We're moving to Provo on Wednesday and flying to Pittsburgh Saturday on the first leg of our month-long trip, so here's something seasonal I wrote about gratitude. Looking back over the thirteen years since this was written, clearly I'd make a different list now. How about you? I'll be back in time to post some essays about Christmas.
Thanks, But Gimme
November 1996
Confession time: I’m a compulsive list maker, a trait I modestly associate with my ability to organize, anticipate, and shepherd a project through to its successful conclusion. I even keep lists of topics to write about. My daughters are both list makers, which is how I got through two weddings in three months with a minimum of stress. Lacking a day planner, my husband makes lists on odd pieces of paper which he somehow keeps track of. My son is beginning to get the hang of it, if the notes he writes on the back of his hand are any indication. My mother used to make grocery lists and keep household accounts on the backs of used envelopes.
Some people make lists to give the appearance of being organized, but nothing ever really gets checked off. Some people, knowing the theory but not the practice, make lists and then promptly lose them – motivated forgetting perhaps. Others are so brilliant they can remember everything and get it all done without benefit of a visual reminder. My experience in life is this: Blessed are the list makers, for they shall inherit all the responsibility for keeping the world going.
This seems to be the time of year for lists. We make lists of neighbors or friends to recognize with a special gift, some of them more out of obligation than feeling. We search the address book for people to send Christmas greetings to, and check who sent cards to us last year. We list on the calendar all of the school, community and church events we want to, or are expected to, attend.
Ironically, we make lists of things we’re thankful for at Thanksgiving, and then, apparently unsatisfied with those blessings, a week or so later we make lists of things we want to get for Christmas. That’s the human race for you – never satisfied. If I were tempted to buy into that “thanks a lot but gimme more” trap, my list would be tempered with realistically knowing that I’m not the center of everybody else’s universes. On the other hand, my self-indulgent self would make a list like this:
I’m thankful for the mild fall we’re having, but I know it won’t last, so I’d like a new bathrobe, full-length and fleecy, please.
I’m thankful for my computer, but I’d like to upgrade to a newer model, with a color laser printer, and some software, especially an electronic cookbook, please.
I’m thankful for the wherewithal to be adequately clothed, but I’d really like a tee shirt that says Give me all your chocolate and no one will get hurt, please.
I’m thankful for my house, but I’d like to build a deck/sunroom/hot tub onto the back of it, please. (My husband would certainly be grateful for having less lawn to mow.)
I’m thankful for our fuel efficient, dependable automobile, but I’d sure like one that’s also comfortable on long trips, please.
I’m thankful for music, but I’d really like the new CD just released by the Anonymous 4, please.
I’m thankful for my ability to write, but I’d like the time to finished the three or four plays I’m working on and get them published and/or produced, please.
But enough of this self-gratifying pleasure seeking. It’s spiritually and mentally a lot healthier to make lists of things to give other people. Whether or not it’s in our power to give them things we wish they could have, going through the exercise fosters the kind of insight about the human condition that selfish, greedy people never learn. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to learn on Judgment Day that those whose hearts have been generous and grateful, who have not measured life or people in terms of things, will qualify for the best seats in the house; they’ll go straight to the head of the line. And if God makes lists of his favorites, I wonder how long that list would be, and if I’d be on it.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Golden Oldie #3
Since I'm going to be away from my computer and blogging for a while, I'll put some relevant seasonal essays up. In Utah, the deer hunting season begins at dawn tomorrow, so I'm…
Goin’ Huntin’
By Pam Williams
September 1995
My only experience with hunting has been by observation and association. Back home in Oregon, some of my dad’s friends convinced him to go with them one chilly fall, assuring him they knew where to find the best game. They went to somebody’s mountain cabin the night before so they could get an early start, and they were back at the house before noon the next day because Dad – a former Military Policeman – shot his first deer right through the heart. I remember that he retrieved the bullet, now a crumpled blob of metal, showed it to all us kids, and then paced restlessly through the house grinning to himself for hours, reliving the moment.
Having venison on the menu for a brief time was an opportunity for Mother to tell us how she arrived, nine years old, with her family in the back woods of Southern Oregon in 1930, where her father intended to live off the land and wait out the Great Depression. Due to setbacks on the trip from Southern California, they arrived with literally two cents in their pockets. Grandpa took a rifle and found a deer to shoot. After gutting it and hauling the carcass back for Grandma to salt down, he went out behind their cabin and vomited repeatedly.
