Current State of Our Union

Nathan and Brent:  The Two Men in My Life
The Center of My Life Now

For the longest time my life was filled with Meg, La, Nate and Brent--and that was about it.  There were so many things going on--just keep up with the laundry, providing meals, cleaning up after meals, changing sheets (I never did require that anyone--including myself--actually MAKE their beds.), getting little and big people where they needed to go, picking little and big people up on time.  Play dates, Church, being a home room mother, volunteering as a tutor at my children's elementary school, making time to play and talk and swing and laugh and listen:  all these things made for rich writing fodder.  

Now I have physical therapy--first to strengthen my core to reduce lower back pain from bulging discs, last September to recuperate from my 4th right shoulder operation, in February I added recuperation and therapy for two torn hamstring muscles in my right leg.  The fact that I am not holding up very well as time goes by isn't really anything that I want to happen to me--much less write about.

Before I realized that I was pregnant with Megan, I was enroll in a gymnastics class at BYU.  As soon as I found out, and then told the instructor, I was banned from the trampoline.  Since I had not been actively bouncing on it for a long time before I got pregnant, I was prohibited from using it at all . . . too much of a chance that I might bring on a miscarriage.  

I was grounded.

Brent carries me on his shoulders again.

From the first months of our marriage, we walked just about everywhere.  On BYU campus, walking to class, Brent would--at unexpected moments--pick me up and swing me up and onto his shoulders.  He would continue walking with me perched securely above the crowd around us--as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have your wife on top your shoulders.  I loved it.   I remember writing about that--and about the fact that my increasing girth made it impossible for Brent to carry me on his shoulders.  

I was grounded.

Having been the eldest, yet the shortest member of my family growing up, I had to endure, every summer, my brothers and sisters the short jokes during the long hours we drove across the country.  Since summer vacation consisted of sleeping on floors in the homes of aunts, uncles and grandparents, I wasn't all that happy to be in the car in the first place.  On Brent's shoulders I was so high that I could see from one end of campus to the other.  I was no longer short--atop my eternal husband, I was taller than I could possibly be alone.  But by my third trimester, Brent could still swing me onto his shoulders--but my stomach was so large that I would fall backwards.

I was grounded.

Something to complain about, which I did, until Meg was actually born.  The magic of her sweet being pushed all of my previous objections completely out of the way.  

Instead of being bound to the earth, I was able to carry about with me a bit of eternal heaven.  This new stage in Brent's life and in mine gave me incredible new things to think and to write about.  

I found this snapshot of me taken about 4 years ago.  Obviously I am at the end of a day spent digging about in the soil of our Palm Beach home.  Again, grounded--but this time quite in love with the process of growing cuttings, sprouting seeds, dividing and then re-planting plants that had overgrown their space.  I loved the fact that an incredible number of the bushes and flowers that covered our gardens were of my own nurture.  I took classes and learned how to fertilize, reproduce, and plant growing things that I had had a hand in reproducing.

These are the blossoms on the star fruit tree that grows in our yard.  The fruit is so tender and sweet--nothing like the waxy, tasteless things the supermarket produce departments are able to supply.

This, too, gave me great numbers of new ideas to latch together and write about.

*******

Today I went to two hours of physical therapy and then came home and washed some dishes, pulled the sheets from our bed and started a load of laundry.

The days are a mix of the things I love doing--like putting together puzzles, walking barefoot in the grass, laying in bed at night next to Brent and hearing him breath, hearing his heart beat--and the things that I don't care much for.  Cleaning out closets, sorting through drawers, culling photographs, scanning others into my computer, washing the floor, making sure that everyone has enough of their kind of milk and their kind of bread:  these tasks I think of as common place, onerous jobs--necessary but tiresome.  And there isn't much I find inspiring--inspiring enough to write about, anyway. 

Perhaps, I need to find the ability to discover wonder and curiosity in the common place and the routine . . . appreciate and write about the ground I work on every day.

Maybe.

One of the roses from the wild rose bushes I planted.  I got the bushes from Palm Beach State College.  The horticultural program there grows plants for the campus and provides a classroom for the students taking classes there.

What I Remember of Summers at Grandma Burton's House

Grandma Burton's house.  You can see the raspberry bushes on the right side of the photo--by the side of the garage.

