On Miracles

Every few years I feel like I re-examine what it means to have faith. I'm not talking about whether or not to be a part of a Faith . . . using the word in a way that it makes it synonymous with religion, or insert the name of a certain church. No, I believe that your relationship to a church, while certainly being an element of faith, is separate from the question of faith as an expression of deep belief that inspires you to action. 

Two events have unfolded in the last few months in my life that have cause this re-examination to take place. The first is that a friend of mine was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. Despite symptoms of major colon issues, she spent several months praying and believing that whatever she had going on would just clear up. I don't see her as a person who believes in faith healing, per se, but she did spend several weeks with whooping cough last summer before her very practical teenage son insisted she go to the doctor. I think she is busy . . . she has seven children and a hundred things she enjoys doing. I think she puts off such visits, as many of us do, thinking we'll eventually get better on our own. 

Anyway, by the time she was diagnosed, she had a malignant tumor the size of a golf ball obstructing her bowel. It obstruction was discovered Friday and they had the surgery scheduled by Monday. While hospitalized, all of her lymph nodes were checked and cleared as cancer free. The tumor was completely excised and she won't even undergo chemo or radiation. 

And yet, despite my very real gratitude for her clean bill of health, I have had a hard time getting my head around the language of miracles she and her husband have so freely spoken of in the last few weeks. You see, many years ago, my family likewise fasted and prayed for a miracle and my aunt died of colon cancer anyway. She had a family of young children and was just 34 years old. Our lives are in God's hand and we are subject to natural processes. We cannot change His mind nor erase the fact that we are born to eventually die. 

I am not the best at prayer, or maybe faith, but as I get older I have come to believe, as CS Lewis once spoke, that we don't pray to change God, we pray to change ourselves. And yet, of the many prayers uttered in my friend's behalf the Sunday before she went to her surgery, I heard very little thy-will-be-done type prayers and very many of those other types. Please Lord, give us exactly what we want.

From my friend's Facebook page,  "My heart is so full of deep gratitude for the results I learned today. . . To deny the reality of a divine creator, a merciful God and a loving Savior would deem me an ignorant fool in not recognizing to whom the power of the prayers of so many has blessed the preservation of my life and the ability to continue to love and serve and raise my children and others upon this earth for some while longer. I'm very grateful for all the love and support our family has been given and received during such a challenging time. Faith precedes the miracle. I love you all."

This is a lovely, public expression of gratitude and her faith, already very strong, is clearly stronger now. 

But what about when faith does NOT come before a miracle? My thoughts of my aunt have been very heavy in the last few weeks. I will not deny that her family has indeed experienced miracles, and I know that her daughters have at times felt their mother very near as they have grown. But it has been a very, very hard road for them in many ways. They dealt with trials as children (related to their mother's death and their father's subsequent, disastrous re-marriage) that I can hardly even begin to comprehend. I don't think I could ever say that any child is better off without their loving, and lovely mother. I know that God is in charge of the universe, but I also know that he wouldn't be God if he intervened every time we were uncomfortable. Part of what makes Him God is that He allows the world to proceed as it will, so that we can learn and grow from this experience. Even when it means we suffer. Especially when it means we suffer.

My friend's faith is lovely. Beautiful. Almost childlike in its simplicity and trust. 

It is not a faith that works for me. And when I read her piece I felt strongly that such simple expression belittles those who have prayed in great faith . . . with the greatest faith they knew and still not received the hoped for blessing. I hope that I would not imply to another that if they just had a little more faith they would see a few more miracles. For nothing is more personal than faith.

The second thing that has happened is the process of selling our home and buying another. It has been a ride. In June, after bidding on two homes, I was practically ready to give up and just chuck it all in for a while, continuing to endure the small house. I had begun praying for patience, humility and most of all, gratitude for all that I'd been given rather than discontent for what I didn't have. 

And then the house we wanted came through. Not luck or even coincidence. It was an empty short sale and we hounded the neighbors until we got the needed information and put the process in to play. That process was much shorter than expected (as noted in an earlier post) and we have spent many hours in the last few weeks making sure our financing was in place--a tricky proposition because we had no contract on the home in which we currently live.

In the past weeks, many have told me to pray that the new house would come through and the old one would sell. You've earned this! You deserve it! You do the right things, God will bless you! I have heard each of these and more from my delightfully sweet friends who have more faith in general, and certainly more faith in me than I have in myself.

But I couldn't do it. Not once have I been able to bring myself to my knees to pray specifically for this particular blessing. I just couldn't. The world is such a hot mess right now. There is actual suffering and pain and . . . well, I'm sure you can watch the news as well as I can. About three weeks ago, I was on my knees, knowing we needed a blessing. We nearly ran to the point of bankruptcy with a house nine years ago; I am deeply fearful to go through that again. 

I found there were things I could pray about. I prayed that if it was a bad idea then our loan wouldn't come through. I prayed that whatever happened we would not be foolish enough to clean out the boys' mission fund. I prayed that we would continue to be generous with our time and talents despite our greater obligations.

And then I had a moment of inspiration during my jumbled prayer of desperation. This scripture came to mind from Luke:

27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

 28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

 29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.

 30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.

 31 ¶But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

And I finally knew what to pray for.

I spent a happy fortnight praying for experiences that would allow me to serve others. Oh, I still did all the things necessary to work on getting the house, etc. And I still worried. I can't help it; it is my nature to do so. But little by little I was able to let go of really caring if it went one way or the other. I felt the joy of spontaneous chances to serve and was able to sleep. I felt at peace with whatever happened next.

We fasted 9 days ago, but I was in a better place to do so. Our fasting was about gratitude and a desire to serve and give our boys a place to grow and gather with their friends. I was finally able to approach my question with proper humility and in the right frame of mind, but with trust that it would all proceed as it must.

Four days ago, We got a perfect offer on our house the same day our new one was recorded in our name.

Getting the new house feels like a LOT of hard work over the past year. Selling the house we are in? That feels like a miracle. The scriptures tell us that faith precedes the miracle. I don't doubt it. But in my case, I had to learn a lesson in faith first. The miracle isn't selling the house. The miracle is the change in heart. Maybe the miracles are not what others see, but what we come to understand as we learn to exercise faith.

I didn't pray about the house, though I've expressed much gratitude since. I am coming to see more and more that my prayer needs to be a supplication to the Father of the Universe that he will find a way to use me. I don't think it is fair for me to ask anything else. God will bless us as he will, but I am going to try to focus less on the the blessings I think I need and more on how I might be a blessing to others and recognize more miracles as they come, while allowing others to see what miracles they see as well. 

Oh, I'm still the girl that would go get checked out right away, if I was dealing with the symptoms my friend had, but it doesn't mean I have to be a skeptic either. By seeing the world as it is maybe I'm better able to help it. Maybe my leap of faith, my gift, is to feel the doubt about so many different things and still behave as though there is no doubt. To not know of a surety, but to still plead that the Lord will help mine unbelief.

