Cry Baby

1. "I couldn't find the hole!" - Thomas
2. walking with Grandpa
3. "Slow down, it's not a horse race!"
4. going to the plant nursery
5. ironing a white shirt for Dad
6. ditching Sunday School and talking to Brother Davies instead
7. his lovely wife and her even lovelier testimony
8. my copy of "Heaven is Here" arriving two days early, Nie Nie...you amaze me
9. long, late night...hard...talks...how does he get me to do that?
10. playing the piano for family night
11. Easter morning
12. squeezing Finn
13. fresh dirt
14. banana creamies
15. coming home to Sam's slurpee after a long run

I needed this...desperately.  I think the crying jags are done for the time being.  Story to come.

I wandered lonely as a cloud...

1. a daffodil pinned to my lapel
2. the best pictures taken of me in years
3. bare legs in the bright sunshine
4. Bro. Davies' comments on my new hot pink running skirt
5. falling asleep behind the couch at Grandpa's
6. twenty minutes of hugging before anyone is allowed to leave
7. planning pie for Saturday
8. Dad's arm around me at the last
9. eating like I haven't been able to in a month or more
10. plucking a single orchid
11. Morningbird
12. an ancestress named Running Deer...no joke
13. feeding ducks with Finn (geese actually, but he doesn't know any better)
14. saying exactly what I wanted to
15. the magnolia blooming
16. cleaning out the shed
17. random interruptions from our kooky neighbor
18. wishing I could have a carpet made from violets
19. hiding my car keys in the plastic turtle sandbox
20. sharing a blanket graveside

Little Purple Pansies

1. a poison oak bouquet
2. being seen
3. how much love you can fit into three weeks
4. a little boy who asks for me
5. sitting up late at night with my back against the dryer
6. for good
7. Bocelli
8. a four pound difference
9. liking the way I look in a swimsuit for once
10. going a whole day with no one asking
11. the first violets
12. running without knee pain
13. hauling rocks once again
14. arguing with Alec over my car
15. my whole name
16. The Lord is My Shepherd
17. finding my perfume
18. foreknowledge
19. digging out my favorite cut-offs
20. him

Perfect

1. attempting to remember to give reminders
2. testimony
3. six desserts
4. Larson birthday gifts = chocolate and socks
5. another pictureless evening
6. a dim room
7. "You're going to catch a cold from the ice inside your soul." Were there ever such ridiculous lyrics?
8. a support system
9. Maren from the Kitchen
10. body language
11. defensive plays
12. puttering up hills in my clunker
13. Sister Davies and bathroom confessionals
14. keeping your fingers crossed
15. getting your spot stolen
16. when my hair refracts the light
17. a loaded table
18. filling all their chairs, stools, and piano benches
19. the way light from the chandelier falls through its coronet of red berries
20. "You are no longer family, now stop helping and go socialize."
21. singing for Grandpa until he can again
22. the foot of Grandma's bed
23. don't cry over spilled milk...or smashed cakes
24. putting my foot in my mouth...literally
25. farkle

Something and Nothing

1. sleeping more than two hours at a stretch for the first time in three weeks
2. pepparkakor cookies
3. walking through snow delicately
4. Gretchen driving my car off the edge of the driveway
5. my yellow dress
6. black bean brownies
7. doing nothing but sleep and read
8. the desmise of "Ski Free After Three"
9. my new ring
10. distraction
11. Grandma's sugar free chocolate syrup
12. Jeremy's disdain of Grandma's sugar free chocolate syrup
13. sprawling the bedroom floor
14. reporting
15. "I can do hard things."
16. not dreaming
17. stir crazy
18. going to the piano
19. drawing out goodbye
20. the wait

Grandma

1. chicka-dee-dee-dee
2. a golden locket that just fills the palm of my hand
3. long slender feet
4. the art of stillness
5. six sons
6. sour cream lemon pie
7. drawing the cat's pawprint on the upstairs bathroom rug
8. the cracked mirror
9. L'Air du Temps
10. filling a tin cup with wildflowers first thing
11. blue
12. cyclops cookies
13. never a raised voice, only quiet exclamations of "Neil!"
14. pressed leaves
15. a hat box on my birthday
16. a shared appreciation for pretty things
17. being taught to embroider
18. Christmas Eve
19. the upstairs bedroom
20. potato salad on July nights
21. Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit
22. amazing willpower
23. Sunday
24. rag dolls
25. the gift of a hummingbird's trust

Please stay...we need you...oh, how we need you.