My dad kept his mangled bullet trophy in a drawer of my mother’s jewelry box, but a deer head mounted on the wall in the den was somehow so self-congratulatory, not like Dad at all. Though a skilled marksman, he never went hunting again. After hitting his target the first time so perfectly, what would be the point?
During our first autumn in Richfield, 1976, I remember the horrendous traffic jam downtown on the day before the hunt began. It was in our pre-traffic light days, and the party atmosphere at the intersection of Main and Center was unlike anything I had experienced before. It took ten full minutes to get across Main Street. I went straight home, made a cup of hot cocoa and worked jigsaw puzzles until the traffic cleared a week later.
At that point we began to wonder if we really belonged here. My husband Roger, the only middle school faculty member without hunter orange clothing, reported the phenomenon there. On the day before hunting season began, everybody came attired for the occasion, including the women. Many had driven their loaded campers to school so they wouldn’t waste a moment when the last bell rang. And there was Roger in his three-piece suit.
In fact, some have asked why we moved here if we didn’t hunt or fish. Answer: owning guns or fishing poles has never been a requirement to teach English. Thoroughly devout hunters speak of the experience in hushed tones and are quick to sermonize about herd control and the Bambi syndrome, while others say it’s family reunion time, and declare their love of the outdoors as the chief motivation for going hunting. I have taken the high road in these conversations, not mentioning the cost per pound, the macho factor, the very real potential for truly nasty weather in October, the danger, or the rubber ball qualities of badly cooked venison. We tried to look interested, nodding and smiling when friends reported their hunting adventures, but the stifled yawns gave us away.
Part of our skepticism about watching people go out in the hills armed to the teeth was that the frenzy transforms apparently normal human beings, and during that week in late October, the hills come alive with a mob mentality and itchy trigger fingers. My brother-in-law told of a friend, dressed in hunter orange, riding a Tote Gote (forerunner of the four-wheeler) down Provo Canyon dodging bullets. In addition, guys who don’t usually drink often take cases of beer on the hunt, claiming that the alcohol would keep them warm out there in the wilderness. As firm believers in the value of thermal underwear, but that ammo and alcohol are not a good mix, the logic of that rationale escaped us.
For some families, the hunt is a test of the marriage vows. Some women really enjoy stalking the prey right along with their spouses, uncles, dads and cousins, while others, the true saints, simply turn up the corners of their mouths in August when their husbands start talking about buying a new rifle. Some men may be oblivious to the fact that it takes a week to plan, shop, and load the camper. If the hunt is successful, it’s usually the women who have to figure out what to do with all that meat, although some actually like making venison salami, an acquired taste if there ever was one. Wildlife trophies are anything but subtle, and women willing to coexist with a rack of antlers on the family room wall should be considered the best trophy of all.
From that first autumn, seeing the near-fanaticism with which people prepared for the hunting season – it was bigger and more important than Christmas – we began to refer to what the school calendar euphemistically called “fall vacation” as the local religious holiday. We have been glad over the years to meet people who will, once we have declared ourselves as non-hunters, admit that they don’t see the sense in it either.
Indeed, that hunting season traffic jam in 1976 was an epiphany. It was the day I realized that living in a small town was going to be neither simple nor easy because I deeply need the trappings of civilization which are not as obvious or readily available here. That explained why for the first several months we lived here, I cried myself to sleep most nights. To satisfy my need, I imagined a classy alternative event, a non-hunter’s ball. We arrive in limousines. Searchlights in the sky show partygoers the way, and television reporters breathless with excitement cover the event. After a seven-course meal (the menu never includes duck, pheasant, elk or venison), elegantly dressed people progress to dancing – a live orchestra, waltzes, fox trots, big band music, maybe even a schottische. Halfway through the evening, everyone adjourns to an adjoining theater where a delightfully comic production aids our digestion by making us laugh. Then we return to the hall and dance till midnight. In my mind, I attend this event every year during hunting season, and I’m always safe, warm and happy.
