Mother's Day

So, at the end of the movie version of A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaire orphans return to the ruins of their mansion for one last goodbye before they set off on another ill-fated adventure.  While there, they receive a long-lost letter, which their parents had sent from Europe before they died: 

Dearest Children, 
Since we have been abroad we have missed you all so much. Certain events have compelled us to extend our travels. One day, when you’re older, you will learn all about the people we’ve befriended and the dangers we have faced. 
At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may, in fact, be the first steps of a journey. 
We hope to have you back in our arms soon, darlings, but in case this letter arrives before our return, know that we love you. It fills us with pride to know that no matter what happens in this life, you three will take care of each other with kindness and bravery and selflessness as you always have. And remember one thing, my darlings, and never forget it - that no matter where we are, know that as long as you have each other, you have your family and you are home.
Your loving parents. 

The letter is beautiful and sad and almost too perfect to be real.  But one time, smack in the middle of my big breakdown, I was digging through my bucket of memories and I found a postcard my mom had sent me when I was a small child.  There's no post mark, so I don't know exactly when she sent it, but I'm certain it means more to me now than it ever did when I was 6 or 7.  

Hi there Princess Aubrey: 

How do you like this pretty picture?  This is the temple where Daddy and I were married.  Someday, you too will be married in a temple of the Lord.  I miss you.  I'm so glad that you are there to help Daddy.  He could use your help.  Thanks for being a good (and pretty) young lady.  I'll see you very soon. 

Remember to tell Daddy where you are going at all times. 

With love and kisses
Mommy

It isn't quite as dramatic as the one from the movie, but my "letter that never came" was as beautiful and sad and perfect to me as I imagine the one the Baudelaires received was to them.  

I could write volumes about how I feel right now, but it's far too late at night, and I don't want whoever might read this to have to wade through that kind of word vomit.  I'll compose my thoughts (and condense them) and post them sometime later.

Anyhoo.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  

Skidamarkink a-dink a-dink, skidamarink a-do, I love you.

❝ HER ABSENCE IS NO MORE EMPHATIC IN THOSE PLACES THAN ANYWHERE ELSE. IT’S NOT LOCAL AT ALL. I SUPPOSE IF ONE WERE FORBIDDEN ALL SALT ONE WOULDN’T NOTICE IT MUCH MORE IN ANY ONE FOOD THAN ANOTHER. EATING IN GENERAL WOULD BE DIFFERENT, EVERY DAY, AT EVERY MEAL. IT IS LIKE THAT. THE ACT OF LIVING IS DIFFERENT ALL THROUGH. HER ABSENCE IS LIKE THE SKY, SPREAD OVER EVERYTHING. ❞  A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

Perspective

Surer footing. That's what this summer has changed the most; somewhere among the washed-out parking lot jam sessions, picnic lunches, and late night conversations, I think I have finally felt that indescribable sense of self awareness that gives purpose and meaning to life.

When my mom died almost two years ago, I fell apart. No, that's not quite right. It's like I split in half. Or was pared down, the most complex parts of me sloughed off, dissolved away. I was left with a poor imitation of the thing I'd lost. I became, out of necessity, some form of a mother to my friends, my siblings, my dad, myself. And that was fine. Sarah-lucy says that's where I needed to be. I think, though, that I've grown out of that. I don't know whether it's because I've begun to heal... I have a hard time believing that I don't need a mother anymore. Whatever the reason, whatever the origin of this growth, I am ready to move on.

I need to live on my own. I need to be in an environment where I don't feel responsible for the emotional well-being of everyone around me. Now that I've grown accustomed to sweet independence (not just a lack of curfew, but the true, rich, blessed freedom that comes from a sure center), I have to hold on to that, cultivate it. Therein lies the way to restoration, to reparation.

I feel better.

