Flight From Death

I watched this documentary on Hulu this weekend.  It's thought provoking and disturbing.  Based on the research of social psychologist Ernest Becker and his theory on death anxiety it explores the behavior of individuals and cultures.  I think it's particularly relevant to what is happening in the world today. 

It's main point is that as intelligent life forms we are acutely aware that we will die, and because we have this great life instinct and fear of the unknown, in this case death, we buy into a social construct that protects us psychologically from death.  In some cases that means we believe in an afterlife and an indestructible soul, in others it means we pledge ourselves to an idea or a symbol of what we believe we are...such as a nation.  When we are confronted with "others" who do not believe in the same things we do we feel threatened.  First we try to explain away their belief as crazy or illegitimate.  If we feel too threatened we fight back.  For some they sacrifice their own life so that their social construct i.e., nation or religion will survive and that makes it worth their life. 

This is what makes long lasting peace so hard for human beings.  Instinctively we feel threatened by people who are not like us.  Yet we all feel love, pain, happiness.  That's what makes us alike, and yet when we make war on others we discount the people who die as mere animals who didn't deserve to live because they didn't believe as we do.  You see this from all sides nowadays. 

Contrary to what you'd think, the researchers are not advocating that you become an atheist who believes this life is all their is.  A faith system actually makes you healthier psychologically, but with that you have to couple a realistic attitude that we will all die.  If we remind ourselves we will die and make peace with it, regardless of if you believe there is life after death, then you can release yourself from the anxiety of living a full life.  You can be more empathetic to those around you.  You can see the common life experiences that happen to all of us.  And maybe it doesn't matter as much if someone else believes exactly the way you do anymore.  You take your life and you live it. 

I read a book recently that really put things in perspective for me.  It stated that regardless of what you believe, the best we can do in this life is to love to our full potential.  If I remind myself everyday that all that matters is how well I love those around me, then little things that used to stress me out like if the dishes are all clean, or if my daughter's room is picked up, or how much money my husband brings home...those things no longer matter.  No one is going to remember you because you were a great housekeeper or you were able to have sports cars sitting in the garage.  The only thing that matters is love.  And I know that sounds corny and quasi-hippie, but it really is the truth.

Crucial Information or Everything You Didn't Need to Know About Me

I must eat my potato chips from smallest to largest.  It drives me crazy if I don't.  That's why it saves us all a lot of trouble if I just buy Pringles.  Or even better not to even have them in the house, since my daughter will ask for them morning, noon, and night and even if I say no she will wait until I'm distracted enough doing something else and then pull a chair up to the counter and pillage the chips.

I have several irrational fears including: Grasshoppers, Praying Mantis, Large snakes and this fictional baddy from Alice in Wonderland...The Jabberwocky.  I don't doubt the rumor that Mr. Carroll was high when he penned much of that book.  I'm not kidding when I say when I find myself alone I look for Jabberwocky's around every corner.  Look at him.  He disgusts me.  Doesn't he just look like he has some sort of mucus dripping off of him?  Gross.

At various points in my life I've been attracted to several unique men.  This man is one of them.  Gene Wilder.  It's the eyes, the wild flying hair, the way he says, "...we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams."

Here is another one.  No matter that I'd physically dwarf his pint sizedness, he's just...mysterious.  Could you be...the most beautiful girl in the world?  Could you be?  Prince, you had me at beautiful!  His only downfall...his nose.  Keep reading.

My mom may have loved boy faced Paul McCartney, but his looks are much too typical for my tastes.  Ringo Starr was my man.  Throughout middle school I had a re-occurring dream that I gave birth to our love child in a cabin in the woods.  Oh Ringo, you were born too soon. 

Any sort of colored candy must be eaten in proportion to their numbers.  Let me explain.  If I grab a handful of M&M's and there are 3 greens, 5 browns, 2 oranges, and 3 reds, I must eat two browns first.  Then one green, one red, followed by one brown again.  This makes the numbers all even.  Now I can eat them in a color coordinated pattern that dwindles their numbers evenly.  I never thought I was OCD until I just explained that.  The only exception to the rule...jellybeans.  I pick out the reds.  Why do they even make other colored jelly beans? 

My toes are odd.  I love my feet.  They have high arches and look elegant to me...until your eye roves down to the toes at which point the genetic lottery decided to pick 10 toes all exactly the same stubby length.  They're like lil' smokies hanging off the bottom of my foot.  The big toe is of course wider and slightly longer, but still basically the same length as the four freaks of nature next to it.  Flintstone feet. 

