Relative Theories

You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of 

subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.

Hal Borland

Beauty Queen and Princesses

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

Richard Bach

Gina's Lilies

Disturbing the Peace

The turtle lays thousands of eggs without anyone knowing,

but when the hen lays an egg, the whole country is informed.

There's no road map on how to raise a family: it's always 

an enormous negotiation.

Meryl Streep

Mountain Dew 

Seems we fought a lot as kids.  Mom hated the teasing and bickering so she sent us to our rooms to cool off.  When I heard my sisters upstairs playing within a very short period of time, although I was quite happily reading a book, I thought it was unfair that I had not also been excused from my room. Years later, my sister was distressed when I moved to Spokane,  a two hour drive away, and wrote me the best letters ever.  I'd left behind three siblings with some growing years ahead, a six-month old baby sister on whom we all doted, and a happy home in exchange for the unknown future; not that it was an easy thing to do.  

The family saga continued through her letters, a diaphanous link between the regular Friday night through Sunday afternoon visits I made every three weeks.  Moving to Wyoming fourteen months later was worse.  It was the end of the world as we knew it.  Who would have guessed we would become a team, and more or less inseparable?  

Apparently there had been some major bonding over paper-doll making, playing house, pretending to be student and teacher, and literally combing the hair out of our dolls' heads.  Together we had been walking the fence line and making repairs the day Janis called across the field to find us, bringing the anticipated news of the arrival of the baby, our newborn sister.  Although Dad would fail to see the necessity of quitting before the job was done, even in the case of such a momentous event, we left our post to celebrate, and  found it to be pointless.    

We rode the three-wheeler across the fields ahead of the Bale Stacker just as fast as we could go.  As one, we rhythmically kicked the hay bales over in a smooth motion so the strings were encircling them parallel to the ground, ready to be scooped up to the stack. Together we let one fall back over when we spotted a snake under it, and took the correction from the unhappy Stacker driver, who had to dismount and do it himself.  We chased cows, rode bikes, walked to Grandma's house, sewed, shopped, slept under the stars, skated, and carefully climbed the long, rustic ladders to the cupola.  We entertained often, and learned to help put on a dinner for dozens like a well-oiled machine. 

People who knew us as kids seem amused and surprised at how well we get along as adults.  While it may seem odd to them, I can only marvel that they would consider it strange.  The childish squabbles are for me a vague memory, probably a normal part of some kind of hierarchy, a sort of pecking order, more constant than vicious.  Well, except for that one time when Mom was gone we got a little carried away.  While learning how hard we could push we discovered which "buttons" got the biggest reactions, the honest tears.  I recall plenty of disagreements over whose turn to clear the table, and who had to wash the dishes.  However, it was far worse to be stuck in the kitchen working alone while everyone else went off to enjoy the evening, so we occasionally managed to bury the hatchet long enough to be in the same room, at least temporarily.  

You see, Dad declared he didn't need or want a dishwasher in the house, since he had three living girls to do the job.  The deal was that we could get a dishwasher if, and only if, we got a cow to milk.  Adamant about not raising spoiled rotten kids, and since we didn't relish the thought of making a trip to the barn to milk the family cow twice a day, the lack of an automatic dishwasher in our kitchen continued for years after I left home.  A dishwasher finally appeared in Mom's kitchen quite awhile after its installation in most houses, but before the baby of the family grew up and left home.  Perhaps it was that after the company left, there was no one with whom to share the cleanup chores.  Or maybe baby sister had finally gotten him wrapped around her little finger,  something that seemed far beyond my ability to accomplish.

Long, sloshing, tiresome hours seemed to slowly pass while the warm sudsy water cooled and turned into a thin, sickly gray, soupy liquid.  Mom had asked for special drawers to be built under the sink cabinet.  They had a wooden platform, a board that we could slide out to the front of the open drawer upon which we stood to better reach the sink basin and faucet.  We towered over the sink as we grew, then stood on the floor, leaning over the basin, now armpit high.  She made aprons for each of us, plastic ones in three sizes: Small, Medium and Large.  Mine was the largest, with yellow flowers on a white background and yellow trim.  We played in the soap suds, we took our time, we dallied, we sighed, and I suppose there were some shared, knowing grins in the living room and perhaps some long-suffering exasperation before we finally drained the dishwater and hung up our aprons.  

For some reason, I decided one day that I was not going to cooperate.  I sat on the bottom basement step with my plastic apron tied behind me and refused to do the dishes.  My protest had the unsurprising effect of Dad hauling me bodily up the stairs, a furious, howling, red-faced, red-headed nine year old.  Adding insult to injury, Mom took a picture of us when we reached the top.  Surprised that my display of rebellion earned laughter rather than a spanking, I struggled against Dad's relentless  grip on my arms imprisoning me to his will.   The reason for this display of defiance as my my wide-eyed younger sister looked on with an apprehensive gaze?  How dare I defy my parents!  Willfulness, mainly, I think.  I simply realized I did not want to do the dishes and probably nothing else that anyone wanted me to do. Could have had something to do with hearing that being red-headed was associated with a fiery temperament. 

I remember getting a red rash on my forearms from doing the dishes.  My arms were sore and raw, but it was a mistake to think that would get me out of the job, as I suggested.  Mom changed the brand of soap, and unfortunately that solved the problem.  Also, breaking glasses didn't work, nor did bleeding in the water and nearly needing stitches.  To avoid the hazardous work conditions, Mom bought plastic Tupperware glasses.  And I began to be pained at the thought of how hard this job was for my little sister when it was her turn, aware as I was that it took her so long to do the dishes.  And she was so little.  I was not, however, pained enough to do it for her and too stubborn to admit it bothered me.

Some of the lessons I learned from this are:

1.  Dad was very strong and I wasn't going to win.

2.  I was making a huge big deal out of something that was not very important, thereby looking ridiculous.

3.  Kids outgrow spanking age.  There are other ways of getting your point across.

4.  Mom's don't give up easily. (If at first you don't succeed, try something else.)

 How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? 

Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Abraham Lincoln

Don't worry when you are not recognized, 

but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Abraham Lincoln

“Young people don't always do what they're told, but if they can pull it off and do something wonderful, sometimes they escape punishment. ” 

― Rick Riordan

A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy. 

Jean Baudrillard 

Criticism may not be agreeable, 

but it is necessary. 

It fulfills the same function as pain 

in the human body. 

It calls attention to an 

unhealthy state of things.

Winston Churchill

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

James A. Baldwin

Look deep into nature, and then you will 

understand everything better.

Albert Einstein

                                             
                    “Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.”   ― Robert A. Heinlein         
                                                                                    

Green is the prime color of the world, 

and that from which its loveliness arises.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk.  If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator.  Forgiving seems almost unnatural.  Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do.  But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.  

                                                                                                 ~Lewis B. Smedes

Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.

Mary Schmich

 A gossip is one who talks to you about others; 
a bore is one who talks to you about himself; 
and a brilliant conversationalist 
is one who talks to you about yourself.

- Lisa Kirk

Paradise Valley