Who Are We Really?

When I purchased this azalea plant

every bloom was a deep fuschia, and it bloomed for two years as a fuschia azalea bush. Then one year I noticed a lighter pink bloom. "How exciting," I thought, "...what a fabulous plant." The following year - white blooms. "Now wait a minute. Is this a schizophrenic azalea bush?"

Every day I walk by this fascinating bush and enjoy that one plant displays three distinctly different colors, and I wonder at the cause. Is it the soil? Too acidic? Too alkaline? Or is it the root system? Or perhaps the cause is in the very DNA of the plant. (Assuming of course, that plants have DNA). As my mind tends to do, I started drawing life metaphors from the sight before me.

It is always interesting when I visit Utah because most people know me as the "Cathy" they saw growing up, aka, the fuschia bloom. I'm now in a blinding white stage, but I realize I went through a light pink stage also. Also, many of the close friends in California are used to my light pink personality, and have failed to pick up the subtle clues that I am definitly more white these days. To defy all logic, my children look at me and see an orange bloom. My very own flesh and blood fail to see any pink, white or fuschia, and insist I'm through and through orange.

What I find to be my own personal truth, is although I may have been all three colors at one time or another, I'm ultimately a little of all of them, occasionally bursting forth with a major pink day, or surprising myself by the whiteness I displayed in a situation, where, dog-gone-it, I thought I'd given up that white mentality. Remember in Disney's Pocahontas, where she sings - You can't step in the same river twice, the rivers always changing, always flowing...Right On!...come to think of it most of my life philosophies can usually be summed up by Disney songs. (After raising 5 children I spent way more time with Disney than I did with Freud ) Ahhh...I digress...as to "The Tale of the Changing Blooms", who knows, maybe my children do know me best and next spring, sure enough, I'll walk out my front door and I'll behold a vibrant orange azalea.

Having fun in Paris

I can't think of anything more beautiful or joyful than my Abigail in "I'm full of life and I've just got to leap" mode. I wish all of you could see what a beautiful dancer she is. I feel soooo guilty that I never put her in dance classes, she has a gift. She moves with perfect feeling to music. And besides, she's got the best booty for shaking I've seen, since Beyonce. She's a little shy though, so if you see her, don't come right out and ask her to shake it for you. You are gonna have to warm her up with some good music; talk about nature, art, and poetry, then - bang - you'll have her doing anything you want - (of a pure and refined nature, of course)

NOTE* This blog, is not meant for any young men looking to court said booty shaker.

My Ram in the Thicket

Recently Muslims in parts of the world,as part of a religious rite, slaughtered a ram in rembrance of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac to God's wishes. I saw a picture of a young muslim girl kissing her pet ram just before the slaughter and it brought back vivid memories of when I participated in a similar event.

When I was 16 I went to Southern Utah to "survive" for 30 days off the land, while hiking over 300 miles. Usually we were given a ration of 1/2 c. dry oatmeal, 2 tbl. brown sugar, and 1 cup of flour to eat for a week. But one particular week we ate completly off the land. We ate ant larvae, black snacks of some variety, a rattlesnack, and lots of greens, while hiking over 50 miles. When we reached our base camp, a ram was tied to a pole in a small haven surrounded by trees. We were informed that we would kill the ram, to experience a profound gratitude for the ram giving up his life, that we could eat. The deeper metaphors were left for us to discover on our own.

What I remember most vividly was that this ram KNEW what was going to happen. He started breathing so heavily that he labored to just take in a raspy breath. His entire body trembled with no control. His eyes darted from person to person.

The girl that volunteered to kill the ram, elected to use a knife to slit his throat. She was not strong enough and so after stabbing the knife in, was unable to slice to the other side. A man offered to help, but with no success. Finally one of the leaders loaded a gun to kill the ram, who had been crying with an eerily newborn baby sound. The shot sounded and it was finally over.

