We were driving, dropping Nathan off at the pool for a party with his friends before we went to see a movie (World War Z, which was basically almost nothing like the book but as I expected that, I could enjoy it for what it was instead, which was fairly good) and there was an SUV in front of us with a big business decal on its back window*:

Dial 1-800-xxx-xxxx

We offer emotional, spiritual, and psychic healing to restore your natural energy

And Kendell & Nathan started to guffaw a little bit about how silly it was but in my head I was thinking you know...that is exactly what I need.

Even though I don't really know what psychic healing is.

A little emotional and spiritual Neosporin would be good about now. Just because I feel, lately, like I have a bad case of spiritual (or is it psychic?) road rash.

I don't think it's silly at all. Well. Maybe thinking that a person could offer such a thing is silly. What did they train it to offer that as a service? How much does spiritual healing cost? Who decided the healing is complete? 

But a nice spiritual balm would be soothing, is all I'm saying.

*this story would be better if I had thought to take a picture of the SUV with my cell phone but, alas, I was pondering on the nature of energy as it relates to spiritual/emotional/psychic healing and how I might engender some without having to call that 1-800 number, so I didn't even think about it.

It took my Ragnar team 34 hours and 43 minutes to run 200 miles. That's a lot of time to spend with people, some who you start out not knowing at all. But you get pretty used to each other when you see each other sweat. Sweat, and run even through tiredness or pain or cold or darkness. You stop noticing each other's running smell (exercise sweat isn't as stinky as stressed-out sweat anyway) and see, instead, a little bit of each other's true self.

Plus there is lots of laughing!

I have a good story to tell about this year's Ragnar experience, but I want some time to write it properly. And I don't want to forget these moments, which won't fit into the structure of the story anyway:

• I rode to Becky's house with a teammate I've never seen before in my life. We met at a park-and-ride (Haley drove me) and as I was getting my stuff out of the car, a dude from a different Ragnar team (who was also meeting at the park-and-ride) walked over to me and said "Hey! Good to see you! Can I help you carry your stuff? Do you need to put your food in the cooler?" and his wife was behind him looking at him like he was insane. "She's not on our team!" the wife yell-laughed at him. Which kind of made me sad, her quick response, as I was about to say "no, but I am really hungry. What do you have in your cooler?" Instead I laughed too and wished them luck!
• The day before the race, Kendell and I were talking about how I am not a good mingler with people I don't know. (This is in contrast with Kendell, who can strike up a friendship anywhere. Seriously...one of his oldest friends is the car salesman he bought his Jetta from. In 1991.) So I was a little bit nervous about hanging out in a car with a guy I'd never met for 30 minutes driving to Becky's. But Patrick was so friendly, and we talked the entire drive. I think it has something to do with the camaraderie of runners. It's easier to be open with someone you know you'll soon see be vulnerable, on the road.
• When Becky's husband Shane was getting ready to start his first leg, she was standing by him at the chute. And then she kissed him. And I thought....awwww. That is sweet that they can run together. It's not something I'll ever be able to do with my husband (the hips!) but I am glad for them to share it. 
• Not on purpose, Becky and I wore nearly identical clothes for our first run. My pink tank top seriously made me so happy and I've decided I need MORE pink running clothes! Plus I found a good length of compression shorts to wear under my sparkle skirt. The ones I wore my first year were too short and kept rolling, but these 6" UA compressions? Didn't budge!
• My first run, the very long uphill one, is on a no-van-support road. Which means my van drops me off and then I see them at the next exchange—I'm on my own. I don't mind at all being van-less; I don't drink hardly any water when I'm running anyway, and I'm willing to give up the extra cheering for the luxury of running so long on a mountain road without worrying about traffic. But Becky managed to find a way to cheer me on anyway. She walked down from the exchange to the spot where Snow Basin Road (where I ran) connects to the parking lot of Snow Basin (which is about 1/4 mile from where I finished my run). I could see her way in the distance (it was the pink!) and even though I was feeling really strong and positive, it still gave me a little lump in my throat. I'm not sure why I got teary-eyed except for it felt like being loved. The tears didn't fall and the lump melted away because seriously: it is im.possible to run and cry simultaneously. Physically you just can't do it. But it was an awesome moment!
• We stopped for gas after our first legs, and I ran in to fill up my waterbottle with ice. I wasn't sure if they'd charge just for ice, and when I asked, the salesclerk actually flirted with me. It was a strange feeling!
• We waited for the other van to finish their second legs at East Canyon, which is a reservoir. With a bathroom that wasn't a Honeybucket! I mean, there were Honeybuckets too, but there was also one regular bathroom open. With only two stalls, but I really needed to change, so Becky stood in line with me. I was texting Kendell and he mentioned Taco Bell so I turned to Becky and said "Oh, I wish I had a cheesy gordita crunch right now!" and then in the very next second someone walked out of the bathroom, letting that pit-toilet smell out, and so I said "holy cow that stinks!" in nearly the same breath. The guy behind us started laughing and then I realized how our conversation sounded. Laughing with strangers over an unintentional Taco Bell slur (I really love Taco Bell): one of the funniest moments.
• Changing in that stinky bathroom with Becky. OK, that sounds weird. And it was pretty icky. I was trying to balance all of my clothes on top of my feet so that nothing touched the floor, and there was an open window so I'm pretty sure people actually saw me changing, and it really did stink. But how long has it been since I've hung out in a bathroom stall with my sister? Talking about boob jobs? It was lovely despite the ickiness!
• This favorite moment happened while I wasn't even there! When I was out running my second leg, another teammate, Kelly—he was in van 1 last year, so I sort of knew him when we started—warmed up with my blanket while they walked back to the car. My pink flowery blanket. I love that!
• During the drive to one of the third leg exchanges, the last teammate who was a new friend, Rebecca, was eating a go-gurt. You know how when you're nearly at the end of a tube of yogurt, you sort of squish it all up with your fingers around the plastic and then squirt it into your mouth? She did that—except it missed her mouth and sprayed on her shirt. Probably you had to be there but this gave me some hysterical laughing.

