RFC Musings

It's a New World

2011-05-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

It's a new world...one without the tall pine tree that shaded our patio from the seasonal suns....and I miss it. Friday, a Polynesian crew of men stopped by our yard to tell us they would weed all our gardens and take down the dead tree in our backyard this weekend. I hadn't even noticed the tree was dead. That's a scary thing even given all the busyness that's been going on around our house. We've been sick with the stomach flu, we've had guests from out-of-town, we've moved furniture and tons of "stuff" into a new cabin, and we've had a family wedding. I've spent hours gardening, pulling out the grass that invades every year, and I still hadn't noticed the dead tree.

Jim and I worked in the pond yesterday morning before we went to Jane's birthday party at the zoo. I didn't pay attention to the tree then either. But when we came home later in the day, the tree was gone. This morning while we sat outside, I missed the feather shade it gave to the patio. Instead of sitting in a pleasantly private place, I was sitting in the glaring sun--the way the patio used to be when my kids were little. I guess we could count the tree rings and look for the tree's history. About 15 years ago our roof caved in and the tree and all the roses in the garden were broken as the snow and debris from the broken roof was pushed off the house. The tree did an amazing thing...one of the branches that stretched outward moved into the position of growing up...it became the new trunk and the other branches supported it. I've always been thrilled to think of such an adaptation, about the strength of the tree to overcome adversity. But then, this very tall, strong tree died and I didn't notice its going. There's a lesson there somewhere.

Weed Your Own Garden

2011-04-19T18:04:00.001-07:00

I spent three hours today weeding part of my gardens. I was taking out the clumps of long grasses that seem to come with the water. They're not lawn, which grows in tight proximity to itself; these are long-leafed grasses with stringer roots. I pulled one today that had roots at least 3 feet long...just a few green leaves and then a terribly long root. It's hard to distinguish these grasses from the beginnings of my fireweed plants. Fireweed is a local wildflower which I have carefully cultivated in my garden for four years. This year there are probably 20 fireweed plants and I am thrilled to see it thriving, but I did kill some fireweed plants in my weeding. I kept thinking they were killed by "friendly fire," much like some men are killed in war. Getting the bad things out often hurts the good things surrounding it.

Today as I weeded, I could hear the pond running....right now we've got water pumping through a filtration system to clear out algae that sprouts and blooms every spring. It's covering everything in the pond with a green-gray slime, and we're treating the water as well as using a filter. It doesn't matter that the sound comes from such a mundane beginning....it still sounds like a lovely waterfall and it's comforting.

It's been raining in Salt Lake, and for a few minutes this morning while I was outside, it seemed as if there were snow flakes...the sky was gray but it wasn't cold. While I was working I kept thinking about how wonderful it is to have the time to cultivate a garden. I am generally an organized person who accomplishes a lot; however, I am not methodical. I don't work in my garden every day, and there are always weeds that could be pulled. But today, Voltaire's words kept coming to me, "Everyone must cultivate his own garden." It's easy to see the weeds and flaws in someone else's garden, not always easy to see our own. Right now, the weed I'm working on in my personality garden is impatience. I want things done quickly, and I generally want them done the way I think they should be done. I'm trying to fix that, and pulling out the very long roots of the pesky grasses made me see how deeply ingrained some flaws and habits are. It isn't enough to cut them off at the root; we have to get a firm hold and pull the root out. That takes time and patience.

When I think of the ways I backslide daily in my search to root out impatience in my life, I'll want to remember how slow the work was to get the whole root out.

