3-20-19 BEADED

When Capitol Records recording artist Chris LeDoux recorded my song Get Back On that Pony I wanted to do something to thank him. He had given me the publishing on the song, which is sort of unheard of in the business when a song has not previously been signed, and that meant I still have 100% ownership in the song. It also meant I received all the writer’s royalties from the album Under This Old Hat and the American Cowboy box set. It’s a music business thing, and suffice it to say he was an anomaly in Nashville.

Anyway, I decided to make him a guitar strap as a token of thanks. My brother knew a Native American woman up in Heber Valley who did lovely bead work, so I hired her to make two strips of tidy Indian seed bead artistry. We walked into her tiny shop and I was instantly returned to the Reservation of my childhood, out in the sandy soil of Fort Hall near Blackfoot Idaho. I inhaled the aroma of smoke tanned deer hide and sage. From her impressive colorful collection of tiny seed beads I chose hues and patterns. She was to make a three-foot by four inch piece, incorporating seven roses into each strip, representing the name of my publishing company, Seven Roses Music. She completed the task beautifully.

That summer, while visiting our family cottage in Michigan, I carefully hand stitched those wide strips of beadwork onto fabric and leather guitar straps. They turned out great. I sent one to Chris and kept one for myself. I still use that strap nearly every day. 

The beautiful handiwork of that skilled Native American artist includes, by design, what she calls a “spirit bead”. The spirit bead is a purposeful mistake. It is a bead in the wrong place, put there by design to allow any unwelcome spirits to rise from the piece of art. I am not an expert on this, but I think the theory is that no human is to create a thing of perfection. Only the great God can do that.

In that vein, I am full of spirit beads. 

We who claim to be disciples of Christ and who adhere to the tenets of His restored gospel have all sorts of issues with the tidy rows of our spiritual beadwork. At least I do (I should only speak for myself).

There’s a scripture that we believers sometimes get stuck on:

“Be ye therefore perfect, 

even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”

(No pressure there!)

I understand, or at least I want to understand, that the translator from King James’ court had perhaps chosen the less perfect word. The adjective “perfect” was used instead of the verb “perfected”. Since we are beings in process I like to think that a verb is better suited in this sentence, though I do not profess to put words into the Savior’s mouth. Some people say the word could also have been translated as “complete.” Either way, the “perfect” is not a hard-fast-final word that fits us in absolute categories. 

I personally like to think of it, in grammatical terms, as a passive verb, like I am “acted upon” by someone other than me, like God is doing the perfecting. Goodness knows I am not the one to know what perfect is. But He does. And while we string those little seed beads of life experience on the story of my life, I suppose He allows me to participate, but the truth is, I think more often than not I need to get out of the way and let Him perfect me. 

Some of us, a lot of us, either disassociate ourselves from thinking about an end product, or we swing the other way and fixate obsessively on it, banging ourselves on the head for not being perfect. I’d like to set myself somewhere in the healthy middle of that: aware that I am a work in process and I must be aware as I participate in that process, but not obsessed with how far I am from the final product and therefore overwhelmed by how far I have to go.

Each moment of each day is a little seed bead in my personal  hand drawn pattern, and if once in a while the wrong bead gets set in place, I suppose that makes me uniquely mine…or better yet… uniquely His.

3-19-19 DOZEN

Kathryn came over Thursday morning, her guitar in one hand and a carton of eggs in the other. She joined the three dozen women who gather Thursday mornings in my family room to learn how to play guitar. She set down her instrument and handed me the recycled cardboard carton. “You won’t get them any fresher than this,” she said as I lifted the lid, revealing a dozen newly laid eggs in an earthy array of colors: pale blue, olive green, creamy yellow, chocolate milk brown and one solitary typical white. The Yerman’s have four boys, one sweet girl and anywhere from 6 to 15 chickens, depending on whether or not Tage forgets to lock them in at night and how active the raccoons have been.  The eggs were so lovely, like Mother Nature had painted them herself with her very best watercolors. “Oh man, thank you! They’re so beautiful I don’t think I could crack them,” I said, lifting each one to examine it. “Oh,” Kathryn said, “No worries there, we’ll have plenty more tomorrow.”

For a while now I have been a little curious about the fact that we arrange things in dozens. Eggs come in cartons of a dozen. Wooden school rulers, at least in America, have 12 inches. Every spring our kids purchase boxes of golf balls for their dad for his birthday and Father’s Day. The balls are sold in boxes of 12.  Don’t you think it odd that we measure by 12’s instead of 10’s? Tens are so much more round, so much easier to multiply.

Before there were such things as super markets, and long before super stores like Costco and Sam’s Club, humans who spent their waking hours doing jobs that took them away from the home-fires visited bakeries to buy their daily bread. For centuries, the staple of the civilized table was a loaf of bread. Over 1000 years ago laws were passed in England that demanded bread be sold in proportion to the wheat used to make it, and if a baker provided less than was paid for, he would be jailed or flogged, or have their arm amputated. That would make kneading difficult. Since bread carries the factor of yeast, and yeast makes for variety in bread sizes, bakers began giving one extra loaf to insure they were legal. This became known as a baker’s dozen, which basically means 13 instead of 12. 

