Texture

A few more thoughts on this slipping away of Fall (December will never be Fall to me).  It struck me again this year how important texture becomes at this time of year.  We feel it intuitively (everyone starts liking things like velvet and burlap for their decorating, right?) but I wonder if it's more that there are more textures around us, or just that we notice them more?  When the variables of color are taken away, maybe our eyes just become more discerning---the same way when you're putting a puzzle together, all the sky pieces appear indistinguishable at first, but after staring at them for long enough they begin to sort themselves into gradients and differing shades until you wonder how you ever missed the differences.

It's almost like I've been staring at some truth all Summer and only as Fall fades into Winter does that truth  suddenly spring into sharp relief, formerly smooth and uninteresting platitudes suddenly revealing themselves to me in all their terrifying complexity: "Time quickens as you age;" "Youth is wasted on the young;" "Life is short."  When the colors fade, suddenly I can see the textures---and they are beautiful, but certainly many-layered, complicated, harder to classify.  Unsettling.  Which is maybe why I want so desperately to BE settled in the winter, to pull in, to gather myself, to let my thoughts run their long winding courses through the long cold nights, to keep my family close and safe.

There's a song Abe's choir sings right now, a Manx Lullaby, where the mother sings over her baby: "Oh hush thee my dove, oh hush thee my rowan, oh hush thee my lapwing, my little brown bird.  Oh fold thy wings, and seek thy nest now, Oh shine the berry on the bright tree.  The bird is home from the mountain and valley."  I want to fold my wings over my little birds and keep them warm, and I will---but I see the complexities of it too, see how temporary and how small our little nest is against the many-layered world.  And even, I see how it's best that way.  But it doesn't stop me wanting to freeze things just how they are now: the golden air and the glow on the horizon, sending sparks of light over those bright little heads.
I didn't understand that line "Oh shine the berry on the bright tree" until I saw this tree.  It was completely covered with yellow berries, like little bright coals.  It was unbelievable.  I couldn't get close enough to capture it sufficiently with the camera, but the effect of all those tiny berries en masse was staggering.
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Reluctance

Melissa reminded me of this poem last year and I've had it on my mind all season long.  I tend to be melodramatic (inside my own head) (or do I mean melancholic?) anyway, and it only gets worse when the seasons change.  I was watching my little bears and birdies running around in this short-lived liquid-gold light, feeling like I could watch them running right out of childhood before my very eyes.  I felt so contented and yet so sad at the same time: "Why does it all have to go so quickly?"  That flash of brilliance before the sunset in winter is so short!  If you turn your back you'll miss it---and I have too many days where I do turn my back, busy with futures and unknowns and perceived immediacies, too distracted for the actual immediacy of the moment.

I like the way Frost puts it, though, with his usual brevity.  This is more than the usual "enjoy-what-you-have-while-you-have-it" chiding; he fully acknowledges the loss that accompanies a change of season.  But yet he reminds us that when we cling to the past, we aren't really preserving a colorful, living reality---we're clinging to a dead world, to something that is actually already gone.  I can't help but sense some religious angst here as well---the man "descending" back to earth like a fallen God, the allusion to Christ's "it is finished," the subordination of grace to the cold hard hand of reason.  But I think for me the poem is more of a reminder that accepting the end of something is also acknowledging a beginning.  No need to cling to the dry stalks of things gone when there are new things preparing to emerge, gestating under the seemingly dead surfaces.  Better to "yield," as Frost says, to the natural progression of things.  I don't think "the heart still aching to seek"  needs to STOP seeking---but it must learn where to seek, and that's in the future, not the past.

Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost
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Late-November Garden

We have been enjoying several weeks of sunny-but-cold weather, interspersed with sunny-and-even-almost--warm.  One day we went to Red Butte Garden to enjoy the sunshine and let everyone run around for a few hours---expecting to find everything pretty much brown and dead---but we were pleasantly surprised by how lovely everything still was.  Many of the leaves were still bright on the trees, and we saw lots of interesting textures we might not have noticed in more verdant company.  There is something so uplifting about being outside in the sun and the air after many days of indoors, even if it's a little chilly!    
Fly, birdie, fly!

