WHEELS

My sister Libby's leg hurts.  She's not a complainer, so it must really hurt. And her shoulder blade is cramping. 

I laid in bed after morning prayers, pondering her pains and I had a moment of stinging understanding. 

Atrophy.

For the last number of years Lib hasn't really had to think much about exercise because her daily routine involved considerable weight lifting and aerobic motion.  She lifted our mom and moved her and bathed her and entertained her every day and every night.

"Give me a hug", she'd tell our mom, and our mother's arms would go up around her neck and her fingers would lock into each other back there under Libby's thick sable hair. Lib's arms, at the same time, would work their way around Mom's ribs , her knees bent and positioned as if they were embracing Mom's knees, her back curled over Mom who sat looking up at her from her leather recliner.  Lib braced, tightened her belly, sent her energy to her legs, pulled with her arms and hefted Mom into her wheel chair with a graceful half circle of a move.  Then off they went, the wheels of Gram's chair rolling against the maple floor of the family room, up over the ridge of the garage door and down the ramp.  Down Summerwood Road on a Springtime walk, stopping every twenty feet for a five minute conversation with neighbors.    Or up to the passenger door of the van, repeating the same dance of devotion, Lib driving Mom up Route 89 then right at the canyon and up over Trapper's Loop, Mom's beloved Tabernacle Choir CD's making a soundtrack to the scenery. When Mom was alive Libby moved for two people, assisted by small black wheels now and again.  Blessed wheels.

My mom's sister, when moving became difficult for her, refused to use a wheel chair. Instead she sat at home. Though our mom had her share of personal pride, she did not allow her infirmities and limitations to keep her from participating in this life. She said she had fought hard to be a part of this world, eons ago, and she wasn't about to let arthritic legs keep her from participating in it. She didn't love that she needed wheels, but she was grateful for them, and for Libby's good strong arms.  Lib could flex her arms and legs and muscles would pop out like a body builder. She earned those muscles; earned them without thinking about making them.  They were a fortunate consequence of her love. 

Now Libby's leg hurts.  Her muscles only work for one.  I think they are sad.

I found these pictures today.  When this blasted eternal winter finally ends we should put those wheels back to use, Sister!  

(Can you hear those boys' laughter through this photo? We could build our laughter muscles, too!)

PICTURES THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN

I have a photo album, somewhere around here, that is filled with less than flattering pictures.  It began with a photo Dave took of my mom and me when we lived in Pittsburgh.  We were both adults, Mom and I. Dave had graduated from law school, filled a federal circuit court clerkship in New York for a year, and had taken a position with a firm in Pittsburgh.  We moved back with our two kids and mom lived with us.  The photo is of mom and me leaning over the fireplace hearth; a butt shot, so to speak. It's just lovely. It's so lovely, in fact, that we giggled every time we saw it.  It's not the kind of shot you want in the photo album you might put on the coffee table.  But I didn't want to rip it up, because it was good for a laugh, and there are so few things in life that can guarantee a good clean giggle.  So we bought a small photo album and labeled it:

PICTURES THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN.

I've gotta find it!

Now adays we hardly ever actually develop a photo, on paper.  We store them in our little portable machines until we make the little machines attach their techno-umbilical cords to the big machine and transfer the photos to the computer.  I need to make a file on the computer with the same label.

 

Last night we were at Libby's house watching the downer of a season finale of Downton Abby with Lib and Sherry.  I got a message from Kate about the Lent writing which has already been published this year right here on this blog.  She alluded, in very sweet words, to the sober and oft times sad nature of the posts.  So I decided, in an effort to lighten things up a bit, to publish (at great risk to my stellar reputation for stunning grace and beauty), the first installment in my new photo library file of

PICTURES THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN:

There you go.  Yuppers.  I took it so I could show Libby my new perm.  This was a year ago.  Don't you think I look like John Goodman?  It makes me laugh.  It makes Libby laugh.  I like to think of Libby laughing.

Lisa has to really damage my hair to give it body, and this is what it looks like when it's just done, air dried, and brushed out without a curling iron taken to it. I think it's a dandy angle too, don't you?

True confessions.

I've lost 100 lbs since then. But I can still get the same lovely look after Lisa perms my hair. 

 

I think I might regret posting this.

 

 

Nah. 

KISS

This Lent writing based on my photographs has been so fun, because I get to look at my pictures each day and choose one to write about.  I’ll betcha I could write about one single picture every day of Lent and have a different aspect of the photo driving the words. A picture really is worth a thousand thoughts.

Today I came across this photo of Sarah with baby Anna Bella.  I thought it was perhaps their first kiss, but decided it must be the second because they both looked too clean. It started me thinking about kisses. When you get fixated on certain subjects they start to look really sweet, then full-on beautiful, and then at a certain point the subject becomes sort of odd. 

I think it’s really interesting that we kiss, we humans. I guess it must be instinctive.  Maybe it’s learned and just passed down through generations.  But on second thought I’m pretty sure it’s instinctive.  And natural.  Our first full breath is through the mouth, and it’s followed by our first cry.  Then our next instinct is to open our mouths and eat, and the motion is to pucker.  We purse our lips and draw them in. Try it.  That very motion becomes a kiss. 

