Chasing the Rooster

I'm desperate. I look at him out of the corner of my eye. He's not large, or even especially showy, but his dull red feathers still manage to offset that silky understated green tail. I run with every fizzle of energy I possess, but I'm not fast enough. He is ahead of me and to the right, just out of reach. I'm not fast enough.

I haven't been feeling well lately. I have no energy, and the times I would have spent reading, writing, thinking, creating, have been replaced by sleeping. Sometimes I even fall asleep when my children are still awake, and then jerk back to life, feeling guilty and afraid. But all day, all I want to do is sleep. At Trevor's insistence, I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with post-partum hypothyroidism. Some of it's symptoms include fatigue, depression, hair loss, and weight gain. How many "post partum" diseases are there? I thought I already dealt with the only post partum disease out there.
Fortunately, treatment is simple: a straightforward synthetic hormone that simply replaces the hormone your body should be producing and is not. The downside is that it takes between three and six weeks before the symptoms of hypothyroidism subside. I have been taking the hormone for 10 days. Since taking the replacement, I have crazy dreams every night. The most regular visitor in my dreams is a small rooster.

I run beside him, but my existence is irrelevant to him. In a manner that is familiar only to those who dream, he is a rooster but has eerily lost so many of his roosterly qualities. His gait is almost mechanical in it's regularity, fast but not erratic. He doesn't make noise or startle at the noises around him. His steady plodding regularizes the world, but I am still wild with emotion. I must go faster. How can I go faster? I must breathe deeper, pump my arms harder, launch off of each stride more quickly. What can I do to go faster? Where is the finish line? He cannot get by me.

I have lost myself. Where did I go? Did I lose myself when I stopped doing what I usually do, or did I somehow simply stop being what I inherently was? No one outside my house notices a difference, but I am not myself. I am quick to anger; the house is not too clean, the dishes are not all done. Things with deadlines get done. Diapers get done, children get fed. And every night I sleep.

Where is the finish line? He will never stop. Haven't I spent my all? I can't keep running. How do I keep running?

In the breath between sleep and wakefulness, I know the rooster represents my health. Such an interesting balancing act, our souls. Our behavior is such a delicate dance, a give and take partnership between our bodies and our spirits. Is it more excusable to behave poorly when our bodies are not functioning properly? No, but I believe it is more understandable.
Things with deadlines get done. I am a Relief Society teacher, and my lesson has a deadline. I have been studying the upcoming lesson, which is on repentance.

This time there are people cheering me. I still don't see the finish line, but I can go faster. I'm not yet fast enough, but I can go faster. I see the finish line and lengthen my stride.

In my studying, I found this quote by Richard G. Scott from a talk entitled, "The Path to Peace and Joy":

Each one of us is commanded to both repent and to call upon God continually throughout life. That pattern allows each day to be an unspoiled page in the book of life, a new, fresh opportunity. We are given the rejuvenating privilege of overcoming mistakes of commission or omission, be they small or profoundly serious. Full repentance results in forgiveness with spiritual renewal. One can feel the cleansing, the purity, the freshness that accompanies sincere repentance at any time in life.

This is not a new concept to me, but it struck me newly. Repentance is not just for serious transgression. It is a path to peace and joy, a gift any time we need to draw nearer to the Lord and receive of an increase in His strength. We should desire these things constantly: we should repent constantly. Maybe, like plagues and famines, hypothyroidism is just a call to repentance. Sometimes I think the Lord gives us our challenges as long as there is still something to be learned from them.

Last night, with everyone in my dreams cheering me on, I caught the rooster.

Satisfied

I was born with growling digestive juices in my mind.

No matter how much was fed me, sensory input streaming in, crammed into my synapses, I still craved more. I had wondered sometimes if it was possible for me to reach saturation, a point of satisfaction where I'm not grasping for more. Like someone starving, I was always occupied by the securing of my next mental meal, and yet, when I got it, it was swallowed whole, in big painful lumps, as I was already out of the moment and looking for more.

I have no idea what kind of psychological dysfunction gives birth to such brain binging, but this extreme hunger has been a mixed blessing all my life. I have experienced so much in my quest, but quantity sometimes overpowered quality when I couldn't process the incredible amount of input I was receiving.