Mom standing by her front door.

Mom, again, in front of her home.  This time dad, Susan, Martha, Rob, Nathan and I --her own family.

When I was a little girl, our family would spend every summer visiting extended family. My mother's favorite place was her own home in Afton, Star Valley, Wyoming.  

Mom again, this time posing on the steps of the side porch.  

Susan, me and Martha feeding the lamb (Lamby) that Grandma bought one summer.  She intended to have it slaughtered at the end of the summer to provide meat for the family.  After having all the grandchildren feed and love it--the lamb turned into a pet that she could not kill . . . so she traded hers with the lamb a neighbor had raised . . . and had that one slaughtered.  They could not bear to eat their own Lamby.
We are sitting on the steps of the side porch.

To get to Grandma Burton's, we first drove south into Iowa from where we lived Edina, Minnesota, and west across Nebraska and all the way across Wyoming to the western edge of the state.  We drove up into the Rocky Mountain range, twisting up and down and around the individual mountains.  There were no lights along the two lane road--but during the day, you could look across the valley to the face of the opposite mountain and the light tan line zig zagging back and forth.  

Switchback road leading down into Star Valley, Wyoming.  My sketch.

Mom drove slowly--there were semi-trucks sharing the road.  Every once and a while, the road would be extended straight up the side of the mountain as the road continued on a level path.  Mom told me that those were for the semi-trucks if their brakes failed.  Instead of running wildly down the mountain, the truck driver could steer his out-of-control vehicle straight up these narrow roads . . . allowing the trucks slow down safely.  

The thought of that happening always sent a thrill of terror down my spine: so much weight and speed let loose on a road where families like ours were on their way to visit their grandmas and grandpas for summer vacation. 

Arthur Dixon Burton and Kathleen Powell:  Grandma and Grandpa Burton

Mom drove carefully up and down the mountain sides, slowly cutting along the narrow roads--until we began our descent into Star Valley itself.  At that point, we could have been a run away semi-truck.  As we hit the floor of the valley, mom would name of each little towns as we flashed through the short lengths of their main streets. Most didn't even have a stop light--but they all had a city hall and a post office, a grocery store and a general store.  

Some even had a one-pump gas station.  None of these could compare to the gas station in Afton:  Burton Gas.  My Grandpa Burton owned the first gas station in the Valley--opened before the Depression and still in business as we arrived in the summer months of the 1960s and '70s.  If we arrived during the middle of the day, our first stop would be to see mom's father.  He always gave us free candy bars--a "poison" Grandma preached against.  (She also forbid face cards in her home--they were used for gambling and she wanted to avoid "even the appearance of evil.")

I still have a window scraper from Grandpa's gas station.  It is white with a clip on the back of the handle.  That clip secures it out of the way, on the back of the sun visor, until it is needed to clear ice from the windshield during winter months.  

When we got to Afton, we fit ourselves into the flow of activities of Grandma Burton's household.  We were each assigned a towel that we used for a week before it was washed.  (At our home, towels got used once and then were thrown into the chute that went from the upstairs bathroom downstairs to be washed.)  And when Grandma washed the clothes, there was a huge metal tub that sat next to the machine and the same water was reused for all of the cycles--it got grayer and grayer as it was spewed out and sucked back in. (I tried not to think of that water when I dried myself off after my bath.)

Grandma Burton made bread from wheat that she ground in her home.  She had a professional sized mixer that allowed her to mix up six loaves of bread at once.  The bread was wonderful.  It wasn't like any bread I had tasted before--or have tasted since.  It was light brown, heavy and moist.  She covered the bottom of the bread pan and the top crust of each loaf with butter and then sesame seeds.  After the bread came out of the over and cooled, Grandma would loosen the bread and then tip it out onto a wood cutting board that slipped under the kitchen counter like a drawer.  When the loaf came out, half a handful of seeds would be left behind.  She would scoop them up into her hand and return them to the container she kept the seeds in, so that they could be used on the next batch of bread she made.  

The bread's flavor was nutty and just the right company for her special blend of butter.  She mixed real butter, softened to room temperature, with sunflower and other light oils.  This meant that the butter was always smooth and easy to spread--even when it was just out of the refrigerator.  The combination of the heavy, moist, lightly-sweet bread and the clean, barely-salted butter eaten together remain one of my most cherished, vibrant childhood memories.

