Book #15: The Guest Cat

Whenever Roger and I go on vacation, we have a tradition of finding an independent bookstore and buying at least one gem there. We found this one at Ivy's Bookshop in Victoria, BC. Such a welcoming place!

While we were browsing, multiple customers dropped by to chat with the women who worked there, including an older gentleman, who regaled them with tales of Norway in a thick Norwegian accent. Happy, happy.

Roger has long been drawn to Japanese fiction, so he gets full credit for discovering The Guest Cat. The clerk who rang us up said that they discovered it and decided to stock it after a customer special ordered it, then ordered more copies to give as gifts.

The story, written by a Japanese poet more than a decade ago, then translated into English last year, is a simple one about a couple who live in the guest quarters of a large walled estate with a meticulously kept garden. They unexpectedly connect both with their wealthy, elderly landlords and with a neighbor's cat, more fully than they ever imagined they would.

This was where I started the book. (It may have been a bit windy and chilly, but I had a hood and a pair of gloves.)

French Beach, Vancouver Island

And this was the serendipitous gift of reading this particular book while traveling through such a beautiful part of the world: it gave me the eye of a poet--a poet who knows how to see the smallest details that make up the sense of a thing, like a person or a cat or a place.

I dipped into the book enough for it to cast its spell. So I may not have gotten much read that afternoon at the beach. Or on the ferry rides the next day. Or as we drove through Snoqualmie Pass.

I finished it on the way home as we barreled by 18-wheelers and monotonous sagebrush in southern Idaho. By the end of the story, the couple had to leave the walled estate with the meticulous garden. Both their elderly landlords and the cat were gone.

But their hearts had opened to possibility.

Things don't last. Like afternoons on the beach and ferry rides. But if we open our eyes, we can store the smallest details in our souls, and if we open our hearts, we will go on to find new wonders.

Book #14: Forever, Interrupted

I've been wanting to read this debut novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid ever since it was released because her mom, Mindy, was a classmate of mine growing up in Massachusetts.

Now Taylor's third novel is coming out in July, and a movie of Forever, Interrupted is actually in development with Dakota Johnson cast as the main character, Elsie!

(I am still not adjusted to the fact that people my age have children who are doing grownup things like having children themselves, finishing medical school, and publishing novels.)

I read it this week because road trip. It's a great vacation read, the right mix of sad and happy. Full of love, loss, and healing.

Plus, I totally bonded with Elsie when I read this line: "I ordered a caprese salad and a Diet Coke." A perfect meal, imo.

I also totally bonded with Elsie's mother-in-law Susan when I read this line: "I remember one night I was lying there, Ben between us, and I thought, This is my family. This is my life. And I was so happy in that moment. I had my two guys. And they loved me and I belonged to them."

Because that is my life, too, the three of us. Roger, Jack, and me.

What I can't even touch in my imagination, though, is the line that follows: "And now, I lie in that same bed and they are both gone. I don't think I have even begun to scratch the surface of what that has done to me."

Nope, not going there. Losing both a husband and a son? Nope.

Glad it's just a story.

Book #13: The Bromeliad Trilogy

I've appreciated Terry Pratchett for a long time. I have a lot of friends and family members who love Terry Pratchett. And in fact, I've sold a lot of Terry Pratchett books. But until now I've never actually read a Terry Pratchett book. I know. It seems inconceivable. Sorry.

When he passed away recently, I asked Roger if we had any of Pratchett's books. This is the one he produced from our bookshelves, primarily because he knew that growing up I had loved stories about tiny people living in a human world (The Borrowers, The Littles).

This trilogy was written for a young adult audience. As with the best of that genre, it's full of sophisticated philosophical themes I understand he explores in many (all?) of his books.

So it wasn't just about resourceful tiny people living in a human world, but in this case it was also very much about the journey of figuring out what the "world" actually is.

"Are you trying to tell me you came from Outside?" he said.
"That's right."
"But that's impossible!"
"Is it?" Masklin looked worried.
"There's nothing Outside!"
"There isn't? Sorry," said Masklin. "But we seem to have come in from it anyway. Is this a problem?"

The trilogy reminded me of a quote I recently came across from Robert Persig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) and shared immediately with my college writing students (I'm always pushing them to stretch the boundaries of their thinking): "We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world."

Can we always be certain of what we think we are certain of? For me, I will keep grabbing more handfuls of sand.

Book #12: Orange Is the New Black

The bottom line is that there wasn't a chance I was going to finish the book I meant to write about this week in time.

(In my defense, it is technically a trilogy. That's the only clue I'm going to give. You'll have to wait until next Sunday to find out what it is.)

So I pulled this week's selection from the "I read most of the book when I first got it, but somehow I got distracted and didn't finish it" stack (which is, in fact, embarrassingly high).

In the case of Orange Is the New Black, I read most of it when I was on vacation in Wisconsin after my sister gave it to me for my birthday last summer, but then I spent three days in the car driving home, and, well, yeah.

Also I must confess that I have never seen the Netflix series based on the book. I don't have a Netflix account. I'd like to watch it, though. I think Piper Kerman has written an insightful and complex account of her time in the federal prison system. And she did it with a great sense of humor, which I always appreciate.

Anyway, I picked up where I left off. Kerman was getting close to the end of her sentence and was sent to re-entry classes, which felt, all humor aside, like a joke. No real respect for what many of the inmates were up against upon release.

Because teaching re-entry classes for jail inmates is actually exactly what I do, I read her critique carefully.

Hopefully she exaggerated how clueless the instructors were about transitioning to the outs for the sake of writing an entertaining narrative. But I doubt she exaggerated much. While I constantly tweak the way I teach my classes to be as relevant and helpful as possible, I also know that what I do is hardly enough.

We are missing key pieces in the system, both structural and cultural.

I'm encouraged by a criminal justice reform bill recently passed by our state legislature that focuses in part on developing better structural re-entry support as a means of reducing recidivism. As with anything politicians do, the risk of it all just being lip service is high, but I will do my best to leverage it into something concrete and effective, at least in my little corner of the world.

And near the end of the book, Kerman absolutely nails the cultural shift we need: "Lack of empathy lies at the heart of every crime--certainly my own," she writes. "Yet empathy is the key to bringing a former prisoner back into the fold of society."

Book #11: Moments of Clarity

I bought this book while listening to Christopher Kennedy Lawford's keynote address at a conference on addiction at Utah Valley University a few weeks ago. (Seriously, wifi access is not helpful when one has a compulsion to buy books.)

I decided to read it this week after seeing a comment a friend of a friend made on a Facebook thread. He was tired of any of his hard-earned money going to help addicts.

"Let them die," he wrote.

I don't know this guy's story. Maybe he's experienced some real trauma due to someone's addiction, maybe even his own.

Or maybe he's just an ass.

