an issue with our kids and cell phones (maybe this is where forgetfulness is a blessing).  Annie was falling in love with that cute boy who lived in Centerville and they apparently had many a late-night conversation via texting, because we received a $300 texting bill one month.  I guess we had a limited text plan at that point.  At 10 cents a text it adds up pretty quickly.  She ended up marrying that boy years later. 

This little creature has come of that union, and .he is priceless…so in the grand scheme of things it was a pretty cheap bill.

Our first TV was a massive piece of glass and metal, the curved eye blinking on slowly as the tube inside warmed to the electrical current behind it.  The pictures were black and white, with fluttery shades of gray.  I well remember our first color TV.  It had a wire attached that led to magical brick-like device they called a remote control.  You didn’t even have to get off the couch to change the channel. Now, when we’re watching a show and our cell phone rings, we pick up our wireless remote and pause the show.

I remember also the first time I felt air conditioning.  I still get a mini-thrill when I walk into our house and feel cool air, the clean aroma of my hickory floors brushing against my nostrils, my skin whispering “Thank You, Lord!” on hot summer days.  Our friends the Nelsons had air conditioning in their home when I was a kid back in Pittsburgh.  How we loved driving out to the Nelsons in our old  air-conditionless station wagon, our heads leaning as close as possible to the open windows in the car, using the motion as an evaporative cooler against our skin. At the Nelson’s nice new house we got to play with good friends in that amazing non-sticky, sweet smelling conditioned air! On the hottest most humid summer days we stayed till the sun went down, finally retreating to our old tutor house, opening every window and door late at night, begging the cooler night air to come in and stay a while.

One summer, when I was tiptoeing on the balance beam of adolescence, we went to Idaho for vacation.  Dad took off with the car and we were left stranded in Idaho.  School was starting that week, 2500 miles away, and we had no way to get home.  Through a miraculous gift of a loan from a banker who knew the value of her father’s name, mom was able to secure a loan for a brand spankin’ new car.  A Charger. With air conditioning!  And, unbelievable as it was to us…an eight track tape player to boot!  We pooled our pennies and bought a tape of Shirley Bassey in a truck stop bargain bin.  I remember sitting in the back seat  of that car, the sun sparkling through the read window, the smell of new leather and the mellow voice of Shirley Bassey in stereo, a small satin-trimmed blanket from Aunt Mae tucked under my chin as we crossed the heart of America in our air conditioned car.  It was the most empowered I had ever felt, and looking back on it, this was probably the beginning of our independence as women in a less than ideal family situation.

Now days I carry my music around with me. On my phone. With no cord.  I download the songs I want through the little sliver of a computer that sits on the top of my desk.  When I was little my sister Sue was a computer programmer in Pittsburgh.  She punched little chads in computer cards that fed information to a massively large machine that took a huge building to house.  My little laptop holds multiple times the storage that machine did.  It houses all my music, all my stories, all my pictures and my addresses.

 

There is nothing as constant as change.

 

I think of my mother, who, as a young girl, warmed her shoes by the old cook stove, slipped them onto her feet and ran out the door on chilly winter mornings, running down to the intersection of the dirt roads near her house, and waited for the school wagon to come pick her up. And I’m not talkin’ a station wagon.  I’m talkin’ a horse and harness, a buckboard and a slatted wagon bed with benches along the sides. I watch our neighborhood children disembark from the school bus outside my kitchen window and wonder what amazing changes they may be writing about in 40 years.

 
Seriously, I'm really not that old.  It's just that the world is spinning so fast! So much change, if you let it, can really throw you off kilter.  That’s when it’s best to simply look up.  Up…where, if the night is clear and the moon is dark, you can see those old stars just a' twinkling away:  Unchanged and eternal.

27. ODD

Confessions of an Organizationally Challenged Troubadour

by Cori Connors

(Disclaimer 1: If you can see the countertop in your kitchen, or your floors have been vacuumed once a week the last year or so, or you can park your car in the garage and open the doors without hitting something, YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THIS! Everyone else…welcome to my world!

Disclaimer 2: I don’t always follow my own rules.  But I know they work for me.)

Ask me to organize words and music, and I’ll work on it for hours.  Assign me to organize people or events and I’m willing and able.  But ask me to organize my house and you’ll get a blank stare. 