Maybe kissing is eating for the spirit. That’s how we nourish it, with love.  That’s how it’s sustained, with love.  I think, if you don’t have someone with whom you are comfortable doing the lip love transfer, you aught to consider blowing kisses to people you sort of know.  They don’t need to know about it.  You can be really discreet about it, I think.  Just sort of smack your lips silently and exhale. I should emphasize here that I am talking platonic love.  Romantic silent kiss blowing might get a little strange. So I’m thinking that if I’m worried about someone or even having a hard time with someone I care about, next time I see them I’m gonna do the old smack and exhale thing. I think it might be kinda like saying a silent prayer for someone.  I do that a lot, too. Kinda like sending good karma toward someone.

I like the idea of the silent kiss.  I’m gonna do it!

I think of kissing someone as a way to express an emotion to them, but on another second thought, I suppose in reality it’s an expression to ourselves about how we feel toward that person, or that thing.  I smothered my baby dolls with kisses when I was a girl.  I can feel that cool smoothness in my memory; smell the distinct aroma of baby doll rubber, feel the soft starchiness of the fabric of her ruffled dress, hear the click-click of her eyes as they open and shut, recall the tickle of her synthetic Madame Alexander hair against my neck. I thought I was telling her I loved her.  But really, I was telling ME that I loved to love, and she was safe and would never betray my love.

I miss kissing…even blowing kisses…to some people.  Mom, of course.  I miss touching lips.  Her lips were soft and reassuring.  I miss my lips on her forehead, her warm skin and sparkly eyes.  I miss kissing my Kate.  I pucker and blow really hard out my front door, to the south east, and hope the wind will catch it and carry it to her all the way down in Houston.

And strangely, I miss kissing people I don’t even know.  I feel that empty place where a girl should kiss her father; yearn for old friends I should have known but forgot to meet; flutter for little ones yet to come. What do we do with love unspent?  Does it store up inside and come out in anger or acne? I think it’s a good thing we talk and eat and drink through straws because it makes the lips do the motion even if we are not consciously sending love.

We breathe. We talk. We eat.  We kiss. Seal our devotion over the altar.  Part from one another with one last token of affection.

And, going a little deeper, I think it is not just a strange coincidence that Judas, on that fateful night, leaned into his friend and master, glanced toward the soldiers who were watching, and betrayed Jesus with a kiss.  They say love and hate are Siamese twins.  I don’t know at all what compelled him to do such a thing, and I’m grateful that I am commanded not to judge him.  I’m even more grateful that I’m not him, though I suspect there is a little Judas in all of us, sadly.

But I think…I hope…there is more Jesus in all of us.

I imagine his mother’s lips against his newborn flesh.  Joseph’s lips against the soft curls of his young boy head in the carpenter’s shop. I imagine the gentlest soul who ever lived pursing his thirsty lips and exhaling love to his mother at the base of the cross.

And I can just as easily imagine him in his heaven place, looking down on us, not nearly as stern as those paintings the masters of art made him out to be…blowing kisses.

 

LITTLE LOST

We go to the well. Thirsty and tired and weary with grief, we will ourselves to rise from our beds and return to the well.

Two weeks after we bury our mother the three little girls who grew into big girls pack our fishing gear into the back of the van. And though we plan to only be gone one day, we gather enough emergency food to guarantee our survival should we become trapped in the elements for a month. We purchase temporary Idaho fishing licenses over the internet, print them out and slip them into our pockets, then load ourselves into the van and follow the ribbon of highway between Farmington and our piece of the Little Lost River. Dave and our brother-in-law Steve come along.  It’s a five hour drive.  Five hours for a little stretch of stream in the middle of nowhere in the belly of the Arco Desert. 

I think maybe it takes five hours for the present to sift out.  We pass the nuclear testing site, diving deeper and deeper into wilderness, taking a right at Howe - the tiny micro-cell of a town with its old abandoned post office and schoolhouse.  I can feel the energy shift. As we get closer, I grow younger.  I feel my wrinkles tighten and the limbs shrink and my hair grows thicker and longer until by the time we arrive I am ageless and my mother is alive and well and ready to flick her graceful wrist and let her line dance over the wistful waters. I do not have to close my eyes to see it, nor beckon memory to feel it.  It comes easy and natural-like, all on its own.

 As we tiptoe through sleeping Howe, down past the specks of farmhouses that line the road, I look out over the expanse of sage to a line of trees in the distance.  That’s where the river runs, out there by the trees.  Like a thin blue vein in the breast of Mother Earth, the trees hug the water as she runs, crossing now and again under the road we are travelling, the water shimmering in the Idaho sunlight, singing in her comings and goings. Eventually we find the turn off, marked now days by a forest service sign.  Back in the day we knew it by heart, with the aid, perhaps, of a smoke signal leading us to Aunt Mae and Uncle Les’ campfire. We pull up beside the barbed wire fence, freeing the prickled thread at the loose fencepost that becomes a gate.  The water whispers as we move on through, the dust rising behind us like we are pioneers on the trail.  There is a distinct aroma on the river; something of an earthy perfume of fish and grassy mulch infused with sage and earthworms. It comes to us in wafts sent by the Idaho wind, mixed with the swirling dust and the dry hot Idaho air. We are alone out here.  But we are not lost.

We change our shoes, gather our individual gear, and disperse. We know this section of river, and her place on this piece of land.  She is constant and steady, and though the trees, through the seasons, rise and fall beside her and over her, her bed is dependably true and her waters dependably clear and accommodating.  Libby and the boys wade out in their rubber waders, their flies tied on featherweight line.  Ann Marie and I weave in and out of the banks, our poles cocked and ready, our juicy wriggling worms tempting at the bottom of swirling deep throated holes tucked into the crooks and bends we know so well.  Our lines first wet themselves in that comfortable spot where mom sat when her legs quit working so well.  I channeled her, my heart throbbing as the tears poured out, my hand imagining her hand on it, her belly against my seven year old back, her arm leading my arm, whispering when it was time to let go with my thumb, watching the weight of the sinkers carry my bait out over the water and plunk into the center of the hole across stream. I am my mom when I fish.

