Hob-nobbing with Bill Gates

After a 6-hour car ride, we pulled up to the front of the hotel, ready for the staff to open our doors and show us to our rooms. But instead the place was swarming with secret service agents. Literally swarming. There were probably 13 cars behind us along the curb, and then two-by-two all these FBI-looking people wearing ID badges made their way to the entrance, some from cars, and others looking like they just popped out of the bushes.

You'll be shocked to know that all that security wasn't there for us. It turns out that the president of Colombia was scheduled to arrive there right when we pulled up. My brother-in-law went inside to check us in and he bumped into Bill Gates. Yikes! This place is even swankier than I thought. Side note: We're not big fans of Bill Gates. In fact, for years my husband wouldn't even allow any microsoft products into our house. But the fact that he was there at all says something about the accommodations. Location, location, location.

The weather was a perfect 72 degrees (roughly) every day, complete with a gentle breeze. The sky was a deep blue with perfectly fluffy white clouds. The mountains were beautiful, the wildflowers were glorious. If it weren't for the simple fact that Bill Gates was there, I might have thought we'd all died and gone to heaven. Instead we just went to Sun Valley, Idaho.

None of us were actually interested in spending any time with Bill Gates or the president of Colombia. Because there was someone way more important we were there to see:

Cousins! (And can you imagine more adorable ones?) And of course they come with a complete set of aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

My amazing sister-in-law pre-cooked and brought along dinners for every single night, so all we had to do was pop it in the oven and make a salad. It was delicious. She is brilliant. So organized. So generous. All we had to do was tag along and enjoy.

We rode bikes (I nearly died), played tennis (I nearly died), and went for long walks through the wildflowers (I nearly died). So THIS is how they burn off all that delicious food, huh? The kids also went fishing and shooting (cringe), rode paddle boats, swam in the pool, and went diving for golfballs in a small-but-very-cold pond (brrr!). We saw an amazing ice show featuring Brian Boitano, complete with fireworks at the end. But the best part of all was just being together. Conversations that went on long past dinner was over, dice games that everyone of every age could play together, enormous feelings of love and support.

My sister-in-law summed it up so perfectly: What greater joy could there be for a set of grandparents than to spend time with sons (and daughters-in-law) who love each other, and watch all those cousins adore being together? It was, in a word, fabulous.

I wouldn't trade places (or hotel rooms) with Bill Gates for anything in the whole wide world.

That's it. I'm outta here.

But not for good. I'll just be away for the rest of the week. Nothing personal. It's all about family and fun and, well, getting away. But next week I'll be giving away, so stop back then....

I Collect Bodies in My Basement

Don't worry, I'm not going all Jeffrey Dahmer on you. Just read on.

During two of the very few non-rainy hours in June, I actually took my kids to the pool. It felt like honest-to-goodness summer, and I loved it. So did they. Of course, I did not don a bathing suit, nor venture into the water. It turns out I prefer private mortification to public humiliation. And lately my body has felt more like a prison than a temple. (Note: This is not good.)

Then (when my nose wasn't buried in my book, and I pretended to be watching my kids) I started looking with my artist's eyes. And I remembered one of the things I love about the beach (okay, and in Utah, public pools.) Bodies. Wonderful, fleshy, Rubens-esque bodies of every shape, size and color. (Okay, not color, because it's Utah. V e r y l i m i t e d c o l o r.)

Usually I pack along my sketchbook, and I start collecting bodies. One of my favorite art teachers, Carl Purcell, taught us that in order to incorporate people in his paintings, he is constantly collecting figures in his sketchbooks. Body shapes in motion. Gestures. Figures of all ages and sizes.

And so I heft my sketchbook onto my lap and I draw — quickly, rhythmically, sometimes without even looking at my paper. And I start to capture all this beauty, these bodies. People walking, people standing up in the pool, hips cocked to one side, talking to fellow parents. People stooping over big, unwieldy beach bags. Children, sliding and splashing. Toddlers, wrapped in bright-colored towels, trying not to shiver. I try to capture it all. And I find that — to an artist — the imperfect ones are infinitely more interesting. Honestly, the rolls and folds create beautiful forms. I find that a pregnant woman's belly looks so much like a toddler's, and contemplate the symbolic mirroring. I study proportions, and find that none is wrong. They are all just fascinating to me.




















