'Twas the night before Thanksgiving . . .

And all through the house, the nephews kept stirring around like a mouse. The sisters were cooking in the kitchen with care, in hopes that good dishes soon would be there. And I on my sofa was trying to sleep but near me were young boys who kept making peeps. There's an interesting trend the last couple of years when I spend the night at the family house if my nephews are there. They magically gravitate to wherever I'm sleeping at night. And since I long since lost the privilege of having a dedicated room to stay in (which is very appropriate), often that means that there are three of us piled on couches and on the floor. We've had some adventures, including the time that I was planning on staying in the room with two twin beds and both T and K wanted to join me. I gave them a little explanation about how there were only two beds but three people, so one of them would be sleeping on the floor, when K piped in, "that's okay, you can share my bed." So I ended up sharing the bed with a five-year-old. Tonight we are downstairs, with T and I sleeping on the leather sofas and K sleeping on the floor in a little low fort that he made himself, mostly consisting of blankets draped over upside-down banana chairs. It completely reminds me of something I would have done at his age. He spent a long time adjusting it, until it was time to pull out the stern aunt voice and tell him that it was sleeping time. Then he ran upstairs for a drink of water and I'm almost positive he snuck a fresh Thanksgiving roll from the rack while he as up there, because I can hear him quietly smacking on something under the blankets and chairs. At this point I'm not sure it's worth it to fight that battle, though. Time to go to sleep so I can be awake for the family Turkey Trot tomorrow morning. And have a good Thanksgiving before heading off to Rwanda on Friday. Hooray! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

