This morning, both Jake and Nathan left to go to scout camps. Jake is going to Calf Creek Falls, Lake Powell (only my favorite place on earth!), and Zion National Park to hike the Narrows. (I am jealous of every single bit of his trip.) Nathan is going to Scofield Scout Camp, where he'll work on some of his merit badges and have fun with his friend Jacob. (I just wrote, perfected, and then deleted an elegantly-barbed statement there about the issues he's had with his neighborhood "friends" but I decided that even though I counteracted it with how awesome his friend Jacob is and how he doesn't play the stupid (and oddly Mean-Girl-esque) games the other boys do, it was too bitter; I only included this parenthetical because it matters further on.) We had a great time yesterday getting them ready and all packed, and they both went to bed excited. I was excited for them, too.

But then I dreamed all night of bad things happening: fires and earthquakes and stumbles over cliffs. When my alarm woke me at 6:00, I stayed in bed for a few minutes and my mind took me on one of those horrible loops when you're only half-awake and you're watching something horrible happen to your child only you can't stop the thought nor the horrible. So many bad things could happen. Especially when you factor in this one fact: there are no women involved in these trips. No one to remind kids to wear a life jacket and to put on some sunscreen and to drink enough water because in my experience it's usually the mom reminding even the dad about that kind of stuff.

I suffered through a thousand mishaps before the snooze alarm yanked me out: Jacob drowning, or jumping off a cliff into too-shallow water and coming home paralyzed, or getting caught in a flash flood in the canyon or lost on his hike or trying to jump over a fire and getting burned. Nathan lost in the woods or shot by an careless arrow or felled by a random falling tree branch or trying to jump over a fire and getting burned.

It was all I could do to get out of bed and drop them off.

(As I was getting out of bed, Kendell said "Make sure you remind Jake to watch out for snakes because Lake Powell is covered with snakes" and part of me rolled my eyes because in all the trips I took to Lake Powell I never once saw a snake and part of me added a True-Grit-esque rattlesnake pit of death to my list of possibilities.)

Whenever I send them to overnight campouts, I always say the same thing: please don't do anything stupid and don't try to jump over the fire. I said the same thing this time, only I followed it up with a litany of things to do, too. (Wear sunscreen and stay with the group and be mellow.) And a prayer in my heart. And what else can I do but send them off?

The literal second I walked into my quiet, early-morning kitchen I started crying. I know...could I be a bigger baby? Could I have less faith and trust? Could I stop being so overprotective? But it was a combination of watching the friend trouble unfold right there at the drop off — the real, true bad stuff—and the imaginary horribles. I just wish: that I could make things smoother for them somehow. That I hadn't cursed them somehow with a dearth of true friends. That horrible things didn't happen ever. That they didn't have to feel any pain or sorrow, which is possibly every mother's wish. Except I know, of course, that only having good things wouldn't make them strong. So then I just wept for how hard life is and I prayed furiously that they'd be OK and that if they weren't I could deal with it.

And then I went back to bed until 10:30 which is probably what I needed the most anyway.

Do your kids go off to summer camps? Do you have a meltdown when they do?

I figured out recently that I might come across as a book snob. Perhaps because no one ever read this post about why I'm not really a book snob, per se. I don't think my reading tastes make me better than anyone else. I mean, sure. I like a sort of literary highbrowedness. I like to read stuff that tells a story which stretches my way of thinking and tells it in a way that makes me find a pen so I can underline the beautiful writing.

I also know that there is a wide variety of books because there is an enormous variety in what people need from books. Or even in the qualities they need in order to feel like a book has provided escape from their normal lives. I don't care who else is reading, for example, Fifty Shades of Grey. I know (after reading reviews and talking to people who have read it) that it isn't worth my reading time because it wouldn't give me what I need from a book.

Partly my need for well-written and thought-provoking books comes from the fact that I married a non-reader. While he's smart and intelligent and able to leap tall buildings, Kendell just doesn't get the book thing. In fact, it annoys him to no end to see me sitting around reading a book. Many a tiff has happened from just that circumstance, and as I am as unwilling to see the world from his non-book-reading perspective as he is my books-are-all-I-need point of view, it's just one of those things that's never going to change. But if I'm reading something with literary merit, that's challenging me and making me think, I feel less guilty over the fact that I'd rather sit down and read a book than do almost anything else.

Anyway, I'm feeling all sorts of grouchiness and despair and existential why-isn't-my-life-fabulous defeat tonight and I thought I might write about it but then I read this post by Janssen (who is the only book blogger I read consistently) (you should read it and read the comments, too, which made me laugh and also gasp in surprise because really: I must have read Good Night Moon 12,537 times in my read-to-children days and I never got sick of it) and I decided that instead of having an online pity party (you know...the kind that no one would come to anyway) I'd copy her and write about what I dislike when it comes to reading.