When I was a kid, and we went to the bakery to get some rolls, or donuts, or cookies, you always received one extra when you bought a dozen. Aside from law and punishment, I think it’s just plain good business, because it encourages customers to buy twelve instead of six or eight or ten, knowing they are getting something for nothing. 

Now days, as far as I can see, businesses have let go of the extra measure. When you buy twelve, you get twelve. Except at Day’s Farm, where every late summer/early fall I aim my van west on Gentile Street in Layton at least once a week. Out west, toward the Great Salt Lake, where the Day family has held their ground, quite literally. Rows of houses have popped up in all the fields surrounding theirs, but they have preserved what their grandfathers had nurtured; a good old traditional American farm, with a variety of crops that rotate regularly. Their corn is always clean and crisp, the pale yellow and white kernels stacked in neat godly rows under luminous green husks and fair haired silk. Not only is it dependably good, they let you choose your own from a large waxy cardboard bin that holds a sign: 

“Fresh Corn $4/13 ear”

I know I am a bargain lover, and I have an unusually prominent bell somewhere between my head and my heart that starts to ring when I see a deal, but when I see someone indicate to me that they value me as a customer, and they really want me to be happy with my purchases, and just to be safe they are going to throw in an extra in case one of those ear I have chosen is deformed or has hosted a little party of worms under that pretty green casing; well, that makes me feel like we are friends. And I like to do business with friends.

The concept of a baker’s dozen is a good one. It fits with my Christian values. It says, without words, that I am aware that things are not always perfect, that I don’t have complete control over everything, even when I really try. If I grew corn, I know every ear of corn is not created the same. That’s part of the beauty of it. But if I am a merchant I will do all I can to represent the best of what I offer, and I will throw in some extra just to be safe, so you feel like you’ve been treated fairly.

I learned from the master  of over-doing herself, my mother. If you are going fishing for the day, you’d better take some crackers and some string cheese, and, here… you’d better take twelve string cheeses instead of two. And here’ take some apples, too. And you’ll need some chocolate, and better throw in a gallon of water, because any time you are going out into the Arco desert you’d better have a gallon of water. Too much is better than too little.

Here’s a challenge to someone out there who controls the merchandise in any of those big box stores we have turned our attention to these days; bring back the baker’s dozen. Then, when you eat a donut in the car on the way home, no one will be the wiser. 

(Heck, if you buy a dozen of my CD’s, I’ll throw in two extra.)

3-18-19 TAP

I sat on a cushioned pew with my sisters in the alto section of our little ward choir after church yesterday. As Ellen tapped away on the piano, her fingers dancing up and down the keyboard, I peeked over by black choir notebook and watched eleven-year-old Heidi keep the beat with her foot. I should have been paying attention to our choir director, and I usually am because although I write music I am sort of illiterate reading it. But young Heidi, of the angel voice, always draws me to her. She’s sort of magnetic that way, with her stunningly beautiful face and her pure spirit and that voice in her. She inherited it from her mother, along with her three sisters… all of it… the beauty, the radiance, and the voice. I suppose I did not need to follow Sally’s conductor’s baton because I had Heidi’s foot. Her soft black shoe tapped up and down, ever so slightly, exactly on the beat, like it could not help itself.

Park plays drums and french horn.

There is always a little thrill that bubbles up from my heart when I see young people unknowingly tapping their feet. Parker does it as he’s talking to me or we are singing as I drive him to his drum lessons. I catch myself doing it when I am trying to learn a new piece of music. It’s an automatic mechanism that probably came with us when we entered the womb and was nurtured all that time in there, keeping pace with our mothers’ heart beats. 

The first time I went to a band concert, when Timo was in seventh grade, I was mesmerized by the dance of forty feet on the stage floor. One per musician. I remember thinking it was interesting how one foot on each musician kept the beat, as if there were invisible strings attached to music angels hovering above. You could sort of tell, or at least guess, if a person was right footed or left footed by which foot they tapped. I noticed yesterday during Sacrament Meeting that I was tapping alternating feet as we sang. Left, right, left, right. It caught me off guard. I don’t even know why I noticed it, but I thought it strange. Maybe my brain was extra balanced yesterday. I got to thinking, as we sat there in our sweet congregation of believers, how blessed I am to be able to tap my feet. First, how blessed I am that these feet work and I can move them if I want. And secondly, that music sits comfortably enough in my soul that it has to squeeze out of my feet as well as my mouth. 

Timo on the timpani in All-State band.

Last month we went to the beautiful Symphony Hall in Salt Lake City to watch Timo play percussion in the All State Junior High Band. The music was so awesome that I lifted my eyes to the heavens, then closed them in order to inhale the beauty. When I opened them again they were angled right there at the feet of those musicians, a sea of black dress shoes rising and falling in unison, as if Heaven’s choreographers could not resist getting in on the show. 

Marching band is serious toe tapping.

The rhythm of life does the same. We tap our figurative toes to it down here on earth, breathing in and out at the very same time as every single other human, in syncopated time. We all keep the beat, whether we know it or not, while above us the silent angels sing. 

3-16-19 FREE

There is a section in the KSL online Classifieds app with the category label: FREE. Its the only category where they have used all capital letters. There’s something magical about FREE. The other day Dave and I were in a furniture store and someone said they were serving free hot dogs and Coke, so of course we found the escalator and made a bee line to the aroma of steamed hot dogs and mustard. There were something like 100 people there eating standard average hot dogs on short little buns. You’d never have guessed the store ever had 100 people in it at one time. We Americans do like FREE.

