Deep Water

I biked across the Golden Gate Bridge. On a whim. In 2011. Aunt Lynne and I were painting San Francisco red for our birthday trip; we ate at Zuni and Fino, bought fringe scissors at Bell'occhio, turtle-shaped paper clips at Flax, and dead sea mud mask from those kiosk salesman that violate your human rights when you walk by. This particular morning we had separated until noon, so I took the trolley to the pier, signed the waiver, and started pedaling. After all, the Stake Trek leaders had encouraged me to “do hard things” in preparation for the upcoming 17-mile reenactment in Wyoming.

Funny, now, to see what younger Melissa thought was a hard thing. I’d never biked enough to own a helmet and was alone in a large city; I guess hard starts with leaving one’s comfort zone.

I quickly regretted wearing thin-soled ballet shoes for the impromtu ride. Quadless, I had to walk the last incline that fed into the actual bridge. Crossing took as long as the headwind demanded. From the middle of vermillion suspension I ate Chocolate Cheerios from my purse (leftover airplane snack) and wiped fog droplets from my face. Dolphins danced below. I grabbed one of the cables and took a picture of my hand on it. Turns out the Golden Gate Bridge is a winner with my skin tone and the color of my still-haven’t-found-it perfect lipstick. I was faster coming back. Only four completely downhill minutes from the bridge to the pier, to be exact.

The following is the story of William Atkin of the 1859 Rowley Handcart Company, as recorded by his granddaughter Luella M. Atkin.

"[Your grandma and I] traveled on until dark and again camped alone. Although we were in Indian country and nearly every white man we met was an avowed enemy of the Mormon people, we were not afraid, but laid down and took sweet rest.

"In the morning we started out early and on arriving at the Green River, we found that our company had crossed it the night before and they were gone out of sight. Your grandma and I looked at the river and I said to her, 'We cannot cross this river alone.' She replied, 'No, but the Lord will help us over.' At these words my heart seemed to leap for joy and I said, 'Yes, He surely will.' We then knelt down and in all humility told our Heavenly Father that we were doing all in our power to keep His commandments and to gather to Zion; and now we had come to this river and could not cross it alone. We knew He could help us and we now relied on Him to assist us over. Your grandma and I then pulled our cart into the river, which was swollen; we could see the deep water just ahead of us, but every step we took the deep water was still one step ahead of us, and we landed on the western bank without even wetting the axletree of our cart. Our hearts were full of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for thus again answering our prayers."

This story reminds me of being married to Greg and of a loving Heavenly Father who is interested in what we are walking through and where we are headed.

No matter how brave I am—and I’m brave time after time—I’m always tense about what is coming next. I have conquered so much and yet I’m a flincher and a wincer. Oh no, Greg, I see a trench! This is the big one, the deep one, the wheel buster, the wagon sinker! Don’t expand our business! Don’t buy a starter house! Don’t build a new house! Don’t invest! Don’t loan your truck out! Pack your bear spray! Back it up to a second cloud! Get it in writing! Buy an antidote for swine and bird flu! All three embryos will take! Put a copy of our will in the van while it’s parked at the airport in case our plane goes down! You name it, I’ve anticipated and feared it. I don’t even know if I can relax with a First Aid Kit, AAA membership card, wind-up radio, and emergency flare on my person.

Greg, on the other hand, worries about precious little. For years I underestimated him—I mistook his lack of fear for a lack of awareness—but the irony is that he has perfect vision. He sees every situation with the clarity of optimism. Because he believes it will all work out it always has and when adversity has struck it has hit him from behind when he was busy taking pictures of rainbows. As the worrier in this relationship, I’ve often found it irritating that the man who isn't afraid of anything scarcely faces fear! The nerve!

Year after year he has endured my doomsday forecasts of each proposed step forward, all the while walking beside me in his patient and laconic way, single-handedly pulling us across every span we ever dared to cross. And every time we get to the other side he pulls me close and says, “Wasa, don’t worry. We can do anything if we do it together. See?” Somehow he values me as a teammate when, in fact, I often act like dead weight.

Greg knows I was shallow enough in my teens to hope I’d marry some dashing Italian scholar with a waxed chest, blousy linen shirt, and leather book of poetry in his pocket. It is very fortunate for me that I landed the least worldly (but slightly poetic) American on earth whose true gifts surface (and keep us afloat) so wonderfully in deep water. 

Top photo: old postcard from 1937, no artist mentioned. Bottom photo: vintage sticker illustrating the perfect "Chinese red" (my color-perceptive aunt taught me the term) I need my lipstick to be.

p.s. Greg could give or take the Golden Gate Bridge but seriously loves the theme song (and can often be heard singing it in the shower) of The Golden Girls. Proving again we have no shared taste in music.

