Finals

I don't know if every professor feels this way, but in the days between the last day of class and when the final papers/projects are due, I always feel a bit like a midwife. I find myself checking my email more (I don't have a smartphone, so I'm not henpecked by any of my email accounts), looking into the course management system frequently to see if there are messages there from students. In short, I worry about them. So far, when the papers/projects finally come in, I am thrilled and relieved to find that the vast majority of them did quite well--plenty of evidence of thinking, learning, engagement. But always in the space in between--midwifed.

I may get over this in the fall when my small classes give way to two enormous ones. But. We'll see. Not there yet.

Homesick

I've been feeling unusually blue recently. Spring is attempting to make itself known in Utah and while I recognize its efforts in the blooms on trees, the arrival of many ducks, and an uptick in rain, it's not central PA.

There are no daily thunderstorms that shake the house and occasionally send you to the basement in case that one oak falls on the roof this time.

The rolling hills don't turn that deep russet with new buds waiting to explode.

Creeks don't overspill their banks and give old bridges new reasons for being. There are surprisingly few breezes here bringing in the complex and promising smell of Spring that leaves you longing as the last of the snow clings to the shady spots under the thick canopy of trees.

It seems like it should be small, this one little weather thing. That it shouldn't trigger the grief over all that was left behind in that place--but I remember in the first Spring we lived there in 2005, noticing all of the above and sobbing with relief as I felt that I had finally, finally come home.

I still love my work and BYU feels more like home than I think Penn State ever could because the expectation that I can be a totally devoted Latter-Day Saint AND a critical thinker AND be a contributing academic is the norm (actually, those are more the requirements) and I didn't, generally speaking, feel like it was really okay to be a MORMON PhD candidate at Penn State. (With about three notable exceptions.)

I don't really expect that I'll ever go back to State College permanently. But this afternoon I miss it all, and the dear friends I associate with it all. I have this intense desire to get on a plane and go home, even though I'd just have to turn around and come right back here. Homesick.

Spelling

It is an inarguable truth that I cannot spell well. I come by it honestly. I come from a long line of people who can't spell well on my Father's side. Max can't spell either. The twins can. They must get that from Chris or the Hudson side. 

When I have a word I can't remember how to spell I invent a mispronunciation of it that helps me remember the real spelling.

For example, fry-ends helped me learn friends. And Pee-oh-pull helped me learn people.

Today I invented Pur-pose-eh-lee to help me with purposely.

It serves a purpose, but also--it makes me laugh. Laughing is very important when you are a PhD and teacher educator who cannot spell.

And Now I Shall Write Somewhat Concerning the Love a Heavenly Father Has for His Children

Tuesday evening a little girl ran away from home in our Stake. It was like 15 degrees out and she was last seen in a pink hoodie. She was ten. A gazillion people searched for her until 2:00am. She was found the next morning after hiding at a friends house all night. Here is what I learned from that: little girls can make big mistakes, and one little daughter of God disappearing in your neighborhood--who you don't even know--can cause you to be so unable to sleep that a week later you still remember the fear gripping your heart as you listen to the helicopters swinging back and forth over the neighborhood for hours.

Here is how a search like that works on the ground. You decide you are going to help. You go to the house where the people have mobilized and they have you sign in and give you a map. You don't meet many other people. You just see a few people at the sign in table and a few people coming back for a new map. Otherwise--you have your area. It's very cold and it's very lonely and it's emotionally exhausting. But somewhere back in that house are parents so unimaginably grateful that you are doing that work for them. Because with you helping search for the missing daughter, there is that much greater a possbilitity that the child will come home.

This little girl has some emotional issues. When she was found she was not grateful, not remorseful--she was defiant and angry. But she is still a child (or perhaps, because she is still a child--it's not like she has anything like adult executive thought functioning yet) and she still has her agency and there may be a time when she does realize some small portion of the love that was expended on her behalf and she may repent and if she does it will cause a mighty change in her. (That's what repentance is--a mighty change of heart.)

And that is being a missionary, to me. You go get your papers. You hunt for someone you have never met out of a love you don't really understand and you meet people who are unrepentant and defiant and rejecting of your love.

But then sometimes you meet people like the fellow Elder Hults baptized last week or the one who just committed to a date in February--or the person I was at 19--who is repentant and searching for his/her Heavenly Father's love and if someone hadn't been there to guide and direct--might not have found his/her way back. 

If you are a missionary or returned missionary or just a person who sometimes opens their mouth and answers awkward and difficult questions about their Faith in the hopes that it will benefit the person who is asking--I want you to know how very proud we are of you and your work. It's pretty freaking hard and cold at times, I imagine, but there are Heavenly Parents desperate for us to find more of their children and return them unto them. And I am so crazily grateful that you chose to be part of the search.

And that is all I have to say about that.

P.S. This is adapted from a letter I wrote on the spot for Max just an hour ago when we learned that he DID have access to a computer today (Family History Center) when we thought he wouldn't because we thought he would be at the library which would be closed today. On the upside, this led to the closest thing we have ever had to an email conversation :) Chris was on his laptop and I on mine (which is totally crazy, because I almost never bring it home from work in order to avoid doing work at home) and the three of us tossing letters and pieces of letters back and forth at each other for a little bit. It was actually awesome.

P.P.S. If you want to hear some missionary stories, go to http://sc1calledtoserve.tumblr.com where more than 18 months of weekly letters from State College (PA) Ward missionaries are collected from young women in Ukraine, Russia, and Germany. And also our very own Elder Hults in Nevada (Spanish speaking). They include the range of emotions, including funny, sweet, sad, and mundane. There are plenty of photos (especially from Germany and Nevada) and they make me love humanity even more. We have one Sister and our own Elder still in the mission field and posting weekly letters.