I think you already know that I don't like a book with a predictable ending or oh-so-fortunate plot twists or male characters who are too good to believe. But maybe you should know that even though I love reading and I loved getting my English degree and I adore almost everything that has to do with Literature (read that in a fancy voice), I confess:

I don't like Dickens. I generally like the idea of his books but the execution of the story? Well, I just think it's obvious he was being paid by the word. (There. I said it.)

I didn't fall in love with Shakespeare until my late 20's and I still struggle to understand what the hell is happening.

I return 75% of the books I check out without finishing them. (Usually this is simply a time issue. Or an I-married-an-anti-reader issue, which is the same thing.)

I tried to read Moby-Dick three times and failed.

And when I was supposed to read Middlemarch for one of my university courses? I only made it halfway through because I kept falling asleep.

But there is also this very important confession:

I hate children's books with forced rhymes.

I'd give you an example but really. If I accidentally check one out from the library, I return it the very next day out of principle. Twisting the sentence structure around so as to force a rhyme...gah, that makes me crazy. Or predictable rhymes. Or a way-too-singsongy rhythm. Which is also why I don't dislike Dr. Seuss. I think he gets rhyming exactly right. The made-up words don't bother me, nor do I think they have any negative effect on a kid's ability to learn to read. In fact I think they actually help the reading process move along, because it isn't a memorized word---they have to figure out the made-up word. I think the rhymes are a little bit brilliant sometimes (there are exceptions of course) and the weirdness works for me.

Or maybe I like Dr. Seuss because I don't  remember reading his books as a kid?

I don't know.

I just like him.

What I do know is this: my blog post has failed at being focused and interesting. But at least it wasn't much of a pity party.

Do you have any literary confessions? What do you despite that everyone else seems to love?

Title: The Snow Child
Author: Eowyn Ivie
Genre: retold fairy tale, historical fiction

I seem to be thinking a lot, lately, about fairy tales. What they mean, how they influence me, why they continue to live on in a modern world stripped of all seeming magic. There are still bits and pieces of magic left, though, and I’m counting the serendipitious arrival of The Snow Child on my hold shelf as one of them. It arrived just at the beginning of my fairy-tale thoughts, feeding them perhaps but definitely giving me more to think about.

At its heart, this is a fairy-tale retelling of the Russian fairy tale "The Snow Maiden." It is the story of Jack and Mabel, who’ve left their fairly safe but exceedingly sad life in 1920’s Pennsylvania for the Alaskan frontier. Sad because, except for one stillborn, they never were able to have children, and all of the family reminders around them (the nieces and nephews, the new babies, the excited couples marrying) were just too much. Of course, life in Alaska is hardly easy either, with the short growing season, fierce winters, and isolation. Just when it seems that Jack and Mabel have reached the end of what they can stand, they find a friend in the Bensons, George and Ethyl, and their sons. And then, one night of clean snow and happiness, they build a snow girl, dress her with mittens, a hat, and a scarf knitted by Mabel’s sister back in Pennsylvania. In the morning, they wake to find the knitted clothing gone and a dead rabbit next to the decimated snow girl.

The real, live girl they eventually meet, Faina, is wearing the mittens and hat and scarf. Jack, the pragmatist, tries to follow her and figure out who she is and how she is surviving on her own. Mabel, however, remembers a story her father used to read her, about a couple who couldn’t have children but who built a snow girl and then loved it into life. She sends a letter back home to ask her sister to mail her the storybook. Meanwhile Faina comes and goes, a skittish, wild thing with leaves in her hair; to win her trust Mabel must move slowly and learn only by going.

In one sense, that is all there is to the story: Mabel and Jack learning how to interact with Faina. You never really know: is she the child made of snow? Or are the facts Jack uncovered her real story? Or both? It is also about the harsh beauty of Alaska, a "beauty that ripped you open and scoured you clean so that you were left helpless and exposed, if you lived at all." It is about how impossible it is for a parent to hold on, really, to her child. And the way that life seems impossibly painful one second and then unbearably beautiful the next, so that you are not sure which one you might trust. Is it, Mabel wonders, "that we can choose our own endings, joy over sorrow? Or does the cruel world just give and take, give and take, while we flounder through the wilderness?" About the way we are unable to see our spouses and what they really need, except for when we accidentally do see it, and then we must hold on to those happy accidents and pull that knowledge with us.

And it is an utterly enchanting story. I loved this book because I could let it be exactly what it is, which is just a story. It felt like exactly enough; not too cerebral, not too fluffy. Not fluffy at all, in fact. But not really cerebral either. Just…right. Like reading used to feel when you were a child, curled up with, of course, a fairy tale.

Just for fun, some other fairy tale retellings I’ve loved:

East by Edith Pattou. This is a retelling of the "east of the sun, west of the moon" tale (about the girl who lives in the castle with the polar bear); two other retellings of the same tale came out at about the same time, but this one, because of the writing and the shape, is my favorite.

Transformations by Anne Sexton. Her book of fairy tales retold as contemporary poetry. I've lost my copy and need to order a new one!

