GOOD WOOD. SOLID STONE.

We woke relatively early this morning and slipped down the ribbon of Texas highway to San Antonio; Kate and Libby and I. A three hour drive on a perfect spring day.  San Antonio, home of the Alamo, is a beautiful mecca that emerged from a desert place with the help of enterprising hands. 

What began, long ago, as a cluster of Spanish missions woven together with the silver thread of the San Antonio River has become a vibrant city full of culture, commercial class, and historical charm.  We visited three of those old missions today, driving in the comfort of Kate's spiffy new car and parking in the paved parking lot.  But it wasn't hard to imagine we were arriving on horseback, or by foot, our moccasins all hot in the Texas desert heat.  The old cut stones whispered that it was ok to pretend. Inside we raised our eyes to view the fading frescoes.  We sat reverently on wooden pews, still used for holy worship, and listened to the haunting music of a wooden whistle played by the park ranger who was either of Mexican heritage or Native American heritage, or both.  It struck as either fitting or ironic that Native American music was played in that Spanish chapel, where some native Americans were taught and converted and others driven away from their homes.

As we walked through the remains of Mission Concepcion I became conscious of the fact that two elements stood the test of time: stone and wood. Stone, while it weathered, remained most constant.  Wood, depending on its density and molecular makeup, coupled with weather conditions, was less durable.  Nonetheless, it survived centuries.  I wondered how many wooden Native American whistles were buried in the soil under our feet as we walked the mission grounds. How much haunting eighteenth century Indian music floated somewhere on this earth, bouncing off foreign walls as it echoes through time.  I have this private idea that when music is created it never disappears.  It just floats and floats, like steam into the air, and comes down in some other form, like rainwater in Africa. I think maybe that old native music reappears on windy days in Farmington Utah.

Stone and wood work well together.  Wise hands know how to incorporate them; how to marry the two in a good balanced union.  One works best for foundations, the other works best for doors.

We walked out to the grounds from the cool dark mission chapel and saw this stand of trees, their trunks straight and balanced, their arms shooting up and out in a most disciplined fashion.  

Good wood, I thought.  

Then, as we turned toward the parking lot, we saw this tree.  Same species:

And though I paused in my mind, I whispered to myself... good wood.  Maybe even better wood. It looked like a giant had tiptoed across the Texas desert and stepped on it when the tree was a sapling.  She was bent completely to the ground, as if she had at one time completely given up the ghost.  But then, lo and behold, she continued to grow, her branches thickening with age, her bark rippled and healthy just like those tall straight trees.  I thought, however, that this wood was made for artisans rather than architects.  I thought maybe her destiny, when the spirit had left her, might be to warm a winter room.  I thought of the wooden cross in the prayer chapel, tucked into a corner of that old rock structure, and I wondered if her wood would work.  And I thought that if I were a tree I might make myself grow in such a way as to be of little use to those who built crosses for crucifixion.

There is a sign by that old tree:

It made me think of so many living spirits who thrive within challenged flesh; their bodies and spirits fighting to grow despite crushing blows and devastating circumstance. I am reminded to be careful, because we all have knots and twists, some of them invisible.  We are resilient, or we would not be alive. But we are, all of us, fragile. 

Stone and wood. I am amazed what a small thought early in the day can lead to.  I am aware, and because I am aware, so much seems different than it did yesterday. I sit at a cherry wood table, on a sturdy wooden chair.  The cupboards have wooden doors in the kitchen to the left of me, there are thin wooden blades on the ceiling fan circling overhead.  I am safe inside this sturdy house on a little street in Houston, stable on its stone foundation, behind an accommodating wooden door, my feet tucked together atop a polished hardwood floor.  

Good wood.  

Solid stone.

SUPER SIZE THAT

There's something about visiting a locale that puts me in the make-believe mode. I pretend I live there, and I know all the local secrets, and I talk with the local accent using local colloquialisms. It seems to me that I am pretty good at it, and that I fit right in, until my sister purses her eyebrows and crinkles her lips up, cocking her head to the side as she says beneath her breath..."What ARE you doing?"

