Christmas vacation in Utah and the Eastern Sierras

A few years ago we first traveled through Utah on our way back from the Rocky Mountains trip with my extended family. We admired the breathtaking scenery the whole drive. A stop at Arches National Park just whet our appetite to plan a visit back to Utah to see Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon.  A number of factors prevented us from going until we finally committed this winter break right after Christmas. This was one of those years when the kids didn't get anything very special for Christmas; instead, we set out on a family vacation to a real winter wonderland. We departed the day after Christmas and didn't return until the first of the new year. Leaving right after Christmas prevented the inevitable post-party depression doldrums that set in after everything is unwrapped and played with, and the good chocolates are all gone.

Another advantage of leaving so soon after Christmas was that we didn't really have time to fret about winter garments and potential disasters. I had wanted to leave on the 27th so that I could run to the after Christmas sales and buy up boots and coats and gloves, but because my husband wanted to be somewhere where he could watch college football on the 29th, we left a day early. Fortunately, we were able to cobble together enough hats and gloves and layers to stay warm. As a Christmas present, I had bought a pair of fashion boots (fake "Tims," as the kids were calling them) for the 12-year-old who has been growing exponentially the past couple of months and needed new shoes anyway. I wore my hiking boots, the 16-year-old wore the duck boots I used in college and still have in a winter box, and the boys wore various pairs of my husband's work boots. Fortunately, a friend had just handed down snowpants, boots, coat, and gloves for the 4-year-old - the only one, besides the 14-year-old, who was really rolling in the snow.  The girls accepted my advice to bring tights to wear under their jeans, and I, who shiver when the temps dip below 65, stayed warm and cozy because I wore an undershirt, a tee shirt, a long sleeved shirt, a polar fleece, and my raincoat every time we ventured outdoors because I didn't have a winter coat. Five layers proved sufficient. And fortuitously, our 18-year-old who likes to knit was just finishing a pair of mittens for a Christmas present for his aunt, which I commandeered and told him to start another pair. He figured out how to do Fair Isle patterns last summer using a book he got as a graduation present as a gag gift - sometimes those turn out to be the best presents!  This is all just to say that we made do instead of getting any special equipment or gear, and no one froze to death.

Once bags were stuffed with warm clothes, extra blankets were stashed in the car, and plenty of snacks shoved into reusable grocery bags (food for the apocalypse), we were ready for our early morning departure. Leaving at 6:30 got us to Zion in time to make a quick stop at the visitor center (open because of kindly volunteers working despite the government shutdown - and the generosity of the state of Utah) and then to drive through the park to the Valley Overlook hike on the other side of the mile long tunnel. Our hike was perfectly timed for prime sunset viewing at the overlook, but cloudy skies muted the sunset's maximum glory. We did get a beautiful glimpse of the canyon's version of alpenglow as the sun broke through the clouds as it descended.  The timing couldn't have worked out better.

From that point we continued east out of the park to our cabin at Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort. This place has all kinds of options for lodging - a hotel, smaller one room cabins (we splurged on the two room cabin, which was plenty spacious for our two nights), large vacation homes that sleep family reunion sized groups, tent sites, RV sites, and yurt sites. Something for everyone. In the summers they offer horseback rides, ATV rentals, a swimming pool, a reception site for weddings, zip lines, and lots of other activities, but they all are an additional cost. The welcome center had a coffee bar and a restaurant that served a free buffet breakfast that included, to our children's delight, a belgian waffle maker and sugary toppings. I had spent a number of hours on the internet looking at lodging options of various sorts, and this place worked out perfectly - rustic but cozy lodgings, a convenient yet removed location not right in the middle of town, but not out of the way.

Although a winter trip is much different than a summer one, there were a number of advantages to making this trip in December.  The lack of crowds is the biggest advantage to me. It was not uncrowded - plenty of people were doing exactly what we were doing. I would guess that going sometime in February - or at least not during a school vacation schedule - would be the least crowded, but I could be wrong.  And my husband pointed out that not everyone cares as much about avoiding crowds as me. You don't go to the National Parks for unadulterated wilderness experiences anymore - I need to think of them more like museums of natural wonders to be enjoyed with 50000 other people a day. A part of me still wants to seek out the undiscovered spot, the quiet campground, the trail that no one else takes, but I also accept, albeit with some wistful reluctance, that our outdoors experiences are not that of the early explorers.

That being said, I am continually amazed at the stamina and courage the early pioneers must have had to have traversed this country into the unknown across mountains and through canyons. I'm grateful we had the option to stay in a cabin instead of canvas tent when we woke up to 14 degree temperatures.

Another advantage - snow. My kids asked the whole way if we would have snow. We get plenty of sun and sand out here, so they want to see something different.  And happily, the ranch had a good covering of probably eight or ten inches. The younger kids jumped out of the car and into the snow to make snow angels and throw snow at each other.  That moment of delight was worth the length of the drive.

And it was delightfully cozy to enter the cabin, pull off some layers, make cocoa and canned soups and eat snacks and play card games in the evening. Very hygge. More snow fell during our first night, so we awoke to the beauty of a silent, snow-covered field and pine forest. We dressed early to get breakfast before our day at Bryce Canyon. As we walked to the dining hall the sun was just rising, causing the ice crystals to shimmer and gleam like glitter across the fields.

