What Makes You So Happy?

When my oldest daughter, Elise, was four, I took her and a friend to see the ballet Copellia.  The friends' mom and I purchased new dolls to occupy the girls should they need bribes to make it through, but we didn't need them.  The girls were mesmerized.  Especially mine.  She watched every second as if it were the best Barbie movie ever (her obsession at the time).  For weeks after, she talked about dancing and ballet, she had to dance along with her Bella  Ballerina DVD at least once every day.  She staged dance classes with her little sister.  It didn't take a lot of thought when I saw a local ballet school was holding a preschool level "ballet camp" workshop the next summer.  I signed

Four year old Elise on her way to her first day
of ballet camp.

Elise up.  You should have seen her face when I bought her proper dance clothes and shoes.  Oh heavens,  I wish I had that on video because the surprise and happiness was beautiful.  She spent fourty minutes a day for the next two weeks in heaven. She had a lovely teacher, Miss Misty, who had control of the room and taught real technique, but also made it feel magical.  Elise would get the happiest look on her face when it was time to go to ballet.  She smiled through every class, made friends, fell in love with Miss Misty.  I swear I could actually hear her heart sing through the little observation window.  Miss Misty was very encouraging.  She always praised Elise's focus and "try".  She often raved to me about her dancer's feet and posture.  She told me Elise had a naturally perfect point, turn out and relevé.  Ballet camp was two weeks of happiness.  When it was time to sign up for fall classes, I didn't even consider not enrolling her.  From then on Elise had a passion.  Oh, she tried gymnastics, soccer and swimming, but nothing made her light up like ballet.

Fast forward eight years to this fall.  The poor kid had a crisis of confidence.  On the day of placements, she realized she was likely to be placed in the most advanced classes our school offers as well as pointe. Her brain started freaking out. She would now be with girls at least a year or two older than her and for the first time Miss Misty wouldn't be her teacher in any of them.  She'd have the choice to take lower classes with girls her age of course, and she liked the advanced teacher, but fear gripped her.  

As I tried to talk her down from the ledge of "I don't want to do ballet!!", I told her a story from when she was four.  We were in a store buying her second pair of ballet shoes.  Elise was not the kind of kid who threw fits or made demands but she had a full blown temper tantrum because we were buying flat shoes instead of pointe.  She didn't understand why she wasn't getting pointe shoes.  Miss Misty said she was a good dancer!  Why couldn't she have pointe shoes?!?!  She finally calmed down enough to understand she had to be older to be considered for pointe, and I laughed to myself over her angry little face.  As I told this story I wrapped it up with "Four year old you would never forgive you if you quit ballet just as you're going en pointe".  Elise laughed and the fear was broken.  She went to placements, did her best and was, indeed, placed in the advanced classes, with an hour of pointe to boot.  We had expected she would go the pointe class in flats for at least a while while she built strength, but her teacher told me to go have her fitted for pointe shoes immediately.  (Let me tell you, that was an exciting shopping trip.)

I was smart enough, this time, to have the camera ready.  

She doesn't grin broadly anymore, but she's just as happy as she was when she was four.

At this winter's recital.
Photo by Parker Grimes Photography.

At this point in the dance season, Elise is doing wonderfully.  She's never had more confidence and she says dancing still makes her smile.  Yesterday, she was cast as a mechanical ballerina doll in a local company's production of Copellia.  It's a pointe role, and the first time she'll be in more than the corps de ballet in a production.  It doesn't matter to her that it's a tiny role. She's a teenager now and isn't quite so demonstrative with her happiness, but I again wished I had videoed her face when she got the news.  She was one happy girl.

As I think about her ballet story, I think about passion and happiness.  She found something she truly loved when she was four.  I am stunned that her love has endured, after all, four is so tiny.  We change so much as we move from year to year, but the effect of dance has not lessened for her.  Last spring, at the age of six, my son had a similar experience with swimming.  He literally jumps with happiness when it's time to go to swim team.  You can't wipe the smile from his face while he's in the water.  He puts his wet suit on and glows from within. Playing baseball was a chore for him, but swimming is a reward.