It is the little moments that make the experience so memorable! 

Today (and yesterday!) I've spent recuperating from Ragnar. It's actually a good story to tell...but instead I'm sharing a layout I'm in the process of making for July's WCS gallery:

I've also been reading Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly, which isn't (so far) really about the creative process, but vulnerability. Still, it's making me think about creativity, and what ways I use it to expose my vulnerability—and how I use it to do the opposite. Creativity as self preservation seems odd...but I think it's a thing I do sometimes. Block out the world by getting lost in the process.

I still have so much to learn about myself, art, creativity, exposure.

But I do love how this layout is shaping up!

For more layout sneaks, check out

Christine's blog

Katie's blog

Amy's blog

You can see the new gallery on July 1 at write. click. scrapbook.

 

Last Friday, Kendell and I went to see the new Superman movie. Now, I should preface my comments with this startling fact: I have never seen a movie about Superman. I've never read a comic book or a novel retelling or anything else Superman related. I do like the song "Kryptonite" by Three Doors Down, and I know the generalities of the story, but I have no serious affinity (nor dislike) for Superman. 

So I went into the movie thinking "a few people on this morning's TV news thought this was good. Let's see if they're right!" 

And I have to say: I loved the first half of the movie. I liked the angles of the shots and the way that the camera shook a little between scenes. I liked Russell Crowe as a moral Kryptonian (I usually like anything Russell Crowe is in); the birth scene and the scene in the birthing chamber gave me chills.

But the scene that made me tear up was the one where Lara says goodbye to Kal-El. She doesn't want to let him go—he is tiny, and she knows she won't see him grow up. But she sends him off, both to try to save her people and to save him. I think she was able to stand fearlessly in the face of her death because she knew: at least she had made that one meaningful sacrifice. She made herself stronger while simultaneously saving her baby (which we could say of many birthmothers, couldn't we?)

That was when I started thinking: Superman isn't really a superhero story. Or, not exclusively. To me, it felt like an adoption narrative. This small baby is sent out into the world with the hope that he will be in better hands with someone else. And, when he is old enough, he starts to wonder: who am I? Who are the people I came from? He needs to know all the stories, not just the memories of his childhood but the things only his birthparents can tell him. For me, his yearning to know his true origin story was the heart of the movie, and when he finally found the consciousness of Jor-El on the alien ship, I teared up again.

