Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Little Tiny Hairs


So I decided to do something wild and crazy today: pluck my eyebrows. Now, if you are a loyal reader, you know my feelings about plucking eyebrows. (If you're a new and future loyal reader, you can read them here.) I decided to do this momentous deed for two reasons:

The first is that I looked at myself today and thought I was looking my age. And my friend Angela says that plucking eyebrows "does wonders for opening up faces." And let me tell you, brothers and sisters, something needed opening up this morning.

The second reason is that I was going out to lunch with Angela today.

So the thing no one ever told me about plucking eyebrows (besides everything) is that there is a trick to it. I do not currently know the trick. But I know there must be one. Because I had to pluck each hair NO FEWER THAN FIVE TIMES. The darn tweezers kept slipping off the hairs. Or the little hair would break off so that I then had to PLUCK THE WHISKER. Now what kind of idiot would go through the pain of each hair being pulled out of its socket FIVE TIMES????? Certainly women aren't doing that to themselves every day. There MUST be a secret.

But now it's done (I think—how do I know for sure?). I was smart enough to stop before I had nothing left and had to draw an old-lady-line two inches above my regular brow ("opens up the face"). I probably stopped too soon. I can't tell. And now I'm wondering if Angela will notice. Probably not, because she'll be distracted (more by my fascinating conversation than by her six-month-old and my four-year-old, I'm sure). But I'll let you know if she does.

Meanwhile, I would show you a picture but our digital camera is broken, and no one here knows how to fix it. (Aye, 'tis verily so. You think that a person who can't even figure out tweezers would know how to work a CAMERA?) And, of course, we can't pay to have it fixed--because I'm going out to eat today. I've got my priorities straight, even if my eyebrows aren't. So if you see me within the next few weeks with whiskers around my eyes, you'll know what happened. I'll have "Li'l tahnee hayers, growin' out ma face!"—and if you know what comedy sketch from the early 70's that quote came from, you are probably my sister (Hi, Mar).
In addition to killing innocent hairs today, I also pulled out two entire healthy, producing plants from my garden, a tomato plants (with about 20 large, green tomatoes) and a zucchini plant. Yes, I saved the tomatoes to put face-down on newspaper in a sunny place so that we can eat them. I had to pull these plants out because my garden is insanely fertile and it has so many productive plants that have outgrown their space that I can't even WALK to the back of the garden. I am cursed with this garden. I hate gardening, and I have the most fertile square of soil in the United States! This year I was too lazy to actually plan a garden and simply threw some seeds I had leftover from last year in the general vicinity of the plot. I did, also buy three tomato plants. (Because the six I did last year were WAY, WAY too many for my family and all the families on my circle and any relatives who would take tomatoes from me).

I hadn't counted on volunteer plants. I had at least FIVE volunteer tomato plants! Arrggh!
I wonder if all this has something to do with my fertility earrings?

So anyway, I just wanted to say that pulling out those plants this morning made me feel dirty (in more ways than one), as if I had committed murder. I'm hanging my (well-plucked) head in shame, today, because I have killed some of God's creatures—productive ones, at that. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. I hope I'll be able to apologize and explain to the little tomato and zucchini spirits in heaven someday.

Park Bench
(by, well, me)

Wherever it is you've gotten to these days, I wonder
if you know you've got a piece of me stuck
in your back pocket, the way I still have wisps of you
clinging to my hair or caught in my shoe
making me limp now and then.

Someday a hundred eons hence we'll meet
at a park bench on the edge of that fat fair Finally--
where people go pocketless and pieces float free
in the wide autumn light—
to put things back where they belong.

In that place people pause to pass around minds,
try memories on for size, share sips of point of view.

Ten minutes on a bench. For once and all you'll see
without the fog of pride that yes, I really loved you.
Maybe, too, I'll see that you forgive me.

"Ahh!" we'll say, and then shake hands and mosey off
into our separate destinies, kicking at a pebble, maybe,
feeling lighter for the trade.

Monday, August 27, 2007

oui, c'est moi

Yes, that story in the Friend this month is by yours truly. When I wrote it, it was called “All Clean Again.” When they published it, they removed the All. I imagine there is a deep theological reason why they took it out, along with any of the other sign of personality the story may have had originally. I can’t tell you exactly what and how they edited it, but I just feel it in my bones as I read it that it is not the same thing I sent them. I suppose I could go back to my original and compare, but I’m too lazy. I just feel like it’s not what it used to be. Sigh. But I spent the money they gave me for it very happily last year on a workshop at BYU. So who’s complaining?

