The Other Elizabeth Barrett

Expect a Miracle

2012-02-06T08:22:00.001-08:00

Expect a Miracle

Elizabeth Willis Barrett.....................February 5, 2012

I was ready to post a new essay on my blog and call it “A Pound of Cure.” In it I planned to enumerate all the cures we have tried in order to bring our son Jeffrey back to his old pre-drug wonderful self. After trying everything we could think of and what the “experts” could think of, we simply ran out of options. Living with a drug addict makes everyone a bit crazy and we have been mired in this insanity for over 10 years. As his wit’s end parents, we didn’t know what else to do but ban him from our home. Thus, his stay on the canal in an oleander bush.

I still want to write that essay, but not just yet. In this essay I want to report a miracle. On January 8th, early in the morning, we received a phone call from a sad and frightened son. Jeffrey said, "Mom and Dad, come get me. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I’m not sure why this time is immensely different from any other time when he has promised to work on his sobriety. But something has drastically changed in Jeffrey’s actions and in his demeanor. Maybe it was the one more prayer that someone sent to Heaven in his behalf. Maybe it was that one prayer that gathered all the previous prayers into an astounding critical mass. I know that Heaven listened and mighty changes are occurring. If it was your prayer that made the difference, I thank you profusely.

There are others that I must thank, too, who have gently nudged or shoved Jeffrey onto Recovery Road and walked along with him for a while. Our family friend and doctor has freely given Jeffrey hours of his time to counsel him and adjust his prescriptions. We could never repay him for the vital role he is playing in Jeffrey’s progression.

Our Home Teacher has held onto those medicines and followed Jeffrey around to dispense them properly. He, too, is very busy but has taken much of his time to help heal a soul.

There are other dear ones who have called and visited Jeffrey. They made sure he had food and something to sleep on and under, always offering their help and encouragement and reminding him of his true nature. Coaches, teachers, Priesthood leaders, family and friends.

I’m not inexperienced enough to think that this is the absolute end of Jeffrey’s drug addiction. I know he will have to be on the offense for the rest of his life just like when he was a football star running the ball toward the goal line. Instead of the ball, he’ll be running his life past many obstacles until he makes the final touchdown where there will be much rejoicing.

But I will celebrate this victory, this yardage gained and I thank you all for your interest, your prayers and your love. How could I as a mother ever repay you for what you have helped accomplish? “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” A miracle!

First Oleander on the Right

2011-12-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

First Oleander on the Right
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
December 9, 2011

I drive up Bunker and just past Lionel I make a left turn onto the canal bank where I shouldn’t turn at all. I don’t think cars are very welcomed on the canal roads. But this is where he lives and I have come for another visit. I pull up to the first oleander and get out with my feet feeling like they are trudging through deep, dark mud and with my heart slogging along above them.

“Jeffrey?” I call.

“Hey, Mom,” comes his voice from the middle of the bush.

At least he’s alive--a good sign, I think. I walk up to the large overhanging oleander, and part the branches. There he is like he was the night before, wrapped in his sleeping bag and several blankets and looking very comfortable. I almost want to join him. Almost.

“How are you?” I ask.

“Good. Except for my hip. I think it’s broken.”

The first story is that he had jumped over a wall and landed on his hip. The next story is that he had hitchhiked and as he was getting out of the Good Samaritan’s truck, he caught the heel of his boot and fell hard on his backside. Truth has lost its way in his muddled head and doesn’t know how to get to his mouth anymore. Honesty used to be a valiant companion of this beautiful son. But she was so neglected that she left long ago. We have missed her.

Jeffrey is already dealing with a broken elbow that he acquired when his scooter failed to turn a corner. Scooters don’t miss garbage cans on their own. They need a sober driver and this one didn’t have one. Lack of sobriety was most likely the cause of Jeffrey’s hurt hip as well.

I never planned on any of my children becoming homeless. Homelessness is for people with no families, no opportunities and no one left to care about them. We have lots of room in a very nice home and plenty of food and love to share. We could easily keep Jeffrey for another 27 years. But the fact is, our keeping him was doing him harm, not good. We had enabled him too long or rather dis-abled him.

His father and I finally reached a decisive intersection where we stood together as adoring yet formidable parents. Although we had been at this juncture a hundred times before, this time we irrevocably meant it when we took a turn to the right and declared, “YOU CAN NOT LIVE WITH US ANYMORE!”

I used to wonder how people ended up being homeless. When I’ve encountered panhandlers on the edge of the freeway, I’ve questioned why they didn’t go get a job and pay for shelter. I’ve seen many “help wanted” signs. Surely those on the street have seen them, too, and could “inquire within.” But I understand now. They have “inquired within”--within themselves-- and the answer was, “Drugs. I need drugs.” Jobs cannot be sustained by those who need drugs. And standing on a corner with an outstretched hand can bring in as much as $25 an hour. That beats the wages for dunking French fries into oil at McDonalds. Since they don’t have any ambitions nipping at their heels, why not stand on a corner and beg?

On one occasion, a very kind and well-meaning gentleman gave Jeffrey $100 when he heard that he was homeless. That $100 nearly bought Jeffrey a permanent shelter measuring eighty-four inches long, twenty-eight inches wide, twenty-three inches tall and six feet under, since the entire amount was used to buy drugs.

When I had to take Jeffrey to TASC one day to get a court ordered pee test--more formally called a UA for Urine Analysis--to check for drugs in his system, we joined some rather questionable characters congregating for the same purpose.

“Do you want to be like these people?” I nearly shouted at him. I mean, who would? They all looked frightening and frightened, aimless and aimed at.

“No, Mom,” he said. “I wouldn’t be like these people. When I do drugs, I always know I have a home and a bed to come back to.”

I have to remember these words when I falter and want to gather him up and bring him home. In his case, home has kept him from growth and made using drugs way too easy.

So, I have allowed him to be a homeless beggar, choking back my motherly compulsions and desire to keep his natural consequences at bay. I don’t want him to be cold. I don’t want him to be hungry. I don’t want him to be alone.

As I leave him in his makeshift camp in the bush, I have become a beggar myself. I am begging that a change of heart will come, that truth will conquer, that the need for drugs will diminish. I am begging that another of the many people who love him will be able to influence him in a positive direction since his family no longer can. And I am begging that Jeffrey will finally be able to sustain a home much stronger and more stable than the first oleander on the right.

Another Rat--Another Race

2011-12-05T11:51:00.000-08:00

Another Rat--Another Race
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
September 23, 2011

Janice slammed her palm to stop the screaming of her alarm clock that told her with insolence that it was time to begin again. Five o’clock had arrived. Janice clenched her teeth in an attitude of determination and sat straight up, throwing her legs over the side of the bed. Another day. Another chance. Another try at the race. She was ready. Her best running shoes were waiting for her and since she had slept with her socks on and had worn her running shorts and shirt for pajamas, she hoped for a head start this time.

A quick bathroom stop, a drink from the bathroom sink, a cursory brush stroke through her hair, a gargle of mouthwash, a breakfast bar in hand and out the door she ran, not stopping to pet the dog or take the garbage to the road even though it was Thursday.

She was off, past those who had stopped to water their plants or to kiss their children good-by. She was out and ahead. “Yea, yea, yea,” she thought as she made her way to the busy thoroughfare. She was going to win today. She was committed.

The road was dusty. A few were ahead of her but she picked up speed. She knew she could stay in the lead. This was her day.

But as she looked over her shoulder, she was daunted to see Evelyn edging past her. “No, not Evelyn.” Evelyn the decorator. Evelyn--owner of the showpiece home. You could walk into any room in Evelyn’s house at any time of day and it would look like a model at Morrison Ranch. Janice thought of the stacks of papers that had gathered unbidden in each of the rooms of her own house. She thought of the unmade beds and the worn sectional in the Family Room and slowed to a jog. Discouragement had a way of slacking her speed. Evelyn was kicking up some dust that blew into Janice’s face so Janice shouted orders to her legs and she tried a little harder. She was still ahead of most of the runners.

Then over her other shoulder Janice could see another woman creeping past her--her stride impossible for Janice to match. It was Karen. Karen the cook. Janice had been the recipient of some of Karen’s cooking and Janice was certainly no match for her. Janice’s meals consisted of Panda Express and Taco Bell. More dust. Janice tried to keep up but her legs were cramping just a little. “Keep going,” she told herself. “You can do it. You’ll make it. This is your day.” But doubt was inching into her confidence like a growing mold.

Dust was rolling around Janice’s feet. “Take that,” she mused, aiming her vengeance at the people racing behind her. She kicked the dust a little higher on purpose.

Then on came three more. They weren’t sidling past her, they were bounding. Where did they come from? Where did they get their energy? There was Dionne, who could pick up a guitar and accompany anything from “Give Said the Little Stream” to “Perhaps Love.” And Nancy with her not-to-be missed catered parties. And Karley with her ability to walk into Dillards and come out looking like a fashion model. The dust was thick and Janice was re-thinking her ability to win at this race in any category. But she trotted on. Running was beyond her for a moment.

She took courage again from somewhere. From where does one take courage? A shelf? From another’s store of it? A bag that just happens to be sitting around with the label COURAGE on it? Well, from somewhere, Janice took courage and put a burst of speed into her faltering steps.

“Yes,” she said to herself. “I can gain speed from my outstanding ability to express appreciation. “Yep, I’m really good at that,” she said with conviction and she pulled out ahead of some of the other runners. But to her dismay, here came Phyllis--the queen of appreciation. She made beautiful thank you cards and always sent them out, even if it was just to thank someone for picking her kids up from soccer. Janice thought about sending thank you cards but they never made it from her mind to the mail box. Again Janice was left in the dust which was billowing in flourishes all around her.

“Aaaaaa,” she protested as the dust gagged her and the runners passed her. There went Jill with her computer expertise. She could upload pictures on Facebook, put her blog into ecstasy with backgrounds and extras that anyone would envy. And coming up on her left was Hannah who could out serve the best on the court and in life with her help with the homeless and bereaved.

Passing her on the right was Amy with her perfect straight and whitened teeth and who had botoxed her wrinkles into another decade. Finally, when Alicia passed her, Janice had to stop and wonder. “Alicia? Really?” Alicia had lost 30 pounds and was entering her 4th Triathlon. There was no hope.

Janice just stood there wondering how to take her next step. Family Home Evening? Yes, she was good at that. She started running again trying to just stay ahead of the stragglers. But it was no good. Here came Beth who never failed at holding an award winning Family Home Evening with her 6 kids and 20 grand kids every week. She used laminated visuals and made mouth watering refreshments. Why try? Janice stopped again. She put her head down and her hands on her thighs in an attempt to catch her breath and think. Think. What could she do? She could write. Yes, yes, yes. But just as she started to run ahead with that consideration, here came Paula. Paula had written 3 books already and had even got someone to publish one of them. Janice blew out her breath like a discouraged horse.

What? Ahh, speaking. Yes, she was OK in the speaking department. This rumination propelled her ahead for several meters until Brenda, the President of the Arizona Chapter of the National Speakers Association raced past her in a long strided sprint. Too much.

Janice thought of her grand-parenting achievements. Nope, they couldn’t get her too far. She was passed long ago by Margaret who took a Disney Cruise with her grandkids every year. Spanish? Nope. There went Karma who had taken three months out of her life to go to Peru to become fluent in Spanish.

Sewing, knitting, crocheting? She was passed early this morning in those areas. What then? Janice was a friend. A good friend. But not nearly as good a friend as Marley who went to lunch every other day to keep her friendships in order.

She was kind of good at scripture reading, but Polly had bolted ahead of her with her finishing of the Old Testament. That wasn’t even on Janice’s to-do list.

Real Estate? No. Celeste had that one covered. Good neighbor? Again Janice snorted out the dusty air that had filled her lungs.

Genealogy? Janice raced for two whole steps when she remembered that all her genealogy consisted of was a disordered pile of papers oozing from a cardboard file box.

The dust was getting thicker as runner after runner sped by her. Janice looked on in an immobile daze. Another day. Another loss.

Why not rest right here? Yes, right here. She lay down in the soft layer of dust powder left in the wake of the day’s runners. It cushioned her body like a cloud as new layers covered her with the advancement of sprinting feet. Ah, peace. Janice lay with her eyes closed and her heart subsiding, waiting for tomorrow.

The Ears Have It

2011-11-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

The Ears Have It
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
November 9, 2011

Listening to books has revolutionized my learning. Even though I used to enjoy reading the old fashioned way--sitting in a comfortable Lazy Boy devouring a bestseller while munching on carrots--I found that I was constantly interrupted. Those interruptions were so annoying. I would much rather read than take care of anything else, so it became easier to not pick up a good book in the first place.

My first encounter with book listening came when Brad and I were driving handicap buses from Murray, Kentucky, to Gilbert Arizona. Brad drove one bus and I drove another. I couldn’t have handled a long bus and wasn’t licensed for one of those, but a short bus was manageable. It was before the era of cell phones, so we used walkie talkies to communicate with each other. It was a glorious experience made even better because we listened to books on tape while we drove across the country. We could rent them from one Flying J gas station and then return them at the next.

The first book I ever listened to was John Grisham’s A Time to Kill. It wasn’t very cheerful but it was intriguing and kept me alert on the long drive. The reader was excellent as he gave each of the characters a different voice. Finally I could get through a book without interruptions except for the occasional crackling voice of Brad checking on me from the other bus.

I was definitely hooked. I came home ready to listen to some more books and went to the Mesa Library to see what they had. This was in the 1980’s and I was told by the stuffy librarians that “listening books” were only for the blind. Hmmmmmm. Soon--and I’d like to think that my prodding helped--the library started putting out a few books on tape for the general public. I listened to a lot of Sherlock Holmes since that was about all they had that sounded interesting. I got a good dose of him and Dr. Watson.

Then slowly the listening library got bigger and bigger. Nearly any book I want to read can now be found in listening form, performed by outstanding readers.

I like to listen to books because when you sit and read, that is all you can do. I suppose you could travel or eat at the same time or if a baby were sleeping, you could babysit at the same time or if you were waiting in a doctors office, you could read and wait at the same time. But when you listen to a book, you can also walk, ride a bike, stretch, lift weights, clean bathrooms, sweep, scrub, do dishes, water plants, drive--a multitudinous list of things.

Listening to books has opened up a wide world for me. I have learned to change my thinking from Wayne Dyer, stave off dementia from Dr. Amen, quit worrying from Norman Vincent Peale and focus my energy from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.

Listening to books has increased my awareness and allowed me to discuss great books with others--especially Brad, who didn’t develop a listening ear like I did, but is an avid reader on his Ipad and Kindle. We enjoy delving into the writings of John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald and other master writers. Brad even read Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre that I had already listened to so we could watch the movie together with more insight.

I would never take time to read wonderful classics in a conventional way because life has too many projects and appointments lined up for me. But listening allows me to do both.

For instance, I could never read a book while suffering in a dentist’s chair, but I can listen to Agatha Christie who is the perfect author to get me through a crown fitting (only if I have laughing gas and a whopping deadening shot, too). I put on my earphones and tell the dentist and his assistants that I am entering a sphere of my own and please don’t try to bring me out of it by talking to me. Since I need laughing gas just to get my teeth cleaned, this added incentive of sinking my mind into a Christie mystery helps pull my mind away from my extreme discomfort.

I know that I have perturbed many in my family because I have earbuds in my ears most of the day, but when someone wants to talk to me, out they come and I’m ready to communicate.

Brad especially dislikes it when I am in my book listening world. I have to remind him that for 40 years I have been subjected to his incessant sports games on the radio and TV and at least when I am listening to a book, I am not inflicting him with the distraction since it is going on in my ears alone.

Coordinating book listening and phone answering used to create a dilemma. I would have my cell phone connected to earphones in one pocket and my Ipod connected to earphones in another pocket. If my phone rang while I was listening to a book, I would have to whip off the Ipod earphones, then whip on the cell phone earphones before I could answer it. (I know that most people don’t bother with earphones on their phones, but I think they are a must because it keeps your hands free to fold clothes or chop onions.) I felt like a quick draw artist.

But technology has come to my aid and the problem has been solved. Now I can download a book onto my Iphone, put in my earphones and listen to a book. When my phone rings, I can push a button on my headset which causes the reading to stop and the phone to be answered. As soon as the call has ended, my book starts up again. Ahhh--progress!

I can’t say that I remember everything I listen to. Sometimes I can’t remember that I’ve already listened to a book until I’m halfway through it the second time. But I have been able to listen to hundreds of books that I never would have taken the time to sit down and read. I have ingested the main ideas, grown to admire the magnificent ability the writers have of expression, been educated in numerous topics and I could probably now answer a lot more questions in the game of Trivial Pursuit.

And when I’m not listening, I have lots more to talk about--if anyone else has the time to listen.

2011-10-06T08:05:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett

Betsy felt her façade go cold as though it were made of a very thin sheet of ice. The crack that had started creeping on the first of October finally reached her heart and the real Betsy emerged in a shriek: “Stop!” she screamed. “Stop! Stop! Stop! I can’t go on.” It was as though she and Monique had planned a little surprise for the ladies with their own playlet from the story. But Monique looked as startled as the rest and the stage belonged entirely to Betsy.

Betsy stood up with resolution in her bearing and a wildness in her eyes. “Follow me,” she croaked.

So the women of the 7th Ward Relief Society Book Club quickly put down their books, their purses, and their little plates—with a crème puff or two rolling to the carpet—and followed obediently. They were silent, but their looks said many things: “I think she’s a little bit crazy.” “Maybe she’s on crack.” “Whatever this is I am not going to miss it.”

They all followed Betsy down the hall and to the closed door of the guest room. Betsy put a shaky hand on the door knob and closed her eyes in an attempt to support her resolve. Had she belonged to another religion, she would have genuflected. As it was, she offered a silent prayer. “I prayed. I wearied heaven with my prayer….” But short of having the pile completely gone and the day’s events turning out to be a bad dream, she didn’t know quite what to pray for. She opened the door slowly as the women gathered behind her and rose on their tiptoes in an effort to glimpse whatever was in the room.

The catastrophic pile made each of them wince, and they took in their breath as one. Except Sister Lila Freeman who didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She had a heap rather like it in most of the rooms in her own house.

But the rest stood in quiet contemplation, each trying to process the scene in her own way. For instance, Sister Jepson focused on the makeshift marijuana pipe that was sliding down one side of the mound and realized that hers wasn’t the only family that had been infiltrated by drugs. Sister Anthony focused on the “What to Do if You Suspect your Child of An Eating Disorder” book sticking out from the bottom of the pile and thought that finally she and Betsy had something in common. Sister Adrian Peters’ eyes were drawn to the crumpled pink slip sent from the Town of Gilbert announcing that the Woodward’s water would be turned off if the bill wasn’t paid. Adrian recognized that slip because she had received several herself. Sister Salter felt the frustration and desperation that the room represented in its present state and realized that maybe Betsy Woodward didn’t have everything after all. And for some reason, Sister Jacobs wrapped her arms lovingly around Betsy and huskily whispered a tear-filled, “I love you!”

Betsy gave a wan, distorted smile. There was nothing she could say. One by one the Book Club women dispersed, some touching Betsy’s shoulder in a gesture of understanding, until Betsy was quite alone. It was over. The worst had happened. Betsy put her back against the door and let her feet slide out from under her until her bottom hit the floor with a bounce.

The next day—Saturday—Sister Harris called to invite all the Woodwards over for a barbecue that night and Sister Jacobs called to invite them all for Family Home Evening on Monday. On Sunday the Woodwards were too late to claim their regular pew which was just fine with the kids and just fine with the Johnsons who were sitting there smugly. But as if to make up for losing their spot, there were many genuinely friendly smiles and in Primary several women stole moments away from sharing time and song practice to ask Betsy about where she used to live and how she felt about the election coming up and what books she would like the Book Club to choose for the following year. And Monique grabbed Betsy after the block to tell her that a group of friends was meeting at Applebee’s for lunch on Thursday—could Monique pick her up?

After lots of pleasant conversation with those that seemed to ignore her in the past--except for Sister Poltice, who seemed to hang onto her envy like a dripping ice cream cone-- Betsy drove home, humming a cheerful ditty this time with genuine feeling. As the un-veneered, far from perfect Betsy walked into her far from perfect home with her far from perfect children, she almost tenderly picked up The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe from where she’d left it on the entry table.

Opening it at random, her eyes fell upon the words, “it was hope—the hope that triumphs on the rack—that whispers to the death-condemned even in the dungeons of the Inquisition…”
She smiled and carried the book to the badly misused guest room and set it respectfully on top of the disorderly pile. Her life wasn’t perfect, but thanks to her exPOEsure, at the moment she was nearly perfectly content.

Part Five: exPOEse'

2011-10-05T21:43:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett

The doorbell rang again and “I went to open it with a light heart—for what had I now to fear?” In came a group of rather young moms from the ward, headed by gum-chewing, phone-texting Lisa Wilde—her blond, streaked hair pulled into a skimpy straight out ponytail with more hair hanging out than in it. Why did young women wear their hair like that? It made Betsy think of Olive Oyl from “Popeye.” There was nothing attractive about it. But in spite of
hair-dos, this was a very confident group. Youth always seemed confident around those that had a little age on them.

Betsy had all the ladies go to the kitchen to fill their plates before the actual Poe discussion started. She heard lots of nice comments like “What a gorgeous home,” “Betsy is so good at decorating,” “I wish I dared ask her to help me do something with our guest room.” At that last comment, Betsy almost choked on the carrot she was munching for nerve control. “She’d love to see what I could do with a guest room!” was Betsy’s cryptic thought.

She also heard some muffled remarks like, “Betsy doesn’t look quite as great as usual, do you think?” and “If I’d known this was all Betsy was going to serve us, I would have eaten dinner at home.” and “I was expecting a lot better food than this.” These last two observations were whispered quietly but Betsy heard them. “And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over–acuteness of the senses?” They were said by the second and third largest women in the group—Sister Pines and Sister Hasbrow who seemed to go together like peanut butter and jelly. You seldom saw one without the other and vice-versa.

Betsy felt like shouting, “The way my month has gone so far, you’re lucky I didn’t just serve you water and crackers!” Which reminded her that she had totally forgotten to provide something to drink. She wondered if anyone would be offended if she suggested that those who were thirsty could stick their heads under the faucet. Probably.

Finally, the Book Clubbers were settled back in the living room and Sister Harris stood up to give some background on Edgar Allan Poe: “Born to an unfortunate heritage, orphaned , unsympathetically raised…………”

“Ta dum, Ta dum.” Betsy looked around to see if anyone else had heard that superfluous sound. Nope. Just she, it seemed. She tried to sit calmly with her hands held in her lap as Sister Harris finished up and Sister Barnes started a discussion on “the Pit and the Pendulum.” But Betsy couldn’t concentrate on any of the words because “meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.”

“Ta dum. Ta dum.” It was definitely coming from the direction of the guest room. “It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every instant.” “But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed.”

By the time Sister Barnes sat down and Monique Jarvis started her part of the Poe discussion which happened to be “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Betsy had a very difficult time sitting still. She sat on her hands in an effort to keep them from rising in a grotesque choke-hold on her own very fragile neck.

“Ta dum. Ta dum.” What a noise! “And now a new anxiety seized me…the sound would be heard by a neighbor!”

As Monique went on and on about the old man and his blue glazed eye and the mad man watching him and ultimately killing him and hiding his body under the floor, Betsy could hear her own “ta dum, ta dum” growing louder and louder.

Then Monique invited more discussion of the whole story and of the policemen who came to the madman’s house. “But the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder—louder---louder! And still the (women) chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? NO, no? They heard! They suspected! They KNEW!...They were making a mockery of my horror. I felt that I must scream or die!—and now—again hark! Louder, louder! Louder! LOUDER!”

Part Four: exPOEse'

2011-10-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett

Betsy glanced at her mega, industrial watch that wrapped heavily around her left wrist. 6:32. This was no time for self-indulgent liquidation. Betsy gathered her willpower along with armfuls of Mark’s stuff and threw it all into the wheelbarrow. This load, too, was dumped into the guest room with a flourish and an extra oomph of determination. OK. Trade the wheelbarrow for the vacuum. A speedy run-through in the showable spots. A quick dusting of visible furniture. And because “there came a most deadly nausea over (her) spirit” Betsy grabbed a can of Dr. Pepper from the stash in the back of the pantry, and poured it hissing and bubbling into a glass of ice. She’d have to throw away the can discreetly so her kids wouldn’t see it.

She downed the Dr. Pepper like a pro, then ran into her room, shimmied out of her jean capris, and put on her semi-clean black pants and pulled a black and white polka dot knit shirt over her head. She blushed her cheeks and brushed her eyebrows and just started brushing her teeth when the doorbell rang at 6:50. Betsy stared at herself in the bathroom mirror while toothpaste foamed from her mouth. The early doorbell made her foam even more. “I foamed, I raved, I swore!” Sister Bryce. She knew it was Sister Bryce. She was always early. Who would come early to anything? What a waste of a potential-filled ten minutes! Didn’t Sister Bryce have something to dust at her house or a floor to sweep? Why, in ten minutes, she could read a whole Ensign article but instead she was standing on Betsy’s front door step cheating Betsy out of ten minutes of final straightening. Betsy cursed. Just a little curse. Nothing major. Just a little “darn, darn, darn!” is all. Betsy ran to the door tossing the living room pillows in place on her way.

“Hello, Donna,” she greeted sweetly as Sister Bryce stepped into the foyer and was led to the living room. “Sit down wherever you like—since you’re the first one here,” she added with emphasis. Then, “Excuse me for just a second.”