Foods that disgust me...tapioca pudding (texture), most fish except spicy sushi, Gardetto's (say goodbye to romance devil breath), celery (strings that remind me of veins), peas, grapefruit, creamed tuna on toast (my mom's last ditch option for dinner *shudder*). 

They say you are attracted to men who may have physical traits that remind you of your family.  Weird.  Creepy.  Maybe.  But I have a penchant for long, distinct noses.  Maybe I have some weird genetic drive to create offspring with a record length proboscis.  Who knows.  I can't explain it.  If a man has a nose that has no distinction then I am not interested.  This man in particular has what I consider to be a pretty perfect nose.  His name is Richard Armitage.  He is a British actor.  Oh Richard, you were born on the wrong side of the pond. 

Margaret

My Grandma Margaret has been on my mind lately.  She passed away a couple of years ago.  This is one of my favorites and really one of the few pictures I've seen of her when she was young.  It was taken in 1943.  I'm not sure if her and my Grandpa Stewart were married yet.  I know they married before WWII was over so they may have been. 

I keep thinking of things I wish I could ask her, about her life and about how she felt about certain things.  As a child I was cautious around her as well as loved and admired her.  She could be stern, but equally generous and loving.  She had the cutest giggle in the world and it was no secret about how much she loved and missed her husband who left her a widow much too early. 

She met her future husband in California where her family had moved for work several years earlier.  She was a riveter during WWII.  The man she fell in love with was a young Texan who was not of her LDS faith.  They eloped to Las Vegas to be married because of the disapproval of her parents and maybe their relatively young age.  I wish I could ask her about that time.  It sounds awfully daring and romantic, but who knows what the realities were for her. 

When you are a child or a teen you don't think to ask your grandparents about their young lives.  About the challenges they faced as first time mothers, as young wives.  You just take for granted that they are your grandparents, solid and there like concrete.  It never occurs to you that they were once young.  That they may have faced similar situations growing up.  That they will always be in your life.  Maybe it's this gray weather today, but this is what I'm thinking about today.  Longing for the physicality of someone who is no longer here in that way. 

Bawling with Random Strangers

The fact that I'm having another baby five years after my first, is in a way a mixed blessing.  I keep trying to remember my last trimester with Ava and the following blur of months spent lactating, hardly sleeping, and getting used to zero muscle tone.  I remember it was hard, but there are things I've forgotten.  And that's what is a mixed blessing, because it's been a few years and those days seem very distant so in a way I am looking forward to them.  That's how I know I'm crazy.  If I had just come out of those years and my baby was, well, still a baby I'm pretty sure I'd be scared witless because I'd have a much clearer memory. 

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and as I sat observing all the other expectant mothers in various stages of pregnancy I couldn't help but question the news that the birthrate is the lowest it's been since the last slump, which was 1981.  The year I was born, and there were plenty of us for me to question if that really was a low birthrate year as well.  Maybe it just doesn't apply to Utah.  Maybe if I lived in Washington I'd stick out like a sore thumb, but around here I blend right in...er...so to speak.  *Side Note* One time I told my husband that a friend of a friend I had met at one of his flag football games the week before acted as if she didn't know me when I checked her out at Lowe's.  I didn't know her well and I wasn't too hurt, I just found it odd.  Later he told me he had mentioned it to our mutual friend and Brig's exact words were, "Well, you know, Denise is pretty unique looking.  It's not like you forget someone that looks like Denise."  I remember wondering vaguely if "unique looking" was meant as a positive or negative thing.

Anyway, while I sat there reading my self-help book a woman came in dressed in a sweat suit.  Her hair was in a disheveled ponytail and she sat down at the check-in desk and promptly burst into tears.  Of course I kept re-reading the same sentence over and over again.  In the end curiosity won out over courtesy so I kept my eyes down and did the rational thing...I eavesdropped. 

Front Desk Girl:  "What's the matter?  Can I help you?"

Bawling Stranger:  "Nothing's wrong.  I just....sob..."

Front Desk Girl:  "Well something's the matter.  Here's some tissues."

Bawling Stranger:  "I'm sorry...sniff, sniff...I...sob...just...had....a...baby."