Right off I get a nibble.  I hear her voice… “Wait a minute…wait a minute.  There he is again.  Give him time to want it bad.” We watch the end of my pole quiver.

“Now!” she calls, and I jerk my pole back and begin to work the reel. Keeping the tip of my pole close to the water, the line taught, my hands steadily turn and turn until the creature comes to me there at the water's edge. I work my thumb and middle finger up under the gills, and remove the hook, then dip my dry green creel into the cool running water.  I thank the fish for the nourishment he will provide, then let him slide into the mouth of the creel.  He flips and flings in there until I put the creel back in the water, the strap wrapped safely on a willow branch. The men, and my little sister, like to let their fish return to thir waters.  Ann Marie and I have to ask them to keep them if they want to eat.  We are the keepers of the fry pan.

We follow the river to the barbed wire that marks the farmer’s property upstream, pushing our way through thick clusters of willows, listening to the pitch of the river, knowing that the deeper gurgles indicat deeper waters, cooler waters, where the bigger fish like to rest in their journey. My wet tenny runners squish a steady beat as I walk, the suctioning sound playing against the pulse of the river and the descant of the wind in the willows. As we make out way back downstream the sun descends behind the mountains to the west, her thick soft paintbrush washing across the canvas of sky in deep amber and orange hues, the colors intensifying as she falls until in the end, there is just a brilliant sky and the silhouette of mountains below, like God had used a pair of scrapbooking scissors to scallop the edge of the earth.

They call it the Little Lost River, because she disappears into the ground at some point.  But she comes up again somewhere over that mountain range, somewhere near Sun Valley I think, though I’m not really sure.

But I know she comes up.

Like I know one day we will; all of us.  All of us will go down into the earth at some point, though I can’t say where.  But I know we will. And I know we’ll come up.  I’ll come up, and so will my mom, and my sisters, and my brothers and husband and children.  We will all find ourselves like that water, clean and clear and very much alive, weaving our way through the spanse of eternity. I can’t say how. But I know it as well as I know that stream still runs out there in the desert on this winter day.

SEE'S THE DAY!

My Honey knows me well enough, I'd say

To rub my feet at night, and See's the day.

This week we have been blessed to return to the city that never sleeps, New York. It's been ten long years since I was last here. Ten years and seven grand-babies ago. We have enjoyed reuniting with friends from Dave's years at Yale, and celebrated the wedding of one of those friends.  It was an absolutely fabulous series of events culminating an amazing dinner/dancing celebration at the famed Union Club in Manhattan. We spent the morning in the Mormon temple, the evening in the Jewish temple.  And lunch in between at the Yale Club. We've seen fabulous shows on Broadway, eaten delectable meals in a variety of styles.  We climbed the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, inhaled masterpieces and new found treasures, including a new Matisse exhibit and a collection of rare Italian stringed instruments.  We dined on crab cakes and lobster salad while overlooking Central Park, then strolled through the park on the way  back to our hotel.  Saturday morning we woke early enough to visit Hell's Kitchen and other flea markets in search of antique treasures.  We spent every last dollar we had in cash, minus $10 for the cab fare home, on a wonderful old Santos of St. Joseph. My feet are blistered and happy. My cheeks are chapped and happy, from the 40 mph winds and the relative single digit temperatures. It's almost pitiful to speak of it in so few sentences, to neglect the vividly colorful details; like the stunning sculptures adorning the apartment of Peter's mother, chiseled with her own hands (now 84 years old); or the opulent mosaics in the massive synagogue where Peter and Laurie were married,,,the sound of the breaking glass under his foot...the echoing of Mazel Tov rising from the circle of friends gathered around the couple and the Rabbi.  The scent of fantastically fragrant wedding flowers one moment, followed by the aroma of chicken and pretzels, some of them burnt, swirling around the corner where the street vendors park for the evening...the sound of steel on steel in the subway station...the warmth of air wafting up from the grates in the sidewalk above the trains...the checkerboard image rising into the air outside our hotel room window, most of the squares lit all through the night in the New York Times building kitty corner from our hotel...the rhythmic clicking of tap shoes over an ensemble orchestra in a wonderful old Broadway Theatre.  Taxi cab yellows and Times Square lights and incessant horn honking and a cacophony of languages on every street corner.
It's been a stimulating, tiring, wonderful 5 days.
Our first morning here, Valentines Day, Dave set these chocolates on the bed. He had been sweet enough to secretly pack them, hand selected, in our suitcase so he could surprise me on Valentines morning and not break the age old tradition in our family.  Mmmm, lucky me.  Rum nougat for breakfast!
Our daughter Sarah wrote this on her Facebook page that day.  She posted it with this picture of baby Joe, holding a box of chocolates from his daddy, Dave Petersen:

"I felt like a princess each Valentines Day when my dad would surprise me with a heart shaped box of Sees chocolates. Thank you for starting that sweet tradition, Dad! Thank you for loving Mom with such selflessness and adoration.  I love you both!"
I am blessed.  I try not to feel guilty about being so blessed. I try to reserve guilt for sin.  Instead I try to feel what is most appropriate: incredibly; humbly; lovingly grateful.
(Some days are easier than others to seize.  See's always helps!)