Snow was still falling as we drove the hour and a half to Bryce. This drive was a little nervewracking. The roads were mostly clear, but we didn't know what we would get into as the elevation increased. By the time we arrived at Bryce, the temperature had dropped, and the roads were covered in snow and ice. The visitors' center was still open, but the road through the canyon was closed two miles in, as were most of the trails because no government workers were available to plow the roads and check the trails. I had intended to drive the 18 mile scenic view drive to the end of the park, do the two mile hike that starts there, and then come back and hike a three mile loop through what they call the amphitheater - a good amount of hiking, but achievable for our group of teens. It was disappointing to realize we had to scrap that plan and settle for a hike along the rim - about a mile was open - but we were still able to experience a spectacular view. The three mile loop was open, but the volunteer ranger strongly recommended ice spikes/yax trax and we didn't want to make that investment that day. It was only 19 degrees at this point, and the girls didn't wear pantyhose under their jeans, nor were their gloves really warm. They were freezing on the rim walk and spent most of it staring down at their boots during the rim walk to keep their noses warm and whining. The preschooler and fourteen year old loved it - they were sliding and sledding down each little incline, which was exactly why I didn't want to attempt the hike down the canyon without ice spikes, even though I kind of envied the well prepared or slightly foolish souls whom we watched head down the trail.

The volunteer at the visitors' center did fill us in on a good consolation hike which was just outside the park - Mossy Cave, an out and back hike just over two miles that led to a cave and a frozen waterfall. It was at a slightly lower elevation and in a canyon, so it was not as bitterly cold. And it was beautiful. Long enough to feel like we exerted some energy, short enough that no one whined. Perfect.

After a stop for coffee at Ruby's General Store, a local legend for souvenirs, we headed back to the Ranch with enough time to explore the grounds a little. We walked back to the barn and patted the mules and nearly patted some mule deer who were stealing hay. And we cooed over the tiny twin baby goats in the little goat shed. My husband and I traipsed through the pine woods a little ways to catch the sunset - through the campground and out onto the ATV trails which were easy to follow even in the snow.  Our dinner was another budget meal of ramen and just add water prepared rice meals in packets. Not so healthy, but like an indoor camping trip.

On day three, we went back to Zion to explore the canyon.  Visiting in winter prevented us from hiking the iconic Narrows, which follows the Virgin River for miles through the canyon. The hike is primarily in water, and although we saw a good number of inveterate hikers in rented full body waders and water tight shoes, I didn't feel any desire to investigate that option in the winter. We also opted not to try the vertigo inducing Angel's Landing hike, although it was open. After talking to a friend who did it and then watching some videos to see if she was exaggerating the precipitous nature of this trail, I decided I didn't want to do this hike with our daredevil teen, who would be the type to try to pretend to scare me and then really fall off the side of the cliff. (Link here if you are curious). Maybe someday we'll come back, but I did feel like our abbreviated trip was just the right amount of hiking and admiring the views for our group. The shuttle was still running here, so we took the shuttle to the end of the line and hike the mile or so to the river's edge where the Narrows hike begins. Then we walked back along the river's edge, jumped on the shuttle to ride a ways back to another trail head and from there we hiked the rest of the way to the last shuttle stop before the place where you have to park your car and get out and take the shuttle. So we hiked maybe six or seven miles all together, but with plenty of stops and diversions on the way - frozen waterfalls at Emerald Pools, nearly tame deer along the path where people usually take the shuttle, and a picnic/bathroom stop at the historic lodge in the middle of the canyon.

Back at the car, we ate more of our junk food, dipped our feet in the refreshingly frigid river water, and stashed our muddy boots and the winter gear we had slowly stripped off during the hike as the temperatures gradually warmed up with the sun's ascending. And then we bid adieu to Zion with hopes of heading back someday, but satisfied with our visit if that someday never comes.

Another coffee stop at a local coffee roasters just outside the park was our last contact with civilization for several hours. The next stage on our journey was a sevenish hour drive through the middle of nowhere Nevada directly west to the Eastern Sierras where we were meeting my brother-in-law and his family at a house they rented on Convict Lake, which is just a few minutes south of ski mecca Mammoth, CA, but much less crowded.  He had wanted a snow and mountains experience instead of going to Utah, which he imagined would be more of a desert experience. I wasn't sure what to expect but now know that the area of Utah we were leaving definitely has a snow and mountains experience to offer, along with a desert rocks experience all within an hour's drive.

The drive through Nevada was an adventure in itself. My phone map directed us to make an inverse triangle trip down to Las Vegas and then back up the 395, a trip of eight plus hours. My son's map app sent us on a more direct and shorter route straight across. The roads were clear and fast, but for hours and hours we saw a whole lot of nothing. Signs would predict a town ahead and we'd get ready for a bathroom break only to discover that the town was a house and a garage advertising an Extraterrestial Life Research Institute.  We finally pulled to the side of the road to take turns making a pit stop. No other cars had passed us for hours.  The stars were incredible - perhaps their plenitude and brilliance were what drew the occasional desert dweller to this sparse territory. Or maybe they are searching for oil or diamonds, or developing drugs, or really don't like having neighbors.

It was with great relief that we found the house my brother-in-law had rented. A place with six bedrooms and beds for 32 people. It was in a little rental community, also, with other smaller places for rent and a little general store and a restaurant that appeared to cater to wedding parties.  The lake was beautiful - about 3 and a half miles around surrounded by mountains - and home to a pair of bald eagles and some bold raccoons (plus a lot of other wildlife, I am sure). A grim marker told of 7 people who perished one winter in the ice - 3 boys and 4 men who tried to rescue them - and another one related the tale of how the lake took its name from a shoot out between some escaped convicts from Carson City Nevada and their pursuers. Some of the law enforcement lost their lives, but the convicts were eventually recaptured.

