Death and Truth

This is a wonderful book written from the perspective of 'death.'  It's supposedly for young adults, but I'm wondering about this classification because the content is so 'adult.' I bought it because a fellow blogger recommended it (www.thehollydays.blogspot.com). It got me thinking about the books I'd stolen. I can't remember the title of the first one because, years after the theft, I returned it to the library. The guilt was eating me up, mostly because I equate reading with being morally superior.

The second book I stole was "The Once And Future King." I borrowed it from a friend and I never bothered returning it. I feel really guilty about this one, because the friend is now dead (she died of breast cancer - this is another whole post - 14 women that I grew up with, within a one mile radius, have or had breast cancer - and that's just the ones I know about - 'downwind theories' anybody?).

The third (and I hope the last) book I stole was this one:

When I performed with Utah Opera's outreach program to the schools, we travelled to Hildale/Colorado City - home of the polygmists. This was a couple of years before they moved to their compound in Texas. We did a very cute operatic version of "Little Red Riding Hood." While I was in the teacher's lounge, I spotted this yearbook. After seeing so many children with braids and eyes on the sides of their heads, I knew I had to have this book. Here is the page with Allen Steed, who twenty years after this picture was taken, was married to his under-aged cousin in a ceremony performed by Warren Jeffs. Both were prosecuted, but I believe Allen is innocent, considering the inbreeding and his years of conditioning in the sect

(and besides, look at his face. He is in the middle, bottom row with glasses).

Allen at trial.
This breaks my heart,
but the statutory rape
of his cousin
is also wrenching.








Another book like "The Book Thief," written from an interesting perspective is "Living with the Truth." This is a book written by fellow blogger, Jim Murdoch (www.jim-murdoch.blogspot.com). Instead of death, his character gets to spend an infuriating two days with the personification of truth. You can buy this book here.

I Remember Sleeping In This Crib

I don't have an extraordinary memory - it's just that I slept in this crib until I was SIX! Our family was poor in the 40's and 50's and my two sisters and I shared a bedroom that was not much bigger than my entryway. My sisters slept in bunk beds a few feet away from me. They could reach out and touch me through the bars, and THEY DID. OFTEN.  Once, while I was taking a nap, my sisters rigged up a very elaborate Rube Goldberg kind of mechanism with string, cans and books - all perched on the edge of the chest of drawers. The string was tied to the doorknob and at the end of the contraption, a pair of dirty underpants dangled from a hanger inches away from my face. I must have been pretty young because I was still taking naps - oh maybe not, my mother kept me taking naps for a L...O...N...G...time because I was such a handful. She used to tie my arms and legs to the slats of the crib with nylon stockings (no wonder I have insomnia to this day)! When my sisters closed the door from outside the room, the books fell with a loud 'THUD,' the cans clattered and I woke up with dirty underpants on my face. Ah, memories - good times...

...I am alone with the beating of my heart...LuiChi

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice. You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte - Everything Is Waiting For You

photograph, Jerry Cook, Life Magazine 1955

Photos of Mom and me with our children

My Recital At Temple Square, Sept.14, 1990, To The Children, by Rachmaninoff, Jeffrey Price, piano

Coulrophobia*

I don't remember why I chose to draw a clown.
Probably because I don't know how to draw mouths
and make-up covers up a lot
for clowns and others.
 I have no fear of clowns,
only the fear of being left at home
while everyone else goes to the circus.

pastel by Kathryn Schoenhals (Feigal), 1964,

clown copied from 'Painting Faces' art book

*Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns

Beautiful Autumn Weekend

I love my new digital camera. It was the cheapest model the store had - somehow I don't think I deserve a really great camera because I know NOTHING about photography. I have been using a disposable camera ever since I lost my 35mm on a bush-whacking hike. This is just an unusual ice cube that I couldn't resist shooting. It begins my beautiful weekend. There is such beauty all around.

What could be more beautiful than hearing the voices of school children singing, laughing and whooping with glee as you ride the lift to the top of Robert Redford's Sundance Resort?

Stewart Falls - not much water left

The back of Mt. Timpanogas

(why do they call it 'the back?' - it's prettier than the front?)

...the last droop of fall -

My son's family came to the cabin last weekend so I set out crayons, coloring books and a flannel book story, thinking about how cute and cozy it would be for the grandchildren to get crafty here.                                                                          

This weekend, I notice Kathryn and Sandra produced some masterpieces, but I can't find the crayons or the flannel book stories ANYWHERE. I look all over - they're nowhere to be found. I think, "Oh well, I'll just replace them."




When I'm getting ready to leave, I decide to put some mouse traps in the crawl space between the two bedrooms upstairs. Guess what I find?

Left to their own devices, kids do the craziest things! (can't you just picture them all hunched over in there, coloring by flashlight?)
The grandkids call this area the secret passageway because it has small, mysterious doors opening into both bedrooms (shoulda looked here first).

Oh, The Things I Save

This is my 1958 Schwinn Spitfire.  I rode it around the neighborhood when I was 10. Now I like to ride it on a 20-mile stretch of the Jordan River Parkway trail. My youngest son is a prosecutor in West Jordan and he tells me I shouldn't do this alone anymore. There is a lot of crime in this area and a few bodies have been found along the river. I wish he hadn't told me this. Ignorance was bliss.

Risk

My teacher says,
You've got to stink first.

I tell her, I don't have time to stink -
at 64 years old
I go directly to perfection
or I go nowhere.

Perfection is nowhere,
she says, So stink.
Stink like a beginner,
stink like decaying flesh,
old blood,
cold sweat,
she says,
I know a woman who's eighty-six,
last year she learned to dive.


Lisa Colt

My Fun Friend

(two or three people who occasionally read my blog

 will know who this is)

same fun friend

(note the bills in her g string)