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.

Calling me back for more

All right, one more post. I wasn't sure if I wanted to put this on the blog or not, but it's been in my thoughts a lot lately.
It's been too long since I've been an adventuresome traveler. I travel a fair amount, but it's been over a year since I left the country and that was only for a cruise. I didn't even get a stamp in my passport, which was kind of lame. So now there comes an event which is a long time in planning and is still in planning, let's be honest.

Africa is calling me. It's been calling me for a while. I know I'm not remembering some aspects of it as well as I should, like being asked for handouts all the time and dealing with bugs and humidity and ugali for lunch every day. But smiling faced are calling me back.

I mentioned my friend Grace and her NGO on here a little while ago. I don't have time right now to bulk out the full story, but Grace is amazing and I love her. She's going to University right now to get a degree in community planning, which will really strengthen her skills and abilities to find the right people and set things up the right way to get grant money for orphans and street kids. And I get to help.

I'm definitely going to be doing some sightseeing when I get to Africa (mountain gorillas in Rwanda, anyone?), but the last part of the trip, in Kenya, will be a lot about Grace and James Njuguna Foundation. I promised Grace that I would raise some money for JNF, which is where I'm at now. Waaay out of my comfort zone. Which is so good for me! But I'm beginning to explore options for hosting a 5k, a massive bake sale, or some other thing that would allow me to present Grace with at least 1k when I meet her in Nairobi. Wouldn't that be great? Do you have any ideas or suggestions? Would you be willing to donate to the cause? Every stitch of money that I get will go straight to JNF, even if it means paying bank funds and such out of my own pocket.

Meanwhile, I'm working on getting a blog up and running for JNF where I can share stories of the women and kids that Grace is working with. Add it to your RSS feed! There will be a website soon, too- as soon as I can get it designed. I wrote all the copy from material that Grace gave me and my friend Michael the Chef constructed it- but we are not designers and we are looking for one. Do you know anyone who would be willing to design a fairly small website for a rather small fee? (At this point, it would be coming out of my pocket as well, since our funds are pretty much nonexistent).

But I exhort you all to go read the new blog and learn about the people that I am beginning to work with. The stories are quite amazing. You'll love them. I know I do.

Of gardens, outdoor oases, and other such things

My garden is growing! Most of it looks beautiful, but there are a few things that will definitely be improved upon next year. Something is eating the leaves right off my beans, although the cucurbits (vine fruit in the cucumber family) are not being eaten very much. Right now it looks like the cucurbits and the tomatoes and the basil are the big winners of the year. They are all healthy and thriving and producing flowers, excepet the basil, which is good. When basil flowers it puts all its energy into making seeds instead of deliciously scented and flavored leaves. I crushed a leaf from my cinnamon basil yesterday and it smelled like cloves. Yum!
Meanwhile, the beets and carrots are coming up in a rather patchy manner, mostly because the seed packages were a few years old and the seed viability was probably falling quickly. The peppers look healthy but the flowers appear to be dying before they can set fruit- I wonder if they want more sun. And I am very excited for my lemon cucumbers, sugar pumpkins, and nine varieties of tomatoes. See, isn't gardening an adventure?

I also finally got my new picnic table set up outside a few weeks ago, the solar-powered garden lights in, and my pots of hostas and bleeding hearts established. And I planted impatiens in Amber's window well, which, fortunately, she thought was funny. It was better than the weedy tree of heaven that was growing up from her window well before I sliced it down and put in the impatiens.

In order to celebrate the backyard oasis, and also because Trevor was bored, he come over on Friday night and we made kebabs on Cassaundra's little gas grill along with my roommates and our friend Jon the Amazing Mechanic. I was very excited for the bacon-wrapped mushrooms, even after they dripped on the grill and started a grease fire that somehow spread to the lid of the grill. Fortunately, Trevor, like many men, is a pyro enthusiast, so between the two of us we got some very tasty and not-too-badly-singed kebabs made. Kerstin, Cassaundra, and Sarah made mangoes and sticky rice for dessert. It was a lovely evening, and it solidified my pleasure in my picnic table purchase. Good friends and good food on a pleasant summer evening is one of the great pleasures in life.

And many things did come to pass

One unfortunate mark that depression has left on my life is that my desire to write is substantially decreased. I'm not depressed any more, but I used to have words almost flowing out of me, as my journals can attest. I make no claim as to their quality, but I wrote and wrote and wrote- mostly personal reflections and experiences that I didn't want to forget any details for. The year that I started keeping my journal electronically, I had about 70 pages, single spaced, by the end of the year.

I still love the idea of writing a lot, but it doesn't seem to compel me to the point where I have to sit down and pull out y computer. Thus, both my blog and my journal are scantier than they used to be.

This is sad to me. I wish it were not so. I'm starting to work on changing it back to how it was- especially since I know, as a scientist, that record keeping is critical. I also know that as a religionist. And just as a person who likes to remember what she's done and how she's felt at various times in her life. I think my favorite thing about rereading old journal entries is how much I can remember about how I felt at a certain stage of life based purely off of the topics of choice and also word choices. I've gone back and read entries from very hard times and been amazed at the upbeat, optimistic tone that I chose to record my emotions of the time. I've also read a few entries where the sheer pathos I put into baring my soul almost made me feel like I was intruding in a time that ought to be left alone as a sacred period of grief. I've chuckled with myself on rereading accounts of summer days and nights where life just seemed too delightful to be true, I've rolled my eyes with myself at anecdotes of confusing boys acting in ways that are hard to interpret, and I've sighed wistfully, rereading accounts of longing for certain events to come to pass in my life, some of which have been achieved (finally getting my master's, going to Kenya, singing in the choir), and some of which have not (marriage and family, having a well-established NGO, being independently wealthy and traveling the world).

I guess the point is, life is so rich and full of so many emotions and experiences that I really cherish my records. So I'm working on becoming an instinctive writer again.

As part of this, I am writing this post at night, per tradition, although it's not really late enough for me to start with "It's so late! I should be in bed!" (That's how about half of my journal entries start). But to prevent myself from going overkill and writing a huge, long entry, I will now end this ruminative post and start another one with a different topic.