The English Geek

How I Came to Find Myself Literally Weeping into My Oatmeal

I'm not going to lie: this weird stomach virus/bacteria/whatever-the-hell-this-mild-plague-is continues to make me grumpy. For the past two weeks and one day, I've woken up and felt like hell. Like, right on the verge of coming down with the stomach flu, except it never actually comes down. Or, er, comes up, which is good. Except for I feel like hurling almost all day long. I feel like eating only white-bread toast and drinking only anything bubbly and extra-icy-cold. I feel like sleeping a lot.

I feel like I am pregnant.

I AM NOT PREGNANT!I promise. I have taken three different tests just to make sure. I'm not late. I don't even get nauseous when I'm pregnant, I just get really, really hungry and my hands get these strange red spots. And I'm the opposite of really, really hungry. And no red spots. Besides, hello. I am forty years old. I know what causes babies and I take every measure to prevent them. I'm too old and the there's the fact  that I have recently made peace with the lack of babies in my life.

Plus, really. I'm not pregnant.

I'm trying to be friendly to the nausea, even though I do keep threatening to call the doctor tomorrow if it doesn't go away. Or I'm just ignoring it and doing all my normal life stuff, like going to work and going running and cooking dinner and doing laundry. Sometimes I baby the nausea by giving it exactly what it wants. Four-cheese Italian Cheezits? Sure. Strawberry Fig Newtons? OK. Watermelon? Lucky I have some of that in the fridge! On Thursday morning I made nice to it by making it some hot oatmeal like it was demanding. Oatmeal, delicately spiced with cinammon, ginger, a dash of nutmeg and a swirl of honey, with preferably a glug of cream on top (not possible, as the cream had soured).

While I waited for the water to boil, I looked out my kitchen window. My neighbors, who are an eldery couple, walked out of their garage and got into their mini van. They were dressed up and, I imagine, going to the temple, and obviously they were driving their van because they were going to pick up some of their friends and take them along. Afterwards, they and their friends would go to lunch somewhere fun but not too expensive and then they'd all go to their respective homes and take a nap.

The water wasn't boiling yet so I watched them. They sat in their van until the water boiled and I turned away to pour the oats in, and then I stirred and I watched them. I watched them for ten minutes (because I am decidedly not a quick-cook-oats kinda girl) while I stirred, and I wondered what they were talking about. What they were doing there, just sitting in their van.

I tried. I tried so hard to imagine them having a happy conversation. I wanted them to be saying kind things to each other, because they really are kind and sweet people. I wanted him to be complimenting her on her dress and her to be laughing and saying that he still looks handsome to her after all these years. But I couldn't imagine that. I could only imagine them having one of the arguments Kendell and I have, like why is the van so cluttered and can't I ever vacuum it, or please can you drive without yelling at all the other drivers this time, or yes, I know, I made us late again, or any of the other bajillion things that married people tiff over.

Watching my neighbors and imagining them having my marriage's arguments made me think about my grandparents. They've been gone for half my life but I still miss them. They both made me feel this amazing combination of unconditional love and unfettered admiration but in a manner that gave me confidence, not arrogance. I was simply happy and peaceful in their presence.

But I also was always aware of an underlying tension. I don't know any stories to tell that would give my hunch any weight. I don't want to ask my mom because I don't want to know the details, but I wonder: were they happy? Or did they, too, sit in their car (the big brown Oldsmobile my grandpa loved) and argue?

My other grandparents—my dad's parents—definitely were not  happily married. They were actively involved in not being happily married. My dad didn't talk about this much, but there were enough small stories to piece together a larger narrative. In fact, there are suggestions, in the family stories, that my grandpa Curtis, who died when my dad was just 16, went not just from a heart attack but out of sheer, unfettered unhappiness.

I stirred my oatmeal. I thought backwards to my grandparents and forward to my own children's future. Have I bequeathed them a legacy of unhappy marriages? Have I taught them? Have they seen, despite the arguments, me loving their father? Have I taught them that love, which has to include arguments, also includes laughter and happiness and comfort? Do they know love exists?

I'm not sure anyone taught me. My parents loved each other, but I don't think anyone would say they had a happy marriage. I remember, during a rough patch that happened when I was about 14, lying in bed and listening to them argue and promising myself that my kids would never hear me argue with their father.

A promise I broke about a month into my sojourn as a mother.

And I realized, right there in the kitchen on that random Thursday April morning: I don't know. I don't know if I have taught them what love looks like. I know it was my responsibility to do so. I know whether the arguments were my fault or someone else's, whether I was right or wrong: none of that changes my responsibilities. I know I want them to know it exists so that they have faith enough to find it. I'm just not certain I've taught them that.