What did I learn from this macabre experiment? Well, right then I learned that no matter how hungry I was I would not eat the meat. (I was the only one out of 35 to do so). I learned that we all share a spirit of life, witnessed by the rams behavior of pre-knowledge. I learned that if they were trying to teach me about God sacrificing his son, it did not work. I just felt horrible, with no greater principle to hold onto. As the years have gone I can't say that I have progressed into any deeper metaphor. Did I equate God The Fathers sacrifice of His Son? Partly yes, but...the lesson seemed lacking and as much as I wanted to think of God's sacrifice, I just felt empty. Mostly, I just keep thinking whoever came up with this idea, must have thought it would profoundly affect young minds to a more spiritual bent. But what actually happened for me was a disgust that a group of humans could take part in such a needlessly painful way to slaughter a living animal. It was wrong. Wrongly conceived. Wrongly executed.

I think of that young muslim girl slaughtering her pet ram and I hope that with the sacred rites of her religion, her experience will have meaning that will strengthen her beliefs, instead of leaving her bereft and questioning.

Anchors

Roy was made Bishop in our church last week. It was an amazing day with experiences too sacred to share on a blog site. My soul was full and my mind was on overload. When I was speaking I mentioned my inadequacies and questioned my ability to be a strong support. But when Roy was at the pulpit speaking, he gave me a tribute that I want to remember into the eternities. I don't know if it was the words exactly, or the feeling I could feel teeming inside him that made it so memorable. But when he spoke it was like poetry. I will share what I remember, but I'm sorry that I've lost his phrasing and words that made the imagery so beautiful.
























He said... "Catherine thinks of herself as an anchor that drags me down, but what she has never realized is that she has a depth, sensitivity, and knowledge of the gospel and life that one can only get if you have been to the depths and gained it there.

I see her as my anchor, in the best of ways. I'm able to grow and stretch and learn because she anchors me. Without her I would have been crashed on the rocks long ago."

Thank you, my dear and cherished partner. I will always treasure your image of an anchor. I love you.

Goodbyes Are Hard

My Abbie's gone to London.
I started going through all the art work of my children, trying to make space in my home after the holiday haul and I found this self-portrait of Abigail, when she was in kindergarten.

She still has a beautiful and infectious smile. She still has a little left of her original very strawberry blond hair. Her eyes have morphed into a kaleidoscope of greens, grays, and blues. And she still has a gorgeous and very huge nose (exactly like the portrait) Just kidding, about the nose.

And I'm wondering where all those 20 years went. After her four months in London she will go back to BYU and finish her education, and I realized that these last four months, while she's been home earning money for her trip, have been an unexpected and probably not repeated gift. I already said goodbye when she went off to college and now this goodbye is even more painful, cause she's grown into such an engaging and loving adult.

Goodbyes are hard, whether they are school, or a mission, or long distance moves, or even deaths. Sometimes it's hard to live in the present when our memories of treasured moments of the past entice us to linger and long for a repeat showing.

Pain

Angela spent the night in the hospital in horrible pain all by herself. She even drove herself. I get a call at 7 am from the hospital. It's a kidney stone and it hasn't passed! She's got a few more days of misery until they will consider doing surgery, hoping it will pass on it's own.
I had a kidney stone when I was first pregnant with Patrick. It was pain on a scale from 1 to 10 - a 10!!!!! (for those medically interested, it was a staghorn stone, the one in the above picture called agony - they can't pass on their own they have to be removed surgically) We don't know what kind of stone Angela has, yet.
But - my little baby - is in terrible pain and I can't do anything to help. When I went to pick her up she was trembling with pain and had a green face. She said, "There was a little baby in the other room all night, I'm just sooo glad it's me hurting, and I'm not here with one of my babies."
She also said, " I was hoping that at some point the pain gets so terrible you pass out." Yeah, like in the movies - at what point is the pain bad enough you get to experience oblivion?

Families

THERE IS NOTHING QUITE AS FUN AS WHEN THE FAMILY GETS TOGETHER!!!!!!!

Sorry.....I couldn't help it, this picture is priceless.

