My Bookshelves

I just rearranged my book shelves yesterday. I have been needing to do it for a while—we have limited book space and I have been collecting books from a variety of sources. The event that finally pushed me to act was that I was at my parents’ house and I went through all my stuff that was still sitting in their basement. I found a lot of my old books from my childhood and high school years and decided to bring them home. Plus, I had taken quite a few books from Andy’s mom’s shelves that she was looking to get rid of.

I like to order my books by topic. I like to browse my shelves. I feel happy with their order and with the memories of all the happy, interesting, and fascinating times that I’ve spent with them. So that I could put all my new books onto the shelves, I had to pull some off and take them downstairs. I decided that all the dusty scriptural commentaries, as well as all the Institute student manuals could go. I also took down a bunch of Ensigns and relegated them to the basement as well. That gave me some more space to play with. Of course, that space was located on my church shelves. So, I decided to first shelf all my Mormon women books. This is my new reading obsession. I am reading books by historians about Mormon women. I am reading essays about Mormon women. And in so doing, I have collected quite a few things that deserved their own place on my shelves. I wanted to give them a place of honor and dignity. The top shelf of the church section is mostly the writings of prophets and biographies of the prophets. I wanted to put them side by side with the prophet books. Should I move them over to the next shelf so that they could be on the same level with the prophets? But, then I would have to displace my Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and Lord of the Rings. I felt it would be better to keep the church books on one shelf. So, I moved down all the other general authority writing to the third shelf, and put my Mormon Women’s collection together on the second shelf below the prophet section. Now, I am wondering if I should split the prophet collection and put half on the top shelf, half on the second shelf. And do the same with the Mormon Women so that they could stand side by side.

From Andy’s mom, I placed a book called Mormon Sisters with chapters on women from the early days of the church in Utah, a volume of poetry by Carol Lynn Pearson, and a tantalizing book about women by Belle Spafford (I can’t wait to read and see how the context of her times shaped her views of women in the church), plus a few other things. I added the history of the Relief Society, Sisters in Spirit, and the Emma Hale Smith biography. 4 Zinas is still sitting out—I want to look through it some more before I shelf it. When I pulled together the new things I have gotten, and put some of my other books with it—collections of women’s conference talks, a book about Minerva Tiechert, books by Chieko Okasaki, Anne Poelman, and Sheri Dew, I was happy to see that I had a goodly amount. And I only plan to add to it in coming weeks.

Next, I started to rearrange my fiction section. I extended my children’s shelf extensively by moving a basket and stacking books on their sides. I put all my children’s books together on one shelf. From my parent’s home, I brought quite a few. First, my set of Little House on the Prairie books that I got them for Christmas when I was about 8 . I had inscribed my name and address on them in a childish scrawl. The list price on each of the books was 1.95. I also found my set of The Chronicles of Narnia. I had also put my name on their cardboard cover as well as affixing two Muppets stickers, including Animal and Miss Piggy. There was Island of the Blue Dolphin and a Sprout book that my first grade teacher had given me as a prize for reading a certain number of books. Plus, I also located battered copies of Charlotte’s Web and Anne of Avonlea. All these went together. Then, I added The Goose Girl, Harriet the Spy, The Bridge to Terabithia, and Walk Two Moons that I had picked up from garage sales.

I went down to the bottom shelf and looked at all my classics. I rearranged them somewhat my time period and genre, and then added in the books I brought from home. Most of them, I read in high school English classes: a couple of Hemingways, Slaughterhouse Five, The Mill on the Floss, and Metamorphoses. And then some of my personal books. The tragic Tess of the D’ubervilles, a well loved copy of the Princess Bride. Looking at all my books made me yearn for the time to pick them up and reread them.

After I was done, I surveyed my shelves with content. I felt happy with the books that I added to our collection, and felt that all in all, the books we have is a good reflection of the people that we are. And I noted with anticipation and excitement the empty spot in the Harry Potter for book 7 that comes out on Saturday.
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Last Day

Saturday: AJ and I get up early and go for an easy nearby hike together called Peaks Trail. It takes us a while to find the trailhead, but once we did, we had a great trip. It starts out quite chilly and we are in the woods for most of the time. We walk along a stream, had some great views of mountains, saw quite a few mountain bikers. It was nice to talk—about the kids, the week, 4 Zinas and some of the craziness of polygamy, our future. This was really the first time all week that we had to really talk much.

We come back, take family pictures in our Breckenridge t-shirts, and then I jump in the pool with the kids. It’s a combination hot tub-pool, and this morning, it is very warm. The kids have been enjoying it all week. We play for a while, then get out for lunch. Now, it’s time to start thinking about packing everything up. T naps, and we leave at about 5 to head back to Denver. We stop at Beau Jo's pizza in Idaho Springs on the way home. Such a great week.

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Friday

Friday: All of the F kids plus W’s friend and C go white water rafting. Thinking of both the cold water and my propensity for motion sickness, I decide not to go and stay with the kids and with AJ’s parents. I play Sorry and Memory with the kids and then take them into town to play for a while. We walk past the river and find a mini-playground. We are able to kill the morning this way and then head home for lunch. T goes down for a nap and the rafters get home mid-afternoon. For dinner, W and E do classic summer grilling—hamburgers, hotdogs, and add to that corn on the cob, watermelon, and root beer and I’m in heaven. We eat outside. AJ gets addicted to spider solitaire, and I soon follow suit. C builds a fire outside in the metal fire grate, and we roast marshmallows, make s’mores, and tell stories. The kids go to bed. We play a few rounds of Dalmuti to decide the order of special prizes. There are some yummy European chocolates, soap from Italy, and a few gags. I get a new copy of Dick and Jane, perfect for MJ to read. Too bad it is sexist and racist. AJ gets a CIA mug, his top choice.

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Blue Moose and SHAKE!

Thursday: The F ladies all go into town to eat breakfast at the Blue Moose and to discuss Three Cups of Tea. We had a great time selecting the book by email 6 weeks ago. We all suggested books, and then worked to winnow the list to one. This book was K’s suggestion. It is a fun outing, and I prefer this to the shopping that follows. Not that I hated it, I just got tired and wanted to leave sooner than we did. We did pick up Breckenridge t-shirts for the whole clan for family photos later in the week.

On the way back to the Sweet Mountain House, we stop by the grocery store so I can get food for our dinner. We make pork chops with adobo spice paste, our potatoes packets on the grill, and yummy grilled vegetables. It is a big hit. We follow up with the banana packets on the grill. I love doing a full grilled meal.

I think Thursday was the Rook breakthrough too. We had been playing Rook all week, and each time, with each partner, I lost. Time and time again. In probably 20 hands, I was dealt the Rook once. I was having some terrible luck, and was getting agitated about it. This time, I was partners with AJ and playing against C and E. After a few lousy hands (the first being the worst where we got set and they got 95 points!), I had a temper tantrum, complaining about my crappy luck and saying that I was going to keep on playing until my luck changed. Almost immediately, things changed, and I got dealt the Rook 4 out of 8 hands, I think. We ended up winning after an awful start. I didn’t play Rook again that week.

That evening, we all thoroughly enjoy a dance showed, billed as Shake! by MJF. MJ and W have selected the perfect music for a costume completely covered in fringe. I can’t believe her moves and am in tears from laughing so hard. Luckily, Em gets some video on her camera—not the best quality, but at least some documentation. T also joins in the fun with a pink shiny metallic shirt and some pink velvety pants, complete with a green furry hat. This goes perfectly with his break dancing moves and high kicks. They do a number together, then T and finally MJ get a solo. There is a small meltdown at the end when T tries to horn in on MJ’s solo, but AJ does a great job helping her calm down.

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14,265 Feet

Wednesday: All of the F kids, except for AJ, plus me and C leave the house at 6:30 to go to the trailhead for Mount Quandry, the 13th highest mountain in Colorado at 14, 265 feet. We spend the day hiking to the summit and back to the car. We make it home by 2:30. It’s a long day, and we spend the most time scrambling up rocks.


I am the slowest by far, but am relieved to summit before the others decide to turn around and come back. I turn on
my iPod to listen to some of my Amy Tan book to keep my mind occupied. When that runs out, I start counting my steps, forcing myself to put one foot in front of another. By the time I finally make it to the top, I have counted 1,134 steps. I figure that a big part of the reason for my laggardness is that I live in a city that is 300 feet above sea level, but CC and Em are far ahead of me too. I call AJ from the summit. Awesome reception!