We spent a couple nights here - one day devoted mostly to watching Notre Dame's football team lose dreadfully to Clemson. That highlight for me - and I think the girls - that day was a hike to the hot springs down the road. One of the pools was occupied by a couple old guys enjoying nature's glory in their natural state, but they politely stayed submerged after they realized a group of preteens was making their way to a nearby pool.  We felt very Scandanavian as we enjoyed the hot water in the middle of a snow covered plain.  We also made a trip into Mammoth to see what was there and made the mistake of showing up at the grocery store at the same time in the late afternoon as all the hungry and thirsty skiers. I have never seen a more packed Vons, nor more carts filled with booze.  Skiers must need a lot of internal warming after being outdoors all day on the slopes.

On the drive back to the cousin's house, we made a quick stop at Schatz's bakery in Bishop for famous cinnamon rolls and other vehicles for delivering a surplus of flour and sugar to the body. The yeasty smell and rows and rows of freshly baked bread had me salivating and giving thanks for not being gluten free, although they did have one or two options for those poor souls who are. 

For our lunch picnic a couple hours later, we made another stop - this time to rock scramble at Red Rock State Park.  Decidedly a desert climate, Red Rock has some interesting rock formations, but apparently is a destination for offroading more than anything else.

The final event of our vacation was a celebration of New Year's Eve at the cousin's house. Some of the older kids' friends stopped by, but it was mostly a quiet evening. I retired before midnight with the four year old, both of us exhausted. I had had a wonderful visit over coffee with a couple friends from our life in Ventura, which lifted my spirit and soul - they both have a great love for the church and are active in music ministry and a ministry for mothers that inspire me.

The next day we shoved the explosion of our stuff back in the car for the drive home. Everyone was ready to get back and reset.  It had been a full week, one that left us tired but surfeited with memories. It was a welcome break from the busyness of December before the return to the busyness of back to school time.

The only downside to this trip is that our second oldest son was not with us, and I know he would have enjoyed it. As I look over the photos, I am sorry he is not in them, although I am happy for him to be creating his own story full of memories of traveling Europe.  I think I mentioned in the last post that he spent Christmas with my brother in law and his family in Nuremberg, which is now on my wishlist of places to visit someday, also. Cross one item off, add another. We'll be seeing our son in a month when we pack our bags again, this time to Rome, when he can share more about his encounters with amazing creations - both human and divine - from his travels through Rome and beyond. But he was missed, and I would love for him to see these places, too. The world is so full of a number of things . . .

View of famous arch, name of which I can't remember

Overlook Trail, Day 1:

Goodnight, Zion

Day 2: Bryce Canyon in Winter

Icicles in Mossy Cave

Portrait Series 1: Mossy Cave Hike, Bryce 

Comfy couch

Little kitchen

Feeding the mules

Sun rising over Zion NP

Portrait series 2

Creating instagram posts

Where the Narrows begins - some of us had waterproof boots; most of us didn't. Our oldest would have liked to hike on down the river

Where the Narrows begins

The Virgin River

Heading to the lodge

A small hiker who likes having her big people around

Pretty hikers along the river

Full of vim and warming up

Attempting to pat the deer - After siting several dozen deer along this path, the 4 yo decided it should be called "Moment of the Deer" hike

Warming up as we hike through the canyon

The Court of the Patriarchs

Purple mountains majesty

A good hiker!

A last view of the Three Patriarchs

Sunset over the Nevada desert

Building a fire

A panorama of Convict Lake

Canyon climber

Red Rock Canyon State Park, central California

Now I need to go shop for shoes for walking the streets of Roma....

Year End Reading in Review

I love the year-end lists of best movies, best songs, biggest news stories, and best books that come out at the end of the year. It's a pop culture lesson all in one place. (which I need after realizing how bad my knowledge of pop music was at a party yesterday with some Navy spouses who are mostly about 10 years younger than me. We played one of those headbands games where you have to guess your identity - and I didn't know half the people.  Made me feel like an old lady.) Here at last is my own yearly summation of what I've read, too. Time to review the old 2018 list and start a new one for 2019! 

My reading was about average in 2018 -  50 books total that I wrote down. I read some essays and journals and parts of books for my nature writing class that I didn't record because they weren't complete books, but would add to a total page count, if I were keeping track of that.  The Norton Anthology of Nature Writing has been my near constant companion these last few months, and I bought a couple collections of critical essays that I haven't quite finished, but I'm almost done with them - they'll go on the list for 2019.  I also didn't write down some of the short chapter books the little one and I read - I regret to say she discovered those rainbow fairy books and we've read a few of them, making the transition to books without a picture on every page, but I really need to be more intentional about what we are reading.  

Here is my yearly review

8  books were rereads - but some of those I read long ago - The Hiding Place, A Wrinkle in Time, Walden. Some not that long ago: Till We Have Faces. Of the rereads, I enjoyed revisiting The Hiding Place and Wendell Berry books, but Walden also was inspiring to revisit - but more of an investment. 

4 books were children's books - A Wrinkle in Time, Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Happy Times in Noisy Village, Saints for the Small by Frank Morriss, which I wanted to buy from the library because it was a very entertaining presentation of saints' lives. We've read 100s of picture books - I should keep track of my favorites. My most recent favorite new picture book was Red Sky at Night - the text is weather proverbs that aren't really narrative, but the pictures, silhouettes against colorful watercolor landscapes, tell a story of a father figure (maybe a grandpa) taking two children on a boat trip to an island, where they play until they flee before a coming storm. I thought it was brilliant; the four year old was entertained. I'm not so fond of some of the other new picture books that are done in a style that seems more appropriate for adult design - process color, lifeless figures, too much going on on each page. The effect is hard to look at.

