It's a New World

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

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

"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."

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.

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.

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

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.