Author name: Sandra Tayler

Cadbury Eggs, change, and life after death

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When I was a child Cadbury eggs were the epitome of Easter goodness. I saw them on TV. There was this bunny who would wiggle his nose while making chicken noises and then hop away leaving the egg behind. A pair of hands would demonstrate how the chocolate shell was filled with gooey white goodness. I watched that long sweet string stretch between the two halves of the chocolate shell and I wanted one. Cadbury eggs were my Easter dream. On the few occasions that one came into my possession, I treasured as I ate. It was heaven on earth as far as I was concerned.

The Easter season of my first year at college, the local grocery store had a box of Cadbury eggs sitting at the check out stand. It was one of those newly emergent adult moments when I realized that I did not have to beg for this treat. I could just buy it. And so I did. Then I ate it and it tasted pretty good, but my stomach was unsettled afterward. It became a yearly ritual, buy egg, eat egg, wish I had not eaten egg because I felt sick. It took four or five years before I really faced the fact that I don’t like Cadbury eggs. That gooey sweet heaven to the child me is sickeningly sweet to the adult me. Part of me feels sad for the little girl I was who now has the ability to buy all the eggs she could dream of, but who no longer wants to.

This is part of growing up. This is one of the things children sense and fear about it. They know that in the years to come they will change. They will become so different from what they are and the worry how they will still be themselves. I’ve felt that fear.

When I became pregnant with my first child, I buried myself in research. I wanted to learn everything about pregnancy so that I could know what to expect. What I found was alarming. My body was going to change weight and shape, my balance would be changed, my joints would loosen, I would become forgetful, moods and emotions would shift on the waves of hormones, even my clarity of thought would be shifted. I cried to Howard one night because I could not see how I could still be myself when everything about me was going to change. I went through it all. I went through all the mothering that came next. I set aside old dreams of writing and drawing to pick up new dreams of nurturing and teaching. I repeated the pregnancy process three more times. I set aside almost everything to survive radiation therapy. I learned to love gardening. Then I came to a time when the nurturing and teaching left enough room for me to dust off the other dreams. I have changed and changed again, yet through it all I was still me.

I used to joke that my oldest daughter had the taste of a magpie. She loved all things sparkly, shiny, and bright pink. She bedecked herself often. She and I had a bit of a struggle over how we should decorate her room, she won the day with a hot pink Barbie comforter. That girl is gone. The daughter I have today does not like pink, particularly not hot pink. She likes cool colors and solids rather than prints. Sparkles and shine are occasional accents, not standard fare. Yet she is still the person she was. And she is not yet the person she will become. Neither am I.

I am thinking of Cadbury eggs today, because it is Easter. They sit at the check out stand and I do not buy them. This year Easter is also the General Conference for my church and many of the speakers have spoken of death, resurrection, and life thereafter. I know that not everyone who reads this blog believes in life after death, but I do. And today I have been thinking about how life after will be different. I will be different. I will be as different from who I am now as I am currently different from the girl who loved Cadbury eggs. Today this thought is not frightening, because I can see that though I will be different, I will still be me. Those I love will meet me there and they will still be themselves too. We will all be moving on to whatever comes next just as the Cadbury girl moved on to be me.

Change is paradoxically the one constant. We continually shift and grow. I look forward to seeing who I will become in the years to come and in the years hereafter.

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An empty space

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My first task each weekday morning is to get the kids off to school. It is chaotic and frequently frustrating, but it has gone better since I started making the kids pay attention to clocks. After I drive kids to their various schools, I come home and begin assessing what the rest of the day will look like. I check email, I check task lists, I talk with Howard. Then I make a plan for the day. Usually the plan gets altered repeatedly in the course of the day, but having a plan helps.

