I am willing to bet that very few people can remember the exact date and time of their first memory.
My earliest memory was on October 28, 1983 just after 8:06 a.m. I was a few weeks shy of my third birthday and my brother was due to arrive in two weeks. I know it is hard to believe that anyone could have a memory from when they were two years old, but I swear to you I remember that morning.
That's because I was awakened by an earthquake. The Borah earthquake centered near the small town of Challis and registered 7.3 on the Richter scale. It was felt as far away as Salt Lake City and killed two children.
I grew up on the western outskirts of Blackfoot, near Snake River High School, approximately 140 miles from Challis.
My bed was next to my closet and I was still asleep. My closet doors began to vibrate, and at first I thought my mom was just doing laundry, because sometimes the motion of the spin cycle would cause my closet doors to vibrate. But as it intensified I knew that it was much, much stronger than the usual hum that accompanied laundry day.
I remember getting out of bed and running down the hallway into the dining room, and seeing the light fixture above our kitchen table swaying back and forth. I continued down the hall to my parents' bedroom, and I distinctly remember my mom standing next to waterbed (remember those things?) with one hand on her 8 1/2 month pregnant belly and the other on the wooden bed frame. She looked like she was going to throw up, and having since gone through two pregnancies myself I can imaging how she must have felt!
I remember being really scared, my two-year-old mind had no idea what was happening! My mom swears to me that I said "Do it again!" I don't remember that, but that would have been pretty funny. I guess my sense of humor began at an early age.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Paradise lost
A thousand reachable truths
yet you follow one lie.
This path is best known
to those who are lost.
The air is weighted here.
Hours choke down the minutes
before you've had a taste.
"What ifs" and "could haves"
circle like determined vultures
waiting for you to give.
Not even the water
will take me in here.
But as always it will pass.
Passage will be granted
just before you hit the wall.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
The stranger in Salt Lake
While most memories seem to have been formed at random moments with no real rhyme or reason, others you know are permanent the instant they happen.
Aria flew back to Kansas City yesterday. She flew by herself for the first time.
We had stayed at Mike's grandparents' house in Roy Sunday night so we would not have as long of a commute to the airport, and I am so glad we did because we woke up at 6 a.m. to about four inches of fresh snow. The roads were nasty to say the least, and a 37 minute drive turned out to be a little over an hour. We watched the sun come up over the mountains . . .
It was surreal. The packing, the drive, waking up before the sun, waiting in line at security. . . She didn't want me to cry at the airport, so I got it all out the night before while getting ready for bed. I hugged her and told her how much we'd enjoyed having her home and the tears started flowing.
But back to the airport . . . we found her gate, and as we stood there waiting for her to get checked in and board another mom with a young girl came and stood next to us. I asked the little girl if she was also flying by herself and her mom answered yes. Not knowing if the girl had flown by herself or not I tried to comfort her by telling her my daughter was also flying by herself and maybe they could sit together.
Aria was so nervous! She couldn't eat breakfast because of her nerves. But, as always she faces everything head on and led the way to the gate and assured me she'd be fine. She's so amazing!
Finally it was time for Aria to board, so I gave her one last big hug and told her I loved her before watching her walk into the boarding bridge. The other mom did the same, and after the girls disappeared from view we both stood there for a moment in a sort of mutually understood silence that only a mother watching her child walk into a situation where she can't provide protection can understand.
I thought about talking to her, but I've been making an effort to avoid striking up conversations with random strangers in public places because of all the cold looks and responses I've been getting, so I refrained.
Then she spoke to me. I can't remember her ice-breaking statement, but we stood there together in the terminal, watching luggage flow up the conveyor belt to the airplane where both or children were now sitting.
She grew up in Missouri but came to Salt Lake City for an internship. She was offered a job in SLC so she stayed, but her ex and her daughter and family were still in Missouri. Her daughter is 7 and had been going back and forth from UT to MO by herself since she was 5. She said that her daughter is used to it by now, that it does not bother her at all, but for her, as a mother it is still very hard for her to put her child on a plane by herself.
She told me her name was Katie, and that she grew up in a very small town in Missouri. There were only 15 people in her graduating class. I shared my story with her, that my daughter's father married a woman from Kansas City and, after about two years of living in Idaho she wanted to move back to MO. We let our daughter choose where she wanted to live, and she decided she wanted to go out there and check it out.