The knowing. That unbearable tension dissolving as he learns where he is from. And then the fact that he went back to Jonathan Kent's grave, and to his mother Martha's house. It isn't, I don't think, just one thing—coming from two different families. It isn't either/or. He needs both sets of parents' wisdom and sacrifices to become Superman instead of just another superly-bad villain.

All of which is to say: I loved the first half of the movie. It made me think about what makes us who we are—the old nature/nurture argument, yes, but in a more personal way. What power and influence do I have as a parent and what is simply genetic? How can I be better at teaching my kids how to figure out what their potentials hold? How can I teach them to hope while still living within what is real and possible?

But once the fighting started, the experience changed for me. It wasn't about the internal anymore. True: it was sort of about Clark Kent figuring out how to be the person his potential would allow him, how to sharpen and strengthen and how to know. But it lost its edge and became more about the battling superpowers than anything else. 

And battle scenes are always boring to me

So my review of Superman: Man of Steel is mixed. I loved the first half; I thought the second half was pretty mundane, driven by special effects instead of story. But the first half was good enough that I don't regret paying full price on opening weekend (something we almost never do, especially the full-price thing) to see it.

Also: I loved science-fiction-novelist-extraordinaire Elizabeth Bear's review.

(A little bit late posting this...but Sunday was crazy!) Here's a recap of last week (June 9-15, 2013):

Sunday: We had Kaleb’s grandparents’ party. (Yes...even though we’re down to one grandparent I still think of it in the plural, because their spirits are there if you watch and listen.) He wanted crispy chicken with mashed potatoes AND brown rice. Two sides are sort of strange but that’s how we roll: the birthday kid gets to decide (within reason!). He said "you can pick whatever kind of other things other people like" so we had watermelon and fruit dip as well. And Score cake for dessert. His grandma gave him a set of scriptures (it’s her traditional eighth birthday gift for her grandkids; also, as Kaleb is the youngest, her last time to do this) and we got him a skateboard.

Monday: I did my last run on Squaw Peak Road before Ragnar. It was a gorgeous morning, albeit a little bit too hot. I saw three lizards on the berm (such as it is), a deer running through the trees, and a wild turkey crossing the road.

Later, after I’d recuperated and could actually stand up without quivering, I took Haley and Nathan to the mall. Nathan needed new boots to take on his upcoming scouting trip (we didn’t find any) and Haley needed a new swimsuit (found) and sandals (found). I bought myself a new slip and some summer nightgowns.

Tuesday: Kids went to Seven Peaks. And I bought myself Taco Bell for dinner!

Wednesday: We had Kaleb’s friend birthday party. I am SOOOOOO not a good mom when it comes to friend parties. I never know what to do at them. (Especially boy birthday parties. Like...what do you do for a 13-year-old boy’s party?) But since Kaleb has a summer birthday, and since I have a generous sister, we had his party at his aunt’s swimming pool. Perfect! Low key! We had chips and drinks and cake and swimming. No fights. Everyone happy. Especially Kaleb, which is really all that matters.

Thursday: The first day in three months that I haven’t worried about something and felt entirely too busy. I took Nathan to Kohl’s to find some boots for his scout camp out. (Hiking boots are surprisingly hard to find in the summer.) We found him a pair...he thinks they make him look like a Rescue Hero (he wears a size 12!) Then I cleaned out my closet, bathroom drawers, bookshelf, and dresser.

Friday: Worked all day (was told that I smile too much...), then rushed home to get to the movie theater with Kendell. We saw the new Superman movie, about which I have a half-written review almost ready to post. Haley was out with her boyfriend and Jake was working, so we took Nathan and Kaleb to dinner with us, at Mi Ranchito.

Saturday: I went running! Kendell found some new flip flops! (His last two pair broke over the past two weeks, which is a problem for him as he wears flip flops all summer long.) I searched in vain for some new shorts. I think that clothes are the reason I don’t love summer. Chunky thighs are harder to work with when it comes to shorts.

How was your week?