My middle child hasn't found an activity she loves yet. (She LOVES cats, but I'm not sure that's the same.)  She likes writing and singing and creating.  She thought she wanted to be a singer so I put her in singing lessons.  She likes them alright but now she wants to dance or act.  She doesn't really know.  She might want to play the ukulele or piano or drums.  She doesn't know.  It's fine with me that she's trying so many things.  I identify with her lack of certainty.  Heck, I'm 41 and I don't know what I really love to do. It makes me wonder though, where does passion come from.  Is it a matter of happening across something that clicks with you? Is it a great teacher who lights a fire?  Is it finding the right thing at the right time?  Perhaps it's having the right kind of personality.

When I think about it, I realize most people do not have a true passion.  Most people have a hobby or career they enjoy, but few have something they're driven to do, something they work really hard to improve in just because they want to.  I wish for my middle one's sake that she had something that made her happy every time she did it.  It's such a joy to see my other two light up the way they do, I wish that for her.  Heck, I wish it for myself, and everyone else, too.  If we never find it though, perhaps that's okay.  Maybe some of us aren't meant to have that high.  It's not as if I'm unhappy without a passion.  I have a lot of leveled joy and peace in my life.  Maybe I'm trading the high of passion for those things.  

Walking Alone

Heading toward the university this morning.  My only fellow traveller at this time was a student running late for
elementary school band class.

I went for a walk by myself today.  I walked around the university I live near while most of the students were either still asleep or in early classes.  Campus was quiet, snow was just beginning to fall, it was a pretty morning.  I couldn't help but feel my aloneness more than I like though.  There were other non-students walking around campus and they all had dogs.  The dogs were happy, smiling, glad to be out.  So were their people.  I love a smiling dog.  Nothing is more cheerful than a dog who is out and about.  This morning though, they made me both happy and sadly uncomfortable.

I  like to be alone.  In fact, if I don't get a significant amount of alone time each day, I get a bit cranky. Even as a child I could spend hours alone, wandering in fields or reading in a corner, happy as a clam.  I have, also,  always had a dog.  Except a few months here and there as a child, I've had a dog.  When I was in college and my dogs lived with my parents an hour away, I missed them every day both as the unique personalities they had and as for the undemanding companionship they provided. I guess when you think about it, I wasn't ever really alone.

Right now I'm between dogs again and it feels really unnatural.  We have puppies on the way but today I really felt the absence of the two elderly dogs we said goodbye to last year.  A part of me is glad the puppies were not here when our old dogs left.  The space allowed us, especially the kids, to feel their absence and grieve them specifically.  They were wonderful dogs and deserved to be grieved, not just for their place in our history, but as individuals in our lives. My reason for missing them today was selfish.

While walking this morning, I wished for a dog.  Of course I would really like my old dogs, but at the moment a generic dog would do.  I know it's silly, but it feels wrong to be out walking leisurely by myself.  I live in an outdoorsy place.  There are always walkers and runners and cyclists all over town.  I live down town where students walk to class, people walk to shops, art galleries, the theatre.  When I'm going somewhere, I never feel self-conscious but just being out because I could today, I felt off.  I wanted a reason to be out.  Probably habit.  When you have a dog, you have a purpose for walking and I have always had a dog.  A reason to be out.  I felt sort of naked today without one.

I wound up cutting my walk short.  I only walked around upper campus before I turned around.  I went back home, fired up the treadmill and caught up on Downton Abbey.  I'm likely to go walking alone at least a few times before our puppies are old enough to come home in April, but this first time out while truly alone was thought provoking at the least.

Nature Walk

My ten year old's picture of a pine cone.  She liked the way her boots looked in the picture, so she didn't crop them out.

Over Christmas break, most of my friends had to go back to work.  Their kids were at Grandma's, the babysitter's or staying home alone if they were old enough. I'm fortunate to be a stay-at-home-mom (the only one among my friends) and I took my kids on a Nature Walk, a term I learned when I was a student teacher, working in the classroom of a phenomenal teacher who was the 4th grade science specialist for her district.  The idea is simple, you go for a walk.  You notice nature.  You talk about nature.  You share any knowledge you might have about the things you notice.  If you have learning goals, you direct the walking and noticing to accommodate them.  Such a simple concept, but such a valuable way to learn and spend time together.

