Sisterhood of the traveling skirt

It lay folded neatly on the bottom of a stack of clothes in my laundry room. It looked so familiar. It is stretchy and forgiving and matches a multitude of colors--reds, browns, blacks, whites, off-whites. Several months ago Amy picked out this skirt. It was too big, and a little short. Alison hadn't gotten around to fixing it so gave it to Camille. Krysta talked me into altering it and giving it back to Amy. So I did, I picked off the waist band and elastic, snipped and sewed and then hemmed--I even changed the thread on my sewing machine AND serger. Then back to Amy it went. One fine August day I picked up Megan for EFY from the Soderquist's. She looked so cute wearing this skirt. Then we drove around the corner and picked up Savannah. One look at Megan and she said,"Hey, I've worn that skirt".
Katrina said it was in a pile of her things and figured it was Staci's so took it to the laundry room. Personally I think it is one of those magical traveling wardrove pieces that fits and looks great on everyone and provides a nice experience for the wearer. I don't know about any of the experiences this skirt has provided but I can vouch for one thing, this skirt has traveled and it didn't care if it went to Idaho or Provo but it was trying to sneak off to BYU.

Days of '47 Float Party

Free uncrowded parking--
drinking fountains and handy restrooms.
Floats, floats and floats.
Creators on hand proudly showing beginning to end.
The sketches, the scale, the raw chicken wire, dense foam and glitter--pounds and pounds of glitter
and the final works of art up close and every angle.
A marching band, clowns, balloon creations, face painting, and cinnamon toffee nut smells.
All in the air-conditioned expo center
Next year you're all invited.
It's the best parade of the season!

Why this

There is a 4 year old that follows us around at church asking me...
What's wrong with her? What's wrong with her shoulders?
This happens so often.
She shuts off and I'm left to try, as fits the situation and the age of the child to quickly explain. I never know quite what to say--I feel loyalty to make her feel as comfortable as possible as I tell strangers about her medical problems.
I'm not quite sure why they ask me, when she can hear and talk perfectly.

Children everywhere we go stare as she zips by--
she puts on blinders and drives on.
A couple of times in bad moments I've asked them not to stare, that it makes us uncomfortable.
Its like fighting a losing battle.

Sometimes we'll hear, "Mommy, I want one of those scooters, she is so lucky!"
If only they realized... but its a nice change from those who did.
Old folks, they're the best.
I tell her it's because they have life experience. They have seen enough to understand.
Little grandpas wave at her. Smiling grandmas address her and love her scooter and her eyelashes.

The other day I thought it was a safe place
a backyard sandbox, a couple of children.
But the truth poured out on the way home. They had quizzed her about her feet
("just put your heels down, just do it"), her knees, her shoulders and her back...Was it real or did she have a toy or something in her shirt? They came and poked her just to check. And, "You're the weirdest person I've ever seen", and "Do you have any friends at all?
It was awkward and embarrassing (her words) and she cried as she told me.
Can you put the blame on curiosity? cruelty?
Do you blame the parents like you blame the owners of a naughty dog?
We decided to chalk it off as lack of experience.

Still after everything she been through
Why this too?

Arete

I have been thinking about virtue.
Actually I keep bumping up against different definintions--at church and with the humanities class that I am taking.
The Greeks had the word arete. It translates to virtue and it meant excellence. For women, beauty and domesticity. For the men, heros like Achilles and Odysseus exemplified arete. Physical perfection, war heros, leaders, and with the endurance and cleverness to get them sucessfully through any situation.
The Romans took it one step further. Aeneas, their hero, had all the attributes the Greeks admired plus he had an incredible sense of duty to his god-given mission, to family, to the glory of Rome. His arete was proven in his self-sacrificing actions.
The Greek philosopher Socrates believed that Arete meant excellence of soul. True virtue came with knowledge and understanding truth.
I have been interested in the church's addition of virtue to the young women values. We visited Matthew and Kimberly one Sunday. When the meeting got out, man after young man came out the doors wearing gold ties. The girls and their leaders had on lovely gold necklaces. Their stake had decided that if it was important enough for the girls to focus on virtue that the young men should too. They had all their youth and their leaders make commitments for the year to become more virtuous based on the girl's personal progress program.
Virtue as per the new YW value is defined as: a pattern of thought and behavior based on high moral standards (definitely different from the Greeks and Romans). They have goals pertaining to chastity, worthily entering the temple, living so the Holy Ghost can guide you, learning about repentance and reading the Book of Mormon.
We had a speaker talk to the Stake. She defined virtue as the power of Christ. She based this on the scripture where the young woman touched Christ's robe and he felt virtue leave him. I thought that he felt the priesthood being used and that virtue was being used a different way in that story. But it did make me think about it more that I would have if it had made sense to me.
Several days later I read this in the D&C. 121:45: Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

I like the use of the word garnish--like a sprig of parsely added artistically to make your salad more appealing. There has got to be an analogy here somewhere. From the dictionary virtue means: moral excellence; goodness; righteousness and some possible synonyms for garnish are: decorate,embellish, enhance, attach.