Whatever the context, I find it impossible to reconcile those three words with the conversations I've had over the past few years with literally thousands of people who struggle with substance abuse or other addictions.

Real human people.

I get to talk with most of them when they are clear headed, and while it's true that many of them will go more rounds in the justice system, I see so much intelligence, humor, talent, spiritual sensitivity, and compassion.

Real human people.

Lawford said during his keynote address that part of his mission with his writing, speaking, and advocacy is to change perceptions about addiction, and particularly about people in recovery. Yes.

Moments of Clarity contains, in their own words, more than 40 stories about the turning points some of his friends and acquaintances experienced that led to their sobriety. All of them were unique, but they had similar underlying arcs:

(1) painful hopelessness became tentative hope became true and even joyful surrender to hope and

(2) self centeredness, often rooted in anger or fear, became self awareness became self respect.

In his story, actor Malachy McCourt said, "out of all this, the greatest achievement was finding self worth. That's the greatest thing, finding out that I really deserve to live."

Let them die, Mr. Friend of a Friend? Not in my book.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. 
-- Ernest Hemingway.

Book #10: The Bishop's Wife

This book has been sitting in my top priority stack of books (read: on my nightstand) since the day it was released at the end of December. I had to buy a copy after reading the positive review in the New York Times because (a) I've known author Mette Ivie Harrison since our bookstore days and I like her and (b) the story, a mystery, is set in a Mormon ward in a town north of us and I'm always curious to see how writers present the culture I am steeped in.

There are many directions I could go in this post, but in honor of the fact that today happens to be International Women's Day, I am going to take my inspiration from one of the key themes Harrison explores in the book: the role of women in the LDS faith, which is patriarchal and life-encompassing.

Like many things, and Harrison illustrates this, it is far more complex than the two competing narratives we generally hear: women (and motherhood) are honored and revered or women (mothers) are silenced and second class. Not only are there other stories as well, these two competing narratives are hardly mutually exclusive.

This passage from The Bishop's Wife reveals what could be an apt metaphor about well defined gender roles:

Whenever friends from other parts of the country come to Utah, the first thing they mention is the feeling they get from the mountains. Some people feel oppressed by them, others feel safe, like they are wrapped in a cocoon. But I am so used to them, I take them for granted. If I go elsewhere, somewhere without mountains, that's when I realize how much I miss them. I don't know how anyone can tell what direction they're headed without mountains around to help.

I grew up in a very different geography, both literally and, or so I thought for many years, figuratively. I am my own person! But the older I get, the more I realize how much I have subconsciously absorbed about gender from the world around me, and without being aware, I let it reign me in.

Coincidentally, it was Harrison who posted on Facebook an article that I read earlier this week about writing female characters in fiction. I thought many of the points it made could apply to the real world we are experiencing and trying to understand and working to create. One idea particularly struck me: "Some readers may not notice the shallowness or cliché because it is a portrayal they expect to see and have seen a thousand times before. Its very familiarity comforts and feels right [emphasis added]."

What we see and hear over and over becomes our truth whether or not it is true.

One area this happens, especially on a subconscious level, is with the language we use. Tomorrow in my freshman writing class, I happen to be covering strategies to avoid using gendered nouns and pronouns when they are meant to include more than just men.

My whole life I was reassured, though--at school and work, but particularly at church and with scriptures--that the language is not important. All we need to do is shift our assumptions. Whenever it says man or men or mankind, we should just read it to mean that it applies to women as well.

Except, of course, for when we mysteriously shouldn't.

Book #9: Night

I've read books about people's experiences in concentration camps during World War II, but hadn't yet read Elie Wiesel's account, which was originally published in the 1950s. It was time this week.

Early on, Wiesel tells of a man from his village who had been shot and left for dead by the Gestapo while he was traveling through Poland. Moishe returned to the village and tried to warn people.

He spoke only of what he had seen. But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen. Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things.

And then Wiesel makes his own record of events in the hope that people would listen and believe and keep them from happening again. We want to keep them from happening again.

But it is not as easy as it sounds.

I believe these are two reasons why: We hear stories we don't believe but should, like Moishe's, and we hear stories we shouldn't believe but do, like the stories the Nazis told themselves about Jews (and Roma, and homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on).

Sometimes we underestimate a real enemy. Sometimes we create enemies out of people who are not our enemies.

At the end of the edition of Night that I read is the text of the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Wiesel gave in 1986. "Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political view," he said, "that place must--at the moment--become the center of our universe."

May we always strive to be there and on the side of the persecuted, and watch carefully that we do not become the persecutors ourselves.

Book #8: The Curve of Time

For years, Roger has recommended this book every time I am casting about trying to decide what to read next.

This week I finally took him up on it.

The Curve of Time is a beautifully written memoir of the summers a mom, her five children, and sometimes a dog, spent in the 1920s and 30s exploring the waterways between Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of British Columbia by boat.

Because I come from sailing stock on both sides of my family--maybe even Vikings going back in my maternal grandfather's line--it was not hard for me to be drawn into their happy adventures and narrow escapes.

I started reading the book Monday morning as we set out on an expedition of our own in our Jeep. My dad is visiting from out of town, and the rest of us all had a holiday from work and school.

The foreword began with a detailed description of the cramped sleeping quarters on the boat. I could immediately relate. Roger and Dad were riding in front; Jack and I were cozy together in the back, nestled between the cooler on one side of us and a backpack on the other, our feet penned in by the handle of a shovel (carried in case we ever have to dig ourselves out of something).

I didn't marry a sailor. I married a boy who lives between mountains and loves the desert. I married a boy who loves to drive off the beaten path.

So, I realized, as we bounced over rocks instead of waves, our Jeep is our boat. Our desert is our ocean. Our canyons are our inlets. Our sagebrush is our seaweed. Our dust we kick up is our wake. We breathe deep and we live. Our wind is our wind and our sky is our sky.

All week as I read, I dreamed of heading up to Seattle over spring break to explore the San Juan Islands by ferry. Maybe we'd even have time to go all the way to British Columbia.

This may have been a risky book for Roger to recommend to me. Because he married a girl who comes from sailing stock on both sides and loves the sea.

Book #7: Black Like Me

In 1959, the same year my parents got married, writer John Howard Griffin changed the pigment of his skin, shaved his head and spent nearly two months traveling through the southern United States as a black man.

I knew this memoir was a classic, but I still went into it with some trepidation. Would it be superficial? Would it be exploitative? What were Griffin's intentions?

What I found was a deeply insightful book that brought out the multi-faceted complexities of racial identity, injustice, cultural barriers, humanity and inhumanity.

While we are far beyond that Jim Crow era, Griffin's observations are still meaningful today. We are clearly not done untangling the threads that have been a knotted mess through many, many generations.

