#Goals

My left fingertips, my arms, my hands, and my back are sore.

No, I haven't suddenly decided to exercise. Don't be ridiculous.

I'm practicing my cello again.

I was asked to be part of an ensemble to provide some music for a Relief Society conference in March. Specifically, they want a piano, cello, and flute trio. I've found some music I can adapt for that  particular request (a lovely arrangement of "Nearer, My God, to Thee"), but this means that I have to start building calluses and muscle now if I'm going to be fighting fit to play in March without horribly embarrassing myself.

To that end, we have removed the chairs and table in my bedroom (which weren't really getting utilized anyway) so that I now have a permanent place to stand my cello. And by "we," I mean my husband has done this because he's very sweet that way. He also managed to find my cello stand so I don't have to push furniture around, wrestle my cello into and out of the case, and set up the music stand every time I want to practice, all of which really puts a damper on wanting to practice. Now I can plop myself down and play whenever the mood strikes.

I'm always surprised at just how much muscle it takes to play the cello. I took that for granted when I was young. I was very active as a ballet dancer and crew rower, among other activities, so while I have never been muscle-bound, it was very easy to play the cello for hours at a time, and I never gave it a second thought. Now, I will have to build myself up to being able to play for any length of time. I'll also have to suffer through the hot sting (and sometimes bleeding) as I develop calluses on my left fingertips.

This is a perfect example of "no pain, no gain."

This was a 2020 goal for myself anyway, so it was fortuitous that I was asked to play in March. What I would really like to do is play in an orchestra again. I was thinking of playing in the orchestra for "The Messiah" for next Christmas, which would be really fun. Handel would be a challenge. I'll also have to check to see if there are any community orchestras around here and work on an audition piece.

Thanks for listening. Wish me luck! And Happy New Year! I hope you're feeling optimistic for all that 2020 will bring.

Playing with the Christmas Toys

Husband, master of finding amazing things for way less than retail, found a PS4 VR system for the kids for Christmas. It's a kick. I loved playing it, but I found out really quickly that virtual reality makes me ill. A good twenty minutes of play will leave me feeling like I have raging morning sickness for the rest of the day. No, thank you! The kids don't seem to suffer those side effects, so that's a happy thing. If I wasn't going to barf all over everything, I'd be fighting them for turns. I had so much fun playing Space Pirate and Job Simulator. Surprise plot twist: I'm a pretty good shot when I'm a space pirate in an almost 3D environment.

(whispers) "Virtual reality is real!"

(Remember this little nugget from the mid-nineties? Husband and I still make fun of it.)

VR.5

Another weird thing that happened was that I had some spatial reasoning problems after I finished playing. When you're wearing the VR headset and moving around in the game, you obviously have to be careful not to run into furniture and walls in real space. But my brain refused to accept that I was in real space after I took the headset off. I had to keep reassuring myself that what I was seeing was actually what was sharing space with me--that the couch was really, actually in front of me, or that I was really walking around the dining table. For a while, I found myself flinching, expecting myself to run into walls or furniture even though I was literally walking around in real space and could see all the walls and furniture. It was a very unsettling sensation.

These issues might be age, but they might also be related to the fact that when I was twelve years old, I broke the record for spinning the longest on our sit-and-spin.

See, we used to pull the wheel off the sit-and-spin and place the seat of the piano bench on the base of the sit-and-spin (the piano bench seat had come completely unscrewed from the base, which sometimes caused painful yet hilarious accidents if you didn't balance it perfectly on the base before sitting down to play the piano), and then we would kneel on the seat and push on the floor to get a really good spin going. I spun like that for over ten minutes to break the record. If you don't think that's very long, go ahead and set the timer for ten minutes and just spin around without stopping. I'll wait.

Since that day, I have never been able to spin on an amusement park ride or even ride in a fast elevator without feeling the urge to projectile vomit. Virtual reality must really mess with my equilibrium.

On that pleasant note, I hope you had a happy Christmas. I'm still enjoying my time off, and, weather permitting, will be going to see my grandson at the end of the week because Sian and her family came back from Las Vegas early. This time, I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Showing Off My Christmas Crochet

This year for Christmas, I've done a bit of crocheting.

