A Summer's Portrait

My sheets are a pile of spaghetti someone tried to twist around their fork and failed. My bed is hidden under a web of necklaces that I put on my bed after untangling them and then forgot they were there. My fish should be dying because I haven't changed his water since I got home but killing a goldfish is difficult. There's a stack of letters and concert tickets from college that I've been meaning to scrapbook and am considering sticking in a box in my closet instead. I learned how to crochet last week and now there's a crocheted rainbow scarf lying on the floor by my closet door, that, like most of my other projects, is wondering if it will ever get finished. There's a list of books I wanted to read this summer sitting on my desk by my laptop awaiting it's first mark of completion. There's a slightly damp bag hanging on my door knob from when I had to race home from work to teach swim lessons, and then race back to work in such a hurry that I had only enough time to grab some dry clothes and a pre-made dinner. No time to change. I would have to change when I got to work, and then stuff my wet swimsuit into the bag still hanging from my door knob. There's a journal sitting on my bedside table awaiting the ink of my pen like the Atacama Desert awaits a drop of rain. I always intend to write, and for my own credit, I wrote every night for the first three weeks of summer, but when I'm getting home at 10:00 from a 14 hour work day, I satisfy myself with the promise that I'll catch up tomorrow. And then tomorrow I'll make the same promise. The dead phone sitting on my bed is the tombstone of my social life and the pile of folded clothes on the floor are only folded because I didn't have time to do my laundry so my mom did it for me this time.

But outside this mess is a small plant box filled with bright orange Marigolds that my mother let me pick out when I went with her to pick out plants for the yard. Nearly all her plants are pink and purple so it was real love that she let me pick out a box of bright orange Marigolds and find a spot in the yard to plant them.

I had a thought as I was picking out the perfect spot, digging the holes, and placing them in the ground. The Lord created this earth perfectly, and yet, He has made it so that we can choose where plants will grow. Have you ever really considered how beautiful it is that plants grow from seeds that we can place according to our will and pleasure and provide what they need to grow? It's as if the Lord wanted us to experience the joy of His creation, to take part in a tiny piece of it, in order to increase our own appreciation of it. It's something I have had the luxury of appreciating every morning on my way to work. Admittedly, 6:25 is much to early for my liking some mornings, and it seems to get earlier and earlier as the week goes on, but if I wasn't required to leave so early for work, I would miss the beautiful sunrise that paints the sky in pink and orange every morning on my way in to work.

At the end of a winding road that is much too easy to speed on is the dental office where I work. There is the stash of snacks that the front office attendants have hidden on a shelf in the employee's restroom, that come out of hiding to replace the snacks on the counter that we go through all too quickly. Those peanut M&M's have undoubtedly made up for the freshman fifteen I missed out on. There is the first hygiene room that belongs to Mary, who laughs at nearly everything I say, calling it cute, and still manages to make me feel like I'm so much smarter than I actually am. There is the front office where I occasionally eat my lunch while undergoing an intensive investigation by Celeste of my nonexistent dating life, and long-distance crushes.

There are the two rooms that I set up and clean up a dozen times a day, where I help Doc with fillings, implants, root canals and the like, where I chat with Patty while we wait for our patients, and where I talk to the patients while I wait for Doc. You meet the most interesting people in a dentist's office, and, admittedly, you meet some pretty cute ones too. The other day I made the mistake of telling Mary that I thought one of our patients was cute. So then he returns the following day for a teeth whitening . . . I was helping Doc make a temporary crown for another patient, so Patty took the cute boy back for his whitening. Every time I walked by Patty's room to get a tool for Doc Patty would raise her eyebrows and give me one of those looks that made me feel like I was back in preschool. Then she finds an excuse to get me in the room with him (she wanted to show me how to do a whitening, which I'd never done before, but really, let's be honest, I think she was having way too much fun with her alternate motives). Then, as I'm leading Cute Boy out to the front desk Mary wiggles her eyebrows in a knowing question and it takes everything I've got in me not to burst out with laughter.

