tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74241501066324967842024-02-06T19:35:46.411-08:00peace comes dropping slowYeats anticipated peace waiting for him in his Eden Innisfree. I cannot survive with the idea of peace as fruit of the future only. I must create moments of peace amidst the chaos of my 'now'.JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-1112170146403460322013-04-11T12:11:00.001-07:002013-04-12T10:22:08.467-07:00"Dancing Irish"<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Here is a strange one -</span><br />
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Last night our three oldest children walked on stage at Chandler Hall in front of a couple hundred people and danced.<br />
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They danced. Well, Jonah and Caroline danced. Cecily kind of bounced up and down with the idea of dance filling her head.<br />
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The most notable part of this, for me, is the turning of the corner from parent-and-child, to just child. Standing alone, being whoever child is when they are not parent-and-child. They were doing something <i>I don't know how to do</i>. What must it feel like to a an accountant when their child becomes a cardiac surgeon? I know their little brains grew inside of me, but today the world grows inside of them and they decide where they will fit in it. I taught Jonah to read and now Jonah teaches me about the salinity level of a certain part of the ocean and how that affects a particular fish, or that Hatshepsut is the Lady Pharaoh who ruled in the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. <br />
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The thing is, they are snipping the apron strings on me and I'm not quite sure if I keep handing them the scissors, or if I should be, or if homeschooling means they're really more like apron-tie-down-straps and I should be sharpening the machete in preparation for my children's looming adulthood. The mysteries of parenting only become more mysterious with time. <br />
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On another note - Cecily might have been converted to the stage last night. The audience went crazy for her little wave as the Irish dancers skipped their way off stage. Later, during intermission, Cecily ran across the stage looking for someone and about two thirds of the way across she stopped in a sudden realization that the wild cheering, clapping and hollering of the entire room was for her. Heaven opened up a permanent spotlight on a four-year-old that only days before was paralyzed in uncontrollable tears at the prospect of doing her little dance just in rehearsal. Somehow she overcame her fear the following day and waltzed on stage just as confidently as any mouseketeer in their day.<br />
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I filmed at the dress rehearsal so I could get closer and not be bothered with it during the actual performance so you won't get the full sense of the audiences reaction to our local Irish Troop. But they were well received. Gloria Bowden, who you will see holding Cecily's hand, is the genius behind it. And Southern Virginia University is the "genius of small," which fosters a connection with community and students that will bless our family forever.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hyT5u5LAL0w?rel=0" width="640"></iframe><br />
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p.s.<br />
while I write this Cecily is trying to teach Ewan to Irish Dance. Her lessons go like this - "See Ewan, skip, two, three, then switch."<br />
Ewan starts, back to the wall saying "skip, three three," then falls down and she chastises him, "No, like this . . ." While all her moves look remarkably similar to bouncing.<br />
<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-6449839057185219012013-04-04T08:43:00.002-07:002013-04-04T13:11:54.568-07:00Denomination of Daughters<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">{on a bench outside Jefferson's Monticello}</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Susie is my Mother-in Law</span>. She calls me "Be-fessica," or "The Incomparable Jessica." <br />
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I can't think what I might have done, or been, or said to earn the latter.<br />
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The former came by way of birthing one Jonah, who for lack of a 'j' sound early in life called me Be-fessica, and himself Fwonah. <br />
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Susie says I am a daughter to her as much as any of the five she bore herself. What can I do with this? What do I say between the space of good fortune and friendship that is mine and hers. I love her.<br />
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I love you.<br />
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Susie thanks my Mother for Susie's ability to love me as she does. This is why - my Mother loved my Dad's mother as only a Ruth loves a Naomi. All my years of growing up I saw my Mom wash dishes in my Grandma's kitchen. I watched her laugh with my grandparent's, and talk, and seek advice, and accept help when help was all that would keep our family from glimpsing the edge. <br />
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To love the mother of the man you marry is a good plan. And Susie is right, it was seeing my Mom's love - determined and constant, reaching out beyond herself which planted in me the expectation that when I walked into the Rasmussen home for the first time, I was coming to join, not to divide.<br />
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Matt told me early on that his Mother's only advice to him about who to marry was to make sure he chose an orphan. I am hardly an orphan. Oh grief, I am a Leavitt - a passel of kin, a parcel of generations that claim me up tight. And despite that moment of hesitation at the Social Security Office just weeks after we married, I was able to slide out of the name that had cradled me for 23 of my own years and who knows how may hundreds of the years that came before me. I tried on Rasmussen, filling out the paper and passing it over to the woman at the desk who seemed desensitized to the transformation taking place in front of her.<br />
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I am a woman. I am a Jessica. She is a Susie. We both tucked away the name we brought to courtship and wed ourselves to a husband and a name. Father - Son - Grandson. Someday Jonah will offer the same name to another woman, who, like us, a daughter in her own clan, will find that there is room and to spare under the shelter of this name.<br />
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Funny how we women go about trading a name for a name, an identity for an identity. One might be tempted to think that the moving about and the scramble of families and generations and alphabetical segregation would leave us feeling isolated. But I don't. I feel like the jumble of appellations untangles into one metronymic name that lets us be sisters, that lets us love.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-82345113969000855172013-04-03T12:15:00.000-07:002013-04-03T12:28:27.364-07:00Extra . . . Something <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">At the beginning of the school year</span> I had intended Cecily to go to a local preschool. After looking at the options and visiting a school, I decided on St. John's Methodist preschool which is just a few blocks away in Buena Vista. </div>
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Both Jonah and Caroline attended the West High preschool near Rose Park. This was a good thing for both of them for different reasons. And knowing that I would shortly be adding Cecily to the daily mix of lessons at home I felt she needed the opportunity to learn how to do something on her own with other people. </div>
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As school approached the apprehension among the children grew. They all knew Cecily was destined for the newest, most foreign experience yet in our Virginia life. They all anticipated Cecily's first day of school with varying degrees of excitement and anxiety. </div>
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Huddled together just days before school began, Jonah whispered to Caroline "Cecily is going to preschool in a church."</div>
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"Oh Cecily," Caroline exhorted, "you have to be extra good."</div>
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"And extra normal," added Jonah.</div>
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"And extra Mormon," Carlo concluded.</div>
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As it happens, she ended up joining a preschool co-op of all LDS kids and Moms, so she didn't need to worry about being extra Mormon or extra normal.</div>
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JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-6164469285018750732012-12-12T07:26:00.000-08:002012-12-12T07:29:09.038-08:00Becoming a "Townie" in Buena Vista - The LibraryWe lie in my big king-sized bed this Wednesday morning and breathe a bit as a family after the running of too many days on end and the puking in between the running. We should be able to ignore the calendar when we are sick, but somehow we don't. <br />
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Cecily brought the virus home having picked it up on the dangerous streets of downtown Buena Vista . . . or possibly from some sneezing child at preschool - one can never be sure where they unknowingly consent to host a virus. Cecily shared it with Ewan. This is no surprise as Ewan is forever seeking hugs and kisses we are bound to share a bit of whatever it is that lurks on us. Ewan shared it with Jonah. This is no surprise as Jonah cared for Ewan so tenderly at 11pm when he was throwing up in his bed the night before. Jonah shared it with Matt, but Matt has not puked since 1991 so his will has become stronger than any virus that has made the attempt on him in the last twenty-one years. <br />