I also find myself in awe of the heroic individuals who courageously parade their rotund corpulence with little inhibition. They are merely in suits enjoying the water and the sunshine right along with everyone else. As they should.

I wish I could develop more of an artist's eye as I regard my own imperfect body. I wish I didn't bemoan the fact that it takes me the whole summer to turn from blue to white. I wish I could rejoice in my own ripples and curves rather than lamenting the loss of the perfect hardbody I had when I was 20. And I wonder if I spent just a little more time in my basement art studio, poring over the beautiful bodies in my sketchbooks, perhaps I could escape this notion of a prison once and for all and celebrate my body for the temple it is...not for how it's shaped, but for the divinity it houses.

___________________________________________________
P.S. For some great photos of Mr. Cool's t.v. commercial shoot, earlier this week, look here.

A Metaphor

I cried the morning after he gave it to me.

I saw
a hasty, last-minute purchase
with grass growing out of the center
not decorative texture-grass
but the kind of grass I try to keep out of the flower garden
as though it had been left untended for quite some time
I saw the subtle disregard as a metaphor
and I cried.

Unwisely, I compared
it to the one we gave his mother
a stunning planter of white hydrangeas
bedecked with ribbon and bordered with trailing vines
blossoms bigger than baseballs
dramatic, understated, yet sensational
and I felt...
less than.

But because it was from him
I loved it, took care of it
placed it right out in front
made sure it got plenty of refreshing water
and affectionate sunshine

It began to grow on me

Today I saw
a container overflowing with cascading blossoms
in my favorite colors, the tertiaries –
clusters of red-orange, blue-violet, yellow-green
thriving in the rain and the sunshine
casting playful shadows across the steps
and smiling at me from the porch, a metaphor
I couldn't help but cry again

I'm sorry, Honey
I was wrong
I didn't see

How beautiful it is!

Amazingly In Tune

But my servant...had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully... (Num. 14: 24)


Whenever I think of following the Spirit I think of our friend Jesse. We met Jesse at USC when we first moved to Los Angeles. He was a well-built, rough-and-tumble guy from East L.A., a native-Californian, with roots stretching clear back to when California was still part of Mexico. He had one arm that was just a stump — it had been caught in a meat grinder at work when he was a teenager. He was now at USC doing graduate work in educational psychology. I’ll always remember the day he helped us move to our new apartment in the ‘hood, carrying our sofa with one arm...and a stump.

Jesse had an uncanny ability to take instruction from the spirit; he lived very close to the Lord, despite his rough exterior. I can remember many times in our USC days when Jesse would just show up on somebody’s doorstep and announce, “Hello, Brother Griffin. The Lord told me to bring you a pot of soup,” or some such thing. I loved how bold he was about that. I might have been willing to take someone the soup, but perhaps not confident enough to say flat-out that the Lord told me to do it.

Then one day Jesse was sent in my direction. It was a wintry morning and we were out of town, but there was a message from Jesse on our answering machine: “Good morning, Charrette. This is Jesse. The Lord told me to call you and tell you He loves you.” Doesn’t sound like too big a deal, unless you recognize the timing and the circumstances — something too soon for anyone to know. Something we hadn’t announced yet. Jesse miraculously had called me on the very morning my mother passed away. Within hours of her passing. That could only have come from the Lord. And oh, how I needed that message from God right then!

I was in awe at how humbly and precisely Jesse was willing to take direction from the Spirit. And I was touched that the Lord cared enough about me individually that morning to find such a reliable messenger to tell me He loved me. Thank you, Jesse.

Bitter and Sweet, with a Lie and a Thief...

