Sunday, December 31, 2006

The end of the world

You're cordially invited to my pity party. If you are able to come, please keep reading. Otherwise, close your browser and enjoy your day.

DISCLAIMER: There are a lot of really horrible things in the world happening to people every day. Billions of people have greater reasons to complain than I do. I acknowledge this. This acknowledgment, however, serves only to make me feel worse in my present state. I admit that mostly I need to just go eat worms.

Horrible thing #1:

I've been crying all morning because yesterday I saw a car wreck. I didn't actually see it happen, but I saw it just a little while after. I watched Life Flight land nearby. I saw the smashed up car. I saw people trying to extricate someone from the front seat. It was clear that there was no way this person could have survived. I saw the paramedics working on a smaller person in the back seat. I was so physically ill that I had to do my breathing exercises to keep from throwing up. It left me shaky all day. And then this morning I saw the very small blurb about the accident in the paper. It appears that a mother was killed and a nine-year-old was taken to the hospital. It was the driver of a pickup turning left that caused the accident, but it appears that he didn't do anything really wrong, just didn't see them or something. I feel for him, deeply. I feel for the nine-year-old. But the people I feel the most deeply for, who I can't get out of my head, are the emergency responders. I hope and pray that those people become hardened to what they do, because I would truly be insane right now. I keep replaying it in my mind as if I were them—having to walk up to that mess, and look at it, and do something about it. I really have been praying for these people.

I have been queasy about illness and death all week because I was so very sick last week and really thought I might die. (I had a post-surgical infection, which improved greatly once I got on antibiotics.) I spent some hours last week feeling so horribly, horribly ill that it was a chore to get through the minutes. And I started thinking that someday I will feel that horrible again, at least once, because someday I really am going to die. Chances are not really great that I will have a painless death. And just about everyone else in the world will probably feel that awful at some point in their lives at least once. This thought is so distressing and depressing to me. I've had the hardest time training myself to live and smile in spite of this knowledge. I am world-weary.

Anyway, at some point this morning I got a grip on myself. Then horrible thing #2 happened:

I was released from my calling.

It's so stupid. I suddenly find that I have always looked down on people who have a hard time being released from things. (Just like I guess I used to look down on people with chronic illnesses.) So, in full knowledge that I am being petty and lacking in faith, I say here that I have been sobbing for an hour now because I have been released.

It's just not fair!!!!!!!!!

Several weeks ago they released me "temporarily" until the end of the year so that I could recover. I was always planning on resuming my calling. I have next week's singing time all planned out. I have the next few months all planned out. I figured this was still 2006, right? So I was going to take today off and return next week. I'm ready. I've been feeling better.

Now I desperately wish I had called and asked if I could resume a week earlier (today).

Because nobody even asked me. No one asked if I was ready to come back next week. They just told me, this morning, fifteen minutes before the meeting started, that I was being released, permanently, and that someone else was going to be sustained TODAY. "And then," he said, "when you are feeling better, we'll see about getting you another calling." What could I say? What could I possibly say, especially considering I was already crying?

I am not done! They are still my kids! I still belong in there!

I am so desperately, desperately sad about this.

I then couldn't bring myself to go to church, even though I was all dressed and planning to go, because I knew I couldn't keep myself from sobbing, and because I knew I couldn't sustain my replacement.

Yet.

I will. I will get to that point. I just need a little time. I have so much faith in this bishopric, who are the ones who called me to this calling in the first place. I have loved this calling, probably more than I have loved any other. It has worked its way into my heart like no other calling has. I have never before felt this strong of a witness that I was supposed to have a specific calling. I know they were inspired to call me in the first place. Why, then, would their inspiration be wrong now? Of course it wouldn't. And even if it were, it is still my job to quiet my pride, my desires, and sustain them and my replacement. I have no doubt that God will have some other way to bless me now. He always has.


See, I do have faith.

It just hurts so bad, so very bad.


On Leading the Singing in Primary

They bob like blossoms in the breeze,
and I, the sun, hold love in my face
and sing to the bouncing, bumpy mass of them.
They dance, mouthing words they barely hear.

