Next month, this is starting up at Big Picture Scrapbooking:

The free summer class, The Big Idea Festival. It lasts all month. Every few days, you'll get three more ideas for using a scrapbooking kit from Cocoa Daisy.

And, lest ye be startled by that word—kit—here's a confession: before I made my projects for this class, I had never worked with a kit before. They always seemed a bit extravagant to me. Plus I like shopping for supplies! But I discovered that kits are great for pushing you out of your comfort zone. They encourage you to think in different directions because you are, in a sense, following the thought patterns and design inspiration of whoever put the kit together.

Plus, hello? This kit was full of orange supplies. Have I ever told you how much I love orange scrapping supplies?

At any rate, this class is FREE! There will be prizes and give aways in addition to all that inspiration. You can see more details and sign up here.There are some awesome scrapbookers involved and I'm certain you'll end the month with tons of new ideas. Happy scrapping! 
 

In one of those it's-a-small-world moments, a few weeks ago one of my co-workers and I figured out that her new daughter-in-law, Lindy, is a former student of mine. Lindy was surprised I could remember her, since she couldn't remember me. Since that slightly-discouraging moment (how do you forget an entire teacher? Unless that teacher had no impact upon you at all), I've been having teaching dreams. They strike near summer's end anyway, but this year they have been particularly ferocious: frantic lesson planning, or standing in front of a class and realizing I have nothing prepared, or even the one about being made to teach second grade.

I'm not sure my teaching dreams speak well of my teaching experiences.

Then, today, for summer reading at the library, one of the high school English teachers presented. She came dressed as Medusa and talked about the mythology that the Percy Jackson series is built upon, like the part Medusa played in the battle between Athena and Poseidon, and where the hydra came from, and the minotaur. She also talked about beasts who weren't in The Lightening Thief, like the chimera and the Nemea lion (who could only be skinned when Heracles used its own claws) and how they are metaphors for the way we can destroy ourselves. 

As I listened to her tell the familiar stories (mythology was one of my favorite subjects) and watched her interact with the kids, I felt something startling and unexpected: I missed teaching. Once I named what I was feeling I literally sat back in my chair and took a deep breath. I'm not sure I could have felt something more surprising.

Not that I didn't love teaching. I did love it. I loved the moments when what I was trying to teach was understood, or at least felt, by my students. It is a nearly-physical thing, a sort of popping, a rushing-in of shared understanding. It didn't happen every day (it is hard to feel it over, say, bibliographies or verb tenses) or even weekly. But when it did, over the really important topics, it brought me a happiness that nearly made up for the exhaustion.

Another thing I loved about teaching was having a space and a process that I was completely in charge of. I don't think of myself as much of a control freak, and it wasn't about having power over students. Instead, it was the physical space: my classroom; my way of arranging desks and decorating displays and writing on the white board. And the process of sharing my knowledge with others. Although most of my students really didn't care much about English, I still was in an environment where I could talk about books, writing, reading, using the dictionary, and even when to use "its" or "it's."

And I loved the relationships that teaching brought me. Certainly with other teachers, but most importantly with my students. Not all of them clicked with me, and I wasn't one of those teachers who had a classroom full of students during lunch and after school, just hanging out. But I loved them. Even the ones I couldn't stand. I have similar feelings for the teenagers I teach now at church. It is a sort of stewardship over them, a caring and concern and a hope for their future and wellbeing. Not to mention appreciating their jokes, and trying to gently turn around their anger or cutting remarks (like the time one of my students called me a bastard; I had him pull out a dictionary and look the word up, and then we spent five minutes of the class time discussing what it really meant, and the right context you might use that word in, which led to a discussion about vocabulary and thesauruses and synonyms), or being forgiven by them (I really lost my temper one day; swearing was involved).

