Meeting Fredrick and Lucretia

On Monday, June 10, we wend to hear a conversation between Fredrick Douglass and Lucretia Mott. They were in town, or the actors portraying them were, and I couldn't pass up the chance to see as close to REAL HISTORIC FIGURES as we could come.

I took Kai, EV, and Eloise and we enjoyed our nearly two hours spent with them!

The first nearly 90 minutes was them reminiscing about their lives. Mr. Douglass shared how he learned his ABC's - how he learned a few letters and then would "bet" his "young masters" he knew a few to get them to show him more. About his mother who was not done nursing him when she was sold to another plantation 12 miles away, and how he has only a few memories of seeing her by firelight after she'd walked 12 miles to rock him to sleep, and how she was gone in the morning, walking the 12 miles back to where she "belonged." He heard how he had only 2 shirts and not a pair of pants until he was 8 years old. We learned how his freedom was purchased for $750 with money raised by others.

Mr. Douglass even called Eloise and another young man up on stage to help him recite the first poem he put to memory.

There she is! And it was Eloise's FIRST day with her new glasses! After, she said a few people told her she did a good job. She loves that kind of attention! (And she said she was so glad she had her glasses so she could see the actors' expressions from where we were seated.

Later in the program he recited a part of the speech he gave at a conference on women's suffrage. It made me want to stand and applaud and shout amen. (It really made me want to share it with my Relief Society sisters AND the male church leadership!) In fact, I've gone and found the words that thrilled me, and here they are:

When I look around on this assembly, and see the many able and eloquent women, full of the subject, ready to speak, and who only need the opportunity to impress this audience with their views and thrill them with “thoughts that breathe and words that burn,” I do not feel like taking up more than a very small space of your time and attention, and shall not. 

Men have very little business here as speakers, anyhow; and if they come here at all they should take back benches and wrap themselves in silence. For this is an International Council, not of men, but of women, and woman should have all the say in it. This is her day in court. I do not mean to exalt the intellect of woman above man’s; but I have heard many men speak on this subject, some of them the most eloquent to be found anywhere in the country; and I believe no man, however gifted with thought and speech, can voice the wrongs and present the demands of women with the skill and effect, with the power and authority of woman herself. The man struck is the man to cry out. Woman knows and feels her wrongs as man cannot know and feel them, and she also knows as well as he can know, what measures are needed to redress them. I grant all the claims at this point. She is her own best representative. We can neither speak for her, nor vote for her, nor act for her, nor be responsible for her; and the thing for men to do in the premises is just to get out of her way and give her the fullest opportunity to exercise all the powers inherent in her individual personality, and allow her to do it as she herself shall elect to exercise them. Her right to be and to do is as full, complete and perfect as the right of any man on earth. I say of her, as I say of the colored people, “Give her fair play, and hands off.” 

 The demand of the hour is not argument, but assertion, firm and inflexible assertion, assertion which has more than the force of an argument. If there is any argument to be made, it must be made by opponents, not by the friends of woman suffrage. Let those who want argument examine the ground upon which they base their claim to the right to vote. They will find that there is not one reason, not one consideration, which they can urge in support of man’s claim to vote, which does not equally support the right of woman to vote.

Men took for granted all that could be said against intemperance, war and slavery. But no such advantage was found in the beginning of the cause of suffrage for women. On the contrary, everything in her condition was supposed to be lovely, just as it should be. She had no rights denied, no wrongs to redress. She herself had no suspicion but that all was going well with her. She floated along on the tide of life as her mother and grandmother had done before her, as in a dream of Paradise. Her wrongs, if she had any, were too occult to be seen, and too light to be felt. It required a daring voice and a determined hand to awake her from this delightful dream and call the nation to account for the rights and opportunities of which it was depriving her. It was well understood at the beginning that woman would not thank us for disturbing her by this call to duty, and it was known that man would denounce and scorn us for such a daring innovation upon the established order of things. But this did not appall or delay the word and work.

There are few facts in my humble history to which I look back with more satisfaction than to the fact, recorded in the history of the woman-suffrage movement, that I was sufficiently enlightened at that early day, and when only a few years from slavery, to support your resolution for woman suffrage. I have done very little in this world in which to glory except this one act—and I certainly glory in that. When I ran away form slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.

The relation of man to woman has the advantage tell us that what is always was and always will be, world without end. But we have heard this old argument before, and if we live very long we shall hear it again. When any aged error shall be assailed, and any old abuse is to be removed, we shall meet this same old argument. Man has been so long the king and woman the subject—man has been so long accustomed to command and woman to obey—that both parties to the relation have been hardened into their respective places, and thus has been piled up a mountain of iron against woman’s enfranchisement.

When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world. Such a truth is woman’s right to equal liberty with man. She was born with it. It was hers before she comprehended it. It is inscribed upon all the powers and faculties of her soul, and no custom, law or usage can ever destroy it. Now that it has got fairly fixed in the minds of the few, it is bound to become fixed in the minds of the many, and be supported at last by a great cloud of witnesses, which no man can number and no power can withstand.

Lucretia Mott, a name less familiar to us, was an outspoken abolitionist and at the birth of the women's suffrage movement. I loved hearing how, in her upbringing from her birth in the late 1700's, she always sensed her equality with men. She was raised on Nantucket in a Quaker community. The men were fishermen and whalers and the women ran the shops and did the business. She was crushed to discover a major discrepancy in the pay of male and female teachers. It was her first glimpse at the reality of the world in which she lived. I was impressed by her tenacity. She said the nearly all-women delegation who attended a world conference in London on ending slavery was not seated or given the opportunity to speak or vote. She didn't leave, as I would have been tempted to do in my frustration. She said her greatest persecution for fighting for both the rights of enslaved people and the rights of women came from her own Quaker friends. Still she kept her faith.