Surely, though, they feel the warmth—
see their upturned faces open wide?
I'm planting songs like pollen in their hearts.

Maybe someday, seasons hence, when rain
and cold have cracked the soil, spirit
words will be embodied, ripe:
blood-red fruit that sways in rushing wind.

I will miss you, children of the South Jordan 4th Ward. I have loved you so dearly. Don't forget me.
*********************************************************************************
ADDED LATER:
I see now, after a few hours of pondering, that some of my distress about this release--probably a lot of it, in fact, is rooted in fear:
What if these guys were inspired because God knows that I will continue to be sick for longer than I thought I would be?
For so long I have had next Sunday in mind as my goal to be better by. I have rested, planned, prayed with that date in mind. Maybe this is God's way of reminding me that I can't put my life on a timetable (and, least of all, Him). Maybe it is his will that I be sick for longer.

I hate this thought.
I am sick of being sick!
Also there is the pride aspect. I admit it. I'm embarrassed to be released after only a few months in a calling. I had plans to get good at it. I am embarrassed to know that probably the whole ward knows by now that I was upset about the release. I can't stand the thought of going to Relief Society again after these months in primary; my heart is still in that room with the kids. (Will I become one of the women who slink into Relief Society and sit on the back row and disappear as soon as the "amen" comes?)
No, I won't. God knows my heart, and how much I want to serve (also how much I want to get better). I have faith in the priesthood blessings I have received that tell me I will heal, and that I have a future full of health and energy ahead of me. (And even as I say this I think again about the dear souls who DON'T have health to look forward to. Aaah, selfish, selfish me.)
Blah, blah. So, I'm being a boob. I'm in mourning for my calling. So what? I'll take a few days to
pout around and then clean my face up and try to act with a little grace and maturity about the whole thing.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Happy New Year!

I had a good Christmas. One of my favorite presents was being kidnapped by Kathy one evening for a half-hour in her car blasting old U2 songs, which she had purchased off the internet and burned onto a cd for me. My valiant husband pulled off Christmas pretty much single-handedly, including some thoughtful things for me and all of his own presents as well. What a guy.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but I did make one last year, which was to write at least a sentence in my journal every day for a month. (The official resolution was "one month" but deep down I was hoping I'd do it for a year. It lasted about four months.)

This year I have decided to commit to an eight-week course of meditation practice, as described in Jon Kabat-Zin's Full Catastrophe Living, which I just finished reading today. I have completed one week of the course already, so I guess I'm off to a good start. I have to say that reading this book made all the difference last week, when I was struggling with a post-surgical infection and was very, very sick. The breathing exercises got me through some very difficult hours. I hope to have more to report on the effects of daily meditation in my life after a few weeks. (I also hope, desperately, to be able to report a return to health within a few weeks. Pray for me, won't you?)

Another pseudo-resolution: I am daring myself to try a juice fast sometime this year, once I am recovered. Anyone want to join me? I hear good things about them.

What about you? Do you have a New Year's resolution?

Friday, December 22, 2006

Even More Favorite Things

Even More of My Favorite Things . . .

First of all, thank you to everyone who reads this blog and comments, either here or in private e-mails to me. I appreciate knowing that you care about me. It's been an extremely difficult couple of months and I have felt blessed by your support.

And now, another exciting episode of "My Favorite Things."

I've put this one off because it is so darn difficult—nay, impossible—to get a booklover to narrow down her favorite reads to something manageable. So I've decided to divide up my list of books worth mentioning. Today's category is "Entertaining LDS Books."

CAUTION: because I mention a book here as being one of my all-time most entertaining reads does NOT mean that it will be entertaining for YOU. I find that people are especially sensitive and opinionated when it comes to reading something by or about Mormons. My listing a book here does NOT mean that I recommend it to you. Some of these books could be very disturbing to some people for one reason or another. We all have different tastes. (I myself was very uncomfortable with "The Work and the Glory," for example—not because of anything inherently bad about it but because of my tastes and background as a reader. And yet there are people I highly recommend it to. You see what I mean.)

