A new calling

For months I had this ticking clock in my head--an awareness that time was counting down to the 3 year anniversary of my calling as a Relief Society teacher. My assumption was that that meant that the relief society presidency was also paying attention and would want to release me then. Three years is long enough to listen to anyone, right?

It happened just as I had expected--I taught that 36th lesson and a member of the bishopric called me for an interview and released me.

But it also happened differently than I had expected. The newish Relief Society actually had no idea how long I had been teaching and were very sad to lose me as a teacher. And the brand new bishopric had no idea how long I had been teaching. But they had been told that the current primary pianist wanted to be released, and they decided I was the one to replace her.

That primary pianist is also the person who cuts my hair, so I learned fairly quickly that she actually *hadn't* wanted to be released and was kind of sad about it. Boy how this irritated me. I'd been on such a roll in the last year of teaching Relief Society--my lessons were really impactful. (And I say that with full awareness that the gift of teaching is totally and completely a blessing that comes from Heavenly Father had only has to do with me in that I put in the time to prepare to teach.) I was sad for that to end because of a bunch of second and third hand information that wasn't even accurate, and I felt like the calling was probably a mistake.

To be quite honest, I'm bored by playing the piano in primary much of the time. It's a bad combination of some of my personality traits combined with the particular characteristics of this primary chorister. So for the first several weeks I sat and played (and not even that well) and grumped in my mind.

A couple of weeks in, though, I noticed something interesting. At random times throughout the week I would find the words or melody of the previous week's primary song caught in my mind.

...as I search the scriptures
I can feel his words of peace...

...listen with my heart
I hear the Savior's voice...

and after last week when they were singing the chorus of a song that's new to me,

Press forward, press forward,
with steadfastness in Christ...

...and a love of all man...

...feasting upon the word,
and enduring to the end...

As these melodies and words have gone through my brain, their little snippets on endless repeat loops, they have brought surprising peace into my heart and mind. And in the second or third week that I realized it was happening I thought to myself, hmm...maybe this was actually exactly right.

The dead plant

I was working out in the yard today, enjoying the beautiful day after way too many days of rain.  I've noticed that some of my clematis (in this their third year) have sprung into vigorous growth, which excites me to the tips of my muddy fingernails.  Others aren't quite as vigorous but are also green and growing.

As I went from trellis to trellis I noticed that one part of a plant was dead.  I grabbed the clippers so that I could trim away the dead parts.


But then as I lifted the long vine to cut it, I noticed something unexpected.  This is what was on the other end of the vine.


It was new growth, vibrant and vivid, with even the beginnings of flower buds starting.

It startled me so much that I stood there looking back and forth from the "dead" vine to the live part.  Dead, not dead.  Dead, not dead at all.

As I carefully and gently wound the vine around the trellis, I felt the spirit pointing to an important lesson, reminding me that things are not always as they seem, and that I need to be holding space for this understanding in my life.  Things are not always as they seem.  People are not always as they seem.  And what sometimes seems dead might not be.

Struck to the Bone

I'm in Santa Cruz spending the day with Katie today before we head up to Santa Rosa for our Durham Bookclub reunion tomorrow.  She had an appointment so I took an nap and then went out to take a walk.  Before I'd gone more than a few houses, though, it started to rain hard.  I turned around and walked disappointedly back to her house.

After a few minutes the rain lightened up so I borrowed a rainproof jacket and took off again.  I must have really needed that walk, because (much to my surprise) I didn't even listen to the podcast that I had downloaded.  Instead I walked and looked and occasionally took a flower picture.  Within 10 or 15 minutes I'd arrived at West Cliff Drive, a place that is like heaven for me.

First I watched surfers, then continued along the cliff.  I saw warning signs and a place where workers were repairing a place where a blowhole had emerged.  

As I continued walking I was watching the crashing waves but also the light because I figured if there *was* going to be a nice sunset I didn't want to miss it. 

And then I thought (but I wasn't quite sure, it was so faint) that I saw a bit of a rainbow.  It's really been a rainbow month for me, so I thought it would be totally lovely to see a rainbow.  And sure enough, it appeared.  So close to me that I couldn't take a picture of the whole rainbow.  Within a few minutes it was brighter than any rainbow I've ever seen before and there was a double rainbow.  People were stopping their cars all along the street to take pictures.

It was so beautiful to watch the rainbow and the waves that all I could think was a bit of a song from Les Miserables:

Had you been there tonight 

You would have known how it feels

To be struck to the bone 

In a moment of breathless delight...

Finally the rainbow began to fade a little as the sunset intensified.  And what a sunset.  We spent 2 weeks in Hawaii and watched sunsets more than half of the nights, but never saw anything like this.  In the end the sky was colored 3/4 of the way around, only 90 degrees short of a full circle.  It was really lovely.

And then all of that beautiful color gradually faded and I turned away from the ocean and started walking back to Katie's house, filled with happiness from my moment of breathless delight.

Maui Day 2

• breakfast at the condo
• drive to Dumps--what on earth is up with these coconuts on the fenceposts?  (no one seems to know.)

• Snorkel, snorkel, snorkel

Looks like this one is related to the Humu-Humu

Black Durgon Triggerfish mob


Pennant Butterflyfish


Parrotfish

Probably a coronetfish.