When I had my own classroom, I'd have my students take notebooks and pencils to record their experience.  Sometimes I now have my own kids take notebooks, but this time I gave them cameras.  I love my kids' photography.  I've been handing them cameras since they were big enough to understand how to use them.  Seeing the world through their eyes is a special treat for me.  They love it, too.  Even my thirteen year old likes to come straight home and download her pictures so we can see them on the retina screen of my computer.

On this walk, I compiled a short list of item for my kids to seek - a visual scavenger hunt, if you will.  It was a successful afternoon.  We got out of the house, we enjoyed our time, they took interesting pictures.  Then we came home and they each got a turn to edit in iPhoto.  Seeing the different things they looked at - big picture vs. details and how they chose to edit the pictures is fun.  Below are my favorites.

My seven year old's picture of ice.  He liked his sister's boots, too.

My 13 year old liked the sky.  She was frustrated because she couldn't get the blues behind the clouds to show up.

Rabbit tracks.  All three kids took almost this identical photo.  They were the only animal tracks we saw that day.

Playground tree, taken by my seven year old on an iPhone 4S.

Playground tree taken by my thirteen year old with a Canon G5.

The seven year old's  pinecone, photo cropped and processed by the ten year old.

Dying pine needles, by the ten year old.

Poverty Flat

Poverty Flat
Photo by StarVapor

"What do you want to do?"

"I dunno Justin.  We only have 35 minutes till I have to be home and it's a 20 minute drive." I reminded him.  

The movie was over and our friends had headed off in their own directions.  

"Hey, have you ever been out to the roller coaster?" I asked.  The roller coaster was a south county amusement and Justin lived in the north.  

"No, what is it?"

"Oh, you'll love it!  It's out on Poverty Flat, it's a road with some great bumps.  If you get going right it feels like a roller coaster." Now I knew what I wanted to do.

"I don't know, I don't want to beat my truck up."  Justin had a 15 year old two wheel drive truck he had fixed up himself.  Pretty paint, fast engine, lowered front end so it looked even faster than it was.  It was a fun street truck, but not great on a dirt road.

"It won't hurt your truck.  It's a decent road.  Lots of people use it every day.  It's close to my great grandpa's farm.  Let's go! It's even on our way back to my house." I could see he didn't really want to, but we had nothing better to do so he pointed the truck south.  

We reached the turn off to a sandy, sagebrush flat and by then we had some music on and were laughing at my story of a classmate who had wrecked her dad's new truck on the roller coaster.  I directed Justin toward some small hills and a wash.  

Even if it hadn't been pitch dark out, there wouldn't have been much to see. Sagebrush and tumbleweed scrubbed along the ground just a couple feet high because the soil was so poor.  There were a few cool patches of basalt, but unless that's what you had come for, who cares about that?  

We came to a fork and I told Justin to take the north one, that it looped over a little hill and we'd come out just where we were.  

As we approached the top of a rise, we could see something in the road.

"What the hell is that?" Justin asked.  

I peered into the darkness and Justin slowed the truck.  

"It looks wet." I said.

Justin said "It looks like guts."

By then were were at it, and it did look like a big pile of guts.  We inched the truck a bit closer.

Yup.  Definitely slimey, bloody, intestines from something fairly big.  Justin looked and looked and finally said "Where in the hell did those come from?"

Poverty Flat really was a well travelled area.  Lots of people passed through to sheep pasture or farm ground with better soil. Lots of kids went out there to goof off and party.  There were cool petroglyphs in a little  arroyo that was perfect for a hidden bon fire.

"Probably some jerk killed a sheep or deer or something," I decided.

"No, that's more guts than would be in a deer.  Maybe two deer.  What are the odds someone would poach two deer here on the same night?" Justin asked.  

I thought the odds were pretty good.

Justin was freaked out.  

"Let's get out of here," he said.

The guts pretty much covered the road and though he could have driven right over them, Justin turned his truck off the road into the loose dirt, brush and rocks, risking hitting a small pile of boulders. 

