38. FOREST

When cousins get together there are memories to be made and we adults should sometimes get out of the way.  Timo lives a long car ride away from his cousin Parker, so when he comes to visit, the first thing he asks is if Parker is available for some cousin time.  Park lives only a mile away from here, and I'm always grateful when his parents are willing to accommodate.

Parks and Timo are at an age where you no longer have to suggest playtime ideas.  They come up with their own.  If the weather is merciful they will almost always ask if they can go play in the rain forest.

Through the back gate, down the hill , past the back porch, is the area I affectionately call the lower forty.  It's basically a small wooded hollow of mostly scrub oak trees behind our house.  A little patch of trees to a young boy is a forest, and I think they visited it early on when it was sprinkling, so they like to call it the rain forest. For their birthdays last year we gave both of them their own sets of binoculars for their outdoor adventures.  Timo is finally old enough to have received his own Swiss Army knife from his parents.  The boys strap on their gear, making sure they have plenty of water and maybe some fruit snacks, then make off for their forest adventures. I will sometimes stand at the window and peek out at them, watching them in the semi-distance, exploring that mulchy space.  I almost always whisper a prayer that they will never fear adventure in safe places, and that they will remember always that they once gave their whole selves without reservation to exploring the earth side by side.

The other day Parker came over to help me make Sour Cream Conference cake, a semi-annual tradition in our family.  As we mixed and measured we had the little TV in the kitchen playing the Sunday inspirational broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word.  As the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang, the screen displayed scenes of nature; mountain lakes and beautiful rivers, meadows of early spring daffodils and rocky landscapes from the sides of majestic mountains.  Parker asked why they were showing those pictures.  I answered that it was probably because they wanted us to know, while the choir sang of God's beautiful earth, that we often find God in nature.

"Oh, yeah, " he said, "my dad told us that.  One day when Timo and Dad and I were hiking up the mountainside we stopped at the top and just sat and looked.  We could see all the way out past the Great Salt Lake.  My dad told us that before there were temples for people to pray in, there were mountains. Did you know, Gummy, that Adam built an altar out of rocks? "

I nodded.

"We said a prayer on the mountain."  he continued, telling me about the warm feelings he had in nature, and how he could feel God in the forest and the mountains.  He scooped two teaspoons of cinnamon into the brown sugar and inhaled the scent.  "Don't you just love good smells? I love the smell of the rain forest, and the mountains, and cinnamon."

Yes, Parker, yes I do.  I smell God in the woods and the hilltops and my kitchen. And I see Him in your eyes when you talk to me.  I feel him in the image of my son, kneeling on a rocky ridge with his own son and his impressionable nephew, showing our boys where God can be found.

I thank the Lord for the goodness in the hearts of my children, and in their children.  I know from whence all goodness springs, growing lush in the hearts of little boys and in budding, woody forests.

37. ARMY

Know your enemy.  It's one of the first rules of war.  And life, really.
Know your enemy.  And know your team, your compadres, those with whom you will be battling the enemy.

Early on in our marriage Dave and I sat down for Family Home Evening with two yellow legal pads in our laps.  We each wrote five personal goals.  And then we shared them with each other.  Then we wrote 5 goals we wanted to aim for as a family.  Recently I found Dave's yellow sheet from all those years ago and he has pretty much achieved his goals, or he's on the direct path toward them.  It kind of blows me away, because to the average person they are rather lofty.  I did not find my goals sheet, which is probably a good thing, cuz I'd likely be a little disappointed. I think it was a good idea to set goals as a family. But I wish, when we began, we and also taken time to identify the enemies of our family, and of each of us individually. By defining the potential enemies, we could have armed ourselves a little better, and been more cautious and diligent about where we set our feet, and the feet of our children. I might have better understood that these people with whom I share a name and a home and a beating heart are my own sacred army. I understand that now, but it might have helped to define it earlier, before we had teenagers.

The Lord, in his wisdom, knows my frailties and thank goodness he gave me the Holy Ghost to deal with battles as they arise. I would be in serious trouble without the Holy Ghost, the spirit of revelation, the keeper of the flame when all appears dark. Three cheers for the Holy Ghost!

And three cheers for my own personal army! We were able, early on in the home I grew up in, to define a common enemy.  Having a common enemy is one of the most effective uniters.  We become allies when we define common enemies, and that alliance creates a sense of belonging, and of strength, and safety. At first glance one might think that our dad was the common enemy for us, because of his bad decisions and behaviors.  But Dad was not the enemy.  The enemy was much more insidious, and difficult to battle.  The enemy just got ahold of Dad. The enemy was alcohol.  Rather, the enemy was the decision to consume it. Alcohol on its own has no power over our family.  I think it is amazing that none of my father's children consume alcohol. Not at all.  Not even a sip of beer during the Super Bowl.  Not even if the Steelers are playing. Maybe our good friend the Holy Ghost defined the enemy for us and we unwittingly armed ourselves against the potential for alcoholism by never taking a first drink.  I celebrate my religion and its tenet that we do not consume alcohol or smoke, because while one person may have the wherewithal to take 100 drinks and not be addicted, the chances are also good that after one drink, or two or three, we could find ourselves strapped into the sinking ship of the enemy. I know our genetic propensity, because my father's father had the same issues I am told.  So hurrah for zion!

I picture myself arm locked with my siblings in our family army, and then I see myself joined in that army by my children, and their spouses, and their children, and pretty soon there will be a mountainside covered with our royal army, willing and ready to go down the mountain with our swords drawn and our shields before us, glistening in the light of the Son. Not all of us share the same religious beliefs.  Not all of us have the same goals.  But we do have common enemies, and we do watch out for each other, keeping the ones we love in our peripheral vision as we move on to slay dragons.