During my last year of teaching, I was pregnant with Kaleb. I had to decide: would I keep teaching after I had him? Perhaps stay on as a part-time teacher? Or become a stay-at-home mom? In my deepest heart, I always knew what the decision would be. I was always going to stay home. But it was still hard to let it go, to become a person who used to teach. Of course, the sheer exhaustion and frustration of teaching (the politics, the parents, the pay) also had an impact on my decision. I never felt I could fully commit myself to being a teacher because to be the best teacher I knew how to be, I had to seriously neglect my responsibilities (and my joys) of being a mother. I couldn't find a personal balance; I always felt torn.  But I cannot say I left without looking back.

Maybe because of that tug, I am quick to explain why I probably won't go back to teaching (like here and here and here). I want to defend my decision with logical reasons: I am a better mom, my librarian job is much less stressful, I was too idealistic anyway. Probably my defensiveness is a way to protect myself from my own sharp claws. But I am left tonight knowing that I do miss teaching. And that it is ok to feel like that. Maybe one day my ideal teaching circumstances (two prep periods a day and twice the pay) will come around. Maybe, one day, I will have to go back (because of, say, needing a full-time gig with health insurance), which is something I have dreaded—until today. Now it seems that if I did have to go back, I would be OK. I could make it work, if I had to, because the good parts would help me through the challenges.

Say that you were kicking around the idea of maybe going to San Francisco in three weeks or so. What would you do there? Where would you stay? What would you take your kids to do?

We're tossing around end-of-summer vacation ideas. We've never been to San Fran (well, I have, the summer after sixth grade, but all we did was drive around trying to find the Gunne Sax factory outlet, and failing, and then we shopped a little bit and maybe we ate in Chinatown, but Becky might remember better) and someone suggested it...

Tell me, o wise Internet, of your personal San Francisco adventures?

Last night, I got to eat dinner with Laurie Halse Anderson (Who wrote Speak and Wintergirls and Chains.)  (And by the word "with" I mean "in the same room as.") Then, today, I hung out with Patricia MacLachlan (who wrote, among others, the book Sarah Plain and Tall), Kadir Nelson (whose illustrations are unbelievably beautiful), Elizabeth Partridge (YA nonfiction writer extraodinaire), and David Shannon (of No David! fame, among many books). (And by "hung out with" I mean "sat in a room and listened to them talk about their work.")

It was a great 24 hours!

I was able to attend bits and pieces of the BYU Symposium on Books for Young Readers. They let me go just because I work at the library. How cool is that? I'm not sure I like anything much more than listening to creative people talk about their work. What particularly struck me, and continues to linger and to remind me to write it down, is a concept Laurie Halse Anderson spoke about at the dinner last night.

She was talking about teenagers, and really about all of us in general: everyone is bruised. Really, one of the biggest differences between teenagers and adults is that adults are better able to hide our bruises, to pretend like they're not there. I felt two clicks in my soul, two answers fall into place: an utter and unearthly sense of compassion for my teenage self was one of them. I didn't know how to hide my bruises, and my clumsy attempts were illustrated in all that rebellion. The second was a reminder, and it was the second time I have felt this same prompting in the past ten days or so: I have become perhaps too good at the camouflaging. Not that I need to wear my heart on my sleeve or take up the discarded cloak of my goth-girl days, but simply that I need to allow myself to feel more, to work on knocking down my inner walls. I don't know how to do that but it feels intricately and tightly tied to my future, a necessity if I am to accomplish what I want to. Words, somehow—writing—is the key to everything. I just need to figure it out.

The other day, Kaleb tapped me on the shoulder. "Mom," he said. "I have been wondering. When Haley was little like me, did Grandpa talk?"

I hugged him when I answered so he wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. "Oh, yes, Grandpa talked. He used to talk so much you couldn't believe it."

He hugged me back and then pushed me away. "Haley is so lucky. All that talking with Grandpa. I wish he could talk to me!" And then he went on his happy little way, leaving me more than a little bit sad.

