I'd like you to meet a less encumbered me.

I happened upon an old friend yesterday, and while driving away from them I pondered how much I had changed.

Muad'Dib and I have a humorous habit of yelling out "Who ARE you?!" whenever one or the other of us does/says something surprising. Just this afternoon, I stuffed my face with a monstrous salad, using only a tablespoon of dressing to enhance the lettuce. And I loved every last bite.

This is only shocking for people like Muad'Dib who have known that I was no friend to salad (except the pasta variety) since my birth. And now, I love it. This is a very small and trite example of my change.

I look over my life and see basic SELF that might shift or bend and twist, though it is this SELF that basically remains the same. It is SELF. Then there are bits, pieces and habits that change drastically and totally.

What causes these changes? "Need for survival," comes the intuitive answer. Nearly all of my lasting changes were wrought from the emotional need to adapt or perish (figuratively or literally). I use the caveat "nearly" because though I cannot call to mind a single instance when this was not true, I cannot shut out the possibility that one change sometime was different. Other changes were fueled by desire alone, and I can't think of a single on of those that was permanent.

I'm trying to figure myself out. It's what I do. It's what has become the purpose of this blog. I am searching for the SELF in Sayyadina. Most of you were aware of my burst of knowledge when I figured out that my SELF existed before theater, and therefore could exist fully even in the absence of theater.

Now I desire to learn what causes my SELF to change.

Last year I went through a MAJOR down turn in the cycle my SELF follows naturally. It was during that time that "This too shall pass" was clearly illustrated. I shed some defensive armor. I was able to frame hope into a workable idea for my depression-able mind. So in that way: yay for last year.

I'm now wondering - after seeing this old friend - if even while gaining some knowledge and application, I also lost. I am a little more judgemental of certain behaviors. Little. Who are we kidding. A LOT more judgemental of certain behaviors. Which is ridiculous considering my penchant for hypocrisy. I love people through those behaviors, but I judge them first.

So, as I continue on my journey toward what I hope is perfection, I'm concerned that even if I'm getting smarter, I might becoming more stupid.

And if anyone says "Well, opposition in all things," I will scream.

This is a possibility for a tangent. I will control myself.

The purpose of this blog entry was to say - again - for those who haven't seemed to hear me: I have changed. If that change hurt someone else, I am sorry for the pain my change caused. I'm not sorry I changed, because I pretty well like who I am now. I did not set out to change, to abandon, to disappear, to become disinterested, or to give up. I set out to do one thing that had nothing to do with anyone else except me. I didn't even accomplish the one thing. So stop looking for that person you knew last year. She's not here anymore. If you want to be friends with this Sayyadina, be my guest, but don't go looking for the old one somewhere behind my eyes. She is gone. Because although I did not accomplish the one thing, I accomplished some other things instead:

I let Anger (for anger's sake) go. I discovered within myself the difference between "sensation" and "emotion." I learned that I have an "off-button" for use in emotional situations. I have grasped the possibility that my help may not always be helpful and it's okay to let other people do for themselves. Most importantly: I have greater patience with my children and I see my husband's love everywhere I look instead of just where I look for it.

I don't know how I existed before; caught in the rampaging anger, impatience and victimization that I used to be: but thankfully, that is gone now.

I cannot be - nor do I want to be - that woman ever again. I am happier this way. And as far as I can tell, so is Muad'Dib.

So while I enjoy foods I used to hate: tomatoes, green peppers, rice, and salad; enjoy past-times I used to loathe: gardening, being alone, cleaning, and mowing the lawn; and while I see love everywhere when I used to ignore it in all it's forms: I will laugh and sigh as those who care to become reacquainted with my SELF, absent of those bits of useless armor which I shed as I grew.

"The Art of Journaling" as learned from Nephi

I haven't written in a while. Not a long while, granted, yet I have felt the separation from myself and the written word quite keenly. A plane seems to be flying low over Antelope Island. I can see it because I have the great pleasure of sitting on my deck, which although technically is in the backyard has a fantastic view over all of North Ogden, clear down to the Island. A few cars may drive by in the course of my morning, but all in all it is just me the birds and the breeze.

We have four lilac bushes now. Our garden has begun growing. Soon we will have a harvest of radishes, corn, salad greens, peas and green peppers as well as other veggies. We have spearmint growing the shadow of the main house and hornets trying to build a home in the eave of the playhouse. What a wonderful life!

