October 29 is a door. It’s an anniversary of sorts for me. The date, in many ways, my adult life began. When October 29 arrives, I am both filled up with melancholy and made grateful by the hard thing I did 24 years ago. Isn’t that strange—that one of my life’s hardest things is also joyful, because it changed everything and helped other people and helped me through innumerable other hard things.
It is a door because it is the start of this season, the fast downward spiral of the year: Halloween, then Nathan’s birthday, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then Jake’s birthday. The last of the warm days, the last of the autumn colors, the start of coldness. Perhaps even snow, if we are lucky.
This season that also makes me feel both happy and sad, because if it arrives it is here but it is also ending.
Everything is ending, right now, and if October 29 was an end of something hard and sad and joyful, it is also a reminder to hold on even though no one can hold on, to time or moments, even with pictures, even with words.
So I am thinking about the value of individual days.
Sunday was not my favorite day. Kendell and I argued—hard. About the dumbest thing, the hamburger I put in the fridge three weeks ago and then forgot about. We argued because beef is expensive and because I am not always what he wants me to be and because I resist it. Resist trying to change my essential self. We fought because the slimy green mess of sour meat was only a spark for all the sadness married people toss at each other, and because marriage is hard. We think it is only about making a life together, but it is also about keeping the life that we have within us alive, the life that’s separate from the one we live as somebody’s spouse.
So even though we made up and got over it, I woke up on Monday a little bit battered. Heartsore. And I prayed for a good day.
And then we had a good day.
Kendell had the day off and we just hung out together. When the kids got home, we worked in the yard. Kaleb, whose perpetual yard job, as the youngest, is picking up the apples (yes! still!) said, “mom, I can’t believe how much you like picking up apples. It’s good but strange.”
I asked him to explain so he said, “whenever I’m picking up the apples you always come and help.” So then I explained that I love being outside with my kids, working in the yard. Mostly the kids play in between the work, but that’s OK because in the end we get it done together. I told him about how, when the Bigs were little, in the warm months we’d do yard work together all the time, and how happy it made me, and how it still makes me happy even though kids complain.
Then Kendell and I went with Jake to get something fixed on his car and new keys made since he lost the spare. The woman at the key-making machine was joking about me letting Jake drive in the first place and I had one of those moments when you look at your kid and you see him as a person. Not just your son but the totality, for just a tiny second, of everything he is, and you realize (again) just how real and alive and here with me right now he is. (A moment intensely tied to October 29, every time it happens.)
Both of the new keys worked just fine.
Instead of the beef stroganoff and curried green beans I had planned, we decided to go to dinner. We ate pizza and pasta and we all laughed together and it could’ve only been better if Haley were there. We told old stories and new stories. We were together.
And that’s just life. Bad days and good days. Battered heart, heart brimming with the sheer, simple goodness of right now. Hard things that continue to ache and bring happiness all at once.
October 29. The door is opening. I’m stepping through to grab everything, the joy and excitement and stress and beauty and coldness and warmth. The smell of the heater the first time we turn it on, the last of the pumpkin-spice candles, the first whiff of pine. Whatever is hard or good, I am ready to have it now.
At my library, we have a yearly program called Orem Reads. We pick a book (one year it was To Kill a Mockingbird and Harper Lee sent us a letter!) that community members can get for free at the programs we have that relate to the book. This year, our book was Singing School by Robert Pinsky. This is an anthology of poems collected not by theme or topic but by what I think of as writerly quality. They are all excellent poems that also help you learn something about writing poetry. There is a thoughtful introduction and then the poems, some old, some contemporary, all introduced with a brief idea meant to make you think—how could I write something that is like this but also mine?
I was excited about this because I used Pinsky’s work quite a bit when I was teaching. His Favorite Poem Project was a tool I used to help my students learn that regular people read poetry. (That was one of the goals I had as a teacher, in fact: that my students leave my class knowing that poetry isn’t only for English majors.) When I was teaching, I always felt a little bit…frustrated, I suppose, but the limits of time and of my students’ desire. There are so many good things in literature to show them! I was always looking for models to follow, an apprentice looking for experts, and Pinsky was one of them.
But when I found out he was actually coming to our library? The word “excited” hardly covers it. I tried to explain to Kendell, who is decidedly not a poetry fan, just how big of a deal this was for me. Pinsky is big. He’s done important work bringing poetry to people. He’s won awards and was the poet laureate. Having him come to our little, small-town library is like, I don’t know…having Michael Jordan show up at your junior high basketball practice.
I looked forward to the program for months.
Then, wouldn’t you know, I told Kaleb’s scout leader that sure, I could bring treats to pack meeting. Not putting together that it was the same day. The same day as the Pinsky reading, and I have all of this guilt wrapped up in scouts and whether I go or not got, so instead of just dropping the treats off and going to the reading, I went to scouts with Kaleb, and then I rushed over to the library (with Kendell!) and I caught the last ten minutes.