When these two were asked for advice in our present fights for equality for minorities and women, they had curious advice: from Fredrick Douglass, read and know the constitution; and from Lucretia Mott, have faith in God and seek him for guidance. EV made this comment: when it was asked what they thought about our modern leaders and movements, Black Lives Matter and the Women's March, she noted that they demurred and it seemed to her that these modern causes felt so different from what she was witnessing on the stage and had learned about. The words of these guests shone with truth and justice. Our modern movements seem infused with hate and division. Lucretia Mott even said we seemed to be a society of complainers. And Mr. Douglass urged us to look inside ourselves for what we see is wrong in society.

The kids with Nathan Richardson as Fredrick Douglass.

That was a good call to action. But I had a question for the both of them I wished to ask, and found in the answer a greater call. I was only able to ask the actor who played Douglass, but my question was why, did he suppose, that we do not tell the stories nor celebrate the heroes of the women's suffrage movement as faithfully as we tell the stories and celebrate the heroes of ending slavery. We've seem movies about the civil war. There are story books about escaped slaves - even that we know the name Fredrick Douglass and NOT Lucretia Mott should be telling. He said there was a saying  of his people (African Americans?) that until the lion learns to read and write, the hunter will always be the hero, will always tell the story. I don't know that that is WHY these stories don't already exist, but it was a call to begin to tell them.

I am not the ablest person to seek to change the narrative, to seek to help boys and girls know the strength and importance of girls and women, in their sacrifices, in their bravery. But I do have a voice. And I love sharing my own story here. Beyond that, I have prayed that God show me the way, show me the stories, and help me tell them. We'll see where this leads.

(Oh, and I was in interviewed in the Herald Journal. Here are my quotes:

 “They had a deep knowledge of the characters, but also the context of the time that they lived in,” said Steffanie Casperson, a local community member who attended the event. Casperson said she brought her children to the program because she had recently taken them to some of the places where Douglass spoke in Boston. She said she was excited for them to learn more about his life and the life of Mott. "I wanted my children to hear that older context, to hear some of the struggle,” Casperson said. “Anything you can do like this where people are live and they are speaking in first person I think is such a deeper, richer experience than reading about it in a book.” Overall, Casperson said the event reminded her of the power she has to make a difference. “Sometimes I have to go, ‘I have a voice.’ And I can speak and advocate for myself. I don’t need the agreement of the men around me,” Casperson said.)

Away for a Week in Mantua (MAN-uh-way)

As you might guess from the pictures, Mantua hit the spot for our family in early June. The house was booked on airbnb for a week for a wedding, so we were homeless and had decided to relocate to Mantua. The weekend before, Q and I scoped out the Box Elder Campground AND the campground directly adjacent to the reservoir. By our standards, the Box Elder one was far superior. Lots of trees, a stream running through it, off the road. We eyeballed the sights we hoped to score, but found lots of options when we headed up on a Tuesday, so getting just the right one was no problem!

This was only our second big run in the camper, and our longest! Q, to the tune of $300 had replaced our batteries which died on day 2 when we were in Lodge after such minimal light use. These new ones were like the energizer bunny - they kept going and going and after a week (although still a week of paranoid under-use) were still almost at full charge. We did run quite low on fresh water. Our campsite was convenient to the bathrooms, so space in the black and grey tanks held out fine, but we wound up filling our 6 gallon container at the camp spigots to keep water running in the sinks, etc.

I'd also fitted out the camper with more organizational features which mostly did their job at keeping the counters and camper in general free of clutter and usable as work space. And though we fit around the table inside, which was nice for the cold and rainy few days at Lodge, we brought a table and enjoyed eating and cooking outside too. Our favorite camp meal, by far, is tinfoil dinners, and the coals are great for roasting marshmallows to make our favorite camp dessert: s'mores. 

Lettuce wraps hit the spot for a fast, refreshing dinner.

And it seemed no one minded sleeping all together, which was surprising considering Kai was along on this trip and the camper was more crowded than ever. But each night Q would play a guided meditation from his phone, and the kids really got into it. And snuggling in the morning is nice too! 

The campground right next to the reservoir was $60/night, and much more like a cramped mobile home park, so it wasn't difficult to just decide to drive 5 minutes from our site to the reservoir, and we enjoyed a day on the water early in the week. I'm a big boob when it comes to cold water, and I don't much like natural bodies of water either, but the kids were troopers. Everyone else went in. Kai and Q swam out to the buoys, the girls played near the beach, and Arthur, who is my little freezer bum, tried to keep up for a bit before joining me on the sand to get the blue out of his lips. Eloise, for all her friendly, social savvy, probably had the most fun. She quickly made friends with girls who had better gear and in no time was on a paddle board with 2 other girls paddling around the water and battling with their brothers, falling in, and shrieking with delight. After we'd had our fun, we got shakes to share at the little market there by the lake, and those hit the spot too. (Though the wait was painfully long - I can't imagine how they run the place when it gets busy!)

The other benefit to Mantua was it's relative proximity to Logan AND to  Ogden. On Thursday we commuted in to take Eloise to swimming and Q worked. On Friday, I had a long over-due appointment with a physical therapist, Sean Wayne, in Ogden for my knee. We scheduled it so I was able to drop the rest of the family off in Ogden Canyon at the Huntsville Reservoir before hitting my appointment, and then meet back up with them at the Casper-cousin reunion.

Every year, Q's cousins have organized a cousin reunion, and as family reunions go, it's pretty fun. First, though Q is on the older end of his cousin spectrum, it is organized and FOR families more or less our age. And it is primarily FOR the cousins, or the kids of Q Sr., Claudia, Frank, and Shannon Casperson. I don't know all of their children well, but the cousins who come are a lot of fun, and our kids had a blast with their second cousins. (Especially Eloise and Arthur, who in addition to not being too old on the cousin spectrum themselves, are just the right age to have a fun time playing with kids they don't know well.)

