It is June 9th already! It is my half birthday which really doesn't mean anything except that I am half way to 54. I really thought that I would be wiser and less selfish, less lazy and more tidy and organized by now. I also thought I would have more money and nicer furniture.
School this week has been good and bad. I spent the whole week in Rexburg rather than commuting every day. That was good because I was able to be there for Aimee's birthday and I could go with Leah my niece to see the doctor about her knee. I was also able to go to the ceramics lab and practice throwing on the wheel. That, by the way is very hard to do! I have yet to really get it. I would like to take ceramics again so I can continue to practice. I don't really want to do it for credit but I do want to learn to throw. It is hard when I only have class 2 days a week and no time to practice in between.  Honestly, I would be so happy just to do art and nothing else. Of course I still love to learn about English, and Critical theory, and great writing.  If you know anything about writing you know that I have a lot to learn! But never fear, I am going to get much better.

I guess my age is a bit of a liability. I got sick with stomach flu on Saturday last. I still cannot eat solid food. I have missed a week of school and I feel pretty rotten.
I am frankly terrified that I will not really recover and I will have to withdraw from school. I may be  just a little paranoid but I am still scared.
One of my two English teachers is a remarkable man. They both are certainly but one of them is remarkable in his gift of eliminating the useless bits and teaching only what is valuable and needed. There is no way to recoup what I have missed because his lectures are so distilled. Every word has a purpose. He is amazing!  In my head drawing class I feel very much the same.  I hope I am well enough to go back next week on Tuesday and not get any farther behind.

I have had the idea to write a blog on several occasions but it is hard to know just what to say. Since I took an English class from my son last year I have come to understand that writing is a great deal more complicated than putting my  thoughts on paper, or in a blog as the case may be.
I recently saw a news article on the internet about a mother and son graduating from college together. I thought my story is quite as interesting.
I am 53 years old till December. I have been married for 27 years to the  same guy. Together we had 6 children. We are now the proud grandparents of 4 darling grandkids. A year ago I went back to school. I started out with 6 online credits. The next semester I took 6 credits again only one class I took on campus because my son was the professor. Last semester I took 9 credits online but this semester I am taking 12, all on campus. The part of this story that is extra ordinary is that I live 90 miles from school and I car pool  with a couple who also commute, every day of the week. I am an art major with an English minor. People ask me all the time if I plan to teach. My answer is a resounding NO! I do not want to teach. I want to learn. I love art! I have even toyed with the idea of dropping all but art classes. I thought I wanted to write but I am no longer certain. There is only one thing I really want to do, that is draw. Next semester I plan to take a painting class and I will see how much I like that. I suspect I will love to paint as well.  In the mean time, I thought I might start keeping a blog about how my life is going and how it feels to be a 53 year old lady on a campus with all sorts of young vigorous youth. My first observation...they go fast! The next observation... they are so dang young! I don't remember being so young and foolish.
I also want to go on record, in case at some point I change my mind, as saying; I love school! I love, love, love school!  Education is wasted on kids who think it is something to be endured till it's over. Oh how wonderful it is to feel my brain soaking in new and refreshing thoughts like a dry sponge soaks up water.
There are no adequate words for my joy!
Okay, enough joy...I have a ton of homework!

Friendship lost

When my youngest child was a brand new baby, about 12 years ago (gee I am getting old!) I met a lady who was living in poverty out on the desert with her husband who was 10 years her senior. I was asked to take her a meal since she had just had a miscarriage. I knew vaguely who she was but I had never met her. When I arrived at her home, my baby was screaming to nurse and since I was far from home, I asked this lady if she would mind letting me come in and sit awhile so I could feed my baby. That was the beginning of a treasured friendship. After time we came to trust each other and she left her husband and went to Twin Falls to continue her education. She served a work mission, got an associate degree and then went on to Boise to for her bachelors degree. During all this time we developed a deep friendship and she was part of our family, coming to reunions and being accepted as an aunt to my children and sister in law to my husband. Even my brothers, sisters and parents regarded her as one of us. Three years ago I was planning a family reunion to coincide with the blessing of my first grandchild. My friend was not planning on attending but I told her my brother and his wife, who live in California, were very disappointed they were not going to get to see her. She finally decided she would come but something happened. I honestly do not know what, but she left a message on my phone saying she had been having unresolved issues with me for some time and could not longer deal with me or my family. She has not spoken to me since. My children were heartbroken, especially the youngest, who cannot understand.. Everyone is mystified by this. I cannot express my own feelings..I miss her every single day! I have grieved this loss more than I could ever have imagined! I have gone through some of the most difficult experiences of my life without my friend. A friend who always promised to be there no matter what. It has tested my ability to trust. I am fairly certain that my trust is in many ways permanently damaged. I am writing about this now because lately she has been making comment on face book to my older daughters. She even mentioned how much she misses me. Wow! It is so odd. It is kind of like thinking someone is dead and finding them walking across the street like nothing ever happened. I don't really know how to feel, I only know....it is not good. I wonder if she has the right to tell my daughter she misses me. I am not sure I care, or is it I care too much? Trust was something I give reluctantly, I am a bit skittish that way. I gave her my total trust eventually... it turns out it she didn't honor that gift. I gave it all to her already. I don't have any left. I made a promise to her before we were born, that I would find her and help her. I kept my promise....with a lot of help from Heavenly Father. Maybe in the next life trust will be mended. By myself I am helpless to get past this sorrow and betrayal. For now I will leave that to Heavenly Father.

What I want to learn

I just read a post by a young man who wants to be a writer. I also want to be a writer. Everyone wants to be a writer. We all want to make a difference, express ourselves and be extraordinary. The problem for me is, I am not really sure I am extraordinary. I don't mean that in a bad way. I can and often do, spread joy and sunshine. I raised some pretty amazing kids. I am a good friend and a decent neighbor. Perhaps that can be considered extraordinary in a way, but I want to be the next Jane Austen or someone like that. How does one become extraordinary? I expect passion is one requirement. Another might be a willingness to fail and still keep trying. I believe determination, and self discipline are also necessary. I am a fairly nice person, wise on occasion and often creative, but self discipline and I have never actually met. I am notoriously lazy and I prefer to watch movies rather than engaging in more productive pursuits. I motivate myself with the expectations of others rather than what I might want or expect of myself. The truth is, I cannot find self discipline because it is nearly impossible to discipline myself to develop self discipline. Kind of a catch 22 if you know what I mean. The other problem is passion. I can get very passionate about things but, honestly, that "motivating myself with the expectations of others", thing has kind of come back to bite me in the butt. I have learned very well how to know what others expect, but I have no clue what I expect. I don't know what I want. It is rather sad and it is really common in mothers who have spent years trying to read the minds of their children who can't yet talk, and then who can talk but won't, or anticipate the needs of husbands who never learned to articulate feelings.
I am taking classes at the University in Art and English. I know I want to do that but I don't know why. I get asked all the time what I want to do with my schooling. I usually say I am going to learn something I want to know. This is true, but why do I want to know it? Do I want to be a writer? That is what I said at the beginning of this post. I just don't know what I want to write. I used to think I had some great wisdom to pass on. I am learning, I am just not that wise, or insightful. Do I have some interesting story to tell? Not really. So, I find myself in the "autumn of my life" and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, or if I do really want to be writer, I don't know why or what I should say.

bigger

I have a plan to change the world one choice at a time. Maybe not the whole entire world but at least the little world I live in. My plan is simple, to love without asking, to give without taking, to be as much myself as I can.
Imagine a world where one in ten people lived like that. What a difference we could make.