I apologize for having to give this caution, but among the people who read this blog and care about me is a wide variety of reading taste and experience. I don't want to offend anyone. If any of these titles catches your interest, ask me and I'll tell you whether I think you in particular would like it.

I've thought a lot about the word "entertaining." Notice that I make no claims that these are the BEST LDS books in my opinion. Just that they are the most entertaining to me. But I find that I require certain things from a book in order to consider it entertaining to me, and the same criteria very probably might be used when I judge its value. That is, I am not entertained by a book which has simply a great plot--at least, I am not AS entertained by it as I am when the book seems to have something more to it, including fascinating characters and a certain resonating truth. So what entertains one person depends a lot on her reading expertise and background. My point is that I am not entertained by books that simply distract me.

So here we go . . . Darlene's most entertaining LDS reads:

1. Neal Chandler's collection of short stories, Benediction. My all-time favorite. I wish I had written most of these stories. Absolutely bowls me over. Favorites: "The Last Nephite" and "Benediction." A hilarious, touching, sometimes satirical look at Mormon culture. Some difficult elements.

2. The other one I wish I had written: a play by Josh Brady called Great Gardens. You can find it in an issue of BYU Studies. I adore this play about a family who goes out to eat at a restaurant called Great Gardens. Included in this family are an overly-controlling mother, a recently returned sister missionary who has gained a few pounds, and several other fantastic characters.

3. Well, if we're going to mention plays, I can't neglect how much I enjoy just about anything by Eric Samuelson, a playwright and professor at BYU. Also, I think Scott Bronson's play Stones is groundbreaking in the genre of LDS theater, besides being breathtaking.

4. Can't leave out The Backslider by Levi Peterson. Again, this one comes with a strong caution. It's a highly religious book, but also disturbing to less-experienced or highly-sensitive readers.

5. I loved Virginia Sorensen's The Evening and the Morning. Also Maureen Whipple's The Giant Joshua. Both are long, slow reads, highly character-driven.

6. Getting away from fiction for a second, Orson Scott Card's essay collection, A Storyteller in Zion is incredibly thought-provoking, and Louise Plummer's Thoughts of a Grasshopper is hilarious and moving. Also, any essay collection by Eugene England. My favorite essay of his is "Why the church is as true as the gospel." I also enjoy any essay I can find by Tessa Meier Santiago, but she hasn't published a collection (yet!) and so her essays are tricky to find.

7. Don Marshall's The Rummage Sale is worth reading because it was ground-breaking. (It's also very entertaining.) John Bennion's Breeding Leah and other Stories blew my mind—I was only just barely old enough to read it, I think. Disturbing and moving.

8. A more mild read, one that I can recommend to everyone, is Donald Smurthwaite's Fine Old High Priests. A very sweet, gentle book told with love for the church and its culture. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this book didn't make a bigger splash. It seems perfect for the market that I believe is being underserved by Deseret Book and Covenant--readers who demand more filling reads than most of what these publishers produce, but who want to be able to trust that the book will be optimistic and faithful. I spoke to a DB editor a few months ago and she was also as depressed and perplexed as I was at how poorly this book did.

9. I loved Douglas Thayer's Under the Cottonwoods, also a short story collection.

10. Orson Scott Card's Alvin books are very Mormon without ever being outwardly religious. The first one is Seventh Son. I remember my joy when I first read Seventh Son. I had not known a person could write about religion like this. Amazing.

A few non-Mormon books that I think are important for people who are interested in writing from a religious standpoint (and all are very enjoyable):

1. Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather. Beautiful.
2. Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman. A must-read for people interested in writing from within a religious worldview about real people in that culture who happen to have problems.
3. The Ladies' Auxiliary by Tova Mirvis. Ditto the above, only this one is even better. I wish I had written this. It could totally take place within an LDS ward relief society.
4. My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Potok is often pointed to by Mormons who want to write about Mormonism for the general market, but I think he is a problematic example since his characters are often on the edge of their communities instead of solidly inside it. (We have enough "edgy" Mormon stuff. I'd like to see more high-quality "inside" stuff.)
5. Lying Awake by Mark Saltzman. This book spoke to me deeply about faith and my own testimony.
6. Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. Definitely on my re-read list because one reading won't do it.
7. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

By the way, it's odd to me that I can recommend any of the preceding 7 non-Mormon books to any reader without reservation. Some of them might move a little slow if you usually read Tom Clancy, for example, but none of them will be disturbing to you. Weird that I have to give greater caution about the LDS ones. I think we're all just a little more defensive and sensitive when we know the writer or subject is LDS.