Oh, the Places You Will Go

We are still getting used to the difference being in Provo means for friends and family visiting. It is, apparently, easier to get here and easier to get away than when we lived in Pine Grove Mills, PA. We have enjoyed the steady stream of visitors from State College, PA and the visit from my Father and Step-Mother. There are plans in the works for a future visit from my Mother, and a tentative plan to head to CA for a weekend or so in mid-August with stops in the Sacramento area and the East Bay (and what the heck--maybe we can catch a Heller-Simon at home in SF).

Recently I received a letter from a dear old friend on the Rez in Arizona asking me to pin down specific dates to come visit her and in looking at the map we realized that the window of opportunity she was offering us was a) right about the time the Spring semester would be ending, b) right about the time Max would be released and c) right about the time it starts to get really hot in Provo, Utah. (Okay, that last doesn't really factor into it, but it would be a tender mercy as far as I'm concerned.) At any rate, it's likely that picking up Max would be easily on the outward bound or home bound route.

Sometimes friendships spanning many decades can settle into a level of comfort that makes it okay for long periods to pass without seeing each other. You write. You update each other on the mile stones of children and grandchildren. You worry over their daughter with pneumonia and they celebrate your son's graduation from afar. This Spring and Summer I had a gradually increasing fear of not having heard from her, so much so that I tracked down her daughter's email address and phone number and left messages with her. It turned out that my friend had a bit of a health crisis that summer (with a happy ending), but it helped me realize that it had been too long and it was time for me to go back to the Rez for a visit with one of my favorite women on the planet. She has been part Aunt, part older sister to me. In a sudden realization just a few days ago, I realized that she wasn't the age I thought she was. She was frozen for me in her mid-fifties because that's about what she was when I was her teacher and she was my principal in the very early 90's.

So now we are waiting to hear from Max's mission president when Max will be released (there is a question between two Wednesdays right about that time in June) so we can find a way to combine those trips to go get him and to go spend a few nights in a recently refurbished Hogan soaking up the humor and energy and generosity of my friend. It will be a summer of many reunions I think, and these two will be the first. I'm glad my Department Chair talked me out of trying to teach a summer term course. That's not where I am needed this summer.

New Semester, New Students

One thing I imagine that non-teachers think about teaching is that when you teach the same class--in the same day or from semester to semester--that it must get completely boring.

It does not.

I admit I have a certain amount of restlessness in me that appreciates the opportunity to teach new classes. If I do get the chance to teach a new class, I jump at it. Recently I jumped so high that they gave me a new class to teach in a big way--but that won't kick in until next Fall. More on that in the future.

In the meantime, I am teaching the same class I taught last semester and EVERYTHING is different about it. Mind you, this course is a LOT like the course I taught every spring for five years at Penn State. Not exactly--I'm always tweaking it. But over time there are things I got rid of that I brought back in because the course needed them and things I used for a long time that I got rid of and found I didn't really miss. That's kind of the point of teaching it for a long time--it should evolve into a rich and interesting course where students tell the next incoming group to take the class--that they're going to love it.

Last semester was my first at BYU and I taught the course twice a week for 75 minutes each time, which is exactly like the format at Penn State--except at 2 credits instead of 3 credits, the course ended weeks early. That was weird. But I had 28 super terrific students and we had a good time figuring things out, learning to think about some things in new ways, and coming away having grown and changed a bit--all of us.

This semester is my second at BYU and I have the same course, but I tweaked it considerably in response to two huge factors. The first was that my favorite textbook had been rewritten and is better than ever with new expanded sections on bilingual education and translanguaging and other greatness. So that meant moving some things around and using it as an anchor text. I'm not usually so textbook oriented. But I love it.

The next issue is that I have the students for the whole semester this time, but only 110 minutes a week. This is causing chaos in terms of how and when I cover certain ideas. In the end, I'm covering more topics--but with less time spent on each. We'll see. The first day was not a strong one. Too much time on the syllabus and not enough on the reading. Next week will be better.

But to get back to the thing that non-teachers don't know....each class is its own entity. They have a feeling, a personality, a way of moving together and being together and thinking together that makes them unpredictable and exciting--and sometimes frustrating and nerve wracking. Every time you get a new class--you are meeting a new group of students--but you are also beginning to get to know the entity that is that class. I'm tempted to name this winter's class, but I'd have to let them pick the name and that would be weird. "When I talk about you on my blog, what you like me to call you?"

I am currently reading the class's first reading memos. The class discussion was not particularly helpful this week (normally it's a very large part of the information for the week) because it was getting to know you week and syllabus week and also key information about ELLs week. So mostly they got that last part from the reading and not from me. So one of the things I'm discovering about this group is that they are very smart. They have, collectively, excellent recall of their multicultural course. They are already making connections to previous courses they've taken. After I gave my speech on improving their academic writing--many are already using proper APA citations and reference lists.

I'm happier than a rescue pup who finds themselves adopted by a dog-food manufacturer for the purpose of being one of their 200 dog-food testers. (They really exist. And there are people whose job it is to wrangle the doggies all day--big open dog park time, smaller open rooms for quieter times, kennels at night.)

I only have 23 students this semester and it may drop to 21 (no sign of two of them yet). If that happens, I'm making it my goal to learn ALL of their names by week 6. That would be a personal best.

Regardless, the semester is off to a good start. This is a good class--and you can research and write and all that good stuff--but if the teaching doesn't go well, it's not a good semester. In the end, at least in Teacher Education, it has got to be a good class. I have one :)

That Moment When...

That moment when you're working along and a subject line from an incoming email flashes on your screen and out of the corner of your eye you see it has Bakhtin in the title. So you click over to your email only to find it was Barack. I love my President, but I was hoping for an email from Paolo Infante--scholar extraordinaire--not another fundraising plea. 

How to Make Banana Bread: The Long Way

Banana Bread involves the use of three bowls. In bowl number one you'll put dry goods. Flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. In bowl number two you'll cream butter and sugar together and then gradually stir in eggs. Do this with the mixer so you don't hate your husband for not eating all the bananas in a timely manner. In bowl #3 you'll mix the actual bananas, some milk, and some cinnamon together. Eventually, you'll combine the contents of the three bowls, pour the resulting batter into bread forms, and bake the batter for well over an hour, spearing it at least three times before the spear comes out clean. This is making banana bread.

