One More Story from the Book I Never Wrote

It’s important to have healthy outlets for anger and frustration besides ones that damage stuff or make big messes, because guess who has to clean it up? One time I was coming in from shopping with my five small children who had been fighting all the way home from the grocery store. (Why on earth I took all five with me is a mystery.)  I was in a hurry to get all the food unloaded from the car and into the house, because someone needed to go to dance or something, and we were running late.  I had everyone helping but they were still fighting, making rude remarks, etc. to each other and I was to the boiling point.  After repeated efforts to get them to stop with no success, I finally decided to drive the point home.  I grabbed whatever was on the top of one of the grocery bags nearest to me, which happened to be a two-pound sack of powdered sugar and started swinging it at the nearest child.  He ducked, and I kept swinging and he kept ducking.  I don’t remember the details clearly, except that out of the corner of my red rage, I noticed something white flying through the air. When I finally stopped swinging and tried to make sense of what was going on around me, I realized that, yes, they had stopped fighting, and oh no, the white stuff was powdered sugar, about two pounds worth, coating most everything in the room, including the children.  Big mess, huh—what did I tell you, don’t use powdered sugar as an outlet for anger.  It was complicated by the fact that our table on which we were unloading the groceries was on a small area of carpet, original color unknown, which I had scrubbed previously that day and was wet, with a fine dusting of white sugar which was being soaked up by the water still in the carpet.  At that point I mumbled something like, “Clean this mess up by the time I get back,” knowing full well that I couldn’t clean it up by the time I got back, let alone four kids who would each need several towels and all the rags to themselves.  As I was driving up the road, my youngest who was with me ventured a comment to me, saying, “Mom, you got to admit, it was funny when the bag broke.”  I had to agree and we giggled all the way to dance class.

Dreamer Part 2

I recently wrote about my breakup with the Tab Choir and how it has affected my life.  I have struggled a long time to set things right in my spirit and heart.  Since I left the choir, I have had a sister-in-law (among others) invite me to join a choir they sing in, I will like it, they say, they could use me, etc.  I have not felt like I wanted to do it.  I wasn't ready for a new commitment of that type.  And how could I ever find anything comparable to "my" choir? I didn't think it would happen. 

I spent a lot of time checking on my sore and tender places where there were big gashes left from ripping away from the Tab choir, and I didn't know how to fix them. But something happened one day, something that tempted me to try singing with a choir again (a choir a little more intense than ward choir which I had already started doing) Feeling adventuresome, I saw my sister-in-law Myrl at a family party this late summer and I said to her, "I think I'm ready to try singing in a choir again."  Her face lit up and she said, "I'll send you a link to the website and you can sign up and I'll pick you up for rehearsal this Sunday." Apparently they had just started meeting and rehearsing again for the fall and Christmas season.  I went home and the link was already there in an email from her.  I clicked on it, went to the site and immediately got cold feet.  What was I thinking? I wasn't really ready, or was I? It seemed scary and risky and...I just quit thinking about it for a bit.  

Later in the week, I went to my sacred place to worship and meditate. I had some things on my mind and I needed sanctuary from the outside and solace for the inside of me.  While there, I thought, "Why don't I put this choir thing to the Lord and see if He has any counsel for me?"  Almost before I could pose the question I got the answer, loud and clear: "Yes. Do it."  I was a little surprised but I decided at that moment I would go to the rehearsal scheduled for the coming Sunday and "see." I would audition the choir, and then decide from there.

There were two other ladies besides Myrl who drove in the car pool to choir together (kind of like Tab choir), one of whom I already knew.  We chatted and laughed and swapped a few stories and then we were at the chapel. I nervously went in, kind of hovering close to Myrl. She and the other two women were sopranos and they were planing to sit in a different place than me, a lonely alto.  I said, "I feel like a kid on the first day of school or something."  She acknowledged my anxiety and said, "Let me introduce you to some of my friends--look, there's Donna."  The benches were spotted with a few individuals and littered with purses, bags, music folders, etc. saving spots for their friends. We walked over to the other side of the chapel and Donna said hi and made a place for me next to her, scooting over a music folder.  We were there kind of early but within a few minutes the place filled up.  

