Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is?

What motivates me to write a blogpost?  What used to motivate me to write almost daily?  What fails to now?

I'm not really sure!  Why was I doing it?  Why have I stopped?

Boredom?  Lost interest?  Discouragement?  No thoughts? I really don't know.

I remember when seeing a good movie would immediately become a blogpost.  Why?  Why not now?

Have I become self-conscious?  Why?

Am I becoming more humble?  Is blog writing pompous or prideful?

Does anybody really care what I have to say?  Do I even care what I have to say?



If so, I can't imagine why.

We've all got time enough to cry.....

A woman without a country

Sound a little melodramatic?  Yea.  I know.  And yet, it fairly adequately describes how I am feeling.  I have had a place of my own, my very own, for the last nine years or so.  It was an old bedroom abandoned by a recently graduated daughter who was striking out and making her own way in the world.  Counting on squatters' rights, I quickly moved in to claim my territory.

And the rest is history.  It has become my sanctuary.  It has become home to all my many "precious" acquisitions, mostly tools for paper crafting. It has become the place one could always find me on a quiet afternoon when most of the housework was in hand.

Over the years it took on a personality all its own, really.  It welcomed me with open arms, even as the "stuff" grew and expanded and threatened to choke out even my own little corner and my own little chair.

To peek in at the shrine that used to be, check out the pictures here.

That's right.  USED TO BE.  It is gone.  It is an empty shell of a room, bare except for two large storage cabinets that have been moved to the center to accommodate the removal of old wallpaper and the application of glorious new paint. I'm sure I will hardly recognize the place.

Meanwhile, I am stranded.  I am rattling around this old house, trying to find where I belong.  The kitchen?   Only occasionally.  The laundry room?  Please!  As little as possible. The family room?  Only when there's family around.

I have tried borrowing Brian's office.  It is a beautiful, quiet, restful place.  And yet I feel like a visitor.

Eye on the prize.  Eye on the prize!  Even though I am feeling displaced, as I consider the promise of my newly remodeled room, I am filled with anticipation and delight.  It will be spectacular.  I know it will.

But what do I do in the meantime?

The Christmas Fail!

What is the proper etiquette when receiving disappointing, disastrous, or even frightening Christmas gifts? Are you able to maintain politeness despite feeling otherwise?

In our family, some are more successful than others at hiding their true feelings. Some wear every emotion clearly and unmistakably on their faces. And I sometimes wonder if we are we more considerate to acquaintances than we are to our families?

I remember one Christmas when, try as I might, I didn't do a very good job of hiding my disappointment over a gift. It was many years ago, when my children were very small. They had gone shopping with their dad to buy mom a Christmas present. We were incredibly short on funds so any purchased gift was a real sacrifice.

I was very excited at the prospect of this gift, especially when I saw the department store box.  New clothes!  I was sure of it, and had been craving something to enliven my tired, sparse wardrobe.

Old. Lady. Clothes! (and I wasn't an old lady then!) Oh my stars. Really? I'm not sure who they thought they were buying for. My heart just sank. Ohhhhhh, how could I try and feign joy and delight when truly what I felt was disbelief and horror? I tried. I really did.

Fail.

I know I didn't even muster up a tiny squeal of false delight. What a rotten person I was.  I still feel terrible about showing my true disappointment when I knew how proud my family was of their gift for their mother. What should have I done? Politely smiled and put it away in the back of my closet? We couldn't afford to do that.

What did I do? I returned it to the store and replaced the gift with my choices from the year-end clearance sale, all the while knowing that my selfishness and pride had wounded some hearts that day, hearts that I loved and cared for more than any others.

I wish I could have handled the situation with more grace. I wish I would have been more sensitive to my family's feelings, knowing how excited they were to give.

I wish they hadn't picked out such ugly clothes.

Not Dead Yet!

My mind has been turned to things of eternity.  I have been thinking about potential; I have been thinking about my life's mission; I have been thinking about where I am on the timeline of my earthly life.  It was driven home with resounding power, as I was sitting in the temple, that as I approach the mid-century mark I am far from being done with my life's work.

Seriously, in all practicality, I could very well be merely halfway through my life.  Then why do I sometimes feel that I am nearly ready for retirement?  My children are grown, life as a full-time mother has abruptly changed with a nest that is pretty empty.  I have been reminded that I still have a lot of living left to do, and more importantly, I still have a lot of learning and contributing and refining to do, with probably many years left ahead to do them in.

