The Great Arm Wrestle

In a total collision of serendipity, all of my sisters came to Retro House at the same time yesterday. As with any sort of gathering, I took the opportunity to talk about myself. Like I always advise, take advantage of a captive audience.

"So my shoulders and arms? They don't look like the same shoulders and arms I've always had. They are less round in shoulder and more round in the bicep area. It makes me uncomfortable to look at them."

And because we all share a common belief that our body obeys our spirit--any physical irritant can be healed through the soul--my declaration elicited a room full of response.

"You need to do something. Like yoga." Stephanie suggested.

"No, I think that the arm area is connected to your life's work. Are you at peace with your work?"

But before I could answer that (which is--yes, I am comfortable with my life's work) The Councilwoman appeared at the door and I moved to give her a meaningful embrace.

"You see," I said as I released the hug from my mother's neck "I think it is because I have given up on giving affection to anyone other than my husband and baby."

"You have?" my mother asked.

"Well, yes. I have had too many experiences where my hugging someone or touching arms or answering handshakes excitedly gave me negative feedback from the recipient. So I stopped because I didn't want to make people feel uncomfortable. And I didn't want to be uncomfortable either."

It is true. I've never been fully comfortable with hugs. Hugs. It is even hard for me to write the word. I don't know when to offer them, when to not offer them, when complications are at stake. When I first met my friend Sarah W her husband told me she didn't do hugging. Not even her family. It was a simple choice she had made in her life. This fact made me so endeared to her that now I can't help hugging her every time I see her--which is problematic. I apologize every time.

"People don't know what to do with touching and cleavage." Lucy offered.

True too. I have cleavage. All the time. Even when I wear turtlenecks (somehow?) And I have begun to see it as a natural attribute. I have blue eyes, freckles, and cleavage. It just comes with me--and I can't fight it without medical procedure. If you think I am bragging here you are crazy. Having consta-cleavage is often awkward. But maybe Lucy is right. My cleavage plus my hugging, is too much?

Suddenly I had two problems on tap. My unrecognizable shoulders and arms and my affection dilemma.

"When you are affectionate with people are you doing it out of love, or because you are flirt?" Page followed up.

"Because I am a flirt. But my loving is always manifested by flirting. I don't flirt with people I don't love."

Now, three problems had emerged.

Later that night after I spent sometime vacuuming and thinking about our afternoon conversation I got a text from Page "Don't ever change" it read.

This I shall ponder at the expense of my biceps.



***I came across a photo (see above) of my foreign shoulders and arm taken the night Vance came home from his successful trip to Mt. McKinley. He brought little prizes for me and The Chief from sweet Yvonne--a reader in Alaska. (How cool is that?) And just for the sake of celebration, here is what Vance looked like that night:

Congratulations Vance on making it to the top!

(I bet your biceps are beyond compare.)

In Summation

Last night my body was delivered to the Salt Lake airport. I am not sure where my spirit was, and to that end, I cannot not say how I got in the car and drove home--a lonely, tired passenger. But I do know my body and spirit were reunited the minute I saw my blond baby boy walking like a sailor in the den. If my recent travels did nothing for me other than provide an emotional reunion upon seeing my baby, the whole excursion was very well worth it.

Man, that kid.

This morning I felt more refreshed than my last seven days of jet lag afforded me. We went for a walk to get treats for last night's last minute babysitters, Van and Lindsay. As I approached the cashier she told me that my tag was hanging out of the back of my skirt--and where my shirt and skirt should be meeting there was an inch or so of exposed skin. If I wasn't completely sure, it was at that moment I knew for a fact I wasn't in London anymore.

Yes, back to the Puritan life for me.

As we continued our walk from the store to the Provo Temple grounds, I thought over and over about the spectrum of London vs. Provo, a comparison of Babylon and Mecca. Specifically, what am I going to do about the gap? Because in full disclosure, I walked passed a window this morning, saw my tag and skin hanging out in the reflection and decided not to do a thing about it. That was before the cashier caught me, before I was awake enough to remember I live in a town of rampant modesty.

I thought about the night Chup and I couldn't sleep and took to Oxford Circus, down Regeant to Soho at two in the morning. We followed streams of drunken revelers around pathways leading to lakes of buzzing humans. He was smoking on the curb and yelling at his buddies. She was wearing nothing but a pillowcase (I swear) and kitten heels. They were carrying a wasted friend like an Egyptian queen on their shoulders across the busy street.