On the way down, the rocks seem to go forever. It isn’t a pretty hike since we are above the treeline for most of the time, but I’m glad we were able to all do it together. The picture to the right isn't me or anyone I know. The pictures from our trip are on Em's camera and I haven't gotten them yet. I didn't bring mine because I thought AJ would want to take pics of the kids up on Copper Mountain. Too bad that he totally forgot to take it. But, it gives a sense of the rock fields. At this point, the summit looks so close. It took me so long to get to the top of that thing from this same point!


An aside from the trip report: E has climbed quite a few of the 50+ fourteeners in Colorado. As it turns out, Colorado is the highest state and has more mountains reaching 14,000 feet than any other state. I think it's an awesome goal to summit all of them. Perhaps if we lived in Colorado, I would climb a few more of them. This got me thinking about the individuality of place and geography. Each of our residences has had unique features--in some places more than others, I've embraced the uniqueness and tried to appreciate it.

I decided a few things based on this hike and the other mountain walking we did:

1. I need to take my kids on more nature walks/hikes around our area

2. In general, we need to do more outside. (I am resistant to embracing the outdoor winter activities in Minnesota. Maybe we can work on that a bit.)

3. I want to find the fourteener equivalent (or its slightly less arduous counterpart) in Minnesota. Maybe this means we should start canoeing and eventually do the boundary waters. Certainly, it suggests that I should start researching the state geography and unique environmental features.


Back to the trip report: After the hike, I enjoy a refreshing diet coke and sandwich and then take a relaxing steam shower in the steam room. K and C make delicious bruschetta and spaghetti for dinner. I think this is the night that we watch The Recruit.
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Mine Tour and White Elephants

Tuesday: We have waffles with strawberries for breakfast. Yum! Thanks, K.

That morning, we go over to a mine opened in the 1870’s and closed in 1946 and take a tour. It’s cool and wet inside, and we didn’t come prepared, but with the hardhats and slickers, it works out pretty well. We get some great family photos of us outside the entrance. And we get to try the steep tunnel slide. The kids love it. There are also miniature burros to feed, and some try their hands at panning for gold.

We eat Thai take-out for dinner, and AJ and I get a nice after dinner walk in. After dinner, we have a white elephant exchange, organized by K. This year, we came prepared. We pulled out the carved wood owl bank that BigT and C got as a wedding present. It’s been making the rounds for a while now. We also found a pair of BigT’s old Madras style patchwork pants that AJ has been holding onto. They are quite popular right now—too bad E couldn’t fit into them. CC was quite excited about them. I also found a few things at garage sales right before we left. I honestly don’t know how anyone could really sell the junk I picked up. The best item I found was the Top Gun soundtrack on record.

Em was very excited to see her HappyBobs again, a pair of rubberized shorts with a hard rubber seat. Perfect for sliding down a snow hill. Em also had a few treasures to distribute collected from her mother-in-law. T got a great present: some Peeps bubbles. He was happy.

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Easiest Hike

Monday: We get up and have breakfast. We decide to pack a lunch and go for a little hike. All of us. We drive over to Wal-mart to get T a quick pair of new shoes. His tennis shoes are too small, and we didn’t realize it until then since he has been wearing sandals non-stop.

We start up the hike. T is fascinated with all the rocks and picks them up, one after the other. He finds a big rock with some sparkly parts, his eyes get really big, and he says, “I just discovered gold!” CC gets a little anxious that we are going so slow, despite our requests to him and the others to just go ahead. AJ puts T on his shoulders, but I have to hold back with MJ. She complains most of the way up about how tired she is despite my efforts to distract her with all the sights of the hike. I bribe her with a prize if she can make it to the “top” without being carried by E or AJ. We eat a picnic lunch near a stream probably ¼ to 1/3 of a mile up the trail. The kids have fun dipping their feet in the ice cold mountain stream with dad and uncles, but I pass. AJ then takes the kids back down the trail along with nana and papa and the rest of us hike up a little further. By the time we get to the mountain pasture, it’s just me, K, and papa.

Dinner that night is amazing: CC&Em are in charge and we eat fajitas and a jicama and grapefruit salad, with crème puffs and raspberries drizzled with dark chocolate for dessert. We spend the night playing The Great Dalmuti, one of Em’s favorite games. I don't do too bad, and get to be the dalmuti for a few rounds.

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Getting to Breckenridge and the Sweet Mountain Home

Sunday: The kids sleep in a little bit, but I wake up at 6:15 thinking it’s 8. No clock on the side table in our room. I get to read a lot of 4 Zinas and decide I need my own copy. What a great book! We putz around the house and the kids take a bath. I decide not to take T to church so that he can get a nap before we go up to the mountains. Everyone leaves for church a little before 1 and T goes to sleep. I then go out to the three-season deck and start Three Cups of Tea so that I will be ready to discuss it for the F book group. I sip a diet coke while reading. So lovely. After church, we have dinner and get ready to go. We load the van with all our stuff plus the Costco goods and leave around 7 for Breckenridge. We get there by 8:30 or so, and wow—the Sweet Mountain House is amazing. It’s CC’s sister’s house. They’ve had it for about 2 years now, but it’s beautiful, huge, and isolated in the mountains. We unpack and get the kids into bed. We are sleeping downstairs in a great room with two deliciously comfortable queen beds, our own bathroom, but also right next to the bathroom with the steam room.
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Getting to Denver

Friday: I spend the day getting everything ready for the trip: gizmos for the kids in the car, suitcases, food, etc. I have the oil changed in the mini-van. When AJ gets home at 4:30, he packs the four suitcases, three backpacks, cooler, and everything else in the van and we have a sandwich for dinner and we’re off. Not even to the freeway yet, and T is asking over and over for some water. I don’t want him to drink a lot because I don’t want to have to stop for bathroom breaks every 30 minutes. But, after a slightly tense start, we whiz down to Des Moines (250 miles) in about 3 ½ hours. Total stops before our hotel? Zero. We stay at a Marriott Courtyard for only $50 because of Priceline.

Saturday: We all sleep in until 9:00. Shoot. We were going to leave the hotel around 9. I shower and then take the kids to Target to get some yogurt and milk for our breakfast. AJ has to send an email for work. We pull out a little before 11. Ugh. Long day ahead. But, overall, the kids do GREAT! They color pictures of state flowers and birds, they play, they watch a DVD. We stop for lunch in Lincoln, Nebraska. AJ’s hamstring is strained, so I drive most of the way to Denver. In total, it’s about 700 miles. We make it to AJ’s parent’s house by about 9:00 local time. T hasn’t napped at all in the car, yet it is still a challenge to get him and MJ to calm down enough to go to sleep.
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Our trip to Colorado

We spent last week in the glorious mountains of Colorado with AJ's family. What a wonderful week! I wanted to document what we did, so the next few posts will chronicle our trip.
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Three Cups of Tea

“Here, we drink three cups of tea to do business: the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family and for our family we are prepared to do anything—even die.”

Three Cups of Tea is the remarkable story of Greg Mortensen who has devoted his life to building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. After a failed attempt at summiting K2 in the Himalayas in 1993, Mortensen barely survives his descent off the mountain and ends up recuperating for 6 weeks in the tiny village of Kophe in the remote Baltistan region of Pakistan. He is graciously hosted in the village elder’s home, Haji Ali, and grows to become good friends with him and other members of the village. Just before returning to the United States, he asks Haji Ali to show him the village’s school. Embarrassed, Ali takes him to an open field where children sit with no teacher, scratching out figures in the dirt. Mortensen is moved, and though he has hardly a cent to his name, he promises to come back and build a school.

Thus begins the life mission of Mortensen. Up to this point in his life, he has worked as a nurse because the flexibility allowed him to pursue his passion as a mountain climber. Now, something else has taken its place in his heart. He returns home, living out of his car to save money, and laboriously types letter after letter to celebrities and anyone else he thinks could be a possible donor to attempt to fund raise the $12,000 he has estimated it will take to build a school in Korphe. He finds his break when a wealthy mountaineer turned scientist reads about Mortensen’s quest in a mountaineering newsletter and sends a check for the entire amount with a stark note attached: “Don’t screw up. Regards, J.H.”

The story is inspirational. Here is a common man with no specialized training and very few personal financial resources who is attempting to change the world. And in the villages where he has overseen the erection of a school, the world there has surely been changed. I wondered how someone can find their own passion like this. With Mortensen, a personal experience with individuals in the village of Korphe started the fire of his passion. He was single-minded in his quest to build this one school, but to then return to his “normal life.” But, along the way, and with the funding from one particular individual at first, and then from many individuals, he discovered that this was a mission he wanted to dedicate his life to. He learned new languages, he studied books about the area, but most importantly to his success and survival, he loved the people and built relationships with them. By building personal relationships and then using those connections, he was able to get introductions and tap into powerful elders’ networks. He was fully immersed in the village life and Islam. He respected who they were and sought to help them on their own terms. And he found villages that wanted desired education for their children and were willing to dedicate time and labor to construct schools. Mortensen also showed perseverance in setback after setback and an amazing willingness to forego personal comfort. He had no problem sleeping in primitive conditions, in eating and drinking local foods that seem terrible to my Western tongue, and in adapting to all of life in rural Pakistan.

