4-4-19 WINGS II

For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I am revisiting the trigger words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-13-19  the word was WINGS. 

Today I'll use the same word in a different light.

Angel Unaware

Our ten-year-old grand-daughter Ruby slept over last night. It's Spring Break and she is free from school for the week. So, tonight she and Sophie came over with their dad and helped me bake cookies with Beth and Tess while our son John (their dad) and Dave (their grandpa) installed a trailer hitch with electric wiring on John's new car.

I changed baby Tess' diaper, and when I took it out to the outside garbage my heart kind of melted seeing two sets of legs poking out from underneath the car. There is something eternal about the image of a father and son  planted in a bed of tools, their eyes focused on the same thing, their hands working in harmony with each other. 

I guess a similar scene of divinity was taking place a few feet away, through the kitchen door, where eight hands measured and stirred and scooped and baked in unison. The girls and I decided to make chocolate drop cookies. We are blessed to have children and grandchildren close enough to hammer and turn and bake and nibble together with on a regular basis. I know this is a rare and particular gift and I acknowledge it before God.

Anyway, Ruby asked if she could sleep over, and of course we obliged. I had cancelled my Thursday morning guitar classes because of Spring Break, so we could have a free portion of time to do something totally spontaneous together. How I would have loved to spend even one morning of my life with my grandmother. 

After everyone else had gone home and we had finished cleaning up the dinner and cookie mess, we sat in the family room with Gumpa and watched three baking shows on BYU TV. Finally, when I came to my senses and noticed the clock chiming eleven times, I told Ruby it was way past bedtime. So she snuggled in my lap while Gumpa offered a benediction on the day. Ruby felt the need to explain that her arms were folded around my back, and mine were folded around hers as Gumpa prayed. As Dave spoke the name of each of our children and grandchildren in his prayer, I softly passed my hand over Ruby's back, speaking love to her in silence. Because her arms were also wrapped around me, her angel wings poked out, and as the palm of my hand passed over them I was struck by the divinity of this girl snuggled into my lap. You know those little triangular bones in the back, one under each shoulder? We call them the angel wings. It's the spot where I figure our wings would attach. And tucked to the side just under those bones is a place we call the Johnny spot. That's the part on a baked chicken where Johnny claims the tenderest pieces of meat. Johnny usually carves our chickens, and the spots are always empty little cavities by the time anyone else can get to them.

When Dave scratches my back I direct him with the markers of my angel wings and the Johnny spot. 

"Upper left, outer side of the angel wing, and be sure to get the Johnny spot," I tell him. He always obliges, even when I wake him up  to help with a consuming itch I cannot reach. Dave can fall asleep at night faster than any human I have ever seen. I'm pretty much the opposite, flipping between reading various books and magazines at my bedside, reviewing messages on my phone, and praying. If I am lucky enough to fall asleep I generally wake up very shortly thereafter and panic that I will never in my life sleep again. I usually end up out in the family room in the recliner, reading with my legs bent up to my chest, because they are always restless.

My friend James Christensen, who recently joined the ranks of angels, was a master of storytelling with paint. He has a treasure trove of masterpieces wherein angels do angelic things, and sometimes non-angelic things. James was whimsy personified, and you never knew from one day to the next which version you would get. He had a deep and sincere faith in all things divine.

Of Men and Angels

And he also had a mischievous sparkle that always irritated his eye and he could never get it out even when he rubbed hard.

How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin

I loved him. So many people loved him. We still do. Sometimes I imagine James hovering over Carole, and his kids and grandkids. I imagine him lifting his artist hand and passing a luminous palm over the bony nubs of their angel wings while they are sleeping.

The Oldest Angel

James has a sculpture and painting I love that depicts a one-winged angel. Sometimes I feel like a one-winged angel; with one foot in the divine and the other slipped over the edge.

Sleeper, Lost in Dreams

A couple months ago, after our last Mormon Arts Foundation board meeting at Sam and Tammy Cardon's place in Orem, Dave and I stopped at the art gallery in the mall where they had set up an exhibit of James' unfinished works. Carole says she isn't quite sure James would be happy with people seeing his unfinished work. He was always particular about when he would show his pieces, because they evolved under his direction and he didn't like to reveal himself as incomplete.

One particular painting in his unfinished works depicts an angel looking at her wings spread out on the floor, as if she is trying to figure out what to do with them. It is classic Christensen, parable-like in its layers of meaning. 