Yesterday, my friend Loki, who is dedicated to untangling those threads, wondered about a couple of white kids he saw walking down the sidewalk carrying .22 rifles with total impunity. Where are the police? "Oh yeah," he wrote, "they didn't fit the profile." A couple of people pushed back on him, not engaging him on the specific point he was trying to make, but criticizing his negativity. They wanted him to look on the positive side (the kids were just out having fun!), and to be his usual inspirational self.

Shortly after I read that exchange, I read a passage in Griffin's book about a friend of his who ran a local paper. "For the first year," he wrote, his friend "managed to please everyone and offend no one. The paper had prospered . . . [He] had fence-straddled all major issues, if he mentioned them at all." Eventually he "entered into a battle with his conscience, his sense of decency. It became clear to him that though he wrote in his paper what his readers wanted to see, this was not always the truth. . . . As the situation in the South degenerated after the 1954 Supreme Court decision on segregation [Brown v. Board of Education], he was faced with a choice--either he must continue more and more to alter truth to make it conform to people's comfort, or he must write the truth in the dim hope that people would alter their comfort to conform to it."

As uncomfortable as it makes us, we need to face the truth that Loki was trying to get at: in our society, white people are far more likely to be able to walk down the street carrying .22 rifles with impunity than are people of color.

I can already hear the arguments defending that reality. They are the same arguments Griffin dispelled in Black Like Me more than 50 years ago.

We still have work to do.

Book #6: The Bean Trees

This week's selection falls into the category of "books people probably think I've already read but I actually haven't."

Unexpectedly, reading this book was exactly what my soul needed this week.

In The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, people are lost, people connect, and people are healed.

"I can't even begin to think about a world where people have to make choices like that."

"You live in that world," [Estevan] said quietly, and I knew this but I didn't want to.

From time to time, the balance between trying to make a difference and preserving my own mental health gets precarious. Lately, I've been slipping down the wrong slope, and it's overwhelming to even think about climbing back up again to get to a place that is right.

Says Estevan near the end of the book, before we know how things will work out, and giving me fresh perspective, "Mi'ija, in a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is to make things as right as we can."

Book #5: Death Coming Up the Hill

This week's book is a YA novel written by a friend of mine, Chris Crowe, and set in 1968, a pivotal year on so many levels. The main character grapples with the Vietnam War, the hard realities of racism, and the breakup of his parent's marriage. The story is told entirely in 976 haiku. Here's why:

There's something tidy
in seventeen syllables,
a haiku neatness

that leaves craters of 
meaning between the lines but
still communicates

what matters most. I 
don't have the time or the space
to write more, so I'll

write what needs to be
remembered and leave it to
you to fill in the 

gaps if you feel like 
it. In 1968
sixteen thousand five

hundred ninety-two
American soldiers died
in Vietnam, and

I'm dedicating
one syllable to each soul
as I record my

own losses suffered
in 1968, a 
year like no other.

Honestly, it was an emotional read.

This in part because we are still going around and around and around with essentially the same things that divided us back then. Civil rights. Enemies both real and perceived. Militarization. Profiteering. I can't breathe. War and unrest. Marriage equality. Je suis Charlie. Controversy over the film American Sniper.

But let's not forget we survived 1968.

Well, some of us did. Among others, the book reminded me, sixteen thousand five hundred ninety-two American soldiers, three black youth in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and untold numbers of Southeast Asians didn't.

Still. We do survive.

Book #4: Change Anything

I finally sat down this week and read Change Anything from cover to cover. I've been dipping into it off and on for months as I've been adapting the material from a course based on the book to teach at the jail.

The premise is fairly simple and constructive: having the will to make better choices in our lives is essential, but if we're not aware of things that influence our choices--such as a lack of skill or information, social pressure, perverse structural rewards, environment, etc.--and wrangle as many of them as we can to work in our favor, we may well be set up to fail. Click here to watch a short video that explains more.

"They just need to make better choices!" I hear that a lot. And not just about inmates.

This kind of sentiment often comes from people with a privileged perspective--people who, yes, had the will to make good choices and did, but who are often unaware of everything that worked in their favor and even more unaware of things working against the people they are criticizing.

Today, in fact, I saw again the old meme with the picture of the pointing finger of shame that reads, "Don't blame your behavior on someone else. You are 100% responsible no matter how bad you are feeling or what's happening in your life."

Yes, it is true, what the old meme says. Unless we lack some essential brain capacity, we are ultimately 100% responsible for the choices we make. Try as they might, no one can force us to behave in a certain way. At some point it requires us to choose whether to cooperate.

But, I want to shout, that is only part of the story. 

Not one of us makes our choices with perfect knowledge or ability. Not one of us makes our choices in a vacuum, independent of our environment. Sometimes we can't even see there is a better choice to make. If we fail to understand this we will continue to shame people, including, by the way, our own selves. And shame can be truly counterproductive.

What if, instead of pointing fingers of shame, we all opened up our eyes and saw the whole story? Imagine the power in that. Maybe we actually could change anything.

Book #3: The Rosie Project

I read this novel because it is our February selection for book club. I read it a month early because I had the fortunate chance to hear the author, Graeme Simsion, speak at The King's English in Salt Lake City last night. It was a brilliant choice. Entertaining book. Fascinating author.

I'd read about a quarter of the book before Simsion's presentation, then read the rest of book with his voice reading Don Tillman--the main character who unfolds in first person his story of setting out in a most logical fashion to find a wife--ringing in my head. Also brilliant.

Don Tillman's voice is unique, and not just because he speaks with an Australian accent. Simsion rooted Tillman's character in people he worked with in the computer industry during the 1970s. 

People just like my own brother.

My brother packed information into his brain, picked apart the logic of everything, and had an unusual sense of humor that I realized wasn't unusual at all after I took a job in the computer industry myself.

And once my sister and I listened to my brother talk about a woman he'd met, and our jaws dropped when he complained that she wouldn't go out with him after he'd told her the three things she'd need to change to be perfect for him. For Pete's sake, he said, it was only three things!

But also in many ways not just like my brother.

While my brother had very specific ideas about how the world should work and didn't always adapt very well when it didn't, he did not share Tillman's methodical approach to living. Also, emotion spilled every which way out of my brother.

Was Tillman somewhere on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum? Maybe. Maybe not. Simsion was deliberately vague on that, he said. But people who are on the spectrum do identify with Tillman. And people who know people who are on the spectrum have said they appreciate the opportunity to get inside Tillman's head and better understand his way of thinking.

Was my brother on the spectrum? Maybe. Maybe not. Simsion explained that he was deliberately vague about Tillman because being on the autism spectrum doesn't mean just one way of being. People are, after all, individuals.

"I consider you remarkably intelligent--"

"Don't say it."

"Say what?"

"'For a barmaid.' You were going to say that weren't you?"

Rosie had predicted correctly.

"My mother was a doctor. So is my father, if you're talking about genes. And you don't have to be a professor to be smart. I saw your face when I said I got seventy-four on the GAMSAT. You were thinking, He won't believe this woman is that smart. But he did. So, put your prejudices away."

