How life is going... or My Trip to Utah

I flew to Utah last week to visit Rachel and Elizabeth.  It was a quick decision.  On Friday afternoon I thought, "I wonder if I could get a cheap ticket to Utah?"  Sure enough!  I called Mike at work, told him the price, and he said, "You'd better go, then."  I bought the ticket and got on the plane the next morning.  It was such a relief to be there. 

When I called Rachel to tell her I was coming, she picked up her phone and whispered, "Can I call you back?"  A moment later my phone rang and she said, "Sorry, I am in the ER with Sadie.  She's having emergency surgery in a few minutes and Grandma is in Minnesota."  

What??  (Sadie is my 17 year old sister, so Grandma is Sadie's mom, just FYI.)

Then my mom called and said, "I hear you're coming to Utah.  Are you staying at our house?  Because we're getting tile laid in the dining room and entry way, repainting the kitchen, waiting for our curtains to be finished, and the furniture is all moved."

Elizabeth sounded relieved that I was coming.  Her current medical concerns were the straw that finally put me on the plane... so to speak.  (No camels or broken backs involved.)  And Rachel just about cried.    

While I was there, I got to go to class with Rachel and Elizabeth, watch Elizabeth fence at BYU's fencing club, watch Rachel dance in her clogging class, take them both out to dinner with their room mates, pick up some all-natural groceries for them at The Good Earth, and spend a lot of time just talking and being together.  It was wonderful!  =) 

I also took Elizabeth to the retina specialist.  A couple of weeks ago she developed a large blind spot in her left eye, and she's been to some different eye doctors.  The retina specialist said he thinks it's MEWDS (Multiple Effervescent White Dot Syndrome).  He gave her an injection of dye and then photographed the back of her eye (the retina) and printed the photos.  Quite interesting to see.  The good thing about MEWDS is that, if that's what this is, it should clear up on its own after several weeks.  (7-10) We are really hoping and praying that's what it is.  We welcome all of you joining us in praying for her.  

Rachel has also been struggling with hypoglycemia and stress from some very difficult classes.  Life just seems to be made of trials.  I guess that is why we're here.  

Now that I'm back home, it's performance time for The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Bethany is an extra and Josh is running the sound board.  I took Peter and Naomi to see it last night, but Naomi was crying at intermission.  It was too scary and upsetting for her, so I took her home.  We talked about the characters and what bothered her.  ("The women should have been nice to the baby Quasimoto.  They were mocking him when they made him King of Fools.  No one should whip another person.  And they were going to kill Pierre just for not having a wife!")  She read scriptures and then we watched a silly movie together.  She was looking much better by the time she went to bed.  

Rebecca

who read The Map Thief on her trip, and recommends it, and also read The Spellbook of Listen Taylor, and thinks it was really weird.     

     

A Lot of "Why?"

There are a lot of unusual things our family does, and people often ask "why?"  In case you're wondering, I thought I'd answer a few of them here.

Why do you homeschool your kids?

I started homeschooling for a couple of reasons.  First of all, there was no room for Joshua in second grade at the school near our house, so he was going to be bussed for over an hour (each way) to another school when he was 7.  I was not ok with that.  And then there was Naomi.  She took all my time, energy and attention when school was out, so if I ever wanted to look at my other children, let alone talk to them, it had to be during school hours.  We started homeschooling as a way for my other children have a mother.  And it was So Great!  We loved everyone going at their own pace, having time together, and learning cool stuff as a family, so we continue!  (And, btw, Naomi is doing much better and is now homeschooled, too.)

Why do you eat all-natural food?

Or, around this time of year: Why don't your kids eat Halloween candy? 

A friend of mine (hello Jill!) mentioned a couple of years ago that her son had a better, more cheerful attitude when he didn't eat certain artificial food colors, flavors and preservatives.  I just couldn't help thinking, "I wonder if my son would be more cheerful on that diet, too."  So we tried it.  And guess what?  It wasn't just my son, and it wasn't just a small difference.   We do eat candy, but it's all-natural.  And life around here is much happier!

Why don't you have a television?

Yes, it's true.  No television.  We lived overseas for so long where there either was no TV, or the shows were WAY beyond the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunctions, that we just got used to it.  When we returned to the states we saw no reason to pick up an expensive, time-wasting habit.  We do play a lot of card games, board games and read a lot of books.

Why are you Mormon?

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because I believe that God is still alive and well, and that he talks to living prophets on the Earth today just as he did in the Old Testament and New Testament times.  I believe He loves all the people on the Earth, and so gives His word to everyone, including the Jews and others who wrote the Bible, the people in America who wrote the Book of Mormon (another testament of Jesus Christ), and people today.  And I believe that He intends marriages and families to last forever, not just "till death do we part."  =)

Why did you adopt?

We felt like it was the right thing to do.  (think of a lightning bolt with a post-it-note stuck on the end that says, "Thou Shalt Adopt!")  We felt like there were two specific children somewhere in the world who were supposed to be in our family, and so we set out to find them.  

Why is your house such a mess?