What I really wanted to express is how much over the years I've come to treasure my extended family. I remember just starting out in married life and everyone was wonderful and perfect. Then a few years latter, everyone had such weird quirks and ideas which could be irritating. Then several years after that, those strange traits were endearing and I realized I had as many or more strange traits as anyone. I used to become soooo frustrated when my mother would call me EVERYDAY. I was married and independent and a call to ask me daily what I was having for dinner seemed such an irritation. Now, I would give anything for that "irritation". Roy has wonderful brothers and sisters; I have wonderful brothers and sisters, and who we are in very large part is due to our parents. Ergo - our parents were wonderful. Our modern life somehow fosters the idea that if anything is inconvenient or less than perfect, from appliances to people, just get rid of it, make your life as easy and smooth as possible. But relationships are anything but easy, and the harder one works at a relationship the more valuable it will become. If we all foster patience, versus judging, our differences can be part of our strength. I've been too slow to really internalize these truths, and I'm sure I will still be challenged, but when the family gets together, you all look delicious to me, warts and all. I hope that big, old, giant wart on my nose won't keep you from loving me, cause I've discovered a real truth....you just can't have too much family.

Ruby Kat Moon

When I was in Hawaii Pat told me a story about an employee that had a horrible divorce, and at that time was allowed to petition, without legal battles, what her name would hence forward be, and she chose....Ruby Kat Moon. She then moved to Hawaii with her young adult daughter, they both got a job working on Pat's boat, and she is a fantastic amalgam of personality.

I just couldn't stop thinking about that name. It just rolls deliciously off my tongue. It has "great scope for my imagination," and I tried for days to come up with a better "life's just been shot to hell, so I'm gonna start over with an edgy sort of vivacity," sort of name. Tingles of excitement just burst around my nerve centers when I say that name...Ruby Kat Moon, Ruby Kat Moon, Ruby Kat Moon. Without a doubt, there is a Ruby Kat Moon deep inside me. A Ruby Kat Moon would wear hats, without self consciousness. A Ruby Kat Moon could say truthful and outrageous things, without feeling guilty. A Ruby Kat Moon would twirl and sing in a meadow with abandon. A Ruby Kat Moon could....oooh.....the list just goes on and on. Do you have a Ruby Kat Moon soul? And what is his or her name?

Paradise with Pat and Jess

It's been too long since I've been back from the Big Island, but it is and will always remain for me a runner-up to what Heaven has to be.

Whether the lushness of the wet side or the ocean's colors, beauty and life of the dry side, I just can't get enough.

And here is Patrick's own "A Bay" (Anaehoomalu) I just wish my cheap camera could have caught the real colors.

And my own Pat and Jess - the greatest treasure I will ever see or experience in this paradise.

The Roots of Life

When I was in Hawaii visiting Patrick and Jessie, everywhere I turned nature seemed to be speaking to me in metaphors. Anyway, life lessons seemed to pop before my eyes whether I was visiting the rain forest, or the beach or the volcanoes. Perhaps I was just in a contemplative mode, but I wanted to come home and write them all down. This picture of the tree with it's hundreds of roots pushing through the bark and heading deep into the soil spoke forcefully to me of my own "roots". Is every energy source necessary for my growth reaching for fertile soil? Do I struggle past the inconveniences or hardships to breakthrough and reach the rich nutrients awaiting me? And am I firmly, determinedly, holding on?
Saying all this is probably redundant, for you probably got all that just by looking. But, wow, isn't that tree a sermon? Now, for this tree...
Further on in my walk in the botanical gardens I came to the older more mature version of the first tree. I certainly felt this trees age. I felt like my roots had been struggling for soooo long, but sometimes they dried along the way trying to reach the deep soil. Some of my roots were brittle from hard lessons, or life just not turning out the way I'd thought. But, other of my roots were still just as vital and were reaching down from tremendous odds to stay firmly planted.
I guess you could say the first tree was me at 25; strong, assured and sure of my course and outcome. The second tree is me at 50; seasoned, broken in places, but still struggling. A kind of enduring sort of beauty, not particularly beautiful, but admirable.