Being a stay at home mom has helped immeasurably. It was the equivalent of sitting at a beautiful, crystal-lit table all in white, with gorgeous presentation and thoughtful portions, served one course at a time. I was forced to be in the moment. Never in twenty of my previous lifetimes would I have understood what this qualitative breathing space would do for me.

I've realized that there is a delicate balance between opportunities for growth and space for mental digestion. There must be time to reflect, time to step back outside of the process of progression to remember what we are becoming. Again, motherhood offered the perfect meditative backdrop. My children are constantly taking me back to the beginning, which is also the end.

Last week, for the first time in my life, I realized I've hit it. I am saturated. I am satisfied. Not that I'm done learning, but I'm done grasping and cramming. What's on my plate is enough. I have things worth pondering and time to ponder it in.

This is not at all the direction I was planning on taking this, but as I wrote I just can't help but learn again that motherhood is what has done this for me. I am so grateful, not just for my children but for the plan of happiness that made me a mother. It has brought me back to the place where I hunger and thirst no more.

A day of tendermercies

In the past, I haven't included very many of my spiritual experiences in this blog, thinking those were appropriate for another space. But the nature of this blog and it's purpose and title convince me that there is no better place for experiences that are spiritual. If this blog is intended to record my learning and in order to better understand myself, this is an essential part of it. What better learning to record?

This last week I had just about had it. Rylan had a bad asthma attack last week and by Wednesday he was still grumpy like he always is after an attack and I was losing my patience with him (not that I ever have that much to start with, sigh). Evie was having a serious case of diarrhea, so not only were there lots of diapers to change but the poor girl had a wretched diaper rash from it burning through, no matter how quickly I tried to change it. When Trevor left me that morning, I was dreading the day. I could muster no enthusiasm for it whatsoever.

You know what though? Wednesday was wonderful. The kids were happy, we spent some wonderful time together, everyone started to feel better, the missionaries came over for dinner and they were fun, my family got bragged about and I was so happy to hear how well they were doing, and all in all I couldn't have asked for a better stay-at-home day.

I know it was a gift, and I'm grateful for the Lord's awareness of me and for His tendermercies.

Sculpting

I've been painting a portrait of Rylan and last week I felt like I was carving his face, not painting it.

His face doesn't have enough dimension. Darken the shadows.

The brush hits the canvas.

Chink chink chink.

Every stroke of the brush is a tap of the chisel, darkening, digging deeper, creating his face.

William Wilberforce, eat your heart out

Who would be in my Clapham?

Trevor
Reena
Keelee
Carol
Amy
Patience

I want LaRee in my Clapham
I wish Brandon could be in my Clapham

Odd that I know who would be in my Clapham before I define it. Knowing who is in it will help me define it. Hmmmm...a post for another day.

Tools in His hand

You take the pen,
and the lines dance.

You take the flute,
and the notes shimmer.

You take the brush,
and the colours sing.

So all things have
meaning and beauty
in that space beyond time
where you are.

How, then, can I hold back
anything from you?

--Dag Hammarskjold

Life is Art

I've had Art on the mind.

Rhapsody in Blue, Michelangelo, my own painting, opera, my poetry obsession, have all been sashaying across my synapses.

As I learn more about these true Masters-- Michelangelo, Gershwin, DaVinci-- I find myself wondering what makes them Masters. Why is their work true art in my opinion, while, say, the Mesa Art Walk does not strike me as artful in the least bit? How do I define art? I had vague ideas, but to focus my thoughts a wee bit, I referred to good old wictionary. Here are some of the more pertinent definitions:

• (uncountable) The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

  There is a debate as to whether graffiti is art or vandalism.

• (uncountable) Activity intended to make something special.
• (uncountable) A re-creation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgements.
• (uncountable) The study and the product of these processes.
• (countable) Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation.

And here is my take-away, in my definition of art:

Art must have beauty. It can be a terrible beauty, but it must draw us in and be appealing to the senses. To do that, it must have order.