When I got back up the canyon, all my family was on uncle Kyle's boat. Kai and Eloise both tried water skiing and weren't too bad at it. After a while, the girls were dropped off in the water near where the rest of us were hanging out at the beach, and they swam in to play on the paddle boards and get warm on the beach. The sun was nice, but there was a pretty strong wind which grew tiresome to me after a while of sitting and visiting in it. So I was glad when everyone made their way back to the campsite and the boat came in.

After that, there was a hodge-podge dinner. I think everyone was supposed to bring their own, but maybe the girls in the family communicated that a bit more clearly to one another and the message didn't come through my husband. We mooched, and everyone was nice to share. We did add s'more fixings to the mix and I don't think my kids left hungry. It was fun to just sit around what was initially two fires and visit. (Q, however, had built a superior fire, and eventually everyone landed where the flames were bigger, and thanks to Kai's chopping action, the fuel was plentiful.) Fun and funny stories and memories were shared, and we left late and feeling relatively excited about joining the party the following morning.

The crazy second-cousins the following morning.

Only once again, communication wasn't that clear. We arrived late with hash browns to share but all the breakfast food was put away. While we mooched once again, and they were sweet to fire up the grill and do a few more pancakes, everyone began to pack up. Before we knew it, everyone was saying good-bye. It was a short camp - maybe as long as the little kids and adults sleeping with them in tents could handle, but we had just arrived and were ready to party. Right as everyone was about to pull out, Kris and Zoey pulled up too. So when all the cousins left, we convinced them to join us exploring Ogden's Dinosaur Park.

We totally scored! It was their free day and it just hit the spot. We strolled about and followed the kids' lead and pacing, chatting with Kris and Zoey and snapping funny pictures. After seeing most of what was outside and a bit of the inside displays, we chilled in the shade while Eloise, Arthur and Zoey hit the playground. It was more crowded than when we'd been there in the past, but still so fun. And after THAT, Kris said he was stopping by the Maddox drive-up in Brigham City and we opted to join him. Q, for all of this eating, was trying a 3 day fast. Q really enjoys the spiritual cleansing long fasting provides, so he dropped us off at the drive-up and we ate at a picnic table while he went to see if a cowboy we saw broken down on the side of the road needed a ride. (He didn't.)

So that was Saturday. On Sunday we drove back in to Logan to attend church with our branch. And Mimi and Gaga came for dinner on Sunday and brought us a vehicle to tow the trailer home with too. We left the campground Monday, but didn't go home before we'd stopped for one last dip in the reservoir.

That wrapped up our Mantua adventures, and they hit the spot! Near to the campground, there were gorgeous poppy fields in bloom and EV and Eloise had a lot of fun gathering and arranging the wild flowers. Kai took out a lot of his teen angst by chopping wood, and made me laugh in the process, singing "I don't got no lady-friend hound dog vowing to be true," as he chopped. Q was able to push a reset button with his fast. The littles got a lot of play and snuggle time. It was just lovely, all in all.

This Is The Place for Us

As another blast from our past lives, for the memory of the younger kids, we are back at This Is The Place to volunteer. When we volunteered last, EV was 2. So I suppose the only kid with a memory of it is Kai. And it was the memory of it that drew him back for one more volunteering shift on Memorial Day, May 27. It so happened that Kai did not have ballet, and we had Q get clothes when we were fitted for our costumes, just in case he wanted to do a shift with us. So Kai put on Q's clothes, which fit quite nicely, and had a day at the park with us.

We picked Kai up from Kaysville and he changed in the car. We'd left early that morning, so I brought breakfast and we dined in our version of pioneer style when we arrived at our location: the Rich home. It was our first time there, and we had chosen it for one strong benefit: it is the only property that can be hosted by two volunteer families. This year we are supposed to be volunteering with my long-time friend, Ashley Noonan Copas and her kids which my kids call cousins. But despite our best scheduling efforts, we have only been there once with her family. And we understand! Family schedules in the summer are INTENSE! So we had to make due all on our own, me acting as BOTH polygamist wives!

Just kidding! I didn't act like any wife. In fact, we've served twice in this location now and both times I didn't have more than one guest! It is a bit off the beaten path at the TITP park, and there aren't really kid activities to do there either. In some ways, the slow traffic is something to LIKE. AND there are no employees, who I always feel cramp my hostessing style. EV really enjoys weaving rugs at this location, and it keeps her occupied for hours. Otherwise, there is also a lot for kids to do now, compared to 10 years ago. There is a kid service/game/competition called This Is The Place Chase, where the kids go do service or go on a treasure hunt for a prize. They also can go to school. When the Copases are there, they play together. And playing on the playground and getting donuts to eat are other hits. 

So we had a nice time with Kai, and he was helpful to have around for Arthur's sake. And I think he liked doing all the things he remembered. He also noted a few of the changes, like paved roads instead of dirt ones, and didn't appreciate the modernization (purist!) but after an hour or so, I think his nostalgia wore off and he found things as dull as the rest of the kids. He hasn't been back - hasn't really had the opportunity to BE back. But it was so lovely to share THIS day with him.

And of course, we'll have many more shifts this season. Eight are required to volunteer. And the volunteers get the costumes free on loan from whenever you get them until whenever you are done. That means we've been able to wear them to Golden Spike and we'll wear them on Pioneer Day too.

But back to This Is the Place.