It was a reasonable criticism. I had little contact with people outside academia and had formed my assumptions about the rest of the world primarily from watching films and television as a child. I recognized that the characters in Lost in Space and Star Trek were probably not representative of humans in general. Certainly, Rosie did not conform to my barmaid stereotype. It was quite likely that many of my other assumptions about people were wrong. This was no surprise.

In the end? Don Tillman learned he couldn't even rely on assumptions he'd made about himself.

Book #2: Why I Write

George Orwell wrote Why I Write while "highly civilized human beings [were] flying overhead, trying to kill [him]."

England had been sucked into World War II; the U.S. had not yet entered. Orwell had already published Animal Farm, but had not yet written 1984. It was fascinating to get into his thoughts at that moment in time, especially predictions he made (hoped for, at least). He was convinced, for example, that if Great Britain emerged from the war victorious, it was destined to become a socialist nation, including state ownership of vital industries.

"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936," he said, "has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it."

Full disclosure: I know I'm meant to write about a book I finished this week, but I actually finished this book a month or so ago, during the height of the controversy surrounding the grand jury verdict about Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, and wanted to include it in this project. I couldn't help but read many of Orwell's words through the lens of that situation and others and the larger context on which they shed light.

Over and over as I read his assessment of what had led up to the point he and his compatriots found themselves in, I was impressed by how thoroughly American ideas and sensibilities are rooted in British ideas and sensibilities, and how so many of the observations he made could be written today, about either country.

One passage, for example, that particularly struck me:

Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law' as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.

It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like 'They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong', or 'They can't do that; it's against the law', are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. . . . Everyone believes that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root.

And there we have the deeply fundamental reason why some people are rising up to protest law enforcement overreach and some people are rising up to defend law enforcement, and why some people, like me, are doing both.

Book #1: When Women Were Birds

Roger and I were in Salt Lake City for his Aunt Darlene's funeral the other day, and we stopped by The King's English bookstore on our way home. I always buy something when I stop in because I am committed to voting with my dollars there. As Roger wasn't inclined to buy anything for himself, I justified leaving with two books, including Terry Tempest Williams' When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice, a continuation of Refuge, her earlier memoir of her mother's illness and death.

In the book, Terry Tempest Williams processes the fact that her mother left her three shelves full of her journals which turned out to be completely blank (!) by exploring the idea of voice--how we find it, how we use it, why we silence it, and how silence can speak volumes.

Williams' love of creating written language does not seem to come from her mother. Her love of birds, though, and of nature more broadly, was deeply instilled in her by her family.

One of my early paradoxical memories of my own mother was that despite her utter dislike for birds, she studied her field guide and kept in a notebook a meticulous list of every bird she saw near our house at the edge of the woods. I did not inherit that drive. But I found comfort in her record keeping, and I have taken great pleasure in Williams' writing over the years as she describes the extraordinary details she observes in the natural world.

An old friend asked me yesterday why I write here, in a public way. I told him that it is a practice. I am trying to experiment with language, to find my voice, to sort through what I think, to remember. Making it public keeps me accountable, both to the discipline writing requires as well as for the ideas I express.

And I often wonder, will people change the way they see me as they read what I have written? Will they hear what I say differently if they discover I don't see the world or heaven or hell the way they do? Or the way I saw those things yesterday? Or the way I'll see them tomorrow?

I suppose I am keeping a record like my mother, but instead of birds, it is of my thoughts before they fly away.

Red Tails, Green Pants

(Teaser: The book I'm reading and will be writing about later today reminded me of this story.)

The day of my uncle's funeral at the end of November, we drove in the morning from Massachusetts to Connecticut and then later that night after dinner, we separated into two groups: Mom, Dad and my sister Linda headed back to Massachusetts and my sister Maryann and I headed to Rhode Island to visit friends.

At nearly midnight, I got a text from Linda. She'd discovered that while she was gone, a red-tailed hawk had busted through her front window and was sitting in her living room, possibly injured. Calling 911 had been no help. What should she do?

She ended up spending the night with the hawk. (Well, the hawk spent the night in the living room and she spent the night locked in her bedroom.) All was as well as it could be in the morning, and an animal rescue team came for it some time that day.

The actual hawk my sister discovered in her living room

 
Over brunch, Maryann and I discussed the situation with our friends. "Maybe," someone said, "It was the spirit of your uncle?"

"I don't think Uncle Chuck would come back as a hawk," I said, thinking that he would have come as something that manifests irrepressible joy, something that seeks places where the sun shines, something that would not have been afraid to wear bright green pants.

"He'd have come back as a toucan."

And then the game began. What would Uncle John come back as? He's the one who would have been a raptor. A hawk, an eagle, an owl. Sharp eyes. A man of definitive action.

"What kind of bird would Mom come back as?" I asked Maryann, forgetting for a moment that Mom doesn't like birds the way I don't like snakes. Willies. Lots of willies.

Maryann didn't miss a beat. "Mom? She'd never come back as a bird."

Thing One and Thing Two

It wouldn't be a new year without a new writing goal. And in 2015, I'm adding two!

One: In an ongoing attempt to finish reading books I start (numbers unknown, but it would definitely take all of my fingers and toes to count them, likely even all of the fingers and toes of everyone in the family), I am pledging to finish at least one book a week and to write something about it on Sunday. My posts won't be book reviews, which I generally find soul sucking. Mostly I will write about something I learned or something the book made me think about.

Two: I'm finally starting a project I've been meaning to start for a long time: a blog about making peace with my house, which is pretty much always overwhelming for me because I'd really rather be paying attention to other things. Though I am inspired by a few aspects of homemaking, I am mostly a reluctant homemaker. In this new blog, called Home*Making*Peace, I will explore all sorts of ways to come terms with it all. And, hopefully, my house will end up reflecting my cerebral efforts.

Click here to see my first post.

Feat #23: Closing one Book, Starting a New One

The title of this post represents an act of faith. I refuse to be discouraged by the obstacles I've encountered in my path since I started my 50 physical feats project--a project I am still committed to even though it is no longer the year I turned 50 and actually about to be the year I turn 52 (gulp!).

On my list of physical feats I've imagined writing about, I was going to include having a colonoscopy, which is expected by physicians once a person turns 50.

But something more challenging than a colonoscopy came along for this surgery virgin: having my gallbladder out. So I'm going to claim that as #23. It's been just over two weeks since I went under the knife, and my recovery has gone well!

Here are some things I'd like to remember about the experience before I close the book on the whole adventure:

• When all was said and done, I handled the idea of being unconscious while someone was mucking around on the insides of me pretty well. My strategy was to not think about it too much. Roger asked if I wanted to see a video of the procedure ahead of time. I opted out. Maybe some day.
  
