Just One Photo--Orchid

Orchid at night.
Palm Beach Gardens, FL      March 2014.

This One is All Essay: Every Time I Drive

Every Time I Drive




Tonight is Sunday and today has been quiet.  The rain is gone for the moment and the TV is playing a movie that Nathan ordered from NetFlix--The Wolverine.  Everyone is always fighting and the heroes are always getting hurt but eventually winning and protecting the weak . . . with a threat of evil yet to come.

In this one, though, the girls are able to help protect themselves because they are kung fu masters--just not masters enough to fight all of the bad guys at once.

Earlier today I was writing about all things that come to my mind and my body automatically when I get behind the wheel to drive a car. 

   *  In 10th grade we had a ex-military man for a driving instructor.  He took everything in his life very seriously--especially driving. I remember him saying several times that he was constantly on the lookout for other people driving on the road who weren't paying attention, or didn't know what they were doing.  He never wanted to be in a situation where somebody else's mistakes involved him in a car accident. 

So, every time I get a car, I look for where to go ("The only things you can do while you are in traffic are turn left, turn right, speed up, or slow down.") if something dangerous happens--to keep me and the people with me safe.  I am aware of this especially if I'm on the freeway--especially especially if I am driving my children somewhere.  I pay attention to where I would go and what I would do if someone around me did something stupid. 

I also do the same kind of thing when I'm flying in an airplane.  I read somewhere that the people who survived crash landings did so because they looked to see where the closest exit was located to their seat. I know that most everyone who flies a lot doesn't listen to the flight attendants' instructions before the plane takes off, but I smiled to myself when they counsel passengers to "look around you and find the closest exit because often the closest exit is behind where you're sitting." 

   *  When I am on the highway, I stay out of groups of drivers.  Either I speed up or slow down--my dad told me that accidents happened when groups of cars are in a cluster and someone makes a mistake.  Drive alone and you do not depend upon others to keep you safe.

   *  At stop lights I squeeze the steering wheel with both my hands--and then relax them--over and over again.  After having the trapezium bone taken from my left and then my right hand, the only post-operative exercise possible was isotonic: strengthen the muscles without putting stress on the joints.  

Over years, this repetition (along with other physical therapy) has returned enough strength and flexibility to my hands that I am able to play the piano and flute again, do needlework again, dig in the soil of my gardens again.  This has become as ingrained a habit as flipping the turn signal when I want to turn left.  

   *  And when I am waiting in the left turn lane--there is the memory of an essay that I have tried again and again to write.  Usually when I come to a light and want to turn left, I have to wait for the cars going straight through to get a yellow and then a red light.  Next the cross traffic has a left turn green; then the cross traffic has a long green light. 

After all that, I finally get a green so that I can turn left.  

                                                               graphic by cewhendry

This one time, however, I approached the left hand turn lane and as soon as I was there--just as I was slowing down--it turned green.

Someone had been there before me.  Come.  Gone.  Left the time and place prepared so that I would not have to wait for others before I could continue on to my destination.

I have never been able to write about that experience or describe that situation in a way that flowed or made any kind of sense. But I remember it every time I stop and wait to make a left turn at a light.

Further Homework

Homework from my botany class--rose hip diagram.

Labeling of the rose hip inner workings.

Last week I was with my daughter and her family in Maryland.  One of the charms of her home is its proximity to extensive wooded areas and a small lake with wide paths around its shores.  I think that she and her husband decided to buy the home because of the natural areas--one path leading right past her tiny back yard--rather than because of the home itself.  

Jon giving me "a face" to photograph, Meg and Kate--who is busy pulling the berries off
of a small branch she pulled from the bushes at the side of the sidewalk.

Beaver-chewed tree from beside the nearby lake.

Maryland wildflower.

Another Maryland wildflower.

Meg is a firm believer in "outside time."  When her two children are cranky or out-of-sorts, she does not park them in front of a movie--like 99% of the mothers I know--she packs them a snack and they go for a long walk.  Her 4-year-old Jon has a Nature Box where he can keep anything that he finds outdoors.  