NPR has a great series called "Three Books ..." where they invite well-known writers to recommend “three great reads on a single theme”. I'm fairly certain NPR has no idea who I am. But that doesn’t stop me from opining here. So I present my second set of triplet recommendations, and heartily invite you to join me. It’s time, once again, for "3 Books".... Wait, maybe make that 4!


Let's just start out by getting one thing clear: I hate war. I loathe violence in any form, to the point of a visceral recoil. Oh, yeah, and I'm the only person I know who falls asleep in action movies. (I think it's my way of emotionally checking out when the action/violence becomes overwhelming.)

In the last few weeks I purchased three books to give as gifts, and shocked myself as I realized (after the fact) that all three books, spanning over seven different countries and cultures, are all centered around World War II. Yet they are all surprisingly non-violent. Somehow these three books manage to side-step most of the blood and gore and bring us powerful stories about humanity — how love prevails over the ravages of war on families, friendship, and forgotten freedoms. These truly are three of the best books I've read this year—not counting Miss Delacourt, which is of course in a category all its own). I can say that partly because war is not the main character here. People are. And I LOVE people!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer is a series of witty letters back and forth between London travel author Juliet, her publisher, and her new (serendipitous) friends in Guernsey. The writing style is so clever and dry, it reminded me of what Brillig and I might have written to each other in London in the 1940s. This book is a charmer! At first I was just intrigued by the snarky witticisms and the epistolary form, thinking it was another, updated, 84 Charing Cross Road...a paean to book lovers. I dabbled at it slowly here and there, and laughed at the brashness this woman wielded through words.

Then at some point I was drawn into their world so completely I could not put the book down. The characters came to life, inhabiting my subconscious. One night I actually had a dream that I went to Guernsey to hang out with them. I was a little sad when I woke up and realized it was just a dream. I love these people. I love their simple way of life. I love that they founded their whole book club in an effort to make a harmless lie become rock-solid truth. I love their silly quirks and antics, and their acceptance of the same in each other. I love the humanity that rises to the surface. I love the silly misadventures that helped them support each other through appalling wartime conditions. It makes everyone who survived the war with their humanity intact a genuine hero.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is an amazing piece of literature, perhaps wrongfully classified as young adult fiction. It is the first time I've encountered Death as a narrator, and he does so artfully:

First the colors.
Then the humans.
That's usually how I see things.
Or at least, how I try.

***HERE IS A SMALL FACT ***
You are going to die.

Death describes the weight and color of souls he has been asked to carry back across the sky to their maker, and bemoans the vast amount of work he has during WWII. The main character is a young girl, Liesl Meminger, sent to live with another family outside Munich. More than anything in the world she wants to learn to read, and her love for words becomes one of the driving forces in the book. (Ironically the book is laced with a smattering of harsh curse words, although most are in German, which tends to have a softening effect similar to the British accent in Four Weddings and a Funeral.)

I love seeing the war through the girl's eyes, the contrast of such innocence against the atrocities of war, and the irony of how most adults behaved in ways that are senseless and childish and cruel. The friendships are both innocent and powerful, crossing lines of race, religion, culture, and age. The strongest theme of the book was the power wielded by words, both for good and for evil. It does so primarily with the use of metafiction — in this case strange, primitively-illustrated, yet powerful books-within-books that use abstraction and storytelling to draw some poignant insights. This book was visionary, profound and unique. I would honestly have to label it Literature with a capital L and Art with a capital A.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, a Romeo and Juliet-esque love story about a Chinese boy and a Japanese girl growing up in Seattle during World War II, intrigued me to the point that I was up late at night googling Japanese internment camps. I found myself completely and personally immersed in the storyline from page one. There are reasons for this, beyond Mr. Ford's great storytelling. We have some dear friends whose parents lived through the grave injustices of internment. Furthermore, I was haunted as a child by the stories of such an internment camp located right here in Utah, called Topaz. I remember stories my dad told of my grandpa speaking out in various public forums against the internment camps. Dad said that after the war he and Grandpa would stop by the Japanese markets and people would slip extra gifts into his grocery bags. He was completely revered by the Japanese population that remained in Utah – his efforts on their behalf were legendary.