Maybe seeing that hunting season fanaticism is why I have spent the ensuing years trying to create civilization in my external environment and nurture it in my own inner landscape. We all have ambitious quests and goals we pursue in life, noble causes we give ourselves to, and unquestionably there are trophies to be earned and claimed at landmark moments along the way. However, these accomplishments are often intangible memories, and to hunt and acquire them we need neither a weapon nor a license.
Goin’ Huntin’
By Pam Williams
September 1995
My only experience with hunting has been by observation and association. Back home in Oregon, some of my dad’s friends convinced him to go with them one chilly fall, assuring him they knew where to find the best game. They went to somebody’s mountain cabin the night before so they could get an early start, and they were back at the house before noon the next day because Dad – a former Military Policeman – shot his first deer right through the heart. I remember that he retrieved the bullet, now a crumpled blob of metal, showed it to all us kids, and then paced restlessly through the house grinning to himself for hours, reliving the moment.
Having venison on the menu for a brief time was an opportunity for Mother to tell us how she arrived, nine years old, with her family in the back woods of Southern Oregon in 1930, where her father intended to live off the land and wait out the Great Depression. Due to setbacks on the trip from Southern California, they arrived with literally two cents in their pockets. Grandpa took a rifle and found a deer to shoot. After gutting it and hauling the carcass back for Grandma to salt down, he went out behind their cabin and vomited repeatedly.
My dad kept his mangled bullet trophy in a drawer of my mother’s jewelry box, but a deer head mounted on the wall in the den was somehow so self-congratulatory, not like Dad at all. Though a skilled marksman, he never went hunting again. After hitting his target the first time so perfectly, what would be the point?
During our first autumn in Richfield, 1976, I remember the horrendous traffic jam downtown on the day before the hunt began. It was in our pre-traffic light days, and the party atmosphere at the intersection of Main and Center was unlike anything I had experienced before. It took ten full minutes to get across Main Street. I went straight home, made a cup of hot cocoa and worked jigsaw puzzles until the traffic cleared a week later.
At that point we began to wonder if we really belonged here. My husband Roger, the only middle school faculty member without hunter orange clothing, reported the phenomenon there. On the day before hunting season began, everybody came attired for the occasion, including the women. Many had driven their loaded campers to school so they wouldn’t waste a moment when the last bell rang. And there was Roger in his three-piece suit.
In fact, some have asked why we moved here if we didn’t hunt or fish. Answer: owning guns or fishing poles has never been a requirement to teach English. Thoroughly devout hunters speak of the experience in hushed tones and are quick to sermonize about herd control and the Bambi syndrome, while others say it’s family reunion time, and declare their love of the outdoors as the chief motivation for going hunting. I have taken the high road in these conversations, not mentioning the cost per pound, the macho factor, the very real potential for truly nasty weather in October, the danger, or the rubber ball qualities of badly cooked venison. We tried to look interested, nodding and smiling when friends reported their hunting adventures, but the stifled yawns gave us away.
Part of our skepticism about watching people go out in the hills armed to the teeth was that the frenzy transforms apparently normal human beings, and during that week in late October, the hills come alive with a mob mentality and itchy trigger fingers. My brother-in-law told of a friend, dressed in hunter orange, riding a Tote Gote (forerunner of the four-wheeler) down Provo Canyon dodging bullets. In addition, guys who don’t usually drink often take cases of beer on the hunt, claiming that the alcohol would keep them warm out there in the wilderness. As firm believers in the value of thermal underwear, but that ammo and alcohol are not a good mix, the logic of that rationale escaped us.
For some families, the hunt is a test of the marriage vows. Some women really enjoy stalking the prey right along with their spouses, uncles, dads and cousins, while others, the true saints, simply turn up the corners of their mouths in August when their husbands start talking about buying a new rifle. Some men may be oblivious to the fact that it takes a week to plan, shop, and load the camper. If the hunt is successful, it’s usually the women who have to figure out what to do with all that meat, although some actually like making venison salami, an acquired taste if there ever was one. Wildlife trophies are anything but subtle, and women willing to coexist with a rack of antlers on the family room wall should be considered the best trophy of all.
From that first autumn, seeing the near-fanaticism with which people prepared for the hunting season – it was bigger and more important than Christmas – we began to refer to what the school calendar euphemistically called “fall vacation” as the local religious holiday. We have been glad over the years to meet people who will, once we have declared ourselves as non-hunters, admit that they don’t see the sense in it either.
