How to Retire, Lessons from a cruise

Taking three weeks to see Antarctica and Southern Chile as we enter the last third of our mission—besides seeming very weird—has given me time to think about life after mission, aka: retirement. This cruise ship with its unending variety of activities is a kind of small world where we can sample ways to be.  There are poster children for the gym/fitness folks, the spa/indulgences people, the casino/bingo goers, the foodies, the movie buffs, the formal dinner/dancers, and many more. I’ve tried to take advantage of a sampling of what is offered, and as our time on the ship comes to an end, I think I have some idea of what I want my retirement to be.   

I want to eat what I want when I want to. Good quality. Just a little. Fresh flowers. Yes, it’s worth the trouble, Kathleen. Get up off the couch!

I really enjoy a good show! The high school musical productions and local theatre are close, good and inexpensive. 

More than an hour on the internet is prodigal. Escapism at its worst. Not having it readily available has been good.

Spending time in the outdoors feeds the soul.  I need the daily exercise and the occasional adventure like I need oxygen and sunlight. We did a 5K (On Deck For a Cause)--12 laps around the deck of the ship and donated to cancer funds.

Learning something new every day about where we’ve been or where we’re going is a practice I want to continue in some form. A BYU professor of mine in the late 60's--Alvin Price, I think--claimed to have anonymously subscribed to liberal magazines for his very conservative father who he knew would read them in a state of agitation. Gotta keep the brain cells firing.

Time to read silently, and sharing a read-aloud with Jay has been very bonding. We can’t let this go! It was so neat to be in Valparaiso where we'd read about Parley P. Pratt walking along those very streets, and being in the same port, also Valparaiso, where the survivors of the Essex whaling ship disaster ended up after months at sea and near starvation. (A very good read, by the way, In The Heart of the Sea, the whale attack that inspired Herman Melville's classic.)

Including friends in what we’re doing! During our working years we became evening isolationists. Better to live like Pearl and Carroll—games around the kitchen table, jumping in the car to go visit someone! And that is sparkling cider with our new friends Pete and ParCeil.

And of course, what we’re missing on this cruise and in our life right now is family. That’s what it’s all about and what we live for. I can’t wait to be routinely in their lives, the kids, the grandkids, the siblings, the cousins. Time together up close unending.

Thoughts on 2014

• People are good. Terrible things happen and people step in. 
• Guns are bad. Children having to deal with knowing they killed someone they love because a gun was too available remind us that guns DO kill people, sometimes unintentionally.
• Missions bless the missionary probably more than anyone else.
• Since "the family is of God," one senior mission away from the family should be an adequate offering.
• I believe in marriage between one man and one woman. I also believe that polygamy was once approved by God (for some reason!!) and that people who love each other and are in a committed relationship deserve the rights and protections that marriage provides. 
• Knitting keeps me from killing people. Or from having a nervous breakdown on the highways.
• Don't ever say, "I would never want to go on a cruise," or you could find that you really do. The same goes for a cougar hunting or jumping off a 30' cliff into the Colorado River. You don't know what you really want until it is seriously offered to you. This bears thinking about. There is a whole world of possible experiences. What's on your 'bucket list,' and what might be if you gave it serious consideration? We met a 68 year old man from England biking to the tip of Chile alone, with a small tent and backpack. Why not? In the limited number of Wednesdays left in your life (thank you, Billy Collins--Just Another Wednesday) what will you do? What will I do? 
• Bring on 2015! We get to see Liv and Colin and the more grown-up versions of the other grandchildren, have a family reunion at the cabin in July, enjoy six more months of beautiful Chile and its wonderful people, participate in the third harvest of olives, see the completion of the olive mill and hopefully some of the new houses here and..... speak a little more Spanish.... please?.......and go on AN ANTARCTIC CRUISE in a week!!

Christmas Books

We have a tradition of giving a Christmas book to each of our kids' families. The book for this year was Patricia Polacco's "The Blessing Cup," about a Jewish family's expulsion from Europe, a promise that they would never go hungry, and the precious last cup from the family's china set. It reminded me of a similar promise in our family history, and I wanted to make a book for our children and grandchildren that told some of our family stories including that one; and particularly I wanted to emphasize that the things that are important are not things. After a year of these ideas stirring about in my head, this was the result:

 

 At the end of this project I feel as though I've come across the plains with these people. I think I will know them when I meet them again, and I love them for their sacrifices, their faith and their unique contributions to my family history.

And yes, I spilled Chilean mate (a hay-like herb tea that I was drinking with a load of sugar so my hands wouldn't shake as I hand-wrote --eventually-- nine of these babies) all over one of the books instantly aging it like nothing else could.

I tried to credit my sources and to be accurate, but don't take this book as the authoritative word. Jay and I have discovered a wealth of stories on FamilySearch and Ancestry.com and other sites--some in conflict with others--but go there yourselves and read more to get the fuller picture.

One lesson for me is that those who wrote about their experiences get remembered. How many other experiences did our people have that are lost because they were not recorded?

Happy New Year everyone!

Knowing where I am in the world

Thanks to Lesley, I have the solution to my dysmapia problem. A darling compass I can hang around my neck! What an unbelievable gift. Much better than frankincense and myrrh or almost anything else I could think of. Thank you, thank you! On the back of this adorable ornament are the words, "To know where you are in the world," and a tiny map with Kaysville on it. Believe me, it may become a permanent part of my wardrobe until I'm back in Kaysville!

