At Cape Lookout

I'll tell you a story, but I warn you it doesn't reflect very well on me. It was one of those internal storms that came and went before I really did anything about it outwardly, which I guess was good, because in retrospect it became obvious that my internal reactions were silly. But it's still kind of embarrassing when I think about it. However—this is the type of thing it is good for me to remember. (And also, this place sounds like it needs to be in the title of a Hardy Boys book. Caper at Cape Lookout!)

We were driving around on the Oregon Coast looking for things to do. We stopped at Cape Lookout State Park, which is a beautiful stretch of forest right along the edge of the bay where we were staying. There are hiking trails and overlooks, and it's the sort of amazing scenery that goes against everything I'm used to. In my mind, forests are only in "the mountains," and there they are full of conifers, or possibly aspens, and some underbrush, but not much else. So these Oregon forests, sweeping fernily down as they do right to the cliff- and ocean-edges, seem like they defy nature! I LOVE them.

Okay, so far so good, but the trouble was that I had not brought my hiking shoes on this little outing. And the reason for THAT was that a month or so earlier, I had fallen off the most pathetic little step to the garage while lifting Teddy up—or rather, I had stepped where there was no step, and somehow bent my foot all the way forward so I landed on top of it, and that had torn some ligaments. It hurt so much those first few days that whenever I was alone I would start crying—not solely because it hurt, but because I was just so scared that I would never get better—and all the while, I KNEW I was being unreasonable but I just couldn't stop myself! (That becomes a theme in this story, I'm afraid.)

Anyway, of course, by the time we went on our trip to Oregon I WAS substantially better, but we'd hiked quite a bit in the preceding days, and now my foot was still too swollen to fit very well into anything except flip-flops.

But, we were here and this looked like a cool hike and we wanted to at least see where the trail went, so even though I was nervous about re-injuring my foot, we thought we could just go along for a little ways and then turn back.

It started out great. And there were SUCH amazing views! The trail wound right along the edge of the cliff, and every time there was a gap in the trees you could look out and see the blue ocean and bright tan beaches below. It was beautiful!

When the trail wound inland, there were all the little mossy hollows and tree-root-hideouts that make Oregon forests so lovely.

But I was slow. And getting slower. And soon I was limping and my foot was hurting and everyone had gone ahead of me except little Goldie. Sam had been holding Teddy's hand and called back to me about what a great little hiker Teddy was, and I felt so embarrassed to be slower and less tough than a BABY that I didn't have the heart to say how tired and sore I was feeling. But in my heart, I had all these feelings of impending doom, that I was going to stumble and break my foot or let Goldie fall off a cliff because I wasn't quick enough to snatch her back.

And of course it was apparent to all passers-by that I was pregnant—and somehow I just hated it that people were going to think I was slow and limping because of that—instead of because I had a hurt foot. Which is so weird. Why would it matter whether any random strangers thought (had they even been GIVING me any thought, which of course no one was) that I was slow and pathetically pregnant (which to be honest, I WAS) rather than slow and pathetically hurt? I don't know. But it mattered to me right then.

Whether I'm hurt or pregnant, it's better for me to be treated normally and not like some delicate, breakable porcelain doll. Really, I do prefer it, and I take it as a compliment if someone assumes I can handle hard things! I WANT to think that I can! If someone mentions my "delicate condition" I will laugh! (I think this has something to do with it too.) But I don't know if you've felt like this. Sometimes just the fact of other people expecting you to be tough and up-for-anything can feel daunting.  Like because it's expected of you, you can't admit it when you're struggling. I know that's prideful. Obviously everyone struggles. There are some things I would ask for help with in an instant! But here in Oregon, I wanted so much not to be physically weak! And at the same time I perversely just wanted someone to fuss over me and take care of me. And here I was hiking along with Goldie, feeling like the weakest person ever—torn between wanting to just sit down and cry, and being determined to keep going until I died right there on the trail, just to show everyone!

And I felt so grumpy! Just grumpier and grumpier and more and more sorry for myself. I was so mad at everyone: at all the other hikers who walked by and pitied me; at whoever made this trail with such a long, long downhill which I sure I would never make it up again; at my family for leaving me behind; at Sam for choosing this hike and not turning back like we'd been planning to, and for not CARING whether I was alive or dead behind him; and of course at myself for being so unreasonable (which I of course knew I WAS being, but even though I kept speaking very sternly to myself, my thoughts just kept circling back to how hurt and tired I was and how no one cared, and then I'd find tears leaking out of my eyes and down my cheeks again and feel embarrassed as well as mad!). The funny thing was that it all was so BEAUTIFUL. One of my favorite hikes I've ever been on! And I knew that! I was marveling at the scenery and saying to myself every few seconds how glad I was that I got to be here and see this. But at the same time and totally irrationally I was full of this black cloud of fear and misery and pain.