She asked if I has a good relationship with him, my ex, and I told her that it is decent now but it wasn't always that way. She said hers was the same. I felt like I had so much in common with her though we'd barely met. She told me that it was so hard to watch her daughter go, but that talking to me made it easier. I told her the same. She was so incredibly warm and sincere.
After what seemed like an eternity the plane started to head out to the runway. I walked across the hallway to another row of windows hoping to watch the plane continue out, but the view was blocked. I know I will see her again soon, but standing there knowing that she was leaving gave me that sick, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt my eyes get hot and well up again, and as I turned away from the window to walk back down the terminal the other mom, Katie, was walking toward me. She held out her arms and hugged me! Yeah, that made me cry. She told me to have a great day, and it happened so fast I don't know what else she said, but it was so very sweet.
I know that I will never see Katie again, but I will always remember her. She made an incredibly difficult thing easier. Those moments, that human connection and the bond that all mothers share are all priceless.
Sometimes I wonder if people come and go into our lives at just the right time. Most of the time it does not make sense until days, weeks, months or even years later, but sometimes it is blaringly obvious. Maybe not, maybe those moments, those chance meetings are random, but does it matter?
There is goodness in this world, still. There are people who are real, sincere, who are willing to help strangers. I wish I could hold on to that warmth, I wish I could keep it in a jar and pull it out during times when I feel like I am losing all hope in humanity. I wish I could give it to other people who are hurting, who need something uplifting. Why do the moments of good tend to leave us so quickly while the feelings of despair seem to cling like thorns?
Thanks, Katie in Salt Lake. I will pass it on.
Aria flew back to Kansas City yesterday. She flew by herself for the first time.
We had stayed at Mike's grandparents' house in Roy Sunday night so we would not have as long of a commute to the airport, and I am so glad we did because we woke up at 6 a.m. to about four inches of fresh snow. The roads were nasty to say the least, and a 37 minute drive turned out to be a little over an hour. We watched the sun come up over the mountains . . .
It was surreal. The packing, the drive, waking up before the sun, waiting in line at security. . . She didn't want me to cry at the airport, so I got it all out the night before while getting ready for bed. I hugged her and told her how much we'd enjoyed having her home and the tears started flowing.
But back to the airport . . . we found her gate, and as we stood there waiting for her to get checked in and board another mom with a young girl came and stood next to us. I asked the little girl if she was also flying by herself and her mom answered yes. Not knowing if the girl had flown by herself or not I tried to comfort her by telling her my daughter was also flying by herself and maybe they could sit together.
Aria was so nervous! She couldn't eat breakfast because of her nerves. But, as always she faces everything head on and led the way to the gate and assured me she'd be fine. She's so amazing!
Finally it was time for Aria to board, so I gave her one last big hug and told her I loved her before watching her walk into the boarding bridge. The other mom did the same, and after the girls disappeared from view we both stood there for a moment in a sort of mutually understood silence that only a mother watching her child walk into a situation where she can't provide protection can understand.
I thought about talking to her, but I've been making an effort to avoid striking up conversations with random strangers in public places because of all the cold looks and responses I've been getting, so I refrained.
Then she spoke to me. I can't remember her ice-breaking statement, but we stood there together in the terminal, watching luggage flow up the conveyor belt to the airplane where both or children were now sitting.
She grew up in Missouri but came to Salt Lake City for an internship. She was offered a job in SLC so she stayed, but her ex and her daughter and family were still in Missouri. Her daughter is 7 and had been going back and forth from UT to MO by herself since she was 5. She said that her daughter is used to it by now, that it does not bother her at all, but for her, as a mother it is still very hard for her to put her child on a plane by herself.
She told me her name was Katie, and that she grew up in a very small town in Missouri. There were only 15 people in her graduating class. I shared my story with her, that my daughter's father married a woman from Kansas City and, after about two years of living in Idaho she wanted to move back to MO. We let our daughter choose where she wanted to live, and she decided she wanted to go out there and check it out.