JOURNEY

I lay on the bed in the back bedroom of our family cottage on the shores of Lake Huron in Michigan, two of my grandchildren snuggled beside me as I read. The sun was gone and the summer night finally cooled. I could hear my phone ring in the other room.  Dave brought it to me; “It’s Libby”, he said. 

“Hello!”  There was a pause on the other end. Then her voice shook.

“When are you coming home?”

And that was the beginning of the end.  The moment where my mind takes me to the first step on the journey to my mother’s death.

My mother was 88 years old.  One should not be surprised by any sad turn of events at that age.  And yet she had baffled so many doctors in the past that we had just become accustomed to her tenacity. As one dear friend said in a text to me: We became complacent and thought she would live forever.

I began to pack; my heart throbbing, tears flowing.  I listened to Timo sobbing in the family room as his mom explained we would be leaving the beach, and his cousins, days earlier than we had planned. His mind tried to grasp that their kid’s Beach Olympic competitions would have to give way, but his 9 year old heart struggled to accept it. The cousins with plane tickets would get to stay, but we had to leave.  It’s hard to be little. Because Sarah’s baby was just a few weeks old, we had driven from Utah to Michigan in the van.  So we had the power to change our travel plans.  Everyone else had flown.  We would leave at sunup.

My emotions jumped from sorrow to anger to gratitude and back to sorrow.  Mom had been fighting a cold when we had left a week before.  We stopped by on our way out; said a prayer together.  I kissed her on the forehead and told her to get better.  A few days later my sisters took her to the hospital.  After a day or two she came home and we anticipated the healing would commence.  But it did not, and once again they returned to the hospital where she danced in and out of lucidity.  My brother John and sister Ann Marie had come to visit while we were out of town.  They had planned to help Libby clean out the storage room in the basement.  Instead, they spent their time at Mom’s bedside, playing music, telling stories, laughing with Mom when she was herself, praying and trusting when she was not.  All of us love her, and all of us own her as our mother, but no one felt more deeply the threat of impending doom than my sister Libby.  For  the past several years Libby has cared for our mom 24/7.  Every shower, every meal, every pill, every time she needed to go to the bathroom. Daily drives in the car, walks in her wheelchair, pretty sweaters and dangling earrings on the Sabbath, warm blankets over her lap in front of the fire.  Libby was the face of God to her…to all of us.  And so the sorrow at the prospect of losing our mother was deepened knowing how it would affect my best friend, my sister, my Libby. The thing about being close-knit, upon the death of someone in that circle, is that everyone else in that sphere of love is aching too.  So while one deals with her own loss, she also aches for those she loves who have lost as well. I could feel it coming and it frightened me.

I threw things in a haphazard fashion into our bags. At some point I snapped at Dave, slammed the door, and then I crumpled in sobs on the bed.  Six year old Parker tiptoed into the room and laid down on the bed beside me.  He just laid there, his little arm stretched up over my shoulder.  He looked into my eyes.  I watched him follow the trail of tears as they fell on my pillow. His hand began to pat my back, and then his own eyes filled up and overflowed.  I pulled him in closer against my chest. His back tightened, trying to hold his emotion, and then let loose in a sobbing sigh.  We laid there, we two, alone on that twin bed in the cottage, looking into each other’s sorrowful eyes, wordless. I will love him forever for that moment alone.  Eventually he rolled over and faced the wall, my arm still slung over his waist.  He wept without reservation, facing that blank wall.  I think he needed to be alone in the depth.  I whispered in his ear.  “Are you alright my friend?”  He rolled his head up toward my face, his shoulders rising and falling in unrhythmic fits, like his chest refused to move until it could take no more and then it filled with a rush of air and an audible moan.  “I don’t want Gram to die.”  He hurled himself back over in my direction and thrust his arms around my neck.

“Neither do I, Buddy.”

We embraced each other until sleep overtook both of us.  Not for long.  Just long enough to seal our hearts for the coming journey.

We drove through the day and the night and back into the day, westward with the sun.  A soft summer rain fell upon us as we wove through the states. Dave and I dropped the kids off at home and went straight to the hospital.  Mom was resting when I arrived. When I worked my way from the door to her bed her eyes fluttered open.  I felt like Marmee, arriving at Beth’s bedside in that scene from Little Women, rushing to be with her, hoping there was some magic in the reunion that might revive her.

“Hi Cor.” Mom smiled, the sides of her rising cheeks shifting the plastic oxygen line as her eyes sparkled up at me.  I bent over and kissed her, breathed her, inhaled her with a slow deep breath.

We would not know until weeks later that we had already begun.  Our feet were planted on the road of a sacred journey; unfamiliar and holy.

THE ESCALATOR

It wasn’t a big deal. Certainly nothing that deserved a place of prominence in my overstuffed head. Just one of those moments when something hits the trigger in your bank of memories and, if you don’t push your thought thread into some other direction, the memory rises up to the top of the brain like a bubble in a glass of soda pop. I’m really rather curious as to why I retain certain memories.

Dave and I went shopping today, walked seven short blocks and one long block over to Macy’s in downtown Manhattan. We swam with the river of people through the heavy doors, down the hallway under construction and up the escalator to floor 1 ½. We decided to divide and conquer, with a plan to meet in an hour outside the elevator in the men’s shoe department.  Let me say right off that shopping for clothing and shoes without one’s sister or at least a friend is not nearly so fun. I mean, who’s gonna tell you if your arms really look like polyester sausages in that 2% spandex top, or be frank about the brightness of the color for a woman of a certain age? I wish my sisters were here. But I am in new York, and we had an hour to spare, so I muddled through solo shopping with as much dignity as possible.