I count 5 books that could be called classics: Walden, The Great Divorce and Till We Have Faces (arguably), Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, Trollope's Sir Harry Hotspur. Maybe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? You might make the case that only Walden is really a classic on this list - so this category needs some additions next year.

Maybe only 8 books might count as spiritual reading - we read more novels for book club this year, so I'm not including those. My favorite of these was The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day - it provided much to contemplate and provoke. My mom gave me a gift subscription to Magnificat for my birthday, so I started reading that midyear also, as I mentioned last post.  A real boon. I meant to read it to the kids in the mornings, but it stayed on the back of the toilet mostly.

13 books would fall into the category of "Nature Writing." Of these, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Cheryl Strayed's Wild - sometimes best sellers are disappointing. I always like reading Scott Russell Sanders, and his Staying Put did not disappoint. (Perhaps I am partial to him because he is also a Hoosier, although not by birth.)  Terry Tempest Williams' book about National Parks and Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost also were delights to read. I added more books by both of these authors to my Amazon Wish List after reading some essays they wrote. These books were library finds, and I just checked out another one by Solnit. Williams has a Mormon background and I don't know that Solnit writes from any faith tradition, but they both convey a sense of the sacred in the ordinary. (Sidenote: I am also growing my Thriftbooks.com list - have been buying more from them this fall and moving away from Amazon. Sometimes better prices, and always less advertising. My son's friend also just recommended the Better World website,too.)

4 literary journals are included on this list and 2 books of poetry. My sister-in-law gave me the Paris Review last year, and this year she gave me The New Yorker. These are some of my favorite presents -  and I am grateful to my mom - thank you, Mom! - for Magnificat. I need to give more gift subscriptions. Was happy to subscribe to First Things on the request of my oldest.

12 books were novels. I best of all loved, loved the Godden book. I always like her books better than I expect to, and Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy was no different. Well written, engaging plot, uplifting theme.

Worst: Ready Player One: I cannot get over how bad I thought this book was compared to how many people like it. Did I miss something? Were my expectations too high? Or do people really like nostalgia trips and are willing to read bad dialogue in exchange for reliving Family Ties reruns? 

6 books were nonfiction/memoir/self-help books not counted in my list of books of a spiritual nature, although Teaching from Rest and One Beautiful Dream are definitely books with a Catholic perspective. I Don't Know How She Does It was less helpful than I hoped. The Gardener and The Carpenter was more interesting as a parenting book than I expected.  I wish I had spent more time with Marilynne Robinson's book about her reading life.

That leaves novels and short stories  - 14 in this category, which has some overlap. The Library at the End of the World was mildly entertaining but it didn't seem worth spending much time on. Bridge of Sighs I had to work to get into but ended up liking more and more as I read it. 

Looking ahead: Reading more classics and "hard books" is now on my list after this review and inspiration from a first read of 2019 Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. It looks at the effects of digital learning on the brain - a really good read, not just because it confirms my suspicion that kids don't learn to read deeply or retain as much information on digital texts as they do by reading print texts, but also because it provides both research and expert quotes arguing for the importance of contemplation and reflection - both encouraged and facilitated by deep reading. I wrote down a bunch of quotes to share eventually. Also TBR: I have A Sand County Almanac on my bedside table, David James Duncan on my wish list, Solnit's Wanderlust in the library bag, and I've started Rules of Civility, which I am really enjoying so far, but am waiting for something to happen. Is it just a portrait of a Russian gentleman living in reduced straights in the Metropol Hotel or will the plot thicken? We shall see. 

Also in my stack: Rome guide books. Our trip is a month away and I have a lot of planning to do. Easy for a couple college kids to bustle around Italy; harder for a group of seven on a budget.

A summary of my reading trends this year is pretty similar to the last few years: nature literature for class, Catholic/Christian books for book club. Random finds from the library or little free library book boxes. This year I am starting a new book club that follows the list of the Read Harder Book Challenge, so more to come!

Epiphany greetings

Christmas has come and gone. We celebrated Epiphany modestly on Sunday with a visit from the Three Kings who left slightly underwhelming gifts - no gold, frankincense, or myrrh here. After Mass the tree was dismantled, the decorations almost entirely boxed up, and the needles swept up. We had a celebratory supper and blessed the doorway, and started preparing backpacks for going back to school after a nice break.  All that remains of our Christmas celebrations are a few returns and some stale cookies. And some extra pounds.

My favorite part of this year is now overdue - making resolutions and reviewing the year.  This tradition may result in minuscule changes in habit and virtue, but perhaps instead of changing course, this practice is more helpful for righting the course of the ship of life that has drifted from true north, or whatever course it is on. This post is my mini-retreat, although I'm having trouble finding time to reflect and contemplate long enough to write it. This was supposed to be a year I documented better on this blog, but instead I wrote less than ever.  I also read less than ever. And after reviewing resolutions from last year, I can only report moderate success, as usual.

But there were a few successes: 1. I've kept up with my little examen journal. 2. I read quite a bit with the four-year-old, although not many chapter books yet. 3. We've had some good vacations with the kids to make some memories together. 4. I've kept up with calendar keeping  5. And a gift subscription to Magnificat from my mom has helped me keep my resolution to read Scripture more. Magnificat has been a great aid to faith life for so many people - may it continue to find its way into many hands.

