The Lone Read

Sometimes I get a paralyzing anxiety. It is an uncomfortable phenomenon. I feel like I’m going to break out of my skin if I don’t do something, but there is nothing to be done. I don’t like it.

Often, there is no reason for it. I’m just defective. But I have been able to zero in on some possible causes.

Here are a few:

• Pinterest;
• 10th grade algebra;
• The Sunday paper in a big heap rather than stacked in neat squares;
• Knives used to cut fruit then left on the counter, uncleaned; or, using the bread knife to cut cheese (left on the counter, uncleaned);
• My church calling;
• The cost of living;
• The unquenchable desire to give and teach my son everything and for him to be exquisitely happy always;
• Untucked blankets at the foot of my bed;
• Eating pizza for the 4th time this week;
• My garage;
• Making decisions for other people;
• Lady Mary Crawley being stupid and getting in so deep that she’ll have to marry that loser Richard when it’s really Matthew she loves.

To over come some of these things, I take extra vitamin D, exercise daily, eat more spinach, and clench my teeth a lot. Not sure if it’s helping.

We recently moved a foreign exchange student in to our home for the Semester. We had 36 hours notice. We have what some may call an ”extra” bedroom – extra, but not unused. It can only be defined as unused in the bedroom sense – in every other sense, it is the most used room of the house. Last year I custom-built shelves along one wall to hold tall dresses, costume pieces, nice coats I didn’t want crammed into the regular sardine can we call a coat closet, a large filing cabinet, multiple stacks of plastic drawer carts full of random crafts, sewing, scrapping (I know!!!! I don’t scrap!?!) and every other extra piece of wood, metal, plastic, cloth or electronics that didn’t have a home. The second wall was covered with cabinets and stuffed with the “office.” The third held deep metal shelves good for Rubbermaid bins and giant wicker baskets. The last wall held boxes full of frames, prints, posters, and a table covered with…stuff.

It was all moved out.

Then my son cleaned out everything he had accumulated since 4th grade and moved it to this newly empty room.

Let’s just say the DI was very busy that day. And for the next month a tidy pile of stuff garnished my living room and a good portion of the garage. (My car really misses the garage. . . it want’s to come home.) And I stealthily deposited many a box and bag full of what I would lovingly refer to as junk – yes, it’s junk. Yes It Is!- into the dumpster to be taken away in the morning.

What’s my point? Well, the two of you who read about how claustrophobic I felt by my stuff after my bare bones summer sabbatical in the Pod already know I’m about to complain about the blasted stuff. The rest of you. . . ok, so there’s only the two. Whatever. The point is…

I hate stuff.

And even though I could go on and on about my own personal dislike of stuff, I would rather let someone more educated do that for me. So, the following comes from  Dr. Shawn Miller, from the Brigham Young University History Department, shared at a university devotional probably sometime in 2010. If he’s annoyed that I’m printing it here, I will repent and remove it, but that means someone would have to read this and tell him about it and then he would probably read it to, so – cool, one more reader.

There is worldly stuff, and there is intellectual stuff. Very different in every way.

“Seeking knowledge can…be an effective antidote to worldliness. We invest a great deal in the acquisition of stuff. Companies bombard us with slick, relentless propaganda as to why we must have their stuff, and we judge and individual’s success by their stuff’s sheer quantity and supposed quality. I like stuff – I especially like the word “stuff.” But consumption never was creativity. It brings few lasting satisfactions and can bring burdensome debts. Stuff beyond our basic needs does not liberate. Consider the overall investment of our time. You have to shop for stuff. You have to clean, maintain, and organize stuff. You lose stuff and look for stuff. You polish stuff, secure it against theft, trip over it, recharge it, upgrade it, accessorize it, pack it, move it, unpack it, insure it, fix it, and eventually sell, trash, or bequeath it. Stuff, which has no use beyond this life, takes a lot from us.

Very much unlike stuff, knowledge has few such liabilities. Knowledge does not depreciate but grows deeper, stronger and more valuable with each use. Unlike stuff, knowledge has neither mass nor volume and does not take up any space outside the bounds of our cranium. Unlike in the accumulation of stuff, in getting knowledge you will never have to build a three-car garage on the side of your head. . .  Also unlike stuff, knowledge can be given to others without diminishing our stock. In fact, sharing knowledge tends to better burnish it in the giver’s mind.”

Well said, Dr. Miller. Well said.

On those rare occasions when I actually catch up and do all the laundry, I find myself thinking, “Where the frak did all these towels come from!? And where am I supposed to put them all!?!”