Indeed, that hunting season traffic jam in 1976 was an epiphany. It was the day I realized that living in a small town was going to be neither simple nor easy because I deeply need the trappings of civilization which are not as obvious or readily available here. That explained why for the first several months we lived here, I cried myself to sleep most nights. To satisfy my need, I imagined a classy alternative event, a non-hunter’s ball. We arrive in limousines. Searchlights in the sky show partygoers the way, and television reporters breathless with excitement cover the event. After a seven-course meal (the menu never includes duck, pheasant, elk or venison), elegantly dressed people progress to dancing – a live orchestra, waltzes, fox trots, big band music, maybe even a schottische. Halfway through the evening, everyone adjourns to an adjoining theater where a delightfully comic production aids our digestion by making us laugh. Then we return to the hall and dance till midnight. In my mind, I attend this event every year during hunting season, and I’m always safe, warm and happy.
Maybe seeing that hunting season fanaticism is why I have spent the ensuing years trying to create civilization in my external environment and nurture it in my own inner landscape. We all have ambitious quests and goals we pursue in life, noble causes we give ourselves to, and unquestionably there are trophies to be earned and claimed at landmark moments along the way. However, these accomplishments are often intangible memories, and to hunt and acquire them we need neither a weapon nor a license.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
How Monkish Are You?
If you've ever watched 'Monk' on the USA network, you know that Adrian Monk is a fastidious former San Francisco police detective and ace crime-solver who is a genius, but who is now a consultant because after his wife was killed in a car bomb his obsessive compulsive disorder got worse, to the point where it interfered with his work. On a case it often works for him, however, but his personal life is a mess. He has phobias about milk, rats, water, germs, order, cleanliness, the size and organizations of the vegetables on his plate, and 314 other quirks. The writing on the series is brilliant. One of my favorite lines is something he says to a girl he's taking out to dinner. They are walking up 70 flights of stairs because the restaurant is on the top of the building and he's too claustrophobic to ride the elevator. It takes quite a while and to make conversation on the way he asks what her religion is. He says he was born naturally but raised caesarean. This is the last season of Monk and we're watching eagerly to see that all the threads of his life come together. When we want another dose of Monk, we put on a DVD or watch reruns on the USA network or Sleuth, the mystery channel.
It's said that everybody has a little OCD and it shows up in various behaviors that may seem strange to other people. For instance, my Monkishness manifests itself in the way I eat M&Ms. I take a handful, spread them out, notice the colors and start eating the color that is represented by the fewest candies. Say there are three red, seven blue, five yellow, three green, etc. I'll start with the reds, then go to the greens. If two colors have the same number, I'll eat them alternately. As my family can tell you, I have many more Monkish behaviors than that, but it's typical.
So what's your Monkish behavior? It can't be stranger than mine.
It's said that everybody has a little OCD and it shows up in various behaviors that may seem strange to other people. For instance, my Monkishness manifests itself in the way I eat M&Ms. I take a handful, spread them out, notice the colors and start eating the color that is represented by the fewest candies. Say there are three red, seven blue, five yellow, three green, etc. I'll start with the reds, then go to the greens. If two colors have the same number, I'll eat them alternately. As my family can tell you, I have many more Monkish behaviors than that, but it's typical.
So what's your Monkish behavior? It can't be stranger than mine.
Friday, August 28, 2009
In One Era and Out the Other
Today we listed our house with a real estate agency. There's a sign in the front yard.
We've lived here for 33 years, raised our kids here, watched trees grow, planted flowers and shrubs, entertained friends, watched neighbors come and go, endured vandalism, held family parties, repainted, redecorated, recarpeted, planted and harvested garden produce, complained about the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter while we tried to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We've grown, struggled, had our share of triumphs and met our share of challenges.
It's a nice house. We added two feet onto the south end when we built it so the living room, kitchen, family room and storage room are bigger than they might have been. Nobody who lived here had the kind of temper that put holes in the walls or shattered glass. It has plenty of space, nice bathrooms, and closets where my dad put in shelves and insulated the storage room so it's like a walk-in refrigerator in the winter. The kitchen is big, and the appliances are all fairly new. It's a comfortable place, and we've been here long enough to make our grooves in the carpet. We're in a great neighborhood with lots of friends. Then the kids left home and it was just the two of us again.