Because I carry an extra “bargain” chromosome in my DNA I know my weakness for free stuff. I literally do not allow myself to move the mouse on my computer over the word FREE in the online classifieds. I know what will happen if I click on it. It would be like an alcoholic walking into a bar. 

FREE is actually a misnomer, if you take a look at it with philosophical eyes. Going back to the very basics of human existence, at least in my belief wheelhouse, we were all made to be stewards over our stuff. Our stuff, and our people, and our time – pretty much everything. So, when I decide to bring that plastic cooler shaped like a giant football into our house, I have taken responsibility for it as it fits in our family community. If it takes up space on the basement shelf, and is never used, and the case of powdered sugar that should actually be on that shelf has to go on the floor instead, and then the laundry goes on top of that, well then what kind of steward am I over that cooler or the other stuff around it, over my space, and ultimately over my time? And that’s not even talking about the emotional weight of things. Anyway, as they say in the song; Freedom isn’t FREE.

And then there’s the viewpoint that when something is free we value it less. For instance, I charge for my guitar classes, including the women’s groups I teach on Thursday mornings that feel more like book clubs than lessons. We really do have a good time together. I don’t need to feed my family with the money I make teaching. It’s not wholly essential to our existence. And there was a time when I did not charge for these classes. But here’s what happened when it was FREE: My students stopped coming regularly, at least stopped making it a priority. And they practiced less. I found, early on, that we give credit to that which costs us. If I have actual money in something I feel like I need to commit. Funny how money has that power over us. It’s not evil, it’s just how it works for us at this time in our eternal existence. 

I sometimes think they should charge $1000 for a Book of Mormon. Right now anyone anywhere can get one absolutely free. It’s our answer to the call to flood the world with the Gospel of Christ. But when things are free we tend, at least we spiritual weaklings, to be complacent about them. If the book that carries more pure scripture than any other should cost us a pretty penny, and we had to sincerely sacrifice to give it a place in our homes, then might we treasure it more? I don’t know, I’m just wondering.

So now I have to force myself to finish up today’s Lent Writing and move my body out to the garage where there are roughly twenty boxes of random stuff waiting for me to sort through them. Really, I should just tell Dave to take it all to DI. Or, as another option, to list them on the KSL Classifieds FREE section. Ugh! 

3-15-19 BOYFRIEND

I can’t recall exactly when it started, probably back around the time my sisters and I got our new midi-coats in middle school. That was probably the sparky moment, like the instant the tip of a match leaps into a flame. Before that there were whisperings, urges and such. But it was in middle school that I started dreaming about having a boyfriend. The teenage homing device tucked inside my ear caught conversations in the halls, or at the lunch table; so-and-so was going with so-and-so. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, at that point, even if they had never ever even been alone with each other. Then, as the grade numbers advanced, the going-together included holding hands in the halls, and kissing in shadowed corners at ball games, and one might imagine what else. The thought of having someone, especially someone kinda cute, want to have anything to do with me was the stuff of my private longings and not my reality. I don’t think I ever did have a boyfriend, not even the kind where you said you were a couple but you were really just wannabe’s. I had plenty of what I called, “friend boys”, and I certainly had my share of crushes, their identities tucked safely on the pages of my little diary, locked away with my tiny gold key. I liked boys, and in general I felt like they were friendly toward me, but never did a single boy in my school ask me out, except one who will go unnamed – who sat in the back of my homeroom in eleventh grade and belched. Even when I was class president my junior year, and had planned the prom in every detail, I was not asked. Prom time for most of us girls was just the worst! You wait, and wonder, and as time passes the wish becomes lead-heavy and disappears like daffodils in June. I ended up asking my brother’s best friend, who had already graduated from another school, to take me so I wouldn’t have to miss the party I had planned. My senior year  my sister Libby and I snipped the agony of unfulfilled anticipation in the bud and asked friends from Annapolis to take us; twin brothers who were like actual brothers to us. I remember one time there was a church girl’s choice dance and I got up the courage to ask one of my friend-boys to go with me. I specifically chose someone I was pretty sure would say yes. He said no. I don’t know for sure that being a Mormon girl in Pittsburgh had much to do with it, but in this one instance, looking back on it, I suspect it did.

All those teenage years I never did get to have a boyfriend. When I went to college at BYU, Dave Connors stole a kiss so unexpectedly while we were hiking up Mount Timpanogos, it took my breath away. That was my first week of college.  One kiss, and then another, and before I even had the chance to consider him a boyfriend we were engaged and he was my fiancé.

I still wonder how it would have felt to have someone like me, kind of, and want to be with me, sort of. I don’t give Dave enough credit for actually choosing me. I guess I think he must have been possessed or something, and was out of his mind, and that by the time he got his wits about him we were married and he was stuck.