I don’t think I was ever meant to actually catch up on the laundry. It creates a disturbance in the universe.

It’s out there. That little bite in the air. Do you feel it?

What is it about fall? No matter how busy and overwhelmed I am, as soon as the nights cool off I’m suddenly invigorated. Soups made of from the fresh fall harvest are added to the menu. Turning on the grill is now a pleasure, instead of just a way to avoid turning on the oven. Now, we grill for the fun of it, lingering in the outdoors, whereas in previous months we would run outside, flip the meat, and get back into the air-conditioned house as fast as we could.

I bake bread.

We lounge on the front lawn chatting with our friends and neighbors as they stroll by, one after the other, in the cool evening air. We have ice-cream socials and invite anyone who’s driving by. We bounce on the tramp without burning our feet. The doors and windows stay open far into the afternoon, even when birds or the cat who adopted us, or random kids from the neighborhood decide to wander in and check things out.

I feel an intense need to browse through TaiPan Traders.

Christmas shopping begins, quietly, pleasantly. “I wonder what our tree will look like this year?” “I wonder if our tree will topple again, and if so, what will it demolish?” I wonder…

…how I’ve been married for nearly 19 years and am more in love that I ever thought possible.

…how I got such an amazing son, who is kind, and smart, and awesome.

…how I live such a charmed life when I so clearly did nothing to deserve it.

This is fall. It’s magical. It’s glorious. It’s beginning.

TeeHee!

So, Kohl’s had a pair of Vera Wang boots that grabbed my soul and wouldn’t let go. I loved them. They were well-made, they were versatile, they were my size. They were also the only pair of shoes in the whole store that weren’t on sale. They were the only pair on the website that weren’t on sale. They were mocking me.

I’ve been a Kohl’s shopper long enough to know that you never pay full price for anything in the store. Being Kohl’s card holders, we get 30% off coupons many times a year, and usually walk out with a $10 off coupon for our next visit. The great thing about Kohl’s coupons is that there are no “exceptions.” They work on everything, sale items, clearance, all of it. And I can use the percent off and the dollars off together.

So..you never pay full price at Kohl’s. It’s their thing.

But these boots weren’t on sale. And we didn’t currently have a coupon. And they were $90.00.

Thing is. . . I would have paid $90 for these boots, I loved them that much. It was a lot, but it would have been worth it to me. Paying $90 didn’t bother me nearly as much as paying full price at Kohl’s. Which you don’t do. Ever. Have I mentioned that?

So I waited. With a patience Job never had (because he didn’t know about Vera Wang, obviously…) I waited for something. A sale. A coupon. A special. Something.

Finally it came, 30% off and $10 off, both within a week of each other. Alas, I was out-of-town. I had to wait until I returned. So, yesterday, dressed in the same clothes I had worn for the last three days on my camping trip – which weren’t too dirty because I had also worn them during my accidental dip in the lake – I  bravely marched into Kohl’s, latched on to the only pair my size, and went straight to the register. I was almost afraid that if I didn’t hurry and buy them there would be some sudden announcement that all 9 1/2 sized shoes were not eligible for discounts, which is silly, and yet I feared it.

The total was calculated. The shoes were now on sale, they took off the $10, the deducted the 30%, and I signed my name under $26.17.

That’s right. I bought my $90 boots for twenty-six dollars.

I knew all those Sunday School lessons about patience would be invaluable. I just knew it.

We finished our road trip with stops in Chilliwack, B.C., Vancouver, Victoria, Anacortes WA, The San Juan Islands, Sedro-Woolley, Bremerton, Astoria, Tillicum, Crescent City, Gualala, and San Francisco. There was also Sparks, Nevada, but I don’t really count that – except we saw Harry Potter there. Otherwise…nothing to say.

It was delightful. Living in a tiny space is more empowering than you would think. The whole place, including the shower and toilet, gets cleaned in 15 minutes with two Lysol wipes. Even though I brought a whole bin full of clothes, I only used one-fourth of them. If you needed more space, you just took a walk on the beach, or the bluff, or over the bridge. Or lounge on a picnic table reading a book. We have talked a lot about the tiny “house,” but in reality, we were living in the whole wide world. There was unlimited space.