I really meant to run Squaw Peak Road one more time today, before next weekend's Ragnar. I should've run it last week, but everything was so busy with two birthdays that I just ran out of time, so I ran it this Monday. All the way to the top! I started late, though, at 9:15 or so, and it was hot. And I started hungry.

And it zapped me. Like...I had to sit down in the shower to wash my hair I was so tired afterwards.

So even though I wanted Monday's run to count for last week, and then run it again today, it felt like too much, too soon. Instead, I ran another one of my favorite routes, the Utah Lake route. It's just about perfectly flat. Eight + lovely out-and-back miles. I discovered that there's a small paved trail by the lake completely accidentally, on a wintery day when I took the kids to Jump On It and then got sidetracked by construction through the west fields on a road I'd never been on (despite living here all my life). I decided then that I wanted to run on that trail.

It's become my most peaceful run.

The route starts at the soccer fields:

(A good place to park! and to stretch when you're finished, except watch out for dog unpleasantness.)

It goes around to the east side of the soccer fields and then jumps over to the road next to the train tracks. (This is where the new Frontrunner trains run.)

(Also, obviously, the coal trains.)

When there isn't a train, there is this panoramic view of Timp:

(It would be better without the fence of course.)

This stretch runs for a little more than a mile and then curves abruptly west. It does a very gentle roll between corn fields and a meadow full of blooming thistles. (Right now, at least. The wildflowers change, and sometimes it's just tall, waving grass.) This part of the route reminds me of my little-girl self who loved wandering through fields and flowers. She would've loved this road, too.

After a gentle curve around a big tree, you can see the lake in the distance:

After another mile or so, the road curves again and then the lakeshore trail starts:

The trail, which is about two miles long, runs right along the shore. There are birds everywhere, of all different kinds. Ducks splashing down and song birds chirping. Swans, and even a few herons. And a new perspective on the mountains you can't see anywhere else:

(That's Lone Peak in the distance.)

The trail also goes past a marsh, which is my favorite part. Except for the bugs. Sometimes you have to scare the birds away from your face while you swish the bugs away; the birds are swooping around, hunting them. The trail ends at the Lindon boat harbor, and from there you just turn around and retrace your route.

Except, here's the thing I appreciate about an out-and-back: the route's the same but the view is entirely different. The lake, for example:

(True. That is possibly on the top-ten list of The World's Ugliest Mountains, but still. Peaceful, yes?)

And this view:

I always feel like I have to apologize a little bit for what I think is beautiful about Utah. I know...it's arid. A dry and barren sort of beauty. It could use more trees. But to me, it's beautiful because it is home. I'm not sure how many times I was out on that lake as a kid. It's where I learned to water ski. It where I spent some of my happiest childhood Sundays, swimming and boating and sunning.

I like the view coming back on the road between the field and the meadow, too:

 

(That's Cascade Mountain. I've hiked it, but the saddle is on the far south side and this face—the one that faces west—is where the summit is. Except, the trail ends at the saddle. I still want to make it, somehow, to the summit. (Second peak from the right.) One day...it's one of my goals, to stand on that peak and look out over the valley.)

Road, trail, water, vistas, flowers, quiet. It wasn't as strenuous as Squaw Peak Road, but I think it was what I needed. I finished (back at the soccer fields) exhausted but invigorated, my heart full of memories and music and connections. And peace. It might not be enough to help me feel completely prepared for my massive uphill run on Friday afternoon...physically. But emotionally, now: I'm ready.

(All photos taken with my cell phone...they'd've been better with my Canon but I didn't have it with me!)

I think I'm in a creative slump. Part of this has to do with my current Big Picture class, Textuality. When they asked me if I wanted to re-run it, I only had about three weeks to make revisions, and I wanted to make a lot of revisions. I had tremendous creative energy and I ended up making 35+ new layouts (that is a lot for me in such a short time) as well as doing some fairly heavy revisions on the text, too. Once that was done I started working on Haley's denim quilt, which was really a fun project but physically exhausting (it's hard to quilt 15+ pounds of fabric!). Add to that some emotional strain caused by relationships that've gotten tricky and a general feeling of wanting to be finished with drama (but not really knowing how to excise it from my life)... 

My creative well feels fairly dry.