He drove rather fast through the roller coaster, but we didn't get a kick out of it. Our night had soured.  When we got back to the fork, we both looked to the north.  

Up on the rise was a dark shape, a figure.  It was moving down the hill quickly.  Justin spun the wheel to the road we'd come in on and hit the gas.  I looked out the back window.

"Oh my God Justin.  It's coming!  It's coming!"

"What the hell is it???"

His driving was scaring me, but so was what ever the figure was.  

In what seemed like seconds, it was even with the truck.  It paced us.  We panicked.

Justin kept going faster, though we both knew that was not good on a dirt road.  I started jabbering, trying to understand what was happening.

"It's just a shadow.  It doesn't even have a shape," I said.  "I don't even think it's solid."

"I don't care!  It's freaking following us!"

Finally we reached the highway and Justin swerved on to it, heading for my house.  The figure did not cross on to the pavement but disappeared.  

We were fewer than ten minutes from my house.  I looked frantically out every window, reassuring myself it was not there.  Justin kept driving hard.

Less than two miles from my house, I looked out the back window and screamed.

"It's there!  Oh my God!  It's there!"

Justin reflexively hit the brakes and we stopped.  He turned back to see the figure crossing the road, about 100 yards behind us.  It was under a farmers yard light but was still as black and shapeless as before.  

Justin hit the gas.  I realized we were exactly west of where we had first seen the shadow and the guts in the road.  I was grateful then I lived a just a little farther south.  Whatever it was had walked right through my friend Kelly's front yard but if it continued due west wouldn't be near mine.  

Justin slid into my gravel drive so fast I was thankful it was my mom, not my dad, waiting up for me.  (My dad would have kicked his ass for driving that way.) There were no long goodnight kisses or tight hugs.

I pecked his lips.

"Be safe," I said.  Then I slid from the truck and bolted into my house.  I cranked the lock as Justin peeled back onto the road.

I told my friends about it at school on Monday.  One of them went out to the roller coaster during lunchtime and declared me crazy.  She insisted there were no guts, nor any sign of them, in the road, though she could see where Justin had driven into the brush.  

Justin and I never really talked about it, other than we always, always took a different road between my house and his.

I never, ever went back to Poverty Flat.

Where do I come from? Family Connections

I have an estranged sister.  She's 16 years older than me so we were never close, and since we've stopped talking I can't say I truly miss her in my life (though I do feel the hole where she should be).  I miss her daughter.  I was 14 when her daughter was born.  In years, I am closer to her than her mother and have always felt more of a connection.  Elizabeth was the first grandchild and it was exciting to become an aunt.  Because they lived far away, I only got to actually be with Elizabeth a handful of times through her childhood, but there were letters and pictures and occasional visits through her younger years that I always cherished.  Thanks to social media, it was very easy to find Elizabeth and reconnect.  She is a young adult now and is reaching out to family.  She's interested in where she came from, wants to know not only the family her mother left, but the extended family of our past. Today I told her the story of her Great-Great-Grandfather.  I decided to tell it here, too.  It's the first time I've written it in my own words.  When I told it to Elizabeth it was basically verbatim from interviews with our Great-Great-Great-Aunt as well as snippets of her journal. This telling also incorporates a bit of what I know from studying the history of the LDS church.

In 1851, Samuel, a teacher and farmer, and Maria set out on a journey with their fellow Mormons.  They were following their prophet across the American West, to what they hoped would be their promised land, where they would not be ridiculed and persecuted for their religion.  Samuel and Maria stopped at a place the Mormons called Winter Quarters, in Navoo, Illinois.   In Navoo, he continued teaching the children there, until his own family fell ill.  Maria and five of their six children contracted measles, which one by one took them all except the eight year old Gabriel, who recovered.  Samuel was left a widower with two children, 15 year old Harriet, and young Gabe.  It was a terrible winter.  Many at Winter Quarters died and were buried in the mud, their grieving families eager for spring when they could leave that dreary place and continue to their new homes in Utah.  

My Great-Great-Great Grandmother  Maria (and her children), memorialized on a common marker at Winter Quarters
(Last name is misspelled.)

