Cath, etc.

I Am...

an open book ask me any question and I will answer even the one about what happened to me in the basement across the street when I was 8.

a dreamer I'd love to be a real writer before that a teacher before that a clarinet player in an orchestra before that a concert violinist but always a real writer.

an orchestrator of schedules I need to be in control of the Calendar and if someone plans something without me knowing like a gig over Labor Day weekend when we could have planned something else it will  be hard for me to let go of but I will.

scared to death that someone else I love will also die in a car accident to the point where I could hardly even be in the car when my girls learned how to drive to the point where I made them so nervous I was banned from their learning and don't even talk to me about scooters or motorcycles don't even talk to me about those because it all can end when you're broadsided on a busy road in a dune buggy with no doors.

a magazine editor who wants to be environmentally sustainable how do you live with yourself when something you are paid to produce eats up all those trees?

in constant criticism of myself saying why don't you do this better or that differently or you could have done that in fewer steps why don't you work on that for next time constantly chattering on inside my head every waking minute of every living day making me a perfectionist which is one of my best qualities except for all the chatter it produces in my head and the sometimes annoyance it causes my family and possibly my co-workers.

a person who has struggled with depression from time to time but less since I've been married to Mark because he grounds me in the here and now instead of in the what could have been.

someone whose heart breaks when I see photos from the past and so I never look at them except lately when I've been writing in this blog so maybe this is the portal I need to let the past in without always feeling pain and loss like the shifting unexpected changes that happen in life, in my life, like divorce, and suicide, and best friends being killed in dune buggies right before high school graduation not to mention the growing up and away of your children right before your very eyes which bottom line means you are getting older let's face it sometimes that alone is entirely too much to bear so no wonder the photos prove difficult.

more likely to choose the role of follower than of leader though I'd like to be the leader which are two entirely different things altogether.

an optimist always looking at the bright side and giving the benefit of the doubt just ask Mark he'll tell you what a die-hard optimist I can be in spite of the evidence in front of me but optimists live longer I tell him so better to be blissfully optimistic about the things I can control than pessimistically mired in the truth of what I can't.

a seeker of truth through the written word as in I can't read nearly enough and there are so many books in the world just waiting to be read and pondered and discussed and so many things to do in between like writing this post.

I am.

Fourth Fun

The Birthday Girl with Grandma and Beccah:

  

22 & 19 1/2:

Tasty treats in pretty bowls (thanks for the pic, Boops!)

The 'rents:

Let 'em eat cake? I think not for our Nicole.  This year it's homemade Oreos:

More friends--Kalyn & Jennafer (thanks for coming!):

A wish that has already come true:

 

Birth Day

It was 1986. The 4th of July and I was in labor. She had been due on the 18th of June. She had been a week, ten days, two weeks, then sixteen days late. My ankles were the size of tree trunks.

But I had refused to drink that bottle of castor oil my mother-in-law swore would bring my labor on.

Actually, it hadn't occurred to me in a million years that I would have had her anywhere near the month of July. And the 4th of July? I lay there incredulous, disbelieving that I was going to have a baby on such a date.

My water had broken at 4:30 in the morning, at home, in bed. Not in the grocery store, as I had feared.

Reed and I were instructed to get to the hospital immediately. Both sets of parents were called and the phone tree we had established weeks before was put into action.

On the way to the hospital, time seemed to alter. I felt suspended in a languid dimension in which the shapes of smeary trees in the night sky became outline on an electric field. In which watercolor street lights became crisp echoes of each other in the quiet of the sleeping city. And though the car was moving, time had stopped. The most poignant moment in my life had arrived: I was about to become a mother.

As we continued toward the hosipital, the contractions became more intense and came a little bit closer together. But I listened to his thoughtful words, felt his familiar touch on my skin, urging the awakening of my child from deep within.

Upon arriving at the hospital, I was checked in, assigned a room, and strapped to a fetal heart monitor. Labor was progressing. I was examined by my doctor, threw up three times, and didn't make it to the bathroom when the enema decided to work. Yes indeed, the experience of my lifetime was well underway.

I was about to be given a tremendous gift.

