Scrambled Thoughts XIa - Miami Style

 11 - Boats are not generally confused with airplanes.

But, turns out, it's possible to be tricked into a double-take when one looks like it's flying.

 12 - To the stranger in the park: thanks for teaching my son how to ride a bike. 

 

There was a time in Miles's life, not too long ago (but, then again, I guess nothing in Miles's life was too long ago because, five years old) when he didn't give up easily.  When he was just a few months older than one year, for instance, I watched him step up and down and up and down and up and down a little stair (which was so small it might be better identified as a 'lip') in our cement patio until he could do it without falling.  "That kid is persistent!  He sure doesn't give up easily," I remember my dad saying as he watched the same scene.

But then Miles got on a bike. One without training wheels, mind you.  And the world around him shattered and crumbled into a million pieces when he realized that learning this new skill was going to require some work and effort.

He gave up.  And then he gave up again.  And again and again and again and again.  And again.  Day after day.  (But the flip side to all of this giving up, of course, is that in order for him to have given up that many times, he had to try that many times which, in the end, means maybe he didn't give up after all?) And each time he'd walk away crying I'd tell cryptic stories about people falling off horses and getting back on them again and then I'd decode the morals for him and he would be left wondering why we didn't just get him a horse instead of a dumb bike anyway.

Every day for two weeks we rode to the park with training wheels on his tires and a wrench in my stroller and, once we got to the playground, the wrench would come out and the training wheels would come off until he rediscovered all over again that he could not just innately ride the thing, but would have to work.  There was usually blood and there was always sweat and tears, and at the end of the day (which sometimes lasted 3 minutes and sometimes lasted 3.5), we put the training wheels back on the bike and rode home.

I did mention a stranger in the title... and I'm getting to that point now.  After a particularly grueling 3.5 minute day after a long string of particularly grueling 3 minute days, a kind old man rode up on a bike of his own.

"I see you're trying to learn how to ride a bike, young man," the stranger said.  "What's your name?"  In response to this question, Miles characteristically hid behind my leg and focused his concentration on a crack in the sidewalk so intensely that I wondered if it were possible to get him to focus his concentration that much in any other situation... such as cleaning his room, for instance.

"Hey," I whispered over my shoulder towards Miles's head, "did you hear this nice man ask you what your name is?"

Such concentration!

"This is Miles," I answered to the stranger for him, "and he appears to be feeling rather shy right now."

"Well, that's okay," the stranger said.  "Let me tell you something, Miles, and you don't have to look at me while I tell you.  When I was learning to ride a bike, my father taught me something very important and very helpful, and when I became a father I told my own sons the same thing, and now I'm going to tell you.

"All you have to do is remember to turn your front wheel in the direction that you're falling.  So if you're starting to fall over on your left side, quickly turn your wheel to the left!  And if you're falling to your right side, quickly turn your wheel to the right!  Good luck, young man.  You'll get it."

And with that the old man rode away.  Miles broke his concentration from the crack in the sidewalk to stare in awe as the stranger slipped down the path through the trees.

And wouldn't you know, the very next day Miles was ecstatic and riding like a champ.  And I was rather embarrassed in the discovery of my apparently awful teaching skills when it comes to bike riding.

Anyway, after riding didn't seem like an impossible dream to Miles anymore, his old persistence and determination came shining through and he rode and rode and rode and rode until he could turn wide circles and then tighter circles and eventually start all by himself.

I think I'll call that guy the Old Stranger Angel Man from now on.  Just because it's fun to say.

13 - Pools are relaxing.

There need to be more things in life like pools. Energy drainers for the kids, energy fillers for the adults.


14 - Pools are also very not relaxing.  Like, if this guy is around.

From before he started crawling, he's had one thought circling through his brain - how can I get into that water?  He even perfected his crawling at the pool-side because the water was such a strong motivator.  The only problem: he sinks like a rock.  Which makes pool time quite the opposite of relaxing for the mama. 

15 - Losing friends is sad.

Really, it was a matter of time.  Candy enclosed in glass over a white marble floor?  It was still tragic, though.  Carson took it the hardest.  Timothy was thrilled however, because, gumballs! 