Making Peace with Things

2009-12-30T22:11:00.000-08:00

"Things, as a rule, do not give birth to baby Things. Things in your space multiply only by immigration, not by reproduction." (Making Peace with the Things in Your Life by Cindy Glovinsky)

Isn't that a wonderful realization? I'm reading through this book this week. I got it at a book-share party this Christmas season. The person who brought the book hadn't read it, and I was one of the last people to be able to choose a book. I took it to the dentist with me when I went in for teeth-cleaning which ended up also being for two crowns and a root canal. (Did I mention that I hate going to the dentist? I do and I cheerfully tell him that every time I go.) I took it just to look through it and then perhaps leave it in his waiting room. However, the book is filled with idea-gems that have really inspired me to consider how I collect things. I had to write down the issues that I think bring clutter to my life. Here's my list:

I buy and read lots of books
I don't put papers away after I finish a meeting or presentation.
I do lots of trainings and use things from diverse sources, so I save things because I use them in different ways.
I have diverse interests that require "stuff": painting, gardening, plants, jewelry, reading, cooking.
I am sentimental about things.
I have absorbed "things" from my mother's house.
I have "things" left in my house that belong to my children.
I feel I don't have enough storage space.
I don't have a "home" for everything I own.

The book describes the ways "things" get in our houses: we bring them in, others give them or bring them to us, and things are also mailed to us.

I got out of that dentist chair after having had the work done for two crowns, and I was enthused. I got up the next morning and when I got home from having the root canal, I started cleaning out--I decided that I had to look past sentiment and only keep things that were very important to me. That means that this morning I sent my mother's roasting pan--all the pieces were together--to the DI. It's been in my downstairs storage room for two years and I've never used it. Out the door it went, along with the huge coffee table book someone gave me for my birthday and lots of books I'll never read again--yes, I got rid of Of Human Bondage as well as The Lovely Bones--I'll never read them again. My book cases have some empty spaces now. I emptied several baskets where I kept mysterious things I thought I would use some day. I haven't finished, but I've made some inroads and I see a clearing in the woods where I can build a little resting spot.

It really doesn't matter to anyone but me how I made the choices I did. However, making those choices made me think about what I really care about. Of course, I am loathe to ever part with a Jane Austen book, same with Marilynne Robinson and Haldor Laxness, but I know why I want to keep those authors. They say things that hang with me. I see what happens in the world around me explained by happenings in their works. They write things I want to remember. Besides, even though he won a Nobel Prize, Haldor Laxness doesn't have many readers and he needs to keep the ones he has.

Knowing what we want is most of the battle. Making the choices to decide what to keep and what to send on its way to other places pushes us good places. A sentence in the first chapter of the book states, 'None of us owns a single, solitary Thing permanently. Each of our Things flows through our fingers temporarily, on its way to somewhere else." I'm learning how to be more selective about the "things" that surround me. I don't want to spend a good portion of my life looking for that piece of paper I need and I think it's somewhere in this pile.

I'm wondering if this energy really is the book I'm reading or if it's some primeval need to clear out and make sense of my spaces as the old year ends. Maybe some of both? Happy New Year! I'm going to bed with fewer Things in my house than there were this morning, and that feels great, like I've accomplished something today. It's always a good idea to "travel light."

2009-10-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

It's autumn and the quakies outside my window are turning yellow. The holly berries on the bush are a lovely orange and the world is hurtling toward winter. Lots of other things are hurtling places too. Many people I love are hurting. One friend's husband is dying--another friend had a stroke and her husband is dying of cancer as well. One set of friends is struggling with emotional connections and the possibility of separation. Another friend has a neurological illness. Two people are having amputations--a foot and an ear. Meanwhile, life goes on.

My grandkids are healthy and growing, the world is beautiful, and people are kind to one another. Problems do get solved. However, I'm struck with the ideas of light and dark in our lives. I'm thinking of the art term, chiaroscuro which I think means a distinct and sharp contrast of light and shadow, disregarding color. Jana, our watercolor-expert-painter-advisor told us, "Color doesn't matter. It's value." Value is light and dark. I'm working on trying to get value into my paintings. It's hard work and I'm not good at it. However, the connection through painting is making me aware of how difficult it is to get "value" right in my life.