Our conductor, Kelly DeHaan arrived and wandered up to the stand.  I stared at him for a few minutes, not immediately recognizing him.  I knew him from Tab Choir and the last time I had seen him he was playing the role of Sancho in Man of La Mancha at Hale Theater.  I stared intently at his face and realized it was indeed him, but he was missing about 100 or so pounds or so.  I asked Donna about it and she filled me in on his journey of illness and surgery and having to rest his voice for a year.  Wow.  She also told me he still did all of his different choirs, including his main job, a high school music director.  This choir we were in, Sterling Singers, was an unpaid job, an offering back to God for all of the gifts he felt he had received. I had no idea.

I opened up the music folder and glancing through it, I froze.  Were we really going to sing these arrangements by Mack Wilburg? I knew this stuff.  I loved this stuff.  I MISSED this stuff!!  The organ cranked up the amazing intro to Joy to the World and when the choir voices joined in, I couldn't hardly hold it all.  I nearly faltered as I fought to channel the emotion rising in me into the music.  My soul soared! My heart was bursting.  I sang on, with gusto.  I shed a tear or two but kept singing with everything I had, adding my joy to the world.  The sound encircling me was glorious.  I wallowed in the effect of the chords and musical transitions and crescendos. I was nearly out of my mind.  I was experiencing the same feelings of rapture I had felt when I sang with that other choir--my ex-choir.  Up to this point I had been resigned to the fact I would never have the same singing experience again in this life--but no! I was wrong, thankfully wrong.

As the rest of the night unfolded, I allowed the doors I had shut on portions of my wounded soul to open. Little by little, the bits and pieces of sorrow slipped away and floated off with the notes of music I sang.  I was grateful Myrl had patiently invited me, more than once or twice to join this choir. I was grateful I followed the counsel of the Lord (especially when I had asked) to come and sing.  I was humbled with the agreement of my husband Wally's support to do this thing again.  Granted, it was not a year round commitment, and the rehearsals were shorter and only once a week, but still, he knew what it meant for him, and for me.

A couple of months have passed.  Donna saves me a place each week. The pieces are coming along nicely.  I know we may never have the precision of timing or pitch that come with singing in the Tab Choir so long and hard, and I will never have the voice a younger me owned, but we are all kind of close. The music is still powerful and uplifting.  And I have learned some new music for the first time we never sang in the other choir. It's beautiful and moving.  I am happy. I am feeling whole again, in ways I didn't anticipate would ever happen. Our conductor's personality is like a mixture of some of my former conductors--precise, loving, funny and really good. Something happens when people give of their time, talents and energy to create something better than anything they could do alone, something to honor their God. It's powerful, and I am so grateful to be a part of this magnificence.

Dreamer, Part 1

I had that dream again.  I was downstairs in the Tabernacle women's dressing room, wearing the Olympic blue dress, sparkly necklace dipping out in front as I bent to ease my heel into one of my black concert shoes.  The air was electric, full of spirit and positive energy in the bustling and chatty wardrobe room.  I strode forward and towards the stairs, music in the crook of my arm, dressed and ready to perform.  I grabbed a portion of the skirt of my dress, feeling the texture of the solid and durable crepe in my fingers as I walked up the stairs. I headed toward the library, very aware of an almost effervescent happiness and sense of belonging in my soul.  My task was to ask for a recording for rehearsal purposes of the new numbers I had heard the choir singing at a recent concert with the American Choral Directors Association.  I put my music down in front of me on the library window counter and stared hard at it as the thought process played out in my mind---wait, why didn't I already know the music? Wasn't I singing at that concert, and--oh no.  Is this real or is it a dream?

I woke up to the darkness of my room, crickets singing outside the window.  I gently tugged the light bed cover over me for comfort and burrowed my face into my pillow as the feeling of intense sadness washed through my body once again. I silently prayed for the Comforter to come and bring me the peace I sought in this moment. 