Yesterday my sister Libby and I flew southward against the returning birds of spring, all the way down to Houston to spend spring break with my daughter Kate. We hit the ground running, shopping until the stores closed, staying up till 2 am watching reruns of Crossing Jordan, sleeping in, then shopping again for ingredients to the fabulous food we're gonna cook. Kate had arranged to meet some of her closest friends for a late breakfast at the famed Breakfast Klub in the heart of Houston. On our way there we passed by a car dealership with a large silver flagpole, a banner of red, white and blue flirting with a slight southern breeze. I glanced, then looked again.

"Is that a Texas flag?" I said, surprised that it was not an American flag.

"MmHmmm," Kate responded. "When I first started teaching, five years ago, my students pledged allegiance to the Texas flag. You'll often see the Texas flag flying above the American flag."
I was dumbfounded. Seriously? Isn't that unpatriotic?

Depends on where you're from.

Texas is BIG, with a capital B! And I'm not just talking acreage. Her sense of self is solid. She throws her chin up and pumps her chest forward as she struts. It feels almost arrogant to this Utah girl, except that the people are so friendly, their warm southern drawls softening the sharp edges of overconfidence.

We stood for a big Texas sized hour waiting in line outside the Breakfast Klub, a thread of happy people wrapping itself out the front door and around to the back of the building. "So worth it", people said, as an energetic employee walked down the curb of the sidewalk, holding a plate of chicken fried chicken, home style gravy and mashed potatoes, declaring that this is the special of the day and that these here are real honest mashed potatoes.  She stopped at Libby and asked if she liked mashed potatoes.  Lib responded that she's from Idaho, and we call them "spuds".  (I wanted to repeat after her, emphasizing the word spuuhhds with a real Texas drawl, but for Libby's sake I resisted.)

Inside, when Kate made her order of French toast with strawberries, scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon the cashier held up her hand and declared "a big five for that one!" It was her favorite, too. 

Our plates overflowed with Texas size portions of waffles surrounded by fried chicken wings, biscuits and gravy, buttered grits and pancakes. 

 The energy in the place matched the portions: BIG! And tasty.

It's 1:30 in the morning and if I don't go to bed I'll have to go get something to eat. So much to do.  So much to see.  So little time. I'll drift off to sleep with The Yellow Rose of Texas skipping like a scratched 45 in my head. 

Texas.  It's super sized, and it's hard to discipline oneself and taste it in healthy portions. It's just so tempting to over stuff.

Tomorrow, for instance, we may have to stretch our jaws wide open and taste a little San Antonio.
Yum.

DIAGNOSIS

Ten years ago, this very week, my feet went numb.  First my feet, then my ankles and calves.  Within a day my hands, arms, legs, and parts of my face felt like they were coming off a massive dose of Novocain. I'll spare you all the details, but suffice it to say that I was panicked.  My doctor gave me hefty portions of steroids and we began testing at the University of Utah.  My sister Libby wheeled me through the hospital for hours, then days.  They drew 37 vials of blood.  Took samples of everything imaginable.  Pierced my wrist and my ankle with needles and shot electricity through my body.  EMGs, EKGs, EEGs, CAT scans and MRIs.  Spinal taps and WXYZs. Seven different neurologists finally came to the diagnosis of Guillain Barre Syndrome, a condition where the body's immune system attacks itself, stripping the long strands of nerves of the myelin sheaths coating them.  It felt like my flesh was filled with little electric worms, wriggling unceasingly under my skin. I lay paralyzed in my bed for weeks, went months without driving, and finally, ten years later, I am relatively well...except for my feet.  The poor nerves must have given out in the regrowth of the sheaths around the nerves farthest from the brain.  Some days are better than others.  My feet always feel like my elbow feels when I hit my crazy bone.  It's not that bad, relatively speaking.  I can walk.  When I think about the possibilities I am amazed.  And so grateful! I can walk! My balance isn't the best, but I can walk! And I can play guitar, and smile, and breathe on my own!