During one of the walks we took, Jon would pick up cool looking rocks or leaves and tell us about them.  Then, in a tone that indicated he had deliberated carefully, he would announce that he was NOT taking the item home to put in his Nature Box.  

Megan would then respond "That's OK!  It's OK to pick up something and look at it and then put it back."  

During most of these walks, Kate was sick with a bad cough, runny nose and congestion--on top of having her last two molars coming in.  When she could breathe and wasn't coughing, she would chew on her fingers (sometimes gagging herself and then throwing up).  So Orajel was added to the routine and that, along with a little frozen hand chewy, made life a little more bearable.

On the first morning I was there, we went shopping.  Jon and Kate got to pick out a toy (Jon's was a monster truck and Kate's was a trio of small Hello Kittys, just the right size to fit into her hand.)  When Jon was not looking, I picked up a box that contained 5 small monster trucks.  He did see it after we had checked out--and even carried it home, worrying aloud the entire time who would get to have those trucks and if they belonged to everyone and when would we open them?

For Jon, coming surprises cause an internal agony, rather than a happy anticipation engendered in most of us.  Uncertainty in any form is  horrible--he is only content when he knows where everything is, knows who is going to be around him, and knows what is coming next.  

My own son Nathan shares that same characteristic.  For years the most important issue of the day was "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

His life has expanded since then--now it is "Do we have to do homework TONIGHT?  Before DINNER? . . . What are we having for dinner, anyway?"

Things do not get easier or simpler or funner . . .  they only change.

Kind of.

There will always be dinner to worry about . . . and homework.

For all of us.

The Miracle of It All, Rabbits, and the Small-flowered Woolly Bean (Strophostyles leiosperma)

Small-flowered Woolly Bean (Strophostyles leiosperma)

The flowers on this legume are small--but beautiful.

This photo is courtesy of my dear husband, who indulges my evolving interests by getting me everything that
I could think to ask for . . . usually before I ask.

I love the shape of these compound leaves.  I have come to depend upon leaf shapes
more and more for identification.  Blossoms are usually what catches me eye, but leaf
details are always there.  Dependable.  I like that.

The afternoon is quiet today.  The rabbits aren't even bumping about in their enclosure.  

I was going describe where the buns live as a "cage," but that seems like such a cruel word.  They are dwarf bunnies, and they each started out with their own 32" X 32" enclosures.  There were four of them then.  

(My The Peter Journals blog is named after the first miniature rabbit who acquired me.)  

Now, though, there are only two rabbits left alive.


To the left is a photo of Roo right before I took her to be put to sleep.  She succumbed to a parasite infection in her brain--and lost control of her muscles.

Now Oops and Murphy remain.  Two of the original enclosures have been combined into a single 64" X 32" living space that occupies one wall of the family/TV room.  Oops and Murphy are accustomed to the air conditioning and get baths if I am thoughtless enough to offer treats that cause . . . ah . . . messy potty-going.  

The fact that it is enclosed obviously restricts their movements while they are inside--but in with them are toys that make noise--that they can throw around.  Some toys are attached to the walls or sides and they can be swung or knocked about.  There are things to chew with different textures and tastes--and two large, deep potty boxes layered with pine pellets and then aspen shavings.  Their boxes are changed every day and sometimes topped off with fresh timothy hay. 

So as far as I can tell, they should be happy and comfortable--but of course they leap from their home almost as soon as I open the door for their evening constitutional. 

Tonight I have given them run of the kitchen as well as the TV room . . . and Nathan just pointed out that they have both snuggled down behind me on the bottom floor of the cats' 4 story tower.  

With two huge rooms to explore and in which  to run, they have converged to cluster together, sharing the same 12" square of space.  

I see myself in these two rabbits.  

With the whole world to explore every day, with every possible physical necessity and comfort provided for me, with safety and love granted me at every turn--I do not stretch my mind or my body with the magnitude of time and resources I hold--but spend the afternoon reading or napping or thinking and writing about my thoughts.  

I keep myself inside myself--squirreled away inside my comfortable, "12 inch square" of space.

I would like to see the rabbits running and leaping; expressing joy and finding new places to explore--smelling new smells, seeing new colours, hearing new sounds.  But they do not.