Art must have truth. It must hold a reflection of the eternal and what it means to be human. It must speak to us of God and His work and glory. Fortunately, I have learned that it is easy for beautiful things to carry truth, because the truth is so often beautiful. Whether an individual sees truth in a painting may often more upon the viewer than the painting. Where viewer 1 may see only a vase filled with flowers, viewer 2 sees the truth and beauty inherent in humanity's desire to capture and enjoy the wonder of God's creations, and their corresponding desire to create and bring things into order. Viewer 1 does not see truth in the painting; viewer 2 does.

Art must be the result of self-discipline, of "study, practice, and observation". It must come through a process of perfection and refinement.

Why does it matter how I define art? Because I want to create it. I want to create it through painting, through music, but most importantly, through the medium of my life: a life of beauty and truth, a life of practice and refinement. All of wiktionary's definitions of art can apply most directly to the creation of a life. I am so grateful that I have been given the direction and tools necessary to make a masterpiece.

Now on to that practice part...

Lingering humourously over some of the contents...

"It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage through their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humourously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake up in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on."

--J.M. Barrie, from Peter Pan

I ran across this quote as I read the book (SO worth reading, by the way. Absolutely Wonderful)

Last night Rylan made me laugh as I was tidying his drawers.


Mom:Did you have a good day today Rylan?

Rylan: Yeah. I went to nursery.

Mom: What did you learn about in nursery?

Rylan: Jesus and toys. But I wasn't reverent. I was mean.

Mom: Were you mean in nursery or just in Sacrament meeting when I took you out?

Rylan: We went in that room and you held me and we sat on the ground*

Mom: Yeah, we did. But then you decided you wanted to be nice, remember?

Rylan: But I was mean.

Mom: Well, for a while you were being mean, but you're such a nice boy, you decided to be nice and we went back in. We got to sit next to Dad and Evie, and eat pretzels, and read that book. Wasn't that fun?

Rylan: I held your hand and we went back in. **

*When he started acting up in Sacrament Meeting (saying, "I don't want to be nice, I want to be mean" and then hitting Evie) I took him out. In order to make it an appropriate consequence and not a reward, we went into an empty room and he sat on the ground in my lap. I was trying to make it as boring as possible. It was memorably boring, apparently.

**This was a huge deal. He had to hold my hand by himself and choose to go back in, being nice the whole time. I wasn't going to carry him in so he could throw a fit as soon as I sat down. We had to try three times before he could walk all the way in by himself, holding my hand.

I tried to leave the pretty thoughts on top, "beautifully aired,...ready for [him] to put on."

He's such a good kid, and remembers and digests SO MUCH. Those wheels are always turning. I love that boy.

P.S. Yesterday whenever Evie started fussing, all we had to do was turn her around and let her flirt with the girls behind us and she was just fine. Such a social butterfly, that one. Sweet and gorgeous to boot.

Like toes squelching in mud

I have a sister in law who I absolutely adore. She is an artist, a writer, an adventurer, and a taster of life. Despite her zest, I have never met anyone so purely unaffected. All she is and does, though confident and sure, is laced with a sweet grace and kindness that does not dim but only accentuates and gives air to her [joy de vive]. What a woman!

Anywho, she recently posted on her blog about her love of words and her running list of favorite words, a pet collection she brings out to play with, pairing them together to see what fascinating reactions they can conjure and ideas they can elicit.

This does not surprise me in the least. Reading her work is like squishing your toes in dark, cool mud: Earthy, pleasant, and ultimately all about the sensation. Her words touch your brain, working their way in and squelching in and out of the different receptive spaces. She writes poetry, novels, and short stories, and in all cases her words are a pleasure to experience. In honor of her (and because she requested it on her blog) I am going to start my own list. It will start off short (extremely short, especially because it is almost midnight and I have to get up early), but a running list is allowed to begin sparse.
Here goes:
clarion
squelch
Elysian
raucous
mug (doesn't that just sound so solid and stable? I can hear the sound of a mug hitting the table every time I say it)
idiosyncratic

I know I have more, but to sleep I must go.

Rhapsody in Blue

I've sat down a dozen times to write this post, typed out one hundred thoughts.

And yet sometimes moments of magnitude are best laid out in their simplicity.

I sat down and listened, and my life was changed. Music, which had been my bread and butter, became my nectar. It had been my emotion, and now it became my thought. It had been my stability, and now it became my passion. Never have I experienced music the way I experienced Rhapsody in Blue. It opened a new dimension of perfection, taught me again that there are worlds within worlds.