So, "let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly" could mean something like," let moral excellence be attached to your thoughts all the time." With the addition of virtue we are better people not just because we are doing good acts but that goodness extends through our thoughts. Like the difference in just providing service to someone and having charity. One is an action the other is really loving and caring for someone in our mind and hearts and actions. I can see how this could be applied in my life by asking questions of myself. How can I implement a standard of excellence in my thinking? Am I trying to see virtue instead of vice? Am I making sure that each of my thoughts is being viewed with a virtuous garnish?

July 12

Last night as we sang happy birthday to Midnight (Tricia's black Webkin horse) and lit two birthday candles in his honor. I realized that it also marked another day. It has been five years since my Mom's death. We had a family fast and met together for prayer when she got the news about her cancer. She told us that night that we were hurting because the news was so fresh and eventually it wouldn't hurt so much. She was right. It doesn't hurt so much, but still there is an empty space. I miss having someone to brag to about my children. I miss the cheer leading and her empathy and her wisdom in helping me with my struggles.
For my birthday this year Alison made me copies of some letters that Mom had written us my first year at BYU. She wrote weekly from September to February. (I think they ended there because Michael had his brain abscess). She wrote from her typewriter, making an original and a carbon copy and then personalizing them for each of us. She wrote neighborhood news, daily ups and downs and the funny things that had happened with various family members. It was very much "her". Her voice, her personality, her opinions and her wit. Here are a couple of samples:

"I talked to my Mom this morning. She said she had called each of you over the weekend. I think if you don't get so you call her every now and again, I will cut you out of my will. And I have some good things to leave some lucky person...Year old potato sprouts, 6 darling, intelligent obedient children, a 20 year old truck filled with used linoleum, handmade Raggedy Ann and Andy wigs made from turkey bags, two antique robes perfect for those blue days, a closet full of clothes that Deseret Industries would kill to have, six slightly used but personalized garbage cans, a box collection perfect for Christmas wrapping, if you can find enough tape to keep the boxes together, and lots of other valuable and unique treasures. So you had better get those calls going."

"I have been rather "down" lately about Nathan and Michael. Seems like my attitude had changed from "things could be worse" to "things could be a lot better". I know that attitude is not "church approved" and I have done alot of thinking about it. Just a few days ago I had a thought that helped me. The scriptures tell us over and over again that we should have grateful hearts, should sing praises of thanks to the Lord, etc. It's as though the Lord is commanding us to be grateful. I've decided that the reason it is important to be thankful and grateful is that it keeps us from the more negative attitudes of wanting more and not appreciating what we have. I have the feeling that if we knew the ways the Lord blesses us, we would be amazed and extremely thankful to Him. I'm sure that his hand is in our lives more than we can ever imagine, and it is directly because of Him that things are not a whole lot worse."

Besides bringing back so many memories, these have been especially meaningful to me now because I am in the same stage of life as she was when she wrote them. I'm so grateful Alison had the forsight to save them.

Pictures

A few poses Sunday night when we were all together. Yeah!


Tricia at Soderquists

Flight

I turned and saw a plane careening out of control,
spiraling wing to wing downward
toward the landing strip at the airforce base. The crash was coming.
I knew it.
I held my breath waiting to hear the impact, waiting to see the flames. Seconds later it soared across the sky. Up and out and away.
When my heart started beating again I realized that a group of children had stopped and were watching too.
Jauque knew,"They're practicing for the air show tomorrow."

Later, as I mowed my lawn I almost jumped out of my skin as another jet zoomed overhead...sound trailing speed.

Saturday, all day the sound of the engines and planes coming and going filled the air.
500,000 people flocked to the Base to watch.
Sunday from our balcony we saw the encore performance of the Air Force Thunderbirds.
Six jets, smooth and sleek and perfectly synchronized raced across the sky.
First in a V formation.
Then circling around the valley, separated, yet still perfectly spaced.
Each did a"touch and go" on the runway and flew away again.
It was incredible and surprisingly interesting.

Monday, Camille and I out for a walk, saw an old prop-plane, a small brightly painted plane and two huge helicopters going different directions toward home.
The show is over, the sky empty and the air quiet.

I turned and out on the back porch stood one of our robin fledglings.
Not smooth and sleek like its parents but fuzzy and awkward and unsure.
It glided to the balcony floor and skidded on its tiny feet to a shaky stop.
After a long pause it took a short flight to the handrail, and sat.

The other sibling perching on the edge of the nest, awaited take-off.
Scratching, flapping and performing other pre-flight checks.

Dad robin stood on the fence chirping and instructing the children.