However, there is one drawback that outweighs all the attractive features – stairs. Our house has a split entry so when you come in the front door you have to go up or down. Although I have new prosthetic knees, I'm done with stairs, just plain DONE. I want to live on one level now, where I don't have to plan my ascent to the kitchen from the family room or the office.
Yes, we have lots of memories, some bitter, most sweet, but all an enduring part of us. Now it's time for the "us" we've become to move on. We're looking at properties in the south end of Utah County where we'll be closer to the airport since two-thirds of our kids now live east of the Mississippi. We have a good support system here, and we'll find another one there without losing the friends we have now. It's good. It's right.
We know that the Lord directed us here to Richfield (even knowing that, I was the one kicking and screaming about it) and we're confident that He will lead us to where we need to be next. I suppose, when all the considerations are thought through, that's the bottom line.
We've lived here for 33 years, raised our kids here, watched trees grow, planted flowers and shrubs, entertained friends, watched neighbors come and go, endured vandalism, held family parties, repainted, redecorated, recarpeted, planted and harvested garden produce, complained about the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter while we tried to stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We've grown, struggled, had our share of triumphs and met our share of challenges.
It's a nice house. We added two feet onto the south end when we built it so the living room, kitchen, family room and storage room are bigger than they might have been. Nobody who lived here had the kind of temper that put holes in the walls or shattered glass. It has plenty of space, nice bathrooms, and closets where my dad put in shelves and insulated the storage room so it's like a walk-in refrigerator in the winter. The kitchen is big, and the appliances are all fairly new. It's a comfortable place, and we've been here long enough to make our grooves in the carpet. We're in a great neighborhood with lots of friends. Then the kids left home and it was just the two of us again.
However, there is one drawback that outweighs all the attractive features – stairs. Our house has a split entry so when you come in the front door you have to go up or down. Although I have new prosthetic knees, I'm done with stairs, just plain DONE. I want to live on one level now, where I don't have to plan my ascent to the kitchen from the family room or the office.
Yes, we have lots of memories, some bitter, most sweet, but all an enduring part of us. Now it's time for the "us" we've become to move on. We're looking at properties in the south end of Utah County where we'll be closer to the airport since two-thirds of our kids now live east of the Mississippi. We have a good support system here, and we'll find another one there without losing the friends we have now. It's good. It's right.
We know that the Lord directed us here to Richfield (even knowing that, I was the one kicking and screaming about it) and we're confident that He will lead us to where we need to be next. I suppose, when all the considerations are thought through, that's the bottom line.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Oldie But Goodie #2
Our granddaughters from Illinois were here for an all-too-short visit a couple of weeks ago, and I remembered an essay I wrote about one of their previous visits:
SUMMER VISIT
2005
How quickly grandmothers forget what young mothers know.
A nine year old who constantly dreams up pranks, and a very independent three year old have taken over our house for three weeks. They are our granddaughters from Illinois, away from home with their mom but without their dad, and because we don’t see them very often we are making a lot of exceptions to rules their mother, our daughter, grew up with. In the give and take and push and shove and ups and downs of life, Grandpa, their mother and I have a daily reminder of the wisdom that says children should have two parents. Sometimes the three of us are outnumbered by the two of them.
Kayla, the prankster, has a wacky sense of humor. She is a fair skinned blonde who knows dozens of jump rope rhymes, but can’t always grasp the logic of picking up a glass of milk before trying to drink out of it. She played games at my computer, and later while doing a project of my own, I reached into the computer desk drawer for a paperclip to find that she had hooked them all together in a chain. Make that three chains. Everything in the house is a toy, far more interesting than the baskets of toys in the closet for children to play with.
Courtney, who can solve any logistics problem if there’s enough furniture to climb on, leaves a path of destruction that should qualify us for federal disaster relief. All those uninteresting toys in the closet seem to be steppingstones to something more interesting that was never designed to be a toy. Courtney has big brown eyes with a Shirley Temple twinkle, blonde hair, and skin that tans rather than burns in the sun. Her favorite “blankie” is actually an envelope her mother made to cover the mattress in her crib when she was a baby. It’s multicolor polka dot flannel stitched to a blue backing on three sides. She has other more functional blankets, but she likes being able to put her feet inside this one when she sleeps. I’m picturing her as a newlywed some day, trying to explain that to a bewildered husband.