If we stayed until early August, there were raspberries!  Grandma would tie a quart glass canning jar around our stomachs and we would be assigned a place along the stretch of bushes.  When we filled our jar, we would bring it in to the kitchen to be emptied.  I do not remember filling many jars--although I do remember being full of raspberries most of the time we were there.  

Grandma went to get milk right from the dairy.  She had huge glass jars holding two gallons (at least) of milk each.  There was a small wooden room between the place where the cows were milked (we never did see the cows) and the milk was pasteurized.  The cement floor was always damp and clean.  We would hold the jars under the large spigot and fill them to the top with cool, foamy milk.  Grandma would screw on a lid, mark in a book how much milk she had taken, and we would carefully carry the jars home with us. 

The jars stayed in the refrigerator over night so that the cream could separate and be skimmed off.  Sometimes she just stirred the cream back in--but when she didn't I loved looking down at the top surface of the jar's contents and seeing the cream's yellow, swirled strings on the blue-white background of the skimmed milk.

Once we brought home three jars and I poured myself a big glass as soon as we got to the kitchen.  It tasted AWFUL.  It tasted like the milk room smelled . . . kind of like milk and kind of like cleaner and water.  I made myself drink it, though, thinking that it was just my imagination.  About half an hour later, Grandma got a call--we had gotten our milk from the spigot during a system clean out.  What we got looked like something it wasn't.  I didn't throw up, but the taste in my mouth and the feeling in my stomach is as awful in my memory as Grandma's bread and butter is delicious.  

The evenings were cool enough that we wore sweaters.  The sun came up later and went down sooner than it did in Minnesota.  In Minnesota I slept in the basement; in Wyoming everyone was relegated to the second floor.  Minnesota had squirrels in the back yard with a sand box and a swing set.  

Winter image of the Minnesota sandbox and tree where the squirrels lived.  I think it Susan here, making something out of snow.

Wyoming had a fenced field with two horses in it next door; a ring of bushes around the house where I could hide and pretend I was invisible; 

Susan, Rob and Martha in Grandma's back yard.

an old hand-turned cement mixer that had long ago been "frozen" by rust and which filled with water when it rained;

How I remember the cement mixer.  We would fill it with handfuls of grass and berries from the bushes around Grandma's house, pretending that we were mixing something wonderful to eat. My sketch.

a platform and revolving clothes line that screaked when you hung laundry on one section then pushed it around to hang more. 

I loved hanging the laundry out.  I could only reach the inner lines, but I filled them as full as I could.  My sketch.

Years later, I saw the horse walking machines that stables use to cool down two or three horses at a time after a long ride.  They are the same size and shape as Grandma's clothes line.  Seeing one of those reminded me of hanging out wet clothes in Wyoming and then pulling them off--stiff as boards because of Grandma's washing machine use and re-use of wash water--when they were dry.

In Minnesota, Mom taught us how to feed squirrels (there was an albino squirrel that lived in our back yard for a few years) so that they would take food from your hand--if you were quiet and patient enough.  In Wyoming, Grandma taught me how to scrub a kitchen floor--using a knife to scrape off stubborn bits of food rather then my fingernail so that my nails would always look nice.  In Minnesota, I cut the grass with a gas-powered lawnmower that mom or dad would first start by pulling the starter: a long, thin rope with a small, T-shaped, black plastic bar at the end to hold on to.  In Wyoming, I sat upstairs, alone and quiet for hours on end, and read years worth of old Reader's Digests. In Minnesota, I would hold a book in my teeth and climb the oak tree across the street--from there I could be away from my brothers and sisters and all the neighbor kids and pretend I was invisible--settle myself in a comfortable crook and read until the sun went down.  In Wyoming, we would hike high up into the mountains behind the house and take off our shoes and put our feet into the freezing water to cool off--the fast running stream was fed all year by snow high up in the mountain peak and would give you an "ice cream headache" if you drank it too fast.  

Another photo of Grandma's home--you can see the bushes that surrounded the front and left side of the building.