Betsy walked calmly from the living room and then raced to her bedroom, stopping for the wheelbarrow. Forget the tour. There would be no tour tonight, but someone might ask to see her new bedspread. Why had she said anything about it to anyone? Into the wheelbarrow went the piles of books and magazines that always seemed to find their way into the master
bedroom. “Who was reading all these?” she wondered. It certainly wasn’t her. A couple of boxes of Kleenexes, some stray laundry, and the clothes she had quickly changed out of got thrown in, along with some framed pictures that never made it to the wall and some bags of Wal-Mart essentials that she hadn’t put away yet. At least she had already made her bed. She was the only one in the family who believed that a bed should be made first thing in the morning to create a bit of order out of chaos.

Down to the guest room she rolled the wheelbarrow for its final run. Betsy dumped the load quickly and laid the wheelbarrow on its side in the disastrous pile. More lines from Poe came to her: “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing but you should have seen me.” And “I chuckled at heart.” And “I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness...for I had directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.” And “I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche.”

The doorbell rang again. She hoped Sister Bryce would have enough initiative to answer it because Betsy still wasn’t ready. As she shut the guest room door firmly she seemed to hear “a low dull quick sound such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.” “More Poe?” thought Betsy. She felt “Poe-ssessed!”

She ran back to her bathroom for a quick brush of mascara and a swipe of Maybelline’s “On the Mauve.” She found a hair pick and attempted to lift her hair into order. Even the mirror seemed to be quoting Poe: “In vain I struggled to perfect—to regain it.” Whew! She only had to get through the next hour and a half or so, but she was feeling the crack “like the thread of the spider.”

Betsy found a sunny smile in her arsenal of expressions and walked sedately into the living room. She would have chosen to walk sedated into the living room but sedately would have to do.

Several guests were already there: delightful Sister McAfee—her face honored with wrinkles that crinkled with each lovely and frequent smile; Sister Branson—her head bobbing in time to her personal ill-health soliloquy; Sister Lansbury—comfortable as an over-stuffed chair and similar in dimensions. And there were others, wrapped in a variety of personalities and packaging.

Part Three: exPOEse'

2011-10-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett

Why today when she had all these wonderful women coming?—these women whom Betsy had trained into thinking that she was definitely one person who had it all together. They would never understand if she totally fell apart.

Well, there was nothing she could do about it at the moment so she went to work. She got out a dish pan—a big plastic one that she’d bought at Wal-Mart just for this purpose. She quickly threw all the dirty dishes in it and hauled it to the guest room. “Please, please, please, let no one open this door tonight,” she prayed in a whisper. She had made the mistake a few years ago of putting another plastic dishpan loaded with dirty dishes in the oven to hide it. It served the purpose of allowing the kitchen to look great, but the next morning Betsy turned on the oven forgetting its contents. The fire it started wasn’t pretty. Yes, the guest room was a better place for this filled dish pan.

Betsy grabbed a towel and wiped down every visible kitchen surface until she came to the table. Sand? What was sand doing on the table? She took a paper towel and swept the sand across the plastic tablecloth that made a laughing sound with the effort. Even the table was laughing at her. This was not funny and she would have none of it.

Out came the lace tablecloth and onto crystal plates and into crystal bowls went the Costco specials: mini cream puffs, spirals, baby carrots, salsa, chips, cheesecake bites. She briefly contemplated putting some HCG on a serving tray for the two women who seemed to live on it and nothing else. The thought would have been humorous if she had been in a better humor.

Gathering the empty cartons and the dishtowel, she ran to the guest room and tossed them on top of the loaded dish pan.

Now what? It was getting so late. How was she going to make it by 7:00 with any semblance of her public self? “There suddenly came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of despair.”

The wheelbarrow. That would be the quickest. “It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain.” She ran to the garage and grabbed the wheelbarrow from its revered spot in the corner. She dumped its contents of miscellany and rolled it through the kitchen to the family room. In went the school papers, the backpacks, the sweatshirts, the week’s mail, the shoes under the coffee table, the half bag of Cheetos and the tall stack of newspapers. Betsy had begged the kids to not eat in the family room but if they insisted on eating there, to at least pick up their dishes and put them in the dishwasher. She might as well have tried to instruct a herd of zebras. So on top of the pile in the wheelbarrow went three dirty plates, seven glasses and five forks. Betsy wheeled the barrow right to the center of the guest room and dumped it unceremoniously. She didn’t have time to be careful.

The bathroom was next. Into the wheelbarrow went the damp stinky towels and the stiff washcloths and the pile of dirty clothes both Mark and Benjamin had left on the floor. What did they care if a group of ladies was coming to the house and just might need to use the bathroom? Not as a group, of course, but it would only take one woman to spread tales of disgust to the rest of them. Betsy took one of the damp towels and wiped down the sink with its globs of toothpaste, the tub with its week’s worth of soap scum. And the toilet. Yuck. The toilet. Oh, Nelda, Nelda, Nelda. Betsy definitely didn’t pay her enough. Why can’t boys hit the water instead of back behind the toilet seat? It couldn’t be that hard to aim dead center, could it? No wonder Marcie insisted that the males in her family sit on all occasions. With a wipe-down of the mirror and floor, Betsy was on to the office. “You should have seen how wisely I proceeded…I went to work!”

She’d have to admit that most of the mess of the office belonged to her—the white cardboard carry-all she used for the Primary Singing Time spilling over with word charts and teaching tools, the messy stack of spiral notebooks filled with ideas and notes about gardening, writing, photography, and inspirational thoughts. Betsy wondered if an I-Pad would eliminate the need for all these notebooks that had no order at all to them. Well, she’d think about it later. If she’d have a “later.” The way this day was going, that was debatable.

All of her office stuff went callously into the wheelbarrow along with the kids’ doodling papers and unfinished school assignments and Nick’s piles of church manuals and books and file folders that had never found a safe, permanent home. This load, too, was dumped in the guest room. The pile was huge now and Betsy was feeling a sense of power, of accomplishment, of get-it-done-ness. “In the enthusiasm of (her) confidence,” “in the wild audacity of (her) perfect triumph,” Betsy wondered why she had never done this before? She had several very clean rooms and only one horrendously messy one. It was worth it. She thought she could now run get herself ready when her heart buckled under a new realization.

Since Mark’s room was closest to the front door, that room would have to be purged, too, so that coats could be laid on the bed if necessary. Betsy opened Mark’s room with trepidation and rolled in the wheelbarrow. The smell was overwhelming and it was piled high with stuff—boy stuff. Clothes, shoes, stiff socks, guitars, music, papers. She had pleaded with him to put his things away because she was having company, but her words must have hit a ricochet spot near his ear drum and disappeared into the opposite corner of the room. She started throwing everything into the wheelbarrow: the CD’s, the sketches of football plays, the several pairs of basketball shorts. And another apple and pen. Out of curiosity, which she really didn’t have
time for, she slipped the pen into the apple. A good fit. Was this a straw for sucking out apple juice? A tiny piece of information she had heard somewhere came unglued from her memory and she sank in the comprehension that this wasn’t just an apple and this wasn’t just a pen. And together they didn’t make a straw. Together they made a very unique pipe. A great marijuana smoking pipe. Betsy didn’t have time just then for her body to turn completely inside out, starting with the top of her head, going down through her skull and straight through her body to her feet. But she was definitely going to put it on her to-do list. She also fought the urge to throw herself down on the floor with flailing legs and pounding fists as she sobbed herself into oblivion.

Part Two: exPOEse'

2011-09-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Part 2: exPOEse'
Elizabeth Willis Barrett

The evil of this day had started with the month. On October first, which happened to be a rainy, depressing Sunday, one of the football team parents had called with a distressing bit of
information. Nancy was her name. (The name of the parent, of course, not the name of the information.)

“My son, Jefferson, just told me that he saw your son, Mark, smoking weed on the canal bank the other day. I don’t like being a tattle-tale but just thought you’d like to know.”

Betsy got the feeling that Nancy did like being a tattle-tale and that she looked for opportunities to snitch, but thanked her anyway. Betsy felt pretty certain that her son would never be dumb enough to do any kind of drugs. He came from a model family and everyone knew that children from model families didn’t do drugs.

On October 3rd, however, a crack started down in the corner of her veneer. While in Mark’s room looking for dirty dishes to put in the dishwasher, she saw an apple with a hole in it. What was that all about? A pen was nearby under some putrid socks. Well, not a pen exactly. A shell of one, though, with the insides out of it. What use would that be? She had seen a similar apple and pen in his room before and had thought nothing of it. But another set? Hmmm, things were looking a little fishy. She wished she had gone to the school meeting that informed parents of what drug use looks like. But, as she had thought then, why take valuable time learning about someone else’s problem? Now she was wondering.

On the sixth of October, which was not a P-Day, Betsy received an e-mail from her missionary son, “Mom, this is too hard. I really don’t want to be here anymore.” The crack was growing.

On the ninth of October when she was into a great deep-cleaning mode trying to get ready for the Book Club ladies, the school had called to say that Benjamin, her youngest and most lovable, was having too many difficulties in the regular classroom and could Betsy come that afternoon to discuss putting him into some special needs classes? Betsy felt the crack in her armor continue its upward creeping.

On the eleventh of October, her wonderful, hardworking husband sat Betsy down at the table, strewn with the remains of dinner. “I got news from the top today,” he said, “and it’s not good.” Betsy wanted to put her hands over her ears and go running into the night, but she’d only have to come back. “You know they’re downsizing ,” he continued, “so when I get back from New York on Friday….Did you remember that my plane comes in really late on Friday night?...well, I might not have a job . Just wanted to give you a heads-up.” The crack was growing and Betsy didn’t know how to stop it.

And on the twelfth, Elise had eaten her breakfast and run to the bathroom to throw it all up. She didn’t look sick but suddenly Betsy was aware of how thin Elise was looking. And Betsy wished she had gone to another school meeting that informed parents of what eating disorders look like. That school was busy. There could be a meeting a night talking about all the maladies waiting to afflict her children. The crack continued “with a low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.”

And now it was Friday. Friday the 13th. Someone should have taken all the thirteens out of the calendar long ago to save humanity from days like this. The disappointing meanness of the month climaxed on this day and this hour of 5:00 in the afternoon with her house cleaner, Nelda, calling in sick. Nelda might have been sick, but she couldn’t be as sick as Betsy felt. “All sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades.” She had specifically arranged for Nelda to come in at 5:00 after the kids got home and were assigned out again to friends and activities. Now what was she supposed to do? The ladies were coming. She was supposed to have refreshments ready. Her house was a disaster. She was a disaster.

What had happened to this last precious day? She had been called to the school for Benjamin. Elise had forgotten her homework. Betsy’s sister had called and they’d talked for an hour. A repairman had come to fix the ice maker. She had made the mistake of walking outside to bring in the garbage can when Mr. Phillips was retrieving his. He then took up thirty minutes of her prized time to delightedly tell her all about his new grandbaby. Then she had gone shopping at Costco for the groceries, but since she had failed to return her wallet to her purse when she’d paid the repairman, she had no money. She had to go all the way home to get it and by the time she had paid the disgruntled cashier and finally returned home again, Betsy and all the day’s allotted time were completely spent. She thought about canceling the Book Club due to tuberculosis or some other horrible made-up disease, but that was something wimpy Sister Sheffield would have done and Betsy couldn’t stand to be compared to her.

She considered pulling herself up by her bootstraps. But what did that even mean? How does one pull oneself up by bootstraps? What are bootstraps anyway? She gave that personal conversation up and just planted her feet firmly in front of herself where she had been slopped on the family room couch and with the help of the arm of it, pulled herself up. Who needed bootstraps?

“Ok everybody,” Betsy bellowed as she gathered her strength and clapped her hands together as a sign of authority. “They are coming. The Book Club ladies are coming. Let’s get things done around here.” She walked past the piles that had grown around the sink, on the counter and by the stairs. “You have got to take care of your stuff.” That sentence started out like a trumpet and ended like a piccolo, for there wasn’t anyone around to listen to her tirade. They had already disappeared as planned, leaving their residue to be hauled and re-dumped by a frantic mother. “As usual!” she yelled at the walls with great emphasis. The walls didn’t comment. “As usual!” she yelled again, even louder this time. Silence.

It was growing. Betsy could feel it. The crack. She had held herself together for a good twenty-five years and now she could feel the fissure and the repercussions were going to be terrible.

Part One: exPOEse'

2011-09-25T11:45:00.000-07:00

exPOEsè
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
May 31, 2010

Betsy Woodward was the kind of woman that every woman envied. Well, at least the women in the LDS 7th Ward of Gilbert. Her home was spotless, her children well behaved and popular, her husband handsome and successful. When her visiting teachers came each month, Betsy’s home smelled of homemade bread and her living room, which is, of course, the only room that Visiting Teachers ever see, looked like a Thomasville showroom.

While waiting at the front door—totally devoid of cobwebs—her Visiting Teachers could hear Betsy singing a very cheerful ditty. This proved that along with everything else in Betsy’s favor, she didn’t have an ounce of depression. Here was a woman polished to perfection and untouchable by anyone in the boundaries of the 7th Ward. It was a bit intimidating.

When Betsy went to her son Mark’s football games, she looked more like one of the students with her slim body and fashionable clothes. Mark was, of course, the quarterback and the greatest reason for the team’s success. Her daughter, Elise, was excellent at ballet or so everyone said and her youngest son, Benjamin, had the sweetest personality in the whole Primary.

The women of the 7th Ward Relief Society didn’t know Betsy as well as most of them knew each other since she had only been in their ward for a year. But they knew enough. They knew that besides the aforementioned kids, Betsy had three older children—two at BYU and one on a mission. If that didn’t signify parental success, what did? They also knew that she lived in the most beautiful home in the ward, that she drove a very nice car, and that she could sing like an angel. All of this excellence made Betsy quite unapproachable, so she didn’t have any close friends in the ward and didn’t get invited to go to lunch at Flancer’s or to go shopping for curtain or pillow fabrics at Mesa Sales. And she and her husband never got asked to parties at ward members’ homes nor did their family ever get invited to Family Home Evening. Betsy said she didn’t care. But she did—a little.

Actually, Betsy exerted a conscious effort to create a façade of perfection. Impressions were important to her and she worked hard at keeping hers favorable. It wasn’t difficult to impress her Visiting Teachers because they always called ahead. She could make sure the living room was picked up, dusted and vacuumed and smelled like Bath and Body Works’ Coconut Lime before they came. And timing it just right, Betsy could pop some frozen Rhodes Cinnamon Rolls into the oven with their tantalizing aroma at its peak when the sisters sat down to give her the lesson.

Betsy loved to hear comments like, “Your home is so lovely.” or “How do you do it?” or “You’re amazing!”
Betsy made it a specific point to look terrific when she went to Church each Sunday as she smilingly led her attractive children down the aisle to the second row on the right, giving a little smile and lift of the head in greeting to her husband, Nick, who sat on the stand as a member of the Bishopric. She’d scoot the three kids in first, always glad when they got there before the elderly Brother and Sister Johnson. Betsy had to put on some extra speed at home so she could beat the Johnsons out of that particular pew. The Woodwards had been sitting there for some time now and the Johnsons had become usurpers. No one needed to know that on most Sundays, Betsy’s family had had a miserable morning of quarreling as each searched franticly for just the right Sunday clothes and hurriedly downed a bowl of Lucky Charms so they could be there seven minutes early, much to the annoyance of the children.

No one had ever seen Betsy Woodward looking less than her best because Betsy made sure they didn’t.

Betsy didn’t participate in too many ward activities, but she did join the Book Club which met once a month. It had been an enjoyable enough activity until this month. This month of October. Someone had thought it would be fun to read The Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe and have the meeting on October 13th, which happened to be a Friday. Friday the Thirteenth. So fitting, they all thought. Way back in January, Betsy had thought it was a good idea, too, and had even signed up to be October’s hostess. But the calendar pages had whipped off as in a hurricane and October had arrived way before Betsy’s plans for purging and perfecting every single room could be accomplished.

Because of found minutes during ballgames, dance lessons and in the bathroom, Betsy could actually say she had read the book. But it hadn’t been pleasant and as the raven quothed: “Nevermore!” Life was definitely too short to read Edgar Allan Poe. She discovered that many of Poe’s words would come back to her with amazing clarity and at odd moments.

And now today, Friday the 13th of October, Betsy wished she had never heard of Poe or the Book Club and definitely wished she had never put her name on the line to be the hostess. Her house wasn’t as ready as she had wanted it to be and she knew that several of the women had planned on her giving them a tour. That’s what happens when you live in a beautiful home—everyone wants to see it. And she had wanted them to see it but now that today was here, this was not the day.

In fact, this wasn’t a day for anything. Betsy would have chosen to take a few sleeping pills, crawl back into bed, scoot her knees up to her chest in a fetal position and wait for the Second Coming. It was definitely not a day for company. In the words of Poe, she had “a strong desire to lapse into insensibility.”

Day 3: The Cruise Peruse

2011-09-13T21:41:00.001-07:00

Day 3: The Cruise Peruse
Monday July 11, 2011
Elizabeth Willis Barrett

Another great day. Didn’t spend much time outside. We went touring the ship. Every day we will get a detailed newsletter that lists all the activities for the day. There seems to always be something to do.

When I saw that there were a few classes that you could sign up for, I was ready with a pen. I love learning.

At 10:00 I went to a class called Face Lifting Without Surgery. Doctor Noreen told us all about Botox, Restylane, Perlane and Depport. I could see immediately--probably because of all my learning--that this was really a sales pitch for procedures that could be done right there on the boat by Doctor Noreen herself. Since she was 38 and looked 18, it was enticing. I even signed up for a free consultation at 2:00. Free--that was the magic word.

At 11:00, I went to a class called “Flat Stomachs for Dummies.” Well, it wasn’t called that, but it should have been. The very charming, Australian accented, young and handsome, and flat-tummied presenter told us the shocking news that if you want a flat stomach (who doesn’t), exercise can only get you 15% of the way and nutrition can only get you another 35% of the way. The last 50% must come from detoxification. Ahhh--detoxification. “Here it comes,” I thought with great discernment. “Here comes another sales pitch.”

He told us that we daily ingest many impurities and that they must be flushed out with a good cleanse. Yep! I was right. Get out your ship charge card.

When he related the well-traveled story of John Wayne dying of colon cancer and having 64 pounds of fecal material rotting in his intestines, I not only got suspicious of this young man’s credentials but I almost chortled out loud.

I went to a colonoscopy doctor once for that rather discomforting procedure and truly thought I’d come home at least 5 pounds lighter. But the doctor informed me that that is not what happens in one’s colon. It doesn’t store years’ worth of excess muck in there. So if you want to lose weight, a colonoscopy isn’t going to help get you to your goal, because it is impossible for the colon to collect that much residue. And in John Wayne’s case, did someone actually weigh it?

Furthermore, the last time I heard the John Wayne story--also from someone who would prosper by potential pill buyers believing it--it was only 40 pounds of rotting fecal material. So someone, somewhere is lying or exaggerating to promote their own cures and frankly I’m not buying it--the story or the product.

The young man then proceeded to tell us that we shouldn’t mind spending $150.00 a month for the 6 months it would take to become completely detoxified. I didn’t stay for his total revelation of the stomach flattening medication, but as with so many other things--I’m sure there is a better and cheaper way to get in shape.

Brad met me and we went back up to Raffles for lunch. More excess gorging followed which will make repentance necessary as soon as we get home. When food is in such abundance, it makes me want to take advantage of the situation--so I do.

At 2:00 Brad went to the Star Dust Theater to save us seats for the 2:30 Magic Show and I raced to my face-lifting consultation. Dr. Noreen made me wait in the waiting room for 15 minutes so I got a little shortchanged on my 30 minute appointment. When she finally ushered me to her examination bed, the Doc was very ready to point out my facial flaws. I am already well aware of them, but it is a little difficult to hear of them from an expert. She suggested some Botox here and some Restylane there and in 12 minutes she had created a vision of a new me that would only cost $1200! A pittance for the great change it would make. I would have had her procedure me then and there if I didn’t have many other uses for my money, if I knew it was an excellent price and if Brad wasn’t waiting for me at the Magic Show. But I did, I didn’t and he was.

So off I ran, my wrinkles still intact, to see a fabulous Magic Show--in the dark where no one could see my face or my belly. Temporary oblivion. For the moment, what a nice place to be!

FRIENDSHIP

2011-08-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

FRIENDSHIP
Talk for University 3rd Ward Sacrament Meeting
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
August 28, 2011

Just for a moment, open up the eyes of your imagination and consider this question. What would our University 3rd Ward be like if every member were exactly like you? Awesome? Cool? Hot? Kind? Shy? Quiet? Self-conscious? Happy? Miserable? If everyone were exactly like you, would there be anyone to teach Sunday School? Help with the music? Organize the sports? Bring dessert for the ward parties? If everyone were like you, would there be any parties? Would the Visiting Teaching get done? If everyone were like you, would you feel the love of our ward family? Would there be anyone who could forget about themselves long enough to reach out to you and become your friend?

I know how I felt last year when we were first called to this position. It was scary. All of these strange, yet beautiful--of course--faces and names that had to be put with them. Some of you have come from out of state not knowing anyone. I admire you greatly for your courage. The entity that will make your experience here a wonderful one is friendship.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of ‘Mormonism.’” And according to Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy: “That thought ought to inspire and motivate all of us because friendship is a fundamental need of our world. In all of us there is a profound longing for and a deep yearning for the satisfaction and security that close and lasting relationships can give.”

Friendship is what has made our University 3rd Ward the wonderful ward it has become in its first year of existence and Friendship will keep it that way through the years. Each person in our ward needs to feel surrounded by love and friendship. That can only happen when we each forget ourselves and reach out to someone else. I know it’s hard. It’s really hard for me.

For one thing, we are all really busy. That will probably never change. There was only one time in my life when I felt like I was ahead of the game. That was when my two youngest children were in their car seats looking out the back window as we sped along the freeway. As they saw all the cars racing behind us they said with excitement, “Hey, Mom, you’re winning!”

If you are a good friend now, most likely you will be a good friend later in your life. But if you are too busy to share the love of friends now, you’re not going to have any more time later to be a good friend.

I know, you don’t believe me! I thought that I would have time just hanging around waiting for me to do all the things I ever wanted to do when I got to this stage of life. But I don’t and neither will you. It’s rather a shock!

Besides the lack of time, the lack of charity can get in the way of befriending others. We might discount someone because of one thing we find objectionable in them and then we won’t take the opportunity to know that person better. What a loss!

At times we might put ourselves and others into classes: rich, not so rich, gorgeous, not so gorgeous, brilliant, not so brilliant. And then feel like we need to stay in our own preconceived circles. Many chances for friendships are lost that way, too.

If we are taking time to analyze and find fault with others, we won’t have as much time or desire to look for and see the good.

Perhaps we have finally found a group of our own that we feel comfortable with and we don’t want to rock the boat of acceptance by opening up the group to let someone else in.

One of the greatest inhibitors of friendship could possibly be our own shyness or our own self-consciousness. We are so concerned about our own deficiencies that it is hard to worry about anybody else.

As Elder Jensen said: “How selfish we can be. How unwilling to be inconvenienced, to give, to bless and be blessed. What kind of parents or neighbors or servants of the Lord Jesus Christ can we be without being a friend?
“The power,” he said, “is in each one of us to be a friend. Old and young, rich and poor, educated and humble, in every language and country, we all have the capacity to be a friend.”

Being a friend takes time and effort, but think of the great benefits. Here are eight pointers on how to be a good friend.

First: forget about yourself. Maybe you didn’t have time to do your hair just like you wanted, maybe you spilled ketchup on your tie, maybe you couldn’t find just the right thing to wear but you are not the only one. Each person here has something about themselves that they don’t feel so great about. So forget about you and find someone that you can help and include. Be aware of other people and what they might be feeling. Be sincerely interested in others, and more people will be interested in you.

Second: “act as though.” C. S. Lewis said it so well: “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him.”

You learn to love others by investing in others.

Another way to “act as though,” is to assume that the people around you actually like you. Sometimes we expect someone to snub us or talk about us or reject us and we’re looking for anything in their actions that will prove us right so we can say, “See, I told you he didn’t like me!” Often that person is just reacting to our own action of insecurity or rudeness. Act as though everyone likes you. They probably do! How could they help it, right?

Just as you are trying to “read” other people, they are trying to “read” you. Sometimes you get it wrong.

“Act as though” you’re not shy and self-conscious. Most people here didn’t know you in high school. They didn’t even know you last month. You can remake yourself. Thinking more about others than about yourself is a good start.

Get out of your comfort zone. Stretch a little. Charity, the pure love of Christ, will help you do that.

So that’s the Third thing you can do when working on friendships: Pray for charity. Pray that you will be helped to think about others and what they need. Then you can forget about your mind that goes blank when you try to think of something clever to say and you can forget about your tongue that gets thick when you’re attempting to express yourself.

Keep in mind the message that the Savior taught us over and over in His actions and words: Love one another as I have loved you.

As Mother Teresa said, “It is not how much you do, but how much Love you put into the doing that matters.”

According to an Ensign Article by Shirleen Meek: “Our Father in Heaven can give you the courage to talk to others, the motivation to try something new, or the desire to go out of your way when you just don’t feel like it. And he can comfort you when your efforts don’t turn out quite as you had hoped.”

One of my favorite quotes is from the author Willa Cather, “Where there is great love there are always miracles.”