Where will this take us, myself and these people in my little kingdom?

I sat down and our little river changed course.

My Own Adventure

Last night, I was sitting in bed reading blogs of loved ones far away.

Trevor has two siblings that are spending a year abroad for their studies. Both are married, and keep us posted via that wonderful invention, the blog. Both are waiting to start their families until they return home and are living their couplehood to the hilt, enjoying their time with each other as they take full advantage of their exotic adventures.

To be quite frank, as I read I was getting a wee bit jealous. I knew that we made the right decision to have our children when we did, and I am passionately in love with my kids, but the What Ifs were dancing around my head. What If we had waited a bit longer to have kids? What If we had gone on our own exotic adventure, or even just traveled while living here, childless and fancy free? What If we had been able to spend that much time with each other, learning and experiencing new places and cultures? Confident, however, that even if I followed the What Ifs my decision would ring true, I walked down that windy path. This is where my What-Ifs left me:

We would have had a wonderful time. There is no doubt we would have thoroughly enjoyed that time together.

We would probably have a lot more money.

All our lives we would have been able to draw from those experiences.

And yet I feel so, so, grateful for the guidance of the spirit. I understand that every couple is in a different situation and may receive a different answer to this question. I am sharing how grateful I am that I followed my answer. I will have just as much time for that form of exploration as they will, I have just done it in a different order, and that, for me, is a blessing.

For me, being a mother sooner has meant more time with my children. It occurred to me that if, theoretically, we all live 80 years and spend 25 of those years rearing children, the only thing that will be different is where those 25 years are placed in the life span and how much of our life we get to spend with our children. I will still have plenty of time with Trevor, plenty of time for adventure, but it will just be after our kids are grown. The difference, however, is that in choosing to have our family sooner, every year we didn't wait is an extra year that we will be able to enjoy our children (and grandchildren, Trevor adds). I wouldn't trade that away for all the spice of India.

For me, being a mother sooner has meant more bonding with Trevor, not less. We have found more mutual delight in our children than anything else we have ever experienced. If we do have less time together, we also certainly treasure the time we have more. There will be time for adventure later, and our relationship will be richer and the time more meaningful because of our shared history as parents.

For me, being a mother sooner has meant more years of meaningful introspection and self-improvement. Some people need that extra time before children to find themselves. I needed motherhood to find myself.

Before I had children, and especially before I was married, I was so hell-bent on experiencing life to the fullest that I stuffed it with every good and appealing thing. I was happy, but I don't think I had much true joy. I wasn't actually digesting anything I was doing because I was too busy doing it. What a marvel it was to me when I had Rylan. Life slowed down and suddenly I had time to think, time to savor. Impressions that came to me became lasting impressions because I had more time to fully act on them. I finally understood what it was to ponder because there was enough stillness in my life to do so.

Suddenly, the consequences of my actions were amplified. As queen of my home and caretaker of this child, I molded the spiritual environment he was nurtured in. Suddenly, being in a bad mood didn't only affect me. It affected an innocent baby, who unlike Trevor wasn't an emotionally independent adult. Being angry, or impatient, or unkind had a formative impact on him. Motherhood formed a magnifying mirror and I saw all the blemishes in my behavior up close and personal. I also saw how much love I was capable of, and it gave me hope, and a greater understanding of the Atonement.

Having my family sooner means my life is more focused on the plan of salvation. I have become convinced that there is divine intent in the pace of motherhood. Though our hands are often busy, our minds are often left free. Many women (myself included) have complained about this from time to time, but I think the Lord knew we would need all of our mental faculties available to focus on teaching our children the essential principles they need to know to reach their full potential in this crazy world. Teaching my young children about who they are and where they can go is a constant reminder to myself of my own eternal nature.

Motherhood has changed who I am, and I like the change. Even if I had had adventures that I could have thought back on for an extra two decades, I feel like I've had a head start on becoming who I was meant to be-- not just something to draw on in an anecdote here or an experience there. It is the foundation of everything I will do for the rest of my life. And I like the way that looks.

It's a beautiful thing when the path of What Ifs leaves you so aware of the tendermercies of a loving Father in Heaven.