When Brent gets home at night, I would like to have him look around our home--or look into my eyes--and see that something wonderful happened while he was gone.  

Today, though, Brent got home and I was asleep on the porch--on the swing that Nathan helped me assemble so that I could read scriptures in the afternoons this next year.

Brent found me asleep.  He woke me up and noticed that there were extra parts.  He looked at the swing and put the last two screws into the swing supports.  Then we went shopping for food to take with us on our fossil hunting trip tomorrow.

There was nothing that I had finished today.  There were no wild flights of fancy or duties fulfilled.  

But Brent came home anyway--and when he got here he stayed.  

I think, for me, that is the fancy, the duty--the magic and miracle of it all.

The flowers that actually become the bananas.

Teaching, Tests and Always Being There

Photo of the Salt Lake Temple in SLC, UT.  The inside is even more
inspiring inside . . . and I appreciate that wonder because there are guidelines
I have to follow to be allow the privilege of entering in.

Version of nitrogen cycle that I made on my iPad 

I have just finished an on-line final for a Botany class. (I got 85 out of 102 points . . . two stupid mistakes, three others I just didn't remember.)  It was a fun test--kind of a weird thing to say I suppose.  I like tests, though.  They give me a chance to see how well I have learned the material . . . and sometimes a small thrill that I can still recall information that was a challenge to acquire. 

My dad taught me about appreciating tests.  At 26, as a teacher of college English classes, I actually hated grading papers and essay tests.  They were boring like nothing else I could name.  At that time I had two toddlers (or, a little later, two pre-schoolers and a baby), and after a long day I would have to fight to stay awake.  I was complaining to my dad about it, and he pointed out that tests were an indication of the ability of both the student and the teacher.

Rose hip before it's mature.  I love all the tiny fibers that were there--and that only one seed formed.

I took this observation to heart and changed the way that I thought about teaching. 

Brent took this of me in Central Park, NY.
It was cold--with a strong cold wind . . . thus the tear.

From then on, I began each semester by introducing myself and telling my students that I was there to have a good time.  If I had to be there, so did they.  If I had to read their papers and fell asleep, then the paper didn't get a passing grade.  

I also promised them, though, that if they would attend class and do the assignments as I taught them to, that they would finish the semester having learned how to write interesting, captivating prose that would engage and challenge their reader (or at least me) to wonder about the ideas that were presented--and to stimulate him/her to think about his/her world differently.

At that point, there were a number of people who usually slipped out the back of the class or slumped down in their chairs--if they had been able to they would have begun texting their friends or surfing the net for a good place to go drinking that night.  I am talking, though, about a time that was way back when the best phone was the smallest phone--and when all that phones did was call people.  

Back to class . . . from that time forward I had only myself to blame if someone was able to foist a boring, wandering essay on me to read.  

Something else happened to me as I did this.

The underside of the leaf of a lavender--all that intricate faceting is beautiful to me. 

I began to believe what I was teaching.  I had only my own perspective--my own history as a reference for all that was going on around me every day.  When I helped these people to write well, they were able to show me things I had never thought of as interesting in a new light.  They helped me find new meanings for words that, before then, were one-dimensional and bland.  They taught me about what was important to them and why they believed it was of worth.  

Close up of common Florida weed.  The flower is actually about the size of the nail on my pinky finger.

The essays were short--I'm talking about Freshman Composition classes here--but they learned how to decide what they thought about their subject before they handed in a paper.  They learned how to limit their subject so that what they had to say actually meant something.

Photo that I took a few years ago in my side yard--mallow plant.
I think of this as an example of the first statement below--the details are assumed because
the writer hasn't allowed the reader to see the details that she/he does.

Rather than start with "My mom is really cool.  She is always there for me.", they began to see and express their ideas so that I could enter their worlds:  "There is no other person who listens as well as my mom.  When I got a D+ on a math test, she didn't yell at me for being so stupid.  Instead, she let me rant on for awhile and then offered to look at the test with me.  It took a couple of days, but by the time I had told her about each problem I got wrong, I was able to teach her how I should have done it.  By the time we got done, I understood the math.  She took a lot of time to listen to me.  I still hate math, but now I know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions."