All of those thoughts while I stirred my delicately spiced, boiling oatmeal and watched my neighbors sit in their van and wept. Out of shame and disappointment in myself and missing my grandparents and wishing my parents had been happier and trying to grit my teeth against the nausea. I finally realized what they were doing: they were laughing, their heads flung back, their faces split by grins and I wanted that to make me hopeful. To give me an idea that with time, with enough eventual growing up, we can reach a place where the arguments stop and the recriminations cease and we are simply, finally, enough for each other. That it just takes growing up and trying and coming to an understanding of each other that is deeper than anything you might argue over.

But it didn't. It made me weep even harder because I don't know. My parents never got there. Did my grandparents? Will I? Worse: will my children? I want them to. I want them to get there more than I want it for myself. But I don't know if—no, I don't believe I have—been the kind of example that could teach that that is a possibility. The fact that for ten long minutes I couldn't imagine my neighbors were simply laughing with each other seems to me to be proof enough.

What is maddening about this failure is that, despite the arguments, I do love my husband. Their father. I do. I just, I just don't know if I have shown them that. I don't know if they know. And I don't know if it is too late for me to show them that. So I cried, there in my kitchen. And I promised myself I would try harder and be kinder. Let them see me laughing with him and let them know  we were laughing. Not make them guess, or wonder, or fail to imagine.

Not leave them to pick up that unnamed current of tension and work it into their own marriages.

17 is an Odd Number

Today, my daughter turned 17.

Of course, just yesterday she was sixteen. But sixteen, while notable for driving and dating, still felt manageable, somehow. Still felt like enough time was left.

But 17? 17 feels so urgent it can't be typed with letters, only numbers.

17 feels like a butterfly unfolding her wings.

17 feels like flight is imminent.

17 feels like a contradiction: a loss and a gain all at once.

It feels like the hush of the breeze before a door closes.

It feels like although another door will open, I wasn't quite ready for the one on childhood to shut.

So today as I helped her get ready for her prom—and how magical is that, to go to prom on your 17th birthday in just the dress you've always wanted—as I sewed straps and added lace and adjusted measurements, gave make up advice and touched up a few last curls, I was swept up in the contradiction.

Here she was, her beautiful and competent self right in front of me, talking and laughing and curling and painting. Yet sometimes when I turned too fast I could almost see her just behind me. Her six-point-five-year-old self (who knew enough math to calculate that she was already halfway to thirteen) was adoring her prom gown, adoring and pointing out all of the perfect details. And then asking to spin in it. Her nine-year-old self was touching, with careful but ink-stained fingers, her thick, long, curly auburn hair, commenting on its beauty. Even her thirteen-year-old self paid a visit, admiring the grace and the confidence of her walk in such high heels.

Those selves fluttered around us even though she didn't see. They are only in my heart now, as only a mother can know how she saw her own child. This girl whom I held when she was 17 seconds old, then 17 minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and now years. Who will she be? I wondered, watching her change, who will she become? and then I went back to her in that moment and gave her what I could.

I never knew just how immense my capacity for failure would be.

I also could not imagine the ways in which I would succeed.

And I didn't know, when they first put her in my arms, what it would all mean. They hand you your baby like they're handing you your baby, the small being you chose to make. Who they are really handing you is a person, a person for whom all your choices are made in order to help her make her own choices.

What else do you do? You teach them everything, from that first thing—this is human touch and voice and breath—to whatever is last—tonight it was a trick for the bra strap and a way to keep her eyeliner from smearing and a reminder to take some Kleenex in her tiny purse—with the goal of helping them find their own happinesses. With the desire that, when they stand on the precipice of their familiar cocoon, spreading and drying the impossibly beautiful wings they have formed, you have taught them enough.

When your daughter is 17, you want her to know that you look backward because for you, the entire metamorphosis matters, not just this one moment of it, and that the looking back helps you see the future as well and that her whole life matters to you. That who she is right now is formed of all those other versions of herself and that for you all the incantatory swooping of time coalesces in the here and now.

You want her to know that you know she can move forward and that she will be strong enough for life's tumults. You know that her heart will be broken and her will and her hope but that she will mend and find and renew. You hope that she will appreciate beauty and love the world and be loved by others in amazing ways. That one day she will be handed her own sweet bundle of life.

But more than anything, watching your daughter at 17 in the door frame, on the edge, pushing out, your heart fills up with this desperate hope: that when she flies it won't only be away.

on the last day of my thirties I:

