Library card of week
July 27th, 2010
Lo! . . . Even so Amen
July 22nd, 2010
We came, we saw, we said the word “Verily” many times to one another
I have returned from my pilgrimage to the Hill Cumorah. And frankly it’s going to take me some time to process it all. To put into context all the discoveries and “revelations” if you will, that took place there. But, while I will hopefully synthesize some of this later on in a much more cohesive way, I wanted to at least give you a few highlights.
Observations on the Hill Cumorah:
There was lovely music that was piped across the hillside. Not exactly hymnal but swelling and nice and uplifting. It carried us along and it was totally pleasant. It made us feel good, optimistic. Like Disneyland. Also it was very clean there. Not a gum wrapper or stray tissue to be found.
There were anti-Mormon protestors, which I hadn’t counted on. A big yellow triangular shaped sign (like a rolling caution sign) was rolling down the street with the words, “What Mormons Don’t Tell.com” in big bold letters. It was cruising through the streets of Palmyra. Parked at the hill too.
There are something like 700 live performers in the show. In the hours before the show begins the performers, all in fabulous costume, mingle about the hillside and talk to people arriving. Many are whole families in costume. The mother dressed as a Lamanite Battle Banner Carrier, the father an Unbeliever With a Torch, the daughter a Harvest Dancer, a son a Nephite. Young women milled about with complimentary copies of the Book of Mormon for anyone who might want one — though in truth I saw very few being handed out as this was an “already in possession of the Book of Mormon” type of crowd.
We had our picture taken with the Evil Nephite King and the Prophet Mormon. We wanted to get our picture taken with Jesus and Joseph Smith but couldn’t find them.
It smelled sweet there. I kid you not – the whole hillside had a sweet smell to it. Wholesome; like flowers and a meadow and baked bread and Lilah and I wondered if there was a special Cumorah scent that was being piped in or it if was just the comingling of everyone’s soap and perfume.
The stage is built into the hillside and is at least 3 stories high. During the performance there is fire, bursting flames, a shimmering tree of life, a raging sea storm, and an exploding volcano. It was really quite exciting and dramatic. Oh and a seriously glowing Jesus floats down from high in the sky.
Some of the t-shirts we saw: “I heart Mormon boys”, “I heart Mormon girls”, the oddly negatively phrased “I don’t – I’m Mormon” and the one I’m kicking myself for not buying that said “Scrapbooking is my drug of choice”. Contrast this with the red sweatshirt Lilah was wearing our first night at the pageant, which said, “Sorry ladies I only date models”.
The language during the performance is very, hmmm, declarative I guess I would call it. For a taste I give you, “In the name of almighty god I command you: Touch Me Not! I am filled with the power of god and whoever lays his hands upon me shall wither like a dried reed.”
I’m not sure I could claim to feel like I know my great grandma Pearl any better after having taken this journey on her behalf, but I do think she would have liked this place. I really do.
Book of Mormon stories
July 12th, 2010
This ladies and gentlemen is my Great Grandmother Pearl on her 80th birthday. In the picture she is standing in front of a decorative “money-tree”. $100, $50, and $5 bills have been folded accordian-style into fans and tied on to the branches of the little tree.
As the story goes, the money was meant to help Pearl pay for a trip she had always wanted to take — a pilgrimage to the Hill Cumorah. The Hill Cumorah is one of the holiest sites in all of Mormondom. The tree donations were to help get her there. Sadly, she never did get to go.
Tonight I am getting on a plane to go there for her. Each July, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints puts on, “One of the world’s great outdoor theatrical productions” — The Hill Cumorah Pageant.
I’m going to be met there by my dear and adventurous friend Lilah who is making a five-hour car drive from New York City to meet me. We’re going to collect data, revel, and hopefully make some friends while we catch up with each other.
Mormons are big believers in lots of things: family and genealogy and Jell-O salad and golden tablets. They also believe in doing things by proxy. So it seems fitting that I should make this pilgrimage to the Hill Cumorah for great-grandma Pearl.
Little Revolutionary Birds sketched by Liam
July 7th, 2010
Library card of the week
July 3rd, 2010
Saturday in Snowflake
June 29th, 2010
I spend Saturday driving to Snowflake with my mom’s two best friends. Ann shows up with large vanilla lattes for everyone already sitting in the cup holders of her Dodge Challenger. Nelda has little bundles of lavender for each of us picked from her garden. We have a really nice day together — visiting the cemetery, having lunch, a little antique shopping.