Down the road much further there is the YMCA where I go on Saturdays and on some evenings straight from the dental office. Through the front doors and to the right is the play center where Benjamin, an adorable two-year-old, will reach for me from his father's arms over the counter and then stay contentedly by my side, in my arms, or in my lap while we read books, blow bubbles, and play with the toy trucks. Beyond that is the craft station where Aiden and I color "beautiful" pictures of each other. It started when I mentioned that I had once dyed my hair red. She postulated what I might look like with purple hair, then picked up a purple crayon and pretended to color my hair purple. She then took a green crayon and pretended to color my teeth green. When she was through with pretending, and attempted to actually color my skin yellow I told her that it would only work if she drew it on her paper first. So then while she gave me yellow skin, purple hair, black lips, green teeth, red eyes, purple clubs for arms, and blue antennas, I made her look equally as beautiful, and together we had a blast.

On another road, thankfully much closer to my house, is the tiny pool where I teach two girls, Brighton who is five, and Hudson, who is three, how to swim. I was so afraid to teach them. You could even say I was as tentative towards teaching them as they were of swimming without their floaties. Hudson, who was afraid to leave the steps and swim to me while I stood hardly an arm's reach away can now swim halfway across the pool, and Brighton, who wouldn't put her face in the water, and clung to me desperately whenever we left the steps, can now swim the entire length. I think I've learned as much from them as they have from me. I found I could teach them everything they needed to know in order to swim, and then I would back up a few feet and ask them to swim to me. "Come closer," they'd say, until I was barely an arm's reach away. I would step one step closer and no more. "You can swim this far," I'd say confidently, because I knew they could, and when I didn't know it I believed it. "No I can't!" was inevitably Brighton's response. So I would come just a little closer and promise to catch her as soon as she started to sink. Then, in a leap of faith, Brighton would jump for me and swim. And I would back up. And I would keep backing up until she had swam not only to where I had first stood, but far beyond that point. Then, I'd take her in my arms and show her how far she had come. "See," I'd tell her, "You CAN swim." This became a sort of routine until one day I thought she could make it all the way. When she was nearing the far wall and I could see she was struggling I had a choice to make. I could grab her ten feet from the wall and put an abrupt end to the possibility of her reaching it, but save her from the panic that might ensue if I let her continue to struggle. I didn't want her to be scared away from swimming and erase a week of progress because I let her come too close to drowning. But I also knew that if she could make it to the wall it would give her what she needed more than anything I could teach her: confidence. Being in that position gave me a different perspective on how God must see us, and why sometimes, we are left to struggle, seemingly, on our own. I finally decided I had to grab her when she was about three arm's lengths from the wall. After she had gotten her breath, I told her to stretch out and touch the wall. Then I had her turn around and look at how far she had come. "Can I swim now?" she asked me. Were she old enough to understand I would have told her, "You never couldn't. But now you can." Instead, I told her "Yes. Yes, you can swim." So many times, I think we get in our own way. I do believe Brighton could have done what she did much sooner, had she believed she could. Nevertheless, I'm so proud of her and of three-year-old Hudson who is following quickly in her sister's footsteps. They are such sweet girls and I'm so fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from them.

My sheets are a wreck, my bed's unmade, my floor is an unkempt shelf for everything, my books are unread, my desk is dusty, my car is my mobile wastebasket, and my pillow is crying over our frequent break-ups and this impossible long-distance relationship. Everything's a mess,
but sometimes messy is good, like when I come in from the creek with my brothers covered in sand and grime and wearing the biggest smile because life is good.

A summer's portrait: messy, hectic, imperfect and really happy.

Candidly,
Cookie

Feet-portrait.
I think this is about the cleanest my feet have ever looked
while in the creek. It was a moment worth capturing.

Our backyard playground.
 It's like having your own jungle full of memories.
There's not a spot on that creek that doesn't hold one.

Dallin had the goal of catching ten fish
while we were in the creek one afternoon.
This would be number ten.
 I don't know how he does it.

Looks pretty normal, perhaps dull, but let me spice this up for you by giving you the real picture. In case you didn't notice, those feet don't belong together. The left one is my brother's. The right one is mine. To add to that, it may be difficult to tell from this picture, but we are standing on a narrow log about twenty feet above the ground. The crazy and clingy contortions we went through to get this picture are what make it my favorite one, because in order to get our feet so close together on such a narrow log we had to stand one legged and cling on to each other for life. Good times. 

Yogli Mogli's: a somewhat-expensive but super fun tradition with my brother's,
especially since we can bike there.