Way different ways to express a feeling that, to that writer, was saying exactly the same thing.

This--an example of the second writing above . . . focused on one thing, but also put into context.

I am enjoying the classes that I am taking right now.  Mostly they are horticulture classes.  I just finished taking Nathan through a pre-calculus class--taking notes, doing homework with him.  It has been a long time since I have taught.  

I guess I do miss it.  What I miss most, though, is the combination of teaching and taking classes at the same time.

As a graduate fellow, I was able to do that.  Taking and giving tests at the same time.  If nothing else, it always made me feel more compassion for the people I wrote for--and who had to write for me.  

It was a good balance.

Addiction Recovery Program

Lots of Words.  Not Enough Pictures.

Male woodpecker watching out over Pelican Lake, Juno Beach, FL.

I have been attending a weekly meeting for recovering addicts with a friend of mine.  I thought that I would just be sitting in the back and doodling or doing homework while they did the stuff that they do there--but then I saw and read the materials that described the program.

This was something I needed.

It was a slap upside the back of my heart.  There were habits I had gotten into over the last decade that I did not like and wanted to change, but was too comfortable or too afraid to change.  I made a list of things that I liked about me--and wanted; another about the things I didn't like--and wanted to get rid of.  First:  UNWANTED HABITS
                         
1. I have a hard time keeping sudden promises--someone asks for me to come and help them, I usually fiddled away some time making excuses and crawling back into my own project.  It is as if I wanted to stay in my own little world--even if the person asking my help and time was someone I dearly loved.

2.  I lie.  I'm much better at telling the truth than I used to be--but I still exaggerate because that is what I am used to doing.  We always moved so often when I was growing up that I wanted to fit in--for others to WANT to be my friend.  Stories just kind of started--and I have been telling them ever since.
    Garrison Keillor tells a story about one hot summer when he hit his sister in the backside with an over-ripe tomato.  Years later, a young listener asked if the story was true.  Not wanting to disappoint the boy, Keillor relates that he assured him the story was, indeed, true.  He tells the audience listening on tape that it did happen--but it happened backwards:  His sister got him with a rotten tomato.  He says
that he got the best job of ever--he is paid to lie, to change the past and the truth in order to entertain people.
     Brent has always known when I was lying--but I did not know this until about a year ago--after 29 years of marriage.  He didn't want to hurt my feelings, he told me.

3.  I get nasty when I know that I am going to get the run-around on the phone with a "customer service
representative."  I have found that if I go in on the offensive, then, instead of meeting my wrath with
stern defense, the person on the other line crumbles and I am quickly transferred to the person's boss's boss and get what I need done.
     I have gotten my credit card company to lower my credit rate from an intended 8.5% (a raise in over 3% over the current rate) to 7.5%.
     Another credit card story:
     When the credit card I used to cover [and keep track of] college expenses for my children was denied (because I was traveling in Utah and needed to buy my daughter a new laptop), I was transferred from person to person to person--until I was informed that the offices were now closed for the day.  At this point, I went into over-drive .  I do not mean that I yelled [I do not yell when I am angry--I get very quiet.]  [I do yell when I am about to give birth, which, I have been told, scares other mothers nearby who are also in labor. . . at which point I invite the nurses to shut the door.  I am paying for this room and I can make noise if I want to.  Even then, though, I do not use profanity--just lots of
volume.]
     Back to the credit card.  At this moment I put on my "you are going to die," low, quiet voice.  I told the person I had worked in huge corporations before and that I knew there was someone in the company that had the power to do what I needed done.  I was transferred one last time:  to "Customer Retention."

At the beach of a Saturday early evening.  Jupiter, FL

     "What can I do for you today?" came a cheerful, male voice.  "I understand you are having some
problems with your credit card account.."
     We spend about 2 minutes talking.  This person approved my credit and the purchase was made.
     My final question:  "Why did it take so long for me to be transferred to talk to you?"  I got an answer about how he was the person of last resort.
     I resolved to use my  "you are going to die," low, quiet voice more often.
     I did so for quite awhile--avoiding much trouble and waiting when I needed help with a product or problem.
     This changed me, though.  I did not see it, but Brent did.  He told me that I was becoming an insensitive, mean, demanding person--the kind that made his workplace a really uncomfortable place
to be.  Just as Brent can see when my manic depression meds are starting to go awry and I cannot, he can see though and around me to understand when he needs to get help for me . . . and I need to change myself.