The children have been sick. Rivulet has been sick for nearly two weeks, Lemur caught his just in time to miss the last three - and most fun - days of school. Summer is approaching, as is evidenced by being able to take Rivulet outside in the rain around midnight last night. It was not too cold, and just wet enough to wake her out of her bad dream stupor.

I have pictures that document all the things and events that have happened over the past few weeks, but I have few words. Perhaps it is the opinion of some that I have a good deal too many words. I noted something in my journal the other night, "I wish I wasn't so tired; so I could record some thoughts and not just events." I felt - and still do - that I and my children might be missing something having a record of events only.

In reading Nephi over the past few weeks, I have had my mind opened up in refreshing ways. I have taken for granted that I know the stories backwards and forwards and in fact have taught the stories, sometimes to my teachers. How glorious the chance to learn that there is more to learn!

Such as the event of Nephi coming to retrieve the plates from Laban. The final time, when Laban was passed out from drinking and lying alone, unconscious in the street and Nephi just happened upon him - something else took place. Nephi was instructed to do something that went against his then-current understanding. Did he do it? Not at first. He - in effect - spoke to the Spirit, and the Spirit spoke back. He "shrank away" from the deed. The Spirit offered more information, knowing that the law forbade the action he was now prompted to take. And then! Nephi, constrained by the Holy Spirit, employed reason. He opened his mind and the Spirit guided his thoughts that Nephi and the Spirit could be on the same page.

And how is that applicable to us?

Reading further, I get to the part where Lehi is murmuring in the wilderness and Nephi - after Nephi's bow had broken. LEHI was murmuring. The prophet!! And it was his child that called him - by action and word - to humility where he regained his footing as the patriarch of the family. I don't ever remember knowing that Lehi had murmurings. It spoke to me of difficulties ANY parent may have in their lives, and how we as their children can be comfort to them by living the truth at all times. Being a witness of God, showing our own faith can help even the people who taught us in the first place. Of course, here I was thinking of my Mom. A perfect example is the experience we had last summer changing the Shakespeare. There came a time - which I recorded in great detail - that Mom went kaput. I stepped in, and then stepped back out when she - for lack of a better term - came to her senses. Doesn't it make Nephi and Lehi more real to know they experienced this dynamic as well? It does to me.

Last week in RS, we were discussing how we could maintain our spirituality as we "grew up." It is no easy thing, quite honestly. Once we hit a high, we rest on it assuming the high is solid. I'm pretty sure it's more of an eternal escalator than a mountain. Once we reach the top of a mountain - you're there. But an escalator that is always going down, while we are striving to climb up; that seems to fit better. The world being the escalator, and each of our steps being the desire and action to rise above. Holding still will actually bring us down.

Now, for most of us, we have a solid foundation - a place we may never pass below. The problem is, I have met so many who believe either that a solid foundation is all you need or that there is actually a place you reach where you can never ascend above! That is not what the scriptures have taught us, so why do we embrace it?

To shake things up, I set aside my old scriptures: the Book of Mormon I had received at my baptism at the age of 8, the BOM I had used all through seminary and Institute and marked with all manner of pencils, markers, pens and personal notations. I set that aside an opened a new copy of the BoM, one I had bought when Muad'Dib and I were first married, and began to read the BoM as if for the first time.

And that's exactly what it feels like. Other bits of knowledge and learning that I have acquired over the past ten years are like a different lens to read the words through. I read the account of the Tree of Life much differently than before. I hear the voice of Nephi in my head with age appropriate timbre so clear it is disconcerting. I see similarities not only in spiritual understanding but in social settings.

And through it all runs a testimony of journal keeping. From Nephi to Moroni and Mormon, I am led to realize that their advice their words, were truly meant for our time. They knew it when they were writing it. And it was when reading Chapter 6 that I wondered whether what I was writing about was of worth: "Wherefore, I give a commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men."

Writing the Book of Sayyadina began with my first journal at the age of 10. I have since filled over ten journals and countless other computer documents, random notebooks and scraps of paper tossed into a folder. No doubt, my words need an editor just as badly as those prophets of old; particularly because not all that I have written was intelligent by any strain of the imagination.

But I will say that throughout my journaling, I have taken opportunity to write guidences of the Spirit, and testimonies of the Gospel. Such things were the basic principals that occupied the entries of King Benjamin, Nephi, Jacob, Enos and others. I have the advantage of only needing to make a record of myself and an accounting of my actions in my day. Well, and perhaps a record of my children until they can themselves take up the pen. I hope that my testimonies may someday be of worth to someone. I know, on occasion, they have at least been of worth to me. And maybe that is all that matters.