• Awoke at 6:03 to the melodious sounds of Kaleb, the latest to succumb to the sort-of stomach flu that's been traveling through our family. It's not full-out puking, but just constant nausea. (When it hit me three days ago I seriously started considering taking a pregnancy test!) And, well, different types of visits to the bathroom. Wheeeeeeee!
• Got him taken care of and back in bed and then I slept for 71 more minutes.
• Hugged Haley and Kendell goodbye, after making Kendell his daily PB&H sandwich.
• Got Nathan up and going. Made sure Jake was up and went through the whole "please get ready" thing.
• Made Nathan's lunch.
• Took Jake to school.
• Took Nathan to school.
• Ran to Target for more ginger ale and white bread (anti-nausea remedies at our house)
• Made toast for Kaleb and cleaned up the kitchen while he ate.
• Logged on to Facebook so I could wish my friend Chris a happy birthday!
• Ran a few errands with Kaleb: took Jake his bag of supplies for his track meet (Vitamin Water, fruit leather, and cashews), filled up the van, stopped by the post office, dropped some overdue books off at the library
• Skyped with Kendell, texted with Haley, decided we'd meet for lunch.
• Went to lunch at Chili's. I had a grilled ham and cheese, tortilla soup, and french fries. I regret the fries and should have had the broccoli instead.
• Dropped Kendell and Kaleb off at home and went to Target with Haley (yes. Trip #2 to Target.) No luck.
• Went to Burlington with Haley. I HATE that store and remembered, today, that I still hate it. But, we found a pair of earrings for Prom.
• Came home and, I confess: I took a nap for 38 minutes.
• Started working on laundry—I managed to get 3 loads done today. Am I the only person who can fill a mega-ultra-exceedingly-large washing machine with an entire load of black clothes?
• Cuddled with Kaleb and watched Real Steel with him.
• Went for a 5.5 mile run. Felt grateful that A---I didn't hurl as I didn't give myself enough time after that lunch at Chilis and B---spring flowers are blooming here and smell so sweet! and C---I only had to wait 1 minute and 45 seconds for lights to change and D---I finished in under 50 minutes even with a killer hill at the end.
• Sent Kendell off to school.
• Stretched and realized: I still feel icky. So I took a bath and drank lots of water. Couldn't stand the thought of my usual post-run protein shake.
• Made more toast and ginger ale for Kaleb.
• Took Haley and Nathan to the gym.
• Talked to Jake about his fabulous track meet: he finally cleared 5 feet on the high jump! And he had a good finishing kick on his 400 so he passed someone else right at the finish line. He was beaming. Such a great feeling for a parent!
• Stressed about Haley's prom dress, which I am attempting to modify a little bit. Talked to several people and they confirmed that my plan will work!
• Talked to my mom about the night she labored through to get me here. (She had horrible long deliveries, my poor mother. Like 36 hour marathons. Like, now she would have just had us all by c-section.) She told me that a nurse climbed up on the bed and pushed against her belly with her knee to get me out. I told her I was certain I felt horribly guilty even in utero. We also discussed Haley's birthday dinner and other things.
• Picked the kids up from the gym.
• Ate a pomegranate fruit leather. I didn't know that was what my unhappy belly wanted but I finally feel better.
• Made dinner for the Bigs (pasta for Jake & Haley, frosted mini wheats for Nathan). Kendell didn't want anything. Yes, don't judge me but my kids did eat a hasty dinner at 9:30.
• Blogged.
• Now I'm going to watch Grey's Anatomy. And go to sleep. And wake up to my forties. Which I hope will be fabulous!

on Other People's Bad Luck

I'm not a highly superstitious person. If a black cat passes my way, I just want to pet it for a minute. I've walked under hundreds of ladders in my life and even broken a few mirrors. In fact, I am so non-superstitious that I actually got married on a 13th. Granted, it was a Tuesday, but it guaranteed me a few Friday-the-13th anniversaries.

I'm totally OK with that.

Because really, we've assigned the bad luck atmosphere to Friday the 13th in a fairly arbitrary way. I'm certain that unlucky things happen on every day of the year. In fact, since I am decidedly not a lucky person, unlucky is one of my constant companions every day of the year.

I forgot yesterday was the dreaded Friday the 13th until someone else's bad luck reversed my own misfortunes. See, my husband and I were having a tiff (shocking!), and we were both grumpy and barely putting up with each other's presence. But we had to run a few errands together anyway. We found ourselves on our crowded and construction-filled freeway, just passing a freeway entrance and right next to a highway patrol car, when suddenly a dude in an old muscle car squealed onto the freeway and raced right past us—and the highway patrolman.

And while I am not one to gloat on someone else's misfortune—as I am something of a lead foot myself, I had nothing but empathy for the speeding dude—I confess: watching the cop hesitate for a second (maybe checking the license plate first?) and then punch it to catch up with the speeding dude, and then turn his lights on and pull him over? Well, it was thrilling. And it lifted us right out of our grumpiness. As we drove past the pulled-over dude, it hit me: that guy is totally blaming this on Friday the 13th bad luck.

But my day was actually a pretty good one. Not lucky, really. I didn't win a single thing. But I did get a lot done and I had a few minutes all to myself which I used for reading. I remembered to get the gum out of Jake's jeans before I washed them. The weird sound my computer started making was just something with the fan, and how lucky am I to have a husband who can fix such things? Plus, I had the most fabulous thing: I went to dinner with my friend Chris, and it was just what I needed. We laughed, we talked about the past and the future, we cried a little, she helped me find some non-lame hair bands. It was sort of unlucky that I forgot to snap a photo of us, but still. That's tiny compared to how I felt driving home.