So, tell me what you think. Do you have any favorite LDS-ish books you'd like to mention? Comments on mine?

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Dear Sister Bell

Dear Sister Bell,

Remember us? The Young family? We’re the ones with the not-so-reverent kids who sat on the bench next to you in sacrament meeting every Sunday for four years. We haven’t seen you for a year or two now since we moved, but we still remember you well—even our little ones. You probably remember Benjamin. Remember when I told you one Sunday that Benjamin had asked us that week if Sister Bell was the tooth fairy? You always had such a sweet smile for us, and my children did not know many elderly people in Pocatello. Benjamin’s guess seemed very logical to me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. You see, I’ve had a tough few months with my health. First it was a chronic, lingering exhaustion with a few other weird symptoms. We finally got that diagnosed as mononucleosis. Then, last week, I had sinus surgery, which has been harrowing to say the least. My recovery from both of these things has been very difficult and uncomfortable. At times I have cried out to God desperately in search of some peace.

At these times I think about you. I know that you have extreme pain from your arthritis. I know that you have it every single day, and that you had it all the years that we knew you, and probably many years before that. I watched you hobble into church with your cane and your beautiful smile. It was several months before I dared ask you how you were feeling each Sunday, because I already knew you were always in pain, and I didn’t want you to have to talk about it if you didn’t want to. You never lied (and I appreciate that), but you always managed to sort of wave off the subject and ask me about myself instead.

These long weeks that I have been so uncomfortable I have thought about the daily battle you had with pain. You did not have, as I do, the prospect that you would get relief in a matter of weeks or months. Your only release, you knew, was death. How did you continue to smile? Where did you get your peaceful spirit, moment to moment? How did you manage to live, instead of wishing your time away until you could be released, as I find myself doing?

I just wanted to tell you again that you blessed our lives, and are still blessing mine every time I think of you. I hope you are finding beautiful moments of peace and joy in spite of your pain. I hope that I can become like you, with your radiant face full of gratitude and love instead of impatience and self-concern. Thank you for your sweet example.

Love, Darlene Young

Friday, December 15, 2006

More Favorite Things: Food

My father is an amazing cook. Besides being able to create delicious concoctions and make all my old favorites perfectly every time, he has two very special additional talents in the kitchen:

1.) He can make delicious meals when there is no food in the house. Really. You'll think there is nothing in your refrigerator worth eating and he will disappear into the kitchen and come out with entire meals that start your mouth watering with just the sight of them. ("Because, if it doesn't look good, it doesn't taste good!"= his famous saying.)

2.) He has this uncanny ability to nourish you emotionally while feeding you physically. I have vibrant memories of the times, particularly when I was a teenager, when I would come home, world-weary and depressed, and mope around the house, not feeling like eating because "nothing sounds good." He would disappear into the kitchen and then place before me food—a french dip sandwich, maybe, or terriyaki stir fry—something that somehow absolutely hit the spot. After eating, I always felt the world looked a lot better and much more worth living in.

Thanks, Dad!

Wish I had inherited his talent. Far, far from it, I'm afraid. But now that we're on the subject of food, let's share a few favorites.

1. Salads:
Olive Garden, with breadsticks.
Anita's Chinese chicken salad.
Jennilyn's Cafe Rio salad.
Allison's frito salad.
Bacon-spinach salad with poppy seed dressing and fresh parmesan.

2. Drinks:
Water is always my favorite. But here are a few others I love:
Mark Newman's homemade egg nog.
Marjorie's firecracker punch.
Steamed milk with a shot of hazlenut flavoring (I miss you, Berkeley).
Olive Garden's chocolate-almond ice cream drink (Chocolate Amore).