So, with Mortensen, a personal experience combined with unique personal characteristics led him to the path that he is on now. On a smaller sense, I wonder how I can find a passion to dedicate energy and resources to. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.

He had a few choice things to say about the American involvement in Afghanistan. If the Pentagon could count and report the number of top Taliban leadership killed, why could they not estimate the number of civilian casualities? And if the US could carry in huge suitcases of money to pay Afghanistan warlords to support their cause, why was the excuse used that the inefficient bank system prevented the US from sending the aid money promised? Mortensen also believes, and I agree, that the consequences of the US largely abandoned Afghanistan to fight a war in Iraq have been devastating to the country.

Just a few other things to say about this book. K suggested it to AJ’s family for the first ever F family book group. I had a great time yesterday going to breakfast with AJ’s sisters and mom to discuss it. I hope we can do this again.

With a major donation, Mortensen started the Central Asian Institute, that was overseen by the board of directors. But, one problem that I saw revolved precisely around Mortensen’s dedication and desire to personally see to and control every initiative. He was unwilling to hire an American assistant with the same passion to help unload some of the heavy burden Mortensen carried. Without training others in the work that he was doing, the organization would largely be symbolic in nature, but would remain dependent on Greg Mortensen and his charisma and connections. I also wondered what thought has been given to creating a permanent, income-generating endowment so that the finances are on stable ground and that the future financial well-being of CAI is largely secured.

Mortensen was in Pakistan on 9/11 and although his traveling companion quickly left the country, he stayed there for several more weeks with the protection of some local men. Movingly, many women in small villages presented eggs, tokens of grief and mourning, to Mortensen for him to pass on to women in New York whose children had been killed. In the midst of the aftermath, Mortensen acts a voice of moderation stating what now seems to be the obvious: “All Muslims are not terrorists.” And based on his experience in the region, he argued for the need to fight terrorism with not just military action, but with the education of Muslim children. For this he received death threats.

And one more thing: someone in the book commented that Greg’s wife Tara is every bit the hero that he is. She supports him completely in his work, enduring months long absence without being able to be in communication with him, wondering about whether he would make it out alive, caring for their two children alone. Knowing myself, I would have a hard time—a very hard time—with such an arrangement.
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Obsessed

The first couple of weeks after the season finale of Lost, I was depressed. Wednesday evening would come and go and I would have to fold the laundry, but there was no Lost on to watch. The first week, I re-watched the season finale. I don't remember what piddle I watched the second week. Thursday's lunch times had also turned into Lost time for me. I would spend time reading a couple of awesome columns about Lost. So, now I didn't have that to look forward to either.

Then, I fixated on how to get a copy of Lost Season 1 on DVD without spending much money. Everywhere I looked, copies were expensive. They were not selling them at Costco here or Sam's Club in GF where my mom checked for me.

Then, I got an email from B&N advertising "Buy 2 DVDs, Get One Free." I just had to find two other people who wanted to buy something comparable in price to Lost. There were no takers in my family, but I persuaded my mom and my Lostie friends here to go for it. I needed three copies of season 1. My local store didn't have three copies in stock. I special ordered them, but when I called for an update on when they would be coming, the guy said July 7. JULY 7??? Are you freaking kidding me? That was a month away. Forget that.

So then I called all the stores in the area to see if anyone had three copies. No one did. Some had two copies. Finally, one very helpful and resourceful young man told me that I could come to a store and buy two copies, and then have the third copy shipped elsewhere and would qualify for the special deal. So last Wednesday night, I dragged the kids to a store about 15 miles away to get two copies of Lost Season 1 and to have the third copy shipped to my mom.

Want to know a dirty little secret about B&N? At least in this instance, they jacked up their store prices compared to their online prices. The supposed reason is that they have higher overhead costs in their bricks and mortar store compared to a warehouse. I also think that they're making you pay a premium to get your hands on something the moment you want it rather than waiting the few days for it to come in the mail. And it's also easy to look at amazon.com and see that their prices are lower and to just order from them.

So the kicker is that with the free shipping for my mom, it cost me more to drive up the freeway to a B&N and buy the DVDs there than to just sit waiting comfortably in the privacy of my own home and have them delivered to my door step. Oh well. We got to watch the Lost pilot that night. Awesome.

My other financial resourcefulness? I took back the nice hardback Friedman book I got AJ for father's day last year (because he had read "enough" of the library copy and wasn't interested in reading any more. It hadn't been cracked open, and happily, I didn't inscribe it), and got $22 in store credit at B&N. My total out of pocket costs for Lost Season 1, then? $15. Yee-haw! That's coming on vacation with me.

Hmm. What do I have laying around the house that I can trade in for Season 2??
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Books and Book Groups

Book group meets tomorrow. We are doing Wild Swans, based on my recommendation. I was a little nervous that some members of the group would be intimidated by the size of the book, and all the Chinese names and geography. But, from the feedback I've already gotten back so far, a lot have read/are reading it and they really like it. I'm happy about that. My fear was that, for whatever reasons, everyone would come to book group, but no one would have read the book.

A while ago, there was a guest post on FMH about reading and book groups. There's something so great about reading a book and then talking about it. I wanted to post the comment I made there here because I've thought about it a lot since then. It summarizes my experiences with reading and book groups.

I have always loved reading and books. I have lots of books, and I always look at other people’s bookshelves when I’m in their home to see what they read and what they choose to own. Reading is a litmus test for me in some regards too.

But, it wasn’t until my last ward in Pittsburgh that I read with a book group. It was an amazing first group. Although all Mormon women, nothing was off limits. Everyone was brilliant and there were also lots of strong feminist voices. We read widely and talked late into the night. I cherish the perspectives that I gained from that group. It was the first time I really started to appreciate the talking life of books. I loved what we could share about ourselves through our relating to the books we read. I loved the safe forum for talking about questions in the church and for our lives as women. I miss that group!

When we moved to our new ward in suburbia, the group of women in the ward was much more traditional. A fledging book group had started, and I helped it take off and become more regular. There are a lot of things they wouldn’t want to read, and a lot of things that we wouldn’t talk about. But, I still find that books give us a ground on which to get to know each other in ways that we wouldn’t have otherwise. This past month, we read Chaim Potok and talk about Jewish orthodoxy. There were a lot of issues that resonated into Mormon life. On occasion, though, I have left the group feeling depressed.

Blogging, as much as I like it, is a poor substitute for real-life interaction for me. It’s hard for me to keep track of different voices in the bloggernacle, save for a few, and I am not active enough to feel like anyone knows who I am. It is a good outlet, but I long for personal relationships. On my own blog, I have been writing about the books I read, and I love the process of writing to lay out my thoughts and focus myself. I find that, at times, writing helps me find myself in a book and I love that.

Personally, one of the best things that’s happened in recent past is the development of a friendship with a woman who is a fierce feminist, intellectual, but committed and believing Mormon. Just my type of friend! And we have decided to spend the summer reading together about Mormon women’s history. I’m so excited!
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Last Week of School

I can't believe MJ has almost finished kindergarten. Her last day is Thursday. And it will be the last day I have to drive her, because next year she will be able to take the bus both to and from school. Yeah! I find it hard to believe, though, that she will be in first grade next year.

In the NYT this weekend, there was a big article about the age that kids are starting kindergarten. In affluent areas especially, more parents over time have been holding their kids back so that they are entering kindergarten when they are turning 7. In some areas, a full quarter of children have been held back a year. This trend has cleverly been labeled the greying of kindergarten. The author of the article cited quite a bit of research about how important relative standing is in a class. It made me wonder if we made a mistake putting MJ in kindergarten early. She has a fall birthday, and we felt like she was ready for K. Due to a district provision, there is a window where early fall birthdays can be considered for early admission. She was tested by the school pyschologist, and she felt that there was no question about it: MJ could go to K and do just fine. She has done well this year, and I am really pleased with her school experience. I wonder, though, what the benefits of keeping her back a year may have been. She would have certainly been reading quite well by the time she started K and would have been at the top of her class. And being in a Spanish immersion program, she probably wouldn't have gotten bored. I don't know. I think it was a good decision for her. We have exactly the same situation with T who has a September birthday.