I don't even know how long this went on. Probably not nearly as long as it seemed. Finally there was a lookout point where you could see straight down some massive sheer cliffs into a little cove. The rest of the family was waiting for me there, all blithely happy and unaware.

It was terrifying, but so beautiful, to look down those cliffs! Everyone was marveling at it, including me, and in the midst of such a great place it felt weird to suddenly start in telling everyone how mad I was and getting them to feel sorry for me and the pain I was in. I knew the right thing to do would be to cheer up and just let go of my mad feelings; let them melt away and never be brought up at all. I'd been trying to manage that this whole time and now I should just DO it!

But I couldn't do it. Abe had already gone on ahead again, so I said some mad, grumpy thing to Sam about how I was heading back on my poor broken foot and everyone else could go on forever if that's what they wanted so much, and off I limped, martyrishly dragging Teddy along as he yelled "I want to hold Daddy's hand! No! I want Daddy's hand!" I felt so ashamed of myself, and so sad and hurt and discouraged and tired, and so despairing that I would ever become a better person—the type who finds the bright side in every situation and thinks about everyone else instead of herself.

It seemed even farther and steeper going back, and all the tree roots and the steep angles of the trail left my foot (and my belly!) aching and throbbing. I kept thinking that I just couldn't keep going. But there didn't seem any alternative either. I was crying and sniffling. And then…I heard someone else crying and sniffling! This is actually so funny when I imagine watching it from the outside. These two poor little forlorn souls, in this most beautiful and UNhorrible of situations! I came around a bend in the trail and there was my little Daisy. She was hiking along by herself, crying, and for a second I felt annoyed with her along with everyone else in the world, but when she looked up at me with her tear-filled eyes and said, "My foot hurts! I have a blister!" my heart melted and I felt so much compassion for her. She was ME! Poor little me in a tiny form. And at that same moment that I felt a wave of love for her, I felt unaccountably reassured that Heavenly Father loved me, too.

But in those split seconds, even though I wanted to—I also instinctively knew that I shouldn't just sit down with her and cry, or we'd NEVER make it back! I knew there was still a long way to go. So I took a deep breath and wiped my eyes and said as cheerfully as I could, "Daisy, I'm so glad I found you. My feet hurt too! And I'm so tired! And I've been crying just like you! But there's no other way back except for us just to keep going. And you know what helps most when you're feeling like it's too hard? Being grateful and being brave. And now we can do that together!"

And suddenly, amazingly, I felt like we could! We started talking about when Teddy was born and it was so hard, and how I felt the strength of all these presences near, helping me. And we talked about how when you think about good things, the bad things feel so much smaller. We love wildflowers, so we hunted for those and tried to notice how many different ones we could find. We talked about how beautiful it was out on the beach; how huge and unbroken the ocean looked out beyond the edges of the bay.

I don't remember exactly what else we discussed, but it must have been inspiring, because soon we were both smiling and talking and moving along at a faster pace, where a few minutes earlier I would have thought I had no more strength at all to give. Daisy looked down at her blood-stained foot a few times and started to get a little sniffly again, but each time, she raised her eyes back up, took my arm determinedly and kept going. And I kept going with her. And then somehow at last we were coming up the last hill of the trail and we could see the car, and we hugged each other and laughed with relief.

All the time we were hiking, I kept pondering and marveling at what had happened. I of course had been praying for help the whole time; praying that I could be braver and better. But the ability and power to do so only came once I found myself trying to love and help someone else who needed it. In some ways I had higher expectations of how brave Daisy could or should be than I did for myself…but mixed with more compassion as well. Or somehow, the clarity with which I could see what she needed in order to keep going—optimism, courage, gratitude—mixed with the knowledge that she needed to see ME modeling those things—increased my ability to do what I already should have been doing, but now without all the complications of anger and annoyance with my own weakness. I kept thinking, "Is this always how Heavenly Father does His work and sends his love?" And then…"Is this the whole lesson of parenthood, in miniature form?" I know it sounds so small and like I was overdramatizing the whole thing—which I admittedly was—but it was like a miracle to me, this change in my abilities and my vision and my capacity. I knew it was an answer to my prayers. As I thought about it, I was so grateful, I didn't even have to TRY to be grateful anymore. I felt like the hardness of it all was worth it, for the beauty and the insight that kept coming.