For lunch we head to a restaurant called Trapper’s, which is a bit of a tradition. The restaurant has a not-meant-to-be-hilarious section of the menu called “Light Eaters”. The choices are Chicken Fried Steak, Grilled Ham Steak, BBQ Beef, Boneless Chop, Chicken Strips, etc. There’s not really anything light about them. Plus the meals come with a choice of potato, roll, soup or salad. But, the menu says, the meat portion of these meals is approximately half. Thank god, we joke, we need to save room for slices of pie with ice-cream.
We talk about a lot of things driving down the highway, and it’s not like this little story has any big significance or anything, but I keep thinking about it. Ann says your mom was driving herself to a doctor’s appointment in Flagstaff in the winter. She was by herself, of course. And as she’s driving she notices a god-awful smell in the car. She can barely stand it. This is horrendous she thinks. She takes out her cell phone to call my dad who is on an eastbound train in the opposite direction to tell him that he has got to do something about this. He has to figure out what the heck is causing this horrible smell. Finally she gets to her doctor’s appointment but as she’s waiting there she starts to smell that smell again. Only then does she realize she has dog shit on the bottom of her shoe and she starts cracking up. She tries to hide her shoes in a corner when the nurse takes her back into the examination room. It was cold outside, but when heaters on the floorboard of the car hit the dog poo it warmed it up and sent the aroma wafting through the car, getting stronger and stronger. We all laugh. It’s funny because my mom was fastidious. It’s funny because her first instinct is to chew out my father rather than check her shoes. It’s funny because this is the kind of situation she found very amusing.
Back at my dad’s house, there are 80 pairs of my mom’s shoes lying on top of the bed. Each pair sealed inside a Ziploc bag. I pick up a jaunty, nautical looking pair and try to squeeze my foot inside, but my mom’s feet were more petite than mine and I feel like the ugly stepsister trying to wedge her foot into the glass slipper. I seal them back up in the plastic bag. It’s not lost on me, that I don’t fit in my mother’s shoes.
Donuts for dad
June 20th, 2010
Emerson woke me up at 5:55 this morning. We both slipped on some pants and shoes and snuck quietly out of the house. We were off into the morning with a mission: get donuts. We had been planning to get donuts for Liam for Father’s Day for weeks now. We made our way to Rainbow Donuts for a dozen assorted. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her that they opened at 4:00 AM?
The rest of the day included bagels and lox for lunch, seeing Toy Story 3 with my brother and Ryan, and then chicken fajitas to round out the Father’s Day feasting. I am ready to plop in bed and re-watch Friday Night Lights episodes on the laptop. Thank you Liam for this life we share.
Library card of the week
June 17th, 2010
First day of art school
June 14th, 2010
Emerson has been asking to take art classes for months now. So this morning was a big day for her, it was the first day of a week- long art camp.
On the ride in the car this morning she told me she was nervous that the class would be all boys and I assured her that I did not think that would be the case and then she wanted to know if “Rad” was short for radiant? I said no it’s short for radical. So then she wanted to know what radical meant. So I told her that as an exclamation it was kind of like saying “Awesome”, or maybe even “to the extreme”. But that people could also be called “radical” if they felt really deeply or strongly about something. Well, I’m a radical about fairies she informed me. I know they exist.
At the school the instructor told them to warm up by drawing whatever they felt like and Emerson launched into a pencil drawing of a fairy and a sun.
My mind wandered to FLiF, the Fairy Liberation Front, with my radical daughter at the helm.
Plan ahead
June 8th, 2010Last night, I was down in the garage in my pajamas bending over a large metal filling cabinet and dripping sweat from the Phoenix heat, trying to dig up a life list that I wrote when I was 22 or 23 years old.
I went looking for it with the intention of posting it here. Yeah. Only problem is that when I found it and ran back inside to the cool embrace of my air-conditioned bedroom to read it, I discovered that in some ways it is a wildly embarrassing document. For instance if someone were to send me a Freedom of Information Act request asking to see this personal record of my younger self — I would have to send it back redacted, black marker lines striped across the page. Absolutely, no doubt about it.
On the other hand, looking closely I’ve got to admit, I feel a sense of restrained pride at the number of items I’ve completed on this list.
Not to mention how weird it is to see that some of these things weren’t just fancy (though many were) but were the beginnings of real life-shaping goals that I’m still pushing toward.
Seeing the lines of personal information blacked out reminds me that mistakes have been made, and that is ok. I am still here learning, growing, editing. If my personal record were subject to disclosure I’m all right. And, maybe most important – it’s time to make a new list. I will keep you posted on the progress of that.
