Fall

Here it is, three months later. It's finally starting to feel like fall. This is by far my favorite season of the year. Someone once told me they thought of me as more of a spring person, all green and life giving. I think they were trying to flatter me, but their remarks were misguided. Spring is a lot like birth. Beautiful, awkward, miraculous. Messy. All the moisture and mud everywhere. Tender new life proving just how strong it really is in the most unexpected places. A good and necessary season, but I'm personally all about fall.

Fall is a time of harvest. The work has been done. The planting has reaped its rewards. Tomatoes and peaches shine like jewels in their rows of glass jars. Pumpkins are quietly getting fatter and brighter in the corner of the garden. The nights are getting cooler and things are slowly easing into a well deserved rest. Autumn is a time to sit and reflect on the bounties of all the work and preparation and appreciate the cycles of life.

It's also the time when school starts, which is also a good thing. Pencils, backpacks, college campuses bursting with hope, little kids hopping up those huge school bus stairs with superhuman enthusiasm, brimming with unquestioned self confidence. Fall is a time for books.

And hot chocolate. And fires. And Thanksgiving. And changing leaves. And gathering strength for the seasons that will invariably come again soon. I love this time of year.

Fascinating things

1. David's naked face
Every year or so, David shaves off his beard. I like to see how things have changed under there since the last time I saw his face. I've known this guy since we were 12 and I like to watch him age. So he shaves in sections and I get to see him with a pro wrestler handlebar moustache, then with a little Charlie Chaplin deal, then finally, just before the razor blade is shredded to bits and begs for mercy, the whole thing is gone. He slaps on some after shave, I kiss him, and the beard immediately starts growing back.

Today was a little different because Thomas was really wounded by the change. First of all, he'd voted that David should keep the beard "because he looks really handsome that way". Then after David shaved Thomas said his skin smelled funny. The poor kid's heart was broken. He cried for a good long time before we convinced him to go to sleep, clutching a picture of his dad with a beard to his chest. He plans to sleep with it until David's face is safely covered and order is restored to the universe.

2. Fumes
As mentioned above, the smell of aftershave can be a really emotional thing. For me, it's diesel. I. Love. Diesel. Fumes. I never mind getting stuck behind the slow truck on the highway because the fumes take me back to the times I spent driving my first car, an ancient forest green diesel mercedes. Life was good then. I loved those headrests.

And Jane added another smell to the list tonight when we were sitting in traffic and from the back seat she said with much feeling, "I love to smell gas."

Hmm.

3. Simulations

I am completely fascinated by those time lapse animations they use to sell acne medication, diet plans and cellulite cream. And it's a good thing because those three companies are particularly relentless. There hasn't been a time in the last month that I've gotten online without one of those animations popping up. And they never play just once. Over and over again the face lift lady's wrinkles melt away, then reappear and drag down her whole face, then quickly firm up again. No matter how many times I see it, I never get tired of it. And the disappearance of the horrible acne stops me mid sentence every time it appears when I'm checking my email. I don't even mind that it's **not actual images. Results are simulated. To my credit, I've never even been tempted to click on the ads or discover what the products are.

Still, maybe I've been spending too much time on the computer....

R2D2 smells like bubble gum

I love how having kids makes every day life so much more fun. Yesterday while I was out looking for ways to justify the fact that I was not packing, I decided to vacuum out and wash the van. We pulled up to the gas station and Jane got to put the quarters in the vacuum machine. Then she danced around begging for a turn with the gigantic vacuum hose until I finally relented and let her have the last 10 seconds before our time ran out. She had such a wild determination in her eyes. I could easily imagine her wrestling anacondas--and enjoying it-- after watching her wield that vacuum hose.

We went through the car wash next. A guy came out and mopped down our windows first. That was an adventure in itself. "OOH! He's going to do mine next!" "Hey, I see a double headed dragon in the suds!" "HEY! Now he's doing MY window!"

Then we entered the tunnel o' fun. Worth every penny of the eight bucks we spent. The car wash is better than any amusement park ride. The first part of the show was the foamy pink stuff. In addition to being really cool to watch, it had a nice fruity smell that lingered in our ventilation system for a few hours afterward.

Mom: Hey, can you smell that? That foamy stuff smells good, huh?
Thomas: Yeah, it smells like GUM! THAT FOAM SMELLS LIKE BUBBLE GUM! IT SMELLS LIKE PINK BUBBLE GUM!! (Thomas has one volume these days).
Jane: It smells like BUBBLE GUM!!!
Benjamin: It smells like R2D2!