So again, I will revise some of the resolutions that didn't stick and consider what habits will help me stay on course for a life oriented toward eternity.  Even as I write that, I question that I really have eternity in mind, as temporal reality is much more pressing. How can I be thinking of Heaven when the toilet is overflowing?  And does God want me to homeschool the four-year-old next year or to keep trying to teach? I wish He would speak more clearly on this matter, or help me find a parttime kindergarten so I could do both. That's the next big decision I have to make - in addition to helping the daughter in her junior year discern what is in her future.

Those big decisions require more research. I have several research projects going on - so perhaps the first category to look at is what my academic/intellectual goals should be:

1. Research kindergartens and colleges. The teenager next in line to go to school doesn't want to go to the same school her brothers attend - the pressure to get in and do well is perhaps too great, and she thinks she wants to stay on the west coast or at least go somewhere without a long winter.  More to come on the college search, but we are planning to make a couple visits to schools to help her figure out what is out there and what she is looking for - if I can commit to the cost of travel.

The kindergarten decision is one that involves figuring out how to balance what I want to do with what I think I ought to do. I'm hoping an option shows up that allows me to do both, so on my to-do list is to try to find either a parttime kindergarten or some other solution.

After teaching this past semester, I have also considered returning to school myself to finish my Ph.D. Teaching this course on nature writing required a lot of research and synthesis that could be the beginning of a project or paper. Maybe I should go back to school and homeschool while working on a second degree - probably not going to happen, but a little dream.

More immediate - and more achievable - is a smaller project: Plan a family trip to Rome. We have purchased tickets for the six people in our family at home to fly in February to see our second son who is studying in Rome for the year. We got a great price on tickets back in the fall, but I put off planning the trip. Now it's a month away, and I'm just starting to look into places to stay and to figure out an itinerary. We get to Rome on our son's 21st birthday and will stay in the city Wednesday - Friday. Then we'll go to Assisi and Florence before returning to Rome Monday morning and stay for 2 more nights before flying back. In addition to finding accommodations, I need to figure out whether to rent a car for the weekend travel or buy train tickets for 7 people. And in addition to planning the trip, I want to have some family education about what we are going to see. If I had thought ahead, I would have tried to find some Rick Steves videos to watch over Christmas break, but instead we watched too many bad Christmas specials because the girls like sappy romances. More to come on that trip, too.

2. Planning this trip and introducing the kids to Rome is a part of the category for Family Goals, too. My husband convinced me to buy plane tickets for everyone by saying this is their religious education for the year. I have really mourned the lack of religious education for our teenagers. The two middle kids were confirmed this spring, and since then they have been reluctant to go to youth group - mostly because it is like confirmation class.  This fall the previous youth leader quit to stay home with her kids, and the transition to a new youth minister took some time, so the fall schedule was irregular. I've talked with the teens about getting more involved in leadership this year, but we'll see what happens.

We also have not kept up with family service projects. I'm still going to the nursing home with the youngest once a month, and at Christmastime we sponsored a family and took the kids to the church in Barrio Logan to deliver the gifts, but I'd like to renew my resolve to find a family project once a month.

3. The challenge of making resolutions is finding time for them. This past year I sacrificed time I used to spend exercising in order to spend more time planning and grading.  I've done better about becoming a morning person, but have to decide whether to exercise or work in the morning before the kids get up. Aging has also minimized my dedication to fitness goals. I'm realizing that being middle-aged involves having somewhat constant knee and foot pain. Swimming and stretching and some strength training, even just sit-ups and push-ups, always make me feel better, so those are the three things I'd like to find more time for this year -- in addition to the yearly recommitment to drink more water, get more sleep, and eat less sugar.

Finally, the fourth piece of my yearly review - spiritual growth. We did make it confession more often this year - another small success. So we'll try to continue that commitment. But nightly rosary has become a weekly thing - I need to keep recommitting to trying to make family prayer time a priority. One thing our church has started doing this fall is adoration one Friday night a month. We've attended a couple times - I let the kids leave after 15 or 20 minutes, but I am grateful for even that little time, so that is another practice I want to keep up with. My book club continues to be a source of great consolation and good reads for spiritual growth, although this month's pick, Anne Lamott's newest book about hope Almost Everything, recycles what she has written before. I have thought about trying out spiritual direction - I want someone else to tell me what to do - but both priests I've asked were booked up -- because they are good directors most likely.

This is enough to think about, and I am out of time. I can think of a lot of things I'd like to do or do better and things I'd like quit doing - the challenge of keeping on course are the many distractions.

A happy distraction was our recent trip to Utah - photos to come!

Blessings in Advent

The stockings are hung, the tree is aglitter, and the fourth Advent candle has been lit. The first has burned almost down to the nib. Christmas is only a couple of days away.

Christmas this year feels a little different than Christmases past. The biggest difference is that not all of our kids are home. Our second oldest, who is studying architecture in Rome for the year, stayed in Europe to travel and is spending Christmas with his aunt and uncle and cousins in Germany.  The house still feels a little empty, even though we were happy to welcome home the two other college boys and add some people to the table. The four-year-old has been ecstatic to have them home and has kept them busy playing restaurant and reading to her and being another audience for her knock-knock jokes.

Another difference is that we are not traveling this year at Christmas or hosting family.  Aside from the two years we lived in Guam, we have always either traveled to see family over Christmas break or welcomed my parents or the cousins here. Since we just visited with everyone in October, we aren't making the trek across the country, nor is anyone coming here. When we first decided to stay put, it seemed like a good idea, but now I'm feeling a little nostalgic. And knowing how happy I am to have my big boys home, I now have more sympathy for our parents' desire to be surrounded by family during the holidays. Having the kids home is part of the reason we decided to stay put, although there is still a part of me that wishes we were going to reconnect with all of the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

Despite having a quieter Advent, it seems that I still haven't managed to do the things I meant to. What's that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?   I feel like I've been laying down a ton of bricks on that road lately.  I don't know if it is just because I am getting older, or because I am torn in too many directions and end up stalled. But I had the best of intentions to do certain things this year, this month, this week, yesterday, that never happened.