Rog and I have been invited by the (desperate) Ward Activities Committee to peform a duet of “Hey Paula” at the ward Oldies party in a couple of weeks. Up until yesterday, I had never even heard the song. But we, alas, agreed to do it, being the softies that we are. And so now I am looking for a really cool circa-1961 wedding or prom dress. Anyone have one lying around? Also a bouffant wig. Let me know.



Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Tagged!

Thanks, Angela, for the tag. I like being tagged. But I’ve already done the one you tagged me for. So I decided to invent my own! Here goes . . .

Four Places I’d Love to Visit:

1. Ireland. Or Scotland. Just so’s it’s rainy and green.
2. North-East America and, possibly, Canada. (OK, I admit it. I wanna see Prince Edward Island and Robert Frost country.)
3. The Mormon Artists Retreat (by invitation only, you know)
4. Panama Canal (and YES! I will visit it in six months!)

Four Things I Covet:

1. Rachel’s singing voice. And throw in her hair while we’re at it.
2. Angela’s writing talent.
3. JL’s organizational skills.
4. Justine’s running stamina, habit and joy.

4 Goals I Have:

1. Learn Spanish.
2. Publish a book (or two).
3. Make meditation a lifelong habit and get good at it.
4. Get a master’s degree.

4 Fads I Wish Would Pass:

1. Women’s shirts that require undershirts.
2. 2-piece swimsuits that don’t meet in the middle (or do just enough to fool you into buying them but then creep up your middle when you wear them. I mean, I’ve lost weight and I’m proud of my middle except no one needs to see those stretch marks. We’re talking “Stars and Stripes Forever,” you know?).
3. Pale or no lipstick. It’s the California surf-girl meets poltergeist look.
4. Tan nylons with white shoes. I am sorry, but there is no way you can convince me that that is anything but ICKY to look at.

4 Delights:

1. Peter’s belly-button.
2. Jon’s cuddliness.
3. Alex’s freckles.
4. Ben’s grin.

4 Regrets:

1. I dropped a singing class at BYU that I should have stayed in.
2. I quit learning Spanish once I got to college and switched to French.
3. I turned down a chance to work as a research assistant with Dr. Richard Lloyd Anderson. I thought I couldn’t afford to live in Provo that summer, so I turned him down when he called me, in Salt Lake, to offer me the job. He called because he was impressed with my work in his Honors New Testament class.
4. Not spending more time with my sister during my teen years.

4 Things I Wish I Could Do More Often:

1. Sing The Messiah.
2. Eat out with AML friends.
3. Go to movies in theaters.
4. Square dance.

4 Things That I Never Would Have Imagined Would Happen to Me:

1. I married a CURLY-HEADED BLONDE who LOVES SPORTS and I had FOUR BOYS NATURALLY and I live in THIS CITY. All very shocking. (Not to mention the other shocking places I’ve lived: Pocatello and Berkeley.)
2. I do yoga.
3. I’ve been on cruises (three going on four).
4. I have regular e-mail conversations with really fascinating people, some of whom are semi-famous, at least to a consumer of Mormon arts and thought such as myself.

4 People I Tag:

1. Mark B.
2. Jennifer B.
3. Angela (turnabout’s fair—after all, it’s a new list)
4. Kathy S.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Luva-luva-luva

I had a fabulous weekend. On Friday, I got to witness the marriage of two people whose marriage is deeply satisfying to everyone because they are both fabulous people and obviously absolutely deserve each other. I love to see weddings in the temple. The altar is like that place under the space ship in old sci-fi movies where, if you stand, you could get sucked up into the saucer. It’s the place where the eternal touches down into the temporal. It’s a portkey, a time-warp bridge, whatever. It’s a magical place, and I like to sit nearby and feel the wind.

So Spencer, whom I have always adored and consider one of the world’s greatest catches, married Andrea, who is obviously good through and through. (I can’t even imagine one of MY siblings saying about me what her brother said about her—that you could substitute her name for the word “charity” in the scripture that says that charity suffereth long, envieth not, seeketh not her own, etc. And so hearing that made me realize I need to repent.) And the whole day—ceremony, breakfast, etc.—was amazingly spiritual. What a great beginning for the powerful force that their marriage has created.

On Saturday night, we took the three older boys to see The Secret Garden at Hale Center Theater. It was early in the show’s run and it wasn’t as good, technically, as the others we’ve seen there. But the music—the music! I own the soundtrack so the music is familiar to me, but I was pretty much in goosebumps for the whole show anyway. The singers were very skilled (except for the lead, Mary) and it was heavenly. I love that show, love the music and also the theme of rebirth, recovery, awakening. I’m in need of such both physically and spiritually these days.