Yesterday I found myself at 10 am with nothing left to do. Seriously. I still have piles of work, but all of it was waiting on a piece from someone else. Book layout is waiting on margin art. Cover layout is waiting on some illustration pieces. Convention prep is waiting on a photo shoot which we’ll do next week. No one had ordered stuff from the store since I shipped the day before. There weren’t even very many emails. The weather was stormy and wet, so gardening was out of the question. I puttered around the house for awhile. Then Howard left the house at noon and I was alone. Alone for two hours with nothing urgent to do. It was marvelous.

I was tempted to sleep. Sleep makes my brain blank which sounds really attractive since it has been a noisy place to live of late. Instead I decided to spend those two hours being a writer. So I crafted a query letter and submission packet. My friend Janci offered to read it and give me a critique about whether it was working. Writing the query is yet another baby step toward the time when I’ll be querying my project for real. Part of my brain spent time telling me that I was being silly and that no one could be interested in buying my book, but I ignored that part and did the work.

Then it was time to pick up the kids. And none of them had homework. And they all dashed off to play at friends’ houses. And then I was alone again for three more hours. It was enough time to eat food, play a video game, and clean up the house. It was wonderful to be able to do the things I chose to do simply because I wanted to do them.

It also meant that my brain was untangled and ready when the North Valley Writer Girls could not come, the Utah County branch all congregated at my house instead. It was really fun. I was able to be at home for my kids while still getting to talk with other writers.

Today I think there will be more time free for thinking and unwinding, although I won’t be alone in the house. I’ll also be listening to my church’s General Conference which will fill my head with new thoughts to think. Next week the kids are home for spring break while I simultaneously attempt to finish up a book. It will definitely be interesting.

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Utah’s Biggest Liar

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We just got back from the Utah’s Biggest Liar Competition at the Orem public library. Howard and I were asked to be judges after the contest organizers met us at LTUE. I guess they could tell by looking at us that we might be good at it. It was a family event, complete with a junior competition. So we brought our kids along. I loved seeing the range in experience and practice. I loved how those who were just starting out with storytelling got the same chance as those who had been practicing for a while. The most common flaw was that the stories ran over time. But mostly we didn’t mind because they were fun to listen to.

The kids behaved really well and had a great time. Although Gleek says the best part was after the competition was over and she got to play hide and seek in the library with some other kids. But then she was the one who was telling story after story during the post event cookies. Each story was wilder than the last. All the kids will be getting a reward of some sort, because Howard and I were able to focus on our judging duties without being worried about them.

I came home energized and happy. It was such a nice change after the dragging day that I’d had. I loved getting to talk with the people who were there. I hope we can be involved again.

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I want a pause button

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What I really want today is to pause everything and go nap for three hours. Or I want to pause everything and go garden for hours, except the snow makes this one unlikely today. However if I could have paused the day before yesterday to garden, that would have been great. I just want everything to stop rushing forward so that I have time to finish something before the next thing is already due. I’d just be happy if I could finish a bunch of little things so that they could stop tugging at my attention and making me feel fragmented.

If I actually had a pause button. I would abuse it terribly and I would grow old before my time. Perhaps instead I should wish to multiply myself. That way I could get everything done on schedule. Unfortunately if I could multiply myself, I would probably still be over scheduled because I would expect my multiples to accomplish more than they reasonably can. I would just do more instead of relaxing more.

So it seems I need to figure this out with just my lone little self, dragged ever forward through time. I should probably start by putting down the blogging and getting more work done.

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Fragmented thoughts on a busy Monday

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I’m living in a world of post-it notes. Almost every available space on my computer hutch has a note plastered to it. I have notes pasted to a copy-edited version of RMS, which I need to enter into InDesign. I have notes about Penguicon, and Balticon, and GenCon. I’m starting to acquire notes about events in the fall. The notes are really helpful, because my brain is too full. I can only keep track of things if they are written down and stuck somewhere I’ll see them again.

Around noon I washed up on the couch in our front room. I was not done with work for the day. Not by a long shot. But I sat there, drifting inside my own head, waiting for some thought to feel urgent enough to make me get up. It took awhile. It was only when Howard came upstairs that I was washed out of my repose and back into work.

