2024/11 OH. (SPILLED MILK)

I paused in the kitchen and watched spilled milk work its way around the dishes on the counter. It quickly found the edge of the countertop and took the long plunge to the kitchen floor, like a creamy white waterfall. I surprised myself with my casual response, just standing there watching, allowing the milk to take its own path. Isn’t it human nature to rush to grab a dishtowel and stop it?  Yet there I was, a good chunk of the way into adulthood, frankly pretty experienced with wiping up spilled milk, curious about its course. The only word that came to my mind or my lips was “Oh.” (Not even with an exclamation point.)

I vividly remember that moment. It’s become rather pivotal for me. One of those moments where you were a different person before than after. I call those thin veil experiences, where our angels are more present than usual and the gravitational pull of this earthly realm has a hiccup. I felt like my little team; my assigned angels and I had a spontaneous heavenly huddle and decided it was time to let go of unnecessary panic. 

This must have happened to other people before because “Don’t cry over spilled milk” is now cliché, and things don’t become cliché unless they are repeatedly true.

I have found myself whispering the word “Oh” many times since.  I crunch the bumper of my car into a curb… a friend’s teenage daughter ends up pregnant… I hear someone whisper that they don't care for my music? I find myself calming myself with a little “Oh.” (with no exclamation mark.) Even when someone I cherish dies. "Oh," I think to myself. The lift and the lilt of the way I say it may change slightly. If you don’t understand the depth of the meaning, the comfort of a single vowel coming out of a swirl of emotion, you might think it heartless. That’s logical. I mean, if I heard someone simply say “Oh” at tragic news, I might judge.

I suppose that little revelatory moment when I let the spilled milk hold its proper place in the long-term importance of things continues to manifest itself in repeated lessons. There is so much I cannot or should not control, or want to control, in the way life unfolds. Getting worked-up about what is meant to be is likely a misuse of energy. Of course, the brain is more often powerless against the strong arm of the heart. But I guess my angels decided to toss me that single syllable as a reminder. Sometimes, often times, I get crazy worked up about stuff. That’s my nature I suppose. But sometimes I comfort myself with little “Oh’s”. They are, in slightly more focused terms, my way of saying “Let God prevail.” or “Don’t rush to get in the way of yourself.”

Sometimes, when my imagination gets the best of me and I conclude that I am either going to die, someone I love is going to die, or my faith is going to die, I can stop the panic by simply verbalizing the word “Oh.” (Sometimes I allow an exclamation mark for emphasis, out of respect for the severity of the imagined situation.) It’s amazing to me how effective the practice is. It doesn’t solve everything, but it kind of puts the pegs in their proper place while life figures itself out.

So, now I’ve been ruminating all morning on O, the roundness of it and the eternal nature of it. I roll my wedding band around my ring finger and ponder the endlessness of it. And then I get to thinking that good is God with an extra o. 

Maybe I’ll ease my way to God by just allowing myself to be good.

2024/10 DEFINITION OF A CAMEL

The other day I pulled up a little video stored on my phone. It was my friend Margaret standing in her sewing room, her apron tied at her waist, scissors and measuring tape hanging over her shoulders. I can almost smell the steam, starch and machine oil as I watch it. The video is less than 30 seconds long. She tells a joke:

“Definition of a camel: 

a horse made my committee.”

Her lips curl up, and I can hear the giggles of my friends listening from their machines and the cutting table.

That little joke remained in my head this week, brought to the forefront when we were gathered in the cultural hall of our small church after the funeral of a dear friend. The crowd of loved ones was larger than expected. Chatting with some friends, I looked up and noticed one of our Relief Society sisters rolling an additional large round table out into the crowded room to make more seating space.  I scurried over to suggest we not do that as the space was already too full of tables and the place where they would put it blocked the drink table and the serving line of the food tables. It was habit, I suppose, that made my feet move and my mouth boss people around. One of my oldest and dearest friends, frustrated by what must have been a forceful suggestion, turned around, returned the table and left the church.