Fourth: Live the Gospel. A true friend makes it easier for you to live the gospel when you are with him or her.

Fifth: Get involved. Make the effort. Be where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there and good things will happen in your life. There are so many activities in our ward and stake. That doesn’t happen in home wards. The goal here is to bring young people together often to meet each other, learn from each other and to make memorable friendships. And to help get some eternal families going, of course. You never know, your one and only may be at the fireside that you are trying to decide whether to go to or not or at the FHE that you are just too tired to attend. Get up, get going, make your life happen.

Sixth: Remember what people tell you so it will give you something to talk about when you meet again. And be sure to compliment those around you even if you think they already know they look great or taught well. They probably don’t know it already and everyone needs praise.

As Garrison Keillor of Lake Wobegon fame said:
“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.”

Seventh: Learn everyone’s name. That won’t be easy. You’ll have to work at it. But as you know, nothing is as sweet as the sound of your own name. And besides, it would really help me if I asked you what someone’s name was and you could tell me. Can you imagine the positive impact it would have on our ward if everyone knew everyone’s name?

We are a ward family: some brothers and sisters, a mother and father and a few loving aunts and uncles thrown in. We help each other. Sometimes we have to take out the garbage. Sometimes we have to clean our rooms. Sometimes we are needed to share rides or to comfort and uplift and encourage.

Hopefully, in this ward and in the many wards you’ll be in in your life, you will choose to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

As it says in Romans 12:5: “So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”

And it helps to be one when we know each other’s names.

Eighth: and last: Be your best self. President Spencer W. Kimball once said: “What are your eccentricities, if any? I think nearly all people have some. If so, then go to work. Classify them, weigh them, corral them, and eliminate them one at a time.”

That, too, will take time and effort but know that we are all striving to grow to be a better people, a better ward family. We can learn from and help each other.

Our Bishop and his counselors love you. I know that each of them would call each of you “friend” and so would the other adults assigned to this ward.

What greater gift dost thou bestow,
What greater goodness can we know
Than Christlike friends, whose gentle ways
Strengthen our faith, enrich our days.

You enrich my days and I am very grateful for your friendship. Thank you for your love and devotion to each other. May you be willing to reach out to those you don’t know yet and help them feel the outpouring of love from this ward. Be a friend!

Kinder Garten

2011-08-21T20:09:00.001-07:00

KINDER--GARTEN
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
August 8, 2011

I have two grandchildren that will be starting kindergarten this year--Barrett and Claire. I pray that they will each be blessed with a teacher who loves them and wants them to become the best they can be. After all, kindergarten is the gateway to years of education and Barrett’s and Claire’s experiences in this school year could possibly color the rest of their lives. I hope these experiences will be the color of roses and not of fog.

I especially wish for these children a more positive experience with kindergarten than I had, because kindergarten at Emerson Elementary in the school year of 1954-55 left a little to be desired. In fact, I am surprised that after my year of kindergarten I didn’t cower behind my Mom’s skirts and refuse to ever set foot in another educational facility.

In case you didn’t know, according to Webster’s 17th edition of the dictionary, the word kindergarten comes from the German language. The word kinder means children and garten means garden. In English, this translates into a garden of children. So wouldn’t you think kindergarten would be a very loving, nurturing place? It conjures up thoughts of watering and cultivating and carefully assisting lovely young plants to grow and progress.

Well, my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Hill, was not cut from the cloth of a gardener and she was definitely not cut from the cloth of a kindergarten teacher. Her Maker must have grabbed the wrong fabric when she came down the assembly line. I think He got mixed up with a Nazi general when He reached for the material for Mrs. Hill. She was not made from a soft, supple, warm fabric but from a scratchy, unrelenting, cold one.

Mrs. Hill’s birthday was on February 29th which, obviously, only comes every four years. “I am only twelve years old,” she’d tell us. I think to a kindergartener, anybody older than five, even an aging adult, could easily have been twelve. What did we know?

Maybe being a leap year baby was at the root of her problem. Maybe she felt a need to inflict her frustration of only having a birthday every four years on very unsuspecting first year students. None of us had gone to preschool. I don’t know when preschool became a necessary prerequisite to kindergarten. So this was our very first experience with education.

We each had brought a little rug from home to take naps on. Naps! We were only in kindergarten for half a day. Claire and Barrett will be in school all day but I don’t think they’ll be napping on home-brought rugs. But in my half-day kindergarten, we would each take out our little rugs and lie down on them halfway through our daily time there. Without pillows! Who could lie down on a hard floor and have a restful rest without a pillow? And we were to be quiet while lying on those rugs. We wouldn’t even think of making a peep and being brought to Mrs. Hill’s attention. Not because she would gently reprimand us or send a note home to our parents. No. Remember, she was cut from the rough scratchy cloth of a Nazi. If you crossed her discipline radar, you could very well end up in the closet with a gag over your mouth. That’s what happened to Danny on more than one occasion. I know that sounds like a lie but it isn’t. You can ask anybody in the black and white picture enshrining my fellow classmates of the Emerson Kindergarten Class of 1955 if I’m telling you the truth. Any one of them will tell you that Mrs. Hill had no business masquerading as a kindergarten teacher. She belonged to a different age and time, and should have been marshaling a ragtag bunch of unruly soldiers and not attempting to teach a budding group of tender and tiny five year olds. (Actually, I was never tiny, but that is fodder for another story.)

On one occasion Mrs. Hill took a student and bound his hands before she put him in the closet. That atrocity happened to a boy named Jack who would often come to school without shoes. We didn’t live in the rural olden days when going to school without shoes was more common than going to school with shoes. I’m sure Jack didn’t need to be humiliated any further than he already was, but Mrs. Hill didn’t seem to know that. I don’t remember Jack at all in later years. He might have been a kindergarten drop-out. I’m surprised more of us didn’t fall into that category.

Once Mom was giving a Relief Society lesson in the good old days when our Church Relief Society was held every Wednesday morning. All the women in the Mesa 8th Ward attended without fail just to have that wonderful association with great women. Mom wanted me to add to her lesson by reciting the poem, The Owl and the Pussycat. I was very willing, especially when I knew that I would miss kindergarten that day. Even when I was told on my return to the trenches that I had missed a class party, I still didn’t mind. Any day away from kindergarten was a day to be treasured.

There might have been one or two favorable highlights that year. Once Mrs. Hill wrote “bananas are good” on the blackboard (no white boards then!). She pointed to the words and said, “bananas, blank, blank” and I was the one who could fill in the blanks correctly with the words “are good.” I was actually quite smart if I do say so myself. But that good memory is offset with the bad memory of having to spend time in the corner because I was talking to Jeanine.

Mrs. Hill made a statement one day that was very disturbing to my young mind. We were all being overly noisy and she said that if we didn’t behave, the principle would fire her. “Fire?” I only had one interpretation for that word: the principle would light a match and burn her up. I became very quiet. We all did. Maybe the others had constructed the same horrible mental picture.

It really is too bad that she hadn’t been fired--in the real meaning of the word, I mean. She should never have been a kindergarten teacher. Her antics would certainly get her fired today. Fired and sued and perhaps arrested. Surprisingly, in spite of Mrs. Hill, I went on to love school and thrive in its environment.

My prayer for Claire and Barrett and my other fourteen grandchildren is that they too will thrive. I hope they will always receive excellent gardeners in their “garden of children.” But even if, along the way, they have to suffer through a teacher who should never have become a teacher, I pray that they will prosper anyway, knowing who they are and Whose they are. May they be great learners in this wonderful world and love the learning.

Day 2: The Blues Before the Cruise

2011-08-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

July 10, 2011
Elizabeth Willis Barrett

New Orleans--what a great place to begin and end a cruise. It is extremely warm, which sounds rather critical for someone who lives in Gilbert, Arizona, where it can be 110 degrees all day and all night. But I will definitely take our warm to New Orleans’ warm with its sticky high humidity. I have been apologizing to guests who have had to weather our weather for August weddings or mis-planned visits for a long time now. But Arizona heat is looking pretty good to me at the moment.

Last night Brad and I and Sam and Leona--2 of the 22 that make up our very congenial group--made our slow and uncomfortable way down the New Orleans streets to get a bit of the flavor of this very unique city. At Mother’s, a small and popular restaurant, we had heaping plates of red beans and rice along with cabbage and roast beef. It looked sloppy and monochromatic and would never have placed in a gourmet contest, but it tasted delicious and New Orleans-ish. Then we walked down the very decadent Bourbon Street which I have done on two other occasions and don’t have on my bucket list to do again. We found a relatively peaceful place to sit and listen to Jazz and Blues and eat beignets, which made the sweltering walk quite worth it.

This morning Brad and I headed off to Jackson Square to go to Mass with Wally and Nancy. Unfortunately we didn’t get our directions straight and went out of our way which wasn’t too fun in this exquisite heat. Then in talking to a corner tour vendor we discovered that St. Thomas Cathedral personnel might not let Brad into Mass wearing shorts. So Brad raced back to the hotel to change and left me sitting alone on a bench a little nervous after the above mentioned vendor had told of the looting and beating up of innocents that happened during Hurricane Katrina. He didn’t make New Orleans sound like a kind and loving city.

During my apprehensive wait, Brad called my cell phone to say that I should walk on to Jackson Square and he would meet me there. I raced off keeping my phone in my hand to ward off any attackers who would want to rob me of my jean purse and all its contents including 50 $1 bills and this journal that would undoubtedly bring a great price if sold on the black market.

I made it into the St. Thomas Cathedral with the last of the Mass-welcoming bells. I felt a little like Maria in The Sound of Music running down from the mountain and into the cloister at breakneck speed as the bells chimed. Thankfully the Delecki’s caught me before I walked clear up to the alter. There are several warnings to turn off cell phones which of course wouldn’t have been issued when this gorgeous edifice was built between the years of 1789 and 1850. Interestingly, this is the oldest continuously operating cathedral in the United States.

Before I could turn off my extremely modern I Phone 4, it rang and I quickly hit the decline button. It was Brad wondering where to find us. I tried to quietly text him but then he called again and again I cut him off. Mass began with a song--a rather loud one that the congregation needed to stand up and sing. That gave me the opportunity to scrunch on my bench, call Brad’s cell and whisper to him where we were sitting. He had practically run all the way--not from the hotel because he never made it to the hotel. He had mis-calculated his way and gone about eight blocks out of it. So he was still in his shorts when he panted into the cathedral. Thankfully, he was not turned away as weren’t the other 100 men in shorts.

We enjoyed the Mass. Nancy guided us through it in the booklet that is printed every quarter, I believe. The music was beautifully led by a very skilled vocalist. She sang most of the songs with a different melody than was written for some reason, which made it a little harder to follow when it was our turn to sing. The priest gave a very nice sermon on the sower who tossed his seeds and some fell on thorny ground, etc. We felt very edified. It was a beautiful place to experience our first Mass.

We gathered all our belongings from the hotel, took a cab to the embarkment point and after signing away our full credit card capability, boarded the Norwegian Cruise Ship “Spirit.” It is enormous and beautiful. It was like walking into a six star hotel lobby. We were greeted by a Flamingo Dancer and attractive drinks which we declined. (We declined the drinks, I mean. I don’t think the Flamingo Dancer was offered.) We found our room, #6532, quite quickly. It is small but very efficient and has a big window looking out over the ocean. I think we’re going to like this!

Day One: The Cruise Fuse

2011-07-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

Saturday July 9, 2011
Elizabeth Willis Barrett

It is 7:30 AM and Brad and I are sitting in the Sky Harbor Airport waiting to board our Southwest flight to New Orleans where we will board a Norwegian Cruise Line ship for our first ever and much deserved cruise. It is to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary which is coming up on August 18th. If not now, when?

I haven’t really gathered any enthusiasm for this privileged adventure yet. I’m hoping it will come. If not, I will be considered a very ungrateful little twerp since a very low percentage of the world’s 6 billion—or is it 7 billion?—people can ever dream of going on a trip like this. But collecting enthusiasm takes time and brain power and both of those commodities have been busy elsewhere, along with my scattered emotions. Mom died in April and we had a very reflective and sweet time with family and friends. We took a wonderful trip to Conneaut, Ohio—Brad’s birth place— in May. June vanished like disappearing ink without making an impression at all and we had a memorable family reunion at the cabin over the Fourth of July after spending several days in Flagstaff for business. Now here it is time for this possibly once in a lifetime vacation and I’d better perk up and get my whole body, mind and spirit in total alignment to enjoy it. OK, Chopra and Dyer—please remind me how to do that!

One way is to enjoy the moment—right? I have been practicing enjoying the process or the journey, as it were, and not just the destination, but I have a long ways to go, so to speak. For instance, I didn’t enjoy any of the moments last night while I was finishing a marathon packing spree. A packing job that should take two hours at the very most always ends up being as big a deal as packing up the Ringling Brothers Circus. Why is that? One minor reason is that invariably, while slowly packing, Brad turns on the TV. The TV is so distracting to me. Brad comments on what is being debated on the current talk show—which I must respond to—and then he talks to me about other things that could easily be discussed while we’re waiting an hour in the airport. I don’t think men think that way, though. They just say things as they come to mind and never consider more convenient timing. My goal was to go to bed at 8:00 which was ridiculous, I know, but I believe in aiming high. My head didn’t hit the pillow until nearly mid-night, however, and just knowing that the alarm was set for 5:00 this morning made sleep evade me like a grandchild at Wal-Mart.

So now that we have surprisingly made it in excellent time to the airport—via a loving and kind daughter, Allison—I will try once again to enjoy the moment. Ummm, maybe not this moment. I am sitting behind a Mister “I don’t care if everyone knows the minutiae of my frustrating and difficult business” who is talking twenty decimals louder than sotto voce on his cell phone. Should I let him ruin my moment? According to author Byron Katie who makes falling flat on the floor appear to be a special gift from providence, “Of course not.” That would be giving him too much of my power and I need my power for this trip.

So I’ll concentrate on some of the other people—scores and scores of all shapes, sizes and demeanors. All clothed and coiffured in a myriad of ways. And God knows each one intimately and loves each one, too, which seems like a stretch in some instances —the angry, the chuckling, the immodest, the ancient—Imagine!

Well my number is up and we are about to board. Me and my best friend—going on our first cruise. Lucky, lucky me!!!

2011-06-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
June 13, 2011

Some days are wonderfully good days. In fact, most of them are. Nah, that’s sounding a little too Pollyanna-ish. Most of them are just OK. But on some days, I am really in the flow and everything falls into place. I can go to Safeway and find everything I had a coupon for. I can turn left onto Baseline without waiting for 20 cars to go by. The people I want answers from respond quickly to my text messages and my head isn’t in need of an Excedrin. Jelly side up days. I like those days. When I get my thinking in order, I end up having a lot more of them. But lately I have let the small nuisances of life—the little things that slowly pump the joy out of existence— get to me and make some not so good days. The other day was one of those.

Brad and I were getting ready to go to the cabin and I made the mistake of saying, “My thumbs hurt!” All I needed him to say was, “I’m so sorry. I bet that is really uncomfortable for you.” Or “Arthritis is a pain, isn’t it?” But he didn’t. He said, “I told you to go to the doctor. Why don’t you just go and quit complaining about it?”

Nothing makes me quit talking more than a comment like that. I know he couldn’t help it. Like most men he was born with a gene that makes him blurt out an obvious fix without any intermediate empathy. Of course I should go to a doctor. But I didn’t need him to tell me that. I needed him to sympathize with and listen to me like I sympathize with and listen to him when he complains of a jabbing headache or an incompetent employee. I don’t think he even noticed that I totally quit talking after that—about anything.

Until, that is, we were at Home Depot getting some essentials for the cabin yard. It was after lunch time and I was hungry. Right in front of Home Depot was a Pollo Loco so as we got back in the car, I asked Brad if he wanted to stop there. “No, I’m not hungry,” he said as he drove past it.

I was miffed again, but that wasn’t his fault either. Women, for the most part, are born with a gene which makes us say things like: “Do you feel like a Jamba Juice right now?” And when our man says, “No,” we get mad and quit talking. That’s because we expect him to have enough sense to say, “I’d love one,” even if he wouldn’t. We want him to instinctively know (as women know) that we wouldn’t have brought up Jamba Juice if we hadn’t wanted one for ourselves. And for some asinine reason, we don’t feel worthy of getting what we want unless someone else wants it, too. It’s not the men’s fault, really. We as women need to state clearly, “I’m stopping at Jamba Juice. If you want one, I’ll get you one, too.” Or “Stop right now at Pollo Loco. I’m getting a taco salad. What would you like?”

This particular day wasn’t improving with its passing.

I usually don’t drink anything but water. I am definitely not one of those that has to run to Circle K for a 44 ouncer every day at 1:30. But when we drive up to the mountains, I really like to stop at Circle K for one of their semi-frozen Sprites to which I squirt in their additives of vanilla and raspberry flavorings and vitamin B12 and gingko. You get all that for $ .79 whether you choose a 24 oz., 32 oz. or 44 oz. Being the value mogul that I am, I, of course, fill up the 44 ouncer with relish. The very best combination is Sprite mixed with Mango but I have only found that in one place and that is way out on Hunt Highway. Driving out there would be a very foolish way to spend $20 in gas just to buy a $ .79 drink.

Since I didn’t get any lunch on this occasion, I thought I could at least look forward to my frozen concoction. But unfortunately, not all Circle K’s have frozen slushy drinks. In my opinion, they shouldn’t have started the trend unless they could carry it out in all locations. Now that I’m hooked, finding what I need has turned out to be very difficult.

Brad was sure there was a Circle K we could stop at in Gold Canyon which was on the way. He thought he could find it, but he couldn’t and for that matter, neither could I. My annoyance was intensified. I really had my taste buds ready. On we went to Miami. Brad stopped at the first Circle K we passed but they hadn’t modernized and my drink was not there. Humph.

As we drove on, we saw a Church’s Chicken establishment off to the right. Being unusually decisive, I told Brad to pull into the drive-through and I ordered chicken strips. No reflection on all Church’s, but these were inedible. Brad was very kind and told me not to eat the chicken, and we would try somewhere else.

We stopped at two more Circle K’s. The first didn’t have the drink I wanted. The second did, but the machine was frozen up and the icy liquid wouldn’t come out. Aaaaaaaaaaa! I was quite beside myself.

Then up the road we saw a KFC. “They won’t let me down,” I thought with great conviction and my mouth was rather ready for highly seasoned chicken. It isn’t usually, but there is something about being in the car and having few choices that did it. It didn’t look like any alternatives were available in Globe unless I wanted to go to McDonald’s or Taco Bell. I didn’t.

As we drove up to KFC, it looked closed. But as they say, “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” so I got out and tried the door. It was locked even though the sign said they were open for several more hours. As I pulled on the door a few times, a KFC worker appeared and motioned for us to drive around to the window. Obediently, we did. Brad first asked the same worker, now receiving our order at the window, if he had any pot pies. Sometimes a pot pie tastes very soothing, especially a KFC pot pie. No, he didn’t. That wasn’t too surprising because it is a hit or miss for any of the KFC’s to have pot pies when you want them.

“How ‘bout the little wraps?” I made Brad ask. Brad hates drive-through windows in the very best of situations, and this wasn’t turning out to be anywhere near the best.

“We don’t have much tonight,” was the boy’s answer.

“Hmmm. Well, what do you have?” Brad asked. This final question should have been answered with about 30 KFC items, but there was only one from this worker who probably didn’t want to be there and most likely would have loved to be home playing Nintendo or something.

“We have three chicken strips,” was his reply.

“Three chicken strips?” My raised voice carried very easily from the passenger side of the front seat.

“Yep. Three chicken strips.” He said it matter of factly, like we shouldn’t have expected more from a chicken-serving-fast-food-place that had about three more hours to be open for service.

“We ran out of chicken,” he added.

Tornadoes were going on in the Midwest, and earthquakes in other parts of the world but Globe, Arizona, looked perfectly calm. No disasters seemed to be coming down on it.

“We borrowed some chicken from Show Low,” he continued, “but we’re all out again.”

Astounding! Kentucky Fried Chicken had run out of chicken. I hoped that some manager’s job was on the line for this.

“I’ll take your last three strips,” I said. My mouth was still ready for chicken and I thought, of course, that these last three would be succulent and delicious. Wrong. Very wrong. They were worse than the Church’s. I didn’t eat them.

We finally made it to the cabin, drink-less, dinner-less and humor-less. I took a Marie Callender’s beef tips dinner from the freezer and put it in the micro-wave, with a Healthy Choice meat loaf dinner waiting in the wings for Brad. He set up the two TV trays and turned on the news.

Because Brad is a perpetual channel changer—another characteristic imbedded in male genes—several news stories began hitting my ears and my always active guilt center: the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, the flattened town of Joplin Missouri, the embarrassing sexting antics of Congressman Weiner, the horrendous trial of Casey Anthony.

Here were some people having some legitimate terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. Comparing mine to theirs would be like comparing a piece of hay to a haystack. It was like I could hear The Powers That Be whisper in my ear, “Quit your bellyaching or I’ll really give you something to cry about.”

I’m a good listener. I chastised my selfish inner child and vowed to be more like our neighbor, Dave Robinson, who never met a day he didn’t like.

After my sincere bedtime prayer of thanks for my shelter, my bed, my companion, my family, and countless blessings, I ruminated on the day and surprisingly, with the flip of a mental switch, it became a glorious, wonderful day and I humbly look forward to many more to come.

A Bit of Flossiphy for a Dentist Who's Down in the Mouth

2011-05-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

This poem is in honor of my dentists who have put up with my great fear of them
and my need for laughing gas just to get my teeth cleaned.
--Elizabeth Willis Barrett--

A Bit of Flossiphy for a Dentist Who’s Down in the Mouth
By Cuspid

When others are taking you falsely
And you’ve bitten off more than you’ll chew,
When your ego appears to be dentin’
Here’s some counsel to carie with you.

Just get to the root of the matter;
Find the cause of all of the stress.
You’d do well with a bit of prevention—
A cure-all or two molar less.

When drilling becomes an abscession
I’ll admit that it takes lots of nerve,
But amidst all the gauze and extractions
Just smile and continue to serve.

Think, by gum, this is quite an adventure
Though yourself you feel you’re beside.
Remember you’ve got lots of wisdom,
You’re not just along flou-ride.

You might feel life’s too close together
With cavities you can’t dissipate,
And eye teeth that ache for attention.
It’s no wonder that no one sees straight.

Brace yourself for the crown that awaits you
When memory has long since decayed,
When deciduous wailing has ended
And you’ve forgotten all those who’ve not paid.

You’ll find after all it was worth it
When toothaches and cavities cease;
And you’ll come to this sweet malocclusion:
In permanence there will be peace!
--Elizabeth Willis Barrett--

Flying High

2011-05-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

FLYING HIGH
Elizabeth Willis Barrett
Written March 10, 1991—Revised May 1, 2011

Sitting here in the Nashville airport waiting for my flight to leave, I am reminded of my many years of air travel—an opportunity connected with my dad working for Frontier Airlines nearly all my life. When I was little we rode on prop jets that bounced and tossed and generally stunk due in most part to the smoking that was allowed on all flights. The smokers were supposed to sit in the back, but that only allowed all the smoke to come forward, engulfing us with a strong urge to throw up. I always made sure the burp bag was directly in front of me where it belonged in the pouch of the seat ahead. I learned to grab it first thing and be ready from an incident I’m not proud of. I felt a heave coming on and instead of reaching for my own burp bag, unaccountably I reached across the aisle for the burp bag in front of my mom. Before I could grab it, I spewed all over the aisle. It was not a welcomed occurrence for the poor stewardess. My little sister, Maxine, had her own unique method of keeping the smell away so she wouldn’t throw up. She’d carry a handkerchief doused in perfume and keep it over her nose. It wasn’t always successful.

After locating the burp bag, I’d next grab a pillow and blanket. Sleeping would make the flight go a lot faster and it got awfully cold up there. There seemed to be a lot more room on airplanes then. The seats were in twos instead of threes and there was space for your knees. And if no one was sitting next to me I could take out the middle arm rest and actually lie down. When we’d finally get to our destination, I was a crumpled mess, but it was worth it.

When the flight got airborne, the stewardess would pass out gum to chew so our ears wouldn’t pop. Then would come the 7-up and peanuts and always a meal, which, if I remember correctly, was pretty tasty air fare.

Whenever I would fly alone, I would be encouraged by loving parents to get out of my shell and try to converse with the stewardesses. I’d try, but it was very awkward, since as a youth I couldn’t think of anything at all to say that an adult would want to hear. On one occasion, I asked the nearby stewardess if that was the Great Salt Lake I could see from the window. “No, that’s just the sky,” she answered. I figured from then on I had every right to remain silent if I chose. I’m still not good at small talk.

Usually we’d get to sit in the first class section but sometimes we’d have to give up those seats to those who had rightfully paid for them. It was very humiliating to be bumped down to coach. There’s a scripture about that somewhere, I think.

Because we were non-paying customers, we always had to be the very last ones on and, to be polite, the very last ones off. The most dreaded words we could hear were “Sorry, but the plane is full.” Lots of times we got bumped off in Farmington, New Mexico or Grand Junction, Colorado which is odd when we were headed for Salt Lake City, but that was the route Frontier took.

Flying “non-rev” was nerve-racking, but it allowed our family to go places we never could have gone like the New York World’s Fair, Washington D.C. and Hawaii. It got me up and back from BYU many times, too.