  

Virginia Beach Beach and Petting Farm--Grandma, Aunt Jenny, Kate and Jon

In May, I got to meet up with Megan, Anton, Kate, Jon and Anton's sister, Jenny in Maryland.  We then drove down to Virginia Beach, VA.  Jen and I took care of the kids while Meg and Anton attended a three day seminar focused on home schooling.  It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know Jenny a little bit and to spend time with the children.  After the kids were asleep in their room, Meg and Anton took turns coming to spend time with Jenny and me in ours.  

The water was cold and harsh.  There was a stiff, cold wind, too.  Even though the photos look like a beach--compared to Florida's balmy shoreline--it was just a wide, sandy pathway with occasional, loud, cold splashes of water when we got too close to the ocean.  Kate preferred to stay as far away from the water as possible--Jon found great satisfaction in running back and forth with the waves as they washed over the sand.  I think, though, that he likes anything that moves about a lot.  

Megan had a list of things that she wanted to experience--most of them had to do with eating various kinds of frozen sweet stuff.  

One of my best memories of this trip will be of Kate.  At one of the frozen yogurt/custard places we stopped (I think it was a Sweet Frog shoppe) we got our bowls and filled them with whatever yogurt and toppings we wanted.  Anton told Kate that she had to wait until they had paid for the food before she could begin eating.  During this time, the group was also waiting for me (spending some quality time with my body in the bathroom--that was a sly reference to the fact that I often spend over an hour on the toilet--and those I am with have to wait for me).  Kate patiently sat, holding her bowl.  When everyone had finished, we got ready to go and Kate began to cry.  

She was still waiting for Anton to tell her that it was OK to eat her dessert!  All that time and she was content to put off consuming her choice of melting yogurt and toppings--

At three years of age, she has an amazingly mature sense of propriety.  She is also smart and very beautiful.

My favorite memory of Jon will be his decision to get Kate a peacock feather from the Petting Farm.  She didn't want to go with us--so she stayed with Jenny and played (and sang to herself) quietly.  The idea was for her to fall asleep and get some rest . . . didn't work.  But the day turned magic when Jon presented her with the 3 1/2 foot long plume.  

She decided that it was a magic feather and brought it with her everywhere we went from then on.  Jon was charmed by the fact that his gift was so well received.  

And so was I.

Another highlight was a Bounce House indoor play place.  It was a store that had been converted into a huge selection of bounce houses.  There was a place for the very young, the next-to-very young--all the way up to the adult.  I had a great time.  We went twice--one price got you unlimited visits for a week.  Jon laughed and jumped and ran and climbed--and had a wonderful time.  Kate played quietly in the area reserved for the very young.  She didn't like the bounce places--but did enjoy riding in the Playschool cars and waundering about the other areas where nothing moved or made noise.

Sometimes just being in a new place is excitement enough.  I hope that next time, though, Kate will decide to be brave enough to join us at the Petting Farm.  I think the llamas and the miniature goats would really enjoy being near her.

Kate takes over the blanket.

Aunt Jenny acts as consumer for Kate's home-made sand ice cream cones.

Jon gives me a real face--the next few faces were poses after
having eaten sand . . . yeah, I didn't get it either.

Jon points out the jello-mold-topped mound of sand we called our "Sand Castle." 

The ocean claims our prize.  Kate is an unwilling spectator.  She prefers the quieter,
"small ocean" kid pool at the hotel.

Kate works with the water and the tools Megan found at Ikea.

Jon squishes a ball before throwing it.

Kate from behind.

Jon asked me to take a picture of him and Megan.

Jon faces a very determined tortoise.

Jon in the laying house at the Petting Farm.

Jon didn't like being up so high at first, but by the time the ride was almost over,
he was quite comfortable.  It helped that there was a school class there on a
field trip and as they watched him ride by, they began to chant "Pony! Pony! Pony!"

Jon discovered that one of the llamas liked being fed stray bits of hay that Jon collected from off of the ground.
It was cool to watch Jon so at home around such big animals.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, one of the miniature goats gave birth to triplets.
We missed the big event--thankfully--but we got to see them here, 24 minutes old.

Nathan and Me and the New Temple

Nathan and me, posing like tourists in front of the new Florida, Fort Lauderdale Temple. The public Open House is in full swing.  I take the Friday night shift as a tour guide, sleep at a hotel nearby, and then get up early for the first Saturday shift--again, as a tour guide.  