It was a good night with a person I am so lucky to have in my life!

I was only five minutes on the freeway when I came to a dead stop, unluckily about 20 feet past a freeway exit. But lucky enough I had my cellphone with me, and it was charged, so I called Becky. Someone else's misfortune—there were several cars in the crash that closed down all but one freeway lane—gave me 25 minutes to talk to my sister. We shared some good news and some really bad news on her part. I feel awful for Becky, whose husband lost his job yesterday. (Yes! On Friday the 13th. Seriously, seriously bad luck. The worst, in fact.)

But all in all? My Friday the 13th was fairly lucky. And as it is the last Friday I have before I turn 40, perhaps that bodes well for my next decade?

 

on being a Working Mother

There has been much political uproar lately about a comment made by someone named Hilary Rosen about Ann Romney. (You can read more about it HERE if you want.) As I am thoroughly sick of politics and find, frankly, that both sides (Democrat and  Republican) come across hollow, the fact that I am blogging about this at all speaks volumes to how it impacted me.

Ms. Rosen stated that Ms. Romney (who has been a stay-at-home mom) has "never actually worked a day in her life," and that as such she is unable to offer her husband advice about women's economic issues.

This idea both offended me and, I confess, made me nod my head just a little bit in agreement. But first I have to explain why.

While I always yearned to be a stay-at-home mom, I never actually managed to do so for very long. I went back to work eight weeks after Haley was born because at that point we still needed my income to cover our bills. But a few months later, Kendell switched departments and got a raise, and I was laid off and got a severance package, both of which combined to mean that I could choose, finally, to stay at home with my sweet baby girl.

Which I did until May, just after she turned one. You see, being laid off meant I could qualify for a job-retraining grant. I could go back to school and it would be paid for. And as much as I longed to be a stay-at-home mom, I also still wanted to accomplish my long-held goal of graduating from college. Did being a student and not working at a job mean I was a stay-at-home mom? Only sort of. I found an in-home daycare where Haley was happy while I went to my classes during the day. I scheduled them as tightly as possible so that I could be at home as much as possible. Nearly all my homework I did in the late evenings after she went to bed.

During the 2 1/2 years it took me to finish my degree, I got pregnant with Jake, had him, took a semester off, went back for my last year, and got pregnant with Nathan during my last semester (you know...the one I took 21 credits so I could finish before my grant ended). I tried not to ask anyone for help, not my husband or my mom or my sisters or my friends. After all, I had chosen to work on my degree. I had a gut-deep certainty that we would all be glad I was doing it and blessed by my efforts, but I also did it because *I* wanted to learn. By the time I was done, I was proud—but tired. Tired of juggling. Tired of late nights. Tired of having to say "maybe tomorrow" because I had to balance taking care of the house and the laundry and the meals with my children's needs and my homework.

I was so, so happy to be a stay-at-home mom! I loved everything about it, even the six-week stretch of chicken pox just before Christmas.

Except, my happiness only lasted for about 18 months, because just before Nathan turned one our world got dumped upside down when Kendell was laid off. During the next 15 months, I was still a stay-at-home mom. But those were dark, dark days and finally, when I was simply too desperate to keep going along like we were, I decided to go back to school so I could get my teaching certificate.

I think I bawled on the drive to school every day for an entire month.

And it was even worse for me when I started teaching. In my heart of hearts, what I wanted the most was to stay at home with my little ones. What my life was forcing me to do was to leave them in order to provide for them. It made me bitter and sad and confused. All of my other friends, whose husbands had never been laid off, got to continue being stay-at-home moms. They also did things like go shopping together for new boots, or get their hair colored, or buy new purses.

It didn't seem fair.

One night during the first year I was teaching, I was riding back home with three of these friends after we had all played Bunco together. Somehow the talk turned to the fact that schools in places with higher incomes are much better equipped than schools in places with lower incomes. To me, this seemed patently wrong. Why should a person's income affect his or her education? Shouldn't everyone be given the same educational opportunities when we have a publically funded education system?

No! one of my friends emphatically said. People with large incomes have lots of money because of the choices they made. They chose to get educations and careers in high-paying industries, but those with lower incomes? Well, that was their fault based, also, on the choices they made. The lower-income kids didn't deserve as high-quality of schools as the high-income kids because of the choices their parents made. And, of course, because the higher-income adults paid more taxes, their children deserved a better education and seriously: if the poor people would just stop having so many kids, they'd be better off anyway.

As you can imagine, this discussion sent me for a tailspin. There I was, working as hard as I could to provide for my kids and to educate some of those high-income kids. Choosing to do so. But what I wanted to chose was something completely different. I still wanted to choose to be a stay-at-home mom, but I couldn't.

(I dropped out of that Bunco group a couple of weeks later. It was just too hard to continue feeling like the group's token white trash member.)

I continue to think a lot about choice since that night, and how it influenced who I became. If Kendell had chosen a different career, we would have different financial opportunities. If I had chosen a different degree, I could make much more money than I do as a teacher or a librarian. If I had chosen to just have one or two kids, they would have different options as well.