The other place we have served is the Gardner Cabin. It is far more busy with guests, being right inside the door, and a place where visitors learn about pioneer games and chores. When we've come without the Copas kids, I like being there because my kids actually add value as volunteers. Arthur has mastered the stilts and gives a decent demo on how to use those, as well as how to wash clothing. Eloise is good with the guests as well, though she is my most likely to complain when she thinks things are dull. (When it's slow, EV has just disappeared back to the Rich house to work on the rug.)

During out last 4 hour shift at TITP, one of the staff members at Gardner was deaf. For the guests' sake, it may have been a bummer as she was EXTREMELY difficult to understand. However, Arthur, as often as he could, found me to help him communicate with her and wanted to learn sign language. We learned a bit, AND learned that because of our signing time videos (which I have had Arthur and Eloise study as their "second language"), they already knew a decent amount! I think Arthur really enjoyed putting it all together, so we hope Anne is there again when we go back. Though thankfully, for the heat, our next shift isn't until the end of August!

Renaissance Faire

Our last trip to the Renaissance Fair, May 2013

Years ago, attending the Renaissance Faire was a yearly thing for our family. We went to see magic shows, to hear fantastic stories, to dress up in our own Renaissance costumes, and most importantly, to see real live JOUSTING! There were homeschool days and the whole family could go for around $10. We would spend the whole day at the fair, even bringing as close as we could come to a renaissance picnic. Then, the brave souls who did the jousting went away. (To where, we don't know - perhaps they became less brave...? I hope it wasn't that they injuring themselves doing something as insane as JOUSTING. The replacement was amatuers whom they taught to joust over a couple of days who would then "compete" but never with as much flair or skill.) And the fair lost it's appeal. Suddenly, it was something we had been to see, something we had already done, only it never measured up to our memories. And so we stopped going.

Which worked fine because the end of May, when it always fell, had been an insane time for our family for several years.

THIS year, I realized Arthur didn't remember going. Eloise, only vaguely. This May was not overly insane. AND this year I saw that they brought back jousting. Real jousting with a touring group, NOT amateurs.

Gone was the homeschool days and homeschool discount. Still, I called about arranging a group discount and discovered there was a family discount AND we could get 1/2 off if we were in costume. It came to around $22 and that seemed worth it to see real jousting again.

Kai had to miss this time - he was in class on Saturdays. But we told him he could take the train to Ogden and we'd pick him up when he was done and when we were done. It was a plan!!

It was something I was really looking forward to too. And then my knee began to give out. But by the morning of Saturday, May 25, it was doing OK and I thought I could handle it with a cane. Of course, I didn't want to hobble about with a cane in a dress, so I was the civilian with a family of time travelers, and we went to the Renaissance Fair.

Eloise with the princess who was captured in the show,
and her horse.

AND it was not real jousting. I should just say that right out of the chute. It was an entertaining "show" of jousting. Far too many women for my taste. The fights were scripted and choreographed. The script made Q laugh. He said it sounded like something highschool boys would write. The acting was not much better. The fight choreography was clear choreography. It DID inspire Evelyn and Eloise that they could do the same, and they did! (They made up their own extended fight scene which was pretty inventive and LONG which they practiced on the front lawn - much to the amusement or horror of the neighbors and passing cars - until they realized they were both allergic to so much contact with the grass.) Anyway, nothing is ever as good as a memory, and in this case, it was really so. BUT perhaps for Arthur who had no memory, or for Eloise who may not have had a discerning memory, it was fun enough.

They've all made decent money helping when the house is rented on Airbnb, so at long last, we were able to buy some SOUVENIRS! Arthur got a sword, Eloise got a parasol, and I got a snood (which is a fancy hairnet that is great for any woman's costume, practically, from the Renaissance period all the way to the pioneer period).

The princesses at our picnic.

We still had our period picnic, though a touch less fancy than past years, simply for my limited ability to prepare on a bum leg. Instead of a cold rotisserie chicken, we bought a gigantic "turkey leg," which is really a pig leg, according to Q, which I had not remembered tasted so poor. So I guess my tongue remembers better days too. Q found us an excellent picnic spot under someone's unused easy up. We were out of the sun, and later, even out of a few raindrops that fell, if memory serves. Q was very helpful overall too. I just hobbled from one location to another and sat.

Me sitting, with a knight on my knee.

So I sat to see a some-what skilled, somewhat funny magic show. It was a dad with some kids in their teens. They were supposed to be gypsies from Scotland, and the part that was most amusing to me was the name of one son, Seamus (said "shame us.") And I suppose it was hilarious to me because the kid quite believing played up his dimwitted character, which seemed to shame his father. I wish they'd done more comedy with that interaction. So most of us were entertained, but I think Eloise and Arthur got a bit restless at it. Then I sat to listen to a very interesting presentation about swords through history. For me, this was perhaps the most skilled, informative, and therefore interesting part of the fair, BUT Eloise and Arthur were not especially engaged so we didn't last long there.

They roamed further afield and came back with tales of giant women in tails. And I finally did see them myself, though I had the courage to look away. Very big women in their 20's had put on mermaid tails and bikini tops and were hanging around in tanks of water. It grossed everyone in my family out, but Eloise was equally fascinated and hung out by the tank for a while. They had colored hair and strange make-up and were awkward performers, if you can imagine the type. They certainly left an impression and the memory gave Quent and EV the heebie jeebies for days.

The other disappointment of the fair was it's location: right off of I-15 with, not only the noise of the freeway, but right under a huge screen advertising some mini-golf and amusement park. So the ambiance and charm was lacking too. It made me wonder what happened, who ran it all, what was management like (the ticket takers themselves did not know about the family discount, though they honored what the lady on the phone told me - THANKFULLY because this was NOT WORTH full price). So while it was less impressive, it remained, as it had been in years past, a cultural experience.