18 months ago I was released from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir after a "career" of 21 years.  One third of my life I served with them.  It is past tense.  Often when people ask me about the choir, I answer the question using the word "we" and now it's "they."  I'm still transitioning, after all this time. When kind friends ask me questions like, "Wow, it must be hard for you after all that time spent with the choir to not be able to sing with them--how are you doing?"  I tell the truth.  "Bad," I say.  "But it's getting better. Most days.  Other days it's still like a bad divorce." I compare it to going through a mutual break up with a boy friend.  I am sad and dealing with it but know it's necessary.  Then I see him on TV a week later, happy and singing his heart out with his new group of admirers, not even missing me and doing just fine, while I am in shock and feeling so betrayed he could go on without me because I can barely function through the grief.

Trying to analyze just what it is I am missing is difficult as there are several layers.  One is the flat and empty place where there used to be incredible spiritual highs. Some of the music we sang sent my heart borne heavenward and beyond. Music sung by a choir of people who have consecrated their time, talents and energy to the mission of that choir is hard to describe, it must be experienced. And experience it I did. The spirit blessed our work, and I felt it and I am missing the filling of my soul by this music.  

I  miss raising my voice in unison with those surrounding me, combining with my own personal praise.  I miss the genius of our directors with their intelligent and well placed quips and lines of correction and encouragement. I  miss the growth coming through the challenges, intellectually, spiritually, plus socially. They were my family, a special choir family.  I saw pictures of their students, children and grandchildren, and knew their stories of life and challenge and love and laughter.  I traveled with them, ate with them, laughed with them, and sang with them. We hugged and cried and performed together.  We experienced some of the most incredible times of our lives together, leaving no challenge to try to explain why it was so amazing, because we all were there, together.  


I miss seeing the "Men in Black," our nickname for the stage crew, one of who was my husband, creeping around during broadcast, trying not to be seen as they placed a harp for an upcoming number or removed a group of metal stands, trying to avoid clanging them against each other as they shuffled them offstage. There was a certain sense of satisfaction having Wally close, working together on such a magnificent project.

Honestly all of the choir experiences weren't heavenly--some were downright hard and bordered on scary.  Like the first time we performed a whole concert, two hours' worth of music, from memory.  Or like the many times I missed family events because I had made a commitment to this organization and I just couldn't skip.  Late nights at recordings and long rehearsals before and after broadcast challenged my abilities to stay dialed in and fight off weariness and sometimes sleep.   But I still miss it.

Something must be said about the identity the choir became for me. I understand the choir is famous--I wasn't. But many friends and family introduced me to others with: "She sings in the Tabernacle Choir" and I found it was enough to make me popular and remembered. As my retirement time grew closer, I began asking, "Will you still like me even when I'm not in the choir?"  It was a tongue-in-cheek question but there was some underlying shadow to it, coupling a little fear with desperation as I couldn't turn back the calendar.  

Now the time is indeed passed, and I am depending on time to help me heal. I don't know how long, and I don't know what to do except let time go by--until my experience last night. This time it was not a dream. 

Keep the House Clean or Sanitary, You Choose.

Last post I wrote about a book I thought about writing when I was younger and taking care of a young but large family.  My second chapter was titled,  "Keep the house clean or sanitary, you choose."  Here is what remains of the effort:

My first five children all came within a couple of years of each other, then there was a silent break and we got two more—but that’s another story.

The fun thing about having them all quickly is they were usually excited to do the same project.  There was a time when the youngest was old enough to enjoy the activity and the oldest was young enough to really have fun with all the sibs.  I called those the golden family years.  I loved going places together, because they were all excited and they all helped each other and I felt like the Pied Piper, happily leading this group of children off to fun times. 

The hard thing about having children close together was the mess.  I’m talking about the place where we ate, slept and played—our house.  It was impossible for me to keep it all organized and picked up, let alone the wash done and the meals on time.  Cleaning windows was just a dream. I never really did get the hang of it.  I don’t really know what I expected but I thought I could have done better. 