But that is assuming that everything in my life was a choice, and while I think I have been fairly blessed with opportunities, I know other people are not. What if my parents hadn't prized education and good grades? What if I hadn't had that talk one random Saturday afternoon with my dad, who was a steel worker with a high school diploma, about how badly he hoped I'd go to college? What if I hadn't made the choices I did to turn my messed-up life around?

And this is why I am taking the sides of both Hilary and Ann. On the one hand, Hilary is an idiot if she thinks that being a stay-at-home mom isn't work. It is. It is hard to have small children as your constant companions. As much as I loved it, I also can't sugar-coat its difficulties. It is, I believe, a selfless choice, if  you have the financial means to make it. And to say that a woman who is a stay-at-home mom is unable to learn about financial and economic issues is just downright condescending. Just because a woman doesn't have a career doesn't automatically mean that she isn't able to study, learn, and devise solutions.

On the other hand, Hilary is sort-of right about Ann. Not in the working department, but in the real-life department. She's been blessed with a husband who, through his choices and his opportunities, has always been wealthy. She hasn't felt how it feels to drive away leaving your tiny baby in someone else's care. She hasn't cried out to God asking him why he wouldn't give her that one righteous desire of her heart. She hasn't stood by in bitterness while it seemed everyone else was given the one thing she most desperately wanted. Well, that and expensive boots and fancy haircuts and more purses than one woman could logically ever need.

She might be able to have knowledge about the economic plights of women. She might sympathize with them. But Ann Romney will never be able to have empathy for them and that is, I think, what Hilary Rosen is getting at.

Of course, the more basic problem is this: when we spend time Twitter-bashing each other over our life choices and situations, we are wasting time at finding a real solution. It is also in the assumption that one side or the other (how old is the stay-at-home mom vs. work-outside-the-home mom battle anyway?) has all the answers. We all have to figure it out together, if it really even is possible to figure it out at all. We don't live in a perfect world and nothing is ever going to be completely fair. But drawing lines and taking sides and being rude to each other simply fails every single one of us women. And the generations that will coome after us.

I curled up in bed and thought about death

A good friend told me recently that she has cancer. She and I aren't best friends, but we are constant ones, and she is one of those people I am grateful to have influence me. Her cancer figured prominently in my dreams last night (when the girls from Make It or Break It  weren't trying to steal my birth control pills).

When I woke this morning, still half-caught in dreams about sickness and funerals, I curled up in bed and thought about death. I thought about my dad's passing, and my father-in-law's, and how their illnesses were so different and yet their last moments were nearly identical: they left this earth with someone they loved holding their hands. I thought about my friend Jenie's daughter, who was killed in a car accident when she was 11, and how Jenie has managed to not be broken by her loss. About Avera's death. I even thought about the deaths of my grandparents, which all happened so long ago, but I still miss them and grieve the loss of experiences my kids might have had with them.

How strange is it? We arrive and then we live our lives with all their individualities. Loving what we love, pursuing what we hope, making what we need. My dad and his interest in art and Native Americans and books; my grandpa and his roses, my grandma and her kindness. All of what made their lives theirs  now belongs to someone else. My friend with cancer is still here, telling it without any doubt, being straightforward in her knowing way, sharing her knowledge, being unafraid. And one day, even without the cancer, she won't be. One day I won't be, either.

So I thought about me. How I hope to die: sometime in my 80's, peacefully, without a lot of fuss or illness, and, wildly improbable I know, outside under trees. What I hope to leave behind: indelible memories with people I love. How I hope to live: passionately, with kindness and gentleness and with enough integrity to be true to who I really am.

In that time of thinking, I wanted a Revelation. Some sort of truth that would let me know something, anything: that my friend would be OK, that those I've lost know I am thinking about them, that my own death is still many decades away. I didn't get that. Only the remembrance that, of course, death is a carriage coming for all of us, and all that I can really hope for is that when it stops for me, I will be ready, somehow, and that someone I love will be holding my hand.

Two of the World's Saddest Words:

"Store Closing."

(OK, of course there are plenty of words that are sadder than those. But when the store you're talking about is one of your favorites, it's still pretty sad.)

Lately it seems like all of my familiar ways of shopping are being forced to change because of the economy. Take scrapbooking. Since my favorite crafty store, Roberts, closed down, I'm sort of despondent. I don't like shopping online for scrapping supplies since I can't really know what an item's real feel is by seeing it online. (Plus: shipping.) Plus it just feels wrong, somehow, to pay full price. I've done it a couple of times at Archiver's and then I feel guilty and get a stomach ache. So most of the new stuff that's out right now? Totally not ending up in my stash or on my layouts. Mostly that is OK because really, I have a lot of stuff.

But I still miss shopping at Roberts. I feel awkward about my shopping options. Awkward and unnatural, somehow. My normal MO has been interrupted.