A stroll down memory lane

Smeels of Kenya walking past houses, when I first moved here tree with lamplight and Nauvoo secret pathway and orchard and secret places maple leaves and botany class It snowed today. First, it was gusty and drizzly. I was at work this morning and when I left at lunchtime, the wind blew the door right out of my grasp and would have kept it blown open if I hadn't forcibly closed it. Then as I ran some errands, the weather got wilder and wilder until it seemed to kind of snap into a sudden calm as the rain turned to a quiet drifting of snow. It was beautiful and peaceful to observe from the snugness of a blanket. Then a moment hit when I decided I'd been inside long enough, so I put on my bright green coat (not only is it cheerful, but it's a very nice pedestrian coat when it's dark- very noticeable) and hiked up into the foothill neighborhoods. And I do mean hike. It's a bit of an adventure just getting up as high in the hills as my own house when the snows come, but things get progressively steeper from my house up, and I have no clue how those people get their cars home in the winter. But it's great for a stroll with some beautiful architecture to observe, and on the way back, beautiful vistas of the city. This stroll also seemed to be triggering all kinds of random memories for me. As I first began walking, I realized I was on my old street, where I lived when I first moved to Salt Lake, and I suddenly recalled the walks that I took in those first days and week, especially before my job began. I had forgotten just how isolated and lonely I felt, coming from the camaraderie of a tight-knit BYU ward with friends I'd known for years- and now I knew Melanie, and I was meeting people in my new ward, but I didn't have a network. And I went on walks and I looked at houses and I felt a deep, aching hunger to be inside them, where warmth and friendship and love exist. It was that very driving emptiness in my life that propelled me to get Melanie to go meet our neighbors in our apartment complex, even in the midst of the onset of depression. The desire for human contact was stronger. And it was during that quest that we met our wonderful neighbors Daniel and Dallin, who became a critical part of my support network and who are really responsible for the base of friends I developed in the singles' ward (they also convinced me to attend their singles' ward, the student ward, rather than the stake ward I had been attending. That also made a massive difference in my life). So tonight, as I walked past the houses, and thought of everything I've built in the last three years in terms of friendships and relationships and deep human connections, I felt a huge amount of gratitude. Belonging is a critical feeling. I kept on walking, and I found a row of maple trees with most of their leaves still on. They were delicately iced with a thin layer of snow, and a streetlamp was shining through one of them in a slightly surreal way, the light from the lamp dancing off the edges of the snow. This time I was taken back by my memory almost nine years ago. I hadn't realized it was that long ago, but the memory was of Nauvoo. I lived there from January to May, taking classes at the BYU-Nauvoo center, which has since been torn down. I loved that building and I love that city. I loved putting on multiple layers of clothing to go out and brave the zero-degree weather, but even more I loved when the seasons began to turn and the river ice broke up (I watched this transition eagerly through my bedroom window, which afforded a great view of the Mississippi), and when the spring bulbs began to push their way up and I didn't require my trench coat when I went on walks, I just about went crazy from spring fever. I walked all over that city, exploring historical sites and back woods, and groves of trees. Then the magnolias started to bloom, and they were all over the place, covered in delicate pink and white blossoms that smelled, oh, so divine. One night in particular, Danielle and I went for a moonlit walk. We set out to watch the sun set over the river at our special place, past the Sarah Granger Kimball home to a grassy little bend in the river. Then on the way back, with the moon shining down, we stopped to glory in the magnolias- their scent, their beauty. The moon was full and shone down through the petals, a scene that Monet would have loved. It was quite a bit different than looking at lamplight through snow-frosted maple leaves, but the memory came back so sharply, and made me smile again. Nauvoo was a period of huge blessings and the formation of deep friendships was instigated there. Danielle is still one of my best friends. I curved around the peak of the road and began descending in the rambling, roundabout way that those streets do. I passed another maple tree, but this one made me pause for a different reason. It was a silver maple, a beautifully delicate tree with silver bark and very intricately designed leaves. This time, I was reminded of a class I took at BYU- one of my very favorite undergraduate courses. Not surprisingly, it was called field botany. The gist of things was that we would follow our professor around campus until he found a tree or shrub we hadn't learned yet, and as we gathered round, he would give us the necessary information to identify it. We learned the silver maple, Acer saccharinum, towards the end of the class, and the beautiful leaves were changing colors and falling. I gathered up a handful of them and stuck them in my binder. Later on, when I found them, they'd essentially been pressed, and I tied them to pieces of string and hung them from our living-room ceiling. Botany nerds do things like that. But tonight, as I saw the silver maple leaves, in a kind of tribute to Professor Furniss and everything I learned in that class, I collected some and carried my little bouquet home. Rounding back down my street to go home, I caught a whiff of something indescribable that smelled like . . . something. I actually have no clue what it smelled like, but I can tell you that whatever it was conjured up very clear memories of Kenya. For a moment, I was back in Gathiga village, walking down the bumpy, uneven red clay roads with random trash piles being incinerated at various lengths. I was laying in my bed, being awoken by a combination of the rising sun, the chickens and pigs outside, and the neighbors who every morning, without fail, played beautiful, happy ukulele music that kind of became my soundtrack for the trip. I wonder what it will be like to go back. Will any of the kids even remember me? So many volunteers come and go. I'm sure the older girls will. I'm hoping that I can get another Kenyan pedicure sitting on the ground while the little kids crowd around. And it will be so different to be there without crazy Kate, my wonderful, spontaneous British roommate, or Cynthia, my anchor who guided me around Nairobi, or even Dominic, the fascinating and very offbeat volunteer who arrived the week before I left. And of course James won't be there. But Grace will, and I am so anxious to get to spend time with her, one of the most amazingly strong women I've ever met. I ended my walk home with a spring in my step- so many good times have been had, and so many good times are in store. And best of all, right this moment, things are good and peaceful. What a lovely little walk down memory lane.

Music Therapy

It's been a great week. Good progress on sewing projects, an evening run to the hot tub generously shared to us by the Boys on Laurelhurst (we are the Girls on Blaine, it works quite nicely). I have almost all the necessary components for my Halloween costume, which will be fun. A very busy, full few days at work.
The only part of this week that hasn't been as good was an unexpected, painful conversation with a friend last night that left me in a state of, shall we say, emotional delicacy. This is not the place to go into details, but it was a conversation that left me with a hole in my gut all day.
But I knew that I had something waiting for me at the end of the day- choir practice. A choir loft full of almost four hundred good, fun, loving people singing together. I found myself praying that I would find songs in my folder that could give me a happiness boost. As I flipped through the sheet music, I was a little disappointed that none of them stood out to me as old comfort favorites, but still to get to sing was good enough.

