The library where I work has some sort of program nearly every night of the week. Usually I only wish I could attend them, as I’m either already working at the library, or I’m not working (which means I’m catching up from the time I was working and so, despite good intentions, forget to go to most of the programs I want to).

Tonight, though, I was determined not to miss the program, even though I was working. I arranged to have my desk covered and then I went, because I couldn’t miss it: a panel about writing poetry, headed up by one of my favorite Utah Valley University professors, Dr. Laura Hamblin.

I have two degrees from UVU. The first one was the Associates I got when I wanted desperately to get a Bachelor’s but hadn’t figured out how yet. Then, when I got a grant and went back to school after I had Haley, I did two catch-up semesters at UVU (which was then called, I don’t know, Utah Valley Community College? It’s changed names so many times I can’t remember) before BYU would let me in. One of the classes was Literature of the Restoration (during which, upon examining the syllabus, one of the younger and very righteous students said “why aren’t we reading anything by Joseph Smith?” no...not that Restoration) and I immediately fell in love with the professor. Not in a weird way, but in a I-want-to-be-her-when-I-grow-up way. She was intelligent and wise and funny and irreverent, and I still remember the things I learned in her classes.

My second UVU degree is my Secondary Ed degree. I got this one a few years after I got my English BA from BYU, so that the state would let me teach. Even though I didn’t need to take a poetry writing class to get my teaching certificate, I still needed to take a poetry writing class, because it meant I could take another class from Dr. Hamblin.

And honestly: I learned as much about being a teacher in that class, just from her example, than I did about writing poetry. (Although I wrote some poems I still love and wish I had found homes for. Especially my villanelle.) She taught me to feel like a writer—to believe I was a writer. And so she also taught me that good writing teachers help their students to feel like good writers.

One of the conversations we had (through comments back and forth on drafts of poems) was about the necessity of poetry. I wrote that I couldn’t imagine not writing poems. How would I understand things? Where would I find solace if not in that white space that opens up sometimes when you’re buried in syllables and imagery?

But then I got busy teaching high school students that they were writers. And I had Kaleb and I lived for three years in the warm cocoon of stay-at-home motherhood. I became a librarian. I took children places and taught them things and washed their clothes. I taught scrapbooking courses and wrote scrapbooking articles. Somehow, even though for fifteen years I had made sense out of everything by writing poems, I stopped writing poems.

I lost my ability to believe I am a writer.

Tonight during the program, Laura introduced herself as a poet, as did the other speakers, Rob Blair and Heather Holland Duncan. That made me think. Actually, it smacked me in the face. How do you get to the point of knowing you can call yourself a poet?

I scribbled on the only piece of paper I could find in my work bag (usually I have my work-bag notebook but I took it out the other day to write a shopping list), a rich, fast flood of words because it was one of those moments of insight: I stopped, somewhere, thinking of myself as a poet.

Is it because I stopped writing poems? Or did I stop writing them because I stopped seeing myself as a poet? No one else but me is going to know or care whether or not I see myself in that light. Who would, in the past ten years of my life? Kendell, who thinks poetry is stupid? My kids, who see me (as they should) simply as their mom? My friends, whom I love but are not of the writerly persuasion?

Somehow during the past decade, my sense of myself as not just a writer in general, but a poet specifically, has become my crazy little secret. It isn’t even a dirty secret...just sort of silly. Isn’t poetry what angsty teenagers write? I convinced myself I should be embarrassed about being a poet. Or: wanting to be a poet, because I never actually was a real one, was I?

So when one of those awkward silences that happen sometimes during writing panels opened up, I got brave. I don’t usually ask questions (remember: in the presence of writers, my voice shakes and my heart pounds), but I raised my hand and asked the question. “You all introduced yourselves as poets. What happened in your life to allow you to claim that?”

I was hoping for ah-ha moments. The first poem in print, or the first public reading, or that time someone introduced them as “my friend, the poet.” Something big. Something memorable. Instead, one of them said, “Well, I wrote my first poem when I was six,” and another talked about the difference between being a poet and a good poet. Being a poet means, in other words, that you write poems.

Which is something I believe and have tried to teach others: to be a writer, write.