And call me a snob (you won't be the first), but when I read that one of my other favorite (non-scrapping-supply) stores was leaving my local mall? Cue awkward, unnatural shopping feelings. Yes: I have been called a snob because Nordstrom was one of my favorite places to shop. Mostly this accusation doesn't bother me because A---I know I'm really not a snob and B---I didn't shop in the super-expensive sections. Just the Brass Plum and Point of View, and always during sales.

It's my mother's fault, really. She took me there for back-to-school shopping for as long as I can remember. Every July, we'd go to the Nordstrom at Crossroads Plaza in downtown Salt Lake because that was the only Nordstrom in Utah. We'd pick out our school clothes during the anniversary sale, and then put them all on lay-away, and then we'd go to dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. A few months later, we'd come back up and get everything out of lay-away and start wearing it the next day. It was one of my favorite childhood and teenage experiences. And! Who can forget how it felt to see a few of those iconic Nordstrom boxes, the silver kind with a wide band slipped around its width, under the Christmas tree? Wondering if you were the lucky recipient of the Nordstrom box (even though it didn't always hold something from Nordstrom) was some of the best Christmas anticipation ever!

When, in 2002-ish, Nordstrom came to my local mall, I was so happy. I could just, you know, stop by. Just stop by Nordstrom! Squee! And really: I don't love Nordstrom because I'm snobby. I love it for the things it makes me remember and because I can always find something there that works for me. Haley fell in love with the store, too. So we'd go together whenever we could. Sometimes I could even shop in the same department as her. There was my infamous Nordstrom Meltdown . I bought Christmas gifts and birthday gifts and random I-need-a-new-shirt shirts there. I got friendly with some of the staff and Haley made the Fashion Board. We bought her homecoming dress there (for a smokin' deal, I might add!) and I shopped there this Christmas without melting down once. And then they dropped the bomb: because our county is not full of "high end retail shoppers," Nordstrom left.

Sadness.

And again, I'm full of that awkward feeling. Right now, for example, I need some new spring shirts. I don't know what I wore last year, but this spring I just don't have anything. But can I find any tops I like? No. Everything's flouncy and flowery and has great big sleeves which I feel uncomfortable in. And I just wish I could shop at my Nordstrom. And yes: I could drive to Salt Lake. It's not that big of a deal. But I sort of feel...abandoned, I suppose, by my favorite store. All that criticism I took for being a Nordstrom snob but the store itself doesn't think I'm high-end-retail enough to stick around.

So now I'm just discouraged. Discouraged and hot because I'm still wearing my winter clothes. To cheer myself up, today on my lunch break I decided to run into my only remaining local scrapbook store, Pebbles in my Pocket. I've shopped there since Chris told me about it back in 1995. And I discovered that Pebbles had moved. The store is still in the same building (a small white old house), but now they are just in the basement. The selection is much smaller. It's a little bit depressing to shop in the basement. And it smacks of The End. Is Pebbles going to close down, too?

I don't know. I just know I'm all sorts of bewildered over my recent shopping options. And I'm hoping nothing else goes away. Like...what if my Target closed? Or my local Costco? Or the place I get my photos printed? What about Runner's Corner where I buy my running shoes or the Cotton Shop where I get flannel for baby quilts? It almost seems like all that will be left is a landscape of Walmarts, and at that point? At that point you can just check me into the mental institution because a world of Walmarts is not one I'll ever want to live in.

Yep, I'm sticking to it: "Store Closing" is a sad, sad statement. Even if it's followed by the word "clearance." (Nordstrom, big snobby snobs that they are, didn't even have a store-closing sale.) I'd rather have the store than the going-out-of-business sale, wouldn't you?

My Father's Daffodils

For as long as I have been an aunt, my family has had the tradition of an Easter egg hunt in my mom's backyard on Easter Sunday. Because we tend to enjoy food, we also eat dinner together. As my oldest niece was born when I was 15 or 16, we've been doing this for a long, long time. Certain groupings of experiences have come and gone: the times when the amount of girls vastly outnumbered the boys, the year when we had three babies (this was Haley's first Easter), the times when the amount of boys vastly outnumbered the girls, the year we added cute little baskets to the hunt. Snowy Easters or bright, perfect ones; plenty of new spring outfits admired and photos snapped and strawberry-based desserts devoured

Since Kayci (the oldest niece) got married the year Ben and Kaleb (the youngest grandsons) were born, we didn't have an Easter with every one of my parents' grandchildren before the in-laws started being added. But every year, part of our tradition has been to get all the kids together for an Easter photo. We did some with Grandma and Grandpa and some without. Sometimes we took them in the front yard, sometimes in the back; sometimes, on snowy Easters, on the porch or inside, on the couch.