Today, the three kindergarten classes put on a dance show. They each have been practicing a latin flavored dance, and then presented it today. MJ's class did El Baile Gorila. . The music had a modern feel to it, and there were great gorilla type grunts thoughout. The kids did a great job. They dance in boy-girl partners, and MJ was very into it. I especially loved the clapping over the head. MJ wasn't great with the shimmy shoulders. It was so fun to see what they've been learning. I love the cultural side of the immersion school. They had cute costumes for the kids. The girls had a simple bright pink skirt that they wore over black leotards and then these fancy pink sleeves that they pulled up on their shoulders. They had to wear buns and had a silver bow in their hair. It started at 1:15, and was completely over by 1:27. Unfortunately, AJ got there after MJ's class was done. Fortunately, they repeated the entire program because there were quite a few parents who came in late.
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I Don't Like Other People's Babies...

I've never really been a kid person. I liked babysitting when I was young, but mostly because it provided me a legitimate way to get out of my house, be on my own, and earn a little money, not because I liked taking care of kids. I remember Pam, the babysitter my sisters and I loved. She brought her babysitting kit and always had lots of fun things planned for us to do. I was certainly not like her. I was, and still am, something of a minimalist when it comes to kids.

Today, for only a short while, I took care of a neighbor's 3 kids. Part of that time, they were all strapped in the car as I was driving MJ to school. Then, we played outside until their mom came to get them. They have an almost one year old, and he has gotten a lot easier to take care of. In the past, he has freaked out without his mom and spent the whole time crying. Today, he only cried for a while, but I have a hard time dealing with crying babies. And he doesn't really like me, so my picking him up only aggravated it.

Then there's the craziness. For lunch, there were 5 of them sitting at the table--ages 5,5,2,2 and 1. They all need something from me. And there's a lot of noise. I just don't do well in those situations.

I know it's different with my own kids, but it's still unnerving to think about the possibility of having a baby. Can I handle it? Will I be stressed out all the time?
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Harry Potter 7 Predictions

To get my brain working about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (only 53 more days!), I checked out Mugglenet.com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7 based on a recommendation from a blog. Mugglenet.com is a HP fan site which was started in 1999 by a 12 year old homeschooled kid. It has grown into a big site, and a bunch of them (5!) decided to write a book with their predictions. It was decently written, with all the big issues covered, and evidence to support their theories clearly delineated by topic. It was a fun read, and I am eager to get my hands on this final volume. Yesterday, when I was at Barnes and Noble ogling the Lost dvds, I pre-registered for HP so that I can pick it up at 12:01 am on July 21st, or go in first thing that morning.

So, I am going to jot down a few of my predictions:

1. Snape is loyal to the Order of the Phoenix. After the death of Dumbledore, his cover is complete and his is in deep with the Death Eaters and Voldemort. But, he will redeem himself and be instrumental in Voldemort's downfall.

2. One of the Weasley boys will be killed. This will cause Percy to reconcile with his family.

3. We're going to get some information about Harry's parents' families. Mugglenet talks about how important Lily's eyes will be. They also theorize that Snape was in love with Lily. Harry, we have learned several times, looks just like his father, except that he has his mother's eyes. Maybe this will trigger some kind of response in Snape? Looking at Harry, he will remember Lily?

4. Peter Pettigrew aka Wormtail will save Harry's life in someway. Harry once saved his life by persuading Sirium and Lupin from not killing him. This will come back to help Harry in book 7.

These are sparse theories. I plan on reading books 5 & 6 before 7 comes out to remember all the details and to connect the threads.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns

When I was at the library last week, the just released book by Khalid Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was sitting on the Best-Seller Express display, luring me to partake. Best Seller Express is a way for the library system to both make some money and make popular books more available to the reading public. You pay a small fee--$3--and you get the book for 10 days. Because of the fee, they are a lot easier to get a hold of. Going the standard route would mean placing myself at the end of an almost 1000 person waiting list. And, when I contributed a few bucks to the library, I got a free Best Seller Express coupon. Perfect! My only dilemma was rather I should get some other reading done first and check it out after our vacation, or just go for it now. On Friday when I was there with the kids, I saw it sitting there, all new and shiny. Then, I went back on Saturday to get it. It looked like a never opened book, pages crisp and binding tight. I spent the weekend reading it.

Reading this book right after Wild Swans, and boy, I am depressed about the state and status of women across the world. A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of two Afgahni women over the 30 year period of tumultuous historical changes. From pre-Soviet days to the Soviet invasion and occupation, then on to the Taliban and post-Taliban, fledging democracy days.

Mariam is the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy business man in Herat and a maid in his household. Her mother tragically commits suicide when Mariam is 15, and she is forced into a marriage with Rasheed, a shoemaker in Kabul who is three times her age. His only desire is for a son, and when Mariam is unable to carry a pregnancy to term, their marriage turns both cold and ugly.

After 18 years of marriage, some neighbors are killed by a bomb. Their surviving daughter, the smart, spirited, and defiant 14 year old Laila, is brought into Mariam and Rasheed's household, and soon, he decides to marry her. Her options are limited, and she agrees, mostly to provide a cover for her recently discovered pregnancy. In a spontaneous, clandestine, and rash burst of passion, she and her childhood friend Tariq consummate their relationship on the eve of Tariq and his family's departure to Pakistan.

As the story develops, the core becomes the friendship of Mariam and Laila as they stand together against the tyranny and abuse of Rasheed. His beatings are commonplace and brutal. The story is full of tragedy and shattered dreams. They plan an escape, but fail and are brought back to a full measure of Rasheed's rage.

The climax of the story occurs when Tariq returns (Rasheed has faked a witness to his death to prevent Laila from leaving), Rasheed erupts, and attempts to strangle Laila. In her defense, Mariam used a shovel as a weapon to fatally strike Rasheed. But, there is no escape from the long grasp of the Taliban, and she decides to confess her crime in order to save Laila. She is condemned to immediate execution. The portion of the book is my favorite. Mariam goes to her death in peace, grateful and happy for the chance to share love and friendship with Laila and her two children. In these relationships, she has been able to love and be loved, and she is content with that. It caused me to reflect on the way that my relationships with other women have been such a blessing and gift to me.

Laila is ever after haunted by the memory of Mariam. In her dreams, she hears the familiar hiss of the iron and the crisp snap of the sheets, but when she enters the room from where the sound is coming, there is no one there. After the downfall of the Taliban, she and Tariq return to Afghanistan and she goes to Mariam's home city of Herat to see when she lived and to pay homage to her. In so doing, she is able to connect with Mariam, provide a sort of reconciliation between Mariam and her estranged father, and to find a measure of hope for both herself and her country.

I liked this description from Publishers Weekly on Amazon:

Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters.

My only regret is that I read it too fast.

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Paul and Eve

Today, I read the first essay in Sisters in Spirit. It was so so awesome and made me so happy. It was an analysis of Eve and the story of the Garden of Eve and the fall. I have been fascinated with Eve for a long time, for many reasons, but one of these is that for me, she is an example of a woman in scripture whom I really like, and in some ways, she stands in as a substitute for Mother in Heaven, since we know so little about her. Anyway, the author, Jolene Edmunds Rockwood, had some amazing insights.

She begins the essay by looking at the ways the story of Eve and the fall have been utilized to justify the subjugation of women, starting with Judaism and the written text of the Midrash and the Torah. For example, under Jewish tradition, women are honored as mothers, but must worship in separate quarters so as not to distract men, an allusion to Eve as temptress. Women and girls are not allowed to study Torah. She quotes: "let the words of the Torah be destroyed by fire than imparted to women." Because Eve was formed from Adam's rib, she "was a secondary creation and thus was subject to and inferior to Adam" and thus are not suited to study scripture.

She then discusses the Pauline epistles that use references to Eve and the Garden of Eden. By contextualizing Paul as a learned Jew, tutored under the hand of a great Jewish scholar and well-versed in the Midrash and Torah, the statements he makes about women (and which always manage to infuriate me) are contextualized. Rockwood claims that he is still relying on his Jewish learning in some of these statements. "Paul's advice on issues involving women was usually a mixture of Christian principles boldly sprinked with Jewish customs." She discusses several passages, including one from 1 Timothy 2. She explains that these verses are full of traditional Jewish interpretations. For example: "I suffer not a woman to teach, not to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." Because Adam was created first, which grants him superiority, women should not attempt to teach men.