Later that afternoon I called her to apologize. 

“I think I overstepped my bounds today, and I am so sorry. I am no longer Relief Society president, and who am I to say how things should be done?”

She replied that she has struggled for years with how we tend to do things in our ward. People bring food in perfectly good bowls and we resituate them in the bowls we want. We want things “just so” and in the process make more work for everyone. She owned her own feelings, much to her credit, and I listened with an open mind.

She’s right, we all seem to have our own ideas how things should be done. And when we get together, if there’s not a clear understanding of what we are hoping to achieve, feelings are bound to get hurt. Frankly, I’m amazed we women are able to do this kind of thing repeatedly. This was the first funeral in our ward since I was released as RS president. During my tenure we had done 20 funerals followed by family luncheons. I suppose I took too much ownership in how things should be done.Our new president was out of town and I was going on muscle memory.

I’ve really been pondering the idea of committees. Frankly, if we are participants in the human race we are part of committees on all sorts of levels. Our classrooms are committees, our families, neighborhoods and congregations. We who are part of a democratic society participate in massive communities. Most projects, from the PTA carnival to city fireworks to the serving of the Sacrament require people to work together. The beautiful thing is that we are allowed to think independently and then share those thoughts collectively. You do it this way, and I do it that, and we end up with humps on a camel.

We try, sometimes unsuccessfully, to smooth out the bumps. Still, the thing gets us where we need to go, even if the ride isn't always smooth. It may not be perfect, but after all, the Wise Men got where they needed to go on camels.

Jesus, on the other hand, will return on a horse. 

Revelation 19:11

(Some things don't need a committee.)

2024/9 BELL BOTTOMS & PROM DRESSES

My grandson Parker sent a text a few days ago.

“Hey Gum, do you happen to have one of these?”

He included a photo of a brown suede men’s jacket with fringe on the arms and hem. Straight out of the 1970’s. Lucky for him he has four grandparents who actually lived in the 1970’s. He is also conscious of the fact that one of those grandparents may have kept her wardrobe from that era. Sadly, if I had a jacket like that, I either can’t find it or I begrudgingly gave it away. (Someone someday is going to need this, is my general mantra).

That’s how I got my date with Parker. It was just a few weeks after my date with Anna.

Park and his cousin Anna are both high school seniors. I join the rest of our privileged society in lamenting the fact that they have so quickly morphed into capable pseudo-adults from tiny toddlers with blankies and binkies. They snuggled so comfortably against my chest not that long ago. My heart, feeling somewhat abandoned, yearns for being needed. I think it’s a path of most grandparents.

So, when Anna said she wanted to sleep over a few weeks ago, and maybe we could go look for Sweethearts Dance dresses, I jumped on it.  Anna claims certain places around here: the couch in our bedroom for sleeping, the chair beside mine for dinner, my recliner if I’m not in it. It’s been this way her whole life, but I sense recently that she is anxious about having to grow up and leave home. I remember feeling the same way; the push and pull of wanting to be independent but also wanting to curl up in a soft blanket with Mom. 

My shopping date with Anna ended with her coming home with a Sundance Outlet shopping bag. She found the almost perfect dress. “I can easily bring in the sides,” I told her as I pinched the seams around her tiny waist while we stood before the dressing room mirror. It turned out that her mom had already bought a Sweethearts dress. The one we found, lacy and flowy and a perfect blend of innocent and elegant, would become her Prom dress.

Yesterday Parker and I spent a glorious afternoon at the Layton 5 Hour Store. It’s really called NPS, but decades ago, when my friend Carol first introduced me to the original store in Salt Lake City, I came home and told my mom I had found the perfect store. “It’s a five-hour store. It takes five hours to go through and see everything they have to offer.” My whole family knows it as the 5 Hour Store. Once my Aunt Becky even wrote a check out to 5 HOUR STORE when she was checking out. They looked at her like she was crazy.