There were times when I would dig in and spend a few concentrated hours in a bedroom, deliberately and mechanically sorting each Lego and bristle block, marble and hot wheels car, until all were placed in their labeled and color-coded bin on the closet shelves, meanwhile ignoring all the racket and/or suspect silence in the rest of the house.   I would accomplish something—for me, it was a place well organized in my mind’s eye when I walked out of the room, and for the kids it was a clean slate to begin new play.  Within moments, the tidiness would be discovered and out it all came, for a rousing game of “garbage man” or else a new and improved project to be abandoned once again when it was meal time. 

There were some things that drove me wild—like honey or syrup on the counter tops or a toilet seat that needed cleaning. I would drop everything to take care of those problems, but inevitably something else would suffer.  I had a patient husband who didn’t complain very often about moving the Rocky Mountains disguised in unfolded clean clothes off the bed at night so he could go to sleep, or never blamed me when he had to step through the wild toy night-party in the hall on his way to the bathroom, even when it meant he would probably be prying a Lego or two out from between the toes.  His kind patience with our messy family touched me and I tried to think of what I could do to make it better for him.

One day I heard the car drive up and I knew he was home.  The table was set for dinner, and there was actually food ready to eat, but the kitchen floor was a mess.  Several different kinds of cereal were concentrated under the table; bread crusts and cracker crumbs paved the rest of the floor between the stacking rings and super balls randomly rolling across the floor.  I had sudden inspiration and I grabbed the broom and quickly removed the debris from the path he would walk to the table and where his feet would rest while eating dinner.  It was great, and it worked.  No tell-tale crunching underfoot!  I felt very successful that night, and often repeated the same quick clean up just before he walked in the door. 

One Clean Rag

Once I thought I would write a book, entertaining, humorous yet filled with bits of wisdom type of book.  Well, I have written, or rather co-written, several books about my ancestors, but those were not the kind I originally had in mind.  I'm in the process of moving files from my old computer to my new one, and took the challenge from my computer consultant (my son) to "clean house." This metaphor nicely segues into my topic I had chosen for a book I found when deleting old files: One Clean Rag.  I read it and slightly revised it, but for the most part, here is the first chapter and opening:

Now why would someone like me who is homemakingly handicapped want to share with someone like you, or anyone at all, tips and experiences from my life as a homemaker, or to use a more up to date term, “stay at home mom?”  (Both of those terms are misnomers anyway.)

Good question.  I can’t answer it except for my mind just keeps going several hundred miles an hour while I fold clothes or pull weeds, etc.  That’s my idea of dove tailing my tasks, thinking about other things while my hands are doing something else.  That’s the only way I could ever get through a toddler’s diaper change while pregnant and expecting the next one, that and an orange peel.  I learned how to change one handed almost while the other hand held the orange peel up to and covering my nose, then I discovered I could hold it gently between my teeth so the peel would curl up towards and sometimes over my nose.  It really works!  So there’s tip number one: the orange peel trick.  Use it and you will have no gagging. 

Anyway, back to what I am thinking about while I am vacuuming, etc.  My mind goes and goes and if I wasn’t so busy then I would write down all the things I think about. I am lucky if I even remember what I was thinking about a few hours after completing the task. But that is how I came up with a title for this book.  I remembered wishing this once---if I just had one clean rag. 

I don’t know what it is about kids, but when I clean the bathtub, toilet, sink and mirror, I use two rags, a wet one and a dry one.  I clean the mirror first because I have tried to clean it last and it doesn’t work, the dry rag is too wet.  Anyway, when my kids had to do the job, they used all the rags in the cupboard, plus most of the towels (and apparently some of the washcloths, because eventually those that used to be blue or green had white spotted areas on them).  Once after an army of small people helped clean, I ran to the bathroom cupboard for a rag to soak up something awful, and there was not one to be found.  Just a pile of soaking wet towels, rags, and washcloths on the floor, with the smell of cleanser in the air. My wish in that moment was to have one clean rag. 