She asked if I has a good relationship with him, my ex, and I told her that it is decent now but it wasn't always that way. She said hers was the same. I felt like I had so much in common with her though we'd barely met. She told me that it was so hard to watch her daughter go, but that talking to me made it easier. I told her the same. She was so incredibly warm and sincere.
After what seemed like an eternity the plane started to head out to the runway. I walked across the hallway to another row of windows hoping to watch the plane continue out, but the view was blocked. I know I will see her again soon, but standing there knowing that she was leaving gave me that sick, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt my eyes get hot and well up again, and as I turned away from the window to walk back down the terminal the other mom, Katie, was walking toward me. She held out her arms and hugged me! Yeah, that made me cry. She told me to have a great day, and it happened so fast I don't know what else she said, but it was so very sweet.
I know that I will never see Katie again, but I will always remember her. She made an incredibly difficult thing easier. Those moments, that human connection and the bond that all mothers share are all priceless.
Sometimes I wonder if people come and go into our lives at just the right time. Most of the time it does not make sense until days, weeks, months or even years later, but sometimes it is blaringly obvious. Maybe not, maybe those moments, those chance meetings are random, but does it matter?
There is goodness in this world, still. There are people who are real, sincere, who are willing to help strangers. I wish I could hold on to that warmth, I wish I could keep it in a jar and pull it out during times when I feel like I am losing all hope in humanity. I wish I could give it to other people who are hurting, who need something uplifting. Why do the moments of good tend to leave us so quickly while the feelings of despair seem to cling like thorns?
Thanks, Katie in Salt Lake. I will pass it on.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Update
Aria's home for a few more days . . . it is going by far too quickly. I wish she could just stay, I'd love for her to move back to Pocatello. But, after spending some time with her in Kansas City I've seen how much she likes it there, and she's doing well, so I don't think that will happen. I want what is best for her, and if it is there then so be it, as hard as that is. . . she's on the honor roll and is continuing with her violin playing. She's so much more outgoing than I ever was, and I'm grateful for that.
Kansas City is pretty cool. We went to Arrowhead Stadium, and I hoped to go in but we couldn't, I think they were practicing, so we just drove up to the front and I took a photo. But it is still pretty cool to say that I was there.
The downtown part of the city is so beautiful. It was decorated with Christmas lights and there were several large decorated trees. There is a place called Union Station and it is absolutely gorgeous. There is a museum and the outside is lit up in lights that switch between red and green. There's a skywalk that goes over to Crown Center where there are tons of little shops and restaurants.
One of the best parts, other than hanging out with Aria, of course, was going to an art museum. I was able to see real, actual, authentic Monet and Van Gogh paintings. Call me a nerd, but it gave me chills. I can cross that off my bucket list. However, I still really want to see "Starry Night" in person. That would be fantastic.
The flights there and back were Ok. I was terrified to fly at first, it had been awhile, but after take-off I was Ok. On the way back to Salt Lake City we hit some pretty nasty turbulence during the landing that freaked Aria and I out a bit, but we made it to the ground safely.
Aria has matured a lot, she had become more patient with her brother. She's definitely a teenager though! I've gotten a few eye rolls and "don't embarrass me"comments, which of course makes me want to embarrass her by dancing in line at the grocery store and other such tomfoolery. Ha ha! I've been wanting to use "tomfoolery" in a sentence!
We had a great Christmas. Devin got his own tablet and tons of Legos. Aria got an iPad and a violin. And I got her "Attack on Titan" Monopoly. She's really into anime. We went to visit my family in Blackfoot on Christmas Eve, and I was able to see some of my aunts and cousins that I have not seen in a long time. We were going to drive to Utah on Christmas day to visit Mike's family but the storm made the roads icy so we stayed. We'll stop by when we take Aria to the airport on Monday.
Devin is growing up too fast too. He's still a sweet little boy but he's had a bit of an attitude lately. I guess it is just because he's getting older but it sure is not fun to deal with. He gets frustrated some times when he can't get a Lego piece to fit the way he wants it to or if his drawing does not turn out the way he wants. I have to remind him to be patient and to practice, but at the same time I know that getting frustrated is part of being human so I have to let him sort it out by himself sometimes.