This brings to mind that maybe getting this balance between light and dark is a difficult process in life as well as painting. Bad things will keep happening to good people. Good things will happen to bad people. The world isn't a particularly fair place. And yet, it is fair in some ways.

We all want light in our lives. God is described as light, and I love that description and believe it is true. However, I'm reminded of the old Chinese saying (at least I think it's Chinese), "All sunshine makes only desert." My life is certainly not a desert. There are plenty of dark places and worries poking around the sunshine. I just have to keep my balance.

2009-09-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

What a week! I know most of America is thrilled for new t.v. season. Morgan, Jim, and I watched two great series from Hulu (sp?)--Nurse Jackie and Glee--we loved them. However, I'm not thrilled about the new t.v. season as much as I'm thrilled for the richness of new books.

I've been reading "like the wind" this past week. I just finished Massacre at Mountain Meadows--a lovely book about a difficult, terrible subject. And yesterday afternoon I began in earnest The Lost Symbol, the new Dan Brown. I can't wait to finish writing this and get back to the adventure. Also, the blessed UPS man brought the latest installment in the Outlander series today, An Echo in the Bone, which promises to be 900 pages of pure enjoyment about Jamie and Claire Fraser. Also, I just bought the sequel to Hunger Games, a young adult novel I read. This is like having a vacation where there is something to look forward to every single day.

I'm thrilled and the weather is beautiful and I should be gardening and preparing my syllabus for the class I'm going to be teaching, but....I'll just read for another 45 minutes and then I'll be productive.

2009-09-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

It's all about connections, isn't it? I just made some chili sauce with the tomatoes I bought at the Farmer's Market last week, and I used my friend Judy's recipe. I love chili sauce and I love Judy. At the end of the recipe card, she wrote, "Good luck and Enjoy."

There's something about a person sharing a recipe that makes me happy. I think of the person each time I make the item, and whenever I think of it, I associate the person's name--thus I make Dianna H.'s rolls, Mary M.'s chocolate sauce, Marsha E.'s chocolate strawberry cake, Bonnie's slush, etc. I have a new recipe this week, given to me by Jill R. because the chocolate marble banana bread she made for a party I attend months ago was so good. She sent me the recipe and I made it for a teacher's meeting yesterday. It was stunningly delicious. Can't wait to make it again. I shared a recipe this week for zucchini bread; it wasn't mine. Every person who got the recipe was thrilled. They had asked when they tasted the bread.

Years ago, I asked a woman in my ward for her recipe for Thousand Island Dressing. She reluctantly gave me the recipe, but she left out some ingredient and it never tasted the same as the one she had made. I always wondered about the wholeness of her heart. Share those recipes. Share the wealth and make it so others think about you. Thanks Judy, I'll think of you each time we eat this luscious chili sauce all winter.

New faces and old ones too

2009-05-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

Jane Genevieve Reynolds and Parker Sanford Reynolds are two new faces in the world. They are both adorable and very little. It's a wonder to look at those tiny faces and realize they're going to grow up and be people who do good things, wrong things, stupid things, and marvelous things. Right now, they just need constant care and nourishment. They also need love, but they don't know they need that yet. But every day they are changing.

On the other hand, Gary Mathews, an old face--about the same age as mine--died this weekend. Gary and his wife Sharon had six children who are fairly amazing people, definitely smart and good, and now Gary is gone. He leaves a legacy of having raised good people who make a difference in the lives of others. He leaves this existence and his children have new babies. Jim and I age while Parker, Jane, Sanford, and Valentine grow and flourish into becoming who they are meant to be.

I'm struck by the constant state of flux in the world. Everything changes and it's doing it right before our eyes. We only notice the big things, a new birth, a death, a disaster, seedlings turning into plants. But movement and change in the world is the underlying foundation of things.
I'm coming to see that the idea of building our house upon a rock is more nebulous than we realize. Rocks aren't really as solid as we think. The atoms in rocks are really moving all the time, and in our own bodies, Sallee told me there is really more space than substance; it's just the way it's organized and looks to us.