Anyway, Park and I gave a visit to the Layton store and found three pair of pants, a corduroy shirt, and some groovy upholstery fabric to sew into the jeans and make them bell bottoms. He was trying to deck himself out for the Hippie Dance at Farmington High. He was massively pleased with himself for finding a suede leather jacket on Poshmark for $45.

My job was to alter Anna’s dress and Parker’s trousers.

Last night, as I sat at my trusty little sewing machine brought out to the kitchen table, I relived waiting in the check-out line with Park. We stood side by side in silence for a minute. I’ve find it to be a good indicator of a safe relationship when two people can share space comfortably and not have to say anything. Parker doesn’t even shift his stance or turn his head. He just breaks the silence with: 

“I love you, Gum.” 

I pressed my foot into the pedal of my sewing machine and felt my old Grandmother heart pump with the throbbing of the needle into his Levi’s becoming retro hippie bell bottoms. My love for these two kids becomes cinched with each tiny stitch. Two separate pieces of fabric becoming one.

Every once in a while, I imagine my grandkids being grandparents. They’ll be lucky to live that long, I know. I pray they do. I imagine them seeing relationships from this perspective. I see them loving little ones who are currently only dreaming of having bodies. Their lives will be altered, shaped and bound like these garments at my kitchen table. Changed for good by the flesh of their flesh. 

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to live long enough to watch the little ones around me become relatively independent humans. And thank you for keeping us close enough to stand in a check out line, side by side, and comfortably say, out of the blue: 
“I love you.”

I love you too, buddy.

Parker at Sweethearts Dance with Ayla.

Anna at Sweethearts Dance with Lucas.

 

 

2024/8 UNSENT

Yesterday, in an attempt to sort through some of the randomness in our home, I dug into a box of stuff that looked like it might have once been in Dave’s nightstand or study drawers. Besides receipts, warranties, letters and photographs, I found a little stack of hand- written thank you notes. I recognized the tidy handwriting as that of our son, John. There are seven thoughtful thank you cards for high school graduation gifts… unsent. John is now older than I was when he wrote those! His second child is about to graduate from high school. 

I’m frankly pretty impressed at the notes he wrote. I’m also reminded of this apparent family flaw that puts so much effort into stuff we never quite finish. Perhaps he gave those notes to us to address and mail. Who knows? Even if I wanted to mail them now at least one of the people has an address somewhere in Heaven.

I also had, until very recently, a hefty stack of unsent thank you cards from way back when Dave finished his tenure as mayor of Farmington. Our remarkable and thoughtful neighbors went together and purchased a flagpole for our front yard. We came home from vacation that summer to a crisp new American flag waving in the east wind in front of our home. It was a surprise, and really very tender and moving to us. I designed and printed some small cards with American flags on them. That next month my mother ended up in the hospital for quite a while. I remember sitting at her bedside writing heartfelt sentiments to these kind neighbors on those cards. I addressed and even stamped them.

It’s been so long now I threw them away, offering a prayer of apology, hoping the Powers that be would one day reiterate our gratitude to them. Our neighbors never knew how very much their gift has meant to us.

I recall another time, when our Kate was a newborn baby. Dave’s Grandma Roy had been in the hospital. I thought I should call a florist in Florida and send flowers, so she would know we were thinking of her and we loved and cherished her. Day turned to night then to day, and night and so on… until we got the call that Grandma Roy had passed away. I remember sitting in my rocking chair nursing little Kate, my tears dropping on her baby blanket. My feelings spilled into words. Wrangled into a poem. “The Flowers I Never Sent”. It alluded to the fact that I had intended to send flowers when she was alive, but now was calling the florist to send them for her grave. I’ve lost the poem, but not the pang of sadness.