I finally finished the Sackboy I'd been promising Little Gary's friend, JJ, for the last couple of years. It's the blue guy on the left. Little Gary's Sackboy is on the right, slightly worse for wear after two years.

JJ was so happy to finally get his Sackboy that he carried it around all day while he hung out with Little Gary at our house on Christmas Eve. That made me smile.

Leading up to Christmas, I decided I didn't want to make sweet treats for my bus driver friends. I was kind of all sweet treated out by that time. Instead, I crocheted a bundle of Christmas light bulb ornaments and handed those out. It was doubleplus good because they gave the recipients a little chuckle and I enjoyed making them.

Christmas Plans and Wishes

I took the sleep test and the results indicated that I have mild sleep apnea.

At first I was quite offended. Mild sleep apnea? Mild sleep apnea?

I don't think I'm just a lazy layabout, though. Decades of not enough sleep will turn you into a zombie no matter how much you strive for naps (and don't succeed) or go to bed early, just to wake up feeling like it's still eleven pm after you've already been up for forty-eight hours. So I'll use the CPAP machine and the new pillow Husband bought me and we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll get really energetic and plow through my massive bucket list of Things I'll Do When I Have Energy. It's a long list. Reading it makes me tired.

My mom has seen some real success using her CPAP machine. She's been using it for about three months now, and she's so pleased with the results. She can now sleep on her sides, which she hasn't been able to do for years. Before, her hands and feet would tingle and go to sleep unless she lay on her back. She's also feeling a lot more energetic, as well. This is a woman whom I have never known to just sit down and do nothing, so I know it's been hard for her to be so sluggish and tired.

In other news, I finally stepped inside a Trader Joe's grocery store. We wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and since we were visiting Sian and Nathan, we stopped by a store in their city. It was Saturday, so, of course, it was a madhouse, crawling with young, cute couples and their well-dressed children.

As far as we could tell, it's a regular grocery store with expensive things, so I'm not too worried about missing out on it up here in our little burg, even if they do sell Brussels sprouts still attached to the stalk.

Tomorrow, I have a morning dental appointment in The Big City, so I'm going to be hitting the Asian market afterwards. Sophia's boyfriend has been talking about getting curry pastes and a durian fruit, so I'm going to get him a couple of my favorite curry pastes (massaman and panang, although red, green, and yellow curry pastes are also all so good), some fish sauce, some Thai basil, and some tamarind concentrate so he can make Thai curries.

I'll look for a durian, as well. I'm interested to try one. How can something that smells so awful taste so good?

Sian and Nathan are spending Christmas in Las Vegas with Nathan's family. Gabrielle and Raine are coming up here, however, to spend part of Christmas Day with us and to attend our annual Christmas dinner at my mother-in-law's house. I had a chat with my own mom a couple days ago, and given the circumstances, we aren't going to try and get together until January. My grandma isn't doing so well right now, so traveling to our house or having a lot of people over at my parents' house would be difficult for her. I kind of feel like she won't last all the way through 2020. She'll be ninety-three in January. She's really losing her memory now, and the doctor keeps having to increase her diuretic medication as she keeps collecting more and more water around her lungs.

Tomorrow I also need to deliver the presents our ward has purchased for a couple families whose finances are hurting right now. I've got piles of presents stacked up in my bedroom, some of which still need to be wrapped. Compared to getting last week's funeral meal for two hundred people sorted out in a couple days, this is cake.

If I don't get back here until after Christmas, I hope your Christmas is a wonderful, joyous time. I wish you love and comfort with friends and family and the happiness of knowing that a Savior was born to save the world. There are no limits on love, and the universe is absolutely packed full of it. So am I.

What Does It Take to Become a Leader Like Lenin?

For some school district employees, our Christmas gift is two whole weeks off work.

Today is my last driving day for two weeks. There's no preschool classes, so I'm only picking up and dropping off my high school kids, which takes a total of about two hours between the two runs. And it's early day, so my Christmas vacation starts about 2:15 this afternoon.