I have never really thought about how Paul's Jewish learning shaped his views on women. This rings true to me. In April, my book group discussed Chaim Potok and The Promise. The female characters were very flat and seemed unrealistic. The books were about men. About men studying Talmud, about men negotiating the secular and sacred divide. The women, at least as portrayed by him, were very much on the sideline. According to Rockwood, this is a common Jewish tradition, that goes back to the early Jewish writings on Eve. Paul was shaped by that as part of his cultural beliefs. That is reflected in what he writes.
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Wild Swans

Wild Swans by Jung Chang chronicles the lives of three generations of Chinese women--the author's grandmother, mother and herself--from the early 1900's though the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao. This is an amazing book in that it embeds the personal stories of this family in the tumultous and horrific historical conditions of the time. Like The Lost in this regard, I find that this is a great way to learn history.

The changes that China endures through the time period recorded here are incredible. Er-Hong, the grandmother, is born in 1909, a period when foot-binding is still common. However, within only a few years, this practice is obsolete. Her first "marriage" at age 15 is to a warlord as a concubine. After the marriage ceremonies, she is sent to live in a large home, with a bevy of servants, but no sign of her husband for 6 years. This is fortunate in a way since she still lives close to her parents and doesn't have to live under the thumb of her husband's other wives and concunbines. When he returns for a few days, she becomes pregnant with the narrator's mother, De-hong. A short time later, Xue, her warlord husband dies.

She goes on to find a wonderful older man. Dr Xia is 65 years old, but he falls in love with the 25 year old Er-Hong and wants to marry her, much to the dismay of his family. Some of his children are older than she is, and they are furious that he wants to marry a former concubine. With the strict formalities on familial order and status, they will become subjected to a much younger woman. One of the sons shoots himself in protest. But, Dr Xia remains committed to marrying Er-Hong and caring for her young daughter. They marry, but family contention continues in full force as Dr Xia's children and grandchildren begin to bully both Er-Hong and De-Hong. When De-Hong, as a little girl, is pushed into the bottom of a deep well, Dr Xia has had enough and he takes his wife and her daughter and moves away. Away from his family. Away from his business and home. And into poverty to start life anew as a 65 year old man.

The story goes on. De-Hong grows up and as a teen-ager witnesses the conquering of the Kuomintang by the Communists. She becomes a fierce and committed follower of Communism, believing wholeheartedly in their ideology and their ability to make Chinese society a better place. In fact, after the Communist victory, they are able to quickly get the economy up and running, the peasants are grateful for the added benefits they see, and I thought that the Communists, at least as portrayed here, were a better alternative to the extravagent, cruel, and excessive Kuomintang. (Who, with Chiang Kai-Shek went across the sea of China to found Taiwan.)

I want to do a seperate post on all the gender stuff that this book is saturated with. The lives of these women are fascinating, and the intersection of Chinese history and politics and how it shaped gender roles and relationships is so interesting. Starting with the egregious practice of foot-binding with the author's grandmother, women seem to be simply appendages to their husbands. Under Communism, this changes somewhat and old traditions that subjugate women are altered, but in a distorted way. More on this later.

De-Hong marries a Communist official about 10 years her senior. Early in their marriage, she sees that he is more committed to the Communists and their ideals than to her and her health and happiness and is bitterly disappointed.

“My father’s devotion to communism was absolute. He felt he had to speak the same language in private, even to his wife, that he did in public. My mother was much more flexible; her commitment was tempered by both reason and emotion. She gave a space to the private that my father did not.”

On a march through the jungle to arrive at their new home in Chengdu, he refuses to allow her to ride in the government jeep although she is very sick. She later miscarries and has to be hospitalized. But, allowing her to ride with him shows favoritism and nepotism and these are the traditions of Old China that must be knocked down. When she is pregnant and sick again, her mother spends one month travelling to come and visit and take care of her. Because of rules and because being pampered by your mother's cooking and care is considered bourgeois, after one month, she is forced by De-Hong's husband and her cell leader to leave and spend another month travelling back home to Manchuria. Chang says that her mother was never able to forgive her father for these and other similar incidents.

One of the other fascinating sections of the book is about Mao and how his policies shaped life for a generation of Chinese people. His main objective seems to be the preservation of his own power. His revolution exists to eliminate any capitalist tendencies and borgeois traditions. He claims that his is a revolution for the peasants and laborers, but it seems that he likes them only insomuch as they don't question him. He distrusts any intellectuals, professionals, artists, and others who show independence of thought and action. time and time again, he crushes any intimation of criticism of his policies, the government, or any thing that may appear to foster thinking. Books are burned, public denunciations, that are often opportunities for settling personal vendettas and operate based on rumor and terror rather than actual fact, are conducted with public beatings. And all this culminates in the Cultural Revolution.

By this time, the author's father realizes that Mao is misguided and disagrees with the tenets of the Cultural Revolution. He is not willing to stand and kowtow to Mao and his policies any longer and despite his wife's begging, sends a letter to chairman Mao with his grievances listed. The one thing about Jung's father: he is a man of integrity. He stands up for what he believes in, no matter what the cost. He is taken for investigation and is renounced as a class enemy. He is relocated to the countryside for re-education and for hard labor. Her mother is also assigned to the country, as are the older children in the family.

Even through all of this, Jung is conditioned to see Mao as a god, as infalliable. All her frustrations are directed to other sources. It's Madame Mao. It's the Tings and other local leaders who abuse their power. She goes on a pilgrimage as a 15 year old with her friends to see Mao. This means waiting for a month in Peking to eventually see him in a motorcade for a mere few seconds.

As a university student studying English, she eventually starts to see the despicable and tyrannical Mao.

After Mao's death, the country begins to open up, and based on her intellect and desire, Jung ends up being one of the first Chinese to leave the country to study in a foreign country.

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Lost Season Three Highlights and Predictions

Before I watch the Lost season finale, I wanted to document my theories on what will happen tonight.

We will find out that Juliet is not a traitor to the Losties, only to Ben and the others. She will not backstab Jack. But, she will be killed tonight (I really hope not!) by Ben or another Other.

I know that there will be a few more casualities tonight. And I'm not sure who. But, these are my guesses: Charlie, Richard (we will find out that although he doesn't age, he can be killed), and Naomi.

And, I was inspired reading someone else's list of the top Lost moments of this season. So, here are mine (and I"m sure I will add some more after tonight's episode.)

• Seeing John Locke's father on the island, taken captive by the others. "Dad??"
• The opening scene from the season premier. Juliet getting ready for the book group, and then the plane crash. Realizing that the Others lived in some weird kind of suburban spin off.
• And Juliet and her whole backstory in Not in Portland. Watching her husband Edmund getting hit by the bus! So freaky. My second favorite episode of the season.
• John Locke getting pushed from the window, falling 9 stories, and landing on his back. John Locke getting shot in the chest and falling backwards in the open pit Dharma graves. (How's this for a crazy theory: John Locke lives after getting shot by Ben. How? The bullet enters his body right where his kidney was. If his kidney had been there, he would have died. He owes his life to his conniving father??)
• Sawyer killing Cooper. Wow--that was an intense scene.
• John Locke meeting Jacob me. "Help me..."
• And my favorite episode of the season so far: Flashes Before Your Eyes where we find out what happened to Desmond when we turned the fail safe key in the hatch, where we meet that crazy lady Mrs Hawking, and when we see a flashback that isn't a flasback. Brilliant.

UPDATE

Ok, now I've watched it. We had friends over on Wednesday night and ate sushi and bananas foster from the grill and watched it. When the rattlesnake jumped out of the mailbox in the final scene, we went back and watched all the flashbacks, which we now found out were flash forwards. (When we saw the funeral home, Andy immediately started anagramming it. Hoffs Drawlar. Too bad he didn't figure it out: Flash Forward!)

I woke up the next morning with Lost on the brain, thinking through all the scenes, trying to figure out who was in the coffin. And I spent quite a bit of time on my favorite Lost analysis sites trying to piece at least a little bit together of what happened.

The episode was phenomenal. Brilliant. Amazing. I love Lost. I am thinking that we need to get the DVDS and start from the beginning this summer. I mean, we have 8 freaking months until it's on again.

My favorite parts from the finale:

Hurley barreling down the hill in Roger Workman's Dharma van to topple the Others who were holding Jin, Sayid, and Bernard captive. Sayid tripping one of the thier captors with his feet, and then breaking his neck, with his feet!

Seeing a transmission from Penny in the Looking Glass. I so wanted Desmond to see her.

What do I make of Jack's references to his dad being alive? When we know that his dad was dead in the pilot episode? Hmm. Is jack in some kind of parallel universe? Has Desmond changed time and space each time he has intervened with fate to save Charlie?

And Charlie! Oh, that final scene with Charlie was amazing. Him floating back into murky waters. What a great scene!