A week or so ago my book group had a phone conference with Jamie Ford. He was delightful and endearing and we could instantly see why the book is so widely loved – because he himself is so widely loveable. The book has a pull between the characters that is so strong it turns page after page and chapter after chapter by sheer magnetism. I loved the way Mr. Ford chose to use the innocence of children and friendship to shed light on the harshness of prejudice and hate. I loved the symbol of the rare jazz record, both broken and whole, he used to represent the relationships. I loved the characters, both fictional and real, he included. I loved the setting of Seattle, and the old Panama Hotel still standing there. I loved the sub-plot of the sympathetic gal at the post office. And the surprising goodness of the harsh-at-times school lunch lady. One more thing I should mention about this book: It is squeaky-clean. Clean enough to offer to both your children and your grandma. Pure. Innocent. Lovely. But with a compelling plot that will grip you to the very last page.


And, I can't resist adding the just-finished Sarah's Key, which shares the setting of World War II and a child as the central character, and adds France to the list of countries and cultures. I have to admit I did not love this book to the degree I loved the first three, but the image of the boy in the cupboard is both precious and searing; juxtaposing the issue of abortion with the holocaust made for an eye-opening metaphor; and it was a definite page-turner – I had a hard time putting it down, even when I knew what was going to happen.

Fathers: Shaping Life and Death

This post was originally published on Sunday, June 15, 2008. Father's Day. I wrote it when my blog was fairly new and my readership was small, but it is still one of my very favorites, so I'm putting it back up today. Brillig's comment from a year ago makes a perfect introduction: "I could say that it's beautifully written. But it's so much more than that. It stirs something deep in the soul, something intangible and yet completely real..."

* * *

Not surprisingly, my most salient memories of Fatherhood have to do with giving birth. Mine also have to do with death. One is poignantly heartbreaking. The other is filled with surprise and delight. Both are swimming rapturously in love and admiration.

* * *

My mom passed away from cancer when my oldest was still a baby. We shared so much throughout that pregnancy. We were both violently ill -- she with cancer and chemotherapy, and I with morning sickness that lasted the entire nine months. We talked every day, laughing and commiserating as we compared notes on who threw up more, who ached the most, and marveling at the similarities between birthing and dying. She was present at his birth, a miracle for both of us. My dad flew down to be there too – I think mostly to be with her.

She died six months later. And I remember stepping from her hospital room into the hallway with my dad, and catching sight of my white-haired 87-year-old Grandpa making his way down the hall, dressed in a suit. This look of total relief came over my dad, and tears came to his eyes. "That's my dad," he tried to explain. "After all these years, I still need him; he's my hero."

When I became pregnant with our second child, a daughter, I missed my mom like never before. The nausea and vomiting seemed so much worse because I was suffering through it alone. I couldn’t call my mom and commiserate about any of it. And I couldn’t imagine having another baby without her there. (Although I frequently dreamed about her during the most trying times.) The pregnancy seemed endless. In fact, it kind of was. She was due November 17th, and wasn’t born until December 3rd.

My water broke around midnight. Knowing I was in labor for 23 1/2 hours with our firstborn, I didn't bother calling anyone in the middle of the night to let them know...there was still plenty of time for that. The doctor said to wait until I was “really uncomfortable” before we went to the hospital, so I hung out at home, doubling over the kitchen counter when the contractions got fierce. All of a sudden, around 2 a.m. I declared that I was, indeed, “really uncomfortable” and we went to the hospital. By the time they checked me in, it turns out I was already dilated to an 8. They gave me an epidural to help me sleep -- and I think so the doctor wouldn’t have to come down in the middle of the night.