Then, there's Alaska's New Year's Day banana bread. It goes like this:

Look at the 14 bananas that your husband has forgotten all about because it's break and there's a lot of chocolate and gummy lifesavers in the house. Normally he's a reliable banana eater, and I'm not sure how we got SO MANY bananas to begin with, but nonetheless, there they are.

Sigh.

Recall him beg for the third time for banana bread in the last two days and recall your promise that you would make it before the bananas turned liquid.

Reluctantly pull out have the kitchen implements in preparation. There's a turkey in the oven, so you can't add the dry ingredients until just before the loaves go in the oven or it won't rise. Then again, there's a turkey in the oven, so there's nothing to do for the next three hours anyway. Except the dishes, and I'm no fool.

Look over the recipe and realize you're going to have to triple it to use just 9 of the bananas. Decide you can live with that. Check the butter. One is completely soft. The other two not so much. In the bowl that the sugar and butter go in, toss them and three cups of sugar (decide to do a mix of white and brown because, recipe, you're not the boss of me). Set this bowl aside until the butter is feeling more cooperative.

Now the bananas. Ick. I don't eat bananas. Okay, peel the (ick, ick) very ripe bananas and start mashing them with a fork like the (ick) recipe says. Decide this is just too gross. Note that the recipe says 1 T of milk. Look in fridge. Notice egg nog. Hrm. Egg Nog season just about over. Okay, egg nog in banana bread could be good (You're not the boss of me, recipe.) Look at expiration date. It's earlier in December. Sniff it. Seems fine. 3 T is close to 1/4 cup. Add a little more because egg nog is way thicker than 2% lactose free milk, which is kind of what the recipe called for. Don't actually look at the recipe. Add the aged nog to the not much smooshed bananas and pull out the electric hand mixer. Remember that you're supposed to triple the recipe. Add another cup of egg nog. Add cinnamon. You know what goes well with cinnamon? A little ginger and cloves. Can't find any cloves. Add a pinch of ginger. Use the smooshing fork to break up the bananas enough for the hand mixer. Puree the heck out of that stuff using the mixer. Note that the whole thing looks awfully liquidy.........

oops.

Realize you tripled the "milk" and then squared it.

Consider your options. Pull out the strainer and try running the puree through it to recover some of the banana. Watch it go RIGHT through that strainer. Great mixer, that. Stop thinking about the mixer and salvage the last bit of puree. Don't measure it. Looks around a half cup or so. It'll do.

There are 5 bananas left. Go back to the butter and sugar bowl. Fish a stick of butter and a cup of sugar out of the bowl. We're doubling now. Toss the sugar. Set the butter aside. It will be perfectly good in the stuffing. Add the remaining bananas to the remains of the first puree. Toss in some more cinnamon. Grab something else from the spice cabinet. Add it to the bowl. Oh! Nutmeg. Not ginger. That was lucky. Coulda been lemon pepper or something.

Consider how much worse this could be if you weren't a member of the church and were trying to do this with a bottle of wine at your side.

Fish the bottom of the hand mixer out of the sink, wash it, make a new, less runny, puree. Decide it LOOKS ok. Leave it all alone for a bit until it's had some time to think about its behavior.

Now hook the softened butter and sugar bowl up to the Kitchenaid Crusher 5000 (that's what Chris calls it). Whip it. Whip it good. Sing that line outloud for a bit. It's all you know of the song. When the butter and sugar look like they might kind of be fluffy if you hadn't added brown sugar, add the eggs in (doubled, not trippled). Decide that looks like it went well. Make a third bowl with all the flour and baking soda and baking powder in it. Add the salt. Remember to double everything.

Mix it all in together, pour into batter pans (I had enouh for four mini-loaves and one regula one). Bake. Remove. Cool. (Some.) and eat. Tasted like a pretty decent banana bred, actually. Nice and moist. Plenty of spice, but not overwhelming. Great with cream cheese. Competely unrepeatable and unrepentent.  

Goodbye 2015

2015 started off well. On the third week of December in 2014 I had established, after a week at my mother's house, that I could write a draft of a dissertation chapter from start to finish in 7 days. Or at least I could with the help of a program that blocked facebook and gocomics. (What?) I also used a program that locked up my computer every hour for ten minutes and used those ten minutes to either grab a bite to eat, a new mountain dew, or go on a freezing walk. Freezing.

So in the first two weeks of January I wrote the next two chapters (although they would change a LOT over the next months). That pretty much set the tone for the year. 2015 was the year I wrote all the time, except when I was teaching or trying to move from one end of the country to the other. 2015 was the year I had a disaster of a campus visit (final stage of an academic job hunt) and a good one. I learned the fine art of Skype interviews and that so much of the job hunt is out of your hands and in the heads of the search committee. So you do your best and then you go back to being awesome where you are--instead of worrying about what your paperwork is doing on someone else's desk. I didn't really get that until really near the end. Save yourself the trouble.

In some ways, 2015 was one of the harder years. I can say with complete sincerity that all the credit for my not losing my mind (in June, July, and August) goes to my women friends from State College. They helped me with everything from power washing my back deck to scraping aged wallpaper off my kitchen and living room walls so they could be repainted for the house to sell. We're not talking simple moral support. We're talking back-breaking work and good company. The gift of expensive U-Haul boxes from their last move (much from another family who would end up moving 6 months later) and so many prayers. The house sale was challenging--the first falling through after we had agreed to crushing losses and the second moving along at a snail's pace with a buyer's agent who I have nothing kind to say about. (But the buyers themselves were sweet and we did establish trust after we got around the darn agent and talked directly with each other--emerging English on their part and complete ignorance of Russian on mine not withstanding.)