And then on Sunday I got to fulfill my calling (which happens to be my new favorite calling—before this, it was Relief Society teacher), which is leading the music in sacrament meeting. I love this calling because I love music and because I love looking into the faces of my ward family whom I have come to love with amazing strength, considering we’ve only been here two years. I love sitting on the stand and watching those awkward, majestic young men pass the sacrament. I love seeing the families struggle with their toddlers, and the empty-nesters cuddle, and the people who slink into the back late and leave early. I love them, every one! And I realized (again) while I was leading music and loving them that the measure of joy that I feel is related directly to the measure of love that I feel for others. It didn’t matter whether or not they loved me, or even knew who I was. I loved them, and so I was happy.

How I wish I could carry that feeling into the tiny moments with just my family. It’s so easy to love people as a group, and so much harder to love, with all my strength, one misbehaving six-year-old, and to see and seize the joy of it.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

The Time of My Life

I had a blast last night. At a meeting. This year I have discovered that I often really enjoy meetings (I know, I’m crazy). Like all those trek meetings we had—I loved hanging with those people, the adults who had been called to plan this trek for the kids. Because they were such nice people, such capable, willing, cheerful people. I liked just being near them, cracking jokes, accomplishing a Work.

But last night was not a trek meeting or a church meeting. It was much, much better than that. Because at the meeting were several people whose minds amaze me, whose opinions are fascinating to me, and whose acquaintance I consider one of my best accomplishments. And we spent the evening debating the merits of several pieces of literature that I also found very fascinating. And, of course, eating really good food.

Who could ask for more? I was trying to describe it to Rog, and finally made the analogy, “You know how you feel after you’ve played a really great, long, struggling game of softball? THAT’s how it felt.”

The only depressing thing about it is that I think that for most of them the meeting was just a chore. They are all much smarter than I am, so they didn’t spend the evening in awe of just being there. So chances that I could reproduce such an occasion are pretty small, darn it. Meanwhile, I feel really invigorated after such a great evening (I even dreamed that we were still there, discussing).

I haven’t figured out whether I am an introvert or an extrovert. I guess Im a weird combination of both, because I love being alone and pursuing solitary things (like reading and writing). But after having read, I like nothing more than having a really rigorous discussion about what I read with someone whose mind is interesting to me. THAT’S the best way to spend an evening, IMO.
How about you? What’s the definition of a great evening for you?

Thursday, August 09, 2007

A Woman To Be Reckoned With

In high school I had a friend (count ‘em: one) who was not LDS. He was a really interesting guy and we had a lot of long discussions about how we saw the world differently. I did, in fact, actually get him to read at least some of the Book of Mormon eventually—and he didn’t have a burning in the bosom. That threw me for a loop, but that’s another discussion for another time.

One of our most interesting discussion topics was the psychic lady he went to visit a few times. He swore up and down that this lady had a gift. In all of my adolescent surety about the gospel, I was perplexed. Could she have a gift? And, if so, did it necessarily have to come from Satan? And, if not, was she becoming evil because she charged people money to visit with her? Eric, knowing how dubious I was, and determined to prove something, took a tape recorder with him the next time he went to visit this lady and ASKED HER ABOUT ME. And then she proceeded to TELL HIM ABOUT ME. Really! She said things that really did apply to me, and they were more than just the “Oh, well, you could probably say that about anyone and have a good chance of it being true” kind of things. One thing I remember in particular was that she told him I had just gotten glasses (I had) but that I only needed them to read (true).

When I listened to the tape later, I was absolutely speechless.

Anyway, here’s the really interesting thing. Of course, he didn’t just ask her to tell him about me at the time—he asked her to foretell some things about me. She was quiet a long time, and then she said something like this:

“This girl has a pretty interesting life ahead of her. She will stay in her church, doing all the things that are expected of her. And then at some point something will happen that will really shake her up. Part of it will be a divorce. And out of all this turmoil she will rise, stronger than ever, and become an amazing person—truly a Woman To Be Reckoned With.”

!!!!!!!

So I think about that sometimes. Was she right? Did she have a gift? And, if so, CAN I COUNT MY BROKEN ENGAGEMENT AS THE DIVORCE PART? Because it WAS a time of great turmoil. It DID shake me up a lot. It completely turned upside down my understanding of who God is and what he wants for me. It was the biggest event, in terms of long-term effect on my development, that had—and has—ever happened to me. Can it count? Can it? Because I’m not interested in the divorce part. And I definitely like the idea of being a Woman To Be Reckoned With.

But, I admit, I don’t really feel like one, most of the time. In fact, I rarely even feel like a "woman." A woman is someone tall and dressed up that men write songs about. Me, I'm still a girl. In fact, a lot of the time, I'm still sort of shrinking inside like I’m still in seventh grade.