And then there's the sweet stuff, the things that tighten the ties that bind us.  Like today, after a long night of sitting up in the family room, a mixing bowl in my lap, dry heaving every half hour or so.  I was hit with a bug that gave me the cleanse I was too wimpy to impose upon myself.  Sheesh.  It's been a long 24 hours!  So I had to miss the Pinewood Derby with my Cub Scouts, and I didn't have the ability to make a couple pans of brownies as I had promised.  So my oldest sister Sherry, the Chief in this picture, stepped in for me.  She had come down to our house to see if Dave needed her car, because his is in the shop.  Dave was tending baby Joe, so Sherry, a skilled speech therapist, spent a good chunk of time doing a little speech therapy with him as he sat in his high chair.  Then she made her way into my bedroom, where I was curled up around a pillow.

"Oh dear," she said, "You got the gomboo!  What can I do to help you?" So she went back home and whipped up a bunch of brownies so I would not shirk my duty as a Bear Den leader. She would tell you it was no big deal, and indeed, she is super able to step up and help when someone is in need.  But it was a big deal to me.  I felt her figurative hand slip between my waist and elbow.  I felt her pull me in beside her, weak and weary as I was, and hold me up while we moved forward in this battle we call life.  Making brownies for a Cub Scout Pinewood Derby is not what the average human would call a battle.  All would be well without them.  But her sensitivity to my concerns, and her understanding of my desire to be dependable…these make her a sister in arms.  Maybe the word "army" means just that, arms linked together, armed with a common cause.

I am blessed by many people who face the enemies before me.  Some who do not even realize I consider them team mates.  It's a good thing, because I'm pretty sure the enemy knows us. We keep our blades sharp, and our eyes open, and know that the One we follow will not lead us into any battles we cannot…together... one day win.

36. TEETH

This delicious looking bowl of apples has adorned our kitchen table for a long time.  I love these apples, and this bowl, for many reasons.  First, it fits the flavor of our home.  It says, without saying anything, "come in and sit at our table and eat your fill." Symbolically of course, because the apples are not real.  They are a really good imitation of the real thing, and lots of people have been fooled, including our grand kids.  These little teeth marks are evidence.

I adore the few apples with those teeth marks, because they remind me that little ones gather at our house often.  The bowl is a very light wood, as light as balsa wood.  I bought it years ago at the 5 Hour Store (Market Square in SLC).  The apples were purchased at Universal Floral Supply probably two decades ago, on a shopping day with my mom. That store is closed now.  To top off all the sentimental reasons I love this bowl of apples, they are red… and Red Is Best!

I am reminded of the day we were sitting in Gram's family room, when Timo was barely walking.  Gram had something stuck beneath her false teeth, so she slipped them out of her mouth, puckering her lips and holding them there for a minute.  Timo looked up at her and started screaming, running to his mama and bawling.  We tried to reassure him that this was a perfectly normal thing, to have teeth that could come out sometimes.  But he didn't buy it, and I think somewhere deep inside him he still has post traumatic stress issues regarding old peoples' teeth.

One time, when my brother John brought his wife Jenny to Farmington for a visit, early in their relationship, they stayed with Gram in her condo.  Jenny came up the stairs and onto the upstairs landing just as Gram was making her way from the shower to her bedroom. Gram was fleshly cleaned, powder fresh, and buck naked.  Jenny, rather startled, quickly turned to move into the guest bedroom.  Gram smiled, apologized, and shrugged her shoulders.  She was never one to find shame in the human body.  She grabbed a robe and came out to the landing, meeting Jenny.  In classic Gram fashion she remarked:

"You know you've arrived when you've seen me without my teeth!"

I miss Gram.

35. CINDER

No one knows it but me.  Well, maybe Dave does.  But you wouldn't know by looking at me that under the soft fleshy bulb over my kneecap there is a single black cinder.  I used to be able to see it under the stretched skin when I was younger and more agile, and less fleshy... when I was able to pull my knee up to my chest. Now I have to massage my left knee pretty heartily in order to find that cinder. It reminds me.

When I was seven years old, a first grader at MacAnulty Elementary in Whitehall PA, I walked home from school with my brother and sister, up and down the hilly roads that led to our house on Jean Drive.  There were no sidewalks.  The asphalt of the roads, frozen and defrosted day after day through the winter, unravelled on the edges.  Add to the schizophrenic weather of Southwestern PA the accelerator of salt and cinder thrown from snow plows, and what you got was a layer of asphalt and cinder on the side of the road that crumbled under my size one feet when I walked.  Inevitably I fell on that unraveled roadside on the walk home from school, at least every other week.  Just as the scab from one fall was drying up, I fell again, ripping off the old crusty skin and exposing an oozing shiny mass of flesh, which immediately became filled with tiny black pieces of cinder.  I absolutely hated those days when I fell, not so much because of the immediate pain, though there was that.  Nor was it the humiliation of repeatedly losing my step in front of other people. What I dreaded most of all was knowing what would happen when I got home.