The move itself was only possible by borrowing money from family and friends because we ran out of time to get to move all our stuff out before I started the job and close on the house first. It was a ten-day difference that worked out okay because others believed in us and wanted this move to succeed.

A special shout-out to Jill, swimming lane-mate at OWU 1986-1989 and by the Hand of God, again in State College PA (where neither of us are from, but her first Christmas letter from Pine Grove Mills led to us moving down the street from her--not in any kind of stalker way, but because we were looking for a specific kind of place to move to from Southern CA, and if we hadn't gotten her letter, we would never have known about the place--it was perfect for us for 10.5 years). We got back in the pool together and rediscovered just how very much Cholorine fixes us. Although the move proved a temporary interruption in my swimming, I am finaly back in the water again (at 6 o'dark in the morning--I might be a little bitter about that).

We learned SO much this year about believing fervently that the Lord knows better than we do what we need and that when we trust in His will for us and work hard at whatever He puts in front of us, then life goes better. Let me be clear--I'm not saying that if you pray for God's will, get some kind of an answer, follow those directions--that you'll end up safe and wealthy. That's a lot of bunk used to help us believe that we don't have to help the poor and the needy--they're not working hard enough. They've made "poor decisions" that relieve our responsibility to help. I don't remember Christ lecturing anyone about their poor decisions and the consequences that follow. I remember, "Go, and sin no more." (Which, personally, I'm pretty sure He calls after me every time I leave the bedroom, my house, the kitchen, my office, my classroom....)

Where was I? Ah. Over and over again in the fall of 2014 and throughout the winter, spring, and summer of 2015, I was brought to a place of complete humility. Over and over I realized I'd tried to grab the wheel again and I turned it back over to Him. It sounds so awesome but the learning process was brutal. Recently I was reading a novel that caught the main character at different points in her life learning spiritual lessons from incredibly challenging circumstances. The circumstances were so real to me and each of the places in which the woman found herself were so recognizable to me that I couldn't finish the third novel in the series. It was just too emotionally wrenching. The common thread in each was that the "refining fires" in which we find ourselves are not the everyday fires that warm us but the ones that burn. The ones that change us as much as we let them, and as much as we may want to be changed to be more like Christ, somtimes we're so busy focusing on the hurt that we miss the comforting hand that He extends us to lead us through. At least, that's how it is for me.

The fall of 2015 was much easier. It was an updraft period where I got to rest a bit and just let a gentle wind keep me in the air. I had a wonderful class of students. I love my job and I love the house we are renting. I don't care if we ever own our own home again because I don't care to ever go through the process of buying and selling again--and I have no faith that owning your own home is a good investment anymore.

Winter, with its too-short days, has never agreed with the chemical make-up of my brain. But Provo has many, many, many more sunny days than State College did. I still have to monitor my emotional health carefully in the winter, but it is just not as hard as it has been in a very, very, very long time. I get enough sleep. I have time to read silly novels. I have time to excercise and get all my work done and have family home evening and scripture study--and joy in my family and in my teaching. I am so grateful I get to teach and especially to teach teachers.

So 2016--you have a lot to live up to. As I was talking to Chris and the twins about it, I wondered how 2016 could possibilly beat finishing the dissertation, graduating, landing the family in a great little spot on the planet, beginning a great job, and having all our family healthy and well. The twins ended up at a great little public school and we love their music teachers. Chris is continuing in his graduate program and will be teaching theatre part-time at a local performing arts themed charter school. (Awesome building and a great work space.) He'll also be TAing two classes at BYU. Chris pointed out that 2016 will be the summer that Max comes back home and starts at BYU with two years well served in Nevada. The twins pointed out that 2016 will be the year they start High School. And I had a sudden suspicion that 2016 will be a great year for Chris in a way that will bless us all as much as my year blessed the family as a whole.

So welcome, welcome 2016. (Forgive the mangled writing in places--I'm writing on my iPad and it's proving very hard to edit, so way more stream of consciousness than normal. Attrocious spelling is pretty normal.) 

And it came to pass...

Around the 6th of the month I decided I was going to read the entirety of the Book of Mormon before January 1st. I found a schedule for 30 days online and made 6 days worth of adjustments and started reading.

The last time I read the Book of Mormon this quickly was in 1854 when I was 19 years old and I read it cover-to-cover for the first time. It was September and I had never read more than a chapter or two (a friend had given me the book when I was 14), and here I was thinking about joining the church, taking the discussions, etc. So I read it straight through in about 3 weeks. It's easy after you make it past 2 Nephi (which is mostly pulled from Isaiah, and that fellow was deep).

There are two primary pros to reading the Book of Mormon at this speed. The first is that the order of events hold together better in your head. Ammon smiting off the arms of the bad guys happened around the same time Alma became Chief Judge, and I had kind of forgotten that. Actually, generally speaking, I am not very good at remembering the order of events in the Book of Mormon (only, well, Nephi and Lehi and family leaving Jerusalem obviously came first and Christ's coming came 600 years later and everyone descending into wickedness is the end of the book. I've been clear on that from the beginning. So there you are, cranking through the chapters, and you just do much better at understanding how the history hangs together--which is challenging because of so many stories occurring during the same time frame and flashbacks and stuff. The second pro is you feel like you've leveled up a bit. After so many years of reading a chapter at a time--or not at all for a bit--you're cranking through and it feels good. It does. There is definitely something spiritual happening.

The con is that you're not really picking up any new details. There is definitely something spiritual, but at that speed, good stuff jumps out at you maybe once every 10 pages. You underline it and then keep reading...Also--it's a LOT to read. If you fall behind one night, there's a lot of reading left to do the next night (otherwise, it works out to about 18 pages a day). But oddly, I don't feel totally pressured. It was one of those thoughts that come to you while you are preparing for the Sacrament and which, if you go for it, aren't that hard to carry out and come with a bunch of blessings. Which I really need, because it's been a heck of a month, honestly.