4.  I am quick to judge people and situations without having the perspective to understand what is really happening . . . unless someone does something stupid on the highway.  I have no problem with road rage.  I have had too many near-accidents that were my own fault to do other than try to drive defensively and keep those around me safe.

5.  I expect others to see things that are wrong or dirty or out-of-place and do what I would do--make them right or clean them or put them back where they go.  Again, perspective--no one sees the world as I do or wants it to exist in the same state that I want.

6.  I am lazy.  I need to exercise every day, but I am usually only active when I am working with my physical therapy person at 7am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday every week.  Three hours a week.  Pretty sad.  I don't like to clean my house--it just gets dirty again.

Ibis -- find one bit of food, come all.  Pelican Lake, Juno Beach, FL.

7.  I am selfish.  I don't want anyone touching any of my stuff.  I used to tell my kids that I didn't want them to "re-arrange" me.  For years, the only brush that stayed in my bathroom was one I used fire engine red nail polish to write "MOM" on the back of.  Apparently, though, there were some touchy moments even with that brush--I overheard my 7 and 8 year old girls talking in my bathroom one afternoon:
     Here's a brush we can use.
     We can't use that one.  It's mom's.
     But we need a brush.
     Not that one we don't.  Mom said not to touch it and I am not going to touch it.
So sad that I couldn't even allow my children to use a brush because I wanted to keep it right where I knew I could always find it.
     I also am selfish with my time.  I don't get many opportunities to be with Brent when he has any energy.  My body has undergone massive repair to recover from massive injuries I have inflicted on myself.  Suffice it to say that there are many years when, if I had not needed major medical stuff, Brent could have boughten a new car and paid cash.  Time to heal, though, I count, though, as wasted time--and I do not want others setting goals for me about how I am to spend my "free time."

8.  I am proud, too.  I want others to know how smart, how talented, how virtuous, how dedicated, how creative I am.  I talk incessantly about what I have done in the past and activities that take lots of money when I know my companion does not have the resources to enjoy or even understand what I speak of.  I need to keep my mouth shut and open my ears:  especially to Heavenly Father.

That is a start.  I also need to read and pray about the scriptures every day.  I need to help us have meaningful Family Home Evenings again.  I need to get in bed before 10pm so I don't need to take naps in order to keep my eyes open during the day.  I need to spend my evenings with people--not pasted to the TV screen.  I need to do my Visiting Teaching in person--not just by sending notes every month.

Getting Things in Focus

This week has been about getting things in focus.  

Three weeks ago, I underwent cataract surgery on my left eye.  I'd been having constant headaches and my left eye wasn't able to focus.  The ophthalmologist told me that I could get glasses--several pair.  I could get one for close up reading, one for computer, one for seeing the music when I played the piano, one for seeing far for when I drove the car.  

Never one to go the simplest route, I asked if there was something that could be done.  He explained that one possibility was to have the cataracts removed from both eyes and new lenses put in place.  

The chance to see again without glasses made me feel light headed with relief.  Brent battles with two pair of glasses--one for reading, one for computer work.  I don't know how he does it.  About three years ago I had two pair of glasses made up--one that would allow both eyes to see close up and one that would give both eyes far sight.  

I know that I used them--especially the ones for reading--but I have no idea of where they are now.  

But back to my subject:  focus.  

I was rather disappointed that I didn't have perfect sight in my left eye a few days after the operation.  When I had LASIK correction about 9 years ago, I was able to see clearly the next day.  Of course it was a little different then.

Because of my astigmatism, the doctor gave me mono-vision:  left eye for reading, right eye for seeing distance.  That meant that the muscles in both eyes didn't need to move in order for me to see.  In essence, by the time that the cataract was removed, my eyes didn't know how to work any more.