Spindle's End (sleeping beauty), Beauty (Beauty and the beast), and Deerskin (Donkeyskin; not for the faint of heart), all by Robin McKinley. I've also read five or six of her other books...She's become a favorite writer without me paying attention.

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. This is a retelling of a Scottish ballad, set at a university in the 1970s.

The Magic Circle by Donna Jo Napoli. (One of my librarian friends, who met this author, told me a few weeks ago that her name is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, not the second like I was saying. Nice I've been recommending her for so long without saying her name correctly!) Napoli does fairy tale retellings in an edgy sort of way. This one retells Hansel and Gretel from the old woman's perspective. It's haunting.

Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. A retelling of the goose girl story. I liked it, but the sequel, Enna Burning (which isn't really based on one specific tale) is my favorite.

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. Retells sleeping beauty as a holocaust novel. It sounds weird, but Yolen makes it work. A remarkable novel.

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. My friend Kelly sent me this book one time when I was at a low point in my life. It was just the sort of escapist reading I needed—fairy tale, but not fluffy or overblown on the romance. I still love this book, ten years later!

Stardust by Neil Gaiman. This isn't based on one specific fairy tale, but on fairy tale conventions. One of those rare coincidences when the book and the movie are equally awesome.

Do you have a favorite retold fairy tale?

(yes of course at the same time)

It was one of those mornings. A good one. All the kids in the kitchen eating their pancakes in shifts because how else can you eat pancakes? Haley was talking about how when you eat something really sweet then you need to eat something salty and I said "yeah, like when you eat caramel and then you have to eat some potato chips," and then she ate a cheese stick to balance out the sweetness of the buttermilk syrup. Jake and Kaleb were talking about Big Miracle and I was asking if the whales died and then they pointed out it was a kids' movie and of course the big miracle wasn't finding a place to bury all those big, dead whales. I took a plate of pancakes to Kendell who groused a little bit about not getting the first plate, you know, the first plate I'd given to Nathan who had to scarf and then go to a church meeting, and I rolled my eyes and came back to an empty, silent kitchen.

So I buttered the grill and I poured the last of the batter and then I started reheating the syrup because I sort of really like to eat my food hot and by then it was only lukewarm. I stirred the syrup and picked up my book (Eat and Run) and read and stirred and thought and the recent pleasant cacophony of kitchen happiness was replaced by my own noisy head. Somewhere between stirring and reading about running and veganism were my thoughts about the morning, like why did I wake up crying last night twice? and all those recent blog posts about the evo conference and while I didn't start my blog to be successful like that, wouldn't it still be cool to be successful like that, to have a niche that others knew about and respected you for? and some more thoughts about arguments and laughing and recognizing the irony of reading about tofu and soy protein while stirring butter and sugar together to pour over pancakes.

Pancakes!

Gah.

I guess it wasn't only the reading that made me forget to flip them. It was the thinking, too. But I missed that golden moment, when the doughy side puffs up and a little bit of steam wafts to your nose and it's a message: flip me right now. I totally missed that moment and remember: it was the last of the batter. I flipped them anyway and ate them with my buttermilk syrup (which was nice and hot) and even though they weren't perfect they were still delicious because pancakes?

Well, pancakes always seem to make despair and discouragement feel just a little bit better.

Even the imperfect ones.

My Pancakes
(everyone has their own way of making pancakes, right? I remember once I made pancakes at my sister's house and her daughter came down to eat and was like "ummmm, I hate pancakes like these, where are the white ones?" and then I forgave her because, well, everyone has the way they like them. I'm not a fan of bisquik-esque pancakes. I like mine a little bit earthier. These don't make an ultra-puffy pancake but they are the right fluff for us.) (Also, this is exactly how I cook them because I was thinking today...one day soon my kids will leave my house and go out on their own and I need to teach them how to make pancakes.) (And one more pre-script: This makes 8 cups of pancake batter, which might be way more than your family needs; remember: I'm feeding two teenage boys!)

4 eggs
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup oil
1 3/4 cup buttermilk
1 3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinammon
1 tsp baking soda
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2-ish cups white flour

Crack the eggs into your mixer bowl and turn on the whisks and let it whisk away. Put the butter in a 2-cup glass measuring cup and then melt in the microwave. Try to not let it get bubbly, just melted. Pour oil into the butter until you have 2/3 cup combined. Stir with a fork, then slowly pour into the eggs. Add the milks, the baking soda & powder, the salt, the cinammon, and the vanilla. Let the whisks blend everything well. Then add the flours, about 1 cup at a time, whisking just a little bit between additions. I wrote "2-ish" for the white flour because sometimes it might need a little bit more.

Cook on a buttery griddle. Add chocolate chips (if you are Haley or Kaleb), a little extra butter (if you are Nathan), or nothing at all (if you are Jake, Kendell, or me). Serve with buttermilk syrup to everyone except Kaleb, who doesn't like it.