Mom, seeing the bright red ooze on my knee cap, pulled my shirt up over my head, followed by my little white undershirt.  I carefully stepped out of my skirt, and rolled my bloody knee high sock off the end of one foot, and then the other.  Meanwhile mom turned both knobs on the old cast iron tub in the upstairs bathroom, the squeak of the handles followed by a surge of air, the clanking of pipes, and a flow of clean water.  She placed her forearm under the faucet, adjusting the knobs until it was just this side of too hot.  I cringed as I stood there, my arms folded over my chest, waiting for the tub to fill, knowing what was coming.  Finally my mother lifted me into the bathtub, handed me a clean dry washcloth and reached under the sink for the scrub brush.  I carefully, painfully, lowered my bloody cinder filled knee into the water until it was fully immersed.  If Mom wasn't busy, I would soak the knee for a while.  But if there was something on the stove that needed her attention, there was no time for softening of the skin.  She just plowed on through.

Mom handed me the clean washcloth, which I rolled up and stuffed into my mouth.  I closed my eyes as she lifted my knee out of the water, dipped the bristle ridden brush into the tub water, brushed it over a bar of soap, and went at those cinders in my knee like they were red fire ants on a fleshy ant hill.  I screamed into the washcloth, biting hard, my diaphragm pressing up as I pushed the pain out through my throat.  Tears burned my eyes, and my little bony shoulders heaved as she scrubbed.  Soon enough she took the washcloth from my mouth and dipped it in the water.  Holding it over my knee she pressed clean water from the faucet out onto the brightly cleaned knee.  I rose from the water, sat on the edge of the tub as it drained, and she poured peroxide over the wound, finishing off with a series of long, cool breaths from her pursed lips, drying it with air. Afterwards she trickled a small stream of iodine onto a cotton ball, dabbed it onto the wound, then topped it off with a glob of Vaseline and a gauze patch. Oh my, it wears me out remembering.

I think of my mom; of her tough and tender nature, and her wisdom.  It took me becoming a mom myself to understand that she was helping me by hurting me.  She knew that some things require more than a hug and a band aid.  Those cinders needed to get out of my knee, and someone needed to be brave enough to go after them.  Mom knew that if we left the cinders in there, they would embed themselves, and I would forever have issues with my knee as the cinders moved around in cartilage and joints.  She knew that the only way to get those cinders out was to force them out.  I am moved, strangely, that my mom was willing to let me feel pain. She was willing to risk me thinking she was mean.  That's a rare thing among parents these days. While I shiver at the memory of the scrubbing, I crave the deliciousness of the increase in love she also gave when the task was completed.

The singular cinder I occasionally find under the scar on my left knee serves as a reminder that I can do hard things.  That sometimes I must allow myself to be scrubbed out, to endure a moment of pain for an extended period of health. It reminds me to be cautious, and if I make a mistake, to be willing to do what is needed to correct that mistake, regardless of the comfort level.

In many ways I was a wimp of a mom.  I did not want to see my children suffer.  But my mom…not her.  She knew the value of pain with purpose. And, speaking for my knee at least, that's a darn good thing.

34. ZIPPER

Day 1 at my sewing class: Linda, who is sitting at her machine in the corner, says this:

"Oh…and I found the most fabulous zipper on eBay!  I'm trying to decide what to make with it!"

I listen from my own machine, the one where the chair in front of it sinks down six inches when you sit on it.  My friend Suzanne is at the machine beside me.  I turn my head and catch her eye and raise my eyebrows! Seriously… who bases their outfits on zippers?

Well, lesson one was that there are all sorts of zippers out there.  And some of them need more attention than others.

If you know me, you know that sewing machines generally stay away from me.  When my daughter, Sarah, was in her first tap dancing recital, the purple Fuzzy Wuzzy Bear costume she wore was glued together with a hot glue gun.  It was my only choice at the time, to use the glue gun.  I couldn't afford a seamstress, and I didn't have a sewing machine, even if I could sew.  No one could tell it had been glued, except for maybe Sarah, who's wiggly six-year-old body may or may not have been responding to stiff seams in her costume.

In 8th grade Home Ec class we were taught how to make a skirt.  (Note that I did not say we learned how to make skirts, they just tried to teach us.  Some of us learned.  And then there was the rest of us.) My perfectionist mother made me unpick the uneven seams of my skirt so many times that the fabric dissolved.  By the time I got it right the skirt was too small and the hook and eye on the waistband popped when I took a deep diaphragmatic breath in choir the period before Home Ec.  I got a D on the skirt.  My mom suggested I play guitar and buy my clothes. In this regard I have been an obedient child all these years.

Last fall Suzanne, whom I know by heart, told me she was taking a sewing class from the woman who first taught her to sew when she was a child.  That was something like 40 years ago.  When Suzanne invited me to come see if I wanted to take the class with her, I said yes, not so much because I wanted to sew as I wanted to be with Suz.  Plus, I admit, I was really quite curious about an 87 year old sewing teacher.  So that Wednesday morning I joined her in Margaret Farmer's sewing class.  There were about six of us there.  Everyone in attendance, by the way, already knew how to sew, so the word "class" may have been stretching it.  We all call our teacher Margaret, except for Suzanne, who can't bring herself to call her anything but Mrs. Farmer.

For me it was love at first sight.  Not with the machine.  With Margaret. Her demeanor was so compelling, her conversation so riveting, her wisdom perfectly blended with a fabulous sense of humor…I was hooked immediately.  Margaret is chock full of history.  Compellingly charming history. When she was eighteen years old she left her humble western home, where she and her sisters had been raised by their widowed mother, to study the art of fashion design in New York City. She is dripping with charming tales - of being on the streets of Times Square when World War II ended, of costuming for her first film, of being the first human being to sing the newly composed BYU Cougar fight song while the composer accompanied her on piano at a Manhattan dinner party.  She tells of taking the subway to the lower east side every day before class, she and her fellow design students, so they could purchase fabric for the day's projects.  They first stitched every design in muslin, then used the real stuff after the quirks had been ironed out. I love to think of her, young and vibrant and thirsty for adventure, there in that sea of a city.  It's like the wild west could not hold her. Eventually she returned to Utah, married, raised a bunch of kids, and opened MARGARET'S SCHOOL OF CUSTOM DRESS MAKING.