All motherly guilt aside, I should’ve just gone to the reading.
But what I did get to see was pretty damn good.
Once you’ve been a teacher, you immediately recognize when you’re listening to someone who is a really good teacher, and that was what I took away from my ten minutes with Robert Pinsky: he knows how to teach. Good teachers don’t only teach about their subject, they bring it into the world; they show how knowing about something helps us to understand the world better.
Whenever I go to a reading, I always try to take notes in the book I’m going to have the writer sign. I do this so it is all in one place, the writer’s words, my thoughts, and his or her real, ink-and-paper scrawl. I only had time to write down two thoughts during those ten minutes:
“We always sentimentalize what we oppress”
and
“Iambic pentameter is a secret weapon”
It isn’t a lot. But it is something: a thought to continue thinking about, an idea to help my writing improve.
After the reading, I was the second person in line for this signing. (Not only because I was all fan-girly about talking to Robert Pinsky but because we also had to go to Costco that night.)
I was determined to actually talk and maybe sound intelligent, so I told him how grateful I was for his favorite poem project, and how it had helped me as a teacher. He asked why I wasn’t teaching, and I gave him the short answer, and then he told me about a meeting he sometimes has in Boston, with his other poet friends, where they discuss their favorite poems. Sharon Olds was mentioned. (Another of my favorite poets.) I was calmly talking to him but in my head I was like How is this happening? I’m having a conversation with Robert Pinsky!)
Then he wrapped it up, finished signing both of my books (I also had his book Gulf Music), and Kendell and I left.
To go to Costco.
Which is sort of fairly awesome, because really: poetry is something that normal people read. (I realize I might be making a big assumption by placing myself into the “normal people” group, but let’s just go with it.) I know many people don’t read poetry, but people do. And then we go to Costco. Because poetry isn’t outside of anything. Not real poetry. It is inside the world, about the world. It can interact with your life if you let it.
I like what he says in this interview on NPR: “For a lot of people, well-meaning teaching has made poetry seem arcane, difficult, a kind of brown medicine that might be good for you that doesn’t taste so good. So I tried make a collection of poetry that would be fun and that would bring out poetry as an art rather than a challenge to say smart things.”
An art, rather than a challenge to say smart things.
I left the reading full of a sad yearning: I wish I could teach again. That is a crazy thought for me, because the actuality of teaching was sort of devastating, both to me and to my family. I couldn’t be a good mother and a good teacher at the same time. But I also loved teaching. I loved having an opportunity to share good poems with people.
I miss that.
But I also still have poetry. Maybe we are a dwindling tribe, the poetry readers. But we exist. We’re here, reading poems. I am here, reading poems.
Sometimes I am not 100% certain what God was thinking, sending me so many boys.
I look at the other moms I know who have lots of boys and I can see how they are good boy mothers. They love sports, for one thing. They are patient with and even actively participate in the rough housing. They just seem to have that boy thing down.
Quite often, though, I feel like I don’t. Like I’m failing at being a mom to boys. I mean, look at my life history. I grew up in a family with four daughters and a dad who showed he loved us by leaving us to our mother. My mom is sort of on the men-really-suck side of the feminist spectrum. I wasn’t friends with any boys when I was a kid, and even though I have a few boy cousins, none of them are near to my age and we weren’t close to our cousins anyway. And my experiences with teenaged boys? Oh my. Totally disastrous. They were like aliens to me, nearly literally. Like creatures from a different sphere of existence. Fascinating (endlessly!), but terrifying.
But God gave me boys.
And oh, how I love them. Even though I’m not really that mom. The one who is really, really good at sons. Who delights in all things boyish. Who doesn’t go to football or basketball games just because she wants to see her boys play, but because she loves football. I confess: I really hate football. I think it’s too violent but mostly I hate society’s adoration for it, especially in high school. Basketball is a little bit better as far as the actual sport. But the sound of basketball shoes on the wood floor—that very specific squeak—makes me highly anxious, a mix of memory (my mom yelling can’t you turn that down? to my dad) and PTSD from the year the Utah Jazz almost won the championship and Kendell was a grumpy, pissed-off mess for months afterward.
I like soccer.
Anyway, I’m not that really-good-with-boys mom. I don’t always know how to relate to them. Sometimes, now that I have teenagers, I feel again that sense that they are aliens, even though I love these ones of mine.
But being given boys has stretched me. It has made me a better, more well-rounded person. It has taught me that not every one of the male persuasion is mean, abrupt, cold, and/or hungry for control. Sometimes I look at them and I am so overwhelmed with how much I love them that I have to just sit down. These boys give me the opportunity of relationships that will strengthen me for all of my years. Having sons helps me understand my husband better. It helps me look back at my dad and my grandpa and see them in a different light. These boys of mine bring me to experiences I would never have otherwise.