16 - Loaded Nachos.  The menu description reads: "the most common reactions to this item are: "oooh," "ahhh," "wow," and "where am I?"

I laughed at the description, but figured they couldn't be that impressive (I'm a bit of a nacho snob because that's what I ordered every. single. time. I. could as a teenager).  However, the second I saw the waiter coming with this pile of deliciousness I said, "oooh," and as he set it down in front of me I said "ahhh," and as he was walking away I looked at Carson and said, "wow," . . . and then I stopped myself because I realized I was practically quoting everyone else who had ever ordered these nachos and I refused to say "where am I?" because I already knew that the answer to that question was Flanigan's.  

Carson and I happily packed them away.

17 - Every time the kids find a coconut, they ask if it's ripe.  And every time the kids ask if the coconut is ripe I say I don't know.

Google searches seem to be consistently inconsistent (it depends on what you want, they say (okay, so the problem is that we don't actually know what we want)).  But since there were several that washed up in the waves, we had fun trying to open them.  This one required a hammer and a screwdriver used as a chisel.

Everyone was quite unimpressed with the taste, but using the hammer and screwdriver was exciting. For Brian.

Scrambled Thoughts XI - Miami Style

1.  Paralyzed.  My brain.  Stuck.  Jammed.  Overwhelmed.

I'm paralyzed by all the things... so many perfect moments sprinkled throughout our last month in Miami that really deserve to be recorded, and I can't seem to get my brain to roll with the thoughts in any sort of productive manner.  Instead I sit here with this blank screen in front of me, staring into the light.  But record I must, so I am forcing my fingers to do the work and hoping that by bypassing my brain, something will be accomplished.

If the words leave you lacking, at least you'll have some cute faces to stare at inbetween.

2. Boys and Beaters

Not boys as beaters, let's be clear.  But boys with beaters.  The cooking kind, of course.  Timothy is starting to realize that there are some v.e.r.y special things in this world - like beaters with cookie dough on them.  I'm not sure whether Miles, Carson or Timothy enjoyed this moment more... those big brothers sure are excited to introduce that little baby to the finer things in life.

3. Some boys consider a dog to be their best friend.  Others choose a shovel.

Miles has chosen well.  Shovels don't have to be fed.  And you don't have to clean up their poop.

4. Sometimes motherhood feels a bit like a patient pelican with an angry seabird yelling on its back.

Sometimes I'm the seabird.  Sometimes I'm the pelican.
 
5. Parks. Bikes. Sweat. Sisters.  It's a wonderful life.

I'm afraid that Timothy thinks Kenz is his mother.  She kind of is. 

6. Sometimes I feel self conscious about my appearance.  So I look at this guy.

At first I feel better, but then I start worrying that something is hanging out of my own nose.  So I look at this creature below that doesn't have a nose, and am caught up in the sheer beauty of her.

Now you know, if ever you see me with all of my hair sticking straight out to one side, you'll be able to tell people where I found the inspiration.
 
7. The kids all yelled 'snow!' when I asked them what kind of climate they wanted to live in.  Life is full of disappointments like that.

But they're creative. Now they know that sand and boogie boards don't work just as well as snow and sleds.

And that smoothies and ice cream taste nowhere near just as good as hot cocoa when you're finished. 

8. Missing faces is the worst part of moving.

Also sand and palm trees and hammocks and cool, breezy nights.  Book club was fun and unique in Miami.

9. With a title like the Father, the Girl, and, the Boy (what!?  Looks like we need a refresher on comma usage) Brian and I were thrilled we got the last remaining tickets to the theater.

We were advised to dress up in our Sunday best and to make sure to practice theater etiquette during the duration of the play.  When we arrived, we found it was a full house. We quickly found the ticket booth,

and greeted the ushers as we walked in,

who graciously showed us to our numbered seats.  Front and center, SWEET!

There was no photography allowed during the show, but it was delightful.  And we were shocked to see that the ticket masters, the ushers, and the actors were all the same people!  It was a fantastic show and received an enthusiastic standing ovation upon completion.

10. Having town mascots is cool, just ask the children instead of the teenagers.  And who else thinks sea turtles are the greatest of all town mascots?

