It’s a page-turner. But you don’t need a hard copy. You can read it on your devices here. There are links in the electronic document to take you to the primary and secondary sources. This is an approachable history and I am enjoying it!
P.S. Mark likes it, too.
In recent months, it has become very clear to me that empathetic people are powerful influencers. I think one of the things my sons have learned through my Relief Society service is empathy. They have been great supports these past 3 years, and this week, they had the perfect words to say in response to something that happened to me. Then they helped with dinner.
This weekend I learned that I lost the only record I kept of my time as Relief Society president: the calendar with the names of each sister I served every day. In my emotional fog after Daniel left on his mission, I attacked a stack of papers on my desk and tossed them in the recycling, not realizing my calendar must have been among these papers. This is a profound loss to me. I gave up writing in a journal during the years I have served, telling myself that this calendar was to be my record of my time as president. This calendar, God, and I are the only ones who know what I really did during these years, and I have a terrible memory. I have wept on the floor over this loss. Underlying this loss is the fear that what I have done just ascends as smoke and does not matter. But we all know that is nonsense, and in stronger moments than these I will feel better. Acts of love remain, and are never wasted.
I read an interesting article earlier this year about an author and speaker who took back his productivity by carving out one day a week that he labeled, “untouchable.” He allowed no calls, no texts, and no interruptions. He planned for these weekly events sixteen weeks in advance. He analyzed the results of his untouchable days, and he was 10X more productive each week. He has a wife who cared for the kids, so children were not part of his schedule during work hours.
Mothers don’t really get untouchable days, but I have learned that while a whole day may be great, even a few hours alone and untouchable can be helpful. The key for this author and for me has been to make a good plan for the time. Last year, when I wrote my book, my schedule allowed for about three hours a day for personal time. (This many hours was unheard of when I had all the kids at home.) I used one hour for scripture study and two for writing. Years ago, in an Ensign article, a man wrote about his mother who found her productive time was one hour before her ten children got up each day. This was never something I could do without regretting it by 10 am. My untouchable, personal time needs to be in the late morning, after I have done a few jobs around the house so my mind can focus.
I guess with school back in session, I am thinking a lot about productivity and creating good habits. New this year are the little cell phone baskets in the kitchen and we have each made a list of things we want to accomplish with all the time we will have because we are giving our phones a rest. On my list is to write another book and pick up the violin more often. There is a phrase that circulates through the Church of Jesus Christ, and that is that we are trying to raise a “sin resistant generation.” This is a different version of the idea of being “untouchable,” but I believe that taking back our personal time is one way we become spiritually resistant to sin, or untouchable.
I placed a few small fabric baskets in the kitchen. These are cell phone beds. This is where my phone stays most of the day. If it is not in my pocket, I don’t check it all the time. This weekend I also turned down my phone for most of the day Saturday. I only answered the most pressing texts. I kept it off during my date with Richard. By eleven o’clock, someone had decided I must be on vacation because I didn’t respond to her texts immediately. I don’t think I should have to be on call all of the time, but the reality is that people expect it because we all carry cell phones. When I take a break, I come back to messages wondering where I am, wondering if I have completed a task, and news, usually bad. Sometimes, I really don’t like my phone.
What do you think about this video? The narrowing sliver of time to create? The absence of stopping cues in social media? Of our tendency to visit sites that make us unhappy three times more often than those that do make us happy? Where do you draw lines with your phone use?
On the first day of seventh grade and tenth grade, I realized that summer wasn’t long enough. The routines were too familiar; the boys slipped into old patterns and we drove down the hill like summer never happened. “But wait,” I thought, as Mark left the car, “I really like having you around.” And when Timothy left the car, I decided to take the long drive home so I could be a little bit sad. Yes, yes, it’s all peachy and good they go to school. Yes, yes, they will grow and learn and have independence. Blah, blah, blah. Research, resilience, lights, socially adjusted and so forth. But for me, it feels like a continuation of a lonely, weary road today.
The best evenings are Utah summer evenings, and after hot, smoky days, the sunsets burn ribbons of orange and red across the horizon. Just as we have adjusted to a slower pace after the frenzied weeks of travel, missionary preparations, and goodbyes, this week ushers in busy school life. I feel nothing about the school year. It just is. Today as we drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon to piano lessons, there were leaves on the hill which have lost some of their verdure. We wonder, will the autumn colors be more or less brilliant after this dry summer?
Today is Paige’s twenty-second birthday, and I am on my second attempt at a three-layer cake. The first three layers sit in the trash. I remember the effort for her first cake and my skills are still shaky for her twenty-second cake. My best girl. She is here for a few weeks as she shuffles her plans for housing.
We accomplished a lot this summer, and by we, I mean the kids. There was Paige’s internship in New York and Daniel’s mission, but here’s a shout-out for Timothy who finished drivers ed and Mark who learned to swim properly. Here’s a shout-out for the books we read, the conservative documentaries Timothy and Richard viewed, and all the water in which we have dipped our toes. Our necks craned to see the tops of Redwood trees and skyscrapers. We stopped on the sides of streams to throw rocks and sketch. We boated, biked, hiked, climbed, drove, and swam through this summer. We entered holy temples more often than usual. Summer of 2018 has been one of our best. It’s like we lived the lyrics of This Land is Your Land.
Unthinkable resilience! Why should I want to feel better? Is it okay to miss Daniel even though he is doing good things?
“Time will make it better,” they say, but what is time? It’s usually the enemy. Wasn’t it time that got us to the place that time must now heal? I think time is neither enemy nor healer. Relative, temporary, illusive, speeding, slowing, stalled: time is our least dependable marker. To God, time is not as we experience it here. So why is time a cornerstone for us? Perhaps time is just a name for something we can’t name, but surely makes us change.
For almost nineteen years, I set my clock by many of Daniel’s sounds. Lately, I slept after the ratcheting of the lock on the door at night and woke to the close of his basement bathroom door. I timed my days for dinner at 6:30 and the late night talks. And then time seemed to leave as I watched him move away from his youth, not just at obvious milestones, but late one night, sitting in silence with him in the dark after he said a final goodbye to someone. I felt it as he made requests for the care of keepsakes and friends and siblings. Time was not there in these moments, but there was something else. Reality? Presence? Arrival?
It’s always been a balance beam, this relationship. Don’t cling, let him fly, stay centered, don’t react, but never, until recently, be perfectly still. Be still, and realize that it was always God who was holding us up, (not I!) and that this support will continue. For God deals in the realities of people and relationships. How inconsequential is time compared to love!
I begin to understand that my Father in Heaven, not time, is the source of a resilience I can accept.
Today is the anniversary of our move to Sandy. This is what we looked like at that time. It’s been a big six years. And I wish I still looked like that.
Kindness is the most difficult thing to take right now because it brings out emotions I think I have already dealt with, but kindness also reminds me that I am understood. I may not be answering the door, but I am doing well. I am out each day doing Relief Society work. I have taken the kids to the mall and Costco and up the canyon for driving practice. I am preparing meals and cleaning the house. I am not crying all the time, but I am not yet myself. I am thankful for friends, whose gestures cannot all be pictured here. From eighty-five year-old neighbor Stanford called to check on me, to sixteen-year-old friend Lillie who decorated a cake for us, they represent many ages. Another special friend has left a succession of packages throughout the week. We were invited to dinner and received many flower deliveries. We have felt love from many states. There are friends from Texas and Arizona and high school who have taken time to write words of excitement for us. These gifts of consolation add up to quite a celebration, which is appropriate, considering we have a son who is worthy and willing to be a light.