Self

Red Shoes and Wishing

By / November 4, 2011 / 6 Comments

“You’re allowed to want things.” I said to myself. I didn’t quite believe it. If I began wanting things then there would be conflict between the things that I wanted and the things which my husband or children wanted. The simplest way to avoid the inevitable conflicts was to remember that what I wanted most was my family and to either let go or fold away the other things. So I pressed myself small, trying to take only the spaces in our lives which no one else was occupying. I got quite good at it. Unfortunately the process squeezed from my life those things which re-energized me. I was less and less able to meet needs because I had less and less to give. It came to a crisis and I formally told myself “You’re allowed to want things. Even if they are silly. Even if they are impractical. Even if logic dictates that you’ll never have them, you’re still allowed to want them.” I breathed a big sigh, and tried to believe it.

I was out of practice at wanting things. It took time for me to remember. I began by creating small things, a pressed flower picture, River Song’s journal, a clean space in my house where my things could live. The process is ongoing. I’m still seeking which things call to me, feeling the call, and then waiting patiently to see if my brain will explain to me what these symbols mean. My long-neglected amazon wish list has begun to fill up. I don’t know that I will actually buy most of these things, but collecting the list of wishes has been fascinating. I can see how the physical objects are actually representations of qualities I want in my life. The stationery box with all the little compartments appeals to my sense of organization and to my connection with the teenage letter writer I used to be. The journal with the faux aged leather cover speaks of connections with things that last and with words. The movie Julie and Julia appeals to my desire for transformation into something stronger. The white eyeliner I admired so much on women in a television show is an expression of my desire to be and feel beautiful. It isn’t things I want so much as qualities. If I happen to acquire the things, they can serve as reminders to seek the attached qualities, but I can accomplish this without spending money if I am mindful.

Layer by layer I unfold these pressed together parts of my self. Each layer unfolds some new thing I want as a part of my life. Some of them are quite surprising. One day I discovered a desire to own red shoes. I’m mostly a brown and black shoe person. I like being able to wear shoes with many different outfits. Yet I wanted a not-at-all-sensible pair of high heeled red patent leather pumps. Not any particular pair, or rather I haven’t yet found the perfect pair. But I’m looking. Red heels are for women who are beautiful and unafraid. They walk confidently with their flash of color which often doesn’t match anything else they are wearing. They are like one of those Japanese paintings with a single spot of bright color as a focal point. Dorothy wore red shoes and they gifted her with the ability to travel home. Other fictional red shoes danced their wearer to death. I feel cautious about red shoes, but I am allowed to want them. If I find the right pair, with the right fit, at the right price, I will buy them. In the meantime I will try to gift myself with the qualities that are represented by red high heels.

Allowing myself to desire things has led to conflict. I’m learning to live with that. I’m learning to navigate the conflicts and that sometimes the process of navigating a conflict is better than creating a peace which only exists because everyone is careful not to bump in to each other. I’ve been surprised to discover that three quarters of the conflicts I must navigate are me against myself. Howard and the kids are quite happy to shift around and make space for me. I have a hard time making space for myself. I agonize over which desires matter more, where I should spend my efforts, what I should do. My frantic scrambles to get it right disrupt the flow of what could be. Many of my wish list items, and my growing collection of quotations in my River Song journal, carry themes of peace and courage. “Be not afraid.” I am telling myself in hidden ways. “It is okay to make mistakes. It is okay to fail. It is okay to be ordinary.” But also “Seek beauty, seek small happiness. Stop. Breathe. Feel.”

I am trying. I’m collecting more things on my wish list to see what qualities my deep self would like to have. I’m also watching for the right pair of red shoes.