While the boys and Dad were gone at scout camp
Mom and I had a girls night out:
pizza, ice cream, a swim, and a romantic comedy.

The lake I get to run by when I take a run on my lunch break.
I occasionally picnic here as well.

New running shoes in preparation for my half marathon.
The trick is finding time to use them. 

What Guardrails, Capri Salads, Magic Eight Balls, and Remy All Have in Common

Having completed my first week of work should qualify me as bilingual. After working for a week as a dental assistant, I am convinced that dentists speak a whole other language. And now I speak it too. I can tell you what a perio chart is, the different surfaces of the teeth (lingual, facial, buccal, occlusal, mesial, and distal), where the midline is (and what it is), what calculus means (and I'm not talking about the math subject), what a cord packer is for, and even what Doctor Atkinson wants me to hand him when he rapidly pinches his fingers together (though it doesn't always mean the same thing, and so sometimes I get confused, but understandably so).
Now let's back up for a minute. I am the daughter of a nurse in the pediatric ICU. Blood makes me squeamish, and everything else makes me cringe, tense up, want to puke, or empathetically hurt. So, understandably, I was just a little bit nervous about working in a dental office. But amazingly, the procedures are so interesting that sometimes I forget all about that salty red saliva. I like to call it Red Saliva because it sounds so much better than Blood, don't you think?
After a week of on the job training, I've helped with crowns, root canals, fillings, extractions, and more.
Root canals and implants I can handle. Crowns and fillings - no problem. Extractions: I think it's short for Exit This Attraction, because that's pretty much what I want to do when that tooth is coming out. Seriously, it is nasty. And it's not just the blood, it's the noise as it rips out - that ripping, girgly, crunchy sound much like that which a live fish makes when you hit it with a bat (and thanks to my brothers who love to fish, yes, I know what that sounds like).
Along with learning the language of dentistry, I, in a way have added some of my own unique vocabulary to the mix. I was talking to one of the hygienists, Mary, about nicknames and told her that when a friend of mine and I were in middle school we had the brilliant of idea of assigning objects or animals to all our teachers, that way we could talk about them in a discrete manner. We never said anything bad about them; it was really just for the fun of it. Mary, of course wanted to know what I would name the people working in the office. After some thought, I named them as follows: guardrail, capri salad, magic eight ball, and Remy (the adorable little blue rat from Ratatouille).
What do guardrails, capri salads, magic eight balls, and Remy all have in common? They are all my wonderfully kind coworkers and friends, whom I feel incredibly blessed to know and work with.

Candidly,
Cookie

Why Sometimes the Fish Don't Bite, Even When They're Starving

Today at church, no one asked me how college was, or anything about it for that matter. I guess that makes it official - I am no longer a visitor or an oddity. No, I'm just home from a long vacation that has slipped into the silent, subtle pauses in conversation as deftly and as easily as I have slipped back in to the place it would seem I never left.
At first this lack of questioning made me just a little sad. To me, that one year away is monumental. I learned so much, and, in the process, I became someone different. And it would seem, no one wants to hear about it anymore. I can leave for eight months, return home, and within a week, it has become yesterday's news.
But in a way, I'm also glad that people no longer ask, "How was college?"
Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind when people ask about college. Rather, it's in how the question is asked. When someone asks "How was college?" how am I to respond? What am I to say?
I could tell them about the day I was so tired I went back to my dorm and took a nap between classes and the panic that ensued when I woke up two hours later to find my alarm had not gone off. I could tell them about how odd and funny I found it that it took all of five minutes to walk to church and yet half the ward would be late. I could tell them about the time I texted my friend at 10:45 pm to ask if she wanted to go running with me and then after she said no, I texted her again at 11:15 "don't worry. I found someone." That someone had been a girl from upstairs who in all honesty, I had met once but didn't know. After our run, we split a dinner at midnight at Panda Express and then stayed there talking for another hour. That's one thing I'll miss about the dorms. I could tell them about my new-found obsession with Britain's Got Talent, or how I had to bike three hours round trip to get to a place where I would volunteer in order to fulfill the required number of hours for my class in social work. But they don't really want to hear all this, or if they do, how does one start? So I smile, shrug slightly, and simply say, "It was good."