Margaret wakes early every day, does her contemplation, yoga and other exercises, recites whatever it is she has decided to memorize that week, makes herself an organic breakfast, does a little studying…all before her 8 am sewing classes start.  She teaches from 8-1, takes a short lunch break, then teaches from 2-4, takes a dinner break, then teaches an evening class.  She does this, I believe, four days a week.  The fifth day she attends the temple. (I kinda wonder what kind of schedule she kept when she was a spry 80 year old.)

Our sewing class is not the typical Home Economics kind of class.  There is no lesson.  We just all kind of work on our own projects and Margaret mentors us.  It's not really fair, cuz poor Margaret was starting from scratch with me.  First class she taught me how to thread the machine, how to wind a bobbin, how to sew a straight stitch, how to run the surger…basic stuff the average domestic goddess does without thinking.   My first project was to add pockets to some of my trousers.  That went pretty well.  I only had to ask Anna, Margaret's granddaughter-in-law, how to thread my machine twice. Anna is patient and so pleasant with me, this old lump of a woman who can't ever remember if you insert the bobbin so the thread is going clockwise or counterclockwise. After my success in sewing pockets to my trousers, I created a costume for Bella for Halloween. After that, my confidence having been fed by success, I leaped into the massive undertaking of making Christmas nightgowns for my grand daughters. Both Anna and Sophie had been in the Nutcracker ballet, so I determined to make Clara gowns, ones that would float in the winter air when they twirled around.  I purchased 500 thread count cotton sheets with tiny pale blue polka dots for the fabric, wanting quality I couldn't find at the local fabric store.  Margaret custom made three patterns for me, sizes 4, 6 and 10.  It was quite the undertaking for one as domestically challenged as I.  But by golly, Margaret led my fingers each step of the way and on Christmas Eve my little treasures had their own Clara gowns.  Ruby's sleeves were about two sixes too long, so there was a little unpicking and clipping and restitching done after Christmas, but it all ended well.  My little Bella wears hers nightly.  She transforms when she wears it, pointing her toes when she walks, thrusting her left shoulder back, her left foot raised to the ball as she pivots, the ruffle at the bottom of her dress pooling out as she swirls. It makes my heart happy.

Margaret's sewing room is magical. There are decades of treasures down there, in that space under her garage.  Six workhorse Bernina sewing machines, one fancy computerized machine that would probably cook dinner for you if you knew which buttons to push, three surging machines, two cutting tables, a dress form, a heavy duty steam iron, and about three fabric stores worth of inventory.  Last week I needed some elastic for Anna's baptism dress. Margaret stood on a chair and dug deep into the bolts of elastic on the western wall shelves.  I measured off about 5 yards so I could take some home to fix the necklines on a few shirts.  At the end of class, when I was paying for the class (which, I might add, are priced at 1963 rates) I asked what I owed her for the elastic.  She looked at the cardboard on the top of the elastic, where she had written in pencil probably three decades ago.  "That's 10 cents a yard."  The buttons I stitched to my little Clara gowns were sweet little cut glass vintage buttons from one of the many jars lining her windowsills.

I love Margaret's place!  Serious love!  Everything there speaks Margaret. And the door is always swinging open.  Camille comes in with a gorgeous blouse she has found at DI and is going to re-purpose with some lace she has had for a while.  Jessie, wearing the funky and stunningly artistic vest she made by hammering felt or something like that, tidies up while we gab.  Suzanne is trying not to curse while she stuffs 20 yards of fabric through the machine by the eastern wall, wondering aloud why she ever decided to make her own shams and dust ruffle for her guest bedroom.  Anna lifts the bodice to her little daughter's Easter dress and we all Ooo and Ahhh, remembering the days when we had little daughters, remembering our own Easter Dresses made at the hands of our mothers.

Last week Linda put finishing touches on the bright spring rain jacket into which she stitched that fancy rhinestone studded zipper she bought on eBay.  It suits Linda perfectly, it's happy and petite and has just the right amount of pizazz. I watched Margaret work her fingers around the collar as Linda modeled it.  I watched her slender 87 year old fingers gracefully turn the fabric, her voice speaking in low tones as she advised and complimented. I felt that warm sense of belonging, that comfortably safe feeling you get when you know you are part of a team, that your objectives all match, that what will benefit one is going to benefit all.

I wonder, if I ever make it to 87 years old, if I will have a door that swings open as beautifully as Margaret's does.  If I do, it will not be by accident.  Margaret is Margaret on purpose. 

There's a lot more than sewing to be learned at Margaret's School of Custom 

Dress Making.

33. NEW

When we are young, life is full of new.  New words, new tastes, newly discovered fresh and not-so-fresh smells.  New dresses on Sunday mornings when the old ones were outgrown.  New skills.  Letters to be learned, numbers to sequence, then to add, then to multiply.  There is so much new early on.

There comes a point when the scales shift and life carries a relatively equal balance of old and new, with little peaks and valleys along the journey.  I'm not sure where the summit is for the typical first-world human, but I suspect it is in our teen or young adult years. At some point we bemoan the redundancy of life, if we are lucky.  Things get old.  Patterns repeat. We follow routines, as tiring as they may be, and thirst for new.