Buttermilk Syrup

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 T corn syrup
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Melt the butter in a large pan. (This foams up quite a bit so don't use a little one.) Add the sugar, buttermilk, and corn syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. (You can read while you stir if you want. Just be careful not to splash on your pages.) Let boil for about one minute. Whisk in the baking soda---this is when it foams up! When it's all smooth again, turn off the heat, add the vanilla, and stir a little bit more. Let it sit while you make the first batch of pancakes. Try not to drink the left overs.

During the month of May, I set myself the goal of organizing the great big mess of photos I'd accumulated. These were pictures I'd had printed to scrapbook, but then they either hadn't fit on the layout (because of space or theme or design or whatever) or I hadn't managed to scrapbook them yet. What was frustrating about this process was it made me feel like I still have so much I want to write about. What made me happy was revisiting photos I'd forgotten about. What was (creatively) energizing about the sorting was that the photos were all over the place. I mean that literally (spread all over my bed, much to my husband's annoyance!) and figuratively: photos from 1997 mingled with some from 2004 & 2001 & 1999 and a couple that I printed last week. It let me see them from a different angle rather than only chronologically. I saw connections I hadn't noticed before and put together quite a stack of new pairings to work on.

But when I saw the photo in this layout:

Well.

All I could do was wonder why I hadn't scrapbooked it sooner. (It's only 11 years old.)

Except I'm sort of glad I hadn't gotten to it, too. Because scrapping it now, 11 years later, was delicious. It took me back to the memories of how it used to be, when everyone was little. Take that shirt Haley is wearing as an example. Oh, my. She loved that shirt. Loved it. It had a cardigan that went with it, but she liked it wear it by itself best. And look how soft Jake's hair was, and blonde. That is little Jakey in his purest form. They both look so happy. Blissful, even.

I liked going back to that moment. I'm glad that, way back in 2001 when I was still using my old Pentax SLR and buying film twice a month at Costco, I knew that I would love that photo forever and so I had it printed as a 5x7. (I actually found two 5x7 prints, which means I have a layout planned for Jake, too.) I'm glad I kept it safe until serendipity or photographic karma or scrapbooking happenstance brought it back to my attention. And I'm glad to have it matched up with a little story.

(This layout is posted in the July WCS gallery—and there are tons of other amazing layouts there!)

What've you been working on lately?

Various issues of family politics have left me thinking about something I want to figure out. To do this, I have to tell a story about one of my family members, not out of malice or judgement but just because this story is the thing that is helping me to understand this knowledge I’m starting to think of as the imperfect fairy tale.

We all want the perfect fairy tale outcome—the princess with her kind and handsome husband and all those pretty gowns hanging in her castle’s closet. (Translate that to any modern convenience and setting you wish.) But it’s easy to forget that before the outcome the princess had to suffer. She slept on a pea, dwindled away to almost nothing but hair in the tower, underwent the beautiful queen’s attempts to kill her. The story isn’t in the happily ever after. The story—and the knowledge—is in the suffering.

This story belongs to my niece B. Her husband, J., is from Mexico, and about a year ago he had to leave the United States because of some immigration issues. He is trying to get the necessary documentation and legal stuff worked out so that he can come back to his family. Meanwhile, B. is trying to take care of her two small sons.

She’s waiting and wishing and yearning for her husband to come home. She’s sad that her husband won’t have memories of their little ones as little ones. She mourns about the lost time. And she looks forward to whatever day it is in the future when J. will come home.

Of course, anyone in her situation would feel the same. But she’s also simply waiting. She’s focused on when he gets back—looking forward. What they’ll do together when he gets home. She thinks about how things will be better when that happens. She writes about imagined moments they’ll have then, in the future, when things are right. When things are perfect.

She’s my niece and I love her but I also want to shake her. Every time she says "I’ll do that once J. is home" or "when J. is back I’m going to __________," the shaking urge is almost irresistible. Why wait? Why wait for the future perfect day? Why not do it now? I want her to know: right now is what matters. Right now is, really, all there is. I want her to look at what she can do, right now, on her own, to make things better for herself in this time and experience that she’s having. I want her to be able to see that sure, once he gets home, things will be different, but until then there is joy now. Whether J. is here or not, her sons are; whatever happens in the future they will never be this small again. I want her to be able to see whatever is good about her situation and build on that instead of waiting to be happy until the perfect day when her husband comes home and everything is right again.

Because when he comes home? It still won’t be perfect. That is not a criticism of either of them, but a simple reality. It’s never perfect. No one gets to the happily-ever-after we all wish for. (I think that even the people who seem to have the fairy tale still have goblins and dark corners and wicked stepmothers.) Everyone has disappointments and heartache; we all have something we wish we could fix but we can’t.

Of course, I can’t shake B. I can’t even say any of this to her, because of those family politics. All I can do is to let this knowledge about imperfect fairy tales settle into my own self. Because, of course I do this too. I wait. I think when things are better with ____________, that is when I’ll fix ________________. I let hope and wish influence my decisions rather than what truly is.