I have learned to try to be more gentle with myself. I discovered late in life that I have a brain with attention issues. Guilt over that weakness is a poor motivator. I’ve found love to be more effective. I now speak in gentler terms to myself. Still, while the words I choose in my self-talk are more encouraging, they nonetheless whisper that I should finish my tasks. Push through all the way to the end. I have a dreadfully strong mechanism that urges me to stop just before something is complete. So many unfinished songs!

My advice for the day is to complete something all the way through. Get that card in the mail. Hem those pants that have been sitting in your closet for a year. Eat that chocolate you're storing in the pantry.

I also have a nice collection of gift cards for restaurants and stores that are now out of business. So much unsent and unspent!

2024/7 FAKING OUT THE TOOTH FAIRY

Tessa's fake tooth.

My Brother-in-law, Michael is an oral surgeon. A good one, I understand. He was known as an exceptional surgeon for dental implants. Libby used to drive our mom to CA just so Michael could take care of her. He was thorough, precise and gentle. Besides, he’s an artist, which is a plus when you’re dealing with people’s faces. My whole adult life I’ve joked that as soon as Michael retired I would need a dental implant. Tip #1: do not say such things aloud.

I couldn't find a photo of Mike online, but here's a review report.

Sure enough, he retired and moved from CA to Utah, right into our neighborhood. That makes four of us “Hansen” sisters in one teeny neighborhood going to the same church each Sunday. We’re taking over the ward! And sure enough within a year of him retiring I had a root canal go south and they ended up pulling the tooth. A top tooth, right near the front of my mouth. A “smiley” tooth. It surely cramped my style, taxed my already delicate dental-emotions, and hit the pocketbook somethin’ fierce when we had to go through the “implant” process with no Dr. Mullen to handle it. 

After three hours in the dental chair and coming out without a pivotal tooth, I started the months long wait for my mouth to heal around the foreign matter placed in my jawbone, or whatever it is you call the bone your teeth are planted in. They made me a thing called a “flipper” with a fake tooth in it. I called it a pride tooth, because its only real purpose was to fill the black hole. Tip #2: Keep that flipper in a place you can remember.

$600 for two lost flippers and one completely failed implant later, I was sitting backstage during the third night of my Christmas concerts. Backstage banter with my boys Mark Robinette, Kelly DeHaan, Aaron Ashton and Timo Petersen, includes stuff like "I lost my tooth, Guys!" I lamented that somewhere between last night’s show and tonight’s I lost my second flipper. I was trying not to be distressed, but in less than an hour I would be center stage with a spotlight on my face, trying to sing while trying to hide the black hole in my mouth. We discussed possible solutions: how about one of those cubes of white cheese on the greenroom platter? We wet and folded paper but decided the moisture in my mouth would turn the thing into pulpy mush. I even tried forming a piece of gum into the shape of a tooth, but all I had was Spearmint Extra gum, which is chartreuse green. I ended up smiling a crooked smile and semi-consciously keeping my head turned to the side, distressing Eric who was running sound and trying his darndest to adjust what was happening on my microphone.

What eventually happened, three oral surgeons later, is another discussion for another time. But the matter at hand was that I had several speaking and singing engagements and I was NOT going to order another of those $300 flippers. The thing was not only expensive but it felt like a piece of HiChew stuck to the roof of my mouth. It made me clip my syllables and choke on my own tongue.

“There’s got to be someone who can do temporary tooth better and cheaper than that!”

Enter "temporary tooth" in an internet search. 

A few clicks later I found the solution. Temp Tooth, (and probably fifty other similar products,) offers a perfectly suitable custom made fake tooth for a cool crisp 20 dollar bill, plus a little change. Within one day I was dropping tiny plastic beads in a mug of hot water. The beads turn clear and soft. Roll them into a little soft ball, put it in your blank tooth space, form it around the neighboring teeth, let it cool and turn white again, soak it in some tea if it’s too white, and voila… you’ve got yourself a tooth.