Have you ever notice that we discourage children from doing and acting in very normal human ways like being sad, frustrated, angry, etc? Instead of saying "don't be mad," shouldn't we instead teach them that it is normal to get angry sometimes and give them tools for dealing with it? By telling them not to allow themselves to have these basic emotions are we not setting them up to think they are doing something wrong when they feel these things? That's another blog for another day.
Mike's been off work for a bit, not a lot of painting jobs right now. He needs the break, he works hard. He got bored one day and repainted the bathroom. It's nice having a professional painter in the house! He and Devin have been spending a lot of time together since he's been out of school. He rides the bus home from school now, which is something I never thought he'd be confident enough to do. He surprises me.
As for me, well, I am in a substantial amount of physical pain today, but that will pass. Mentally I'm in a weird place. I'm feeling very reclusive, but not in a bad way, I just want to stay home and draw and read and not really go out and deal with society. Some days it really gets to me . . . all the people who are all for themselves and don't give two shits about anyone else. It's nice to get away from that.
This is long enough. I'm done.
This is the Van Gogh I saw. It's one of the paintings in the "Olive Orchard" series that he painted while he was institutionalized at Saint-Remy.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Time doesn't tell
Time is a system made up by man as a way to create a sense of order, of structure, of control. Minutes direct our days, days direct our months and months decide our years.
What if things that happened a year ago aren't as far away as they seem? We've been conditioned to believe that a year is the ultimate decider in a person's success or lack thereof. We've been conditioned to compare our years side by side, to make this year better than the last. . . make more money, lose ten pounds . . . all by next year.
Ten years, a decade, a century, all used to express the long ago. What if we weren't held hostage by minutes, hours, years? What if time is not a tunnel that gets deeper and deeper the further you go, but layers of events stacked on top of each other with transparent floors? A song, a smell, a face brings back a specific event and it is resurrected, revived, brought back to the surface. The word "past" connotes something that can never happen again, a moment that is lost. It's a word that brings longing, regret or indifference.
What if we're moving backwards? What if when we lose the people we love they are just being born in another world, on another plain of existence? What if this is all just smoke and mirrors, rushed along by the threat of running out of time?
How can we be so quick to believe that things we cannot see, touch and feel don't exist when time's invisibility has such a hold?
Knowing this has made it easier to believe that my ghosts are real, that we have senses that have been dulled by fear and the need for what the majority believes to be normal.
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Missing my white circles
I ran out of one of my prescriptions today. Only one of several, but each is like a sort of piece to my puzzle.
I have to order my meds by mail, it is the way my insurance requires them to be received because they are "maintenance medications." Does that make me high maintenance? I try to order more in time, but life gets crazy, the mail gets slow . . . they used to automatically ship them off when I was getting low . . . the system logged that they were sending out 90 days worth and would automatically send more out when the end of that time frame neared. Insurance changes put an end to that.
The bottle had been getting lighter every morning, then a few days ago when I could see the partially clear, yellow-orange mishmash colored plastic bottom of the bottle I hoped more than the day before that the bubble-wrapped package containing my "anti" everything-people-fear-and-don't-want-to-deal with medicine would be carefully folded inside my mailbox when I got home.
The rattle in the bottle gets smaller and smaller, weaker as more and more of the little white tablets are enlisted to help me fight my war. When one is left the clickity clack of itself smacking the sides of the preformed plastic is a sad little sound. It's almost gone. This medicine I have become accustomed to having to function everyday is now one small compressed circle of powder in a large, otherwise empty pharmacy bottle.
It ran out yesterday, so I could not take it today. That one, we'll call it part b of the anti-psychotic cocktail I've trained myself to ingest before I leave the house each day. I still have a and c, but getting the three to work without the middle is a bit difficult.
It's only when I am without some of the medicine I have been (strongly) recommended that I realize that I am chemically dependent. If I go one day without the little lifesavers I feel . . . not real.
Today I am spinning and the threads and patterns in the carpet seem to be moving back and forth against each other. Some sounds seem to be louder, while others are much more quiet, though on a normal day they are the same. I can't focus, everything is a fog. I won't remember what you just told me, so I hope it wasn't important.
My skin feels numb, and I the last two hours went by in 10 minutes. I'm itchy and my heart is pounding and racing . . . can they hear it in the next room?