And yet, over the hours and hours of labor, and after the epidural, every time I had a contraction, the baby's heart beat took longer and longer to come back up. One contraction more, and still it took longer for the heartbeat to recover. Lower down went the line on the monitor tape like losses in the stockmarket and there was no one to be found. Reed left to find help leaving me completely alone in the room. It was just me and the labor and the machine and the baby I was about to meet.

A reluctant nurse came in with my husband, poring through the length of tape, kicking the machine and saying, "This old thing? It's on the fritz again."

Upon subsequent contractions, the recovery of the baby's heart beat became more and more delayed.

Reed left again, this time to get the doctor. When he returned, it wasn't my doctor, the doctor who had been monitoring and probing and educating and comforting me all those months. Apparently my doctor had had a Fourth of July picnic to attend that afternoon. It wasn't my doctor going through the eight-hour length of tape screaming, "Nurse! Nurse? How could this have happened? This baby's got to come out on the next push!"

Problem was, I hadn't even started pushing yet at all. Suddenly, fifteen people appeared in the room, spouting out of instruments, ceiling tiles, cracks in the floor, baseboards, faucets. Pushing Reed so far away into the corner of the room and hearing the suggestion that maybe we should do an emergency C-section?

Not enough time what are you talking about this baby's got to come out right this second yelled this doctor I hadn't even met. Forceps and escalating panic and Reed so far away and what's the matter? What's going on? Pushing too hard? All those years of expert clarinet playing too much for childbirth of all things? Take it slower, Catherine, and then to a nurse--hold her legs up so she can push!

The father of the child asking what can I do? Pleading what can I do to help someone yelling get him out of the way!

Tell me what to do I implored breath escaping through throat so gutteral. Primordial. Baby's head. Tearing, ripping, folding out. What is it? A girl or a boy? What is it? Can we see the baby?

We're trying to save this baby's life and they're worried about what sex it is, that same machine-kicking nurse had whispered to a co-worker right over my head. Did she think that I couldn't hear her? It echoed through my head...we're trying to save this baby's life, save this baby's life, save this baby's life...like some refrain in a very bad movie, getting louder and slower with each threatening repeat. But it was all happening so fast. And no one had stopped to explain a thing.

What I did know was that they had taken my blueberry purple daughter and her first Apgar score of 2 away from me immediately. There had been no moments-after-the-birth suckling, no holding of the tiny hand in my large one, no sweet Kodak moment with Roberta Flack accompanied by strings in the background. I didn't even know who she looked like.

Though frightened, I was exhausted. And I trusted that Reed and the doctor were taking care of things wherever they were. If the news had been bad, someone would let me know. There were a million things to check. They were watching her closely. The Apgar had been terribly low. They would let me know, wouldn't they?

A couple of hours later, after I had been stitched up and cleaned up, Reed brought our daughter to my room. He offered her to me, bundled up as tight as a parcel, a pink bow in her hair. I took her into my arms, held her gently, and wept.

 

She was born on the centennial of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. My father-in-law had wanted us to name her Libby. I had wanted to name her Erin. But when I held her that very first time, looked into her little perfect face for the first of millions of gazes, she was undoubtedly a Nicole. From then on, the advice I always give at baby showers is never to name a baby until you've held it.

For it is in that moment that the universe is known. A veil is lifted and while many mysteries are solved, the magical ones are just beginning.

And so today, on this Independence Day, I wish my little firecracker a happy birthday. Thank you, Nicole, for continuing to be the miracle in my life that you are!

And Crown Thy Good With Brotherhood

...from sea to shining sea.

Amen.

Trade-Offs

Some days I just got nothin'.

I'm finding that my energy to blog is directly proportional to the amount of energy I am required to put into work to do my job well. If the energy required at work is up, blog energy is down.

And vice versa.

It's only Tuesday, but it feels like it's a Thursday. Makes sense, there are two magazines in the air, another on the horizon, and a trade show coming up with all its requisite preparations--not the least of which is putting together my National Stationery Show presentation which I've had not one minute to even touch. We're going on six weeks now since my return. And I can't possibly face having to do it post-CHA. That is not even happening.

Meh.

I'm not so much complaining as I am noticing. I'm still relatively new to this whole bloggin' world and it's become something keenly important to me.

So when my energy is down, I get a little frustrated.

To be fair, Mark and I did take Kalyn, the Paper Crafts intern, up Big Cottonwood Canyon tonight for dinner and a stroll around Silver Lake. That's one Pennsylvania girl I was not going to allow to go home without experiencing our beautiful mountains.