Many of those things didn't happen because I started working.  As I suspected, preparation, grading, and reading for this class took about 10 times more hours than I spent in class. And the work of taking care of the house and kids always take more time than I think it will. I never fully account for the amount of time it takes to interact with people - parenting, socializing, wifing. When I read that book, I Don't Know How She Does It, I noticed she didn't really include enough time for those relationships - or maybe I just didn't multiply by seven.

Time seems especially scarce this time of year. I had really good intentions of reading the Jesse tree book and talking about the stories as we hung ornaments with the four-year-old. I even meant to remake the sorry little ornaments I made years ago. The Jesse tree is still in the box. The Christmas book box is out in the living room, but only a few stories have been read. The Christmas cards still need to be addressed. The shopping isn't finished - I need something for the stockings.  No cookies made for the neighbors - although the girls have been baking and baking and giving cookies to their friends. We didn't make it to the caroling service or the hanging of the greens at Church. I fell far short of my intention to go to morning mass more often during Advent. And of course, I haven't been the loving, quality-time mom doing fun things like making new ornaments, ice skating and watching Christmas movies and crafting that I meant to be.

Sigh. I'm heading out to shop more in just a minute because I have visions of the kids being sad after they open their presents - which will be mostly clothes and a book because they are teenagers. Every year I overestimate the importance of presents. They need a new toy! They need more boxes! And I buy too much and take it back after Christmas.

On the positive side, the four-year-old has excitedly opened the chocolate Advent calendar every day and shared the chocolates and kept track of whose turn it is to light the Advent wreath. I remembered to get out the readings for the O Antiphons on time. We all made it to the Advent penance service. I may be able to finish Christmas shopping today and be done before Christmas Eve.  After hours and hours of grading, I turned in grades early and only three students (out of 40+) emailed to ask if there was anything they could do to change their grade after they saw it posted. One asked if I could just round up 2%.  Our Christmas party for my husband's work was a success, although exhausting.  And we finally went to a celebration of Las Posadas at a nearby church - it didn't involve costumes and a miracle like the Tomie dePaola book, but it did have pozole and tamales and horchata with red and green fruits afterward. We delivered gifts to the family we helped sponsor - my friend bought them a real dog after checking with the parish that they really wanted one, and it wasn't just the 8-year-old's impossible dream.

And the house is festive: Decorations and lights are up. We decorated the tree the night the college kids came home. They've been a big help in adding to the Christmas spirit, although the absence of our second oldest has dampened it a bit in my heart. I am happy he is spending Christmas with my brother-in-law and his family in Germany, but I wish we were all together. I really wish we were all together there. And I understand better my mother's (and my grandmother's before her) desire to have everyone home for Christmas - if only we lived just a few miles apart, and not a few thousand.

Mrs. Claus needs a tangle brush

Smiling faces from Christmas past

Other smiling faces

ND undefeated again

Wreath laying at Rosecrans National Cemetary

Lights in the darkness

Crafts gone wrong: 4 year old left unattended

There have been many bright lights in this Advent season - literally and figuratively. I love seeing the church full, and our pew almost full. I love seeing all of the babies at church. The readings at Mass remind me to focus on all the sources of hope and joy- instead I tend to focus on what should be instead of what is. I think this has been a New Year's resolution before, and should be again. Or maybe I'll just tell myself that it's the thought that counts...

Thinking about Mass reminds me that there is that other meaning of intention - the petitions we pray, the intentions we hold in our hearts. I looked up the difference - one is a prayer of asking, the other is a prayer for a reason - like praying the rosary for people who are suffering. Those intentions are a road that leads in a completely opposite direction than the proverbial one. And so this Christmas, may I offer the missed opportunities and mistakes up for those who are suffering real pain, and ask for God's love to cover all those we love who are far from us physically but near in our hearts.  Peace and joy to all.

A note of gratitude

Last week at Mass, my seventh grader leaned over and whispered, "Is it marriage day or something?" Not that I know of, why? I respond. "There are so many young people here," she pointed out.

I looked around. There were a quite a few young couples in the pews. In front of us was a tall couple, stylishly attired, probably in their mid-twenties. The wife had a very cute, very prominent pregnancy belly. Another young couple behind us had a tiny newborn with lots of hair. Scattered around church were a number of young families, young couples, college kids home on break.  My heart swelled with happiness.

These young people are a sign of hope. The faith lives and flourishes despite scandal and all the distractions of modern life. I was asked to be a confirmation sponsor by one of the young moms in our co-op. My husband was asked by my nephew to be his sponsor for confirmation.  I invited my friend over for a playdate and conversation yesterday, and we sat on the floor and talked about how she first felt at home in a Catholic church when she went inside a random church after a disagreement with her mom a couple years ago. Her husband is Catholic, and in the Navy, and she didn't think much about agreeing to raise their kids Catholic until they had a little girl. Now, with her husband frequently gone, she realized she better learn about the Church in which she agreed to live. She grew up nominally Unitarian but rarely went to services. She is not yet sure she will be confirmed this Easter, but I am so flattered to be asked by her to be her sponsor. I sent her home with George Weigel'ss Letters to a Young Catholic. 