The charm and authenticity were diminished, but one could still be curious about those who DID come, who paid full price, who wanted to be in the show, or in mermaid garb, who not only were there when we were there, but who were there for the full run of 3 weekends, and who then might follow the "train" off to another location to do it all again. I suppose I'm always fascinated by being the stranger in a foreign land, and at this, and all Renaissance Fairs we've been to, we certainly are. (Just adding that it REALLY makes me want to go to a good one, and I hear there IS one in Phoenix....)

Lagoon at Last

It is not as though Lagoon is water that quenches some sort of life-sustaining thirst. It is an amusement park. But you might be easily confused and mistake one for the other if you had been in the car the many, many, many times my family passed Lagoon along I-15 on the way to Salt Lake City and heard my children pining for it like they might plead for something to quench their thirst.

"When are we going to Lagoon?" "Mom, I really really want to go to Lagoon? Can we go?"

Four years ago my answer was, "We aren't going to Lagoon because we are going to Taiwan."

The year after that I could still say, "We just went to Taiwan."

When that excuse faded, I answered, "We can't go to Lagoon because we are going to Seattle for a month."

And then, "We'll go to Lagoon when we aren't flying to the east coast to travel around seeing the sites there for nearly 7 weeks."

That year when we weren't going anywhere else finally came, and I might have come up with another excuse, but the Easter Bunny saved my children from death by Lagoon deprivation and got them tickets. We finally went to the precious Lagoon on May 29, 2019. It might have helped the Easter Bunny make the purchase that this was a school day which meant tickets were only $35 instead of $69, and that parking was free, AND that one of us got a chaperone pass so he only paid for 5 passes. For us, it meant Lagoon was PACKED with high schoolers who let everyone from their school in line in front of us. But we coped.

I was still recovering from multiple knee collapses, so I brought my cane and hobbled from ride to ride. Last time we went, Quent was working for Chem-Dry and we had returned from our epic trip to Florida. Because it took him so long to recover from motion sickness from the flight and cruise, he opted to sit out from the rides and stay with tiny Arthur. 

Thankfully, this time, he was ready and rearin' to go, because kids were too. Eloise was tall enough to ride everything and Arthur was tall enough AND gutsy enough to ride most of it. So I acted as the person from their school (and I am, after-all) and as soon as they got far enough through the line of one ride, I would leave them to go get in the back of another. This system worked pretty well, and in our hours there - from just after 9am to 4pm, they were able to ride upwards of 15 rides WITH a break for

I'm surrounded by TEENS!

lunch AND a break for a huge downpour and hail storm. (This May has been delightfully cool and rainy, but I think a few other school Lagoon days had been postponed for the weather, and that may have contributed to the place CRAWLING with teens.)

Perhaps most delightful to me in our time there was that MY teen got to come too! Thankfully, THIS year his "end of year performances" took place mid-May and his exams were the following week. So we had Kai excused from class and picked him up on our way to Lagoon - he lived with Freestone's family only about 10 minutes from there - and drop him off on our way back home.

It was quite a day. We brought an enormous picnic so we didn't have to spend any money on, or time buying food. It hit the spot because we had to get up pretty early to get Kai and get to Lagoon by 9am and most of us didn't have much of a breakfast. And, thankfully, there was plenty of left-overs because when the rains began to fall, eating again was another way to kill time.

Kai's pose is a typical ballet kid pose, which he thinks is hilarious when boys do it. It does look pretty silly. :)

When it began to rain, the Kai, EV, and Eloise had just gotten in line for Cannibal. I waited for them under a covered eating spot near the gift shop while Q to Arthur on a near-by ride. They said by the time they got ON Cannibal, the rain was falling so hard, they couldn't really open their eyes on the ride. When we connected back up with Quent and Arthur, the rain was coming down harder, so we found shelter in a pavilion and I sent Q back for our lunch, which though we'd left just under a tree, was not too far from where we were.

And it was a blessing he went and got it when he did because when he returned, it began to pour like it almost never does in Utah. But we snacked. And then we put on the ponchos I'd had the good sense to bring. (That was another huge blessing - just a quite whispering of "bring the ponchos" - and though the prompting was ever-so-faint, I followed it.) So the kids, armed with "protective rain gear," hit another ride - one of the only ones still running - and did the Flying Aces in the downpour, which might have made that ride more fun. 

Our large pavilion was now packed with drenched teens, filling with huge puddles of water from the run off, and everyone was shouting because the racket the hail on the metal room was making. Thankfully the storm lasted only about 15 or 20 minutes. As it began to let up, again, relatively dry in our ponchos, I took all the kids and headed for the Cannibal line. Before the storm, the wait had been nearly an hour. But the torrents had driven even the most adventurous for cover, and I wanted to beat them all back to the line.

We did! Not all, but we were within a few feet and behind only a few dozen when we got back in line. I still had my cane, but the kids had been raving consistently enough about the ride, and Arthur wanted to go, so I thought I'd store the cane while I was ON this ride and give it a try. After waiting for about 10 minutes, as the line in front of us swelled with "friends" and the ride behind us began to stack, I sent Arthur through the pack of teens to measure himself by the ride's entrance. I thought if he was too short, we'd exit the line before waiting longer. When he was tall enough, the teens erupted into a cheer for him, and that was fun. The ride was still closed - I think they needed to wait 20 minutes after the last thunder before they could re-open? And we joined a few chants to open the ride. When the worker at last came to open the gate, there was a huge cheer.

Q and I on the ski-lift style ride, catching a ride from one end
of the park to the other.