Well, it’s time to board. Now that I’m forced to be a paying customer, I’ll go straight to coach and sit squished between two other impatient passengers. There’ll be barely enough room to breathe, much less lie down. I’m too embarrassed to wrap up with a pillow and blanket and they don’t give out gum anymore. Just for old times’ sake, though, I’m going to grab a burp bag just in case.

Now....and Then....

2011-04-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

NOW… AND THEN…
Elizabeth Willis Barrett February 24, 2011

I remember asking my mom probably on more than one occasion: “Did you live in the olden days?” I haven’t asked it lately, of course, but only when I was little and thought the world was made up of “now” and “the olden days.” She would look at me a little quizzically and not answer for a minute. I wonder if in Cleopatra’s time little girls asked their mothers if they lived in the “olden days”. Actually, since my mother’s family had a horse and sleigh, I still think that she lived in the “olden days.” But as I consider the massive changes that have come in my lifetime, I guess my era could be called the “olden days,” too.

When I was in high school—which was a very long time ago, although it really doesn’t seem long at all—I distinctly recall thinking to myself or idiotically saying out loud, “Everything that is ever going to be invented must have already been invented because there can’t be anything left to invent.”

That statement could have really put me in the loony bin. I don’t think I’m the only one who has ever thought it, though. For instance, “someone” said that years ago they were going to close down the patent office because they thought everything had already been invented. (I think I will Google that statement just to make sure I’m not leading anyone astray. That’s something I couldn’t have done while I was in High School, even if it was the fabulous Westwood High School of Mesa, Arizona. No one could have Googled anything back then. And now that I’ve Googled that particular patent office concern, I have found out that it is another of those tales that just gets bigger with the telling. The person who didn’t say "Everything that can be invented has been invented" was Charles H. Duell. So, no one was ever going to shut down the patent office. That’s good to know.)

There have been many inventions since the 60’s that have made life considerably easier and their usefulness has not been wasted on me.

For instance: copy machines. We didn’t have copy machines. If we needed several copies of something, we would have to very painstakingly type it onto a ditto master. Type it, I said. With a typewriter. If you made an inevitable mistake, you would have to scrape it off the back with a razor blade. By the time you were done, you seriously considered using the blade on your wrists. Sometimes you would type your document on the wrong side and then the whole thing would come out backwards. That could send you into depression for a very long time. At least for as long as it took for you to type it all over again and finally fit it onto the ditto machine, turn the handle, and end up with your copies—purple-inked copies. As Westwood’s Student Body Corresponding Secretary Treasurer, I had many opportunities to use the ditto machine. A computer would have made such a wonderful difference. I could have fulfilled my calling with much more precision and professionalism. It’s a good thing I didn’t know back then about the ease that computers would bring. I think I would have sat in that Student Council room and waited for them to be invented and widely used.

I have made a hundred mistakes in this essay already but with my fabulous “now” laptop, they have been very simple to correct. (Wish my errors in life could be corrected so easily.) And when I want copies, I just hit “print” and stand by the printer and out they come. Perfection!

We only had one phone in our house—a black, heavy device with a rotary dial that sat expectantly on a bookcase by the stairs. Because it was connected by a short cord, multitasking was nearly impossible unless you wanted to dust the bookcase or organize the books for the thousandth time. A long call might get me down on the floor with my feet up on the shelves, but usually the phone user would just stand. When the phone rang my brothers would call out “hostler” which meant: “I choose not to answer the phone, so you’ll have to.” I don’t think I was ever very fast with my “hostler” call so I answered the phone quite a bit. There was no caller ID, no call waiting, no phone messaging. And we had party lines so if our neighbor was using his phone, we’d have to wait for his long conversation to be over before we could use our phone. Our ring was two quick ones. His ring was one long.

If I could have envisioned what was to come in phones, I would have been ecstatic. I would have prayed fervently that I could live long enough to enjoy the magic of driving down the road while conversing with my friends or having a phone tell me how to get to the Scottsdale Goldwater’s store. The ability to text someone a message wasn’t even a glimmer on the horizon. And who then could have imagined that you would be able to raise a phone to the night skies and be told the names of the constellations?

Once in high school I went to a slumber party at Becky Sharon’s house. She had a record—a record is a black disc-like thing that was played on a record player, in case you didn’t know—that played a horse race with several outcomes. You’d try to guess which horse would win. I don’t know how it worked, but that a record could play something different each time it went around was amazing to me. Now look at the video games and computer games that you can manipulate. They are astounding!

In my youth, our family TV was small and boxy. Our one TV. I didn’t even know anyone who had more than one. You could get four channels: 3,5,10, and 12. If you weren’t right there at 7: 00 p.m. on Thursday night to watch Donna Reed, you certainly couldn’t Tivo it or even record it on a VHS tape. Our family didn’t have a TV for a long time. My dad always said we’d get one when they came out in color. I thought that meant when the case around it was in color, which I didn’t think mattered much unless you were really into decorating consciousness. Well, we did wait until they came out in color but ours was black and white. It had rabbit ears that you had to keep adjusting to make the picture clear enough to watch. Once in a while the weather or some other interference would shut down all the channels. If you wanted to change one of those channels, you got up and changed it, of course. You didn’t look around everywhere under cushions or in end table drawers for a remote.

Mom used a wringer washer for years and then would hang the clothes out on the line. Sometimes my job would be to iron the pillowcases and Dad’s handkerchiefs. For the boys’ Levis (we did not call them jeans) Mom would put wire forms in the washed legs and then hang them out so they wouldn’t have to be ironed. Some people ironed their sheets, but since there was always enough ironing to be done, we skipped the sheets. Every Friday each of us would take the top sheet from our bed and use it as the bottom sheet, getting a clean top sheet from the linen closet. I don’t think fitted sheets were invented then. The process wouldn’t have worked with fitted sheets.

We didn’t have a crock pot, a microwave or a dishwasher. We always ate breakfast and dinner as a family and after each meal, my two older brothers and I would decide how the dishes would be done by calling out “clear up,” “wash”, or “dry.” Tim always yelled “clear up” and I would quickly call out “dry.” Rick would usually end up with “wash.” It took us a while to realize that washing is what Rick preferred so he didn’t have to hurry calling his preference. Neither Tim nor I ever chose “wash.” When Ron and Maxine were old enough to help, Rick and Tim were too busy for dishes. I ended up having to clear up and wash, while Ron and Maxine shared the drying. If you divided all the dish washing procedure into 6 parts, then I was doing 4 parts, while each of them only did one part. I wasted a lot of emotions on that perceived unfairness. I don’t know if a dishwasher would have helped or not.

What else didn’t we have? Hmmmm. We didn’t have seatbelts, in-line skates, four wheelers, Ipods, Ipads or Costco. Come to think of it, we didn’t even have Wal-Mart.

We didn’t have Blogging or Facebook, that’s for sure. If I had wanted you to know the contents of this essay, I would have had to call each of you one at a time while standing by our bookcase attached to our corded phone and read it to you. Or maybe I could have mailed you each a copy with the help of a 5 cent stamp.

I suppose there will be no end to inventions. They will make life for our Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren considerably different from ours. And one day these children will most likely look back even to this present time and reflect, “Yep, those were definitely the olden days.”

NAME NEUROSIS

2011-03-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett
March 27, 2011

For someone with as many names as I have, I really shouldn’t have a lot of hang-ups with names. But I do. I think I’ve always been strange that way. I called my Mom “Mama” for most of my childhood. Then I wanted to call her “Mom” since that’s what most of my friends seemed to call their mothers. I remember it taking me a long, disturbed while to work into “Mom” and to drop the “Mama” business. I finally made it happen, but now sometimes I wish I could call her “Mama” again. I like that name. But I can’t. Neurosis! Neither could I call her “Mother.” I don’t know why. It would just stick in my mouth funny like a piece of dry bread.

I couldn’t call my Dad “Pops” either or anything endearing. And he was very endearing. I could just call him “Dad.” I’m sure that started out as “Daddy.” I don’t remember getting to the point of dropping the “y,” but it was most likely quite painful.

I should have known that the inability to use names would get me into more trouble later on. Brad almost went on our honeymoon without me because I couldn’t say, “This is my husband, Brad.” (Actually, now that I think about it, we never had a honeymoon. I will write about that someday.) As people came through the reception line, I would just introduce him as Brad, which was pretty good I thought. At least I didn’t call him something else in my nervousness. But I couldn’t say “husband.” That wouldn’t be hard for most new brides, I’m sure, but it was really hard for me. I didn’t know it upset him until we were in our tiny VW Bug and on our way to Winnebago, Nebraska, to start our new life together. We have been married nearly 40 years so our marriage has had staying power in spite of my early lack of ability to introduce Brad as “my husband.”

Soon after being married, I made another faux pas with names. I wrote to Brad’s parents and stated, “I am going to call you ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ because I feel so close to you.” Well, that lasted only as long as it took to write it. I couldn’t call them “Mom” and “Dad.” It wouldn’t come out—kind of like a sticky mouthful of peanut butter. I realized what a mistake I had made in even suggesting that I call them “Mom” and “Dad” when we visited them in San Diego during a break from our Winnebago adventure. None of the other in-laws were calling them “Mom” and “Dad.” Even if the words could have come out of my mouth, how could I use those appellations when no one else did? I would have appeared to be a plotting daughter-in-law, sickening sweet to the core. While there, I made the vast mistake of answering the phone which happened to be for LaVerl. I couldn’t call her “Mom” and I couldn’t even call her “LaVerl” after making such a big deal of it, so I stood directly in front of her and held out the phone so I wouldn’t have to call her anything at all. It took a while, but Jeff and LaVerl became “Jeff” and “LaVerl” and we were all a lot more comfortable.

I have a beautiful sister-in-law who decided she didn’t want to be called Jaynie anymore after over 50 years into her lifetime. She officially changed her name to Kate and expected everyone to start calling her that. I thought I could do it and tried a few times, but I couldn’t. She had always been my kids’ “favorite Aunt Jaynie.” She told me to pretend like we’d never met and then when I saw her next to think of her as Kate. But that would dissolve all the history we had together. With the dissolution of her name, came the semi-dissolution of a friendship. That is most likely my fault. It’s just that names are such a part of who you are and again, I seem to have name neurosis.

So, back to all of my names. I was “Elizabeth” for a long time at school and church and nearly everywhere else I went until my friend Loretta started calling me “Liz” which my family often called me, too. My Erikson aunts, uncles and cousins would call me “Betts.” I love that name. I really don’t want to lose it, but I think they’ve moved on to “Liz.” Grandma Willis would often call me “Bettina.” Some family and friends sometimes call me “Lizbeth” or “Lizabeth.” I’m fond of all those names. We had a dog named “Chizum” that Brad sometimes called “Chizzie.” For some reason that made him start calling me “Lizzie.” It took me a while, but I like it now. The only thing I insist on is that when my name is written on a list or in a program or announced from a pulpit, I like it to be Elizabeth. I don’t want to lose the original.

When it was time to be a Grandmother there was one thing I was very sure of—I did not want to be called “Grandma.” Getting old enough to be one is bad enough and I wanted another name to distinguish me. Brad said that I should just wait to see what the grandkids called me which I knew would end up being “Grandma” if someone didn’t intervene early. So I chose to be called “Marmie” in my grandmotherly state. It took a great deal of effort to make it stick which I was too inhibited to do myself. But thanks to a daughter-in-law that didn’t have hang-ups with names, to most of my 15 grandchildren I am “Marmie.” I will have to say that when the little ones start talking, their “Marmie” sounds a lot like “Mommy.” I’m obviously a generation ahead of their Mommies, so I’m glad when they develop the ability to get in the “r.” Jana wanted her kids to call her “Mommy” and didn’t want them to get confused, so her kids call me “Betts.” I love being “Marmie Betts”. There isn’t another name I could have chosen that I would like better. And it, too, has its variation. When my Bella tried to say “Marmie,” it came out “Mimi.” That one melts me.

So now that I have so many names, you’d think I wouldn’t mind what someone else wants to be called. But there you have it—name neurosis—one of my many glitches.

Mindless

2011-02-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett

I had great plans to keep my mind and thinking abilities with me to the grave, but after a few more experiences reminiscent of the shopping cart fiasco (see my Blog Post of 7-24-10 ), I am beginning to doubt just a bit if that will be possible.

Two Sundays ago when all the kids and grandkids came to dinner, I set everything out on the counter and made sure everyone had what they needed. Then I served up a plate for myself. Twice. I didn’t know it was twice, but when dinner was over and clean-up began, there was a plate sitting on the counter sporting a small serving of Chicken Tetrazzini and a helping of salad dressed with Ranch. No one claimed it and just to set the record straight, Alli quietly said, “Mom, that plate is yours. I saw you dish it up.” I had not an ounce of recollection that I had dished out a plate for myself before I dished out a plate for myself. The kids are already taking dibs on who won’t have to take care of me in my demented state.

Then last Thursday I painstakingly gathered and organized a lot of coupons to take to Fry’s Food and Drug. I don’t always use coupons, but once in a while it is nice to hear, “Well, Ma’am, you spent 61 dollars and saved 65.”

I spent lots of time in the store looking for the brands that coincided with the coupons but finally got up to the checkout counter manned (or is that “womaned”) by a very nice cashier. If I had been Brad, I would have paid attention to her name pinned to her chest and used it five or six times in friendly conversation. But even though I talked to her about how good it feels to save money with coupons, I didn’t notice her name so I’ll just call her Peggy. Peggy was great. She didn’t act perturbed that I had a stack of coupons for her to scan or that I insisted that she make sure that I had 10 participating products so I could get my $5.00 off.

I waited for her to tell me how much I had saved but since she didn’t ever say it, I figured I could look on the receipt when I got home. She did, however, hand me a rain check for Armour Meatballs which were on sale for $1.99 and for which I had a coupon, bringing the price down to $ .99. What a deal! No wonder they were out of them.

The bagger bagged my groceries and asked if I needed help out. I always say “no” to that question because, frankly, I hate to small talk and that is what you have to do if you’re walking side by side with a young man who is pushing your cart while you’re pointing out which car is yours.

So I thanked Peggy and rolled my cart out all by myself and even found my car without any problem, which is something to be grateful for.

I had just loaded the last 12pack of Dr. Pepper—which, honestly, I only use for medicinal purposes and to pacify Kyle—and I had searched for and found the Chocolate Turtle Chex Mix that I wanted to eat on the way home, when I heard it. It was a hostile yell thrown in my direction. Stunned, I turned with my hand still exerting the effort necessary to bring down the hatch back. And there was Peggy running toward me, yelling again. “You didn’t pay!” she accused. “You didn’t pay!”

“What?” I asked. “What are you talking about? I swiped my card. How could I not have paid?” Obviously I had paid if I had swiped my card and I definitely remembered doing that.

“It didn’t go through,” she said, just as flustered as I was feeling. I was ready to be home after spending an hour and a half with the coupons.

So back I went into the store looking and feeling like a very naughty child who had been caught stealing a Snickers Bar. Peggy found the mistake when the next woman in line—a young mother toting two children—said there must be some error when her bill came to $156.00. Peggy had added my $92 bill to hers! And that woman refused to pay it. Humph! Peggy had never completed my sale and that’s why I never got a receipt. The reason my Visa card didn’t go through is because she never hit the right buttons.

So, come to think of it, this was not my problem at all and I shouldn’t even be bringing it up in this mindless essay. Only, I should have realized that I had never signed anything and I had never received a receipt. Maybe the Rain Check had thrown us both off. Anyway, Peggy didn’t apologize so I felt like it was all my fault. And the whole incident made me feel a little old and again, a little mindless. Thank goodness they hadn’t sent a security guard out to haul me back into the store at gunpoint.

The happening that made me feel the most mindless happened last Friday night. We had most of the kids over for a movie night so their parents could go out without them. All eight were mostly great. The only fussy one was Dax who is usually so congenial. I thought I would be able to rock him to sleep but he wouldn’t drink his bottle. He was getting quite upset before his parents got back. And when they did and heard my report, they discovered that I had failed to remove the hidden cap on his bottle. So Dax wasn’t getting any milk and that’s why he was having a hard time and giving me a hard time, too. I knew about the cap. I had taken it off many bottles before, but on Friday my mind let that small detail slip. I could have traumatized the kid for life, bringing on waves of anxiety and unfulfilled expectations.

These are just a few incidences that have added to my fear of mindlessness. In conclusion, I am prompted to write the following, which you may sing if you like:

Oh give me a Home where the old people roam
While the kids and the grandkids all pray
That I will pass on before my money’s all gone
And there I’ll bask in dementia all day.

Just Say "No"

2011-02-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

I know that lying is really wrong and it can get you into a lot of trouble; but there is one lie that I have said a few times because to not say it brings on worse dilemmas. I only say it with one word and only in front of libraries. It might sound bizarre, but that one little “white” lie keeps me from arguments or feelings of stupidity and I think makes it worth whatever punishment I will receive in the hereafter.

Here, I’ll talk you through it since I am approaching the library and once again there is a person sitting out by a little table and under an umbrella soliciting signatures for I don’t know what. I know what she’s going to ask me, though, even before she opens her official mouth. And I have my answer ready.

“Are you a registered voter in Arizona?” she asks as I know she will. It is a simple question that requires a very simple answer. The problem will come when I answer truthfully with a “yes”, because then she’ll ask me to sign something that I don’t want to sign. “Would you sign this petition for candidate A?” she’ll ask. And I’ll answer, “No, I’d rather not.” Then she’ll say, “You don’t have to vote for this candidate. Your signature will just help him get on the ballot.” Then I’ll have to say, “Well, I need to talk to my husband because he’d rather not have my name associated with certain candidates.” Then she just has to ask, “You mean you can’t think for yourself?” And then I have to glare at the solicitor and slink into the library fuming a bit until I pick up my “On Hold” books and come back out, hoping she won’t accost me again.

Once in front of the Mesa Library on Dobson, I was asked by a young man, who seemed a little “high”, if I was a registered voter. When I answered in the affirmative, he asked me to sign a petition legalizing marijuana. “Absolutely not!” I answered and almost stamped my foot, which I am really pretty good at. He jeered and made me feel like I had to defend my position with a few personal experiences, which I did. They didn’t faze him, however, and I was left with a feeling of irritation. I had my own druggie to deal with at home and didn’t need to be confronted by another one. I hate to argue and I am lousy at it even when I feel strongly about something.

Perhaps the solicitor today will ask me to sign a petition to protect the spotted owl or to remove a public official or to save the water tower on Broadway. Then I will have to say that I really don’t know how I feel about that particular concern and I’d rather not sign anything until I am better informed. Then she’ll try to inform me and I really don’t have the time or the inclination for a lecture on whatever it is she needs my signature for.

I’ll go home and ask my husband, Brad, his views on the subject and I’ll probably agree with whatever he says. He’s the one who spends time studying the issues and determining which side to be on. I pay the bills and he tells me how to vote. We have job-sharing at our house.

I already know—so you don’t have to tell me—that I am not a very good citizen since I don’t study the issues myself and develop a few opinions of my own. I know, I know. My Mom used to urge me to at least read the editorial page of the newspaper so I could find out what other people think about what’s going on in the world. But I already have so many interests, so many, many things I want to do. Studying current events just never makes it to the top of my to-do list. And Brad keeps me informed on what matters.

So to the solicitor’s question, “Are you a registered voter?”, although I am so grateful to be an American and a registered voter at that, I wish I could answer in fluent Swedish, “I am sorry but I am from Sweden”, which wouldn’t be a lie at all if you go back far enough.

But until I am able to do that flawlessly, I will give my pat answer: “No.”

And now I can proceed into the library, smiling and unencumbered—albeit a little guilty.

Laugh and the World Laughs With You--Sometimes

2011-01-24T06:12:00.001-08:00

The Lehi Ward’s long-awaited concert had the potential of being the finest cultural event of the year. The directors of it had arranged the program well in advance so that they could be sure of getting the best and most culturally-inclined talent that could be found in the community.

Because this concert was going to be a very “high-classed” affair, my quartet felt quite privileged when we were asked to be on the program. Unfortunately, however, our soprano was going to be busy that night; so the three remaining—Louise, Loretta, and I—hastily worked out two new songs in trio form so we wouldn’t have to by-pass the opportunity to sing.

On the night of the concert, everyone was dressed in his most appropriate concert attire, and someone had worked diligently decorating the recreation hall to make it look lots less recreational and lots more cultural. All in all, everything was set for a night that was long to be remembered. I think my trio will remember it the longest.

Eagerly the three of us girls sat behind stage waiting for our chance to show the audience what talent and culture really were, for, although we were quite unprepared, we still had lots of self-confidence and felt that we would add much to the culture of the night. As we waited, we heard a fine piano soloist trip lightly, then vehemently, over the ivory keys. Next, we listened while an expert string quartet played the dynamic “Fifth Symphony” of Beethoven. We had to admit that all the performers preceding us were really very good, but they were all older and had had lots of experience enthralling audiences like the one before them. We were relatively new at displaying our talents before others, but we were still confident that we would be the most enlightening part on the program.

When it was our turn, we walked on stage with our heads held high and stood proudly in our places. Having received our beginning notes, we began melodiously harmonizing “Stay As Sweet As You Are.” I must say that it was really quite lovely. We swelled and diminished together and every note was in perfect pitch. When we finished, we could sense the audience’s delight in their tumultuous applause. Not wanting to leave them starving for another example of our talent, we started singing the popular song “More.” It was going as beautifully as our first rendition until we came to the line “my arms long to hold you so.” For some reason, Loretta’s tongue got twisted, and her line came out “my larms ong to hold you so….”

I could feel inside of me a terrible tickling feeling that wanted to rush up my throat and out my mouth in an uproarious laugh, but I couldn’t let it—we were singing at a very dignified concert and laughter had no place there. I glanced over at Louise to see if she had heard the funny word “larms.” Woe, she had! As my twinkling eye caught hers and Loretta also realized what she had so unconsciously sung, we all three burst out laughing. Now twelve-year-olds might be able to get away with giggling during a performance, but seventeen-year-olds are expected to be stronger masters of their emotions. Unfortunately, however, age doesn’t always coincide with maturity.

After apologizing to the disgruntled audience, we desperately tried to get through the now not so popular song so we could get off the stage as quickly as possible. Four times we tried, each time breaking off in uncontrollable giggles.

We were getting very disgusted with ourselves and no doubt the audience was even more disgusted, but there was nothing we could do. Finally realizing that it was no use to keep trying to conquer the unconquerable, we gave up, muttered a few more apologies and rushed off the stage still giggling. We avoided the piercing eye of a lady in a beautiful formal who had to follow our childish act with an opera aria as we ran down the stairs and out the nearest door. The laughs now came in full force. We had shamed ourselves and had broken the mood of a potentially exceptional concert. But the power that often keeps us all from breaking into tears was in command, and we laughed ‘til our mouths ached and our sides begged for mercy.

A Shiny New You

2010-12-13T07:53:00.000-08:00

Sacrament Talk for the Young Adult University 3rd Ward
December 12, 2010
Elizabeth Willis Barrett

Hey you! Yes, You. You—the one who is texting right now to find out what time the game starts or to see what your friend ended up doing last night. You who left a pile of clothes on the floor in your attempt to find something great to wear today. You who are struggling with your testimony and came praying that you’ll get some answers. You who didn’t know who to sit by and now will have to go to Sunday School and Relief Society or Priesthood and worry about who to sit by all over again. (That’s what always happens to me. I’m afraid you’re saving a place for some beautiful girl or some handsome guy that could change your life forever. And I don’t want to take his or her place!) Hey You. The incredible remarkable You. You who have no idea how vastly important you are.

I have thought hard and prayed fervently to know just what our loving Heavenly Father wants you to know today. And this is it:

You are His. His Son Jesus Christ bought you with His blood. You are so dear and so important to Him that had you been the only person on this earth, He still would have sent His Son to die for you and to take upon Himself your sins, your frustrations, your sorrows, your depression, your faults, your sicknesses, your addictions, your insecurities, your abuses, your timidity. He loves you.

And like Mr. Rogers, He loves you just the way you are. Although, there is always room for improvement.

Our daughter Kelli has a 4 year old daughter named Claire. The other day Claire came to her mom and said, “Mom, I know that Christmas isn’t just about Santa.”
Kelli beamed. “What a great mother I am,” she thought. “I’ve taught her so well.”
“You’re right, Claire,” she said. “Christmas isn’t just about Santa. What else is it about?” Kelli knew that Claire’s answer would be the right one until Claire replied, “It’s about Rudolph!”

Like I said, there is always room for improvement.

You and I will have so many experiences while we’re here on this earth—so many chances to grow and to improve. And our experiences won’t be the same as anyone else’s because we are not like anyone else.

Look around. We are all quite different. If Heavenly Father had wanted us to be just alike, He could have figured out how to do that, but obviously He wanted us each to be unique. According to the varied answers to my Google inquiry, there are nearly or just over 7 Billion people on the earth. And there have been approximately 69 Billion to 110 Billion people since the world began. I can’t think in numbers that big but I believe it is safe to say that out of all the myriad of people who have ever been, you are the only YOU. There has never been, is not now and never will be someone exactly like you. That boggles my brain. Does it yours?

We are all different and our experiences will be different. You might have already discovered that life can seem very unfair. Why were some made so beautiful that they can walk out the door with next to no makeup and others need to spend a lot of time with Max Factor, Cover Girl or Este Lauder? Why were some given gorgeous singing voices while others have to mouth the word “watermelon, watermelon” so it only looks like they are singing? Why can some think of something to say in any situation and others feel like their tongues have been lassoed and tied up to a hitching post? Why do some have two or three homes while someone else is lucky just to have moved up to a double wide?