And now I’m here in my beautiful house, with large open rooms, and I feel a little claustrophobic. I’m being held hostage by stuff. Shelves that beg to be dusted, closets refusing to hold all we put in them, weeds in the yard, and what seems like acres of floor that must be vacuumed and swept.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my house, and my life. But I also loved the simplicity of the nomad life. I just loved it. I hate my iPod right now because it has Google Calender on it and it’s like a prison warden. I’m actually thinking about “loosing” my beloved cell phone so people who want stuff will stop calling me. I cringe when I hear Bohemian Rhapsody. I need a new ring tone, just for therapy.

So I’ve tried to keep it, the vacation I mean. When my son says “I wish we had some ice-cream,” I drop everything for 15 minutes and take him for a shake at Ripples. I’ve refused to gossip or “vent” about neighbors, or co-workers. That rarely happened while we were away, so I must not need it to be happy. I take what comes with a shrug and an “Oh well,” in hopes of re-creating the freedom I felt while traveling. And yet, it seems to slip away. If you crack a raw egg into your hand and attempt to hold it there, it eventually starts to slip through your fingers, no matter how hard you hold them close. It begins to drip and if you try to catch the drips and bring them back up to the palm, you lose three more drips in the process. And whatever portion of the egg you end up holding on to will eventually dry into a strange translucent crust, crumbling with the slightest movement and floating away with a breeze.

K..so that sounds pretty negative. But there is some truth to it. And the truth is, I need more eggs. Not big, long-term, “eggs” grown in Hutterite Colonies on the Montana Plains. Just little “eggs” everyday. That, and a whole attitude adjustment. You can’t change who you are, but you can change your whole attitude about life and the world around you. It’s like a loophole. It’s my new life goal. I want to be the person I was on the 5,000 miles in 5 weeks vacation with my two favorite people – all the time. There will be those who attempt to foil my plan, but I will fight them. Using every smile and random witty comeback I can muster.

Hurrah for Israel!

So…there are a few things I need to tie up. I ran my half marathon. I did it in 2 hours and 5 seconds, or as I like to say 1:59:65. It’s all perspective.

I also recently spent 4 days on a “Pioneer Trek” as a “Ma,” or as I like to say, “call me anything but ‘Ma.’” Three hundred youth on the windswept plains of Wyoming, me in a skirt the whole time. So…I’m digging the skirts. They don’t “ride up,” they don’t pinch or bind, they hide a plethora of muffin-related poochy parts, they bring a delightfully cooling breeze when needed but can also hide a thick layer of leg-warmers and/or sweat pants when it’s chilly. I did shun the bonnets, however, choosing instead a fine felt cowboy hat that fit my head just right. There’s nothing like a cowboy hat that fits your head just right.

And now, I’m halfway through the Trans-Canada Highway portion of a very long road trip with my husband, son, and r-pod camper. I love my Pod. It’s cozy, and light, and makes great pancakes.

A few things about Canada and surrounding areas:

1) There really are places in Montana where no real people live. Like hundreds of miles worth of places. No real towns, no gas stations, no food. We finally gave up and asked a random person in Dupuyer, MT (no, I don’t know how to pronounce it,) if there was somewhere we could park for the night where we wouldn’t get murdered or arrested. Apparently, we had happened upon the town council, which was the woman who owned the only store for hundreds of miles, and the guy who owned the land the town was on. They showed us to the “park,” which was a wilderness area with a pavilion that had its own marshmallow roasters and outhouses decorated with gingham curtains and baskets of silk flowers. We started to feel like we had stumbled into a town where random travelers disappeared, never to be heard from again. We left early in the morning.

2) Waterton Lakes National Park is full of bears and big horn sheep. Bear everywhere. Herds of bears. Gaggles of sheep. Bears and sheep.

3) Banff Townsite is a lot like Jackson Hole but friendlier and decidedly french. People there actually seem to like visitors. There were bonjours all around.

4) Lake Louise is blue. Light, torquise-ish, milky, green blue. It’s also a tourist mecca. And it hails there. Suddenly. Which hurts when you’re sprinting back to your car. Knocked the power out across the park, which is lame when you paid extra for the electric hook-ups. Also, bears.

5) Revelstoke, BC is a charming town that really wants to be a huge tourist town. They actually have a sign when you enter that says “Visitors Welcome. Stay awhile. Spend $.” We did.

BTW –  Canada doesn’t make dollar bills anymore. They make dollar coins which have Loons on them which makes them “loonies” instead of dollars. Um…ok. We have a lot of loonies because at our most recent campsite the hot water only comes on in the showers if you deposit a loonie every 5 minutes. This may sound harsh but considering every other shower we’ve had in Canada only had two settings, off and scalding, it’s not so bad.