The Problem with Wings

"Doctrine may state angels have no wings, 

but to an artist with the love of classical art 

such as Christensen, wings on angels were about 

design and symbolism. A good friend of Christensen's

 would often comment on an otherwise extraordinary

painting having a 'problem with wings.'"

I personally like the idea of wings on angels. I know we probably won't need them for transport. It's just that they look and sound so awesome, and they represent the superhuman potential in all of us.

Our kitchen wall always had a Christensen calendar on it

.

I miss that smile.

4-3-19 FORGE II

For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I will be revisiting the trigger words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-21-19  the word was FORGE. Today I'll use the same word in a different light.

It was the rumbling exhale of a nearby horse that finally woke me on the 3rd of July, 1976. Rising mentally from my dream state, I inhaled slow and steady the moist fresh morning air scented with dewy grass and waking soil. When your head is down there against the surface of the earth you realize the shifting that takes place in the whisperings of the morning. I had planted my sleeping bag, as usual, under the wagon bed in order to escape the filtered moisture that distilled through the night. My sister Libby, who has always suffered from a titch of claustrophobia, slept a few feet away in her brown cotton bag on the grass to the side of the wagon.

Weeks before, in the early summer of 1976 our mother had driven us out to Roundhill Park near our home in Pittsburgh, PA. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon. Her sister, my Aunt Mary, had called from Idaho to tell us that her friend Zaven Green would be at the park with the rest of the Bicentennial Wagon Train. That whole year, in celebration of the 200 year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, covered wagons representing each of the 50 united States had been traveling the old trails that were used in the settling of America: the Oregon Trail, the Southern Trail, the Northern Trail , and were joined by other trails, the New England Trail and the Great Lakes Trail. They were pioneers in reverse. At well over 80 years old, Zaven was the oldest wagoneer in the bunch. Renowned for his skill with horses, he had been enlisted to drive the Alaska Wagon, which came down and over through the Oregon Trail. They had travelled at roughly ten miles a day through the temperate months of 1975 and early 1976 on their way to the cradle of America, Valley Forge. The President of the United States, Gerald R Ford, would greet all 50 wagons on July 4th. 

Zaven sat atop his wagon, the reigns attached to his obedient team of horses wrapped in his leather-skinned hands, his broken-in felt hat cast a shadow over his face down to his chin. He patted the buckboard and invited us to sit beside him up there in the wagon. That sweet little tingle of "I am special" rose up my spine as I planted my foot, decked in flip flops, on the little wooden step attached to the side of the wagon. The faintly familiar aroma of horse sweat and fresh manure mixed with a bit of new campfire smoke and cigarette smoke that drifted above the crowds of Western Pennsylvanians who came to see the wagon train. 

The large circle of wagons began the process of tying down for the night. Horses were led to temporary corrals or tied to  posts attached to wagons. Tarps were laid out and slip knots were released, allowing canvas closures to come down behind the wagons. The little girl who always hides inside of me, even though at that point I had turned 18 and graduated from high school, completely embraced the pretend mode. I had always, since I could remember, dreamed of being a pioneer. I had thought I was born in the wrong era. (I know better now.) This was a dream come true! I sat up there on the buckboard pretending all these people walking around us were a futuristic dream, and I was, in reality, sitting beside my husband as we maneuvered our wagon across new and treacherous trails on our way to a land of new opportunities.

You can imagine the yearning I felt when Zaven asked if we would like to ride along with him for a few days. We three girls, Ann Marie, Libby and I, swarmed around our mother like Little Women around Marmee, begging her to let us go. Of course, because she had the heart of an adventurer herself, and she understood the value seizing the moment, she said yes. The next morning she dropped us off before the sun had found its way into the morning sky. A hug and a kiss then off we went with Zaven at the reigns. After a few blissful days Mom met us in another town, forty five minutes away by car and three days travel by wagon. The plan was to pick us up and take us home. But again we wrapped our arms around her and begged her to let us continue. Zaven was happy for the company. Even though it meant I would not be starting that new job that would earn me some money for college, Mom conceded. By that evening Mom and Ann Marie drove off, leaving Libby and me in the care of Zaven, with a case of Campbells chicken noodle soup, a box of saltine crackers, and a large jar of peanut butter. Libby and I lived on that for the next month as we worked our way toward Valley Forge. Those weeks on the trail were filled with charm, and adventure, and memories made with my sister; riding on the wagon bed, our legs dangling off the back, flipping up with every bump and pothole; jumping off to cool off in an accommodating stream or to find a five and dime in some random town square. I learned that I am not a good horsewoman. I bounce up and down when I ride, my legs unaccustomed to the strength it takes true horsemen to ride. Shane, the son of our outriders, who came from Kodiak Alaska, rode his horse ahead of me through the open grassy fields of Eastern PA, teasing me to follow him. Ah, Shane. (sigh)