3. Breads:
Olive Garden's breadsticks, but only when they're VERY fresh.
Dipping bread at Johnny Carrino's.
Honey-wheat from Great Harvest or Winder Dairy.
My mother's homemade french bread.
Rhode's white rolls.

4. Desserts:
I could never list them all, but I have to mention Sharlee's chocolate cake, which I discovered this year. Heaven!

5. Cafe Rio:
(Of course it deserves its own category!)
Pinto bean and rice burrito, smothered enchilada-style with their green sauce.

I think I'd better stop there. It's lunch time and I'm starving.
What are some of your favorites?

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Can you believe this?

Read this:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/20/parents_rip_school_over_gay_storybook/

What's even more amazing is all the stuff you see if you google the mother's name, Robin Wirthlin. There are all these angry homosexuals writing articles about how evil she is and what a bad mother she is. She and her husband and another couple are now suing the school district. People are saying that she was "sent by the Mormons" to stir things up. Sheesh!

Blows me away.

Robb, Robin's husband (sometimes referred to as Joseph), is an old school-mate of Roger's.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

. . . a few of my favorite things

When I was a kid, back in the old days before VCR's (can you hear my rocking chair creaking?), we would eagerly anticipate Christmas time because of the Christmas specials on TV. I loved Rudolph and Grinch and Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, but the big favorite at our house was The Sound of Music, which always came on around the holidays. Mom would pop a huge bowl of popcorn and we would get to stay up late to watch it clear until the end. (That reminds me. At a wedding shower once people were sharing in-law horror stories and one of my friends said that HER in-laws would pop a big bowl of popcorn and pass it around—and when each person got the bowl he or she would stick his or her TONGUE INTO THE BOWL TO GET OUT A BITE OF POPCORN!!!!!!! I think this person won the prize for craziest in-laws. But I digress.)

Well, I was going to be Liesl when I grew up. I memorized "I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen" and all of the choreography to that song. And once I was sixteen I actually did find me a boyfriend who was seventeen-going-on-eighteen, but he thought that movie was cheesy and never would sing the song with me. Cheesy? Sound of Music, cheesy? Dumb guy. (By the way, this particular ex turned out "very ill; very ill indeed." No wonder.)

ANYWAY, the fact that this movie came on during the holidays must be the reason that someone decided that "A Few of My Favorite Things" is a Christmas song. So, in honor of the season, I propose that we discuss a few of our favorite things here.

I'll start.

Theme #1: Smells.

I have been thinking about smell lately because I am going to have sinus surgery this week. I have always had a very sensitive nose, and although that is often a bad thing to have, it is sometimes a blessing. I'm amazed at how clearly scenes can come back to me when I smell familiar smells. The smell of the fog machine at dance clubs, for instance. Or the smell of the black leather coat that a guy I once dated wore (NOT the dumb anti-cheesy guy; THIS guy actually knew all the words to every song in Sound of Music AND could hold my hand just right as I leapt from park bench to park bench). Or hospital soap. Such memories! I wonder if the part of our brain that processes smells is close to the emotional center.

Here are a few of my favorite smells:

1. Coffee. I love the smell of coffee. I think it's because that smell means that I'm in an airport or hotel or on a cruise--travelling somewhere fun.
2. Sprinklers hitting the cement in summer.
3. Onions cooking. (Also all the usual good cooking smells like bread baking and chocolate cake and wassail and garlic bread.)
4. The pear/raspberry lotion that someone gave me when I was post-partum.
5. Jergens lotion (means Mom to me)
6. Wet sagebrush.
7. The cheap purple "fabuloso" cleaner that the hispanic housecleaner used in the house where I was employed as a nanny.
8. Campfire. Also, bacon cooking over said campfire in the morning. Also, the camper and the kerosene lantern and everything else to do with camping (except the porta-potty).
9. Old book smell.
10. The fennel that grew in the student housing complex in Berkeley.

Now it's your turn. What are your favorite smells?