Antelope Island

By / February 8, 2012 / 7 Comments

The first thing I noticed on the island was the silence. It wrapped around and surrounded me the moment I exited my van. No engine noise, hum of power lines, or buzz of refrigerator could be heard. Most times even the drone of airplane engines were absent. Instead I heard the sound of the breeze blowing gently against my ear, the buzz of a beetle flying ten feet away, the distant cry of sea gulls. It was a place which exuded solitude even when other people were nearby. I could hear other people from as far away as the sea gulls, but these noises were welcomed by the island. Voices belonged there as much as the birds and beetles. I stood on the first overlook and breathed in the fresh salty air. I was simultaneously glad to be on the island with my friend and her baby, while wishing to be there alone, and wishing I’d brought my own children. I was going to need to take another pilgrimage there, this much was obvious.

(Many more pictures beyond the jump) …

Antelope IslandRead More »

Contrasting Trips: The Dump and The Museum of Art

By / October 22, 2011 / 2 Comments

This morning I ventured to the dump for the first time in my life. Somehow it was always someone else who made those trips, not me. This particular trip was long overdue, as a corner of our driveway was filled with objects of no use to anyone. Not even putting them up for free on freecycle had resulted in their removal. So the pile sat while I didn’t go to the dump, not because the dump was daunting or frightening, but simply because I’d never done it before. The unknown minutiae of navigating to the waste transfer station, paying the fee, and unloading all served as a barrier which was in no way insurmountable, yet sufficient to inspire repeated procrastinations of the project.

In the end all those minutiae were no trouble at all. Finding the place was easy. The fee for a van load was a mere seven dollars. We backed up to a huge pile of accumulated detritus and threw ours onto the stack right next to where some one else had thrown the remains of a roofing project. On the other side was a discarded couch, pieces of an old jungle gym, carpet remains, and a broken mirror. All around were and huge masses of plant matter. It did not smell rotten, though I could tell that there was another pile somewhere nearby which did.

I drove away feeling lighter and grateful that our city has such a service. My home is cleaner and ready for further projects. However I was also sobered by the huge masses of waste, some of which could have been re-used. It was fascinating to see the process of disposing of discarded items. I could see the areas devoted to green waste processing and recycling. There was a section for chemical disposal. It is good for me to see this side of civilization which is usually hidden from view. I am newly reminded to be mindful about the quantities of waste that I produce. That pile was huge. I want to contribute to it as little as possible.

I showered off the psychic residue of having been to the dump, then Kiki and I headed to the BYU Museum of Art. She had a homework assignment to visit a gallery. The first exhibit seemed to fit right in with the trip of the morning. The theme of the exhibit was books as objects. One art piece was a twenty foot high and twenty foot wide cube of books stacked overlapping almost to the ceiling. All of the spines were inward so that only the pages could be seen. Another was a video of books being dissolved to pulp in a commercial washing machine. Books as objects is not a theme which makes me happy. I don’t like to view books think thoughts about wastefulness. I much prefer to hold a book and see the artistry both in the physical construction and the way that words have been intentionally spun to contain meanings. Fortunately the remaining exhibits in the museum were much less nihilistic.

I found myself standing in front of Bierstadt’s Seal Rock.

It was twenty years ago when I last stood in front of this painting. I was a college freshman at home for a visit. There was a whole exhibit of Bierstadt and I walked slowly past them all, but Seal Rock was the one that called to me most. I marveled at the way he captured sunlight refracted through the wave. The painting was bigger in my memory. Perhaps because so many of Bierstadt’s other works are on a giant scale. Today I stepped close to the painting and looked at the textures of paint used for the sea foam. A few steps away I spent some time staring into the painted eyes of a young Bostonian from 1739. I wondered what this young man thought while his portrait was painted. The painting was over three hundred years old and still hung for people to see and admire. The opposite of waste.