Sea turtles, sea turtles, sea turtles.  Sea turtles on every corner for everyone to love.  I think there was something like 60 turtles in our square mile town and we found as many as we possibly could.  The one below is Freedom... the kids' favorite.

He is a massive swirl of color and texture.  Seriously... artists.  They blow me away.  How do they do it?

The one below is one of my favorites because of where Miles is in his jumping process.

And this Carson kid... he is a comedian, I tell you.  I am loving his maturing personality breaking through his childhood skin. 

Stay tuned for more scrambled Miami thoughts!

June Harvest

The days are spinning.  Spinning round and round and round and here I am chasing them down with a hammer, trying to keep them in order (which, I realize is a little ironic because is there anything more orderly than the seconds that compose these hours and days?  But, logical or not, the chaos of my current days requires that hammer). 

I'm not ready to jump into the analysis of the last month of travel and moving (though, for those who are wondering, we are doing wonderfully and are quite happy swimming in our boxes on this, our third day in Vegas), and I am quite (quite) far from sorting through the thousand pictures I've taken of the whole process - but my fingers are hungry for this blog and I miss the time I spend here.

So I'll take an hour away from the 736 other things I have on my to-do list (some of which are quite important such as buy-all-(all-(all))-the-foods-we-eat, and unpack-the-bathroom-boxes-to-find-toilet-paper-so-we-can-stop-using-one-square-every-time-we-need-it-because-it-might-run-out, and other things like that), and put together the June Harvest. The last full harvest of our amazing year on the beach.  My hungry fingers are feeling better already.

1 - Does this even need an explanation?  Oh my heavens.  I have to remind myself to breath with those colors in the background.

2 - One perk about having a successful hubby is that I get to go out to fancy dinners every once in a while and watch him receive awards.  I thought the whole setting was beautiful.  Did you check out those lights on the ceiling?!  And the building through the magnificent windows?  And that tall, handsome man in a suit coat looking all bashful to receive a certificate that he's worked 10 years for?  Beautiful.
3 - A tree in front of my friend's house... I drove down the street twice just so I could see it again.
4 - Sunny clouds
5 - Oh tears... every time I look at Kenzie's face in this one.  There is a lot of backstory that I won't go into here, but the look on her face of pure, childlike love for her Daddy leaves me speechless.
6 - Crazy baby.  He has no fear of that water... I love the way this shot came out.
7 - That, my friends, is lightening. 
8 - This mushroom on the side of the trail was enjoying his time in the spotlight before the sun moved.  I thought he was fabulous.
9 - Double rainbow. 
10 - Love the roots of these trees... wish I could grow one of them in Vegas.

11 - I also wish I could grow this in Vegas.  Isn't it perfect?

12 - This is also lightening.  If you look close, you can see the city buildings in the bottom left.  I'm amazed at how big clouds can be sometimes.
13 - Peaceful morning.  The way the ocean was that morning, it looked like the boat was flying above the horizon.
14 - Rays of sunshine!  Oh, the rays of sunshine!
15 - Funny sidewalk art.
16 - Palm trees.  Green and yellow - love those colors together
17 - Temple.  We visited the temple on Jess's birthday this year and everything (aside from the rather cranky child *cough* miles *cough*) was beautiful about it.  The feelings, the memories, the promises of the temple....
18 - Full, beautiful moon.
19 - Hermit Crab.  We spotted this guy on our walk and my two oldest kids saved him from the path and placed him back in the ocean.
20 - The city view from our apartment during sunset.  I kind of love that crane.

21 - Watching the storms come in. 

22 - Miles gripping the pier with his toes.  The freedom my kids had this year: beautiful.
23 - Smoky sunrise.  We never did find out where all the smoke came from.
24 - Baby feet under the water.
25 - Another picture of that crane during sunset.  I told you I kind of loved it.
26 - After several failed attempts at opening a ripe coconut (how DO you tell?), the kids finally were successful with this one.
27 - Interesting patterns on the ocean.
28 - I made this cake, guys.
29 - Skyline from the ocean
30 - More lightening.  Cruel that we had to leave Miami during all these summer lightening storms.  Amazing!