I'm not quite sure how to refresh it, either. Running hasn't worked very well (except for two mountain routes that gave me a trickle). Reading has been blah. Usually reading poetry invigorates me---but not lately. And writing? Well, writing has felt impossible. (Hence the rarity of my posts.) Anything that requires outwardness has felt difficult; I need things that rejuvenate without asking for anything back. Actually, what I really want to do? I'd like to go to Lake Powell. Except...I want to go as my 14-year-old self, with my bossy older sister and my annoying younger sister. In our old yellow boat and with my dad there to pull me on water skis. (I never feel completely safe when someone other than my dad is driving the boat.) Not that things weren't drama-free in 1986, but it was a simple sort of hysteria. And so much less emotionally draining to be the child who was certain I had all the answers rather than the moronic parent with no answers at all.

I'm just...out. Trying to compensate for this empty dryness by drinking lots of calories and baking a lot, but sugar overload isn't really helping.

Still, it bothers me that I haven't really been writing down anything. Some good things have been happening in our lives, and there are always those small, sweet moments to celebrate. So I'm doing something new on my blog. Not revolutionary, mind you (I'm too tired for revolutionary). And maybe a little bit annoying, as I never wanted my blog to only be a chronicle of our family experiences. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just have wanted to write here more than record.) But I'm going to try doing a week in review post every Sunday for awhile. Just to get down some stuff I want to remember. On the off chance that one day my creative well will refresh itself, I suppose.

So! During the first week of June (June 2-June 8, 2013):

• I got to see one of my oldest friends on Sunday, at a barbeque my sister-in-law hosted.
  Brooke and I have been friends since 1994 or so. She moved to Arizona and we keep in touch with Christmas cards, but she holds a sweet spot in my heart; it's one of those friendships you can pick right up again when you finally get to see each other. Seeing her reminded me of how it felt to be a young mom. She has eight kids (seven boys and one girl) and seeing her with all of her kids also reminded me of how much I love my own, because I could sort of see them through her perspective. Fresh eyes helped remind me how unique and wonderful and funny and smart and individual they each are. (Plus I brought sheet cake—one with chocolate frosting, one with caramel—to our barbeque.)
• the kids had their first week of summer break. I have big plans for helping them to actually be productive during the day, but I gave them as much of this week to just veg. They did go to Seven Peaks (our water park). Haley started her first days of working (she is being a nanny for the summer in the mornings). She rode her bike to her job, which makes me happy for some reason. Maybe because on Wednesday when I was out running, we passed each other (she was already on her way home) and she looked so happy riding down the street. Free of all her worldly cares! Jake also worked (he has a job at a restaurant called Pizza Pie Cafe), the most he's worked since he started in May. Nathan, too, is working—he does yard work at two different houses. He's working on paying us back for his skateboard which we drove up to SLC to get for him last Saturday.
• Kendell has been sick all week. Some strange cold virus, so he was home every day but Wednesday. I sent him to work on Wednesday because he thought he felt better and because it was his birthday and I was trying to engineer a few surprises. He ended up coming home early after no one wanted to sit by him because of all the coughing during a meeting. My surprises were ruined! But we still had one of his favorite dinners (the chicken enchiladas I used to make when we were first married, with mushrooms, olives, green chilies and a sour-cream sauce, along with pasta salad) and desserts (key lime pie).
• A birthday surprise neither one of us expected: we got in a fender bender! We were at a stoplight and the girl behind us thought it was time to start moving...even though we hadn't yet. There wasn't a lot of damage—the bumper on our little Corolla will have to be replaced—but Kendell snapped his neck pretty hard. I talked him into going to the doctor on Friday for an x-ray just to make sure everything is OK.
• Kaleb got to start Cub Scouts this week. His first activity was the Raingutter Regata, which he thought was great fun. You know what's awesome? He's my third boy, so I just had to get the cub scout shirt off the hanger. No stressing about buying cub scout clothes (which are, let's face it, ridiculously expensive and never on sale). He won three out of four of his tries, but no one was keeping score, a fact that bothered Jake to no end (I made Jake and Nathan go to the pack meeting, even though neither was very excited about it). (Also, snide remark of the week: a regatta is not a boat. A regatta is a boat race.)
• Friday was Kaleb's eighth birthday. As tradition dictates I spent the evening before his birthday looking at baby pictures, remembering the day he was born, and sniffling a little bit. To celebrate, he went to see Iron Man 3 with Nathan and then he, Jake, and I had a late lunch at Texas Roadhouse (he got the ribs, and he pinpointed exactly why I don't eat ribs, ever, when he said "Mom! Ribs are just like eating an animal!"), capped off with a couple of hours spent at the trampoline park with Haley and Adam. Plus he really, really wanted some blueberry muffins. Which, if you know Kaleb, is hilarious because he DOES NOT LIKE blueberries. Except, apparently, now for some random and unknown reason, in muffins. I was happy to oblige!
• On Saturday Haley and Kendell left early in the morning so she could be at the testing center in Salt Lake right at 8:00 to take her Pharmacy Tech certification exam. Except when they got there they discovered the power was out, so she had to wait for FOUR HOURS before she could take it. BUT! She passed! I'm so proud of her!
• I've been reading a recipe book called Salad as a Meal by Patricia Wells. I've decided that a recipe book that contains text like "I like to call this a summer house recipe: you know, you rent a summer house with a plan to cook, but there is hardly a pot or a pan to be found" (oh yes! I know that feeling exactly!)  and "I have a small kaffir lime tree growing in my courtyard in Provence" and even "I first tried these croutons at my favorite spa in Mexico" is just way too fabulous for me.
• the kids all had their six-month dental check-ups. Nathan had a cracked filling and a chipped tooth (Nathan nearly always needs some kind of dental work), but no one had any cavities.
• I ran some miles but not enough. I fixed the binding on Haley's quilt in the spot where I messed up. I made two layouts and wrote THIS blog post. I hosted the chat for my Textuality class. I didn't do any of my cleaning projects, nor get the kids to wash Kendell's truck, nor make any progress in my flower beds, which all need to be ripped out and replanted because I have too much shade for the flowers I have planted there. I'm trying to let that go and focus on doing more next week. 

