Royal Wedding in Review

At 1:45 this morning I got up, woke everyone else up, whipped up a stack of cucumber finger sandwiches, put platters of "biscuits" (cookies) and chocolate dipped fruits, out on the table, and sat down to watch the Royal Wedding live from London expecting to fall asleep. What followed on television was so riveting to me, so foreign yet so familiar, that I couldn't sleep afterall and didn't doze off until the happy couple arrived at Buckingham Palace - then I was out like a light.

I've been fighting sleep all day, and giving in to sleep with long cat naps, but I don't regret being 'up in the night.' The entire wedding felt like a dream.

I loved the dresses -- Kate Middleton's and her sister Pippa's. I loved the bright green trees inside the Abbey. I loved the brothers, William and Harry, in their regalia, and the queen in her canary yellow suit and hat. I didn't stay awake long enough to see the kisses from the balcony, but I love that there were two of them instead of one and that the crowd roared its approval.

I stayed awake to witness it because I know it will be a memory 30 years from now and I like to make memories for myself and for the people I love.

Keeping a Running Balance

balance (def.)
•a state of equilibrium
•equality between the totals of the credit and debit sides of an account
•harmonious arrangement or relation of parts or elements within a whole
•something left after other parts have been taken away
•symmetry, exact reflection of form on opposite sides of a dividing line

Many years ago I realized the need to keep a running balance in our checking account. The right hand (me) didn't always know what the left hand (Scott) was spending, and back then I couldn't pull up a bank statement online at a moment's notice to see what had and had not cleared the bank, even if I knew what to be watching for. I discovered that when I kept an accurate running balance of our checking account I felt on top of things, no matter how little money was in the account. If I had $38.22, for example, I could breathe easily because I knew where I stood and could make decisions accordingly. I still get a thrill from knowing down to the penny exactly where we're "at," even when (especially when) the funds are drawing low.

Keeping a running balance -- we do it not just in our checking accounts but in our laundry bins and in our kitchen cupboards and sinks and garbage cans and gas tanks; in our sleep-to-waking, work-to-play, and indoor-outdoor ratios.

The point is we are running, and how do you keep anything in balance when you're running?

When I get really excited about something (which can happen every few days, it seems), I tend to go overboard on that one thing while neglecting almost everything else -- certainly everything else that is non-essential. I tend to get out of balance.

The pendulum swings recklessly for a few days -- up until 3am, sleeping mid-afternoon to compensate, barely meeting deadlines...And then I think of the Foucault Pendulum swinging in perfect rhythm in the Eyring Science Center at BYU, demonstrating the steady rotation of the earth.

William Shakespeare said it best: "Were man but constant, he were perfect." But we can't be constant. We can't live in a constant state of equilibrium. If things are momentarily in balance, they will soon be out of balance again, and we will be scrambling to put everything back in order.

I often feel like one of the Chinese plate spinners I saw in the Mulan parade at Disneyland about 12 years ago. Somehow they managed to walk the parade route with multiple plates at the ends of long poles, all spinning and tilting at once, each needing attention.

That's a metaphor for life. Just trying to keep in balance keeps us running.

Daffodils Are Up...

No, those are just paper flowers!

About half of them were made by some sisters in my ward, the other half by Abby and me, for our Relief Society Birthday Social / Dinner tonight. Another lady in our ward invented them and actually published a book about making all kinds of paper flowers out of ordinary copy paper, which is inexpensive, readily available, and curls well for petals and leaves.


There are about 70 daffodils in these pictures, but imagine happening upon ten thousand of them on a lakeside walk, as William Wordsworth did. He tells the story in this poem from 1804, which has emerged as my favorite poem of all time, I think (I published it in this blog last spring, too):

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:

I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

A Few Thoughts and Quotes on Health and Walking

I've talked to several people recently who have seriously injured themselves exercising. I am talking broken hips, broken backs...serious stuff! In thinking about this, I realized I am probably meeting so many of them at this point in my life because I am reaching a certain age and the bodies of my contemporaries are falling apart. (I know, I know...mine is, too, but I don't want to think about that.)