Because here's the thing: Kaleb never really did get to know my dad, at least not the pre-Alzheimer's dad. The day after Kaleb was born, Dad drove to the hospital on his own, and he got lost. My mom sat with me, waiting, for as long as she could, but she had to go to work. "He probably stopped to read the paper somewhere," she said, and I agreed, neither one of us acknowledging what had really happened. When he finally came into my room, he was matter-of-fact about it. "I couldn't find the damned place," he said. Then he held Kaleb, who didn't have a first name yet but whose middle name was already decided: Don, after my dad.

But here's the other thing that makes me equally as sad: Even if Dad didn't have Alzheimer's, Kaleb might still not have gotten "all that talking with Grandpa." Because, while Dad came to birthday dinners and holiday meals, he wasn't very involved in my kids' lives. He wasn't the sort of Grandpa who'd show up and take a grandkid or two out for a Happy Meal or a trip to the park. He didn't really talk to them on the phone much, or try to get to know them. He was passive in the relationship.

Really, "sad" isn't even the right word: "pissed off" about sums it up. How could he not make an effort? How could he not cherish and develop a relationship with his grandchildren? If you asked Haley, Jacob, or Nathan, I don't think any one of them could tell you something specific they loved or admired about my dad, because they don't have any specific memories with him. They hardly remember what he was like, pre-disease.

Maybe it is wrong to say that I feel anger towards my father. After all, he is ill, and disease should dissolve the past hurt feelings. It should offer at least that much: in the place of memory, absolution. I fragment of poem keeps repeating in my head: "What is elegy but the attempt/To rebreathe life/Into what the gone one once was/Before he grew to enormity." (Mary Jo Bang.) Alzheimer's tries to make him bulge into enormity: larger than life, impervious to anger. Immune to it. Blessed only for the good parts.

How odd that this is a damage the disease inflicts: it not only takes away the ability to tell the person you love you love him (and everything else good you should have said more often), it strips away the chance you had to say how could you? Your anger or disappointment cannot be expressed and so it hangs in your heart, a bitterness, a hook, a biting dark thing you are ashamed of.

When Haley was younger—up until she got to that adolescent "don't talk to me at all" phase—her favorite thing was to hear stories about my childhood. "Tell me a story when you were little," she'd ask, and I'd either wrack my brain trying to think of something new, or tell one of the tried-and-true favorites: the sleepovers with my grandma (I slept on a little trundle bed that she'd put between her bed and Grandpa's; she'd cover me with the Grandma Amy quilt, hold my hand in the dark, and tell me stories about her own childhood); the time a ring came loose from the ceiling and hit me on the head at gymnastics (sending me to the hospital for my first stitches, thus firmly establishing the stitches-on-the-face tradition that my children each have proudly carried on); the story of the peach tree in our backyard and the lightning that struck it twice (I still, 25 years later, miss that tree). I told her little incidents and big ones, and she'd listen and laugh or groan or nod appreciatively at just the right moments.

Once, when we were sitting in my parents' front room, I told her the story of the coffee spill. Here is the story:

When I was about two, the little house we lived in—the one that was kitty-corner from the library—had a sort of circular pathway. You could start in kitchen, say; you'd walk out the doorway and into the front room, around the corner into the family room, and back through a different doorway into another part of the kitchen. Against one wall was the TV, and on Sundays my dad would sit in the rocking chair, watching football or reading his newspaper, drinking a cup of coffee. In my young head, only my dad was allowed to sit in that rocking chair. It was a fat, overstuffed thing, covered in a gold tweed with blowsy white and yellow roses. I liked to rock in it but I would scamper out of it as soon as Dad came into the room.

One Sunday, I was running around the circular pathway. [Yes! This is the same circular path I was taking, balancing a penny on my nose, when I tripped and swallowed the penny. I wonder if it is still inside me?] I was running, and the football game was blaring, and I was watching Dad. Probably I yelled "watch me, Daddy!" more than once. He got up from his chair to get more coffee, and I slipped into it. I sat and rocked quietly, sure that I was doing something forbidden, until he came back into the front room, and then I got frightened. I didn't think I was supposed to sit in Dad's chair. So I tried to slip out of it without him noticing, just as he sat down. I bumped his elbow with my head, and the hot, fresh coffee steamed out, right onto my forehead.