On the morning of July 3rd we rose early, all of us, well before the sun had dried the dew. We cleaned our wagon, folding everything in neat piles, clearing all garbage, and wiping down even the wagon wheels. It had rained for days before this, and it was quite a task to get everything spic and span. Horses were cleaned and brushed, their tails braided. Polished saddles were cinched around their bellies. Many of the women wore dresses; pretty cotton pioneer dresses with fine cotton print, neatly pressed and packed away at the start of this long journey, prepared for such a day as this. American flags were tied to the wagons.

We all waited until we heard the echoing call of the Wagon Master: "Wagons Ho!" One by one each wagoneer repeated the call, and one by one the sounds of metal and leather and wood working together with the voices of animals and humans joined in a beautiful chorus of liberty. Thousands on thousands of Americans gathered as we rode into Valley Forge, the flags strapped to our wagons floating in the breeze, people clapping and cheering as we passed. We all regained our patriot hearts that day, every participant and spectator. 

Our mom and Ann Marie met us somewhere in that massive crowd. We kissed Zaven's ruddy cheek and thanked him for this treasure chest of memories he bequeathed to us.

Later that day we drove to Washington DC, where we reunited with our brother George, who had just that day returned from a two-year mission in Brazil. It was his literal day of independence.

That word, independence, sits in a bed of irony for me. The older I get the more I see that what I perceive as independence is in fact an admission of utter dependence: on myself, on the people who share my values, and most accurately, on my God.

4-2-19 STRING II

Lila Shill, age 15.

Lent Writing note: We are half way through the season of Lent. If you've been following my daily writing exercises you know I have received a single word via a random word generator on the internet (www.randomwordgenerator.com). Each day I use the word as a trigger to my writing exercise, then I post what I've written here on my blog.

For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I will be repeating the words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-12-19  The word was STRING. Today I'll use the same word in a different light.

I know strings. The kind with little knobs on the end, some of them thin and almost invisible if they fall on the floor, and some thick and wound with more string. I purchase them in quantities multiplied by 6. They are necessary for my guitars to fill the measure of their creation. It would be sad to be a guitar with no strings, or to be a string with no guitar.

If I were a harp string, I would want to live in the Shill house.

Sunday night we got a call inviting us to hop on over to our neighbors, the Shill's house, to hear Lila play her recital pieces. Lila is a beautiful, graceful and charming fifteen-year-old. Through the years I have heard her play her harp in church, not often enough. Things like Silent Night at Christmas. Her harp teacher requires her students to play their recital pieces for ten different audiences before their recital, and Dave and I got to be one of those audiences. Honestly, it felt like we went into this as a favor to our friends, and came out knowing full well that we had been the ones blessed. 

Besides the fact that this young girl had played, from memory, twenty-five minutes of very complicated harp music, it blew me away that she was able to hit all those notes precisely AND play with fluid pacing and dynamics. I watched her fingers flutter in and out of those strings, like mystical dragonflies. I was torn between closing my eyes to breathe-in the music and the stunning visual scene before me: lovely Lila with her flowing hair and dancing hands, her well-exercised fingers plucking out with strength and precision one moment, then floating in and resting gently against the strings, stopping their vibrations, like a mother hushing her child. 

This is what every body who hears Lila's music wants to do.

When Lila played her first piece she sat alone in the corner of their beautiful living/music room. Dave and I sat opposite her in soft chairs. By the third piece, nine-year-old Emma had wrapped herself in a blanket and laid herself on a pillow in the middle of the living room floor, her pink stuffy tucked against her chest. Caleb joined her there on the carpeted floor by song four. Mom and Dad perched themselves in quiet places, behind us on the stairs and tucked into a corner by the door. Lila's parents, Talmage and DaNae, have heard these songs played on these strings, no doubt, countless times, and yet here they were again, unable to turn away. The music, and the spirit of it all was magically calming and at the same time full of energy. 