I am so grateful.

My Life in a Nutshell

I'm cleaning my room and decided to pause and document all of the books cascading from my bedside table for the sake of posterity. Having this many books is totally typical, and they are always rotating. Here we go:

Peter Pan (completely delightful and engaging. Reading it to Rylan)
The Agony and the Ecstasy (bio of Michelangelo, just finished. Phenomenal)
Three Cups of Tea (Reading for a book club on Wednesday)
Peek-a-WHO? (Evie's book)
The Lonesome Gods (rec by TJEders, somewhat disappointing)
The Shop on Blossom Street (Candy read, need to return)
Schindler's List (Slow, uninspiring, not worth finishing, giving to DI)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (reading a chapter here and there, fun)
The Closing of the American Mind (parenthesis are getting old)
National Gallery of Art full color copy reproductions
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Drawing on the Artist Within
5 art books in full color lent to me by Jamie with works picked out to reproduce
A Hymn Book
Martha Stewart Living, May issue
Book of Mormon
Bible
Nutrition textbook
Biology textbook
Anatomy and Physiology Textbook
Mother and Child in Art
Thomas Paine:Enlightenment, Revolution and the Birth of Nations
The Lost Language of Symbolism
Paradise Lost
How Children Learn
The Power of Positive Parenting

Next time anyone asks me what I'm up to these days, I'll refer them to this list.

A taste of motherhood

There are very few blogs that I actually read, but this week the one I read most regularly has been chronicling the writer's recent labor and delivery of a new little daughter. This morning I sat down and read about the actual birth.

I was taken totally off guard by the power of my own emotions as I read. Maybe it is a tribute to this woman's ability to write that her story of a natural, at-home birth carried in it the eternal, an archetype of this stunning aspect of womanhood. I sat and cried as I read, both because it was beautiful and because I can't have it and I want it so bad.

I wanted this experience that spans the gap of centuries, continents, and cultures to unite my gender. I craved this initiation into the most complex and mercurial role of a woman.

I wanted to have this experience as a beautiful reminder of the reality of this earth life: wearying but profoundly meaningful, painful but bringing forth unlimited joy. I wanted that rich opposition, that biting, concentrated morsel of life tasted even as I brought forth life.

Most importantly, I wanted to begin my motherhood by surrendering myself to something bigger, a foreshadowing of what it continues to be, a precedent for the day to day. I wanted to make the choice of swallowing motherhood whole, the good and the bad in one jaw-splitting mouthful, and making it part of me.

Despite much preparation, it didn't happen that way for me, and it won't.

I don't feel robbed or cheated: I'm too grateful for my two beautiful children to feel that way. But I do feel...sterilized. This is the only word that comes into my head as I sit here trying to place it. I feel as scrubbed down metaphorically as I was literally on the operating table for the births of both of my children. Not in a beautiful, cleansed way, but in a yellow, iodine, latex way...artificial and inert.

Every time I feel that my experience has been less than it might have been, I remind myself that while those two half hours of my life may feel comparitively lacking, Rylan and Evie are fresh, authentic and alive, as unique and wonderful as any two children that ever came. However trite it may sound, all of my heart is wrapped up in those two, and no matter how they got here, I am grateful for it. As a matter of fact, I am intensely grateful for it, because without this option, either I or them (or both) would not be here, and no mothering would be happening at all. How petty of me to mourn such a tiny aspect of motherhood when I'm up to my armpits in motherhood every day of my life.

I will not to cry foul because I didn't get the concentrated tidbit I wanted: my challenge, rather than to manage the sudden overflowing mouthful, is to catch every single stream in my mouth as it falls and savor it as it slides down.

And there is absolutely nothing artificial or inert about that.

Reading another crazy, life changing book.

John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Agenda of Compulsory Schooling.

Not done with it yet, but I AGREE SO MUCH WITH WITH SO MUCH OF WHAT IS BEING SAID!!!!!!!

Our public schools are "preparing" our children for real life by disengaging them from their real motivations for learning and in their place creating false external motivators, obliterating any hope of a real community and setting up a false, oft times cruel social system, laying the student's well being on the sacrificial altar of teachers' job security and unions, and constantly trying to convince us that the only way to fix this fundamentally deranged system is to pour more money into it.