Control

The other day on Facebook I saw a quote that somebody had posted related to the way we should live our lives. You know, one of those things in a cheezy font with a soothing picture. It went like this, "The reason many people in our society are miserable, sick, and highly stressed is because of an unhealthy attachment to things they have no control over.”

It is an interesting idea, and probably worth looking at a little bit more closely. 

First of all, I don't really think that our life is meant to be some never-ending bliss. I don't think think that God intends for us to be uptight and unhappy all the time, of course, but years ago Elder Maxwell coined the term "divine discontent" that I find very apropos.  To me, divine discontent is like the voice of Mufasa whispering from beyond the veil, "You are more than you have become . . . remember!" It is through our falling down and rising again, our righteous ambitions, our trying just a little bit harder to love a little bit more that we remember who we are. Sometimes this causes a little bit of stress. After all, isn't stress that gap between where we are and where we want to be?

Don't get me wrong. I think we need to be very honest about running-faster-than-we-have-strength. I am very bad at this. But there is a big difference between accepting that we cannot affect the outcome of every situation and ceasing to try affecting any outcome at all. 

I have always been a Type A personality. Here is some insight into that: I told Plantboy the other day that it was going to a huge adjustment for me to begin using my Franklin-Covey planner as an app in my iPad instead of a physical book, because I had been carrying one for 25 years. He looked at me a bit askance . . . 25 years?  Yes, that's right. I started carrying my first planner when I was 13. It is in my nature to attempt to control nearly everything.

I went through a phase in my 20's when I hated this about myself. Everyone seemed more relaxed. More happy. More able to go with the flow. Etc. Etc. I was convinced that it was this thing about me that had broken off my first engagement. I sometimes feared it would prevent me from ever finding happiness in my marriage. Of course, this self-loathing was exacerbating my stress.

One day, after a very long talk with my mother, I had a revelation of sorts. It seemed that the thing to do was embrace my personality as it was instead of forever trying to change it. And something remarkable happened. I saw that it was this part of me that had given me the ability to work very hard as a missionary, to finish college and be so successful in my chosen career. It was this thing that allowed me to juggle so much and help others. It was this part of me that made me reliable and  dependable. I accepted the level of stress that came with who I am fundamentally, and began to understand what it takes for me to manage that stress.

Back to the control issue. After a YW program I was a part of some time ago, a woman in our group (decidedly not Type A) spoke with a great deal of enthusiasm after the project was over about how God always steps up and makes these things good. Her comment gave me great pause as I thought about all the hours I (and others) had put in to make the program successful. While I agreed with her that the Lord had sanctified our performance and had blessed us with the Holy Ghost that night, I didn't agree that God would have done so had our preparation been faulty, or less than all we had to give. 

So over the years I've learned that I can control the level of service I give to a thing . . . and that the more I'm willing to give the better it often turns out. Particularly if I have served prayerfully. I have learned that great and loving volunteers can make a whole school, and by extension a community, a better place. I've learned that I have a large deal of control (or at least influence) in my own home regarding a whole host of things--from my children's nutrition to their spiritual insights to their attitudes. I have a lot of control over my husband's happiness. Their behavior out "there" reflects pretty well what we are doing in here. And yet, keeping a clean home, making sure homework is done, driving them places, attending all our church meetings, fixing healthy meals (you know the drill) causes stress and wears me down. Perhaps this is my basic personality. Perhaps it is just life.

The idea that I could somehow have less stress by giving up on a lot of this because I cannot control how my children turn out is ludicrous to me. When it comes to it, I cannot make their choices for them, but I can help them to come from a place where they understand fully the paths in front of them and understand about revelation that will lead them to the right path. On paper it looks like such a simple thing. In practice, creating the childhood and community you want for your children is a daily battle between what is easy and what is right. Where you are, and where you want to be. It is stressful. I wonder if it is supposed to be.

If you haven't yet read "Letter to a Doubter" by Terryl Givens, you really should. This excerpt occurs near the end, 

"The option to believe must appear on one’s personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension. Fortunately, in this world, one is always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial. We are acted upon, in other words, by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our egos. What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.

"The call to faith, in this light, is not some test of a coy god, waiting to see if we “get it right.” It is the only summons, issued under the only conditions, which can allow us fully to reveal who we are, what we most love, and what we most devoutly desire. Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts. Like the poet’s image of a church bell that only reveals its latent music when struck, or a dragonfly that only flames forth its beauty in flight, so does the content of a human heart lie buried until action calls it forth. The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not."

More than any other thing I've ever read that helps me to understand what God meant when he told Abraham that we would be "proved herewith." It isn't a test just to mess with us because God is powerful enough to do it. It is our chance to demonstrate our deepest desires and yearnings. Our choices are a chance to reveal our innermost self. Our choice to faith, to action, to attempt to exert some influence on the world around us when all the logic and darkness and natural-man-ness says it is just easier to give up control and be stress-free.

I choose action. And for me that means an acceptance of stress. For me to be otherwise is to shut that voice from the other side of the veil that is constantly calling me to look up and remember.

Spring Break 1994

Though not as fun as last year's spring break trip to the Redwoods, our break this year has been equally memorable. It will best be told through pictures, but not today. Today I am going to flash back seventeen years.

Just typing that seems preposterous, for some of the events from that spring still seem as fresh as if they happened this year. This is the story of my spring break freshman year. Before you get excited for juicy tales of some hedonistic lifestyle choices, I should tell you that this is not that kind of story. That I don't actually have any stories like that. And, well, if you like that sort of thing you should just find another blog to read.

My roommate, Pocohantas (the original Naked Mole Rat, I've mentioned her before), started college with a boyfriend. He wasn't exactly "in tow" as he stayed behind in our home town, a scant hour away. He put off a serious pursuit of college while waiting to go on his mission. I hesitate to say "preparing" to go on a mission, because like many other young men in his position, he worked a little and played a lot. Pocohantas, on the other hand, hit the ground running at college. She wanted to be an optometrist and had to support herself through college and so she had little time to waste.

The summer between high school and college was one of those idyllic times for Pocohantas and Beau. (I had half a summer like that once.) They left their childhoods behind with a bang: drive-in movies, bridge-jumping, a backpacking trip to the Continental Divide, hanging out at the dam, waterskiing . . .

As Beau's birthday wasn't until the spring, he was a frequent weekend visitor at our apartment. When he didn't come, Pocohantas went home. Besides dating Beau, she also worked a part time job selling wedding dresses to bridezillas every Saturday. Her schedule intensified as her classes got harder, science classes designed to select against all but the very fittest. Money grew tighter than expected and she took another job at a local sweatshop making back packs every afternoon.

