Forget your troubles. C'mon, write happy!!!

Summer is swift approaching. Before it sets up shop, however, I will be living through spring with it's many lion-and-lamb like ups and downs. April rains. May blooms. You get the picture.

In the yellow-y blue of a spring early morning, I find myself turning on the computer (the hum of electronics massaging my ears like the lullaby of an old friend), and doing three things:

1. I Check my email. There is rarely more than precious little of notice or consequence, but I do it anyway. I constantly hope against hope that there is some personal note therein, meant only for me. Then again, if I don't send those sort of notes, who am I to desire some? I'm not here to moan. On to number two:

2. Check the comments on my blog. I like to think that if I write well, or comment well or put up cute pictures that people will be driven to comment. I'm not sure when the number of comments became my creative measuring stick. Hm. Then I continue with one of two things.

3a. Check everyone elses blog. or (most often most recently)

3b. Re-read my July posts. At first I began this practice because it had the most posts. It also has the pictures from my family reunion in Star Valley and the majority of pictures from Secret Garden. The reason now has become different as I have noticed something:

I have changed. *YAY!*

The thought patterns that I was repeating and re-repeating in July (like Slimer ruling the 12th floor) are no longer a part of my life cycle. Seriously. And I have identified the strongest contributor in my mental freedom. I will now share it with all of you. For I know you are on the edges of your seats, wondering how you can be more like me. Though perhaps you are simply curious as to what I'm talking about at all. Some of you have been around me so little, that you may have hardly noticed a change. Re read those blogs, then you'll start to see it.

About three months ago, someone told me that I was a good writer, but that I never write "happy." I quickly spouted my well rehearsed answer (one I developed as an emotional teen; you know, the one that writes moody sub-par poetry instead of reading "Huckleberry Finn"):

"Well, there are only so many ways to say "happy." But there are infinite ways to express despair."

He wisely pointed out, that what I thought about WAS. He challenged me to not post again until I could post something happy. And then to post (or write) only happy things. He made this challenge sometime Mid-November. Notice that the next two months, I only put up three posts. It was as if I was struggling to find only happy things to say. The truth of the matter was not that I had a shortage of material, it was simply that I didn't know how. And I could believe that I was interesting if I was happy.

My very first blog post was something I had written almost a year before, and I changed it for the purpose of blogging. Guess what it was before it was personal praise for my wonderfulness? That's right - a beautiful blotch of self-deprecating prose.

Then in February, I was wise enough to recognize and then remark on the fact that "I am fundamentally happy." but what followed that? "and have every right to be mopey from time to time." *Boo Hiss*
This was a pattern that began emerging. The idea that I was entitled to bring my negativity to everyone around me because I was such a good girl on the other days.

How selfish.

Not anymore, baby!

Okay, I'm still self-interested, but not all selfish. Or, at least I strive not to be.

One of the biggest boosters for this change was in fact the challenge itself. Once I began to "write happy," along with putting the other fantastic advice I was given to work, I got better. I healed. And now it's not even easier to have "those sort of days" and write out my sadness. I have instead, when I'm mopey, picked a happy memory and written it. These are mostly short, one page things. But I sure feel better when I'm done.

Like yesterday. I was mad that my neck hurt and upset that Lemur was yelling at me and constantly contradicting anything I had to say. So I went to my room, to my computer and wrote this:

"I was in the bathtub: a goddess reigning over an icy world! The bubbles rose like monolithic icebergs towering over me with their soft and swooping curves. I parted the bubbles to see the water below. It had a greenish tint, as one always sees under real iceberg on the Discovery Channel. How much more potent was this world of pretend after that view! The delicious power of it all went to my head (or perhaps it was the heat of the bath) and I watched leisurely as my hand took the shape and manner of a humpback whale: first breaking the water, soaring up above the surface before turning so slightly and plunging back into the depths. When did my hand become so graceful, like that behemoth of a water mammal, that it would be able to imitate those glorious movements so well?

For twenty minutes or more I played in my bath. Parting the bergs, shaping the landscape with great waves and small sprinkling storms, made by the wet shaking of my fingers over a decided peak until it was reduced to a valley. And though I played, splashing about in my very warm frozen world, the bubbles never truly diminished. I could see that although they lost height and fill, there was just as much. It was merely softer . . . more like foam.

Then suddenly I was a selkie, waking in the foamy brine as my human form emerged from it’s former seal-skin. Hoping both that a man would see and love me and also that I would not be discovered. I would lay there, caught in a groove of a large stone - shaped oddly like a bathtub! - as the foam swirled and pulsed around me echoing the heartbeat of the ocean from which I was momentarily escaping.