Ok, nobody has actually asked me this.  But I'm sure any of you who have been to my house are wondering.  Let me see... we have 6 kids, we homeschool, Mike and I both have church callings, and if I get a spare moment, I write.

Why do you write?

Because it's a challenge.  Because there are so many good stories to tell.  Because I love words and the idea that an experience can be shared by people all over the world, through different times, by lines printed on a page.  And because I hope, in some small way, someone's life will be better because of something I've written.

Rebecca  =)

Madeline L'Engle

After years of thinking I should write to Madeline L'Engle, I finally sat down today to find her address, compose and mail the letter.  Her influence on my life has been enormous, and it would be inconceivable not to let her know.  (That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.)

I pulled up her official web site and sat.  Stunned.  "Madeline L'Engle, 1918-2007"   

I first read A Wrinkle in Time in 3rd grade.  That was a hard year for me in school, and Meg felt like a real friend.  I was intrigued by the science side of the book as well, and felt the truth of the universal battle between good and evil in my bones.  I knew it to be true.  So I re-read the book. Again.  And again. And again.  until I had most of it memorized.

I began looking for other science books to either confirm or deny the reality of the scientific concepts L'Engle presented.  Were tesseracts real?  I sat on my bedroom floor and drew pictures of the first, second, third, and fourth dimensions.  I read A Geometry of Four Dimensions in fourth grade, although most of it was well over my head, and gleaned pieces of information that I could ponder while sitting in class with nothing interesting to do.  (Thus my poor grades.  Not that they were stellar to begin with.)  

Some time in highschool I made a rule for myself.  I was not allowed to re-read any book until I could not remember how it began.  I quickly realized this was a near impossibility with  A Wrinkle in Time, so made it my one exception.  I continued to read it at least once a year. 

When I took geometry in highschool I thought I had fallen into heaven.  Here, finally, was a math class I understood!  Not only did I understand it, I cold have taught it.  It was nothing more than common sense spelled out.  Any serious Madeline L'Engle fan, who had spent years trying to understand tesseracts, could do this simple highschool geometry with their eyes closed.  No fourth dimension required, no non-euclidian strangeness to understand.  Just simple proofs of everyday reality.  Heaven existed!  

I don't remember the first time I read A Wind in the Door, which is about Charles Wallace having mitochondrial disease.  But I do remember thinking, "That feels like what is going on in my own cells."  Quickly followed by, "Yeah, right.  Like you can feel your cells.  And as if your favorite author just happened to write a book about a rare disease, and you just happen to have it.  Oh please."   I let it drop.  

But I did have, a few years later, my own little brother who was very much like Charles Wallace.  And I did go on to major in physics because of my love of science sparked by A Wrinkle in Time.  And I did do science experiments in the kitchen, and move to exciting foreign countries, and battle evil in my own small ways.  And when a boy Rachel was dating said, "Do you know what your family reminds me of?  Don't take this the wrong way, but, have you ever read A Wrinkle in Time?  Your family seems a lot like theirs," I didn't stop smiling for days.  

And then, our family's unusual medical stuff became more pronounced, and I began doing some serious internet research to try to find out what was going on.  And I came across something that fit.  Something that I could hardly believe.  Mitochondrial disease.  The thing Charles Wallace had.  The thing I'd thought about back in elementary school.  It fit.  How weird is that?

So I decided that it was time.  I had to let Madeline L'Engle know about her influence in my life.  So I pulled up her web site.  And felt as if the wind had been knocked right out of me.  

She died last year, on my little sister Polly's birthday.  A memorial service was held in NYC, and if I'd known I might have gone.  But then again, with life how it is, I might not have.  

Maybe in the next life I will find her, in the millions and millions of people that will be there, and I'll be old and dead, too, and hopefully also a published author, and we will sit and talk.  I know we will have a lot in common.  Or I think we will.  or I hope we will.  Maybe she can read this blog.

It is appropriate that she died last year.  It was the year of the funeral.  My grandpa, my little nephew, and one of my best friends all died within a few months of each other.  And, apparently, my favorite author too.    

I just wonder, How did I not feel this gap in the world before?  Maybe because there were so many gaps forming, so many little black holes in the universe that Madeline L'Engle's was lost in the blackness.  I should have written that letter long, long ago.

Rebecca 

who really, really recommends A Wrinkle in Time to anyone who has not had the pleasure of reading it yet, along with The Arm of the Starfish and of course, A Wind in the Door. 

=)

I opened the mail yesterday to find a non rejection letter!  

Lisa Graff at Farrar, Straus and Giroux has read the first three chapters of Jacob's Peak and would like to read it all!!  Woo Hoo!!

I spent a couple of hours today sweeping out the corners of the manuscript, making sure it doesn't have any red notes to myself in the "for publishers" copy, and tweaking the ending slightly.  I also ran to Office Depot to get more manuscript quality paper, since it is about 300 pages, and I don't have that much good paper around the house.  I've made enough changes since the last time I mailed it that I figured I'd better print it again.

Wish me luck!

Rebecca  =)