The sad thing is, for the most part we believe it and have responded readily with constant cries to the government for more money. As a matter of fact, they have convinced us so fully that we need to fund their failing system that we give politicians the rotten tomato treatment if they don't seem sufficiently concerned about taking money out of our pockets to give to this whacked system.

We're being hoodwinked, mega.



In addition: This is a note to myself to start buying amazing books in triplicate. Actually just in double so I always have one to give way if I need to, but I wanted to say triplicate.

Lessons from Amy

How can it be that I talked so much when I find you so interesting?

I think I heard you call about two dozen people "completely fascinating" tonight. Some of them I know, some of them I don't but if I know them and don't think they're fascinating I know you're right and not me. You find gold everywhere, lifting and building.

You see the light in my eyes because you know God so well you can see even the faintest spark of divinity in each of his children.

You "edify, that is to lift and build up, to make those around you feel better".


I am grateful for how you make me feel and what you teach me. It is easy to learn from you because of how you make me feel. I want to do that for those around me-- especially for my children.

Thank you for teaching me until 10:40 tonight. I didn't know how long I had stayed, but I'm glad you let me. Being with you tonight made me a better person.

Palm Sunday

One of the things I adore about being a mother is that I am queen of my own little world. I choose what comes in my home and what goes out of it. I can mold it to look the way I want. I can organize time the way I want. Though by no means does my little kingdom always perfectly reflect my dreams and aspirations for it, I am it's queen and with Trevor, choose which direction to send it on it's way.

This week I have decided that in my kingdom, Easter will be a major holiday, on par with Christmas.

I love Christmas. At Christmas, the whole world seems to celebrate together, to soften and gladden a little. Everyone recognizes it as a beautiful time of year, full of peace and joy. A whole month of the year is set aside to celebrate.

Unfortunately, it is also extremely commercialized, sometimes stressful, and not always celebrated sacredly. Because not everyone's focus is on the Savior at Christmastime, it can be easy to get distracted from the true meaning of the season.

Easter has, for the most part, escaped the public limelight. Oh, sometimes we get Good Friday off, and the Easter Bunny naturally makes a commercilized appearance, but on the whole, Easter has been left relatively untouched. Like Christmas, Easter has the potential to be wholly Christ-centric, but Easter doesn't have as msny of society's distractions to deter us from this pure worship.

I will be thinking this week of ways that I want to celebrate Easter in our family. I want there to be a build up, similar to (though maybe not as lengthy as) the month long buildup for Easter. I want to have an "Easter Spirit" in our home in the days before Easter. I want to have an Easter Season in our house. During Christmas, many of my most treasured experiences each year do not happen on Christmas day. They usually happen in the days before, as I'm pondering the truths of the holiday. In our home, I want us to have a similar opportunity.

As I come up with ideas, I'll pos them. I'm so excited for the upcoming celebration!

The Great Change

Last night on our date, after eating dinner, Trevor and I went to ASU. We were planning on going to look something up in the library, but found that because we're no longer students we couldn't even access a catalog, so we decided to just walk around for a while instead. The campus has changed so much, and it's absolutely beautiful. We hardly recognized parts of it.

It brought back so many memories, so many feelings, and to be honest, so many regrets. I kept thinking about all of the time I spent there, all of the classes I took, all of the papers I wrote, everything I should have learned, and it finally happened.

I wish I had not gone to public school.

This thought has been very long in coming. More than a year ago, I took a class that I have often called a "book club on steroids". We read classics together, discussed them, wrote papers on them, and even gave speeches. Of the other members of the class, Trevor and I were the only ones who didn't homeschool our kids and weren't planning on it. I told them that public education had worked well for me, but I was open minded about having my children homeschooled if I felt like they needed it. I wasn't outspoken, but I was definitely the minority.

I loved school. I felt like deciding to homeschool my kids was demeaning to the excellent teachers I'd had, and I didn't think that was fair.

But the teachers weren't the problem, it's the system. What is the value of a grade? In my opinion and experience, it does not reflect true learning or even effort, and in education these are the things that really matter. It doesn't accurately measure education, but it does have a huge potential to either discourage those who are working hard but can't quite get that A, or lulling people into a false sense of security about the quality of their education and learning. I fell in the latter camp. According to the public system, I was an excellent student; in retrospect I fell far beneath my potential in learning.