Here's the thing. When they finally gave me my final diagnosis, they handed me three sheets of paper, double columns with single spaced 10 pt type.  The papers were filled with the results of all those tests.  Probably hundreds of possible diagnoses. I looked at all those maladies that could have killed me and said to myself: WE SHOULD ALL BE DEAD!  The number of things that could go wrong...and DON'T, is astounding.  

If that's not enough to make you believe there's Someone in charge of all this life stuff, what is?

When I'm having a bad-foot kind of day, I think about my friend Joan, who last her legs to Toxic Shock Syndrome.  I wiggle my toes and think to myself, "What Joan wouldn't give to have feet that hurt."

A MIGHTY WIND

Our back yard

When November rolled into December, back in 2011, we were beset with winds unlike we’ve seen for decades, some say even a century, here in our sleepy little town of Farmington, Utah. We pride ourselves in our ability to handle the east winds that have for generations howled at our barn doors and bent these old scrub oak trees until they look like massive green waves flowing westward.  We’ve seen trains blown off their tracks, eighteen wheelers upended on the side of the freeway, and road signs bent like aluminum cans at the Farmington exits.

 

But this one was a show stopper, this wind of winter 2011. Most of our county was left in darkness for days. We huddled in blankets around our fireplaces, if we had them, while the wind whipped at our doorsteps. I stood at our family room windows, watching our massive evergreen trees topple, feeling the bones of our house rattle, praying our loved ones were safe.  It was a strange and distressing moment in time.  Outside, the ear piercing whistle pulsed and pulsed, driving us to the edge of madness.

And then it was over.  The wind ceased.  From my window perch I watched as one by one our neighbors and friends came out to the streets, assessing the damage, gathering up branches and fence pieces and roof tiles. It reminded me of those old black and white war movies, where survivors appear one by one from their hiding places after a monstrous battle. I joined my friends on the street. Together we pieced back what was repairable and took the rest to the curbside. Stunned at the massive loss of flora, we held our own grief because we knew our neighbors had suffered the same. We lost five beautiful pine trees, over 25 feet tall. We had planted them twenty years ago and they had grown into a large gentle wall of green behind our house. Even now, all this time later, I grieve the loss of the privacy they had given us.  I miss their loveliness as their arms cradled freshly fallen snow.

 

The storm hit on Thursday and Friday, ceasing her fury on Saturday.

Our church yard

 Sunday came, and with it the foreboding news of an impending snow storm. The streets were covered with fallen trees and debris, so much so that vehicles could not get around them.  Power lines were precariously hanging.  Cars were crushed under fallen limbs. A snowfall would be disastrous on top of all the debris. We are a close knit community in Zion, with a lot of faith and religious dedication. Most of us in this neck of the woods are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons. A rare decision was made to cancel church on Sunday.  Instead, we gathered in the chapel in our dungarees, our warm hats and work gloves.  We paused to pray, then we set to work. 

Our Bishop calls us together on Sunday morning.

Those who could heft the weight of massive branches moved through the streets loading volunteer trailers.  Others tended children, or cooked meals for the workers.

Faithful saints labor in the field.

I made three massive pots of soup and stew while I tended grandchildren and my able bodied children labored in the cold. Dave came in from working to help me haul the vittles over to the church. We loaded the van with food and children and drove up the cul-de-sac and down Summerwood Road.  We passed our son in law Jordon’s trailer, loaded to overflowing with tree branches and pieces of fencing. Our daughter Annie stood at the side, her gloved hand on her hip, wiping her forehead.  All around us were the sounds of chain saws growling.  Paul Rees had brought his large hauling trucks down from Morgan.  Brad Palmer’s backhoe dipped its shovel into the pile of gathered branches and lifted them into the truck bed. Children followed behind with rakes and brooms. 

What became of the trees in our back yard.

In an intentional moment of pause, Dave and I scanned the scene, touched to tears at the united effort of neighbor helping neighbor.  The first Sunday of every month our church holds a Fast and Testimony meeting.  Our congregation, having fasted for two meals, is invited to come to the pulpit and witness about our faith in our Savior. It’s one of the beautiful and unique aspects of our church that I love. This was December 4th and it would have been Fast and Testimony meeting that morning.  But on this particular day witnesses were born not by word, but by deed.