How was your week? Or...tell me! How do you get out of your creative slumps?

Ian McEwan's novel Atonement is one of my favorites. Top-twenty-of-my-life favorites. I love everything about it, the story, the writing style, the time period, the setting, the characters' struggles. The letter that changes everything, Briony's blind mistake, and the realization that comes at the end.

None of the novels he's written between Atonement and now have grabbed my attention. Until last summer when I started reading reviews of Sweet Tooth. Hmmmm. I'm not generally a fan of spy novels, but London? and a bookish sort of espionage? I put myself on the hold list. And waited anxiously until April when I finally got to check it out.

And dove in.

Like diving into a pool with three inches of water.

It was, dare I say...boring. Here, let me spoil the plot for you by summarizing:

Serena Frome, who in the early 1970's is just finishing up her Math degree (even though she really wanted to study literature), has an affair with an older man who teaches her to think like an educated person—how to read the papers critically, etc, in an effort to groom her to get a job with M15. He then abandons her cruelly. With nothing else to do, she goes ahead and applies for an M15 position, which she earns. Eventually she gets to do something other than type memos and make files: she gets to work on a project called Sweet Tooth, wherein the British government secretly pays writers to be writers, in an effort to further literature that makes Britain look good. Serena's responsibility is Tom Haley, a writer of short stories who is just starting to garner attention. They meet, she connives him into signing on, and then they fall in love. She discovers that her old lover had also been a spy and had betrayed the government in some way or another, and that he set up the whole dumping-of-Serena thing because he was dying of cancer and didn't want to make her sad.

So she's in love with Tom Haley and torn about her real identity and not sure what to do about it. Tom wins the Austen award (I'm not even sure if that's a Real Thing or not) and, after a brief bout of writerly "I'll never write another novel" despair and an extended holiday break, starts writing another novel at a feverish pace. Serena broods. Then the news is leaked about Sweet Tooth, Serena doesn't know exactly what to do. She tries calling Tom and calling Tom but he never answers so she finally takes the train to Brighton (scenes of all their trysts) and finds him gone, their flat cleaned out, and a long letter.