And the whole contrast between jack and charlie is fascinating. Charlie, the former heroin addict, now a true hero. He knew that drowning was his destiny and he was totally at peace with it. He may have been able to escape, but he sacrificed himself for the good of the Losties. I feel like he found his true self and that it's all right for him to die. And it's my theory that all the losties have to do that on the island. But, then there's "future"-Jack. Now a druggie. Totally bitter. and a supposed hero. but not really. And still totally lost.

The night watching the finale, I was convinced that Jack's flash forward was a potential future, but not the only one. I don't want to believe that that's how Jack is going to end up. He can't. Such a ugly future.

Andy kept calling Mikhail a cyborg. I wonder if he blew himself up with the grenade or is he still alive somewhere out there. So freaking crazy.

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Book list

The last little while my list of books to read in the near future has grown.

I am still in the midst of Divided by God: America's Church-State Problem--and What We Should Do About it. It is slow reading for me, with my very limited legal knowledge. I just got to a chapter on schools and religion and that is a little more familiar territory for me.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is the selection for my ward's June book group. I have read it before, but it's been a while, and since I suggested it, I feel like I need to read it throughly.

We are going to Denver in June for a gathering with AJ's family. Happily, his mom and sisters all love to read, so we are going to do a lunch together and discuss Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time. And so the guys don't feel left out, we are adding The Alchemist for a completely inclusive (at least for adults, that is) discussion.

And then, in a very happy turn for my summer, a friend and I are putting together a reading list to work on Mormon women's history. We are starting with Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith and Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society.

Oh, and I can't forget The Price of Motherhood. FMH just announced that they lined up the author Ann Crittenden to discuss the book online with them. I read this a few years ago, and loved it. Although it made me so so mad. But, I'd like to reread it.

I'll be posting notes as I go. But, can I just say, I love books!!!
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Dissent and Alternative Voices

A confluence of several things the last few days has gotten me thinking about dissent.

First, the protesters at BYU's commencement. I am thrilled that a protest to Cheney was organized and carried out at BYU. BYU is not a monolithic entity and appendage to the GOP. Not completely, anyway, and those students who organized the protest and arranged for an alternative commencement are to be commended. I am proud of them. I wish I could have attended my sister's graduation so that I could participate. I am also glad that BYU is not showing only a wholehearted open armed welcome to Cheney to the world at large.

On the other hand, I find the responses to the protesters distasteful. The SL Trib reported that passersby yelled out "traitors!," "losers!" and "we'll be praying for you!" (suggesting that protest is some kind of sin). Someone also said that the protesters were disrespecting BYU and its graduates. To that, I heartily disagree. BYU should not be in the business of churning out GOP faithful, and by showing disagreement, students were showing that there are differences in political ideology there. Another comment reflects Mormon predisposition to support authority, in all its forms : "I support the office of vice-president."

Second, this week, a friend and I had lunch with a former BYU faculty member who was fired from her position there in the 90's because of one public statement about abortion. She equated her position then to that of Mitt Romney now. She then moved here and began teaching at a local college. After leaving BYU under awful circumstances, she stayed active in the church. It was only a few years ago when she felt compelled to discontinue her church activity. The way she described it, she was concerned about her 12 year old daughter and the messages the church had for her. And she felt like she could no longer reconcile her political beliefs with her church experience. She was a wonderful woman, and we enjoyed visiting together. But, after leaving, I felt sorrow that an articulate, intelligent woman such as her had come to the point in her life where she felt so divided that she could not, in good conscience, maintain a life as both a Mormon and a scholar. I long for role models that have managed to combine the two into one cohesive (not bi-polar) identity.

I've also been thinking about dissent since watching the PBS documentary on the Mormons. I haven't finished watching it yet (hopefully tonight I can watch the last hour). But, with the belief that we are the "only true and living church upon the face of the earth", dissent (and questioning authority) is not encouraged and often not tolerated. In a book about the separation of church and state, I read this:

It would be wrong for the government to coerce someone whose conscience was right about her religious faith, argued New England Puritan John Cotton. But, an erroneous conscience needed to be corrected, by force if necessary, and it would be truly dangerous to allow people who suffered from an erroneous conscience to propagate their sinful views among the innocent and unsuspecting public.

This made me think of the attitudes of many members of the church.

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Chaim Potok and Place

For our book group this month, we read Chaim Potok's The Promise. I also read The Chosen. I read these books years ago as a teen-ager and it was great to revisit them. The themes in both are similar. I was especially taken with the inner conflict that the two main characters Danny and Reuven face in trying to reconcile the conflicts they feel between their Orthodox Jewish background and the secular world. Both are intelligent young men who have dedicated their lives to studying the Talmud. But, they also feel drawn to study other things as well: for Danny, Freud is forbidden; for Reuven, his method of understanding the Talmud through text emendation is seen as borderline apostate. By the end of The Promise, neither one has completely managed to incorporate these two somewhat conflicting parts of their intellectual quests into one complete whole, but the tone is optimistic: they are on the right paths for them, they will find a way to meld two disparate worlds within themselves.

After the discussion about the book was over and several of the women had gone, the husband of the host joined us. He talked about his reaction to watching the second half of the PBS documentary on the church, which led to polygamy, and questions of gender and priesthood and on and on. I should have left at 11. I shouldn't have stayed. It was a discussion I didn't want to get into. He described the commentators on the PBS program "pseudo-intellectuals" and "fringe intellectuals." He felt that they didn't accurately represent the rank and file of the church. I'm not sure why he used the qualifier "pseudo". I really loved the talking heads they had on Monday night. And the idea of fringe intellectuals: so negative. Crazy people who are talking about things that don't matter, talking about ideas that no one cares about that have no relevance to anyone. That frustrated me. I haven't seen the second half, but I'm sure, 100%, that my reaction will not be like his.

Then there were conversations about why women don't have the preisthood (with the explanation of the inherent deficiencies of men who need the priesthood to make up for their inherent lack of spirituality), the idea that women are naturally nurturers, etc etc. I made a few contradictory comments, but didn't have the heart to engage in a full on debate.

For one, I have a problem thinking and talking quickly on the spot to make a coherent argument. But, for another, I don't want to let it all out. To be "that woman". To be labeled in some sort of negative way. I know I shouldn't care what others think, but I find it difficult not to. In our ward, I haven't met any intellectually kindred spirits. I have met a lot of great women though. My children play with theirs, and we have good conversations too. I like every single one of the women that were there last night who believe things that I do not. I don't want to make certain beliefs about gender some kind of litmus test for whom I am friends with. But, I also question who I can be really close to in my ward. I came home sad and feeling a little lonely. In my past two wards, I've had all kinds of friends, but those circles have also included women who I feel free to discuss anything with and who have pushed me in intellectually new directions. I will probably grow in other ways with the women in my ward now.

This all ties back to Chaim Potok and finding a place of my own. It's not easy to navigate between disparate worlds. I know my schisms are not nearly as wide as many others', but I long to find a sense of unity and wholeness between Mormon, mother, academic, feminist. This morning, my wonderful neighbor called to see if my kids could come over to play with hers. I gladly dropped them off and headed to the library. When I couldn't find what I wanted, I went to the nearby Barnes and Noble to pick up a copy of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. I saw it on a compilation of feminist writing recently and added to my list to read. I love the title and long to find my own place, so I decided to treat myself to it.

This all also relates to those who leave the church because they cannot reconcile their intellectual and religious beliefs. I met a woman last week like this--I need to finish writing about that experience--but I always feel sad when a intellectual feels that the church is no longer a good place for them, or when the church feels like that intellectual does not belong in the church. I don't want to have to choose between one side or the other.
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Letter to stake presidency

Dear stake presidency,

First, thank you for your recent participation and direction in both stake conference and our ward's conference. I have appreciated your direct counsel and your personal regard and love for our stake which I have felt several times. I was amazed when you, President P, greeted me by name in the hallway of our church building after ward conference. I am not only new in the ward, but I can think of no reason that you might know me. I know that as a stake presidency you work tirelessly and at great personal sacrifice--the many hours you devote to your calling could be dedicated to your families, jobs, or, quite simply, to rest and leisure! Thank you for all you do.

I write to bring one small matter to your attention. Recently, a letter from you came to our home. Enclosed was a letter detailing the stake goals that you are encouraging our stake to adopt and complete this year. I did not open the letter when I retrieved it from the mailbox because it was addressed solely to my husband. I assumed it had something to do with his calling, or a stake meeting that he was to attend. Of course, I found out differently when he opened it later and I saw that it was intended for all stake members.