I imagined the whole waiting room nodding their heads collectively.  Of course.   You just had a baby.  You're bawling your eyes out to a stranger.  And that's when I started to get apprehensive.  I by no means had full on postpartum depression, but I was definitely a bit of a basket case for a few weeks.  I remember crying to the nurse on Thanksgiving because everyone was at home with their families having turkey and pie and I was in the hospital exhausted and overcome with all sorts of emotions trying to get my baby to latch on and having absolutely no success. 

At one point I sobbed, "It's just my grandma's banana cream pie is the best (cue a cascade of tears) and there isn't any pie here at all!"  I'm pretty sure the same nurse a while later upon asking her if she had any children replied, "No, not yet.  It's pretty good birth control working here."  I remember feeling slightly insulted but feeling too sad to really care.

And here I am with a baby due around Christmas.  I wonder what I'll be bawling to the nurse about this time.  My grandma's Christmas ham or my mom's homemade sweets.  Probably both.

All Liquored Up at Mini's

Hello my lovelies.  These little beauties are from a cupcake shop in Sugar House that unfortunately for my hips is just a two-minute drive from my house.  The one on the left is called Breakfast at Tiffany's.  The one on the right is called Pretty in Pink.  I've tasted both and they are delicious.  The frosting is really what makes them.  Butter cream frosting.  With a name so descriptive you can't pretend ignorance at what exactly that frosting is made up of.  Sigh.  Every time we drive past this place Ava will say, "It's been a while since we've had cupcakes, huh Mom?"  And I'll say, "Yeah."  Knowing full well we had some just a week ago.  But I digress. 

The thing about Mini's Cupcakes is if you are a Mormon like me it's probably smart to ask what is in the cupcakes.  I made that mistake just yesterday.  I had a few minutes to kill before picking up Ava so I found my car making a right hand turn into the parking lot.  I entered and was surprised to see an employee there I had never seen.  How do I put this gently?  He was kind of creepy looking.  He had a penchant for wearing berets and that never sets well with me.  Never trust a man in a beret.  It's like someone casually wearing a sombrero.  Dee, dee, dum.  It's totally normal to wear head wear from other countries.  Whatever.  But I tried not to let my eyes drift upward scornfully to his beret while I ordered a Pretty in Pink for Ava and hmmm, let's see, something new...a Lemon Drop for me. 

I just love lemon flavored things.  So refreshing.  If you ever need to say Let's be friends, I love you, I'm sorry, Make out with me then by all means buy me a tasty lemon bar.  So good.  Did I mention I'm having a few cravings?  So obviously I let that yummy looking Lemon Drop cupcake mellow in the seat next to me until I could make it home and devour it ever so slowly, savoring each bite..not!  You know I inhaled that mini cupcake with more ease than the man on the flying trapeze.  Driving while chowing down a frosting laden cupcake...it's a gift.  Man that cupcake was so moist!  So drenched in lemony lemon.  My taste buds did back flips in my mouth the whole way home. 

I thought to myself...that cupcake was too good to keep to myself.  I need to tell the world about this!  So today I decided to dedicate a post to it.  I got online and looked up Mini's Cupcakes and clicked on Menu because I needed to tell you what made me want to shout Hallelujah! to the heavens.  Oh.  Huh.  Would you lookie there?  ...soaked in Citron Vodka....  Well I guess there's a first time for everything!

First Day of School

Ava started preschool last week.  I expected to bawl.  But I didn't.  She was just so sure of herself.  All I could really feel was proud...and relieved she is not like me.  I would have been wrapped around my mother's leg and screaming my head off if she had tried to make me go to preschool.  Instead she kissed me and her daddy goodbye and didn't look back once.  I stood in the hallway for a few seconds seeing if she'd look around for me, but nope, she was already playing and saying hello to other kids in the class.  All I could think is, she doesn't need me so much.  And even though there is some sadness mixed up in that, I'm happy. 

After all, don't you shoot for that when you're raising a child?  Giving them the skills to one day be able to do it themselves.  She asked me the other day if she could stay with me forever.  I told her that one day she'd probably get married and leave me to be with her husband.  Her eyes welled up with tears and she said emphatically, "Never!"  I chuckled and gave her a hug, knowing that one day all she'll dream about is getting out of the house and leaving me behind. 

While being separated I learned that the old cliche is true.  You can't go home.  It's not the same and it never will be.  I appreciate the town I grew up in.  Although it wasn't like I remembered it.  My memories of childhood there were shinier, bolder than what the place is now.  The intense emotions and experiences of childhood and adolescence probably made it seem so.  It was a safe place for me for a while.  When I needed it to be.  And really, what more can you ask of a place?