At long last...

I've been a month overdue in writing about this because its taken me that long to wrap my head around it.  My last few days at school were hectic and strange.  Thursday night I said goodbye to Phil and the MTC.  It hurt.  Phil left a few hours before my shift was over so I hugged him hard and promised to come visit soon.  Later that night when all our work was done I let myself into his office and just sat and cried.  I left a note and my nametag where he would see it first thing and refilled his candy bottle.  I never talked about that job much, mostly because I never really knew how.  I know it's hard to believe that something so mundane can mean so much.  But when it really came down it there was nothing ordinary about it.  I walked in a petrified freshman that first day and Phil teased me about dressing up to interview as a custodian.  I walked out completely unaware that I'd just found the bit of salvation to get me through the next few years.  I needed it so much.  I needed someone to jerk my ponytails and twit me about my endless need to adjust my pants and listen to me talk.  I needed a crew of ready made friends and someone to encourage who struggled just as much as me.  I had a place to go.  Always.  During the weeks when all I wanted to do was sleep even though I dreamed about the River Ouse and rocks in my pockets and I didn't do a stitch of homework and every muscle in my body was clenched so hard it hurt, the simple work and the simple companionship soothed me enough to allow me one more day, one more week.  I'm not sure I could have lasted out that long, awful year without it.  I finished my cry, gathered up my things, and started the walk out to my car.  I'd hardly made it ten steps down the hallway before I started to sob, this queer half laugh half moan.  It was freezing cold and I stopped at the corner and looked back.  I've never been so grateful for something in all my life.  I went straight to bed.

The next morning I had one paper left to turn in on campus and a long list of things to do before driving home.  I ran up to campus in the snow.  That was really something.  I must have been really something too.  I've always liked to walk in snow like that:  misty and thick.  It makes me feel half hidden and secretive.  So I tend to allow more private facial expressions show through.  Its probably not a very common sight to see a girl on campus during finals week with her face tipped up to the snow and look around her with such a broad smile plastered on her face.  But I did.  I deposited that paper and hurried off to finish my private graduation ceremonies.  First was a trip to the cemetery to visit Nana and Pa.  At the beginning of every year I've visited their graves to kick off the new semester.  Though they were gone long before I started college they both had their roles in it.  Pa placed an emphasis on schooling, taught his kids, and one of his kids taught me.  He's part of the reason I chose BYU.  And the knowledge that Nana liked to write inspired me to try it, and lo and behold I loved it, starting me on the path to an English degree.  I wanted to tell them that I'd done it.  I'd really done it.

After the cemetery came the biggest part.  It's common for BYU students to hike the Y all the time, but for some reason I'd managed to avoid it for a few years.  In the end I decided I would save it for my last week on campus.  My own private graduation.  And that's what I did.  It was so misty as I climbed the trail all alone, I couldn't see more than a few yards ahead of or behind me.  The trail is made up of numbered switchbacks. On switchbacks 1...2...3...I lost sight of the neighborhood below me.  4....5...6...I stopped looking down.  7...8...9...I started looking up.  10...11...12...I knew I must be close.  The trail ended and I was lost in the mist and snow and I couldn't figure out where the Y was supposed to be.  I walked a few more feet and finally the oddly shaped snow patches moved into a perspective that made sense...I was standing at the very top in the v of the Y.  I was the only person on the whole mountain.  I'd finally done it.  I stayed up there for a long, long time and laughed and danced and screamed and cried and prayed.  Then I ran all the way back down.  12...11...10...the mist thinned.   9...8...7...so did the memories of my fears.  6...5...4...was complete and total satisfaction.  And then at switchback 3 the mist was gone and the sun came out just for a minute, right over campus.  And I got a last bird's eye view of the place I'd learned to love and hate.  And 3...2...1...I went HOME!