Cath, etc.

The Meaning of Christmas

_{Photo by Bob Hammerstrom}

A week ago tonight, the ice storm hit. Bringing rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow, it spanned all of New England and upstate New York leaving over a million people without power for days on end.

Including my brother, his wife, and their three children.

When you are without power in this part of the world, you also are not just without lights, but you are also without water and heat. Your water comes from a well that is run by electricity. Your furnace is fueled by oil that is turned on by electricity. Without a generator, it's a triple threat.

Having been through severe storms there before, my sister-in-law, Maria, had the foresight to fill both tubs full of water before it hit. This is so that they could flush their toilets. This water ran out after Day 3. Fortunately, the fire station in town had water available. She and the kids would grab every container available and fill them up. At least it was warm in the car.

Later she learned she could drain the water in her water heater and use that.

Taking advantage of the wood burning fireplace in the living room, they would hang a sheet in between there and the kitchen to keep as much heat in as possible. Even still, one morning it got down to 42 degrees. The day it hit 55 and melted all the ice, they opened the windows. It was warmer outside than it was in the house.

They heated water over the fire and ate Cup o' Noodles.

They heated water over the fire and put it in the cage with Twizzler, the pet bird, to help him stay warm.

They ate a lot of Pop Tarts.

When the food in the freezer thawed, they grilled what they could on the propane barbecue.

The first day included a lot of organizing and gearing up. The second and third days were adventuresome for the sheer novelty of it. The fourth day it was starting to get old and Eric took Olivia, the twelve-year-old, to work with him where they had not lost power.

By the fifth day, it was getting more than old. The perishables were going bad, no one had showered, and they were tired of being so cold all the time.

During the days, the kids, home from a school that was without power as well, would make up games and play with Twizzler. They didn't miss TV. They did miss the computer.

At night, Maria would read to the kids by candlelight. Each night she read a different chapter from a Laura Ingalls Wilder book, and always the chapter that took place at Christmastime. It was amazing how easy it was to connect to their simple yet difficult lifestyle.

On Day 6, Maria was starting to get quite concerned about Christmas and all that was not getting done. Her mom was flying in in two days, and she was worried about her comfort if this continued. The official word was that it could go on until the upcoming weekend.

The neighbors had left on Day 2 for a hotel in Boston.

This was never an option for my brother's family. Maria put it this way, "We all really pulled together and it was a good thing for the family.  And now approaching Christmas, we are so grateful and appreciative of the things we have and of beautiful Christmas lights and warmth.  I think it will make for an especially memorable holiday."

And though her mom didn't have to bring a store of D batteries and her own toilet-flushing water, Maria sensed that she was a tad disappointed to be missing out on the Great Adventure.

I believe that my brother's family will be asking Santa for a generator this year, but the true spirit of Christmas is alive and well in their home in this blessed season of love, gratitude, and peace.

May the true spirit of Christmas be ours to share with those we love this holiday season.

And may we not have to learn this by being without power for 7 days beforehand.

Words' Worth

My life has changed dramatically in the last 3 days.

With the launching of another blog, I realize now that I write most of every day.

The child in me is turning cartwheels. For though I may not be writing novels, and I may not be considered a "writer," I am writing up a veritable storm.

Writing and the reading of it has consumed my entire life. As a young girl, I was in awe of Dr. Seuss. The rhyme, the rhythm, and the silly made-up words delighted me then and continue to delight me now.

After reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  at least 5 times and James and the Giant Peach at least twice (those were the only Roald Dahl books that existed when I was young. Matilda, The BFG, and The Witches came much later), I wanted to write him a letter I loved his books so much. After an unsuccessful search for how to contact him, I decided to settle for naming my first-born son after him.

Growing up, I wrote poems all the time, often putting them inside cards I had made for my family and friends. My Grandpa Edvalson used to write little ditties for everyone in our family on their birthdays, and I often wonder if my penchant for rhyming poetry came from him. When I was in the 9th grade, I wrote and performed a full-length poem in Dr. Suess style for a speech festival called Birds of No Feathers Flock Togethers. I won superior ratings at the district but was unsuccessful in getting it published as a high school senior.

When it came to essays, short stories, and research papers, I was the nerd who actually enjoyed writing them. The ten-page research paper I was required to write on Moby Dick for AP English over the Christmas vacation of my senior year (including the reading of the book--I was a serious procrastinator in those days) literally changed my life. I didn't much enjoy the book please, an entire chapter on the fin and another one on the tail? I'd rather pull my fingernails out, one by one but when I started doing the research for the paper, I started to understand the author's purpose and the genius of it all. The English-teacher-classics-book-lover-studier-of-writing-and-observer-of-the-writing-process in me was born in a big way.