  
• My big-hearted 15-year-old son showed me his big heart over and over.
  
  The night before the surgery, I discovered that, on his own, Jack had watched a video of the procedure and, as he described it with uncanny recall, he assured me that it was pretty straightforward and would not be so tough.
  
  The day of surgery, Roger and I got home just before school got out. After getting me settled upstairs in bed, Roger ran to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions. Since the car was gone, Jack didn't know I was there when he got home. Then Roger called to ask a question, and both Jack and I answered the phone. As soon as we hung up, Jack ran upstairs to check on me.
  
  Whoever is concerned about the next generation being too self-involved and irresponsible has not met Jack.
  
  
• Serendipity was a constant companion.
  
  My doctor recommended a surgery practice. When I called them to make an appointment, I had no idea which surgeon to ask for and said as much. They made me an appointment with Dr. Peterson. I immediately texted my friend, who is married to an anesthesiologist. Has he heard of Dr. Peterson? Why yes, he worked with him just that day. Thumbs up, she texted back.
  
  Then I met Dr. Peterson for a consultation. I told myself that if he was at all condescending or dismissive (I have issues), I would seek a second consultation. If I had a good experience at our meeting, I'd stick with him. I liked him. He laughed and told me it was smart to ask if I could have the colonoscopy I need done at the same time, even though it wasn't an option. Anyone who can honor wishful thinking like that gets my vote.
  
  A few days before surgery, I went to a lab to have blood drawn for tests. The woman who drew my blood read my form and said, "Dr. Peterson? He took my gallbladder out!" She was very happy with him and gave me some personal tips about going through it all.
  
  It turned out that I was able to request my anesthesiologist friend. I saw him a week before and he told me all about the cocktail he'd be mixing up for me and what I could expect. But more than that, it was a great comfort to have a familiar voice in my ear as I went under.
  
  When I came to afterward, I looked up and saw a familiar face. My recovery nurse turned out to be an acquaintance from my town! She took good care of me, and any sense of vulnerability I had melted away.
  
  
• Hearing what the doctor said afterward about the state of my gallbladder ("It was ugly!") was vindication--proof that I'm not a whiner.
  
  The only reason I had the surgery was that I had finally mentioned to my doctor at my annual exam that sometimes I have this pain. Like, for years. As I described it to her, she ordered an immediate ultrasound. Why was I so slow in taking it to her? I don't know. I guess I didn't want to be a whiner. Way to get in my own way!

There were a few things I didn't quite anticipate even though I knew a lot going in. For example, it was much harder than I expected to pull my brain out of it all, and my 51-year-old belly skin was awfully stretched out afterward. But my brain and my skin are both getting back to normal.

And tomorrow I will open to the fresh and hopeful pages of a new year!

(Although I've got that colonoscopy coming up in a few weeks . . . )

The Itch

Two separate conversations I had today:

I talked with Tina about how when Jack graduates in about two and a half years (!), I'm going to shift back into full-time work. Having two part-time jobs has been great so I can be home in the afternoons when school gets out, but I can tell I'm heading toward making a change. One of my hopes? That I will find a job that requires me to travel (and, okay, pays for it).

I have this persistent itch that I just can't quite scratch enough.

Not five minutes later, I ran into Merlene. She grabbed me and proclaimed, "You travel more than anyone else I know!" And then she confessed that she prefers to stay home. Maybe that colors her perspective.

Because, really. I haven't scratched the itch nearly enough. Not even close.

Pilgrimage

Utah Lake, December 2014

I started reading The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coehlo, a novel about a man searching for his path on the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, on the way to my cousin Peter's memorial service early this fall. I set it aside after that, then finished it on my way home from my Uncle Chuck's memorial service a couple of weeks ago.

For many years, I believe I was searching for ways to disconnect. I found caring can be too painful. Living on autopilot seemed like a good way to numb the pain. The problem with skimming the surface, though, is that it sucked the soul out of everything. And life stretched endlessly on before me.

So I started searching for ways to connect. To be real. To dive beneath the surface. To care. It's hard, but living on autopilot was worse.

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I drove out to Utah Lake a few days ago. It had recently been unusually calm, a good destination to make a pilgrimage to reflect.

Bright and early this morning, I'm going to have my very first surgery. I'm getting my gallbladder removed. It's totally routine, but not for me. I have every confidence that it will all go smoothly, but, you know, things can happen.

So I want to put here that I've had more success lately figuring out my path.

And though I'm sure I'm going to come through my morphine haze just fine, I thought I'd make a few requests. I have a feeling they'll still be valid when I die a nutty old woman.

Take some of my ashes to a place I loved. Take some of my ashes to a place I've never been but would have loved if I had. And at my memorial service, please sing "For the Beauty of the Earth." Joyfully, like it's meant to be sung.

Sailing Away

Once again, I'm remembering a loved one. My wonderful Uncle Chuck (aka Charles, Jr., aka Charlie and aka my mom's brother) passed away earlier today, peacefully in his sleep after a long and difficult struggle. I thought I'd share excerpts of my last letter to him here.

Dear Uncle Chuck,

Since you are one of my favorite uncles, I want to be sure you know a few things. Especially the fact that you are one of my favorite uncles.

Throughout the years, I've been shaped by the way you have embraced life and the way you have embraced the people you love. Always Pratt Island would come alive when you showed up, so full of humor and light. 

Uncle Chuck, cousin Tracey, cousin Sandy, and sister Linda

I loved the way you openly adored your daughters. It seemed like such a simple and true thing for you.

Uncle Chuck and his three beautiful daughters

I loved that you and Sigrid and Lani were able to come to our wedding even though it was almost all the way across the country, and things were a little rough in 1990, and we had given exceptionally short notice as we were only engaged for eight weeks. That wedding weekend, and especially our reception at Sundance, would not have been the same without you. It meant so much to me that you were there! I still remember your gift shop discoveries and how you reveled in the idea of a partying at such a beautiful mountain ski resort. You confirmed we had chosen just the right spot to celebrate our major milestone.

I loved that you went out of your way on your big western adventure to see me and Roger and our new baby Jack. We still have the silver rattle you brought him, and we still hold the most awesome memory of you dropping your pants in our front room to show us the magnet contraption that was helping you cope with your sore knee on the long drive!

I loved that you pulled strings to get Jack out sailing on Long Island Sound when we were in town a few summers ago. A picture of Jack jumping off Friendship has been the banner photo on my Facebook page for years now, and I think I'm going to keep it that way for a long time. What a treat to be able to introduce Jack to such an important part of my childhood!

Thanks for being my wonderful uncle. Damn it, I really wish I was there to give you a big hug in person.  

All of the love in the world from one of your favorite nieces :). 

xoxoxo

At 95

I went to a presentation at noon today by an old friend, author Julie Berry. She has a fun new novel out, The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place (see entertaining trailer below).