It never was natural to me, just ask my mom. When Dave requested my hand in marriage (mind you I was 18 years old) my mom said “Sure.” (He was Dave Connors, after all!) “But you’re going to have to hire a housekeeper.”  I was so offended. 

She knew then what I know now.  Mom’s are that way.  Now, decades later, if my kids come into the house and the kitchen is cleaned up and the floor mopped they will inevitably ask, “Are we having company?”

I’ve always felt a little odd, especially when I compare myself to my amazing neighbors.  And I guess I would be right, I do suffer from ODD: as in Organizationally Disabled Disorder.

Since I have survived over half a century, in spite of my disorder disorder, I have figured out a few things which, when I remember to remember them, considerably enable me to function better. Go ahead, take a gander.  If you are challenged, as I am, you might identify.  And if you are like many of my friends who also have beautiful yards and clean fridges, at least you’ll get a glimpse of how your world might be if the good Lord had not gifted you with your natural sense for order. 

Here, (in no particular order), are my personal rules for organizational survival for ODD balls:

People before things: Rule number one. Take care of your people before your things. As a young mother I had to make this little rule for myself.  It came after moving into an affluent neighborhood, where everything appeared pretty Oz-like to me.  I got sucked into the vacuum of comparing myself with others.  I ended up not liking myself, in much the same way as I don’t like myself when I’m on a diet.  When I’m dieting all I can think about is food.  When I was trying to make my palace sparkle that’s all I could think about as well.  I don’t recall what circumstance led to the creation of this personal rule for me, but I do remember which house I lived in and about how old I was.  It was decades ago. I think I was PTA president at the time. Now, if I am in the middle of loading the dishwasher or folding laundry and someone needs me, or I sense someone needs my help, I pause for a minute, say a little prayer for confirmation, and inevitably leave my task.  I can hear a little voice in my head saying “It’ll still be here when you get back”. I literally say to myself, regularly…people before things.

Rule of 3 / Rule of 10/ Rule of 1:

Rule of 3: If, as I am headed to the shower, I notice that stray sock on the bathroom floor, I can walk past it once.  I can even let it slide the second time.  But if I make note of it three times, then it’s time to pick it up.  I call it the Rule of 3.  My mom used to say, “Do what you need to do to get it out of your brain!” If something takes brain space that often, then I suppose it’s the Holy Spirit of Order nudging me to take care of it. I am, after all, a steward over all this stuff. We all need to be able to cut ourselves some slack, and for those of us who literally suffer from ADD, we need to be able to stay focused on our tasks, which means we have to step over socks sometimes.  But if something “speaks to me” three times, I take that as a signal to address it and get it taken care of.

 Rule of 10: When faced with something like the mountain of items lining the periphery of certain rooms (which if I squint my eyes sort of looks like the Wasatch Mountain Range), or the pile of papers on the counter, try the Rule of Ten.  Take care of ten items.  That’s it.  You don’t have to move the whole mountain, just a nice little piece of it.

Rule of 1 - Everything you do is something done: If I can’t even bring myself to take care of 10 items, I resort to this rule.  I repeat this mantra: Everything you do is something done.  Physically touch one thing, and don’t put it down until it is where it belongs. It’s motion in the right direction.

Emotional Time vs. Real Time:  We ODD people swing back and forth between being perfectly fine with the way we live and beating ourselves to an emotional pulp! I finally realized that, though I may have the real time to accomplish something, my emotional time may be spent.  I especially notice that we judge each other according to our real time situation, yet we have no idea what kind of savings are left in the emotional time bank. My friend may have a few hours in the day where she is not required to do any particular task.  And yet she has been dealing with non-stop company, an exceptionally challenging family matter, financial worries, and maybe even a good dose of PMS. Her emotional time is totally spent.  So cut her some slack…and she should cut herself some slack.  She may have hours on the clock, but her emotional time is gone, and she will need to have a chance to replenish by allowing herself to be still. 

