5th Remote Control

This weekend Kevin put in our digital converter boxes. Yes, our TVs have rabbit ears as we don't watch enough TV to justify a cable bill. Those rabbit ears look good with our Atari 2600.

So far, things look pretty good. We're getting occasional pixelation and glitches, but that goes away quickly. We're also getting four BYU channels, four KUED, and three UEN. So it looks like we'll get plenty of the public television, which is about 50% of what we watch anyway during the 1-2 hours a week the TV is on.

We're counting our blessing because our neighbors have had some trouble getting any picture to show with the new converter boxes. They get "no signal" all the time. The only thing I don't like is that we have to change channels through the converter box but we have power through the TV. So we have five remotes: converter box, TV, DVD, VCR, and stereo. That's going make for a lumpy couch once the remotes find their way to their natural home between the cushions.

Peach Pie

I've posted on peaches, and I've posted on pie, so it was only a matter of time before I posted on peach pie. This is what Kevin and I made together, our first pie of this variety. I made the crust, he added spice and sugar to the fresh peaches, and then Kevin put the top on. Can I tell you it was fabulous? When you taste it, there exists nothing but the pie.

Lovely Deseret

This past weekend I accepted a call to be a teacher at church in Relief Society, which is the women's meeting. Ironically that same day at church I witnessed three mortifying comments made in public that hurt someone else in attendance (on tattoos, child discipline, and politics). Now I am thinking through the best ways to handle these types of comments that will inevitably be raised when I am leading the classroom.

Handling these non-doctrinal (or what I guess I mean to say is non-Christlike) comments with delicacy is never easy. While I have never used church as my personal political forum, I don't want the views of the few to be unduly squashed by the views of the many. But I also want people to feel safe to comment in class, even if their comments aren't perfectly worded. I think church, including the church classroom, should be a place where everyone is welcome. Bring your tattoos. Bring your noisy kids. And, hey, it's OK to think this war was a bad idea in the first place, even if you're in a small minority here in our lovely Deseret. I will try to deflect critical comments directed toward you.

And if you make one of these types of comments that I dread, please know I will do my best to see past it and get to the heart of what you mean to say. In essence, we'll all just have to do our best.

Enough to Be on Your Way

I discovered this James Taylor song about the Southwest today. Yes, I've heard it for years, but today I actually listened to it and absorbed its images, beginning with the sun that shines on both sorrow and joy. Appropriately, I first learned to love his melodies and lyrics on a college road trip to Las Vegas, crossing the Great Basin and skimming the Colorado Plateau. The powerful image of sending his deceased lover "up a smoke stack" to return her to "what she knew the best." These heartbreaking images call me back to this place I call home.

The sun shines on this funeral
The same as on a birth
The way it shines on everything
That happens here on Earth
It rolls across the western sky
And back into the sea
And spends the day's last rays
Upon this [messed]-up family
So long old pal

The last time I saw Alice
She was leaving Santa Fe
With a bunch of round-eyed Buddhists
In a killer Chevrolet
Said they turned her out of Texas
Yeah she burned 'em down back home
Now she's wild with expectation
On the edge of the unknown

Oh it's enough to be on your way
It's enough just to cover ground
It's enough to be moving on
Home, build it behind your eyes
Carry it in your heart
Safe among your own

They brought her back on a Friday night
Same day I was born
We sent her up the smoke stack
And back into the storm
She blew up over the San Juan mountains
And spent herself at last
The threat of heavy weather
That was what she knew the best

It woke me up on a Sunday
An hour before the sun
It had me watching the headlights
Out on highway 591
'Til I stepped into my trousers
'Til I pulled my big boots on
I walked out on the Mesa
And I stumbled on this song

Oh it's enough to be on your way
It's enough just to cover ground
It's enough to be moving on
Home, build it behind your eyes
Carry it in your heart
Safe among your own

Or, if you prefer to listen to the southwestern red rock music video.

Autumn Beauties

While running a mid-day errand yesterday, I saw a woman on the side of the road harvesting sunflowers. She had a large tub in which she placed 20-30 cut flowers. They were cheerful and bright, a growing testament to late summer sunshine. I felt an urge to jump out and join her, to get a large bucket bouquet for myself, but I had to continue with my task.