After the presentation was over, I noticed Judge Monroe and Shirley Paxman, both 95 years old, sitting near the front. I've known them for years! Not only did they often come to events at our bookshop, Judge Paxman was one of my college professors.

I had to go over and talk to them. We walked out of the auditorium together, they with their walking sticks, me with my delight at seeing them still so curious and engaged with the community.

After reminding Judge Paxman that I had taken a course in criminal justice from him more than 30 years ago (he was in his 60s then!), I told him how pivotal taking that class had been for me. I had been thinking I'd like to go into the field to help people caught up in the criminal justice system to work their way out.

But taking that class made me realize just how naive I was. "I'd have believed anything they told me," I said. And then I happily reported to him that after many years of pursuing other goals, I was now working at the county jail, helping people caught up in the criminal justice system to work their way out.

I am less naive now. Imagine how wide open my eyes will be if I make it to 95. Especially if I stay as curious and engaged as the Paxmans have.

Also, I'm curious if anyone in Julie's new book ends up in jail. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Making a Statement

This morning I woke up to two pieces of news:

(1) The US Supreme Court has held up multiple lower court rulings that struck down state laws against same-sex marriage.

And (2) a good hearted young man--whom I first met when he was a TA in our high school library the year I worked there, who came out as a gay man a few years ago, and who suffered debilitating depression--took his own life a few nights ago.

Here is my vote and my prayer: that we can ALL figure out a way forward in love, not fear. In our society, we talk so much about freedom, including freedom of conscience, and our right to pursue our individual journeys through life. Let's mean it all around.

Because that statement is deliberately ambiguous (I truly do mean all), I also feel a need to be clear about a couple of things in case anyone wonders where I personally stand:

(1) A dozen years ago, I voted against the Utah constitutional amendment that was at issue in one of the cases that went to the Supreme Court. I would vote against it again today. I am celebrating today's decision.

And (2) I am ever hopeful that the increased funding for research and coverage for mental health care mandated by the ACA will make a huge difference for many individuals and families, and ultimately for society as a whole - I meet far too many people, for example, who end up being funneled through the criminal justice system because we haven't yet figured out a better way. We need to for the sake of our humanity.

The Last Chapter

Peter with Ally and Ajax on Fearless, Lake Geneva 2014

I learned yesterday that my cousin Peter passed away. Second cousin, technically, but his mother Jean was like an aunt to me. No one knows, yet, exactly what happened. Some hikers found him sitting beside a trail near Telluride, his pack still on his back. Likely it was peaceful for him. Maybe he didn't even know what was happening. It is comforting to think he was doing something he loved in a place he loved.

I'm always interested in learning what goes on in people's heads. Understanding what moves them, how they perceive the world. Peter, though, especially intrigued me. I saw him nearly every summer at the lake, but he was a mystery. He was ten years older than me and ran with the elusive pack of cousins that were the first in our generation. I was in the tag along group, hoping, maybe, to get a chance to water ski when everyone else was through or to get invited for late night swims.

The summer I turned 12, I started spending more time at his family's cottage when Jean's best friend's daughters started coming to the lake. We stayed up late at night playing Spades and Trivial Pursuit. Peter would never give up trying to answer the trivia questions, even if it took him half an hour to comb his brain. Somehow, the answer would always be in there! Mostly, though, he was off playing tennis or golf, and I was not part of that circle. His college years stretched into decades as he pursued graduate studies in anything that caught his interest. He traveled the world. He was a voracious reader.

So I knew about him, but I didn't really know him. I wish I'd tried harder. Instead I filled in the gaps with my imagination.

When we were all grown up, I'd sometimes be invited to his cottage for dinner. He'd sit at the head of the table while people buzzed around him, getting the meal set out or cleaning up afterward. He seemed oblivious to the activity. Was it what he expected of everyone? Or did he just let things happen? Other times, he'd track down Ally, a friend's daughter who was like his own, at our cottage to let her know he'd made her grilled cheese or hot dogs for lunch. As much as he loved surrounding himself with people, he also liked to disappear. He was notorious for being difficult to track down.

A few years ago, I caught him alone and asked him about a trek he'd taken in northern India around the time his mother died. We talked about spiritual journeys and how intangible they are, and we bonded over our mutual rejection of dogmatism. I was left hungry for more. What were his questions? Did he ever find answers? Was he driven by restlessness or curiosity? Or maybe both? Or maybe neither?

This summer I watched Peter as we listened to another cousin's son play the trumpet with a jazz quintet. We were in an old clubhouse that probably hadn't changed much in our lifetime. It felt timeless. I tried to read him, but couldn't really. He looked serious. Sad? Or was he just reveling in the music? Or maybe both? Or maybe neither?

It struck me in that moment that he seemed to move through life as though he were a character in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

Later he told me when I asked what he remembered about my Grandpa Stuart, who died when I was six and Peter was 16.  Someone else I wish I'd known. "I admired him," he said and described him as soft spoken, intellectual, and curious about the world. He credited Grandpa's extensive slide shows for sparking his interest in traveling to far flung places.

I thought I'd have time to find out more about what was in Peter's head. Next summer, or the next. But the last chapter of his novel has ended, and as far as I know all the words I wanted to read died with him.

Feat #22: Over the Interstate and Through the West Fields

Please forgive me. I am still on a honeymoon with my new bike.

Sometimes on Sundays, I head to work at the jail to meet with inmates who have jobs they go to during the rest of the week. Today I decided to ride my bike there. It's only about 12 miles round trip.

A bit of a Sabbath meditation.

Except for about a third of the way there when I realized I'd forgotten my ID badge (Roger rescued me by bringing it). And then about two thirds of the way there when I bounced over some railroad tracks and my chain came off and jammed between the sprocket and the guard (a nice couple in a pickup truck stopped to help and gave me a few napkins to get the grease off my hands).

There isn't a bike rack near the entrance, so I improvised. I know a bike locked up to sign post can be stolen. But I also know the place is monitored by a surveillance system. And it's full of people with authority to make an arrest. I figured I'd risk it.

My bike and I both made it home. We're a good match. I think we'll be very happy together.

On a Roll

Today's bicycling adventure involved checking on the progress of the new reservoir Springville city is building near the mouth of Hobble Creek Canyon (beach! swimming! next summer! a mile from my house!). I decided to take the long way around through Mapleton, enjoying our unseasonably low 70-ish degree weather.

Il Postino

As I considered a post office run late this afternoon, I realized I had just enough time to get there by bike. I put on my matching sunglasses, wrapped the packages in plastic bags because it looked a bit like rain, put them in my basket, and headed off.

I arrived at the post office with time to spare because it was downhill and today it was also downwind! Of course, that meant the ride back was uphill and upwind.

The hair looks a little wacky, but I made it home intact!