A hard thing it is to teach a child what a real rag is (as opposed to nice kitchen towels) and use real rags to clean up things like oil, grease or paint.  Oft times they confused the dishtowels and dishrags with real rags, and I got real grouchy when I walked out in the garage, spied one of my newer  kitchen towels, tried to pick it up and found that it was permanently stiff and shaped in the position it was last used.  Sometimes I was not able to even pick it up because it was stuck to whatever someone tried to “clean up.”  If that happened, I went in the house and played solitaire on the computer until dinnertime.  It’s important to have outlets for  frustration and anger besides ones that damage stuff or make big messes, because guess who has to clean it up???? Or else buy a new something??? (My cousin Joan lays down on the couch with a spoon and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and watches TV.)

Something needs to be said about the fact my children tried to clean up after themselves, and also complete the tasks they were given.  "A" for effort kids, and also for cooperation.  And I also get kudos for teaching them and then stepping back and allowing them to learn for themselves, regardless of the risks of unraveling greater messes than the ones they were cleaning up. 

Now, later in my life, things are much different. I look at mothering from the perspective of a grandmother and I don’t really care so much about the rags--I finally have enough.  They are all stacked nice and neatly, folded even, some under the kitchen sink, some in each bathroom, and a kitchen drawer full of matching dishtowels and hand knitted dishrags, just waiting to be used.  Wally can even find them without asking me where they are.  Things change when the kids leave home.  I guess I'm one of those things.

DNA Testing--Now why did I do it?

I got caught up in the excitement of a couple of my sisters' DNA testing and I decided I would join the club.  After spitting in a tube (spit, gag, spit, gag, etc.) enough to fill it to the blue line, I regrouped and finished the test, dumping in some kind of stabilizer by pressing a release gadget, and then I sent it off wrapped and sealed in a nice little benign package already prepared and stamped with the postage to Ancestry.com.  They sent me the test tube cup and instructions and so now I send it back. After a few days, I got an email saying they had the test and soon there would be someone reading it.  And it was true.  A few more days went by and I got a notification. I opened my Ancestry account and according to my little helices, 62%  came from Great Britain, 25% Scandinavia, and 9% Ireland. Yes, there is a little percentage missing here but according to DNA experts anything less than 5% is considered "noise." Too bad.  I was a bit excited about the 1% European Jewish.

The second part of the DNA excitement was the raw data.  My sister Brenda told me to download it and then send it to Promethease.com which I did.  20 minutes later they had completed sending it through their computer base comparing me to several others (who are they and how many?) and I got a complicated and interesting report back. I have since taken up a new hobby besides knitting baby sweaters and watching interesting British movies and series on Netflix (Oh! the British! No wonder!).

I am pouring over this report and learning all about my tendencies.  Hmmm, what should I share? The four categories are Medicine, (what works for me and what won't). Medical Conditions (self explanatory), Topics (everything from male baldness to memory to micro-nutrient metabolism), and ClinVar.  What is ClinVar?  I looked it up of course, and read a little about it.  Here is a definition from a blog written in 2013 accessed through Google search:    The purpose of ClinVar is to “provide a freely accessible, public archive of reports of the relationships among human variations and phenotypes along with supporting evidence”.  This means it helps us understand disease and all potential targets for the disease. The writer, from Aspen Biosciences Blog, admitted that ClinVar is a work in progress, which makes sense. Every day new stuff is discovered and added to the database so to speak, and then all of us lay people can Google away and find out cool stuff about our bodies. Or at least the diseases we have a potential to get because of who our parents are, and who their parents were, and so on. 

So how does all this help? Well, one way is you go to your doctor and say "I need some medication for depression, and this, this, and that probably won't help me because my DNA raw data has revealed information about how my body doesn't metabolize those meds. But why don't we try ___?" Beats the old method of "Try this for six weeks and if it doesn't work, don't worry, there are other ones out there we can go to for results." Another little tidbit of info that interested me--my body is not absorbing much of the folate I take in. Why do I need folate? Well it's an essential B vitamin aiding the body in development of red blood cells and supporting the function of the nervous system. Someone said this is linked to our ability to think clearly . . . oh man, if the solution were only that simple.