It almost makes you want to get out your referee uniform, blow loudly on your whistle and shout, “Foul play! Unfair advantage!”

But each will be given the experiences that they individually need for eternal progression and it’s not our job to keep score.

On the last day of June in 2005 a terrible car accident took the life of our precious daughter-in-law, leaving our son and their two little boys devastated along with the rest of our family. Our son didn’t choose to have that experience but he could choose what to do with it. Leave the Church? Become bitter? Denounce God? Give himself up to depression? Or pick up the pieces and become spiritually stronger than ever. He chose the latter.

A month later our youngest daughter got married to an exceptionally worthy young man. It was a great occasion.

You, too, will have—symbolically speaking—many funerals and weddings in your lifetime. I hope one of them is yours. Not the funeral.

Whatever experiences you have had or will have in your life have the potential to bring you closer to Christ and to what He wants you to be. But you cannot compare yourself to others. They have different paths to take, different experiences to enjoy or to endure. They will be brought to Christ possibly in a different way than you will be brought. Take your path and hold fast to the rod. Love your life and all that is in it.

How much better you will be able to serve the Lord if you can incrementally become your very best self and if you can be happy in that process in spite of tough experiences.

What is keeping you from being your best self—the best YOU possible? Could you serve better if you were more physically fit, if you ate less junk and exercised more? Could you serve better if you could forget about yourself and your awkwardness and learned to care more about others and what they are feeling?

Maybe you could be a better disciple of Christ if you could re-discover that zeal you had on your mission that you thought you would never lose? Or if you could stop being oppressed by your many responsibilities and activities, feeling as though every else were given 24 hours in their day and you were only given 19.

Could you be a better YOU if you got rid of that sin that keeps peering into your life and making you feel unworthy?

If you need to get rid of something that isn’t helping you to be your best, do what is necessary. Don’t try to put a Band Aid over a festering, oozing wound of sin. It has to be cleaned out first with true repentance. It will hurt. So what? Think how good it will feel to finally have that sin gone, to be free. As it were, in that one area, to be born again.

We have a heroin addict in our family—a situation that has brought much sorrow. I feel so strongly that when he finally turns to the Lord through repentance and accessing the Atonement that he will be able to turn his negative experiences into teaching tools that will greatly bless his life and the lives of others.

As the Lord said to Joseph Smith as he suffered in Liberty Jail: “know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good.”

That would be my hope for my family’s addict, that he would turn all of his rotten lousy experiences into a great huge good.

In D&C 90:24 (my favorite scripture) it says: Search diligently, pray always, and be believing and all things shall work together for thy good.

I hope that you can turn each of the experiences of your life—the delightful ones and the distressing ones—into something good. That each of your experiences will help you become the fabulous YOU our Heavenly Father needs you to be.

Why do you think your very unique self was put here on the earth at this time? What do you think Heavenly Father wants of you? Ask Him. Whatever it is, you can accomplish it best if you are the best YOU possible.

Which brings me back to Christmas. Wouldn’t it be great to give Jesus a gift this year? Being as it is His birthday. What better thing could you give Him than YOU, the best YOU you can be.

Eleanor Powell, a famous tap-dancing movie star of the 40’s who later became a minister, said. “What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.”

What can you give Him, poor as you are
An MP3 Player, a shiny new car?
For something like that, He’d have no real need
Or for anything modern, I’ll have to concede

How ‘bout a book? A beautiful rose?
A new little lamb? No, He’s got lots of those
I know what He needs—Here’s what you can do
Give the gift of yourself—a shiny new YOU!

One of the best parts of Christmas to me is that it comes at the end of the year. Right after Christmas, we can start all over with a brand new beginning. What a great time to activate your gift to the Savior.

Your very unique, one of a kind gift—YOU—filled with resolve to follow Him, wrapped in self-confidence and tied with a bow of charity for yourself and others, ready to be used by a loving Savior in whatever capacity He needs you.

May you take all the experiences of this life—the good ones and the bad ones—the weddings and the funerals of your life—and let them mold you into greatness—into the person Heavenly Father and His Son need you to be. What a gift! A happy, confident YOU. There is no one else that can do it. No one else can be YOU. May you do it well. That is my prayer.

The Bottleneck

2010-10-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett
October 20, 2010

I feel like I have entered a very long bottleneck in my life. I’m not sure what has caused it. Maybe it’s because Brad is home more after becoming semi-retired or maybe it’s because more of our kids and grandkids live nearby. Doing volunteer work with some young adults that takes me away from home a couple of nights a week could have something to do with it. All I know is that I used to be able to sit down and watch an old movie while I cleaned out a drawer or folded the clothes or put pictures in scrapbooks or something else as necessary but mundane. But now I seem to have no time for anything. Not even for cleaning the toilets or brushing down embarrassing cobwebs. Not even for calling a friend and suggesting a time for lunch.

Maybe it’s because I now go to work for two mornings a week. This life crunching really started in earnest at the exact time I went to Real Estate School. But since I stay at work for such a short time, my co-workers would marvel if they heard me say that work keeps me from the life I used to know. In the beginning I was supposed to work a lot at our new On Q Property Management business, but as it turns out, I can’t seem to get around to carrying out even the few assignments I am given.

Maybe it’s because I try to take care of my Mom a little. I’m afraid, however, that my brother and sister-in-law would be quick to say that I’m not putting too much time into that project either. Mom needs lots more of my help.

Is it Facebook? I’m definitely not into Farmville or any of that stuff although I do check Facebook two or three times a day to see if anyone has said something interesting. They usually haven’t. But it is easy to stay at the computer too long—checking e-mail, renewing library books, looking up bits of information. My blog takes a bit of time, too, but not nearly as much time as I’d like to give it. There are so many topics I want to write about and post on my blog. I planned to post once a week but I can’t get around to that either.

I feel like I am in traffic that as a body slows down to gawk at a minor fender-bender which makes everyone wonder what the holdup is. Then, for no apparent reason, the traffic picks up speed again and everyone is on their way. Only I’m not on my way. I’m still gawking. I’m still in the bottleneck with all the stuff I should be doing crammed in here with me.

Part of the problem is that I’m gone a lot. We go to the mountains or to a conference Brad has or to visit Jana in Utah. I don’t do that nearly as often as I’d like either. But it does seem that we are frequently packing and unpacking which could be adding to the bottleneck sensation.

When the kids were little I thought life was jammed to overflowing and I looked forward to the time of existence when life would slow down. What a surprise to get to this stage and find that it is just as overwhelming.

It’s not that I want to just hang around. I’ve always loved being busy. I like a schedule—my schedule, not someone else’s. I like waking up to an alarm and stretching and biking and writing down the things I want to get done that day and getting at it. But I can’t seem to get that far anymore. Like I say, I have hit a bottleneck.

I keep thinking I’ll pull out of it soon—this crowdedness of life. After all, traffic bottlenecks eventually loosen up. If I could just exercise every day and do one little project like clean out a closet, update family pictures, or plant some flowers, I don’t think I would feel so tight and congested. But I seem to be on a variety of other people’s schedules and I can’t get to mine.

I sense that I am only muddling through this phase of my life. I’ve got my foot on the pedal looking for an opening so I can break out. But just when I think there is a chance of escape, someone says something like, “Hey, Christmas is only 9 weeks away!” And the bottleneck closes around me and I quit looking for an exit. Maybe, for now, there isn’t one. So I guess I’d better start looking out and enjoying the view because it doesn’t look like things are going to change for a long, long time.

I Love a Piano

2010-10-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett…October 6, 2010

Like Irving Berlin, I love a piano. He said it much more melodically than I ever could in his semi-famous song with that title. Ever since I can remember, (which sometimes isn’t all that long) I wanted to play the piano. I would tap out a tune on an imaginary keyboard on the headboard of my bed or painstakingly figure out the notes by numbers on my cousins’ piano. But our house for many years was piano-less.

Then when I was in the 3rd grade, a piano finally made it into our home. For a few moments I was triumphant! Unfortunately, in an attempt to slide the piano down the stairs and into the basement rumpus room, it slipped to its demise. I believe it was a cast-off from the Rollan’s home so it wasn’t a great monetary loss. But it was a monumental loss to me. My eight year old fingers needed a piano!

And then it came—a grand piano! Well, not a Grand Piano, but a strong and sturdy older upright that was grand to me. (Actually, I had really wanted a beautiful small spinet, but as my dad would always say with a twinkle in his eye: “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Something else he often said was: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” which he might not have said on this occasion but it would have fit. It took me a long time to understand that saying, but now it makes perfect sense.) This piano was placed right in the living room. No bad attempts at the basement for this instrument. At last I had my piano, something I could really sink my fingers into. I loved it. Now I just had to learn to play it.

The task of teaching me was undertaken by Sister Alta Standage, the piano teacher of our ward. Growing up in a very strong Mormon family, we called everyone Sister or Brother as the case may be and the Ward was Mesa 8th Ward, our religious parish so to speak.

Sister Standage lived about 6 blocks down Country Club Drive. Since Mom didn’t always have a car to take me, she would walk with me as I carried my John Thompson and Carl Czerny books. A back pack would have been a great place for these noble works of piano instruction but we didn’t have back packs then. I don’t think they had been invented yet! To make the walk a little less tedious, Mom would play Hang-man with me all the way up and back. “Is there a ‘D’?” “Nope, you now have an arm.”

Thank you, Mom, for giving me the opportunity to learn to play the piano. I hope I told you thank you enough times when your mind was clear enough to understand me. As a family we didn’t go out to eat very often; we didn’t have closets full of clothes; we didn’t even get a TV until the rest of the world was quite entrenched in TV watching. But you always saw to it that we were given opportunities to learn and grow and become what we had the potential of becoming. That is still what matters most to me—learning and growing and becoming. Thank you, Mom. I will always be grateful.

I thought often of writing Sister Standage a letter telling her thank you, too. Thank you so much for teaching me how to play the piano—the notes, the measures, the one-e-and-a, two-e-and-a’s of music. It is possibly my most valued skill. Playing the piano has brought me so much pleasure, joy and opportunities to serve. But I never wrote that letter. It is just one of a myriad of uncrossed-off items on my eternal “to-do list”.

But I do thank you, Sister Standage. Maybe you’re teaching a few piano students in heaven right now. I hope so. There had better be pianos in heaven. I would really be sad if there weren’t. How would heavenly choirs be accompanied without them? Harps? Maybe. Harps are fine, but I love a piano.

2010-09-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?
(Do you smell what I smell?)
Elizabeth Willis Barrett September 22, 2010

There are certain sounds that I love. One of my favorites is the little pop that comes when a bottle of peaches seals and you know you can keep it in the pantry for a few years. That is such a great sound. It means industry and self-sufficiency and a job well done. After pulling the jar out of the boiling water bath, you anxiously wait to hear that sound. I haven’t heard it for an awfully long time since other things have fought their way to the forefront and left bottling peaches in the far, far distance. But there are other sounds to find joy in.

One of the best is a baby’s belly laugh. That sound can pull you from the depths of melancholy and onto the plains of delight. No despair can linger within the sound of a happy baby.

Rain tap-tapping on a metal roof brings me pleasure, too. Not that there are many metal roofs around, of course. I wish there were more metal roofs and more rain drops to fall on them but Central Arizona isn’t the best place for experiencing either one. A rustic cabin in the woods would be perfect, though. Sitting around a table playing Liverpool Rummy with my girls and listening to the rain—ahhh, that would be heaven.

A cooing dove is another great sound. It reminds me of summer and being temporarily released from Emerson Elementary School. I can imagine listening to the doves while standing outside by the evaporative cooler and feeling the tepid water from its hose drizzle onto my feet. True freedom!

I like the sound of a key turning in a lock, signifying the return of a loved one and the beep of a text message that connects me to family and friends.

And silence—silence is a wonderful sound, too. I wouldn’t want to hear it all the time, but once in a while it’s very welcomed.

There are also some not so good sounds that I would rather not hear, such as an impatient mother berating her child at the grocery store or an ignorant couple talking too loudly at Wal-Mart. Bad news never has a good ring to it, of course, and neither does the buzz of a mosquito. And I’m not very fond of the sound of: “We’re sorry. It is not necessary to dial a one when calling this number.”

One of the most irritating sounds to me is someone chomping and smacking whatever happens to be in their mouth. It is especially annoying when it occurs behind me for some reason. When someone is eating loudly, I have to move. When I was little, my younger brother and sister loved to come up and smack their peanut butter sandwiches in my ear because they liked to see me get really perturbed. I don’t even like to hear myself eat!

The magnificent sense of smell brings the good and bad, too. For instance, I detest the smell of dogs. They all smell quite the same, I think. Even though my dear husband, Brad, gets his St. Bernard groomed and perfumed to please me, underneath good ol’ Buddy still smells like a dog. A wet dog smell is especially displeasing. Cats, birds, cows, horses—the animal world would have a hard time getting me to ever be fond of its smell. Sometimes people are in that category. B O is an especially bad animal smell as is stale tobacco breath. H O (house odor) is offensive, too. Thank goodness for Fry’s aisle of candles, oils, sprays and air fresheners.

If I were to choose the very best smell ever, it would be the smell of raspberries. That smell takes me back to my summers in Rexburg as I’d come through Aunt Blanche’s back door. There the smell of freshly picked raspberries would linger. I wish I could go there right now with Mom and her sisters chatting away while shelling peas on the porch and with all the cousins riding the carousel in the park. Not too far away would be the grand smell of West Yellowstone—that smoky fire smell mingled with pines. I love that smell.

Another favorite smell is Dove soap. Sometimes I buy it just so I can close my eyes and take a slow prolonged whiff and imagine that I’m at Aunt Ruth’s house with all her kids. They always used Dove soap. Smells can really conjure up great memories.

It’s hard to beat the glorious smell of bread baking in a family kitchen. Even though Mom worked as a secretary at the Arizona State Senate, she somehow found time to bake bread. That is definitely a smell of love.

And back to the rain. Not only does it sound superb, but it smells delightful, too, especially in the forest.

So, thanks nose. Thanks ears. You’ve served me well. I plan on you seeing me through to the end of my journey. I hope you’re OK with that. You make life so much better.

STUFF AND NONSENSE

2010-09-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Willis Barrett September 9, 2010

My stuff is drowning me. It seems to be in every nook and cranny of my life and it proliferates more profusely than rabbits do.

There is stuff everywhere. There are so many places for it to germinate. There is my purse, of course, filled to overflowing with receipts and shopping lists, makeup (all but what I happen to need at the moment), new and used Kleenexes and far too many pens and pencils. One thing my purse is usually short on is cash. Thank goodness I have my Southwest Visa and Wells Fargo Debit Card in there with my Café Rio frequent diner cards, half used gift cards, Mesa and Gilbert library cards, and grocery store reward cards. I even carry a Smiths Market card although I can only use it in Utah.

Unfortunately, I don’t just have one purse, but several, each with its own array of stuff. I have a huge jean bag that I take on trips and never seem to find the time to empty between our comings and goings.

Stuff even accumulates in my computer case: papers I might need, extra cords and flash drives and, again, a supply of pens and pencils. The computer itself is full of stuff, too—speeches and lessons and ideas and papers written long ago that might contain bits of wisdom worth saving. I would love to sit down and delete unnecessary material but that would take a great deal of time.

I have so many little bits of this and that around. For example, whenever we go out of town I grab a tiny Ziploc bag and fill it with Ibuprofen and Excedrin just in case leg aches or splitting headaches attack. Not that they do much but who wants to run to a hopefully nearby Circle K to buy a remedy? Not me. Pretty soon I find those little bags full of red and white pills everywhere—in my purse, in my underwear drawer, in the car’s side pocket.

Then there are spiral notebooks that contain bits of this and that. I have stacks of them that I bought at Wal-Mart’s “after school’s beginning sale” for 10 cents each. They are wonderful to have. I grab the closest one and jot down a writing idea or grab another and record a recipe or a phone number or a great thought for a talk or a list of necessary errands, or interesting facts or quotes from the book I’m listening to. At this moment I have 22 spiral notebooks stacked next to the computer. They are in varying degrees of raggedness and each has only the first few pages written on—some with profound thoughts or messages that I am anxious to transfer to appropriate places on the computer, my already stuffed computer.

My guitar case is not immune to stuff with its papers from lessons and notes on chord progressions. My voice class notebook could use some editing and so could my writing notebook that is filled with our writing group’s journalistic gems. There are also several camera cases swollen with their own miscellany.

The file drawers are bulging with articles and warranties and bank papers and ideas for this and that. They should be sorted through too. Every drawer in the house, in fact, needs to be put on a stringent diet along with the closets.

Some people are just magnets for stuff. You should see the cupboards that hold the scrapbooks! No, never mind. It’s not a pretty sight. And I’m not even an official “scrap-booker.” Heaven help us if I ever got into that. I have plenty of pictures and papers to save without the embellishments and cutesy artwork so many find necessary to show off their treasures.

I have tons of music in a four-drawer file that one day I’m going to have to acknowledge has never been looked at in a good 10 years. The refrigerator has too much stuff—inside and out. And then there’s my head. It is also filled with stuff—ideas and books and songs and thoughts and ambitions and goals and worries and hopes.

On a trip to Argentina, we were having a delicious dinner in a very humble home. I foolishly asked if they had any second-hand stores around. Our sweet hostess looked at me a little strangely after my son had translated my question into Spanish. “No,” she answered. “We don’t have extra things to take to a second-hand store.” I, unfortunately, could open up my own second-hand store just with the stuff in my house—unnecessary and unneeded stuff. Well, I might need to add the stuff from a friend or two to really get started.

Maybe if I quit doing all the stuff that adds to my stuff, I would finally have time to get rid of the stuff that doesn’t matter. Hmmm, no, I’m not ready to quit doing all I’m doing yet.

But I really do want to clean up and out. I’ll actually love doing it. It will take weeks and weeks but I’m gearing up for a thorough and complete cleansing. I’m ready to rid myself of sentimentality and arm myself with the realization that if I haven’t used the article called “WAIT” in the last 20 years, I’m probably not going to use it in the next 20.

My stuff has brought me a measure of joy but it’s time to be done with a lot of it. And when I finally become stuff-free, it will feel wonderful!

2010-08-28T20:31:00.000-07:00

PILES OF PILLS
Elizabeth Willis Barrett---August 14, 2010

I carry around with me a pill case. Not just a one-a-day kind but a hefty plastic bin with seven compartments, one for each day of the week. In each day I could easily fit about 20 pills which I do on occasion. But I don’t take them all. It’s just that I want them in their place if I happen to need that certain element on that day. I don’t know how I even got so many pills in my possession. Mostly, I guess, I have purchased a bottle here or there at the suggestion of one friend or another.

For instance, I have Echinacea because Stacey swore that it will keep colds and flus away. I don’t think she takes it herself, however, because she seems to be sick quite often.

I have SAM-E because Marianne recommended it for depression and lack of well-being. I have St. John’s Wort for the same reason at the recommendation of Jessica. Nancy told me about a supplement that helps her joints move more easily so I, of course, purchased that, too. I even took it all and was going to buy more, but I can’t remember its name. I’ll have to ask Nancy.

Some very expensive vitamins from Canada I bought after Linda told me that it helped her drug-addicted nephew to get off drugs. I didn’t need them for myself but I know a charming drug addict that I wanted to help. I might start putting those in my pill box, too, since he isn’t interested in taking them.

Then I have Miralax that someone said was great for constipation and Benefiber that Kelli swears by for the same ailment. I always take vitamin B because Sandy says that it helps her be less irritable. I’m still a little on the irritable side, so maybe I’m taking the wrong kind of vitamin B.

Other pills I’ve bought because I read somewhere that they’d be beneficial to a body needing all the help it can get—primrose oil, flax seed oil , vitamin E, calcium, magnesium, glucosamine.

I have great faith in Lysine which is a must for the prevention of cold sores and canker sores and everyone knows that vitamin C can bring a cold to its knees.

I’ve added ginkgo biloba to my stash to hopefully guard against dementia. I am very concerned about coming to the end of my mind before my body gives out. It’s kind of like wanting your cake and ice cream to come out even. If you’re left with too much ice cream at the end, you have to get another smidgen of cake. And you definitely don’t want to be left with an extra bite of cake without some ice cream to enhance it. Similarly, you don’t want to get to the end of your body and be left with too much mind. And you certainly don’t want to get to the end of your mind way before you’re done with your body.

My mother, who never took anything but an occasional aspirin, ended up with way too much body after her mind was gone. On the other hand, my mother-in-law, who seems to be holding onto her mind and her body even though she is ninety, has taken a myriad of vitamins and minerals much of her life. Maybe they helped her. I’m banking on it.

I, of all people, know it isn’t wise to pop pills merely at the whim of a friend or two. And I know that some can work against you and become toxic if you aren’t wise (the pills, not the friends, necessarily). But I am counting on some of these supplements to live up to their reputations and make my life happier, healthier and hard-wearing. It’s worth a try.

While I’m at it, I think I’m going to add bladderwhack, ginseng, grape seed and kava kava. Black cohosh and valerian root are looking good, too. I’ve got room.

2010-08-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

A Basket Case
Elizabeth Willis Barrett 7-24-10

I always seem to be losing baskets—the kind with wheels at grocery stores. It is my habit to set my cart aside for a minute as I go down the soup aisle to grab a couple of cans of cream of chicken soup or something else as essential and at times I have to look for a minute before I can locate my shopping cart again. Once with great effort I filled a basket at Wal-Mart with a myriad of necessities, taking a long time to choose the exact sunscreen, B vitamins and office supplies. I was almost ready to check out when I decided to look over in the magazine section for a new Sudoku book. Not wanting to drag the cart into the cramped area, I left it against some display, looked at the puzzle magazines and then went to retrieve my basket—but it wasn’t there. Some days I can handle that kind of frustration fairly well but not that day. I was tired and had lots to get home for, so re-choosing and filling up the basket again was too daunting. Some over-achieving Wal-Mart Associate must have thought my cart was permanently abandoned and restocked the shelves with it. I went home without buying anything and left that particular shopping list for another outing.

The other day I had a similar experience but this time at Superstition Ranch Market. I was filling my basket with grapes and kiwi and strawberries and then a big seedless watermelon which I thought had a particularly nice sounding thump. Then I headed for the apples. I wanted to try some Braeburns since the Fujis seemed a little overpriced and found only three that looked acceptable. I put these in my cart along with four garlic bulbs. I parked my basket against the chilies so I could go down the onion and potato section unencumbered. Seeing a friend, I made a little small talk which really isn’t my specialty, but it was nice to catch up on her family. And after depositing four onions in a plastic bag, I went to my waiting cart. Much to my surprise, the cart that was waiting at the chilies was not my cart at all. Although the owner of the cart appeared to have part of my same shopping list—she too had chosen strawberries, garlic and apples—there were bananas and corn in this cart and there wasn’t a watermelon in it. I hadn’t even gotten to the bananas and corn in my shopping yet. It was odd that another shopper had chosen to park her basket by the chilies. Clearly this person had thought that my parked cart was hers and she had taken mine by mistake.

Not wanting to start shopping all over again, I walked through the store looking for someone who might look a little dazed and who was pushing a watermelon with the rest of her produce. No one fit that description. I was stymied. How had my cart disappeared so fast?

So I had a decision to make. Should I go home empty handed or should I start over? I didn’t come out to this market very often and nothing was too pressing at home at the moment so I made the sacrificial decision to start over.

Grabbing another basket with some indignation, I started again at the strawberries and grapes, chose another thump-worthy watermelon, ran into my friend for a second time and told her the exasperating story of how someone had stolen my cart. Then I headed toward the corn and peppers. Oddly, I saw the same cart parked by the chilies. That person must have had an emergency and had to leave the store without purchasing. Funny that the cart was in the same place I had left mine.

Dismissing any more thoughts about a wayward basket, I chose some peaches and mushrooms to put in my cart and turned the corner to the peppers and lettuce. Just as I chose a healthy head of iceberg, I looked up. There in front of the apples was a cart that held a watermelon, some grapes, some strawberries and some kiwis. It also appeared to be ownerless. Hmmmm. I walked down the aisle to the zucchini. Looking to the left I could still see the other unclaimed basket next to the chilies.

A not too pleasant realization was seeping into my previously offended brain. Could it be that it was my first basket there by the apples? Could it be that I had placed my apples into someone else’s rather full cart—full of bananas and corn and strawberries? Could it be that I had then taken that cart down an aisle or two adding tomatoes and garlic? And then could I have left that person’s cart with a few of my offerings on top in front of the chilies?

Could it be that when I grabbed the onions and went to put them in the basket that I finally noticed that the cart by the chilies didn’t have my watermelon in it but it did have the first owner’s corn and bananas?

Could it possibly be that before I was done shopping that day I had actually used three baskets? And that, in fact, I had taken some other very disgruntled shopper’s cart and used it for a few deposits of my own before parking it by the chilies?

At the check out line both stray baskets were in my line of vision. They were both definitely unspoken for. Somewhere that night would be an irritated produce customer telling her family about a crazy lady who had walked off with her cart.

What was I going to have to do from now on— carry a long piece of red yarn with me wherever I go to tie onto baskets that I might need to leave unattended for a while? Perhaps I could add a sign, too: “I’ll be right back, please don’t dis-assemble.” Besides saving me from future grief, maybe my own personal basket identification would save unsuspecting shoppers from having their well-stocked baskets taken away from them—by me, anyway.

