the busy heart

Small World The advantage of living much closer to family is that I could make a semi-spontaneous decision to go see my sister in California. Sam was desperate to finish his novel and Henrietta and I wanted to see her aunt and cousins, so off we went, the two of us making the eight hour drive together. She was remarkably well-behaved during that eight hour (okay, nine hour) drive, and once we were there we  went to the beach and ate fish tacos and went to a glorious California farmer's market and cooked good meals and stayed up late talking to my sister. And we went to Disneyland. I'm a bit of a Disneyland skeptic, as it turns out. I loved Disney when I was a kid, but I confess I don't much understand people who still love it as adults. So I was going mostly on my sister's word that we'd have a good time. Henrietta and I had terrible trouble actually getting to the park (long story), and it took a complicated hour getting from the parking structure to the ga...

BYU graduation, with niece. I've been looking through old pictures, trying to find something in particular for another post (which I can't find; grrr), and I keep finding these pictures that I remember feeling terrible about when they were taken, but now, looking at them years later, I wish I could step into them and tell that younger self to chill out, to relax, and furthermore, that she is lovely. Tennyson Downs, 2003. This happens to you, right? That you get a picture developed (remember developing pictures?!) and you don't look at the lovely place you were, or think about the people you were with, because you're focused 100% on your thighs or your hair or your eyebrows or your [insert-insecurity-here]. And when the picture resurfaces years later, you stare and stare at it, remembering feeling bad, but not being able to re-conjure why on earth you felt that way. I can't tell you how many rolls of film I've looked through, my eyes zeroing in on ever...

[I'm worried about this post. It's pretty close to my heart. I wrote it weeks ago, but I keep putting off publishing it. And then in quiet moments I’ll think of it and feel, again, like I need to say it. So let's all put on our generous hats, shall we?]  One Christmas I came home to visit my family and realized that my oldest niece and nephew were growing up. They were twelve, I think, on the cusp of teenagehood, and I realized I was terrified for them. They were (are!) such awesome and good kids, and I was excited for them, in a way, but also scared. That was when the world got complicated for me, and I don't think I've ever quite forgiven the world for becoming so. When I say I was scared for them, I mean I was nearly trembling. It was almost a physical reaction, a slow-motion "Noooooo!" in my head, willing them away from the cliff of further development. I just got called into the  Young Women's program , the organization in our church for g...

Yesterday was my sister Amara's birthday, and all day I remembered and reminded myself to call her, call her, call her. And still ... I forgot. I'm a failure at life. So happy (late) birthday, Ammie! In the middle of the night, when I remembered my failure, I was thinking about Amara. She's twelve years older than I (right?), the oldest of the six kids in our family, and it's been really something to watch how those twelve years have seemed to shrink and shrink. When I was 8/9, she was in college, see, and so I didn't really get to know her well until we became grownups (whatever that means), and Amara has really taught me what it means to be a grownup. Or no, that's not it. Teaching me how to be a grownup sounds like she's boring, and she's far from boring. Really what she's taught me, what she continues to teach me, is how to be a woman (can I say that?), a woman who gracefully does what she loves and takes care of those she loves with more e...

Merry Christmas, all. Sam and I are in Tucson with the sunshine (!) and his sweet family. Last year I was suspicious of cacti with christmas lights on them. This year, I love them. And this little girl loves you. I'm the cute, small, flirting one. Merry day! (sorry for small image. no idea why that's so. click on it?)