Brigham Young once said “More testimonies are gained on the feet than on the knees.”

God's witnesses.

Though I miss those grand old trees that lined the fence in our back yard, I am reminded every time I notice the empty space that united hands did in one day’s work what would have cost the government a pretty penny to get done. I’m reminded how blessed we are to live in this place, where the beauty is not only in the surroundings but in the people who call Farmington home.

The line-up of trailers at the Davis County dump site was over a mile long.  All volunteers.

MISSING LTTR

Oh brothr! Th “” is brokn on my computr kyboard! Poppd right off, as you can s! It’s proving to b a ral problm. I am not skilld at typing.  I hav to look at th kys whn I typ.  Nvr did tak any of thos scrtarial classs in school. W didn’t hav computrs whn I was a kid, so you only took typing if you wr going to b a scrtary.  And I was going to b a psychologist of cours.

I guss I’v typd nough to know mor than I thought I knw, cuz I kp going aftr that “” ky without thinking.  I hit it, but it dosn’t work.  I’m trying to think of how to tll you which ky isn’t working without using it. I can’t vn phontically spll it with othr sounds. 

Hold on, I’ll s if thrs a Googl imag….

 Shsh, how do you find th lttr without typing it?  I had to writ “5^th lttr in alphabt” and lt Googl corrct it!

It’s th 5th lttr in this pictur. It's purpl.

Maks m think that littl things do mattr. On lttr maks a diffrnc. Lik th "s" on Mrs. And lik th "s" that popl kp putting on th nd of th scond word in "Daylight Saving Tim".  Just about vryon says "Daylight SAVINGS Tim".  Popl, listn up -  thr is no "s" at th nd of "saving".  
Thr IS, on th othr hand, an "s" at th nd of my last nam: Connors.  And whil w ar talking about it, thr is no "5th lttr of th alphabt" in Connors.  Only "O"s in my name.  I tll popl that and thy print up postrs with that 5th lttr of th alphabt in my nam.

Oh wll. I can't fix popls' brains. But I guss I am going to tak my poor little lam computr to th shop.
ps- sinc popl kp adding an "s" to daylight saving tim, I suggst w do away with it altogthr!

RANDOM MEANINGLESS PHOTOS

Dave and I just got home from  a fabulously fun time with some delightfully wonderful friends in the mountains of southeastern Idaho. We frolicked in the winter wonderland, snow shoeing and ice fishing and river fishing and snowmobiling.  Eating and playing and singing and talking. Fun can be just so exhausting!  (How we suffer.) We stopped off at Reed and Cindy's on the way home and gobbled and gabbed for a while, so now it's late. I unpacked my suitcase and slipped into my PJ's, forcing myself to walk into the study so I can keep the commitment I made to write every day of Lent. I shuffled through the door and plunked myself into one of the side chairs as Dave tried to figure out why my computer would not sign in to the Internet.  I moaned about wanting to just veg out (it has, after all, been such a grueling weekend!). I just don't feel like pondering, let alone writing about it. 

My commitment this year is to use pictures from my iPhone and my computer photo library as the basis for what I write.

"I'm just going to find a random meaningless picture."  I said to Dave.  "One that won't tax my brain or my heart."

"Good luck with that one," he responded.

So I have pulled up my photos and perused a few files, most of them filled with snapshots of people I love.  So I aimed for the inanimate, and here's what I found:

This is our old silver Odyssey van.  I'm not sure why this photo was taken.  It's kind of random, but it is not meaningless. This vehicle served our family for almost a decade.  It carried our teenage daughters to ball games, hauled Young Women to Girls Camp, transferred furniture and other household goods from Salt Lake to Houston when Kate moved there.  It pulled a U-Haul trailer from Farmington to Kansas City, our little Timo sitting in his car seat in the back, singing along with us as we drove.  This old van opened her passenger door and welcomed my mother for daily drives to random places like the 5 Hour Store or up Ogden Canyon.  It has found its way out through the Idaho desert, its back section filled with fishing gear. It has hauled many meals from our house to Grams for family dinners.  We have a new Odyssey van now. A shiny white one.  The silver one became overstuffed with memories.  My brother owns that silver van now and he's filling it with his antique clocks and guitars and music gear.  I believe if cars can feel good about filling the measure of their creation then this one is happy.