It is entirely possible that as Pocahontas got busier, Beau got more laid back. He took a few cursory classes at the college, but spent a big chunk of the winter skiing. Pocahontas hated the skiing, though not because it represented just how uninterested Beau was in growing up, but because he was such a daredevil. She finally had to ask him just to stop telling her the stories because they made her freak out.

Yes, this is a spring break story, bear with me through a bit more back story. In November of 1993, a beloved Aunt, in her early 30's was diagnosed with malignant colon cancer after dealing with flu-like symptoms for nearly two months. She was given an open and shut operation the over Thanksgiving holidays. Opened to cut out the offending portion of the colon, and closed when the doctor saw that her abdomen was filled with cancer, and that full surgical removal was impossible. They began an aggressive course of treatment.

Beau received his mission call to Washington D.C., and as young men are prone to do (and, admittedly, young women), he became even more protective of the time that he and my roommate had together. And though he never asked Pocahontas to "wait" for him, it was clear that his fondest hope was that she would still be around when he came back. You see, he had loved her enough to change his whole life for her. Early on in high school, he was headed down a road that wouldn't bring him any happiness, but after meeting Pocahontas, he wanted to do whatever it took to be her guy. Beau was the perfect combination of rebel-factor and Darcy Effect. But even as he turned his life around, he never lost that mischievous charm that made him so much fun.

Back in the day, USU was on quarters, and so Spring Break was preceded by Winter Semester finals. Apartment 41 was a madhouse of caffeine, late nights, oddly-timed power naps and b.o. Early in that busy week, Beau called Pocahontas, with no little frustration over her inability to commit to spending more time with him. He would, after all, be leaving in just over two weeks. Even during the break she was scheduled to work every day at the gown shop. Just before hanging up with a few cursory endearments, he said, "You are spending spring break with me. One way or another."

Then came other phone calls.

The first was my newly-engaged older brother to tell me that he had been scheduled for emergency surgery during spring break because of a birth defect that had caused his lung to partially, spontaneously collapse.

Another call came from my mom. A childhood friend had been involved in a terrible car accident in a late Utah snow storm. She was in intensive care with her jaw wired shut and a leg full of pins.

The third call came from my mom also. My aunt, just over four months after diagnosis, had died. Her funeral would be over spring break. She was survived by a young, grieving husband and four shell-shocked kids ages 2-12.

But it was the fourth call that really turned the world upside down.

It was for Pocahontas.

Beau had been in a bad skiing accident. He had been life-flighted to the hospital and was in intensive care in very unstable condition. He would spend three months in a coma. And he was right--Pocahontas spent every single day of Spring Break with him.

On the first day of the break, my dad had to drive to eastern Utah to look at an area near where his company was bidding a road construction job. It was the middle of nowhere. He invited me to come along and I went for it, knowing that I could spend hours in the car and not really need to talk if I didn't want to. I didn't.

When we arrived at our destination, I got out of the car and walked around a bit, staring out over the sparse, still un-vegetated landscape. And I asked a lot of questions. I'm not sure if I directed them at God, who wasn't my favorite Person at that point, or just threw them out to the universe, but I know that for the first time I really questioned the meaning of existence, and the worth of all I'd been taught. I suddenly felt very strongly that I had to know if religion in general, and mine specifically, was just a series of fairytales people had invented in a lame attempt to feel better when awful things happened, or if the things I'd always been taught were truth. THE Truth.

Later that week, I sat in the car at a rain-soaked cemetery waiting for everyone to arrive at the internment. As I looked out the foggy window, I saw my uncle standing at the graveside in a black trenchcoat and holding a black umbrella. His three oldest children clung to his legs and his baby, with his sprinkling of freckles and his mother's red hair, cuddled against his shoulder as if he would never let go. Even now, 17 years later, it is a picture that still comes unbidden to me sometimes, a constant reminder that each life is fleeting and that things shouldn't be left unsaid.

On that day, I questioned more than ever.

In the months to come, I got serious about my questions. I spent many hours on my knees, pleading for peace and revelation. And then, it came. I still remember the chair in which I was sitting, the book that I was reading, and the words that settled with such clarity on my heart. I've never regressed to the person I was before that time.

Pocahontas continued her biweekly visits to Beau's bedside throughout the spring--even when they moved him to a hospital two hours away. Always the most social and outgoing girl in our class, she became withdrawn, tired and alone. My heart ached to help her, knowing that I had so little to give that she needed. Already a young woman of remarkable faith, her own questions were probably deeper than mine. When she happened to be around, we would spend our time in deep conversations. I remember her saying to me once that so many people kept telling her things happened for a reason, that there were lessons to be learned from each situation, that God was always in charge. She hoped nothing she had to learn in life would be so important that Beau and his family had to suffer so terribly. I cried when she said it and told her I didn't think it worked that way. But I'm still not sure.

What I do know is that the Lord can bless us with peace and knowledge even when your whole world is falling apart. I learned that a broken heart is finally soft enough to accept what the Lord wants to give you.

In the aftermath of that awful week, my brother was fine. His lung was repaired and has had no trouble with it since. My friend also came through her accident with flying colors. She now has four beautiful little girls. My uncle has finally come to a place of great happiness and my family has witnessed miracle after miracle in the lives of his children. I firmly believe that my aunt is watching over those much-loved children from the other side and is helping them in many ways. They are some of the strongest twenty-something adults that I know and each is making their mother proud.

As for Beau . . .

I mentioned before that he was in a coma for more than three months. He finally woke up, but he never really came back. He was paralyzed from the waist down because of trauma to his spinal cord. In addition, a massive brain hemorrhage, likely caused on impact, created stroke-like conditions for him, causing him to lose most of the use of one of his hands. It also gave him problems with slurred speech, destroyed his short-term memory, and left him locked in the mind of a six year-old. Remarkably, his happy personality persisted, though his face traded twinkling mischief for disarming innocence. Everyone who knew Beau in the after years loved him. And Pocahontas still did.

Two years later she met a wonderful guy and said the hardest thing about getting engaged was having to tell Beau, but especially his parents. To Beau, hardly any time had passed. He was still going to serve a mission. Still going to marry Pocahontas. Still going to be a star. But to his parents, my friend's happy news reminded them of how much they loved her too, and that she would never be a true part of their lives.

Beau left this life last weekend, in a tragic turn of events that also claimed the lives of his parents. When I heard the news, I, like everyone who had any contact with the family, was shocked and horrified. I found myself again on my knees, pleading for that peace. I know now that some things are beyond understanding, but the Lord can always send peace.

Saturday morning, one of my paper customers left me a lovely bouquet of yellow daffodils. I cried as I picked them up, their cheery faces reminding me that spring always comes again. That the atonement and forgiveness is real. That God's grace makes resurrection and eternal families possible. I was reminded of those lessons learned through the furnace of affliction so many years ago.

