My Turn on the Bus

Oh. Boy. Today was a doozy.

Have I taken on too much?

Today is not the best day for me to ask that question.

While I Was Away

I always think that Warren Buffet speaks such good sense. This time is no exception.

Emotional Posting

My previous comments about Utah and my vacation were a bit jumbled. Visiting my family in Utah does make me feel conflicted, though I think I came across in a couple of ways that weren't intended. I will try to clarify here a bit, though without specifics, it may be hard.

First of all, we have no current intention to move. My thoughts are for the long term. In a year I have an adjustable rate mortgage that will need attention; in two years I will have a variety of employment options and all of my kids in school all day; I will also have a child entering middle school. In the current economy it is hard to say if thinking ahead is helpful . . . or just frusturating. If we want to make life changes then two years from now is a great time to do it. The question is whether or not that move will be to a house down the street with a laundry room that doesn't double as a garage, or if that move will be a major life change.

Mike's late comments on the post were well-taken. Of course making a decision to stay or go doesn't mean more or different revelation won't come later. However, as I have gotten more settled in our current community, and ponder on my own growing up, I have begun to feel strongly that there are very real merits to putting down roots. And yes, the blog is still going to be titled "Nomad." A person might relieve restlessness in a lot of ways that don't involve renting a moving van. I finished Little Women; Jo ultimately started a school. Hm . . . .

Mike's comments were further noted: I agree absolutely that a righteous family can be raised anywhere. And so can an unrighteous family. I also recognize that even doing your best and being very committed as parents still won't take away kids' choices. I was misunderstood in my previous post if I seemed to be saying that all Utah Mormons are a certain way. I certainly don't believe that, and I willingly admit that I am largely a product of a small-town Utah background. I do think, however, compared to where I have been living, and feel very comfortable living, the outward trappings of success and properity in Utah are so apparent. Coming from a state with some deep economic depression to a place that changes dramatically every time I come (more businesses, homes creeping further and further up the hills . . .) is, quite truthfully, overwhelming.

And there are some very good-looking people in my parents' ward. And my parents live in an affluent area. And there are some incredibly righteous people in my parents' ward. Many of them are the same people. Many of them have had deep and difficult trials--they just don't happen to be things that show up when you are looking at their lovely faces and homes. Based on the friends I have had over the years, I can't really have any other opinion. I do apologize if I came across otherwise.

I know that if we stay in Oregon we will sacrifice some of of the loveliest things about my own childhood, but we will have other opportunities. I guess. Those things are unknown. I am not sure if it takes courage to strike out on a new path, or if I'm just avoiding the going back to Utah thing because being there makes me remember things that I have long tried to put behind me. Maybe staying away is just running.

So here is my short list of things I do really love/like about Utah. I can be reasonable.

1. The view from my mother's deck. When the air quality is good (half the time?) you can see 20 miles.

2. The radio station 101.9 The End. Nobody else has one like it. I heard new songs from bands I didn't think existed any longer.

3. The accent. It is just so funny. When I miss it I can just tune into RS or Young Women's General Conference.

4. A church on ever corner. My kids get a kick out of counting them.

5. There are just so many temples. *sigh*

6. Logan. I could do a whole post on what I love about Logan. Oh, wait, I have. What a glorious couple of days of true homecoming I had there.

7. The local high school and its unchanging rhythms--two a day football practice, early morning range, the teacher parking lot filling up before school begins next week, the red and black tee-shirts in the local grocery store.

8. Seeing people I know almost every where I go.

9. Wards and primaries chock-a-block full of people.

10. Aggie Ice Cream, turkey steaks, Creamies . . . you know, the food you can only get in Utah. Don't miss the Jell-o so much. (My sister brought "Y" shaped jigglers to the family party.)

11. Family parties following a day on Dad's boat.

All wasn't well this time. There was a degree of drama that threatened to overwhelm everyone. I was glad to be able to walk away, but feel guilty for not being there at the same time. Conflict, conflict, conflict. . . . maybe it isn't Utah. Maybe it is family. Maybe it is me.

The Help

More on my Utah trip later, but this is just a quick note to tell you that you must go see The Help. Tonight if possible.

Sunset

I find myself terribly discontent when I visit "home." Utah, that is. I'm not sure why. I can never decide if it is that I still miss this place that really is home to me in many ways, or if I wish to move back here to see family more often so that we don't feel like such outsiders when we come. Or is it that the houses are bigger, the hair bleachier and the women prettier? Maybe the discontent stems less from a desire to come to "Zion" and more from the overwhelming feeling of being unsuccessful, at least by a certain standard. After church today, Plantboy, one of the best-looking men I've ever met, said, "I don't think we are good-looking enough to live in Utah."