Nope, this is not a random meaningless photo. I'll keep looking.

Let's see...here's a fairly benign photo from my camera:

You may think it's just a plain old door.  But it's not.  It's the front door to the little old house on 200 East where our daughter Sarah lived while she attended medical school.  My girls and I stood in that little entry way and peeled nine layers of wallpaper off the walls.  One at a time we stripped away decades of life from those plaster walls, all the way back 100 years.  We added that fresh lower layer of white clap board and painted the upper walls a nice relaxing green.  It looked so fresh against that crisp white.  Our little boy, the first of our grandchildren, was carried through this door in his mother's arms, and when he left to go with his parents to Kansas City for her medical residency, he scurried out in front of his mama, who was carrying a new baby girl.  When he could finally walk Timo peeked up through that window out to the street to see if Gram and Libby had driven to Salt Lake for a visit, and when they pulled up he burst out through the door, across the sidewalk and the lawn, under the large shade tree and into Grams lap.  She won him over with Cheez Its and sips of Coke. These old gum wood trim doorways framed a precious time of my daughter's life, and therefore an important part of mine. This is not a meaningless photo. 

OK, one more shot at scanning the library for a meaningless picture.

Aha!  Here we go!

 

I'm not sure what this is.  But I do know it's our yard.  And those are our shovels. I can tell you that the hands of the man I love have used those shovels a lot!  And I know he dug that hole.  And for some reason he took a picture so he would remember where some sprinkler head is or something like that.  I can hear my Dave out there, on that piece of ground under our bedroom window.  I hear him shoveling in the early hours of a Saturday morning, while I am drifting  up out of my dream state.  I hear the pounding of the shovel head as it pierces the ground, I hear the scrape and the heft and the dumping of the dirt against the chorus of morning birds in the trees that fill the hollow there to the right of the curb. I think how blessed I am to have, as the love of my forever, a man who rises happily on a Saturday morning...his only day off really, and joyfully labors at chores that seem to oppress others. These inanimate objects, a pair of well used shovels, are full of meaning.

I am sorry to say that among the thousands of photos that are stored on this computer there is not a single picture that does not carry some memory, some inspiration, some good humor.  I guess I am not really sorry to say that.  I'm grateful.  Though I am...still... tired.

Night.  

 

MY MIXER

If you know me, you know I like a bargain. I’m not talking just “cheap”. A bargain, to be a real bargain, needs to have quality in the mix, not just price. Down East Home used to have the best tent sales.  They still have them, but they’ve gotten too savvy or something, cuz the bargains aren’t such great bargains these days.  But they used to be. Years ago Mom and I drove up to Layton for the tent sale and found a few of these wonderful AEG mixers for $100 each.  Considering that they go for $700 new, we snatched them up.  I gave one to my sister, two to daughters who bake, and kept one for myself.  It’s a workhorse of a mixer and has seen a lot of play time in the Connors kitchen.

I love my mixer.

I love my mixer, not so much because of the “what”, but because of the “with” and the “for”.  I can make a pretty good cake, and yummy cookies, but the best things that comes from that mixer are the memories. My mixer is dependable, with good adjustable speed and timer, and a wide open top that welcomes sprinkles of sugar poured from little girl hands and cups of flour dumped by little boys in a hurry to have a taste.

The first snow of every winter I call my little ones to my kitchen. Each one selects their own personal apron from the back of my pantry door. They duck their heads into the tops of their aprons and I tie them at their little waists.  I pull out the footstool and set it before the kitchen sink.  One by one my little Grands stretch up over the counter edge and swirl their fingers under warm tap water.  I squeeze some lavender soap into their chubby little palms and they bubble it up then rinse it off.  We move the mixer to my large granite island and they squish together on the black wooden stools, their heads huddled over the mixing bowl, their little voices calling out; “I speak the sugar”…can I put the vanilla in?”…”when is it my turn, Gummy?”  I flip my red cookbook open to the page with the stained 3x5 index card.  There on the top, in my mother’s sacred handwriting: Gingerbread Men.