Perhaps I asked the wrong question. Probably in that context, I couldn’t ask what I really meant because of all the words it would take to get there. But what I really want to know is: how do you find the courage to say I am a poet and then carve out the space in your life that allows you to actually be a poet? How do I carve that space, in between children and a house and a yard and running and work and a husband who thinks so little about writing he never thinks about it at all?

How do I find that old part of myself who was a poet?

And perhaps I didn’t just ask the wrong question. Maybe I also asked it of the wrong people. Maybe they can’t tell me because they only have that answer for themselves. Maybe—yes, really—it is one of the questions I have to find my own answers for.

I think she’s still there, my poet-self. She makes faint wiggles sometimes (as when, this fall, I tried writing a poem about my reaction to the statue of St. Peter in the Basillica), so I know she’s still around.

I want to unearth her from where I’ve buried her.

I want, one day, to call myself a poet and to know that it is true.

Last Sunday, I turned 42.

The cool thing about having my birthday fall on Easter (it’s only happened one other time, in 2003, and will happen again in 2025, but then not until 2087 when I will probably be dead) is that I got to spend it with almost all of my family. Haley was missing, and some of my nieces, and I didn't see Kendell's side at all, but still, I was with way more family than I usually am on my birthday. At my mom’s, they even sang happy birthday to me.

This coincidence meant that I had even more people to share this fact with:

According to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is 42.

So this year, I am the answer.

Except, I don’t really want to be anyone else’s answer. (Actually, I don’t think I’m capable of being anyone else’s answer.) Instead, I want to find out my answers.

My life right now is pretty good. I have my sweet kids, and my husband, and a job I love. I have a home to live in and food to eat and experiences to have.

But I’m not settled. I’m not fully fulfilled. I keep thinking about this idea from the poet David Smith, which happens during a conversation he is having with a monk:

I had my day on my mind, and the mind-numbing tiredness I was experiencing at work. I said suddenly, out of nowhere, almost beseechingly, “Brother David, speak to me of exhaustion. Tell me about exhaustion.”

And then he said a life-changing thing. “You know,” he said, “the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest.”

“What is it then?”

“The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness. You're so exhausted because you can't be wholehearted at what you're doing...because your real conversation with life is through poetry.”

It was just the beginning of a long road that was to take my real work out into the world, but it was a beginning.

What do I care most about-in my vocation, in my family life, in my heart and mind? This is a conversation that we all must have with ourselves at every stage of our lives, a conversation that we so often don't want to have. We will get to it, we say, when the kids are grown, when there is enough money in the bank, when we are retired, perhaps when we are dead; it will be easier then. But we need to ask it now: What can I be wholehearted about now?

What can I be wholehearted about now?

I have been wholehearted about many things so far in my life. But in my heart, I know the thing I have not been wholehearted enough about, and it is writing. I have distracted myself from it—the conversation I should’ve been having with the world—with scrapbooking, a hobby I love and can’t imagine life without. But it takes a lot of time. It’s creative, but in a safe, easy way.

I have been putzing this year with writing more. I have a few half-finished essays. A couple of outlines for short stories, some notes for a novel. But I haven’t really worked on it yet. Even though I know, I know, that my conversation with the world should be with writing.

So the answer I am looking for is to this question: how do I change my focus? How do I begin, really and truly, the conversation I need to be having?

I don’t really know yet. But I feel like it is, at least, the right question.

Yesterday afternoon, Kendell and I had an appointment with an attorney.

You see, after his mom died we learned something: it’s difficult when people die without a will. Even if there are no family arguments about who gets what (there were none), there is an extra expense and a whole bunch of extra work involved in parceling out the remaining money to the family. As Kendell was the executor, we know it’s not a pleasant job. It is rough having to meet with lawyers, go to court, fill out paperwork, keep track of the time limits, and do everything else that probate involves, especially as you have to do this right after someone you love has passed away.

We decided we don’t want that to happen to our kids, and that we needed a will. And yesterday was the day.

As I sat in the lawyer’s office, my fingers and wrists swelling with a combination of heat (the air conditioning wasn’t working yet in his new office) and anxiety, I had one of those out-of-breath moments. Nearly panic. Because one day, one of us will be on the other side of that will. One of us will sit in an office somewhere, discussing the details of the will.