Sometimes New comes like a breath of fresh air.  A trip to paradise in the dreariness of winter.  Pretty Miss New bats her eyes and beckons us, all fragrant with her new perfume.  We follow her with wanderlust and passion, breathing her in, drinking her coolness.

But sometimes Newness bursts through the back door when we are not looking, when we are just out of the shower and not dressed.  We pull our towels up in front of us with a high pitched yelp, running back to the closet.  But newness creeps in under the closet door while we dress and sometimes, in our hurrying state, we put our clothes on backwards and forget to put socks on under our boots.  Then the rest of the day we shift in our uncomfortableness, while New chuckles behind us.

My sister Libby has decided to add some new to her life. She has decided to hire a personal trainer. Joel, her trainer, is such a good young man, very capable, and very kind.  The fact that her trainer is Joel is part of why she has a trainer.  For years her muscles were dependably able, the definition in her calves and arms visible evidence of the love in her heart.  She hefted our mother from her bed to her wheel chair, to the shower to her recliner, back to the wheelchair, into the car, and so on…repeatedly…every single day.  When Mom went the way of all living things Libby's muscles became less taxed.  Her arms and her legs began to lose their beloved purpose, and it pained her to think that they were only needed to carry her own weight.  The change was painful when Mom died.  Inside and out, it hurt.  Now Lib takes the proverbial bull by the horns and calls to her muscles to wake up.  The newness is painful as well.

Our friend Reed dances a daily do-si-do with newness.  His self definition shifts almost daily now.  He has sold his business, buried his wife, nurtured and advised grieving children, not to mention a very lonely puppy, and it's bulging with new.  Last week he spent his last day of work at a company founded by his father.  After his father's untimely death, Reed took over as president of the company, leading it through interstate expansion and a recent sale to a large parent company. It is where he has spent his whole professional career. Tomorrow he will not be going to work.  And in two months he walks his youngest daughter down the aisle in a pretty white dress.  Major foot stomping newness in Reed's world!

The other day Reed came over for dinner.  Chatting afterwards, he commented that he had learned something new.  (This did not startle any of us).  "Did you know," he said, his eyebrows raising as he spoke, "that if you take a chicken breast out of the freezer and put it in the fridge to thaw, and forget that you put it in the fridge to thaw, that chicken will turn very nasty in one week?"  We all laughed heartily. "And," he continued, "I am astounded at how much quicker everything gets dirty.  It feels like I am doing laundry all the time!"

I pray for Reed, that he will have the wherewithal to hold up under the overwhelming weight he hefts each day.  Not only the burden of the heart and brain trying to process loss, but the tasks of daily life.  Needful things that have no respect nor patience for the grieving.  I pray for Libby, whose heart throbs at the loss of her mother and, too soon after that, our Cindy, her closest friend. I send requests heavenward for our friend Paul and his grieving family. I let my head go to the names of people who loved and lost, whose routines are smothered in new, and I end up praying until the day is old, and I am weary of prayer.  And then I pray some more.

32.PRAYER CIRLCE

As president of the Young Women's organization in our local church, I joined other ward leaders in our bishop's office early Sunday mornings for what is known as Ward Council. In the early hours of dawn, before our Sunday church services,  we gathered in a circle around the bishop's desk and discussed matters of importance to our congregation.  Before we began working through the meeting's agenda, we prepared for prayer. 

Prayer, at it's core, is pretty simple.  We are invited to address God.  It continues to impress me that our Maker invites all of us, regardless of our worthiness, to address him.  He could have just created us and hurled us down here to learn something, and that would have been beneficial by itself.  But instead he gave us some information about himself, and some access. Just enough info to keep our spiritual hearts pumping, but not so much that we would not need faith to find Him.  The access is our lifeline…our phone call home… our daily look in the eternal mirror.  

There are prayers that I toss up at any given moment.  Like the conversations I have in the late hours of the night…aka early hours of the morning…with my sister Libby. Dave is asleep beside me and I don't want to wake him, so we converse via short texts.  There's the texting kind of prayer…the Tweet kind of prayer that uses limited characters following a hashtag.

 # = "Dear God...".

Then there are the prayers that require preparation  The kind of prayer that requests a pause in the motion of the day, where we respectfully ponder the fact that we are being invited into the Judge's chambers, and that taking his attention is an honor and we should use well the opportunity.  So we prepare, studying our hearts and the issues we would like to address with Him.  Then, in reverence, we enter his space, leaving all else behind when we do.  We enter with important matters to discuss, and when we do this I get the feeling He pauses in some place within Himself and gives us his full attention.  I suspect God is a masterful multi-tasker and it is not a problem for him to give full attention to many at once.

Our prayers on Sunday mornings at our ward council meeting are not hashtag prayers.  We discuss with each other the matters we would like to take before the Lord.  We prepare a list of people within our church area, whether or not they embrace our faith, who we believe need the Lord's help.  Usually that list includes people who are sick or otherwise afflicted.  Then we go before our divine creator and pray for those on the list.

One Sunday I sat in the circle beside Paul, the High Priests Group Leader for our ward.  Paul is an old friend, full of good humor and charity, with a golden heart and a ready smile.  He's a great leader, partly because he doesn't make people feel like they are being led.  It's more like he walks beside. We had just finished creating our prayer list and were preparing ourselves in reverence.  Our heads bowed, and eyes shutting out the world, the silence in the few seconds before the prayer was broken by Paul. He had raised his head and asked if he could make one more request.  We all raised our heads and looked at him. 

"I feel like I need to suggest one more name."  His voice cracked and his eyes welled up.  

"I feel like we need to include Judge Connors in our prayer."