Brent and Nathan went for three days last week and volunteered as ushers.  They both worked outside and came home sun burnt from 5 hours in the hot sun without shade or sunscreen.  Actually, Nate did put on sunscreen, but it probably came off during the first half hour as he got hot and sweaty.  Brent's poor face didn't have a chance . . . he is peeling and it makes me hurt to think of him shaving every morning.  

He is braver about it, though.  The second and third days both Nate and Brent used sunscreen and wore hats.  

I feel a little guilty that I get to stay in where it is cool--leading groups of people through the temple--while they took up posts outside, directing traffic and helping with handicap parking.   

Nate and me and the Fort Lauderdale Temple before the open house began.
February 2014.

I do love the temple, though.  It is an exquisite building.  You must come and see it for yourself.

Seriously.  You can stay with us and we'll drive down together.  !!!

All the News That's Fit to Print and a Gecko

                                  The gecko that lives outside Lauren and Rob's apartment.

It has been cloudy and drizzling all day.  I don’t know if it makes me sound dreary, but it has been a lovely day—cool and calm and quiet.  I stayed up too late last night and both of my knees ache today.  (Th.)  I have an appointment with my orthopaedic surgeon tomorrow morning, then Calculus I, then an hour and a half drive to the new Fort Lauderdale Temple for training as a tour guide during the temple open house—then an hour and a half drive home.  Today is peaceful preparation for that whirlwind. 

Brent had a colonoscopy this morning—all is well.  He is still dehydrated and a little woozy.  He is kind of cute this way.  We watched movies all afternoon and snacked on little stuff already in the kitchen. 

It seems odd, as I reread the last two paragraphs, that two people whose bodies are so dysfunctional can be so content, so at peace with ourselves, each other and the world.  Brent was exchanging emails with someone and they asked him why he would want to move to Chicago.  He responded that places have never been the destination for us as a family.  We go where we are needed.  A friend of mine has a husband who is going to move the family to Alaska because he was raised there—and he wants his daughter to understand what it was like for him as he grew up.  She is from Brazil—and wholly unprepared for a land where it is light half of the year, dark the other half of the year and cold all of the year long. 

There are lots of reasons why I do not envy her—but I think that this would be one of the biggest reasons. 

The rabbits are in the family room  now.  They alternate between the kitchen, the patio (only when it is brisk and dry outside—not very often—and the living room.  Their cages take up a lot of space and their propensity to shed (especially Murphy) has Brent leery of where ever I put them.  I feel bad for Murphy.  He is a lop-eared rabbit with snowshoe feet and an undercoat of fur that a polar bear would envy.  Oops (yes, that is his name) has tiny, neat ears and tiny, neat paws, and short, velvet fur.  He is eminently more suited for being a pet than Murphy—who would love to be free and have some roughish grass under his belly to help keep himself clean. 

Watching them makes me miss Peter.  A lot. 

We have a raccoon that has dug a couple of burrows outside in the fern bed, beneath a huge butterfly bush, and in a large plant bed that runs the length of the house along the East side.  It has also dug itself a shortcut underneath the fence between the West side lawn and the back yard.  Too much trouble to clamber up and over the thing, I guess. 

For a time there was a gopher tortoise that lived under the canoe that Brent keeps for his fossil hunting trips.  We took the canoe away one too many times, and he moved across the street to an empty, wooded lot.  I feel a little bit abandoned by this . . . I loved to watch him as he trundled about the lawn, eating mouthfuls of grass as he waundered. 

Back to Oops and Murphy—they are what is left of a four-some.  They bump about, doing their own thing for most of the day, sleeping in different corners.  But every once in a while, I catch them slumped over one another or face-to-face in a mutual you-wash-my-face-I’ll-wash-yours marathon.  Neither likes to be held or cuddled.  They will sit for half an hour if I sit beside their cage, reach my hand in, and rub their faces and ears.  The cats make up the difference, though.  Especially for Nathan—they sleep with him every night and spend a good chunk of the day sleeping on his bed when he’s away.  I think he likes that they prefer him and his space—even though he complains about waking up with a lump of cat holding him down.  

It is still raining quietly and steadily outside.  It is past 11p.m. and tomorrow beckons.  Tonight all is well in our home, our lives and our hearts.