Like this weekend. Kaleb wanted to play catch, which is something we’ve done together since he was little. We found the football, and convinced Nathan to come outside with us (Jake was at work), and we threw the football around the yard. Nathan was laughing a little at my throwing “technique” and I told him that my dad didn’t ever teach me how to throw a football. Then I stopped, right in the middle of playing catch, and told my boys that my dad didn’t teach me how to throw a baseball, either, or how to hit one, even though he played baseball and had a brief goal of trying out for the minor leagues. He didn’t teach me how mow the lawn. How to plant a garden. How to change a tire. How to tie a tie. I almost got a little bit teary eyed, right there by my apple tree. How could my dad not teach me all the stuff I need to know to raise my sons?
Nathan said, “Well, what did he teach you?” and I said “He taught me to love reading” and then I thought of a bunch of other things he also taught me. Non-tangible knowledge that has nothing to do with gender, and I felt better.
Then Nathan came over to my point of the playing-catch triangle. He showed me how to hold the football correctly, and which foot to lead with, and how to throw it properly. It was still a pretty bad throw, and probably always will be, but it didn’t matter because Kaleb still caught it.
There, right there, that moment: throwing a football on a gorgeous autumn day. I wouldn't do that without sons. And I wouldn't have that insight about my dad without that moment either. They brought that to me.
So maybe what I don’t know about raising boys also doesn’t matter. What I don’t have. Maybe the fact that I get anxious when they rough house and annoyed by dirty socks all over the house and frustrated by the perpetual bathroom mess doesn’t matter.
Maybe not loving sports doesn’t matter.
Maybe what I bring to these boys is enough. Just myself. Maybe their bodies’ natural athletic prowess is being wasted, but sports aren’t the only thing. I give them other things that also matter. I will shape them in ways that no one else can, and maybe that is what they need. Maybe that is why God gave me not just any boys, but these boys. Maybe I have exactly what they need, despite my shortcomings.
Maybe they’ll still catch what I toss them.
Because I know this. Even when they make me crazy, when they break things and make loud noises and leave strange smells behind, I love them. They are teaching me about the other half of the world, the half I never was able to glimpse before I became their mom. Two of them tower over me now, and call me “little momma.” They bury me with their enormous hugs. They tell me jokes and teach me what they learn in school and astound me with their mathematical prowess. They are rough and they are also tender, they are smelly but also sweet, they make me laugh and cry and yell and talk and throw cheese out of frustration.
They make me grateful, every day of my life, that God gave them to me.
For me, running on a vacation is part of what makes the vacation awesome. It isn’t even really about the exercise itself, but about presence. About moving through an entirely different landscape than my usual one. Running in a place makes the place feel more a part of me, and I wanted that in Rome. I wanted to have that in my life’s oeuvre, even if it wasn’t a very long run, wanted the experience of running past all of those old buildings and along the cobbled streets.
Our hotel was close to the Termini train station and the Piazza della Reupubblica; the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore was just down the street, so that was the route I wanted to take.
It was our first full day there, and I woke up refreshed, early enough to get a few miles in, so I talked Becky into putting on her running shoes and coming with me. We hustled down the stairs and walked out of our hotel to find a very cloudy Rome. A very cloudy and then very wet Rome, as the rain that had fallen in the night started falling again. We didn’t make it very far—just to the corner behind the basilica, and then we talked ourselves out of running in the rain.
I wish we hadn’t.
I wish we’d just kept running, made our loop, and rushed through breakfast. I wish I had those thirty minutes so I could always think I went running in Rome.
I think we thought we’d have another chance. But our days were so full of walking that the rest of the mornings, it felt impossible to get up early enough for a run. Really, the only running I did in Italy was when I sprinted from the Tower of Pisa to our meeting place. (I was two minutes early.)
Running in Rome is one of the reasons I want to go back to Italy.
When my mom first started talking about taking a trip to Rome, about two years ago, it seemed so far-fetched as to be impossible. Normal people like us didn’t just go to Italy. Plus…Italy? My fantasy trip to Europe was all about England and Ireland. I don’t know that I’d ever really even thought about going to Italy.
But, a year ago, I went to Italy.
And now I understand why people want to go there. It is a magical place, really, a magic I didn’t know existed. The air feels different there, the light, the smells. Maybe that can be said about all foreign places and I’m just illustrating how few times I have really traveled. Probably when I make it to the British Isles I’ll fall in love with its air and light and smells, too, but in a different way. Italy’s magic, I think, is only found in Italy. It’s all the history, of course, time tingling just underneath your feet. It’s the very real possibility of great food around every corner. It is nuns walking down the street in their habits and athletic shoes, the whizz of all those little cars, and a magnificent church where ever you find yourself.
It is the way art imbibes everything.