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So far Caroline and I remain undisturbed, but for the puke on my shirt and neck, sheets, towels, floors, rugs, beds, and toilets. It's just not <i>my</i> puke. While Jonah slept in my bed yesterday Caroline and I did two math lessons. Jonah woke up periodically and read enough to finish <i>The Two Towers</i> and then gently beg me the rest of the day to pick up <i>The Return of The King</i> for him which was on hold at our local library.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfInPrQVgwdnAp2LlKgz-SaPE_b_T9sulEHGcPiGRJulL7B_K7UjK5r10LCIjSHFJeZ6Yoq4f6-QEvPs9zrCfZZ6eiQXk8PETXupGnZtSLe5ZFh_hW054GqmfIrseWsL5YbkjW8k9GG-lJ/s1600/IMG_0172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfInPrQVgwdnAp2LlKgz-SaPE_b_T9sulEHGcPiGRJulL7B_K7UjK5r10LCIjSHFJeZ6Yoq4f6-QEvPs9zrCfZZ6eiQXk8PETXupGnZtSLe5ZFh_hW054GqmfIrseWsL5YbkjW8k9GG-lJ/s400/IMG_0172.JPG" width="400" /></a>Finally, around 3:00 pm the girls and I walked into the library where Tori, the twenty-something librarian was waiting at the counter. Before we could even say "hello" she had fetched our book for us, laid it on the counter and asked with incredulity "He's finished <i>The Two Towers</i> already?"<br />
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"Yep, he's been sick today, laying in bed either reading or sleeping and then begging me 'Mom, please go get my book for me' ".<br />
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"I love this kid," Tori exclaims. <br />
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<i>I love this town</i>, I think. Much as I miss, pine for, yearn for, try not to think too much about the Salt Lake City Library, no one ever knew my name at that library. We had to have been some of their most frequent patrons, but no one ever saw us come through the door and had our books picked up and checked out for us without us so much as having to produce a library card or even give our names. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNDFdduFbGcU-McBmYYrFCKL7IV7sKj2r50VJql1N4eSgODTaFVHYV8EYvDO0uHPCnDctDjYjAUdxXwKGQTmkmOgLn5Thac6G7CnYgGmDT3v7k0zbycgVWBMRgF9175eIAHOLCUMqON3S/s1600/IMG_0173.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNDFdduFbGcU-McBmYYrFCKL7IV7sKj2r50VJql1N4eSgODTaFVHYV8EYvDO0uHPCnDctDjYjAUdxXwKGQTmkmOgLn5Thac6G7CnYgGmDT3v7k0zbycgVWBMRgF9175eIAHOLCUMqON3S/s320/IMG_0173.jpg" width="240" /></a>Susie is the sweet forty-something librarian who is a "townie" through and through. Which is to say she is pure Virginian, mumbles softly in southern drawl such that one westerner must lean in closely and listen hard to translate the loosely shared English. She wears cable knit sweaters with flowers or seasonal decor such as reindeer or elves on them. Tori calls her 'The Goddess of the Library' because she knows all the answers - even if you have to listen hard to discern them. <br />
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Several weeks ago I had all four kids at this very small library in the middle of the day. As I was checking our books out Susie leaned in close and whispered "Your kids behave real good."<br />
"Thank you," I replied as we watched a band of children who did not belong to me stomp through loudly, throwing fits and pulling books off the shelf. They are not bad kids, just unsupervised kids who spend the limbo hour between school and Mom-getting-off-work at the library because they have nowhere else to go.<br />
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Recently Jonah returned a movie (<i>The Secret of Roan Inish</i> which you should watch if you have not). He jumped out of the van and ran in to deposit the movie which we are not allowed to put in the book-drop. He came back saying "Man, Tori was in there. I wanted to stay and talk. For several days after I kept checking our account to see when they would apply the four dollar fine I knew we owed on the movie. When it never appeared I knew Tori must have had a hand in it.<br />
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A few months before that Susie took pity on me when I was trying to pay my library fines which, at twelve dollars, were alarmingly high to her. Again she leaned in close to me and said very softly "Don't tell nobody, but I'm gonna take half that off for ya." <br />
"Ok, I won't tell nobody," I whispered. "Thank you."<br />
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So consider yourself not told, because I don't want to betray The Goddess of the Library's trust. Bad things might happen, and we can't live without the library.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-76933539119021160932012-11-06T10:52:00.002-08:002012-11-06T10:54:59.470-08:00Clint Eastwood Has My Phone Number<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have learned the profound difference between Utah and Virginia. If you look at the following map closely you might see it right off the bat, whereas clarity came to me only after fifteen months in The Commonwealth and a presidential election. </div>
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Matt and I are registered Independents because the only thing we can unabashedly affix ourselves to is our faith and each other. I will tell you up and down and seventeen days from Thursday that I am a Mormon. I will also tell you with as much gusto that being Mormon does not a Republican make of me . . . or a Democrat. What it makes me is a believer in Jesus Christ. Politics, with all its exclamation points, does more to threaten my inner-discipleship than persuade me to align with the many and varied philosophies of man. </div>
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When Matt and I bought a house in a Salt Lake City neighborhood we had a kind fellow from our church who lived nearby stop at our door to welcome us and get us registered to vote. How very helpful I thought him. How very petulant he thought me when, knowing I was a Mormon, I refused to mark the box that declared me a Republican also. My 'X' by Independent was nearly as offensive/disappointing as it would have been had I just out and told him I was a Democrat. </div>
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The heart of the problem is this: how can one party possibly represent my mind on every issue? Can I not be of one mind about immigration, while being of a very different mind regarding healthcare? And being of such disparate minds how could my legs straddle the grand canyon of thought and opinion beneath them. So there I stand - in a camp of my own making. Independent.</div>
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Utah has no time for me. The sheer crimson-ness of it swallows up politically independent citizens. "We don't need you," declares the machine. "We have all the votes we could ever want. Go ahead and set up your tent in any corner of the political landscape that suits your fancy." Which means my phone never rings.</div>
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Virginia is desperate for me. The first I heard of this development was when <a href="http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0502/mara_intro.html" target="_blank">Malina Mara</a> from <i>The Washington Post</i> came to Buena Vista looking for people to interview and take photos of for a piece highlighting Virginia as a "battleground state." We have a good friend at <a href="http://svu.edu/" target="_blank">Southern Virginia University</a> who called me with about an hour's notice and asked if I might represent what he considered to be a thoughtful and moderate Mormon voice on the roll of faith in an election.</div>
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You can find a brief excerpt of that interview along with a photo of me at the following link.</div>
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/liberty-through-the-lens/faith/" target="_blank">Washington Post - Liberty, Through the Lens</a></div>
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It was through this conversation I began to understand that my registered independence might be viewed differently by the political machinations of "Old Dominion." And so my phone rings.</div>
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My phone rings with unprecedented frequency and urgency. </div>
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I get calls from </div>
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Mitt Romney</div>
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Ann Romney</div>
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Paul Ryan</div>
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Clint Eastwood</div>
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The National Rifle Association</div>
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The Republican National Committee</div>
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Americans For Responsible Leadership</div>
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The National "Don't Forget to Vote" Association</div>
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Republicans For No Taxes</div>
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Republicans For Government So Small There's Hardly Any Left</div>
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Republicans Who Tolerate Mitt Even Though He's Mormon</div>
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Republicans Who Hunt Large Animals </div>
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EVERY POLLING ESTABLISHMENT THAT EVER EXISTED</div>
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Holly Brisburne, an actual person, who called last night hoping I would be voting for "our President" today. I wondered if she knew that her eleventh hour call came on the heels of two weeks of <i>at least</i> a dozen calls a day from the Republicans. My phone number is at the top of the <i><b>Possibly Persuadable</b></i> list and the Republicans must have spent a whole lot of money to that end. </div>
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So the Democrats were a little short on the phone campaign. They must have spent their money elsewhere, assuming they would catch me while browsing YouTube, or countless websites whose creators might have felt a twinge of irritation that they had become a canvas for democratic appeals.</div>
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Not only did my vote this morning count - it could possibly count BIG TIME. I live in an unpredictable state that could, ostensibly, decide the next president. </div>