So here are some health related quotes:

Health nuts are going to feel stupid some day, lying in hospitals, dying of nothing. - Redd Foxx

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - George Bernard Shaw

A man's health can be judged by which he takes two at a time - pills or stairs. - Joan Welsh

Walk: The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird. - Jules Renard

Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other. - M. C. Richards

It is good to collect things; it is better to take walks. - Anatole France

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. - Henry David Thoreau

A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. - Paul Dudley White

The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose. - Charles Dickens

Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast. - Harry Truman (Advice on how to live to be 80.)

You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven today and we don't know where the hell she is.
- Ellen Degeneres

A Hint of Spring

There is a hint of spring in the air again...just a hint. It was beautiful yesterday, too, but windy and, therefore, cold.

Just thought I would give that weather report. About as important as writing that I am making spaghetti for dinner.

I guess the big news is that we have a 'free' evening -- all four of us. We've had to push things off til tomorrow to get it, but we have it and we're going to enjoy an evening at home. Of course we will be doing some homework and that kind of thing.

I am still immersed in the world of Mra Remotswe of "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency," a series I am listening to on CD whenever I am in my van. I did not realize how much time I spend driving around, but I am now on book five, "The Full Cupboard of Life," and I've only been listening for a few weeks. The books take place in Botswana and the characters are wonderful. There's also an HBO series on DVD that's pretty entertaining. We watched a few episodes of that while Abby was home with strep.

I realized sometime after listening to Book 3 that this fictional character, Mra Remotswe, makes me want to be a better person. If a fictional character can do that, there is real value in writing fiction.

To salvage this otherwise unenlightening post, let's have a Word of the Day:

Pluvial = rainy

We will probably be able to use this word soon, since spring is on its way.

Two Things to Think About

Travels with Charley, In Search of America by John Steinbeck. From the last chapter of that book: “Who has not known a journey to be over and dead before the traveler returns? The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.”

James E. Miller, "The Art of Being a Healing Presence," paraphrased:If you try to make yourself anything other than who you are, if you try to act especially competent, especially sensitive, or especially 'together,' you create a distance between yourself and those around you. They may feel they can't measure up to this 'false' you. When you allow yourself to be with another person as you naturally are, with all of your frailties, you have taken a sure step toward the wholeness that awaits you both.

Learning Curves

You know how much faster you can travel in a straight line, as the crow flies? I wonder how much farther we could get in life if there weren't so many learning curves?

We'd be born walking, like horses, if there were no learning curves. We wouldn't require any schooling or training or experience. We'd all know how to do everything automatically. In fact, there'd be little point in living three quarters of a century. Everything would quickly become redundant.

I like learning. Actually, I love it. But when I want to be done learning something (espcially how to use some new technological thing) I want to be done learning it NOW and using it like a pro. I suppose that's why engineers struggle to make everything "intuitive." I guess I just don't have very good intuition when it comes to technology.

Santa Claus asked me what I would want for Christmas this year 'if money were no object.' Santa understood that for me, money is always an object. I am a naturally frugal person. But Santa really wanted to know (Santa was about to go shopping), so I told him what I had been secretly dreaming about for years: a Nikon digital SLR.

Over these years of quiet contemplation, the prices have really come down, and sure enough, there, under the tree, was my camera. It came in a package with two lenses, a camera bag, and 18 photography classes, which I thought initially were only a sales tool. Who could need 18 classes to learn how to use a camera?



I have now attended three or four classes and bought an additional class featuring my camera model specifically taught my a Nikon trainer out of New York. I've also invested in a good tripod and some camera cleaning supplies. I still have not taken one decent picture.

I am definitely intimidated by the thing. On more than one occasion, I have framed the perfect shot only to find that the camera would not shoot. The Nikon trainer said it was a focus thing. I should have stepped back or switched to manual. I'm learning.

I took the camera out last weekend at sunset to a quiet spot in the valley with a great view of the mountains. I snapped pictures while the sun descended over the horizon in what I thought would be a spectacular array of colors. Instead, it was the world's first black and white sunset. Grayscale.

Our valley has been under an inversion since about the time I got the camera. The sky is perpetually gray. The snow on the ground is gray. Everything is in grayscale.

So I await the perfect picture. But that is part of the fun of being a photographer, even a very amateur one like myself. The perfect picture is always out there, waiting to be taken. It beckons you to remote outposts in distant places. And to be ready to take it, it forces you to lug equipment and attend classes and practice, practicie, practice.

So thank you, Santa, for throwing me this learning curve. And thank you, Mom, for giving me my first camera (the trusty Olympus I took to Denmark.)