I humbly placed my groceries on the checkout belt and paid without telling the clerk why at the end of the day Superstition Ranch Market would have two half-full grocery carts sitting there with no takers. I just didn’t feel emotionally strong enough to let her know that I was the basket case.

2010-08-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

THE A-Z MINI INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR RAISING KIDS
Part 3
Elizabeth Willis Barrett---June 16, 2010

(As I already said, I was having trouble with the alphabet. Maybe that’s why I left “F” off altogether. Here it is:)

Friends
It is really important to know your kids’ friends. It is also important to know your kids’ friends’ parents. And besides that, it’s very important to know your kids’ friends’ siblings. A popular older brother or sister could wreak a lot of havoc on a young, innocent friend.

(continuing:)

Quarreling
Quarreling with a child is ridiculous, childish and ineffectual. Children quarreling with each other can sometimes be diminished by giving them opportunities to find common ground.

Responsibility
Your job is to help your children become responsible adults, people who can take care of themselves. The children you do the most for, it seems, are the ones who keep expecting you to do the most for them. Even the smallest children can be expected to do daily age-appropriate chores. Although it would be easier to do everything yourself rather than prod an uncooperative, whining child through his chore chart, the rewards will come eventually as his efforts become real contributions to the household and he truly becomes responsible.

Sharing
Children need to feel like they own something before they can share it. It is best to acknowledge their ownership of a given toy and ask if they would like to share. Often they’ll feel OK about sharing if they are given the opportunity to do it on their own without coercion.

Time
Children take time—lots and lots of time—no matter what age they are. You have to understand that and be ready for it. And children don’t move fast when you want them to because time isn’t an issue with them.
In addition, timing is everything. Well, at least vital. Kids are willing to have deep conversations only when they are ready. Trying to discuss things of importance on your time will get you nowhere. That means that when they are ready, you must be, too. When a child is really ready to talk to you, let other pressures go and be prepared to listen because, for most children, those times are few and priceless.
Also, it is better to point out things they might have done wrong at a less threatening time than the present and at a time when they might be more willing to listen to you.

Understanding
Remembering what you felt like when you were your child’s age will give you more understanding about what he is thinking and feeling. A child needs to feel that you understand him.

Vitality
Do everything you can to make your body and mind healthy and well. Parenting children takes a lot of energy and it is so much more enjoyable when you have a great sense of well-being.

Wait
Years ago I read a magazine article that said the most important four letter word for parents is WAIT. Instead of reacting or overreacting, just wait. You will be calmer, your child will usually be more compliant and the day’s events can continue without unnecessary drama.

Xpression
I hate to be talked at, don’t you? It’s so easy to dismiss a child and his feelings that way. “Oh, you don’t really hate your brother. Now go wash up for dinner.” We all like to be talked with. It’s nice to know that someone is actually listening in earnest to what we have to say. Children feel the same. Listen to them. Look in their eyes and listen. When a child is upset, sometimes just knowing that he can express his feelings and actually be heard and understood helps dissipate his anger. Make it comfortable for him to talk to you about anything. Don’t condemn or criticize or he’ll take his concerns to someone else. Or he might suppress them, which would be worse.
Parents are known to go off on lecturing monologues, thinking that their uncommon wisdom will sink deep into the child and change his behavior forever. But when the lecture begins, a child’s ears quit listening and your talk is a waste of time and energy. Some things are better left unsaid. Pray to know when to open your mouth and when to keep it prudently shut.

Yield
Yield to your instincts. When my first child was being fussy one day, my well-meaning sister-in-law told me to just let him cry. So I did. He cried and cried and we soon found out that he had a strangulated hernia! He was only 3 weeks old. He was my baby. I should have listened to my own inner voice.

Zealot
Become a zealot on your child’s behalf. Let him know that you will always be there to support and cheer him on—not just as one of the group but as his own magnificent, individual, and astounding self!

(So, there it is—my A-Z Mini Manual. Again, I’m not saying that I did all of these things but I wish I had done them and a whole lot more. Hope it helps somebody!)

2010-08-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

THE A-Z MINI INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR RAISING KIDS
PART 2
Elizabeth Willis Barrett June 16, 2010

(As usual, I'm better at telling others what to do than doing those things myself!)

Humor
Catch your children off guard. When milk gets spilled, laugh! When you are late for an appointment, tell a joke! When you are very uptight as I tend to be, humor is hard to come by. But a good laugh can put oil on troubled waters. Considering the terrible oil spill in the Gulf right at this moment, that is a lousy analogy. Suffice it to say that humor makes nearly everyone feel better.

Impressions
Children need the opportunity to look their best: good hair cuts, clothes that are in style, clean and nice smelling bodies. They need to feel good about themselves and how they look. People treat well groomed children better because they appear to be cherished by their parents. I have a friend who is now in her 60’s. She still holds a little animosity towards her mother who didn’t think it was important for her daughter to have some of the latest fashions.

Joy
Find joy in the journey. You might as well. The alternative is frustration and irritability. The hectic, mad-house days with young children won’t last very long. When they are gone, those years will be missed.

Keep Your Promises
Be very careful what you promise or what your kids perceive as a promise. They will hold you to it and will think very unkindly of you if you break it.

Love
We each need to be loved. We each need to feel treasured. It is vital to our well-being. In Gary Chapman’s book The Five Love Languages of Children he reminds us that we each express and receive love in different ways. You would do well to discover the love language each of your children prefers and lavish it on him daily. The rewards for loving are incomputable.

Motivation
I see nothing wrong with a great bribe once in awhile. I certainly perform better with incentives, don’t you?

Never Play Favorites
You probably have your favorites from time to time depending on how each child is interacting with you at the moment, but it is imperative that that preference doesn’t show. I knew of a grandmother who would flutter over her blood grandchildren enormously and would treat her husband’s grandchildren like annoying and undesirable neighborhood children. Even though they all called her Grandma, the unfavored ones had no liking for her and some potentially precious relationships were lost. Children know when they are being slighted and they will hold it against you forever.

Outlook
By your own example and words, a child can be helped to have a healthy, happy outlook on life and to see life as joyful and full of tremendous opportunity.

Praise
Praise works wonders. There will be great rewards when you look for things children are doing right and then praise them for it. If you tell a child that you’ve noticed that you can always count on him to come home on time, he will most likely keep coming home on time because he really wants to please you. If you tell others about your child’s good points and ignore his not so good qualities, you will reinforce in that child that he is wonderful and well worth knowing. Praise him for his ideas. They might not be the greatest yet, but your praise will keep the ideas coming and they might just get better.

2010-07-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR RAISING KIDS
Part I

If all the grandmothers of the world got together, we could write the greatest of all manuals on raising kids. And if someone were ambitious enough to make that happen, then this would be my contribution. I would insist, however, on reserving the right to an addendum if some more priceless advice comes to my mind.

Affection
Children need to be hugged at all ages. Wrap them in your arms even if they act like you have a transmittable disease or even if you feel awkward doing it. If a hug feels too intimate, at least rub their shoulders while they’re sitting down somewhere and you need to tell them something, especially if it’s something good. “I’m so proud of you for getting an A in PE (rub, rub).” Eventually, you will both be comfortable with touching. Children need it so much and so do we. According to Virginia Satir, a family therapist, “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”

Believe
Believe in your children and make sure they believe in themselves. My mother had a wonderful way of doing this called the TL which stands for Tell Last. If Mom had heard something nice someone had said about me she would say, “I have a TL for you!” That meant I was supposed to say something nice I had heard about her first and then she would tell me my compliment. As a child I didn’t hear as many great things about her to share, but she would always tell me my compliment anyway. I thrived on the good things others said about me that got carried to my ears by a loving mother. These positive comments added much to my belief in myself.

Choices
Give them choices but not too many. “Do you want to wear this red shirt or this blue shirt?” “Would you rather take out the garbage or vacuum the family room?” “Would you like to practice before lunch or after lunch?” Children need to feel that they have control over something.

Discipline
Ignore their bad behavior whenever possible by distracting them with other subjects or activities. But when discipline is necessary, never scold a child in front of someone else. Children are so sensitive and get embarrassed so easily. Some parents act tough just to show who is boss. Others yell for awhile without any effectiveness and think they’ve carried out their parental duty. The Prophet Eli did that in the Old Testament. He had two wayward sons and instead of insisting that they change their ways or suffer the consequences, he just verbally reprimanded them. Eli then went about his business and his sons went back to stealing the meat sacrifices and seducing the women at the gates of the temple. The Lord was not happy with Eli’s parenting methods and some pretty bad things happened to Eli which you can read about in I Samuel.

Eating
Don’t ever make children eat things they don’t like because they will most likely hate that one food forever. They should be encouraged, of course, and introduced to lots of foods so they can learn to not be picky. Good eaters are much more pleasant to have around. And don’t forget that if they don’t eat much in one meal, they will often make up for it in the next.

When he’s having a treat, be sure to tell a child at the beginning that he only gets one helping if that’s the case. Think how you are when you’re eating a fabulous piece of cheesecake or whatever seems exquisite. While you’re eating it, sometimes you’re thinking about the next delectable piece you’re definitely going to have. Your taste buds are all ready for it. You wouldn’t feel that it was fair if someone bigger and more forceful than you told you that you couldn’t have anymore. That’s how kids feel. Warn them up front, that’s all.

Go with the Flow
As you envision the outcomes of certain events, it is easy to be disappointed when things don’t turn out as you hoped they would. Children are known to mess up outcomes. But if you can be flexible enough, the endings, though different than you had supposed, can still be wonderful. Inflexible people break while flexible people bend to each occasion and enjoy the whole process whether it is going their way or not. Deleting people from your life might help but that wouldn’t be quite as satisfying in the end.

Prelude to the A-Z Manual for Raising Kids

2010-07-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

I have written a very simplified A-Z Manual for Raising Kids. It isn’t long at all as far as manuals go, but too long to ask a faithful friend to go to my blog and read it all in one sitting. So I thought I could put it into 4 equal parts.

“Hmmmmm,” I said as I drove from Bashas to Batteries Plus. “Twenty-four letters divide neatly into four equal parts with six letters in each part.” And I went through the alphabet six letters at a time, which surprisingly was a little awkward.

I mean, I’m used to saying the alphabet not in sixes. I say, (and I quote): “A,B,C,D,E,F,G” which is a grouping of seven; then “H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P” which is a grouping of nine; then “Q, R, S”—a grouping of three; “T, U, V”—another grouping of three; and I end with a resounding “W, X, Y, and Z”—a grouping of four, unless you count “and” which makes it a grouping of five. So, anyway, when I tried to say the alphabet in sixes, I had to use my fingers on the steering wheel to make sure I counted it out right.

“A, B, C, D, E, F” would make the first blog entry. “G, H, I, J, K, L” would make the second blog entry. “M, N, O, P, Q, R” would make the third blog entry. “S, T, U, V, W, X”.……“Hold it!” I said with emphasis because, of course, Y and Z were left out. That’s because there aren’t twenty-four letters in the alphabet. There are twenty-six! My mind was doing some serious slipping, which is a little scary, especially considering the history of both my parents. (I have to keep reminding myself and my children that I graduated cum laude. They don’t believe me.) Anyway, twenty-six can’t be divided into equal parts unless you use fractions and that will hardly suit my purpose. So I will have to divide my A-Z Manual for Raising Kids blog entry into four unequal parts—or maybe three. Watch for them. Thanks for reading!!

I Am Woman---Hear Me Whimper!

2010-05-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

“I’m sorry,” I blubber into the phone. “We did everything wrong!”

“Be calm,” says Brad, my fabulous husband of nearly thirty-nine years. (Whew, thirty-nine years is a very, very long time. That is longer than it took for me to be born, go through Emerson Elementary School, West Jr. High School, Westwood High School, get my Home Economics degree from BYU, get married and have five children!)

Brad has lived with me long enough to know not to say, “Calm down!” which tends to have the opposite effect. “Settle down!” isn’t good either. These are commands of one-up-man-ship and not words of compassion.

But I can live with “be calm”. And he says it again after I tell him the whole story. Then he gives me some helpful names and phone numbers that I shout through the car window to my sister, Maxine, who is writing them down. I am standing several feet away in a patch of snow. Maxine is sitting in my meadow-marooned Sequoia SUV with our 95 year old mother who can’t remember that we are actually her daughters. The four wheels are smothered in mud after having spun themselves into a frenzy of futility. They are making contact with nothing—not the ground nor the twigs we tried to shove behind the back wheels and in front of the front wheels. Isn’t that what the experts do when they get stuck in the mud? Maybe experts don’t ever get stuck in the mud. Lida even offered to lay down her jacket in front of the wheel for traction. But why sacrifice a good jacket to a lost cause?

Lida is our sister-in-law and another member of our stranded group. At the moment she is standing ankle deep in the sludge, video taping our predicament. She accompanies the filming with a precise narration so our families will know what happened to us in case someone finds our bones in years to come.

This day started out so agreeably. Having spent the weekend at our cabin in honor of Mom’s 95th birthday, we thought we’d go for a pleasant drive to Greer for lunch by way of Greens Peak. The road is unpaved but beautiful in its spruce and aspen glory. Since I was the driver, I felt a huge responsibility for these three cherished relatives and wanted us to have the most memorable time possible.

It definitely turned out to be memorable. I should have had a clue when we ran into—literally—several patches of snow on the dirt road. But I thought the snow problem would disappear the closer we got to Greens Peak because I envisioned the area being more open to the sun’s warmth. Surely the sun would have melted all the snow the closer we got to the “famous” mountain.

The smart thing would have been to turn around—give up. It’s not like there isn’t another way to Greer. There is. But it is on the highway through Springerville and it seemed so boring compared to this gorgeous mountain pass. Safety vs. beauty? Really, should there have even been a decision? There would be other days to drive past Greens Peak, after all, when there wouldn’t be a bit of snow. But I kept doggedly driving forward. I really don’t know what possessed me.

Finally we came to a snowdrift on the road that seemed a little too daunting. Really, the snow had to quit—maybe around the next bend. Maxine and I got out thinking we could walk through the two piles of snow that were visible down the road and then look around the curve to see if that would be the last of it. But it was too far. If we could just get past this biggest drift—it had to get better.

I had never driven in 4-wheel drive before, but this snow pile seemed to call for it. So out came the car’s manual. Everything should have a manual, don’t you think? A personal manual could say something like: “If you are driving on a mountain road and you run into some snow, do not anticipate that the road will get clearer by and by. For the sake of your lives and your sanity, turn around. Don’t be stupid!”

My brother and Lida’s husband, Ron, happened to call just then and he talked us through the 4-wheel drive operation. So with a very light peddle and some steeled nerves on my part and a great deal of patience on the part of my passengers, we made it quite nicely through what looked like the worst of the snow drifts.

As we drove on, however, the next drift looked even higher. Why not drive around the drift? What a great idea! We all thought so. This would entail driving off the road and into a meadow but we were now in 4-wheel drive and won’t 4-wheel drive, like Master Card, take you anywhere you want to go? So that’s what I did—I drove off the road onto ground that seemed quite solid. Maxine had walked around it just to try it out and it didn’t seem too muddy.

But a ½ ton vehicle proved too much for the lovely ecology and the earth seemed to collapse right when we got in the middle of the meadow. Obviously 4-wheel drive isn’t as dependable as Master Card. In dismay, I tried to back up, but that made us sink deeper. I tried to go forward. Nope. Then I stepped out into the mud and let Lida try her hand at the wheel. Still no success. That’s when we tried the sticks and contemplated using Lida’s jacket for traction. We tried pushing. Mom was sure that if we would just let her out, that she could push us forward. She was in a bad mood the rest of the trip because we insisted that she stay in the car. Actually, we locked the doors so she couldn’t get out. Talk about pushing—having Mom stuck in the mud, too, would have pushed each of us over the precipice of reason that we were barely teetering on.

Thus the frantic phone call to Brad. And now the fruitless phone calls to every number he gave me—Sheriff Brandon, the Springerville equipment yard, our cabin neighbor—none of whom answers the phone. AAA answers which is very kind of them but they quickly inform me that they will come save us only if we are 50 feet from a paved road. I don’t think we are 50 miles from a paved road. Finally the regular Sheriff’s office answers. They are very sympathetic but say we will have to call a towing company and pay to get out. Pay? For our stupid mistake? Really? There seems to be no way around it. But by now even paying a few hundred dollars sounds better than sitting here in the mud a minute longer than necessary.

So I call the Springerville Auto Wreckers Towing Company into action. Now we wait and wait and pray that the tow truck can find us with my less than stellar directions.

I am astounded at what we must look like. This is what dumb people do—end up in secluded meadows tire-high in mud. We are intelligent highly functioning human beings—well ¾ of us are and in her day Mom was very, very sharp.

An hour passes and we finally hear our heroes coming to the rescue. Ah, at last we can put our muddy blunder behind us! But no! Right at the place where the Sequoia made it through without a hitch, the tow truck flounders. Well, this is great! Now they’re going to have to send another tow truck to dislodge this tow truck and our chances of getting home any time soon are getting slim again! This is going to be very expensive.

Fortunately, like every good tow truck should, they have a wench. (I just looked up wench and that is not what they have!) They have a winch. After some minutes of winching they have freed themselves from the mud and are again focused on rescuing us. Allen, one of our two liberators, walks through the mire to hook a chain to our bumper. Slowly our car is winched backwards until we are back on the road where we belong. I gladly whip out my Visa card and pay the nominal fee of $175 and Maxine gives them a $20 tip for their kindness.

Now that we are safe and headed in the right direction—the Springerville direction—my heart is bursting with thanks.

Thanks to Allen and his partner for not sneering at us or making unkind remarks or charging us a very unreasonable amount which we would have gladly paid to get out of our predicament.

Thanks for cell phones and cell phone service and cell phone batteries that were well charged. No telling how long we would have languished there without a means of communication. We were definitely on the road less traveled.

Thanks to Brad for not saying “calm down” or the ever popular “What did you do that for? or “You’re going to ruin the car!” or “What are you? Crazy??”

Thanks for the blue sky and the gorgeous weather and for the fact that it was daytime instead of night. And thanks for the snacks Maxine happened to have in her purse.

I’m especially full of thanks to Maxine and Lida for being the best of companions. They were so congenial, finding the humor and not blaming me or repeatedly saying “What if……..” or “We should have…. .” And I’m full of thanks to them for helping me visualize all the reasons that getting stuck in the mud might turn out to be a blessing to someone. Maybe the two truck owners desperately needed one more service call to be able to pay their rent. Maybe another group will sometime be stranded in exactly our spot and because of servicing us on this day, the Springerville Auto Wreckers Towing Company will know exactly where to find them. Maybe this experience will keep us from leaving the main road in the future and getting stuck in an even worse situation. Some things you only have to learn once!

And finally, I’m thankful for an elderly mother who offered to pay for the tow truck which I will definitely take her up on when we get home. But mostly I’m full of thanks to her for being willing to push. Not able, but willing.

All in all, many lessons were learned and now that we’re on the safe side of danger and the tears have dried, I’m ready for lunch---man-sized!

2010-04-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

AN INTEREST-ING LIFE
Elizabeth Willis Barrett April 2010

I was talking to a friend one day and she happened to mention that she couldn’t think of anything wonderful that she wanted to do. Really? I couldn’t relate to that because my interests are so varied and numerous that this life will definitely not be long enough to fit them all in. I suggested several things that she might be able to throw herself into, but she had a negative response for each one. Either she had already done that certain activity—sewing, scrapbooking, piano—or it just didn’t appeal to her at all. I even took her “interest shopping” once to see if I could get some excitement flaming in her heart for something.

She did purchase a skein of yarn, a pair of knitting needles and a book on making baby afghans, but so far she hasn’t tried to make even one stitch and that was four years ago! She’s probably very irritated with me for suggesting something that was just going to sit around making her feel guilty. If there’s one thing none of us needs, it’s more guilt.

Better than yarn and needles, I wish we could have purchased for my friend the bursting exuberance I feel for doing and learning and becoming. I’m thankful that that feeling came with me.

If time and energy were boundless, I would first work on writing. There are about five books rattling around inside my head that I wish could just be shaken out word perfect.
I hope they will one day find a place in print. Along with being a writer of books, I would like to become a great essayist and submit my work to magazines or have my own column in a newspaper.

I also want to be a photographer. Not just a point and shoot one, but a many lenses and tripod photographer that knows how to catch grandchildren at their most impish and landscapes at their most glorious. I would love to follow a great photographer around and have her teach me all her tricks. Then I’d want her to show me how to Photo Shop until all my pictures looked absolutely stunning.

I’d learn to fiddle if I had time. I love to hear great fiddle playing. I’d take in some banjo lessons, too. And I need to work a lot harder at playing the guitar so that I can play with confidence.

It would be really fun to sing in a women’s trio again—working out parts and arrangements and getting the second just right. I love to sing second. And although I can already play the piano, if there were time, I would like to work on chording and playing by ear.

My sister in law spends hours ballroom dancing. She’s lost weight and has never been more fit. Yes, ballroom dancing would be a great pastime, too, if my husband would do it with me.

If I didn’t have family responsibilities, I would join National Speakers Association and become a dynamic and well-paid public speaker. It is so satisfying to wow an audience and maybe give them something new to think about. I’d develop lots of talks for CD’s and record and sell them. Time or no time, I’m for sure going to develop a fabulous presentation to teach about drug testing and prevention. That is a much needed topic.

Being a Life Coach would be very satisfying, I think, or developing seminars especially for women. I’d love to help women find their way—after I found it myself, of course.

I really want to get a great family newsletter started, one that the kids would look forward to receiving each month. And I want to produce an annual fabulous family reunion that no family member would want to miss.

I’d like to be a good gardener—there is a lot to learn about gardening. And flowers—I’d love to spend time learning to cultivate and arrange them. I also think it would be fun to become
skilled at machine embroidering or machine quilting.

I truly wanted to learn to speak Spanish for a time and went to lots of classes for that purpose. I hope I find time to work on Spanish again. And if life were long enough, I’d like to learn to draw—especially cartoons. Then I could illustrate my own books.

When, along with all of these things, I throw in hiking, biking, family history, scrapbooking, the Silva Mind Control Method and a strong desire to organize and scrub the house from top to bottom and side to side, it doesn’t look like I’ll be needing anyone to take me “interest shopping” in this lifetime. And maybe not even in the next. I hope not.

2010-03-20T21:40:00.000-07:00

REAL ESTATE ANYONE?
Elizabeth Willis Barrett March 20, 2010

My face is warm and my brain is fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy might be OK when you’re trying to be compassionate and loving but not now, not now! I am sitting in front of a computer at a Phoenix testing center, staring at these questions word by word, over and over—oh, the agony. Questions like:

A property appraised at $85,000—property is assessed at 65%—tax rate is $1.85 per $100 of assessed value—owner sells the property and the close of escrow is August 15—Taxes were paid for the calendar year—What will the settlement sheet show?

Even with four given choices, I can’t begin to guess the right answer. I feel my forehead beading up with pre-trickling sweat.

I thought I was prepared so why do these questions look so foreign to me? For three weeks now I have sat through 90 hours of classes while being bombarded with fact after fact. Then I spent another 30 hours reviewing, and reading and cramming details and math formulas into my overstuffed, bulging brain. Formulas like: Piggies minus BVDs equals Eggies minus Owees equals Noeees. And then, though there was simply no more room, I wedged in a few Baselines and Meridians and even jammed in a couple of water rights and appraisal approaches.

That must be the problem—everything is in my brain so tightly that there is no way for any of the answers to come out!

When I agreed to go to Real Estate School just so I could more effectively answer the phone in our new Property Management Business, I didn’t think it was going to be hard. I didn’t think I was going to have to re-evaluate my personal assessment of my own mental abilities.

The stress of the whole Real Estate thing has made me do some strange things like put eyebrow powder on my cheeks instead of my eyebrows and spray mousse on my finished instead of unfinished hair. I caught myself spelling “commercial with a “u” and I made our family get all dressed up for a reception that wasn’t until the next week. Saddest of all, when I went to write down a fabulous essay idea that had come to me, before I could grab a paper and pencil to do it with, the thought was completely gone and has not returned.

With divine intervention and some near tears, however, I passed the required school test on the first try with an exact 75%. If I had missed one more question, I’d have prolonged this ordeal for another week or two since that test must be passed before you can take the miserable test I am sitting in front of now. One lady took the school test 39 times before she could finally pass it, so I guess I should be grateful. But at the moment I am cursing the writers of the State and National tests. They had the nerve to make the questions look entirely different than the 1000 practice questions that I read through.

Ok, just one more question: A licensee may not charge for document preparation as a result of which of the following:

I can’t think. I don’t know it. My brain is too tired. Is it:

A. Rules and Regulations
B. Arizona Statutes
C. AZ Constitution Article XXVI
or
D. Law of Agency?

I have no clue. Once again it is time to guess and the best guessing letter is C. So C it is and I am out of here. Please, please, please say I don’t have to take it again.

I passed? I passed! I’m done. No more tests. Even in two years when I have to renew my license or 4 years after that when it will be time to renew again. Wow, I passed!

I hope I get good use out of this new education. Maybe it will make me a little smarter when I answer the office phones. It has definitely opened up my mind to a world of information that I never knew about and truthfully never wanted to know about. But educating one’s self can never be time wasted. And who knows, maybe when I’m through being a realtor here on earth, I can use some of this knowledge in heaven. Isn’t that about the only thing you can take with you—knowledge?