I found the square hole.

Remember about a week ago when I was riffing on a compost metaphor? It wasn't right, but it felt true . . . and now I know why.

It was incomplete and was basically being a square peg in a round hole. I just had to find the right home for it. Talking to my sister the other day, we discussed Depression. I can easily list more than five people in my family alone that suffer with this dis-ease. I am one of them.

I have been told and understand that Clinical Depression is chemical. I, myself, have gone the route of pills and medicine. In my experience (which does not negate the experience of another person) these things were much like muffling a gun-shot or wearing noise-canceling headphones: the gun and the noise is still there, you are just a little separated from it. Unless of course you had the misfortune to miss a pill, in which case the feelings overcame you in a mindless rush. For many, medication is the solution to their problem.

For me, it was not. Or rather, it was a short term band-aid on a wound that would not heal.

For me, and for many who I speak with, Depression and Anxiety go hand in hand. Depression is more of a "What's the point?" approach to life experiences. This leads us to find no joy in activities, in people or in the day to day events that spice the human life. Is is a give up attitude.

Anxiety compliments the big D, but is different because the Anxiety-ridden mind is ravaged by thought: ALL THE TIME. "What if this" and "What if that" and other misuses of imagination keep the afflicted persons from seeing and handling joy because they expect an awful, startling"BOO!" around every corner. They expect things to go wrong, likely because they have had that experience more often than not in their lives. The one condition could be illustrated by a tiger kept indoors, de-clawed and virtually toothless: laying there waiting to be acted upon, knowing he has no power to alter his life. The other condition could be characterized by just about any animal in a cage that once knew how it felt to roam free: pacing, fearing capture, fearing the unknown.

Simply said: Depression is fear coupled with despair. Anxiety is fear coupled with panic.

And both stem from fear.

A few years ago I was taught that the foods I eat contribute to my "chemical imbalance." To answer that, I changed my diet and periodically shake things up in regard to my vitamins and minerals. By doing so, I can today mentally cancel out what I perceive to be an emotion by going over what I have eaten that day. So: progress. I learned to understand the difference between "emotion" and "sensation." Sensations I can release, knowing they require little more than the passage of time to re-balance.

Around the same time, I began uncovering and examining my fears. Then I took steps to de-fang my fears. Frank Hurbert said it best in Dune: "Fear is the mind killer." I arm myself with the question posed by Wildman: "What's the worst that could happen?" And, so armed, I face the fear mentally and dance around it, negating the primal response of panic.

I have learned through much introspection which of my past experiences formed the reaction of Depression, and which formed the reaction of Anxiety. From that lesson, I can predict which experiences in future may trigger D&A reactions. Marry that information with what I know about me and food, I can either sidestep the situation altogether or handle it with grace as it happens.

Okay: So what does this have to do with Composting?

Life experiences pile up on our souls whether or not we want them to. They do. They pile up in our memories, the emotions pile up in our subconscious and become a heap of life weighing down our souls. Right? Or:

Could we compost?

If we imagine that each experience is tossed onto the pile of our past experiences, we have the choice to let them rot or to turn them over - mull them over - with the future in mind, with use, with learning in mind. Then we can take the experiences and spread that learning, that nutrient rich mass of knowledge around our current choices and be wise. In that way, our past nourishes our present and grows a healthy future!

As Moneo observed of Leto "I fear the unknown . . . You see everything that we know: the unknown . . . must be something new for you to know."

And it is!

The Depressed, the Anxiety-ridden: we are set apart by our seeming inability to change our lives, change our feelings or control the way we think. We cavort about as victims of our past actions, even our past in-actions haunt us in a most crippling way. We become hobbled versions of our true selves.

Now I say to you with what power I posses: It does not HAVE to be so! The idea that we are unable victims is false. We are able! We are accountable! We are powerful! We have the ability to take our past and choose to make it rot or compost, poison or antidote, fear or hope.

Is it easy? At first, no. Does it take work and focus and time? The answer to that is always yes. There are those who may read this post and decide within themselves that medication is right for them. Great. I'm not downplaying the good that drugs do for some. They gave me a much needed break. Choices are awesome and I am all for them.

This post is for me. It is to better understand where I have been and what I have learned from it. This post is so that I may remember this lesson when I feel over-run with emotion again: because it is inevitable in my nature. But this knowledge can keep me from hitting that bottom rock named "despair."