The last ten pages or so of the novel are Tom's letter to Serena, detailing the fact that he had long ago discovered her secret spy identity. Seems that another spy who was also madly in love with Serena—but whom she rebuffed—got annoyed with her and so told Tom all the dirty details. At first he (Tom) was furious but then he realized: hey! This would make a great novel! I'll write it as a story from Serena's perspective!

Yep. It's the very same novel you've just spent two months wading through. Trying not to smack your forehead with.

Gah.

I mean, I get it. It's clever, yes? It's clever in almost exactly the same way that Atonement is clever, all that subtext that makes you think about what it is like to read a novel while you are in the act of reading a novel. Except for Atonement isn't clever. It is gritty and gripping and so horribly painful that you can't put it down. The similar trick in Sweet Tooth felt, well, like a trick. Like a sort of writerly experiment; like tying a bow, but the fact that it's too neat of a package isn't really the problem. It feels show-offy. And especially strange when you think, OK, McEwan is showing us the wizard behind the curtain here, yes? And then you think about all the weird sex things in the book and it's just a little too much.

All of which might make me ask "why did I keep reading it?"

I stuck with it (it took me TWO MONTHS to read; I did read other books in between, but it was the book I would give as an answer if someone asked me "what are you reading now?") because, hello, it's Ian McEwan! And critics loved it! Certainly I'd finally get it, I kept thinking. Eventually I'd realize why it was so awesome.

Or maybe I just kept reading (slogging) because I don't want to have my Serious Reader card taken away. Does not loving an Ian McEwan novel mean I'm losing my grip on contemporary literature? That I can no longer take myself seriously as a librarian and/or a purveyor of Fine Writing? Or maybe it's proof that I've been reading too many young adult novels and my brain is reverting to Fluffy Reading Mode?

I don't know. Maybe it just means I'm not really an Ian McEwan fan. Just an Atonement fan. What I do know: I'm returning the dismal thing tomorrow and turning to the 24 other books I have waiting to be read.

We were friends in ninth grade---ninth grade, when we were just 14, just 15, just beginning to cast off the awkwardness of early adolescence. We met in English class and she introduced me to Danielle Steel's novels. We'd sit in my bedroom listening to whatever music I chose—Alphaville, The Cure, Roxy Music, New Order. We'd sit in her bedroom listening to whatever music she chose— Bronski Beat, The Human League, Joe Jackson, and U2, endless replayed loops of The Unforgettable Fire and War and The Joshua Tree. We went to the mall where we spent innumerable hours looking at earrings. We made and ate snacks (caramel popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, nachos, spaghetti) with the ravenous, guilt-free hunger of teenage girls. We talked about boys. We spied on the boy who lived at the end of her street and she told me secrets about him that his girlfriend, who also lived on their street, had told her. (Secret things I never could imagine happened in real life, only in books.) We laughed together all the time. 

I still remember the tinkling arpeggio of her laughter.

We didn't know, when we were 14 or 15 or even 16, barely. We didn't know that the uncomplicated, bland, and endearing weft of our friendship would soon turn sharp and hard, nor that it would grow into a complicated thing—a rivalry? a pair of antagonists? We didn't know that she'd make choices her mom didn't agree with and that her mom would kick her out of the house, nor that she'd come to live with me for a week before Thanksgiving until my mom, too, couldn't stand it and called her mom to come and get her. (She told her she was ridiculous for kicking her out and that no matter how awful a teenager was she needed to be with her family, especially at Thanksgiving, and now I can imagine my mom chiding her mom but then I was so mad that I literally kicked a hole in my bedroom wall.) We didn't know that our junior year would be a miasma of awfulness, nor that she would move into an apartment with Chris and it would be a series of small disasters, nor that some slight crack would widen into an ugly ending involving lies, craziness, shouting, a masking tape pentagram, and a newly-fledged witch (of the Wiccan variety) who showed up at my door to curse me. (We were, after all, goth girls together). We didn't know that late in the spring, despite our ugly explosion at friendship's end, she'd tell me what was happening behind my back that everyone knew but me.

She didn't know that when she was brave and true enough to tell me that secret, all of my hard feelings dissolved and while we were never friends again and I never understood her crazy and she never understood mine, I forgave her. I forgave her so swiftly it was like running downhill.