Scoop by scoop the spices mix with the flour and the butter mixes with the molasses and soon the aroma of ginger and cinnamon rises from the top of the bowl as it spins, like an aromatic volcano spewing yumminess. When the dough is mixed just right we spoon it into plastic bags, press it out into a square brown sheet, and set it on a cookie sheet out on the front porch to chill.  After some play time, and maybe some mac and cheese, the dough is chilly and firm.  We clean off the island and sprinkle a cup of dry white flour onto the green granite, pretending it’s the snow that’s falling outside the kitchen window.  Sophie spreads it with her hand, writing little pretend messages in it. 

We dig the rolling pins out of the baking drawer, coat them with flour, and lay them on top of the cold shingle of dough.  My treasures press their full body weight into the rolling, but it takes a good sized Gummy to make it move. Meanwhile, the other kids have taken the vintage Gingerbread Boy cookie cutters and shimmied them in the flour along the edges. We cut and scoop and bake and cool and mix soft butter with powdered sugar and good vanilla, topping the dancing fellows with raisins.  The frosting at the hands of the littlest ones is not so lovely.  I have to have a talk with myself and allow it to be OK that those little cookie gents look like ragamuffins.  It’s a blessed gingerbread boy that is used to train little cooks.  I tell myself they should stand proud amidst those stuffy looking brothers with crisp white shirts and tidy raisin buttons.

The taste is timeless: it’s the taste of my childhood and the memory of my mother as a middle aged woman, and the scent of my first real kitchen as a wife and the feel of flour caked on my apron where my pregnant belly hits the counter top.  Like a gastronomical flashback my life comes together when my tongue presses against the roof of my mouth and the raisin mixes with the frosting with the ginger and the sweet.

One day, not too far from here, I will yearn for little ones to call on a snowy November day.  I’ll pull out my old dependable AEG with her never-say-die motor and tie my apron on.  Maybe I’ll mix and roll and chill and bake by myself, just to keep the tradition alive.  I’ll box up those little men and send them off to some missionary in some distant place, or some college student, or working boy, or young mother who is too far away for Great-Gummy cooking time.  I will blow a kiss onto the raisin lips of each boy and drive them to the post office. I suspect that’s coming. But not today.  Not this year. 

That mixer of mine was surely a bargain.  Beyond value. Priceless, I’d say

SNOW DAY

Up the snowy hillside we traversed, the thrust of the engine hurling us over ridges, our body weight shifting right, then left, then right again as the snow machine responded, lurching and leveling off.  We wove in and out of the tops of trees, the leaves of last year buried far below us, and the hope of the coming year pushing its way up toward the sun.  The tall, silent trees looked rather shrub-like as they poked out of the depth of white.  The warmth of the cabin dissipated the further we traveled, my cheeks all rosy and alive.  Lonnie, conscious of the delicate state of my nerves, earned my confidence and took it slow and steady on the scary slopes.  But where it was safe and clear he let her rip and allowed the heartbeat to race a bit.  I told myself the racing heart would help keep me warm. In reality, it was a lovely, sunny winter day, not too cold, and the snow over the lake shimmered in the sunlight.  We slipped down from the mountainside into the clearing, there where the water sparkled in the summer.  Now, under good thick layers of ice, we planned to tempt lurking trout and yank them into submission.  

The men had erected a nice red tent, with comfy chairs and a heater.  But Kirk had already sat there for hours this morning to no avail, so we took the auger down by the inlet, where we surmised there was more oxygen in the water.  We drilled half a dozen holes, scattered over the pond.  I stood over my little pin prick on the icy pond and scooped the frozen slush from the watery surface of the ten inch hole.  Threaded a nice plump earthworm on the hook, topped with a maggot teaser.  I let it sink to the bottom, then cocked the reel and raised it up about a foot.

