Father's Day

It's Father's Day. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime, sometimes it was only yesterday, that daddy was here. He was always a bit larger than life, you know, like John Wayne. Kind of immortal. Except he was. Sitting with my sisters and a brother in the house we all shared with momma and daddy always turns into a "remember" session-and that was always punctuated with a lot of laughter. And daddy was a lot about laughter. And practical jokes. And incessant teasing that sometimes turned one of the sisters to tears. My brother was too much like daddy, from the sound of his voice to the way he chuckles when he thinks he has one over on you. Amazing since daddy was called to heaven to cowboy there when my brother was only 19. But anyway.....
We always list off the things daddy said....and how funny they are today. And how momma sometimes just shakes her head.
**The toilet is not a trash can. (so don't blow your nose and toss the tissue in the toilet...)
**Strike a match! (but if it was him to last use the bathroom it was...)
**Smells like roses!
**Why don't you buy your britches to fit you butt instead of your head?
**If you want attention I'll give you more than you want.
I never remember daddy missing work because he was sick, ever. He always went to work. His hard hat, his lunch box, the smell of the pines, the black dirt, the diesel fuel smell. And weekends were cowboy boots, spurs, cowboy hat, the smell of sagebrush and alfalfa and sometimes cowpies and horse puckey. And he expected everyone else to know how to work. And he taught us what employers want and that he expected us to give an honest days work for an honest days pay. He loved Lawrence Welk, and he loved to watch them dance. He loved Hee Haw, and he chuckled a lot. He watched all the cowboy movies and picked them apart. Like pointing out in the middle of something very interesting that there was a jet stream in the sky, or a power line in the horizon, or tire tracks through the sand. What? Are you kidding? Do you have to ruin it for the rest of us? He watched Gunsmoke and Bonanza. Would remark that the lightning in a summer thunderstorm is not going to stampede a herd of cattle. Man.
Anyway....I could never in a book say it all. Could never do daddy justice. I just sit as I type and smile.....kind of like his half hidden chuckles. I miss that man. I have very blessed to have been borne into the family I have. I'll see him on the other side...he'll probably be whistling "I Love You Truly" and tipping his cowboy hat, he'll look at me and say, "Couldn't you have gotten white sheet to fit your butt instead of your head?" And I'll be home, too.

Live An Exceptional Life by Robin Sharma

I love to read. I would read all day (well, some days) if it were possible. I enjoy all kinds of books. And I relish learning something new. Especially if it is designed, and I accept, to make me a better me. In some fashion or another. Well, I came across this article and it spoke to me, very faintly, and in often interrupted spasms, but I finally got it. And I printed it out. And I carry it with me to remind me that I have some refining to do.....

So I am sharing....

Mr. Sharma asks how one crafts an exceptional life? ...Life goes by in a blink. And too many people live the same year 80 times. To avoid getting to the end and feeling flooded with regret over a live half lived, read, and apply.....(he lists 60 ways---I, not so many) but they are all his.

1. Exercise daily. 2. Get serious about gratitude. 3. Keep a journal. 4. Know the 5 highest priorities of your life. 5. Say no to distractions. 6. Improve your work every single day. 7. Eat less food. 8. Find more heros. 9. Be the most ethical person you know. 10. Don't settle for anything less than excellence. 11. Savor lifes' simplest pleasures. 12. Save 10% of your income. 13. Write thank you letters to those who've helped you. 14. Forgive those who've wronged you. 15. Creat unforgettable moments with those you love. 16. Become stunningly polite. 17. Unplug the tv. 18. Read daily. 19. Avoid the news. 20. Be content with what you have. 21. Be passionate. 22. Never miss a moment to celebrate another. 23. Be patient. 24. Clean up your messes. 25. Be a great teammate. 26. Shift from being busy to achieving results. 27. Speak less. Listen more. 28. Be the best person you know. 29. Make your life matter.

I know I can never attain all of these. I can not even come close to some. But I can make my life, my attitude, my outlook closer to ideal every single day. Which means it's on the opposite end of the teeter-totter than becoming less and less like the woman I want to be. Like the person I want to be. And it would be oh so pleasant if I could leave some positive attributes to my favorite people.....

NOT a Hollywood Starlet......

Some days one can get caught up in the frenzied muddle of images, notions and sometimes shallow beliefs that bombard us. The forever pounding of a "perfect, have it all, do it all, symbolize it all" image of what a woman 'should' be. The perfect hair, the perfect clothes, the perfect size 0 body, the shiniest car, the well behaved/well dressed children, the husband that dotes on his 'princess'...and the perfect career. And, I admit, I get caught up at times only to find myself a little depressed and delusional. Can't keep up. Too tired. Too broken to fix......