Finally the first bird took off again-a precarious flight to the garden.
I held my breath, worried it would crash.
The landing stuck.
Dad flew over to join it and both started pecking for food. Dad found the first worm and hopped over and tucked it into the fledgling's mouth.
Later the nest was empty.
When the afternoon rain tapered off, I saw one of the small birds come out from under the protection of a hollyhock. It flapped and shook off the rain.
Dad joined it providing sustenance and courage.
This little robin family has been surprisingly interesting and incredible to watch.
Now they are gone, the nest empty and the air quiet.

Update from our nature preserve

I chased a snake out of my yard this morning with my fertilizer spreader. It's my third snake sighting of the season. I'm proud to say I didn't scream this time, just a surprised ahh, and yuck.

Yesterday I peaked out and watched a skunk waddle across the street and into my flower beds. He turned around when he hit the fence and headed back and disappeared into the field behind.

Several weeks ago I noticed birds building a nest on our house in the crook of a rain gutter. We had some territorial swallows build a home in our carport in Bountiful. They were really cute until they started "swooping" at our heads to scare us away. Our neighbor, Tally, a retired school teacher, went on daily walks past our house. First she crossed the street to pass, then resorted to bringing an umbrella to protect herself from our dive bomb birds. I called animal control, they didn't want to get involved. Swallows are not a protected bird and we could do whatever we wanted with them. My friend Liz was a cub leader. She said she could bring the scouts by with beebee guns after their next pack meeting.
That just didn't feel right.
We endured.
One afternoon I was covering my head and rushing for the car. Next door neighbor Al called out,"Did you see the birds go?"
We had missed it.
Mom and Dad bird had taken their babies out for their big flight, not to return.
Well not until the next year, but we kept hosing the nest down until they gave up on our location.
So,
the prospect of another nesting situation weighed heavily on my mind. I assessed it. It was really close to the balcony (a negative). It wasn't a swallow's nest (a positive). There was a guilty looking robin on a nearby fencepost with building material hanging from its beak. I postponed a decision. When I woke up the next morning Tricia was standing at the bay window watching the birds. From the comfort of our kitchen window we were going to have a perfect view. The educational value outweighed all else.
We are accommodating hosts. We apologize for scaring Mother Robin when we go out on the balcony or need to mow. We water the flower pots on the balcony at times when she is taking a well deserved break from the nest. We make sure all the balcony lights are off at night so we don't disturb their sleep and I didn't spray the worms on the red-twigged dogwood for fear I'd poison the birds. Last week I was concerned when I noticed she was in a contorted position on the nest. Worried that something was wrong I checked on her several times. I am happy to report, she was sitting funny so as not to squash her new baby birds! I feel so proud almost like I helped. There are two babies, maybe three. They have little furry gray faces and huge hungry mouths--not huge, huge... just bird-size, but they open surprisingly far. Cute, cute....and so far no regrets about sharing our space with them.
I can't say the same thing about the snake.
Or the skunk.

What girls need

A few months ago I asked the question, "What do girls need?" I got many great answers at the time.

On Sunday Krysta came home from church so excited for girls camp. "Candice is going to make sure we can go canoeing this year and we're going to certify or something like that and look at constellations and help cook..." She loved that plans were being made and there were fun things to look forward to. (And I love that someone found a camp certification manual this year.)

Tricia often asks me at bedtime what we are doing the next day. It's happening so often that I am consciously trying to think up things to tell her to so she can look forward to it. I caught a glimpse of her calendar and realized that she is labeling events herself--birthdays, holidays, fun events at school. We have been having Achievement days right after school on the first and third friday of each month. With this regular schedule our attendance has been very high. Tricia had pre-labeled her calendar with several more months of achievement days even though they hadn't been planned by the leaders yet.

So, girls need things they can look forward to. I'll bet they wouldn't mind a surprise here and there but when they know things in advance they get to enjoy the event longer.

Charity and Forgiveness

The lesson in RS and Priesthood today was about forgiving (JS#34). There were examples from Joseph Smith's life of times when people harmed him and the church and he easily forgave them. There is a line in Moroni 7 about charity that I have often wondered about : "...pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love" (meaning the pure love of Christ or charity). Why would charity be such a difficult thing to be blessed with that I would need to pray for it so earnestly and intently?

As we studied forgiveness I realized this application. When I have felt hurt or wronged, sometimes I have a hard time forgiving the person and letting it go. It is especially hard when they aren't repentant or if they don't know that they have hurt me. It starts to become painfully obvious that the anger or hurt that I am carrying inside is damaging me and I need to forgive. But, I'm angry and I feel justified in that anger. That makes it very difficult to pray to forgive the person. Sometimes all I can do is back up a step and pray to want to pray to forgive them. Finding the humility to say those prayers takes all I can muster, all the energy of my heart....But as I pray what I am truly asking for is charity. To feel as the Savior does toward that person, to see them as He does. When I have been blessed with the gift of charity I can easily give them the benefit of the doubt. I can feel like they were doing the best they could at the time. I can know that the Lord loves me and He loves the other person, and a feeling of forgiveness can come.