In Rome, I ate a pizza intended to feed three people all by myself. Tomatoes, rocket salad (what the Italians call arugula), cheese and spices. Simple, but so delicious I don’t regret it for a second.
In Rome I ate a grapefruit gelato, walked to the Pantheon, and then ate a rose gelato (it tasted very delicate, sweet, and pink): two gelatos in less than an hour.
In Orvietto, I ate the best salami and cheese I had ever had, until I had some in San Gimignano, and now I can’t decide which one was more delicious.
At a Tuscan vineyard, I tasted the strongest, most startling olive oil I have ever experienced and that moment—the bite of flavor on my tongue and my utter surprise that such a culinary pleasure existed in the world—is etched onto my food memories.
I will forever be trying to replicate it with inferior olive oils.
But it isn’t just the food. It’s the beauty of the landscape, too. All those mountains and fields and then the cities springing out. It’s all the ties to books and stories and myths. It is everything I found in a country I didn’t know I wanted to visit.
Now I’ve been once, I desperately want to go again. To go running in Rome—more than once (past the colosseum, and along the Tiber under the sycamores, and on the streets of Vatican City), and also in Sienna and maybe a very-early route through Venice. To do the things I couldn’t the first time, to do some of the same things again. To have entirely different reactions and unplanned experiences. I threw one coin with my right hand over my left shoulder into the Trevi fountain, which should ensure my return. I might never make it back…but I hope I do.
There’s a little Italian restaurant in Provo called La Dolce Vita. Kendell and I used to go there all the time when we were dating and just married. The last time we went, Kendell had a cold and wasn’t feeling well and didn’t really want to be there, so he asked the waiter if the cook could just make him a grilled cheese sandwich. I was so embarrassed that we never went back.
We should go back, though. It’s the first place I tasted fettuchini Alfredo and first fell in love with its creamy, salty, buttery delicious goodness. (Is it odd that I was 19 before I knew Alfredo sauce existed? Proof of the era I grew up in? Or just evidence that my mom was anti-butter before anti-butter was cool?)
I’ve tried to make it ever since then, but Alfredo sauce has always been one of my weaknesses as a cook. I’ve tried about half a million recipes, but haven’t ever found anything I love. I always end up going back to the Knorr mix and then feeling ashamed of my cooking prowess.
Today, though, I discovered a new recipe. It wasn’t bland, or too thin, or too thick. It didn’t feel super-fattening (like the one with cream cheese does to me). The texture was perfect and the spices just about right.
Perhaps my search for the perfect Alfredo sauce has ended!
It is a modified version of THIS recipe I found on Pinterest. I wish I'd had some romano, but I didn't and it still was delicious. (Next time I will add romano and some fresh parsley, which I sort of have a crush on lately.) She calls hers “better than Olive Garden” but as I don’t exactly love the Olive Garden’s version, I’m just calling mine the…
Possibly Perfect Alfredo Sauce
(you’re going to need a whisk!)
2 ½ cups half and half ¾ cup heavy cream 2 cups 1% milk (I’d imagine skim or 2% or whole would work just as well) 3 large egg yolks 1 T cornstarch 3-5 garlic cloves, crushed ½ tsp garlic powder 4 T butter, separated 8 oz baby Portobello or other mushrooms, sliced 1 tsp white pepper ¼ tsp nutmeg ½ tsp salt ½ tsp Italian seasoning lots of freshly-ground pepper ½ cup mozzarella cheese several handfuls freshly grated Parmesan 1 ½ lbs pasta
Boil water and cook the pasta. Meanwhile, combine the milk, cream, and half & half. Separate the eggs and put the yolks in a small-ish bowl; whisk until smooth. Pour about ¼ cup milk combo into the egg yolks. Pour about ¼ cup of the milk combo into another little bowl. Whisk the cornstarch into the second little bowl. Pour the rest of the milk combo into a large sauce pan. Bring to a simmer. Pour about ½ cup of the hot milk combo into the eggs, whisking continuously while you pour, until smooth. Whisk the cornstarch/milk combo into the tempered eggs, then whisk all of it into the simmering milk combo. (This sounds like a lot of steps…it’s really not! You have to temper the egg yolks or they will just scramble in the hot milk, and cornstarch needs to start in a cold liquid.) Cook over medium-low heat, whisking constantly until it comes to a boil, then boil very gently for 3-4 minutes, whisking occasionally and watching the heat very carefully.
Meanwhile, melt 1 T of butter in a skillet. Add the crushed garlic, reduce heat to low, and let it cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour into the milk combo. In the same pan, melt the rest of the butter, then saute the mushrooms over medium-low heat for about 1 minute. Turn heat to very low (I use my smallest burner for this part) and let the mushrooms sweat.
Add spices to the sauce, then add the cheeses in small sprinkles, whisking between handfuls until completely melted. Taste and adjust spices. Add the mushrooms and butter, whisking again. Serve over cooked pasta, with extra cheese and black pepper on top.