By now, it had stopped raining, so we were able to enjoy Cannibal fully. And boy was it enjoyed! Arthur talked about it for DAYS. In fact, he is STILL talking about it. We were all impressed that he was brave enough, and he was impressed he was tall enough. I was even impressed with Eloise, whose bravery we may have taken for granted because she is so very tall. But at OLDER than her age, I was too scared to go on the Colossus. (They DO still have that ride: a roller coaster with two upside-down loops, and right as Quent and ALL the kids were SEATED ON the ride, they closed it for technical issues. That was their first ride of the day. So thankfully I was in the Wild Mouse ride holding their spot, which nearly made up for it. And by then, I'd seen all the line butting first hand and decided I'd continue to help my crew in that way, so I left them to ride Wild Mouse and got in line for Wicked.)

Absolute total bravery champ!

Anyway, with Arthur riding nearly all the rides, and Kai being completely capable of being autonomous, we had a pretty fun time dividing our group and conquering Lagoon. Except for Colossus, the kids pretty much rode everything they wanted to. I was able to hit my favorites, even with a cane. I love the belly tickles on Tidal Wave, but when Arthur needed to be near the middle of the boat, I sacrificed and rode with him there. When we were younger, Q and I loved Turn of the Century - a merry-go-round style ride that rises and spins you flying in a swing - but that one nearly made me ill. (Getting old!) My favorite still, to me even more thrilling than Cannibal, is The Rocket's Re-Entry. I love the free-fall from such a height. Arthur WAS too short to go on this one. But I guess that means we'll need to come back next year!

Ah, the smiles! Q was teasing the people around him by talking loudly about how he "barfed the last time he rode this ride." Their nervousness greatly amused MY kids. I lead an obnoxious "Yay!" cheer long after the ride had slowed down, which mostly amused Quent.

Love on the Rocks

Love birds at the Grand Canyon in January 2019

Journaling about problems in one's marriage is hard enough, let alone BLOGGING about it. What to say when issues are private, but when you feel your world is crumbling? That is the dilemma I faced in May. This was a rough patch that was the roughest and longest it's been. It's the untold story of what ELSE was happening in our lives in May. Why things were absolutely more over-whelming than ever.

It began the day before Mother's Day and lasted through Friday, May 24. It stretched over and through Mother's Day, a ballet banquet, babysitting my niece, private lessons, camping, Quent's birthday, piano, ballet, AND voice recitals. All sorts of events that were supposed to be celebrations. All with family and extended family and congratulations and smiles, and through it all I wasn't sure I could make it THROUGH it all.

What transpired is not for this record. But I do want to record that life is hard sometimes. When we come out the other side and the history has been written with a happy ending, it is easy to forget the darkness and fear we felt in the living of life. Worse than mis-remembering for ourselves, however, is painting a false picture for our kids and their kids that we always had things figured out, that our lives were smooth sailing. It's not a true story, but it's not a very inspiring one either.

The facts are for 2 weeks, things were rough. I finally went in for counseling. 'Finally' in that this was not the first time I had wanted to GET counseling. And? It helped. I knew going in that the only person I could change was me. But I didn't see how I COULD change my perception that something was wrong and needed fixing. Blessedly, what I learned I needed to change was my willingness to speak. There are all kinds of things I'm not perfect at as a wife, but the thing I needed to do to find peace was to express my perspective and hold my ground. It may sound incredible that someone as wordy, even verbose, as I am has been afraid of speaking. I think my fear was that speaking wouldn't make things better. I've probably lived enough examples of seeing how speaking made it worse.

Here we are at a ballet banquet on May 14. Together. Smiling. Out of habit and out of hope.

I needed to speak not because my perspective was the only perspective, not because my words had any power to change the past, and I doubted they would have any power over the future either. And yet, there were things which needed to be spoken, feelings which needed to be heard to be considered. So finally on Friday, May 24, I held my ground and spoke my truth.

For Quent's part, he had been miserable during this time too. Neither of us like friction in our marriage. My words had the potential to make things worse. They were words of boundaries. They were definite about right and wrong. I didn't expect them to help. But perhaps I should have had more hope. The man I married IS a decent human being who never set out to hurt or disregard his wife. In our long drive and conversation, he listened to me, and I listened to him. We disagreed, but we heard each other. We DID agree that there were things we could both do better. We decided to keep trying because we loved each other and neither of us wanted things NOT to work.

So while many of these entries in May felt like a lovely facade over a cracking foundation, I'm so glad we held it together. We have fortified the foundation NOW, but even amidst the tremors, we held on. We went, we smiled, we clapped, we took pictures. We kept working on making something beautiful of life, perhaps just on faith that the future COULD be beautiful. And now there are these lovely memories to look back on, and maybe they are all the more lovely to know they are built on something imperfect, but worth saving.

Steff's Knee Chronicles

With my previous posts, I've been at a disadvantage writing because the events transpired over a month ago. In THIS post, I have the advantage of passing time to paint a fuller picture.

As my blog, Boston Bound, chronicles, I put my knee out in June of last year. The injury, which occurred by me merely stepping to the side, happened after almost 2 weeks of me teaching full-time at the CVCB Summer Intensive (which I also directed in 2017 and 2018). Last year, all leading up to it, I kept getting the feeling that I should physically prepare - work out - so that my body could meet the increased demand. BUT the other preparations crowded out my physical prep. Pulling the intensive off is no small task in the first place, and I was adding to it preparing my home for airbnb guests during the summer, and 4 weeks in Boston followed by 2.5 weeks in NYC, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Williamsburg, VA. ADDED to my full-time job of being a mother. (Typing this out sure brings a measure of peace. For a year, I've wondered, "why did I not heed that prompting to exercise?" And if it was a prompting, I'm sure God would have provided a way. BUT it would have been an extraordinary addition to ALL I was juggling.) Sometimes I look back and wonder how in the world I have done so much!

So I put my knee out. Not out sufficiently to flag anyone I was able to see about it. I saw two chiropractors, the first who seemed to make it worse and the second that made it no better. And had no time nor money to do better for it before I was off for 6.5 weeks adventuring around the east coast. Suffering from knee issues all the way.