Yesterday, I wore earrings shaped like Christmas bulbs--green, in this case. They light up when I push little buttons on the base, so I had them blinking when I picked up the high school kids yesterday morning. It was dark, so they were really showing to good effect. But would one of those cold, sleepy, silent kids look at me? No, they would not. They climbed stolidly up the stairs (some of them wearing nothing but t-shirts and shorts for some inexplicable reason) and avoided all eye contact, only a few of them giving me a muttered response to my "good morning." I wasn't surprised, as that's normal morning behavior for teenagers, but what an opportunity they missed! Green blinking lightbulb earrings!

The preschoolers loved them, however, so my efforts were not entirely wasted.

The high schoolers aren't always surly. They're different people by the time they get onto the bus in the afternoon. I get smiles and greetings and even a few conversations.

There's one kid, probably a junior or senior, who has decided I'm not too old to communicate with. The other day, he got on the bus and said, "Are you a fascist?" I said that I was not.

He said, "You should be fascist."

I said, "Why should I be a fascist? I'm curious."

He obviously hadn't thought about it enough because he didn't give me a real answer, but then he said, "I want to be a Communist. Except there have been some terrible leaders, like Stalin."

I said, "With Communism, you always get leaders like Stalin. That's how it works."

He said, "I like Lenin better than Stalin. I'd be a leader more like Lenin."

Obviously, he's got some power fantasies going on in his young and still uneducated head. Megalomania isn't that uncommon with teenagers, right? They usually gain some maturity and life experience and become less psychotic that way. Right?

More kids got on the bus and we didn't talk anymore until I got to their drop-off stop. As he was getting off the bus, I said with a smile, "Now don't go Communist on me overnight."

He smiled back, but before he walked away, he turned around, grabbed the side of the door opening, and said, "I would be a good leader. I would do it the right way," before dropping his hand and turning toward his house.

Ah, the naive good intentions of the young who are convinced they can defy human nature and force the world onto a permanent path of peace. How much damage they can do when they get some real power.

Yesterday, this same kid got on the bus and excitedly told me he'd scored a full ten on his diving for swimming class. I gave him a high five and enthusiastically congratulated him, which made him pleased. He didn't mention anything more about turning to Communism and I didn't bring it up. Let's hope it's a passing fancy, one that will evaporate once he becomes more educated. He seems like a fairly sharp young man, so I'm hoping for the best.

I hear sad tales from Elannah and Sophia about some of their former high school friends who have turned to the dark side. Kids who are convinced that socialism and communism are forward-thinking and brave because they don't actually understand how those systems work in the real world. Kids who came from good families who now drink heavily and smoke weed and take mind-altering drugs and namecall anyone who doesn't agree with their radical ideas.

But I digress from my original point: Christmas gifts in whatever form they arrive.

Not only do I have a pile of sweet little gifts from many of my preschool parents (mostly treats, which is why it's never a good idea to start a new healthy eating plan in December), but Husband bought me a new pillow. It's a wonderful pillow. I immediately slept better and didn't snore on this pillow.

You know you're an adult when things like good pillows are a Christmas treasure.

I'll tell you more about the pillow, my sleep test results, and what's happening with my energy levels in a future post. This one is long enough already.

Many Are Cold, But Few Are Frozen

Today I attended the farewell talk of a girl I've known since before she was born. Her mother, my friend Shanna, desperately wanted a second child yet had such a hard time getting and staying pregnant that it was truly a miracle that Taylor was born. I babysat her as an infant all the way until she started school. She and my daughter, Elannah, have been friends their whole lives.

She's been called to serve an LDS mission in the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission, Spanish-speaking. I'm excited because that's my home mission. I grew up knowing the missionaries who served in our branch. It was so common for our family to have missionaries (elders and sisters) over for dinner or for holidays that many of them became like parts of our family. As I grew older, I spent some of my time working with them as they taught people about Jesus Christ and His grace. I also played with them when we had volleyball games once a week. There are some amazing missionaries who have served in that mission, and I'm so blessed to have met them.

Taylor will be heading out to the mission home in Minneapolis after she finishes a few weeks of training at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. Then she will brave the cold and snow while she finds Spanish-speaking people to talk to. She'll do a fantastic job.