I think the world tends to look at Mormons in two fairly distinct ways: either we are completely crazy whack jobs or we are paragons of virtue and self-denial. In reality, we are a mix: some thoroughly devout, some struggling, some new to the church, some raised in it their entire lives. We are none of us all one thing, except for followers of Christ, and we all have our own stories. Our own paths through this spiritual terrain.
This is the story of my faith.
On paper, I am an ideal Mormon. I grew up and still live in Utah County, which is a bastion of Mormondom even in Utah. I am a descendant of pioneers who crossed the plains with the very first group of immigrants. I am a descendant of the infamous pioneers in the Martin Handcart Company who were caught in the early snows near Devil's Gate. Some of my ancestors knew Joseph Smith and Brigham Young; one is mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants. Both sides of my family have polygamous marriages. One of my ancestors helped to build the Meeting House in American Fork, the pulpit in the Provo Tabernacle, and the spiral staircase in the Manti Temple. Think of an archetypal Mormon story and I'm certain to have an ancestor who experienced it. Even my own life is an LDS cliché: Mormon girl from Utah marries Mormon boy from Idaho.
My ties to the LDS faith go back much farther than my life, so you'd think it would be a place I feel not just comfortable in, but natural. Alas, not so. Perhaps because there is the other side of the "my family were all Mormon superheroes" story. There is an apocryphal story in my family history that has something to do with one of my ancestors losing a dress during the westward migration, only to spot it later on, worn by one of Brigham Young's wives, and this dress (not the years-long trek or the years before spent building temples and witnessing miracles and suffering hunger and being persecuted) was the thing that made that branch of my family leave the church. Because how could a true prophet be married to a stealer of dresses?
Hand in hand with all of my devout Mormon ancestry are the doubters.
In the poem "Forgetting" by Robert Pinsky, there is this stanza:
Hardly anybody can name all eight of their great-grandparents. Can you? Will your children’s grandchildren remember your name?”
I can actually name all of my eight great grandparents. But what I can't tell you is their testimony. I don’t know if any of them went to church. I know that both sets of my grandparents were not active in the LDS church; I don't know, exactly, why. They were all drinkers and both of my grandpas were alcoholics. I remember my Grandma telling me that no good God would keep her out of heaven just because she liked to drink iced tea, and if that was the worst thing she'd ever done, surely she'd be OK. My dad's mom, Elsie, was antagonistically agnostic, and I remember my mom telling me to just not bring up church with her at all.
Why I would bring up church as a kid is a mystery, because we hardly ever went. Primary a few times, sure. We went to the Christmas parties and I was in the roadshows. But my dad (agnostic mother) wasn't interested and my mom had come out of a rocky marriage and rough divorce with a bad taste in her mouth for the church. It wasn't really a thing for us until I was a teenager, when my mom’s dad died and she had her moment that caused her to go back to church. But by then it was too late for me. Why would I want to go sit in church meetings for three hours every Sunday with girls who had previously excluded me for not being Mormon enough?
As a kid, I found religion in the world. I don’t think I could’ve told you that was what I was feeling, but I felt it: the Spirit in a petunia, inspiration in the mountains and the desert, revelation while wandering the corn field behind my house. (Where, incidentally, they eventually built a church.) We went to church every once in a while, and I was baptized when I was eight. But it was only enough to give me a vague sense of guilt over not doing something I really maybe should be doing.
And then I hit my adolescent angsty period and my pagan little heart took a sudden turn. I still felt an (unnamed) sense of God-is-in-the-trees, but religion? Religion seemed anathema to me. Especially the LDS church. A major component of my teenage rebellion was antagonism towards and mockery of the church. Again, I never could have put this in words back then, but what I know now is that what pushed me to the edge was people’s hypocrisy: saying they were followers of Christ but then not acting like Christ.
Of course, every life has its “come to Jesus” moment, and I had mine at 18. (A long story for another day.) In a sense, I feel like I am a convert to the church, even though I was born into it and I was baptized. I didn’t really start to become a Mormon until that year I was 18. But since I looked like a Mormon, no one noticed, really, my conversion, so I figured out how to be a Mormon on my own. This is one of the lessons I had to learn, that no one else but me was going to help me understand the gospel. I was on my own.
Mostly, at first, I just copied what everyone else did. But slowly I started to understand the rhythms and the purposes behind our practices. I gained my fragile, delicate testimonies of different principles: going to the temple, fasting, understanding personal revelation. As I did it on my own, I began to understand the truths I needed, and to understand them in the context of my own life. I began to love parts of the gospel not because I was supposed to but because I did. I did.