I'll keep this to myself, and you'll never know because I've become so skilled at pushing through.
It's like being hungover and you just want it to go away but you have to let it run its course.
It's like those first few moments after you wake up when the room spins and it takes a moment to come to your senses, out of the sleep fog. . .. but being without a long-term medication for day or more means you stay in the fog all day. That is what it feels like.
I just want to sleep. Sleep is the only thing that pushes this all away. Sleep wraps me up like an angel and kicks everything else out. Sleep is the only safe place from this.
I hope it's in my mail box when I get home.
I have to order my meds by mail, it is the way my insurance requires them to be received because they are "maintenance medications." Does that make me high maintenance? I try to order more in time, but life gets crazy, the mail gets slow . . . they used to automatically ship them off when I was getting low . . . the system logged that they were sending out 90 days worth and would automatically send more out when the end of that time frame neared. Insurance changes put an end to that.
The bottle had been getting lighter every morning, then a few days ago when I could see the partially clear, yellow-orange mishmash colored plastic bottom of the bottle I hoped more than the day before that the bubble-wrapped package containing my "anti" everything-people-fear-and-don't-want-to-deal with medicine would be carefully folded inside my mailbox when I got home.
The rattle in the bottle gets smaller and smaller, weaker as more and more of the little white tablets are enlisted to help me fight my war. When one is left the clickity clack of itself smacking the sides of the preformed plastic is a sad little sound. It's almost gone. This medicine I have become accustomed to having to function everyday is now one small compressed circle of powder in a large, otherwise empty pharmacy bottle.
It ran out yesterday, so I could not take it today. That one, we'll call it part b of the anti-psychotic cocktail I've trained myself to ingest before I leave the house each day. I still have a and c, but getting the three to work without the middle is a bit difficult.
It's only when I am without some of the medicine I have been (strongly) recommended that I realize that I am chemically dependent. If I go one day without the little lifesavers I feel . . . not real.
Today I am spinning and the threads and patterns in the carpet seem to be moving back and forth against each other. Some sounds seem to be louder, while others are much more quiet, though on a normal day they are the same. I can't focus, everything is a fog. I won't remember what you just told me, so I hope it wasn't important.
My skin feels numb, and I the last two hours went by in 10 minutes. I'm itchy and my heart is pounding and racing . . . can they hear it in the next room?
I'll keep this to myself, and you'll never know because I've become so skilled at pushing through.
It's like being hungover and you just want it to go away but you have to let it run its course.
It's like those first few moments after you wake up when the room spins and it takes a moment to come to your senses, out of the sleep fog. . .. but being without a long-term medication for day or more means you stay in the fog all day. That is what it feels like.
I just want to sleep. Sleep is the only thing that pushes this all away. Sleep wraps me up like an angel and kicks everything else out. Sleep is the only safe place from this.
I hope it's in my mail box when I get home.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Behind his eyes
Everyone has a story. Don't believe it? Start up a conversation with a stranger. Or better yet, let them start one with you.
I went Christmas and grocery shopping on Saturday, maybe too much ambition for one afternoon, but I prefer to get a lot done in one swoop than in little bits and pieces.
I went to the gym post shopping to get a little soak in the hot tub and it was empty save one older man. I picked a corner and settled into the bubbles and jets (that is such an amazing feeling). We made eye contact at one point and acknowledged each others' presence through small but polite smiles.
I got the sense that he wanted to chat but was not sure if I'd be open to a conversation with a stranger.
After a few moments of nothing but the sound of the bubbles in the spa and some kids splashing in the pool he spoke up. He asked me if I had a lot of people to shop for this year, and I told him that my family is spread out all over the place . . . Washington, Utah, California, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina . . . but that my immediate family would be close by.
We talked about our families for awhile. He talked about his three daughters and one son and his seven grandchildren. We talked about his wife having a hard time after the youngest child moved out of the house because she had the whole empty nest thing going on. Just your average, generic, home town friendly chatter.
Then he brought up being drafted into the Vietnam War when he was 19. He'd just been married. He told me about some of the horrific things he saw . . . his best friend getting blown up right in front of him, for example, and having someone shot and killed right next to him. He told me that the Viet Cong would fight at night, so his unit would be getting shot at and they'd have to shoot back into the jungle without seeing who they were shooting at. The Viet Cong would arm their children with machine guns, so when daylight came they'd discovered that they'd been shooting at children. He told me that he watched reporters come and kick the guns away from the bodies of the kids before doing their report so it looked like the children had been unarmed.