We didn't know that we'd go along in our lives making choices, each of us with one daughter but our lives on different trajectories. We didn't know we'd have all sorts of hard experiences and all sorts of joys, and that every once in awhile the memory of our old friendship would flutter into our thoughts—when I was in Hawaii I thought of her, and when I make caramel popcorn I remember, every time, the first time I made it with her when the caramel bubbled over and burnt on the stove, and when I listen to U2, still, she's at the parameters of my connections.

I didn't know I never would apologize or tell her I'd forgiven her.

Never, now, because we also didn't know she'd be attacked in the winter of her 40th year and that it would prove, six months later, to be her undoing. We didn't know she'd walk right up to the darkness, and then open the door and shove herself through the other side. That all the other horrible things would add up and add up and add up and the sum would be too large to carry. That she would leave by the saddest, loneliest method.

When I found out about her suicide—too late, even, to attend the memorial service—it felt like cutting. The knowledge felt metallic, thin, and sharp. It felt like the beginning of a nose bleed, which sounds odd but undeniable: my junior high best friend's death felt visceral. We haven't been friends for a long time (in fact, I had the equally ridiculous thought that, had we been Facebook friends at least, I could've stopped her) and there was that ugly end but how sad. How sad.

If this friendship had been written in a novel, there would've been a moment. A stray bumping-into of each other, at an airport in Belize, perhaps, in front of the popcorn stand at a movie theater, in a mall we only went to because our daughters needed a strapless bra or some blue tights or, of course, a perfect pair of earrings. In a novel we would've had some way of recognizing each other's regret. Of saying "I'm sorry for how I treated you" even though the details have grown soft and fuzzy.

But life isn't a novel, or if it is it's one of those horrid post-modern contraptions that no one can bear to actually read. I can't say I missed an opportunity to apologize, but I never made one, and now it's too late, and I'm left with that silver sadness and, oddly, with a sort of resolution: figure out who else I never apologized to. And remember that hopeful person I used to be, when I was friends with Lani. Be more adventurous and determined. Live brighter. Learn all the lyrics and sing along, laugh over burnt caramel. Dissolve into the luxurious fact of my life. Of being alive.

And take her with me a little bit.

Welcome to the Write. Click. Scrapbook birthday blog hop!

Since we're celebrating our fourth birthday, I'm focusing my three tips on scrapbooking birthdays...which is sort of funny on my part, as I'm sort of the worst mom ever when it comes to doing birthday parties for my kids. I stand in admiration (and a little bit of envy!) of those moms who manage elaborate kid parties; mine tend to be...well, the opposite of elaborate!

But we do always celebrate birthdays with gifts and a family dinner at least, so with four kids I do a lot of birthday scrapbook layouts. Here are some of the ways I make sure to make the layouts memorable.

Write.
Yesterday, my son Kaleb, who's turning eight next week, said "Dad, will you bring me home a new mini i-Pad for my birthday? From your work?" Ha! (My husband Kendell manages testing, so sometimes he'll bring home some hardware to make sure the software is working correctly.)  To me, those little tidbits are the things that bring your journaling to life, but they're also the things that are easy to forget. Here's the secret to not losing the funny little things that are said or happen around birthdays: write them down! In the evening after nearly every birthday party, you'll find me writing down all the details. That way, if I don't get around to scrapbooking about the celebration for awhile, I'll still have the stories down.

Click.
The birthday cake. The birthday kid with each of his or her grandparents. One of the birthday kid with me. The gifts, the dinner table, the decorations. Those are the pictures I take every single year. Of course, I take others, but I've gotten in the habit of taking those shots without fail. If something happened and those were the ONLY shots I got, the story would still be told fairly well. Establish your own birthday-photo traditions and you'll find that since it's tradition, it becomes impossible to forget.

Scrapbook.
On most of my birthday layouts, I include some little tidbit about what is happening in the world on that date. Sometimes it's unusual weather, a movie release, an important news story: just a small FYI that adds a level of interest that has become so fun to look back on as my kids have gotten older.

Now you're on to Christa's blog! Happy birthday scrapbooking to you!