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I have voted. I feel good about that. I am not going to reveal my vote as means to maintaining my true independence. Or really just because the notion of defending my political thoughts and actions to anyone but Matt gives me the heebie-jeebies. And you are anyone-but-Matt. Much as I love you.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-25190726316958521372012-10-27T11:38:00.001-07:002012-10-27T11:39:45.035-07:00Virginia's Fruit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Virginia has brought us a good many things, and fruit is one of the most heavenly. I'm sure there were more opportunities for picking in Utah than I took advantage of, but here it seems the thing to do. <br />
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When the seasons of berries, and peaches, and apples roll through, the neighbors start heading out "over the mountain" into Amherst county to get a bushel of whatever is hanging ripe from the limb or vine, or bush. They stop at my front door and ask "shall I bring some back for you?" Or they offer their juicers and canners with a clear expectation that this has been on my calendar all winter. <br />
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So I have started to put it on my calendar. And we have started to make the trip over the mountain ourselves. And we have begun to put strawberry jam in the freezer and homemade applesauce in jars on the shelf. We are preserving, eating, delighting in what the earth gives us. <br />
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This year I didn't take from the earth all that it would have happily given me. I spent all of the months of May through mid October abstaining from fruit and my weak will could not have borne the hardship of letting the juicy stuff go from my hands to bottles bypassing my mouth entirely. But I am happily eating fruit again with a new and appreciative tongue. This comes at apple season which means we are up to our ears in apples.<br />
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April gave us strawberries. October gives us apples. The months in between would have offered raspberries, blackberries, grapes, pears, and peaches. Since we have none of these to keep us happy through the long winter we are marking the months of 2013 according to what fruit will fill our kitchen, stain our hands, and grace our pantry.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-76826657485431791472012-10-21T20:26:00.003-07:002012-10-21T20:26:47.392-07:00SLC to D.C.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So many babies, so many little people, where once there were just those three Rasmussen kids being their own kind of little people. Such a cyclical and multiplicative thing is life.</div>
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It felt good and nostalgic to be in the same room as so many of my family at one time. I am grateful to Emma for coming all that long way with the most extraordinary baby Colin. I am grateful to Katie for being brave enough to let us all descend upon her at once so we could enjoy the visit together. </div>
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Matt and I tried to make our clan a bit scarce the two days we were in D.C. while Emma was there. Babies need a bit more peace than our four feisty little people can offer. So we took the Metro in to the Smithsonian stop on the National Mall and took Matt to see a few things he had never seen before. </div>
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-31420353434847664932012-07-12T08:51:00.000-07:002012-07-12T09:21:11.262-07:00Arise<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">
Ewan Wins the Jonah Look-Alike Contest</span></h2>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Jonah Ewan</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">{Again at Washington & Lee with the Lee chapel behind us. }</span><br />
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Ewan's three older siblings imbue him with more personality than he has words for. His face tells me he could be four-years-old, but his little tongue is still grasping at sounds that make words. Ewan has speech therapy twice a month. Miss Cheri comes to our house and we talk about techniques and games that encourage communication and articulation. He's made progress - he has stopped calling me Daddy, and finally whines for Mommy instead. Only if there is no Daddy around, because if Daddy is around Mommy doesn't exist.</div>
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This parent dichotomy brought on self imposed trauma for Ewan yesterday afternoon when Matt came home from work. Heartless Matt went to the bathroom and shut the door with Ewan on the wrong side of it. I was on Ewan's side offering comfort but he wanted none of me knowing who was on the other side. Ewan screamed, pounded on the door, sobbed, yelled "Daddy" over and over again. </div>
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Within a few minutes he evidently tired of his own histrionics and finally quieted with his forehead resting against the door in a completely defeated posture. After a moment he turned looking for some distraction or consolation. Still uninterested in me he opened the dirty clothes hamper to see what treasure might be lurking inside. </div>
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Eureka! Ewan pulled out the pajama bottoms he had been wearing earlier in the morning while eating breakfast. He hunkered up into the corner and began prying off the bits of dried oats and popping them into his mouth one at a time. There he sulked and snacked until Matthew emerged to rescue him.</div>
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This is what we call self reliance.</div>
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Ewan is a happy child. His siblings love him and include him in most of what they do. He wants to be with us and he wants to play. When he settles into a fowl mood he makes himself heard by continual screaming. Like most good parents we try nearly <i>anything</i> to stop the shrill shrieks. Occasionally we let him watch the <a href="https://www.lds.org/youth/video/2012-theme-song?lang=eng" target="_blank">LDS Youth 2012 theme song, "<i>Arise</i>."</a> He almost always jollies immediately and sings along or dances.</div>
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Here is one such occasion.</div>
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<br /></div>JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-64229878775726746142012-07-10T14:06:00.000-07:002012-07-10T14:06:28.487-07:00Finding the Stage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">{They are walking along the side of Lee Chapel where Robert E. Lee is buried at W&L}</span></div>
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These two went to school yesterday . . . kind of. We have a woman here in this small town who has transformed a few things. Her name is Susan Hogan. She owns an art studio and offers art lessons. She owns a small cafe called the Blue Dog Art Cafe where she displays local art. She runs a theatre program in the elementary and middle schools. And she runs a very affordable three week summer camp called Kids University. <br />
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The kids put on a play and they do all kinds of art projects. Yesterday Jonah and Caroline shuffled in to the auditorium a bit apprehensive about this new school-esque experience. But in the 60 second process of checking in they saw half a dozen kids they recognized from church and one of them motioned for Jonah and Caroline to come sit by him. Off they went. Off I went. <br />
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Weird.<br />
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By the end of the day when I picked them up in the POURING rain they were giddy. "We're doing a play, Mom. It's <i>Winnie the Pooh</i>. I'm making a collage. We get to design flower beds at Penny Park. I think I might try out. I want to be a Bumble Bee. I made a new friend." <br />
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Today when I picked them up Jonah announced that he has been cast as Christopher Robin. And Caroline will be a Bumble Bee. We have already been to two of the plays that Ms. Hogan has produced. The kids have loved them, but shied terribly at the thought of being on stage. It is their turn now. As a homeschooling mother I am thrilled for them to have this experience independent of me. <br />
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Independent.<br />
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It's like rubies. Precious.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-29363340410845696532012-07-09T11:48:00.002-07:002012-07-09T11:53:38.261-07:00This Dark Week<br />
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What happened to my fifteen minutes a day?<br />
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This happened.<br />
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This photo was taken by an S&I secretary in Charleston, West Virginia as the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/07/02/156106723/word-of-the-day-derecho" target="_blank">Derecho</a> approached their city. It looks like the ocean has taken to the sky, rolling in to engulf the land in its watery wildness. Strange that there was no rain. This storm carried anger more than water.</div>
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This is one tree on one hill in one little town along the path of the dreaded Derecho that hit June 29th, last Friday night. This happens to be in <i>my</i> little town, but thankfully it is not my tree.<br />
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Here is what happened in our house.<br />
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We were just finishing watching a new-ish <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6y7YOlldek" target="_blank">Rhett and Link video</a> on YouTube, sending the kids off to brush their teeth and put their bodies in their beds when a ferocious sound came to life outside. The wind howled in astonishing maleficence. Our lights flickered at about 9:30 pm, then vanished into the darkness, carried away with the wind traveling north. We had no idea what had whipped through Buena Vista. We had no idea that it had left all of West Virginia flat and tangled before it reached us, or that an hour later it would visit Katie and Roane in D.C. and carry their electricity away as well. We thought it was <i>our</i> thunder and lightning, a wind belonging to the Shenandoah Valley that left a bit of debris in our yard from the trees we were already fixing to have taken down.<br />