One little container has made me multiple teeth, because I lose them like I lost my flippers.

Today, when we picked-up six-year-old Tess from ballet class, she told us she lost another tooth. 
“I was so excited,” she said “cuz I wanted to put the tooth in one of those little teeny tiny animal boxes for the Tooth Fairy. But guess whaaaaaat?”

Tess has great comedic timing…

“I swallowed it eating a Taquito.”

(This is when having a grandma with too much stuff comes in handy.)

“Wanna make a fake one, Tess?”

That’s how I taught my tiniest grandchild how to make a fake tooth for the Tooth Fairy.

It takes me fifteen tiny beads to make my old lady tooth. Tess needed four.

It actually looked pretty real. Of course it doesn't need to fit in her mouth anymore.

I wonder if she’ll get away with it?

2024/6 LUMINARIES

Our beautiful friend Kari Jo Whitelock died. Today was the day her body returned to the earth. It rained, a soft and melancholy kind of drizzle.

Kari was a luminous soul, full of light, so much so that everyone who knew her said a room literally lit up when she entered. She was radiantly beautiful, outside and in. She took seriously her discipleship to Christ, so the glow was not only bright but also warm and comforting.

Kari Jo Whitelock

Just before dusk kids and grown-ups from our neighborhood scooped sand into white paper bags, then placed votive candles inside. We turned down the edges of the bags and loaded them into our van, driving them to the Whitelock home. I paused as we were setting the bags, watching people I love and who loved Kari bending in sacred silence to place these tokens of love a few feet apart from each other around the Whitelock home. They lined up like holy soldiers, little straight white bags, up the sidewalk and along the road, into the curved driveway, the stone walkway through the trees, and up the front steps. One by one we lit the candles until there were 100 glowing bags by the time the sun set. They flicker still, as I write. 

This is how our neighborhood whispers love to each other. We share light. It’s our Utah version of Pacific Islanders singing outside the homes of the deceased.

Before dark

After dark

For the last four decades our neighborhood has lit luminaries on Christmas Eve. When the kids were little we would do our dutiful parent prep after the kids were asleep, then drive around the neighborhood, usually around 3 am, our headlights turned off. If we were very lucky there would be a fresh falling snow. It felt like we lived in a snow globe, the houses of people we loved sitting dark and quiet behind flickering lights lining the streets. 

For the last few years we have started honoring those among us who die with these glowing lights. They are a soft enfolding of our love around our grieving friends. 

I am surprised how protective a thin paper bag can be, even in inclement weather. Even in the drizzle of this night Kari’s candles burn. Such a simple thing: a lunch sack, a small scoop of sand to add weight to the bag, and a humble mound of wax and wick. It works for hours. 

I am thinking tonight that we tend to complicate things too much. We try to make everything more efficient and more beautiful, and in the process make it more complex and difficult. Really all we need, sometimes, is something that will simply protect a little flame so it can fill the measure of its creation. Then, when it’s done, like Kari, the memory of the glow can sustain us.

Love lines the walkway

The Palmer home the night of Dee's funeral

 Annick and Randy the evening of their son Mark's funeral.

The Shill home after Danae's funeral

Danae had been Primary President in our church.
The kids colored her luminary bags.
"I wish I could blow you kisses every day."

2024/5 COUSINS

The night we all went to Johnny's LOVE LETTERS pop up museum in SLC.

Most of us store insta-memories on our cell phones. They are most easily found in the Photos app. I have an over-abundance of memories there. But I also have them in my Voice Memos. Way back ones. Hundreds of them. Bits of songs, song ideas, talks and stories and weird chords I don’t know how to name but can recognize by their sound. I can retrieve the sound of people I love who are gone now. I can even tell how my own voice is changing through the years. Technology can be awesome! Once I recorded common sounds around our house, like cupboard doors closing, water running at the kitchen sink, the doorbell ringing, the garage door shutting. I did this for Kate who lives in New York and was missing home. There’s also a grand recording of our large clan humming Christmas carols on kazoos after Thanksgiving dinner.