Plus, I am guilty of hanging out with my goblins instead of my fairies. It’s so easy to focus on what is dark and complicated, on what is wrong or hard; the goblins can grab every bit of my attention. But when I let them, I overlook the fairies—the bright, good, happy things that are still there, despite the goblins.

And honestly: I’m not certain there really is a happily ever after. Because once Cinderella gets her shoe back and moves into her castle, there will still be troubles. Her Prince Charming (am I messing up my fairy tales?) will some days simply annoy her. He might say something he means one way but feels like something completely different to her. Maybe the country will decide it wants a new king and just like that she'll be back to scrubbing floors and sleeping in the fireplace. Illness, war, sadness, argument, anger, accident, poverty: these happen every day even in happily ever after. Sometimes happiness itself seems like a fairy tale. She will have to learn that happiness isn’t a destination. It isn’t a combination of different types of perfection. It was something that was there along, in the tower or in the fireplace-bed or in the swamp with the frog.

That is what I want to do: make peace with my own imperfect fairy tale. Continue being hopeful, of course, and working for change to happen in the future. But not letting the goblins keep me from living my right now. I want to stop waiting for the perfect fairy tale to happen, sometime in the future, and start making my imperfect one more of what I hoped for—right now, without excuses.

Miles to Go Before I Sleep

(read about leg 1 here)

Basic Stats:

• Leg #: 23
• Route: SR-32 (the road next to Rockport Lake)
• Distance: 5.5
• Time: 51:44
• Starting time: about 3:15 a.m.

Last year I was terrified about my night run, having never run in the dark. This year, knowing what to expect, I wasn’t afraid. I knew what to wear (my favorite long sleeve, capris, and my cute rainbow chevron socks) because previous experience told me that once I started running I wouldn’t really feel the cold; I knew to adjust my reflective vest the right way and how to angle my headlamp. I wasn’t nervous.

But I was sort of hopeful. I knew I’d be starting my night run at about 3:45, which is pretty close to 4:00 a.m., which is fairly close to 5:15ish when the sun starts to rise. I so wanted to run at least part of my second leg in some sort of light, so I could see and experience the landscape. I kept hoping that all the other runners on my team would clock slightly slower times. They didn’t, though (it was remarkable, in fact, how closely we stuck to our time estimates), so I started knowing I wouldn’t run into any light.

(I never knew, until I saw this photo, that my headlamp looks like a butterfly!)

Some runners love the night run. I enjoyed it more this year, but I can’t say I loved it. I think I got passed 2,187 times but only passed six runners. Since there wasn’t any moon yet, I could only see the little space in front of me that my headlamp lit up, so it almost felt like running on a treadmill...running, but not getting anywhere.

(checking my music while I wait for Dave to get to the exchange; you can barely see it, but the sign for the town of Wanship is behind me.)

Still, though. I’m sounding negative when really, there was something. Even though it was dark and my legs were tired and the very gentle uphill seemed relentless, still: about halfway through I felt it. That feeling that comes only when you’re tired but you keep moving anyway. Only on the edge of exhaustion. I stopped counting songs and wanting to be done; I started noticing the texture of the darkness and the still coolness of the air as it wafted from the lake.

(getting the slap bracelet from Dave just before I start my run)

Then I came around a curving hill and I could see the exchange, about two miles away, and something even more extraordinary: the moon! It was just the sliver of a waning crescent but it still reflected in the water. It didn’t feel like just seeing the moon, but like finding it. Like it was something I had to work for in order to deserve. I thought about seeing the same moon earlier in the month, but so full and bright and close it looked like a painting of the moon instead of the real thing, and then a few days later the same moon rising, its side shaved away, from the ocean. And now here it was, giving me a little light. Just enough that I fell in love, finally, with my night run.

For the next two miles, I looked at the moon and thought about darkness and light. Even though I am years past what my mom still calls my "black phase," I still feel lost in the darkness quite often. When light comes, it isn’t usually the form I had hoped for, but it hardly matters. Sometimes you don’t need the full light of the sun; sometimes just a sliver of moonlight is enough.

This leg finishes along a crowded road, where vans are going both ways and the runners have just a tiny stretch of dirt to run on. I was a little bit terrified of getting hit, especially after an enormous Suburban swerved towards me and I was inches away from bashing my face into its mirror. (Dear Ragnar Organizers: perhaps you could work on that spot somehow? Love, Amy.) But I made it to the exchange, where I could see Becky waiting for me. I’d been carrying the slap bracelet in hopes of getting some of the sweat to dry for her; I slapped it on her wrist and watched her run into the darkness that was a shade or two lighter. I knew she’d finish in the sunlight, but I wasn’t envious. The light I had was the light I needed.

(handing the bracelet off to Becky at the end of my second leg. Doesn't she look cute?)