By the time I got home, I had developed ways to cope - I changed my gait - and ever since have just survived. Still thinking about my knee with almost every step. Just getting by.

That began to change when the trailer purchase was falling apart/coming together. That knee seize then was a new thing - a complete inability to straighten my leg. By then, I had refound my chiropractor who SKILLFULLY adjusts my knee. After the initial seize, I was able to get the knee moving again, and I began to see him in earnest to figure it out. (I found him in December, when I put my shoulder out. Again, my sense was that somehow there were a few tendons that had not found their place, and no one else was able to see or confirm this theory, let alone repair it. I saw a gal for massage and another chiropractor at that time with no luck. But my desperation and pain were intense and finally prompted the more desperate search which lead, at last, to re-finding Dr. Tuft.)

So I was able to get it adjusted. But it kept slipping out - seizing and leaving me limping more severely for days at a time. Dr. Tuft and I began digging a little deeper. He did further muscle tests and found my glutes weren't firing, muscles in my abs weren't either. He re-engaged these and there was improvement. AND STILL no answers.

Then, when my knee seized in the trailer at Lodge, it seemed to be the beginning of it being more out than in. Despite seeing Dr. Tuft regularly now, despite the muscles now doing their thing, and finally despite Dr. Tuft telling me my knee HAD quit slipping out of alignment, the knee was STILL grabbing. I was falling now. It would seize without weight on it, mid stride, and I would collapse to the floor in fear.

At this time, I had begun to teach ballet daily. The classes at Cache Valley School of Ballet had ended on May 11 with recitals, and I was trying to keep my private students in working order while they prepared for their summer programs. Two of my students are going to University of Utah. Another two are going to Boston for Boston Ballet's programs in Boston and Newton. Not only did the dancers need to maintain, but they needed help to IMPROVE and finally there was the studio availability to help them. The money I was making was nice too. But how frustrating that more and more was being spent on keeping my body well enough to teach! And I was able to teach to my satisfaction less and less, spending more time in a chair at the front of the room and just verbalizing corrections instead of really being able to work with the dancers' bodies.

One morning, around May 21 I think, I woke up early, around 4:30am, with pain in my knee. Laying there in the silent stillness, I had the peace and pressence and time to reflect on my life. I asked, "why am I teaching if I can barely walk?" and "how will I successfully parent if all my time and best body energy is spent teaching?" Then I began to ask, "What if I don't teach?" and I really liked the answers. I would have time for my kids! I would have time to manage the other stresses like renting the house on Airbnb. Stopping teaching immediately seemed like a necessity for my knee. It would mean a hit of about $1k. And I knew that so much time was still needed to pull the intensive together. I wondered if my knee would be well enough by August to teach. And if it wasn't, that would mean ALL the time I gave to the ballet would be a loss because I'm ONLY paid for teaching. Yet, how could I not teach at the Intensive? THAT hit would be about $4k. When Q finally woke up around 5:30am I told him my thoughts. I was nervous that he wouldn't be happy. We needed the money. We'd just spent $4k on van repair. But instead of hesitating, or telling me he thought I could suck it up and be strong, he just listened.

"I want to stop teaching," I said.

"Because of your knee?" he asked.

"Yes. I don't see how I can teach if I can't walk. But I'm worried about money. But I don't think I can keep doing this."

"OK," he said. And that was it! We talked about the Intensive in August.  I wasn't ready to let go. I didn't want to say good-bye to $4k. I hoped to give myself a week to see how my body did. I thought with the extra time to take care of ME and diminished stress, I might just feel like teaching full time in August for 3 weeks was possible.

So I cancelled my private classes and told myself the Intensive would work out. My students were disappointed in the cancelled classes, but I felt relieved and more free. The move seemed dramatic and the decision prompted me to finally make an appointment with an orthopedic doctor - a move that was probably LONG overdue. But now I needed answers and so did my students. My appointment was set for May 24.

Then on May 23, without warning, my knee seized again. I was moving in my bathroom, from sitting on the side of the tub to rounding the corner to put something in the trash when it grabbed and I collapsed. Inside, something snapped too. "Enough!" I thought. I crawled to the carpet in my bedroom, called for a kid to bring me my computer and phone, and began cutting my ties to the ballet.

I had worried about letting the Intensive go. Who would take it over? Would I ever get it back? But I found clarity pretty fast. Vivian Taylor, a teacher who had taught at it with me ever since the beginning could manage. It wouldn't be exactly MY Intensive, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that I never directed it again. Maybe I didn't want to anyway! I called the board president, I called Vivian, I began sharing documents and schedules and contacts. I spent the next few hours letting go emotionally and quite literally. And it felt GREAT! A gigantic weight lifted.

The next day Ben Seale told me I had likely torn my meniscus and ordered an MRI. Dr. Tuft had done multiple tests on my meniscus and had assured me multiple times he did NOT think it was torn. But this orthopedic, after minimal physical exam and mostly just discussing my symptoms, DID. He was 90% sure. And I liked the pat answer and the pat solution.

Over the next bit of time, my knee did NOT get better, but that confirmed I was doing the right thing. NOT teaching was the right thing. Though I was scared for me knee, I felt it was a gift for my life: a solid reason to pivot. Now I could focus on my kids, on being with them, on homeschooling with them. With any extra time and energy I could write my books that have been eternally on back burners. I wouldn't have to juggle being in the trailer during our Airbnb stays with the commitment to be in the ballet studio. I would have time for my body - I could MAKE time. My body clearly needed it! And Q and I could work together on our mutual goals instead of me funding some and he funding others. Maybe this would strengthen our marriage too!