I became a teacher of literature, a reader of everything I could get my hands on, an apprentice of the writing process, and a coach of young blossoming writer minds.

In the meantime, I wrote a book of poetry, I tried my hand at writing an autobiographical novel depicting my life as the daughter of a bipolar father and its aftermath as I became a young wife and mother, and the beginnings of a nonfiction book about what it is like to grow up as a non-Mormon in Utah. None have been published, nor will they be.

And now, as creative editor of a paper crafting magazine and because most business is now conducted via e-mail, I communicate mostly through writing. I send hundreds of e-mails a week, each needing a clear and precise message. I write articles, I write calls for submission, I write marketing material, and now I get to write and host an entire blog.

In addition to this one.

At one point in my life, I talked about writing more than I was actually doing it. One day, my mom took me aside and said, very poignantly, "Catherine, writers write."

So if that's the definition, I guess I'm there. I'm not a published author (except for a few articles in an industry trade magazine), but I'm writing most of every day now, and I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity.

English Teacher for a Day

I used to be an English teacher.

For ten wonderful years of my life, I stood in front of a multitude of 8th and 9th graders teaching them how to write better, how to read and analyze better, how to improve their vocabulary and grammar, and how to learn about themselves and their world through literature. They wrote in journals, they described their worlds through poetry and personal narrative, and we laughed and cried and learned together. On the best days I had them right in the palm of my hand, and if you looked closely, very closely, you could actually see the lights turning on in their minds at the very instant that they magically connected the dots, comprehending an idea that was brand new to them, a concept I was working hard to impart to them, an epiphany of understanding the depths of which can never be measured.

Those were the moments I worked for. No, wait. Those were the moments that I lived for.

It was a tough job, particularly considering their ages, but it was extremely rewarding. There's nothing like the feeling that you've influenced a young adult in some way. There's nothing like driving home every day knowing that you've done something good with your time and energy--for even on the toughest of days of discipline problems, demanding parents, the two extra kids being inserted into your already full class of 42 and you'd run out of desks five students ago, and a not-always-supportive administration, I always drove away with that feeling. Every single day.

I miss that feeling, that feeling that I've contributed on a grand scale to the common good. That knowledge that I was part of the noblest of professions, one that took to heart the Jeffersonian notion that every individual deserves a good, free education. That through literacy comes knowledge, and from knowledge comes the ability to self-govern, and through self-governance comes independence.

But I burned out--too much work for too little pay for too little support and appreciation--and it took its toll.

But once a year I get to play English teacher for a day and lead the discussion for my short story book club. Tomorrow night it's my turn to weave the discussion into a more thorough understanding of the book we've been reading this past summer, Out Stealing Horses. It is a good book, beautifully and poetically written, and there will be a great deal to discuss. The characters, the sequence in which the author decided to make us aware of events that had happened in the story, the landscape, the underlying symbolism, the beautiful metaphors.

And while I won't be influencing very young minds, and I won't be leaving feeling like I've contributed on a grand scale to the betterment of society, I will get to put on that discussion-leader hat and we will find the magic in a well-written book, and we will leave feeling more connected, more bonded to one another in this, the first meeting of the our 26th year.

And I will recognize the woman in me who used to bring this kind of insight to kids every day. I'll get to visit her and remember what it was like to lead a discussion that touched minds through literature. For I miss her, my teacher self, but not enough to go back, and not enough to change my current direction. But it is nice to touch bases with her every now and then and remember the doors that can be opened through literature, and writing, and connecting with one another through a story told on the pages in a book. 

It is enough, for now, to play English teacher for a day.

_{Image credit}

25 Years Ago Today

...I became a bride.

I was 19.7 years old, I'd been dating my groom for over three years, I had two years of college under my belt, and I couldn't wait, simply could not wait, to be his wife.

I was head-over-heels in love with the man who had taken me, on one of our early dates, to sit on the lion statues at the state capitol. I was giddy with joy at the sight of the man who bought me Sticky Chewy Chocolate ice cream at Swenson's in Trolley Square, who chased me endlessly at dances in the Masonic Temple, and with whom I watched the dust from Mount St. Helen's stream magically across the sunset as we sat, barely touching, on the hood of a beat-up Camaro.

He was my first kiss, my first relationship, my first love, and I was the fairytale princess.

And as such, I couldn't wait to promise myself to the man who had driven 40 miles the first year we dated just to spend an evening with me, only to turn around a couple of hours later and drive all the way back home.

On this day 25 years ago, I pledged my life to the man with whom I had had so much riotous fun in the Lagoon Show Band, Ute Marching Band, Wind Symphony, and Wind Ensemble through countless rehearsals, endless practice sessions, and dozens and dozens of concerts and performances.