Later that day it occurred to me that now Beau is getting a chance to serve the kind of mission he had one day hoped to. And though it isn't a fairy tale, happily ever after really is possible. Good-bye, friend. Your life and suffering weren't in vain. You touched so many lives for good. Everyone who knew you is better for it.

Kreepy Kent And That One Time I Was Stalked

On Sunday I am speaking in church. My preparation has had me thinking about my time as a missionary in Australia. And while most of my memories from those months are amazing, there are others that, at the time, were downright scary. In retrospect, however, these memories are just plain funny. As my last several posts have been all issue-y, I decided it was time for one that was not.

A bit of background on LDS missionaries for those who may not know--women generally serve missions in their early 20's (no younger than 21); missionaries live a fairly strict set of rules, both for safety and to help them focus on the task at hand; female missionaries are called "sister" in front of your last name, but we aren't nuns and celibacy (thank goodness) is a condition with a time limit.

I'm not sure how Kent's obsession with the sister missionaries started, nor can I remember exactly why he started studying the Church anyway. This disclaimer might help explain why some details are a bit fuzzy.

In my memory, Kent looks like Will Farrell. From the Saturday Night Live Cowbell Skit. I could never really decide what his personality was like. Perhaps the word "multiple" would be most appropriate here.

Kent was studying with the elders (the boy missionaries) which was totally appropriate, but I think it was the sisters he had met first. Anyway, after some time working with the elders, he complained that they weren't sincere enough, nor patient enough. He would only continue studying the Church if he met with the sisters, so we taught him after our church meetings one day. I was immediately creeped out and had serious doubts about how interested he was in what we were teaching. He seemed mostly content to sidetrack our discussions, share his own agenda and use a lot of tired arguments to convince us of the futility of how we had chosen to spend our lives. And he stared. A lot.

My misgivings were strong enough that after just one meeting, we told him that we weren't really comfortable teaching him and if he was still interested in learning about the Church, the elders would do just fine, thank you very much.

This is about the time that the creepiness appeared. He agreed to go back to the elders, perhaps a little too readily, and then a few days later, through them, he passed on a referral to us. Sweet guy, he'd even gone to the pains to schedule an appointment with them. Because this person, "Goldie," he referred us to lived on the opposite side of the train tracks from us, she was actually in an area where some different sisters worked. Not wanting to sic someone of Kent's acquaintance onto the other sisters (one of whom was probably the prettiest woman I've ever met), we decided to go see Goldie first and if it was all on the up-and-up we would let the other sisters know.

We followed the address, knocked on the door, and guess what?

Yep. Kent answered the door. It was his mother's house. No, she was not at home; no, she wasn't interested in learning more. Kent was quite proud of himself for having found a way to circumvent those "silly boys" so that we could still teach him. Nobody had to know. And yes, by the way, he told us with a sly gleam in his freaky eyes, his nickname was "Goldie."

I know, I was thinking exactly the same thing, what kind of man has the nickname Goldie unless he is a James Bond villian or a mob boss?

We left.

Kent continued coming to church, trying to catch us unawares; which he frequently did. For a big, chubby guy he sure had some mad ninja skills. His favorite thing to do was present us with frangipani flowers, as some children often did. These lovely flowers (often called "plumeria" where they actually grow in the states) fit perfectly in the clip of our name tags and stayed fresh all day. Their smell is divine and it was kind of an Aussie-sister-missionary-thing. Refusal was awkward because then we just looked rude. Accepting them was, obviously, even worse.


Some weeks after the first "referral" he sent another to us. This time, it was actually in our area, information we probably let slip to Kent as he asked for details about where we worked, no doubt to get details about where we lived. Again, Kent had set the appointment time. We conveniently asked the neighboring elders to come and work with us that day, and decided to knock on doors on the street where Kent's appointment was scheduled. We explained the situation to the elders, who thought our spy-work was all great fun and they took the side of the street that would lead them to the appointment-house, though a day early.

No, this was not another address for Kent this time. It was, however, the address of Kent's Baptist minister who had more anti-Mormon literature on his shelf than he had books about all other subjects combined. He gave the elders an earful and then loaded them up with about 85 pamphlets apiece. "You kept them???" I said to the Elders when we met them for lunch.

Our district leader just smiled as he dumped them in the trash, "At least he can't give them to anyone else."

Needless to say, we did not keep our appointment with Kent and his minister. We did, however, have to see Kent at church again and listen to him rant about how we had violated his trust by sending the elders ahead. (Right . . . . because he hadn't ever violated our trust . . . ) We also got a package a few days later. From Kent. Or, I should say, I got a package. That's right, he stopped pretending to be wanting to study with the sisters for the sake of the church and moved straight ahead to his full intentions.

Before opening the package, I was already pretty freaked out. You see, in Australia, you have really tiny post boxes (especially in an apartment), and if a package comes that is too big to fit in the box, then you get a card telling you to come to the post office at your earliest convenience to pick it up. Yet, here was this enormous package on our doorstep. And inside the package was . . . wait for it . . .

A dress.

A teal green, off the shoulder, full skirted, tight-bodiced, formal dress, circa 1987.

That is when the screaming started.

As the package showed up on the doorstep, we assumed that Kent knew where we lived and had lovingly dropped it off himself. We called the Elders, who, bless their boy-hearts, came over immediately and checked out the apartment, only to find two windows in the house that had not been secured and could easily be opened from outside. They helped us tack up sheets on the windows and then sat with us that evening. It was decided that they would frequently check in with us over the next couple of days, and that on Sunday, we would talk to the bishop to get some advice.

On Sunday, we met with Kent, the elders, and the bishopbric. Bishop Purcell was a huge Maori man with soft brown eyes and a heart of gold; one of his counselors was a Tongan who looked like he could have bench-pressed Bishop Purcell. I've never been so grateful in my life to have two Polynesians at my back.

Trying to impress upon Kent the inappropriateness of the gift, he explained our rules to Kent who became very belligerent about him not having to follow our rules, and that he had tried to anyway. He insisted that he had sent the package to our general mission address in Sydney and that he had no idea where we lived. All eyes turned to me. Could this be true--that the package hadn't been addressed in Kent's hand to our apartment at all? I suddenly felt very stupid and over-reactionary. Here we were in this room holding a meeting that would basically bar Kent from ever attending church there again, and it might have been a big misunderstanding. I admitted that it might be entirely possible that the package had been sent through our mission office, but I was also quick to point out that it wasn't appropriate for him to be corresponding with me at all nor for him to send me something that was such an affront to my sense of of fashion.

Then emerged the tender-Kent personality. He became very apologetic and sincere, but something about his manner was raising red flags all over in me. I could see that all of the men in the room were starting to think that while Kent might be a little bit over the top, he was nothing compared to the near-hysterical sister missionary in their midst. And then dear Kent made his fatal mistake.