I always wondered how it would be to go out with a steady, to go parking, and all that semi-naughty stuff that good girls allowed themselves to do just a little. One night, after we were married and we were in Pittsburgh for the summer, we were driving through South Park on the way to Dave’s parents, where we were living for the summer while Dave clerked for a law firm. I had this sudden urge to turn into the dark parking lot at a place called China Wall and join the other cars with passion bound teenagers in them. I was, after all, still a teenager, and by golly I wanted to know how it felt to go parking, to feel those passionate explosions tickling my fancy, to steam up the windshield, all while listening to Barry White or Jim Croce set the mood on the tinny speakers of our tiny Toyota Corolla.

So, Dave, who I might add had some level of experience in these matters, obliged, turning the steering wheel and pulling up against the rock wall in a dark corner of South Park. He turned out the lights, and leaned over, planting a kiss on my neck. I leaned in toward him, but the gear shift jabbed my rib and I jerked back. He laughed, and we repositioned, shifting ourselves to reach over the center console, but my hip was feeling the pain. We kissed, and kissed again, and I am sorry to say it just wasn’t doing it for me. Probably wasn’t doing it for him either.

We looked at each other and laughed, then stared out the non-steamy windshield for a minute, listening to the Bee Gees repeating the question "How deep is your love?"

Finally, I said, “OK, let’s go home.” 

I love having Dave for my husband. He is good and kind, and still makes my heart flutter. But I still wonder what it might have been like to have a boyfriend for a minute or two. A temporary love. Someone who felt like a new purse for a while, all exciting and new, then comfortable and well used. Actually, I have no idea how it feels to have a boyfriend, I’m just guessing. It’s not really fair to compare a relationship to a purse. But I think a boyfriend has that kind of temporary feel, comfortable, but temporary. There’s something enticing about that.

On the other hand, I know I got the best deal. The card I gave to Dave for Valentines Day this year said this: Lets be us forever.

3-14-19 FIGHT

When our daughter Annie and her husband Jordon decided to take a job promotion that would move them back to Utah from Washington, we were ecstatic. Even more amazing was their decision to purchase a house right in our hometown of Farmington. The house they chose happened to be one of my favorite homes on a sweet little culdesac just under Flag Rock at the base of the foothills in central Farmington. It is a lovely traditional home with a welcoming covered front porch where the Creer’s, the previous owners, hung American flag bunting between the tall white pillars on the 4^thof July.

The home sits comfortably on a large grassy lot with a healthy raspberry patch out back and plenty of trees to explore and climb. John and MaryAnn Creer are friends; good, kind people about our age. They raised their family in this home, and there's a lot of love in its history. When John passed away two years ago, Mary Ann moved into the city to a place that required less upkeep. That's when Annie and Jordon bought the home.

Before they closed on the house, we visited with the Creers. Their son, Mark was visiting, and we had a nice chat about the old days - growing up in the foothills of Farmington, playing little league, and going to Farmington Jr High. Mark told me then about the first time he knew of John Connors, our oldest and only son. Mark said he was in eighth or ninth grade at Farmington Junior, the same grade as our son, only they didn’t really know each other. One day Mark walked out of the school doors at the end of the school day, and as he opened the door he heard united chanting from a large crowd that had gathered in the courtyard. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” the throng shouted in unison, throbbing with testosterone pumping through adolescent veins. Mark worked his way into the outer edge of the circle to see what was happening.

Two guys shifted in and out of the center of the circle, their hands clenched in angry fists, their chests pushing forward and then retrieving. Each boy had a little band of supporters, egging them on, calling for them to go let the other guy have it. The rest of the periphery simply chanted “Fight”, curious, as humans are, to watch people hurt each other. Mark said he watched in silence. Then from the outer edge of the circle someone yelled, "Stop!" He turned and watched as a brown-haired boy wearing a tie dyed shirt and a pair of Gramicci hiking pants pushed his way through the crowd and planted himself between the two boys, his arms out against both of them, his chest firm. He turned his head back and forth, calling to both boys, speaking only to them and not to the crowd.

“Hey man, you do not have to do this. Really.” His presence broke the electric thread that buzzed between the enemies. They were, Mark said, frankly stunned that someone would jump between them in the heat of the moment. Mark said he asked who that was, because he could not see him from his vantage point, and they said, “That’s John Connors.” Mark said one of the fighters turned away, and the other followed suit. The circle surrounding them broke up and the crowd dispersed. Mark said he watched John pick up his backpack and throw it over his shoulder and walk away. No fanfare. No cheering crowd. No punches thrown. No blood, and no pride lost. Mark said from that day he has had a sort of reverence for John. He couldn’t imagine having the courage to step into that circle.

A story like that does a mama-heart good. I’m not even sure if Johnny would recall that event. But Mark did, and he said he has used that story through the years when he has taught Sunday lessons to young men and old. 

Johnny Connors has a God-given gift with people. He likes people, and he has an unusual amount of natural empathy for them. It’s what makes him a good teacher, a friend to the friendless, and a champion of the underdog.  It also breaks his heart. It’s, no doubt, what led him to a degree in Philosophy. It’s why he has taught the same group of kids at church every Sunday for the last three years, moving up with his class, because the dynamics of the individuals in that class make it hard to find willing teachers. 