Whatever it is, this vacation has not been revitalizing in the least. I have loved seeing so much family, but we've been non-stop in the car for three days and really aren't done yet. The longer we stay away from family, however, the stronger the sense of being an outsider fills me. Yet, at the same time, I cannot shake the solid truth that this community in which my parents have been a part for 40 years helped to form exactly the person I have become.

The mission for which I departed 15 years ago today is largely responsible too.

I think the mission might be part of the conflict. For twenty-one years I lived in the same community, surrounded by people who did the same. Even at college I was close to my extended family. Generation after generation with little alteration from the ones before. I suppose that I expected to do the same. Settle close to parents. Visit on Sundays. Have my own children grow up around their cousins doing the things that kids in a certain social strata are expected to do. Dance lessons. Sports. Church. I suppose. Though I think even from a young age I felt vaguely dissatisfied and restless with the cliche.

Enter Australia.

Exit a woman no longer content with the ordinary.

In the next few years it will be important for us to make some decisions because Jedi Knight is getting older, and if Utah has taught me anything this time around, it is that putting down some roots is important. Will we stay put, accepting the economic downturn and the spiritual knowledge given to Plantboy just a few weeks before taking his job in Eugene that the Church in Oregon needed us? Will we trust the Lord enough that our unique little boys will be able to make it in schools where there are the merest handful of LDS kids? Am I willing to sacrifice the kind of childhood I had for one of greater opposition that might make them powerful men? Or will we move closer to family for an idyllic support system that might only be in my head? Will we start over again, economically speaking, in our forties, and be strong enough not to care that we live in a small house that is decidedly in the valley and not on the hill? Do we move where there are more members of the church so that we can slip into blissful anonymity because couples like us abound? Do we stay put because we have a much greater capacity to serve where we are?

I feel so weak right now, and not at all up to the task of navigating my dear little mannies through the next phase we are now entering. But I have to be. There is no one else.

Tonight I was driving straight west from my brother's house to get back to my parents' house when I saw the most gorgeous sunset I've seen for years. My emotions were full as I looked at the scene. My heart was touched at the impression of the Spirit reminding me that God loves me immensely, but that most of my own human accomplishments will be weak and frail compared to what God can do. I felt enormously loved and properly humbled at the same time.

O God, Thou hast always shown us the way forward now. Please see fit to do so again. And if it is the direction I begin to think it will be, then please, O Lord, grant us the strength to hold our family together and to sacrifice cheerfully whatever Thou asks.

Little Women

I love how the girls in Little Women patiently submit to their lots in life with zest, enthusiasm and obedience. Trials stemming from rebelliousness are temporary and soon ended with a kind word from "Marmee."

There should be a personality test for women in which you are identified as a Meg (bustling, domestic, motherly, likes nice things but is willing to sacrifice, proper, musical); a Jo (rebellious, rough, tomboy, restless, literary, unconventional); a Beth (charitable to a fault, kind always, still, faithful, also musical) or an Amy (elegant, tactful, artistic, the center of her social circle).

I've always most identified with Jo, though in some ways the above description isn't necessarily self-fitting. On a recent reading, Jo's main character trait that stands out to me is her restlessness. What suspends belief is that when she is married and more or less settled with her old professor and a houseful of boys is that all restlessness ends for her: maybe the houseful of boys was enough movement for her. Or not. Alcott herself was pretty much Jo, though she never married. The last chapter of her novel reads like her own castle in the air that isn't really grounded in reality. I can almost see Alcott in the garrett of smallish home, writing her prose and pining away for a man who would never come. Her father was a great friend to Thoreau: perhaps he was her ideal man in the way the professor was to Jo.

I am very restless this week. As we plan our annual pilgrimage to Utah, during which Plantboy and Jedi Knight are going to take an awesome canoeing trip, I cannot help but think that women spend a lot of time standing still while men get to move. And I am still having trouble learning to be still. I know that some of it is situational--my kids are still quite young--but it doesn't change things a whole lot. And we train them from a very young age to think this way: our girls go to Girl's Camp for long afternoons of crafts, a few water games, lots of cooking lessons and touchy-feely self-esteem boosting type activities. The teenage boys? They left this morning for a 50 mile backpack trip this week. In my mind it should be pretty clear which type of activity is more character-building, and yet we persist in defining kids almost wholly by their sex.

Oh, I am so restless. Graduate school this summer was very easy as I took an introduction class. Maybe as the challenges arise in the fall I won't feel like my spirit is trying to crawl out of my skin.