I perked up at that, wondering what was wrong with my husband, that would compel Paul to add him to our prayer list. 

Dave is a state court judge.  He deals with issues of all sorts, from divorces to adoptions and marriages, to murder.  That week there had been a horrendous murder of a four year old boy, with scenes presented via media that turned stomachs and evoked tears.  The accused, the boy's mother and her husband, were presented in David's courtroom for arraignment.  Scenes too graphic for the news were presented in his courtroom.  Paul knew this.

"Judge Connors has to witness some pretty terrible evidence, and he has heavy matters for which he is entrusted to make decisions.  I just feel like we need to pray for him."

And so the voice of our prayer circle spoke the name of my David, along with others that I love.  I wept in my reverent place, for David.  But also for Paul and his sensitive, tender heart.

On Wednesday Paul's wife, our friend Leslie, was not feeling well.  She was short of breath, and her knee hurt.  Paul, who had dressed for a day at his ranch fixing a truck, stayed home to take her to the doctor.  That was two days ago.  That spring morning he and Leslie had called and sung Happy Birthday to their grandson. But the day unfolded against plans. By that night Leslie was in a coma, her heart having stopped at the invasion of a blood clot from her knee.  

Last night Paul gathered with his sons in a circle around Leslie's hospital bed.  They gathered and prayed and wept and embraced, then when the Comforter whispered it was ok, they removed the machines that were keeping her alive.  Her beautiful spirit floated up toward the heavens, her vibrant beauty releasing itself from a damaged body.  

We who gather in prayer circles are not worried for Leslie.  We believe she is just fine.  There's an intrinsic homesickness our spirits feel in these human bodies. So dying, when viewed as a going home, is a blessed relief.  I sincerely believe this.  I have no worries for Leslie.

But Paul.  Our tender friend , Paul?  That's another matter.

We who love her, and who love him, encircle him now.

Prayers for Paul. For his boys. For their little ones, and others who shared her name.  We look toward their home from our own homes, our neighborhood still reeling from loss, our hearts preparing to address the Lord. We stand together in one big circle of prayer.

31. CODE

I spent today in the recording studio with my friend and engineer extraordinaire, Mark Stephenson. We began a new journey, taking our first baby steps in a new album project.  This one is to be a collection of lullabies.  My most common comment from fans is that their children and grandchildren fall asleep to my music. I try not to over-focus on the fact that my music puts people to sleep.  But I guess I take it as a compliment because I have never tried to stir up too much energy with my songs.  A little introspection, and maybe a giggle here and there.  But mostly I aim for peace.  So putting people to sleep is perhaps a step in the right direction.  Considering all this, a lullaby project seems to fit just right, don't you think?

Today was extra wonderful because Michael Dowdle spent the whole day with us, his magical fingers laying down track after track of beautiful guitar work.  I've written before about his masterful skill at learning and playing my songs, keeping the integrity of my arrangements, and adding just the right sweetening. He is just so talented, so professional yet down to earth nice, and a blast to be with.

When you spend 8 hours in a studio with each other, repeating songs over and over, the conversation can get pretty diverse and always interesting.  At one point we got to talking about codes, and how in different industries we use terms that others might not understand. We use terms like track and punch and midi, words like sweetening and BPM's (beats per minute) in the recording studio.  We are not talking about trains or party drinks or the skirts just shorter than maxi skirts, nor are we referring to sugar when we sweeten.  It's recording code. Families have codes.  Religions, and clubs, and kids who have pricked their fingers and become blood brothers and sisters, secret codes giving them admission to hand built forts in the woods beyond the back yard.  We all use code.

We pass each other in the hall at church, or at the store, or at the Book Fair in the school library, and when our eyes meet we smile and ask "How are you?"  But really, How are you is just code for Hello, with an extra measure of You are my friend.  We really don't have time nor energy to hear how we really are doing.  Not then, at least.  It's just code.  Just like the response of "fine" is code for, I understand you don't really want to know…at least not now.

My friend Jason White was gigging with me one night.  We were backstage with the band, nibbling on backstage grub and having backstage chatter.  He told us about working at a company that dealt with consumer computers.  One day someone came in with a problem.  Some issue with his computer, which to the guys who worked there was an obvious fix.  But the customer was sure he knew what the issue was, and how to fix it, only it wasn't cooperating. Jason stood at the desk and listened, nodding his head, allowing the fellow to vent.  Then Jason calmly responded, when the fellow paused to take a breath…"I'm pretty sure I know what the problem is.  Hold on and I'll see if I can get someone to come take care of it for you."  So he calls his co-worker out and says: "I think what we have here is an I.D. Ten T issue.  Can you take care of it? "  

He hands the guy the computer, and he takes it in the back room and comes back in five minutes with it all fixed.  The customer, thanks them, tells them he knew that this was the problem, pays his bill and leaves.  

"More often than not, problems with computers end up being ID 10 T issues."

So I ask Jason what an ID 10 T issue is and he smiles.  He looks up at Mark Robinette and repeats…ID 10 T.  ID10T. Mark laughs out loud, so loud we all whisper hush cuz we are backstage and there's an audience out there.

I sit there, smiling, feeling clueless.

Mark raises his eyebrows and repeats.  "ID10T.  Turn the numbers into letters, Cori."

It takes me longer than it should.  But I finally get it.

The most common computer problems are not the fault of the computer.  It's the person using the computer.  The ID10T.  

ID10T. Code for idiot.

Duh.