I closed my eyes, and reached up to take down my hair, which - had I been standing - would reach to the small of my back in coppery brown waves. But they were instead caught by the waves of my imaginary ocean. I rocked my hips from side to side beneath the surface, being both the heart and the blood to make my hair rise and fall. The gentle pulling as the water receded was intoxicating. I could feel my worries disappearing. No doubt this is how a selkie would appear: calm and completely unconnected with the world she was about to enter. And that was a selkie’s charm.

Slowly my mind began to play out my life as a selkie. I began picturing the world, picturing the man, picturing even the children. The dream bore a marked resemblance to my current husband and children: though the land was different, and there were Irish accents spoken by all.

In the selkie-life, I was always beautifully distracted by the soft echo of ocean on the walls of my home when a window was left open. I saw the stars not as dots in the sky but as a map home. I would look at my family and still feel the draw back to my previous world, feeling trapped by the dryness of the land. The mocking damp that rain would bring, or the worst mockery of all: a bath.

Wait. I like my bath.

I decided to abandon this path in my mind meanderings and intended to turn on the jets when there was a knock on the door.

"Hon? Time to get out. The kids still need baths before church."

I sighed. Perhaps baths were a mockery. Giving me inspiration for imagination while never actually transporting me anywhere.

Or perhaps the opposite was true and baths were just what they seemed to be: awesome. "

I have a talent for romanticizing memory. Putting on the rose-colored glasses, if you will, and really re-experiencing it. I used to do this only with "the good old days" with the purpose of showing myself how bad the present was. I would compare myself to the past. Now it's time to
"use my power for good instead of evil."

And this is a start. Who would have thought that there was so much to say for and about being happy?

Look closely . . .

And you might just see a family resemblence. For instance, they both have beautiful skin and big blue eyes. Lemur pointed out that last one. He looked at Helo (for so I've dubbed him) the first time he caught him with his eyes open and exclaimed, "He has my eyes!!" Perhaps there's not much in this pic, but I do enjoy the odd angle at which my son has perched him self. And Helo is just takin' it like a man. "Weird cousin."

Oh, so cute!
Ahh, here we really see how much they have in common, despite the separation of the more potent family genes. I love having Helo over in the afternoons. Yesterday he was so excited to "sit up" (I was holding him up, truth be told. I don't think he noticed the distinction), and he finally smiled. As much as Helo smiles. He's a very reserved and serious little man. And it's beautiful to see his little man-face light up when he sees his mother.

Rivulet likes to be a mommy to this new person, and is constantly trying to hold him and give him a bottle. When he naps, she will waddle up and begin stroking his baldness, smiling and saying "Baby?" over and over, seemingly very proud that she gets to touch one. I believe that whenever he's happy, she takes the credit for it herself. That's okay with me. I'm just glad she doesn't get jealous seeing me holding another baby. Maybe there's hope . . .

Alien vs. Mosquito

Two nights ago, Lemur came into my room scratching his belly.

"Hey Lemur. What'r ya doin'?"

"Scratchin'."

"Scratching' what?"

"I have a alien spore." (*alien* is pronounced Eh-lee-un)

I do a double take as I look up from my book (Xenocide, btw). "You have a what?"

"A alien spore."

He doesn't seem as bothered about that sort of thing as I would be.

"Can I see?" I ask.

He shruggs and lifts his shirt to reveal: a mosquito bite.

"Oh, honey that's not an alien spore."

He looks disappointed, "It's not?"

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"It's just a mosquito bite."

Enter the terror any normal person would assume to come with discovering they were infested with an alien spore.

"A MOSQUITO!!!"

I could not keep from laughing. "Yes. Just a mosquito."

His eyes tear up and he puts his shirt down, hugging it close to his body as though the thin fabric may protect him against further invasion.

There is a moment of silence. I don't know what to do - it's just a mosquito bite! - so I wait and watch his reactions. Finally he has composed himself enough to communicate.

"Do you know what we should do?"

"No honey. What should we do?"

"We get daddy to come home, and kill all the mosquitos and then no more will come around us. Okay?"

Enter Mom trying to be clever. "Well, you know, if you had eaten a good dinner like me and Daddy and River, the mosquitos wouldn't bite you."

"Really?"

"Yes. River and Daddy and I all ate fish for dinner, but you screamed and would only eat rice. You need to eat more good food so that the Mosquitoes won't think you taste so good."

And then my friend can contain himself no longer and begins laughing as he prolcaims: "And so the Old Wive's Tale is born!!!"

Peanut Butter Fiend

Rivulet has a favorite snack. She asks for it at least four times a day, and will meander around the house, sucking on it. Watching her do this reminds me of someone I saw in a movie once . . .