John Connors is a passionate man. He feels the feels with depth, good and bad, and he gets frustrated like the rest of us. He would be the last person to tell you about stopping a fight. He would not even tell us he had been called to be an assistant to the president on his mission, a calling he held roughly half his mission in England and Wales. It was months before we finally figured it out. I'm his mom, and I don't know half of what he's accomplished. He will talk himself out of credit he deserves. Even talk others out of giving it to him. The mama bear in me thrusts her head forward and feels the claws coming out. But the cub reminds me he’s his own grown bear now, and he can take care of himself. And so, I take a deep breath and slowly lumber back to my den, hoping he will use his smarts as much as he uses his heart. 
In the end, if I were to grant any of my children a strength, it would be the one that manifests in the heart first, and then the brain. He’ll hand the goods and the glory to someone else, even when he has earned it with his own hard work. He’ll throw his figurative backpack over his shoulder and walk away with a pure heart and a clear conscience. And for that, he is rich. 
And because he is mine, so am I.

He's remarkable
(but he won't tell you that.)

My oldest and his oldest -
John and Sophie.

Team Connors.

3-13-19 WINGS

Backstage, over in the wings where the curtains hang in thick velvet gathers, and little ballerinas huddle in the residual light of the spots, there is a collection of human electricity that buzzes on an audible level. It is exciting and enticing, and is likely the stuff that makes actors and dancers and musicians willing to do so much for so little pay. Every June I tuck my guitar case back in the corner, behind a rack of costumes to the right of a line of prop tables. Light, overflowing from the stage, streams in color through teeny specks of dust and pointe-shoe-rosin floating through the air. I carry my guitar past little sequined dancers practicing their turns. Passing the tech table and the stage manager with his thin black microphoned headpiece and clipboard, I push through the back-stage door, into the small passageway, stage-right. I emerge on the apron of the stage where the grand piano and drum set, bass and keyboard are squeezed in together like musical sardines. Musicians in this setting should be heard, not seen. We dress all in black, and the only light we get is on the music stands placed in front of us, because the show, while it needs us, is not about us.

All this hidden power; the musicians in our little band, the full 80 piece orchestra in the pit, the engineers at the mixing board and the light board, the crew on stage, the chaperones down in the basement of the Browning Center, and the costume managers and ushers and sales team and the crew of teachers that hover there behind the curtains like expectant mothers – these are all wing men, gathering the best of their own talents in the dark so a thousand little satin and touille draped dancers can feel the nerves and the energy and the thrill only a spotlight can offer.

The audience, a collective gathering of moms and dads, siblings and aunties, uncles and grandparents all focused on a specific pair of little feet, clap and smile and weep at the sight, unaware of the massive cost of this one recital. They see only those two little dancing shoes, and that is how it should be. The best, the very best, of professionals will understand that it takes a team to make that one individual shine, and that team is usually in the wings. The team Clytie Adams assembles for her recitals is top notch, and I am honored to be among them.

It seems wholly appropriate to me that we call the sides of the stage “the wings”. It fits the definition, physically, sitting on either side of the center stage. But it is also where the lift is found, the point where the muscle sets in motion the rising of the star. I love being in the wings, though in a different way, as much as I love the heat of the spotlight and the interchange with the audience.

The term “wing it” originated from the stage; referring to actors who had to fill in unexpectedly and could be found quickly learning new lines in the wings. Truth is, even those who wing it well are stars. You would not be able to grab any old Joe from the audience and ask them to fill in. Actors are familiar with the setting, with the timing and the energy and the flow. They are usually familiar with the show itself and when asked to fill in, they have likely heard the part they are quickly learning enough to improvise on the spot. In fact, winging it is usually defined in dictionaries as improvising.

About five years ago, when they divided our church congregation and combined us with another divided congregation, creating a new “ward”, I was called to lead the Primary kids in music every Sunday. I had served in this calling several times in my life, one of the great benefits of a lay ministry we practice in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I remember one Sunday I went unprepared. Usually I had props, and singing charts, and a list of songs with their page numbers, and sheet music for the pianist, and a good idea of how I would present the songs I was teaching to these children, aged 3 to 11. But this Sunday I apologized to our pianist. “I’m afraid I’ll have to wing it.” Luckily, she smiled and went with the flow. When we were done and the kids were filing out, my pianist, Lib Thatcher, said these words to me:

“You don’t need to apologize for winging it. You have decades of practice behind you, and winging it to you is just a matter of muscle memory. At some point we earn the right to wing it, and you are at that point. Enjoy it!” 

 

She was gracious in her comments, and she was right. Not that any of us should approach what we do with the carelessness that allows us to be and do less that we are capable of doing or being. But I was awakened to the fact that when you have done something many times, with real intent and sincere focus, there comes a point when you can legitimately improvise and it will work just about as well as if you had prepared and rehearsed. I must add that this attitude should be reserved for occasional use. It’s somewhat arrogant to think that we can wing it repeatedly and still be a pro. Real pro’s know that you have to come prepared, seriously prepared, regardless of the audience. Winging it is reserved for emergencies. This is unless the Holy Spirit speaks to us and tells us not to over-prepare. This is a matter for a deeper discussion, one that involves the spirit of discernment and the needs of an audience that is unknown on the human level.

What it boils down to is a recognition that if we are trained and experienced and our skills are well honed, we may have reached a level of being allowed to “use our wings” and improvise now and then. Good thing, because year after year of doing the same thing every Sunday finds one occasionally not-quite-prepared. And that is when you are grateful for the team back there in the wings, who knows what they are doing, and are willing to wing it with you. Here’s to the pro’s who know how to fly. 

