divided

I have a secret.  For a few years now I have been dreaming about moving to the other side of the Wasatch.  I listen to the weather of the Wasatch back and pine for the snow loads, the early falls, and late summers.  I want more than anything to move there.

Wanship, Frances, Coalville, Samak, Heber...

I long for life on the other side.

The reason this would be a secret is my ties to my community & this old farm house and land on the west side are so public saying out loud I want to go seems near blasphemous. 

My love of the Jordan river is the closet thing to religion I may ever find.  And yet my desire to go is mounting. 

Being sick hasn't helped. Half asleep half awake I dream of a another little farm house tucked in a hillside in Wanship, of goats and chickens, a long slow dirt driveway and how to get from there to gym down long twisted roads through falling snow. 

I think no phones, no computer, a good car, lots of books.  I imagine a clothesline, a cat, another dog, wildflowers, a woodpile, overalls, boots, dust, sunlight, snow, and nothingness.

 

Then I start to feel bad for how lonely Beach will be locked away with me and I start to create new friends for her who live near by but I hate how they come to the door and want to talk so I decide to un-invent them and return to perfect isolation.

I'm tired.  I want the world to be quiet.  I want to be smothered in stinging silence.  I don't want to guess any more about motivates, thin ice, egg shells, or why some one calls or doesn't. I want visits from friends to last days and alone time between them to last week.  I want the sureness that comes with those type of arrangements; friends who stay, friends who come back.

This is Josh's house in the Heber valley, that magical other side.  It is one of the oldest houses in Heber.  Once belong to the town Doctor, who was also the town drunk. Beach and I drove up this morning for a car load of hand-me-downs from him to us.  The drive up was cool and rainy, the trees turning from both season and drought.  Eventually his house will go on the market.  Now that his kids are older he is tired of living this far out of the way.

And this is the park down the street from his house. 

Click your heels together and say,

'there is no place like home'. 

Oh how I wonder.   

not quite nice

Beach: What are you eating?!?!

Me: It's Cream of Wheat.  Try it.  Grandma used to make it for me when I was little.

Beach (takes a taste & makes a bad face): Mom, you ever wonder if Grandma really loved you?

crazy

"..the lawyers were morally outraged..." 

It is a line from an old this American Life program that I thought was too funny not to remember.  Perhaps my fever is the only thread which ties that statement to this BUT it popped into my mind.  So I was on the phone with the new cell phone company trying to sort out the bill then pay it. After giving all the right info the guy told told me I wasn't authorized on the account.  I tried finding BC out in the yard but when you hardly have a voice yelling does no good.  After 5 extremely awkward minutes of me apologizing for the wait, searching, calling for BC, and back to apologizing I gave up.  "Look buddy, I set this account up for him, I have his social, his check book, his visa, the bill, I do things for him you don't want to know about, I even had one of his children, besides you guys want me authorized when he was in charge the phones got turned off." 

"I see your point but we need him to authorize you until he does we cannot help you with anything relating to this account." 
"Even though one of the phones is mine?"
"I'm sorry, right now he is the only one authorized."
"Yeah-but I can't find him.  You don't get it our property is huge!!!" 
"You could try calling him on his cell phone." 
"The cell phone tied to this account?"
"Yes Ms. Brown, unless he has another one."
"Yeah if I was authorized I would but how about this, you can call him and I will wait for permission to pay you because no one seems to care whether or not I'm authorized when they ask me to punch in his visa number. Oh-but when you get him on the line will he ask him to go get me a beer? And let him know all the other bills are paid and that I think we should get pizza tonight 'cause I'm way too sick to cook.  Thanks I'll hold."
       

standing in kansas

Still sick. I spent a half hour getting my feet taken care enough to put on shoes so I could water my garden, it’s been a while.  Things have changed some good, some bad.

The peaches are getting ripe and a baby watermelon has popped out.  I threw out 7 tomatoes rotting on the vines and picked the ones now showing signs of irregular watering.

I am sicker today than I have been all week.  The medical care of last week not holding.  But it’s a funny thing to step into the garden as the sun breaks from a cloud only to be swallowed by another.  I moved around watering and walking being chased by a cat who thought I should have feed her before going there.  I walked among the sunflowers and it got hotter and hotter until I felt the world spin a little under my feet. 

All last week I struggled with a piece/story I was offered by the West View.  Even the coming and going of the formatting deadlines have failed to stop the problems within the reporting; I am not even on my most delusional days a Reporter, in fact I have a better chance of being Superman than Clark. 

We started homeschool last week.  Of course I’m a mom so I been cleaning & cooking.   While Beach is at gym which is now at night I have been working for my friends business.  And after all the prep and care that goes into the end of summer hand off at the last minute the Step Son elected to stay longer cutting his return to school in Idaho pretty darn close. So much for all that laundry I did.  I missed the double feature at the drive in movie last night with my family because someone thought it would be a good idea if I laid down first so I would feel well enough to go.  It didn't work out that way. 

I need to track down my X while he is on vacation to handle a 'situation' about my son which can't wait.  Beach the rock is starting to so signs of cracking under the discrepancies of living in a not so blended family all summer.  Often, in divorces, in the name of 'fairness' the same favored nation policies which foster terrorism and wars are applied to children, with the same end result: terrorism and war.  Beach is acting out at gym.  We've had 2 talks about it with her coach (and a remembrance that the same thing happened last year for the same reasons).  With meet season at the doorstep, Beach didn't really need to be given another handicap.

These were the thoughts floating around in my mind like the morning clouds, everything was hazy and sticky.  I was probably standing looking dazed when BC, a funny little smile on his face, met me at the gate.   He took the hose I was haphazardly dragging around.  He kissed me on the neck and told me to go get dressed it was time to go back to the doctor.



one life, two ways

Beach walks into the kitchen where I am standing on a stool wiping down the tall cupboards.  "Mom, who are those kids in that picture up stairs?"

"It's Alex & Conner! You know your big brother & sister when they were little."

She nods and mumbles under her breath, "I could take 'em"

...Oh yeah she is so ready to go back to being an only child!

add hot water

Yep, it’s me sick aGaIn!!!  I've been sick all week.  It’s not so bad.  Having the immune system of a nat has some good qualities.  I get lots of uninterrupted time listening to NPR and screwing around on Pinterest.  I read.  I nap.  I read again.  In fact I am on my fourth book this week alone.  Another benefit to being sick is I get to live on soup and crackers.  So after being home two days with me all sick BC decided it was time for a cure.  To the church of hot water…why yes, we should take Josh’s very fast car!!! 

Ogden Hot Springs

 BC fishing & Me soaking.

Dunked in the river ended up with those damn curls,

I think I am finally getting used to them. 

Besides Beach loves them.

He got one!!!

Almost forgot I was sick :)

Zoom-Zoom

defrosting

Defrosting: defined by Beach as, the act of

removing frosting so one might enjoy cake.

dinner and dessert

Cold chicken, roasted red potato with herbs, fresh pears,

and snickerdoodle cookies.

Do you see him?

Because he sees you!

Picnic Hood