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We knew the location of one MagLite that even had batteries in it. We lit the few tea light candles we had and made ourselves a big family bed on the floor in the living room. When morning came there was still no electricity and the scene outside was more destruction than we discerned in the dark attack the night before. Had we known what was happening around us Jonah and I would never have gone out in it, hand in hand, looking for the neighbors chickens that we had taken responsibility for that morning when they left town. <br />
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By nightfall we had seen the fallen trees and power lines everywhere. We saw broken houses, torn siding, roof shingles blown away. We heard chainsaws everywhere. We passed mega lines at every gas station where they were running out of gas and only selling what they had for cash. There was still no power and our house was hot by then so we packed up and slept on the floor at the institute where there was electricity and air conditioning. Then again the third night.<br />
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The fourth night we took up residence in another family's home who were traveling in Utah and had power. We had thrown out most of the food from our refrigerator, saved some by filling the institute refrigerator and divided our freezer food between four different freezers in town. Jonah was sure I would forget where to collect all our frozen food.<br />
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I felt strangely unfazed by the ordeal.<br />
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"Oh, hello <i>Transience</i>, my old friend. We met last year around this time. Do you remember?"<br />
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<i>I</i> remember.<br />
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"Last year you were a flood. This year you are wind. But I am not troubled like I was the first time."<br />
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I know now that my babies can sleep just about anywhere once they are tired. I learned that we all want to serve each other so much we are almost grateful for calamity just so we can say "I have this you can use, or eat, or have." <br />
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We make new friends and talk to people staring at the same empty shelves at the grocery store that should have milk but have nothing at all. We ask "Do you have power yet?" And they say "Oh no honey, we ain't got power <i>or </i>water. We got a generator keepin' the fridge cold, but now there ain't no milk to put in it. WalMart ran out of bottled water on the first day." And then we say "God Bless. Good luck," and we go back to our slightly disturbed, displaced lives and feel the heat, hoping that those two hundred electrical workers that came from out of state to fix everything remember our neighborhood.<br />
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The Rasmussens are all home now. We are fine - no one hurt or harmed in any way. The fourth of July brought fireworks and electricity in our sockets. There are a few things that we need to have in order before the next encounter. Like filling our water barrels, purchasing <i>many</i> batteries, candles, and maybe a generator.<br />
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Mostly I am grateful for the way a whole town becomes a familial refuge. There is a House of York, a House of Lancaster - we are the House of Buena Vista, southern, rough, educated, blue collar, middle class, dirt poor, shirtless, well dressed, Mormon, Baptist, Episcopalian - but <i>one</i> house. And I think our <i>whole</i> house has their lights back now.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-85674530277603044722012-06-29T08:27:00.001-07:002012-06-29T08:38:10.537-07:00On Giving Myself a Generous Fifteen MinutesOh Dear. <br />
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What a lonely spot this has been since my letter to Mr. Nelson. <br />
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Some of you I talk to. Some of you write things that I read. Some of you write nothing and I wish you would. Some of you write things that I wish I read, but rarely sit down to steal the time from some other pressing thing. <br />
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And that's the crux of my life . . . not lately . . . just life - many pressing things. Too many for me to feel truly content, too many for me to feel I am without purpose. No shortage of purpose - I've got that queued up at my door knocking relentlessly, giving me a raised eyebrow and a tap on the wristwatch.<br />
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I am sifting through the many pressing things and feel to budget all the minutes of a day as I would the dollars of a paycheck and see what can be made of them when they are used with great deliberateness. So, fifteen of those minutes will go to writing for you. It's for you, for me, for Jonah who will look up jethrodesia and read lots of posts lots of times because he has finished all the books from the library in a week and is eager for more words to ingest. <br />
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I don't know what this blog is. I have no theme, no constant, no real direction. I avoid writing because I don't have time to compose. My Mom sees it as a lack of information about her grandchildren. I see it as a failure to tap something at the center of me that when tapped, makes me feel less anxious. Writing that is. When I write regularly I am fulfilling some basic need in me. Should it be funny, should it be insightful, should it require me to cast off the little grasping fingers of the Ewan who is now trying to pry me away from the keyboard? <br />
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Matt says "Don't compose, just write for the record." He knows a thing or two about "the record" having read so many journals in the church archives and keeping his own to rival that of Wilford Woodruff.<br />
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I don't write because of the guilt that comes when avoiding the tasks of running a household and educating our children. But when I don't write anything, ever, all the mundane work of a woman is condemned to mundane forever. If I write, then what was once mundane passes through the ringer of self analysis, reflection, the lens of humor, consideration on the cosmic nature of scrubbing the truly disgusting toilet in the bathroom upstairs. Writing clothes my mundane in consequence. <br />
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I need to see something of consequence in my work. <br />
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So here is my fifteen minutes today. If I remember, I will try it tomorrow. If I do it the day after that you will begin to get a taste of my life - if you're interested . . . if you don't have too much laundry to do.<br />
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But this is not totally honest. This is thirty minutes of today. The wicked indulgence.JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-31692241643781114962012-03-20T10:09:00.001-07:002012-03-20T17:39:07.310-07:00HEART AND SOUL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dear <a href="http://www.kadirnelson.com/Artist-Biography.html" target="_blank">Mr. Nelson</a>,</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A</span>ll my mothers are white - the Anglo-Saxon Eve of European emigration crossing the Atlantic for as many reasons as there were crossings. I have borne white children, but I have borne them American, and therein lies a kaleidoscopic identity louder than white. </div>
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I am a harassed, homeschooling mother in a small library in Lexington, Virginia, carrying a baby, watching a toddler, trusting two older children to keep themselves alive among the shelves. There is a book on display - <i><b><a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/09/26/140807940/heart-and-soul-an-african-american-history" target="_blank">Heart and Soul</a></b></i> - with a woman on the cover so dark, so fierce, so determined I cannot pass her up. I slip her and her little black baby into my bag not knowing what she will pull from us, what she will give to us over the next month.</div>
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We have read so many books. We have learned so many important things from so many authors, but you are the first to whom we all knew we must write and say "thank you."</div>
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I grew up in the Southwest and Mountain west United States. The history of African Americans has always felt like a story removed from me - separated by a continent, an ocean, another continent. Having recently moved to Virginia we are feeling the tide of African American history come in around us. Here we are immersed in the ongoing story. Here we become part of the narrative, and you are among our first guides.</div>
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While the geographical parallels of our new home and the tortured slaves in your book settled upon my son, he cried and pleaded with me to go home, back to Utah, away from a place where these things could happen. I can tell him there are nearly two hundred years between us and this story. I can tell him the pages that follow offer some resolution. But I cannot tell him that some divine panacea distilled upon the American heart making true brothers of us all. Every heart is converted and committed to a prismatic humanity in their own single moment. </div>
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This child, <i>my</i> child, this nine-year-old, white Jonah is in the midst of that moment. He can now shed some of his own skin and try on something more human, more universal, because you taught him a little about how to respect a human being, be they any color at all. You taught my six-year-old Caroline that <b>no</b> soul should be standing under the whipping tree. And honey, you taught me that I can be brave.</div>