Welcome to Heaven! I’ve been assigned as your agent. Hope you had a great trip. By the way, how’s the weather down there? Oh, tsunamis. Not so good. Well, now that you’re here, it looks like you’ll need a place to stay for awhile.

We have some lovely subdivisions that you might be interested in…..Wild Blue Yonder, Happy Hunting Grounds, Greener Pastures. No, no HOA’s. I think you might find those in another eternal realm but they’re not allowed here. Are you looking for a place to accommodate your heirs as well? Oh, I see, you’ve had quite enough of them already. Well, we have some very fine non-disturbance clauses that you might want to look into.

Cloud Nine? Yes, everyone seems to want to live on Cloud Nine. It’s a beautiful place. Pretty expensive real estate though and a little over-rated in my opinion. I’m quite partial to Cloud Fifteen myself, but I’d hate to be accused of steering or redlining, if you know what I mean.

How do you qualify? Good question. Some have the misrepresentation that we work on a prior approbation basis here, which as you probably know is first in time and first in right. According to our public report, however, loan qualification is based solely on credits and debits with a little bit of negotiating. But we have the Greatest of Beneficiaries, so you will discover that you qualify for just the very place that will suit you best. Follow me. Let’s get started.

I know. Enough is enough. I’m just glad I finally have my license. I will try to use it well.

2010-02-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

A GENTLE ROCKING
Elizabeth Willis Barrett February 8, 2010

Betsy had four words to say and they were, “I Can’t Do It!” With that she stumbled recklessly out the back door, letting the screen door bang behind her. She took giant staggering steps onto the dried winter grass as she punched her fists at the heavens. “I can’t do it!” she said again, this time in a wail directed at the innocent, unruffled blue sky.

“I can’t be everything You want me to be. Or even everything I want me to be. I’ve tried and tried and I just can’t do it. I give up! I’m done! You might as well take me now.”

The final straw—now, why do people say “the final straw”? Oh yes. It was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. What a picture! Betsy could see that illustrious camel brought down with just one more tiny strand of straw. His belly would be o tnnj’’’he ground with his four legs outstretched in all directions and his load of straw would be slipping off his back and scattering in the wind. That image might be hilarious at another time. But not now.

Betsy’s final straw had been a bowl of Frog Eye Salad—a very large glass bowl full of Frog Eye Salad that had slipped from her already busy and behind-scheduled hands. It had crashed to the kitchen floor and splattered everywhere. The making of it had taken a long time and now it lay unusable clinging to every visible kitchen surface. Instead of cleaning up the mess, all Betsy could do was run out back and scream at the heavens.

In the giant scheme of things, a destroyed kitchen was quite a little thing, but today when Betsy added everything up, the sum was failure.

For one thing, she had been late for her dentist appointment that morning because she hadn’t planned for traffic. Then after she finally got there, it took four shots and a good dose of laughing gas to settle her down so the dentist could prepare her tooth for a crown. A very expensive crown, the temporary of which was making her whole mouth hurt at the moment. She hadn’t paid the water bill so a pink slip had come in the mail with a threat to turn off the water. Embarrassing! The money was there but she couldn’t seem to get around to paying a little tiny bill that would take about five minutes. And what else?—Oh yeah! The worst part of all: her son was sleeping in his car. Crazy. He’d rather sleep in his car than live by her simple rules: no drugs and no taking money that doesn’t belong to you. And Andrea was mad at her—she didn’t know why. Something she did—hadn’t figured it out yet.

All of this she yelled at the sky until she was beginning to feel like the fat kid on the movie Goonies who confessed to everything he had ever done while his captors looked at him in wonder. And there was more.

“I’ve eaten every Almond Joy I could get my hands on today,” she bellowed, “It was a lot because no one else likes them and they come in the Hershey’s chocolate assortment and my waist is five inches thicker than it was in college.

“And I made just one New Year’s Resolution—ride my bike everyday. Easy. And I haven’t even done that. Not even once. And it’s almost March.

“Besides that, I can’t teach that Sunday School class You gave me. I try to prepare the lesson ahead of time but every week gets so busy that I’m always trying to finish up a minute before it starts every week. And do you know what—I might as well say it all—I’m not sure I like the kids in there. They don’t listen. They don’t participate. They keep texting on their phones. How would You like to teach them?

“And the baby I saw yesterday at the eye doctor’s office. I didn’t like her either. How could anybody not like a baby? Especially one you didn’t even know. I imagined what she was going to be like when she finally made it to High School and things didn’t look too promising. It was probably the dad that was holding her that made me so judgmental. But what was I doing having thoughts like that?

“And the house. Have you seen my closet? It’s jammed packed with stuff. Just stuff. I want to dig it out but something else always seems to be more important. And there are rings in the toilets but no rings in the doorbell and the cookie jar is empty but the dryer is full.”

Betsy’s ranting got down to a whimper. “I was supposed to send flowers for Anthony’s wife’s funeral and I couldn’t even do that. He’ll think we don’t care about his sorrow and it’s too late now. I didn’t go to the last five wedding receptions we were invited to either. I could have at least sent a card but I didn’t. So now when I see the brides’ mothers at Safeway or Kohl’s or somewhere, I’m going to have to act like I never got an invitation at all. I’ll have to put my face in that sincere ‘Really?’ expression that is supposed to mean: ‘I didn’t know your daughter got married. If I had known and if I had received an invitation, nothing could have kept me from it. Absolutely nothing.’

“What’s more, I can’t keep plants alive. I try to water them every week but I skip weeks here and there and I only buy pothos for crying out loud. Anybody in the world can keep pothos alive. But not me!”

And with that final confession, Betsy threw herself on the ground with her legs splayed and her arms outstretched—overburdened-camel-like—and her hands dug into the ground on both sides of her prostrate body. In her manic state she still had enough sense to hope the dog hadn’t left anything right where she had decided to throw herself down. But what did it matter? Her usefulness was gone. She howled like a mournful coyote, sick of life. Betsy knew that if she waited just a little while, the clouds would gather, a storm would cut loose and lightning would obliterate her. She could only hope.

But the only storm was the one inside her that raged and raged…….until she heard a quiet sound. It wasn’t the wind for the air was still. It wasn’t the dog—he was inside in his crate. The kids were at school and her husband was at work. She looked around to see if any neighbors were watching her which would have been very awkward. She’d have a lot of explaining to do. But she didn’t see anyone.

Again the sound came. It sounded like “Hush”.

“What?” Betsy whispered.

“Hush,” it came again.

So Betsy obeyed. She gathered her once flailing limbs and sat up, brushing the dried grass from her face and hair and taking a few wisps off her tongue. She put her full concentration into listening.

“Hush,” came the voice. “Hush…hush…hush.” Betsy closed her eyes and felt loving arms being wrapped tenderly around her. She was being held and comforted and gently rocked like a fretting child. The calming voice soothed away her fury.

“There, there, there,” it said. “Be still, be still, be still. You are so loved, so loved, so loved.”

“Ahh,” Betsy breathed, her eyes still shut.

“Shhh. Shhh. Shhh,” cooed the voice. “Everything is going to be all right, all right, all right. You are so loved, so loved, so loved. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. Be still, be still, be still.”

Betsy swayed to the rocking and felt the love of the Great Creator surround her like a comforter, warm and soft. She sat there, sat there, sat there, loved, loved, loved.

Her eyes slowly opened to a world changed. What peace! What calm! She gradually stood up and dusted herself off—her new self, her loved self. What could matter now after the arms of Heaven had cradled her and she had heard crooning words of love? She slowly walked back inside after one more look at her place of renewal. Then she took a rag to the kitchen and started cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, serenely, serenely, serenely. And all was well, well, well.

Friends--I've Learned So Much From Them!

2010-02-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

This life offers so many opportunities for learning if we keep our eyes open and pay a bit of attention. I’ve learned much from books and classes and newspapers and TV but I think the most important things I’ve learned, I’ve learned from friends—dear friends who don’t even know they are teaching me.

For instance, I used to pump gas into the car by holding onto the handle of the pump until I heard the click which meant it was full. For some reason I was afraid to push down the lever that lets you walk away while the gas is still pumping. Maybe I thought that it wouldn’t stop on its own and gas would gush out all over the cement and someone would come by with a match and blow us all to smithereens. But then I happened to pull up to a gas station where my friend Lynn was filling her car. She deftly pushed in the lever and stood there talking to me hands free!

“Hey, Lynn uses the lever,” I said to myself, “I guess I can, too.” And from that moment to this, I have used the lever and let the gas dispense without my hands right there to stop it. Now I can write the Visa transaction into my checkbook during those long minutes. Only, of course, if I have put my purse in a strategic place so I don’t have to climb into the car and slide across the seat which could also potentially cause a spark and blow us all to smithereens!

Another fear I have is that of turning left. Most of my fears it seems do involve cars. Just to get out of our neighborhood, I have often turned right even though my destination was to the left because the traffic was so heavy and intimidating. But when I was leaving my house with my friend Stacey who was driving us somewhere in her car, I quickly noted that she turned left onto busy Baseline—even though the road wasn’t clear for two miles in either direction. She turned left into the left turn lane. Hmmmm. I had been taught in one of my traffic school experiences that you aren’t supposed to do that. That is the left hand turn lane for the cars already on the main road. But Stacey used it to pull into traffic from our side street. Stacey isn’t the most courageous of all people so I figured that if she was brave enough to pull out into the left turn lane, then I could be, too. That maneuver has saved me many needless right hand turns and a lot of stagnant minutes waiting for traffic to die down. Thanks, Stacey!

One dear friend has taught me about the futility of anger. Long ago Jeanne decided that she didn’t like how being angry made her feel so she chose to never be mad. She’s had as much cause for great irritation as any of the rest of us, but by some brute force of will she has chosen to delete anger from her life. I haven’t incorporated that knowledge into my behavior yet, but it is something I would like to work on some day—some calm, peaceful day when no one is aggravating me.

On one un-peaceful day when I was full of aggravation toward a friend over a business deal, she taught me that our feelings about the situation didn’t have to affect our friendship. She did it with kindness and maturity. And another friend, Leslie, taught me that it was OK to give myself a birthday party. So I did and it was really fun thanks to all the dear friends who allowed me to be so self-indulging. Aging has been rather easier since then.

Along with everyday sorts of things like where to find the best bargains, how to take better pictures or what to fix for dinner day after day, I have learned from friends as they have accepted widowhood with cheerful participation or borne physical limitations with poise and determination.

I have also learned from friends the power of faith. When Fay had the heart breaking experience of delivering a full term but still-born child, I could imitate her spiritual strength when two years later our beautiful baby son only lived one day. In addition to coping skills for heartache, I have learned from friends that a forgiving heart can save families and that a listening ear is better than a psychoanalyst.

Friends have taught me about joy, encouragement, solace and understanding. They have also taught me about humility, as when one friend confided to another, “Elizabeth has a lot to learn.” Actually, she was only a semi-friend and after I’d heard that she said that, I was even ready to cross her off my semi-friend list. I was offended as we often are when someone says something true but offensive. (Of course, that was before I learned from another friend—and finally internalized—that choosing to take offense is ridiculous.)

Maybe I’ve learned the most from that friend who didn’t mind saying what she thought. I did have a lot to learn and I have lots to learn even now. It’s a good thing I still have wonderful friends to help teach me.

Time Measured

2010-01-25T10:27:00.000-08:00

I love clocks—the gentle ticking away of time as it measures our lives. Generally time is so orderly, so precise, so fair, so unprejudiced. Time marches us along like a well-disciplined John Phillip Souza holding us to the beat. Once in a while time slows down as though it were obeying a ritardando sign like when you’re in a dentist’s chair, for instance, or trying to get over a great sorrow. It can also be hurried along with an accelerando when you’re having an unbelievably wonderful time or facing a difficult deadline. Time can even stand still fermata-like or so dramatic stories tell us. Usually, though, time is at “a tempo”, steady and persistent.

My day goes so much better when I allow the clock to work with me. It keeps me on task and helps me focus. I always wear time on my wrist so I can say, “I only have to put these papers away until the big hand is on the ten.” Or “I will concentrate on writing this article for eight minutes and then I can do something else.” Or “I’ve got to leave in half an hour. I’d better get ready.”

When I let the clock be my friend, I can take advantage of the little snatches of time that it often permits. While something is heating in the microwave for 30 seconds for example, the silverware compartment of the dishwasher can be emptied. Or in the ten minutes before a guest is expected, a vocal solo can be practiced or a phone call can be made. My husband, Brad, keeps his juggling balls in a kitchen drawer and when he passes by he stops for a moment to practice his juggling. These well used bits of time have enabled him to finally keep three balls going quite impressively, the success of which didn’t look too promising when he first started. With a little thought, great things can be accomplished in a few moments here and a few moments there.

This clock watching mania might be a total mystery to some, but there are so many fabulous things to do in life and time is running out. I want to grab each minute and squeeze the very most from it. I mean, when you reach the unbelievable age of 60, you finally have to face the fact that you’re reaching the finale. When there are still so many things left to do, every measure counts and I want to play each of them well.

It is quite mind expanding to consider that each day, hour, minute or second will only get to be lived once in all the eons of time. I think we owe it to those intervals to use them in the best way possible because none can ever be retrieved. There are definitely some days that I am more than glad to be done with, but there are some amazing past days that I wish I could reclaim. I would put them in a bank and pull them out once in awhile to relive and savor. I wish those days came with a repeat sign.

It is my understanding that when our hours here are finally spent we will go to a place where there is no reckoning of time. That is way beyond my ability to imagine. No clocks? No watches? How will I focus? How will I motivate myself? How can I function without a to-do list and a time frame to do it in?! I hope all the rests aren’t saved for Heaven because even there I’ll need things to do. I’ll need deadlines to meet. I’ll need new ideas to absorb and new skills to conquer. The clock here helps me do those things. I’m sure the greatest of all Composers has it figured out so that we can continue to progress without the aid of time. He must. He seems to have figured everything else out pretty well. Until then: as soon as I finish writing this, I’m going to practice the guitar until the big hand is on the four!

What's In a Name? A Lot!

2010-01-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

“It’s Eileen.”
“What?”
“Eileen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eileen. The name of the woman that taught that parenting class. It’s Eileen.”
“What are you talking about that right now for?”
“You asked me the other day, remember? You wanted to know the name of the woman who taught the class and neither of us could remember. And now I remember. It’s Eileen. It just popped into my head just now. Eileen. That’s her name.”
“I don’t need it now.”
“Right. But there it is. Eileen. Just thought you’d like to know.”

That’s the problem with names. Your mind goes absolutely blank when your mouth is ready to blurt it out. But when you don’t need the name anymore, there it is blinking in your head.

Names are so important. It has been said that the greatest sound a person can hear is the sound of his own name. Some are better at giving that thrill than others. I am definitely deficit in name remembering while my husband, Brad, on the other hand, is very good at remembering names and using them. He says I should just push through my forgetfulness and say the first name that comes to me and it will probably be right. So I tried it.

“Hi, Nancy.” I said with conviction.
“I’m Arlene.” Was the cold reply.
Failing to use a person’s name is not good social strategy, but it is much worse to use the wrong name.

“Experts” have created lots of tricks to aid in name remembering. One is to say a person’s name directly after being introduced and then think of a physical feature that person has in relation to his name. Perhaps Charlie has charcoal colored hair or Carol might have an oval shaped mouth and you can imagine her singing. Ben might have a bend in his nose or Alice might have a lisp. But what do you do with Alexandria or Josephine or Harold? And it’s not like the new person is going to freeze while you come up with a gimmick for remembering his name.

I’ve tried keeping a “Name Journal.” When I met new people at some gathering, I’d come home and write down their names and a little bit about them. That lasted exactly one night. I already have a Book Journal, a Thankfulness Journal and a Tender Mercies Journal that I’m not keeping up with.

Not remembering someone’s name can cause a lot of trauma. It can make you hide in a grocery store so you won’t have to address someone you’re supposed to know well enough to have his name in mind. The worst situation is when you have someone with you and you are put in a position of having to introduce him to another individual that just seems to pop up out of nowhere. I have instructed my husband that he is to quickly say, “Hi I’m Brad,” so that the arriving person can introduce himself without me getting involved.

I personally feel that everyone should have come to this earth with his or her name embroidered on his or her forehead. Not that Heaven would know precisely what the parents wanted to call the child beforehand. But wouldn’t it be great if the parents could fill out a form and fax it to the Powers That Be and order a name just as if they were ordering a monogrammed hat from a catalogue? The name could lovingly be embroidered upon the child’s precious head. Hmmmm…..that might not work so well in the womb being as each being starts as a tiny speck. The name would have to begin as an even smaller speck and then start growing with the fetus. Arms do it and legs, and for that matter, foreheads do it—then why not a name across the forehead? No?

OK—I know, I know! Wait ‘til the child is born—yes this is a much better idea—and observe it for a day or two and see what name would be exactly right for this new little creature. Then take the new infant to a name embroidery place and…….Naaaaa. That might be a little painful and there is enough pain in the world as it is without inflicting more agony.

Maybe we could all just wear mandatory nametags wherever we go like the sales clerks do in Macy’s or Fry’s. They would have to be printed in very large letters, however, so that when you’re speaking to someone and want to use his name and should know it but don’t want him to know that you’ve forgotten it, you could glance ever so slightly at his name tag and read his name without him catching you. But there are already too many mandatory laws and too many things that already aren’t being enforced, so nametag policing is probably out of the question.

You’d think it would be OK to ask a person’s name and say that you’re so sorry you’ve forgotten it, but when it is someone that you grew up with, live next to, admire greatly, or have already asked the name of several times, it would put you down several notches on the social ladder to admit your carelessness.

Those who remember names have more friends and are more comfortable with the people around them. When you can say a person’s name with confidence, you are endeared to him. He is then more likely to make it a point of remembering and using your name and a bond is created.

Knowing the importance of something and being able to do it, however, are two very different things. So while I am trying to improve my ability to remember and use names, I think I will have to keep the great name remember-er “what’s his name”—oh yeah, Brad!—next to me at all times.

Conversations With Mom

2010-01-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

“Now, how are we related?” Mom asks me as I drive her to her home from mine.

“I’m your daughter,” I say, probably for the twentieth time that week. It doesn’t matter—I could say it 500 times. A brain that can’t hold on to things just plain can’t hold on to them no matter how many times it is told something. I wish I could write it on a sticky note and somehow press it into the flesh of her brain where it could be absorbed and finally remembered. Usually Mom thinks I’m her older sister, Isobell and she thinks my sister Maxine, is her younger sister, Ruth.

“You never had to drive the derrick horse,” she has said often.
“I didn’t know about the derrick horse—I wasn’t there.”
“Well, why weren’t you there?”
“I wasn’t born yet. I’m your daughter, not your sister.”
“Oh, right. If you say so,” she says.

Maxine tells me I shouldn’t argue with Mom. It certainly doesn’t do any good, but it makes being with her a little more adventurous.

“I always had to drive the derrick horse,” Mom says. “Maxine never had to drive the derrick horse.”
“You mean Ruth?”
“Well, yes. What did I say? Ruth never had to drive the derrick horse. Mother favored her because she was sick. I always got the bad end of things. And you never had to drive the derrick horse either.”

I give up for a while. I try to ask her what the derrick horse is but she doesn’t tell me. I’ll have to google it some day.

“Where do you think my husband is?” she asks.
“Mom, you know where he is,” I say.
“No, where is he?”
“He’s in Heaven.”
“How long has he been gone?”
“Ten years.”
“That’s a long time. You have no idea what it’s like to not have a husband.”
“No,” I say, “I don’t. And if that time ever comes it will be awful.”
“But you’ve had your husband so long and I had mine such a short time.”
“You had him nearly 60 years,” I say.
“That long? Well, it wasn’t long enough. Was he sick?”
“Yes.”
“How long was he sick?”
“About seven years.”
“Really? What did he have?”
“Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh, that’s an awful thing to have. A lot of our family had that didn’t they? Did I ever have it? I can’t remember.”

I am so sorry she’s like this—she used to be very interesting to talk to. Now we just re-hash the same things over and over and over again.

“I just want to be with my husband,” she says. “But I don’t think he’s interested in me anymore.”
“Why do you say that, Mom?”
“Well, he doesn’t come see me.”
“How can he come see you when he’s in Heaven?”
“I think he’s found somebody else.”
“No, Mom. They don’t find other people in Heaven. He’s waiting for you.”
“Oh, do you think so? That makes me feel better. How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“OK. I’ll take your word for it. You’re sure about that?”
“Yep, I’m sure.
“How do you know so much?”
“You taught me, Mom.”

“Did you like him?”
“Of course. He’s my dad.”
“Oh, right. Well, I liked him the first time I met him. I didn’t want to go. I told myself I would never go on any more blind dates. But they told me I’d be sorry if I didn’t go on this one. So I went. And I liked him the first time I met him.”
“He’s a good one, all right,” I tell her.

Another day on the phone she might say, “You’ll never guess what I’m reading.”
“Anne of Green Gables?” I venture.
“How did you know?”

I know because she has been watching that movie every day for about a year now. She isn’t reading it, she is watching it. It gives her great pleasure.

“I remember when Vada came to school one day and said she had the most wonderful book and that I had to read it. It was….Now what was it called?”
“Anne of Green Gables,” I remind her.
“Oh, yes. Anne of Green Gables. And I just had to go right out and get it, too. I loved Cedar Point. Didn’t you love that school?”
“I didn’t go there,” I say.
“You didn’t? Why didn’t you?”
“Because I wasn’t around. I’m your daughter, not your sister.”
“You keep telling me that. Well, those teachers were so dumb. They put me up a grade. They never should have done that. And my parents just let them. Then I didn’t fit in anywhere.”
“They put you up because you were so smart, Mom.”
“Well, it was the wrong thing to do.”

Mom had been very smart and once in awhile her shattered memory will rally and she’ll do something astounding like recite “Little Orphan Annie” in its entirety.
She also never forgets to be grateful or kind or offer to help.

“Don’t you have something for me to do like rake all the leaves?” she asks.

Somehow letting a 94 year old woman who is very wobbly on her legs go outside to rake leaves doesn’t seem like a very good idea. Neither does letting her walk part way home when she announces two miles from our destination, “You can just let me off here. It won’t hurt me to walk.”

“I thought I’d be going this week,” Mom says.
“Going where?” I ask.
“To that other place.”
“Do you mean Heaven?”
“I guess that’s where. How can I get there? Could I take a train?”

That stops me in my tracks so to speak. I can’t think of anything intelligent to say to that. A train. I know older people wonder a lot about just how they’re going to get out of this world. Taking a train wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Will you come with me?” she asks.
“I’m not quite ready,” I answer. Actually, some days I’m ready but not today.

Too bad I can’t just escort her to Heaven, look around a bit, do a little visiting and then come back. Once she got settled, Mom would be delighted to stay.

But she is going to have to ride that train alone. I pray that it will be a smooth and comfortable ride. And I hope for her sake that the train stops for her very soon. She’s had her ticket for a long, long time.

Trudy Q.

2010-01-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

Trudy Quinlan Barrett gathered her white robes and ran soundlessly to the edge of Heaven when St. Polly turned her back for a moment to pick up a fallen halo. Trudy knew they’d come looking for her again, but polishing halos was not what she felt like doing at the moment. Looking down she saw Earth’s beautiful blue roundness and her heart longed to be on it again. Then, as she had done many times before, she stepped up to the nearby Heavenly Telescopes and focused. She first narrowed her view to the North American continent, and then focused on the United States, singling out the state of Arizona and zeroing in on Gilbert where she had lived so happily. Finally, she searched even further until she was looking directly into her own earthly family room. There, as she knew it would be, was her little family sitting on the couch watching Sponge Bob without her. They weren’t laughing.

Aaron was Trudy’s handsome and true husband of 32. They had only been married for eight years. Adam was her funny and very smart son who had just turned 7 and Tyler was her baby. He was three now but had only been two when his life of security had been snatched away. They needed her so much. And Trudy needed them. She only had time for one lonely tear when St. Polly came bustling in on Trudy’s sorrow.

“I knew I’d find you here,” St. Polly said with great agitation in her voice. “This is the seventh time you’ve left your post. There is so much to be done. We can’t have angels running off whenever they feel like it. There are rules to be followed.”

Trudy knew that St. Polly had held her tyrannical position for a very, very long time. She must have totally forgotten all about the loveliness of earthly things like hugs and watching Bye- Bye Birdie and planning vacations and going on picnics and laughing at dumb knock-knock jokes. Heaven was not all it was cracked up to be, especially when the ones you loved—more than anyone could ever be loved—couldn’t be with you.

Trudy had arrived in Heaven early; much earlier than she had planned anyway. And she felt like she had left lots of joys and unfinished business behind on that glorious planet Earth.

When she first got to Heaven, many angels gathered around her and tried to make her feel welcome. They let her know how things were run there and instructed her on some of the more important points. For instance, Trudy learned that angels really don’t use their wings or halos except for special occasions like the Christmas Celebration or the Easter Extravaganza.
They even invited her to join with them in their activities.

“Now really Trudy,” one Sweet Angel had tried. “You must come with us to the movies. Guess what’s playing now—it’s called Moses Parting the Red Sea! This one doesn’t star Charleton Heston. It stars Moses himself! And actually no one is acting—it’s the real thing. And next week they’re showing the one of Daniel shutting the mouths of the lions. And the movie about Jonah is really awesome; you won’t want to miss that one.”

But the Sweet Angel could tell that Trudy wasn’t interested.