I recommend it. Good stuff. Good feelings. Good lessons for life. Also, some stuff I don't understand that bring up questions I haven't thought about in awhile. I think I have some good notes about this though--in a notebook in my office. So I'll look that up when I'm back from break.

And that's all the news tonight.

When You Start Reading Again

When I was young I read a lot. I actually don't remember being that hot on reading until I was in 3rd grade or so and I discovered Spaceship Under the Apple Tree, which was the first sort of science fiction I read and which became the first series I read. There were only three books, but I loved them. From there I began to devour books. I read quickly and I had a good memory for what I read. It only got worse as I got older because reading was a way to cope with a lot of things for me. But also, I loved being swept up in another world.

When I started writing for money, I stopped reading. I had very young children and not a lot of sleep and I was working from home. We lived in new places with poor libraries and then...I just forgot that reading was a part of me. Grad school compounded this. Reading became entirely product oriented. I read to write or discuss or both. The twins were born right after the third book came out and I never made it past the big Quidditch match at the start of the book. I read the vampire books because I was able to get hold of them between the end of my first semester of classes and the start of the second and I read all four of them in one week. And then nothing even remotely like it for years.

When I came out to Provo to find us a place to live, which was pretty darn stressful, I found the public library. It's nice. It's quiet and recently updated and there are computers the public can use for up to two hours. If you don't live here you can show ID and get a code to use the computers for a couple hours that day. I found it very useful. After we moved here, it took us a bit to get back there, but eventually we did. The boys and I got library cards and we've been there more than once a week since.

And I have read about 5 books a week since.

These are no classics. They're small mystery novels and romance novels with little more than kissing. Yesterday I picked up a humorous biography from one of the Big Bang Theory actors. But I had read somewhere on the Internet in the last year that even just reading silly fiction like this--not the good stuff from "Best of...", but your average paperback--is good for you and good for your writing.

I have noticed that one of the effects of reading more is that I have begun to feel less nervous about my attention span. My attention span is, apparently, just fine if you put a little kissing into the story. Of course, my research doesn't really lend itself to that, but it has made me wonder--every bit of research always has a story to tell. The object of the game is to bring out the "so what" of whatever it is that you were studying. If you don't have an answer to that, you don't really have anything new to say on the subject and you're better off writing about something else. So if a romance novel is better with a smidge of detail about those two innocent kisses (I gave up bodice rippers a long while back, but I won't judge you if you never did--so long as you don't judge me for reading romance novels in general) then what is "the kiss" in article about professional development? What makes you want to wonder what else that author has written? Compelling characters, a problem that really does need to be solved, and the suggestion of a solution or a future. All those things are part of qualitative research, but we aren't always very good at telling the story.

Another side effect of reading more fluff is that I have come to realize how GOOD it feels to daydream, to imagine, to roll your eyes at the ridiculousness of the plot, to thoroughly enjoy a very well-written parody of the genre...there is a role for this kind of escape.

Don't worry--it's not an exclusive diet.

That said, in a world in which we read more and more soundbites, mini-articles, social media--all on tiny screens of our smart phones, etc. (Which, I should add, I don't have--I can't read books on my phone anymore. I do have one of those oversized five lb. iPads. They're good for playing FarmVille 2. and holding an electronic copy of the scriptures.) It's very nice to read a story from start to finish. It's very nice to consider reading strictly for the purpose of entertainment. We live in a world in which there are ever increasing ways to be labeled as deficient and ever increasing types of "reading difficulties" or disorders or whatever you want to call them.

I am remembering the importance of giving both children and adults the freedom to read and enjoy books that aren't necessarily very well written or edited just because. Because it's nice to enter a world where you only know what you need to know--you aren't bombarded with information all the time. It's nice to put yourselves in the shoes of another and to know it's going to turn out well. It's nice to read whatever you want to read and know that nobody else will even notice you're reading that. When I do turn back to an article, I notice I read it better. I skim less, notice the big picture more, do a better job of remembering who contributed to the writing, and do a better job of thinking across texts. I've always been good at the last bit--but it seems letting my brain read whatever it wants helps me do what I've been doing well even better.

Nothing deep here. Just a few thoughts late at night when reading scriptures after a Christmas-themed romance novel by Heather Graham.

Somewhere Between Amazing and Calmly Mundane

Saw this on Facebook today:

I'm somewhere between Amazing and Relax and Exhale right now, depending on the moment. But for you mothers of young children and/or young families, I have to post this with some caveats.

I get enough sleep. Only the dog wakes me up to pee. She has trouble getting comfortable in her old age, so rarely sleeps with us on the bed anymore.

My children will cook dinner for the family once or twice a week. Ben usually offers.

They wash their own laundry. I don't clean the game room or their room. I only stock their bathroom. If it looks gross, I clean the bathmat, but I have them do the rest.

My children are old enough to tell me what they want and need. Their personalities are such that they will offer counter-arguments to my NOs with respect. I listen to those counter arguments and will change my response when they are reasonable. We can do that because of their age, who we are, the choices they make about how to communicate with us, and our current levels of calm v. stress.

I can pay all my bills. We can set money aside for savings. Unless I do something seriously immoral or at all illegal, my job is relatively secure for the next three years. Our internet is free (Google Fiber, and we're happy with the free speed) and our "basic" cable is 140 channels included in our rent.

We don't have smart phones. It cut our phone bill in half, it cut the addiction, and it cut down on overworking. I tell my students that I can't respond to their emails immediately so they know to expect that.

We don't have to work on the Sabbath. Not even rehearsals, because of where we live. People don't schedule lessons or activities on Monday nights to avoid interrupting Family Home Evening--which is just what it sounds like.

I have a job where my whole self is welcomed and appreciated. My classes start with a prayer. My students relate the experiences of their ELL students to their 18 months to 2 years learning a second language on their mission. We talk about how awesome General Conference was (AND the games, c'mon, be reasonable). GC is our THON and it happens twice a school year, but the students don't miss classes for the next two days. They are rested and refreshed.