Tiger Tale

Many years ago I sat week after week on a church pew with my perfectly-behaved daughter. Greg sat on the stand and I didn't need him. When a raucous child or "that family" started interrupting my worship, I sometimes thought to myself, “It's called a diaper bag, people.” Or, “Someone needs to have an FHE on reverence.”

President Ezra Taft Benson said, “Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble.” Obviously, I had it coming.

And…SCENE! (snap the clapperboard) Everett is born. Cue Melissa eating humble pie.

Chomp. Gulp. I’ve had a slice every Sunday for two years as I’ve worked up a sweat, strained my muscles, and scarcely heard a nugget of value in the chapel—and that has been with Greg on the other end of the pew working up his own sweat. The same family has never sat in front of us twice except the Walshes (who had six kids and say our sounds are “music to their ears”). Another perfectly-pressed and motionless couple refers to our boys as "The Two Tigers".

To compound my discomfort the tigers have been wild in my new scene, which means all the people who don’t know me yet are probably judging me through the same dirty lens I used on others. It is likely that many people want to pack me a diaper bag. All the others are willing to teach our FHE lesson on reverence.

Here's the irony:

All those years my life was easy and I had it together...I wasn't even trying. I just happened to birth my almost-OCD, self-entertaining, polite-to-a-tee daughter first. I hit the jackpot and mistakenly thought I had something to do with the odds.

But these days...THESE DAYS ARE KILLING ME. I have a Mary Poppins carpet bag bursting at the seams with creative (and silent) solutions for one solid hour of entertainment. I’ve had the boys practice sitting quietly, folding their arms, and only whispering on the antique church pew in our house. I’ve taught “Reverent Bugs” so many times I have it memorized. Hymns are on the iPod’s "SLEEPYTIME" playlist. Still, Sundays seem to equivocate with shooshing, separating, human straightjacketing, arched backs, muffled mouths, and glancing at the clock every 25 seconds. In short, I have never worked so hard at looking so bad.

Do you know what I learned in the trenches?

1. You can’t judge effort by what you see.
2. Mercy (which I define as “love given despite the obvious”) is the best gift anyone can throw to those who are low.

Update 5-26-19: It’s been more than a year since I wrote this and guess what? It didn’t last forever! I’m out of the trenches! I’m enjoying Sundays! My boys are paying attention to what we are trying to teach them. They are listening. They grow better each week. Heck, I think they’re on track to be poster children for Emily Post. Tigers, schmigers. They're angels. Don't give up, sweaty tiger mamas! This too shall pass. And if it doesn't, you're welcome to sit behind me and I'll pass you s'mores goldfish from our diaper bag.

Be Our Guest

Of all the "rules" I looked at on Pinterest, Houzz, etc, when we were building our house this was the tip worth saving, especially because mattresses, box springs, and frames come in variable heights and it can be confusing what to buy. Plus our old bed was too tall (read: I had to massage my small breed dog's spine and give her liquid hydrocodone because she jacked her back from jumping down so far) and I wanted to fix things.

This is my dream bedroom, ripped out of a magazine six years ago, and copied the best I could for our guest room (obviously there are no wood floors or sisal rugs in our basement). I still need a headboard, but that's a "Z priority" as my dad would say. Sorry, guests. I looked for a side table like this and personally scrolled through 700 tables before I gave up. That thing must have been custom. We got a medium-firm mattress from Saatva and all made up it's 25" tall, which does feel right. We insulated the walls and ceiling so guests wouldn't wake up to our scary sounds in the next room (two furnaces, water softener) or above the room (two crazy boys, one mild daughter). A blackout roller shade lets anybody sleep as long as they need to. It's like a bunker down there. I actually love when Greg is sick and I sleep down there. RE and Archer have started having Friday night sleepovers in the guest room, too.

Spark

There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. -Washington Irving

Several hundred Spartans were holding the pass at Thermopylae, that narrow pass, and the Persians came in overwhelming numbers and urged the Spartans to surrender. Hoping to intimidate them further, the Persians sent emissaries to the Spartans, saying they had so many archers in their army they could darken the sky with their arrows. The Spartans said, “So much the better. We shall fight in the shade." -Neal A. Maxwell

I've always liked the word grit. I first heard it in the south, when my Aunt Bobbie made them for breakfast. I noticed it again in the movie Anne of Green Gables when Anne, sitting by the fire just before she saves Diana's baby sister with ipecac, tells Matthew that Gil is a grit. My childhood had a shocking lack of Google so it took me years to figure out grit meant liberal. Then Crystal Lund and Tiffany Poole both made me deliciously fragrant homemade sugar scrubs that were gritty. My niece Heidi told me to scrub my legs with sugar scrub after I shaved to stunt the new hair. I did what she said. My legs did seem smoother for longer. Heidi doesn't mess around with false beauty tips. Recently, I read a study about what Harvard is looking for in college applicants. Apparently the 4.0/AP classes/near-perfect ACT bundle is not it...and I quote, “It just shows the kid had grit.” Harvard Schmarvard. Greg listened to a podcast saying the number one problem with kids these days is they have no grit. We've had several parenting discussions about grit and equally love an article titled “Raising Resilient Children”. The book Grit, by Angela Duckworth, is sitting on Greg's nightstand.