Yep. Lots to think about.

A Series of Unfortunate Events Part 2

  The hives finally ran their course just in time for me to pack up and head off for youth conference in a place near Afton, Wyoming, and spend a few days and nights with very little sleep, as teenagers don't seem to need it.  The first night there Eryn hurt her foot, creating so much pain she couldn't even touch it to the ground.  The second day, hopping on her good foot, she sprained her ankle. The third day, we drove home early in the morning and I was calling Wally on the way, asking him to pick up some crutches for Eryn as we had to get her to the Instacare for x-rays and a diagnosis and some help.  I reminded him of the reunion later that day and he asked what needed to be done to prepare for the event, and so he made a potluck dish and got the car loaded up and ready (while tending two of our grandchildren) so we could be there on time. Meanwhile we found Eryn had dislocated the toe on her foot and we were lucky the Dr. was able to put it back in place--I say lucky because there was so much swelling he wasn't sure it was going to happen. Also Eryn's mom showed up (from California) just at the right moment to take over and I was able to go home and shower.
   The reunion was great, I had fun with my siblings and other family members, that night I got some sleep, and I thought we had turned a corner. Wally had once again bailed our family out of near disaster. That evening, Eryn said, "Why is there water coming out of this cupboard under the sink?" On closer examination Wally saw there was a rusted out connection and it was time for a new garbage disposal. Sunday we told our visiting family to use the other sink and explained the problem.  My son in law Jessie said, "Well, at least your new credit card is here so you can get a new disposal." He said it tongue in cheek but it was true.  Early Monday morning Wally ran to Home Depot before work and installed the new equipment and had it up and running before he went off to lay brick. That night I noticed the dishwasher wasn't draining so he removed the disposal again and popped out a little plug to fix the problem, and reinstalled it again. 
    Monday at work it got hot.  103 degrees as a matter of fact.  I had a lot of time to think about stuff while I was mowing and weeding and all of that.  I knew when I got home I would be worthless, yet one more time again.  I started thinking about the order of importance of things in my life.  I realized my plate was so full, it was overflowing and things were falling off and I was constantly calling on Wally to pick up the pieces. I was not considering him first, but last.  That was backwards.  I was giving most of my energy to my job, and then my volunteer assignments with church were next, and then my family.  I needed to make a change.  Early the next morning I sent off an email of resignation to my boss. He was out of town, touring with the Tabernacle choir as the stage manager. Needless to say he was not pleased. After some negotiations with him and counsel from my husband, we came to an agreement I would work with varied hours weekly, only as much as I was willing to commit to.  The challenge I faced was I love my job, the people I work with, my boss, where I work, and what I do.  It is one of the few things I do for personal pleasure--strange, I know.
   The next weekend was the 4th of July and we had a wonderful Reunion at our house with our kids and grand kids.              Things have started looking up. 
So what did I learn with these events? First, I learned it might be a good idea to get two credit cards, one to use and one for an emergency. Second, I learned when you have to go through your stuff because of a flood, it's a good opportunity to get rid of things you really don't use or need. Holding on to things "just in case" is kind of a way of hoarding.  I have it so no one else can use it, and I'm not even using it. And you can take as long as you like to put things back in the disassembled rooms in your house, it will wait for you. Third, I know it's good to listen to your body and your heart (and others around you) and slow down a little when you need to.  I admit I like living in the fast lane but sometimes going around the corners the wheels can come off and then what do you do? Usually I just call for Wally, but darn it, I want him to take the ride with me, not just watch me spin off in a new direction every day or so and then rescue me. And finally, I know it's my family who gives me the real motivation to do what I do, the real support when troubles arise, and the love that feeds me and centers me and makes me whole.  Thanks, guys. Love you, too.
And now I need to prepare for girls' camp.