He took a step nearer to me and called me Princess.

I suddenly felt vicious and took a step closer in return summoning all of the anger in my massive 5'2" frame, all 115 pounds of me (there is more now) poised to attack, no doubt looking like a cat whose hair suddenly stands on end and begins spitting, "Don't you DARE call me that!" I shouted, right in the bishop's office. His completely inappropriate and freaky endearment finally swayed the argument in my direction. My companion held me back in my desire to scratch Kent's eyes out of his hairy face and the bishop said very calmly, "You are welcome to leave the premises of your own volition, or we can escort you."

Ken was at least six feet tall, but he was soft and slow. He cowered in the face of my two Lamanitish protectors and agreed to leave, though he spouted out curses on each of us in turn and the Church in general as he walked down the street toward the bus stop. The bishop and his cohort followed him to the edge of the property, just to be safe.

When my claws retracted, I felt sufficiently embarrassed (hysterics not being my typical modus operandi), but also deeply relieved.

I did not see my charming suitor again, but it didn't stop him from writing to me once in each of the areas I lived after that place. The letters were each sent through the mission office, as was probably the package that broke the camel's back. I never wrote back, even to acknowledge receipt of these letters that read more like manifestos. His first one or two expressed some disgusting, tender expressions that my companions and I would have a great laugh over. The last few of these were rants, more of the variety he expressed when leaving the church that day.

In fact, a letter from Kent was one of the last I received as a missionary. Scheduled to leave the country in just a few days, mail had gotten irregular at best (but then, was it ever anything else?) and I was surprised to receive any missive at all until I noticed the sender's tiny, cramped handwriting in the upper left corner. It had been a long month, my companion and I were both nearly finished with our service, we weren't working with anybody very seriously, it was hot, we were working in a ward (and city) where the main requirement for membership was that you have kangaroos loose in the paddock. (Aussie term meaning, "crazy as a loon.") Our main missionary work in four weeks had consisted of knocking on hundreds of doors for ten hours each day. I was tired; I thought Kent's letter would be worth a laugh.

My companion knew the story and we settled in to the ratty, old couch to have cold cereal for dinner and entertainment. I opened the letter and read the first line aloud in which (the exact words fail me) Kent told me that I was going to hell for my lack of charity, my general misunderstanding of God and my cruel nature. Tears pricked my eyes and I ripped the letter in shreds, feeling that anger inside me again. "I don't have to read this!" I told my surprised companion. "I've been a damn good missionary!" If the "damn" tells you otherwise, well, just note that I didn't say I'd been a perfect missionary. And it was Australia--they have a very loose standard of what constitutes a swear word there.

If my re-telling of this convinces you that Kent was right, and that I lack charity, well, maybe you have a point. Still, I have to write my own story in the way that pleases me best and honestly reflects my feelings. As long as I'm feeling deeply unmerciful to one who caused me to watch my back for two months in Adamstown, Australia in 1997, why don't you share your own stalker stories? Here if they are brief-ish, and on your own blog if it is in the details you find your laughter or catharsis.

Some Things That Don't Make Sense, But ONE Thing That Does

This store is down the street from me:

The modifier confuses me. Mini pets? Or mini market? If it is a mini mart that caters to pets, shouldn't there be a comma? Or does it only sell items geared towards fish, gerbils, rats, chihuahuas and kittens?

But even more than the sign, it is the posters (too small to read from this picture) in the window that are the true enigma. They are all for tobacco products. Yes, that's right, folks, this CHAIN store sells gourmet cigarettes to tiny pets. And maybe chewing tobacco. Haven't pet owners read any of the studies regarding lab rats and cancer? Where is PETA when they might do some good?

And another thing that makes no sense is the spelling of chihuahua.

But local problems aside, I've also found other things to give me true pause this week and break my heart. It is prophesied that in the last days, "men's hearts should fail them." While I'm not sure entirely what this phrase means, I think I felt it last night. The incidence, once again, was Ms. Albright's biography. Her experience, and Robert Woodward's writing express it best. I will quote liberally from her Africa section. She acknowledges the horror of this situation (and others), while also admitting that solutions are hard. If we had intervened too much, there is danger of repeating the lessons of Somalia. If we do too little, it is Rwanda's fate that we might regret. In this section she talks about the horrible events of the late 90's in Sierra Leone.

"[In Sierra Leone], a group known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) waged a brutal struggle for power against a democratically elected government. The rebels showed their contempt for the electoral process by slicing off the hands and arms of those thought to have voted 'wrong' (that is, for the government) as well as the limbs of the voter's children. Since ballots in Sierra Leone are marked by thumbprints, the tactic had a perverse, sadistic rationale.

"In 1999, I saw the horrifying results firsthand during a visit to the Murray Town Amputee Camp. . . [I] was showed where the prosthetics were made and how children were trained to use them . . . these were not wounds that could be made whole, but if there was self-pity in that sun-baked camp, I did not sense it--just sadness and courage. I saw a baby with no arms being held by a mother with one arm. I hugged a three year-old girl named Mamuna who was wearing a red jumper and happily playing with a toy car using the only arm she had. How could any human being have taken a machete to this girl? According to UN officials, much of the maiming was done by child soldiers forcibly recruited and given drugs. To discourage these 'soldiers' from escaping, some were forced to kill members of their own families so they could never return home."

I won't touch the stories of rape found in this section.

Just this week I read a story of two women locally who started a foundation to help a girls' orphanage in Ethiopia. Before starting the foundation, the one woman said, "I was one of those people going, 'You can't save everybody . . . why not just hang out in your own community and not think about everybody on the other side of the world.' " Sound familiar?

These women set out to prove that even two housewives from an obscure hamlet in Oregon can make a difference. Maybe our sphere or influence can be as large as we choose to make it?

Which brings me around to Haiti. As opportunities arise to give aid in the coming weeks and months, I hope I don't forget that we are all on this planet together. That it is our faith and charity that can make sense of horrible tragedies. Instead of losing faith or casting blame on God for such things, I hope I can look inside and recognize an opportunity to do the right thing for those I need to take greater care to view as brothers and sisters.

With the whole world feeling like a maelstrom of impossible situations today, here is the ONE thing I've done in the last 24 hours that was straightforward, wonderful and a service to my whole family. I made dinner. My new favorite dinner. Here is the method and good luck to you:

Asian Sticky Rice Bowls (the latest variation of the recipe found on this post.)

In a large bowl, you layer rice, meat, vegetables, toppings and sauce. This can be modified a hundred different ways, but I'll give you some details about what we've tried here:

Rice--I've found a specialty Asian market that carries short, sticky rice that is also called Sushi Rice. This rice is easy to make, but you have to plan ahead. Soak the rice anywhere between three and six hours before cooking it. It can then either be boiled at a 2:1 water to rice ratio or steamed until it is cooked. Steaming it makes it extra sticky, but takes a little bit longer. This sticky rice is also slightly sweet and gluey. It helps hold everything together. Excellent for those of you brave enough for chopsticks.