I've been reading about atoms and their spectacular make-up and behavior. But it's making me realize some things about the nature of life that I've not considered before. If even the mountains aren't as stable as permanent as we like to think, where do we build our houses?

I talked to Sallee about this yesterday, and together we wondered why there seems to be a human need for stability, steadfastness, permanence when in the actual, atom-relationships of this earth, there is constant movement and shifting. Impermanence is really the way things work, and we're always striving to make things last. I want my yard to stay as beautiful as it is right this minute. I want the birds to keep singing, the pond to look as lovely as it does, the temperature to be so perfect, but it's not destined to be.

My yard isn't the same as it was yesterday...weeds will grow back, the pond will need to be cleaned again, and we'll have to spread mulch another time. However, the feeling I have about my yard is what's permanent. Sallee mentioned that maybe God built in this need for stability so that humans would turn to Him.

What I think I'm realizing about life is that the really strong, permanent aspects of our lives are the nebulous and more ethereal considerations. What is permanent to me? I've decided that the stability in our lives come from our relationship with God, no matter how we define it. Our awareness of God and the feelings of connection we feel are the rock or foundation of everlastingness. The other permanent aspect of life is the connection we build with others. Our love for each other is what's stable. Connections between our hearts and minds are what's stable. Our house really isn't a "thing" we build upon a rock. It's the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional connections we build between our hearts and minds with others.

We do know that God is a master of metaphor, and I find it ironic that I'm coming to understand that the real, permanent forces in the world are the gentle, non-visible, aspects of our lives. Old faces will keep disappearing, new faces will come, but the connections between us are permanent. Nathan's dad Gary will always be with him, even though he is physically gone.

Blessings to all of us as we go forth to make connections--not the kind we can see, but the kind that are permanent, regardless of what the atoms are doing.

2009-02-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

My amaryllis is blooming...I counted at least 16 blossoms in full splendor with others coming but still in bud. An amaryllis is a late fall tradition with me, one I shared with my mother. I always bought at least one for me and one for her. My first amaryllis came from a boyfriend who just showed up on my doorstep one day with this strange bulb in a pot. Come to think of it, he was also the first boy who took me to dinner in an expensive restaurant. He was a physicist and very smart; one of our dates was a trip to the astronomy lab where he worked and we went to see the stars. His mother was my laurel teacher and I loved her.

An amaryllis is such a statement of beauty for beauty's sake. I planted these bulbs before Christmas, and I've faithfully watered them. Here they are, piercing the air with beauty. Everyone who sees them gasps. I do every time I walk in the room. The bulbs are big and ungainly when you buy them--nothing pretty that even hints at the beauty inside. However, they have such heart. The red-flowered bulb has three bloom stems, one with six blossoms and the other two with four. The white-flowered bulb has four bloom stems, two with two blossoms and two with three. If I take care of the amaryllis, keep it outside and watered in the summer and just let the long leaves flourish, I can bring it inside in the early fall and keep it in a dark place until December when I can plant it again. It will bloom again. Sometimes, even after the first blooms have gone, another bloom spike will grow and blossom. Sometimes second blooming doesn't work and only leaves come.

The blossoms are the point of this bulb--much like a tulip. I don't know if there is a place on the earth where an amaryllis grows wild. Maybe there is. But as far as I can see, the only purpose of this plant is to produce gorgeous blossoms. These blossoms aren't like an orchid, whose blooms keep for months. These blossoms last 5-7 days and they wilt. But what a glorious show they put on for those few days. It's like the Edna ST. Vincent Millay poem

First Fig
My candle burns at both ends,
It will not last the night.
But, oh my foes and ah my friends--
It gives a lovely light.

This is a lot of talk about the properties of the amaryllis. But there is a point to it. It's okay to just be who we are. We can give all our existence to beauty if that's our purpose. The amaryllis doesn't hold back--it just gives and gives and makes a spectacular show. It doesn't matter that the show isn't a long one. It just has to be beautiful.