Photos Before the Wedding--Libby, Brent, La, Rob, Lix and (of course) Charlie

Brent and his mom on the beach--November 2013

Brent, Meg, Libby on the beach, Juno Beach, FL

Megan Rytting, Libby Hendry, Lix Garcia

Charlie, Lauren, Rob and Lix at the Busch Wildlife Refuge

Lauren and Rob decorating for the reception.

I am late--last week was Rob and Lauren's one month anniversary.  I have been lazy about writing what's going on with the family.  Meg's children are growing so quickly--and Lauren's life has been turned around after meeting Rob at a Young Single Adults dance.  She is married now and the wife of a wonderful man.

She was talking on the phone yesterday and she said "This is Lauren Garcia."  It wasn't until then that I realized she was really and truly married.  I still think of her as Hendry--but then I have written Anton Hendry (instead of Rytting) on a letter I sent.  There are some things that will never change within my mind:  everyone will be a Hendry and a Wagstaff--no matter their given last names.

I even think of Lix, Rob's sister, as a Hendry.

Grandma Time With a Splash of a Cold

Megan's signature self portrait. 

Last week I was with my daughter and her family in Maryland.  One of the charms of her home is its proximity to extensive wooded areas and a small lake with wide paths around its shores.  I think that she and her husband decided to buy the home because of the natural areas--one path leading right past her tiny back yard--rather than because of the home itself.  

Lakeside view.  Greenbelt, MD.

Meg is a firm believer in "outside time."  When her two children are cranky or out-of-sorts, she does not park them in front of a movie--like 99% of the mothers I know--she packs them a snack and they go for a long walk.  

 

Megan Christina Rytting.

Her 4-year-old Jon has a Nature Box where he can keep anything that he finds outdoors.  During the walks we took, Jon would pick up cool looking rocks or leaves and tell us about them.  Then, in a tone that indicated he had deliberated carefully, he would announce that he was NOT taking the item home to put in his Nature Box.  

Megan would then respond "That's OK!  It's OK to pick up something and look at it and then put it back."  

Kate, two and a half years old, teething and with a cold.

During most of these walks, Kate was sick with a bad cough, runny nose and congestion--on top of having her last two molars coming in.  When she could breathe and wasn't coughing, she would chew on her fingers (sometimes gagging herself and then throwing up).  So Orajel was added to the routine and that, along with a little frozen hand chewy, made life a little more bearable.

On the first morning I was there, we went shopping.  Jon and Kate got to pick out a toy (Jon's was a monster truck and Kate's was a trio of small Hello Kittys, just the right size to fit into her hand.)  When Jon was not looking, I picked up a box that contained 5 small monster trucks.  He did see it after we had checked out--and even carried it home, worrying aloud the entire time who would get to have those trucks and if they belonged to everyone and when would we open them?

Jon with his new monster truck, Monster Mutt.

For Jon, coming surprises cause an internal agony, rather than a happy anticipation engendered in most of us.  Uncertainty in any form is  horrible--he is only content when he knows where everything is, knows who is going to be around him, and knows what is coming next.  

My own son Nathan shares that same characteristic.  For years the most important issue of the day was "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

My original reason for starting this essay was to explain where I got flowers for a Botany class I'm taking on line.  I found myself in Maryland during October--with no flowers at all around Megan's home.  

BUT!  Outside a restaurant we went to on my second night there, the grounds people had planted hedgerows of small, fragrant rose bushes.  I helped myself to a few of them--reassuring Meg that I didn't need to ask the restaurant for permission since they would have no idea who actually planted them.  The corporate owner's hired grounds keepers would have planted them, . . . and I rationalized that we were contributing to the financial coffers of the corporation by spending money for 4 at one of their renters . . . it would most probably not cause major problems for whoever was in charge if I snapped four of the tiny roses off of one bush.

I know, I know . . . if everyone took 4 roses, pretty soon there would be no roses at all . . . 

One of those philosophic issues that keeps me from picking flowers in national and state parks or from picking up a pebble of petrified wood from the ground when we were at the a petrified tree site near Florissant, Colorado.  It would also keep me from taking anything (but photographs) from a place like Stonehenge.

Anyway . . .

I had five wonderful days and now I have been home three days and am laying about in a gray fuzz because I have caught whatever flu or cold that Meg and her children had when I was there.

Thank goodness I am not teething, too.