And hey, if someone out there learns something or thinks to themselves, "I'm as cool as Sayyadina; I bet I could use my powers of sensitivity for good instead of evil." (good being progression and learning while evil is cyclical self-loathing and self-damnation) Well, then I say: "You're right. I have the names and numbers of a few fantastic Life Coaches, should you require assistance." Because although I may be cool and I may be smart, beautiful and funny, I was not always so: (Okay, I was always beautiful.) I learned these truths from and with those who were kind and patient enough to guide me through the tangle that was my Self.

Now I function 97% of the time, not as a tangled mass of emotion and unconnected thought, but as a well strung Cello. And that other 3%? I work to keep it in perspective and don't give it any room to take root. Or leave rot.

I choose to compost. How about you?

Cramped week, open spaces.

Has it really been six days since my last post? We've had a busy week.

My Uncle had blood clots and was flown from Wyoming to McKay-Dee where he was treated for a week, and we visited him nearly every day.

I attended a NAIFA conference for two days aided by DreamPacker and my mom as babysitters. I heard many kind and true things said about my father and learned ever more about the importance of insurances of many sorts. Not convinced there are any? Come talk to me or my dad (or my brother in law, for that matter) and we will teach you what we know.

I accompanied Lemur on his field trip to the Ogden Nature Center (Rivulet in tow) and learned about Pond Ecology. Directly from there, we drove to SLC and arrived at Kingsbury Hall via shuttle bus just in time to tape my sister receiving her Masters in Instrumental Conducting. Then we got on the wrong shuttle bus, getting us lost in UofU traffic for over 45 minutes before finally making it back to the car and down to Chili's for lunch with the fam.

My sister and I drove further into SLC to visit my Grandma for Mothers Day.

We then went to IKEA so Lemur and Rivulet could play in SmallLand for an hour. Why? Because last Friday, Rivulet decided to potty train herself. She had been potty trained for a whole week, and her reward was a trip to SmallLand, where only potty trained children are allowed to venture. She loved her reward! And I loved the chance to visit with my sister over a soda in the cafe.

Rivuleta potty trained herself! She has only had two accidents, one at DreamPacker's house just as the horses were led to the gate, ran and won/lost the Kentucky Derby. And the other was basically my fault. STILL! I was so worried she was behind others her age. Turns out, it's a lot less problematic if I just let her decide when she wanted to. YAY!

What else . . . Went to Mountain Road Ranch to watch the Kentucky Derby. Congrats to Super Saver, though I missed the win cleaning up the aforementioned "accident." I saw it on the replay, though. :)

I tore out grass in places it didn't belong and in it's place planted Irish Moss, Creeping Thyme and multicolored petunias. Also, we filled and planted our Square Foot Garden with everything from radishes to corn to tomatoes and onions. I'm excited to see what happens next.

I tore out the thicket behind the house and found (amoung other nameless shrubbery) a Viburnum Bush. YAY! They are so fragrant and beautiful. It hasn't blossomed yet, but is definitely on it's way. The lilacs are blooming too. I love our new house!

I drove to and from The Ranch this morning (6 hours in the car total) to return my Uncle to his home, and helped clean up a bit.

I'm sure there's more that I'm missing. I know I have pictures and videos galore to document it all . . . and hopefully I will post them sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, I'm alive. SUPER alive. I'm sitting on my back porch listening to the many birds that tweet and twitter (as nature intended) as the sun begins its descent behind the western mountains. Rivulet is seated next to me, dipping her finger into her peanut butter sandwich, and licking off the peanut butter - leaving the bread whole but empty.

I think everyone should have the chance to sit on my porch as I do now. Happy and tired and happy.

It's an odd reversal in my soul to be excited for all that is to come, not even knowing what it is. I'm excited for the roses to bloom. I'm excited for the geraniums to creep. I'm excited to smell the viburnum, to sit lazily on my porch for many an evening come June and all summer eve's. I'm excited that I am finally reading again! I'm excited to see what will occupy my summer, seeing as it feels wrong to plan anything. So that must mean something is coming. I hope it's what I think it is. And I'm okay if it's something else.

I remember realizing that depression was living one's life afraid of the future: living one's life backwards. Realizing that doing so was against nature, and that was hy it felt so terrible. It amazes me to find that gardening is one of the things that turned my brain forward.

A Bit of Earth, indeed.

Contributing is my role to help my children understand their feelings. We are finally at the stage when Rivulet is feeling so much and doesn't have words to identify or describe what she is feeling. So she often says, "No," "Nothing," "Never mind," or "I don't know." Having learned how important validation is - and seeing how much it has helped Lemur to be able to give name to his many feelings - I have had the great opportunity to focus on Rivulet and help her figure out what is up with her.