31 - Gasp

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

I stood in the bathroom of our small, rented house in Hawaii and stared at the details of the picture hanging on the wall.  I'd already stared at it the previous day, and I knew I would stare at it again on the following.  Something about it was captivating to me.  It was much too small for the wall it was hanging on, it tilted a little too far counter-clockwise, and relatively important parts of the print itself were cut off because it was slightly too big for the frame.  But all of these things, that generally would have driven me crazy, gave the picture an ironic flavor that was impossible to ignore... because the print inside read:

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

And there I was, looking at all of these imperfections and seeing something beautiful - right there in the meaning of that quote.  I briefly wondered if the owner had purposefully been sloppy just to drive home a point.

In the days that have followed, this quote has become a favorite of mine, drifting in and out of my mind in wisps and fragments.  I think it will go down in the archives of my mind as a truth I hope to pass along to my children. Timely, too...

I suspect that much of the beauty I find in Vegas will be of the kind that I see, and less of the kind that I look at, and this intimidates the photographer side of me.  As photography has become more and more of a passion of mine, and since I've had my eye focused on beauty this year, I have learned that, without work, the camera simply captures what I look at.  It cannot add feelings or emotions or meanings-of-quotes - it cannot add the past stories or present hopes and dreams that might make the scene beautiful to me.  It simply records light.  And dark.  And colors. It's up to me then, as the photographer, to create the emotion behind it. I hope I will find as much joy in photography if I have to work so hard to create it.

But, photography aside, I'm feeling more and more confident that I will see lots of beauty in Vegas. And, I'm even feeling a measure of excitement as Brian soars through his very last two weeks as a student... ever... (wait, what?), and as we catapult ourselves into this new life of Real Job.

When I get there I'm going to try not to spend much time looking for beauty.
I'm just going to try to see it.

Adventure

The sun is hot in the Miami sky.  I suppose the sun is hot everywhere because, it's the sun... but my body seems to think that the sun is hotter in Miami than in any other place I've been.

Well... hold on... I do have one memory as a teenager when my family visited Las Vegas (go figure - remember how I'm moving there?).  We climbed out of the car on our arrival and I was immediately shocked at the intensity of the heat on my skin. As I stepped up onto the curb next to our parked car I lifted my head to make sure there were other humans walking around.  There were, and so I concluded that I would survive under those conditions.

But the heat in Miami is different.  It's not really a hot-on-your-skin type of heat so much as a heat that seeps inside of you and wraps your insides in its grip, a heat that makes your mind swim through it and your muscles work against it, a heat that dips into your core and elbows its way around and pushes out the comfort that used to reside there. And then, with the heat living in your insides, the moisture in the air surrounds you and holds the external heat close, wrapping you in a hot, soggy blanket. Don't worry, you can breathe through the blanket even though it seems that you can't.  Just look around... you'll see other humans doing it. If we're being completely honest, most of the time I actually love that blanket, but sometimes I'd like nothing more than to kick it off to one side of the bed.

Which brings us to the present moment. We are walking to the library, and as sweat drips from my forearm I recognize this moment as a Wish I Could Kick It Off one. I raise an eyebrow because I didn't even know my forearms could sweat so much to be dripping.  But dripping they are. Looking at me from the outside, you wouldn't really know I am feeling so uncomfortable.  There is still a bounce in my step and a smile across my face as I push the heavy stroller through the sand. It's beautiful here, you see.  And it's hard not to be happy when you're walking through a postcard. 

I can just make out the figures of my three older children, pedaling like mad through the sand. They're dripping, too. Of course, I can't see it, but I know it.  Carson will look like he's jumped into a swimming pool by the time I catch up to him - at some point I should probably apologize to him for passing along the DNA for my over-active sweat glands.  But not today.  Today he doesn't care.  Today he's focused on that bike of his, on pedaling as fast as he can to reach the swings at the park far enough before me to be able to play for a while before we continue on our journey to the library.  I have most of the library books with me in the bottom of the stroller, but I'm impressed that the kids can pedal so fast with the weight from the extra books hanging from the backpacks on their shoulders.