Last week, I got to eat lunch with a friend and I told her all about college. Of course, there was the element of time. She had the time to hear it all. But that wasn't the only difference. The difference was in how she asked. Had she only asked "How was college?" I would have told her the same thing I've told everyone else. "It was good." Because it seems the only answer.
Instead, though, she asked about specifics. And that was the key. So, just in the future, if you're really interested in getting an answer when your kids come home from school each day, or when your friend comes home from college, or a coworker returns from vacation, ask them what their favorite part was, what the worst part was, the scariest, the funniest, what one thing they'd take away from it, what they regret, what pushed their buttons or stretched them to the limit, what made them cry and what made them laugh, who their friends were, what their favorite class or activity was. Ask them anything! Ask them anything EXCEPT "How was your day?" or "How was college?"
You can start with that if you like (and if you're really not interested in hearing more you can end with that too), but if you want to hear more, you have to recognize that sometimes, in fact, most times, those just don't cover it.
It's why sometimes the fish don't bite, even when they're starving. The bait just wasn't good enough.

Candidly,
Cookie

My Corner of Disney

If I were to paint a picture of bliss it might look something like this: Crisp fish 'n chips served on a newspaper placemat, classic blue and white china with depictions of homey cottages, farms and orchards, a bright red phone booth that makes me think of rainy streets and a simpler old-fashioned way of living, skinny alleyways crowded with shops, each adorned by baskets of flowers, striped awnings, and architecture I only wish I saw more of in the US, a mug that reads "Once Upon a time", steaming with hot chocolate, sitting inside the Writer's Stop with my leather-bound journal, a pen, and good book, looking out at the eiffel tower as the sun sets, and the night life stirs in the warm breeze of summer. Basically, the world showcase in Epcot. My corner of Disney. And whose to say I can't make it my corner of life?
One day I'll fulfill those crazy writer dreams. Ya know, those ones I haven't quite pinned down yet. Till then, I'll sit at my cluttered desk listening to the gurgling of the filter in my fish tank and the click of the keys as I type another blog post, looking out on the trees in front of my window, wishing job applications were done and over, snacking on Minnie Wheats, dreaming of the day when I can talk as excitedly about my career as I can about spending a week with the family in Disney World. Which was a blast.

Candidly,
Cookie

Goldy

We thought the lips on the fish on the bottom right
looked like Angelina Jolie's so we called her Angie. 

For my brother Dallin's birthday, we headed up to the Chattanooga, Tennessee Aquarium. Don't get me wrong, I loved seeing the marine life, but my favorite part is probably not what you'd expect. I find it kind of funny really.
My other brother, Jacob, had inserted a dollar into one of the fancy little coin presses and asked it for change to send spiraling down the funnels that are put there to collect the spare change from kids like my brother. You know, for marine life conservation funds and the like.
Much to my brother's dismay, it spit out a gold dollar. That dismay quickly turned into a wide grin. Gold coins may not be good to dump down fund-raising funnels but around here gold coins come only from the tooth fairy, which makes them high commodity and quite a treasure.
Jacob took out a five dollar bill, inserted it into the coin press, and then pressed the button for change and his grin widened as five gold coins spat out.
Dallin and I, who had been watching the sharks, quickly realized where the fun was at and soon had our own heeping piles of gold coins. Every dollar bill I had became a gold coin until my pocket was so heavy that my pants sagged to one side.
When we got back to the car it was like the floor of the stock market as we inspected our coins, peering over to get a look at each other's, and then quickly trading before either of us could change our minds.
Most kids trade Pokemon, we trade gold coins.
I'd say they make the ideal souvenir. They cost nothing and they never lose value.
Besides, they remind me of treasure chests and pirates sitting atop their plunders, counting their booty.
We probably looked pretty funny giggling and shrieking around the coin press machine, walking around with huge clinking bulges in our pockets, saying things that, to the people walking past our car, probably sounded pretty ridiculous. Things like, "I'll give you four Sacagaweas for your Lincoln."
But pirates don't seem to care what other people think. And nor did I, because, man, were we havin' fun.

Candidly,
Cookie

(In case you were wondering what's with the title, I asked my brother Dallin to title it. I'd say he's got a career in the making. You should've heard his other suggestions. Among them was "Little Fuzz Brains". Don't ask me where that came from.)