Before Everett’s name was picked, Greg fought hard for a name that meant warrior. In case you are wondering, those names are Maverick, Mordecai, and Luigi. He fought hard but not hard enough. I convinced him to go with Everett despite Everett meaning wild boar. No kid wants to say his name means undomesticated pig, but I glossed over it and focused on his magnificent, mountain-moving middle name.

After diving head-first down the internet's rabbit hole, Greg discovered the wild boar was pretty popular in the Middle Ages. Warriors carried images of a wild boar, the symbol of courage and ferocity, as a talisman for protection in battle. Archeological digs produced helmets shaped like wild boars. Boars are mentioned in Beowulf. Viking war ships painted wild boars on their flags—and who fought harder than the Vikings? Greg discovered the English wild boar became extinct in the 1700s yet is somehow making a comeback. I didn’t know extinct animals could stage a comeback, but it works in my favor so I'm running with it. We have clearly amassed enough historical evidence to prove Everett is no mere pig, he's a warrior. Case closed.

Warriors know one secret to strength is armor; they know where to get it and how to wear it. Warriors press forward; they don’t wait for orders. Warriors are unequivocal about their cause; they don’t straddle fences. Warriors aren’t afraid of fog, shipwrecks, or being alone because they know they are never really alone and that takes care of the fog and the shipwrecks. The caveat is this: you have to be a warrior to discover you are a warrior.

I want all of my children, not just the one named after a pig, to be warriors of truth and righteousness. Parents cannot ask their kids to be something they themselves are not, so I'm trying to up my own warrior game. I hope my kids will do their due diligence in differentiating true from false and then use that precious knowledge to fight for what's right. I hope they will speak truth into megaphones despite feeling timid. I hope they will stand beside knock-kneed foals who can't stand on their own just yet. I hope they will conquer loneliness enough to not fear it.

To protect their power, they will need to recognize the fine line that separates warriors from bullies. Protecting one while hurting another isn’t heroic, and loving one while hating another is hypocrisy. I hope they will be forces for good without using force (no Viking weapons necessary). Say what you mean but don’t say it mean. Speak up without speaking down.*

My piglets will face a common, daily battle against opposition as they mature. It's hard to pack your kids' lunches and backpacks and send them off to attend Grit 101, Grit 202 and then Advanced Grit 305, but it's the only way. That's why they need those love notes scribbled on their lunch napkins! They also need to know they come from a long line of gritty, knock-kneed-but-still-standing warriors and that courage is in their DNA. 

I am such a warrior. I have kept battle records from my front lines not for bravado, but in hopes my kids might snatch a story or two to tuck in their own chainmail pockets. In my life, I have discovered that Satan is very real. He circles and hovers until he spies a crack of weakness to wedge some pain into. Pain causes doubt, and unless you possess an inner spark that ignites when the sky is dark with arrows, you'll surrender. I survived years of permanent shade because my spark was the Son. I have always had that spark, and I believe I can survive any dark spell or dark day with it. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is for saints who struggle. It is for warriors who need help fighting demons and voices. It is the power that keeps heads above water, especially heads that are crying. I want my kids to search for the Son, find his light, and never lose it. The right spark is all the grit they'll need to be warriors.

Greg’s mom’s name is Susan Louise. Louise also means warrior. So not only is Everett named after a warrior, he’s a descendent of one, too. I did read a funny quote that said, "There is a fine line between make-up and war paint." I will think about that every morning as I cake on concealer.

*paraphasing Elder Neal A. Maxwell's line, "Meekness permits us to be prompted as to whether to speak out or, as Jesus once did, be silent. But even when the meek speak up, they do so without speaking down." He also said, "Meekness does not oppose boldness. It means to speak up without speaking down. It means to depend on the Lord. It means to become like the Savior."

Soul-stirring, graphically-perfect, look-at-those-textured-clouds illustration by Alex Nabaum. Used with permission.

Full excerpt from Elder Neal A. Maxwell here. Start with the 5th trap.