Into all of this hope crept the idea that it may not be a torn meniscus. I began talking to people who had torn theirs to get a sense of what was in store for me, and their experiences just didn't match up with mine. Without the MRI, it was anyone's guess what was going on. But I knew that either way, I'd need some help to strengthen my body, so I finally KEPT the appointment I'd made for myself with the physical therapist Q likes and got  in to him on June 7. I'll note here that I had been feeling like I should see him. This was actually the 4th appointment I'd made to get in. But one appointment I'd given to Q. Another I'd given to Kai. And cancelled a 3rd because family things came up. I have just not done very well at making ME and MY needs the priority.

He examined me more closely than the orthopedic doc too, and told me he'd put money on it NOT being a torn meniscus. He DID have the advantage of some insight I'd had on my knee as well. Before going to see HIM, I noticed that I could not roll through my foot in a stride. I hypothesized that I had been swinging my lower leg to the side of my body because it was uncomfortable to bring it straight through. Then I was stepping on it, toe first, but on the outside of my foot instead of the center. No wonder my knee was struggling to find decent alignment! He added to this insight that my ankle had lost mobility and that I had no strength in my quad or butt. So he worked my calf to get my ankle to move, and worked a trigger point in my thigh that he theorized might be causing various muscles within my quad to fire randomly, pulling my knee cap every which way. He ALSO massaged right into the joint of my knee. Almost all of this was VERY painful. But immediately after his work, my leg felt much improved! He gave me a bunch of exercises, which of course, I have modified. I don't sense that he works with women often, nor does he trust that I know my body as well as he does. But I am making progress with what he asked me to do. AND my knee has not seized since.

But the pain remained.

So I finally DID get the MRI on June 18. It was shorter than I expected: 20 minutes instead of an hour. But no one told me about the noise. I did great, but I laughed to myself that if anyone had WANTED to invent audio torture, they could not have done much better than an MRI machine. If I'd known, I would have brought my OWN earplugs to add to the earphones they provided, especially since I couldn't hear the classical music they were playing!

Then I waited for a week to hear from the orthopedic. AND.... No meniscus tears. No tears of any kind! And given the improvement I saw after one appointment with a physical therapist, I shouldn't be surprised. By the time I heard from the doc, I'd been back to see the PT another time. This time we went in for Kai, to work on the shoulder he put out sleeping in the bunk in the trailer. But the PT worked on me too, and told me he would not have been able to get movement back in my joint if it had been a meniscus tear.

So that was the good news. The bad news was arthritis. And that seemed like very bad news to me. No surgery was going to magically restore my knee, unless it was MAJOR surgery. And that seemed inevitable: a knee replacement in my future. In the meantime, he was talking about hyaluronic acid injections. None of it sounded good. And the pain, despite it all, seemed ever present.

I realized, at long last, the emotional toll that this past year has taken. I posted about it on Facebook. Here is what I wrote:

Until 2 days ago I didn't realize how much my sense of self-worth/beauty was tied to my PHYSICAL sense of self - how it felt to inhabit and move in my body. Makes total sense that I have been wired this way, as a dancer. But struggling to walk over the past year has been struggling to be the me I know. And I've been diagnosed with arthritis now and I'm really tottering on my identity crumbling. Not because I can't dance. I haven't danced for years and mostly don't miss it. But because the me I remember, the inside me, the muscle memory, all of ME that is me to me (and that I thought would come back if I could just figure it out) may be gone forever. Sharing my inner process not to solicit advise on meditation, diet, treatment, fatih, or anything else. Just needing love despite what probably looks on the outside like an over-blown reaction to what might otherwise be called getting old.

The love came! Friends sent so many expressions of hope and empathy. MOST significant by far was Quent's. He came home mid-day to take me on a drive to tell me how much he loved me and that he thought I was beautiful. He even brought me a huge bouquet of roses! I had actually reached out to him via email asking for just this sort of help, but he had not seen it yet. Inspired! Later, he responded to my Facebook post this way: 

Dear sexy Steff. I LOVE YOU! From your beautiful head down to your sexy scarred knees. 
This may be because those banged up knees helped you follow your heart to become a dancer, despite the odds, and achieve the goals you dreamed about since you were a tiny little girl.
Your imperfect knees are a symbol of your epic battle that you won! Just like Thor's lost eye/eyepatch after he battled Hela and ultimately won the day (until he replaced it with a bionic eye for some reason).
And just like Thor, you may someday replace your knees with super sexy bionic robocop knees with jetpacks and lasers and even more practical and less cool stuff I can't think of right now.

I love your fun, intelligent, sexy soul. Your cuteness. Your awkward jokes. The fun we have. The big ideas we talk about. Your own personal semi-Mormon theology. The "passionate stickler" you are in our house with our kids as their enforcer/teacher/mom. (see last Facebook note).
Your support for me and our kids to be our best selves and follow our big dreams in life.
You live life on your own terms and rarely take no for an answer when going after what you want and I love you for that.

You're the perfect woman for me in so many ways. You're my arm candy I proudly take out and about, but also my brain candy, and soul candy.
Love,
Q

So I am doing better! I have hope, inspired by the stories of my amazing friends who are as young as I am and MORE active than I am, who have also been told they have arthritis. And most blessedly, I have the support and love of my husband. He is so health-conscious. Much of what he has already learned is probably what I need. Certainly, it is a blessing to have ME care about longevity and quality of life as much as he does. 

We will see what the future holds. My orthopedic has already called after meeting with us, to tell me that he would like to refer me to a specialist. I think we'll go, just to be informed about ALL the options. One way or another, whether through making better heath choices, or surgery, or both I hope to look back on this as a major blessing. In many ways - the increased love from Q, the choice to stop teaching and the simplification that has brought, the motivation to take care of ME - it already IS a major blessing.