After Lila had performed all her recital pieces we asked for an encore. Talmage, with some coaxing, lifted his guitar off the wall and joined Lila in a beautiful rendition of Dona Nobis Pacem. Talmage plucked away at the strings of his classical guitar while his daughter carried her own part on the harp. It seemed so representative to me; a father walking the path of his own, but weaving in and out of the path his oldest daughter took. It was just lovely.

Heaven in one little corner of the earth.

By the end of the night we had heard eleven-year-old Caleb play the strings of their sparkling grand piano, struck with felt hammers under the polished wood soundboard. And Emma gave us a magical tune on her little harp, remarkably played with the genetic gift of her sister. And then, with much prompting and urging, we were graced by the hands of their mother, Danae. Danae, you need to know, is the epitome of grace and loveliness. She is the powerful force behind all this talent, and in spite of a frightening recurrence of breast cancer that visited her this past year and a half, she has nurtured the little lambs of her fold, while fighting her own wearying battle. And to top it off, during all of this, she sits in the Suzuki lessons of her kids and has not tuned out the lessons but has been, instead, teaching herself to play harp. 

Caleb, who marches to his own drum.

Emma follows in the footsteps of her sister.

Last night, heavenly strains of music flowed through us as we visited the blessed space of our good neighbors. It felt like we were planted on a rock in a holy stream, and sacred waters swirled around us as we warmed ourselves in the light of the love that shone there. I am not being overly dramatic in this. It was literally how it felt. 

Through the waking hours of the remainder of the night, and into the rising sunlight of the mornings after, I have been pondering the family Shill. Each one of them represents individual goodness: Talmage, DaNae, Braedon, Elder Collin who wears the badge of a missionary every day, Lila, Caleb and Emma, and even Lucy the massive dog whose mighty tail bruises DaNae's legs when she gets excited... each one fills a spot in the love place tucked under my heart. But collectively...collectively they are like their own planet, rotating faithfully around the Son.

I told the kids, after they had favored us with their songs, that they are profoundly blessed to have parents who would invest in their children like this. Harp strings are not guitar strings. One string will cost as much as a set of guitar strings, and there are 47 of them. Just the cost of the instrument alone is prohibitive for most humans. And then there are the lessons. Enough said. The parent or the spouse of a harp player is the be applauded about as much as the musician. 

Talmage, whose hands work the magic of
a physician by day, and a music backer by night.

I bow with real respect to every musician who masters their strings, or their reeds, or their mouthpieces, or their mallets and sticks, or their vocal cords. I recognize and celebrate the makers of the instruments we play, the masters who understand the necessity of integrity in an instrument. Because, as it turns out, it takes a strong, well designed and executed piece of wood to hold the tension of a string. It's the tension that creates pitch, and it takes a willing and skilled set of hands to master that tension and create the magic of music.

Lila's magical hands.

4-1-19 HARVEST

In the spring of 1957 the BBC reported that Swiss farmers were experiencing a record spaghetti crop. Italians were migrating en masse into Switzerland to reap the harvest, some of them risking treacherous mountain passes in order to escape the long lines at border crossings. The crop came after a particularly sunny March, with even tempered rainfall. Spaghetti trees, in particular, produced nearly five times their typical fruit. Manicotti and Rigatoni bushes did not fare as well. It appears that on April 1st the border guards were held hostage as angry Italians took truckloads of the spring spaghetti harvest over into the territory where, Italians claim, they own the birthright to spaghetti.

In celebration of this historic harvest I planned a spaghetti dinner for my crew. This was years ago, when I had a nightly crew of hungry mouths to feed at my kitchen table. I set the table with a vinyl tablecloth and no plates, though I did provide serving utensils, fanned out around the perimeter of the empty table. When the kids got home from school they each made their way instantly to the large heavy metal pot on the kitchen stove where fresh marinara had been simmering all day. Fresh ground tomatoes, crushed garlic and plenty of hand torn basil bubbled away. Each kid, one by one, dipped a spoon into the pot, blew on it with a long steady breath of air, rumbling their pleasure in the back of their throats after they swallowed. They knew what was coming, so they all made it a point to be home for dinner. After Dave finally arrived, repeating the same family ritual of testing whatever is simmering on the stove, we gathered round the kitchen table and prayed for the Lord to bless this food to our health. Annie asked where the plates were. I did not reply.

"Um, Mom, do you want me to get the plates?"

"Nah, we're OK," I replied, walking over to the table with a huge pasta bowl filled with spaghetti covered in heavenly sauce. Before anyone else could say anything, I dumped the whole serving bowl of pasta onto the table, spreading it out along the oblong top, singing aloud as I did it:

"Mangiamo!"