My Perennial Annual

Greg did NOT buy me flowers, which is a success for our marriage's Communication Department. Once he brought (not bought) me roses after a peddler used our Salt Lake parking lot to sell his bouquets and paid rent with two dozen complimentary long-stems. I'm okay with free. In my book the only good flower is a free flower. Well, that's sort of a lie because I got two delivered arrangements after our miscarriage and failed IVF and they really cheered me up. It's the "we're going to triple the cost of a rose just for this week and then go back to normal next week" Valentine's scam I can't handle. And it's not even a scam; it's smart retail. But I still can't handle it. I would rather Greg buy me a pack of glue dots from Hobby Lobby than waste money on flowers. And he knows it, so he didn't infuriate me with a kind, sweet-smelling gesture. Communication side note: I asked him what two things I hate the most, just to see if he still knows me, nad he answered correctly with wet hair dripping down my back and touching mayonaisse. We win!

Instead, Greg was a full-day manny. He watched the boys while I got adjusted, delivered valentines, and ran death wish errands like Zurchers and Smart Cookie. (Seriously, where was the Fire Marshal at Smart Cookie? There were 38 people in line. I walked in and walked right out. They didn't have RE's favorite double chocolate fudge, anyways. Those are baked in the Midvale location due to altitude issues and transported down. We go there too often to know this kind of stuff.) Then he drove us all to Fashion Place Mall and controlled the noise from the double stroller with smoothies, DQ Blizzards, and escalator rides while I busted my list in the mouth like Muhammed Ali. He endured me trying on lipstick, shoes, and pants. He insisted I get a kiosk massage. Every time I mouthed, "Are you dying?" (had to mouth it because Everett was screaming in his ear) he replied, "You're fine. Take your time." The cherry on top was finally purchasing my Paper Source calendar, an item I've learned is an unalienable right directly tied to my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. I'm going to need a new paragraph.

I've used the Paper Source calendar for the last four years. I actually measured the slanted wall of our pantry while we were building The Chateau to make sure my Paper Source calendar would fit like a glove. And it does. But it is $25 and I'm a cheapskate. The week before Christmas it was full price. I walked. I went up New Year's Eve and it was BUY ONE GET ONE HALF OFF. That's only 25% off. I walked. I convinced myself I could use the free Suncrest Windmere Real Estate calendar that was thrown on my doorstep and only marginally bumpy from snow damage. I tried all of January and the first two weeks of February. That's almost 50 days of sub-par organization.

"Hi, I'm Melissa, and I can't use any other calendar besides a Paper Source 12 Month Art Calendar. Curse its perfectly-sized daily squares, graphic art, quality spiral, and clean aesthetic. It turns out I have more opinions about my annual calendar than I do about education, politics, or restaurants. Or maybe I can pass this off as quirky and cute? (silence) I'm sitting down now."

The last Thursday of January I went to Brio with Greg for a gift card date. Thirty minute wait? Like an alien I was sucked into the mother ship, where I checked on my calendar. It was 30% off. No dice. But yesterday, Valentine's Day, Lovers' Day, Friendship Day, Single-Awareness Day, whatever you want to call it, it was 50% off! One of my heartstrings burst. Four trips to Fashion Place, eight gallons of gas, ten hours of my life, and a detectable amount of my sanity to save $12.50. I slept like a baby last night. This morning I grabbed my numero uno pen, the Pilot Precise V5, and transferred my data from Low-Quality Glossy Freebie to Uncoated Thing of Beauty. At this point, during the longest ramble in history concerning a calendar purchase, I would like to mention my full-price calendar would have still been cheaper than valentine flowers.

You can never lose with office supplies.

That is the calendar. Check out April's art. Those eggs!

Archer is obsessed with the days of the week. He knows them in order. Say I read him a library book. He says, "Mom, read this to me today, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, another Friday, and all of the days." Back in October when this memorization started I was getting mad at him. He covered his ears and said, "Mom! Stop it! Don't be mad at me Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday or Saturday! Be nice on all the days!" And that is his line. Every day when he starts to get special vocal attention (aka me starting my mom yell) for his actions, his first reaction is to cut me off and scream, "BE NICE ALL OF THE DAYS, MOM!"

In December I called my parents and asked them what advice they had for me as a mother. They didn't give any, but when I asked them what regrets they had from their own parenting, my dad (after some humble hesistation) wished he had raised his voice less. I don't condemn my dad for raising his voice. I raise my voice, too. It's hard to parent. He said he doesn't know what he got hot about since we were all so great. I think for me it's usually my personal adult stresses that get projected onto my kids, meaning I snap at them because I'm frustrated with myself/my lack/my moment instead of actually being upset with something they did. It's easy to criticize your parents until you have your own kids!

"On occasion the biting of the tongue can be as important as the gift of tongues." -Neal A. Maxwell