As I walked through the museum I was aware of the people around me. Mostly I noticed them as disturbances in my thinking space. I like my pools of thought to be undisturbed as I seek to examine my reactions to art. However the people were also interesting. Many were parents who had elected to bring their young children. I could not tell if the children were present to expose them to art or if they were just along for lack of babysitting. Art museums are not aimed to engage youngsters, though they can still benefit if the adult in charge is willing to be an informational bridge. I saw mostly hauling, not bridging. People sat rubbing sore feet. Students with clipboards went from painting to painting, filling out worksheets for an assignment. Some groups spoke quietly about the pictures they were viewing. Some spoke of other things entirely while glancing at pictures as they walked past. A few quiet people stood for a long time before a piece. Kiki sat and sketched for a bit. All of these people had come to the museum today, each of them took home a completely different experience.

The day was wrapped up by viewing my favorite category of art; when an artist takes something old, useless, or ugly, then transforms it into something beautiful. Such creations are the opposite of the waste transfer station. In this case the art manifested as quilts. Sometimes quilts are planned whole from new materials and are completely stunning. The ones that really tugged at my heart were the quilts which were obviously made from re-purposed materials. I stood next to one quilt and looked at the individual pieces. The fabrics had stories and my mind tried to picture them.

By this time Kiki was tired. Apparently the teenage art student has less patience for museums than does the aging humanities major. However we could not leave without stopping by the gift shop. It contained an exhibition of fine-art-inspired consumerism. This was the place where child focused objects were omnipresent; each urging parents to buy culture for their children. I noted all the toys without much interest, when my kids were younger I would have been tempted. Instead I was drawn to the rack with many beautiful notebooks and journals. I also discovered that museum gift shops are an excellent source for note cards. I resisted temptation, until we spotted the tiny jewel faceted spider ear rings in the Halloween display. They were adorable and priced to sell.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, as I walked down the aisles I was surrounded by packages and materials which would mostly be transformed into garbage for the dump. Yet there was also the possibility that these same things could be used in the creation of art. It was a distracting train of thought, which I had to shake off so that I could focus on buying the foods our family needs. Food and family are themselves worthy creations. I guess I’ll have to be content if the sum total of my efforts creates more beauty than waste.

Recovery, Organization, and Feeling Trapped

By / October 15, 2011

Illness has receded for me. Yesterday was made of fatigue with brief reprieves of energy. Today has mostly been normal with occasional bouts of fatigue. I wish I could report the same of Howard. He continues to suffer. I made the dessert quiche and it was passable, an experiment worth repeating with alterations. The spinach quiche was better, but is crying out for the inclusion of artichokes.

The chaos in the boys’ room is trending toward tamed. Usually when the mess reaches that level I can solve much of the problem by simply removing the garbage. Somehow my boys have not grasped that unnecessary packaging should be placed in the garbage can rather than shoved onto the nearest flat surface. I’m hopeful that this round of organization will last longer since I’m requiring the boys to do their own sorting. The complaints have been many and the progress slow. Bit by bit we begin to see what sorts of containers would be helpful in taming the mess. For instance, Patch has a tendency to array small toys on a large shelf. Inevitably things get stacked on the small toys and it all turns into a jumble. We need to acquire a wall-mounted set of display shelves intended for small cool things. I’ve added this to the thrift store acquisition list.

The day felt endlessly long when we were in the middle, the house was full of kids, the doorbell was ringing every quarter hour, and the phone rang almost as often. I wanted to flee the house, go find a quiet space elsewhere. Unfortunately I was tethered by the group of teenage girls using my sewing machine and likely in need of technical help. Also abandoning sick Howard to manage the chaos seemed cruel. So I stayed, and felt trapped, tangled in my web of connections. Then evening came and all the kids migrated outdoors. The blue light of evening began to fill the sky. I sat on my porch watching kids ride in smooth circles around the cul de sac. Sometimes I tipped my head back and watched the slow progress of wispy clouds against the bright blue sky. The evening felt as open and free as the afternoon felt trapped. And I begin to feel that perhaps the day has been a good one.

