Looking back with Lot's Wife

Diane teaches second grade and each and every one of the little munchkins she spends her days with have all gone nuts with what she calls “Christmas-ness.” One of the symptoms of Christmas-ness, according to her, is rolling around on the floor in the aisles between desks. “Courtney, what ARE you doing?” she asked a tiny twirler last week. The answer, says Diane, is that there is no answer; it’s just Christmas-ness. Welcome to my world, Courtney. Christmas-ness in its adult form shows up at first when the victim begins to have grandiose ideas of Christmas past. This year’s celebration, she thinks, will be the one everybody will always remember, filled to overflowing with warmth and sugar cookies and holly and pine. Oh, if I could have just stopped then when I didn’t have all the boxes of decorations out on the living room floor shedding dust from the basement, where they live the rest of the year. (Have you noticed, this is what every good girl says after she gets in trouble, “If w...

There were these two enormous guys at the Grand Junction IHOP this morning who had sleeve tattoos, those tattoos that cover your arms. They were facinating, and best of all, people were staring at them. Like my husband's Uncle Ivan used to say: "Marry a fat woman and you can be warm in the winter, have shade in the summer, and if she has tattoos, you can see the movin' pictures." I was grateful they were there because I was with my handicapped son, Stephen, and we are usually the first thing that people stare at. Stephen's looks a little funny: one eye is a lot smaller than the other and he sort of gimps along because it gives him a firmer grip on the road to have one leg bent if he falls. He recognizes me because I have "the smell." Our family smells like caramel sauce that's been in the fridge for a while. I also wear the same perfume, White Shoulders, that I wore when he was little and lived at home. He moved to Grand Junction in 1972 to live...

This is the “thanksy” time of year. The time of year at which we all demonstrate our desire to be grateful, grateful, grateful for all the many little blessings that we have all around us. If we’re stuck, we can be grateful for the obvious: penicillin, tooth paste, and, inevitably, living in a free country. None of which, I’d like to add, are things I’m against. What makes me feel inadequate is when people start talking about all the little things they’re grateful for. Like “a child’s smile,” or “the song of a meadow lark in the morning.” That’s when gratitude starts to feel like a competitive sport. Like bowling or the backyard basketball game “horse.” It can make you feel like you’re not only ungrateful, you’re unpoetic and not very observant. People start to vie for the most obscure, idiosyncratic gift. The gift that says they’ve been given the most. They’ve been given, dare I say it, MORE than anyone else. These people are always grateful for the wonderful memories of their mom. Th...

I’m not sure when I officially stopped noticing things, but it’s been awhile. I noticed my not noticing the other day while out doing that most horrible of autumn chores: deciding which plants are going to die. I looked at the sweet faces of the annuals who’ve knocked themselves out for me all summer; and, then, I pulled the plug on the petunias: “You are no longer allowed to live, while this awful rust-colored mum I got for Mother’s Day last May, and didn’t have the guts to throw away, gets to live a couple more weeks because it goes with the pumpkins.” When I throw away a whole basket full of used plants, I can hear their squeaky little voices calling, “Liz, Liz, come get me. Just one more drink before I die.” But, sometimes I wonder, when did I stop thinking chaos, for example, was a bad thing. As we enter into this, the most chaotic of all seasons, the Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day season, let us take a moment to remember the value of a good mess. I p...

My friend Kathleen flew around the corner at exactly 10 am, in a brand new navy-blue convertible. I’d been waiting for her outside the hotel and I whipped back to get my purse because, really, this was a great car and I wanted a ride. “When did you get this car?” was the obvious first question. “As long as I’m dying I decided what the heck,” she said. I had first heard about her cancer from Linda who’d called her to keep in touch. So I called Kathy but I hadn’t mentioned her illness, because who wants to talk about dying when there are so many other things to talk about? We laughed for about twenty minutes and I told her I was coming home in September and we’d get together. September became October and I was finally here. I hadn’t called because I was scared. When I did call, Saturday night, I didn’t know what I’d say. “How about breakfast tomorrow? How about the hotel restaurant? How about ten so we can sleep in?” “You’ve heard that I was dying, haven’t you?” Well, yes, I h...

Some of my “friends” are Holly, Ryan, Barbara, Jon, Jonathan and Laura. My good “friend” Catherine is selling her car, a Corolla, on KSL.com if you’re interested. My friend, without quotes, Sarah, a new-mom-to-be invited me to be her “friend” on Facebook, so I could go to her page and check out pictures of her adorable baby Jonah, who I see almost every week when we have lunch together. Her Facebook page, however, will give me a chance to look at Jonah camping, Jonah bathing, and Jonah with Dad. My “friend” Ryan sent me pictures of his new baby Matthew. I say “friend” because while all of these people ARE my friends, Facebook gives us another level at which to interact. A superficial level. Not usually my level of choice. Facebook is an entire website devoted to random encounters, where people can look at your page and see what everyone who’s written to you has said. What would you say to someone if you knew that whatever you said, it was going to be heard around the world on ...

As I slid into my seat, the guy next to me immediately starting joking about how huge he was and telling me that if he bumped me in any way to just slug him. This is always the way coming back to Salt Lake from New York. Friendly. Going out is a different story. Everyone has on their game face, their “I live in New York” face. Their “I’ve got a great haircut and I have no intention of letting you into my space ever” face. On the way back the passengers are over-friendly. Maybe it’s the relief of getting to be yourself again after four days of people running into you and acting like it’s your fault. All the couples returning to Salt Lake have kids, dirty blonde hair, and knee-length Bermudas. We export these wholesome types as our way of obeying the commandment to be leavening in the world. And then when they get back on the mother ship to go home and we send out a fresh batch. You want to ask them immediately what ward they’re in. The man next to me on my flight from New Yo...