During the day the odd blanket becomes a part of her imaginative play. Her favorite joke is to put it over her head and yell, in her sweet soprano voice, “Hey, who turned out the lights?” Yesterday for a while the floor fan that cools us in the living room became an old fashioned box camera, and the blanket was the cloth over the photographer’s head. Courtney took the pictures and Kayla developed them for us all to see.
I am not beyond participation in their silliness. One stuffy, sticky night boredom drove us to paint each other’s feet with watercolors the girls found in the game closet. Not even in my most carefree childhood moments have I ever had green toenails, or red zigzags around my ankles, but now we have the pictures to prove it. Even Grandpa laughed.
Despite their age difference, the girls get along famously, and sometimes that’s a problem. They go from one chaos-creating activity to another faster that anybody can keep up with them, but I am grateful that their mother insists that they put things away when they’re finished.
In a couple of weeks they will fly back home to the normality of their usual family routine. Despite the order that will fill the vacuum, I know that the quiet will sometimes be painful. What is there now but to anticipate our trip to their house at Thanksgiving, where we know we will be romped on, and tugged over to a chair to read a book, tricked by one and twinkled at by the other?
SUMMER VISIT
2005
How quickly grandmothers forget what young mothers know.
A nine year old who constantly dreams up pranks, and a very independent three year old have taken over our house for three weeks. They are our granddaughters from Illinois, away from home with their mom but without their dad, and because we don’t see them very often we are making a lot of exceptions to rules their mother, our daughter, grew up with. In the give and take and push and shove and ups and downs of life, Grandpa, their mother and I have a daily reminder of the wisdom that says children should have two parents. Sometimes the three of us are outnumbered by the two of them.
Kayla, the prankster, has a wacky sense of humor. She is a fair skinned blonde who knows dozens of jump rope rhymes, but can’t always grasp the logic of picking up a glass of milk before trying to drink out of it. She played games at my computer, and later while doing a project of my own, I reached into the computer desk drawer for a paperclip to find that she had hooked them all together in a chain. Make that three chains. Everything in the house is a toy, far more interesting than the baskets of toys in the closet for children to play with.
Courtney, who can solve any logistics problem if there’s enough furniture to climb on, leaves a path of destruction that should qualify us for federal disaster relief. All those uninteresting toys in the closet seem to be steppingstones to something more interesting that was never designed to be a toy. Courtney has big brown eyes with a Shirley Temple twinkle, blonde hair, and skin that tans rather than burns in the sun. Her favorite “blankie” is actually an envelope her mother made to cover the mattress in her crib when she was a baby. It’s multicolor polka dot flannel stitched to a blue backing on three sides. She has other more functional blankets, but she likes being able to put her feet inside this one when she sleeps. I’m picturing her as a newlywed some day, trying to explain that to a bewildered husband.
During the day the odd blanket becomes a part of her imaginative play. Her favorite joke is to put it over her head and yell, in her sweet soprano voice, “Hey, who turned out the lights?” Yesterday for a while the floor fan that cools us in the living room became an old fashioned box camera, and the blanket was the cloth over the photographer’s head. Courtney took the pictures and Kayla developed them for us all to see.
I am not beyond participation in their silliness. One stuffy, sticky night boredom drove us to paint each other’s feet with watercolors the girls found in the game closet. Not even in my most carefree childhood moments have I ever had green toenails, or red zigzags around my ankles, but now we have the pictures to prove it. Even Grandpa laughed.
Despite their age difference, the girls get along famously, and sometimes that’s a problem. They go from one chaos-creating activity to another faster that anybody can keep up with them, but I am grateful that their mother insists that they put things away when they’re finished.
In a couple of weeks they will fly back home to the normality of their usual family routine. Despite the order that will fill the vacuum, I know that the quiet will sometimes be painful. What is there now but to anticipate our trip to their house at Thanksgiving, where we know we will be romped on, and tugged over to a chair to read a book, tricked by one and twinkled at by the other?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Oldie But Goodie #1
I lost a disk full of essays when I got my new computer early in the decade, and I'm just getting around to typing them into my permanent files. Some are not so bad.