We considered menus at all-night cafes in China town. We stopped at every open pasty shop for Chup's spicy chicken pie and two bottles of water (pasties will never be the same since Johnny Depp introduced me to Sweeny Todd). We swept ourselves into quiet alleyways with cobblestone streets, softly illuminated nearby pub signs. We shared a noisy bus ride home with transvestites and punks from some eastern European block.

And I loved it.

I loved the hippies on Brick Lane--those women who inspired me to wear more vintage, no matter the social cost. I loved the proportions of Leighton's Psyche, nude and lovely hanging out in the halls of the Tate Britain. I loved to smell the fruity shisha being smoked by the men on Edgware road. I love the begging gypsies on Queensway--especially the ones with the dark headed swaddled babies. I loved the couple in Hyde Park who were not ashamed to publicly pronounce their adoration of one another. I loved the overuse of spices in the menu at Tas.

Then, as always it is back to here. And never before have I been more anxious to be here, with my baby and his wobbly legs. Now I know the meaning of having literal aching arms. (I was about to steal a gypsy baby, I would've if not for the curses). On day five I was more hungry for my baby than our previous five years of infertility wrapped together.

Before leaving, along with wondering how much we'd miss our child, Chup was concerned about souvenirs, and the fact that we didn't take a camera with us. There were moments where a camera could've captured some of our best times, but in the end I didn't regret it. We were able to let moments be moments instead of photo ops. In a way, I suppose, little flashes of memories become the best of souvenirs--time capsules for the heart.

All of these thoughts powered our walk up to the temple hill this morning where we sat for a while looking at the fountains. How do I keep the excitement of Babylon and live in a place meant for the fate of the City of Enoch?

The answer came to me as we passed the golden inscription "Holiness to the Lord" on the temple's east side. All good things come to those who glorify the Lord, in the right time in the right way.

So I tucked in my skirt's tag, tugged my shirt downward, and headed home.

***photo of the Provo Temple found here.

Nothing to Hyde

Today as Chup and I boarded a train in Manchester due London, I was pumping anticipation in my veins. I was going to show my husband (a London virgin--if you will) the best of a city which has long since captured my heart. A two hour train ride, through the green, wavy hillsides--where I saw the ghosts of Austen's characters run broken hearted through the heather--passed until we arrived at Eusten station.

I was sixteen when I first met London, and a few years later I came back as a student for several months. In my younger years London was able to manipulate my energy so that I became entranced. I walked through streets and squares wide-eyed and vulnerable. For me, London represented all of the world's possibilities and infused me with thoughts of a mysterious future.

Years later, after I had married I came to London several more times as a tour guide for nieces and nephews. Though the city still washed over me with wonder, my passion became fixed on monuments, memorials and churches which only further fed my strange statue fascination. A fascination that surrounds the question: How do statues look like a human but have no soul? How do they not feel the rain on their head or the pigeons picking about them? How do they seem in thought, and yet have no thoughts?

(Also this: there is a notion of jealousy. These perfectly chiseled bodies, subject to no aging, with abs of rapture and chests of virtue. And any statue worth gazing is always embodied with emotion. To spend eternity in the throes of passionate action or reaction? Who wouldn't want to be a Rodin sculpture?)

But most of all, alone in London meant that I was missing someone. And that longing to be with my Someone made London fantastically romantic. Every kissing couple in Hyde Park, every intimate dinner conversationalists, every man on the tube with flowers reminded me of my Someone. And so, up until today London was Love.

Romantic love.

The kind that pines and swoons and catches up with you at Marble Arch when you are trying to read plaques about interesting pieces of royal history. The sentiments statues (again, the statues) spend ages and ages displaying. The city enhanced emotions so that emails read more potent. I love you meant, I really want nothing more than to sit close with you and watch the paddle boats on the Serpentine.

So there was a moment today, when I marched Chup across Hyde Park to pay tribute to my favorite bench in all of England. A bench where I had spent hours as a student writing pages and pages of personal scripture. A holy spot in all of the town which represented a birth of cultural sorts for me. And when we found my bench it was devastating to see that it no longer carried the same importance it once had.

Because, suddenly I had what I wanted. Sitting on my hallowed ground next to me was the answer to my unresolved romantic yearning. And in Dorthy fashion, I found that home was him.