Transformation

Transformation can happen when a few key elements come into play at the right time and in the right setting. Walking on a windy day, the threat of rain ( even a few drops make it better), rays of sun pushing their way earthward between moving clouds, AND...just the right music. Before you know it I'm transformed into an ageless sprite freed from reality, restrictions and despair, where possibilities abound and my body beats with the rhythm of music and nature, where unadulterated joy rushes along my nerves and suddenly, in the middle of the street, I've been known to dance. I've been known to reach my arms skyward, palms up, back arched, and twiiiiiiirl. A slow, all encompassing twirl, drinking in the elements. I've also been known to strut with a cocky sort of attitude, if the music has a strong beat and attitude.
An ode could be dedicated to the wind, or the sun rays or the moving clouds, but it's the "right" music that I'm thinking of now. A swelling of violins, or a syncopated piano rising from bass to a sentimental treble cleft.
Example - swelling starts -If could fall into the sky, do you think time would pass me by...
cause I'd walk a million miles...violins crescendo - if I could just see you.....tonight. violins madly stringing... tada da da da duh.
Or something terribly drippy and sentimental -
Don't dream too far, Don't lose sight of who you are, Don't remember that rush of joy,
He could be that boy....I'm not that girl.
Or, something with drawn out vowels
Pretty lady on my mind got me gone (gauhn) again
Or, an unusual male voice
John Mayer, Ben Harper....
Or, a strong beat with personality
(STRONG DOWN BEAT/ REST) Come on over, Come on over baby
The next thing you know - I start strutting and life is goooood.

I brake for rats!

Today I swerved to avoid hitting a rat in the street. It was sitting on it's hind haunches and eating smashed leftovers and I slowed, recognized it was a rat, and swerved. Here in Northern California, as in other areas, rats are disgusting, carriers of disease, and I swerved. What has happened to the little girl who used to put a stone on the body of a daddy long legs and proceed to pick off, one by one, the spiders legs, or the girl that used to burn to toast any handy bug that I could put under my magnifying glass? Do you know that I now go out of my way to carefully trap bugs in my house so I can release them in the backyard? President Spencer Kimball told of a song called, "Don't kill the little birdies," that changed how he forever saw any living species. We once had a mole in our front yard that was destroying the many dollars worth of landscaping that we had invested in. We tried everything, and finally Roy plugged up all the holes but one, then flooded the routes out, all the while waiting with a shovel to crack his skull. He finished the job, came in the house, took a shower and came out still shivering. It was a horrible experience that he even teared up over. And.....I'm glad he did. Cliched as it is, life becomes precious the older you get, and in animal years I'm ancient. I'm glad, I think, that I "brake for rats," although I don't think I'll put that on my bumper sticker.

The Magic Bag of Happiness

Don't be alarmed but if you look at the picture to the right you will actually be looking at
"The Magic Bag of Happiness." That's right folks...it's here...
and it's real. On the day of my 51st birthday my grandson James was concerned that there were no balloons, no plans for a party, no games, not near enough presents and we were just having a lousy old dinner to celebrate my aging event. So while I enjoyed myself outside on the hammock with a cross word puzzle - the better to allow all the cooks in the house to whip up a feast - James came out several times chatting with me, in his very articulate and grown-up syntax, explaing that he was gravely worried that my birthday was a bust. (He just didn't understand that for a woman that has cooked dinners for all of her life, a good dinner prepared by "qualified" hands other than her own, is a marvelous present.) But back to the magic bag...after a goodly while James comes out cradling, as if a treasured baby bird, "The Magic Bag of Happiness." Now, so you have some background...this bag is very familiar to me. It is a bag containing a child's game called "Rush Hour Jr," which includes plastic cards, a small grid, and playing cards - hence - my puzzlement in why he's gently cradling it.
"Grammy, this is "The Magic Bag of Happiness" and when you choose one of the pieces inside, it will give you whatever you need to make you happy." James senses my skepticism, "Now if you touch a car...it's not really a car, and if you touch a card...it's not really a card." Wow, this is getting really trippy ---"No, Grammy, it's just something to hold onto. It's grabbing it out of the bag, THIS bag that makes it magic." Looking into those sparkling and earnest blue eyes, who was I to doubt? Magic? Happiness? He's right. I have it everyday. All I have to do is stop, really look, believe, and reach - ahhhh, a hug from my James (or
Chase) - yup, it's all around me.