PS: One of the things that made my night run much more fun was my playlist. I made it just for the night run:

• "My Body" by Young the Giant (I started all of my runs with this song)
• "Midnight" by Yaz
• "Somebody that I Used to Know" by Goyte
• "All Night Long" by Peter Murphy
• "We are Young" by Fun
• "Only if For a Night" by Florence + The Machine
• "Changing" by Airborne Toxic Event
• "Nightswimming" by REM (I confess: way too slow to run to, but I love that song)
• "She Bangs the Drum" by Stone Roses
• "Because the Night" by Natalie Merchant
• "So Cruel" by Depeche Mode
• "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC (I'm embarrassed to admit to that one)
• "Reunion" by Erasure
• Lightning Man by Nitzer Ebb (get it?)

(I was stretching for songs to fit my theme but it all ended up working.)

When I finish a scrapbook layout, I don’t put it in an album right away. That’s because I sort of have a THING about my layouts going into albums in chronological order. (Even though I don’t scrapbook in chronological order. I scrapbook in "inspiration" order, I guess...whatever sounds inspiring to work on is what I work on.) I keep two drawers for finished layouts and once they’re full, I put everything in order and then into albums.

This isn’t always as easy as that sounds, though, because I use post-bound albums. Putting layouts into albums in order requires me to disassemble and then reassemble the albums, and it’s a little bit like the pin-and-baste step of making a quilt: not exactly my favorite. Usually I get a few out of order, or I get everything screwed back together and then realize that I missed the posts with a few sheet protectors, and then I have to unscrew and make it right.

But the real reason my two drawers of finished layouts are crammed full isn’t the aggravation of post-bound albums. (Which, despite the aggravation, are still my favorite kind.) I haven’t done it because I need to reorganize the toy shelves. And of course, that hardly makes sense, as the book shelf I keep my scrapbooks on is on the extreme opposite corner of my house to where the toy shelves are. But once I do the toy shelves I’m going to use the free space for some books, and then I can move some other books off of the scrapbook-room shelves and then I’ll have more room for actual scrapbooks.

But I can’t bring myself to reorganize the toy shelves.

Because it’s not really a reorganization I need to do. It’s a deep cleaning and a de-cluttering. It’s a de-toying project and one I don’t really have the heart for. Every time I start I get completely overwhelmed. I know I should get rid of quite a bit of the stuff that’s on the toy shelves. Kaleb doesn’t play with all of it anymore, and Jake and Nathan aren’t going to take up playing with their old toys again anytime soon. Haley definitely isn’t. I know I don’t want to be the crazy hoarding lady who keeps everything in a desperate attempt to cling to the past.

But I just can’t stand getting rid of it.

Here’s the thought process I have when I look at the toy room shelves:

Kaleb hasn’t ever really loved playing with the dinosaurs. I should get rid of most of them and just keep a few.

Yes, but remember how happy the dinosaurs made Jake? That Christmas morning when he opened up the wrapping and saw his very own boxful of dinosaurs, and he was still just two years old but if you asked him what he wanted to be he’d say "a paleontologist" without any sort of lisp? Or how he’d play for hours with them? And knew all the names, which he could also say without a lisp? If you give them all away won’t you forget all of that?

And if you forget it all then it will be like it never happened and you never had those moments with Jake. It will be like saying they meant nothing to you. It will be like saying you don’t want to remember.

And of course you can’t get rid of his dinosaurs, even if Kaleb doesn’t play with them. Because one day Jake will have a son, and he’ll come to your house, and you’ll pull out this big bucket of dinosaurs and say "your dad used to play with these!" and your grandson will be so happy to play with his dad’s childhood dinosaurs that he’ll love coming to Grandma’s house more than anything else he’s ever loved before.

(Repeat in an endless loop with only the type of toys and the child in question changing.)

So then I stop trying to work my way through that bucket of toys. I go to wherever that kid is and I give him or her a hug and I try to talk myself off the ledge. I remind myself that I won’t forget because I’ve taken pictures and kept journals and made scrapbook layouts. I tell myself that my dad's Alzheimer’s isn’t a family curse and that I might just get to live my entire life and not forget it all in the end. I talk myself through the "toys aren’t memories, memories are memories" schpiel I’ve developed. I point out that probably my grandkids won’t be quite so enamored of their parents’ toys as I imagine. And I feel that miserable sort of guilt because all of this anguish over old toys might come across as me still being unable to let go of my kids as kids. I don’t want them to think that I don’t love them right now just as much as I did back then, because I do. I love seeing the people they’re becoming.

I just don’t want to lose the memories of how they started out.

Inevitably this process draws me back to the scrapbook layouts. A couple of months ago, a friend said something to me about how she’s not caught up with her albums and how she thought I was. Not even close. I have huge gaps and scattered accomplishments. But when I look through an album I’m reminded: some of it is safe. This part right here, the part that’s written down and matched with a photo, won’t be forgotten. Even if I forget, someone else can read it (if they wanted) and then take that forward with them into whatever future they have.