"You are London. You are Paris. San Fransisco." I said to Chup.

And without much explanation Chup understood.

He was the monuments, the memorials, the interesting churches with grimy facades. He was gold gilded statues taking shelter underneath Byzantine canopies. He was infinitely tastier than the Waffle House on Queensway or the Love Bar at Pret A Manger. More handsome than Wellington's Achilles, more intriguing than Kensington Palace, more whimsical than Peter Pan.

I resolved this, and said good bye to my dear bench.

We continued our parade across the park to stare at the Albert Memorial, a tribute from his devoted wife Queen Victoria. In all, the structure is massive with exotic statues and choirs of England's elite singing praises to the prince. I've loved it since the moment I first saw it protruding out of the trees in Hyde Park.

As we approached the structure I recounted the monument's back story. We took time to look at each corner piece, representing the four corners of colonization of England. Each grouping includes a woman surrounded by courtiers of ethnicity each time riding a spectacular animal (for Asia, an elephant, the Americas, a buffalo).

And once again, I was found envious of a slab of clay with perfect breasts and wavy hair. I wondered how the woman didn't have intelligence enough to know that she was being worshiped by an entourage of African men while riding a camel. How could she not know? She has eyes, how can she not see?

But my heart was beating--especially sincerely after my recent personal discovery--and hers wasn't. I would have more than an earthly immortality, more than courtiers that never touched my hands or face. In this, I beat the statue. Next to my husband as we gazed on, I declared that I would build him a monument twice as brilliant.

"But you wouldn't have to." Chup replied staring up to the top of the memorial where the gold cross steeple meets the heavens.

So instead I kissed him as surely as I could.

And this is my memorial.

***photo of the Albert Memorial found here.

In All Things

In a couple hours Chup and I are boarding a plane for England. We'll stop in at Manchester for tea time and train it to London thereafter. As for our posterity, The Chief, he'll be here hanging with Aunt Kentucky and co. until the weekend, then he gets to be the spoils of Grumma and Popeye. I can't decide who is more lucky.

Last night we spent the evening at home with the brilliant Jed Wells snapping photos of us. Should anything happen to his parents while he basks in the sunshine of those who love him, our son will know what we looked liked as a family. Well sorta. I used to be blonde, but when The Chief woke up from his nap yesterday he found that his mother was magically a brunette.

You should've seen him look at me. It was like all the pieces of the puzzle were there, except one.

And if by chance we don't make it home--if we are toppled by a double decker at Piccadilly or drown in the depths of the dirty Thames--I want The Chief to know that I loved my stint as his mother. And I loved my adventure as a wife. And most of all, that I confess God is good.

He gave me a kind husband


a cheerful boy


and a head of naturally brown hair.


Which, I guess, isn't so bad afterall.






All blessings be.


(see you in England).

Writing the Post so I will Remember to Water My Neighbor's Garden

My neighbor was showing me how to water her garden so I can do it when they go out of town this summer. I don't know. When my neighbor goes out of town, I feel bad because I am still in town. And now, every time I water her garden it will remind me of how I am in town while she is in Lake Powell. There is nowhere I'd rather be at any given moment of my life than Lake Powell.

So that is what I was thinking about when one of my neighbor's free-range chickens started to scare my nephew Luke. And his scream was full of terror and struck me as funny because chickens really are absurd looking animals.

Then I thought about how someone in my neighborhood started a rumor that I hated chickens. And it circulated through the streets until finally, my next door neighbor heard about it and carefully approached the subject while our children played in her sandbox.

"Someone told me that you hate chickens. And you blogged about it."

First of all, I like chickens, but I won't eat chicken. So, I like live chickens, but I hate dead ones on my dinner plate. (Except for a very spiritual, orgasmic, culinary experience I had last night, but that post will come later). And second of all, is it a social status upgrade if false rumors are flying around about you? Does this mean I am my neighborhood's Jolie? Does that make Chup Brad? Am I more powerful than our neighborhood's version of Oprah?

When Luke was cool with the fowl in his face, I put him down and gazed across the fence at my property. You know, I am certified homebody. If I can get The Chief down for a nap and sit the sun for a half hour and read something stimulating I feel almost like I do when I am in Lake Powell.

That is when I stopped feeling sorry for myself.

***Image from Lake Powell from here.