It amazes me that words have connotations before they have denotations. Rivulet can intuitivly know "angry" isn't the right word for her emotion, but "upset" or "frustrated" or "scared" is. And it is up to me to help her cultivate that sensitivity and clarity.

In this vein, Lemur's teacher said something to me the other day: "You told me Lemur has a temper. But I've never seen it. He always communicates very clearly with the other children, and with me." I don't remember telling her he had a temper. I remember saying he was emotional. Anyway: At the beginning of the year, I had "warned" her of Lemur's tendancies toward emotion, and advised her that he would calm right down if she asked him to take a deep breath. And as it turns out, he hasn't had a single problem at school. Then she expressed a bit of sadness that Lemur would be transferring schools for next year. We discussed that the second grade rooms had no windows. I told her that although Lemur was distressed about that at first, I told him that it was like a super-hero's hidaway lair. She smiled and said, "Ah, so that's where he gets it. From YOU!"

As it turns out, my kids get alot from me. When I was angry, they got anger. When I yelled all the time, they did too. When I found my balance and my center, they were able to stop protecting themselves from my volcanic emotions enough to flourish.

Again I am grateful to my Life Coaches and my Tuning Fork for teaching me so much so that I may now be a better mom and guide for my babies, who are swiftly turning into children.

Well, now it's cold. The birds don't seem to mind. But my fingers do. Rivulet has abandoned me for the warmth of the house and the hope of hot chocolate. Yet I cling to the moment just a little longer. Looking over the yard, slurping up every last view of this day until I am as full as I can be.

How wonderful to discover that I always have more space in my soul for beauty and love!

Composting?

The practice of taking raw ,cast-off and mulched organic material, putting it in a shady spot and letting micro-organisms break it down into one great big pile of useful stuff where only garbage existed before. I've read that you must mulch, moisten and move. Cut up the garbage into "digestable" pieces. Not a whole branch, but chopped up bits of branch, for example.
There is supposed to be browns (wood, branches, twigs) and greens (grass, veggie leftovers, leaves) and water.
The water helps with digestion. And then there is the moving. Taking what is on the outside, scooping it up and adding it to the center, letting the center fall to the outskirts.

Why exactly did thinking about this process today try to become a metaphor for my mind? I don't know. Now that I'm writing about it, I see almost no similarities. In fact, I can't think of ANY similarities.

My thoughts . . . I do just let them pile up like garbage; most of them I even throw away without examining them for their complete worth. And maybe if I kept them in a concentrated area - a concious effort to keep them from being strewn willy-nilly about my backyard of a brain - perhaps they could . . . uh . . . feed off eachother and grow together to form something useful?

Nah. Because the purpose of compost isn't just to have good compost. You can't eat compost. It doesn't even smell good. it has no flowers. It isn't pretty and it doesn't recieve accolades from passersby . . . It's purpose is solely to nurture something else to grow. You compost to not waste organic matter and then to add nutrient elsewhere when it can no longer contribute in it's original form.

That is nothing like thoughts. Or writing. Or my brain.

I guess this goes to show that you can't make a metaphor out of a compost pile. And yet, I tried.



* I've now re-read this post 3 times. I'm not entirely sure I've failed at the metaphor entirely. . . or succeeded entirely . . . or just gone a little mad. At least I typed it very quickly. And that I can be pleased with.

Out of the mouths of my babes.

A few cute stories of/from my cute children.