The fear of forgetting drives me to do strange things, like put back onto the shelf the box of dinosaurs no one’s played with for four years. Like spend my time scrapbooking, which for me has always mostly been about the writing anyway. Sometimes I worry that the thing that’s keeping me from writing novels is scrapbooking. No, not even worry: I know it is. It is the safe creative outlet. It is fun and involves color and fonts and pretty things and even though I try to write what is real, I don’t have to push. There’s no creative resistence involved in scrapbooking. It’s just a simple form of happiness.

But it makes me happy for that simple reason: it keeps things. It saves them against plaques and tangles, against old age or apathy or hard drive failure. I come back to it over and over for the same reason I haven’t been able to declutter my toy room shelves since Kendell built them: I don’t want to forget.

I don’t want to forget.

A few weeks ago, the friend of a friend called me a bigot in a Facebook thread. Obviously this little jibe has stuck in my throat because almost two months later it's still bothering me. This happened in a discussion about THIS ARTICLE, which describes Mitt Romney's charitable acts. Don't get me wrong: I am grateful that he is one of those charitable sorts of ridiculously wealthy men. More ridiculously wealthy men should be like him.

But I don't think the fact that he is ready and willing to help those less fortunate than him (all 99% of America) negates the other fact: he is filthy rich. It was that term, in fact, that caused the "bigot" label to be stuck on me. In my comment, I was trying to point out a contrast I've actually previously written about: the difference between sympathy and empathy. Of course Mitt can sympathize with those of us who have actually had to worry about how we'll make our mortage payments or manage to pay off that looming medical bill. He probably feels sorry for us. He can (and does!) reach into his pocket and help people out. But he will never, ever be able to empathize. He will never be able to know how it feels to be filled with the terror of a very-real prospect of losing everything. Or even the less-dramatic moments, like when losing $100 feels like the end of the world . The sting of a dentist's bill or the derailment that happens when a car breaks down or the washing machine needs to be replaced.

He can have sympathy for us poor working schmucks but he will never have empathy because he has never been in our shoes. 

"But does that mean that only a person from a working-class upbringing would make a good president?" my friend asked. (I imagine she was trying to smooth out the bigoted wrinkles.) Of course not. There is an argument to be made about a man who runs his business so well that he's achieved that sort of wealth. A brilliant financial mind is something our country obviously desperately needs. And really, we don't want someone ordinary to be our president. We want someone extraordinary, right?

"But does his wealth mean he can't relate to average Americans?" she pushed me further. (Can you tell she is a teacher?) Most of me immediately says yes, it does. The problems and troubles of an average American have never been his problems and troubles, so how can he know how to help? Of course, that's not allowing for the power of either sympathy or imagination, which is what the very smallest part of my response builds on, the part that says no, his wealth doesn't keep him from relating because we are all, wealthy or not, still human beings.

To my mind, that article extolling Romney's financial graciousness is an attempt to make him seem like he's more like me. More like your average American, willing to step in and help out his neighbor. All of which makes me think, really? Really? Mitt Romney (and, frankly, nearly any politician I can imagine) is nothing like me. If I had any extra, I'd be willing to put down money on the fact that he's never wondered about his worth when he's looked at the contrast between himself and others. (I've been known to feel like wealthy people must be more deserving of the abundance they have, as if financial status is proof that all of life is us playing a big round of sibling rivalry, with God giving the most to the people he loves best. Even though I don't really think it works that way. Usually.) He hasn't agonized over how to pay for college for his kids or worried that the pressure to get good grades (and thus qualify for scholarships) might be breaking them with unforseen consequences. He's never gotten a stomach ache over spending too much at Walmart.

Or probably even shopped at Walmart.

The solutions to my problems are things like "maybe I should go back to work full time" or "what expenses can I cut from _____ so I can pay for _______?" The solutions to his problems are things like "the cabin on the Canadian shores of Lake Huron" and "let's just build an elevator for all the cars." How could a person like that ever relate to me? 

I stand by my label of "filthy rich," however, and its implications that it is somehow morally wrong for a person to be wealthy. I do that within the context of the label that stranger gave me: bigotry. A bigoted person is one who is "biased beforehand" or, in other words, makes a decision based on a lack of knowledge; the bigoted are "obstinately and blindly attached or unreasonably devoted to some creed, opinion, or party" and are "intolerant towards other groups." (At least, that's the part of the OED definition that applies.) Another good definition is this one: "a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance" (from Merriam Webster). Calling the term "filthy rich" bigoted is implying that the wealthy are a racial or ethnic group that needs protection from hatred or intolerance. I suppose I missed the politically-correct meeting wherein we all decided that the wealthy are a minority group? Or that my bitterness about not being in with the wealthy means I have hatred for them?