Believing Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

"'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"

~Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

I once questioned what I had believed to be a universal truth, a fundamental part of what I know about who I am, where I am, and what is real. I only did it because I was presented with evidence I couldn't deny, and this evidence seemed to contradict what I had been told all my life was a solid fact. I couldn't dismiss it, and I couldn't ignore it, so I hesitantly started looking at alternatives to the so-called hard facts, laughing at myself a bit for my doubts, only to be stunned to find that there was plenty of evidence to support a valid explanation for my observations, an alternative to what I had been told all my life was absolute and unquestionable.

It was a mind-blowing experience, and it started me down a path that has been equal parts eye-opening and infuriating. Challenging every belief you have held dear for your entire life is not an easy or comfortable quest.

Sorry to be so cryptic, but it's a necessity. I don't like to talk about these experiences with people except in very non-specific terms. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them angry. Most peoples' knee-jerk reaction is to immediately dismiss me as ignorant or crazy, even if they have never engaged in more than the most superficial of thinking about the subject and refuse to do any further thinking about it. I find that particularly irritating, so I shut up about it, even if I don't stop researching and observing. The genie is out of the bottle, however. I can't go back to who I was before. I am not the same person I was before I asked that particular question.

The specific subject of my research isn't important here, anyway. What I consider vitally important for myself is being able to find and accept truth, no matter how hard it is to do. Truth is hard and uncompromising. It doesn't care about societal norms. It doesn't care about my feelings. It doesn't require my approval. It simply is.

Truth is.

I went through a period of rage at the beginning of this particular journey. The anger I felt was baffling in its intensity. It didn't manifest itself outwardly, but it was an internal battle of gigantic proportions. At the beginning, I couldn't even name a particular thing I was so angry about. I just felt this nebulous, undirected seething against....something.

This, I've since come to learn, is a normal reaction to having your core beliefs shattered, forcing your fundamental paradigm irreversibly onto a different track. I've heard others describe the same internal battle as they've gone through the same paradigm shift. Perhaps it's because we as humans like so much to be comfortable in our knowledge. We have this need to be set, to know, to be certain about what is going on around us. When that certainty is removed, when nothing is certain anymore, we naturally rage against it.

After a while, the rage died down but left in its wake a rawness, a distrust of everything I'd learned as scientific fact. But even as I felt this rawness, I also felt increased hope. I knew that I had taken a positive step in being able to start accepting truth no matter how difficult, no matter how bizarre, no matter how inconvenient it is. I know I still hold onto most of my former biases and prejudices about what is real and what is not, but I have taken one step toward truth at least: I can now question. Being able to formulate a question in the face of what I used to accept as certainty is a big step. I know I'm still naturally resistant to having my worldview torn apart and put back together in a different pattern, but at least I know I can survive it--though maybe only in small bites at a time.

That process is really what this post is about: being open to learning and understand what is true, what is reality. No, I'm not taking mind-altering drugs. I'm not, like, one with the universe and everything, man. But I have come to understand that what I want to be true is pitiful in the face of what really is true, and I prefer to know what is rather than live in my fantasy, as comfortable as that fantasy might be. I say that even though I know my ability to accept absolute truth is still in its infancy. I just hope to grow.

One thing I know is truth: God Is. All my evidence is subjective and unquantifiable, but I don't care if anyone else believes me. I know. My hope and faith have been strengthened immeasurably. Where truth is hard and unyielding, and God is truth, God is also merciful and kind. Everything else my be up for review, but that one, solid, comforting constant is a balm to my soul.

Someday, maybe I'll feel like sharing some of the experiences that have led me here. Someday, maybe, I'll share some of the spiritual experiences, as well. Like how I absolutely know prayer is one of the most powerful things any human being can do for another.

For now, I'm just trying to be big enough and strong enough to accept truth.

No Despair. Only Hope.

My daughter, Sian, suffered a miscarriage on Thanksgiving.

Sian and Nathan didn't tell us until Saturday because they didn't want to ruin our holiday. I don't care about having some sort of holiday if they need help. I care about them. I care about my darling daughter and her sweet husband and their beautiful, wonderful little baby boy.

I was sad. I cried. But they're philosophical about it, and they feel a great deal of peace. That little spirit is still their child. I don't know how these things work, but they feel strongly that the mighty spirit that couldn't use the defective body that was miscarried will still be able to experience mortality and come to their family in this life. I feel that way, too. Again: not claiming theological revelation, just telling you how I feel.