30. CHARTREUSE

I drove to the graves this morning, when the dusting of snow under the shadows of the trees and benches and headstones had not yet met the warmth of the rising sun.  My mother and sister-friend Cindy are buried steps away from each other, right at the northerly edge of Farmington Cemetery.  We had all purchased our plots together, years ago, chuckling that we wanted that section so we could do drive by grieving.  Now, sooner than any of us had anticipated, we steer our cars toward the foothills south of Farmington Canyon, pulling over just east of Jim Hefner and Chad Morgan and Doug Miller's graves. We pause, and let our sorrow run down the curb, down toward the Great Salt Lake.

Mom has settled in, so to speak.  Though we have yet to install a headstone, we have two sturdy benches and a solar light hanging from an iron hook, and usually some sort of living thing, pansies or hyacinths or a winter evergreen.  For two years we had a little iron bell on a shepherd's crook, which we rang seven times at every visit….one ring for each of her children, but someone without a trace of a conscience stole that from her grave. The grass atop Mom's burial plot is dark green and spotty, the sheltering arms of the sycamore tree just south of her depriving the spot of adequate sunlight.

The earth on Cindy's plot, on the other hand, was broken and turned only five weeks ago. For one full month the thick, fragrant bed of flowers atop her grave remained amazingly fresh and colorful.  It was almost unreal how long that massive bouquet remained fresh.  Cindy loved flowers, flora of all sorts actually, and it was perfectly appropriate that those flowers seemed to thrive atop her. It was as if there was an imaginary greenhouse covering her final resting spot.

Today, when I visited the graves, the flowers had finally been removed from Cindy's plot.  In their place was a perfect rectangle of chartreuse green grass, the fine thin grass blades tender in their infancy.  The luminous grass was twice as long as the grasses surrounding it, long and washed with early spring green. The kind of green where you suspect little sprites stand behind each blade with candles, the light glowing like summer sunlight through a lime popsicle.

Evidence of Cindy is popping up everywhere, prefaced almost always by a splash of chartreuse.  Breaking through the winter worn earth, patient little bumps of green poke their heads up toward the sun. Following them, like adolescent girls at a coming-out ball, flowing dresses of color unfold in arms of green.  Hyacinths, and daffodils, and tulips, planted when her hands could work the soil, when the bill of her gardening cap leaned like a cradle over the earth of her yard.  She left us all with treasures, little cheery reminders. Her pansies wave in the morning breeze when I drive by her house, nodding, as if she were whispering from her unknown spot…I am here….I am here…I am here.

29.SHOPPING

Never enough quarters in her pocket to put gas in the tank, always a passel of kids swarming around her, the inborn taste of Fifth Avenue with a Lower East Side pocketbook. This was the fate of my mother when I was young. I don't think she ever got to shop alone. And worse yet, she didn't get the luxury of shopping for herself.  For most of my childhood, necessity was the mother of all purchases.

I was number six of seven children, the middle of three little girls born at the tail end of the stream, the three of us being less than two years apart from each other. Her kids came in two batches, batch one was old enough to be in college or out working, while we in the second batch were too young to stay home alone, so most often when Mom went shopping, we went shopping. 

Ann Marie was quiet, intelligent, dutiful and obedient.  Always trusted then, and worthy of all trust to this day.  Lib was also obedient, and intelligent, and happy, and though she was the youngest she was not a whiny spoiled kind of kid.  And then there was me.  I know now that there were issues with my brain, ADD, aka. Attention Deficit Disorder. But we did not know it then. I think it came on when I was 5 years old and skated around on a patch of ice on the back porch.  I got so dizzy I fell smack on my face on the cement.  Passed out for a while, though no one knows how long.  I just remember coming to, lifting myself off the frozen ground and walking into the kitchen.  I stood at the top of the basement stairs and called down to Mom, who was doing laundry.  The scent of Tide and warm air of the dryer vent washed across me as I stood there., reeling.  “Mom,” I moaned, “I think I fell.”  Next thing I knew I was at the doctor, who told us I was not allowed to sleep for 24 hours.  Mom sat up with me all the night through, patting my hand to wake me up, playing games and feeding me Popsicles and pudding.  Next morning I was weepy weary, and my whole face was black and blue.  I still have a little bump on the right side of my forehead from where I fell.  I think it caused frontal lobe damage.  I am not joking.

Anyway, I had attention issues.  And I suffered from ITI - Irresistible Tactile Inquisitiveness.  

I remember loading into the old station wagon and heading down Broughton Road, down to the bottom of the road where it intersected with Curry Hollow. This was in the era of  belching steel mills along the rivers of Pittsburgh PA.  The  streets and buildings were dirty, windows filmed with coal smoke.  The evening air was pungent, a rosy glow lighting the horizon over by South Hills Village when they poured the slag off the rail cars. Down at the bottom of Broughton Road someone had strung the black plastic letters of a street sign with this tongue in cheek message:

Welcome to beautiful downtown Broughton.

Broughton did not have a downtown to speak of.  And beauty was not in its Chamber of Commerce description. But, by golly, it did have Daniel’s Hardware Store! Just the mention of that name makes my middle tingle, my eyes close, my head lay back just a little as I inhale, hoping to find in my memory banks that familiar scent of shaved metal and grease and plastic, with the occasional waft of bubble gum we got for a penny from the gumball machine.  Lovely, lovely aroma of creative potential!  I adored Daniel’s Hardware!  Aisles of bins, nuts and bolts and odd shaped thinga-ma-bobs, and dowels of all sizes and piles of balsa wood and Exacto knives.  Model paints and clothes pins and glue and wire and oh so much that could be used to make something or other.  My mind went crazy imagining what I could do if I only had a five dollar bill! 