My Fairy Tale Ending

I kissed my prince and he turned into....a dolphin. That would be the happy ending to my fairy tale. All my life I have loved dolphins. As a pre-teen I would walk the mile and a half to our town library and spend Saturday afternoons studying about dolphins, then go home to dream about them. Luckily when I got my license I could drive to the Salt Lake library which had greater depth and variety to my favorite subject, but still spend my free time studying this fantasy of mine, instead of perhaps....ah....dating-or at least dream of dating-like any healthy 17 year old.

When I was pregnant with Angela, Roy and I traveled to San Diego's "Sea World." Tears ran down my cheeks the moment the dolphins swam into the large show pool. After the show, Roy held me as I continued to cry and tried to make sense of my feelings. Dramatic? Okay, no question, but it was the pinnacle of all I had dreamed. I was just a hick, small town, Utah girl who wasn't ever going to go to such exotic places as San Diego, California. But- exotic did enter my life when, as a young mother, we moved five miles from our own "mini" Sea World. At this marine world there was a dolphin petting pool, which I would spend every second my whining children would allow. *Note: they had a point - they were missing the whale show, the tiger show, and the fantastic playground, while mom wooed this fat dolphin called Gordo. But Gordo and I became best of friends. He allowed me, and me only, to pet him when I was there, ignoring all the other reaching hands. After letting my children drag me away to actually spend time with them, I returned to Gordo after an hour absence. He circled the pool increasing his speed till water slooshed out, finally rising high above me to spit in my face. I was devastated until the docent explained that he was acting out his anger; after all, I had abandoned him for a whole hour. Gordo died about a year later and that was then end of my dolphin days. Although my son Pat, who lives in Hawaii, frequently has awesome encounters with dolphins ( I'll let him blog about ), it still left me on the outs. But, this summer we went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom - a cheesy, tacky excuse for "animal shows", in the guise of an amusement park. James and Chase got splashed by the orcas, but the show was bad. It would hurt too much to see the sacrilege they would make of the dolphin show. I just couldn't go. But just before we left I saw a small sign in a neglected corner of the park, "$45.oo to pet a dolphin" - sooo..., I used to pet Gordo free as often as I wanted, sooo... Pat gets to swim in their native environment; free of gimmicks and a pure encounter, so? I'm desperate. I paid. I petted and rubbed and cooed and kissed and even now, writing about it, tears are welling in my eyes. Dramatic? Yeah, but......he's my prince.

The Bad Fairy

Santa Claus in the Robinson household was great!!! The Easter Bunny - probably a little better than average. The Tooth Fairy? An abject failure. Roy and I have never been able to pinpoint exactly why the tooth fairy just didn't have the drive and passion to fulfill her or his calling. Picture the scene: a toothless grin in an eager face, talking constantly of the coming night with the magical transformation, and the morning when he or she peeks under the pillow delighted with the coins left in place of the very familiar tooth they had wiggled endlessly. They are tucked in, assured that the tooth fairy is somwhere near just waiting to delight them. Morning comes - NO COINS - the tooth's still in the envelope - look some more - no coins. At this point a very sad and disillusioned child comes to breakfast with the envelope in their hand. It's now up to mom to explain this fiasco. "Oh, honey I'm sure the fairy just forgot." (good one mom- now the kid thinks they're not worth remembering) or - "I'm sure the fairy just had an extra busy night, soooo many teeth, you know." ( oh so, now the busy fairy gets to all the kids but yours, how do you think that feels?). Now replay this exact scene over for the next night, and the next, and the next. No kidding, now you know how deprived dear little Abigail felt. Her experiences were the worst. But each of the five children all lived with the failure of being remembered by The Tooth Fairy. Not just one time but with several of their teeth. There are no excuses, nothing can justify the wrenching pain and lifetime of scars that disgusting fairy inflicted on the Robinson children. Booooooo to that fairy!!!! Booooo!