The other will be gone.

And I don’t want it to be me who dies first.

I also don’t want to be the widow discussing the details of the will.

I don’t want death to be a truth. And while we were being mature grown ups about the process, what I really wanted to do was curl into a big, fetal-esque ball. And bawl. About how much I miss my dad and Kendell’s parents and about how once it was my sister who was the widow in a lawyer’s office and how one day I’ll be in a lawyer’s office discussing my mother’s will. And one day my sisters will die. And my friends. And people I don’t even know yet who I will, when they finally make it into my life, love desperately and not want to lose. I thought about Sheila and my cousin and the sweet old lady in my neighborhood who died last week. And I thought about J and what he might think and if I’ll ever see him again before it’s my turn to leave, and what my kids will feel when I’m gone, and whether or not I’ll get to do the things I want to do with my life before it is over.

My rings were tight on my fingers, and my watch was stuck to my plumping wrist, and I had to tell myself to just breath and act normal because probably lawyers don’t like it when people have meltdowns in their new office.

When we got home I was filled with thoughts of death, and the terror of not existing.

So while Kendell was talking to the neighbor about the new roof we need, I did this:

At first I doubted the peace-bringing possibilities of this decision, as I confess: I am terrified of bees. The tree, with its branches loaded with blossoms, was also loaded with bees. So many that you could hear them buzzing from the driveway. But instead of freaking out, I just lay in the grass, feeling my heart pound, trying to slow down my breathing.

And it started to work. As my natural those bees are all going to swoop down on me, with their creepy dangly legs, then crawl all over me and sting me to death response faded, I started listening. (Even though I was ostensibly reading.) The hum of the bees, busy at their work, was the perfect soundtrack to the cool, finally-green grass and the grey-blue sky.

It was peaceful.

And I filled up with it. It trickled into all of my dark corners and brushed aside the fear of dying. The bees’ hum was a sort of chorus, with an undertone of yes you’ll die one day but a resonance of you’re alive now. The grass under my back, the sky above me, those gloriously pale pink blossoms and their faint, delicate scent: I was alive for all of it. I am alive right now, with my still-sore ankle and my greying hair, in my house that is twitching and pinging as the sun starts to warm it, the sun that is just pushing through the slats on the window blinds. I am breathing and happy and I am alive, right now, which is all anyone ever gets. Right now.

I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow.

The antidote for the fear of death is to live as hard and as real and as thoroughly as possible.

The week that just ended was my kids' spring break. We did almost nothing spring-breakish. Partly this is because it feels harder, lately, to find things to do that appeal to both teenage boys and kid-aged boys. Partly this is because Kendell's in school now and it's harder for him to get away. 

Partly I just ran out of energy to plan anything.

We did go out to eat several times (Chilis, and Red Robin). The boys all went to see the new Captain America movie. Kaleb had a sleep over with his cousin, and Jake had a picnic one day and went on a hike another with his girlfriend, and Nathan went to a trampoline park with his friends. Haley came home for the weekend. So we didn't do exactly nothing.

But I'd promised Kaleb we would go on a hike this week, and so we did, on Thursday morning. He's been wanting to hike the Y since last fall. (Translation of "hike the Y" for you non-Utahans: on the mountainside near Brigham Young University, there is an enormous letter Y. From a distance it looks like it's smooth and sleek, but when you get to the Y—there is a steep, mile-long hike to get there—you find out it's pretty bumpy. Like someone poured cement on a mountain. From the trail head, the Y looks like this:

We took along Kaleb's cousin Jace because neither Jake nor Nathan were at all interested in hauling their butts out of bed before 10:00. 

I decided to wear the striped running pants I was wearing last year at Ragnar when I fell. For all the scraped-up, bloody knees I had, I only got one tiny hole in them. And they were brand new. And I loved the stripes. I want to start wearing them again but I felt I had to get out the bad juju. Wearing them to hike the Y (steep, but not too long; a little, usually-peaceful mountain adventure within sight of 87 churches and a temple) seemed like a good way to replace it with good juju.