We visited Daniels regularly, as Mom was the resident handy man at our house.  But it was at Christmas time that my imagination flung about like a wild horse.  My hands could not resist touching…everything!  Mom devised the most effective method of dealing with this ADD - ITI child of hers.  Outside the store, before we pulled on the old worn wood handle and heard the hanging bell jingle our arrival, Mom instructed me to grasp the pointer finger of my left hand with my right hand.  I was to hold that finger with my hand until we went back to the car, or at least until I got the penny for the gumball. It took years for me to understand that she was keeping both my hands busy.  My eyes could look all they wanted, but my fingers were out of the bins and off the shelves.

Genius mother.

I’m thinking now that it might not be a bad idea for me to pull out the old trick on myself when I go shopping next time.  Think of all the money we would save!

And better yet, I could just hold that old index finger next time I head for the fridge as well.

28. WELL

I do not draw my water from a well.  It comes to me without effort, just the touch of a finger, streaming into a porcelain sink, cold and refreshing when I need a drink in the middle of the night.  Falling steamy and cleansing from my shower head, warmth aplenty, so that my skin is supple by the time I am done. It fills my bathtub, gallons and gallons, gushing from the faucet, with a rousing shout of bubbles for the grand kids.  Their playthings float on top; a tiny submarine, a plastic boat, three fishes and a scuba diver.  A metal scoop, a plastic cup, and a strainer for good measure.

I do not draw my water from a well. So my legs are weak and my arms flappy. The grass in my yard is lush and green and there is no path that's worn of necessity.  All the paths are pleasure.

When Mom was small she watched her mother pump the water into their large kitchen sink, out on the ranch in Blackfoot, Idaho. Her mother's elbow would rise level with her shoulder, then she would lean into the metal arm, her hand pushing and pulling until the water came flowing out into the basin.  Once in a while the pump would lose its prime, the mouth of the faucet gaping empty and dry.  Her mother would send one of the kids out to the well house with a bucket.  When they returned she poured water down the pipe of the pump, reminding the water out there at the well that it should make its way to her kitchen.  She would pump and pump, the tiny hairs around her hairline curling with sweat. Once primed, she shook her head, swearing to herself that she would not let that old pump lose its prime again.  My grandmother's kitchen was so well used, feeding all those children, the ranch hands, and the occasional hobo, that the pump rarely lost its prime to begin with.  Usually it only happened when they had gone up into the mountains on a fishing expedition, or over to cousin Millie's while the men were up cutting ice from the river. By the time my mother was old enough to do the dishes they had modern plumbing installed.

I do not draw my water from a well.  But I return to other wells, knowing that if I am not faithful, I risk losing the prime. Some trips to the figurative wells are easier than others.  Some pressings of the pump more simple.  When I am teaching guitar, the calluses on my left fingertips are always there.  When I'm not teaching or performing, I find them peeling off after I wash the dishes.  I am reminded to pick up my instrument daily, to keep that pump flowing, so I don't have to go through the re-creation of tough skin on my fingertips. I may bemoan having to prepare guitar lessons, but I never have to worry about my fingers being in good guitar playing condition.

At our house we entertain a fair amount. Gatherings of people. This requires me to clean up a bit.  Otherwise my varied projects get in the way and the house goes to pot. My kids used to walk in from school and if the house was clean they would ask who was coming over. I know myself well enough to understand that the flow of people coming in and out of our house is important to the well being of our environment, and not just because it forces us to clean up.  The comings and goings, the conversation, and the music bouncing against these walls have given this place a unique patina.  It loses its luster when the doors do not regularly swing open. The flow of people coming in and out of our house keeps the the water coming from the well of friendship.

On Sunday mornings we make our way down the street and stream into the rock church house at the end of Summerwood Road. Streaming in together with our neighbors, we sip from holy cups, share sacred stories, and flow out together, back toward our homes, priming ourselves so that the spiritual waters don't quit flowing.  A friend once told me we are all basically three weeks from church inactivity.   The first week we miss for legitimate reasons; we are sick, or out of town, or having an off kind of day. Week two something else keeps us from going, and by week three it becomes comfortable to stay away.  After that, it requires elbow effort to return, sweat inducing priming to get the waters flowing as they should. Knowing this, and knowing my humanness as it battles my eternalness, I accept church callings and build social relationships that make going to church multi-faceted.  Then when I am not feeling particularly spiritual, I get myself there for social reasons, and when I am not feeling particularly social, I get myself there for spiritual reasons.  And if all else fails, my sense of obligation gets me there to fulfill my callings.  I'd like to say that the only reason I go to church is to feel the spirit, but truth be known there are other places that fill me spiritually as well. And further truth be known, sometimes church just doesn't do it for me.  But that's rare, and the odds are in my favor that I will find something…even one small thing…that uplifts me at church.  So I return.  Regularly. Keeps the pump primed.

Last month I returned to a well.  My son went with me.  We dipped ourselves into Mark Stephenson's recording studio, a familiar place full of life giving water for me.  It had been so long I forgot how it worked.  I had to return with buckets of effort to prime the pump.  But the well is full of good fresh music and it is flowing and I am excited for the projects we will be producing from that place I love.

I do not draw my thirst quenching, dish washing, skin cleansing water from a well. For that I am grateful, though I understand there are drawbacks. But there are other gifts, not of water,  that require the trip, and the effort, and the thirst.  For these I find myself rising from my sedentary place, moving my legs, and making my way back.  Back to the familiar, the dependable, the living waters.  I find myself returning to the well.