And for so many of those Easter Sundays, my dad was there, smiling, telling his slightly off-color jokes to Kendell, helping to hide the eggs full of candy. He and I would always talk about spring flowers, which ones were blooming, how the lilac bush was coming along, what the name of those tiny little purple flowers blooming by his antique wagon wheel might be. (He never seemed to remember exactly.) One Easter he played baseball with Nathan, who was just 18 months old. He was quite but still an essential part of the experience. Until he couldn't be any longer. Until silence took him away.

This year, for a variety of reasons, we had our Easter Sunday party on Palm Sunday instead. Some family drama meant that some of the nieces and nephews didn't come. We only had five kids to hunt eggs: my grand-niece Oakley, who is almost one; my two youngest and Becky's two boys. It was cold today, grey and blustery, and none of my father's daffodils were blooming yet. I felt heartsore, missing him, missing the years when all the grandkids were still little, the days when my knowledge was not yet so deeply felt and I thought that things would stay the way they were forever.

"Maybe this will be the last Easter party," my mom, who would like to sell her house and move into something smaller, said to me, while we were waiting for the men to hide the eggs. (It's tradition.) It felt like the last to me. Or maybe the one after the one that should have been the last. I don't know. When do you acknowledge that the family you have might be too large and diverse to continue insisting on pliability and similarity? When do you find that your own small family is enough? When do the edges snap away?

I went out to the front porch of my childhood home, scene of myriad memorable events. I looked up at the trees that were my height when Dad planted them, and then down at his flowerbeds, which were littered with little purple grape hyacinths. I talked to my sisters; I laughed. I went to the backyard and watched the small group hunt for their candy-filled eggs, revisiting the same hiding places the older generation had long ago discovered. When there were only a few eggs left, I walked with Kaleb, trying to help him find just one more treasure.

But it was me who found a treasure, just for a whisper of a moment. I thought of the blooming purple flowers, of the tulips with their green hands still shut tight and the lilac bush just barely covered in pale green leaves. I thought of all that has passed away. And I felt him there, my daddy, in the backyard that he loved and nurtured. Even though it's weedy now, and the swing set is knocked down and rusting. Even though the daffodils weren't blooming yet. He was there with me, just for a moment. He was there because he made it. He's gone but his grandkids still race around the beautiful space he made. He's gone but his grape hyacinths are still spattering the soil with lavender quiet. He's gone, but the trees he planted rustled in the wind and the flowers he planted worked their way towards blooming and somehow all the changes, the edges slowly breaking off, felt OK. Felt like how things just naturally progress. And they felt OK because of that moment. Because he made it OK.

Something moved away from me then. Perhaps it was the expectation that things will ever be the same. Maybe it won't be the last Easter party. But it will be the last time I expect it to bring me the same bright joy. It will have its own sadness, no matter where we have the party. And next Sunday, when it is Easter, I will only have my own children around me. Make it good, the wind whispered to me in my father's voice. Make it your own.

I will, Dad. I will.

{40} Series: in my 30's

"The first forty years of life give us the text," Schopenhauer said, "the next thirty supply the commentary."

And it's apparently widely known that life begins at forty, an idea that started to circulate in the early 1900s when life expectancy started to lengthen.

And, speaking of how medical improvements and mental attitudes have shifted, the New York Times said "All our age benchmarks, which used to seem solid as rocks, have turned into shifting sands. 'Life begins at 40?' More like 60."

Deep breath.

I'm trying to not let myself obsess over the fact that in less than a month, I'll leave my thirties behind forever. Yet, despite the euphemisms, that number---40---seems so, well, strange. In an effort to both commemorate this milestone and to get myself accustomed to the number 40, I'm going to do a little 40 Series on my blog over the next few weeks. Not daily or even with any regularity, but 40 is going to pop up here and there.

I'm starting with this, the list of forty memorable things I experienced during my 30's:

1 baby

(I think I need an "awwwww" here)

1 marathon

1 just-beaches California trip

1 trip to San Diego

1 pioneer trek

1 Ragnar

1 real (read: paid) writing opportunity, the 4-year-long stint I had of writing for the now (sadly) defunct Simple Scrapbooks magazine

1 broken nativity piece

1 beloved kitty lost

2 funerals of close family members (my dad and Kendell’s)

2 trips to Disneyland

2 years of teaching high school

(One of the few photos I have of my classroom. This was the weekend before school started and I still needed to finish my displays)

2 trips out of the country (Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and Niagara Falls, Canada)

3 years (just a month shy of 4) working as a librarian

4 classes developed and taught at Big Picture Classes (My Word, The Gift of Words, Write Now, and Textuality)

4.5 "Marathons" (which is my modified way of counting my 9 half  marathons so that I have room to include more stuff)

5.5 summits of Mount Timpanogos (.5 for the time we tried to make it to the top but didn't)

6 national parks visited: Arches (twice), Zion, Bryce (twice), Capitol Reef, Yellowstone, Grand Teton

(That is Arches)

Stuff I didn't count: a bajillion scrapbook layouts, countless pages read in books, roughly 25 quilts, 5 1/2 years of blogging, plenty of church callings (Relief Society teacher—my favorite; Sunday school teacher to the teenagers—my longest; Primary—my newest), dozens and dozens of pairs of pajamas and 5 or 6 Halloween costumes sewn, 40,000 photos taken, 35-ish birthday dinners, 1 skipped high school reunion, an entire decade of being a mom and a wife and a sister and a friend and hopefully a good person.