Find your groove: If my emotional time and my real time are not at odds, and I have a little pocketful of each, then I start talkin’!  I have this conversation with myself about how great it’s going to feel to have a little order in my space, and how much I’m going to like myself cuz I did something I’m not that good at.  So I gear up: get my work clothes on and my shoes laced up.  Lift the shades on the windows, maybe even open them for some fresh air.  I force my brain to make a semi-plan about where I’m going to start (there are so many options in an ODD house). I gather my tools, and set the music! For me it’s Carole King’s Tapestry album.  Like I said, I’ve lived half a century already.  Carole King spoke to me in a big way when I was 14 years old.  She made me feel empowered from those first low bass notes she pounded out on the piano…followed by the syncopated flow of music and words…”I feel the earth…move…under my feet….”  The music makes me want to move.  It sets the pace for me, energizes me, and pretty soon I am accomplishing the impossible to the groove of Natural Woman.  Find your own empowering music and get in the groove.

For those of us with focus problems, we need to sieze the moment when we are in the groove and move forward without distraction. People who don't suffer from attention deficit don't understand how hard it is to keep yourself focused. So if your ODD friend has trouble sticking to her task, don't disturb her by asking her do something even small and menial. Once the focus is gone its really hard to get back.

“What would Helen do?”: When my mother-in-law, Helen, was killed suddenly in a car accident, we all had to shift the gears of our hearts in order to function.  Dave’s family all lived back east, and we were thousands of miles away in the west.  One day Dave’s little sister, Chelle called me from the grocery store in Pittsburgh. She was now the one who handled the shopping and cooking, in spite of being young and having never done it before.  “Cor, how do you know which bananas are good?”  If you’ve never had to purchase bananas you are full of all sorts of self doubt.  I made logical suggestions, but it’s kind of hard to walk someone through over the phone.  Finally I said, “Pretend you’re Mom.  Which ones would she pick?”

When I am feeling wholly incapable of organizing my personal space, I turn my head to the people I know and love who are good at it, and I pretend to be them.  Sorting through the clothes that are smashed together on the rack in my closet, I pretend to be my daughter-in-law, who has no problem letting go of things.  Organizing my jewelry, I imagine I’m my sister and hear her voice whisper, “Now remember not to mix the gold with the silver”. ODD people are often good at pretending, being creative by nature.  So embrace that gift and pretend to be someone organized once in a while.

The measure of its creation: I ask myself, when trying to decide if something is destined for the DI, “Has this item filled the measure of its creation for me?”  If I’ve benefitted from having it, and I don’t really need it any more, then it has served its purpose and can now be released.  I thank it for its service, give it a little kiss or a hug, and let it move on.

If you can get it at DI; give it to DI: I think I need to remember this more often. If my basement is chock full of stuff that I think I (or someone else) might need one day, then maybe it’s time to rethink what my space is worth.  If there is something that is regularly available at DI, and I need it only once in a blue moon, then I should give my copy of that item to DI and go buy another one from DI when I need it.  (Chances are, I won’t need it.)

All Things are Spiritual: D&C 29:34…Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things to me are spiritual.

I take this scripture as a comfort. All my struggles, not just the ones that involve reading scripture and attending the temple, are important to Him.  He wants to help me.  My success is His success.  So it is by all means appropriate for me to ask Him to help me know how to clean and organize my house.  It is good to give this aspect of my life emotional weight in my pondering and prayer.  When I quit beating myself up about it, and I pause and ask for His help, ideas come into my head that lead me forward with purpose. It is a healthy exercise to ask the Lord to show us our weaknesses.  He will show us in a much more gentle way than the world will show us.  Then, as promised, I think He can and will make our weaknesses our strengths. First, though, it takes a willingness to focus, to ask, to listen, and to act.  And, as in all of life, repetition is essential. I am working on repeating this prayer more often.

For Valentines Day, instead of going out and getting my true love a token of my affection, I evidenced my love by cleaning and organizing his shelves in our bedroom closet. He loved it!  And so did I, when I was done.  It sure took a lot of self talk, and repeated prayers to remain focused. But, by golly, I did it! Now I just need to remember to repeat my success J

One last note.  Make friends with this website: www.flylady.net.  Read her article on CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  Uh Huh…she knows!

26. HORSE

I was probably fifteen or sixteen years old, too old for trick-or-treating for sure.  But I was hangin’ on to my childhood in many ways.  We had moved from our home on Old Clairton Road to the Pleasant Hills Apartments down on East Bruceton Road. Our lives had changed rather dramatically.  Mom was working more than full time.  Dad had disappeared.  George was gone to college.  Ann Marie was working at Giant Eagle Supermarket, and when she wasn’t in school or working, she was dutifully studying or keeping the apartment tidied up.

