Thoughts from a Quiet Week

I've been doing more reading lately. My girls would be proud of me. They read many books a month. I'm lucky if I get through one. I hope you don't think I'm a slug for that. It's just that when I sit down to read I always fall asleep. Since arriving at Cedaredge, reading comes easier as there is less to do. And so does napping. That makes sleeping through the night harder. But enough of that. My point is that I've come up with some good ideas from my Colorado reading. For one thing, I see more clearly that we live in a country that is indeed God-inspired. I'm grateful for the effort that our Founding Fathers went to to come up with a system that works better than anything has before. I see us losing much of what they have accomplished and it worries me. Mom's book shelf is full of patriotic readings. I'm enjoying some of them.

I love the people here. They live close to the earth and I think that does good things for the soul. They are intelligent, humble, friendly and loving. I feel embraced here, even by strangers. Layne and I spent some time Saturday walking through a little town called Hotchkiss. We took Mom to a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers meeting there. While she enjoyed her meeting, we walked. Lots of the shops were closed and abandoned. But there were some great ones open. One of them was an art store which I talked Layne into entering. The owner of the shop was an artist and she was in the middle of giving an art lesson. We had quite a lovely conversation and she invited me to come to lessons there. I got to thinking what a good thing it might be to take lessons from several different people. It could certainly give me a bigger variety of ideas and styles. We walked on and visited an art gallery very nicely put together and a rather dumpy used bookstore. Friendly people greeted us on our way. All in all it was a fun adventure.

Mother's eyelashes are growing! That is quite an unimportant thing to include here, but I am fascinated that, at 93, she has more eyelashes than she ever has before. Her eyes have been bothering her so I took her to the eye doc. He explained that her glaucoma medication makes eyelashes grow. In fact, that medication is what led to the goo you can get commercially now to grow lashes. Isn't that an interesting tidbit? Now we know that it really works.

We took Mom to Grand Junction yesterday. We ended our visit with friends by going to dinner. Our waiter had one of those voices that felt smooth going down. It was deep and rich. I determined to find a way to tell him. My chance came and I passed on my high opinion of his voice. One of my goals is to make a point of noticing gifts in people and telling them. I have a theory about that. I think we came to earth full of purpose and encouragement. Life on earth is often very discouraging for many people. One of the gifts we can give to them is encouragement; a sort of return to what we came here with. So I am trying to be a source of encouragement for other people in my life. I'm starting to find it natural to look for something to admire. I think I am getting better at it.

I've been working on my dad's life story quite a bit since arriving here. I've thought about him so much that he seems to be on my mind even when I'm not trying. Last night he came to me in a dream. He was dressed in his dark navy uniform and looked very young, as he did then. He looked at me with his soft gray eyes and I threw my arms around him and wept. The dream ended then. I felt that it was a little gift from God, meant to encourage me in my efforts to create a book about him.

We've had our usual summer storms here. As usual, I love them. Included here is a picture of a hail storm that hit several days ago. Fall is in the air here. I'm wearing mom's sweat shirts on some days now. We seem to have missed most of summer. For the first time in memory I don't feel quite ready for the coolness that is coming.

Pictures: top is of the girl's bathroom at the art gallery in Hotchkiss. Note the design of the mirror is a sort of mosaic. I loved it! The middle picture is of my father just a few years after he left the Navy. He is pictured here with my sister on the left and me hidden on the right. The picture was taken in Hawaii, when we lived there in the late 1940s. The bottom picture is of our recent hail storm, taken on Mom's deck.