I have a snippet of what our house sounds like during Sunday family dinner. We gather here every other Sunday to feast on and with each other. It can get pretty chaotic. Our family circle stretches beyond bloodlines. Sometimes someone will come who is not used to a big family that is comfortable with each other and also comfortable with chaos. I find the cacophony beautiful, to the point that I pressed record on my phone so I could keep it.

The source of most of that noise, besides multiple conversations at one of at least three dinner tables (we usually have between 25 and 35 people) is the enthusiasm of young cousins when they see each other. Frankly I cook, clean, set tables, do dishes and laundry for these dinners mostly because I want those cousins to have, somewhere deep in their memory banks, a place where they felt the warmth, candor and creative safety of each other. 

Cousins opening pjs and Nerf guns the Sunday before Christmas

My own cousins were pivotal in my life. My mom was the tenth of eleven children (Fred, Parks, Ruth, Ruby, Edna, Mary, Mae, Afton, Becky - (and Daniel and Marion who both passed away in childhood). I was next-to-the-youngest of the next-to-the-youngest and there were no cousins my age, but my Aunt Becky had a whole passel of kids close to my age and they became my safe place. Our trips to Idaho in the summer ended up most happily at their little house in Ucon. Their family already filled that house to bulging, but My Aunt Becky and Uncle Richard shifted everyone over to make room for us. I’ve never slept so happily on the floor or a couch. It was the sleep of home, the kind of home that was a feeling rather than a place.

I’ve noticed that time does interesting things in blood relationships. Cousins go through the funk of teenage compartmentalization. Some cousins stop their intimate conversations. The same kids who played pretend wholeheartedly together as littles end up eating dinner rather silently beside each other. Its kind of heartbreaking for a grandma. But then I’ve seen the beautiful unfolding of age, when the social blinds are lifted, the muscle memory kicks in and the heart returns home. My own kids find delight and comfort in their cousins who are also adults now. It makes my heart so happy.

Annie and her cousin Lauren reunite as adults.

Last summer Dave’s cousins, whom we see during our cottage visits in Michigan, told about the time the boy cousins were playing on the third floor of the Mackinac Island cottage. The girls were playing on the second story balcony (this was a magnificently large Victorian cottage on the west bluff of Mackinac Island).  Apparently the boys, in their eternal quest to tease the girls, stuffed some of cousin Roy’s clothing and threw the dummy over the balcony. The girls, terrorized at the thought of their cousin falling to his death, ran screaming down the staircase, stunning Grandma and Grandpa. The boys had a good old laugh about it, and in the process sealed both their relationships with each other, and frankly sealed the girls' relationships together as well. Shared shenanigans will do that.

Grandma & Grandpa Roy
at the Mackinac Island cottage.
that top balcony to the left is 
where the boys threw "Roy" over.

This fall my cousin Gail had some of us up to her cabin near the Teton mountains. It was beautiful in every way; fishing, mountain air, guitars ringing into the night, games and meals and old photos and stories retold. It felt like our moms were pulling threads from Heaven and cinching us together repeatedly. Goodness, I love my cousins.

A collection of Miskin and Hansen cousins.

As tired as I am Sunday night, after cooking dinner for the masses, setting and serving, running the dishwasher twice and rearranging the furniture back into a family room, I love our Sunday gatherings. I would gladly run myself ragged just to know I might one day peek over the edge of Heaven and see my posterity retelling family stories or playing kazoos in unison after an autumnal feast.

Connors cousins with their Auntie Kate.
(At John's Love Letters museum)

2024/4. CONTENTEDLY CONFUSED

I had just filled the washing machine with a load of laundry when six-year-old Tess tapped my back.

“Gummy, I’m confused.”

I waited for her to finish her sentence, but she didn’t.

“What are you confused about?”