That was the year I was on a quest to earn money for my own pair of ski’s, so I posted my availability on the bulletin board in the Laundry Room of the apartment building.  I took all sorts of odd jobs: I cooked dinner three times a week for the Soboslays up on the 3^rd floor, cleaned for that lady on the 9^th floor, and did laundry for two other older residents.  I also sold Avon.  Going door to door in an apartment building is pretty slick. Knock-Knock…"Avon Calling."

Libby had a steady gig tending kids.  Lib was the queen of babysitting.  We all babysat, and if Lib was already booked people would settle for me, but the real mistress of tending was my younger sister, Libby.  Everyone loved her.  Everyone still loves her!

One of her regulars was the Meyer family up on the second floor.  Becky, the mom, was like a Young Women’s leader to Lib, though she wasn’t Mormon and wasn’t in Young Women’s.  But she loved and nurtured and adored Libby.

That autumn, when school was in full swing and things settled into a semi-schedule; when the leaves that cushion the hillsides of southwestern PA turned crimson and gold, I got the bright idea that I wanted to give Trick or Treating one last Hurrah.  I think I was mostly craving chocolate and didn’t want to spend any of my ski money on it.  I decided we might just get away with trick or treating if we went completely incognito.  So, after pondering, I decided we should go as a horse.  A two man horse.  Two girl horse, to be more accurate.  Having no supplies for horse-making on hand, I concluded we could be a fine white stallion and use an old white sheet for the fabric.  Really, I thought to myself, how hard can it be?  I laid the sheet down in the hallway outside our apartment and free handed a drawing of a horse, sans legs.  I sure wish I had a picture of it to show you.  Obviously I was not a seamstress and had no idea how fabric does its job in covering our bodies.  It wasn’t long before I found out that I had bit off more than I could chew.  I cut it out, and started to sew by hand.  Do you have any idea how big a horse body is? We ended up using two sheets.  Without permission, I presume.  I’d sewn about one hour and decided we needed someone who knew how to handle a sewing machine to help us.  So we scooped up the fabric and a skein of yarn and headed up the stairwell to Becky Meyer’s apartment.   

Becky cleaned off her kitchen counter and pulled out her machine.  I don’t recall much more about the process of making the horse.  I think Becky took pity and made what she could out of what we gave her.  I think we played with the kids until it got real late and we had to go home. 

After that, all I remember is that we ended up with a rather primitive looking horse on Halloween.  We tried it on in Becky’s place, thanked her, and scurried down the stairs, waiting for the sun to make its way down in the western sky.

I’m not sure why I had this craving to go out one last time on Halloween night. Maybe it was that I missed having a house, where costumed children crunch across the leaves in the yard, gather on the front porch, ring the doorbell and shout Trick or Treat through their thin plastic masks, their breath all steamy behind the little mouth holes. Maybe I wanted to at least have a basket of Hershey’s bars to hand out. No one trick or treated in the apartments.  Not enough kids.  

I’m not sure what the reasoning was, but there we were on Halloween night, alone in our apartment, Lib and I, figuring out who was going to be the head and who had to …not be the head. 

The apartment building sits pretty far from any houses.  We gathered up our fabric horse and took off down the street past the Municipal Building and up toward the residential part of East Bruceton.  In the dark shadows, away from any street lights, we poured that old white sheet of a stallion over our teenage bodies and tried walking. We started out with me in the lead.  Poor Libby really didn’t want to do this anyway.  She always has been a good sport to go along with my wild ideas.  But her back was killing her so we traded places. The front wasn’t all that much better, since she had to lean over a bit still, her hands holding the base of the horse head. I bent myself to a 90 degree angle, my hands on Libby’s hips, my eyes looking straight down to the sidewalk, totally trusting Libby’s lead.  The problem was that Libby really couldn’t see.  So here’s the picture for you: two gals, too old to be trick or treating, trying not to be recognized, clomping along the street, our feet not catching the rhythm, our backs throbbing with pain, looking like a drunken horse going sideways up the sidewalk, the horse head swaying back and forth as Lib attempted to get any vision of where we were.  We drifted into the grass, back onto the sidewalk, slipped off the curb onto the street.  I, from my downward vantage point, had to yell at her to turn, we were missing the walkway to the first house.  We finally made it to one doorstop, grabbed the edges of the fabric to make ourselves look legitimately equine, and then tried to figure out how we were going to ring the doorbell.  I ducked out of the back, rang the bell, and scurried back under the horse tent.  They gave us one candy bar.  