Work is work! There are politics and long-standing personal clashes and things you just wish could be different. But it is *my* work, the work I had the *privilege* of choosing and I had the LUCK of landing at a school where I FIT. I love my scholarly community across Universities.

For me, the older I get, the easier it is for me to be cool with me. I have less of a need to be what someone else thinks I should be. I have a better understanding that sometimes the lens through which we regard others refracts.

Warning: The following reflections are influenced by my area of research:

In Mid-May I read a book about stereo-type threat. Not the work on the effect of stereo-type threat's affect on assessment practices in minority communities--although that started it all and is definitely part of the literature--but the notion that when we associate ourselves with a stigmatized community (e.g., a particular disability label)--we may behave in ways that attempt to avoid reinforcing a stereotype about that type of stigmatized person and in the process inadvertently reinforce it. We internalize the stigma and the shame and put an extraordinary amount of effort into hiding the disability. This gave me tremendous insight into one of the sources of what was nearly crippling anxiety in the last few years of my PhD program.

[Thank you Mary Lambert for "Secrets" at that point in time. "They tell us from the time we're young to hide the things that we don't like about ourselves--inside ourselves. I know I'm not the only one, who spent so long attempting to be someone else, well I'm over it." Not that I think everyone should know everything about me. I think that's part of feeling constantly apologetic for existing--you feel you have to explain yourself to everyone. I've moved beyond that.]

It happens that I love my Faith and the opportunity to NOT have to downplay its influence in my life and the degree to which it brings me JOY has had an incredible affect on my ability to love my life.

I had no idea that's what was waiting for me here.

I know there will be tough times ahead because that's how we grow. It's part of the design, as the quote above suggests, and it is a foundational belief for Latter-Day Saints. I suspect further heartbreak awaits me because I love a lot of people and none of them will live forever. But there will always be updrafts if we don't give up--and if we remember that we are never alone. I can promise you that.

You're Lucky

She said, “Yooou’re lucky,” in an accent thicker than the lines on her face.

In late June I left my doctor’s office to walk one long block down to Taco Bell where Chris was going to pick me up. The most direct path took me through the parking lot, down a flight of stairs, to a concrete sidewalk which led to the main sidewalk along the road. Right where this side path intersected with the sidewalk there was also a cross walk that ran across the road to the entrance of a multi-tiered retirement community. A woman was making her way slowly across the road with her walker. She was close to the sidewalk, as was I, when we made eye contact.

She said, “Yooou’re lucky.” She was from Brooklyn, New York. She didn’t have to tell me that—although later she would.

“Pardon?” I replied.

“You’re lucky!” she fired back. “You can walk!”

She had me there. “Yes, I am. I’m lucky. I can walk.”

Now, I’m quite frequently socially awkward. I have my moments of feigning normality, but I also have some humdinger moments of complete social ineptitude. This was a weird start!! It would have been in keeping with my character for me to kind of wave and say, “Well, have a good day!” and hurry on to Taco Bell.

But sometimes you know. I knew this was weird in a “stop and pay attention because this is a MOMENT” kind of thing.

I stopped and waited while she got to the sidewalk. “I’m Alaska,” I said. “You’re headed to Weis?” Yes, she was, and she had some things to say. Most of them involved the F word, and they were all in an Italian-from-Brooklyn accent. I’m guessing she was in her mid-80s, but she was smart as a whip and feistier than a Greek Goddess who’s been done wrong. We’ll call her Eva. Eva means life.   

“My children say Ya have to walk, Ma. You can’t just sit still. The don’t F’n know what they’re talking about! They don’t have to F’n do it!”

“It’s their job to harass you so you don’t freeze up,” I said.

“F that.” She replied matter-of-factly.

I won’t lie. I was in love.

She told me about her children. They were F’n brilliant. One was a psychiatrist. The other a professor in the hard sciences. She said her daughter came home at some step along her educational path and said “We need to talk, Ma.” Eva told her “F that. We all have our problems.” I told her I have my own Psychiatrist and it’s worked out pretty well. “Good.” She said like it had been her idea that I should go. “If you need it, you should go.” She paused. “Don’t stop. Bad things can happen if you stop.” I reassured her that I knew that rule well.

She had questions for me. “What do you do?” I told her I had just defended my dissertation and we were moving so I could take a position at BYU. “You’re a Mormon?” “Yep.” She cocked her head at me. “Good. People need something to believe in. Just don’t go being a F’n jerk about it.” I reassured her that was not my M.O.

Eva was generous, funny, smart, and had the vocabulary of an inebriated sailor.  

We talked about my boys, too. She decided she liked them. We covered such a short stretch of ground through the parking lot, pausing a bit at a corner of the sidewalk where she would leave the walk and head across the parking lot. But as far as sharing with each other—we covered a lot of ground. I prepared to go.

“I should go now.”

“You think I F’n care?”

I startled, then laughed out loud, “No, I guess not!” It seemed the funniest thing because of course these kinds of pleasantries are meant to mask the fact that strangers are trained to not care in order to make parting a smooth thing. It is hard to say goodbye to a new person full of possibility.

Her entire demeanor changed. “Come here,” and I did. I would have done anything for Eva in that moment. “I love you,” she said, and gave me a big hug. Very strong for someone so small. “I love you, too, Eva.” I said, smiling. Totally meant it. She took off at top Terapin speed across the parking lot. I turned and walked toward F’n Taco Bell.

God apparently will send Angels who use the F word to substitute for any manner of adjectives. The message that day was delivered first and last. “You’re lucky.” And “You think I care? Come here. I love you.”

I didn’t see her again before the move, so the chances of seeing her again are slim, but she’s unforgettable.

I’m lucky.