The podcast in my ears is interesting - it always is - because whether I'm in the mood for stimulating thoughts (TED radio hour), interesting stories (This American Life or The Moth), or humor (Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me), I have something to love.

I welcome the transition from sand to pavement once I get to the park, and passing the trees is one of my favorite things about the whole journey.  They offer little shade (and the shade offers little relief from the heat anyway), but the twisted trunks and waxy leaves are beautiful and interesting to look at.  As I come up to the play structure, I see the three children jumping from the swings and rushing to the slide to get in one last drop before joining me along the last leg of our journey.  I don't even have to slow down... they know the drill.  "Time to get moving!" I call over my shoulder.  Within a minute, they pedal past me again - this time keeping closer as we travel through the rest of the park and then along the paved beach path that leads us right to the library.

I take a few deep breaths of the clean beach air before stepping closer to the brick building.  I'm sure the brick was beautiful once.  The whole building must have been beautiful once.  But time has long since stolen that and now the smell of stale urine is almost overpowering as we get near.  Why the homeless people have chosen the parking lot as their place of relief when there is a beach, and several wide open spaces so near is a mystery to me.   

"I knew you were coming back!" the librarian said as we stepped, sweaty and dripping, into the air conditioned building.  I imagine entering into heaven might feel something like that someday.
"Yeah?" I questioned.
"Yep." She pointed to the rows of books along the top shelf of the holding area and continued, "Your shelf started filling up again." 

I don't like to spend much time in the library because it's small, and dark, and I have four children which for some reason makes the security guard uncomfortable enough to tail us.  I personally think he should tail the homeless people in the parking lot and invite them to come inside to use the actual toilet... but apparently he'd rather watch us.  So, in order to minimize time in the library, I've made a habit of putting all of our books on hold from the comfort of my own living room.  That way I can just step in, grab all 25 titles, check out, and be on my way.

I notice the mixture of good and bad in the air as we leave the library grounds.  It feels good to breathe air that is void of unpleasant smells, but I also have to accept the soggy blanket as it wraps itself around me once again.  The walk back is admittedly harder because we're tired from the mile and a half we've already come, but it's still wonderful because, postcard.  The children ride ahead again, this time loaded down with fresh books, to make it to the park before me and catch some time to read on the bench before I get there. I take my time on the way home. Breathing. Smelling. Listening. Feeling.

And as I finally approach their bench and see them lost in their stories, this is the moment that I find the most beautiful. 

Three sweaty kids sit reading in a park, surrounded by discarded backpacks and forgotten bikes. The scene shines a beam of light into a story of real adventure... one filled with bike rides through the sand, swinging through the air on a big, black swing, and being followed by a security guard in an old, run-down library.  But looking past that layer we see another one, one of borrowed adventure -  through the pages of a mystery, a comic, a fairy tale...

I hope they live lives that stories can be made from.  They will.  They are.  A life is a story.  But I hope they also make room for good books to enrich them, and that they always remember how they felt as they sat on a park bench, huffing from exercise, dripping in sweat, entirely absorbed in a story very different from the wonderful one they are living.

Bright Perspective

It didn't even make the first cut, this picture.  It was marked for deletion seconds after my eye scanned it.  Of course, 99% of this photo is beautiful - glistening water, baby blue sky - but even though the background is breathtaking, the subject is lifeless.  Dark and lacking any detail, the sailboat in the picture disappointed me because I remembered it looking much more beautiful to my eye. 

Maybe it didn't.  Maybe it was always dark, and the miracle that is my mind filled in the missing light and allowed me to see the sails in their milky-white glory even though the signal sent from my eyes was dull. This is probably true.  Cameras tell truths we don't see sometimes.

Delete these 83 master pictures from disk, or just remove them from Lightroom? the prompt asked after I finished my initial run-through of the new photos. The answer is always 'Delete from disk' -- no sense making the decision more than once.  But as my mouse hovered over the button this time, one selected picture stood apart from the rest; a dark sailboat surrounded by beautiful water grabbed my attention and asked me to think about it. I hesitated. Then, in an instant, I clicked 'Cancel', removed the delete mark from the one picture, and tried again.