Spring
April 1996
Spring begins at sea level and moves upward about eleven miles a day, according to scientists who have studied the phenomenon. It is a transition time when the natural life cycle begins again, when I watch a bee exploring the throat of a daffodil and catch my breath in astonishment at how and why this happens, and who makes it happen. Spring brings a sense of freedom, a feeling of newness, an urge to be creative.
One morning in the spring I was sixteen years old, I sat in my room watching the sweet Oregon rain fall on the riot of irises outside my window, exploring the Roget’s Thesaurus my parents had given me for my birthday that winter, and decided that I would be a writer.
This spring, one of my creations, a play, is being brought to life on stage by a group of talented people who are giving me the priceless gift of their time to do for me what I can’t do for myself. Theater has been in my blood since the spring of my senior year in high school when I auditioned for a part in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Although I didn’t get the part, I was assigned to the costume crew, which took me backstage where, for the first time, I inhaled the instantly addictive and nearly palpable creative energy in the air.
As a college student, my best learning moments, some even life changing, came when I was involved in plays. I’ll never forget the only applause I ever received as an actress – in my acting class, playing Amanda in a scene from The Glass Menagerie. My interests remained back stage, however, as part of the decision-making that went into the preparation, and I left the acting to people who could memorize lines and control their stage fright.
In the spring of 1967 another rich memory was born. I was the assistant to the faculty member directing a premiere production of a play written by the campus poet in resident, my creative writing teacher from the English department. The author would come to rehearsals to watch the progress of his “offspring,” and consult with the director on production details. It was instructional to listen to these two intensely creative men. I became a sponge. Sometimes when they disagreed about some detail they would turn to me and say, “What do you think?” Sometimes I had an opinion, and I was grateful for the chance to put it into the mix. At first it seemed ludicrous that my opinion should count for anything; I was just happy to be there, absorbing the creative energy and facilitating the activities of all those other creative people involved in the production.
Now it is another spring, many years have passed, and it is my own play that is being prepared for performance. This is the fourth production I’ve directed of a play I’ve written, so I have heard applause before. If you aren’t careful, it can go to your head, and a person could become confused about what it means. A poet once described birth as “Trailing clouds of glory do we come, from God who is our home.” It occurs to me that the clouds of glory we trail after us are the talents we bring that are probably a spiritual inheritance from the Creator. When talents are used respectfully, with deference to the Giver of the Gift, applause takes on a much different meaning.
It is appropriate that as I have watched the tulips and daffodils bloom in my yard, I’ve been watching some wonderful talents bloom, too, at rehearsals. Flowers fade, but those talents will continue to grow. I watch them unfold and I catch my breath in astonishment at how and why it happens, and who makes it happen. That, for me, is another wonder of spring.
Spring
April 1996
Spring begins at sea level and moves upward about eleven miles a day, according to scientists who have studied the phenomenon. It is a transition time when the natural life cycle begins again, when I watch a bee exploring the throat of a daffodil and catch my breath in astonishment at how and why this happens, and who makes it happen. Spring brings a sense of freedom, a feeling of newness, an urge to be creative.
One morning in the spring I was sixteen years old, I sat in my room watching the sweet Oregon rain fall on the riot of irises outside my window, exploring the Roget’s Thesaurus my parents had given me for my birthday that winter, and decided that I would be a writer.
This spring, one of my creations, a play, is being brought to life on stage by a group of talented people who are giving me the priceless gift of their time to do for me what I can’t do for myself. Theater has been in my blood since the spring of my senior year in high school when I auditioned for a part in “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Although I didn’t get the part, I was assigned to the costume crew, which took me backstage where, for the first time, I inhaled the instantly addictive and nearly palpable creative energy in the air.
As a college student, my best learning moments, some even life changing, came when I was involved in plays. I’ll never forget the only applause I ever received as an actress – in my acting class, playing Amanda in a scene from The Glass Menagerie. My interests remained back stage, however, as part of the decision-making that went into the preparation, and I left the acting to people who could memorize lines and control their stage fright.