Once I was back in the car resting my swollen foot and getting a drink of water, I felt sheepish but also like I'd been through miles and miles of some exhausting journey no one else knew about. I was proud of Daisy. I was even cautiously proud of myself—at least, of where I had eventually ended up! I kept these things and pondered them in my heart for a long time.

(And my foot, as I should have known it would be, was fine again after a couple days, and I was SO glad not to have missed such a beautiful hike, which in retrospect seemed like it must not have been so terribly long or difficult after all!)

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A profound and inseparable connection

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Priesthood Session of the October 1976 Conference.

We read the Priesthood Session this week, and one of the talks was Elder Boyd K. Packer's "A Message to Young Men." The text of the talk wasn't on the church website, but the video was, so I watched it instead of reading it. I don't know why they decided not to publish the text, but I did read somewhere that the talk was "widely mocked" and had generated controversy (of course) and I decided I didn't want to write about it because I hate getting caught up in that sort of thing. (And now here I am [sigh] so here's one article if you're interested.)

But when I went to write this post I couldn't seem to think about anything else. (Why does that always happen?) So here are my thoughts. Elder Packer is speaking to the young men about chastity and masturbation and homosexual behavior and other "sensitive" topics. I don't know if it would have been embarrassing to the young men listening. It didn't seem so to me, but I know sex education has gotten more extensive in the years since then. I do know it was pretty easy for me to listen and pick out which things he was saying would make people now complain about how "old-fashioned" and "unenlightened" the brethren were back then. But it was also easy for me to detect the love and concern and anxiousness to teach truth with which Elder Packer was saying those things.

I guess we're pretty smug, these days, regarding what we know about human sexuality. Most of us compare our own views favorably with the "repression" and "shame" we ascribe to earlier times. I've read plenty of people even within the church talking about this, and lamenting how far "church culture" still has to go in that area. And I'm sure there is good that has come from our relative openness and increased education. But I also thought, listening to this talk full of "old-fashioned" wording and "old-fashioned" reticence, that we (and by "we" I mean "modern thought, even some Mormon modern thought," I guess) know a lot less than we think we do. Because there is a spirit-body connection that is still not fully understood, even by the "latest research" of which we're so proud. But it is very real:

People often nurture the fantasy that sex can mean whatever we want it to. This fantasy involves an unrealistic and strange sort of mind-body split, a kind of dualism. People mistakenly believe that the mind, the sovereign will, is in complete control. The body is just a tool, a sort of appendage, detached from the mind. So, if the mind decides that sex means nothing, the body must obey. If the mind decides that it wants sex to be violent and domineering today, but warm and tender tomorrow, the body must just obey. 

But the mind and the body do not work that way. There is no such mind-body split. Rather, the medical and psychological sciences are increasingly demonstrating that there is a profound and inseparable connection between mind and body. And the body—not just the mind—is obviously involved in sexual encounters. The body has its own laws and its own logic; the body has its own wisdom, and it operates on its own terms. The human body must obey the laws of biology, of neuroscience, and of human psychology. And when we push against these, the body will inevitably push back.

That quote is from Aaron Kheriaty, MD, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Program in Medical Ethics at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine (and not a Mormon, as far as I know). He wrote that in 2015. But it echoes Elder Packer's insistence in 1976 that there are real consequences to what we do with our bodies and with the sexual feelings that go with them:

This physical power will influence you emotionally and spiritually as well. It begins to shape and fit you to look, and feel, and to be what you need to be as a father. Ambition, courage, physical and emotional and spiritual strength become part of you because you are a man. … This power of creation affects your life several years before you should express it fully. You must always guard the power…You must wait until the time of your marriage to use it.

Elder Packer also talked about the real, measurable effects of fasting, which is another thing derided in some circles these days as woefully inadequate and outdated as a "cure" for anything. And yes, addictions and other trials may not be banished forever simply because we fast and pray about them. But Elder Packer didn't say they would be. He just pointed out that intentional, righteous self-denial—a purposeful tying-together of the physical and the spiritual—can bring power:

At times of special temptation skip a meal or two. We call that fasting, you know. It has a powerful effect upon you physically. It diverts some of that physical energy to more ordinary needs. It tempers desire and reduces the temptation. Fasting will help you greatly. 

Again, it turns out this idea is not some old-fashioned invention of Elder Packer's. Here's what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said about something as simple as physically making the sign of the cross:

“I’ve found that following Luther’s instruction to ‘make the sign of the cross’ at our morning and evening prayers is…most useful,” [Bonhoeffer] said in one letter. “There is something objective about it…”

The Christian writer who quoted Bonhoeffer above comments further on why this is:

To begin with, signing oneself is more than mere symbolism. It is, as Bonhoeffer said, “objective.” There is something tangible and actual about tracing the points of the cross over one’s body. It goes back to something covered in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. Christians, the senior demon informs the junior, “can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers, for they constantly forget . . . that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.”