Meat--I've used both slow cooked pork for this, but last night we used grilled, diced chicken. Both superb. My kids love it especially when I bread and fry the chicken. (Dip chunks in egg and then a mixture of cornstarch, salt and pepper. When the chicken is well-coated, fry immediately in hot oil until golden brown. Yumm-o.)

Vegetables--Just use whatever! Stir-fry vegetables in hot oil (keep your burner close to high and stir continuously) starting with hard veggies like carrots and celery and working your way through to green beans, red pepper, broccoli, sweet yellow onion and/or water chesnuts, and lastly bean sprouts, green onion, cabbage or bok choy. I don't salt the stir-fried veggies (it makes them limpy) but for another layer of flavor you can mix in some teriyaki or soy sauce. I had some sesame seeds hanging around last night and threw those in too--beautiful!

Toppings--Red pepper flakes, coconut, mandarin oranges, green onion, chow mein noodles, cashews, basil and slivered almonds

Sauce--This is my favorite part. Kikoman now makes a really delicious, thick teriyaki sauce that we used on everything for a while, but we have since found something new. Costco sells the spicy orange sauce that Panda Express uses on their "famous" orange chicken. It is slightly spicy and sweet and probably my new favorite condiment. With this dinner I also put a can of coconut milk (low-fat) on the table. It is a perfect compliment to the orange sauce and adds a creamy mellowness to the whole dinner that makes my tongue do flips.

This meal is great on so many levels. Besides being delicious (duh), everybody gets exactly what they want. Plantboy layers everything into the biggest bowl he can find in the house without embarrassing himself. My kids want the blandest of choices kept separate on their plates. Because, you know, when you are a kid, you think that if the food groups touch each other they might start a rumble. This meal, stripped down to the bare essentials, is quite easy to prepare, but if you present it with all the choices, you have a meal fancy enough for company, or a buffet-style party. Get Chinese take-out cartons to send home leftovers with your guests and they will call tomorrow to thank you again for the lovely evening.

Did I mention that it is beautiful? We ate too fast for pictures. Maybe next time.

The last wonderful thing about this meal is the built in dessert. Stir a teaspoon or two of sugar into your leftover coconut milk and drizzle it into the (now cold) remaining sticky rice. Serve with mandarin oranges and a fortune cookie. Die happy.

If it seems weird to post about such cooking frivolity at the same time I posted about children hacking their neighbors, perhaps it is. But it might just be bright moments of creativity, beauty, and delicious delight that keep us sane. Go out and do something beautiful today to remind yourself that God is still in charge. There is beauty in this place in equal measure with the horror.

And Memory

My trip memories need to be preserved today, but this morning a news report triggered another memory. One much less pleasant, but which has had a powerful impact on my life.

I had been teaching school at my first job for just 3 1/2 months when I got a message over the intercom to go and pick up the phone immediately. This in itself was strange, but when the secretary said that the phone call was from my aunt, the weird meter hit the roof. Was something wrong with my grandmother? My parents? I hurried to the phone in an adjoining teacher's supply room. My aunt proceeded to tell me a story about teenage-gunmen, a hostage situation, SWAT teams, the Trenchcoat Mafia and pipe bombs at a school in south Denver. She wondered if I knew what high school my Colorado cousins attended; she had been unable to reach their dad and I was the next best person to know. Somehow I pulled a memory out of nowhere, "No, I think they go to a Denver school that has an Indian-sounding name."

I was right. My cousins were at Arapaho. Not Columbine. Neighboring schools, same community, same demographic.

I walked back to my students in a daze, repeating what I had heard to them. One student laughed out loud; I looked at him in surprise. He was an extremely nice kid. He backpedaled, "I mean; it just sounds so weird! They must be joking, right? It must all be a big hoax!"

The next day he apologized profusely for his cavalier attitude. Within the week, our school counselor asked us to have a conversation in each class about what had happened. Some classes wanted to talk a lot; other groups brushed it off and wanted to move on. One student, whom I'd never noticed anything strange from, said, "Those jocks got exactly what they deserved." I knew then that the counselor had asked us to talk about it in class both to help the kids work through emotions they might be having, but also to identify those who might sympathize with the perpetrators.

Public schools entered a new era, a post-Columbine era. Teachers, counselors, administration and communities approach bullying differently now. The school safety plan and classroom evacuation procedures are given as much weight as lesson plans. And our trust has eroded just a little bit further. I didn't know that a columbine was a flower until I married my Colorado boy. They grow wild in the Rockies; the ones you buy and plant as perennials in your garden have hardly been engineered at all, and look much the same as the ones you find in unexpected places in the Colorado Fourteeners in the middle of summer. I love these hardy and beautiful flowers. I never seen one now without thinking of that school. Those kids held graduation just a month and a half later: to show they world that they could not be defeated. Those there that day would never to be the same again--in the summer of 1999 I worked at a tutoring center in Denver just after Plantboy and I got married. One of my colleagues was a history teacher at Columbine. He was there that day. He wouldn't talk about it. No doubt the memories were too fresh and painful. Maybe they always will be.

Memories don't always come from things we anticipate. Maybe the most powerful memories are things that surprise us for good or ill. Things that throw us off balance so much that we never look at our lives the same again.

And anticipation doesn't always lead to great memories, nor does anticipation and planning necessarily mean that snafus will not occur. If this doesn't sound like an exactly promising start to a post about a vacation, well, there is reason for that. We knew we should take care of a muffler issue on our family car before heading out of town. We did not. When we DID get it to a shop near my parents' house before heading to Dixie, the mechanic told Plantboy that we were lucky not to have blown ourselves up; the burning smell that had plagued us all the way from Oregon was melting plastic and carpet fibers--from a big hole just inches under our luggage. We got rid of the burning smell only to spill a gallon of water into said carpet from a container with a slow leak. It was too cold in Southern Utah for the car to ever properly dry out and mildew was a constant and aromatic companion for the duration. (I know--it is an enigma. Too cold to dry out and yet warm enough to grow mold.)

As we headed south, the weather seemed to actually get colder. Because of the car issue we were way behind schedule and I called our bed and breakfast at the mouth of Zion Canyon to find out I'd made my booking a week late and there were no vacancies. Thinking that it MUST be their mistake, I called to confirm our second bed and breakfast. Oh, it was actually MY mistake. I booked both places for a week that we would not actually BE in Utah. Perfect. When we stopped to take our first hike, there was about four inches of uber-sticky red mud at the trailhead.