“What is it Trudy?” she asked. “What are you missing so much? Is it your beautiful jewels? Is it the business of life—the running here and there and getting things done? Is it the fabulous “Brownie Obsession” at TGI Friday’s? I really miss that, too!”

“No, no,” said Trudy, trying hard not to roll her eyes in exasperation. “You don’t understand. Come with me and I’ll show you.” The two angels had slipped away before anyone could ask them to brush the wings or hang up the robes. Then Trudy had showed the Sweet Angel her favorite view—the inside of her own home in Gilbert. The one she was looking into right now.

“Sometimes I just miss the laundry,” Trudy had said to the Sweet Angel. “You know, making it smell good and folding it neatly and putting it away. I miss my friends. I loved them so much and they loved me. I miss the everyday things that made life so wonderful. But most of all I miss my boys. I need them. And they definitely need me. Do you see them there? How can I not be with them everyday? I love them much more than any jewels or business or dessert.”

The Sweet Angel had stood by Trudy for a little while trying to feel what Trudy was feeling, but finally she put her arm around Trudy and headed her back to where the other angels were currently making welcome signs.

So now here was St. Polly with her hands on her ample hips waiting again for Trudy to get back to Heaven’s business.

“Wait! Please let me stay a little longer!” Trudy kept looking through the telescope as the scene before her changed. “That’s Marmie there. Here, look!” Trudy stepped down so St. Polly could look through the telescope. St. Polly was anxious to look but had to act extremely disinterested considering her position and all. “Do you see her? Marmie, I mean. She didn’t want to be called Grandma because she thought it made her sound too old. Really, a name isn’t going to help her much. But do you see what she’s going to have Adam wear to school today? It’s picture day—he can’t wear that! Please, let me see what I can do here before I go back to halo polishing.”

St. Polly sighed and put a “why me” look on her face. “Trudy,” she finally said, “You’re needed in Heaven now. You’ve got to let your boys go for awhile.

“But they need me more,” Trudy protested as she reluctantly left the telescope. “And it really wasn’t fair, you know, me coming here so early in my life.”

“Fair?” St. Polly winced at the word. “Fair isn’t something that we talk about up here, young lady. Now we do talk about Justice and we do talk about Mercy, but you can’t find the word “Fair” in Heaven’s Dictionary.”

“St. Polly, please.” Trudy grabbed St. Polly’s hands and looked into her eyes. “Help me out here! How can I be with my boys? How can I help them get through life without me?”

“Hmmm.” St. Polly’s brow furrowed and she thought with great deliberation. Everything she did was done with great deliberation. Finally, shaking her hands free and straightening her hair, she said, “I’ll have to take this up with a higher power.” St. Polly as always would have preferred to solve the problem herself to add to her sense of invincibility, but luckily she knew when she was in over her head.

“St. Peter is awfully busy these days,” St. Polly considered. “Seems like so many are coming here lately—what with all the hurricanes and tsunamis.”

She pulled her white electronic Blackberry out of her large robe pocket and entered a few things in it as she let out yet another sigh.

“I’ll try St. Peter’s office to see if he’s available first. But you might have to settle for an answer from St. Paul.”

“Ahh, they’re quick,” she said turning to Trudy as new writing appeared on the Blackberry screen.

“Let’s see now. The answer is….” St. Polly got very quiet as she read and her eyes got rather large.

“Well?” asked Trudy, “What does it say?”

“It says that you are to have whatever you want!”

“Really?” Trudy was ecstatic. Now this was more like Heaven ought to be.

“This has never happened before,” said a humbled St. Polly, running her weary hand across her unbelieving brow. “Most people have to pick a number and do what ever it says.”

“Is that message from St. Peter?” Trudy asked, surprised that such an important Being would take time to help her specifically when there were so many others needing assistance.

“No,” said St. Polly and her hands raised to the even Higher Heavens and her face shone with wonder. “The message is from God!”

Just then a voice came from that most Heavenly of places, quiet yet piercing. “St. Polly,” the voice said with great love and patience, “I’ll take it from here!”

As the voice continued, Trudy’s heart filled with an overwhelming peace.

“Trudy, you are one of my dearest of daughters because you lived your life with love and compassion. Always your thoughts were about others as you tried to make life so much better for so many. I know your heart. I know how much you miss your boys and I know that through the years their hearts will ache for you. Although I can’t send you back because that would upset my Eternal Plan, I do have another plan for you. Let me whisper it to you and you tell me if that will help you feel better about being in Heaven.”

Trudy closed her eyes and listened to a very still voice that only she could hear and a soft, lovely smile lighted her face.

“Will that do?” God asked at last out loud.

“Yes,” Trudy’s voice trembled as she looked upward and answered through her now happy tears. “That will do.”

After that miraculous event, Trudy never again was assigned to polish halos. She didn’t even have to hang up robes or sing in the choir or make welcome signs—although she was the very best in that last mentioned department! Once in awhile she was asked to visit some new-comers and teach them a few of the truths they’d missed on earth. But most of all Trudy was delighted to be busy with what she cared about most—her family.

When Aaron was tired and weary and felt like life was a little too burdensome without her, Trudy would stand beside him. And even though Aaron couldn’t see her, he would feel her strength and he would push forward with more energy and purpose.

When Adam was discouraged and wished that his mom could be there to watch him play baseball, she would be on the sidelines cheering him on. And even though Adam couldn’t see her, he could feel her love for him and he would try even harder.

And when Tyler refused to go to pre-school because he needed his mom so much, Trudy would lightly take his hand and he would know that she would always be with him.

Even the rest of Trudy’s family—her sisters and brothers and parents and in-laws and all of her friends, too—could feel her presence with them, helping them decide what to do when choosing was hard and giving them comfort and encouragement.

And when it was time for another beautiful person to come into her family’s life to help love and take care of them, Trudy was right there making sure that the very right one was chosen.

Whenever she had a few minutes after everyone seemed to be well taken care of—which wasn’t very often—Trudy would work on the mansion she was getting ready for her family. It was a beautiful heavenly home that was big enough for all those she loved and plenty big enough for everyone her boys came to love, too.

So Heaven became a place of peace for Trudy. And Earth became a place of peace for all of Trudy’s family and friends.

And even in the Highest of Heavens God smiled and said, “Yes, that will do.”

Rotary Ann? Not Me!

2009-11-16T16:20:00.000-08:00

I will have to say very decisively that I am not a “Rotary Ann.” You may never have heard of that term before and maybe it has been done away with as it surely should have been. But long ago my husband, Brad, belonged to the Rotary Club and the spouses of these stupendous men were referred to as their “Rotary Anns”.

I know the Rotary Club does many good works and it offers a great place to schmooze and network, but this practice of referring to their wives as Rotary Anns to me was grating and de-grading. Being a Rotary Ann meant to me that I wasn’t good enough or equal enough to be a Rotarian. It meant that I obviously didn’t have any dreams or ambitions of my own so I could use all that un-used time being a side-kick to my husband as he performed great deeds and reached the pinnacle of his ambition.

My father in law belonged to a Barbershop Quartet Chorus. It was fun to hear them sing and they were very good. Their spouses also were organized as a support group to the men. I’m sure they had a name but I can’t recall it at the moment. Their help was needed and they were kind to offer it. But as I watched them in action, I wondered if this was all they did or if they had goals of their own they were pursuing. Maybe they were destined to always hang around in the great shadow of their collective husbands’ glory.

I would feel differently if I thought it worked both ways. But would our husbands really like to be referred to as Relief Society Ralphs? Or is there a support group for the Sweet Adelines made up of adoring husbands? I think not. Those husbands are pursuing their own careers and their own interests. They don’t have time to tag along with their women-folk as those women trudge up their female ladders of accomplishment.

I know it is important to be supportive. But how can I do all the things I want to do if I fill up all my time being only the supporter and not the do-er? How will I have the time to practice the guitar and sing and write and speak and improve my photography skills and garden and bike and scrapbook and organize if I’m always supporting Brad’s career, sports, dogs, fishing and old cars?
This is sounding a bit whiny. I didn’t mean for it to. Actually, Brad is very supportive of my activities and once in awhile might not mind being called Relief Society Ralph. But I can’t imagine him traipsing around with me carrying my camera equipment any more than I would follow him around tying his fishing flies. Once in awhile, though, our interests cohabit—I can take pictures of the beauty while he fly fishes. I like those times.

I just wanted to say that I need my own interests and time to pursue them. They make me feel accomplished and useful and worthy of my place here on earth. I don’t need to belong to organizations made up of subordinates.

To those who enjoy the role of Rotary Ann, however, I apologize.

Aging is Going to Be the Death of Me

2009-10-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

September 2009

Aging is going to be the death of me—literally, I hope. At least I think I hope. Actually, maybe it would be a lot easier to just go down in a plane or get a quick life-taking disease. Watching my Mom age makes me see the hardness of it. But that’s another story.

I don’t think of myself as old. I kind of think of myself as thirty-five, which I say is the perfect age. Forty isn’t a very good sounding age because the word “forty” isn’t very attractive. Maybe I think that way because my dad would always comment on an unappealing person as “fat, forty and 4F”. I still don’t know what that means. Do you? Anyway, even though I am now twenty years past forty, I think of myself as young. At least until I look in the mirror, of course. But I try not to do that too often.

Several incidences have brought me to the conclusion that I might perceive myself as young but others certainly don’t. Here are just two of them:

I had an obligatory meeting to go to that I knew was also going to be attended by an old high school friend. I hadn’t seen him for a very long time, but he had been an especially good-looking guy in high school and I somehow expected him to look the same. I even dressed particularly youth-fully so that he would definitely have to say, “Wow, Elizabeth, you haven’t changed a bit.”

Well he didn’t look the same. At all. He had a pot belly, was quite bald and wore suspenders—suspenders! I was shocked and disappointed.

And what’s more, he did not say, “Wow, Elizabeth, you haven’t changed a bit.” After contemplating for awhile, I realized he didn’t say it because it would have been a big fat lie. He was probably just as surprised at my changes as I had been at his.

On another occasion, I was in Wal-Mart waiting in line to have some fabric cut. (What I possibly could have been sewing, I can’t imagine right now.) Standing in line, I had time to analyze the clerk who was cutting everyone’s fabric and this was my thought process:

“Boy, they really get old people to work in here. That lady’s hands seem translucent and feeble and her hair is so thin. She’s a little old woman.”

After some closer observations, I realized with absolute horror that this woman had graduated from Westwood High School with me. She was my age! I was stunned!

By the time it was my turn to be waited on I was in a stammering mode. “Hi,” I managed. “I remember you from high school.”

“Yes” she said. “And I remember you, too.” She seemed a little cool. Maybe she had read my thoughts. I got very self-conscious.

“I bet you get to see a lot of people from the past in here,” I ventured.

“I do,” she said. “And they all look so old!”

I had been thinking how old she looked and she almost outright said that I looked old, too. The nerve!

Old age is like a disease that you never think you’ll catch. You’re so surprised when you turn fifty or sixty or seventy and everyone else seems surprised, too. No one is as surprised as I am to be sixty years old. How did that happen? Wasn’t I vaccinated against aging? The years just seemed to tumble over each other racing to get me to this age. I have to stop and consciously remember that I have already had my turn at youth. I had a very wonderful childhood. My twenties were pleasant. My thirties were delightful. My forties, although I have already disparaged the sound of “forty”, were maybe some of the best years because they came with new vision and new attitudes. My fifties rushed by with lots of experiences and now here I am at sixty and it seems like before I can count as high, seventy will be here.

I finally have to concede that I am no longer young. I have caught the disease and it’s my turn to be this age. My fingers have been pried from youth and I will try to accept it with graciousness and dignity. I will try not to give dirty looks to the checker at Fry’s when she gives me the senior discount without even bothering to ask me if I could possibly be old enough to qualify for it. I will try not to whack my grand kids when they say I’m starting to look like Grandma Great or my kids when they say, “Oh, Mom, you’re so cute when you ride your bike.” I will acknowledge the fact that my face now needs a lot more concealer than makeup base and that when the welcomer at Sam’s calls me “young lady” he really doesn’t mean it. In fact, he means the opposite.

I may not be young but I am definitely not old. Not yet. Actually, if the long lives of my close relatives are any indication, I think I'm only about two-thirds through this complicated yet fascinating life. Think of that--thirty more years! Great things can be accomplished in thirty years so I can't let aging get in my way. And I absolutely refuse to think of myself as "old" for thirty whole potential-filled years.

Awwwww, the world is mine--still!

Dad and Alzheimer's

2009-09-16T20:42:00.000-07:00

I cried today in my Spanish class and felt rather silly. When I cry there is no hiding the evidence because my eyes get red and my face distorts and of course my nose runs uncontrollably. So I had to explain to Professor (actually “Profesora”) Jarvis the reason for my unbecoming tears. She had put a beautiful Spanish song on a CD player for us to listen to and the tears came because the music reminded me of my Dad. He loved music and especially that sung in Spanish. He loved to sing it and loved to listen to it. So while the music played, I thought of my Dad and wished he were right there listening with me because he really would have enjoyed it.

Dad died of Alzheimer’s three days before Christmas in 1999—just in time to join the Heavenly Choirs that Heaven must have at Christmas time. His disease lasted for seven years before death mercifully let him rest. It started slowly and then progressed into a terrible fiend. The first we realized that something was wrong was during a game of Boggle. Dad usually could play it so well, but this time he couldn’t spell the words right. It was very alarming because he had always been such a great speller.

Then as the disease progressed, Dad couldn’t make his mouth form the words he wanted to say. One of the last words he could manage was “Snowflake”. He loved Snowflake, Arizona, where he was born and raised. No matter where individuals said they were from, Dad would ask, “What side of Snowflake is that on?”

Alzheimer’s is a dark and dreadful illness. To the victim perhaps it feels like being sucked into a vortex with no chance of escape. And to those who love the victim it is a frantic but hopeless reaching to save. Once in awhile, though, Dad’s Alzheimer’s brought moments of humor, kindness and insight.

One day in Snowflake, my niece, Lori, was going to take him swimming at the town pool so she told him to get his swimming suit on. He came out so ridiculously dressed that if it hadn’t been tragic we could have laughed for hours. His suit was on rather crookedly and he had on one sock that was pulled up to his knee. On his other foot was a shoe and on his face was a look of triumph. He was like a delighted child who had gotten dressed without help and was now ready for a much deserved swim.

Often, Dad refused to go to bed so Mom would have to have someone help her get him there. One day it was my husband, Brad, and my son-in-law, Cory, who came to the rescue. They had to nearly drag him to bed with him angrily resisting the whole way. When they finally got him into bed and covered up, Dad’s manners got the best of him and he said quite kindly, “Thank you!”

As Dad got worse, his countenance became terrible and he even scared himself. Mom finally had to put newspapers over all the mirrors in the house because, looking in the mirror, Dad would think an evil person had intruded and it made him extremely agitated.

Before the mirror quit being his friend, however, a remarkable experience happened that taught me a great lesson and makes me happy still.

Dad had had Alzheimer’s for several years when he, Mom, my sister, Maxine, and I visited a dress shop in Lakeside, Arizona. As Mom was busy looking for dresses, Dad passed a mirror that covered a whole wall of the store. Maxine and I watched in amazement as Dad performed the most interesting charade in front of it. In his sickness, he didn’t realize that it was a mirror and as he passed it, he thought he was seeing a long lost friend. His ability to speak was quite gone by then, but he could make the motion of words. He greeted himself, acting very, very pleased to see this old friend. His arms went out in greeting and his nodding and smiling showed how happy he was. He communicated with himself for about 5 minutes in this very friendly way. (I guess I had let my mouth hang open with incredulity since Maxine quietly suggested that I close it.) Mom was so embarrassed when she caught on to what Dad was doing because, understandably, she had a hard time seeing any humor or bright spot in Alzheimer’s at all. With great annoyance, she told him to stop and to come with her. But Dad kept “talking” to his “friend”. Finally he looked into the mirror, and then pointed to his wife as though he were saying, “Well, it’s been real nice talking to you, but the Mrs. is calling and I’ve got to go now.”

Mom was humiliated, but Maxine and I were in awe for we recognized the priceless lesson we had just witnessed. Dad had done what all of us hope to do—he had looked in the mirror and liked the person he met there. If every mirror could be greeted with a similar fondness, life would be easier all the way around.

Dad liked himself. What a tribute to a life well lived!

Disappearing Act

2009-09-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I would just like to disappear. Not go off on some vacation or anything, but just disappear. Voila! I especially feel that way when I remember something really stupid I have done---like when a friend offered to bring meatballs to an Open House and I didn’t remember that she had offered. Then as we were getting the food tables all set up and they were immensely crowded and the friend called to say that the meatballs were ready and she’d bring them over, I let the other friend who was trying to arrange the space on the tables convince me to say, “No, we can’t use the meatballs!”…...Well, when I remember thoughtless things like that that I have done, that’s when I imagine myself just slipping off my chair as I slowly diminish and then by the time my body hits the wall, I am gone. Totally disintegrated. No more. That sounds very inviting.

Other things can make me feel like disappearing—Mothers Day at church, for example. Well, to be truthful, Mothers Day and I have finally come to an understanding. But I feel like disappearing right now. One of my children is lying in bed and it is after 11:00 in the morning and the cleaners who only come every other week are ready to clean his room but he won’t let them in and his room is atrocious. He says he will clean it himself, but he won’t. It’s not the room so much that makes my disappearing act so appealing. It’s what the room stands for. It’s what the body still in bed stands for. It’s the opportunities missed, the life not fully lived yet. My soul aches. And I want to slowly slide off my chair and disappear.

Two Great Salad Recipes

2009-02-25T21:54:00.000-08:00

My birthday party was a huge success and I thank everyone who came!! When I figure out how to do it, I will post some pictures so you can remember how much fun we had. Some have asked for the salad recipes so here they are:

FROG EYE SALAD (my standby for every occasion, mostly because a few in my family love it)

1 1/3 cups (8 oz) Acini de Pepe (a tiny pasta)uncooked
1 can (20 oz.) pineapple chunks, drained (reserve 1/4 cup juice)
1 3/4 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 pkg (3.4 oz.) vanilla instant pudding
1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
2 cans (11 oz. each) mandarin oranges, drained
2 cups cool whip
3 cups miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup flaked coconut (I definitely leave this out because Brad won't let any coconut in the house!)

Cook pasta 11 minutes in water as directed on the package. Rinse with cold water and drain well. In large bowl, beat reserved pineapple juice, milk, sugar and pudding for 2 minutes. Gently stir in pasta and remaining ingredients; cover. Refrigerate at least 5 hours. Makes 12 servings.

TORTELLINI SALAD
(Brittany Robinson Cotter gave me this recipe)

Cheese filled Tortellini (which is found in the refrigerated section)
Cherry or grape tomatoes cut in halves or fourths
Fresh broccoli cut in small pieces
Litehouse Ranch Dressing (Litehouse is a brand found by the fresh salads. Don't use the "light" Ranch)

Put the tortellini, tomatoes and broccoli in a bowl in proportions that look right to you. Then add the Ranch without overdoing it. You might want to add toasted pine nuts which are really good. We would have had them at the party but they got over-toasted!

I am going to try to be more diligent in adding to this blog. I have hundreds of things I want to say and I need to get them out of my head because they are really buzzing around in there.

Birthday Invitation

2008-11-24T12:20:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends and Family,
Aging is going to be the death of me! The night before I turned 40 I cried. That was nearly 20 years ago!! Time has sped a lot faster than I ever thought it would or could. I've thought of moving to china where older people are highly respected, but I've been there and I really don't like their bathrooms very much. So in order to make the arrival of this personal new decade a little less traumatic, I am going to give myself a 60th birthday party. (Thank you, Leslie Patterson, for the idea!)

Date & Time: Tuesday February 17, 2009 from 11:30-1:00.
Place: Barretts' Home @ 633 E. Melody Dr., Gilbert, AZ 85234
Occasion: Elizabeth Willis Barrett's 60th Birthday!

I am sending this invitation 3 months ahead of time for a reason. Those of you who know me quite well, know that I love to set goals. But the only way I can actually reach them is if they are very specific and I am given a deadline and someone besides myself knows about them.

So here are two of my goals:

By February 17th of 2009--my 60th (gag!) birthday--
#1: I will have gone on a 20 mile bike ride all in the same day.
#2: I will be able to play 10 songs on my guitar which will include 10 well-maneuvered chords and 3 different strums.

You might wonder why I'm gettin you involved in this. I just thought you might want to join me. Not in riding my bike or playing my guitar I don't mean, but in accomplishing something you might have been putting off for a very long time. And then we'd have a party to celebrate as shown above. And even if you don't feel like working on some goal or other, I hope you will still come on that day to be with wonderful women--old and young, enjoy some fabulous food and take home a fun gift bag. And please, invite your friends. The more the merrier, as they say.

If you would kindly respond on my e-mail which is lizbrad@cox.net or on this blog which is theotherelizabethbarrett.blogspot.com, I will send you some reminders of the party and/or encourage you on your goals.

With love and gratitude to you for reading this whole invitation!
Liz...............................480-892-5812

Story #1: Once Upon a Time

2008-11-24T11:38:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a beautiful baby girl born to beautiful righteous parents. her name was Mollie and she happened to be a Mormon. She wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, for after all, anyone who has ever seen the miracle of a baby coming into this world would know that a spoon could only cause complications. But she was born with a tiny gold charm bracelet upon her tiny wrist from which twelve tiny gold letters dangled. The letters spelled out "A CHARMED LIFE".

Molly's childhood was fabulous and her teenage years left nothing to be desired. She was loved for her beauty and kindness, was the head cheerleader and went to every dance with the star of the football team, whoever that happened to be at the moment.

Later in life when many of her friends were seeing psychiatrists because something was amiss in their upbringing, Mollie didn't have one smidgen of a complaint about her younger years.

As she continued down her golden brick road, Molly was led to college where she graduated with honors in Rocket Science and eventually her road led her to the Temple. There she married the most perfect of returned missionaries. Through the years, not only did he make sure that their family had Family Home Evening every Monday and family scriptures and prayer every morning and night, but he always understood whatever it was she was trying to say and was as delightful to talk with as any of her old girlfriends. He looked at her while they talked instead of keeping one eye on the sports page and interjected words of encouragement and understanding. And he didn't try to fix everything with a dismissive solution. He would just listen attentively and with great thoughtfulness.

He was also very handsome and earned a living that kept Molly in the lap of luxury! They had a lovely huge home with all the latest furnishings and Molly never had to go to work. Which was a good thing, because all Molly had ever wanted to do was spend all day with their 10 beautiful children--five boys and five girls --each born two years apart on April 6th--which was a perfect day for babies to be born.

Every year Molly wrote Christmas letters that sounded like a resume for the job of "Nation's Most Perfect Family." And although no one wanted to read them because they left a bit of nausea in their wake, Molly cheerfully and promptly wrote them every year and they arrived at each recipient's house well before Christmas.

Molly's home was always spotless. When a visitor needed to use the bathroom, Molly didn't have to run in the bathroom first and frantically try to clean it up before the guest entered. Nor did she have to out and out lie by telling the very urgently uncomfortable visitor that unfortunately all the plumbing was broken at the moment and maybe the guest would like to use the neighbor's bathroom.

When a friend came over to visit unexpectedly, Molly didn't have to pretend to not be home. Or if the friend brought a child and the child ran into one of the bedrooms and the friend needed to retrieve her, Molly didn't have to gasp and say, "No, no, you can't go in that room!!!" and then retrieve the child herself.

Molly's world was a world of order and serenity. She was in excellent shape physically and spiritually because she got up every morning at 4:00 without fail so she could exercise and have her own personal scripture reading time. She also daily made a batch of bread because she was very insistent that her children get all the vitamins, minerals, and fiber that she could possibly give them.

Molly's children all got up at exactly 6:00 and came cheerfully for family scriptures and prayer, after making their beds and putting on the clothes they had laid out the night before. And following a delicious and healthy breakfast which did not include cold cereal, each child went eagerly off to school or work except for the little ones who played congenially for three hours so Molly could work on genealogy or the mauscript of her latest book.

Molly canned all their food from her prolific garden that she tended herself while singing church hymns in four part harmony. And with all of her hard work her family now had a great five years supply of food and necessities.

Even though she was her ward's Relief Society President, Molly still wanted to do her share of visiting teaching. and she did it on the first day of every month, taking a great handout and a plate of cookes every time. In her freezer were several casseroles ready to take to those who needed a good meal.

Speaking of good meals, Molly loved having the missionaries over for dinner each week and made sure she had an investigator over, too, so she wouldn't be wasting the missionaries' time.

In short (or long, depending on how tired you are), Molly's life was perfect. Her husband's life was perfect. Her children's lives were perfect. And Molly went to her reward at a perfect age with her health and mind still entirely intact.

A shrine has been built to honor Molly's perfection. And today many beautiful and accomplished women visit that shrine and beat their heads against it in frustration because they could never live up to Molly's perfect life, even though they tried and tried and even fasted and prayed about it. And many of those lovely women think that everyone else but themselves has reached Molly's perfection. This definitely adds to the depression and anxiety of the world.

Sadly, they do not know that Molly is just a "Once Upon a Time" story and in reality she never existed and never will. She is as much a myth as the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster or the mythical statement "you get what you pay for."

Molly is a myth but the reality is that there is a bit of perfection in each one of us. And when we come together and share with each other, well, that's quite a lot of perfection. Hopefully, we can recognize and appreciate the perfection within ourselves and congratulate the perfection in others. If we could do that, wouldn't it be just, well--perfect?