And Kalyn is, indeed, going home soon. Saturday, to be exact. I'm going to miss her. She's a promising young woman who is fun to have around. I've enjoyed getting to know her. She's been invaluable to our team since she's arrived. As we were chatting in the car on the way home I was struck by the notion that she literally has her whole life ahead of her.

Do you remember what that used to feel like? (insert voice inside head saying don't say that you sound so old when you say things like that so don't say them because you haven't always been someone who sounded so old don't you know)

It was a pretty scary time, actually. Not knowing what was next. How you would support yourself. Wondering if you'd be able to make ends meet. What to expect. Having to be so supremely responsible for yourself.

Now I have to be responsible for much more than just myself. But somehow I've made it from Point A to Point B. And while it seems so great to think back to when I had my whole life ahead of me, it wasn't as great as it is now. For one thing, I have a whole lot more money, and that is a comfort that took years to come by. And I know myself better. I accept myself in a kinder light. I feel really good in my own skin. (insert voice inside head saying yeah but you wish there weren't so much of said skin)

It's a trade-off, really. As all things in life are. (insert voice inside head cursing this fact but out of decorum the respectful former English teacher in me will leave you to your own profane devices) With youth comes innocence, the thrill of trying so many new things, the sense of invincibility, this insanely realistic idea that you will never get old because getting old is for old people. (insert voice inside head saying that was never going to be you and now it is that switch got flipped sometime right around 41 years and 4 months that switch that screamed as it flipped screaming there's not enough time not even close to enough time to do all the things you want better get crackin'!)

It's all about the trade-offs. When work is intense, there's not as much energy for other things in my life. When I choose to blog, I am also choosing not to do other things. I watch less TV, I work in the yard less, I read much, much less. Some of these trade-offs are good.  Others, not so much.

And yet, I am more in touch with people in my life than ever before. I am also writing more in my life than ever before--something I have always, always wanted to do.

And apparently, given the fact that at the beginning of this post I thought it was just going to be a post about how I got nothin' because my energy was low--apparently, I have merely but to begin.

Unlike exchanging youth for age, a trade-off I have no choice but to accept, this is one trade-off I can live with.  Happily. (insert voice saying great but how are you going to feel about the trade-off you've made for sleep when it's time to get out of bed in the morning?)

Trade-offs.

Ideeho, Some Chickens, and a Recipe

Had a moxie fab weekend in Ideeho with my aunts.

Aunts are just the thing. They are the bridge between what is and what was. They also give you a good sense of what will be.

They know everything there is to know about you and more...because they remember you before you were you.

And while the past is wonderful and painful and sad and joyful all rolled into one, it's good to root around in it nice and deep every now and again.

We spent a lot of time doing just that. But we also toured Grand Teton National Park and the surrounding area between there and St. Anthony, where my Aunt Vicky makes her home.

We also enjoyed a superfluity of gaiety watching Cranford in its entirety.

Mariann and I got completely caught up. In four days we never lacked for conversation, as is our way. And I got to know my aunt Vicky for the first time, really. Sometimes it takes kicking around in somebody's house for a while before you get to really know them. Since my Aunt Vicky has spent most of my life moving all over the world with her Lieutenant Colonel husband, Mike, and their family, there haven't been a lot of opportunities for me to stay with her.

I am so grateful to have had this one.

For I learned that my Aunt Vicky is a great deal like her mother, my grandma. Quiet and unassuming, listening intently, with just the right, genuine thing to say.  And yet, we busted a gut laughing about this, that, and the other. She made wonderful food, provided us with beautifully made rooms, and was ever the perfect hostess.

Uncle Mike and Aunt Vicky:

The newest member of the family, a four-month-old black lab named Gunner. Uncle Mike calls him Gunner-san because his eyes are a little slanted. Cutest thing evah:

Bee-autiful backyard view:

One thing I didn't realize my aunt and I have in common is a love for chickens.  She has a great collection:

Tucked into a corner:

High upon the roost:

Adorning a wall:

Living on the edge:

 

But to know my aunt Vicky is to know that she loves horses. Deeply. Here are her beautiful stables:

And her beloved horses:

Two aunts and a niece. Two generations, only 8 years apart:

 

On our last morning, Aunt Vicky made cornbread in a castiron skillet the way my grandma used to make it. I leave it with you in the hopes that you, too, will have an aunt or a niece or a daughter or a friend to share it with sometime soon. In the meantime, may this summer bring an opportunity for you to root around in the past, connecting you with the people you care about the very most.