What we do physically affects us spiritually. Whether it’s lowering our gaze, raising our hands, bending our knee, or crossing ourselves, physical actions have a qualitative, spiritual effect.

Making the sign of the cross is something which we Latter-day Saints might find foreign, but I was thinking about how it is not unlike many of our physical covenant actions such as raising our hands to sustain someone, taking the sacrament, and other ritual actions we perform in the temple. And, of course, fasting! Our physical actions, both simple and complex, sexual and non-sexual, really DO affect our spirits!

I came away from listening to Elder Packer's talk feeling a sort of amazement about the many truths God makes available to us, if we will only accept them. Of course there are many things where our language and our understandings evolve over time, and that's how it should be. But there's also so much about modern thought that lets us down. I sometimes feel so discouraged about how inevitably and subtly the ideas of the world influence me in ways I'm not even aware of. But while we must each swim in the currents of our times, Heavenly Father doesn't leave us to flounder helplessly in them. He provides channels of truth and safety (or maps? or guides? or boats? Ha, this metaphor is beginning to falter…) and if we bravely stay within those—even when they seem counterintuitive or awkward or unenlightened—they will help us find happiness. Because no matter how much people insist that our sexual behaviors are our own business and "consent" or "lack of shame" is the only thing that matters, the fact is that God's ways of thinking about and using His creative power are the only ways that ultimately bring joy. And we knew that, through prophets, before any psychiatric research backed it up. From the same article above, here is Dr. Kheriaty's conclusion:

Before making decisions about our sexual behaviors, we need to ask ourselves some questions about what we want to be doing to our brain and our body—what kind of neural tracks and networks do we want to be reinforcing through these behaviors? Do we want to be fusing sex and love? Sex and security? Sex and attachment or commitment? Sex and fidelity? Sex and trust? Sex and unselfishness? Or do we want to be fusing in our brain and in our experiences sex and violence? Sex and dominance? Sex and submission? Sex and control? We shape our brain by our choices. And we develop increasingly automatic and ingrained habits by our repeated choices. But the initial choice of which path we embark upon is up to us. 

There is so much we (or I) don't understand about our physical bodies: why, exactly, they are necessary for exaltation; how they relate to our spirits; how they relate to God's perfected-but-also-somehow-real-and-tangible body of "flesh and bone." But we do know that they matter. What we do with them matters—and, as that quote above points out, we can choose, not everything about our bodies, but a significant portion of how they will develop and respond to our spirits. And most of all, we know that these physical bodies are the instruments through which many significant spiritual blessings and powers come. Mormons, of ALL people, know this through our doctrines and our temple ordinances. And how can we reach greater understanding unless we trust the revelations given to our prophets about how we should treat these sacred, "objective" and physical conduits?

Other posts in this series:

• Consistent Warnings by Nathaniel Givens
• 8 Gifts of Truth That Polarize Evil by Jan Tolman

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Regarding Clams

I've been feeling a bit self-conscious writing this post, because it occurs to me that maybe everyone (except me) already KNOWS about clams? Perhaps even finds them (and their habit of squirting jets of water at unsuspecting passers-by) boring?? Is this like someone marveling that milk actually comes from cows? If so…we will now excuse you to go read something more stimulating. But I was SO happy about this whole…clam…thing…that even now, I can hardly contain myself!

Let me begin at the beginning. One day the tide was very very low, with a huge swath of beach exposed. We saw lots of people out wandering around in the tide pool areas and wondered what they were all doing, so the boys went down to the beach to see. Then Seb came back all excited saying, "There are holes in the sand, and when you walk by, water comes squirting out of them!" And without even having to think about it, I said immediately, "It must be clams!" I felt instinctively that I must have read a thousand books talking about people watching for the sprays of water and digging for clams on beaches. I don't know WHY on earth I would have remembered, or for that matter, why I would have read so extensively about clamming in the first place, but I felt if I knew one thing in this life, it was that sprays of water from holes in the sand mean clams!

It was one of those abstract knowledges with no basis in reality, however, and I immediately started to doubt myself. Perhaps I was thinking of oysters. Or crabs? Were clams only in…Maine or somewhere? And WHY did clams shoot out water? And HOW? We were on our way elsewhere right then, but Sebastian and I found ourselves returning to speculation about the clams—the alleged clams—in our conversation for the rest of the day. (Sometimes I feel so pleased with myself for producing children that duplicate my own quirks.)

And, at the earliest opportunity, when the next low tide came around, Sebastian led the way down to the beach so we could see these wonders for ourselves.