(that's Italian for "Let's eat!")

They all looked at me, stunned, waiting for me to give logic to what just happened. 

"April Fools. Enjoy your dinner."

They each grabbed one of the awkward serving utensils and dug in, because, as we all know, spaghetti doesn't grow on trees and you have to get it whenever and however you can.

An April Fools lemonade toast to one and all! May you harvest some hilarious memories.

In 1996, Taco Bell,
the fast-food restaurant chain,
duped people when it announced
it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s 
Liberty Bell and intended to rename it the
Taco Liberty Bell.

 In 1998, after Burger King advertised
 a “Left-Handed Whopper,”
scores of clueless customers
requested the fake sandwich.

In 1985, Sports Illustrated tricked many
 of its readers when it ran a made-up article
 about a rookie pitcher named Sidd Finch 
who could throw a fastball over 
168 miles per hour.

3-30-19 HAREM

Ah, the memories! What seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago, my mother, sisters and I decided to take a trip to Germany and Austria. My sister Libby's friend Jim had offered to let us use his beautiful large condo in Burghausen, Germany just across the Salzach River  from Salzburg, Austria. It was a wonderful journey, memorable not only for the awesome collection of firsts and the stunning beauty of nature where history planted itself, but for the miracle and the magic that came with the assemblage of my mom and all my sisters but one. How amazing would it have been to have Ann Marie with us? But as it turned out, in those days before smart phones, Ann Marie became the communication hub for us when Libby was bumped from her flight and half of us had to overnight in New York when they cancelled one leg of our flight. So we all found each other through long distance international calls to Ann Marie in California. (Thanks for the sacrifice, A.M. You must have been inspired to stay home.)

I could fill a chapter book with our adventures; climbing the steps of the Salzburg fortress, looking over the hills and valleys where Julie Andrews swung her arms open wide in the Sound of Music, skipping down through the twisting roadside from the enchanted Neuschwanstein castle, German pizza and our introduction to down comforters and crusty bread with freshly churned butter from the market; pewter and wax ornaments and wooden hand carved cherubs and sheep and such. It would be a good read for at least the five women and their chauffeur.

Personally, I had a thing for the chauffeur. He was awesome; handsome and able and he spoke perfect English. He was a master at handling the large rental van we acquired at the airport. He maneuvered that thing through traffic with German, Austrian and Italian signage. He spoke Italian, so once we dipped into Italy for a cup of their famous hot chocolate, he was flying easy. Even though I sat in the very back of the van as we flew at devilish speeds over the autobahn, I couldn't take my eyes off him, up there in the driver's seat. And even though I'm not super experienced with the art of flirting, I had a sense he might feel the same about me because he repeatedly stretched his neck to find the corner of the rear view mirror that gave him a view of my seat in the van.
Turns out I bedded down with the chauffeur under one of those luxurious down comforters in the condo. Yummy, soft, thick comforters with crisply ironed duvet covers that matched the pillowcases. I couldn't help myself. And, it turns out, my husband didn't mind at all that I slept with the chauffeur. 
Yup.
It's a good thing  I was married to the chauffeur. None of my sisters flirted with him, so there wasn't any competition. So far I've been riding with the same chauffeur for more than four decades now.

The two women who wove in and out of my daily life since I was very small, before I could walk, are as comfortable with Dave as I am. Mom and Libby love him as deeply and dearly as I do. And my other sisters, while they may not at that point have had as much daily interaction with him, feel emotionally, physically and spiritually safe with him, just like I do.

Since I was raised by a single mother, and my best friend/sister is single, it didn't take long for us to have a blessed understanding that Dave didn't just marry me, he married a harem. That trip to Germany was a microcosm of our lives. Dave takes care of all of us. On some level or another. He is fiercely loyal to me, and so I am fine with sharing him the way we do.

I'm perfectly comfortable sitting in my house tapping away at my computer while he and Libby take Rags for a nightly walk. He was the one, besides Libby, around whose neck my mother could most comfortably wrap her arms as he shifted her from the car to her wheel chair, then from the wheel chair to her red recliner. He is just as comfortable having my sister Sherry sitting next to him on a drive as he is with me. He is the first call at midnight when the water heater breaks, the surest feet behind the snow blower after a winter storm, the most willing set of arms trimming trees at our house and the house up on the corner where the rest of the harem lives. He is good, and kind, and strong and funny and I will gladly share him with the people I love, as long as it's me who, at the end of the night, gets to pray beside him there at our bed, which, by the way, has had its own down comforter ever since that trip to Germany.