I'm still an emotional wasteland who misses her mom, but I feel closer now to the person I want to be (someone loving and trusted and delightfully complex and confident and brimming with potential) than I have felt in years.

~~~

Recorded 8/21/10

Kenmore Be Said?

The refrigerator in the garage is an interesting place to store sentiment, and yet, that's what I found when I went looking for a water bottle the other day. With its stainless steel double doors flung wide, I could see what hid behind its unassuming facade. This fridge is a relic, a talisman, a symbol of the life I used to lead. But its station in the garage, along with its formerly forbidden contents, illustrate the difference, highlight the expanse between past and present.

The cold air that rushed into the stifling summer heat could not distract from the garish white interior, stripped of its former gloriously unorganized usefulness. Too-large cases of off brand soda could not, try as they might, fill the emptiness.

My mother would disapprove of the steak in the wrong side of the meat/cheese drawer. She would disapprove of the sugary drinks and the excess bottles of milk. Yet there they were in her meticulously clean refrigerator- new habits, new tastes, new life nestled uncomfortably in one of the remaining standards of The House, or the dream it represented.

I closed the doors abruptly. Were it not for the water bottle clutched in my hand, I would have forgotten why I trekked out there in the first place.

The garage is a bit of a sanctuary now, in my mind. At its heart, sealed in a metal box, the juxtaposition of everything I lost and all that I'm learning to love (or live with).


~~~

Recorded 7/7/10

Bum buttery, flit fluttery Dum diddly-ooh, Bum Buttery, bluebird Is singing a tune!

Peach pancakes with spicy brown sugar syrup, gentle spring

sunshine, snacks smuggled into movie theater. Today was the best day this week. I finished cleaning my room (a feat,

I assure you, that would have made Hercules cry like a little girl). Trinkets and memories and clothes in the garbage- 3 days of deconstructing my world and tearing little pieces out,

discarding the inessential. And now I can breathe. I shut my closet doors against aliens and monsters. Cobwebs (physical and figurative) have been cleared away. My thoughts have room to go skipping about. I fit comfortably back into my life.

So many things happened to me last week. A dinner party, poorly planned (and appropriately attended), yet lovingly prepared for my high school friends. We talked, the conversation fragile as our crystal plates and goblets. Time changes things. Time changed me. I felt the space between us, miles of life, years.

I washed the last dish today. I hid it in a cupboard behind some other, less ornate serving trays. I don't know when (or whether) I'll need it again.

The day after the party was Therapy Thursday, also known as the day I used Lou's kidney stones as an excuse to avoid confronting my emotions. I sent Jack an email ten minutes before my missed appointment. Coward. I fake solace in the fact that he hasn't responded- if he doesn't care enough about me to see if I'm alright, then he doesn't care about helping me fix my problems. That sort of reasoning lead to a second session skipped. Coward. Coward, coward, coward.

While I didn't go to therapy, I did take a trip to Saint George with my ward. A great many things about one's personality can be revealed on the face of an immovable mountain.

We hiked Angels Landing, a notoriously difficult climb in Zion National Park, responsible for several deaths.

(photo courtesy goldengatephoto.com)

By the second mile, I was sure they'd add my name to the Wikipedia article. Somehow, I survived. I didn't even get sunburned.

I think I have a secret fear of heigh

ts. I've always told myself otherwise, as though that could make it go away. There's something about my family- we suffer in silence (we don't use our problems to get out of things, we don't talk about our fears, we convince ourselves everything is okay, etc.). Somewhere along the way I came to associate maturity with fearlessness, and so began to deny my phobias. I think I will have to admit, however, that I kept envisioning my dramatic plunge from the 1500-foot-high ledge and the horrifically abrupt end to that fall. Pretty sure that qualifies as a fear of heights.

I'm learning to accept myself. I may be afraid of falling, but that hasn't stopped me from dragging myself up the mountain by chain. I did it, after all. I wasn't even that far behind the group on the way back down. I think it's okay to be a little freaked out sometimes, so long as I don't let these things take over.

That night (Friday, in case you're still keeping track) I attended a wedding reception for my mom's best friend's youngest daughter.