• snorkel selfie

• no turtle till the end

• meet the welcoming committee

• new favorite snorkel adventure: carry water shoes in mesh bag, snorkel from Dumps to Ahihi Cove and get out there.  Walk path back to Dumps.  

• get more groceries, buy awesome bag

• Costco's open air food court

• Go by the airport beach park again, darn all of the windsurfers are putting their gear away.  Learn that while Maui does not have a wild dog problem, it does have a feral cat problem.  Spot at least 50 cats in 10 minutes!

• Miss the sunset--oops, had the time wrong!

Maui Day 1

I think it would be kindness for my Facebook friends if I didn't dump all of my Maui pictures there, so I'm going to try to do an every day or two dump here.  Maybe even with a little narrative.

Our trip started with trying to get the suitcase down below 50 lbs. Sunday night.  I'd hoped to take a thermos and hot chocolate for sunrise on the volcano but ended up being too heavy.



Even thought I was packed early-ish (for me anyway!) I had other things that still weren't done and didn't get to bed till midnight.  Then we had to get up at 2:30 to leave the house at 3 for our 5:45 flight.  One thing that was nice--there was NO traffic then, not even through the tunnel!  And the airport lines were super short.

This made me laugh at the airport.  Apparently you don't have to chug that water anymore.



I hate like anything having to get up that early, so it was nice that there was a lovely sunrise from the airplane that lasted a long time.

In San Francisco we had a yummy sourdough bread breakfast sandwich and then happily boarded the plane for Maui.  We napped and read--I read a cute little book about teenaged ninjas written by one of Cindy Lynn's friends.  Sooner than we expected we could see the island.  As an added bonus when we circled the island to come in from the Kihei side we saw 2 whales in the water below!  (no picture, sadly)



I thought I'd roast to death standing at baggage claim, which is open to the outside.  It had been cold in Oregon so I was wearing wool socks, exercise pants, and a long sleeved shirt and fleece jacket!  As soon as the luggage came we both changed into shorts, tshirts, and flipflops!  And then we drove over to this beach which is right by the airport.



Tired, happy people.



Happy feet.  (Cold water!)



Our goal was to stay awake until 8PM and then go to bed.  We ran errands, got dinner at Maui Taco and ate it at the beach, picked up snorkel gear, then went to the lookout to watch for whales and then the sunset.

I think watching for whales is a memory that will be etched in my heart forever.  The water was so beautiful, very calm with this amazing texture.  There was a catamaran in the distance, and from time to time we'd see whales.  In the background a car in the parking lot had John Denver songs playing.


Hey, it's good to be back home again
Sometimes this old farm feels like a long lost friend
Yes, 'n, hey it's good to be back home again



After the sunset we drove back to the condo and watched this week's Downton Abbey.  Then, halleljuah, it was bedtime!

Oh we love Maui!

Please "talk" me

Without a doubt Kate's favorite thing to do is to "talk" things.  Beanie babies and other stuffed animals, to be sure.  But also completely inanimate objects like forks or cups; anything can be "talked" in Kate's world.  (Her very favorite activity is to bring several things over to Cindy Lynn, or Jenna, or me, and demand like the pint-sized dictator she is, that we "talk" something too.

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Mahon and Cindy Lynn are going to go do some training at the pediatrician's office in hopes that they can work better with some of Kate's outbursts.  It sounds incredibly high tech: the psychologist will sit behind a 2 way mirror and watch them interact with Kate.  They will be wearing earpieces and she will tell them exactly what to do or say to help them learn this technique.

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Sometimes I get so frustrated--that I said something too harshly, that I couldn't think of the right response in the right moment, that I just can't bring myself to reach out in a loving way in a situation where I've felt hurt.  After Cindy Lynn told me about this training I started thinking--I want that!  Except not just for parenting, I want it for my whole life!  I want to have an earpiece in my ear. I want them to tell me what to say and when to say it, to give me the gracious words I resist, to give be a verbal kick in the butt when that's what I need, to caution me when they can see I'm headed in a direction I'll regret later.

I just need someone to "talk" me!

Rainbow Day

I was walking Saturday night with my friend, waking, talking, occasionally looking at the night sky.  I glanced up and noticed that the moon looked a little odd, and as I looked more I realized what I was seeing--I don't know how, but the moon was making bits of rainbows on the pieces of clouds around it.  I pointed it out to my friend and we stopped and looked, watched the clouds moving around the moon until there was almost a full circle rainbow around the moon.  We were both awestruck at the beauty of the moment. 

After a few moments she said, "I feel like there is a message in this." And I thought, "rainbows... messages... RAINBOWS!" Until that moment I'd forgotten that it had truly been a rainbow filled day for me.  I'd snapped this picture from the plane while waiting earlier in the day to leave San Jose--a rainbow fragment in the clouds above the airport.

And while Katie and I had been driving from Santa Cruz to the airport in San Jose we had seen so many rainbows.  It seemed like every time we went around a new corner we saw another rainbow in the distance.  Twice, though, we saw a part of a rainbow that seemed to be directly in front of her car.  As we would speed toward it, it would disappear like a mirage.  It was amazing.

I stood there in the street last Saturday night looking at the rainbow around the moon and thinking that the rainbow is God's promise to us.  The thought that came into my heart was that this day of rainbows was a reminder for me that God keeps his promises--something that is a very good reminder for me right now.