What does this mean then?  Does it mean that I resign myself to the aches and pains that are knocking at the door?  Or does it mean that I must meet this conqueror with a full-battle attack?  Do I let myself become old, as is threatening, or do I reclaim my youthful health by trying a little harder?

If I am, perhaps, only halfway into life could that also mean that I still have hobbies left to discover and to perfect?  Does it mean that I still have thoughts to think and dreams to imagine?

I choose to think that I do.  I am reminded of a popular phrase from Monty Python, (surprisingly) which proclaims:  "I'm not dead yet!"

From a more expected source, I have also been inspired by the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who recognized that he too has a lot of life left in him.  In his essay entitled Experience, he contemplates the threads on the loom of time, and the picture they paint of our life's work.  He wisely admits:  "I know better than to claim any completeness for my picture.  I am a fragment, and this is a fragment of me."

So, even though sometimes I feel that I have seen it all, and done it all, and feel very smugly wise in my "old" age, I truly am but a fragment when compared with what I am capable of.  I do not know even half of what I should.  I have not served and blessed enough of God's children to have begun to repay my great debt to a loving Heavenly Father.

The world is full of opportunity.  What a gift.  We have also been given a gift of time:  "And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh..." (2 Nephi 2:21)

Our days are prolonged that we might finally figure out all that we must know and all that we must do.  What a gift.

I'm not dead yet!

I Left the Woods

Why do we let ourselves forget?  Why do we become so focussed on distractions that sidetrack us from our ultimate goals?  We have so much potential to think and to do and to explore and to find and to wonder.  Why do get muddled down in the quagmires of mediocrity?

Life is not meant to be static, nor stagnant.  And yet, once again, I often find myself wearing footpaths into the soft and impressible earth that used to seem fresh and new.  Some daily habits are good; many are tired and exhausting and worn out, and their repetition puts us on a treadmill that goes nowhere.

"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there." 

I return to Thoreau.  I find refuge in Thoreau's thinking outside the box.  I identify with his impatience with the status quo and his desire for freshness and new challenges.

"Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one."

"...how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity."

"...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpect in common hours."

The common hours.  The expected.  The ordinary; the run of the mill; the unremarkable.  THAT is not good enough.  I want more.  I believe the seed was planted in me to expect more.  And hopefully to achieve more.

"He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary."

What am I ready to leave behind?  What lies beyond that self-imposed invisible boundary? What is preventing me from expanding my capacities?

"He will live with the license of a higher order...."

I think I am ready to move out of the "little shack in the woods".  It has been an important place.  I have learned much and reconnected with my past.  I have felt validated and cared about.  But it has become stifling and monotonous. It threatens to be consuming and common and commercial.  I cannot spare any more time for that.

I am reclaiming my time and my dream.

New Beginnings

New Beginnings.  How many times in our lives do we get to have them?  I assert that we may have new beginnings whenever we choose.  This past week we experienced an anomaly on our calendar, with the unusual and singular occurrence of 11-11-11.  Did anyone else look at all those ones and see new beginnings?  I did.  I saw those ones representing the starting line of something great.  They signified to me new directions, new goals, new definitions.

I don't know if anyone else shared those feelings with me, but that is okay.  Perhaps I was the only one who felt ready for some changes.  Perhaps only I am in need of stepping out of a few ruts and trying a new path.

In my personal study lately, I have pondered the idea of becoming a "new creature," as promised by a return to the Savior through the power of His Atonement.  Paul taught the Corinthians: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:  old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Cor. 5:17)

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.  For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." ~ Scott Peck

Here is to new beginnings.  Here it to stepping out of ruts.  Here is to the nudging of discomfort or unfulfillment or disappointment, whichever is successful in helping us find ourselves in our finest moments.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

A fascination with flight!  The history of man is filled with it.  Who hasn't had that dream of being able to fly like a bird, over the tree tops, surveying below a miniaturized world?

Brian and I walked through the dream of flight last Saturday at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.  It is a remarkable collection of man's earliest attempts, his most colossal attempts, and his most powerful attempts.

I can't believe this extraordinary collection exists so near us, and yet it has taken us this long to see it.  We enjoyed it a lot.  We marveled at the development that has taken place in a relatively short amount of time, much of it within our own lifetimes.

If you ever get the chance to see this, I highly recommend you take it.  There are two separate museums, one for Aviation and one for Space; there is an IMAX Theater with breathtaking movies, and there is even an indoor water park.  No kidding.  So next time, we're bringing our swimsuits.