I don't remember the coffee burning me. I don't know, for certain, the severity of my burns other than that now my forehead is higher than it should be, and my high forehead sunburns much more easily than the rest of me. I do remember going to the doctor and catching from the corner of my eye the sight of tweezers moving toward my burned skin; I remember the sering sting and the sharp bite of the ointment.

"That must have hurt a lot," Haley said, and then she went off to find her cousin to play with.

"Amy," my dad said. He'd been sitting on the couch all along, listening to me tell the coffee-burn story. "Please, please, don't ever tell anyone that story again. That was the worst day of my life. I don't even like to think about it."

I hugged him, and I agreed not to put the coffee story into our rotation, and I told him I didn't have any hard feelings for the burn. It was an accident. But I also know what he means. I have my own indelible memory involving an accident with my child. I still sometimes wake from dreams about it, even though it happened when Haley was only four months old. We had a daily ritual that summer of her baby year. I'd finish work at about 4:30, then pick her up at the babysitter's. (The babysitter was my sister Suzette.) I'd get her out of her car seat and we'd walk to the mailbox, and then I'd sit on the front porch in the sunlight, holding her and riffling through the day's junk mail. One day, though, as I made the walk to the mailbox, I stepped on the edge of the sidewalk, twisted my ankle, and fell—holding her, my four-month-old baby. I cannot forget the few seconds of that fall; in my head it happened in slow motion, part of me thinking "Amy, you are the biggest, clumsiest idiot in the world" while the rest of me thought "do whatever you can to protect Haley." I pulled her to my chest and I twisted as hard as I could, so I landed on my side instead of with her underneath me—but her head still hit the pavement.

The rapid-slow instant of falling. The sound of her head hitting the pavement. The way I instantly saw stars and felt the impact within my head, as if by imagining how it felt I could take the pain and damage into my own skull. The terrified second before she started screaming. The sound of my voice as I screamed for Kendell.

All of that memory is branded into my consciousness. I remember it at odd times; occasionally some family member will bring it up and I cringe. I remind them that I didn't drop her. She never left my arms. But I don't want to talk about it or remember it because I cannot forget it. I relive it enough on my own without anyone reminding me. It is an emotion I will never forget, a terror nothing can compare to. Even as we rushed to the doctor's office, and then the hospital for an X-ray and CT scan, as we waited for the results, my heart kept pounding and my hands shaking. "Berate" is hardly strong enough of a word. Even once we got the results—a concussion—I couldn't turn the fear off. In fact, it is rising through my fingers up to my heart as I write about the experience right now, almost 15 years later.

I imagine that plenty of parents have similar memories, the image of the horrible accident that was bad enough but that could have been worse. The memory that still causes adrenaline to pump through your veins whenever you think about it. I understand my dad's desire not to talk about the coffee burn in that same visceral, pulse-pounding way: the awful thing that might have been truly horrific.

Last week, my niece Kayci—who has three sweet daughters—experienced her own indelible experience. She was visiting from Idaho, and we were all at my sister's house, letting the kids swim, eating lunch, and seeing her new baby. As we were gathering around after eating, just talking and laughing (I was peeling Kaleb's sunburn), Kayci suddenly started screaming. "Mom! Mom! She's drowning!" We all turned and rushed to where she was pulling her 1-year-old, Claire, out of the pool. Claire's lips were purple and she was gasping; Suzette (who is a nurse) grabbed her and began pumping her back. After a few seconds the water streamed out and Claire began screaming and we knew she would be OK.

