An Open Invitation

As you may or may not know, (how could you not know??), my sister, Rachel, and I have a presentation about body image that we give a couple of times a month to LDS Relief Society and Young Women groups in Arizona.

Well, now we’re taking the show of the road.

If you live on the Wasatch front, this is a once-in-a-lifetime, limited-engagement, opportunity.  We are going to be giving our presentation in Pleasant Grove on Wednesday, July 1st, and all of you that live around there are invited to come as well.

I know, lucky you!

(The truth is we’re desperately nervous and we’d love to have a full house that night, as well as a few familiar, friendly faces in the audience.)

We’d love to have you there and any girls in your lives that are 10 and older.  Plus, you’ll have a really good time.  (I mean, probably.  I am almost as charming in person as I am on my blog.  Especially if you're not married to me.)

Here is the info:

The ward is Grove Creek 8th Ward.
The address is 1176 N. 730 E.  in Pleasant Grove, UT 84062
at 7 p.m.

I promise it will change your life.  (I mean, probably.)

The Road Less Travelled

It was an odd sensation to wake early Sunday morning with the car packed and the bikes strapped to the back and head north rather than east.  I am used to the view of the sunrise across eastern Arizona's high desert, the old landmarks that signal the start of summer vacation.

Instead we went north, which made me a little jumpy.

But I wasn't the only one.

It took us a while to hit our roadtripping stride and we stopped at almost every little town along the way, to find caffeine, or take a potty break, or find gas and food, or retie the straps on the car top carrier.  It was a difficult beginning, but by the time we crossed the Colorado we finally found our groove.

We stopped to see my grandmother, in the final days of her life on earth.  She looked as fragile as my children at birth.  Standing next to her bed, I was reminded of those first moments of life, when they were all bones and skin and their eyes did all the talking.  I remember holding them and begging for them to tell me everything they knew, to fill me in on the secrets of eternity as we stared at each other, their dark eyes both bemused and stunned by their arrival.  Saying goodbye has a very similar feel to saying hello.

And despite my begging, it is hard at birth or death to communicate anything except love.  I love you.  I love you, too.  Perhaps this is the secret of eternity.

We tucked in last night nestled between the mountains of Park City and woke to a breathtaking view.  When I opened the blinds I started laughing.  I never get over the wonder of road trips.

I woke this morning in a new world. 

I am both bemused and stunned.

Checking Off the List

It's time to start making some serious progress on my list. 

Checking things off rather than adding more.  (Or worse, watching old episodes of Arrested Development rather than doing either.)  Our road trip is supposed to commence in two days and we are far from ready. 

Speaking of checking things off...

On Wednesday night, David and I went out to dinner.  We sat in a booth and while I ate a mushroom ravioli that was so good I started moaning just a little and David ate an aged New York Strip, we talked about our lives.  The past, the present, the future.

When we got to the future part I told David my plans to be published.  Nothing new here.  We have the same discussion every birthday and anniversary.  I imagine we'll be having the same one fourteen years from now.  David tried to be interested, again.  And supportive, as always.

He said, "I'd like to get rid of at least one of those regrets.  You know, 'Check.'  Cross one off the list.  Then it could be 'The One Regret.'" 

I cringed a bit inwardly that my blog title has clearly caused him some pain.

And cringed even more that of my two regrets, to him the thought of me writing a book and getting published (a monumental, excruciating, and impossible task) seems easier to accomplish than for me to stop hurting the ones I love. 

And this morning after I flipped him off on his way to work, I acknowledged sadly, that he is quite right. 

Imagine You and Me

My favorite thing about married life is the early mornings.

When the light is just leaving blue for yellow, and the sheets whisper their secrets as the mattress dips and David nudges his nose into my neck.

I love the sound of sheets in the morning.

And David's voice, right in the middle of a conversation.  No "How are you's" or showers or clean teeth.  Just us.  In the middle.

This morning I asked David if this is what he imagined his life would be like when he married me.

I could feel his smile against my collarbone.

"I don't think so."

"Me either."

"I'm not sure I really imagined anything.  Did you?"

But I know him better than that, of course.  He always had plans.  Ideas of the perfect life.  We used to break up every Thursday over this very thing.  He couldn't help himself. 

We waited a whole six months to get married because he had always imagined a June wedding.  He still thinks it was worth the wait.  I still don't.  It's been fourteen years and I still bring it up when we fight.  It was the first great offense, after all. 

I'm not sure what I imagined life would be like.  (I just knew I wanted to be with him all the time.  And wake up with him.  That most of all.)  But I'm sure I didn't imagine that building a life together would actually mean so many hours apart. 

Fourteen years ago this morning we were kneeling across an altar, making promises about things we couldn't imagine.  Promises about laundry and children and morning sickness and road trips and dishes and broken sprinkler pipes and forgiveness and emergency rooms and Christmas mornings and late meetings at the hospital.