Soon we came to a stretch of sand that was covered with little holes, like this. They were obviously something different than just the usual holes and hollows made in the sand by the waves.

Near the hole-y sand were some big mossy, rocky areas like this, FULL of big shells. Clam shells…we assumed.

Suddenly, as we started walking across the sand, the girls started squeaking and giggling. "Eeek, something sprayed me!" It was true. The holes were spraying us! On purpose, it seemed! Although Seb had told us about it, we were still so taken aback every time it happened. It was unpredictable, but not quite random…it seemed liked the holes were spraying you on purpose when you walked by, because if you jumped up and down in one place, or ran across a section of hole-y sand, little jets of water would come up all around you or follow you as you ran. It was so funny! But so deliberate that I also felt a little indignant about it. What right did these holes have to just squirt us whenever they pleased?!

While we were on the beach, we tried to dig down into one of the holes to find out what, exactly, was under there…but we couldn't find anything! But, it was clams, of course. Razor clams, to be precise. We looked it up when we got home and learned more about them. They can dig WAY down deep (3-4 feet) quite fast, so you have to be quick and have a pretty long shovel or something to dig them up. Here's a video we found of what the clam actually looks like when it's squirting out those jets of water (starting about the 2 minute mark, you can see what it looks like as it squirts out jets of water and tries to burrow down in the sand again). So interesting!

And of course, there are lots of cool things to find at low tide besides clams! This was a cute little crab.

I love his beady little eye-stalks!

Lots of dead crabs too, and other shells.

And lots of cool (non-clammy) patterns and imprints in the sand.

But. I'd be misleading you if I didn't admit that those clams were the best part! It was like being at a splash pad—the kind of splash pad that has responsive motion sensors that turn on the water as you go by. And maybe even better than that, because there was always the element of surprise. Sometimes you'd hop up and down and nothing would happen at all, and you'd run in a circle and still nothing would happen, and then you'd peer down at the holes in the sand curiously and suddenly a squirt of water would go right up in your face! Or you'd run across one section without incident, and then you'd get braver and run back across it, and get squirted in the legs the whole way across! We laughed so much that our smiling muscles hurt!

This green part was quite slippery, but Teddy bravely soldiered on

So…to sum up…even if you aren't digging them up and eating them, clams are fun! I'm so glad we finally got to see (or…see evidence of) some in real life!

5

The house by the bay

We've never been on a trip with anyone before (except, I guess, staying at my brother's house in California lots of times) so we were excited to see what it was like staying in this house with Sam's parents. And it was great! It was fun to go places together. It was fun to split up and then come back later and report on our different adventures. And it was fun in the down time, to just be sitting there reading near each other and talking if we wanted to. The kids loved having Grandma and Grandpa to talk to and play games with whenever they wanted! And we loved having a date night with them one night while Abe and Seb babysat at the rental house. 

It really was a great house. The stairs up to it were formidable, but that's part of what made the house so great: it was up so high that the views from the windows were amazing! And I LOVED (as I mentioned here) watching the tide go in and out of the bay! I was kind of sad every time I had to step away from the window to do something else besides watch the ocean. And I loved the balcony. Like every other woman on the planet, I don't sleep well when I'm pregnant, but I loved getting up in the midnight hours and going out into the dark cool air and listening to the ocean waves, and catching glimpses of moonlight reflected in the water. It was so calming! I kept telling myself to remember how lovely it was, because soon it would be just a memory. (And now it is!)

You can see the row of houses of which ours was one—we were in the tallest one you can make out in this picture, up against the trees.

View from the balcony, down the street

We loved this big long table, with room for all eleven of us!

Looking down from the loft. The boys were so happy Grandpa would play card games with them! And there's Grandma faithfully peeling potatoes for dinner. And me taking pictures of her instead of helping! :( Sorry, Mom!

Loft. So light and airy!

And that beautiful view.

These guys are a little odd.

Goldie helps Grandma

Junie out on the balcony—post-bath

Sam working. Daisy watching. Teddy snuggling with his bunny.

Always something pretty to look at. Beach with tide coming in.

Tide fully in. See how small the beach is?

These old pier posts were a good measuring point. Here they are exposed by the low tide…

and getting covered by the high tide.

The green section (in the left picture) was rocky and had crabs and clams in tide pools, at low tide. 

More tide comparisons. (Please forgive me if this doesn't enthrall you as it does me.) You can see the sandbar, exposed in the left picture and covered in the right one.

Sunset

Sunset, with pajama-clad boy

Here is a view of the whole bay area from above our house. It was a lot easier to see the crescent shape of the…island? peninsula? sandbar? from up there.

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