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Thank you for this story. Thank you for the paintings you gave us to go with your words. Thank you for all the things we will now see, the places we will go, the things we will read and learn because we first read <b><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Soul-America-African-Americans/dp/0061730742" target="_blank">Heart and Soul</a></i></b>.</div>
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Your Sister,</div>
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Jessica</div>
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-55419631160068926132012-02-01T12:27:00.000-08:002012-02-01T12:36:19.868-08:00Dusty Sunshine and My Debut as Kin To A Star<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My</span> little sister is one remarkable woman.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(Chani, please forgive my photographic indulgence, but I love that we have at least this one photo of us.)</span></div>
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When Matt and I were first married I think Chani was 12. She was a singing phenom then and is a singing phenom now. Although her repertoire has changed over the years. Back then it was teeny-bopper-pop music in sequin jackets singing on a makeshift stage in Fremont Park while a dozen parents sat on metal bleachers cheering on their own star in the making.</div>
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The Show Biz Kids.</div>
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Of the lot, Chani was THE star. Don't they all wish they could have sung it and swung it like Chani?</div>
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And the girl has never given up.</div>
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She is no longer the kid grabbing the microphone to borrow a song from some other artist. In her relatively new band, <a href="http://www.dustysunshine.com/photos/photos.html" target="_blank">Dusty Sunshine</a>, Chani, along with five other musicians are writing and performing their original songs with their own flair. All without any sequin vests.</div>
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The Las Vegas <a href="http://www.lightforgestudios.com/category/all-videos/featured-videos/" target="_blank">Thompson Brothers of Light Forge Studios</a> are busy in the local Vegas music scene and they have brought us a new music video of Dusty Sunshine, featuring my very own sister as the lead singer.</div>
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I am no music critic. I could tell you there is a banjo involved and that might give you a sense of what they produce. While this particular song does not include a fiddle, Megan Wingerter is often adding that to the mix. Here she is playing a mandolin instead. And I'm pretty sure their percussionist, Courtney Carroll, is beating out her rhythm on my Mom's 50-year-old black traveling trunk that used to hold old photographs and a velvet wedding dress.</div>
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I am so proud of Chani. How it must feel to create something that you are good at and send it out to the world.</div>
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Well done my sweet little sis. Only wish I could have been there with you and Mom for the Neil Young tribute.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9RbzGW07p08?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></div>JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-54897305836429000052012-01-31T09:54:00.000-08:002012-01-31T09:54:09.753-08:00A Rose By Any Other NameWe have a lot of nicknames in our house. Matt christens us all, routinely, with something new to answer to. <br />
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A few examples:<br />
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Jessica, Jae, JaeReg, Reg, Reggie, Jethro, Jethrodesia<br />
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Caroline, Carlo, Carlotta, Carlotta Kumquata, Kumquat<br />
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Jonah, Yonut, Fro-nut, Yonus Fro, Donkey Nut, Donut, Bon-oh-me-oh, Bon-oh-mc-me-oh<br />
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Cecily . . . she says hers is Cecil<br />
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Ewan, Bald-e-wan, Brick Density<br />
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Obviously the nick names are not necessarily an effort to shorten a name, or even associated with the given name in any way. Matthew's mind works in mysterious ways. <br />
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Another obvious is that Cecily is strangely lacking any nicknames. None have ever stuck to her. Which is odd considering that 'Bon-oh-me-oh' sounds just like 'Jonah' to my ears. Where is the connection? Nowhere. It is Matt's gift of persistence that stitches a name to a person. But like Peter Pan's elusive shadow, no nicknames have settled on Cecily long enough to start sewing.<br />
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Jonah and Caroline are, evidently, adopting their Dad's practice. Yesterday Caroline declared "Jonah, I'm going to call you Phoebe." To which Jonah responded, "I'm going to call you Carton-of-Jurassic-Buttermilk."<br />
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We'll see if those stick.<br />
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That would be Phoebe on the left, JaeReg in the middle, and Carton-of-Jurassic-Buttermilk on the right.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-56924443897684956902012-01-28T06:58:00.000-08:002012-01-28T07:16:11.854-08:00ONE YEAR<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-11854272774579525092012-01-27T08:52:00.000-08:002012-01-27T08:52:25.799-08:00Giving Up Governance of a Door<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
Sarah has always been at the heart of me . . . the center of friends that come to you without sharing the blood of you. <br />
<br />
We grew up in different homes. She says the door was governed on her home. It opened at the will of the parent, deciding who to let in and when. She says the door at my house barely had hinges, barely had a door - it opened before it was knocked. There were always people in and out with the blessing of whatever parent may or may not be home. <br />
<br />
Sarah syas she wanted her grown up house to be like my childhood house. And strangely, at the time she told me that only a few years ago, my grown up house was more like her childhood house. When it came to the neighborhood children, Sarah invited and I deliberated. <br />
<br />
Not so much anymore. We have children on our street. They eat at my table, they play on my porch, they wait at the french doors for Jonah and Caroline to finish math, they build huts in the woods at the end of the road, they play behind our garage, they build villages with Jonah's legos, they parade in the girl's dress up clothes, they make cookies with us, they dance in our kitchen, they leave their toys at our house. They gather in our driveway for a warm walk at the end of October in Virginia.<br />
<br />
We have four doors on this house, and they all seem to open easily.JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-45133540155210839362012-01-26T06:10:00.000-08:002012-01-26T06:11:00.627-08:00Grasping at Grandpa<br />
<br />
A recent conversation with Cecily ::<br />
<br />
<br />
Cecily: What happens if Grandpa gets hit by a car?<br />
<br />
Me: Which Grandpa?<br />
<br />
C: Tickle Grandpa.<br />
<br />
M: He can't. He already died.<br />
<br />
C: But what if he gets hit <i>after</i> he comes alive again?<br />
<br />
M: He can only die once. When we are resurrected we live forever.<br />
<br />
C: But <i>we</i> will die.<br />
<br />
M: Yes, because we're still mortal. We will die and then we will be resurrected and we will live forever. We'll never die again.<br />
<br />
C: Oh, it's like Rapunzel's hair.<br />
<br />
<br />
May I comment on this exchange with some degree of earnestness?<br />
<br />
I believe what I told Cecily. My God, My Eternal Father in the Heavens above is real. He gave me my own Father here in this life - the divine gift of family, because family has always been the very illuminated center of the vastly encompassing and simple plan of all our existence. The man who is my earthly father is also a child to our spiritual Father. My Dad and I - we are father and daughter - we are brother and sister. Both recipients of the resurrection that Jesus Christ purchased for us. The <i>ALL</i> us. The every-human-being-who-has-ever-lived us. <br />
<br />
In my life this is not a fantastical, wish-it-were-true fairy tale. This is the truth by which I make every choice. <br />
<br />
God speaks to his children. Of whom, I am one who is listening. Sometimes.<br />
<br />
<br />
Cecily is fixated with the death of her Tickle Grandpa. She is three, so her mind harbors the experience in a way I am still trying to understand. The entirety of her conscious life has been dominated by . . . change? . . . upheaval? I'm not sure what to call her experience. At two she was trying to grasp the new, abstract absence of her beloved Tickle Grandpa. Shortly thereafter she was pulled from her bed and her home to escape a flood that defined our exit from Salt Lake City itself. From January 28th of 2011 to present she has been without a stability of spirit.<br />
<br />
In the midst of all this the constant has been her fixation with Grandpa. It manifests itself in strange places. Cecily's sadness, anger, and delight can all find a voice in Tickle Grandpa.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
She watches me open a pomegranate and slowly extract the arils into a bowl for all of the children to eat unhindered by the leathery skin and difficult pith. In the motions of it I see my Dad's hands that have countless times done this same thing. He was born to the desert, eating pomegranates from beginning to end. <br />
Cecily interrupts my thoughts with her own. "When he comes back alive, I think Tickle Grandpa will like to have pomegranate seeds for a snack." <br />
"I'm sure he will, Cecily. Tickle Grandpa loves pomegranates." <br />