But. Once in a while, I feel the WTBRW come out.

Like the other day when my friend A was telling me about what happened in her Relief Society. It seems that a sweet, well-meaning sister had been asked to teach the RS lesson on Modesty from the Strength of Youth pamphlet. And in her zeal, she decided to use a few extra resources, including a recent article from the Church News and various other printed opinions of People Whose Opinion Should Carry Weight (according to her). According to A, Sweet Sister spent a long time on things like The Evil of Attending Church With Bare Legs and The Evil of Layering Two (not “too”) Tight T-Shirts That Are Not The Same Color. And then approving members of the audience raised their hands and described other evils like Attending The Temple Wearing Flip-Flops. It was when A told me about how Sweet Sister had another sister stand up next to her as a visual aid of what not to do (poor Visual Aid Sister was wearing a T-shirt and skirt to church) that I felt Woman-To-Be-Reckoned-With raising her proud head. Oh, honey, if I had been there. If I had been there.

So maybe that Woman is inside me. But maybe it’s good that I keep her buried most of the time. Hopefully she will come out when needed (like during renegade RS lessons and when I hear my kids being bullied) and then . . . hear me roar.

Added later:
Wait a minute. I just realized something. Maybe I would feel more like a woman and less like a girl if I wore nylons to church in the summer and eliminated all T-shirts! You think? . . . .NAH!

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Bowled over by C. S. Lewis again

“There was utter silence all around me. And now for the first time I knew what I had been doing. While I was reading, it had, once and again, seemed strange to me that the reading took so long; for the book was a small one. Now I knew that I had been reading it over and over—perhaps a dozen times. I would have read it forever, quick as I could, starting the first word again almost before the last was out of my mouth, if the judge had not stopped me.”



This passage doesn’t mean much when you haven’t read the whole book, but it’s from C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, and it is incredibly moving to me. It’s spoken by Orual, who feels she has been wronged, or wrongly understood, all of her life, and finally gets a chance to tell her side of things, which she has written into a book. She eagerly reads the book to the gods, one of whom is a great judge, knowing that now she will get justice. But she realizes as she reads it how whiny it sounds—realizes, in fact, that all her life she has been telling herself this story about what happened, and that maybe it didn’t happen that way after all: maybe, even, she has been not only wrong, but aware she was choosing to see things wrongly all that time.

This passage was moving to me for same reason any passage is moving to me: I recognized it. That’s me, reading a book to some judge, reading it over and over, hoping for some justification—and yet, deep down, dealing with this tiny worry that I’m not quite so heroic as I’ve been painting things, that maybe I saw things wrong when they happened, and that this grudge I’ve been holding is not only detrimental to me (that much is true of any grudge) but also completely unfounded.

It remains one of my biggest sins that I continue to label people. “He is the guy who did that to me ten years ago.” “She is the woman who always does this.” “She can’t take criticism.” “He is just the type that demands constant praise.” “I am the mediocre poet trying to pretend I have something to say.” I can’t stand this about myself, this repeated reading of old books.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Fear

I've been thinking a lot about fear. It seems that I have gotten into the habit of it. First, I've got this bad habit (after a year of illness) of doing an almost constant scan of my body, making note of all of the ways that I don't feel 100% well. I'm really doing quite well, but I'm sure that anyone, at any given time, has some kind of ache or unease somewhere—that's part of having the complicated machine that is a body. But normal, "well" people don't pay attention to the little things. I do, because I am afraid. "Does that mean I'm still not well? Is it another clue about what's been ailing me?"

I'm sick of the fear. I'm ready to be done with it.

I fear other things, too. One of the very deepest reared its ugly head yesterday. We had a Relief Society lesson on service, which was taught by a woman who served a mission at the Humanitarian Center. She showed a video that came from the Center that included lots of footage of starving kids, refugees, etc. I cried all through it—not out of pity for the people who have real problems (though I do feel that, deeply)—but out of my own frustration at my inability to feel like I am doing any real good in the world, and my inability to know what it is God would like to have me do right now. This is an old struggle for me. I have asked for so many blessings, so much counsel on the subject. I am deeply envious of people who seem to feel guided by God at every juncture of their lives, big and small. Currently, I feel this great void when I ask for guidance about what I ought to be involved in.

So I keep stumbling along, not really "anxiously engaged,"—more like "anxiously bumbling"—dabbling here and there in the good causes that surround me. I want to feel a great mission. I want to be called. I'm at the point where I have more free time, but not really structured free time, so I can't get a job or go back to school yet. But I could be doing SOMETHING.