Excused on Account of Illness

By / October 14, 2011

Being sick is no fun at all, but being excused from my regular rounds of Things To Do is kind of nice. This particular sickness is somewhat confusing. I’m not actively miserable, just blanketed with a layer of fatigue which denies me the energy to accomplish anything except in short bursts. Oh, and there is the occasional coughing fit. In between the short bursts of almost-normal energy, I sit. Sometimes I sleep, drifting from wakefulness into the top layers of dreaming like a fatigued driver unable to keep track of the lines on the road. In the drift my mind ponders things slowly, like contemplating how to make a dessert quiche which includes elements of bread pudding. Why I chose now to plan quiche is something of a mystery, but it is restful and fatigue has interfered with my ability to question. Perhaps later in the day I’ll use one of my bursts of energy to see if reality matches the quiche of my imagination.

In some ways the lassitude which has overcome me feels like the calm drifting I did in early June. In my less lethargic moments, this makes me wonder if I am just being lazy, finding an excuse to lay on the couch and think of nothing in particular. Then the energy passes, or a coughing fit hits, and I know that the fatigue is physiological rather than psychological. I do ponder how good it feels to drift. It is as if I can only comprehend the pressures which I daily place on myself by their absence. This is not surprising news. I have been trying to give myself permission to relax more often, but unlike fictional characters, I don’t complete my character arc and move on. Instead the shapes of my habits and personality send me circling around like Winnie the Pooh in the misty woods, always ending up at the same sand pit. Like Pooh, it often takes me awhile to realize that it is the same pit, because things look different from this side. Yet Pooh did not stay in the woods forever, and neither will I. Each iteration teaches me something new until I finally find my way to a new adventure. Five years from now our lives will inevitably have a very different shape. The things I am doing now, that we all are doing, will make that future a good place to be.

Sometime last week Kiki was having a particularly difficult day, wrestling with problems which no one else could solve for her. After all the listening, hugs, and outpouring of my thoughts on conflict management; the most important thing I said to her was “I know this feels huge right now, but I promise that in the scope of your whole life this will become small.” If I could only keep this thought in mind, then each day could be filled with more of the calm, faithful drift which this sickness has imposed. Today I haven’t the energy to feel stressed about what I’m unable to do. Instead I focus on the few things I can. So I answer a few emails, then I nap. I ponder quiche, then I pick up my kids from school. I sleep and then read. Next week I will have to catch up on things not done today, and I will, but for today I drift.

A Greenhouse Realization

By / October 9, 2011

Four kids steered through pre-church preparations, two kids helped to weather emotional upsets, dishes, Sunday dinner, and Family Home Evening preparations were all done. I’d earned some quiet space. I thought that the me-of-now should get to do something she wanted. So I gathered my journal and scriptures to retreat to my room. I also carried with me a printed article that I’d read on the internet that morning. I’d skim read it in the last moments before the pre-church rush. Something in it called to me, so I printed it for a more in depth reading. Or perhaps for clipping and taping into my River Journal. The events of the day had left no time for pondering until that moment.

The article told the story of a woman who had an invigorating, well-paying, and rewarding job. Yet one evening she discovered herself crying without knowing why. Something about her job did not fill her soul. She realized her life did not give her chances to nurture. I could see why the story resonated for me. I too have cried and then had to puzzle out why. I began to write a journal entry to puzzle out how her experience was different than mine. I started the sentence “I nurture all the time” but stopped halfway through, suddenly not sure that the sentence was true. I spend all day most days creating a family structure optimized for the growth of everyone inside it. Yet building a greenhouse is not the same as tending and fertilizing the plants within it.

There in my room, away from my family I realized that at any free moment my first thought was to retreat, to spend time alone. All day I maintained the structure of the greenhouse and then fled from it rather than relishing the atmosphere inside. As I scratched away with my pen, my four children were downstairs engaged in reading, drawing, and playing. I put my pen down and grabbed a deck of cards. At least I could sit in the same room with them playing solitaire. I could be part of the quiet togetherness that they were having. Within moments of the first card shuffle, Kiki offered to show me a different game. She and I played several rounds together while the other kids played their own games. We laughed a lot. I once dreamed of the time when I could play cards with my kids without having to adapt for young players. I almost missed out on it.