Hearing her story and seeing all these pretty young faces at Mass is cause for Thanksgiving.  We celebrated the holiday with my husband's brothers' family in Ventura, where burned hills still testify to the raging fires last year at this time, but normal life seems to have resumed around town.  My brother-in-law surprised us by flying home our 18-year-old for dinner, so although we were a smaller group around the table, our hearts were full.

I am also thankful that in just a couple weeks two of our three college kids will be home. I bought the plane tickets for Christmas break last week. I am grateful they can travel home and spend time with us, especially after hearing the stories about the poor students who can't return home after the Thousand Oaks shooting.

Our third son will stay in Rome for the year.  I am extra thankful we are going to see him in February - just in time for his 21st birthday! We are taking all the kids because I found such a good deal on plane tickets and because my husband convinced me that this will be their religious education program since they go to public school.  Almost my entire income for teaching this semester - maybe more - will go toward the trip, but I am thankful we are able to do something like this. My younger kids may not realize what a privilege it is to take a trip to Europe since they live in a community where people fly around on vacation everywhere all year around, but I hope they will remember something about it. (I need to remember my plan to get some videos about Rome and Italy from the library and to rewatch the Italian sections of Bishop Barron's Catholicism series over Christmas break)

We have many so many reasons to be thankful, yet of course, I am usually preoccupied with how I can never get done what I want to do, or irritated by the small inconvenience (traffic!), or nagging at the kids to do homework, read, get off the computer, clean up, help out, straighten up and fly right and all that.

I started writing this shortly after Thanksgiving, and now two weeks have gone by. Yesterday the bridge was closed for several hours while emergency response teams tried to convince a man not to jump. This time they succeeded, thanks be to God. Many people were sharing stories of their traffic nightmares, but there also was a general sigh of relief that a life was saved.

Last night we had the biggest downpour we've had since living in California - a verifiable storm. The power went out just before dinner. We lit candles and ate homemade chicken noodle soup with Reames egg noodles, my favorite comfort food, although not as good as my mom's. The kids laughed, told ghost stories with candles under their faces, and read by candlelight. We all went to bed early. It was great. And it reminded me this morning, as I'm up early, to give thanks for the little blessings of these moments, and for the unbelievable gift to have these blessed souls and bodies in my care, when I'm tempted to bothered by petty concerns.  God is good.

Reading in Review

October was a month of company - good company, all of it. Our friends who sing, my in-laws, my parents, their friends, my brother- in-law and friends from Ventura County who came for the Notre Dame- Navy game the last weekend of the month (they recently have had to evacuate because of fires, so we invited them back, but they are staying closer to home for now) all brightened the month with conversation and conviviality.

Because of all the fun, I had little time for reading and writing, but I did finish a few books surprisingly.  The best of them was Rumer Godden's Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, which was my book club pick. It was so, so, so good. I didn't want it to end, and if I wasn't playing catch up right now, I'd pick up another Rumer Godden book and read it all the way through. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy covers some of the same territory as the beloved In this House of Brede, but with a very different twist. Elizabeth Fanshawe, aka Lise, aka Sr. Marie Lise, enters the convent after having been an orphan, a prostitute, a brothel madame and a jailbird. The story is told backwards and forwards, so details are revealed slowly, just as they are when you get to know any close friend. And that's how you feel at the end of the book, as if Sister is your friend. You feel her pain and her love.  I admit, I found it hard to understand how she could love her antagonist Vivi as much as she did, but that is a part the reader accepts as the story goes on. Love is inexplicable in so many ways, especially parental love, which forgives everything, much the way that Sr. Marie Lise did for Vivi.

Rumer Godden's writing is so clear and free from showiness and sentimentality. Her writing for children might be a little too sweet, but her novels always surprise me with how much I enjoy them.I handed this one to my dad, and he loved it, too - proof that it is not too feminine. And it was an overwhelming success at book club. 

We almost picked another Rumer Godden book for November, but instead we read The Great Divorce, another C. S. Lewis book.  I misled one of my book club friends by suggesting Evelyn Waugh's Helena which has been on my shelf for ages, but I started it and kept envisioning British people in togas. Called her back, and said let's stick with Lewis, even though this is our fourth Lewis for book club in three years.  He doesn't disappoint, either; even though his allegories aren't books that I push into other people's hands and say, "here, read this," I always enjoy them and feel the prick of conscience when he reveals the sins of the ghosts at the anteroom of Heaven.  I wish I had finished it before I talked about purgatory in CRE on All Souls Day (using my usual explanation of it being a place where we get washed and dressed up for the big party in Heaven. Our priest described it as a long plane ride to paradise.) And here Lewis has it as a grey, dreary place where souls get on a bus to be offered the opportunity to reject their sins and join the souls in Heaven where reality is more real. This grey place becomes Hell when sinners reject the offer of grace. I meant to write up a schema before book club about what the sins the ghosts represented- the ones I remember are intellectual sin, the sin of making an idol out of  a child, the sin of pride, of desiring fame, of vanity, of materialism. Only the sinner with the lizard (lust?) is able to reject his sin and leave purgatory/hell behind. Lewis suggests that purgatory becomes hell when sinners fail to let go of their sins even when confronted with the beauty of Heaven and welcomed by a guide who tries to help them see the errors in their attitudes. The narrator, a Dante figure, watches these sinners reject offers of salvation over and over before he wakes up and is compelled to share his vision. The memorable line about "Those who say to God "Thy will be done' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done'" reminds us of the danger of loving ourselves and our pleasures and pursuits more than God and neighbor. Humbling.