If our point is to be beautiful in our existence, meaning that we reach our potential, we don't have to be worried about how long the show goes on. We just have to live in the present and make the most beautiful blossom we can. Our lives are all a little like the amaryllis, full of potential that just needs some soil and water to flourish and fulfill the measure of our creation.

We all need space and feeling valued. We all want to feel we are important to someone else. We all want a beautiful blossom, a contented life. May we consider this gorgeous flower and realize the transformation that takes place under the surface of the soil. Another poet, Sara Teasdale said,

Spend all you have for loveliness
Buy it and never count the cost.
For one, white singing hour of peace,
Count many a year of strife well-lost.
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

May we spend our lives in building beauty, even if it doesn't last long, and may we have the soil and nutrients that are necessary for our life's work.

Blessings to you all...

Creatures

2009-01-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

I've had a long love affair with Mary Oliver, the poet extraordinaire. At yoga on Monday, someone had left a copy of her book in our yoga room, and our glorious teacher read us Wild Geese at the end of class. What a message to the world that one is. Yesterday I read one of her poems that had new meaning to me because of my experiences on the beaches of Oregon last summer.

Here's the poem from her book Dream Work....
Starfish

In the sea rocks,
in the stone pockets
under the tide’s lip,
in water dense as blindness

they slid
like sponges,
like too many thumbs.
I knew this, and what I wanted

was to draw my hands back
from the water – what I wanted
was to be willing
to be afraid.

But I stayed there,
I crouched on the stone wall
while the sea poured its harsh song
through the sluices,

while I waited for the gritty lightning
of their touch, while I stared
down through the tide’s leaving
where sometimes I could see them –

their stubborn flesh
lounging on my knuckles.
What good does it do
to lie all day in the sun

loving what is easy?
It never grew easy,
but at last I grew peaceful:
all summer

my fear diminished
as they bloomed through the water
like flowers, like flecks
of an uncertain dream,

while I lay on the rocks, reaching
into the darkness, learning
little by little to love
our only world.

I spent several afternoons last July walking along the Oregon beaches where starfish flourish. The first one we found lying on the wet sand was missing two legs and Abbey assured me that if I threw it back in the sea it had a chance to grow the missing legs. I walked out into the water and threw it as far as I could. I'd never held a living starfish before. My grandchildren hadn't either, and we were in awe at the glory of such a creature.

Further up the coast we explored mussel beds where different colored starfish nestled in the tide pools and shallow water along with anemones and other exotic life. We never had the patience to sit and let them crawl on our hands, but if I had remembered my poetry, I could have made the effort, cold have found the patience. As it was, such a thing was not even a possibility.

And there's the rub--if I had remembered my poetry I would have known....how many things I've learned from that beautiful condensed language. Once a nun told me that when she taught poetry to her students, she would use the metaphor of poetry as condensed orange juice. She thought the intense flavor of frozen juice would let her students see the depth and importance of poetry, that even though it was shorter than prose it was very powerful. I've used that metaphor in my own classrooms since.

There's an irony in poetry--this thing that seems to be dependent upon beauty, whose purpose could be considered beauty is stronger that the words we use to do our daily work. Poetry does explore our feelings and emotions and what is memorable through imagery. However, underneath the imagery is the strength of the core of our lives. We are who we are, and poetry speaks to that which lies under the surface.

Mary is using starfish to tell us about patience, about taking chances, about knowing our world and valuing all creatures and the experiences we have. It's a lesson I'm learning over and over. Be patient with what is--don't try to change everything. Have patience and trust that in the end, things will work out. That's a step into living without so much fear. We are assailed by fear every day--an alert status for terrorism, a weather warning, an outbreak of a terrible disease, financial crises, bankruptcies. The list goes on and we do too. However, we aren't supposed to live in fear. Fear keeps us from trying what is difficult. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2Timothy 1:7)

I love Mary's line, "What good does it do to lie all day in the sun loving what is easy?" I think I've spent a large portion of my life envying those who seem to be lying in the sun and doing what is easy. My hope for myself today and for the next little while is that I not be content with what is easy, that I might try to do that which is hard. I have to realize that while hard things will never be easy, they can be easier, and that I can be peaceful with the effort. Don't we all want peace for ourselves and our souls. There's a lesson for us all in Wendell Berry's lovely poem.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

May we love this wonderful world. May we learn lessons from the wild things who "do not tax their lives with forethought of grief." Blessings to all.