I was overflowing with joy to be exchanging vows with the man who wanted the same things I did in life: children, a little white house, a pair of teaching careers, jazz music on the stereo, and a lifetime of laughter and love.

For he, more than any other, could make me laugh--and oh, oh how I loved him for it.

But somehow, in spite of all that love and laughter, and in spite of our best efforts, we lost our way.  In the 25 years since I became his bride, we have been apart more than twice as long as we were together.  We've each found other spouses, and each of these relationships have lasted longer than ours did.

But really, our relationship will last forever, well beyond these 25 years. For out of this great love came two amazing little girls named Nicole and Rebeccah. They absolutely represent the very best that each of us had to give.

And so, while today is about the day I became a bride so long ago and the silver anniversary that could never be, it's really about the day I vowed to become their mama, and for whom, no matter how painful our break-up, I would not have changed a thing.

Today, I am filled with gratitude. For first loves and lessons learned and honor for the past.

There is always a space in my heart for you. I will always treasure the good times. There will always be a reverance for what we shared.

More than anything, though, I want to thank you.

Thank you, my once-love, thank you for these beautiful angels.

It's Just Not in the Cards

Whenever I visit my nieces and nephew in New Hampshire, one of our favorite things to do is play cards. We usually play Go Fish and Crazy Eights. I love to play with them, mostly because of the side conversations we have while playing. But no matter how much they beg me, I won't play War because I think it is pretty much the most boring game imagineable. Just because my nieces and nephew are the cutest things next to my own two children, it doesn't make War any more appealing to me. And of course, they know this. Every time we sit down to play I am assailed with "Aunt Cath, can we play War?" Emphasis on the word "war" so as to emulate the exact way that they say the word, begging me, knowing how much I loathe the game, taunting me with the possibility. There's no other way to fight back except to increase our options. So this year I decided they were ready for two of my favorites, which are variations of the same game, Speed and Spit.

When I was in junior high, especially, I spent hours and hours playing these games with my friends. They are lively and fast, and you have to really be on your toes if you're going to win. And winning is what it's all about.  I know, right?

Mostly though, I remember playing Spit with my dad. Instead of dealing the cards to each player one first, then the other, my dad and I would make setting up the game a game in and of  itself. The first challenge was to split the deck into two equal halves. The difficulty for the person dealing was to split it exactly in half by sight and feel alone. When it was my turn to "deal," I remember knocking the deck on the slick surface of the table to make sure that each card was "chinked" into its place, eyeballing that deck of cards with the intensity of an archer looking for a bullseye, and slipping my middle finger through the center of the deck at what keenly felt like a measured half. If one half of the deck felt even one card too light, I would borrow the extraneous weight from the other.

In Spit, you set the game up by forming four piles of four cards with one card overturned on each pile, with six cards left over as "spit" piles (I see that my way of playing varies from the official rules linked here.) The dealer would shout, "Ready, set, go!" and the race was on to set up the piles the fastest. One-two-three-four, over; one-two-three-four, over; one-two-three-four, over; one-two-three-four, over; then one-two-three-four-five-six-done! It had a rhythm, it was percussive, and it was imperative to win.

If you were the fastest at setting up the game you claimed those bragging rights. But even more importantly, if there were no leftover cards in either person's hands at the end of the set-up, you were deemed The Master Deck Splitter-In-Halfer.

I taught this charming pre-game show to my niece and nephew, but I'm not sure they appreciated the importance of the challenge.  All in good time.

The true challenge of playing cards at my brother's house, though, is that they have about 6 decks of cards in the basket that sits on the living room coffee table, not one of them complete. (They are, however, perfect for making enormous, if unstable, card houses.)

On one of our jaunts out and about New Hampshire, we found ourselves at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester (which, by the way, has not one Currier and Ives masterpiece in the entire building, but lots of other wonderful works of modern art.)

Awesome sculpture in front of museum:

 My card-playing buddies beneath the sculpture:

After a great time in the museum, I decided to buy a deck of cards at the gift shop. It would be a token of my affection and esteem, a remembrance of our day seeing beautiful, historic paintings, and we'd finally have a freakin' complete deck of cards with which to play our new games.

I chose a deck which looked like it had paintings similar to the ones we had just seen in the museum, I laid out my 9 bucks, and we went happily on our way.

When we got back home, we got out the deck of cards, took them out, and started looking at the pretty paintings on the face cards. There was a Picasso, there was a van Gogh, there was a Rembrandt, there was a Monet, there was a Cassat, and there was a man carrying a goat around his shoulders completely naked. I mean, with everything hanging out. And I mean everything.