Into the Desert of Mortification and Reward

Choosing to read last night paid off because I came across this delicious quote from Voss, set in 19th century Australia, written by Patrick White in the 1950s, and which I've got to finish by a book club meeting on Thursday.

Few people of attainments take easily to a plan of self-improvement. Some discover very early their perfection cannot endure the insult. Others find their intellectual pleasure lies in the theory, not the practice. Only a few stubborn ones will blunder on, painfully, out of the luxuriant world of their pretensions into the desert of mortification and reward.

Good timing for this college writing instructor who will be back in the classroom tomorrow, facing a new group of students who will be critiquing my performance.

I confess that I am still slightly reeling from one particular student's audacity in his final reflective essay last April after he was especially challenging in the classroom all semester. I am feeling slightly vulnerable. But I am trying to endure the insult, put theory for improving my performance into practice, and be willing to blunder on.

Choices

I could write about one of the million things that is always running around in my brain, but there's an awesome storm tonight. I'm sitting in the living room with some windows wide open, and I'd rather curl up with a book and listen to the thunder and rain.

My Birthday Present Came

Which was actually unexpected. A few days ago, the bike shop called to say it was lost in shipment and they had no idea when it would come. But then last night they called to say it was here and all assembled and ready to pick up! So we went to get it this morning (after stopping for waffles).

Maybe next year I'll get a proper bike rack.

Lucky, Lucky, Lucky

I've been restless the last few days.

So when I left work this afternoon to meet Jack after school and discovered a text message from him that he was heading to a friend's house, I was all of a sudden free.

And then I realized that I had a book I need to read in my bag, so if I went somewhere besides home, I could still get something done.

And then I realized that because Roger needed the car to go to Salt Lake for some meetings today and I was driving the Jeep, I was not only free but roofless. And the sky was blue as blue.

So I headed west to Lincoln Beach feeling lucky.

When I got there a couple of guys by the boat ramp asked if I had jumper cables. I did and we got their truck started again. Lucky.

Before settling in to read my book, I called Roger to check in. He was heading home from Salt Lake and told me about the storm he'd driven through and which was heading my way. I looked north and saw this. It was going to take me half an hour to get home. Without a roof. I took my chances and read a chapter first. Home before the rain reached me. Lucky.

Maybe I Really Can Do It

This morning a neighbor told me about the time she found what they thought was a tarantula on their driveway. They put it in a jar and took it to a biology professor friend for confirmation. It was a tarantula. In our neighborhood.

But all I could think about was how I had learned the word for spider in Spanish just last night. And I was so excited that I could remember it.

Una araña. Sí puedo.

Ein Wettbewerb or Un Concurso

Jack has randomly decided to take German this year. Well, maybe not totally randomly. Many of his friends are also taking German. And when he was little he always made me play the German version of the Bob the Builder theme song when we visited the show's website. And whenever we talk about going to Europe someday, the city he wants most to visit is Berlin. So not totally randomly.

I want to learn Spanish. I've studied it in fits and starts over the years without much progress. Now that Jack only has three years of school left, and less than three years until he turns an independent 18, I'm more determined than ever to learn. I want to be prepared for the next phase of my life, and I think that knowing some Spanish could open up some valuable opportunities for me.

So in honor of Jack's first day of German class, I set up a Duolingo account and have already earned three "lingots" (the program's virtual currency) by practicing Spanish words and phrases. I know at some point, I will have to find real people to converse with, but this is at least a place to start.

And it's free.

And it's competitive. I can link up with friends who have accounts and compete to see who earns the most lingots. I'm going to see if Jack wants to set up an account to practice his German.

Anyone else want in? Click here to see what languages they have courses for. Then sign up and come find me there! I could use the pressure.

Pencils (More Than You Think)

Last night I told Jack that I would pick up some school supplies for him after my fall orientation meetings on campus today, but I needed a list. Tenth grade starts tomorrow.

He owned it. Went through the things he already had and put together a detailed list. 

Pencils (more than you think)

Erasable pens (like 4+)

Paper (college ruled)

Spare 1" binder, maybe 2 (because then, he explained as we went over the list, he could have one for A days and one for B days)

And so on.

I'm taking this as a good sign that he's gearing up to own tenth grade in its entirety.

Feat #21: Eyes Wide Open

I faced down a demon with this one.

I used to swim with goggles (to protect my contact lenses) across the Spanish Oaks reservoir until one day something totally freaked me out. You can read that story here: What Lies Beneath.

Jack and his friend Rex at the reservoir, circa 2007

Since then, instead of really swimming across, I do a leisurely breast stroke without putting my face in the water or I just do 10 or 12 freestyle strokes at a time with my eyes closed before getting too far off course.

Frankly, it's ridiculous.

So for this feat I swam a nice, hard, steady freestyle across the reservoir and back, with goggles, eyes wide open. All I saw was green murky depth. Not a single dead body. It felt good.

Feat #20: The Approach

A couple of weeks ago, I watched my 81-year-old uncle dive off the diving board, classic springboard approach and all.

I thought, "I hope I can still do that when I'm 81!"

Then I realized that, now at 51, I couldn't remember the last time I dove off the diving board using an approach. If I dive off the board at all, I just stand at the end and dive. Usually, though, I just dive off the pier.

I thought, "If I want to be doing it at 81, I'd better start doing it again now."

So I did. And I made Jack witness it with a recording:



Yeah, I need to work a little on my form. Keep those feet together. I'll be practicing over the next 30 years.

Feat #19: Tradition

I don't know how many years ago--maybe ten?--Dad and I started a new summer lake tradition that I love. I take the shore path about three miles to Black Point, and he takes the sailboat. We meet at the pier there, then sail back home.

We did it today. Perfect wind and weather for it! And, it was my birthday. Can't think of many things I'd rather do to celebrate.

Normally, I wouldn't count this as a physical feat, but I accidentally gave Dad the estimated time it would take for me to run, not walk to our meeting place. I haven't actually run at all since last fall because I'm nursing my right knee, which has bothered me off and on since I slipped on our stairs and smacked it on the tile floor in our front hall.

He'd have been fine tacking back and forth in the boat while I walked, but I didn't want him to wait too long for me. So I decided to run intervals on the parts of the path that were grassy or smooth pavement or packed dirt and walk on the parts of the path that had more challenging footing, like uneven flagstones or lots of loose gravel. I figure I ran at least half of the distance.

Not bad for this particular 51-year-old.

Sunday Synchronicity

I texted Jack, who was up at the cottage. "It is wild and windy and not too hot here on the point! Bright blue sky and big fluffy clouds! Wander down and breathe the fresh air!"

Back to my book. The author was writing about Israel.

You stand on the high hills and look out at a thunderstorm rolling in from the Mediterranean. The depth-less blue sky becomes a steel gray, rain and hail lash down on you and you struggle to hold your footing in the violent wind. Rivers arise out of nowhere and rush in the canyons below you, sweeping away everything in their path.