There are something like 100 floors of goods for sale in Macys New York!  Acres and acres. I wove through the racks, like a kid in a cornfield maze, trusting instinct to direct me, since I wear new sizes these days and I’m not quite sure what works and what doesn’t. Women’s wear takes about half the space in that massive building, so I worked my way up a series of escalators checking out the different collections.  The higher the floor, it seemed, the older the escalator. Eventually the escalators were all wood: wooden sides, wooden slats in wooden beds that rose out of each other as they lifted heavenward, then folded tidily back into their slots and disappeared altogether.  As I stood looking down at the patina on the wood, a memory of a shopping trip in this very store, probably 20 or so years ago, pushed its way to the front of my brain.

I had been shopping in the women’s department, up on the top floor.  The store was closing and I had just checked out.  People were rushing the escalator to beat the closing of the doors downstairs, I guess.  We clustered, then single filed down one floor, streamed around the corner to the next down escalator, and were stopped short by a crowd bottlenecked at the next set of moving stairs.  Irritated at the loss of momentum, and by the unexpected impasse, people hissed unkind words and ignorant sighs as one by one they pushed past a little old woman standing stone still at the top of the escalator.  I stepped out of the stream and observed for a moment.  A dark haired fellow in a leather jacket grunted “move aside if you’re not going down”.  Another woman turned her back against the woman and squeezed past sideways.  The rest of the people followed suit until all that was left was the old woman with her bag in her hands like a shield in front of her, her thick wool coat buttoned to the neck, a large hemmed scarf covering her hair and tied in a tight knot under her chin. And me.  Her eyes were focused on the wooden slats of the escalator. 

“Can I help you? I asked, wondering if maybe she had trouble walking.  She raised her eyebrows as looked up at me without lifting her head, like her body was frozen.  She didn’t speak, and didn’t move.  I spoke again, asking if I could help her.  She raised her hands in front of her, her hands quivering with the fingers gripping the handle of her red shopping bag. Her eyes finally met mine and I could see right away that she was afraid.  She tried to lift her foot and set it down on the moving stair, but couldn’t do it.  It soon became apparent to me that she didn’t speak English. I smiled, a gentle kind of smile meant to reassure.  I lifted my hand toward hers, palm up, looking at her hand then mine.  She lifted her foot again then put it back down on the solid floor, like the hoof of a horse waiting for a feedbag. All the while her chin quivered over the knot of her scarf. I whispered a quick prayer that I would know how to help, and that she would know how to be helped.  Timing in these circumstances is as important as choosing the correct actions.  I kept my eyes safely focused on hers, and again offered my hand.  She released her grip on the handle of her bag and gave me her mottled tiny hand.  I lifted my foot, then nodded my head, indicating she should follow.  With her little old body tucked against mine we stepped together onto the top step, two feet, then the other two, her hand under mine against the handrail.  I felt her shallow breath rise and fall it little fits against my belly as she huddled close. I spoke reassuring words, the kind of words I spoke to my children; the kind of words I speak to my grandson Calvin now when he is tired and needs to settle down for his nap. It’s not the words; it’s the tone that matters.

By the time we reached the bottom floor she was more relaxed, and really sort of just walked away without much fanfare, though I think she probably did shyly nod her thanks as we parted. 

I don’t know why today, in that store I’ve visited numerous times in my life, I chose to recall an obscure encounter on a wooden escalator.  There is so much more about New York that should be memorable.  Maybe it’s the rhythmic rumble of stairs rising and falling in and out of the floor, those old wooden stairs, less steady and slick than the new metal escalators of today’s shopping malls, with that distinct aroma of engine grease rising in certain spots, the lurching pace giving it charm mixed with a bit of concern that finally, after all these decades, the thing is going to crumble with me on it!.   Or maybe the small plump woman is just a representation of the vast ethnicity that is so familiar on the streets of New York and less common in our white bread city in the west. I guess all the sights and sounds and flavors of this city shake things up in my brain and take me to places I forgot I knew.  For whatever reason, I’m glad I remembered.  And I’m glad I was not in such a hurry back then that I could not pause long enough to see a pair of quivering hands gripping the handles of a Macy’s shopping bag, because, honestly, one day that woman might be me, trying to step onto a plane, or closing the top on a casket. I suppose it already has been me.  And I am so grateful for hands that come toward me, palms up, ready to show me how to move forward.   

RED

Red is best!

Thick with passion.  Confident.  Bold. Unaffected yet warm.  If our infant eyes can see, it is the first color of life.  We are born of and through and with Red.

It was my mother’s color of choice.

“Red is Best!” she would say with a wink, laying her hard earned money down on the counter for a pair of ruby earrings. The clerk would smile, comment on how lovely they were, and hand her the little hinged box in a little red bag. If you didn’t know her you would think it a little strange.

“Red is Best” was as common a phrase as “Who loves you?” in my mother’s house.  It began with a little book, carrying the phrase as its title. A little girl insists on wearing her red mittens, even though her mother tells her the brown ones are warmer.  The red mittens make better snowballs. And the red boots aren’t just for rain; they take bigger steps in any weather. And, yes, a red cup does make a difference... juice just doesn’t taste as good in a green one. No doubt about it, red is best.