I think dinner tonight will be something easy, like frozen pizza. I need my creative energy for book layout and homework management and family home evening. I feel a little bad that so many of our dinners have been easy ones lately. But I don’t want to spend emotional energy on food. Not when so many other things I enjoy are getting shoved to the edges.

We could be done with the book this week if we push. I’m aiming for April 10th which gives us two weeks. Every day we add a new piece. Every day it gets that much closer. Almost done. Almost done. Almost done. I have to keep reminding myself when I get tired.

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On Pants, Shopping, and Transformation

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“Standing in front of the dressing room mirror is such a reality check.” Melinda said as she handed over a stack of clothes she would not be buying. I agreed as I handed over my stack too. We each retained one shirt. Pants were what we’d come to find.

In most fairy tales and many modern women’s stories there is a moment of transformation. Cinderella’s godmother transforms her from a drudge to a princess. The best friend takes the woman shopping and she changes from a nerd into something beautiful. The little mermaid sheds her fins for legs. The further outcomes vary greatly, but in each the transformational element echoes in story after story. It is a reflection of the desire of ordinary women to be made beautiful. This is what I search for in the clothing racks. I seek the item which will camouflage my physical faults and draw the eye in good ways. I hope for clothing which will transform me. It is a lot to ask from mere clothing.

My last post about shopping for pants got far more responses than I expected. Women poured out sympathy and suggestions. At least one man read the commentary and was trying to comprehend the attraction of shopping for women. One friend, Jessica, was so moved by my lack of good pants that she declared that we must go shopping together. Melinda volunteered to go too. So the three of us found babysitting for our respective offspring and met at a mall.

When I was a teenager, shopping was a big component of my social interactions with friends. We would go to the mall and spend hours browsing through racks, trying on clothes, and pretending not to notice the boys who were there. There was giggling. Mostly it was freedom we craved on these shopping expeditions. We were away from our parents with money in our pockets. Trying on clothes was like playing dress up. We could experiment with who we wanted to be by trying on different clothes. And there was always the unspoken hope of transformation, that we would find one beautiful item which would make us beautiful. Shopping with adult women is much the same. We escaped from our children to visit with friends, to play dress up, and to hope for transformation.

Howard and the kids watched Princess and the Frog this weekend. That is a movie which is heavily invested in transformations. The characters transform again and again as the film explores how appearance relates to substance. Many of the transformations are magical in nature, but at least one is transformation by clothing. Tiana puts on a borrowed dress and becomes a princess.

Fun was the primary purpose of the outing for me. The quest for pants was merely a good excuse to hang out with two women I don’t get to see often enough. I honestly did not care whether I brought home clothes or not. The enjoyment was in allowing myself to look, imagine, and laugh. So amidst all the talking and looking, each of us selected some clothes to try on. Which led to the moment when Melinda and I grimaced together about the unkindness of dressing room mirrors. For there we saw ourselves, transformed in unwanted dimensions. We resolved to be better about getting regular exercise, and we began by walking through the mall to a different store.

Every woman has an item of clothing that they remember because they did not buy it. It is a reverse form of shoppers regret. Mine was a persimmon colored dress. I was seventeen and the dress was perfect. It fit perfectly, the skirt swung, the color flattered my complexion. I loved it. My mother loved it. It was a dress that transformed me. But we left it behind because it cost twice as much as any other dress I had ever owned. If I had bought it, I would have worn it and loved it. But eventually it would have been worn out, outgrown, or out of date. I would not still have it today. But it shines in my memory.

The shopping expedition did result in the purchase of pants. In fact all three of us bought the exact same pair of pants. Or rather we bought three identical pairs of pants. (We are not doing the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants thing where we attempt to share a single pair.) Now we feel that in the spirit of acting like junior high girls we should all arrange to wear them to the same event on the same day.