I stumbled and I tried again. I am, I confess, still stumbling. But also still trying. I question everything I learn: is this true only because that man told me it is true? Or is it true because it is true? And how can I fit it into my life and my perspective? I often feel, sitting in church meetings, like a fish swimming upstream. Like the ugly duckling in a nest full of adorable fluffy ones. Like any other image you can think of that expresses not quite fitting in. I’m there, I’m working on believing and understanding, but my mind is always full of questions, objections, and ideas that no one else seems to have. Things that everyone else nods their heads in agreement with generally tend to make me shake mine in disbelief, annoyance, or surprise.
Sometimes I share my thoughts, but usually I don’t. I still have that fear, I guess, of not being Mormon enough. But that is also something I’m working on. Not on being more Mormon—on being less afraid of not looking the part.
I am slowly, so slowly it is a process that will take my entire life, coming to understand what it means to be a Mormon. What it means to me, as an individual. I am starting to know the features of my relationship with the church. For me, it hast to be, must always be, about me. Not about what my neighbor thinks, or my mom or my sister or my friend, but what I think, study out, come to know. It will, I think, always be troubling. I will never feel fully at peace, fully comfortable, in this faith. I still find God in the trees more easily than I do in a church. I will always have my questions, doubts, oppositions. I will not always believe everything I am told to believe. But what I do come to believe, come to understand and implement, I will not lose because I have gained it on my own.
I think often of my dad, who was much like his mom except without the aggression: mildly agnostic, I suppose. After my mom went back to church, they used to argue about it some. She wanted him to come to church with her, to be like the other priesthood holders she saw there, but he didn’t go. He had questions and he had his mom’s “church is silly” attitude and he liked to drink coffee. My mom told me once that she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just stop drinking coffee. Why not give it up, when in exchange he would receive everything the gospel could give him? He also, eventually, had his moment that helped him turn towards the church, but he never told me what it was. He stopped drinking coffee and he went to the temple and to church.
Only now that I’m older do I think I understand about the coffee.
It isn’t the simple exchange of a beverage for all the truth the gospel can give you. It’s not even, really, about the coffee. It’s about the choice: why does something small prevent someone gaining knowledge? It is just like my Grandma with her tea. Coffee, tea, skirt lengths, the color of your shirt on Sunday. Facial hair and the bow tie/regular tie debate. The little things the church concerns itself with that aren’t really about the whole truth of the gospel: it is their very smallness in the face of that hugeness that makes them so hard to choose to let go. If the truth is good, shouldn’t it be available to anyone? Even if they drink coffee in short skirts?
This story isn’t my dad’s story, though, even if his story influences mine. Understanding his religious experiences (as much as I can without being able to ask him anymore) helps me understand mine. Thinking about all of those ancestors, examples of both living and not living the gospel, shapes me. In the end, the story of my faith is this: I come from a long line of believers and an equally long line of objectors, and in me they are combined. I both believe and object. But I am not passive. I’m not standing still. I am striding this religious landscape. I am finding my own trails. Sometimes I’m bushwhacking. But I’m finding my way, with a sweaty forehead and dirty shins. My story might not include all of the characteristics of the genre. But I take great peace in knowing it is my story, and I am writing it as I go.
NOTE: This post is part of a series started by Andi at Maybe I Will to go along with the release of a movie about us Mormons.
We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints otherwise known as "The Mormons". We are proud of this part of who we are! We are excited to team up with over 65+ of us strong... to extend an invitation to see a film. A film entitled "Meet The Mormons". This film is not meant to be an "in your face" - you must join our church film. It is simply designed and produced to uplift and inspire you through six stories of those of our faith who have followed promptings to follow Christ more fully in their lives. We hope you take the opportunity to enjoy this film. We hope your hearts are made light as you feel the goodness that comes from following our Christ and Savior. All proceeds from the film will be donated to The American Red Cross. So not only will you be uplifted and inspired, your money will be going to an amazing charity!!
We also would like to take a moment and share our personal testimonies, stories of our own personal conversions, and our own stories of how following our Savior, Jesus Christ has changed our lives. The light of the gospel of Jesus Christ offers a joy and hope that only following him can provide. We hope as you click through and read our stories and testimonies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you will feel uplifted and encouraged. We are by you! We love connecting with our readers, that is why many of us do what we do! Please be kind and considerate in your comments. It takes great bravery for us to open our hearts and our mouths to share with you such a tender and personal part of who we are. We share because we feel strongly the need to share the peace and the hope that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
A few days ago, I blogged about a YA book that didn’t quite fit for me because it felt too teen. Today I’m writing about one that swung maybe too far the other way—just this side of too intense that I’m not sure many teenage girls will pick it up.
Which is a shame because I loved it.
And We Stay, by Jenny Hubbard, tells the story of Emily Beam, whose ex-boyfriend Paul one day walked into the high school library with a gun, threatened Emily, and then shot himself. Emily is struggling with dealing with this, so her parents decide to send her to boarding school in Massachusetts. The same boarding school in Amherst that Emily Dickinson briefly attended. Although she’s never really been a writer, as she starts to figure out her new place, Emily Beam finds herself writing poems.