3-12-19 STRING

Every respectable kitchen pantry will have, tucked somewhere in a reachable spot, a bit of string at the ready. Thin cotton string; more mature than thread, but basically still an adolescent form of rope. Twine has its place in the garage, but it isn’t well suited for tying chicken legs, or securing a piece of muslin or gauze around Herbs De Provence. You need string for that.

I was blessed to be the child of someone who had created a designated spot where string and scissors were kept. There in the bin with masking, scotch and duct tapes and a stapler with extra staples. Also, a little divided box of picture hanging supplies, a small wood handled hammer, a pair of needle nose pliers, a spool of wire and some thumb tacks. As I ponder that little bin of dutifully kept supplies, I kind of yearn for that kind of order. When you know where to find the string, it frees up the brain space for the project that needs the string in the first place. I should live by this, but sadly, I don’t. I try, but things often end up finding a new home after they are used around here.

That bin of goods was in the first closet in the entry of our apartment on East Bruceton Road, the one where the old Singer sewing machine hid out in the dark. If you walked into the apartment, past the two large closets on one side and the entry table on the other, and you went right on through past the dining table and the old white rocker, the bathroom on the left and Ann Marie’s room on the right, you came to the end of the hall. Mom’s room was on the left, and on the right was the room Libby and I shared. One year, for Libby’s birthday, I cleaned our bedroom for her birthday. (That’s how rare and awesome such an event was.) But seriously, I really did deep clean it. We bought new bedspreads and curtains with petite flowers printed on them. We moved all the furniture, and painted the dresser. I vacuumed every nook and cranny, washed the windows with Windex and crumpled newspaper, and tucked our feather pillows into freshly washed flowery pillowcases. I felt an intense sense of pride and ownership in that sweet, calm space. I was so excited when Lib came home from camp to our new room, and she responded just perfectly. What a great birthday that was! At that point I had moved my bed over against the wall where the door was. The light switch was on the wall by the door. My pillow, however, was at the other end of the wall, so when it was time to put out the light, I had to get up and flip the switch. I have always had a hard time falling asleep, at least at bedtime. I’m pretty good at dozing off any other random time, but making myself turn off my brain and drift into LaLa Land has always caused a certain mysterious portion of anxiety.

I am always amazed at how quickly my husband, Dave, can go down. I mean, we say Amen in our nightly prayers and I roll over and he is sawing logs before I can finish my personal prayers. I have always been jealous of this aspect of him. I have to read, or try to focus on one thought or a new song lyric, anything to keep my mind from wandering into the massive forest of my imagination. It’s dark in there, with all sorts of emotional and intellectual options, and as often as not I end up actually getting out of bed and going out into the easy chair in the family room to get myself out of the trying-to-get-to-sleep funk.

Back on East Bruceton, when I finally got sleepy, the last thing I needed to do was get up to turn out the light. Once my mind was finally slipping down into the deep end it was easily jostled up to the surface. So, I did what any intelligent girl would do, I rigged a system to flip the light switch without getting out of bed. Now, I know, any normal person would have saved up her money and bought a nightstand and a lamp, but that must not have crossed my mind at the time. Instead, I drew up a plan, and that trusty bin with string and pins accommodated the execution of it. I wound string around the light switch, taping it in place with the duct tape. Then I used picture hanging screws above it and below it, through which I strung opposite sides of the string, ending with a ring on each piece down by my pillow. The rings hung from a nail. When sleep had almost overcome me, I could pull the sting that flipped the switch down, and viola, it was dark.

You know, my mom never did reprimand me for that contraption, which did the trick wonderfully up until the time Ann Marie left for college and I got her room. I mean, the holes in the wall, the tape on the switch; it all went with the tasteful decor of the single ski that I hung on the wall as well as random cool sticks I dragged in on various walks home. Poor Libby. She actually has really good taste, and is much more tidy than anyone would have guessed from the time we shared bedrooms, which was basically most of our childhood. I don’t remember her ever being irritated with my messes. She was just the best roommate, going along with the junk I dragged in. Her bedroom now is quite tidy and well decorated. I’m so sorry she had to spend all those years swirling in my messes. 

Libby’s house has bins just like our mom’s. She actually has Mom’s bins, come to think of it. It’s a good thing she lives one house away from me, because, quite honestly, it is easier to shuffle up to her place to borrow stuff than to try to remember where I might have put it around here. I just have to remember to get it back to her. Ugh!

3-11-19 LAYERS

Karl must’ve swallowed a giggle button. He just kept laughing and laughing while I sat on the piano bench in front of him, tickling my guitar and trying to sing sweet and serious songs. Deep, up from the belly, rumbling in the back of the throat laughter, like he saw something hilarious that no one else in the room could see. Poor Ellie, her wheelchair placed right next to his, kept trying to say something to him, as if he could understand her. Her eyebrows pursed as she slowly and repeatedly moved her lips. Finally, I stood with my guitar and walked over to her to see what it is she wanted to say, and what she said was that his laughing was setting off her cystic fibrosis. “And you know that cystic fibrosis is a farting disease and it’s making me fart and I’m so sorry.” Ellie is likely the sweetest soul I’ve ever met. She is one of the few in this facility who can talk, and she speaks slowly and deliberately in whispers.  All through the rest of my gig she kept apologizing for farting. I reminded her that we all fart. 