- Meet Joe Black

That's Where I Belong

Somewhere in a burst of glory

Sound becomes a song

I'm bound to tell a story

That's where I belong

When I see you smiling

When I hear you singing

Lavender and roses

Every ending a beginning

The way you turn

And catch me with your eye

Ay ay ay

That's where I belong

When I see you smiling

When I hear you singing

Lavender and roses

Every ending a beginning

That's the way it is

I don't know why
Ay ay ay

But that's where I belong

- "That's Where I belong" - Paul Simon

Let's play Global Thermo-Nuclear War . . .

This morning I very efficiently made breakfast for my children and brought a breakfast of cereal, sliced oranges and Carnation Instant Breakfast up to my husband who was sitting at the computer engrossed in his morning electronics fix. I handed him his food, which he greeted with an appreciative noise.
"We have to leave soon," he said, seeing me prepare for a shower.
"Okay."
He gave me a disbelieving look, "You think you and the kids can be ready in twenty five minutes?"
"Uh, yeah!" I replied with confidence and a peck of snide.
He grunted his unbelief, and I in return rose to take up my defence.
"Hey!" His eyes widened under my sudden (though minor) change in tone, "I got up all lickity split, and flipped on the Good Wife switch this morning. I brought you breakfast, buddy! So be happy!"
As I swiftly exited the room, I heard him call after me, "Then can you break off the Bad Wife Switch?"


Come to think of it,the Bad Wife behavior of which he speaks is more like a thermo-nuclear explosion than a switch, being as it takes time and varying experiences to gain full strength. After which the trigger can be hit, or turned, and then the man (or children) are left to suffer in the fall out.
What I mean is, I was examining this idea. I was trying to take my husband's advice, because - really - it is good advice. I shouldn't have a BW Switch. And in thinking it out (trying to discover where it was, as it were) it came to me that GW can be there in a moment, by choosing to. Very much like flipping a switch (anyone who has watched Bree on Desperate Housewives knows what I mean). BW is built up and added to moment after moment until she is triggered.

So does that mean I must remove the trigger? Or that I must systematically remove the buildup before it has a chance to be triggered at all? A trigger is harmless with no explosive behind it.

Great. Now I have MORE to think about.

Continuing Education

I have been thinking about the Nelson affinity for the desert.

Growing up, all my camping was done in the mountains. High in the mountains. All hikes were in or on mountains, striving to reach a summit: a final view, a massive payoff. We lived in the desert, my siblings and I often going on walkabout for hours at a time exploring the caves, mini dunes as desert life that surrounded our Highland House.

As my mind was meandering down these paths of thought, I began to filter through my memories of each. I seem to see symbolic presences that reflect the needs of my mind or soul that draws me to one destination or the other.

Why the desert over the mountain? Why the mountain over the desert?

Why sometimes does the heart yearn for the protective embrace of towering fatherly monoliths of stone, clothed in wildflowers, aspens, pine and evergreen trees, desiring the sound of dead leaves and dried pine needles crushing underfoot as the sun is kept from you by the shadow of these trees that loom overhead? What drives a heart to need the culmination of work, seen in the view from a great height when little seen from that far above makes any sense?

Why other times is the incredible heat of the desert more desirable? Why does one's heart cry out for the feel of slick rock beneath their sandals, of a river sloshing over and through their shoes? Why the pull to a land where green is rare and all is open to your sight: seeing for miles as you travel further down the path to your rest? Bathing in red and gold, how is it that the sun and the rock can heal the abrasions that living life day to day inflicts on our souls?

The answers are in the questions, as most answers are. Which do I prefer? It used to be mountains. I used to love lakes above all other bodies of water. Now my most powerful emotional connection is to rivers.

I am a lucky woman in that my Life Moments are varied. One at a beach. One at a lake in the Sierra Nevadas. One at a lake in the desert. Another in a river in the desert. My soul finds moments of complete wholeness with nature

It's true that I am rambling on about my love for the Earth. Perhaps because although it is still winter, yesterday I smelled spring. Everything outside my window is muddy and ugly, but the smell of spring reminded me how awesome the earth is. My favorite things are coming around again:

Easter

Green on trees

My birthday

walks to the park to sit in the grass and watch my children play.

Planting a garden

Tending a garden

The fourth of July

Cherry Days

The twenty fourth of July

Lake Powell

Bonfires in my parent's back yard

Picking peaches

Eating corn (watching my children eat corn)

Eating outside

Crocheting outside

Reading outside

Finding ways to use apricots.

Writing outside

Eating fresh vegetables

Sleeping outside

Fireworks

Summer visits from family

Tubing down a river

Wading in a river

Roses

Hiking sandals

Lavender

and new this year: I look forward to seeing the desert.

Thanks for the continuing education, Nelson clan.