Let's just hope that he is not gobbling them up in the afterlife making himself prisoner to the dark one like poor Persephone.<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
Cecily comes to me in the morning, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, holding a little Boppy. "Mom, I feel like I'm dreaming out of my Grandpa."<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
Cecily prays incessantly. She is in a stage of defying everyone else in the house the opportunity to pray because she owns it. And in every prayer is the same request, "Please bless my Tickle Grandpa to come back alive."<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
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<br />
She requests stories over and over that feature baby Cecily and Tickle Grandpa. Her favorite is simply this:<br />
Baby Cecily and Tickle Grandpa were sooo tired. Grandpa laid down on the couch, put Cecily right on his chest and they both fell asleep.<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
I find Cecily at the computer looking at the screen of all our Skype Contacts. She looks at me with terrible disappointment and says "I skyped Tickle Grandpa, but he wasn't alive."<br />
<br />
____<br />
<br />
In the midst of a tearful, screaming argument with Caroline, Cecily shouts, "STOP CAROLINE! You're making my Grandpa not come back alive!"<br />
<br />
<br />
It is this declaration that has given me the most insight into her experience. She interprets all hurt through the lens of Grandpa being dead. The more she hurts, for whatever reason, the farther away is the reality or memory of Grandpa. And where there is peace there is also the greater possibility of his return.<br />
<br />
I had a dream the other night in which my Dad visited me. When my eyes met his I refused to look away, knowing that I was dreaming, knowing that he was <i>really</i> with me, knowing that in the moment I looked away he would be gone. I miss him. I didn't want him to go. I touched his arm and we both began to float slowly away, into the sky. All the while I would not let go of his eyes. He smiled and touched my hand that was on his arm, "It's ok Jess. You can stay here. It's ok. I'm ok."<br />
<br />
So if any of you have been wondering - he says he's ok.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-34928365299262866372012-01-25T05:48:00.000-08:002012-01-25T05:48:05.353-08:00When The Cat's Away . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
WHAT ?<br />
<br />
We knew he was gifted . . . just not x-men gifted.<br />
<br />
Hoping we don't have a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxd7W7q-THw" target="_blank">Jack-Jack</a> on our hands.JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-68834787202880030872012-01-24T14:29:00.000-08:002012-01-24T14:29:50.187-08:00Cecily's Sword<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
Who said it was 2?<br />
Terrible Two has never been <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_keWS1i3RA">To-The-Pain</a></i> for me. It has always been 3. <br />
Right smack dab in the middle of Cecily's current psyche. <br />
<br />
She <i>speaketh like the piercings of a sword</i> with disturbing alacrity. All smiles, or pursed lips that seem to be holding at bay her desire to laugh in the face of all my motherly frustration. Frustration might be a gentle word for it . . . perhaps motherly rage is more accurate. <br />
<br />
With that piercing sword she strikes ruthlessly To-The-Pain, but never, sparingly, To-The-Death.<br />
I'll explain, and in true Westley-an (Princess Bride) fashion "I'll use small words so you'll be sure to understand," but I'll stop short of calling you a warthog-faced-bafoon. A friendly gesture. I'm not three anymore. Not like some people I know.<br />
<br />
"You're a mean mama." She takes a foot.<br />
<br />
"I don't like your face." A hand.<br />
<br />
"You have a big, chubby tummy, Mommy." Both eyes and a nose.<br />
<br />
"Go away from me." But not the ears.<br />
<br />
The ears I get to keep so I can hear, with perfect clarity, every innocent slur Cecily and the next three-year-old has to wound me with. Leaving me to "wallow in freakish misery forever."<br />
<br />
Or not quite forever. There are glimpses of light. Because three eventually turns into four, turns into five . . .and occasionally even Cecily tests the waters of sweetness in which she used to swim freely.<br />
<br />
Cecily making her way down our hallway that is so long we can run a hundred yard dash from one end to the other. She is wearing my leather dress boots. The boots come to my knee. The boots come to her hips, only because her body won't let them go any higher. Her hundred yard dash form my room to the kitchen is an awkward, lurching affair that she seems pleased with.<br />
<br />
Cecily opens the refrigerator and while browsing for something good to eat she looks at me and gesturing towards the boots says "Look Mom, I'm made of you."<br />
<br />
Yes. By the luck of the draw. <br />
And even, sometimes, by choice.<br />
<br />
<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-54163925258060519802012-01-06T06:45:00.000-08:002012-01-06T06:45:45.449-08:00Electronic Toys By Any Other Name . . .. . . still feel like sandpaper on my principled sensibilities.<br />
<br />
I got out of bed at 12 minutes past 6:00 this morning - only twelve minutes later than yesterday. And it wasn't that long ago as it is now only 7:28 am. Strangely, four out of four children are still in bed. Sleeping with heaps of blankets over their little warm bodies keeping out the ridiculous cold of an upstairs that is not connected to our furnace/cooler system. <br />
<br />
I have spoken too soon - I hear footsteps - one minute while I hug the body that goes with them . . .<br />
<br />
Jonah. Mmmmm. Jonah.<br />
<br />
Matt and I taught our first Institute class together last night. As he described it to the students, it is a leap of faith for us. He teaches the gospel for a living, I teach our children how to identify and label a right angle. Different spheres. But it was great fun being with Matt and sharing in the experience of teaching "Preparing for Eternal Marriage" in a class with more than 30 young adults, including five or six couples who are engaged to be married.<br />
<br />
We are only able to do this because our dear little friend Chelsea - an SVU freshman from Alaska - is willing to come watch our children every Thursday evening for the next fifteen weeks. She loves our kids and we love her. She brought them Christmas gifts last night that she had purchased in Alaska while home during the Christmas break. Venturing out into the - 40 deg F just to git gifties for my babies. That's NEGATIVE 40 degrees. Inhospitable is a raging understatement. It's a wonder there is life on a planet that can reach such temperatures, and a wonder indeed that humans choose to live where the sun is a fleeting guest.<br />
<br />
Anyway, Chelsea put on her parka and trudged through the frozen, dark tundra to get something to bring back for each of our children. Cecily ended up with the electronic Toddler Text and Letter Learning toy. Marketed as educational my suspicion is that the cellular phone companies produce these as means of establishing a guaranteed customer base very early. <br />
<br />
Everything in me wanted to make the thing disappear before it really had time to appear. Cecily turned into a brute charging up the stairs with her new chiming fandangly thing as she clutched it to her bosom while she yelled at me, "No, it's mine. It's my OWN ipod. I'm putting it in my toy box and you can't touch it." <br />
<br />
How is it that batteries make instant monsters of sweet children?<br />
<br />
So I waited until she was asleep, stole into the cold room, pulled her plastic toy bin out from under her bed and found, way at the back, accompanied by not one other toy, the new electronic fandangly thing. With a mother's "righteous" insolence I pulled it out and hid it in a shoebox deep in my closet. <br />
<br />
There.<br />
<br />
But not. <br />
<br />
It didn't feel right.<br />
<br />
When I got out of bed this morning at twelve minutes past 6:00 it was because I knew I had to put the electronic fandangly thing back in her toy bin <i>before</i> she woke up. Somehow this one respect for the fledgling autonomy of my three-year-old was critical to our long term relationship.<br />
<br />
I was right. She showed up shortly after Jonah with the toy in hand, already chiming. She and I have spent the last thirty minutes on the couch playing with it together. The toy is put away now - under a peaceable governance - so we can do other things with the day. <br />
<br />
I am sure I preserved something between her and me that would have been lost if I had acted as brazenly as I nearly did.<br />
<br />
What a blind business is parenting.<br />
<br />
<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-83774819267490472362011-11-23T10:39:00.001-08:002011-11-23T11:42:11.858-08:00First Words<br />
<br />
He's a kid with problems. <br />
<br />
Ewan didn't come out that way. He was the 8 pound 10 ounce picture of health and vigor. The kid suckled with exuberance and put on exactly three pounds and six ounces before his body quit figuring out what to do with mother's milk. For five months his insides failed to pull from my milk whatever it needed to add to his flesh.<br />
<br />
Nothing.<br />
<br />
Skinny.<br />
<br />
Lethargic.<br />
<br />
Crying.<br />
<br />
And then 10 ounces disappeared. Poof. The boy was beginning to vanish and the doctors began to materialize in concerned haste.<br />
<br />
They say when a baby is starving - without using the word starving - that the brain quits doing anything but surviving. So, while his sweet cousin, baby Ava was figuring out how to sit up, Ewan was laying quietly on his back working with all his might just to 'be.' When cousin Davy was learning to respond to his parents singing "Popcorn Popping", Ewan was burning whatever calories there were to keep his insides functioning. When his new little friend Penny was crawling throughout our house begging to climb up our stairs Ewan was lying on his stomach pulling with all his might to scoot himself forward just a few inches.<br />
<br />
The kid is late to the party. <br />
<br />
But it's ok. He's had some "developmental delays" in gross and fine motor skills as well as speech. He is now receiving <i>free</i>, in-home therapy for both. And while one might think, how could a 14-month-old possibly need speech therapy, I have been amazed what kinds of things I can do to help develop communication.<br />