Our little daughter popped out in just two pushes at about 9:50 the next morning. We called our families to announce that we had the first girl, and wheeled her off to the nursery and me into the recovery room, where I settled in for a long winter’s nap! Jeff went home to gather a few things, and as I was just waking up, still groggy, I remember hearing the hospital room door squeak open. I slowly turned to see who it was, and there stood my Dad! (He said he knew where my mom was going to be this morning, and he wanted to be there too.) I have no idea how he managed to get there so fast, how many people he had to pay off at the airport to get him on the first flight out, but at a time when I was missing Mom and feeling very much alone, to have my Dad just magically appear at the hospital was about my favorite surprise ever. "That's my dad," I wanted to say. "After all these years, I still need him; he's my hero."

Amazingly, too, he stayed and helped. Like Mom would have -- fixing breakfast for everybody, taking turns with the baby in the middle of the night. It endeared him to me like never before. And Dad STILL does an amazing job of filling in as both mother and father to us kids, staying involved in our lives, hosting family dinners, taking care of our kids, loving and nurturing us. A natural giver, he blesses us in extraordinary and unselfish ways.

* * *

In October 2000, my husband, Jeff, was away for the long weekend, picking up some heirloom furniture for our daughter’s room. I was home with the kids, nearly six months pregnant with baby number 4, unpacking boxes in the new dream house. When I first noticed the baby wasn’t moving, I phoned him immediately. I tried to reassure him: “The book says it’s normal not to feel any movement for a few days at this stage” but I could hear the deep concern in his voice. At his insistence, I called the doctor and ordered a follow-up ultrasound. Just to be safe.

My husband was late for the ultrasound appointment, so I sat there in horror, alone, as the doctor found no heartbeat and told us what the options were for delivering a lifeless baby. They asked me to wait, alone (in tears that bordered on convulsions) in a room-that-was-more-like- a-closet until he arrived, 40 minutes later. I then had to sit through the whole painful doctor spiel a second time, for Jeff’s benefit.

As we walked into the hospital delivery room a day and a half later, I was struggling with all kinds of emotions that kept bubbling to the surface. It was strange to walk into this familiar maternity ward that had, until that moment, been such a happy place and now wore a shroud of gloom, knowing that this time there would be no treasure to take home. I fought back feelings of anger and resentment toward my sweet, wonderful husband for being away when the baby stopped moving, being away when I threatened miscarriage and had to go to the emergency room passing clots, being away when the doctor delivered the unthinkable news. Part of me wanted to push him away forever, but a bigger part wanted to pull him infinitely closer. My steps were heavy, and my heart was heavier.

Once we were settled inside the delivery room, Jeff gave me an incredibly beautiful priesthood blessing. He summoned our Father and poured out peace, promised a deepened understanding of how it pained a Father to lose a Child, requested health and healing, and said my mother would be hovering nearby.

The delivery was a physical and emotional hell, nothing I’ve known the likes of. The only things that could calm me, emotionally or physically, were classical music and the memory of Jeff’s blessing. Somehow I stopped shaking and survived.

When the baby was born, so small I could cushion her whole head in the pillow of my palm (I still recall the weight of it there), they made prints of both her hands and her feet, and allowed me to hold her and cradle her and look at her and love her for as long as I liked. I touched each tiny finger, each tiny toe, and marveled at how complete she was, despite weighing less than a pound. She had our youngest’s perfect little button nose. Our daughter’s beautiful rosebud lips. There was no doubt she was ours. She belonged. But she’d already gone home.

When the nurse came to take her away, Jeff was holding her. I watched as he wrapped her so lovingly in her little blanket and said his last goodbyes before he kissed her tiny forehead and handed her to the nurse. I cannot describe the rush of love that I felt for that man at that moment. It was overwhelming to witness the immense tenderness he demonstrated for our little departed daughter. His sweet, intimate farewell to her is among the most priceless images I hold onto. I felt unspeakably grateful for him and his enormous heart.



I’m thankful there’s a day to celebrate fathers—My own father; my grandfathers; the father of my children; and by extension, our Heavenly Father—all of whom I love, admire, and aspire to emulate.

We'll be spending most of Father's Day weekend visiting our oldest son at boarding school, which should be another joyful reunion. I hope there are joyful reunions awaiting all of you this weekend.