Kim did the same a few yards from me, and Lonnie and Kirk down closer to the inlet.  Chris upended an orange bucket and planted herself over the lens of the lake.  As I sat there, past the point of pondering, past the point of prayers of gratitude for the immense beauty, past the consciousness of the stillness and serenity, my hand dipped down into the soft wet snow and I noticed that these were particularly perfect snow conditions.  And so I planted the heel of my pole into the snow and scooped a handful of good wet snow; pressed it between my mittens, then bent over and pushed it through a virgin path until it grew to a considerable size.  Kim lifted herself from her fruitless perch and began the same process.  When her massive snowball was just right we both squatted and counted and…1…2…3…but could not heft the weighty orb onto the base.  Believing that there is always a way, and unwilling to resort to asking for help from the men folk, we folded one of the camp chairs, leaned it up against the large snowman base, and rolled the mid section up the chair and into position.  A third, then a fourth, and TA DA, we had ourselves a snowman. Being far from any known carrot, top hat, buttons or coal, Kim trudged in her snowshoes through the slushy edge of the pond and up to the hillside where a nice curly twigged tree obliged by donating her branches.  I dug a cinnamon candy out of my down jacket and presently this appeared:

We were quite pleased.  Lonnie thought we were neglectful of our poles, and Kirk commented on the unconventional use of 4 sections instead of three, but we thought ourselves rather resourceful of our time and talents.  We thought it could serve as a sort of scarecrow for wild beasts who might come bother our supplies in the night.  But on second glance, from the side, the creation looked more like a pregnant innocent with pick-a-ninny hair, not likely to scare anyone or anything.  

By the time we left she was leaning pretty heavy.  She may be down tomorrow.  But like I said to Lonnie as we mounted our snow machines and looked back over the pond, the joy was in the creation.
(I wonder if that's what Michael, the archangel, said to God.)

SCOOP & POUR

He giggles and he splashes as he scoops and pours. A staccato kind of giggle, almost a vibrato in it, that rises from his squishy little belly and bubbles past his thick soft lips.  He discovered the bath toys when we went back to my bedroom to start a load of laundry.  I have a small stack washer and dryer in my master bedroom closet, one of the wisest decisions I made when we built this house.  It is situated in the closet just off the master bathroom.  While I did laundry, I put one year old Calvin in the tub. I loaded a batch into the washer then sat in my downy soft chair and folded napkins in the radiant sunlight that splashed through the bathroom window. Calvin flapped his little hands across the patterns of light dancing on the bath water. There’s an aluminum ice scoop in that bucket of toys on the edge of my bathtub.  Baby Boy dug the scoop into the water, lifted it to the plastic colander that was also in the bucket, and poured it out.  The water of course fell straight through.  I loaded a batch of blouses, cleaned off the counter while I waited, and hung them to air dry.  Next, the tablecloth and napkins from Sunday dinner.  I semi-dried the table cloth and spread it over our king size bed to dry wrinkleless and crisp for next week’s family dinner.  And I folded 24 large white linen napkins.  In that stretch of time Calvin sat in the tub, scooping and pouring.  I could hear him singing against the water loading into the wash tub: “Scoooop an Pooour, Scoooop an Pooour”.

You can walk down the aisle at Toys R Us and select all sorts of colorful bath toys.  I have some of them.  But you will not find an aluminum ice scoop, or a plastic spaghetti colander, or a big red Solo cup.  The environmentally friendly tug boat, made of 100% recycled materials, sat lonely on the other end of the tub.  The Spiderman washcloth that grew when he dropped it in the water? It sank.  The car, and Dora the fish, and the squishy bear with the scrubby tutu all floated unnoticed under lavender bubbles.

I am reminded today, in a world that hurls pretty pictures of thingamabobs and gadgets at us, that the purest hearts are happy with what we already have; good clean water, something to scoop with, and somewhere to pour.

THE BEST GIFTS

Today is my birthday.  The song birds are back.  I heard them singing to me in the trees outside my bedroom window.  March 5th is the perfect day for a birthday, don't you think?  So full of hope. And besides that I noticed on the news this morning that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is at an all time high today.  Happy Birthday to all of us!