I also read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood for the first time. The professor who taught the nature writing class before me assigned this to her students. I have never really been a science fiction fan or an Atwood reader, and am glad I didn't follow the syllabus of this fellow professor and assign in. This dystopian future novel follows the movements and meanderings of the last human being left living, as far as he knows, after a disaster caused by an infection in a future in which bioengineering is creating new species and eliminating aging. Oryx and Crake are the two people who mean the most to the main character, who is sort of a simpering, unlikable person. An unlikable narrator is always a big hurdle for me in a book. Atwood's future where scientists live in compounds and invent crossed species and anti-aging pills and other ways to manipulate pleasure and the avoidance of pain is another sort of warning different from Lewis's and somewhat compelling - particularly the addictions to drugs and pornography that the people in this society resort to. Overall the story seemed underdeveloped - I'd probably have to read the rest of the books in the MaddAdam series to really understand, but I just don't care about the narrator, whose name I can't even remember right now, and  it didn't really seem related to "Nature Writing" enough - even though it is a future divorced from nature and reality - to spend time with.

I also picked up Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I grabbed the Atwood book because I've never read it. It was more entertaining science fiction than Oryx and Crake, but I set it down and forgot to read it again until I got the email from the library about it being due. I can understand why it is a cult favorite, but skimming it was good enough for me to say, ok, I don't need to spend any more time with this.

Meanwhile, I'm still diving back into Walden as I read over papers. I'm working my way through Lawrence Buell's critical work The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture, but I'm afraid I didn't succeed in helping many students understand Thoreau's project. They write that he goes to woods to find himself over and over. I'm not sure they see the value of trying to discover principles of living and living in accordance with them -- Thoreau isn't asking "Who am I" but "How do I live." I went back over that, but the idea of "finding myself" is strongly rooted. My two favorite student essays so far have been one response paper about the costs of a college education vs. the free education Thoreau receives in the woods and another about the way a student from a rural area feels stressed at her urban school, but finds peace in the woods - a well-written reflection.  I find myself most convicted by his defense of living simply, free to have time for reading, observing, and visiting, probably because like most parents, I find myself stretched in so many directions. The New Republic and the New Yorker published a couple of entertaining essays from 2015 defending and defaming Thoreau: found here and here.

Now I need to find something new to read. 

Skimming and diving

Since the class I'm teaching is something of a survey course, I have told my students that they can skim some essays, but then dive into others. Billy Collins uses a similar metaphor in his poem, "Introduction to Poetry" (I  think I have shared this before):

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46712/introduction-to-poetry

Most of my students aren't beating anything with hoses. The second quad started a few weeks ago, and my class size tripled from 14 to 44.  I thought with more students in the class, I might hear more opinions, more connections, but instead of more conversation in a large class, we have decidedly less. Fourteen is preferable not just for making it easier for me to learn names and grade papers, but also for making it easier for students to talk out in class. But despite their silence in class (We read an essay by Meriweather Lewis, so I asked about the purpose of Lewis and Clark's journey ... crickets....), I think they are thinking about some of the readings, at least based on their journal posts. I've had several really good submissions. I think what I need to do is call on these students by name. It's intimidating to speak up in front of a group.

The content of this class is not everyone's favorite genre. I recognize that some of these essays and poems are going to be boring for a good number of people, especially since none of them are literature majors, so whether they learn to love Wordsworth or Wendell Berry is not really a goal of the course, although that would be a nice outcome. I just hope I am helping them appreciate literature, which perhaps is harder than teaching about Wordsworth. Most of the students signed up for this course because it is a general education course that fits their schedule.

What can I do to make these readings more interesting to students who don't really like to read?  Sing and dance?  I've started to present videos of the bobolink singing (the chorister in Emily Dickinson's "Some keep the Sabbath"), images of Walden Pond now and then (and a story about how it is being polluted by swimmers peeing in it), and photos of my parents' farm in the fall, of our own trip to the desert, etc. I'm hoping that the visual imagery will capture their imagination, help them connect to what they read. Maybe by the end of the term, the students will not only recognize the names of some authors and be able to identify some of the different trends or tropes in nature writing, but also find a handful of authors they really like.

I probably am assigning too much to read, but it is a survey course. Since I recognize they won't read all of the essays, I give them permission to skim and dive - to pick a couple essays to browse and one or two to spend more time with - skim some, dive into some.

This term I am trying to be a little more systematic in the way I present information: I start class with reminders and announcements about assignments and upcoming events (Exciting news here: One of the design professors is redesigning Pope Francis's Laudato Si to make it more appealing and visually meaningful.  See a prototype here: https://issuu.com/seabrightstudio/docs/now-more-than-ever_prototype-draft07218 )

I've also started having them write down the answer to a question relating to their lives - for instance, last week I asked if anyone knew what ballot measures are coming up that relate to the environment. (I tried to use polleverywhere - an online survey program - with mixed results.)  The class before I asked them to write a short description of their favorite place and then share.  The day we discussed Walden, I had them add up all the costs of owning a car (like the cost chart Thoreau creates for building his house), and figure up how many hours they had to work a year to pay for it if they made $20/hour. (The average cost was about $4000 a year, by the way, 200 hours of work.) But then I lecture for an hour, and I see the phones being checked surreptitiously under the desk. I figure they are young adults, so I'm not confiscating phones, but perhaps I need a stricter policy on that because it seems to be a contagious activity. In the smaller class, this didn't happen quite so much.

At any rate, I enjoy what I'm reading. I get bogged down in finding interesting side notes sometimes, prepping for class, so it takes too much time, but I do recommend rereading Walden and skimming and diving through the Norton Anthology of Nature Writing. Which reminds me that now it is time to go outside.

Indiana farm in early November

Joshua tree late October