Looking at it that way makes me feel hopeful: what numbers will the decade of my 40's bring?

Moving Forward by Looking Backward

Thank you for your comments and emails about this post. I'm really trying to push forward and to find my way.

Yesterday I was reading my friend Monika's blog and saw this image from a mini scrapbook she made:

I thought about this all day yesterday...during my long run and my long, hot shower and while I was making dinner (chicken pot pie) and even while I was watching The Hunger Games with Haley. Because, you know...I'm 39. And in less than a month I will turn 40. Even though I believe in the idea that you're only as old as you let yourself feel (one reason I run: to run away from getting old), turning 40 feels like a marker. In my thirties I felt like I still had time to change my life and accomplish my dreams. Will it still feel that way when I am in my forties?

I don't know.

Monika's little page made me think: where was I ten years ago? What did that version of myself hope for? Some of the same things I hope for now, but some of my hopes have been fulfilled. What would the almost-30-year-old Amy thing of this almost-40-year-old one? (I think she'd be pleasantly surprised at some things, disappointed in others.) It made me want to look back. Some of the things that defined me ten years ago (March of 2002):

• I was attending college to work on my second bachelor's degree, this time in Secondary Ed. I was bitter and sad about this development in my life because all I really wanted to do was stay home with my three little ones and have one more. But I did learn so much about myself during that time, stuff I never would have figured out or put to rest any other way. Plus I made friends with the other old and bitter Secondary Ed student, Hayley.
• Kendell had just be rehired at Novell and was working the graveyard shift in customer support. This was a tough time for him because A---customer support really stinks and B---graveyard shift. He'd get home at 6:00 in the morning, wake me up, and we'd watch one TV show together before he went to sleep.
• I loved the TV show Alias and I never missed an episode of ER.
• Haley was only six and in first grade. She was a cheery, outgoing little person who loved her first grade teacher with all the devotion a first-grader can muster. (He was an awful teacher and only lasted one year and taught them almost nothing; the only good thing to come out of that year of school was the fact that the majority of their time was spent on writing stories, which I think contributed to her current love of reading.)
• Jake was four. His preschool teacher was named Mrs. Pope and she loved him so much. I still see her every once in awhile and she always knows who I am and asks about Jake. No one could NOT love Jake at four years old. Oh my, he was sweet. He was happy and laughed all the time and the thing he loved the most was being outside with his friends playing Bad Guys. He had to go to daycare for a few hours while I was in class and he hated it.
• Nathan was two. He loved daycare so much he'd sometimes cry when I came to pick him up. He was still so little! He had the softest whitest hair you can imagine—like corn silk. Toss in his bright blue eyes and his chubby cheeks and oh, my. He still had enough Baby left in him that he was a solace to me.
• Kaleb lived in my imagination. Not Kaleb himself, of course. But really: there was the stuff I was learning about being a teacher, and I was refreshing my memory for Algebra so I could make it through the upcoming College Algebra class I had to take, and I worried about money and I cried about not being at home, but in the forefront of my mind was always this: I am not done. I need another baby. Someone is still waiting! I wasn't just baby hungry. I was baby starved. Baby emaciated. "How can I have another baby?" was the first thought I had in the morning and the last thing I prayed about at night.
• I was still thoroughly addicted to drinking Pepsi. I had at least one 32 ounce Pepsi every day.
• For the first time in my life, I had to start watching what I ate. I gained ten pounds in the four months between Christmas and my birthday.
• We only had one vehicle, our 2001 Sienna mini van.
• I was running a little bit, but not enough to keep everything in check.
• I still played Bunco once a month with a group of eleven other women.
• My dad was still alive. His Alzheimer's wasn't even a blip yet. I thought I had decades left with him.
• I hadn't converted to a digital camera yet—I still loved my Pentax SLR. I bought all my film at Costco in the 8 packs.
• I filled up my last Creative Memories album and started using Close to my Heart albums. (I still do!)
• My favorite pair of jeans was one from the Gap that had a button fly.

So much has changed in ten years. So much has stayed the same. There are plenty of things I wish I could change but I feel powerless over; there are other things I did manage to proactively change. I have learned and come to understand many things. I think one of the most important things is just how bewildered I was then at how I wanted so desperately for my life to go one way (the fabulous lives that most of my Bunco friends had) and how it refused to do that. It went in a way I never expected when I was 19. That was bewildering and painful, but I do understand now, at 39, why it happened like it did. There were things I needed to learn and I am grateful, despite the aches of the hard times, for many things from my past decade.

Plus, I still own those button fly jeans!

What were you doing ten years ago?