Meanwhile, directly in front of me, Andrew had about a half a cup of phlegm sliding down his red beard. I actually had to close my eyes so I wouldn’t look at it, and then I had a conversation with myself on one of the under layers of my brain. It has always been curious to me that we have so many layers of thinking. I had this silent conversation with myself while part of me was singing and another part was playing the guitar. I made myself look past that phlegm falling out of the corners of Andrew’s mouth, and commanded myself to look straight into Andrews eyes. They were not 5 feet from me, and they were beautiful and deep golden brown, and they were innocent and pure and they were likely unaware of the phlegm dripping from his chin or the intense inward curve of his wrists or the wide black straps that held his feet onto the wheelchair he sat in. I made myself pretend, on an even deeper layer, that I was Andrew, and that his was the body I got instead of mine, and I made myself feel the love that is inherent in all the spirits that get bodies, even if their brains don’t work the way they might in a healthy vehicle. I was able, the rest of the gig, to look right at Andrew and not be disturbed. I think this is how our angels help us. They see us trying, and they lend a hand.

Finally, Esther, the Recreation Director, came in and wheeled laughing Karl out into the doorway, for which I was grateful because I was losing my voice trying to sing over his laughter. I’m still recovering from a bout with the flu and I had not realized how much it had affected my vocal chords or my lungs. But seated behind Andrew, hidden under Karl’s laughter, was a whistler. His body was not misshapen, and he had a good bit of his wits about him. I’m not sure why he was there, though he, like the others, was in a wheelchair. He had a silver mustache, and a T-shirt with a stretched-out neck, and his mustache fluttered as he whistled, trying unsuccessfully to find the melody I was singing. He amused himself with his whistling, making sure I knew he was doing it while drawing air in rather than out of his lips. 

Against the wall, far from the light of the windows, that young olive skinned man covered in tattoos rubbed his palm over his head, round and round, repeating and repeating, like he was trying to figure out what happened. He has been here, if I recall correctly, just about a year now. When he first came in it felt to me like he was shell shocked, like he had only yesterday been a vibrant if not mischievous bodybuilding Hellion. His young body was musclebound, and in every other way seemingly healthy. I could not stop myself from imagining what tragedy had befallen him; what was that pivotal moment that caused a brain injury and changed his life forever? One of my under layers always has a curious conversation with myself when I see him, because I wonder what path his life may have taken, and what troubles he may have seen, had he not found himself freed from his choices the way he is now. I try, as I sing, to decipher the messages in his tattoos, curious about who he was, or is, under that layer of flesh that disconnected from the motherboard somehow.

I noticed, somewhere in the middle of Can’t Help Falling in Love, that Robert has two new travel pillows carefully situated under each of his arms. His mother, Katherine, sits next to him, her soft woolly jacket overlapped across her heart. Every day Katherine rises at 4 AM and drives 20 miles to spend the morning with her adult son. He cannot talk, or walk, but he is always clean, and tidily cared for. He speaks to her with his eyes. It is obvious to me that in the not too distant future these two will be able to have intelligent meaningful conversations because they know each other by heart. Katherine reminds me that all of us have an innate desire to be needed, and I deeply appreciate and understand the value of a routine that involves the feeling that we are necessary in someone’s life.

By the time my hour is up, laughing Karl is back in the room, contented and quiet. My tattooed brother has laid his hands in his lap, and Ellie has closed her eyes and laid her head back into her head rest, her long dark braid falling over her shoulder. I think she is sleeping, until I finish and she slowly whispers the words, "thank ... you."

When I sing to this little band of warriors, every month of every season, I get more songs in per hour than most other sets I play. I tell no backstories, no musical tales, I offer no introductions. I simply play and sing, speaking, now and then, short phrases for my own sake, not theirs. But mostly it’s about the songs and the nurturing that weaves itself into them. There is absolutely something going on between us, on some level I can’t exactly put my finger on. We wiggle in our space between the layers, trying to find the comfy spot, at least the safe spot. Side by side, layers within layers, packed together, in this speck of time and space.

Out of respect for the privacy of the people and place I am blessed to visit every month, I have changed all names.

3-9-19 BODY

Little Annie twirled and swirled and fell and rose without even a pause or a hint of self-pity. She just got back up and danced to the music in her head. I sat on the pseudo-soft floral couch familiar to all Latter-day Saint chapel lobbies worldwide, there across from my new friend, Annick. She had recently relocated to our neighborhood from Bountiful, but had originally hailed from Medford, MASS. I instantly liked her for her accent, her lack of makeup, and her obvious taste for comfortable shoes, but mostly she felt like a kindred spirit because home to her, like me, was east of the Mississippi River. Annick sat in one of the velvet chairs across the lobby, under the dusty leaves of a hovering fake ficus tree. She was out there with us in the foyer because Andrew was just as wiggly as Annie, none of which went very well with the passing of the holy sacrament inside the chapel. I must have closed my eyes, or drifted into attempted reverence, because Annick’s words startled me;

“I’ve never seen a spirit so happy to be in a body!” Only she said it with that Boston flair, like this:

Eye have neh-vuh seen a spear-ut sewwww happy to beena bawdy! (emphasis on the “so”.)