The next moment our own sky turned to a steel gray. My sister Maryann said, "Look!" and we watched the sudden squall across the lake, headed right toward us. We quickly packed up our stuff and I yelled to Dad who was fixing something on the sailboat. He turned, saw, grabbed his tools and jumped off the boat.

Maryann and I couldn't run up the hill fast enough to escape the rain, but cousin Jody was waiting at her front porch to open the door for us. Dad took cover down on the point in the lee of a shed to keep an eye on the boat, which wasn't tied down to the hoist.

Ten minutes later, the rain stopped and we walked the rest of the way up the hill to our own cottage to change into dry clothes. By the time we got there the sun was shining again.

Back again to my book to pick up where I left off.

Ten minutes later the storm is gone but the world is covered in a glistening dew. The olive and lemon trees glow under the sun and the red earth under your feet throws off the smell of rosemary. God is here, you think. His glory and grace just appeared with might and fire.

Summer Hours

I am about to have an extra crazy month. House guests, conference, annual pilgrimage to the lake, parties, work. So I may or may not post anything until the middle of August. It is summer after all.

In the mean time, here are a couple of useful things I learned today:

If a person hits the emergency button on his cell phone and calls 911 without meaning to, then hangs up as soon as he discovers what he did, they will call him to find out if he either (A) meant to call and accidentally hung up or (B) accidentally called and meant to hang up.

If a person happens to get oil on his shorts while he and his friends are taking apart the old broken lawn mower, just spray some degreaser from the auto supply store on the stain and then throw the shorts in the wash.

Into the Wild

My friend Shelley is a stay-at-home mom with four children under six, including her youngest who spent the first 8 1/2 months of her life in the NICU and who continues to need lots of ongoing medical attention.

Shelley also has the soul of an adventurer. It can be tough for an adventurer to be so utterly grounded, no matter how much she loves her children.

The other day, as she sat with her baby in the hospital, waiting for her to wake up from her 37th trip to the OR, she wrote on her blog about tapping into her reserve of memories of past adventures across the globe to sustain her, but still wishing she could enjoy the exhilaration of, say, driving through the desert in a jeep.

I thought, "Hey, I have a jeep!" and "Hey, I know a place nearby that feels exotic and worlds away!" So I secretly made arrangements with her husband and then whisked her away into the wild for an hour or two to feed her adventurer soul.

Processing

I'm still processing the morning I spent with a 90-year-old neighbor and friend yesterday. I called to check on her about 9:00 and discovered that her shoulder was giving her tremendous pain and she was unable to get out of bed. So I went over to see what I could do.

It took a few hours to track down someone who knew where her pain pills were stashed, and during those hours we talked. As long as she did not move her shoulder, she was sort of okay, but the slightest movement caused her great agony.

While we talked, I fed her a piece of cinnamon raisin toast and some cherries that a neighbor had brought over from her tree. I told her that she was like Cleopatra, reclined in her bed, being fed grapes. I helped her take the dozen or so pills in her Sunday a.m. pill box, hoping that one of them might be a pain pill (none of them were).

Over and over, she said she knew the time had come to move to a care center. She was distraught at the thought of leaving the home she'd lived in and loved for so much of her adult life, but she'd begun to accept that she couldn't live alone anymore. I could tell she was trying to get used to the idea, to convince herself, with every repetition.

I remembered other visits, when she'd talked over and over about a friend who'd finally resigned herself to using a wheelchair and about another friend who'd decided she had to give up driving after living a fiercely independent life. I wonder if she'd been subconsciously processing through her friends' experiences the decision she knew deep down she was getting closer to having to make.

It will be okay. She's got a place to go where she'll be taken good care of. She'll be closer to family. And she's a spirited gal.

But still, my heart is broken for her.

Can We Go Back in Time Just a Little?

Technically this picture of Dr. Who was taken yesterday, Jack all spiffed up with the tweed jacket he found at a thrift store for five bucks and a bow tie he borrowed from Dad. But it's the same guy who drove us home from church today in our five-speed TARDIS-er, Jeep.

Barriers

We pulled into a gas station for a bit of respite from construction traffic in Chilpancingo as we drove south from Mexico City a few weeks ago. While I paid for our snacks, I watched Jack crouch down by the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the front of the little store, his back to me.

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My niece explained to her eight-year-old son that an important promise he would make to God as he was baptized early this morning is to mourn with those who mourn and to comfort those who need comfort. He was surrounded by hearts full of love and prayers for him as his father gently held him and he worked through the challenge of putting his head under the water. It was especially hard for him, but he wanted to do it and he did.

This past week on Facebook, my dear cousin plead with both the heart of a mother and the heart of a newly converted Jew for the world to pay attention to the news of the Israeli teens who were kidnapped as they walked home from school in the West Bank and murdered. At the same time, a heartrending exchange unfolded on my feed between a friend from East Jerusalem, who was pleading for people to remember their humanity, and her friend--I think a sister--who was struggling to hear her through so many mothers' tears shed when news broke of an Arab teen found burned to death.

Roger and I talked the other day about the recent influx of Central American children crossing the southern border into the U.S. He speculated about the radical transformation that could occur in the hearts of our communities if the impossible were to happen and we openly invited 50,000 families to say to the children, "Come, you have a place here with us in our homes." Impossible because we think that if we allowed it, only more would come. We have the right, we tell ourselves, to protect our way of life.

I recently heard John Shelby Spong, a Biblical scholar who is dismissed as a heretic by many Christians, speak what my soul recognizes as truth. "We need some process," he said, "That will expand our humanity beyond the barriers that we have erected in our need for security . . . [They] have made it possible for us to get to the top of the food chain, but at this moment the barriers that we have created as our defense system in our struggle to survive have begun to kill our humanity."

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I couldn't figure out what Jack was doing, crouched there by the windows, until he stood up and turned, and I saw he was gently cupping a huge insect in his hands. How long had it been banging its wings against the glass unnoticed? He carefully carried it outside and released it into a pot of flowers blooming by the door.

Endowed by Its Creator

Drove down to the edge of Utah Lake tonight just in time to catch the spectacularly blood-orange sun drop behind the purple mountain.

Nature's fireworks.

Good Job!

Jack passed the written test for his driving learner permit today. What I especially love about this photo is that he is smiling a genuine smile, not an I'm-just-smiling-because-my-parents-are-taking-a-picture-of-me-and-they-told-me-to-smile smile.

Attention!

Downtown Mexico City, June 2014.

One of the best street performers I've ever seen. He totally earned whatever money Jack pulled out of his pocket and gave him.

This Way the Adventure Never Ends

Here's to days like today when I wistfully finish a book I started reading on vacation, then dragged out as long as I could so I could pretend for a little bit each day that I was still on vacation . . .

And a dear friend surprises me with the gift of a new book that I can't wait to begin.