I missed her so much, maybe more than I have yet this year. It was odd to be saturated in loneliness, to be so full of an emptiness, especially surrounded by all those people. It wasn't so much that she wasn't there that day as it was that she won't be there when it's my turn. There is now a finite supply of letters, of handwriting samples; of pictures of the two of us; of memories and experiences; of hugs; of inside jokes. Those few moments at the reception illuminated my future, and made my mother's absence more real to me than it has been in the year and a half since her death.

I haven't done much since I got home, except make a few spectacular meals and dejunk my life. while I was going through the stuff in my bucket, I had a "The Letter That Never Came" moment. I found a postcard from my mom. Inscribed on it is a hope that I will get married in the temple, an expression of gratitude for caring for my dad while my mom is away, and and a little shot of encouragement by way of "I'm proud of you." She couldn't have planned it better- I must have received that postcard when I was 8 and my mom was visiting friends in Salt Lake for a week. I should frame it. Put it next to her picture on my dresser.

Lou got me out of the house today, and not a moment too soon. We wasted a trip to Salt Lake (Sam Weller closes at 6. Who knew?), then puttered around Provo for two hours. Sherlock Holmes is funny, but awkward people make it just a tad hard to watch.

I love the way the cottonwood tufts dance on the air, then when they tire, collect in the grass and in the corners of the porch.

We have purple tulips in the front yard, hovering on the verge of wilt. I think I'll take them to my mom's headstone tomorrow. It's a lovely, lovely spring (I'm not ashamed to admit that I just started A Series of Unfortunate Events for the second time in a row. Jude Law is S U P E R attractive, even in voice over and silhouette, and it's a great catharsis movie).

~~~

Recorded 5/20/10

Five Tulips, Two Freak Outs

I don't know where to begin or what to say or quite what to do with myself. I'm sorry if this drags on or is unbearably unfocused. I'm hoping writing it all down will help me sort through my emotions.

I guess I really should have written an entry yesterday. I went back to my mom's grave for the first time since her funeral. I don't know whether I was holding back because I didn't want to lose it in front of Shelli, or whether the one year cold plot of land really had no effect on me.

Tulips are her favorite flowers. "Because of my two lips," she would say, puckering up for a peck from my dad. I brought her red, though purple is her preference. Five bright scarlet blooms which joined the ranks of silk imitations standing guard over the rose granite headstone.

The sun slipped away, faded slowly, beyond the western mountains. We fled in an attempt to escape the cold and the dark.

It was really windy this morning. I didn't want to crawl out of bed, but my soul cried out, reminding me of my promise to attend the temple. Reluctantly, I left my sheets alone to freeze in my refrigerator of a bedroom. I am so mean to them. I promise to sleep in tomorrow.

Somehow, amidst the church music and the skirt wearing and the other goings on of the morning, anxiety crept in and seized my mind. It feels so much like a disease- it sneaks about, strikes without warning, and won't relinquish its hold until I have nothing left.

Minor freak out at Shelli's when I couldn't get in (just ask the doorbell).

Minor freak out at the temple when I realized I'd gone there selfishly, in fact, had been living selfishly for the last couple months.

The Noorda meeting was a relief because it was a chance to sit back and let someone else do all of the thinking, make all of the decisions.

It was almost more than I could bear to work out tonight. The days go by so quickly, and while I know it's good to get out there, I feel like I live at the gym. I had to just do one thing very slowly for a long time. It was very tiring.

People ask me if I'm okay. More specifically, Lou asks me all of the time. I guess it's good because it means she loves me, and that someone will always know what's going on. The problem with this is that sometimes I just don't know. I don't have words to describe what I'm feeling. I can't tell whether I'm actually upset about the dishes not being done, or if I'm just going through a depressive episode and I'll feel better about it in the morning. It makes me feel crazy. I hope I'm not crazy.

I hope I'm not crazy.

~~~

Recorded 5/4/10