I realize that this is most likely a technical issue. The address labels were printed out, using some computer program, and the first name listed in each household record was printed out. I know that there was no exclusionary or malicious intent. I feel that, however, no matter what the cause, this (seemingly small) oversight should be remedied in future mailings to stake members. As a full fledged member of the stake, I would like to be recognized and acknowledged as an individual, capable of inspiration with regards to my calling, my family, my life direction, and my interactions with others. My husband and I are jointly the head of our household, and together we seek the Lord's will for us as a family. We want to grow as a family in beoming disciples of Christ and in nurturing our children on that path, as I know you want for us. By including both of us on the address label, you imply all this. By not including me, I know that you are not implying otherwise, but I personally felt excluded from your message.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I know that there are many issues you are concerned about and working on for our stake, and I wondered whether to even bother you with something relatively small in comparison. Please know that I am interested and invested in the the growth and development of our stake, and I and my family will be working on the goals which you have set forth for us. I am grateful that I can be a fellow citizen with the saints here in the B stake.
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Helping the Poor and Needy

This month's visiting teaching message was different than it's been in a while. The end of last year, I felt like we were talking about the benefits of membership in the Relief Society ad nauseum. This year, we've focused on personal testimony, faith, and other personally meaningful aspects of spiritual development. April's message, though, was about helping the poor and needy. I glanced at the title and was excited about it. Finally, something about reaching outside my social and church circles, a focus on a major problem in the world.

So, my partner and I went visiting teaching this morning. We sat outside on a beautiful spring day (spring is finally here! The leaves are starting to grow back.) and talked with a new sister in our ward who just gave birth to her first child. My partner is a wonderful woman and I see her quite a bit. She lives near me and we often trade kids back and forth. She is always cheerful, despite the demands of a large family.

She started the lesson by recounting a story found in this month's New Era. The author writes of her patriarchal blessing, which stated "You may help the needy with your time, effort, and means.” She feels drawn to help the poor in her area, but her first two efforts are unsuccesful. She goes home, depressed. How can she fulfill her calling? How can she help the needy? She walks into her home, and her younger brother is crying, upset from being teased at school. The words from her patriarchal blessing come back to her, and she concludes that "the poor are just as likely to be in your home as on the streets." My partner then talked about how that message really resonated for her. With 5 children, she has little time to do other things. I understand this, and can empathize with her.

The deeper implications, though, of the New Era article bothers me. If I equate the poor and needy only with my family, then I am not forced to personally confront the poor and needy in the streets and in my community. I have given up my responsibility to help them. I am not required to look beyond my comfort zone to those who may be in need.

On another level, I was upset by this thought. Here is yet one more way that children prevent me/others from having an impact on the world at large. I don't want my influence to be felt only within the walls of my home, no matter how important that work may be. I want to reach beyond my family to help others.

I'm not sure exactly how I should help the poor and needy. Obviously, there is a great deal that can be within the community of the ward. However, I feel like I need to reach beyond that boundary as well. I am glad for the chance today to think about this issue and ponder ways that I can offer assistance. I am going to do some research and find a specific way that I can help.
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True North and A Woman's Education

Two things that I find most amazing about Jill Ker Conway

1. Her mind: she is able to read large amounts of material and piece together a large picture of a field. She sees connections between ideas, and is able to make lateral jumps across fields too. (I read articles in the Annual Review of Sociology and am entirely sure that to compile, ingest, process, and analyze a large body of literature would be SO HARD for me. That makes her all the more amazing to me)

2. Her feminism and activism for women. As an academic, she writes a dissertation about women who pioneered social work. But, her feminist interest is also personal, in the way she has been treated in her college days from Australia, as well as the world that she and her female colleagues and roommates experience.

I love the story she recounts in True North about earnings disparities. As a youngish professor in Canada, she is not promoted when many of her cohort of male colleagues is. She finds out that they are also making more money than she is. She schedules a meeting with the department chair, then the dean of her school, and calmly discusses the issue. With an objective eye to her accomplishments, the decision is made to promote her as well and raise her salary.

But, this is not where she leaves it. She goes on to organize a committee of women at the university to look into the overall system of pay discrepancy between men and women faculty. She is also concerned about other university employees including all the women that secretarial staff. She describes the way that she gives her own assistants tasks to help them learn broader skills and encourages them to take classes, with the hopes that in 1-2 years they will have outgrown their jobs with her and moved on to something else. Her values and her committment to women and their education are probably the main reason why she was chosen to be the first female president at Smith and explain many of her initiatives and priorities there.

I was jealous of her early graduate school experience. She talks about the intense conversations she shares with her 5 roommates, all in different fields, and the world of ideas into which she is immersed with other students and faculty.

She is deliberate in her studies and manages to knock a year off of her coursework to take her exams earlier than most. She marries a faculty member 18 years her senior in the middle of her 3rd year, in every way a true partner for her, and they embark on their life together. They go from Harvard to Toronto, then on to Smith College (at her husband's urging), and finally back to Boston.

Although she longs to have children, she is unable to do so, and never becomes a mother. I wondered how her life would have been different with children. She is able to manage immense amounts of work, long hours in the library and later in university administration, and maintaing an intense schedule. It is possible that she would have managed the same amount with children, but I wanted to see her personally struggle with balancing children and a career. Her husband suffers from severe manic depression, requiring hospitaltization at times, but she does not talk much about what this requires of her personally.

A Women's Education is probably my least favorite. Here, her writing becomes more academic and less accessible. In both this and True North, she describes in too much detail the people in her life, that do not reappear after their two pages of discussion. But, all in all, I really enjoyed reading her three memoirs. She is a master of describing place and her connection to physical places and her grounding through location was apparent.

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The Road from Coorain

The Road from Coorain is a fascinating description of the early life of a precocious and lively girl---Jill Ker, the author--who spent the first decade of her life in the rural Austailian bush on a sheep station. She and her family were literally the only ones around for miles: in the morning, when her mother would drop her father off at a corner of their property, she is terrified that she will be unable to find her way home again, and hunches over the steering wheel, trying to see the tire marks in the dry Austrailian dirt. The story of Jill's early life in prominently marked by a drought which eventually kills off all their animals, results in the death of her father (whether by suicide or accident, it is not clear), and finally eventuates in the relocation of Jill and her mother to Sydney. Coorain is left in the hands of a manager, and Jill begins school. The description of the starving and dying sheep is haunting, as are the desparate measures that the family attempts in order to save their livelihood. They are at the mercy of natural forces beyond their control. Then, her father dies in a reservoir, and Jill and her two brothers are not allowed to grieve. Her mother is also suffering from terrible grief and is emotionally withdrawn. When they finally admit to failure and leave Coorain for Sydney, Jill consciously leaves her toys and dolls behind. "I knew that in most important ways my childhood was over."

In Sydney, Jill's mother is determined to keep her children in school and works two jobs in order to pay for their educational costs. After some time, she makes a gamble, buys some more sheep for Coorain; within hours, 2 1/2 inches of rain falls, and from that point on, Coorain is financially successful and the family is able to live off its profits.

Interestingly, although her early life in the bush was important in shaping her life, Jill thrives in school. Attending a top-notch British girls school, she discovers that her mind is powerful and that she has many academic interests. She goes on to study history at the University of Sydney, and eventually enrolls at Harvard as a graduate student. I wonder if she would have had the same career if her family had been able to ride out the drought in the bush and how her life would have been different.

One of the central themes of Jill's early life is her conflicted relationship with her mother. Early on in her life, Jill's mother has iron control of the household and domestic activities in Coorain. It seems that she and Jill's father share their lives together in partnership, working hard to make their ranch successful. When Jill's father dies, her mother begins to tighten her grasp on her children, almost as though she fears losing them too. She tries to control their every move, including their friendships, their careers, and their schooling.

As financial pressures eased, her anxieties were simply redirected...She could manage a sheep station superbly, but managing a social world alone as a hostess was simply beyond her consciousness. This meant that her efforts to control our destinies were mostly negative, and that our youthful quests for peers and lively social relationships took place entirely outside our home. It also meant that she relied more and more on her children for intellectual and emotional companionship, and that there was no constructive outlet for her formidable energies.

When the oldest son Bob dies in a car accident, Jill's mother turns all her energies on Jill and her other brother Barry. Her mental health declines, and she starts exhibiting signs of hypochondria, using her health to manipulate her children. She attempts to destroy Jill's and Barry's romantic attachments, and later in Jill's life, as recounted in True North, she and her mother have a deep schism over Jill's marriage.