During his time in Navoo, Samuel saved what he was paid for teaching and gathered hardwood, which he seasoned and used to build a wagon, even while grieving most of his family.  When the spring of 1852 arrived, Samuel was able to buy two milk cows to pull the wagon and the necessities his now much smaller family would need for the rest of their trip.  Harriett wrote "we made good progress until we reached the alkali beds and then one of the cows died."  Another member of the company had spare animals, and they gave Samuel a yoke of oxen.  They hoped this was their last hardship, but a few days later cholera broke out in the company and Samuel was one of the unfortunate victims.  Samuel was laid to rest without a coffin along with other members of the company.  A man without a team volunteered to drive the oxen for Harriet so she would not have to worry about that, but because their father had died from a communicable disease they had to burn all of their bedding and extra clothes.  Until this time, Harriet and Gabriel had been relatively comfortable, with warm blankets and even pillows.  After this they had only what other families could spare, which amounted to one pillow and two thin blankets.  Harriet writes "We suffered much from the cold."
  

Harriet with her daughters, photo probably taken in the late 1880s.

Finally, after many months of travel, Harriet and Gabriel arrived in the Salt Lake valley.  They were taken in by a family already established there, who treated them kindly.  Soon, Harriet was engaged to the man who had plowed the first field in the valley, John Carter.  She and John took Gabriel into their home where he lived until he was 15.  Gabriel then took a job as a farm hand and lived with the farmer's family until he was chosen to move to California and settle an area of California for the Saints.  Gabriel must have either been a valuable settler or a trouble maker because soon after the California settlement was established, he was called back to Utah where he helped build settlements in many parts of southern Utah before finally laying down roots for good in a small south central Utah town.  During his travels, Gabriel became a blacksmith and married a woman named Sophia. They had 13 children, all of whom lived to adulthood.  (That seems to me a miracle, considering the high mortality rate among pioneers.)  Their seventh child was my Great Grandfather Benjamin. 

My Great Great Grandfather, Gabriel

My Great Great Grandmother Sophia

Great Great Grandfather Gabriel with 11 of his 13 children, including my Great Grandfather Benjamin

When I was young, I loved this story and that I could read it in Harriet's own words (more or less, she wasn't verbose in her journal or interviews).  When times have gotten tough, I've tried to think of how difficult Gabriel's life was and reminded myself that at least I don't have to worry about leaving my home for religion, or losing most of my family in one winter, or traveling across the plains in early spring and having to burn my bedding so I wouldn't die, too.  I hope that Elizabeth finds something of value in this story, that it helps connect her to our family again.

Nutella Soup!

If it's in a bowl, and you eat it with a spoon, that make it soup, right?

Creative Me?

Me and my dog, Rex

I recently joined a group of creators on Facebook.  They seem to be very interesting people from across the country, all brought together by the author Jon Katz.  I don't think of myself as a creative person, I'm pretty pedantic.  I have lots of friends who support themselves with their art, and lots of friends who create because they have many talents and skills and it makes them happy.  I think of them as creative people.  As my kids are growing though, I have a bit more time to get back in to my own skin, and this feels like a good time to try something new.

I'm think of myself as a consumer.  I read dozens of books a year, but though I think I'd like to write, I've never gotten serious about it for a variety of reasons.  I have a respectable art collection but have never painted, sculpted or taken photos seriously.   I take a few pictures and I enjoy taking them carefully, experimenting with composition, light and processing but I don't know enough about cameras -or  photography- to think of my pictures as anything other than something I've done to please myself.  (I do think of them as a bit of a journal of my life.  Most pictures I take reflect everyday bits of my world.)  I blog just a bit, again to please myself as the whim directs, but not serious writing.  Ever. Always only for my own happiness.  I suppose that is the basis of creating, I don't know anyone who creates well if it isn't pleasant for them.  Now though, I think I might dip my toe into real creative waters.  Why not?  I could learn something interesting.

If you would like, you can read a short story I wrote some time ago.  It's been on my various blogs, but so far no one I don't know personally has read it.  It's a bit exciting to put it out there.  It's 85% true.  You can read it here: Sweet Corn

My little journal of photographs is on Instagram.  You can see them here: MyFluffyPants on Instagram