Of course I loved school: with the grades I received and how I tested, I had praise from every side. Unfortunately, I wasn't really learning, and I was not in the least bit intrisically motivated. It has taken almost three years out of the public system to be detoxified from it's effects and feel like I am learning for the sake of learning and actually retaining it.

I don't want that for my children. I don't want them to waste 12 years, or worse, waste 12 and then battle for the rest of their lives to recover from the effects of a distorted system. They need personal mentorship, intrinsic motivation, and a recognition of how to apply what they learn so it actually benefits them.

Now how do I do that?

The adventure begins...

EVMCO

The third and final quarter of EVMCO's (East Valley Mormon Choral Organization) first season has begun, and I am SO excited! Every time I go, I feel so inspired to be better, to work harder, and to refine myself, not just musically but in all areas of my life.

Two thoughts I have from tonight's rehearsal:

1) Our director, Brandon, talked about a harpist he auditioned this week. He said she played so beautifully that it almost moved him to tears, and she is only 16 years old. She has been playing for eight and a half years. When she walked in the room, you could see her purity and her focus on her face.

It totally struck me when he said, "I absolutely do not believe that it is a coincidence that this pure, radiant girl also happened to play the harp well. There is no doubt in my mind that as she refines her musical abilities and cultivates that beauty, she is growing spiritually". I think the same thing could be said vice versa: As she grows spiritually her ability to play increases.

Isn't that powerful? He's right! I can give this gift of the Spirit to my family in so many ways. True doctrine is obviously the most concentrated and important, but there are so many other supplemental ways to cultivate and bring the Spirit to them. I want to give that to my family.

2) I've been reading about types of Christ in The Lost Language of Symbolism, and so I've been thinking a lot about how all things testify of Christ. Today, Brandon was talking about vibrato and pitch (of all things) and I decided that what he was saying truly testifies of Christ.

In singing, when someone sings a note with natural vibrato, the true pitch of what they are singing is at the center, and the voice undulates in pitches slightly above and below this center pitch. When you're flat, the vibrato is unbalanced below the note, and when you're sharp the undulations fall more above the pitch, etc. Brandon was telling about a soloist in OCMCO (Orange County Mormon Choral Organization, our sister organization) and said that when they recorded his solo and looked at it on the computer in slow motion, his vibrato was perfectly balanced above and below the true center pitch.

He said that as humans, our ears naturally gravitate toward these true pitches (true A, B, C, etc). When we hear a voice with vibrato that perfectly surrounds the true pitch, it has a distinct ring to it that it is beautiful to us.

That is so beautiful to me. Christ is the True Pitch, who we gravitate toward, and when we center our lives around him, the result is beautiful. It rings.

It makes sense that singing would have so many witnesses of truth in it. We know there will be music and singing in Heaven, and I'm sure everything there Testifies of Truth. Maybe all beautiful things testify of truth in some way (or multiple layered ways) and that is what makes them beautiful. I want to find them all out! I want to be spiritually refined and in tune with this beauty that God has so graciously surrounded us with!

Essence of lemon

This morning when I was painting, I was intent on catching the lemony-ness of a juicy cut lemon. Every now and then, the smell of the lemon hit me, and I always came to myself with a start when I realized it wasn't from the lemon I was painting.

It was such a melding of art and reality; it felt like a poem.

The Color Purple

No, I haven't read the book.

Yes, I want to.

But shockingly enough, that is not what this post is about.

This post is about my new obsession with the color purple. Even more shocking, I know. The color the color purple (as opposed to the book The Color Purple). Me, in love with purple? Who'd a thunk?

Purple is sly and seductive. I've always been a Red girl myself, but I was reviewing my projects over the last few months and realized that purple has weaseled it's way into all of my favorite ones.

The apron I made for Reena for Christmas.

My lovely front bed of perennials.

My kitchen hutch, recently painted in a lovely shade of eggplant.

I knew I had it bad when I decided to paint my red desk...purple. It is the ultimate betrayal. Sorry, Red. I've moved on.