In the spring of 1967 another rich memory was born. I was the assistant to the faculty member directing a premiere production of a play written by the campus poet in resident, my creative writing teacher from the English department. The author would come to rehearsals to watch the progress of his “offspring,” and consult with the director on production details. It was instructional to listen to these two intensely creative men. I became a sponge. Sometimes when they disagreed about some detail they would turn to me and say, “What do you think?” Sometimes I had an opinion, and I was grateful for the chance to put it into the mix. At first it seemed ludicrous that my opinion should count for anything; I was just happy to be there, absorbing the creative energy and facilitating the activities of all those other creative people involved in the production.
Now it is another spring, many years have passed, and it is my own play that is being prepared for performance. This is the fourth production I’ve directed of a play I’ve written, so I have heard applause before. If you aren’t careful, it can go to your head, and a person could become confused about what it means. A poet once described birth as “Trailing clouds of glory do we come, from God who is our home.” It occurs to me that the clouds of glory we trail after us are the talents we bring that are probably a spiritual inheritance from the Creator. When talents are used respectfully, with deference to the Giver of the Gift, applause takes on a much different meaning.
It is appropriate that as I have watched the tulips and daffodils bloom in my yard, I’ve been watching some wonderful talents bloom, too, at rehearsals. Flowers fade, but those talents will continue to grow. I watch them unfold and I catch my breath in astonishment at how and why it happens, and who makes it happen. That, for me, is another wonder of spring.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
What I Learned on my Summer Vacation
You CAN go home again, but it might not be there.
On the afternoon before we left Vancouver to return to Richfield, everyone indulged me as Jen drove us over to Portland to find the house where I grew up. I wanted my grandkids to see the lovely idyllic place on the outskirts of town that influenced my life so profoundly. We had a GPS to guide us, but it didn't turn out as I hoped it would. There was nothing left to recognize. Gone was the quiet neighborhood and three little rows of houses on two short streets. Gone was the dairy and the pasture beyond where we chased the cows in for afternoon milking. Gone was the farm land and the wild blackberry patches and the little stream where we found frog eggs in the spring to take home and observe their metamorphosis into tadpoles. Gone was the 50-foot row of irises on the north side of our house, and the roses that lined our driveway, and the ten cottonwood trees in the back yard where we played ball and the silver leaf maple in the front yard that overlooked my mother's rock garden. Gone was the quarter acre of garden space that fed us from year to year. Gone was the house, half of which my father built, where we ate breakfast every morning watching the sun come up over Mt. Hood.
But things changed. In its place was an industrial park of staggering dimensions - acres and acres of semi-trucks lined up in place of all that had been familiar, now guarded by miles of chain link fences, a testament to the power of change.
Disappointing though it was, in a way I was glad. I am secure in the memories of childhood that shaped my life. They are always mine, always available, always part of me, and I can paint the picture in words whenever I want to. It is enough. I am content.
On the afternoon before we left Vancouver to return to Richfield, everyone indulged me as Jen drove us over to Portland to find the house where I grew up. I wanted my grandkids to see the lovely idyllic place on the outskirts of town that influenced my life so profoundly. We had a GPS to guide us, but it didn't turn out as I hoped it would. There was nothing left to recognize. Gone was the quiet neighborhood and three little rows of houses on two short streets. Gone was the dairy and the pasture beyond where we chased the cows in for afternoon milking. Gone was the farm land and the wild blackberry patches and the little stream where we found frog eggs in the spring to take home and observe their metamorphosis into tadpoles. Gone was the 50-foot row of irises on the north side of our house, and the roses that lined our driveway, and the ten cottonwood trees in the back yard where we played ball and the silver leaf maple in the front yard that overlooked my mother's rock garden. Gone was the quarter acre of garden space that fed us from year to year. Gone was the house, half of which my father built, where we ate breakfast every morning watching the sun come up over Mt. Hood.
But things changed. In its place was an industrial park of staggering dimensions - acres and acres of semi-trucks lined up in place of all that had been familiar, now guarded by miles of chain link fences, a testament to the power of change.
Disappointing though it was, in a way I was glad. I am secure in the memories of childhood that shaped my life. They are always mine, always available, always part of me, and I can paint the picture in words whenever I want to. It is enough. I am content.
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