Then we started actually singing. Somewhere in the mix, we sang "Consider the Lilies," an old favorite of mine. I sang it at my college graduation for my bachelor's degree. Something about the last verse started working on my tear ducts

Consider the sweet, tender children who must suffer on this earth
The pains of all of them He carried from the day of His birth
He clothes the lilies of the field
He feeds the lambs of His fold
And He will heal those who trust Him and make their hearts as gold

It especially resonated because on Monday, as I was driving to work and having a little chat with God on the way, I happened to pose the question to Him, "why on earth do you put up with my crazy antics?" And the response came in a startling flash- an image from the previous evening, Sunday, when I had been playing with my great little buddy H-man, my 20-month-old nephew. He's got some antics, I tell you what. But I love him so much, and I think he's adorable.

As this came up in my mind, I started laughing out loud. "Heavenly Father, really? You think I'm adorable?" and I felt the answer come right back, "Yes. I do. You're my little girl and I love you."

So here I am, trying to be a sophisticated adult living on my own, having a career, and traveling the world, and my Father is telling me that I still am, and will always be, His little girl.

Consider the sweet, tender children who must suffer on this earth

All of this popped through my head while I sang tonight.

Then, we proceeded to sing "I Believe in Christ." I must admit, it's a stirring anthem, but it's never been one of my absolute favorite hymns, probably mostly because I don't like the flow of the melody. Regardless, tonight, since I was already leaking at the eyes, that song struck me more forcefully than usual. Once again, it was a certain segment of the last verse that really woke up my spiritual senses:

I believe in Christ, He stands supreme
From Him I'll gain my fondest dream
And while I strive through grief and pain
His voice is heard, ye shall obtain

And yes, I'm definitely feeling some grief and pain right now, and that made me tear up, but more powerful than my own emotions in this case, I had a memory pop up that I hadn't thought of for a long time. I remember, as a teenager, sitting on the church pew with my family and singing "I Believe in Christ" during sacrament meeting. I was sitting near my mom, who was probably about three or four years into her multiple sclerosis diagnosis, and definitely in a lot of pain- beyond my comprehension, and that was well over a decade ago. In any case, as we sang the last verse, she visibly began to weep. It touched me. She didn't outright complain much about her condition, so I guess back then it was relatively easy to forget how hard the disease had made her life. But she did, and does, believe in Christ, and is truly committed to the ideal of standing with Him at the last day.

I don't know why I thought of that tonight, except the theme of the evening seemed to be the tenderness of Christ's beckoning to us, first with Consider the Lilies and now through I Believe in Christ. By this point, I had salt streaks down my cheeks and the front of my dress was soaked. But you know what? I felt so good inside. Not happy, exactly, but peaceful with a deep kind of peace- I might even call it the peace that passeth understanding.

It turned out that there were a few other tender mercies in the form of songs, too, and by the time I left, although I was tired and ragged, I felt so good inside. I'll just leave you with the lyrics to the song that touched me the most. I wish I could play a recording of it on my blog, because the arrangement is breathtaking as well, but you'll just get the words tonight:

Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
to the throne thy tribute bring;
ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
evermore God's praises sing.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise the everlasting King.

Praise the Lord for grace and favor
to all people in distress;
praise God, still the same as ever,
slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Glorious now God's faithfulness.

Fatherlike, God tends and spares us;
well our feeble frame God knows;
motherlike, God gently bears us,
rescues us from all our foes.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Widely yet God's mercy flows.

Angels in the heights, adoring,
you behold God face to face;
saints triumphant, now adoring,
gathered in from every race.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise with us the God of grace.