David's right, of course.

I don't think it is what either of us imagined.

Some of it is better and some of it is not.

But the real magic of our marriage is that every morning for the last fourteen years, we have made and kept the same promises, regardless.

This morning before David went to work, we had to take the car into the shop.  (We know how to celebrate an anniversary.)  These are the middle years of marriage, when car repairs replace a night away.  David dropped me off and we went our separate ways, he to work and me to the children and the casserole dish still soaking from last night.  With a kiss and a promise to meet up later.

This is what real marriage is, I told myself, willing myself not to be disappointed.  I was a bit anyway.  But when I came in, I found the smell of David's aftershave and another note in red lipstick waiting for me.  Dated this time.  To show he intended it for today.  On the occasion of our anniversary.

It was enough.

To tide me over until tonight.

When we will review the day, and the last fourteen years, and the fourteen ahead, I will tell him that my life with him is better than I ever imagined.

And despite his old plans for the perfect life, I imagine he will tell me the same.

Not So Subtle Product Placement

You know that part in History of Love when Alma tells us "a hundred things can change your life"?

Well this is one.

We have started preparations for our road trip.

Which, ironically, involves lots of other trips: to the bookstore, the pharmacy, the post office, the salon, and the library.  It means doing a serious shopping trip to Target and getting the car in for an oil change and general pick-me-up.

Yesterday as we were traipsing in and out of the car in the heat, Ethan begged for reprieve.

And I answered him with things like, "Just a few more stops" and "Hang in there" and "We're almost done" and "I don't want to be here either, but you don't hear me complaining" and "Do you want to go to Canada?", progressively deteriorating from peppy cheerleader to blackmailing matriarch.  It wasn't pretty.

But at the last stop, as I was filling the cart with after-sun aloe and bobby pins and (plenty of) dramamine, I found this:

Which doesn't look like much, but which changed my life last night.

(I am so not exaggerating.)

And so if you live with a man who snores and you enjoy both laying next to him all night and sleeping in peace and quiet (two of life's greatest pleasures), then this will change your life as well. 

Just think of all the ways this blog is blessing your life.

I know.

You can thank me later.

The Wailing Wall

The priesthood power in my home doubled yesterday. 

I felt a bit like Hannah. 

Both happy and sad.  Both blessed and robbed.  Both humbled and entitled.  Amazed at the opportunity to mother such a son, and tenderly aware that he is not really mine.  Utterly grateful for even one moment with this boy, and equally devastated by the brevity of childhood.

David's voice broke when he blessed Caleb.  Overwhelmed, I think, by the same feelings. 

Yesterday in sacrament meeting, when they asked Caleb to stand and be sustained, one of my friends turned around in her bench and mouthed, "He's twelve?!" to me across the room.  I nodded and she winced.

My thoughts exactly.

Makes me wonder how Hannah made herself get up that morning, what she cooked for breakfast, and if she touched her boy all the way to the temple.  And how she had the faith to turn around and walk home, or if it was Samuel who turned around and walked away first. 

The latter I think.

At least, that is how it is happening in my life. 

I reread her account last night when my house was quiet, but my head was not.  It comforts me some, that Hannah was given to emotional displays.  After all, I have a similar tendency.

But in the end, she took her three bullocks and her ephah of flour and gave thanks.

And after the ribeye roast and the apple pie and the kisses goodnight, in the dark and the quiet, I did the same. 

How Scrambled Eggs Can Change the World

Yesterday's post was so enjoyable, I thought I'd write another.  Just for the adverbs, if nothing else.

I talked Rachel into yoga class this morning.  I had to compromise and agree to run with her tomorrow, but I'm not thinking about that just now.  (She is very persistent.)  We nearly caught fire during warrior B, but other than that it was a lovely practice.  Though sometimes I wish there was talking in yoga.  I need to get caught up.  Rachel says that's why we need to run.  She has forgotten that I only huff through running.  Or maybe she remembers and prefers a one-sided conversation.  Me, finally, at a loss for words.

This morning while Rachel and I were moving from down dog to child pose and back again, David was leaving me a love note on the bathroom mirror.

In lipstick.  Complete with boyish drawings of lips and hearts.

There's not much that makes me happier than that.

Except maybe this:

With no warning at all, on the way to bed last night David told me that he was going to get me some chickens, so that I can have omelets and egg-salad sandwiches every day for the rest of my life.  I just stared at him.  I have been wistfully asking for a hen house of my very own for most of our marriage.  I could hardly believe it.  Dreams of a backyard with white Silkies and buff Orpingtons filled my head.  (And don't tell David, but maybe even an Ameraucana so I can have blue eggs too.)

I laughed myself to sleep and had dreams about an enormous house that we are always renovating.  (It's a recurring dream, and I know the floor plan by heart by now.  I swear I've taken the wallpaper off the walls in the master bedroom a hundred times.  But apparently, entropy works in my dreams as well.)