Our life is really good.

I used to speak French!

J'etais en retard; c'est a dire que j'ai commence a me preparer pour partir a six heures, mais il etait neuf heures et demie quand j'ai finalement quitte la maison....

I'm trying to pack up all of my books. Still. Thirty boxes later. I have most of the actual books packed up, but the bookshelves aren't bare yet. They're still cluttered with "not quite a book but it still belongs on the bookshelf" stuff.

Like the binder of kindergarten projects David did in school. One was a picture of him in the middle of a yellow felt flower. I looked at him and thought about how that little kid grew up to be the man I love and how my little kindergarten son is also growing up so quickly. I can already see the man inside of him.

And then I found the binder from the last French class I ever took in college. And I could barely read my own paper. But how exhilarating to be reminded that I once had that kind of brain power! I really have to get back to school. I think I found the community college where I want to go as soon as possible. I've really missed that kind of stimulation.

Vocabulary

I love to listen to my kids talk.

"Mom, do bugs have skin?"
Thomas, go to bed. "But I need to be accompanied."
"We encouraged him to run and he accidentally fell down."

I need to record these things when they happen. I seem to have forgotten all the other recent favorites. Darn.

Itty-bitty candles

I write a little bit in my journal every day, or pretty close to every day. As a result, I think I shouldn't bother writing in this blog unless I have something really entertaining or profound to say. But I'm coming to realize the folly in that. My greatness may just be within the context of my normalcy. Normalcy is where I spend the majority of my days, and great things do happen there. I know good old Jack Kerouac thought otherwise. Said he (in Paris, no less),

‘The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.’

I am coming to terms with the fact that I am not one of those madly burning people. I've known and loved my fair share. I compulsively dated a pretty string of fabulous roman candles, some of whom I was shocked to see make it all the way to adulthood. I enjoyed their crazy demonstrativeness, their poetry, the emotional roller coasters. I loved (and still adore) my overt and brilliant friends. But I married the "still waters run deep" type guy I've been in love with since I was 12. There was no other way for me. Over the course of the last few years spent parenting and housekeeping, I've discovered that a lot of my dazzling passion is just a reflection of the shiny people I seek out. Left to my own devices, without their influence, I'm more a twinkle than an explosion. I love fall; maybe I'm more like the dappled lights coming through the trees and waving across the forest path. Beautiful, but subtle. I'm more the warm fire, good book, and cat curled up on the on the hearth.

There's some merit in that, though. Being true to yourself is always a good thing, whether that entails burning or glowing. So I'm not crazy expressive. That's a-okay. So I'm not extroverted at all. That's fine too. The problem occurs when the glowing-but-not-exploding-fireworks condition is brought on by laziness. When I'm dimmed by slothfulness, then I'm in trouble, just like all people. I think you can tell when you meet certain people whether they're being true to their best selves. Even the quiet ones are substantial and interesting. And some of the noisiest and flashiest are the least substantive and most disappointing upon further observation.

So the application of the principle is to keep from sliding into slothfulness and non-productivity. Somewhere along the line, I decided that if I was the type of person who flossed and used my treadmill regularly, then I must be attending to myself well, and if in the meantime I become less flashy, then it must be because I'm not really made that way.

And hey! I've known my fair share of wonderful quiet people too. I have to admit I feel less secure around them sometimes, but I like to admire them from afar. And getting to know the one I'm married to and the ones I've mothered is intriguing and heartwarming. Understated and subtle can be powerful, too.

This does help explain my long held fascination with British people. Interesting....

The highlight of my week

I am not a really funny person. I don't remember jokes easily. I like to laugh, but I don't generate much hilarity on my own. So when something strikes me as really funny it's like this divine gift. I savor it. While I was in the nursing mother's room today I heard one of those things that will make me happy for years. Let's hope I can do justice to this great piece of entertainment:

A friend was relating this conversation she had with her husband about our Relief Society Christmas party where I played my guitar while we sang carols.

Husband: How was the Christmas party? Was it nice?

Wife: Yeah, it was nice. Jody played her guitar and we all sang along. It was fun.

Husband: (looking confused) Jody played her guitar?

Wife: Yes, she played her guitar and we all sang Christmas carols.

After a few minutes, the husband was still sitting there looking baffled and thoughtful, so the wife had to find out what was going through his mind.

Wife: What are you thinking about?

Husband: Didn't you just say Jody played air guitar while you all sang along?

What a priceless mental image. I'm thinking we should try it for next year's party.