Happy Birthday, Dave. Your harem loves you.

3-29-19 TRIP

If I remember correctly, (which is always a little iffy), in our 41 years of wedded bliss there are only two times Dave and I have bought brand new cars. We are “those people” who subscribe to Consumer Reports, check the ratings, and purchase solidly recommended pre-owned vehicles, a.k.a. used cars. Then we drive them till they die. So far, Consumer Reports has never steered us wrong.

For that first brand-spankin’ new car we purchased we must have been in some sort of new-parent, tired student stupor, because it was so far from anything we would have ever purchased before or after that time.And, I might add, we did not consult Consumer Reports at that point. It was a baby blue two door Ford sedan. I don’t recall the model. I have no idea what compelled us to even look at such a thing, let alone buy it. My family still teases us about it. We didn’t own it for long. It was quickly replaced by a trusty used yellow Toyota Corona or Corolla or something like that. Honestly, for me cars are just vehicles of transportation.

The second new car we bought was a mini-van. This was in the era when the mini-van was a new and exciting mode of transportation for the large families that sprouted from the fertile soil of northern Utah. We had the van for two days before Dave and I left for a trip somewhere. I think maybe it was St Croix. Generally all Dave's trips were attached to business. Occasionally, if we could figure out what to do with the 4 kids who insisted on using our last name, I would join him for a get-away. 

For this particular trip, wherever it was, we had enlisted my mom and sister, Libby to watch the kids. They both had jobs with some flexibility, and we were blessed by their willing hands and massively good hearts. Mom drove us to the airport. When she returned home she and Lib loaded the kids into that new van and drove to Peter Piper Pizza. The excitement of a brand new car, with all the new car smells and shiny dashboard, met with the comfort of spaciousness, where everyone had enough space to breathe. I think that new car smell went to their heads and they decided, on a whim, that they should all take a trip. So while we were flying off to some legal conference somewhere, they loaded up a couple suitcases of no-doubt unlaundered clothes for the kids, a large bag of nibbles and drinks, and headed west toward the San Francisco Bay area, where three of my sisters lived.

I can’t tell you much about their trip, because obviously, I wasn’t there, but they still talk about it… about how each kid was assigned to hold the hand of their adult-buddy as they traipsed around Ghirardelli Square… about the adventure of handling a van on the zig-zag slopes of Lombard Street… about feeding the seals and eating Boudin’s sourdough bread and fresh Dungeness crab bought on Fisherman’s Wharf. These were the memories of my own childhood trips to that magical place, and I think Gram and Lib just decided that my kids should have them, too.

These are not our kids,
but I imagine this is how it looked
and sounded in our van that week.

When Dave and I got home from our get-away, we never would have known that anything out of the ordinary had happened for our little clan. John was playing in the back yard, Sarah was at the piano, Kate and Annie were trying to dress our cat, Mittens, in some Cabbage Patch clothes. Dinner was on the stove and the laundry was done and stacked in neat piles on the counter. It wasn’t until we got in our new van to drive to the grocery store that we suspected anything. Our first clue was the 2,000 miles on the odometer of our week-old car.

The odometer on our current Honda Odyssey van
 says 250,000.Our mechanic says it has a
 terminal disease. We are letting it fill the
measure of its creation until it goes
to mini-van heaven.

Thanks, Mom and Lib, for breaking-in that trusty old workhorse of a van for us, and for trippin’ with my kiddos.

3-28-19 ICE

Like the pearly pink flesh of a newly plucked chicken, I stared curiously at my forearm. Tiny blonde hairs stood at attention from each goose-bump as I shivered there, snuggled into a pile of sawdust in Uncle Parks’ ice house. It was early July in Blackfoot, when the Idaho sun had found its happy place up there in the cloudless sky, set plump and glowing against a soft baby-blanket blue. The skies of my typical non-Idaho summer days were a murky grey, washed over a distant blue, the residue of belching Pittsburgh steel mills painting a dirty wash over God’s intentions. But for a few sacred weeks Idaho was home, and that trusty Idaho wind kept the skies clean and clear.

The ice house was, now that I am old enough to think through these kind of things, actually the domain of my Uncle Parks, the second eldest of eleven children in my mother’s family. It was one of his many entrepreneurial ventures. He and his brothers-in-law and some sisters and other hired hands travelled by horse and wagon and early versions of flat bed trucks up toward the mountains, through Ashton and Island Park, up to the edge of the Snake River where the altitude in winter kept the air well below freezing.