My mom read the picture book to my children, their little warm bodies snuggled into her lap under a soft red blanket. If I pause, and allow myself to be still, I can hear her voice reading the words, the lilt of her phrasing lulling me to peace.

When mom was a teen, new born into orphan-hood after her mother died and her father remarried a woman half his age, she learned to fend for herself.  Her sister Ruby had taught her to sew. Her keen eye for fashion led her to create some mighty fine dresses.  The famous Red Gingham Dress of my childhood make-believe was designed and crafted by her.  I imagine her purchasing the fabric. No pattern, except the one in her mind. I imagine her slender hands guiding the fabric through the machine, her feet working the pedals underneath.  I see those hands cut the tiny red and white checkered fabric in little circles, pulled tight over a dozen tiny buttons that ended up marching in a line down the spine of her lovely back.  She told me once that she never wore that dress that she didn’t have a good time. It ended up in the dress-up box seven babies later. Where it had come to her waist, it came to my knee…and I loved playing in the old red gingham dress.

Though she did love red, she wasn’t necessarily obsessed with it, to the point that everyone who saw her thought…Well THERE’S a mighty reddish kind of lady!  She understood the need for balance, and red was more often an accent.  Her love of fine antiques fit well with her passion for the color.  A deep red block in a nice old quilt, laid comfortably over the old bench table. A bold red linen tablecloth under her fresh white milk-glass plates, setting a crisply inviting table for her treasured guests. It enlivened her space. Indeed, her outlook on life was sanguine; filled with confident optimism.

In her waning years my mother’s space filled more and more with the color. I think we needed the confidence it represented.  Her snowy white hair looked so lovely against it, and her rosy cheeks and bright eyes radiated well in that palette. My saintly sister Libby stretched clean soft deep red sheets over Mom’s bed, fluffing her down pillows, making it so inviting as she laid her down at night, smoothing her flowing white hair and kissing her forehead. My other saintly sisters joined in in their own ways: Ann Marie bought two red leather recliners for mom’s sitting space. Sherry adorned her with beautiful garnet and ruby and gold jewels.  Sue stitched her lovely quilts in Civil War red and gunmetal blue, the stitches so tidy you’d swear a machine must have made them, but so authentic you knew it was her steady hands that had done the work.

In that terrible, beautiful, wonderful, awful space in time, when we hovered like little hummingbirds around our mother’s bed, we wrapped ourselves in her red blankets, laid our heads against her red pillows, inhaled the aroma of flowers of yellow and fuchsia and deep emerald green.  Music rang, and then steady rhythmic stillness.  It was enough, I suppose, to just hear her breathe.

On that fateful August day I sat in the chair across from her, playing my guitar.  Little Calvin was standing on one-year-old wobbly legs.  He bobbled up and down to the tune of Old MacDonald, his little hands curled around the edge of the cedar chest at the foot of her bed.  Libby held Mom’s hand, and our gift of a friend Sharon Christensen, Mom’s hospice nurse, held the other.  I felt a sudden urge to cease strumming.  Instead, my fingers slipped up the neck to the chords of a song I had written for my mom years before. 

This river runs deep through the heart of the valley

It was fed by the waters of sun-ripened snow

And she runs with a passion from high in the mountains

And no one can tell her the way she will go

And weaving herself through the pine trees and canyons

She slows as she flows through the wide open land

And here on her banks, where the willows are bending

I sit with an instrument held in my hands

Singing, Oh flow gently sweet Afton

Peace where you may roam

Oh, flow gently sweet Afton

Till the deep mother waters welcome you home.

Against the music, and the passion, and the love, our mother drew a breath, mustered her courage, and jumped into heaven.

The stillness was stunning.

Our tears dropped against her pillowcase, deepening the red, as we covered her with kisses; our lips pressing against her dissipating warmth.

Mom often said she did not fear death, though she was mindful of separation.  She was bold and passionate, fiercely devoted, brave in the face of the unknown. And yet she was tender and gentle and whisper-warm with affection. She was red.

My sisters and daughters drove to Bountiful on a hot August evening; pulled into the empty parking lot at the mortuary.  Libby carried our mother’s temple bag.  We dressed our mother’s body, our hands touching her skin, using our strength to move her.  She cooperated beautifully, her joyful spirit hovering over us, begging us to laugh. We dressed her in pink, in that soft place between red and white.  We brushed her pretty white hair, and put just a touch of lipstick on her lips.  But there was no need for makeup.  Her bloom was blessedly real. 

The men in our family, under the direction and design of my nephew Elliott, crafted a fine pine casket for our mother.  We laid her there, placing her in her living room for her beautiful collection of friends and family to pay their last respects. It felt natural and right. 

On the day we buried her we robed her in white.  Holy white.  Sacred white.  With a blood red copy of her beloved poetry book One Hundred and One Famous Poems tucked in her hands.  A lovely accent.  Red.

Her posterity wore red in her honor.  The color of passion.  The color of power.  The color our Master will wear when he returns to claim us. The color of Love.

Red is Best!

LENT BEGINS: 1,000 WORDS

A PICTURE IS WORTH 1,000 WORDS.

So said someone.  A couple sites attribute it to Napoleon Bonaparte. Other's say it's an old Chinese proverb.  Still another credits an auto company advertising on the side of a streetcar in San Francisco about 100 years ago.  For me personally the concept was born through the mellow voice of David Gates and the musical group, Bread, when I was a young teenager. It's one of the first songs I learned on guitar in 8th grade:

If a picture paints a thousand words, then why can't I paint you....