And it seemed like I had a good plan. The hike up went smoothly, especially with two young boys along. They never complained once, despite the 1100 feet of elevation gain. We stopped twice for water, and counted the switchbacks, and before we knew it we were there, at the top of the Y. Here's the view:

(See! They ARE cute pants!)

Kaleb finally got to do something he's been wanting to do since the last time we hiked the Y (almost four years ago!): walk from the top of the Y to the bottom. The last time we went, I thought he was too young (he was only five) so I didn't let him go with the bigger kids. This time, I gave him and Jace some instructions:

1. Go slowly.
2. Get low---crouch down instead of walking.
3. BE CAREFUL. The Y isn't set on a gentle little slope. It's steep up there.

(this gives you a good idea of how bumpy the Y really is. Kaleb and Jace are the little dots you see down at the bottom.)

They listened carefully, and then set off on their adventure. And, you know: they were careful. They were slow. They went all the way to the bottom and then back up to where I was sitting on the top. A little winded, but happy. While they went, I sat on my boulder and looked out at the valley and felt the sun on my face. It was very nearly peaceful, except for I didn't ever stop holding on to them in my mind. (You know...like thinking "don't fall, don't fall" over and over will totally keep them from falling.)

I looked at my pants and thought good juju is being restored.

They went down, and then they came back up, and I made them let me take a picture of us:

We were on the north side of the Y, because there was a big group on the south side. These were older kids—12 and 13, I would guess—who were playing some combination of tag and race-down-the-mountain. As I was gathering up our stuff so we could head back down, one of these kids, a girl, caught my eye, because she was not following any of my clambering-on-the-Y rules. She was going really fast, and she wasn't crouched down low, but standing up straight. And just as I thought she should be careful, she started to tumble.

Clear, crisp mountain air carries sound a long way, especially when it is completely silent as everyone on the hillside holds their breath.

She tumbled head over heels, five or six times. Every time, her head hit the cement, with that hollow-melon sound a thunked head makes.

When she finally stopped tumbling, she didn't move for a little bit. Maybe thirty seconds. Then she groaned (that groan of injury...is there a word for it?) and sat up. Even from where I was, I could see she was bloody.

It was horrible.

My heart was pounding and my hands shaking, and I wished I'd kept more water because all of it seemed to leave my body in one big whoosh of adrenaline. Kaleb and Jace were shocked, too. They kept asking me, "Is she OK?" and of course, I didn't know, but I couldn't see how she could be.

We started back down the trail, but their group was standing at one of the switchbacks right at the top, so I stopped to offer my Bandaids. (In my Camelback that I usually hike with, I keep gauze, Neosporin, and Bandaids, but I had my traveling backpack with me instead, just to carry some water bottles, snacks, and a few Bandaids. I really wished I had my gauze, too.) Of course they were far past needing Bandaids. I could see the injured girl and her face looked badly cut, and someone was holding her, and all I could do was wish them luck, and then hold them in my thoughts, like I had Jace and Kaleb, while we went back down the trail.

When we were almost down—just the three longest switchbacks to go—we passed the EMTs as they were running up the trail. I was sad to see that, as I was hoping she'd be OK enough to get down on her own. After they passed, I told Kaleb and Jace the story of when Becky and I hiked Timp, and we watched a man fall down the snowfield, and this felt like that, the sound of the body hitting, over and over, the helplessness of stopping the tumble. That awful silence when the tumbling stops. I've never forgotten how that felt, and I think watching the girl fall on the Y is another indelible memory of injury. I think Kaleb and Jace will probably remember it for a long time, too.

I don't know how she fared, that girl who fell. Not knowing the end to the story is frustrating me still. I hope she is OK. But what I do know: my pants have only one more chance. I'll take them out once more, for a run that is safely close to my house, just in case their bad juju just can't be undone.

I didn’t write a February month in review post. Nor one for March. But as they make me happy, and even though we’re 1/3 the way through April (how did that happen already?), I’m going to do a catch up on Feb/March post instead.

Don’t everyone jump with glee at once!

The most exciting thing that happened in February was that I got to present at Life, the Universe, and Everything, which is a conference for fantasy writers. It deserves its own blog post, but to sum up: awesome. Can I do that again every day of my life?