But, he said the worst part of the whole thing was coming back to America and being spit on and called a baby killer. That, he said, was worse than being in the war.
He's telling me all of this, and I don't really know what to say. It really came out of no where. He continued that it took him more than 20 years to finally talk about it, and now he enjoys talking about it because it is a release, a therapy for him because he held it in for so long. He and his wife are still married, by the way.
He now works to help soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan get the help that they need, both physical and mental. He drives vets to Salt Lake to the Veteran's Hospital and makes sure they have someone to talk to.
He was a genuinely all around good guy. He loves his wife, daughters, son and grandkids, and seemed like the kind of guy who help a complete stranger in a time of need.
It would be easy for him to be angry and bitter and just all around mad at the world, and maybe he was for awhile. But on Saturday he was a friendly grandpa getting excited to see his grandkids for Christmas.
If he had not told me about his time in the war I would have never known he'd been there. I would not have heard stories from someone who was literally in the line of fire in one of the darkest times of our country's past.
Things that this reinforced to me are: 1. You can go through something horrific and still chose to be a kind and compassionate individual. 2. You can't always trust what the media tells you. They show you want they want you to see.
I hope I see him there again sometime. He seems like an old friend.
I went Christmas and grocery shopping on Saturday, maybe too much ambition for one afternoon, but I prefer to get a lot done in one swoop than in little bits and pieces.
I went to the gym post shopping to get a little soak in the hot tub and it was empty save one older man. I picked a corner and settled into the bubbles and jets (that is such an amazing feeling). We made eye contact at one point and acknowledged each others' presence through small but polite smiles.
I got the sense that he wanted to chat but was not sure if I'd be open to a conversation with a stranger.
After a few moments of nothing but the sound of the bubbles in the spa and some kids splashing in the pool he spoke up. He asked me if I had a lot of people to shop for this year, and I told him that my family is spread out all over the place . . . Washington, Utah, California, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina . . . but that my immediate family would be close by.
We talked about our families for awhile. He talked about his three daughters and one son and his seven grandchildren. We talked about his wife having a hard time after the youngest child moved out of the house because she had the whole empty nest thing going on. Just your average, generic, home town friendly chatter.
Then he brought up being drafted into the Vietnam War when he was 19. He'd just been married. He told me about some of the horrific things he saw . . . his best friend getting blown up right in front of him, for example, and having someone shot and killed right next to him. He told me that the Viet Cong would fight at night, so his unit would be getting shot at and they'd have to shoot back into the jungle without seeing who they were shooting at. The Viet Cong would arm their children with machine guns, so when daylight came they'd discovered that they'd been shooting at children. He told me that he watched reporters come and kick the guns away from the bodies of the kids before doing their report so it looked like the children had been unarmed.
But, he said the worst part of the whole thing was coming back to America and being spit on and called a baby killer. That, he said, was worse than being in the war.
He's telling me all of this, and I don't really know what to say. It really came out of no where. He continued that it took him more than 20 years to finally talk about it, and now he enjoys talking about it because it is a release, a therapy for him because he held it in for so long. He and his wife are still married, by the way.
He now works to help soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan get the help that they need, both physical and mental. He drives vets to Salt Lake to the Veteran's Hospital and makes sure they have someone to talk to.
He was a genuinely all around good guy. He loves his wife, daughters, son and grandkids, and seemed like the kind of guy who help a complete stranger in a time of need.
It would be easy for him to be angry and bitter and just all around mad at the world, and maybe he was for awhile. But on Saturday he was a friendly grandpa getting excited to see his grandkids for Christmas.
If he had not told me about his time in the war I would have never known he'd been there. I would not have heard stories from someone who was literally in the line of fire in one of the darkest times of our country's past.
Things that this reinforced to me are: 1. You can go through something horrific and still chose to be a kind and compassionate individual. 2. You can't always trust what the media tells you. They show you want they want you to see.
I hope I see him there again sometime. He seems like an old friend.
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