It usually takes a good swift kick in the butt to regain my position in this narcissitic society. Yes, me, sometimes.

I am truly happiest, finding the most joy in life, when I remember that I AM a small town country girl from Glendale, Utah. That I grew up learning how to work and to work hard. To give a day and a half's work for a days pay. That running through freshly mown grass in my bare feet and wading in the creek with the same was sheer majesty. Sleeping outside under nothing but the stars, and being awed by the whole thing time after time. I am happiest in these kinds of scenarios.....not the superficial advertised and always unattainable "what I should be". I am a barefoot, simple, forever energetic and curious, blessed with talents that sometimes I shelf for a time. I am a little sister. I am a big sister to my one an only brother. I am a daughter, a grand daughter, a niece, an aunt, a friend, a babysitter. I ride a hand me down bicycle for years. I wear hand me down clothes for the same years. I took piano lessons and practiced thirty long long minutes every day- day in and day out. I have a grandmother that is a wonderful artist and school teacher and proper,and a grandfather that is an always learning, always reading, always studying, always expanding his intellect. And they both shared all of that with me. So I am blessed. I am fortunate. I am the person put here to be me. No one else has all the training possible to be the me that I am. (Not that anyone would trade me places!!) So, I smile, and I think back, and I think forward. I take all that is me and all that I would like to be and meld them together and live each day with all that sunshine in my past. And look ahead to all the sunshine coming up. Mingled of course with snow, and rain, and wind and rain, and clouds and rainbows. And it makes that 'muffin top' and that less than toned abs/butt/legs/arms a little less disgusting. The laugh lines around my eyes and mouth are there because I've had many, many happy hours. And though I wouldn't ask to do them all over, every experience that has been mine has brought me to loftier heights than a physical image could ever compensate for.

So when my grandson says I'm too heavy to go down the slide, that my arm looks like a horses' butt, that I am NOT his mother-she doesn't have that many wrinkles, I can just smile because what I got in return-the love of grandkids and the like-is so well worth it.

Screen doors and front porches

Little skinny girl with baby fine hair running amok through the house, usually chasing or being chased by my little brother. We plow through the screen door and the sound of the wood banging shut against wood, and bouncing back for a repeat, and the metal door latch clangs and swings. I so love the sound of a wooden screen door banging shut. I love the little grove the latch makes over time as it swings with the movements of company and family in, company and family out. I like peering out through the screen door at the seasons changing. At who is coming up the lane. At the sheets and towels gently swaying in the breeze on the clothesline. At daddy coming home from work, swinging his lunch box in one hand~and I knew there was going to be a candy bar for me and my brother to call dibs on. And some warm mornings would find me in a chair positioned in front of the screen door as momma french braided my hair so I could leave for school. And I watched the sun rise over the hills and complained about the braids most of the time. So now I am a homeowner and I chose to have a wooden screen door (or two) custom made for my little cottage of a home. I still cherish the same sounds and feelings evoked by the banging of the screen door. And then I sit on the front porch in my rocking chair enveloped by the evening air. Usually with a book. Or maybe some crocheting. Maybe just solitude watching the kids play on the lawn, or riding their bicycles up and down the lane. I take my childhood with me and I bask in the tranquil sounds and sights that made growing up in a small country town priceless and one of my greatest treasures. And I can call them up whenever I want. I just bang the screen door and sit in the rocker on the front porch for good measure.

G'ma Emily

This is the time of year for growing, renewing, and enjoying. Out in my front yard is a mound that seperates my yard from the neighbors. It is profuse with quakies whose leaves shimmer in the slightest of breezes. Roses and English Yew grow in a meandering fashion throughout. The earth around is piled thickly with bark that smells just like the Kaibab once a long time ago. I love sitting on the grass and watching everything grow and change and makes any time spent there relaxing and joyful. A yard takes a lot of work. A lot of watering. A lot of tlc. And money here and there. So we enjoy what we have helped to create. I always think of my g'ma Emily. She was a petite, proper, white haired g'ma. I adore her. I admire her. For many reasons. She reminded us, often, on no uncertain terms, that we were not to "cut across" someone's yard. We were to go around, preferably on the path. She would say, "Whether your name be James or John, the path was made to walk upon." That also went for her yard. That also goes for my yard......