Lately I've been browsing through The Lost Language of Symbolism by Alonzo Gaskill. Very, very interesting stuff. This morning, due to my recent discovery that I had unwittingly fallen in love with the color purple, I looked up it's scriptural significance. For your reading pleasure, I will relate what I learned.

Purple, as some of you may know, has long been a symbol of royalty, power and wealth. This is largely due to the fact that anciently the only way to produce purple dye was to extract and skillfully combine the secretions of two different mollusks. It was difficult, rare, and therefore pricey. In the Tabernacle and other temples of ancient Israel, purple, along with blue, scarlet, and white, were the only colors the Lord specified be used for the fabrics in the temple and the Priest's clothing. In addition, Purple (appropriately) symbolized spiritual progression.

Interesting scriptural usage: In Revelations, the Great Harlot wears purple as an attempt to counterfeit the priest's clothing. She is also depicted drinking out of a golden cup, similar to the chalice a priest would use in a wine offering in the temples of ancient Israel. She wears an inscription in her forehead stating, "Mystery, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth". A priest would have had a miter with the inscription "Holiness to the Lord" on his head. So the whore sells sacred things for money, imitates the priesthood, and tries to steal the glory of God. Sound familiar? I guess it's always the same old story with Satan. Isn't that interesting?

Anyway...how tangential of me. I'm sorry. Back to the topic at hand...

Purple. So it's not as if I'm painting my walls or anything-- though Purple on it's best behavior, genteel and gray, would look lovely in my office-- but things are cooling down in my color world even as the weather is heating up.

Poetic Innocence

I've had a renewed fascination with poetry lately, and I think I attribute it to Rylan. His newly emerging sense of language is so beautiful. I love listening to the way he explain things with his simple, limited vocabulary. For example the other day when I was cooking dinner and the pot was boiling, he told me it was "jumping at the lid". Isn't that simple, direct and fresh? Everything a poem should be. It made me want to write a sweet, simple poem, a haiku or something like that.

Or the other day, we were looking at a painting of a city with a black skyline jutting into the white sky. He said, "Look, Mom, music!" I didn't know what he was talking about at first, but then I realized the buildings looked like the black keys of a piano, nestled in the white. That concept could fuel a poem.

I told someone in my family the other day that I wanted to write a series of poems using some of his phrases. They laughed, but I was serious. I've already started writing them.

In fact, if I ever post a random poem on here, with a portion in italics, the italics was Rylan. Maybe I should cite both of us as the authors. The only difference is, his brilliance is simple and effortless.

What I learned from Rylan about writing poems:
Sometimes limitations spur creativity.

What I'd like to try:
Find a way to limit my vocabulary so I can try to grasp at his fresh interpretations. Maybe just use one letter of the alphabet for all my verbs, another for nouns, and so on. Not only would that stretch my interpretations, but the ringing around of the same letters could be fun sounding, too.
Hmmm. At least for an exercise, that would be fun.

Language most shows a man...

...Speak that I may see thee. --Ben Johnson

This is my blog.

I have another blog for my family. There, I talk about my family: my kids, my hubby, their goings on and cuteness and all that good stuff.

I realized several months ago, however, that I needed my own space. I wanted a space to monopolize with my goings on: what I'm learning, what I'm thinking about, things that excite me, projects I'm working on. I wanted space to experiment as I write. I wanted to present a slideshow of my days, glimpses of what my life as a stay at home mom really is. Because, despite what you may hear, it's not just about the kids, and I have learned that every SAHM’s brand of Stay at Home Mom-ness is very different. There’s not really a way to lump all of it into one category, and if there is I want no part of it.

But despite my need to define and differentiate, I cringe at the thought of all this exposure. I like people to find me out subtly and slowly, through direct observation, without my filter. I’m typically not into self-definition for anyone else’s sake, and yet here I am, devoting an entire blog to little old me. I need it yet it terrifies me.

Because I feel so very much like apologizing and excusing everything here, I’m not going to. From here out, I will excuse nothing written in this space.

I don't mind people reading this-- If I did, I wouldn't put it on the web :) But for some reason, I feel the need to preface what they will read with a disclaimer. And so the title is the blog’s disclaimer. I feel the need to put myself out there, formed in words, so here it is.

I am speaking.