 

Road Trip!

I'll be away this weekend on a quick jaunt to St. Anthony, Ideeho to visit my aunt Vicky with my aunt Mariann.

I can't wait to gab in the car all the way up with Mariann, my aunt who is just a year-and-a-half older than me. And I've never been to Aunt Vicky's house before, so an adventure truly awaits!

In the meantime, have a moxie fab weekend enjoying SUMMER!

And if you're a local looking for some fun on Friday and Saturday nights, Mark's band is rockin' and rollin' at the Canyon Inn.

Good times!

Every Fourth Wednesday

...there are no boys allowed!

Last month I decided that my daughters and I needed more girl time. We spend a lot of time as a family, and we have a family dinner every other Sunday in which the girls each bring a friend, and between one girl or the other coming home for the weekend, we even manage to get some one-on-one time in between. But the "just us girls" time tends to slip through the cracks.

And I don't know about you, but if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't tend to happen at all.

So, Every Fourth Wednesday was born.

Every Fourth Wednesday Nicole, Beccah, and I make sure our schedules are clear to have some fun together.

Tonight we gathered here at the old homestead. Mark was away at band practice and we had the place to ourselves. On the docket this evening: 

• Hang the bunting. Check.
• Make veggie tacos (super easy, super healthy, super yummy! Get the recipe here.) Check.
• Gobble them up. Check.
• Watch The Other Bolyn Girl. Beccah and I each read the book and have been saving the movie for a time when we could watch it together. Not so much.

We got to gabbing and giggling, and well, we just didn't get around to the movie.

Bunting on the porch:

Making dinner:

Clowning around in the kitchen:

An intense giggling session:

 

I'm already looking forward to next month's Every Fourth Wednesday because it's such a joy to have my girls all to myself.

What sorts of strategies do you put into your life to make sure you spend time with the people who matter most to you? I'd love to hear how you stay connected to the people you just can't live without.

Photo Op 03: A Horse in Tennessee

When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

~William Shakespeare, Henry V

A Little Hike Near Big Water

A couple of Saturdays ago, Mark and I went on our first hike up Little Cottonwood Canyon. There's a quick little hike--about 3 1/2 miles round-trip-- that we like to do just a few minutes up from the mouth of the canyon. We like it when we're in need of a hike that won't take longer than a couple of hours doorstep to doorstep.

One of the nicest things about living where we do is that we have some of the quickest access to canyons in the country. As wonderful as that is, though, I think we get a little spoiled. I find myself wanting to hike the trails that don't take a half-hour or forty minutes to drive to. I know right? That's spoiled.

But you see, I have this intense, unquenchable need for the woods. To feel my feet connect with dirt. To hear the hollow sound of tree roots beneath my boots, making that dead "thud" as my feet negotiate the rocks and boulders on the steep incline, first left, then right, then left, then right again, pacing myself both physically and visually, adjusting my stride from hip to leg to foot to ground as dictated by the ambling trail. Drinking in the smell of vegetation transforming itself into soil while fragrances from blossoms unseen permeate every breath. Hearing the wind sough through the pine branches while causing the quaking aspen to shiver. 

It is something that I need. And some days, a quick fix is all that can be managed. In such situations, the Little Cottonwood Trail is often the trail of choice. 

Last year, we had a really hard winter, and there is still a good deal of snow in the mountains, even this late in the year. I'm not complaining, because we really need the water, but it is going to make for a shorter hiking season in the upper drainages--which makes me sad because the high mountains are where we like to hike the most.

But seeing the water shoot down the mountain, splashing wildly in a cacophony of water motivated by gravity on rocks is pretty exciting.

Mark at the second bridge:

High, rushing water:

Big water at the top of the hike:

  

All in all, it was a good little hike. I got my fix, we both got some good exercise, and we allowed the Good Lady to nurture our spirits until the next.

For after all, not all who wander are lost. In fact, hiking is the way Mark and I get back to home.