The Spiral Jetty and the Pink Salt Lake

Last year, my friend Andrea and I decided we must go see the Spiral Jetty (the environmental sculpture/earthwork by Robert Smithson) up at the North end of the Great Salt Lake. (The children and I had been cursing ourselves for not going to see it the last time we were in the area, as there is really no other reason to ever be out that direction!) But we kept having to put it off…first she had a baby, and then I had a baby—but finally this October we managed to get all eighteen (!!) of us together, husbands and kids included, to make it happen! (In spite of Andrea being pregnant again…ha!)

We drove waaaaay out, past the Golden Spike National Historic Site, onto the (fairly well-maintained) dirt road to the site of the jetty. When we got there, it was raining quite a bit, so Sam and I shooed the kids out of the car to explore while I fed Theodore and we stayed warm and dry. Luckily we had brought rain boots for everyone, since Andrea had told us it would be wet and sandy/muddy down by the jetty. (And here's a great post with advice if you want to make this trip too.)

After a while the rain fizzled out and we emerged from the car. The children were having fun wandering hither and yon. It's such interesting countryside out there. Stark. Very stark. 
Spot the two boys!
You can climb up the rocky hill above and see the whole spiral of the jetty as you look down, but what you instantly WANT to do is climb down the hill and walk along the jetty itself, spiraling inward till you reach the center. This was the time when I was congratulating myself for having worn rain boots (or "gum boots" as Andrea calls them, or "galoshes" as Sam calls them—very diverse bunch, the lot of us), as there was lots of standing water and a great quantity of strange, wet, salty sand.
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Around and around

Sometimes I can't tell if it's making me happy or sad to look at a picture. I just know that my chest aches and I have to close my eyes for a minute and it feels like something heavy has settled just below my lungs. It's a feeling that makes me want to stop, to look away. And yet there's a pull there, too; a tug like love, or loss.

I feel it when I see this picture of Goldie. There we were at Disneyland, riding that ridiculous caterpillar ride. The worker told Goldie to put her hands up so he could check her seatbelt, but somehow Goldie interpreted that as an order to keep her hands in the air for the entire ride. (Reinforcing this idea was the fact that she'd seen other people doing it, on roller coasters.) So she sat there as the caterpillar train made its slow, silly way around the track; all rosy and wondering, holding up those little hands faithfully, not really understanding anything that was going on, but full of hope and confusion and obedience. Ready for this—whatever it was—to begin. Ready to like it. But still unsure. 

It makes tears come to my eyes as I write about it, for all the typical sentimental reasons—she's growing up too fast; she's got so many hard things ahead of her; how will I bear it?  And I suppose I'm also crying for all my other two-year-olds, cruelly replaced—somehow—by bigger, smarter, later models of themselves. Clever, funny, delightful models, to be sure—upgrades, almost certainly—but…well, the people they were are gone, and I miss them.

Experiencing it constantly doesn't make it any easier. It's a daily, constant cycle of death and rebirth: THAT baby is gone. THIS one remains. I can't claim to know the way a child's true loss feels, though I can imagine the pain when that cycle is halted; when the rebirth never comes and the ache of loss can't give way to the wonder of renewal. But it's pain enough when you sense the cycle happening without you being aware of it at all. THAT child, gone before you even thought to learn who she was. THIS child, full of promise and mystery, but already changing; already, again, almost gone.

It's too pessimistic, of course, to see every change as something to mourn. In my own progression, I go through the same cycle of selves, and I can say honestly that there's hardly a one I'm sorry to have left behind. Teenage insecurities? New-parent uncertainty? First-toddler smugness? I'm thrilled to see those in the rear-view mirror. And I can't wait to shed all the parts of myself that so horrify me at present—hopefully in exchange for peace, wisdom, patience, humility. Spiritually, I feel like the cycle of self-death and self-rebirth is mostly an upward spiral. But it still doesn't stop me from feeling the loss when I see that same cycle spinning so fast, way too fast, in the lives of my children.

And looking at sweet, innocent, trusting little Goldie up there…well…maybe the comparison is too sappy, but in some ways I think I can see ME there as well, and maybe that's another small part of the ache I feel. I can imagine myself setting off on this mortal journey, feeling excited and apprehensive all at once, and probably mostly clueless about what was to come. And now here I still am, holding on dutifully to the tiny bits of knowledge I've gained, bracing myself for the unknowns ahead, hopeful and trusting, but yes, just the slightest bit terrified as well—not sure about what's coming next, or if I'll like it, or if IT will like ME.

I have to remind myself that it's RIGHT, this cycle. It's what our Heavenly Father wanted us to experience. To hope and fail and love and grieve and press on. 

So we keep pressing on.
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Downhill, dapper, breathe

October means I've got a backlog of photos from the camera a mile long.  October is full of traditions: picnics, pumpkin patches, hikes, costumes, drives up the canyon. Everything is so beautiful, so fleeting, and each captured picture is another stone in some great wall I'm constructing to hold back the winter. It's been warm and summery so far, but if anything, that makes me feel MORE frantic, knowing it could end, should end, any minute! The year is in its headlong, heedless descent, almost out of control, but there's no stopping it now! Just stand back—take a deep breath of that leafy, smoky air—and watch the light streak down across the sky before it fades.
All the boys seemed to have a growth spurt at once. Seb looks so handsome in his new suit!
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Sundance ski lift

After our trip to California, the fun continued apace as Philip and Allison's family came back to Utah to visit us! As is becoming customary, we met up at Sundance to ride the ski lift. It was a bit of a strange year, leafwise. Some years in October there have been spectacular reds and yellows on the mountain! This year was a lot more muted. In fact, it almost looked like early spring to me: lots of shades of brown and tan, with some fresh, pale green-yellows mixed in. It was so different. But beautiful!
Each boy had a girl to look after, and they were all so cute. Such protective older brothers! Here Abe prepares to help Daisy hop on to the lift.
Seb with his Goldie

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Red Barn 2015

We always love our visits to the Pumpkin Patch at the Red Barn. We went this year for Abraham's birthday activity. Can you believe it's our ninth year of this tradition? (Here are posts #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 in this series.)
Biggest and littlest
We ate apple cider donuts, of course. Very important.
The tractor races are always popular. I'm not sure if Teddy quite approves of what's going on, though.
There was a corn maze to go through this year. There were little stations along the way where you had to do crayon rubbings of different animal tracks. Daisy and Junie really liked that.
Grabber!
I think Marigold might have enjoyed the slide most of all this year. She laughed and laughed and laughed.
Of course, she enjoyed going down double just as much as going alone.
Junie loved the slide too.
Theodore liked fiddling with this little paper, very intently.
It was such a beautiful, warm night. We hardly even needed our jackets.
Bouncing with excitement
A pair of sun dogs!
Goldie worked very hard at holding her pumpkin safely during the tractor ride back to the car.
Heavy!
It was another great year at the Red Barn. See you next year, Pumpkin Patch!
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