After the millisecond it took for me to translate, I turned my eyes to my Annie, and sure enough, there was joy overflowing! That one phrase endeared Annick to me for life, and still, more than thirty years later, I hold her to my heart like a sister. 

I think God sent my daughter Annie specifically to me, for me. She came to teach me. The youngest of my four treasures, she was Tigger personified. She bounced three separate cribs off their hinges. She surely contributed to her father’s perpetually sore knee. My sister tells of the time she entered the old house on Kensington Street, the one just up the hill from the old-old house (we have owned three houses in this neighborhood; wanted change but could never bear the thought of leaving the people here)…she tells of walking in the front door and finding Annie literally swinging from the chandelier over the kitchen table. Thank goodness she was tiny then. I love what Annie tried to teach me. Annie understands that her body is the house of her spirit.

I’m not exactly sure when the demon Shame laid its ugly shroud over my body. I was young, but not too young. I can still conjure feelings of freedom and exuberance regarding my flesh, but I have to dive way back. Just about the time my father abandoned us, I began babysitting for a family in our apartment building, down on the opposite side of the complex. After the kids were in bed I sat in the TV room waiting for the top of the hour when a new episode of Emergency or CHIPS would start. Beside the chair there was a basket of magazines. These were not the typical Children’s Friend or New Era magazines you might find in our apartment. But they were magnetic. And they were naughty. Naughty is by nature magnetic. And the anonymity of this secret quiet room was compelling. Anyway, it has come to me that the photos and the poses in those magazines sprouted the seeds of shame that lay tucked deep inside the fertile ground of adolescence. Months before we had moved to our apartment I had suffered an event of massive personal proportions where the awareness of my body as something other than innocence was ripped from my belly by an abusive house guest. At the same time my body was changing shape, the baby fat shifting up from my waist and into my breasts. And then there was blood. Sometimes I allow myself to pause, inhale slowly, and look back at that little girl, and the emotion it always evokes is compassion and sorrow. I remember telling a therapist once how it felt:  I was, one minute, playing on the school playground with the rest of the kids. I could feel my own laughter, and I was cooled by the air that fanned against me as I swung back and forth, back and forth on the swing set. Then, suddenly, I was on the outside of the chain link fence surrounding the play yard, my hands curled through the cold twisted metal, and the rest of the children went on playing. The laughter drifted through the fence, but I was no longer a part of it. I had to watch from the outside.

I weep for that girl.
I weep for every child standing outside the fence.

That girl eventually covered up her tummy, and her shoulders, thinking it was modesty, when in reality it was shame. For one brief teenage moment she wore a pair of Peanut hip hugger bell bottom jeans, and a tank top, and guys on the street whistled and she liked it. But soon enough she found comfort and safety in a thicker waist and puffy sleeves, then eventually she disappeared into oversized football shirts and a soft pair of 501’s. 

Throughout my life, a cushion of comfort padded the vulnerability of my heart. To this day, I like the soft bread-dough texture of too much skin over too much flesh. It’s really a love-hate relationship. I have felt compelled to announce publicly that I was fully aware of my overweightness, like I owed the world an apology for not being fit, or at least thin. The two are not necessarily the same. What should anyone besides me care what shape my own personal body is in?  It is a real curiosity to me that I am so overtly aware of this physical flaw. In fact, thinking on it right now, I am ashamed of the shame. Now there’s a double-whammy! 

Now that my body has been around for so many decades, things are shifting again. When my mother died, I think she left me her hands. My fingers are not as long and slender, but those wrinkles and veins and age spots began to appear the moment she left. I gaze on them, perhaps because they are so easily seen from where I sit, or look down on them when I play guitar, and think about all the love that has come from them. The love speaks first: patting babies’ backs, brushing soft locks of hair, folding piles and piles of laundry, stirring pots and scrubbing little brown summer-blessed knees in a bubble bath. But the same hands have spanked bottoms in pure anger, and slammed doors, and wiped hot tears and dripping noses. Shame rests knuckle-to-knuckle with love in these hands. 

This old body of mine is a bit weary, and her legs hurt, Always, her legs hurt. Even her toes carry shame. Years and years of shame over ingrown toenails. Seriously!

If my uncooperative legs would let me, I think maybe I would just let go in church tomorrow. I am old enough now to get away with this type thing. I might go out there in the lobby during the sacrament and give it a go, twirling until I fell, then getting back up just like my Annie. I would say to myself how happy I was to be in my body. Only I know better, and all of that would hurt, and even if there was no shame left to manifest, the hurt would have a good guffaw over the whole thing.

For good and for… well, just for good, our Father gave us this supreme gift, a house for our spirits. As far as I know, this is the only one I’ve got permission to use. It’s sluggish, and not the most pleasing to look at, but it’s mine and mine alone. And the only way to access the spirit who dwells here is through these fleshy walls; through my eyes, my touch, the sound of my voice, or the messages in my fingers. I speak to all I know through this flesh. No other way.

And so, I picture this: I see myself loosening my grip on that imaginary chain-link fence. I stretch my frozen fingers in the warmth of the sunny playground, and move my sluggish feet around the perimeter of the fence, over to the gate, and let myself walk in; toward the laughter, toward the light, toward the Son.