Making room

2008-12-30T11:08:00.000-08:00

We sang "Ring Out, Wild Bells" in church on Sunday, a hymn I always love, but we only sing it once each year. The music, by Crawford Gates, is gorgeous and enriches Tennyson's lovely poetry . The poem is fairly explicit about what we're ringing out--falseness and darkness. It also is clear about what we're ringing in--truth and Christ. The next day at yoga, our instructor focused on our breathing and stretching, helping us open ourselves to new possibilities, making room in our lives for what we want to enter. I couldn't think of what focus I want to make room for in my life.

I know what I usually want--calmness, joy, warm sunshine, summer, plenty of money to spend, friends, family, health, freedom to do what I want--isn't that what almost everyone wants? I think it is. Only the catch is that we never get all of that for any length of time. I've come to the conclusion that life is really about having the right outlook and trust in the Lord to face whatever comes our way. Hard things happen--people get sick and die, children go astray, we make mistakes, the economy tumbles downhill, people lose money, they get addicted to drugs, or can't find their way for lots of reasons. Beethoven went deaf, and John Milton went blind. Bad things happen to all, and no one's life is really the way it looks on the outside.

Our internal life is what's important, the peace and joy we find within the constraints of whatever system we inhabit. I'm one of the lucky ones who generally has enough of everything. I don't have huge excesses, but I have enough. Bad things happen to me--I've been very sick and hurt and have also felt betrayed and stressed at work. However, as I look back at this year, I see that terrible things have happened, a divorce in our family, friends who have been diagnosed with terminal illnesses, but good things have happened too. I spend time with people I love every day. I am reconnected to friends and neighbors. I retired and I have time and energy to visit people who can't get out; I don't mind taking the time to go to the zillion weddings we're invited to each month. I am happier than I was last year at this time in spite of the bumps along the way.

So...the question is, exactly what do I want to make room for in my life? I want to keep making room for learning how to paint watercolors. I want to spend more time writing and reconnecting with people. I want to spend time practicing piano and organ, and I want to be a blessing to other people's lives.

For Christmas, I gave all my children a quilt block made by my grandmother. They are stunningly lovely things, hand-stitched and delicate with a crazy-quilt pattern and extraordinary fabrics. I want to write about my grandmother. She was such an influence in my life, and I want to be an influence in the lives of my grandchildren. I can help my family reconnect with our past. My mother died last Christmas day, and this year, I want to help make her story more alive and true for my children and grandchildren. I'm getting two new grand babies this spring, and I want to spend time with them and their families.

A true gift of writing is that we discover what we're thinking as we write. I know my focus for next year--reconnecting with my past to make my progenitors more alive to my posterity. However, that's a project I can take on. I also realize I need to work on a more ephemeral trait-- I want to learn to be less productive. I am a producer. I get things done. I am dependable. This year, I want to become more at east with producing less. As we walked this morning, my friends and I talked about the dilemma of gradually not being able to see our value as someone who is productive. Very old people usually aren't as productive as younger people. If we only see ourselves as producers, we're in for trouble when we're able to produce less. So to that end, I want to give myself permission to have unproductive days when I really don't do much. Maybe it will be days of reading a good book, just playing the piano, painting, sitting in the yard. It will be hard to learn to not judge my day by what I have accomplished, but it is something I want to do to have room for trust and calmness about whatever befalls me.

Blessing to all for this coming year.