When I complained to my doctor--he told me that I needed to exercise them--do "pencil pushups."  Since that visit, I have been purposefully trying to practice focusing on things distant, then close up . . . again and again.  I was in the car on the way to Lowe's (or Home Depot), Brent was driving.  I put my index finger up as if I were pointing to the sky.  I held it at arm's length and then brought it up close to my nose.  Back and forth, back and forth . . . until Brent glanced over and asked me what I was doing.  

I then explained everything that I just went through in the last few paragraphs.  He remarked that his eye muscles must also be atrophied since he'd had LASIK done on both eyes about a year before I had mine done.  

So now the both of us periodically stop and use our index finger to make our eye muscles become stronger.  

For the last 7 years, I have been receiving shots in my lower back for a lot of reasons.  Surgery, as it is now, is not an option to relieve the constant pain.  After a shot I got about a year ago, I asked my pain management doctor if I could have a script for physical therapy--in the hope that strengthening my core muscles would lengthen the time between shots.  

I began therapy with a full time physical therapist, who was accustomed to working with patients 25 to 30 years older than me. By his standards, I ready to graduate from his care in about 6 weeks.  But instead of releasing me completely, he introduced me to a Pilates instructor who had worked with patients of his before.  

She began a year long process of strengthening my lower and mid-back muscles as well as my stomach and oblique muscles.  I cannot remember my last pain shot.  I am stronger and fitter than I have been . . .  ever.  Bonnie (my instructor) had the experience and skill to begin slowly and then to emphasize larger and larger groups of muscles.  

I do have pain still--mostly after a long airplane ride.  My core muscle group is resilient enough, though, to allow me faster recovery and release from pain.

I look at my eye exercises in the same way.  With my goal to see clearly both close up and far away with the same eye, working my eyes, it may take time, but I will be able to focus as I want.

Focusing on the ability to focus . . . working to be able to see what is around me without impairment . . . involves effort I have never made before.  It is a constant, enduring kind of thing--kind of like what I need to be doing to live the Gospel principles that I know to be true.  

I am trying to focus on people around me, too:  stretch the boundaries that have gradually built up around me to look at people and what they are, who they are.  

The Church sponsors a kind of AA program, Addiction Recovery Program.  We meet once a week for an hour.  I am there to work on my own addiction to safety and reclusion.  I never know when my body is going to begin to deteriorate, to hurt in new and terrible places.  I do not have control over a my manic depression will spiral out of the reach of my med's effective range. I have been in situations where I have become involved in social and school and Church activities--and then crashed.  I pull myself into my shell and wait to begin to heal.

I have learned patience.  

When Relief Society Sunday lessons focused on becoming more patient, my reaction was always to pray that each day would require no more patience than I already had.

As with my back and core muscles, it has taken a very long time for me to attain a level of patience that is able to meed the needs of each day.  Without focusing on it, patience has snuck up on me and claimed my heart.

I am working on stretching that ability to face things that were impossible before--to turn my focus from myself and my needs to those around me, without worrying and holding back in case my body or mind surrender their strength.  

The photos above were taken after a Botany lab class last Tuesday.   One shows that collection of ideas and things that lay about me as I finished class.  The other shows the composition I was able to refine after looking closely and focusing my attention on what was most enchanting, most piquant about what we had done and seen that class.

A choice to focus--choosing what I focus on--both inside and outside of myself.

Continuing to focus on what is important--I still go to Pilates Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7 to 8 in the morning.

I still take my meds for manic depression and narcolepsy, hypothyroidism, (and now cholesterol).  I still read the scriptures and make a conscious effort to pray more meaningfully.  I still look for something I can do every day to make the world better--even if it is just picking up a few pieces of discarded plastic off the ground and putting it into the trash or recycling bin--thanking the grocery clerk for working so late when I shop after 9 pm--watching for Brent and Nathan and Lauren and Megan to do things that I can thank or praise them for.  I am trying to make friends with the other students in my classes.  My calling as a Cub Scout (Webelos) is now constantly at the back of my mind--what to focus on--how to encourage them to stretch their physical and mental and spiritual muscles.

Focus.

See more clearly.

Focus.