(In case you’re wondering: Yes! I do think it makes it confusing to have a character named Emily who is interested in a historical figure named Emily. It was the one thing that was just too much.)
There are other parts to Emily’s story, but you don’t find them out all at once. Obviously, though, she’s gone through a rough time. A really rough time. And, in one of those serendipitous book events (which I think are arranged by a forgotten Greek goddess, the goddess of reading and books whose name no one knows anymore), as I read it, Jake was going through rough times, with a girl. So I was thinking a lot about the nature of teenage love. In the book, one of Paul’s triggers is that he wants to stay together with Emily—maybe forever. Remember how that felt, the first time you loved someone, and you loved them in a way that felt impossible to ever stop? that you couldn’t ever imagine your life without?
I remember that.
And maybe because I was in the middle of consoling my own teenage son, I had nothing but empathy for Paul. He makes some incredibly bad choices, but he isn’t a bad character—just a confused one. Emily had a clearer picture of how the future would work out. She understood (maybe in a way only girls in novels can) that first love, no matter how intense and real and good, is generally not going to be forever. Paul couldn’t see it that way.
But this is Emily’s story, not Paul’s. Also, it’s a boarding school story. I have a theory that it is easier to set a YA novel in a boarding school because it eliminates parents. Emily’s were only shadows and memories that didn’t help her work out her problems. In a way, I think that is good. She came to her own realizations and so they were hers. But it’s also risky, and not something I’m certain I could do—send my daughter off after she’d experienced something so traumatic.
But Emily finds a way, and partly that way is through writing. Writing poems. The book isn’t only in poems, but each chapter ends with one. What I found remarkable is how authentically adolescent the poems are. Not juvenile, but clearly written by a teenager wrestling with issues. (Except, of course, they weren’t. Brilliant work, Jenny Hubbard!) The poems might scare away some readers, but they fit in nicely with the plot.
I’m not so certain I could recommend this book to just any reader. It has some fairly grown-up issues. But every so often, I’ll help a patron who is looking for books with a certain quality. It’s hard for them to pin down, but I think of them as Plath-esque: books to read when you just want to wallow around in sadness for awhile. I have a whole list of them, and And We Stay is on it now.
Do you like sad books? Or novels with poetry in them?
I’ve had this post written since September 30, but I didn’t post it because I wanted a picture of Kaleb picking up the apples. The picture would be in that golden, glowy light of autumn afternoons. First, though, it was too cloudy, then I started too late, then I started too early, then I realized that the apple tree never gets that golden, glowy light in September because of the shadows of the houses across the street.
So I took some fairly-awful photos of Kaleb picking up apples at different times of the afternoon and then I gave up. There’s this image instead, to bid September farewell
I don’t want September to be over. It means that, here, the leaves in the mountains will fade and blow away. There’s plenty of fall left, of course—I just wish those trees could stay bright for longer.
Of course, nature refuses to listen to my “slow down” plea, so instead of freezing time, a September recap:
I cut my forehead open. With the back of a knife. I’m pretty sure I created a family story that will last as long as I do.
I finally got my hair colored. It’s been since last November, except for the little root touch-up I gave myself in April, and it was looking, like I was wont to say, a thousand different colors of ugly. I went with a dark auburn…and I don’t love it. I went to someone new, and I don’t think she did a fabulous job. The top is much brighter and more vibrant than the ends, which hardly have any color. I’m trying to let it be long for awhile, but I’m not sure it’s healthy enough…it’s sort of dry, no matter what products I use.
On a happier note, the scar from my knife-to-forehead incident is healing nicely. It is pretty thin…the glue blob was worth it!
Jake survived his first month as a high school junior. Ahhh, eleventh grade. It really can be such an awful year, and it is always pivotal. His was pretty dramatic, but some things have been worked out in positive ways and he is seeming so much happier. I am proud of him for dealing with stuff without melting down. Here’s to a way better October!
Nathan was out skateboarding with his friends early this month. His board skidded and he rammed his foot into the curb. It was swollen and bruised and pretty painful, which meant taking a few days off from basketball practice, which did not make him happy. He is working so hard on making the team, so not going was fairy traumatic for him. He is struggling with not despising his biology teacher, but is pretty happy otherwise.
Kaleb’s month was full of soccer. I am so glad I didn’t miss the sign ups this year! He’s had practices every Monday and games on Wednesdays and Saturdays. He scores, he plays hard, he loves it.
Haley came to visit once, and we drove up to Logan to visit her. She is loving her classes (even though they’re hard) and has discovered shopping on e-Bay. We Skype with her as often as we can!