<br />
Despite all this, Ewan loves life. He is happy. There is nothing he likes more than going outside to feel the earth around him. <br />
<br />
Which is where his first words came from. <br />
We developed a routine that went like this:<br />
cry,<br />
hold,<br />
console,<br />
go outside (day or night),<br />
point at everything and say "Oh Wow."<br />
<br />
Oh Wow.<br />
<br />
This is the first thing he has to say about the world he lives in. His first words.<br />
<br />
Bird - oh wow! Wind in the leaves - oh wow! Baby kitten on our porch - oh wow! Squirrels scrambling up the tree - oh wow! Lights that turn on and off - oh wow! <br />
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He's right. There is a whole lot of 'Oh Wow' everywhere I look. I see it so often that it loses its wow-ness in my lack of perspective.<br />
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Oh to live life in awe.<br />
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There is elegance in my chaos. I can stretch my pointer finger out like Ewan does and touch beauty. Oh Wow. Not just in the goodness of my life and family. It is in everything. I don't know anything about String Theory Physics, but I think it merits my respect. The recipe of a Virginia forest. The art of collecting a string of characters together on a page until your eyes see them as the words your mouth speaks. To read. To speak. To put your fingertips on the keys of a piano and dance. To extract from a swab of my cheek the deoxyribonucleic code that is the essence of me. Oh Wow.<br />
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Some people do great things because they know how to touch the oh-wow-ness of life.<br />
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I read recently that while Steve Jobs was battling through the very end of this life his last words were "Oh wow." A requiem true to the zeitgeist of his Jobs-onian existence. No demi-god, but a man who sought elegance, and lived in the realization of ideas.<br />
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Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From womb to grave it is 'oh wow.'<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-8332736906088483322011-11-17T10:10:00.001-08:002011-11-17T11:11:10.579-08:00Someone Who Needs Somewhere". . . . a song for<br />
someone who needs somewhere<br />
to long for . . . ."<br />
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If there were ever a light cast across a piece of earth more beautiful than the one on this particular June evening in a little corner of New York state, I have never seen it. <br />
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This light came with restoration to our weary souls.<br />
Did we leave our friends without proper goodbyes?<br />
Did we drop tears onto the skinny face of a sick baby?<br />
Did we feel homeless before we ever left home?<br />
Did we drive 2000 miles?<br />
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We could answer "yes" honestly, but the whole truth of it would be lost somewhere in the bleakness of the question.<br />
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We have friends, we have a baby, we have a home, we are together!<br />
Yes, these patch up the spaces that felt empty in the question.<br />
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As lake Ontario laps soothingly at our feet and the sun throws warm, low light across our faces we begin to be happy.<br />
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We trust,<br />
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In all of it, I see two things.<br />
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I see where my Dad is not. He is not sitting on the bench next to my Mom, with a book in his hand, or a laptop on his lap, or his hand resting softly at the nape of her neck.<br />
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I see children who build. I think Jonah told me they were elves making a shelter because he became ill. Nowhere to live? Nowhere to rest when your body is spent? They pull from the unmade space as we do in time of need. Here a stone, there a stick, a piece of driftwood drug from the water. All buttressed against a small rise of earth. The whole thing a bulwark of youthful ingenuity that protects against element and distress.<br />
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It is the blueprint to the weeks ahead.<br />
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<br />JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-15898096755305086472011-10-24T15:54:00.000-07:002011-10-24T16:32:09.979-07:00Fallingwater<br />
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You are a place of old age, a place of cracking cement and rusted metal, old glass and old ideas. You are a place to find metal cups in metal cabinets, orange polyester party goers, and coral lipstick. </div>
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You are Fallingwater.</div>
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Which means, really, you are a place fresh and vibrant, ahead of your time. You are straight out of the 1950's before there were 50's. Born in 1936, when the world was still building boxes, Mr. Wright was building beauty, and you are IT. </div>
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This was an unplanned pilgrimage. Matt and I were in Pennsylvania for a CES Couples Conference staying at a Mennonite camp retreat that turned out to be just 30 minutes from Fallingwater. I insisted. Matt obliged. </div>
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We pulled into the car park and stopped for just a moment before getting out of the silver Chevrolet rental. </div>
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"I don't know that you understand just how big a deal this is for me." I said to Matt.</div>
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"How come," he asked?</div>
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"It's like doing something vicariously for my Dad that he never got to do for himself."</div>
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Matt obliged and then he engaged our tour guide so intensely that she asked him if he was an architect. Matt is the master of questions . . . and observation. Despite pressing our guide to the very fringes of her allotted minutes in each room she still failed to mention to us that we could be part of the "in-depth tour group" starting shortly after ours. Matt's interest was heightened such that they should have offered and "in-depth-after-hours tour" just for the two of us.</div>
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My Dad made wood do the bidding of his hands for a living until his hands betrayed him and then he taught high school kids how to do those things. It wasn't the "perfection of the life" he might have hoped for, but it provided for his family. In my early years - many of them - like the years from birth to about eight years old, my Dad was a student of the Industrial arts as well as anything else that caught his fancy. Which was everything. Which made graduation a thing always on the distant horizon. </div>
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Somewhere in those years my Dad studied architecture. If you study architecture you are introduced to a fellow called Frank Lloyd Wright. Mr. Wright is more than an architect, but I do not know his words or work well enough to render any interpretation of what he is. </div>
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I will let him speak for himself:</div>
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<blockquote>
A philosophy is deduced from nature, and if according as the philosophy is parallel to the truths and processes of nature, it endures. Without philosophy there is no understanding of anything. Man is a phase of nature. And only as he is related to nature does he matter, is he of any account whatever above the dust.</blockquote>
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He is well known for works such as Fallingwater, The Robie House, Taliesen West, and most notably, The Guggenheim Museum in New York City. I knew these words as a very young girl. My young mind was the keeper of images so unique they could vary in a hundred ways and every one of them be a Frank Lloyd Wright signature, as recognizable as a Coca Cola logo. The lines and circles of his leaded, stained-glass windows. </div>
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You have seen them.</div>
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They might bring to mind words like "art deco" or "arts and crafts". While not a student of architecture myself I am pretty sure Wright can be found somewhere in the midst of those words, or perhaps those words can be found somewhere in the midst of Mr. Wright. At any rate, there is some correlation.</div>
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I tried to walk through Fallingwater with my father's eyes. I tried to invite him into my fingertips to say "I have touched it. This <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantilever">cantilevered</a> thing of genius." I tried to give his ears the sound of falling water that can be heard from every part of the house as a river flows beneath it and down through Pennsylvania woods. I took one leaf from one rhododendron that fills the forest, to put in my journal and write - <i>Here is a living thing from a living memory that my father gave to me.</i></div>
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You are Fallingwater.</div>