Someone once posed a question to me in regards to the worst feeling I could imagine. I guess depending on the place you are in at the moment the answer could be multifacted. But throughout my winding journey in experience, I would have to say heartache/lonliness is at the very top of my list. Lonliness encompasses such a vast array of other emotions that it can overwhelm one at a moments notice. The evenings last for an eternity when one is alone. The nights are darker, the fears magnified, the sadness of loss of all that you have been and the unknown of what will become of the 'you' in the future. The heartache of lonliness brings one delving into what could have, should have, might have been done differently. Where did one go wrong? Was all the past a counterfeit? What was real? Was there anything real and genuine and sincere at all or did it just slowly die along the way? 3:00 am the inner alarm clock goes off and one finds themself sitting in solitude of every kind. Tears flow freely at that time of the day. No need to put on the happy face for the rest of the world, and for yourself for that matter-got to keep it all together-otherwise you might have to see yourself as less, as a failure in some way.

I have two friends in my circle who I thought were two of the happiest, most compatible wives for their respective husbands, who were the best mothers, the epitome of homemaker extraordinaire....we all know them! We may even be them. When both of their marriages came to this sudden, out of nowhere, nightmarish end-and for reasons not compatible with happily ever after, my heart aches for them both. I know their pain. I know their feelings of self worth-mostly that it is in the toilet right now. I know the loss of themselves and what they have invested soley in for the past twenty or more years. Where does this leave them? What does this say about them as women? As wives? As mothers? As friends, neighbors, members of the PTA and so on. I see them going through life stoicly and with a firm determination to come out alive and on top somewhere. And I see that their heart is crying over the simplest things they observe and wonder if they will ever have that again. So heartache and lonliness are at the top of my list. But knowing the pain increases empathy and compassion and genuine feelings of comraderie. And hope.......

Now, since I have rambled on to a lighter subject. Brylie has been tko'd by the team of trampoline/swingset crew. She was jumping on the tramp and then jumping to the cross bar of the swingset, swinging like Mowgli and jumping from the jungle vine to the entangled jungle floor and low and behold......she slipped-probably on a banana peel-and landed on her right elbow. She had just been told to knock off the monkyshines so she was coming to me, trying to control her sobs and with her 'tail between her legs' . And by joe, it looks a little out of alignment. The pain doesn't seem to go away. So off we go to the emergency room where she is checked by the very same doctor that mended her broken left index finger in March. I'll probably have child protective services knocking at my door. Low and behold it is broken. So she gets a neon pink cast from shoulder to fingers. And it is the second week of June. And she can't go swimming now until the cast comes off in six, yes, count it, 6 weeks. Summer without swimming-one might as well be in a monestary. She is taking it like a trooper though. She is a determined and willful fashionista diva. Do you know how hard it is to keep a 7 year olds fingers/fingernails/cast clean in the summer time when everything is done outside in the dirt, the grass and the rocks? Climbing trees. Riding bikes. Being seven. Not good. But we will survive. And today is anticipated and heralded as another jaunt in our summer adventure. Yeah, Bry!!

Picture it, the Valley, 1978. Yeah, Sophia is my hero. Two little girls with ponytails and ribbons, little sneakers with jingle bells on the laces-so I could keep track of them-picture perfect angelic loves of my life. When we are in the moment of diapers and bandaids and potty training and trying out independence we have no idea what the future holds in store for them. We read to them, take them on hikes up Red Hollow, four wheeling on the sand dunes, dutch oven cook-outs, getting firewood for the winter, PTA and playdates. Coloring books, learning to make beds, pick up toys, say I'm sorry, take in every stray that comes along, indescribeable joy that they bring to my heart. Still now, even when I recall certain memories, forever etched upon my heart. Even tears are now a part of the beauty of the tapestry that was woven by being family. One night I had the most intensely vivid dream which is still a replay, sometimes even when I'd rather not think about it. I dreamt that I was walking up a fairly steep and rocky road with a deep ravine off one side. Shauna was walking with me as I drug the wagon behind me. Sami was in the wagon. I turned to look at her and the side of the road was breaking off and the back of the wagon was sliding into the ravine. I was desparately trying to find a way to save her, my baby, and all I could do was hold tightly to the tongue of the wagon, and then I woke up. In a cold sweat. I could not shake the feeling of doom and horror for a couple of days afterwards. Several years later, real life hits. No dreams to wake up from. My baby is falling into an abyss and nothing I can do will save her. No matter how much I love her, no matter how hard I try (and cry and sometimes yell), no matter what experiences I have had to gain in the school of hard knocks can never, no never, change the fact that she will make her own choices, experience her own consequences (and the ones of our own making are sometimes the most bitter) and gain her own wisdom at her pace, in her way. And I still love her. And that's what momma's do. And that's what my momma has done through all she has endured with four daughters and a son. And a lot of grandkids and great grandkids and a few great great grandkids! I admire my momma for that. She still has an open and welcoming heart and home for all her family........I want to be more like her. I want to grow up to be "momma". For all of them.