This birdie is always hunkering down and hoping someone will pet him.  I love his expectant "birdie" look (he gets this particular expression on his face only when he is being a Birdie)

The evening light was unbelieveably pretty---so golden and slanted.  It always takes me by surprise when this light comes on at about 4 p.m.; I guess I'm not used to winter hours yet.  But it is so gorgeous for the brief time it lasts.

The pond was iced over in places (very interesting to our little explorers)

Last rays of sun
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Two feasts and five turkeys

We had such a great time at our Thanksgiving Dinners (both of them!) this year!  We had 19 delightful people at our house on Thursday.  The best part was hearing everyone perform: several original arrangements, solos, duets, songs where we all joined it---I loved it.  Such beautiful music!!  It's my favorite thing to have on Thanksgiving and I wished it could go on forever.

We cooked two turkeys at the same time, one in each oven (one brined, one unbrined, and they were surprisingly similar.  Both very good.  And my mother-in-law's turkey the next day was even better, and she didn't do anything to it!  So I am not certain whether I will brine next year's or not.), and of course there were also rolls and all the traditional dishes.  Everyone's contributions were delicious, but the pies were the crowning glory: French Silk, Blueberry Cream Cheese, Pumpkin Crumble, and Caramel Apple Cheesecake.  All wonderful.

Daisy took to David immediately and wouldn't leave him alone all night.  It was cute to watch her chattering to  him (and pilfering what she could from his pockets)

Friday it was quite warm outside, so we went on a walk and took some pictures before Feast #2.  I put the girls in their matching gingerbread girl dresses (SO cute).  I really hope Abe had a better grip on Junie in this picture than he appears to.

Such giggly wiggle worms!  I love them!

She's not entirely sure about this

Ky helps Daisy across the treacherous rocks

Snug and warm
Free!

This is all they ever really want to do (figure out how things work)
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I'm going to build this when I get home

One of my favorite things about my boys is their insatiable need to build things.  Every time---and I mean every time---we go anywhere remotely out-of-the-ordinary, they start saying (before we've even left the place), "Ooh, I'm going to build this when I get home!"  I love it because it results in them playing such funny, interesting, creative things; and because it shows such genuine enjoyment of and interest in what we're doing.  Every activity feels "worth it," because we're experiencing it not just once but multiple times. :)  

Anyway, this love of re-creation is how the carwash obsession got started (they wanted to build their own carwashes after going to a real one with Grandma) and it has led to them building everything from tumbling gyms to Squaw Peak to Disneyland to pendulums to doctor's offices to swimming pools to temples to the Red Barn/Pumpkin Patch.  

They use the blocks constantly, but they also build with anything else that's to hand (unfortunately, now that they are tall and can climb on chairs, everything is "to hand") and they build in any scale: fwuffball size, monkey size, boy size.  Sebby likes to build something on the block table and then climb up to the top bunk (in the other room) and say, "I can see it from the 'Y'!"  Anyway, I love seeing what they build.  (Even though I am sometimes roused from my bed on Saturday mornings to come admire.)  Sebby, particularly, has such attention to detail and he uses so many creative building materials that he genuinely amazes me with his re-creations.

Here are a couple of Sebastian's recent "Monkey San Francisco"s.  (Monkey San Francisco is much like the real one,  with a few additions, and name changes such as the "Monken Gate Bridge.")
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I'm a twenty-first century Mormon poet!

I  have several poems appearing in this new anthology, which also includes work from many, many other poets I have learned from and admired.  It's a great collection (even historic, apparently), with lots of thought-provoking and beautiful writing, and I am honored to have been included!
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Block Creations of Note

Some recent things the boys (mostly Sebastian) have built, which I found worthy of preserving for posterity:
Theater

Railroad Arms

Planetarium (note projector shining from above)

Pendulum

Castle (by Malachi)

Temple (note "Pigoni" on the spire)

Veteran's Pool and Waterslides

Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco (with Golden Gate Bridge at left, and Alcatraz in foreground)
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