The House on Blaine and the Girls Who Lived There

I've been pondering lately, among many other things, that one of the biggest blessings I can ever have is deep, satisfying friendships with deep, satisfying people. And the interesting thing is that the deeper I delve into myself and the more satisfied I am with life in general, the better I appreciate and love the people around me.

I live with four amazing girls. We are so varied in our skills and interests, but we are so good for each other. We have a professional violinist, a therapist, a health and nutrition student and a biochemistry PhD student- and me, the genetics researcher. I love and trust them all, and my relationship with each girl is so different- I bet this is why Heavenly Father's work and glory is to serve His children- because we're such a diverse, interesting lot.

Amber and I often engage in what we refer to as "geeking out" together. She's our biochemist, and we frequently have discussions about various chemicals, funny stories from the lab, or our respective research, Amber also likes to play devil's advocate and tease a great deal, and my natural reaction is to challenge her right back when she's being contrary on purpose. It's quite entertaining. Amber's common sense supersedes even mine, and if someone shares an anecdote or study that sounds questionable to her, she'll run to her computer to research its veracity. She tells stories with such an understated, wry wit that we can't help but laugh.

And yet it's so different from my relationship with Amy. Amy is quiet and sweet and laughs at just about everything I say, which stokes my ego nicely. Amy will be on her deathbed before she complains about how she feels, and she's got some pretty big health problems. She's a calming influence on everyone and a day brightener. She brought both a piano and a very nice keyboard when she moved in, and she is a wonderful pianist, so our home is filled with even more music than it was before. She will lend you anything yo ask for- she lent me her bike when I did my triathlon in May and treated it like it was the biggest honor I could give her.

Kerstin is our other main musician, practicing her violin for many hours a day. She teaches and plays for events around the valley. She's also my compatriot on Temple Square, since she plays her violin on the Orchestra on Temple Square. She matches Amy in sweetness but it a little more vivacious and talkative- quite possibly our most talkative girl. She was also my gardening buddy this summer, since she was just as excited as I was to pull out the grass and plant the seeds. We spent some great time together on our knees in the dirt last spring. She has a constancy of faith that gives us all support.

Our second violinist is Cassaundra, although her violin gets about as much show time as my flute these days (read: not much). Cass is my fellow outdoors enthusiast, and she far outstrips me in terms of her activity. This girl loves motorcycles, rock climbing, snowshoeing, backpacking, hiking, and camping. She petite and spunky, and gentler than her red hair would suggest, but still with a good bit of snap to her personality. Cass has been my hot tubbing buddy recently as well, when we go down the street to take advantage of the boys' hot tub. She's very sensitive to emotions and relationship problems as one would expect from a girl with her master's in social work, but she's also very good at not wearing her therapist hat outside of work unless asked. But she also loves providing that assistance to friends in the right circumstances. She was an incredibly steadying figure for me last week when a long-overdue torrent of emotions burst out and created a very teary evening.

And there's me. I provide a lot of the leadership in the house- I set up times for us to do spring cleaning, to work on our emergency preparedness, to go out together for a roommate night on the town. I make the girls laugh a lot and provide a nice garden and a messy sewing table in the basement. And every night that we have roommate prayer, when we come in close for a group hug afterward, I look around and think how blessed I am. For the first time since I moved to Salt Lake, I feel like there is complete harmony in my home. Everyone's gift and personalities work together in such a beautiful way. It's safe. It's peaceful. It's a fortress from the world, and I love it.