On Loss and Grief and Being a "Good" Daughter-in-law

We are coming up on the second anniversary of the loss of my mother-in-law. We had what I think is probably a typical relationship among mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, which is definitely not the stereotypical relationship. That is, we usually got along, we usually liked each other, and we were almost always willing to bend the rules in the other's favor in order to make sure that Max, Ben, and Milo got what they wanted and needed in the way of a grandmother and mother. In this relationship, Chris was a guy we both loved, but their relationship was complicated, and we never talked about it. I needed Gaye for my own reasons and she needed me for her own reasons--so there was a direct line between us--it did not pass through Chris.

A day or two ago I was remembering the early years with Gaye. She was working for the CHP in San Francisco or Oakland, I'm not sure which. She drove a Honda sedan with the license plate GAZE. She was slender, smoked constantly, and was still trying to figure out how to store presents she bought for Max because I wouldn't give them to him if they smelled like a cigarette butt. We didn't fight openly about this. We diplomatically made our moves until the problem was solved. Although she didn't stop smoking until after the twins were born, maybe 7 years later, she did figure out how to store the items so they wouldn't be ruined in her apartment, and on my part, I didn't tell her what to get or how much to get Max (unless she asked). When we were rear-ended in a horrible hit-and-run, she bought us a replacement car. I liked that our lives were intertwined. I liked that some boundaries were firm and some permeable. I liked when she moved to be near us so she could help with the babysitting and we could help her as her health declined. I liked growing closer to her then.

To me, from the beginning, she was funny, sweet, smart, naïve, and competitive. I never won a game of scrabble against her. Not even close. But she liked my style of play (screw the points, I'm going for words that taste wonderful in your mouth. Look! I have all the letters for moribund!) and we laughed a LOT playing any board game with her, but especially Scrabble.

Back when she worked (and still smoked) she wore a girdle long after everyone else had stopped, probably because she had such a slender physique anyway. She would hold in her farts all day and then come to our house for dinner and a game and release the gas, which would reverberate as they escaped from the girdle. This NEVER stopped being funny to her (or Chris, or Max) and I was very embarrassed by it in those early years. Likewise, she loved potty humor, and I was embarrassed by it around her. I remember, very clearly, considering whether to ask her to not tell Max the off-color jokes when he got old enough (after all, he was maybe 18 months, but already talking a LOT).

When you are a new, young mom, you take these things very seriously. Every interaction with your child seems heavy with formative function. You stop swearing. You change seats if the kids in front of you won't stop swearing. You want the babysitters who look like they came out of the Partridge Family, not the ones with too much eyeliner and a propensity for black clothing. You hesitate when a certain friend offers to babysit because her husband is a little course. It's worse than thinking you know it all. You think you figured it out yourself.  You think you're smarter and more educated than the previous generation. You think you care more about your kid than they did about theirs. It's a temporary affliction. It lasts until the first time something serious comes along that you can't figure out on your own and your aunts or the older women at church help you get through. Then you wise up. Then you start listening.

So I considered whether to talk to her or not about this issue of the loud farts and the off-color jokes because I thought that was something *I* got decide. But I was at least smart enough to consider what would happen if I *didn't.* What was the worst thing that could happen if I asked her to stop? She could get her feeling irreparably hurt. She could stop coming to visit so often. She could withdraw, feeling unwanted, unapproved. What was the worst thing that could happen if I never said a thing? Max could fart in a few situations where he shouldn't because he didn't know that wasn't socially acceptable (I didn't know that little boys take forever to learn to hold it in until they can get to some place appropriate. Like maybe, fourth grade.) He could tell some off-color jokes to a friend and that friend (and their parents) could think he heard them from me.

Gaye loved Max. Like a crazy love. He didn't come too soon, or at the wrong time, or feel like any kind of an inconvenience to her. He was the best idea Chris and I ever had (until we had identical twins, which was also crazy, so she loved them, too, but not more than Max) as far as Gaye was concerned. She loved that he was a boy. She liked the name once she got used to it. He laughed and she laughed louder. I cannot express how much I needed someone to be as madly in love with him as I was, and she was. She was every part and parcel, every bit of heart and soul, as in love with Max as I was. She approved of my parenting (mostly, she did like to complain) and I decided then to approve of her grandmothering (mostly--there was still the issue of smoking). She was a diamond in the rough and in the end, just what I needed. I'm so glad now that I *decided* to accept her as she was then, because by and large she accepted me as I was--through depression, through spring instability, through career changes, through all those pregnancy losses, through everything. I would feel so ashamed now if I had made any other decision.

Of course I still miss her.

A while back, before she died, I read an interesting book excerpt in which a mostly irreligious doctor working in hospice starts noticing that in the two weeks before they died, many of his patients reported seeing a relative of theirs who came to bring them home. They knew then that they would die, and they were eager to go be with that person again. Sometimes he was with them when they saw the person--often across the room, usually smiling, most commonly a parent--most commonly the mother. He took an interest in this phenomenon that he initially wrote off as a hallucination and 20 years into recording the experiences he had, or rather his experiences with patients who had these pre-death visits, he wrote a book summarizing his thoughts about it. He had come to believe in a spiritual life because of the experiences, and to consider his own relationships because of them.

I remembered this when Gaye began calling after her father in the hospital, "No, Daddy, don't go, take me with you!" (that was a Friday, she would die the following Wednesday morning at 7:00 am) and I was so struck by the experience that I called her sister as soon after that as possible. It was, to me, formal notice. Her father had died when she was still quite young, and it was that young self calling out to him.

In my head, I've decided that when it is time for me to go, if I go in a slow way where there is time for this sort of thing, Gaye and Judy (who is still very much alive. Hopefully this doesn't creep her out.) will show up together. "Is that what you're wearing?" Gaye will ask. "You'd better get dressed," Judy will say, "How about that purple dress?" Gaye will suggest. "You can wear my gold earrings if you want," Judy will add. And I will know it is time to start saying my Goodbyes and probably look forward eagerly for the moment when they both come back to get me for good. That would be a good enough ending for me.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Seasonal Affective Disorder is that thing where you feel sad in the winter and not-sad in the summer. A lot of mentally-healthy people experience this pattern, but for some people it's like you have your regular life---and then you freelance as a director of mental illness on the side. As you go about your life doing all the things everyone else does-loving, making decisions, doing chores, teaching, talking, growing, raising children and/or puppies/kittens/plants, etc., you also constantly monitor the mental health index.