I thought maybe I had dreamed the part about the chickens too. 

Amazingly, I hadn't. 

This morning as I was contemplating fresh eggs for breakfast and lunch, it occurred to me that life may never be the same for either of us.

For me, of course, because I may discover that keeping chickens may not be as romantic as it seems in my head.  (Nothing usually is.)

And for David, of course, because he has never been married to a wife with steady and reasonable blood sugar levels.  It is quite possible that I could lose all my charm to protein.  

Luckily for him, I also know how to turn eggs into chocolate cake.

Just to keep things exciting.

Imagine his relief.

An Old Refrain

If you're busy, you might want to skip this one.  You've read it before after all.

Right now, I'm trying to talk myself into doing my chores from yesterday.  (Let's be honest, my iron is much too low to make this even a remote possibility.)

Instead, I keep pushing the refresh button on my blog, hoping that I've written something clever to read since the last time I looked at it.

(Do you find it endearingly charming or sadly pathetic that I find my own blog wildly entertaining? 

Never mind.)

Last night, as David and I lay in the dark reviewing our day he asked, "Do you think all parents feel like this?"

I thought about it but didn't answer.  I was busy counting.

Counting the years we've had with our boy, and the years we have left. 

I was alarmed to see that the hourglass has flipped devastatingly in favor of the years we've already had.  We're running out of time.

I asked David, slightly panicky, "Do you realize we only have 7 more family vacations together before he leaves.  Including this one?"

And then we both whispered together, "We've got to make the most of it."

And neither of us said "Jinx" because it was such a sober moment.

After the candles and the presents and the story about the first time we met, I tucked my boy in and told him to stop growing up.  He grinned at me, like we were sharing a joke.  

Little does he know.

I couldn't have been more serious. 

And if it weren't for the chocolate frosting smeared across his cheek, reminding me that he is, in many ways, still my little boy, my heart might have broken in two right then and there.

It was a very close call.

Death and Breath and Dehydration

David and I cried ourselves to sleep on Sunday night.

And not for the usual reasons.  (You're asking yourself, are there usual reasons?  Oh, if you only knew.)

Actually, the last few days there's been quite a bit of crying ourselves to sleep all the way around.

I had a really good jag before bed on Sunday night and David even joined me for the end of it.  My eyes were half-swollen shut all Monday morning.

Then late last night after David had already started snoring and I was finally putting the last of my thoughts to bed and starting to drift, Ethan showed up sobbing at the foot of our bed.

Tonight it was the girls.  Long, solemn tracks of tears dripping down their necks and pooling in the hollow of their collarbones.

I tucked Savannah in and let her cry.  Olivia just wanted to sit by me for a while. 

Maybe it's too much sun.  Too much happiness.  And the universe is demanding a little sorrow in return.  Balancing our emotional scales.

The truth is I like the right kind of crying almost as much as I like laughing.  Cathartic and cleansing.  David gave consolation a try tonight, "It's alright.  Don't be sad."  But not me.  I sort of believe in crying.  Let it out, I say.  Howl, even, I say.   And then I join in for good measure.  So they'll know I'm serious about what I believe in. 

Nothing is seriously wrong, of course.  Sunday's tears were over a rough Sunday school lesson and an even rougher personal review of it in my head.  And our oldest boy had his first priesthood interview and we sobbed a bit remembering when he used to crawl around our bed in his white onesie and bare legs.  Ethan's was over a bad dream which he couldn't remember later.  And tonight over pasta e fagioli, I shared the news that our beloved grandmother is on her way back to heaven.  We all dripped salty tears into our soup and mopped it up with crusty bread. 

All things worth crying over, I say.  (But I may not be the one to ask.  Heaven knows, I've cried over less.)

I keep thinking about breathing.  The in and out.  The one breath between this life and the next.  The one breath between giving birth and sending them off.  The one breath between kindergarten and college.  The one breath between madly feeding six ravenous mouths and quietly warming up dinner for one.  The one breath between tending their sick beds and them tending mine.  The one breath between now and then. 

And I want to hold my breath.

Tonight after dinner was over and David and I were staring at each other over the dishes, he told me about his day.  One of his colleagues had teasingly accused him of being a romantic. 

She said,  "Now I heard that you believe that you're married not only for this life, but for ever.  And I told my husband, 'This life is enough!'"

They laughed together at that.

And David and I laughed at it again over our dishes.  Because, really, some days it is.

But tonight when I got in bed, and remembered the one breath between this life and the next, and heard David breathing deeply beside me, I was grateful.  So grateful that I have more than this "one breath" with the ones I love.  Because I cannot hold my breath.  I've tried.  But I keep breathing in and out.  My husband keeps breathing in and out.  My children keep breathing in and out.

And that seems like as good a thing as any to cry about.

But not for long.  Because, as brief as this life is, it is only the beginning. 

And that makes me smile.  In spite of myself.