This caused me to reflect on my relationship with both my mother and my children. Looking back, my parents made conscious decisions to limit our choices in ways that shaped my life and my sister just younger than me. They were probably terrified of the harm we could inflict on ourselves as adolescents and wanted to do anything they could to prevent anything from happening to us. They eased up on their rules as my younger sisters grew up, but for me, I think, this behavior made me feel like I had to hide anything that I thought they would disapprove of (probably a lot of different things). I think it may have also contributed to a contrarian feeling that I have. I want to be different and act differently than I think they want me to. (I'm not sure that this is directly attributable to that time period. And it's surely not onloy because of that.)

I also sense in myself the tendency to want to control my children more than probably necessary. I want things to be done my way. I need to learn to give up ground that isn't important for their sake. I can only imagine how such tactics could truly backfire as they get older.

Additionally, in the book, we see the seeds of Jill's feminism planted as she struggles to find a place as an intellectual woman in a society that disdained big ideas "and found them specially laughable in women." Upon graduating with top honors from the University of Sydney, she is turned down for a government job quite clearly because she is a woman. "It chilled me to realize that there was no way to earn my freedom through merit." This is the first time that she has recognized her position in life as a woman and began to identify with women, rather than "acting unreflectingly as though I were a man."

She is detemined to leave the destructive relationship with her mother, and applies to go to graduate school at Harvard. She is admitted, and leaves Austrailia, never to return for good.

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Jill Ker Conway in Three Volumes

For book group this month, we read The Road from Coorain, Jill Ker Conway's personal memoirs chronicling her life from birth to age 25 in Austrailia. Because I liked it so much, I went on to read True North about her life at Harvard as a history graduate student, her marriage, and her move to Canada with her husband to pursue work as a professork, and then as a university administrator, at the University of Toronto. Ker Conway also wrote a third personal memoir, A Woman's Education, detailing her 10 years as the first female president of Smith College.

I thought I could condense all three into one post, but after writing 750 words about The Road from Coorain, I have decided to separate them.
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Pearls Before Breakfast

The Washington Post this weekend reports on the results of a most amazing experiment. They line up a premier, world class violinist, Joshua Bell, to play at a Metro station. Then, they start rolling the film to see what happens. Who notices? Who stops? Who throws money into his violin case (that houses and protects his multi-million dollar Strad)?

Street musicians and performers are familiar to anyone who has regularly used public transportation. I've heard Simon and Garfunkel on pan flute, watched accordianists, and of course, heard many of the all popular violin players. And my reaction to them has mostly been to notice, but to just keep on walking. The Washington Post found that the vast majority of the 1,097 commuters who passed by Joshua Bell did was exactly the same thing. Their pace didn't slow, their eyes weren't averted toward the musician. They just kept up walking, heading towards the escalator, focusing on getting somewhere. Somewhere else.

As I read this article, I was moved. I kept hoping that someone would stop, that some person would respond to the amazing music that was being played out in a lowly, grimy, smelly Metro station. And as much as I would love to believe that I would be different, that I would have instinctively known something beautiful and precious and amazing was being created, and would have stopped to listen, one description of a commuter stopped me flat.

A woman and her preschooler emerge from the escalator. The woman is walking briskly and, therefore, so is the child. She's got his hand.

"I had a time crunch," recalls Sheron Parker, an IT director for a federal agency. "I had an 8:30 training class, and first I had to rush Evvie off to his teacher, then rush back to work, then to the training facility in the basement."

Evvie is her son, Evan. Evan is 3.

You can see Evan clearly on the video. He's the cute black kid in the parka who keeps twisting around to look at Joshua Bell, as he is being propelled toward the door.

"There was a musician," Parker says, "and my son was intrigued. He wanted to pull over and listen, but I was rushed for time."

So Parker does what she has to do. She deftly moves her body between Evan's and Bell's, cutting off her son's line of sight. As they exit the arcade, Evan can still be seen craning to look.

I am almost entirely sure that this is exactly what I would have done. Firmly grasped my childrens' hands, tried to distract them with something else, and just kept on moving. And recognizing myself so clearly, I felt profound sorrow.

I wonder about how many times I myself have unknowingly passed by some event or scene of majesty and profound beauty, completely ignorant, intent on hurrying along, not taking time to stop, pause, and notice the world around me. More hauntingly, I wonder how often I have forced my children to match my pace, depriving them of experiencing firsthand the world around them.I

n a more spiritual realm, too, I wonder what of God's small miracles I have missed because I was too occupied with mundane tasks and daily frustrations.

The staff of the Washington Post found one interesting thing in their observation of the passersby. All the children turned back to look at Bell, and tried to stop and watch. Every single one. To my dismay, not one single parent stopped, but hurried them on their way.

Like most children, mine do not have the false sense of urgency that I often force upon our days. They are content to stroll along, picking up rocks, playing in the water, and looking at dogs. They like to giggle and dance and chase each other and jump on the couch. Their eyes are newer, and they are more attuned to the world around them.

I admit, I have a hard time stopping and and enjoying the moment for what it is. The Post article quotes W.H.Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

I do love this idea, that pausing to take in the world around us will more often give us life than hurrying from one location to another, either physically or metaphysically.
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Easter Music

I love to play the organ on Easter. It's one of the few times where I can literally pull out all the stops, throw down some trumpet, and really let it rip. I love the exuberance and jubilation of Easter hymns, especially Christ the Lord is Risen Today. The choir sang a simple, yet beautiful arrangment of He is Risen in the middle of the meeting that gave me goosebumps. (On the other hand, I'm not very fond That Easter Morn, which we sang for the opening song today.) I practiced a lot for this week, including learning a new version of Beautiful Savior for prelude. I played one of my favorites for postlude: a Douglas Bush arrangement of All Creatures of Our God and King, in trio and fanfare form.

I felt the spirit of Easter today most in singing with the choir and playing the closing hymn and postlude on the organ. I need to make music a bigger part of my life.
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"Mother Come Home"

I haven't been reading the Ensign much. I looked through the February issue and found only one thing that had any resonance at all for me--the article was a stripped down version of a FARMS piece about the symbolism of the parable of the Good Samaritan. It had some depth that I could actually chew on. But, for the most part, there isn't much there that I enjoy reading. I don't find the personal stories to be inspirational without the context that comes from knowing someone. And I dislike a strung together compilation of GA quotations on a topic, without any connecting essay, and find it difficult to digest.

When my mom was in town, she mentioned an article from April's issue about a mother who made a decision to stay home with her children, despite having many opportunities for success in the business world. I can't remember if she actually said I should read it, or just implied it. So, yesterday, when I was cleaning out the magazine basket, I picked it up to look at it.

It was clear that the woman writing was a smart and ambitious woman. Her article chronicles her desire for a high powered business career changing over time to desiring to stay home with her children. I would love to meet this woman and talk with her. It is clear that she has worked though a lot of issues and sought the guidance of the Lord in all of them. But, I felt that her representation in the article didn't do justice to her struggles. She had these desires, it was hard to turn down the job of a lifetime, but she felt like she should and so she did. Motherhood was very hard. What does that tell me? I want to know how she managed the day to day routine of staying at home. I want to know if her change of heart took place over many years of struggle. I want to know if she felt happy staying home and how she dealt with life when she wasn't so contented. I want to know what she did to keep her mind nimble and active while staying at home, and how she uses her talents that made her successful in the business world as a mother. No, none of this is addressed. Instead, there is a standard "pray, follow the Lord, and you will be blessed" line, combined with a bunch of quotes about the importance of being a mother. That may be what it boils down to, but it doesn't help with the day to day details that, woven together, form who I am as a mother and a woman.

It's been a hard week. Spring break. Ha! MJ keeps saying, "This is spring break, not winter break!" The weather has been depressing. In a fit of exuberance during an 80 degree day last week, I put the heavy coats and boots away. This morning, I finally broke down and got them back out again, since with the wind, the temperature felt like 1. Yes, 1 degree. Almost below zero. Then, there's no school, no dance class, no routine. And I have had less than my usual low levels of patience with my kids. All of it has added up to an unpleasant week, complete with my monthly (or maybe it's more like every two months) major mothering breakdown.

I'm not sure what to do or even how to figure out what to do. And I find that frustrating and depressing. I did love Elder Holland's talk about receiving a new tongue at GC last weekend. That's certainly something I need as a mother.

One of the things that bothered me the most was the title of the Ensign article: "Mother Come Home". To me, it suggests pitiful, mewling cries from forsaken children who are floundering and are being denied nourishment of all forms due to their mother seeking identity outside of the home. And it implies that mothers' primary identity should be domestic in nature.

I have decided that we are going to start getting the Ensign in Spanish. That way, I can work on my dwindling Spanish skills, if nothing else.
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