During the dark of winter it's all about sticking to a schedule, sticking to promises made, sticking the landings (if you'll forgive me). If you have to take meds to do that, you do. If you have to sit in front of a light box for a half hour, you do. If you have to exercise every morning to be able to not cry every evening, you do. You hang on to the knowledge that winter always ends.

And then, one day, it is March. About mid-March, specifically, when a line is passed, and the days stay light long enough (because it is ALL about the light) and you find that everything you worked so hard at over the winter is … easier. You surprise yourself one day by laughing your way through a meeting. You smile at strangers. You relax a little. For some people with S.A.D., that's pretty much it. They're off duty until mid-to-late September. For others, this is the first of two breaks. Because for all of May and into early June you're managing a different kind of mental health problem.

Hypomania is a condition that is kind of like the opposite of depression. You have more energy than normal, feel like you can do more than you normally can, take risks you wouldn't if you weren't in that state. When I was younger the impulsiveness was a real problem, but when I came to understand it, I also found that it was something I could control. I could guard against making foolish decisions by being in the habit of taking MORE time to make decisions. These days I'm more likely to sign up for one committee too many in the PTA than I am to do something really harmful. I don't drink or engage in other risky behaviors that would make it hard for me to stay on top of those "higher than normal" feelings. For me the hardest thing during this period is sticking to a budget. I don't buy big ticket items, but I might eat out more and I have a hard time saying no to things the kids want.

By mid-June the hypo state has often stabilized, and July, August, and the first part of September are the real vacation time from managing S.A.D.

S.A.D. is technically under the bipolar II umbrella, but it's most commonly "diagnosed" as "persistent clinical depression with a season affective component" because bipolar II is not popular with health insurance companies. S.A.D. can vary from winter to winter. It's worse in areas with less light and better in areas with more light. I take meds year round because I get the best stability throughout the year that way. I supplement with light therapy when it seems like a particular year is harder.

So happy March. For me, the month of second winds. I've had an unusually mild winter. This usually leads to a relatively balanced and normal spring. I'm feeling very grateful and so I thought I'd write a little note explaining S.A.D. to those of you who might be feeling worn-out from this winter and hoping for spring to come soon. In terms of light, it'll be here in about a week to ten days. (Only G*d knows when the snow will melt. In my backyard we have a ways to go.)

Toot Says the Flute, Maaa Says the Oboe, the Bassoon Says Bwaaahhh

My friend, Patrese, had offered to arrange a hymn for Ben, Milo, and I to play together. There was a talent show coming up at church and she knew my original reason for picking up the bassoon again after lo these many years was to play a little with Ben and Milo. She asked me what notes I knew on the bassoon and I told her the key of F. Pretty much just the 8 notes in the middle of the bass staff and a little below it. She chose Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

Wow, that thumbnail is atrocious. Click anyway. It's totally fun to watch the ASL at the same time you hear the joyous hymn.

She gave me the music she had arranged and sent me home to try to play it. I knew all but two notes, so I took it to my lesson and my teacher taught me the two missing notes. I gave Patrese the thumbs up and she made an oboe and a flute part with both a harmony and a melody. She told us to play it through three times with the boys trading off harmony and melody. So we did. We practiced that. We were feeling pretty decent about things going into this morning. THEN I went to my bassoon lesson.

And it was a disaster. I could hardly play a note. I squawked, I squealed, I couldn't play notes that hadn't been a problem in a long while. To make matters worse, I learned I had been using the wrong fingering for the highest note in the song. By the end of the lesson I still couldn't play that measure correctly. I was so distraught on the way home that I stopped at the church and went in and (literally) cried on Chris's shoulder. He said encouraging things.

I went home and spent another thirty minutes on it before concluding that the correct way, which sounded just a little better, more clear, than the cheater fingering I'd been using, was simply not going to work in time for the talent show. I played it through again using the cheater fingering. I played the cheater note and the good note next to each other. I made a decision.

The boys and I headed over to the church. We practiced our piece on the stage and I started to feel a little less nervous. Still really nervous, but less like making a run for the border. Patrese told me to remember it was not really about the music. It was really about a family making music together. That was a good reminder for me. It helped a lot. Max showed up with his sweetheart, Alexis, and that made things a little better. Then Alexis's parents showed up and that made things better. The show got underway, and soon it was our turn.

And we didn't suck. There were some very small mistakes, but overall, it was a complete success in the "family making music together" department. And not one person said, "Hey, that one high note. Not quite right. Are you sure you got the fingering right?"And I think somewhere in there is a lesson. I mean, I still DO need to learn the proper way to play that note. And also, I need to practice more, and also, when the lesson is going poorly I need to speak up and say, "this is not going well. Let's go look at that other page and come back to this in a few minutes," because I think that would have helped. Nevertheless when it became apparent that doing it perfectly wasn't going to happen, I went for doing it "good enough for this crowd" so that the twins and I could play a hymn together, instead of freaking out and refusing to perform at all. What was important in the end was that we sounded reasonably good together (because Patrese had arranged the music so we could, and because we practiced together a bunch) and that we each showed up for each other. We knew if we stayed together, we'd be okay. We knew if someone got a little ahead or behind the beat, the others would adjust when we got to the next half note. So when I missed the fingering on one note, you couldn't really tell because the twins were playing loudly enough to drown it out anyway. When Ben got lost for a moment and missed a measure, you couldn't really tell, because he joined us at the start of the next one. It was just the three of us making some music together and so, yay.

I recommend it. The next time it looks like your kid is just not feeling the love during practice time, grab a pot and a wooden spoon and offer to be the percussion while s/he practices.