Thursday, December 07, 2006

You didn't believe me, did you?

OK, here is the magazine ad:








Notice that her left eye is slightly squinchier than the right.

And here's me at about nineteen:









And here:



(Notice left eye.)

And here, of course, are the real twins. ("You can only tell when we do this!"--[What movie does that line come from?]) Notice the matching shirts. (We must be twins.) Also, I believe we are wearing Wonder Twin rings (not visible in picture).



Wednesday, December 06, 2006

My twin

Courtney’s blog (http://cjanerun.blogspot.com) reminded me of something I bet you didn’t know about me (except maybe Marjorie). Here it is: I have a twin somewhere.

I found this twin as a result of a blind date seventeen or eighteen years ago (yikes!) during which my date kept saying to me, “You look just like a girl in a magazine.”

OK, that is probably the stupidest and least true line I have ever heard. I have never had any exaggerated belief in my own beauty. I have always been the “girl next door” type, the one guys fall for in spite of themselves after “getting to know me.” I do not attract attention. I do NOT look like a girl in any magazine. (And I didn’t then, when I was a skinny little nineteen-year-old.) But he kept SAYING it.

At the end of the date, at his house, he said, “Here, I’ll show you,” and pulled out a magazine.

It was a Land’s End catalog.

I think they use real people for that catalog. Or at least they did then. (I wouldn’t know now because I can’t afford their clothes.) At any rate, their models didn’t really look like model-types. They looked like people you see every day. And there before me was a picture of ME! Spitting image! Even down to the squinchy eye! If it weren’t for her hair--which was longer than I had ever managed to grow mine--and the sleeveless sundress she was wearing, I would have called an attorney to sue because someone had STOLEN a picture of me!

It was really creepy.

I cut out the picture and put it in my scrapbook. It’s still there, in case you want to see it. Of course, it doesn’t look like me anymore because, while my twin stayed a petite nineteen, I turned into a middle-aged, mommy-shaped blob. (Otherwise I’d scan it in and put it up here for you to see.)

So I wonder sometimes what my twin is up to. Did she have four kids? (Did she get stretch marks when she was pregnant that made the OB whistle “Stars and Stripes Forever” when he caught sight of them?) Did she marry as well as I did? Is she happy? I know she can’t possibly be as happy as I am. Because instead of modeling, I used my time in more important ways. Like, um, working in Orange Julius. (Brown polyester forever.) Also, she is obviously not as smart as I am—because I know at least one thing that she doesn’t: that she has a twin somewhere.

How ‘bout you? Do you have a twin?

Monday, December 04, 2006

I did it!

I know you hardly slept this weekend wondering if I would make it. Well, you can relax. Because here's the announcement you've been waiting for: I did it! I actually wrote a poem a day for 30 days. I have 30 brand-spankin' poems now (and lots and lots of ideas for more), ready to be polished and put to some good use or another. I know you are so proud of me. I'm proud of me, too.

And by the way, here is a post by Ann Bigelow from the AML-List about my poem about Arthur "Killer" Kane:

I forwarded Darlene's post about "New York Doll" to my friend who happens to be the director's Aunt. She in turn forwarded it to him and this was his reply.

From: Greg Whiteley

You can tell Darlene that she is the fourth person that I know of to write a poem about KIiller Kane since seeing the movie and one of these poems was even set to music (see Robyn Hitchcock's " N.Y. Doll"--you can look it up on ITunes and listen to a sample) but she is the first to compare him to Arthur Henry King :).

GW

Friday, December 01, 2006

Life, more abundant

I am not doing very well. I am stuck in a stage of illness (which I used to think was the precursor to recovery, but this is lasting awfully long) in which I am cranky. Cranky, peevish, irritable, difficult to live with, ornery. Like I'm walking around in that "shut up and go to bed" stage ALL the time. The kids drive me crazy. I bark at them. I feel guilty. I cry. I feel worse. I try to rest. The kids bug me. Repeat cycle.

I can't stand myself these days. I'm having a hard time forgiving myself for feeling lousy, and not hiding it very gracefully.