So did I find transformation among the clothing racks? Not this trip. I just found a good pair of pants that make me feel a little more attractive. It is a small transformation I guess. But I can’t help feeling like full transformation is out there. If only I could find it, then all my dreams could come true. That’s how it works in all the fairy tales. In real life the thing that makes dreams come true is lots of hard work. (I love that Princess and the Frog acknowledges this. It is positive progress in the way we teach our kids to think about dreams.) So if I don’t seek for my dreams in the clothing racks, what am I seeking? I’m seeking the clothes which make me feel transformed. They don’t have to be expensive. Sometimes I find it in clothes that I’m given for free or on the cheap at second hand stores. Sometimes it is by pulling out my sewing machine and making alterations to things I already own. No matter where the clothes come from, I’m playing dress up. Putting on professional clothes contributes to my feeling of professionalism and thus to my ability to actually be professional. Putting on attractive clothes helps me feel attractive, which causes me to have confidence, which actually makes me more attractive.

I once fessed up to a woman at church that I sometimes buy new shoes before conventions, because wearing something new gives me confidence. I was a little mystified with this seeming illogical behavior in myself. The other woman laughed. “Oh sweetie. I don’t even try to rationalize it. I just know it works and I buy shoes.”

I think this is wisdom. Take what works and run with it. So here I sit in my new pants, ready to handle whatever comes next with more confidence than I had the day before yesterday.

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By the clock

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On school mornings I wrest the covers off of my children one at a time. Then I go around and do it again because they all groan and pull them back on. (Except for Kiki. She gets up and gets herself ready.) Eventually I prod them down to breakfast. Then they meander their way toward being ready while I dash around the house shouting things like “Where are your shoes?” “You’re going to be late.” and “I sent you to get dressed 15 minutes ago, why are you playing with legos while wearing nothing but underwear?” By the time I drop them at school I feel frustrated and they feel harried. It is not how I want us to start the day, but often that is how it goes.

Children do not measure their lives by clocks or calendars. They rely on other things to give them a sense of where they are in time. On busy days when lunch gets skipped (usually replaced by an endless stream of they-helped-themselves snacks) the kids complain, not from hunger, but because they somehow arrived at dinner without knowing that the day was passing. When I need to describe an upcoming event, the kids are better able to comprehend if I describe it as being after a birthday or a holiday rather than naming the number of months or days.

I’ve known this for a long time. What I did not realize until a couple of months ago is that the kids do the same thing on school mornings. They pace themselves against the shrillness of my voice. I noticed that on the mornings when I am up early and focused, we get out the door early. I still have to cajole to get them moving. The only difference is that I increased the intensity of my cajoling earlier. On the mornings when I get distracted, they spend a longer time laying around or playing. On those mornings they are late.

The kids are very dependent upon having someone standing around saying that they are running out of time. Once I recognized it, I could see how it was not an ideal way to run the mornings, but I didn’t know how to change it. Ideally the kids should be watching the clocks for themselves rather than waiting for me to poke them. Heaven knows we have enough clocks in the house. I have tried applying consequences for being late. One morning I declared that anyone who was not ready when I declared “time to leave” would owe me an extra chore. It was a fairly good motivator, except for the fact that I then had to follow through and make them do the extra chores. Even so, it is a system that still has the kids depending upon me for their timing cues. Mostly we just muddled through. I figured I’d just have to keep scolding and wait for them to take responsibility the way that my oldest now does.

This morning another option clicked. Once I’d managed to herd all of the kids to the breakfast table, I made them look at the clocks and tell me what time it was. 7:12. I then asked them when we had to leave the house to get to school on time. They did not know. 7:45 I told them. I declared that at 7:40 I would shout “Time to go.” At that point the kids were to be ready to walk into the front room, collect their things, and get into the van. At 7:45 I would leave with whoever was ready. Anyone who was not ready would owe me an extra chore to make up for the extra trip to school. Since I’ve actually been requiring chores lately, the consequence loomed large for them.