We drove (at least) two hours out of the way in a snowstorm to attend a session at the Manti Temple, which we have never done before. When we pulled up to the temple, the parking lot was practically deserted and the workmen at the front who were dismantling the doors informed us that the temple was on shutdown. This two week hiatus for deep cleaning and noisy and/or messy repairs is generally done in February and again in July. No, the engineer, informed us, with so many temples now in operation, the shutdown periods are staggered.

In ten days we drove 2000 miles. This car-time has been so kind to my back that I think it is finally time to break down and find a chiropractor here in my fair city. The mountain of laundry in the hallway does not rival Mt. Everest, but it probably gets at least K2 status. Today I have two kids with croupy coughs. It is like living with seals.
And yet . . .
We had a wonderful time.
I'll spare you the travel log, and instead I will just show some of my favorite pictures from the trip. I'll try to keep the commentary brief. (After all, brevity is my strong point.) They are not in any particular order. It is hard to say on how many levels I hate the way blogger loads pictures and I just don't have the patience to arrange them chronologically today.


This is the view just outside Capitol Reef National Park. Yes, this is outside the park. I loved this park--in part because I've never been there before and it was cool to try something new. It reminded me a lot of Lake Powell. The south end of CRNP actually touches the Glen Canyon area, which is where Lake Powell is. The mountains all around our bed and breakfast looked just like this. Amazing.

This is Torrey Pines Bed and Breakfast, which is just outside Torrey, Utah to the east a little bit. Because we were a week early, the proprietress wasn't there; it was just her husband. He took excellent care of us, including biscuits and gravy with fruit on a very pretty table setting for breakfast. He also gave us a recommendation for a fantastic restaurant. Eldon said that the county Torrey sits in has the cleanest air rating in the entire country. I believe it. Even with the clouds we could see for hundreds of miles at any vantage point between Bryce and Capitol Reef.

If you ever find yourself in Torrey, sans children, you must eat at this restaurant. It is probably our most mediocre photo from the entire trip, but I did find a picture of Planboy's meal on their website.

What do you think it is? Here are your choices:

a) Turnip ribbons on lamb chops

b) Radish shreds over fried potatoes and pork roast

c) Baby back pork ribs, slow roasted in chipotle, molasses & rum glaze, squash & zucchini, with mashed sweet potatoes

d) Not food at all. A centerpiece.

These are Anasazi wall carvings found in CRNP. The Mormon pioneers settled the area not long after arriving in Utah, like many communities in the western US. When they arrived in the Fremont River valley, they found lush grasses growing along the river's edge, a micro-climate perfect for growing fruit trees, and thousand year old irrigation ditches. They built their own community the same place the Indians had generations and generations earlier. Like the Indians, the fickle river eventually flooded out the Mormon pioneers and a permanent community was never established right on the river. The surviving area is called "Fruita" and has been a part of the park for decades. In the summer you can camp in the park and pick seasonal fruit for about a dollar a pound. Bargain.

This was the only view we got of the Fruita orchards with any sun in the background. We had clouds and wind that entire day. When the sun peaked out for a moment, Plantboy got the above shot.

These close up shots are Plantboy's speciality. I think his plant pictures are always so amazing because something about him speaks to the soul of a plant. They show their beauty to him in a way they don't reveal to me.

This tree was at the top of a hike to a bridge called Hickman Bridge. Plantboy found a place to scramble up about two stories of rock which came out to a plateau that connected the bridge. Initially he was hoping to cross the bridge, but there was a gap too wide and too narrow to safely cross. He backpedaled and saw this tree on the other side of a wash through a slot canyon. I walked down the bridge and waited and saw him pop his head out of a small divet to the side of the arch, 200 feet above the ground. He called, "I guess this way doesn't go out!" Uh, no. His voice echoing all around the wash under the bridge. My heart nearly stopped at how close he was to the edge.

I didn't hear an all-clear from him for several minutes and began to have visions of Sevier County Search and Rescue pulling my husband's half-dead frostbitten body from the top of a cliff when I finally heard him coming back. He presented me with a tiny twig with one of these lovely pink flowers on it, apologized, and said that the tree made him do it. How could I stay upset?

This is my tiny self dwarfed under the bridge referenced above. There is still fifty or hundred feet of ground below the picture, the niche that Plantboy hovered in was to the right of the arch, just out of the picture. This was a fantastic hike and the arch was amazing. Not quite as picturesque as Delicate Arch, but I think I enjoyed the hike more. There were a lot fewer people also and the arch was just enormous. The rocks I'm sitting on fell to form part of the arch.

This cool wash was on the way up to the bridge. If you look past Plantboy, there was a whole room in there. We scrambled around a little bit and explored both the inside and got up on top of it. When I see such amazing places it is no wonder to me that the Native Americans so resented the encroachment of the whites. No doubt, such natural retreats were sacred to them. It must have been like bile for them to watch each place systematically desecrated both literally and figuratively with our indifference. I'm immensely grateful to the presidents and politicians in the early part of the 1900's who insisted that some places be set aside.

Oh look! A little chair, just my size.

Look at those natural steps. How convenient! Okay, not really, but I love groomed trails that have attempted to become such a part of the landscape. I think they are beautiful. It also keeps you from straying off the path when you see how hard they worked to make a path for you. I don't mind trailblazing; it is actually pretty fun, but if everyone takes that attitude, then eventually the thing that was once so lovely becomes ruined.

Remember those views I talked about? Seeing for hundreds of miles, even on a cloudy day? Well, the best place for such views is the highway between Bryce and Capitol Reef. In a very controversial move in the last month of his presidency, Clinton designated thousands of square miles in southern Utah as a national monument. The environmentalists were pleased--the move effectively kept oil and gas and shale exploration OUT of that region. The locals were furious. The cattle and sheep grazers who have used those public lands for generations were no longer allowed in, and the future revenue from the jobs and taxes brought in my oil companies was lost. It sure is pretty country.

I didn't know until this trip that the reason this region is called the Grand Staircase is because, geologically speaking, the bottom layer of Bryce is the top layer of Zion and the bottom layer of Zion is the top layer of the Grand Canyon. Seeing a cross section of the parks lined up on a poster with one another was fascinating. It made me wish for a moment that I was teaching 8th grade science again. It also convinced me that if I had to kidnap them to do it, I'm taking my Young Women hiking this summer. (I might have to. My 16 year-old neice said of their own trip to the parks, as we were showing our pictures around, "That was the worst vacation ever!" She did not just say it once. )

This is Bryce Canyon near sunset. We were going to head out earlier that afternoon, but the sunrise had been so amazing that we decided to have one day that we didn't drive at all and wait for the sun to go down. Alas, after a gorgous morning, the clouds rolled in that afternoon and we didn't see anything more interesting than a wonderful couple from New Zealand. It was our day in Bryce that really convinced me not to miss the kids--sunrise hike, late breakfast, a rigorous mid-morning hike, afternoon nap and a very late supper after more hiking. One day, when the kids don't need their routines and hovering parents quite so much, this will be exactly the vacation that we'll take. It will be a few years.