Uncle Parks, Uncle Archie and Aunt Mary (my mother's sister)

Deep into the wild winters up there in the mountains they took their long wide-toothed saws and their well-earned muscles and set to work. Before the era of power-tools, they raised large pick axes over their heads and hurled them down into the surface of the thick frozen river, then turned massive drills to create deep holes in the frozen skin of the Snake. From that beginning they sawed large rectangular chunks of ice, which they rolled over logs and up onto the wagons.

When the sun had crossed the sky and was already working its way into tomorrow, they harnessed up the horses, strapped down the logs and the ice, covered them with canvas and burlap, and made their way back down to Blackfoot. Next morning, they rolled those large blocks of frozen water off the wagon and onto the hand-made conveyor, up into the darkest corners into mounds of sawdust there in the massive barn behind the house. The cold from the ice wrapped itself around each block, creating a natural refrigerator, insulated by the darkness and the sawdust and the thick wooden walls of the barn. By the time June arrived, the ice was still frozen, and would remain so even into the hottest months of the year.

Every human child should have an icehouse to visit on hot summer days. A dark, cool space that raises the hair of their innocent arms, where the air enters the nostrils chilled and clean, with a faint hint of aromatic wood. And every child, then, should have access to a Parrish Ice House ice pick, so they, too, could plunge that thin steel pick into a chunk of ice, chipping off pieces small enough to plop into their mouths. Then, refreshed by the frozen waters of the old Snake River, every child should also have an accommodating pile of sawdust in which to daydream away a hot summer afternoon.

3-27-19 MITE

The marketplace was already overcrowded. Swirling colors and cacophonous noises echoed against the temple wall. Pungent smells melded into each other; earthy root vegetables wilting in the sun, body odors and fish odors mingled with the smoky ever-present scent of burning flesh with overtones of incense. Weaving through the mass of people and animals, Lemek set his eye on the outer gates of the temple. It was later than he had planned, and his velvet robes had become hot, heavy and cumbersome by then. Nonetheless he swept the ground with the hem, swishing his way through the Court of the Gentiles, past the signs of Soreg, warning the unworthy against entry. He scooted past the money changers and into the Middle Court. His servant followed him, humped over with the weight of his master’s offering. Tiny brass bells jingled from the fringe of the bag, He shifted the weight from arm to arm, shuffling behind his master’s sweeping robe. Finally, they stopped, planting themselves in a line strung against one of the tables outside the temple doors. Coins clanged on the table tops, falling from bags and boxes and pockets. 

Three times a year Lemek brought his gift to the temple, diligent in the least that was required of a faithful Jew. This day he stood in line because he was late, his servant bowed quietly beside him. Standing in front of him at the table was a waif of a woman. Her  linen shawl was pulled around a sleeping child tucked against her breast, the stretched weave revealing patched fibers and lost fringe. Her shoulders cupped around her lowered head and a few stray strands of her long dark hair fluttered out from under her veil. She was not dirty, nor did she stink, yet her presence was repulsive to Lemek and he stepped back, trying to create a little distance without forfeiting his place in line. When she stepped up to the table her hand brought forth two mites, and as she did  the child awoke. She lifted him to her shoulder, trying to subdue his hungry wail while she completed her offering, but the baby strained his face, his toothless cries bouncing off the holy walls. The child’s dark liquid eyes looked right into Lemek’s. Turning his head toward the temple gate, Lemek tried to ignore the cries, but the baby’s gaze was magnetic and he could not resist staring at the child. The priest at the table mumbled in glottal tones “Two mites, from the widow of Hadar.” With that she lowered the child to her empty breast and turned from the temple wall, sifting like a grain of sand into a sea of strangers.

Lemek’s shoe had caught the hem of his robe and he stumbled slightly as he took his place at the table. He cursed at his servant in the process of righting himself, as if to say it had been his fault. “Give him the bag!” he shouted, sweeping his arm up into the air, arching his neck to see who might be watching. The servant hefted the bag onto the table top, the bells jingling against the stony top, coins falling onto the floor. The servant knelt to retrieve them, his head bowed to the floor, his forearms sweeping under the heavy table.