(I miss Bread.)

Today begins the Lenten season for 2013. I don't wear ashes on my forehead, though I appreciate the practice by faithful Catholics. I have, however, for the last number of years felt driven to offer my own form of personal sacrifice in preparation for the Easter season.  Rather than omit certain sins or questionable practices, I have chosen to commit to practice goodness with more pure intent.  I begin each day with prayer (not just during Lent, I might add) and in that prayer I ask for the Lord to direct my thoughts and actions.  The thoughts during the Lenten season lead to words which I publish daily during the 40+ days of Lent, right here on my blog.  It has become a sort of personal history, of interest likely only to my children or their children down the road, when they wonder what their strange old grandmother was like once upon a time.  I figure when we write with creativity and purpose, we cannot NOT reveal our true selves.  And so, here I am, I suppose.

In years past I have used random words as daily  jumping-off points.  And I've written backstories of many of my songs in other years. This year I have chosen to use, as the springboard for my daily writing exercises, photos from my personal library.  Many of them are from my iPhone.  A few may be old and scanned in to my computer, stored in my digital library.  But most will be current, something from my recent life. 

I apologize in advance that many will likely deal with the passing of my mother, less than 6 months ago.  I have not documented the feelings and events of that passage.  I have a number of pictures, and my heart still grieves deeply.  So, while I have elected to share my writing in this blog, it may include my own attempt to process and may be of little value to anyone but me.

I will try to keep my entries to 1,000 words or less.  It's a good challenge for me as I tend to ramble on.

Now to visit my large library of jpegs.  See you tomorrow.

COMFORT FOOD

I'm finding lately that my favorite comfort food is music.  It digests easily and is sometimes so yummy. When I tuck my guitar against my heart and feel the vibrations, it hits the same emotional spot that my mother's hands patting my back did, when I was a child. The same spot that a pile of hot mashed potatoes and melted butter can touch on a cold winter day.

Mom gave me my first guitar when I was 13, and though I didn't even play it for a year, I knew, on that Christmas morning when I found it under the tree, that it would be a life changer for me. 

As we work through this strange and unknown process of grieving the loss of our mother, I've held my instrument more tenderly.  Lovingly, even.  It makes me feel connected to her.  She knew the words to every song I wrote, and if you've been sitting near her at any of my concerts you've heard her singing along.  As I write new songs, and prepare the set lists for my upcoming holiday performances, I have to push the thought out of my head that Mom won't be there to sing along this year. At least not to our human eyes.  I hear her in my heart. Always.

I was notified earlier this year that I am to receive the 2012 Governor's Mansion Artist Award from Governor Herbert on November 28th at the Governor's Mansion.  I am startled and deeply honored.  The night before that, I'll be singing as they turn on the lights at the Festival of Trees.  And then a few days later I'll be offering three Christmas Concerts at the Farmington Arts Center.  Beyond that are numerous private performances for church groups and corporations.  I love this time of year, musically, because I feel like Christmas offers me a perfectly appropriate setting to testify of my Lord. And music is my most comfortable means of witnessing. 

So, Mom,in the words of the song Memoria..."I will keep you here."  Right in the center of my heart, and I'll pray that the words and the tunes will not be choked out by my sorrow, but will rise, instead, in celebration of the joyful reunion of two people I love with all my being: my mother...and my Lord.

VIGIL

There is a puzzle on the table in the living room.  A large one, with tiny pieces and impossible color gradients that make it somewhat uninviting.  And yet we drift in and out, sitting before it, trying this piece then that, until we eventually get a match or walk away. Or flop over on the couch. 

The wooden floors of Gram’s house echo the goings on: a cluster of great-grandchildren playing a game on the family room rug; the clanging of dishes in the kitchen, George’s mandolin trembles in some unidentifiable place.  Ann Marie’s hands roll in and out of the edges of a baby blanket, her fingers guiding her crochet hook. There is a swirl of motion, gentle and uninhibited, so graceful and alive that if you set a camera on slow, slow shutter speed you would have a sort of Spir-o-graph picture of the people we love loving the people we love. We are spokes, swirling around a hub, each of us going in and out from the center.  And she is center.

Gram lies in her bed, her soft white hair like a halo on her pillow, her eyes closed and her forehead smooth and calm.  Her hands lie gentle on her midriff.  We watch them rise and fall, rise and fall.  I sit beside her, my brothers and sisters and children taking turns in the circle.  No plan.  We’ve never been that good at keeping plans.  No shifts or schedules, yet she is never alone.  Never alone.

I slip my hand under hers and hold it in a sacred grip, her slender fingers interlace with mine.  I trace the veins with my thumb.

In and out we go and come, until someone picks up a guitar and starts to sing to Mom.  Then, as if the Pied Piper has pursed his lips against his pipe, we gather in her large, gracious bedroom, and the other guitars make their way in, and the mandolin, too.  And the voices and the songs.  We cluster around her, comforting her with our song… comforting each other…comforting ourselves. Then the comfort turns to joy when the Johns play and we sing full voiced and our hands no longer tickle our guitar strings but pull them full bore and passionately, like she would if she had ever gotten past the two chords I tried to teach her when I was 16.

Too bad it’s not September, when the air has cooled enough for the windows to be left open.  What songs our neighbors would hear!

Grandson John pulls the strings of his instrument and begins…They say everything can be replaced….  We join in with harmony at the chorus…I see my light come shining from the west down to the east.  Any day now, any day now, I shall be released. 