“Why is it tree?” she asked.

“Why is what tree?”

She looked into the space to the side of us, searching for something that I guess wasn’t there.

“Why do they call it tree?”

I scanned the room looking for something that might resemble a tree.

“I don’t see a tree, Tess.”

“No,” she went on, “why do they call a tree a tree? I mean, who made up that word? Who made up all the words anyway? There must have been a time when there was a tree without a word to name it. Who gave it that name?”

I don’t know the answer to that, Tessy. But I can tell you I have had the same kind of questions. I’m sure there is an answer somewhere, in some realm unavailable to us. 

Tess feels like the me I used to know. I get her. I delight in her and ache for her at the same time. There are just so many unanswerable questions. But it feels really validating that someone else has the same unanswerable questions as you. And I have had enough experience to believe that, while I can’t give her an answer, I can sit in the question with her, our knees curled up to our chests, our hands wrapped around our bony shins, planted on the porch of humanness together in silence, or bouncing related questions back and forth to each other until we are both satisfied that we have properly addressed the universe and now we can move on to playing something else.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for each other is be contentedly confused together.

After you're done being confused
you find a set of butterfly wings and pretend.

2024/3 BUDDY TAPE

A couple weeks ago I slammed my toe into a large box of laundry soap when I was rushing to get into the shower. The toe ended up perpendicular to the rest of my toes. It looked pretty surreal. Knowing it was probably out of alignment I quickly pulled it up out of the socket and back into place. A short shower later I hobbled out to the freezer, grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables and planted my poor foot up above my heart wrapped in a bag of frozen corn. It’s been hurting ever since. So yesterday I finally went to get it checked out because it was still swollen, bruised and hurt like heck. I just wanted to be sure that it wasn’t healing out of alignment. Turns out it is broken and its situated correctly to do its healing. All I need to do, besides take care of it, is tape it to the healthy toes next to it. Actually, these days they use a dandy little Velcro thingymabobber.

So, this morning I am thinking about how grateful I am that there is a healthy toe or two next to my broken one. And, because pretty much everything is symbolic, I am also thinking about the people in my life who allow me to buddy tape myself to them when I need to heal. 

I’ve noticed that the healthy toes get a bit irritated at the closeness. Still, they let themselves be the steady. Gosh, I’m grateful for a few healthy toes. 

And I sure feel blessed by more than a few healthy people who hold me close when I need them.

2024/2. TEXTS

Years ago, when we were on the cusp of having smart phones, when our flip phones were starting to be relegated to the junk drawer or the toy box, this new thing called texting changed our world. At first texts were cryptic short messages. We had to click on numbers on our phones, pressing the number repeatedly to represent a letter in the alphabet. It took focus and time to work through creating a text. It was the morse code version of modern-day cell phones.

Then phones lost their flip and got keypads for texting at relative super speed. The problem was those texts cost ten cents each. Each little block of conversation. That was around the time when our youngest, Annie, was getting to know a fellow named Jordon. We got a phone bill one month that included $300 in text charges. Apparently, they decided to let their fingers do the talking. I consider it an investment, since she eventually married Jordon and they have produced three of my favorite little humans. Fortunately we don’t have to pay per text anymore.

These days people prefer a text over a phone call. We are regressing as social beings. But that’s another conversation for another time.

Every once in a while I take a screen shot of a text exchange, usually when it tickles my funny bone.

So, for old time’s sake, here are just a few I saved on my phone:

A message to the woman who was
selling something on Facebook Marketplace

... her response.

This beats the time I was told I looked like
John Goodman.

Libby's been hearing my weird dreams her whole life. :-)

Texting the ward council group from England...

...Derek Snow's reply.

From my old friend Nadine.

Suz expects me to keep the fudge Sarah and Anna made
so she can pick it up when she gets home.