Eventually the priest, having counted the offering, stood and made his way to the temple steps. He climbed to the top, just outside the heavy doors, and boldly announced to the crowd the generous offering of the benevolent Lemek and his house. The pitch of the mass of people rose and fell and Lemek turned to bow. 

Across the courtyard Jesus sat and watched, while in the distance, weaving in and out of the throbbing throng, a hungry infant wailed. 

3-26-19 PITCH

We sing in church. We sing in the congregation, and then after our church meetings we shuffle back into the chapel for an extra hour of choir practice. I figure it’s the least I can do; for the Lord, for our congregation, for myself. 

The thing is, I’m pretty confident when I'm singing my own little folk songs with my guitar, and I can do it quite comfortably in front of rather large audiences, but I am a decidedly inferior choir member. I have terrible breath control, and my vibrato is out of control, and most disconcerting  of all, I am not good at reading music. I am remedial at best. This is where sticking with piano lessons more than three months when I was twelve years old would have helped me. Reading choir music is like attempting to do math and read an essay at the same time. I say “attempting” because I don’t think I ever really did math. Reading music is one eye trying to figure out the pitch, one foot tapping out the beat, the other foot interpreting the length of notes and rests and such, and the second eye is bouncing up and down finding which musical staff the altos are singing and following that lyric. To the unskilled it is a virtual circus act, with spinning plates in one hand and hula hoops in the other while treading on the apex of a small red ball. The only consolation I have in singing in church choir is that we are, supposedly, all hacks. At least half the members of our church choir are better than I am at reading music, so it helps to plant myself next to one of them.

This is not the church choir I am talking about.
But it is the same church.

Now and then someone will pull me aside in the hall and ask if I teach voice lessons. I chuckle, feeling a little bit like a con-man must feel when he thinks he's gotten away with something; like I tricked another one into thinking I can actually sing. I refer them to Sarah, or Susan, or Natalie, my friends who actually understand music and know how to teach the voice to interpret it . It only takes one short choir rehearsal for me to realize I can’t actually “sing” very well. What I do is tell stories with pitch.

I have said, and still say, that I can embrace just about any musical performance in any style from any singer as long as they are believable and they are on pitch.

Sometimes, even for those of us who sing a lot, the dang pitch can win at the game of hide and seek, like that time in high school when our Young Women's group was singing for opening exercises of Mutual. I was accompanying on guitar, and I plucked away at a sweet little intro to Edelweiss. As usual, the rest of the girls waited a millisecond for me to sing the first note and they all joined in. But this time the note eluded me.

I sang the first syllable on one wrong note, and then another, and then another as the rest of the girls stood there dumbfounded. Finally, I took off my capo and announced “We are going to sing One Tin Soldier” and I started plucking away. Michelle poked her knuckle in my back and whispered under her breath, “I don’t know that one.” But off I went, my fingers hopping over the strings in an upbeat Travis pick while the rest of the clan dragged half a syllable behind me with the melody and the lyric.

I heard somewhere that no-one if truly tone deaf, unless they are biologically deaf, as in unable to hear. The task is matching the note in our ears to the one in our mouths. One of my earliest memories is of my mom and me folding laundry in the basement on Old Clairton Road. Singing was part of most mundane activities of my youth. It still is. My mom was really good at making up little ditties. We sang all sorts of random songs that I still keep tucked in my heart-file. My mom made me feel emotionally safe singing. She sang to me, I sang to her. It was talking, with pitch.

 I always came home from school on the days our music teacher taught us new songs and shared the new tunes with my mom. She sang them along with me. I remember specifically this one moment when Mom, interrupted me in the middle of rolling a pair of socks and asked me to find the note. “Try it again, Cori. Can you hear it? It’s up here….” And she sang it for me. My little thin voice slurred up and met hers. Something happened inside me when out pitches met. Something powerful enough to make me remember it all these years later.  With the wisdom of age, I believe it to have been the Holy Ghost manifesting truth to me. This is absolutely the kind of thing the Holy Ghost would be in charge of. I felt it then, and I re-feel it now just thinking about it. 

Mom and the Holy Ghost were both teaching me that certain things need to be matched absolutely to be eternal. In that regard music meets covenants and love in the path of truth. And that’s the path where I want to plant my feet.

Lord, make me an instrument.

This Prayer of St Thomas of Assisi is set to a
one of my favorite pieces of music by John Rutter,

If you want to hear yourself better when you sing, plug one ear.
Do this and try matching pitch. It's good kid training (and adult, too)

No wonder I feel iffy all the time,
I am perpetually infected.