But now there is another indelible memory. I am certain that Kayci dreamed about it that night, or maybe didn't sleep because of it. We were all reminded of how easily a small one can slip away, even under watchful eyes. I remembered my own moment; I thought of my dad not wanting to talk about the coffee burn. The only solace you can take from such experiences is how they remind  you: the memory might be permanent, but life itself is not. You can't count on any moment but the one you have right now. Everything can change in an instant. For me, that doesn't inspire me to live in fear of what might happen (at least, not much). Instead, it reminds me to remain here, in the present; to try to live in the now without obsessing about what might come or what might have been, but to love everything about my life in this moment, before everything changes.

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of summer days reading. Since school was out, I could get my gymnastics workout done in the morning, and then the rest of the day was mine. I'd shower and bandage my rips, then find whatever book I was reading and head outside. We had an enormous covered patio out there that was always shady, and I'd sit in the rocking lounge chair and read for the rest of the day. Sometimes I'd get up for snacks (some grapes, maybe, or cold watermelon; sometimes my mom would have baked a coconut cake or that dessert with Oreos and whipped cream and butter mints or even a fruit pizza) or drinks or maybe to tease my sister a little bit, but mostly I read.

Those long, idyllic afternoons are now touchstones to me—moments of peacefulness I return to in my memory sometimes. It was delicious to not have any obligations, to read without anyone pressing me to close my book and do something productive. Sweet and relaxing to linger in the company of friends, even though they were characters in a book. Those memories are tinted with the scent of peaches and the sound of kids playing on the other side of the fence; they remind me that unprecedented peace does happen in a life's small moments.

I tried a modified version of that summer reading program today. I was fighting off a headache, and it seems that holding still makes the headache less likely to happen. So I sat around for most of the day, reading my book (The Lace Reader) and eating occasional snacks (have you discovered Annie's Bunnies crackers? They are awesome!), not really ignoring my children but not being a great mom, either. In fact, they cleaned the house while I hung out in bed reading.

And here's the deal. Maybe because I do still have plenty of obligations and tons of things on my mental to-do list, or maybe because that headache was trying to be insistent, or maybe because there is always housework to do, I couldn't enjoy my day dedicated to reading. Well, not like I used to enjoy it. It really did feel nice to relax and be slothful for a day. But it also felt indulgent; I felt lazy and unproductive. And also a little bit disappointed that I couldn't enjoy the reading bliss as much as I wanted to.

I don't know. Does that mean I have become a grown up? Or just that I need a long car trip in order to enjoy reading all day? Or that I have lost my ability to simply enjoy something without feeling guilty? Should I feel guilty? Or should I have worked harder at enjoying it more?

I'm sharing this recipe mostly because I FINALLY got it exactly right and I want to remember how I did it. I really love a good macaroni salad. What do you put in yours?

Macaroni Salad, Amy-Style

24 ounces ditalini or other small pasta
1/2 red onion, diced small
1/2 red pepper, diced small
2 1/4" thick slices of cheese, diced small (I used meunster today, but cheddar or swiss are equally delicious)
1 cup corn
3/4 cup petite peas
2 avocados, diced small (make sure they are just barely ripe...if they are too soft, well: it isn't pretty)
***

While the pasta is boiling in salted water, dice everything and make the dressing:

1 1/2 cups mayo
1/3 cup white vinegar
3 T sugar
3 T yellow mustard (not Dijon or honey or fancy or spicy—just yellow mustard)
2 tsp dill
1 1/2-2 tsp salt
tons of freshly-ground black pepper.

When the pasta is tender—cook a little bit softer than al dente for cold macaroni salad, otherwise it's too firm—drain, preserving the water. Bring the hot pasta water back to boiling, then cook the corn and peas for about 3 minutes. Chill the pasta with ice (otherwise, it will melt the cheese). Chill the corn and peas in the same way. Stir all ingedients together carefully (if you are too rough the avocado will turn into guacamole), then add the dressing and mix. Adjust seasonings as necessary. Chill till serving. Or eat some slightly-warm for lunch.