After much debate last spring, I decided to not put Jake in Honor’s English this year. The teacher is a little bit too gung-ho about making it as hard as possible, and while Jake is a good writer and reader, he doesn’t love it. I felt like getting an A while having more time and energy to focus on the subjects he does love (science and math) would be better. This month I am seeing the results of that decision—and I am so glad I followed my gut. His English teacher is awesome. She is pushing him in just the right ways, and he is feeling successful there.
Nathan’s English teacher has also been good for him—she is making him read a lot, and he is doing it!
I went to listen to Susan Howe when she presented at the library and I saw Laini Taylor at the Salt Lake City Library. I love listening to writers speak!
I ran a 5k library fundraiser. It is called "Chase your Tale" (get it? Library?) and so I dressed up as Dorothy:
What we read: Jake is reading The Scarlett Letter in English. I bought a copy so I could re-read it with him, but I confess: I am having a rough time getting past Mr. Hawthorne’s long “The Customs House” introduction. Nathan finished Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson and Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill. He’s starting The Help today. Kaleb is reading Emily Rodda’s new series, The Golden Door. I read And We Stay by Jenni Hubbard, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Hahn (both were sort of ehhhhh), The Fever by Megan Abbott and certainly something else I am forgetting.
Our close friends the McAlisters had a death in the family, so they came back to Utah from North Carolina for the funeral. I don’t love funerals of course, nor the reason we saw them…but it was so nice to see them again! We used to get together all the time for dinner and chocolate cake when our kids were little. Now they’re all big and teenagy and moody and wonderful in entirely different ways. It’s too bad arranged marriages aren’t a thing anymore because I know just who I would pick for Jake…
I ran 47.55 miles. I was hoping to top it off at fifty, which is less than I ran last month but I had to take a week off due to not being able to sweat copiously from my forehead (to keep the glue on).
I made twelve layouts. Here is one of my favorites:
At work, we were recently discussing this article by Ruth Graham in Slate, about why adults shouldn’t read young adult novels. (If you haven’t read it yet, you should. You could even tell me what you think!) Obviously I think that grown ups can read teen novels (and really, they should if they have any teenagers), but I hope that isn’t the only genre we (grown up readers) read. There is some YA that is absolute garbage, some that is fluffy and entertaining, some that is really good, and some that will totally rock your world no matter how old you are. (A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness springs to mind.) My contribution to the (email) discussion was that I wish more people would read the books that challenge their ideas, that teach them about life and make their worlds more rich. But I also wish people weren't starving in Africa, there weren't any terrorists, and I never got wrinkles. Nice, lovely wishes, but not reality. Reality is that everyone reads for different reasons...my reasons are mine, and Ruth Graham's reasons are hers, and if people are at least reading (and buying!) books, we'll all find something that fits our reasons.
The discussion made me ask myself a question, though: Why am I willing to put up with in teen novels stuff that I would never put up with in adult novels? The answer is that I recognize I’m not the intended audience. No matter how good a YA novel is, I’m not ever going to respond to it like a teenager would because (no matter how intense my teenage memories are) I’ve lost my teenage perspective. I know how I used to think, but I can’t think that way anymore.
Sometimes this leads me to question my responses to YA novels. Do I feel annoyed, disappointed, or frustrated with a book because the writing isn’t very good? Or is it because I am looking at it like an adult (an adult with an English degree who also taught English)?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Take the book To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. It’s a YA novel about a girl named Lara Jean who, when she finds herself unbearably in love with someone, eventually writes him a long and detailed love letter, which she addresses but never mails. Then the letters accidentally get mailed—and she has to deal with what happens.
I so wanted to love this book. Love it in the sense of being swept up in an interesting story. It seemed like an idea brimming with potential. Would the mailed love letters completely mortify her? Would they open up new possibilities for romance? (Or better yet, self-understanding. Or something.) But what happens is Lara Jean decides to make a fake relationship with Peter Kavinsky (one of the boys who received a letter), who just broke up with Gen, who used to be Lara Jean’s best friend, all in an effort to prove to Josh (who used to be her older sister’s boyfriend) that she doesn’t still have a crush on him.
Fake relationship.
Sigh.
I liked other things about the book. The relationship between Lara Jean and her two sisters, Margo and Kitty, is well-drawn. And the conflict she feels about Peter (does she still like him? how does her old friendship with Gen influence things? could it develop into something more than a pretend romance?) rings true.
I just wanted those letters to be a catalyst for something other than lying.
But I don’t know: do I want that because I don’t have my finger on the pulse of the adolescent girl reader’s heart? (And how does Jenny Han?) Is digging a deeper hole really how a teenage girl would respond? (Well…duh. Probably.) Am I just expecting too much?
I’ll put it down to the last one. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a good read if you’re wanting something very sweet and a little bit fluffy. It’s definitely not life changing or inspiring. But all books don’t have to be, right?
Do you read teen novels? What do you think about adults reading YA?