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I know your name from my Father's tongue and your beauty from my own eyes.</div>JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-11548769183350409512011-09-11T05:51:00.000-07:002011-09-11T21:38:43.602-07:00Keeping Vigil<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjM-96k5XadqLkn3d-YGE3kZZV4S2ixXcoJ0ThyphenhyphenSknEYvnhxdgGCgsUVNBi6HLWFqe9hmnifiTFJ93ox4fD-ybxDEUmFnYSf7qLNLQ2I6kK7PRva0MW2v5NQwwzZmZ7obm2r7xWjRfOob/s1600/t_wtc.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 226px; height: 328px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjM-96k5XadqLkn3d-YGE3kZZV4S2ixXcoJ0ThyphenhyphenSknEYvnhxdgGCgsUVNBi6HLWFqe9hmnifiTFJ93ox4fD-ybxDEUmFnYSf7qLNLQ2I6kK7PRva0MW2v5NQwwzZmZ7obm2r7xWjRfOob/s400/t_wtc.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651327399992037682" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div>You have a memory. </div><div><br /></div><div>You were in a place. </div><div><br /></div><div>Getting ready for work, eating breakfast, driving. You were watching the Today Show, listening to NPR, sitting in class. You were in an airport, on a plane. You were in the office, you were sending your kids to school.</div><div><br /></div><div>And then, in the quotidian momentum of a day where the sun was pushing you forward into the familiar steps of a Tuesday morning, you stood still.</div><div><br /></div><div>Something was happening that began to wrap its cold grip around your lungs until you felt the absence of your breath and the absence of your hallowed American security. Something had made a hole in our impregnable United States.</div><div><br /></div><div>You own your memory of that moment. There are many millions of them; that moment when we learned of the planes that were plowing through the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, into the soil of Pennsylvania. A surreal pause in the spinning of things.</div><div><br /></div><div>This morning, on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 I am listening to the memorial service at Ground Zero in New York City. For the past two hours they have read the names of those who died that morning. Each giver of the names is a loved one of the deceased. They read several names then offer a message to their own beloved who was lost. </div><div><br /></div><div>They are young, those reading the names. Some of them too young.</div><div>No, that little boy could not have been alive on that day. He cannot possibly own one of those where-you-were-what-you-were-doing memories that the rest of us have. And indeed he was not. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Sebastian Gorky," this little boy says into the microphone. "Who I never met because I was in my Mom's belly. I love you, Dad."</div><div><br /></div><div>So many fatherless.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Winston Arthur Grant - My father; a good, kind, godly man."</div><div>"Geoffrey Hike Hardy - Dad, I'm still learning to cook. I'm working on it. We miss you."</div><div>"Joseph Gridlack - His physical presence and bushy mustache are missed. Semper Fi. I hope you dance."</div><div>"James Patrick Ladley - Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will stay with me forever."</div><div><br /></div><div>_____</div><div><br /></div><div>I remember a blue and empty sky </div><div>For so many days</div><div>My empty sky</div><div>This was our fear - our almost . . .</div><div>Such determination to deny that we are changed</div><div>But who can look into this empty sky and think</div><div>We are not afraid of you</div><div>Our lips so close to calling the bluff</div><div>Something <i>has</i> changed</div><div><i>Something</i> . . .</div><div>______</div><div><br /></div><div>The Jewish have a tradition whereby they do not leave the body of a dead person to be alone from the time the spirit departs to the time the body is buried in the earth. </div><div>September 11th left so many bodies - not even bodies - remnants. Unidentifiable. </div><div>The young Jewish women of local Stern College kept vigil with those remnants for seven months while DNA testing was done to identify remains for internment. They were girls, students, who set up rotations such that no <i>possibly</i> Jewish body was left unattended, day or night, for seven months.</div><div><br /></div><div>All of it; the terror, the death the heroism, the colossal waste, the fear, the empty skies, tells me to keep vigil with the people God grants me as loved ones in this fragile mortality. Day and night, for years on end, I stay close to the living bodies of those that breathe in my house. </div><div><br /></div><div>What do you remember? What have you learned?</div><div><br /></div><div>And consider participating in this project.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/911memorial">9/11 Memorial</a></span></div><div><br /></div>JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424150106632496784.post-33177078936469421192011-09-07T18:12:00.000-07:002011-09-07T19:48:21.983-07:00Even Sick Babies Are Perfect<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivS8aVky5Hh_8CGpbKqOzNYYihyphenhyphenrxIky57hOeRgV578oQFSNySHr61KErYhsWS4Ad4nbHqJd-8Qbu3igMpGBm7Ju4L6o3S5wovDan-2T6WJUq3WvQD21eLWFk1phXAdGCHqckshqFUKvl9/s1600/IMG_8029.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNHgL5KSZggzWv_dqAPetESYI7RC31IxY_oWt8vHuCoG1n0q9rnosRbxcT7_RRRUguSVIRqr0leIHTOhGJv8VQ68RNU7517DjBDxi7dNtKhfh6l0xGGY594HvgjntgsaVGnzN1Lmal2buE/s1600/IMG_8194.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNHgL5KSZggzWv_dqAPetESYI7RC31IxY_oWt8vHuCoG1n0q9rnosRbxcT7_RRRUguSVIRqr0leIHTOhGJv8VQ68RNU7517DjBDxi7dNtKhfh6l0xGGY594HvgjntgsaVGnzN1Lmal2buE/s400/IMG_8194.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649790675501148242" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div>Not even a year old and our little Ewan is facing the pharmaceutical regimen of an octogenarian.</div><div><br /></div><div>My Friend Jackie and I both have four children. The last two (mine and hers) were born three days apart from each other. She and I have many times sat in the unladylike manner of two women <i><b>very</b></i> large with child and spoken of the charmed and bless-ed nature of our lives thus far. Though neither of us inclined to pessimism, we mutually admitted a growing sense of dread that with each child we add to our family there is a greater likelihood for tragedy - or hardship - illness- death - disease - something that doesn't feel quite so easy as a healthy newborn.</div><div><br /></div><div>And newborns are <i>SO</i> easy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Her fourth was born early and spent a fair bit of time in the NICU while she went back and forth from home to hospital trying to mother all of them in her postpartum delirium. Except Jackie doesn't actually suffer from delirium, or anything like unto weakness. She's kind of like the female Chuck Norris - you know, her tears cure cancer. It's just too bad she never cries.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wanted to help her family while she was jockeying this trial, but as luck would have it my own very pregnant body was in the throws of a painful and protracted prodromal labor. And I am no Chuck Norris so I mostly kept to my bed. </div><div><br /></div><div>Plus it was Jackie's fault because she fed us barbecued garlic chicken which produced nearly identical results just over two years before. Wives and husbands talked and laughed and ate more garlic than is healthy for intimacy of any kind. Kids played in the sandbox - then <i>badda bing </i>- Jackie's got a baby by morning and my Cecily comes three days later. 26 months later we do the whole routine over again - barbecued garlic chicken, <i>badda bing</i>, Jackie's baby by morning and my Ewan three days later. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ewan came healthy. Ewan came big - 8 pounds, 10 ounces. He ate fine, he smiled, he slept, he grew, then he stopped growing. For five months Ewan not only gained no weight, but lost 10 ounces. He was diagnosed <i>Failure to Thrive</i>, which in medical mumbo jumbo is really just code for "this child has . . . ?????" </div><div><br /></div><div>After many tests, including a full endoscopy at Primary Children's Hospital where I saw his pretty, pink insides we got more than a question mark. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Eosinophilic esophagitis" said the very kind and hurried pediatric gastroenterologist on the phone just a week before we left Salt Lake City for a new home on the east coast. "Pick up this prescription, give it to him once a day, and good luck out there."</div><div><br /></div><div>I gave it to him. He woke up. Ewan had a latent personality that emerged when suddenly his pain was suppressed and he could EAT. He gained five pounds in two months - which still leaves him soundly off-the-chart-small, but it is better than wasting away to nothing. </div><div><br /></div><div>We finished Ewan's meds two weeks ago and I was feeling a bit liberated until we saw a new pediatric gastroenterologist last week. He sent me home with a new phrase - "chronic disease", and a slew of new meds that I have been afraid to start because they are so many and so specific in their requirements that I need a detailed chart of when and how much and before or after food and gargling with water to prevent <i>thrush</i> after this one. </div><div>Cause every one-year-old can gargle.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm pretty hopeless with a medically pedestrian round of antibiotics. Administering medication of any kind with consistency is for sick people - not me. But my son is sick, all 17 pounds of him, all 12 months of him, all the cherubic yumminess of him is chronically sick. I am the only person on this earth that will make sure that his mouth is rinsed out after taking budesonide to avoid an oral yeast infection. I have to do it. </div><div><br /></div><div>So there it is - my diminishing returns on the ability to produce procreative perfection indefinitely. It is my "tragedy" which, for reasons unknown, seems more frightening at night when every one else has gone to sleep and I am left to eat massive helpings of worry all by myself. </div><div><br /></div><div>My Mom pointed out to me today how lucky we are it is not something worse. </div><div>"It could be so much worse" she said.</div><div>"It could be," I agreed.</div><div>She was right. There was my little boy smiling at me, trusting that, come bed time, I would rinse his mouth out after the budesonide.</div><div>And I did.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivS8aVky5Hh_8CGpbKqOzNYYihyphenhyphenrxIky57hOeRgV578oQFSNySHr61KErYhsWS4Ad4nbHqJd-8Qbu3igMpGBm7Ju4L6o3S5wovDan-2T6WJUq3WvQD21eLWFk1phXAdGCHqckshqFUKvl9/s400/IMG_8029.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649809772130683090" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div>JaeReghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07698894795201523471noreply@blogger.com9