I need to remember that the point of the green house is the flowers.

Pulling Myself Forward

By / October 9, 2011

Sharks must keep moving or they will die. I am not a shark, and yet I hardly ever stop. It used to be that my days filled with things were driven by fear. I kept moving because I was afraid of the consequences if I slowed down. This fall I’ve put a lot of thought into identifying the sources of those fears and attempting to disconnect them. It is working. I am much less afraid. Yet I am just as busy as I was before. Instead of spending my energy fleeing, I spend my energy pulling myself toward things I imagine. My free minutes are spent upon projects which inch me closer to things that I want. I organize the house so that the next-week me will have a nicer place to live. I pick grapes and turn them into jelly so that the winter me will have no guilt about letting them rot and she’ll also have amazing jelly to spread on her toast. I do lots of things for other people as well, but in order to not feel put-upon I have been focusing much upon the benefits I get from the things that I do. I like it when my family is fed, wearing clean clothes, and has their homework done. This being pulled through my days by future desires is much more pleasant than being propelled by fears. However I still need to find ways that the me-of-now gets a turn instead of always being spent doing things for the me-of-the-future. So, further adjustments are necessary, but these are so much smaller. It is nice to be in the tinkering phase of family routine rather than in the midst of major overhaul.

Small Beautiful Things

By / October 4, 2011

It was my intention to make at least one small thing beautiful today, but I discovered that once I began it was hard to stop at only one. So here is a short list of the small, intentionally beautiful things I did today.

I cut off six inches of my hair. At the length my hair was this means it feels worlds different to me and no one else notices much. Then I broke out the curling iron and fixed it nice instead of leaving it in a braid. I even put in earrings.

I folded laundry, making each fold precise and neat. I admired the stacks for a moment before putting them away.

Unable to find stationery at a store, I used my design tools to create some. My printer is only black and white, so I took colored pencil to the flowers. Then I wrote my Grandma a letter.

I made cookies, not just throw-the-batch-together cookies, but carefully-cream-the-butter-and-use-the-baking-stone cookies. When they came out of the oven I topped my hot cookies with vanilla ice cream and ate them.

Looked at my children and really saw them while listening to them.

Tomorrow I will find more small beautiful things.

Making Things Beautiful

By / October 3, 2011 / 1 Comment

I’ve had the stationery box since I was a teenager. My grandmother often gave gifts of stationery for holidays. Mostly the boxes came and went from my life without notice as I used up the contents. This particular box was large enough that got pressed into service for storage. I collected my various papers and envelopes all into this single box so that I could access them easily. I was a diligent correspondent in those days. I wrote letters to people from other states that I’d met at youth conferences, to friends had gone on trips or moved, and to distant relatives. I got a lot of satisfaction out of putting words to paper and then putting the paper into envelopes. People did not write back so often as I wrote to them, but I figured that letters were gifts that I was giving without expectation of return. That way any letter I did happen to receive was also a gift.

Like most people, I shifted from paper letters to email. The stationery box was shoved into various corners and cupboards, used to store stickers, and used to store the few letters that did trickle to me over the years. Then in the past month I happened to receive a pair of letters. One from a friend and one from a person who sent me a thank you note. These things combined with the blog entry of another friend who is actively encouraging people to send her letters, spurred me to go find my old stationery box. It was a fairly ugly box by this stage of its life. The walls were structurally sound, but the lid a little caved in and stained. I decided to make it pretty again by re-covering it. So that was my small beautification project of the day. The box is made new and ready to collect more letters. Finding stationery to supply it will be a slower process. Stationery sets are not so commonly available as they once were. Also I’m afraid I’ve gotten picky about design.