The pursuit of happiness

Tonight in the Relief Society session of General Conference, President Uchdorf touched on the topic of being happy now- of finding joy in what is happening in our lives at the moment, and not holding out for one magical event to take us to the land of happily ever after. And as I listened, I realized that by and large, that's not something I have a problem with. I do agree with President Uchdorf's added caution that we deserve to always be working to improve ourselves and reach towards goals, but life is so good. And today was a great example of its goodness. This morning I got up at six in order to hike Deseret Peak with Emily, Trevor, and Trevor's friend Ben. We didn't actually get on the trail until shortly after nine, due to the fact that we left a little late and it was an hour drive from Sugarhouse. But Emily and Trevor and both very fun people to talk to, as Ben proved to be also. The hike was definitely strenuous, but so fun. We marked our pace by keeping far enough ahead of a scout troupe that we couldn't hear them coming up behind us. If they got within earshot (and since these are scouts we're talking about, it was a pretty long earshot), we'd get moving. Fortunately, everyone very kindly put up with my penchant for stopping to take note of the flora and foliage, and I even had Trevor and Emily eating wild currents and elderberries with me. After that, Ben was making jokes about the younger berries, filled with angst, that grow really well next to wild oats. Oh, dear. There was a small, unfortunate incident in which Trevor did a handstand and landed, flat on his back, in a patch of burrs. We then engaged in some social grooming, since wearing a pack with a back full of burrs would be incredibly painful. Of course, while Emily and I were pulling burrs off his shirt, the group of older men that we'd just passed caught up with us. We were quick to assure them that we don't normally engage in social grooming. We summitted at lunchtime, and had a fabulous 360-degree view of Salt Lake, Toelle, and the West Desert. We stood on the peak of a little island of green in a sea of brown, hostile environment, and out to the west, the salt flats were clearly visible. It's amazing what a change in elevation can do for the ecosystem! Also at the summit, we found small snow banks. Ben mysteriously disappeared from view and reappeared a short time later, with some snow, laboriously chipped from the hardened bank, to throw at Trevor. We were impressed by the amount of effort that went into that. On the way down, our main adventure was opting to more or less slide down a ravine rather than go around the longer, and flatter, loop in the trail. I managed to find about every hole in the ground, well concealed with foliage, and once I sneezed so hard I almost knocked myself over backwards. But it was a beautiful little ravine, and that's where we added wild raspberries to our cache of edible snacks along the way. We concluded our journeys with a sing-a-long in the car on the drive back. On our descent, I had been singing songs to myself (note to siblings: there was no dining room table present, so this was legal). Most of the songs were from musicals, which apparently put Trevor in a musical frame of mind, so he and I sang along to Les Mis, Wicked, Mary Poppins, and other great shows as we drove. Then tonight, after the Relief Society broadcast, we had an unusually quiet and comfortable evening at our house. Amy was gone, but the rest of us randomly congregated downstairs, and as Kerstin transcribed her grandma's old journals, Amber cleaned the bathroom, and Cassaundra did a workout, I sat at my sewing machine, working on yet another project, and thought about how nice it was to have everyone home, and all downstairs together. We are such a busy group of girls that our schedules very rarely line up like that, and it felt so domestic and homey that it brought a certain contentment and peace to my soul. It reminded me that I truly do love my life right now, and at the same time, that that feeling is my goal. Hopefully I'll get to experience it more in the not-incredibly-distant future by having my own home with my own family, but my roommates are my adopted family for now, and I love that we love and trust each other enough to feel that kind of kinship and peace in our home. That's a big deal. A lot of people don't get to experience that. So, President Uchtdorf, I agree that the importance of enjoying life where it's at is vital. And I feel incredibly blessed to have such a good one.