Lemur woke up this morning a little sluggish. I sat down on his bed to help him pick out pants. After he had chosen the wonderful "blanket pants" I had made him last year with Wildbound's help, he plopped down next to me and told me that he had had a dream.
"What was it about?"
His eyes glazed over a bit, as though he were attempting to re-enter the dream. I imagine it's how I look when recounting one of my nocturnal movies. "It was purple blind. There was another storm."
"Purple blind?" I asked
"I can't 'splain it. That's just what it was. We were in the car. And during Dr. Laura, the radio guy came on. He said there would be damaging winds, and hail stones this big" he made a marble sized circle with his fingers, "and I was so scared. Then the guy's voice went all krshshshskkshshsh and I think he got hit by the hail!"
I could see he was very upset, so I offered an alternative: "Maybe the storm was just dense like a blanket, so the radio waves couldn't get to the car any more."
He nodded and his shoulders relaxed a little, "Yeah, maybe that's it."
"Is that all?"
"Nooo," he said. "Then it hit our car, and we were purple blind - like a curtain and gooey! So you drove us home very safe and we came inside. We could see to Grandma's house and lightning was hitting so close to her house. The storm was bigger than anything I've ever seen in my life! There was lightning, and rain and hail and snow and it was like the sky couldn't make up it's mind, already." He stopped talking, though his eyes continued to move, as though he were watching it all again.
"What else?"
"Well, the lighting struck a tree up on the mountain, and the mountain caught on fire. Other houses were getting beat up and on fire. I was so scared, mom."
I reached out a hand to comfort him. He turned to me and smiled, "But then, mom, there were all these spirits and ghosts around us. They said that we were okay, and the storm wouldn't hurt us. They said that we shouldn't be scared because scared kills the brain."
I can't explain why, but his description brought tears to my eyes. "So they were protecting us?"
He nodded, "All of them. There was like nine for each of us. We were safe because they were with us and told us that being scared just makes it worse. So we stayed inside and waited until the storm was over and we were okay. There were lots, and we were safe with them."
"You know, Lemur, I pray for that every night."
"Well, it works."

The next was with Rivulet. At my parents house today, she asked to watch Bambi *commence eye roll sequence*. I turned it on and she watched the first part with interest as I wandered away to check on dinner. I came back just in time to see Bambi and his mother going out for their first meal of spring. Rivulet became anxious as the music changed, heralding danger so I sat beside her. Bambi's mother raised her head and perked her ears. "Quick, Bambi! To the thicket!" They began running and Rivulet clutched my hand, "What are they running from?"
"Hunters,"I answered.
"Run, Bambi! Don't look back! Keep running." Then the fateful sound of a gunshot. Bambi made it all the way back to the thicket before Rivulet asked, "What happened to the Mama?"
"She was shot by the hunter."
Rivulet gasped a Rivulet gasp, putting a surprised and sypathetic hand to her mouth. "Poor Bambi."
"Yes,"I said.
"It's okay, his Mama just went to be with Jesus Christ." Her tone was matter-of-fact, and though I turned to see her face, she looked completely okay with the turn the movie had taken. Then, as Bambi found his father she said, "See, it's his daddy. He's okay now. He's like Heavenly Father."
Wow.

Rain Dance

Rumbling thunder woke me this morning. I very nearly jumped out of bed and then padded quickly to my son's window. As I pulled up the shades the sky was split with a thick bolt of lightning. Another "boom" echoed off Ben Lomond and it, coupled with my urgen whisper, woke my son from his dreams. He reacted much the same way I did: eager and excited he joined me at the window. But the storm was moving to the north and west, beyond our field of vision.

Together we quickly ran down the stairs to the bay window in the living room. I lifted the curtains to reveal a beautiful rain-soaked view of the valley. Both Lemur and I let out a deep cleansing sigh. We are rain people. Lightning again. Lemur ran back to his room to get dressed. I could not wait. I put on my jacket and went straight out the front door, standing in the middle of our lawn, facing the passing storm.

Very dramatically, there was a roll of thunder and then it began to pour rain. I lifted my face to the sky and let the drops wash over me, laughing and feeling totally free. I swayed a little, to such inner music that moved me. I was instantly reminded of Topaz in I Capture the Castle, who would go out to enjoy a rain storm in only a straw hat and hip boots. And that memory led me to my favorite line from the Broadway Camelot, especially as recited by my mother as Gueniveir:

"It's never being alone that bothers me most. Do you know, I have never been without someone around me my entire life? Neither at Camilliard or camelot. I mean, completely, totally, solitarily alone? Sometimes I wish the castle were empty, everyone gone and no one here but me. Do you know what I would do? I would bolt every door, lock every window, take off all my clothes and run stark naked from room to room. I would go to the kitchen naked; I'd prepare my own meals, naked; I would do some embroidery, naked; and put on the crown. And then I passed a mirror I would stop and say: 'Ello, Jenny old thing! Nice to see ya!'"

Now, I was not in this state - except emotionally. Although I don't doubt that my neighbors were concerned for my mental health all the same. I was outside on my front lawn at 6:54 am, in the rain, in my pajamas, showing no intention for going inside despite becoming increasingly drenched.

I opened my eyes for a moment, looking to the door hoping that Lemur was on his way out to enjoy the rain with me, but was instead met by a look from my beloved husband.

I went back inside.

And I have not yet been able to shake the feeling of well-being that standing ill-clad in the rain offered me this morning. Nor would I want to.

*Sigh*