I'm really bad at being sick.

And what is the right way to be sick, anyway? When I coddle myself, I neglect things that I feel shouldn't be neglected. But if I ignore how I feel and work, I have this horrible sense of guilt that I am prolonging my illness by doing so. I can't feel RIGHTEOUS about anything. I don't feel sick enough to be unable to get up and do stuff. So I slog along or lie in bed feeling sloggy.

Blah, blah, blah.

This week I became an official Project in the Ward. They have temporarily released me from my calling. Thus my new, unspoken calling: take care of myself and get better. Sounds good. But it is so hard! I have been taught to act, and not be acted upon. And yet (see earlier post on "Being"), I've been thinking that a major part of what we're here on earth to learn is just that: how to be acted upon.

I've really been trying to work on that more—being present and even passive. Resisting the urge to control, do, influence, move. Sort of the "be still and know that I am God" philosophy. I really think I need to get good at this (here's me setting a goal again; always the actor). And to do it in every aspect of my life.

Like parenting. If I were to make "be still and know that I am God" my mantra, and repeat it when I look at my children, how would it change how I parent them? How would it change how I react when they are naughty, lazy, forgetful or even sinful?

I read an article this week about meditation, and how it helps us increase in spirituality (by, for one thing, teaching us to be present in the moment, and to shut off thoughts that interfere with that). So I've thought about how I can practice it more, and I have to say that there is some fear in me about it. I am afraid of letting go of my thoughts. I am a writer, for goodness sake. How can I let go of seeing things with an eye for how I will write them later? (But then, how can I say I am living my life if I am so worried about recording it? When I do this, I am living my life one step in the future!) What was it Wordsworth said? "Spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion recollected in tranquility?" (Something like that.) So if I don't do some spontaneous overflowing in the moment, my tranquil recollections will rather lack depth, won't they?

So in conjunction with this letting go of thoughts and allowing myself to live, is a letting go of things I'm going to write. I have to become more trusting of the muse, and the future muse.

This concept helped me this month with my "30 poems in 30 days" goal, helped me get over a hump when I felt I had reached the bottom of the bowl as far as creativity goes. I have been trusting more. Results: I have had an overflow of ideas of what to write about (witness the blog-o'-plenty, for example). The muse provideth. My cup runneth over.

Do you think the same could work with life? If I hold very, very still, will my cup run over with life (more abundantly)? I'd like to find out.

Like mother, like daughter

I think my mother is laughing in her grave.

See, here's what happened:

I was lighting the gas fireplace for my first time. I turned the gas up too high. I couldn't find the lighter, so I used a dinky little match, and had to reach WAY in to light it.

WHOOOOM!

And now I have no eyebrows, hardly any eyelashes (the few that remain are very short and stubby), and much shorter hair. (And, as you recall, I was already short.)

Did you ever smell burning hair?

I was FINE. No skin got burned. I didn't even feel heat. I'm not sure that anything really CAUGHT on fire—I think the ends of my hair just turned to cinders in the heat. Right after it happened, I ran my hands through my hair and ashes of burned hair just fell off. Gross. Embarrassing. Smelly. Depressing. Gross. Humiliating. Gross.

Not only did it turn the ends of my hair to cinders, but it burned the haircolor off sections of my hair. So I am gray.

And here is why my mother is laughing: the same thing happened to her, probably when she was my very age. I remember it vividly—her pink, hairless face. (I was a teenager then and, to my credit, did not laugh.) And the funny thing is this: when my hair is quite short, I look very much like my mother. And now that my gray is showing, I look exactly like her. She is rolling in the clouds laughing, I know it.

So, I'm just wondering—is it appropriate to pray for eyebrows to grow fast? My gut speaketh: no. The praying I ought to be doing, and am doing, is gratitude that I hadn't put any gel in my hair yesterday (Darlene Michael Jackson). And, of course, that I wasn't injured, the kids weren't injured, the house wasn't injured. What's a little lost dignity (and hair)? It's not like I was going anywhere anyway these days, being sick.

It was just the final blow to my pride, is all.