Just some musings

A day off! What a beautiful thing! I just spent a few happy moments weeding my yard and now my hands smell like mint. Mint is such an exuberant plant, it grows all over the place, and it smells so nice. I also ate some cherry tomatoes and observed that my paste tomatoes are coming in nicely, so a batch of tomato sauce might be in the works soon. And I dug up the first of the rainbow mix carrots- orange, red, and white. Gardening is always a learning experience. For example this year I learned what I suspected but failed to act upon- the west side of the house is just a little too shady to provide sufficient light energy for fruit crops. Things like beets, greens, and carrots don't take nearly as much energy as things like watermelon, pumpkins, and cucumbers, because the latter are all reproductive structures. They take a lot of energy to create, and plants get that energy from sunlight. Carrots, on the other hand, are a vegetative crop, meaning it's just a part of the plant and the plant isn't making the carrot to produce seeds. So it takes a lot less energy. So next year, the vines will be going in the sun-filled backyard and the carrots will be going in the more shady west side of the house. But then the tomatoes will be moved, too, because tomatoes drain a lot of nutrients out of the soil, and I'll probably put beans in their place, since beans actually return nutrients to the soil. See? There's so much to it- I love it! I had a dream last night that I was flying to Rwanda but I was completely unprepared. Oddly, the thing I was most concerned about was that I didn't have a guidebook with me. This is pretty standard for me to have strange dreams before big events, but this seems to be a little early- we're just under twelve weeks out from Africa. But things are starting to solidify. I have a traveling companion now- my friend Brian's sister Molly. I have my yellow fever vaccination card. I can't wait to see Grace and her daughter Kelly. I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of a change. I don't know what it is, but something in me is holding back somehow. I'm pretty sure I know the reasons why, but something- something is going to happen soon, and I think it will be good. Life is always good. Life is always a constant adjustment to find the balance that works for a particular moment in time. And life is not linear, as much as we try to make it out to be.

Upgrading the "friend" status

The following musings have been percolating in my mind in some form or another for quite a long time, but for some reason that I can't fully explain, they have become much more focused recently. Probably just the cycle of life, of events happening around me. But for whatever reason, I find myself pondering the "buddy" situation.
I'm really good at being a buddy, a support system of some kind for a lot of people. This is great. I love the feeling I get from that- of being needed, wanted, of having my assistance and love be desired. It drives a lot of gears behind my magnetic attraction to playing with and spending a lot of time with kids, when I get the chance. It drove a lot of my ability to push through challenging situations at home, knowing that I could provide support for younger siblings and I wouldn't let them down if I could help it. And, I fear that it has directed me to a place where I am a fabulous friend for a lot of men my age. I've observed the trend for a long time- I'm really quite skilled at becoming good friends with guys I am attracted to- and then just staying good friends. Often a few dates will ensue, and then the equilibrium just drops into a comfortable friendship. They are often very open and honest and trusting friendships, very deep and genuine. But something about me or the way I go about things seems to leave me in a position to be "just friends," time and again and again.

I have unwillingly realized this again recently with a couple of my very favorite guys- a kind of "wait a second" moment when I realized that not only am I great friend material- I'm great filler friend material. That is, I'm a great constant to come back to when things don't work out with other women. I am great to fill the time in between relationships.

Now, I don't know how this will come across to readers, but it's not really written in self-deprecation, angst against the portion of the human race with Y chromosomes, or anger against the world. It's more a general pondering. I'm sure that friends of mine who read this might be thinking things like "you can't blame yourself," or, "it's not you, it's them," which is very kind, albeit not useful at all. One thing I've learned as a scientist is to look for trends and constants- and the trend is getting stuck in a friendship rut with guys, and the constant is me. I've pondered what to do about this, and the obvious thing is to eliminate the factors that are holding me in the trend- but that means stopping friendships with guys that I get a lot of enjoyment and enrichment from spending time with. Which then leaves a void, and of course to fill the void I wind up right back where I was. I guess I fill a gap in their lives and they fill a gap in mine as well, and if we were all ten years younger, it would be a great setup.

Of course, the other hang up is I'd much rather date someone whose faults and failings I know, who's a real person and a real friend, someone I already know I can trust and be safe with, than I would someone who sweeps me off my feet in a burst of twitterpation and it's only during the courtship that warts and blemishes start to come up. But most guys don't operate that way in my experience, which includes conversations with guys about this topic.

And of course, added to this are the times when it's hard to care as much as I want to. I'd love to be dating a great guy, but it's so much effort with so little visible response- and there's so much else to fill my time. There's my job and camping and road trips, and planning things for JNF, and choir rehearsal, and, oh yeah, doing activities with my guy friends that are in all kinds of shades of gray with regards to the term "date." It's a good life. And, just as I'd feared, I'm becoming more comfortable in it than I wanted to. So maybe I do need a Prince Charming to come along and save me from the comfortable rut I've gotten in. Maybe. But I'd still rather be his friend first.