Ever since, my awareness is increasing of sunflowers populating all the places I usually pass in my commute: in yards, in vacant lots, on the side of the freeway and on street corners. These are the wild-weed beautification of the urban desert valley.

The only place that are not, it seems, is my yard. Why is that? I've got a huge place with many wild things growing. Sunflowers belong here among the sweet peas, the wild rose, the high mint. My garden is simply craving these autumn beauties. For now I know what I'll be welcoming into this space next year.

Something Better

And to make up for posting that nasty foot photo, here's my favorite one from the garden Saturday.

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

-Robert Frost

The Joy of Callouses and Blisters

A warning to my more sensitive readers: this post is about feet. Well, it's about feet, and legs, and hips, and gripes that are now eighteen months old. The thing is that I love to run. I love it because it's hard, efficient, and intense, so I get all the added benefits of an exercise that is all consuming for a girl on the go.

But last year I hit a snag. I won't go into the long story of pain and diagnosis, so to make it short, I have a chronic IT band issue caused by supination, a bow-legged, outside-edge-of-foot way of walking and running that I just can't help. That has kept me in pain for eighteen months, and it's kept me out of my running shoes for almost a year. But finally, bit by careful bit, I've been working my way up to this:

Yes, that is a callous and a blister (hey, no one ever said runners have pretty feet). And to me that means victory. I don't even mind that pain. I'm working carefully on my hip with daily stretches and a killer hard foam roll to smooth out all the tight spots. In the last two weeks, I've successfully been on five runs. Sure, the runs are short and nothing like what I used to do, but when I compare it to where I've been, it's a dream.

Red Foothills

I spent the morning hiking the trails east of Red Butte Garden. While there is a surprising amount of flowers blooming, I can also detect the earliest signs of autumn in the foothills.

I am excited for the new season, but I also feel the need to store up the pleasures of summer against the approaching season. Things to keep (even if only in a feeling of a memory) from this summer: sunlight, nighttime crickets, long drives and road trips, good books, watercolors, and of course photos of flowers and gardens to mark my first year of devotion to growing things.

What will you store from this summer?

Life is Dancing the Twilight Blues

Consider this thesis, that we are drawn to nature because nature has a way of being. Nature doesn't do so much as it is, and this is this peace that results from being congruent with one's divine nature. While we run around half asleep and in conflict, it's this peace that appeals to us on a higher plane.

I recently read a book that reminded of some of the spiritual awakening I had when I was a college student reading the Tao Te Ching. All the doing we have in our lives actually distracts us from being who we are meant to be. Eckhart Tolle says, "Life is the dancer, and we are the dance." Life plays us; life interprets us. The best I can be is mindful of the present moment. I certainly can use the practice of being more in tune with the present moment, and I think nature is one path that can teach me how to be.

Peaches

There are a lot of things I love about late summer/early fall. I always loved going to school, taking new classes, wearing new clothes. Now I really love the fresh abundance of vegetables in farmers markets and home gardens. I could eat tomatoes with goat mozzarella and olive oil every night for dinner for a month or two before getting sick of it, and I've made a couple loaves of low-fat zucchini bread that are so delightful for breakfast on the run.

One thing that I have always loved is the season of peaches. Growing up I had several peach trees in my delightful backyard. I remember strangers would sometimes see our trees and knock at our door to see if they could take any of the loads of peaches off our hands, and my mom was happy to comply. Now my current home has a plum tree and a crab apple tree, and as of Saturday, our very own peach tree.

Not only did Kevin surprise me with the tree, but he went to all the work to pull out the allergy-inducing forsythia and plant our new addition. Sure, we'll have to pick any forming fruit off for the next couple of years so that the nutrients go into the tree, but that's doable. I am just looking forward to the chain of events. One of the few truly "domestic" things that I can do is bottle peaches like these in my pantry:

And then of course, that leads to lots of this when it gets to be autumn:

Stop by and I'll make you some cobbler sometime.

A View Through the Curtains

A 12-minute drive and a swift hike up a steep, steep canyon puts it all into perspective. It is amazing this is all it takes to get above it all.

Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.

I mean look at us. We're ants.