It is so easy to photoshop things now that if I hadn't been there that day to witness it myself, I would be absolutely convinced that these photos from mid-morning in Bryce Canyon had been doctored up to make the sky that color of blue. They have not been. It really was that blue. I've never seen anything like it. The clarity it gave me was equally sublime. Several of these shots are from a hike called the Navajo Trail. Plantboy once had a backpacking magazine that ranked it on a list of 100 best hikes in the US, with some contributors arguing that it was the BEST hike in the entire continental US. They may be right.

More from the Navajo Trail. It wasn't until that day that I understood why The North Face called the color of my jacket Sky Blue.

We hiked portions of the Rim Trail at Bryce several times in a 24 hour period: our camp site was just fifty yards down from it. Before sunset we hiked almost as high as inspiration point then hoofed it back down just in time to see clouds instead of any kind of sunset. This is such a cool shot with the hoodoo formations in the background and those tree roots surviving against all practical chances.

We were there early enough in the season that you can still see ice forming in the mud. The tracks above are ice patterns in the soft, red earth. It is a micorcausm of the millions of years of freeze and thaw that have created the amazing landscape at Bryce Canyon. No wonder early man went to the tops of the mountains to commune with God.

A tree with a second tree growing out of it in the slot canyon at the bottom of the Navajo Trail: Sunset Point side.

Again, real sky. In many places we could still see quite a lot of snow too. I've never seen such vibrate colors--blue, white, orange, green--in a natural place before.

Natural arch over the switchbacks on the Navajo Trail. I was so short I didn't even have to duck going through it.

I just love the late sunrise light on this shot.

Again, cool lighting. I think Plantboy plans to mimic this very tree in his next Bonsai creation. We'll see!

Sunrise. Wow. The wind was very cold that morning and at one point I realized that tears were just spilling out of my eyes. At first I credited the wind entirely, but then I knew that no breeze could make me feel so emotional inside as well. I stood on the lookout listening to the soft cacophony of foreign voices around me and felt such a deep love and connection to all living things that I wept for the beauty of it. Every setback, expense and difficulty was worth that ONE moment. For all the years I've been told that you-have-to-see-Bryce-Canyon-at-sunrise, I'm glad I've never done it before now, and that I was with just Plantboy. He understands things like this; he understands this deep and beauty-loving part of me in a way that nobody I've ever met understands it. He and I are different in many ways, but all of those differences pale compared to being able to feel this way and not having to explain it. It was a glorious morning.

This is at the top of Emerald Pools in Zion National Park. (The third pool.) It was a great hike, moderately strenuous; I imagine it would be quite brutal in July, but the coolness of the water was nice. If we'd had two days I think I would have attemtped Angel's Landing, but I'm glad we picked this instead. Not as scary.

At the mouth of the narrows, a very large blue heron was looking for a meal just a few yards away from where I sat on a rock. This was about the only shot we got and it really doesn't do it justice; the light was fading. The reality is that he was gorgeous and had a huge wingspan.

Plantboy and I waded in the frigid water while he stared longingly up the too-deep Narrows and dreamed, no doubt, of a time in the future when he'll bring his three adventurous boys back to this spot and keep going right up the creek. I think Mom will come too.

A shot at Zion Park. We were constantly shedding and adding layers throughout the day, never quite sure if we were warm or cold.

The top fall at Emerald Pools.

I'm such a geology freak, and the ripples in the stone at the bottom of this waterfall just made me so happy. I love seeing natural processes of the past and speculating about what the geologic footprint of similar processes would look like. I think this one is proof.

This shot, no doubt, is how emerald pools got its name.

When I realized the mistake at our first bed and breakfast, we saw this charming place off the side of the road in Rockville, a very small town just before Springdale (at the mouth of Zion Canyon). On a whim, we whipped into it and sure enough, she had plenty of rooms. She was waiting only on a German couple (who were about our age and very cool; we ran into them at Bryce two days later also) and threw in a free room upgrade because of our bad luck and long day. Breakfast was fantastic and generous and her decorating was amazing. In the summer, the Desert Thistle has a pool with a ton of deck furniture as well. Yes, I'm making a plug for them. When you go, tell them we sent you; she said she'd give you a 10% discount. They lived their lives in the airforce and she is from Scotland. They were full of fascinating and hilarious stories.

No pictures of the inside, but you can link to their site to see more. Absolutely charming.

These pictures are from Kolob Canyons, which is the northwest entrance of ZNP. Nobody really goes there and it is very remote. I'd love to go back when it is a little bit drier and earlier in the day and go in a couple of miles deeper. It was getting dark and fairly chilly on us and so we didn't go in as far as we would have liked. Apparently there are a couple of arches up there and some really great slot canyons. It is just south of Cedar City and only a few minutes off the highway. A great day trip.

Bryce again, in the late afternoon. This is a bit out of place from where the others were, but it is just too gorgeous to leave out.

These are some shots of my adorable children in the new clothes grandma bought for them (not the baby--he is in his grubbies) just before we loaded up to come home and at a really nice state park we found in Idaho to picnic at.

A last word on memory: eleven years ago, I was trying desperately to get a fresh start and was helping my mom with some spring cleaning. I pulled tons of junk out of my room that had all been moved when my parents moved, but between college and mission I hadn't taken time to really decide what needed keeping and what needed tossing. There was a stack of letters from someone I had once loved in the pile of things-I-didn't-quite-know-what-to-do-with. They were tied with a silk ribbon. I held the stack in my hands for a long time.

Then I took the whole pile and threw them in the trash. No soul-cleansing bonfire, no keeping them for a good laugh some five or ten or twenty years later, no re-reading them and breaking down into a storm of weeping. I just threw them out.

Poignant memories, I quickly learned, are not so easily discarded. The letters were gone, but my heart was still tender. Just five months later I met Plantboy and began making memories to help heal. I was pleasantly surprised to feel less pain about the old memories, even as new ones too their place. There were times I could even look back on the good days and genuinely smile. My last trip to southern Utah was with that someone-I-once-loved. How grateful I was this week for the chance to form new and happier connections to such beautiful places.

Our last alone-vacation spot was at the Timpanogas temple. The snowstorm and side-trip to Manti had set us back timewise and Plantboy and I decided to do proxy sealings instead of an entire endowment session. As he and I knelt on behalf of others, I felt the power of those covenants that he and I made nearly ten years ago. The workers at the temple were so kind and congratulatory over our ten measley years--there were enough gray-hairs in the room that we were, no doubt, in the presence of decades upon decades of covenant marriages--that it gave me immense hope for the future. There are unlimited numbers of memories yet to make.