The DMV

As a new Wyoming resident, I went to get a Wyoming driver's license. The routine is a fairly simple one, until January. (It gets more complicated in January). Now, though, in 2009, you only have to present an old license, pay $20, and take an eye exam.

I hate eye exams. An eye exam was the first test I ever failed. It was 2nd grade and I had to get glasses. I've had glasses ever since. Year after year, I fail eye exams and my prescription gets stronger and stronger. You can't study for an eye exam, you know.

At the DMV I looked into a machine. There were tiny little numbers in there. Teeny tiny ones. I could make out the first and last and took a guess that they went in order.

"6 7 8 9 10," I said.

I passed.

More little numbers.

Was I really supposed to be able to see these? I guessed. Half wrong, half right.

More little numbers.

"I can't read those," I admitted.

Maybe I can hire someone to drive me around, I thought.

The screen clicked. The numbers got bigger. I passed.

I drove home, passing speed limits signs with great big, bold, black numbers on them.

Sheets

I used to be in a writing group with Lynne. One day she was reading a piece about clean sheets and how good they smell when they've been dried outside, on a clothesline.

"Wait," I said. "Is that how they get that smell?"

I'd been wondering why, all these years, my sheets never smelled fresh and new after a washing like they did when I was a child. It was one of those fleeting mysteries of childhood; a moment I tried to re-create every time I washed my sheets, but it always fell flat. Somehow, my sheets never smelled the same as I remembered. I used the same laundry detergent my mother did. I used the same dryer sheets. Still nothing.

I dry my sheets in a dryer. I dry all my laundry in a dryer. Hanging clothes on the line was one of my most dreaded chores. I didn't mind taking the clothes off the line so much, because it went much quicker. But hanging them up? No thank you. I served an LDS mission to The Netherlands. No dryers. We hung our clothes on racks in our apartments. When they dried, my clothes were hard and stiff. I couldn't wait to use a dryer again. I love when my clothes come out of the dryer, soft and still warm.

But I'd give anything for my sheets to smell like they did when my mother washed them.

We've moved to Wyoming.

It is different here.

The houses are older. There are mature trees. We have a clothesline in our backyard.

After I washed our sheets, I hung them out there to dry. The clothespins were cracked and sun-bleached. The air moved like a whisper around me, barely a breeze. I pinned some of the worries I've carried for a long time up there with those sheets. I didn't take them down again.

When I slept that night my bed smelled like earth and sunshine. I breathed deep and felt almost young again.

Butter 2

Another essay on butter I wrote at the BYU WIFYR Conference:

My grandpa spread butter on his waffle slowly and carefully, so that it sank into every hole. He topped it with thick maple syrup, pouring slowly row by row, filling the indentations with sweet stickiness.

 High cholesterol runs in our family. We shouldn’t butter our bread or fill the holes in our waffles with golden pools of butter, but Grandpa did. When my mother expressed worry over this unhealthy indulgence, Grandpa scoffed. Butter was natural. Pure. Better watch out for those other, fabricated foods; things that could not be tied to the earth. Those who live off the land understand these things. Besides, he’d say, he’d probably outlive most. He has.

 

My mother asked him, when she was dying, if he would help carry her casket. He nodded. I saw tears pooling, like melted butter, in the corners of his eyes. Mom patted his hand—my father’s father.

            “It’s not right,” he said, shaking his head.

            He couldn’t finish, so my mother finished for him, “No, it’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Nope. Parents are not supposed to bury their children,” he said. He stood up. I knew he’d go outside to the farmland where he felt most at home. I knew he’d go to be alone. He’d walk past the barn, the machine shed, the haystacks. He’d open the gate, leave the fenced yard, and walk through the wheat field where the stalks were tall and golden, and waved like a sea of shiny butter. 

Kolob

My husband, Brady, had the honor and privilege of singing "If You Could Hie to Kolob" at Anna's memorial service this week. This was a very special and spiritual experience for both me and Brady. A tender mercy. Our hearts go out to Joe and Christy and their family. Our thoughts and prayers will continue to be with you in the months and years ahead. You have been an inspiration to us and our family. 

Sooner or Later

Sooner or later, it seems that every kid does it: cuts their own hair. Oh yes, isn't it lovely?

Butter 1

During my novel writing class at the BYU Writing & Illustrating for Young Readers Conference, my instructor, Louise Plummer, asked us to write something about butter. We had a few minutes, right there on the spot. This is what I wrote:

My mother greased bread pans with shortening, using squares of waxed paper she kept in the shortening can. She only made bread when I was young, before we remodeled the house. The remodel brought men into our house. Men I didn't know. Men who came, kicked up sawdust, then left. Men who never--according to my father--put in a full day's work. 

My father loved his work. He came into the house for breakfast with the smell of earth already on him. He brought raw milk, fresh from the milk tank. We'd pour it on our cereal. White rivers of cream flowed through our Cheerios. At lunch, he came inside with the smell of sweet hay or dust from the grain field. We ate meat and potatoes, and slices of bread heavy with butter. 

My grandpa was always with him at lunchtime. Grandpa never said much. He'd roll up the sleeves on his work shirt and wash up, past his elbows. He ate ice cream off his dirty dinner plate because he didn't want to my mother to dirty another dish for him. The farm was his, before it was my fathers. It had belonged to his father before that. I watched him butter his bread and chew slowly, knowing that I knew so little about him. I knew they used to have dances in the parlor of the old farmhouse when my father was a boy. I knew that my grandpa was a fine dancer. I knew he stole watermelons from his neighbor when he was a kid and that he swore a lot when he talked with old friends and when the calves were ornery. 

Handy Mom

Over the past two weeks I've:

Fixed the latch on my laptop (which wasn't working)

Jump started the car

and

Figured out how to fix the Ipod which was frozen on some weird screen

Pretty good for me, who's usually inept at everything.