Like chicks around a hen, like petals on a flower, like the waters of the Snake River swirl around an outcropping of rock and earth, we are helpless to leave her and will stay here until she leaves us.  Just a while.  Just a small parting, small, but very, very deep. 

Not far from here her mother will call and tell her to come, and we know we must let her go.  Until then we will keep this vigil, we who cherish her, and sing her to the gate.

THE FLAVOR OF LOVE

Rexall Drug.

Pleasant Hills, PA.

Somewhere in the lower file in my pile of memories.

We had collected enough empty pop bottles along the side of Old Clairton Road to redeem them for a quarter each. A whole quarter! You could buy a lot for a quarter in those days. For some reason I opted, on that particular day, for a long slender cellophane bag of Rain-Blo Bubble Gum; big round colorful balls, dripping with sugary, syrupy yumminess. And for some reason I opted, as well, to stuff the whole bag of balls into my mouth in one fell swoop. My lips pursed over my rotting teeth and I sort of rotated my jaw in a careful chewing motion, trying to inhale and swallow as I worked the sugar rush into a massive wad of yum. I remember thinking this was almost too much goodness to bear at one time.

And so it was.

And so it is.

Three days.

Three days in June.

June is chock full of wonderfulness. We are trained to feel the pleasures of June from our youth, the anticipation of summer, the end of school…the staying up late, the sleeping in. The chlorine waft of the swimming pool mixed with grilled chicken and freshly mowed grass. June is a muscle soothing rhythmic massage after a marathon of May. It brought me my Annie on its very first day, and my brother in law and nieces and others. Joyful June. But there are three days that wad together so deliciously that the heart can hardly contain the sweetness and it sort of drips out the figurative corners of the mouth and I have to slurp and slurp to keep it with me.

June 24 gave me THIS:

A girl to take my boy’s heart. She cherishes it and keeps it beating properly. This is a meaningful thing to a mother who loves her son and must let him go. At the same time she also took our hearts and keeps them close. Ashley Parker was born to Marsha and Jared Parker, who graciously allowed her to change her last name to Connors about a dozen years and three children ago.

This year June 24^th also gave us THIS:

Joseph David Petersen, delivered with grace and dignity by my firstborn daughter, Sarah Connors, who took the last name Petersen about a dozen years ago as well. Isn’t he divine?

June 25 gave me THIS:

My love of loves, the joy of my heart, the most trustworthy and devoted man in human existence. I realize what a rare thing it is to be able to say I have loved this man since I was 18 years old…I still love him…and I anticipate loving him until there is an end to loving (which I don’t believe is in God’s plan). I knelt across the altar from David in the Washing DC Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints thirty five years ago yesterday; his hand clasped in mine. I looked straight into his eyes…straight through the pooling water…and gave him my heart and mind and strength and weakness and body and soul and future and past and all that was and is and will be. And he took it willingly. I adore him. I am grateful to have pushed through doubtful blips which are common to all marriages, because on this end of it there is deep and calm and joyful peace in knowing this man is at my side forever.

June 26 gave me THIS:

The one on the left. I have loved her from the day she was born, fifteen months after I was born. She is my confidant, my advisor, my partner in creative crime. She is my fall-back and my push forward. She will speak truth when I need it, and remain silent when I don’t. She is devotion personified. She is the greatest of human gifts. We share a mother, a darn grand set of siblings, a passel of kids who think of her as their other mother. She is the other corner in the sacred triangle between her house, Gardner’s house and ours. She is completely unaware of how central she is in so many lives and I love that God let me be her sister.

I check the calendar on my iphone. Tomorrow has plenty of responsibilities and joys in it. The days will move on and little baby Joe will grow and bring all sorts of stories and delights to look back upon. And we will, God willing, grow old as the memories move down in the stack of goodness accrued in our lives. But today…this day in late June when I am chewing as fast as I can the sweetness of it all…I pause to swallow slowly and savor the flavor of love.

INHALE

In the wooden cupboard next to my bathroom sink sits a small collection of perfumeries, carefully selected out of sentimental affection.  There is Chanel #5.  David’s mother wore that on our wedding day.  I remember, after Dave’s dad passed away, cleaning off his bedroom dresser.  Mom Connors had died suddenly and tragically in a car accident over a decade before.  There on his tall dresser was a dusty pile of change, an old watch, and a bottle of Chanel #5.

My own mother, when she had dried her tears, straightened her shoulders and moved forward after my dad left, bought herself a bottle of Norrell perfume.  I remember lying on her big comfy bed watching her dress for her long work day.  She had such a great sense of style, all the way down to her bra. I’d watch her lightly spritz her perfume behind her ears, under her arms, with one final spray on her fleshy forearm.  She ended by rubbing her two inner arms together.  I lay on her bed watching her, inhaling the subtle sweetness.

There are other women in my life who have particular scents.  Nothing overpowering.  The kind of scent you unconsciously recognize when you hug someone.  If I were to lose my sight I am grateful to know those aromas.

Today I stood at my bathroom sink and one by one added scents to various places on my skin, remembering these women I adore, thanking our Maker for putting them in my life. Beginning with good plain soap, in honor of those who don't care for fragrances. I know, you think it would smell just awful, like you’d just walked through the fragrance aisle at Kaufmann’s.  But it is surprisingly good, like that room in the massive greenhouse where all the flowers are in bloom.  



If I am especially fragrant today it is only because I am especially grateful.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the women in my life.