Oh my. This would not do. And mind you, I am no prude, especially when it comes to art.

But why? why? when there are so many interesting and appropriate-for-all-ages paintings in the world from which to choose, must we have a card with a painting entitled something like "Young Boy with Goat" in which there was nothing about this naked "boy" that was remotely young?

And so, the cards went back in the box (in spite of the children's cries, "I wanna see! Hey I wanna see!"), they made the long trip home to Utah, and they now reside with Beccah, my art-major daughter, who, at the tender age of 19, really doesn't mind a card in her deck exhibiting full frontal male nudity. For art's sake, of course.

I guess for the rest of us, it just wasn't in the cards.

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!

A Ball Game and a Bet

My dear friend, Jennafer, found herself in a bit of a conundrum.

A Triple A baseball conundrum. You see, Jennafer enjoys an occasional night at the ball park root-root-rooting for the home team, the Salt Lake Bees, as do I. It is the most enjoyable of summertime activities. I mean, gazing on the green and oh-so-well-manicured field, enjoying the loyal crowd, taking respite in the cooling temperatures as the sun sinks lower and lower into the horizon, cheering on the action of the game, relishing in its slow pace, and taking a glance at the beautiful mountain setting in between innings, are some of the highlights of summer.

Beautiful, green field:

Best view from a baseball field ever:

The occasional hot dog, the churros and kettle corn, the seventh inning stretch (which really should be sung twice rather than just once), and the requisite hand motions to Y-M-C-A.  All good fun.

Last year, the Bees played the Sacramento River Cats in the first round of the Pacific Coast League championship play-offs. Jennafer's dad, who lives in the Sacramento area, is an avid River Cats fan. Thus the bet: the loser of the series must dress in a t-shirt for the opposing team and attend a game the following season and root-root-root for the opposing team for an entire game. The e-n-t-i-r-e game.

Lucky for Jennafer, the Salt Lake Bees won the first two games of the series. She was feeling very confident. And she subsequently rubbed her dad's nose in it. As she should have.

But un-lucky for Jennafer, the River Cats rallied to take the series 3-2. She could do nothing but wait for the River Cats t-shirt to arrive in the mail.

Which brings me to last night.

Payback. Big time.

Being the supportive friends who are always up for a ball game, Mark and I agreed to accompany our one-time River Cats friend-fan to the Bees game. (Note that the River Cats regalia is not too stand-out-ish, leaving me to believe that Jennafer's dad has some kindness in his heart.)

The game started out pretty close, and Jennafer got into it heart and soul. She cheered when the River Cats got on base, loudly encouraged them to switch pitchers after a series of Bees hits, and she let out a resounding "Woo" every time a River Cat player touched a base.

She would have done her dad proud.

And we didn't suffer any ill-effects from Bees fans who might have been irritated by her River Cats cheerfulness. (Sorry, Jennafer's dad.) No one took offense at her defense of the opposing team. Phew.

In the end, the Bees won, 12-5.

Sad Jennafer, happy Cath:

I offered to sign a sworn affidavit stating that Jennafer did, indeed, cheer for her dad's team. But she said no, they were pretty much on the honor system. But if there's any doubt, may this blog posting serve as proof. Jennafer was one intensely good sport.

And we all had a ton of fun.

For it's one, two, three strikes you're out at the old ball game.

Thirteen Years

Mark and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary this past week. And while it's hard to believe that 13 years have breezed by, it seems like we've been a part of each other forever. As though there was no pre-Mark, just always Mark. That in the time before we knew each other, we were both getting ready for one another. That everything that had happened in our lives before we met was preparing us for this love of our lifetimes.

We celebrated with a hike up Mill Creek Canyon in the morning, lunch on the patio at Ruth's Diner, and in the evening, a bottle of champagne in the garden.

It was a pristine day--warm and sunny, much unlike the day we got married, which was cold and rainy.

And we remembered, the rain that fell, buckets and buckets of it on our altar of wildflowers. And we remembered, the clouds that parted and cleared just as the ceremony was about to begin. And still we remembered, the family and friends who had gathered under the elm tree, the umbrellas that were offered as a smattering of lingering drops punctuated our vows, and that kiss, that first matrimonial kiss like blue sky on every horizon.

 

The children who played in the garden. The Debussy that no one could hear. The delicious food we had no time to eat. Our flower-daughters crying as we departed on our honeymoon.

The walk he insisted we take alone in the meadow.

The tears we shed together while dancing to our song.

The beginnings of a love whose eventual depth we could not know nor even now perceive.

The somewhere-over-the-rainbow I've been wishing for all my life.