***I usually put hardboiled eggs in my macaroni salad. Today, however, I realized that I have worked my way through the 72 eggs my wonderful mother-in-law gave me. She has chickens and is a great source for fresh & delicious eggs. I think I need to get some more. The salad is still delicious without the eggs, but with it...even better!

Yesterday, when Kendell and I had about two miles left to get back to the car, we met a woman coming up the trail. She was hiking alone, wearing a "breast cancer survivor" t-shirt with a certain air that suggested after beating cancer she could traverse the mountain on her own very easily thank-you-very-much. We told her about the obstacles we'd come across: all the northern angles still covered in snow, and rushing waterfalls to cross; Timpanogos Basin still full of snow. The trail portion we'd just navigated was completely underwater, so we had to scramble along the slope of the mountain, gripping trees or rocks or even—just once—prickly berry bushes. She smiled at us, settling her backpack more comfortably on her back, and started up the trail.

"You might not make it to the top," I said, "but that's OK, right?"

"Yep," she said, over her shoulder.

"I just love the mountain, no matter what," we both said, completely in unison.

And I wasn't lying. Even though yesterday's attempt to hike Timp perhaps could be seen as a failure—we didn't, after all, make it to the top—and it was by far the most exhausting hike I've ever done, I truly and deeply love Timpanogos. This is the earliest we've tried to hike it, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Perhaps the flooded road leading to the trailhead should have tipped us off that this wouldn't be an ordinary hike, but we splashed the van through the flood and headed off blithly up the trail.

Another hint:

That is Scout Falls. When we've seen it before, it's been a single, small trickle of water down the mountain. Yesterday, though, it was a double fall, its roar filling the long valley. Along this long first stretch of trail, you always cross several waterfalls, but they were bigger this time. (I was grateful for my Goretex-lined boots, even if they do weigh 57 pounds or so.) When we got to the top of the first valley—to the place I think of as Lothlorien—we discovered that watery trail. There was an enormous snowfield

and all the valleys still had snow. Once we rounded through this meadow and hit the tallus slopes, we took a quick break so I could get the rock out of my shoe

we encountered our first real stretch of snow to cross. The snow lingers along the shaded angles of the mountain, so you cross at an angle, too, knowing if you slip, you'll be tumbling a long way down.

(my long-neglected balance beam skills got lots of practice today. Kendell was also a graceful crosser-of-snow. See the dark part on the left side of the photo? There was water running underneath those cornices!)

Still, it felt like an adventure. The first few times crossing the snow were scary, and there were parts where I had to talk myself across, but we figured out the correct rhythm and way of placing your feet. Then, however, we came across the ridge into Timpanogas Basin. It was like flipping back a calendar: we left spring behind us and entered the end of winter. The Basin still held a lot of snow. Enough that a little pond of meltwater had formed in the spot that is later in the season a beautiful little flowery meadow.

We pushed on. There was so much snow in the basin that the trail was mostly covered, so we just trudged along, making our own through the snow. Can I just say: walking through snow like that is hard. I was completely exhausted. We finally made it to the other side of the basin, where the slope rises up, and then cut across it toward the part of the trail we could see.

(a view looking back over the snowy basin we crossed.)

We were exhausted but determined to make it to the top. Until we got further up the slope, and came across a series of waterfalls. These cliffs are normally dry; the waterfalls were testament to how much snow was still above us. The would have been manageable—if they weren't covered with snow bridges. The water was rushing right underneath roughly 12" of slushy snow. The snow bridges were the only spot in that expanse that was snowy; everything else was rough stone. After much discussion, we decided to turn back. The thought of breaking through the snow bridge and falling down the rocky slope held no appeal to either one of us.

So, we turned back. We both felt a little dejected and disappointed in ourselves. Still, is the only successful hike one you get to the top of? Or is it still successful considering we pushed as hard as we could, and only Mother Nature—not weakness—made us turn back? I think so. Plus, it's not as if this is our only chance. Kendell has set a goal of hiking Timp once a month this year, June through October. So we'll be back soon, and hopefully the snow will be gone.