Delete these 82 master pictures from disk, or just remove them from Lightroom?
Delete from disk.

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My heart felt happy as my eyes opened on June 11th this year.  So many years I've woken to this date with a physical ache in my chest and a nauseous feeling in my stomach.  It's been a heartbreakingly lonely day in years past... a day in which the barriers in my mind that control the pain lose their powers and allow the memories of our little stillborn son - both good and bad - to invade every crevice of my soul and body (my toes hurt, I remember thinking one year).

But this year was different.

Instead of the pain, there was beauty.  Happiness and joy.  A reverent respect for the lessons we've learned from Jess, and a humbling-to-my-knees gratitude for my faith and knowledge in the powerful and eternal miracle that we have been sealed together as a family in the temple of the Lord. This year, Brian and I gathered our children together on a blanket in front of the temple and, for the first time, I opened my journal and read excerpts out loud to them about those life-changing weeks that broke me nine years ago.  And as I read, I was able to discern that, though those weeks did break me for years, so much grander was the fact that they had, indeed, built me most of all.

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If the pain of the past could have been painted in a picture, it might look to my eye like a dark, lifeless sailboat.  Regardless of the beauty surrounding it, it might seem to me unworthy of keeping, and so marked for deletion from my life.  But the master artist, my loving Heavenly Father, saw something in the picture of my pain - all those years ago - that was worth keeping.  Worth crafting, in fact.  He knew that, as the sun moved across the sky and lit the sailboat from the other side, I would have all the elements necessary to create a truly breathtaking scene. 

No matter how many pictures I took of that first sailboat, I never could have made it pop with light. Of course, it wasn't the fault of the sailboat, for it was always white and beautiful.  The sun was simply in the wrong place.  All I could do was wait. 

Wait. 

Wait for earth to turn.

Wait for the darkness to become light.

Wait for the pain to become beautiful.

May Harvest

1 - This thing.  Is this not one of the most beautiful sea creatures ever?  So delicate.  I want to pet it.

2 - That's the underside of a painted turtle statue anchoring down to the ground.  The different colors in the coral and then the sun coming through the water got me.
3 - Fan Leaves
4 - See that storm back in the horizon?  I had to crop the picture to fit it in here, but the dark cloud above it formed a giant bell that looked as if it were just dumping its watery contents into the ocean.   Beautiful.
5 - Tangled trees
6 - Precision and symmetry.
7 - I know, this one is weird... but the way the milk and oil bubbled up in this pancake batter made me smile and take a breath.  You have to admit that those bubbles are beautiful.
8 - Amazing flight
9 - Light in the clouds
10 - Mother's Day Roses

11 - Crevice at the pier.  And turquoise water.

12 - Sunlight in the water
13 - Happy Leaf
14 - My beautiful sister and her boyfriend.  They have fun together, and seeing her happy and in love was a beautiful thing.  (Uh.  I suppose I don't actually know if she classifies herself as in love... but it looked that way to me, so... amiright or amiright, Michelle? *wink, wink*)
15 - Just this.  I get to look at this every day and it's still amazing to me.
16 - Carson spotted these interesting flowers on a walk one day.  There's no scale in the picture, but these things were tiny... about the size of a dime.  I went back to get a better picture another day and they had all fallen to the ground.  Happy to have this one.
17 - Fun, waxy leaves.
18 - Delicate and detailed glass in the temple windows.
19 - The color contrast in this leaf snagged me.
20 - A perfect tree.

21 - Kenz, Brian and I all got to go to the new Ft. Lauderdale temple for the dedication... it was incredible.  In a word: beautiful.

22 - Soft pink, dark pink, white and black... this bird is probably the envy of all the other birds.
23 - Pelican dive - so graceful and perfect.
24 - On a boat out to snorkel.  Look at the perfect-ness of that water!
25 - Everglades.  It's the dry season, so the water level is almost nothing right now.  I still find it beautiful (as long as I plug my nose against the swampy smell).
26 - Pebble rock art
27 - Giant rooty tree
28 - Miles's curls silhouetted against that amazing blue color... sigh.
29 - Tall grasses
30 - Delicate grasses swinging from the tree branches

31 - A pelican... So perfect.