We clopped back out to the street, up to the next house, went through the same process, clopped back out to the street and decided we needed a break.  We sat on the curb, one headless horse and one sweaty headed horse’s *%&@;# ... exhausted on the side of the road, other younger trick or treaters scurrying past us with their little pumpkin buckets and pillow cases laden with the goods.

We unwrapped our two candy bars, chomped them down, and decided to go home.

I don’t think we ever wore that horse costume again.  I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask Lib if she remembers.

That was my last day Trick of Treating, until I had kids of my own.  Now THAT’s the way to trick or treat! Take really little kids! All you have to do is dip your hand into their cute little pumpkin buckets, give them a little snuggle and a kiss and tell them thanks for sharing. 

Poor Lib suffers to this day with a bad back.  I live with guilt….the awful guilt of awakening the pain that would haunt her the rest of her life on that chilly October night in Pleasant Hills PA. All for a measly piece of chocolate.

25. WHITE

When winter wisps away all that is living, it’s a mercy that she covers us with white.  Imagine if snow was black.

Against the logic of a school girl who mixed her paints and discovered that’s how you can get murky blackish gray, it still thrills me to know that, scientifically speaking, it’s white which is the presence of all color.  I didn’t learn that till I was all grown up.  That small child logic thinks white looks like no color, because the page on which we paint is most often white.  But in reality black is the absence of all color and white is the opposite.

Timothy went down in the waters of baptism last summer all in white, as will Sophie this weekend.  And though they look so simple and colorless, I squint my eyes and imagine my beloveds being covered with color, more vibrant and varied than my human eyes can see.  I imagine the color being full of laughter and song and joyful clapping, though the room is quiet and still. 

In that singular moment when they open the sliding doors to the font, when the siblings and cousins and friends are gathered on their knees in front of the water and the grown ups are standing behind them, there is a low pitched almost inaudible hum of anticipation as a young child walks down the steps and into the baptismal font opposite their dad, who is also dressed in white:  Down into the warm, deep water, willing themselves to be brave when its time to go all the way under. They trust the safety of their fathers’ arms behind their backs...trust that they will lift them out before they need to draw a breath.

We strip ourselves of pride when we allow ourselves to be immersed, our pretty hair do’s instantly undone, our wet clothes clinging to our flesh.  It’s a good thing we see each other through the eyes of love at times like this. 

When David baptized our four children he sealed my heart to his, once again.  There have been many heart sealing’s in our life together.  Dressed in white, his black hair and olive skin so striking in contrast.  His strong right arm raised to the square, his left arm cinched to his child’s, his head bowed in reverence, his lips pronouncing sacred words. With real intent he dipped his child fully under water, raising and embracing and verifying with witnesses that the immersion was exact.  When I was 9 and my 8 year-old sister Libby was baptized, her big toe floated to the top and stuck out of the water.  They had to do it again.  No wimping out in immersion, you either do it or you don’t.

When my little ones were baptized I stood in my Sunday dress, outside the water, watching... going back in my brain… back eight years to when my child was born, when he or she came from me all wet from immersion, all covered with light. 

We baptized all our children in the Salt Lake Tabernacle baptistery.  We were able to make that choice in those days.  Having come to Zion from the east, we cherished being in this holy place, on this sacred soil, and while neighbor kids were baptized in Farmington, we drove to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The baptistery there is tucked under the Tabernacle.

Years later each of our children would return to that place, walk across the pavement, through the gates, and into the temple where a new rebirth washed over them.  Another sealing. We seal ourselves to God.  He seals himself to us. He invites us to bind ourselves eternally to each other.  Again…in white.   And again, I imagine the joyful sounds we cannot hear; the clapping and dancing and all those amazing colors!

I stand with my husband, my sisters, my brother, my mother, my children…in a perfect circle of white, our hands interlaced so that the circle never ends.

Indeed, it never ends.

And there is joy and rejoicing and laughter and singing. And every imaginable color!

When time wisps away from me all that is living, bury me in white.