It was a good start, but more important was the rest of the way I ran the morning. Instead of saying “You need to get moving.” I would say “check the time.” Instead of “go get your shoes” I’d say “when the clock says 7:35 you need to go get your shoes on.” The key was constantly making them look at the clock and measure how fast they need to go by the clock. This is one of those subtle but potentially powerful shifts in parenting technique. In theory enough practice at this will have them using the clock as a time management tool. It will probably take a lot of practice.

I should mention that this technique would not be effective on children who can’t tell time yet. In fact, I still had to help seven year old Patch stay on track much more than the older two. Even with him it was very helpful to have him and me working together against the time on the clock, rather than him having to dress to my commands. For one morning I was not the villain. Even better, everyone was on time for school today and I didn’t have to shout.

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Scheduling and Email

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Here I am at Thursday and some of my Monday things are still yet to do. This is normal, but I sigh over it. More worrisome is the fact that March only has six days left and I still have a long list of March things. I am endlessly sprinting to try to catch up to my own plans. I really do try to build spaces into the schedule. I try plan ahead and give myself room to add things last minute. Because some things will be forever gone if you don’t take time for them. Other things will not go anywhere, and in fact will laying in depressing heaps until you manage to shovel them out of the way. The trick is recognizing when a heapish thing is masquerading as vanishing thing. Or vice versa. It happens more often than you might think.

The other thing that is bothering me today is my turn around time on email. I used to answer email in 24 hours or less. That is not happening anymore. Some of it is a function of quantity. More of it is lack of space in my brain. I have to find time to compose answers. Sometimes the answers pop into my brain as soon as I read the message. Other times I read through the piles of back email and realize that an important message has been languishing for days because I needed time to compose and then I got distracted.

Time for me to go organize something and hope it will help me find my ability to focus.

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In search of pants

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The time has come for new pants. My old pants still fit, although loosely. They aren’t worn out, just worn down a bit. But styles have shifted. My awareness has shifted. And I would like to have some pants that contribute to a feeling of competence and attractiveness rather than just being serviceable. I want some every day clothes that don’t proclaim motherhood quite so clearly. I want a greater variety of professional clothes. Also, on an average day I can count the amount of time I spend outside my house on the minutes of one hour. It was time to go shopping.

Pants shopping is not my favorite thing. I find it more tolerable when I go to Savers with a coupon for 30% off, because I don’t have to deal with quite so much sticker shock. Also I frequently find amusement at the clothes that someone somewhere spent full price on, but which I can laugh at for free. The disadvantage of shopping second hand is that when you find something that is perfect except for being a little too small, you can’t go back for a different size. One of the major advantages is the variety. Very different styles are on the same rack instead of in different stores.

I was in search of pants, so naturally I started by looking at shirts. Some days are good shopping days. These are the days where it seems like everything in the store is just right. Other days I can spend hours flipping through racks without finding a thing I care to try on. Today was a good shirt day. It was not such a good pants day. I still count it as a win when I come home with eight items of clothing for less than $24. Especially when 1/4 of the clothes actually fit the category I went to the store to acquire.

I also came home with an awareness that I don’t really know what I am looking for when it comes to clothes. I kept standing there at the shirt rack, remembering that I have outfits at home which just lacked a single piece to be perfect, but I could not remember what pieces I was missing. So I brought home pieces of new outfits for which I will now have to find additional pieces. I need to approach this whole “renovate the wardrobe” project a little more systematically. I need to go through my closet and make lists. While I am at it, I should probably inventory the kid clothes too. Then I need to carry that list with me and go visit the thrift store every couple of weeks until I’ve filled the gaps.

I know this stuff. I used to do it all the time. It was survival during the lean years. But then I got busy and stopped keeping track of clothing other than to dump it through the laundry machines and occasionally fold it. No wonder my clothes feel out dated.

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