In February, we celebrated our 22nd anniversary by going to...oh, yes, Thai Village. Every year I think, I should plan something fun for our anniversary and then, nearly every year, I run out of enthusiasm. What I wanted to do: Go to Zion for the weekend and hike Angel’s Landing. Instead we had pumpkin curry for dinner. And then went to Costco.

For Valentine’s Day, I gave each of the kids a little something and a card. Kaleb and I made this awesome army tank Valentines box. 

As Kendell hates crowds, we got take out for dinner. From Taco Bell. (I love Taco Bell so it’s OK.)

Oh! Speaking of Taco Bell! A decade ago, my favorite thing to get there was the chili cheese burrito. Then they took it away. I had my AP students write persuasive letters to Taco Bell, asking the company to bring back the chili cheese burritos. They must’ve finally found those letters, because in February? They brought back the chili cheese burrito. This made me ridiculously happy.

Haley came home on President’s Day weekend. It was a lovely visit. Before she left we all ate lunch together at our favorite Chinese restaurant.

February 19 was the first day we spotted flowers. This is always a remarkable day because it helps us feel like...spring really will come.

We watched some of the Olympics, but it didn’t grab my attention very much this year.

At the very end of the month, Kaleb had his heart check up. Which means I worried about his heart check up all month. But he was as good as we can ever expect (meaning, the bulge in his aorta hasn’t grown; his bicuspid valve is still, yes, a bicuspid valve). I felt giddy with relief when we left!

My favorite image from February:

Of course, the coolest thing that happened in March was visiting the bear den, but there was other good stuff.

On the first Sunday of March, I convinced Kendell and Kaleb to go on a walk with me up the canyon. We discovered this:

An avalanche at Bridal Veil Falls. It was pretty cool to walk over all of that snow!

I baked Snickerdoodles, lemon cake, chocolate chip cookies. Hmmmmm. I also wondered a lot why I wasn’t losing any weight!

Kaleb and I went to a program at the library where he learned about the best way to fold paper airplanes. His was second in the competition!

I went to Nathan's choir concert.

I ran roughly thirty miles. Not at lot, but more than in February. I’m still building up slowly.

March was a pretty good month for Jake. He was named as the employee of the month at his job. His Parli team won the state HOSA competition, which means he gets to go to Florida in June. Also he asked his girlfriend to prom!

March was maybe not Kendell’s favorite month. One day, one of his back teeth started bugging him a little bit. It got worse and worse, until finally he went to the dentist. They confirmed that his back molar was cracked and would need a crown. Then, a few days later, he woke up in excruciating pain. Of course it was a Saturday, and we couldn’t get a hold of our dentist, so my sister-in-law called her dentist, who drove in to help him. He did a mini root canal to get rid of most of the pain. Then, on the following Tuesday, Kendell went to the endodontist for a full root canal. They got about twenty minutes in when they decided that the tooth was too cracked and it would have to be pulled. So, next he was off to the oral surgeon for a tooth extraction. Now he’s down a tooth, and trying to decide if he should get an implant or not. It was a painful few days for him!

My daffodils bloomed. Then they were promptly picked by some little girls. I get it: I was a flower child when I was little, too. But don’t pick the daffodils, please! I was so sad to come home and find them all gone.

Nathan started back in track. He is doing the high jump, and sometimes the long jump and sometimes the 800 (depending on who comes to the meets). He had a long jump PR at his first meet! His knee is doing much better.

Haley came to visit for a few days. (Also to get her car checked out, which is burning oil for no reason that any mechanic can figure out.) It was a nice, peaceful visit. She has grown up so much this year! (Well, peaceful except for the tooth problem meant that I had to take Kendell to the dentist instead of going to lunch with Haley, my mom, and my sisters, and she wasn’t pretty unhappy to miss it.) She seems happy!

To finish off March, I completely out of the blue decided to investigate a trip to Yosemite. Then I fell in love with Half Dome and decided I must hike it. Then I found out that to climb the cables on the back side of the dome, you have to have a permit, which you can only get by winning a lottery. A lottery with the deadline of March 31. As it happened to be March 31, I took it as an omen and entered myself into the lottery. Cross your fingers that I win!

Tell me something remarkable that’s happened to you recently?