 

My good friend Annick came over this morning to wish me a happy birthday.  We got to talking about my mom, and about my having grown up in the east and how that has affected my taste and my choices. Annick said something that rang refreshingly true. 

 

"Your mother moving to an eastern city from a small town in Idaho is not all that unique," she said.  "It's the fact that she knew what to do with that big city that makes her special. That she knew to access what it had to offer, the gifts of Andrew Carnegie, and historical sites, and other aspects of eastern life that she made an effort to walk through.  And while she walked through them, she took your hand and gave them to you as well."

 

The best gifts cannot be wrapped.  That's not to discredit the charm of our tokens of affection.  In the end, though, the big gifts are too multi-dimensional to wrap.

 

The most cherished birthday gift I have ever received, besides my own life, is the life of my daughter, Sarah. She was born on my 22nd birthday. Though she's a medical doctor, she has an artist's soul, and she loves symbolism.  I think she liked the idea of sharing a birthday, so she came to us three weeks early when we were living in New York. She has always graciously shared birthdays with me, even when she was little.  She'd make sure all the kids at her birthday parties would sing to her mommy too. Poor kid has never had her very own day.

 

This past year my Sarah offered another fine gift to two of my sisters.  One of the finest, I think.  Last June, when baby Joe began to knock on the door of human adventure, Sarah called to tell us they were on the way to the hospital.  A few minutes later she called back and asked to talk to Libby. 

"I wondered if you and Sherry would like to come be with us as Joe arrives?" she said. It was a divine and rare invitation, directed by the spirit.

 

So our friend who's like a sister, Leslie, came over to stay with Gram, and Libby and Sherry and I drove together up to McKay Dee Hospital. Sherry and Libby, aunties extraordinaire, have cuddled and bathed and nourished and changed diapers on countless babies, including Sarah herself.  These women have known and loved her from the moment she was born. But they have never witnessed, firsthand, the process of birth.  That Sarah, on her own, would be conscious of this and despite her natural modest nature invite them into her personal space is an indicator of the largeness of her spirit.  I sat there on the couch in her birthing room, looking at her, noticing how radiant she was; somewhat shocked at her maturity, like it suddenly hit me that she was really grown up.  She was so dignified, in every possible way.  And stunningly beautiful.

 

I cannot recall the timeline; how long we were there, what we talked about, even the time of day.  But I do recall the energy in the room rising with the closeness of contractions. I remember the doctor coming in the room, the machinery and the tools and the shifting of positions and the tightness of the grip in Sarah's hand as it wrapped around her husband's, her knees being drawn to her chest, her breath held, her forehead sweaty, her head falling back on her pillow between efforts. There was no grunting or groaning, just deeply drawn breaths, and large sighs of relief before the process began again.  Then, there was that magical moment, that crowning glory of womanhood.  A little crown of hair, then a full head, then slipping with the grace of an eagle in flight, he burst onto this planet with a wiggle and a cry.  Our baby Joe, for one last moment fully dependant on his mother, but breathing the air of this earth.  I stood back and watched as my sisters wept, their hands in the air, then drawn to their hearts, their eyes on the child, then on the mother, then on the child again. I watched their chests rise and fall with the majesty of it all. I listened to their awe, that almost unspeakable expression that finds no words.

 

 

 Christmas morning could ever compare.  Well, perhaps that first Christmas morning, I suppose.

I am often proud of my children.  They do much that would make a mother proud, all of them.  But this day, on the day of her birth, and on the day of my own birth, I celebrate with gratitude the goodness of my oldest daughter, Sarah.  If I could take anything from her it would be her own self doubts.  I would have her see herself through my eyes.  What she would see is a woman of grace and dignity and goodness, bursting with talent and intelligence, with a heart so tender it will be torn and healed over and over again, but so strong and resilient that it will live forever in the love of her Lord. 

Happy Birth-day, my Sarah Love.

Lucky little boy who will call you Mommy.