... and my newest and current favorite text:

LENT 2024/1. FLAME

When a day ends in relative calm and I am able to amble to bed peacefully, there's a little ritual I follow. Part of that bedtime ritual is to turn out the lights in our bathroom and strike a match. I do this as an homage to my mother, who was a fan of matches as room air fresheners, and also a lover of nature and a good campfire. The aesthetic of striking a wooden match and hearing the melodic punch of flame igniting, the visual burst from darkness to light, the flicker and dance of a moving light whose skirt floats around her in a spectrum of color… so much happens in an instant. I embark on an aromatic time travel that changes me into a child standing next to my mother. I remember watching her stare at the flame, her hand drifting back and forth moving it like a puppet, the flame trying to catch up with the pattern of her motion. Then, just before the fire reached her fingertips, having spent most of its fuel, she pursed her lips and the breath of her humanness blew out the flame. Each night I follow this remembered routine. I am transfixed very quickly and rather completely for a whole 10 seconds. After the flame is gone, I stir my hand with the blackened stick facing heavenward and watch the smoke rise and dissipate in a weightless vortex. There is a convergence of memory that includes years of campfire singing, the burning of the neighbor’s fields in autumn, the incinerator flaming with dried leaves in our back yard back in Pittsburgh, a beeswax candle at Christmas and paraffin melting onto every birthday cake. There is the reminiscent hint of my mother’s perfume mixed with bath soap accompanying the sulfur and carbon ignited in her small bathroom on East Bruceton Road. I feel her with me every night. It eases my soul.

Last night, knowing today began my Lenten journey of writing purposefully every day, I tried to capture the moment with my cell phone camera. 

Snapshot taken, routine completed, teeth brushed, prayers said, blankets pulled up over my shoulder, I laid on my side and reviewed the photo. What I intended to be a picture of a flame ended up capturing the image of the Washington DC temple behind the match, and with the light of the flame, a reflection of myself superimposed over the temple. 

Dave had given me that framed photo of the DC temple on our anniversary one year. We were married in that place four children and eleven grandchildren ago. “We should have a picture of our temple in our house,” he said. It’s not fine art, this photograph. It’s a typical realistic image without any “give” for interpretation. So I relegated it to our bathroom. Its viewed more often there anyway.

I don’t know if its my neurodivergent brain, or my off-kilter heart, or what… but I am not wholly at ease with all aspects of my religion, including temple worship and patterns. I wish this were not so, because it would be easier to live a life without serious questions. Nonetheless, I have them. To clarify, I don’t NOT believe. I honor my covenants. I am not one to throw the baby out with the bath water. I just don’t “get” what it all means, and the not getting it feels like it’s getting in the way of the faith part. I have to keep reminding myself that faith by nature is supposed to lay in a bed of ignorance, the same way one cannot have real courage if they don’t also have fear. 

I know love is the first and foremost. It is all encompassing. But something in me says there is more than just feeling and emitting love. If the feeling of love was all that is required would Jesus not have been able to die an old man surrounded by his loved ones? I need more information! It's gonna take some journeying to get it. Its gonna take some willingness to not understand everything but still trust it is well sourced.

This accidental photo spoke to me that while I may not have complete clarity about divinity, I still see myself reflected in divine images. And that flame, however short lived and small it may be, is enough light to keep me engaged and present. I might see the spent fuel of my faith swirling into darkness… but I can also continue to light matches. I put my feet in holy places. I whisper daily in the name of my Christ, willing to live with a measure of discomfort as I grow. I seek guidance from trusted sources and engage in my partnership with the Holy Ghost. Walking the walk of a believer calms my spirit. I repeat remembered testaments that brought me to being a believer in the first place. Most of all I fight to maintain my desire to believe. That desire burns within me, sometimes in maintenance mode, waiting until the fire is large and crackling hot and unquenchable. Trusting this, I keep striking little matches every day. Fire renewed, one small flame at a time. 

So, Mom, I will keep striking matches daily, to keep you with me, and to keep Him with me as well.