Fixing up a stationery box was not a particularly productive activity. It did not forward any of my goals for the day. It did not accomplish any of my To Do items. Yet the decoration made me happy. More importantly, it will continue to make me happy for years to come. I made a whimsical post on Facebook and Twitter about how I had made something needlessly beautiful. Several friends wisely answered me that beauty is never needless, it always has value in and of itself. So I am issuing myself a challenge for this week. Each day I will make something beautiful. These will be small projects. Things I can accomplish in 30 minutes or less. Conscious focus on the beauties of my life will be a good thing I think.


My stationery box: re-covered with fresh paper and decorated with pressed wisteria leaves.

The Needs of the Many and the Needs of the One

By / September 30, 2011

I grew up watching Star Trek. It was a family tradition. 5 pm on Thursdays the TV was tuned in and we sat down together. I suspect that I did not always watch with complete attentiveness. Some of the science concepts did not intrigue me the way that they did my older siblings, but I loved the characters and the stories. However when each of the Star Trek films came out, we all went to the theater. Thus I grieved greatly at the death of Spock at the end of Wrath of Khan. Some of his closing words stuck with me as important and true.

Spock: Don’t grieve admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many…outweigh…
Kirk: The needs of the few
Spock: (nods) or the one.
View clip here. Conversation takes place at 1:54

It was an echo of a conversation which took place earlier in the film and helped wrap the story into a meaningful whole. Yet Spock was still dead and we grieved. Then we heard that the next film was to be called The Search for Spock and we waited anxiously. Could they really bring back Spock? They did, of course.

The Search for Spock was not a great movie, but it was exactly the movie I wanted. It let the enterprise crew be heroic. They paid the price of losing the Enterprise, and yet triumphed to return with Spock alive, if confused and recovering. At the end Spock spoke with Kirk in a scene which directly referenced his death scene.

Spock: You came back for me.
Kirk: You would have done the same for me.
Spock: Why would you do this?
Kirk: Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.
View this here.

I loved it. I loved Spock’s look of confusion as he tried to balance this illogical equation of caring.

I’m thinking about this pair of movie scenes because of a conversation I had yesterday about community and selfishness. I was talking with a woman who claimed that embracing selfishness was a way to discard guilt and find happiness. Her point was that we should allow ourselves to want the things that we want. I countered that unchecked selfishness is the source of endless damage and pain. She assured me that it was okay for me to be selfish because I would never do such things, it was not in my nature. I stayed silent because I could see that she was trying to help me to let go of some of my stress and emotional tangle. She is right that I need to allow myself more small selfish things. There is nothing wrong with me getting time to myself, having a hobby, or watching entertainment even though these things do not benefit other people. It is even okay for me to have things I want when they cause inconvenience to others. However, she is also wrong. If I allow habits of selfishness to build in my life I could travel to a place where I am willing to do damage in order to get the things that I want.

Communities thrive on cooperation and self sacrifice. These are not attributes which are lauded in American society. America is all about the individual. This is good. If we do not value the needs of the one then we all risk oppression. However there are times when we must individually sacrifice for the needs of the many. When I think of the movie conversations listed above and applied them to myself, I found something very interesting. In the Wrath of Khan quote, I pictured myself as the one who must sacrifice for the needs of the many. In the Search for Spock quote, I pictured myself as part of the many. It was an ingenious little shell game trick some piece of my mind was playing on me to make sure I never won. It allowed me to reconcile these seeming opposite quotations both as true. Yet it was stealing the power from the contradiction. That contradiction needs to stay strong because both things need to be true, not at the same time, but alternately.

Last May I went on a trip that I wanted which inconvenienced everyone else. I could claim that Howard made me do it, but this is not true. Howard pointed the way and I finally allowed myself to be the one for which many people sacrificed. It was hard and easy at the same time. I’m so grateful it happened. Applying what I learned to daily life has been much harder. Sacrificing for others is as easy as breathing. I give myself away without even thinking about it. Learning to let my loved ones have that same experience is proving to be harder.