I've been thinking a lot about not so much my disorientation issues, but about how important place is to me. I told someone recently that I need to live in a place for a year before I really feel at home. I need to go through the cycle of the seasons and understand the place deeply. Chile has felt comfortable from the first, but more so every day. As we approach our year mark, I feel more possessive of this place, and despite my not knowing "up," I do know and love the eucalyptus smells--and that they are really fragrant after a rain; the screeching killdeer on steroids sounds of the birds and realize they nest on the ground and protect the eggs in the same way my playground killdeer do. I can recognize the edibles on our many trees--the big shade tree in front actually produces millions of delicious orange fruits called nispero (I'm sure the spelling is wrong but I remember the name by the association with "knee" and one day I was searching for the word and came up with the Spanish "rodilla"-something), the membrillo (quince) are starting to form fruits, the fig tree is unmistakable with its lobed leaves and the alamo--well, they have the same dry cottonwood sounds in the breeze that my Southern Utah cottonwoods do. 

When I was a student at Utah State I had the opportunity to fly to Logan from Yakima in a small plane. After making that 10 hour trip by car multiple times it was a revelation to see the highway down below and the canyons and mountains making sense of the twists and turns in the road. Not only was it beautiful, it was logical, and I couldn't get enough of watching the ground pass by. The added dimension of perspective was critical.

In heaven, I'm not going to be disoriented. That's motivation enough.

Service Hours

Remember those? They came in all varieties: for the Church's "Individual Awards," for Scouting, or Personal Progress, to make up for bad citizenship in school, to work off bad grades (not sure how that connected, but I think it was done), AmeriCorp requirements, Cub Scouts, 4-H: service hours.

In our monthly mission report there's a place for "Service Hours." When your mission job description includes doing anything and everything to improve the lives of the farm workers, their families and the community, it's a bit hard to see what service hours would be outside those parameters.

If the company hires a custodian, is it service hours when we (Jay mostly) sweep out the plague of beetles on the floor of the Learning Center every morning? Or do service hours begin when he also cleans the bathroom and the adjacent storeroom?

Sometimes I try to quantify things way outside our normal expectations like painting someone's new house for 8 hours, but usually I try to ignore that little blank. On a mission, isn't it all service?

              




Some things we've done this last month included making our General Conference cinnamon rolls to deliver  to most of the families we teach, arranging a tour of the farm and lunch for a busload of 27 temple missionaries--including the entire Temple Presidency, becoming the ward choir director (yes, lower case. When I told them they were the best choir I'd ever directed they knew that I was as inexperienced as I looked), demonstrating how to make a banana pineapple cake and another time demonstrating how to make rolls, mending the young missionaries' pants, getting their bikes back in working condition and giving them and their investigators rides to various activities, teaching knitting, working together on various sewing projects, digging weeds, running medicine to someone who needed it, giving Priesthood blessings, planning a birthday party, knitting a going-away wool sheep for a young supervisor, rounding up workers to learn that the father/grandfather had passed away~~Hey! I've been feeling bad that we formally teach so few hours in the day; but when I see it written down, we are doing something. I guess it is service.

But gosh. It sure doesn't feel like service. It just feels good.

The Curse of Dysmappia

Grandma Maughan claimed to have a photographic memory. My memory is on the complete other side of the spectrum. But which side that is seems to jump around for me. I might be able to remember details about something that happened if I could just remember the place, and I can't because I have four truths in my head about many of the locations of my life. When we drive out of our "gated community" here on the farm and head toward town I have to wait and see which way Jay turns; then my compass spins around and my landmarks begin to align. It is just so FRUSTRATING!! Our town's main street is aligned north and south (I think) but depending on how we approach it, it might be going east and west. Unless I'm in Utah with the mountains to the east and the lake to the west, please don't confuse me by telling me to turn west. Unless the sun is rising or setting, I have no idea in the world which way west is.

I really think my memory is as good as the next persons': it's just that there are four cardinal directions and I have memories associated with all four for so many places. The Learning Center facing west is only one of the Learning Centers where we hang out here in Chile. When I'm inside, it faces a different direction than when I'm outside. And truthfully, when I analyze it, it really faces north (I asked Jay. It's beyond my skills to "really analyze" it. Tricky little place, don't you think? Multiply that by the dozens of places in my life at any one time and you have some idea of the vertigo I live with.

In Layton when I'd go to the mall I made sure to park in the same parking lot and I would enter the same doors--every time-- so the mall would stay put with Macy's still on the southeast corner and Penny's still on the north. (Please no one tell me that's not where they really are. I'm not sure I could take the heartbreak.) Deseret Book jumped from east to west and Standard Optical might show up on the opposite end of the mall.

I'm not sure I'd have even known about this disability if I hadn't left Cedar City. Cedar and most small southern Utah towns --St. George excepted--are oriented with the mountains and the canyon to the east and Main Street going north and south. My childhood was perfectly ordered with Utah's matching 100 East, Main Street, 100 West configuration with the waffle grid 100 North, Center Street, 100 South intersecting. So perfect. So easy. But things definitely went south from there.

I do everything I can think of to avoid being "turned around" in the new place. Knowing I'm directionally challenged, before a move I study maps and landmarks. I get truly OCD about making sure that the minute we drive into town I know absolutely which direction we're approaching from. I almost chant to my self, "We're going east. Now we're going south. Still going south." It doesn't help.

Some of the places I've been turned around in are: East Edison in Sunnyside. Jay's hometown address. Somehow, in my mind, his street--which is perfectly straight--makes a right turn at Highway 12. Belleville, Illinois--where we lived for 9 years. Clark Air Base in the Philippines--where we lived 5 years. How did that mountain move from the first time we were stationed there to the second?!! Snow Horse Elementary. Yes. I watched them build it; but its fan shaped orientation had me thinking that every one of the outside doors faced east.

I don't know that there's anything that can be done for dysmappia. Nothing I've done seems to help. I don't know of any information about it or really haven't ever talked about it except as a joke. But truly, I would love to figure out how to know where I am in the world--even before I see the sun going down.