But what?

So where does the fear fit in? I don't really think that God is going to punish me for not guessing His mind and picking the right good thing to be involved in. I guess what I'm afraid of is wasted time. I'm afraid of my own regrets. Of course, at the root of this is a failure to live in the present (AGAIN). I'm not only skipping to the future, but I'm skipping to the future of looking back to the past! Please!
Sigh. I see that my life will be a sequence of cycles, dealing again and again with the same issues.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Sappy Mormon Art

I was fascinated by Eric Samuelson’s essay about Saturday’s Warrior in the most recent issue of Irreantum. The thing is that I agree with everything Eric says about that play. But it’s strange for me because I simply can’t look at that play objectively. I can’t stand back far enough, because I grew up on it. I had all those songs memorized before I ever understood what the play was about. I grew up on the gags, gauging my maturity by how many more jokes or cultural references I caught each time I saw it. The songs are so much a part of me that even now if I hear the soundtrack it feels the same to me as if I were hearing my mother’s voice singing a familiar lullaby.

But in my adult, post-college life, I have been highly critical of Mormon art that is simplistic or simplistically moralistic because I recognize its potential for harm. I hate stories that teach lies for the sake of happy endings. I hate anything pat. I hate Mormon kitsch.

An example (and I hope I don’t offend anyone here) is a sign on the wall of some dear friends of mine that says, “Failure is not an option” (a cute quote from Apollo 13, meant to be applied to life, of course). Now, knowing these people, I’m pretty sure that they have explained to their children what constitutes true failure when it comes to the gospel (which is, of course, failing to recognize that everyone needs the atonement and true failure is simply refusing to use it when you mess up). But think: someone who doesn’t understand the atonement whose parents might have hung that up in his house could use the quote to get himself deeper into depression. Could a visitor who is trying to repent of a major sin come to their house and see that sign and be led further on the road to despair? Maybe. And so I hate the sign.

Also (and again, the potential to offend here is high), I hate the poem “Footprints” because I think it teaches false doctrine—or rather that it twists things. It is an important part of my testimony that God sometimes expects us to take a few steps all by ourselves (“alone,” if you will). You may argue that the poem is just saying that even when we are walking alone, the Lord is near. But you are arguing about meaning, not about what the poem says. If you read it carefully, you see that the poem is really saying that we never take any steps alone. And I disagree. Further, I think it is debilitating to a person’s spiritual progress for her to believe that she will never take any steps alone in this life, and that this wrong belief could lead, again, to despair.

So I bet I would have been right there with Eric and his offendedness if I had seen it for the first time as a twenty-year-old instead of as a child, and I wonder if the play affected me negatively in subconscious ways. Has it influenced my decisions about birth control, for example? Or in the choice of a spouse? Honestly, I think it probably did. I remember struggling with the idea of there being one person “out there” for me when I was making a decision about marriage (both times). I did, thankfully, finally come to reject that idea, but it was there in my mind to be wrestled with. Did I get it from Saturday’s Warrior? Maybe.

On the other hand, I do know also that some of those songs have touched me deeply. I’m thinking right now of the one that starts, “I take a paper in my hand, and with a pencil draw a man.” I have felt, through some of those songs, my heart yearn towards God. I have felt the Spirit. And so I have to be careful about looking down my nose on what I call “kitsch.” Because everyone is on their own spiritual journey, and it is not impossible for you to feel the Spirit through something that might offend me, even if it teaches false doctrine. So I’m becoming a little more reluctant about being vocal in my criticisms of specific LDS artworks. It’s a tricky line for me, because I believe strongly that we won’t improve, as a community, in the quality of art we’re producing until we become less timid about criticizing the mediocre and maudlin. I need to put my money where my mouth is and speak up when I think things are cheaply sentimental, or which are getting honor and money for “having a good message” and (gulp) “not having anything offensive.”

I think the answer is, for me, anyway, to look at the artist before I criticize, and also look at who might be hearing my criticism. If I believe the artist is truly an artist (and thus capable of learning from criticism and then becoming better in response to it), it’s worthwhile for me to construct a careful and true critique. And if my critique will be read by others who understand criticism and its role (as opposed to the little old lady down the street who has cross-stitched “I didn’t say it would be easy” on her pillows), I should be, if not ruthless, then at least rigorous in my review. But there is no place for me to pull my neighbor aside and explain why her poster of “Footprints” is offensive to me.

I’m hoping, of course, that my blog is an appropriate place to put my opinions about these things. But I know I could be offending you, dear reader. So if I have, forgive me and know that I am still getting tears in my eyes every time that little baby cries at the end of “Who Are These Children Coming Down.”