But deeper and more important than political correctness is that I am not basing my "filthy rich" label on a lack of knowledge. In my own life experiences I have met plenty of wealthy people who believe their wealth makes them better than others. They spend on themselves without regard for others. I'm also not blindly attached to that knowledge, as I'll readily admit I know a few wealthy people who don't let it go to their heads and who do good things with their money. Does that make me intolerant towards the wealthy? Perhaps, but I don't think so, and here's why: it isn't such a clean dividing line between wealthy and poor. Mitt Romney might be the candidate with gobs of money, but the 80% of us Americans who don't live below or very near to the poverty line are also complicit. I don't have an elevator for my cars, but I am still filthy rich. I have an air-conditioned home with food in the cupboards. My children all have shoes and sweatshirts and toothbrushes. We have a computer and a TV and cell phones, a health insurance plan and a green and grassy yard with shade trees and flowers and birds, while 20% of our population doesn't, and then when you stop to consider the rest of the entire world it all just seems impossibly screwed up.

I don't know what the answer is to our financial problems. I know I believe in working for what you need (a fishing pole instead of a fish), not getting government handouts. I also believe it is immoral that people are struggling with poverty and homelessness and hunger while others live the fabulous life. Maybe it isn't a problem that can be solved by humanity. I am hopeful that, despite their wealth and how it makes them unable to relate to the average American, politicians might figure something out. But I also know this without question:

We are (almost) all of us filthy rich.

Two things happened today that have left me feeling...something I can't quite name yet.

The first one was horrible: one of the girls who had been in Haley's choir last school year was killed in a motorcycle accident. The boy driving the motorcycle, who was her best friend's brother, was also killed. I didn't know either one of them very well, but I do have pictures of the girl, from choir performances. It was one of those surreal moments when you think no, that's just a story, that can't be true because it is too awful to imagine. I wondered: what were the last words the parents of those kids said to them? Were they loving or warning or maybe they were flung out in anger over something that really didn't matter, and how horrible would that be? It made me think the old thought: you just never know when your time is up. We walk around thinking we have plenty of time: to apologize, to make amends, to heal all the wounds, but also to find our way and to do the things we hope for, but every single one of us could run out of time tomorrow. Tonight, even. This death of two friends-of-my-daughter made me feel that I haven't done enough. There is so much I haven't said and experienced and lived. There is so much living left to do.

The second thing was serendipitous. This morning I was cleaning up the kitchen and I glanced down at my feet. The bunion on my left foot is starting to get worse, and my big toe on that foot has begun pushing against the second toe. But I so don't want to have my bunions fixed. I know it sounds unimaginably strange, but I can't imagine me being me without being able to curl my toes. I do it when I am thinking, or reading, or writing, or being creative. (I'm doing it right now, in fact.) Bunion surgery would mean I could no longer curl my toes and then how would I think?

So I was cleaning my kitchen, thinking about bunions and toe curling and Roman Burke. He is a man who used to live in our neighborhood; his wife and I were good friends and he and Kendell were good friends. A perfect match! But then they moved away for medical school and we became Christmas-card friends. He finished his schooling and became...a podiatrist! I wish I could get Roman's opinion I thought. Not because I don't trust my own podiatrist but because my own podiatrist doesn't know me like an old friend does. Even though our families haven't seen each other in years.

Then, later this evening when I was doing the dishes again, there was a knock on our front door, and you'll never guess who was standing there: Roman Burke. And his three sons, who are off to soccer camp at BYU next week, so he decided to just stop by. They all came in and we hung out in our front room together for a couple of hours, talking about the old days and our experiences since they moved away twelve years ago.

And it both made me joyful and want to weep, seeing an old friend. Because I thought about how much he and his wife have accomplished, the moving and the seeing and the doing, the learning and the chance to do something big. And how little I have changed in those twelve years—how little I have done. Twelve years later I still have the same heartaches and the same little house and a front room that still needs to be painted. I still have the same damn furniture. I had the same argument with my husband yesterday that I had fourteen years ago when the Burkes moved into our neighborhood, which really had nothing to do with anger or disciplining the kids or a scratch on the car, but with the ever-present need everyone has to just be loved for who they are.

That need is still there, too.

So now it's 11:22 p.m. on this strange day, and I still don't really have a word for what I'm feeling. Perhaps "haunted" is the best one: by a dead girl I once took a picture of. By that hopeful (and thin and unwrinkled) person I used to be, when the Burkes still lived around the corner. When I was her, I imagined many things happening to me, but statis? Just staying put? Nothing changing or really getting any better? That wasn't ever one of them. So I am also haunted, I suppose, by the ghost of what could have been. By regrets. Because if I died tomorrow, it wouldn't have been enough. I still have so many changes to make, in my relationships and my beliefs and my abilities and my prospects. I'm not done.

I don't want my life to have been a waste, a waste of time while I breathed in and out, sitting in the same house. I want change to happen. I want adventures. I want to feel like I have made a difference.

I want to feel like I am living my life instead of waiting for it to happen.