Ice Caves

Some of my favorite childhood summer memories are from time spent at my cousin's cabin.

All of my dad's surviving siblings were parents, and some were grandparents, by the time my dad got married, so I grew up playing with my cousins' kids. (This seemed very normal to me, and incomprehensible to my husband when we were dating and first married. "You must have that wrong." He could not imagine cousins an entire generation older than he was. When my husband's dad was 50, all of his own kids were married, and he had 4 grandkids. When my dad was 50, he got married, for the first and only time.) Dad had helped raise my cousin Lynne - in fact, she herself always phrased it as "raised me," not "helped" - before he had children of his own, and they were always very close. We, my sister and I, spent a lot of time with Lynne's three sons.

Lynne's second husband, George, worked for Pacific Gas and Electric, and they owned cabins that the employees could use for a nominal fee. Sometimes when Lynne's family would go to the cabin near Mt. Shasta, they'd take us with them. I don't recall feeling stacked like cord wood, but it must have been a tight fit. Sometimes we had Lynne, George, Lynne's sons Joe, John and Chris, George's mother, known to all as Ma Bell (since her last name was Bell), George's son George, my parents, my sister June and me, all in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom cabin. In our room there was a double bed (for my parents) and a bunk bed (for us kids), and the other bedroom was similarly outfitted, with the bathroom inbetween. Somebody had to have slept on the screened in patio, and someone on the living room couch.

I loved that cabin. I loved the tiny town with 81 residents, reachable only by dirt road, that it was in. I loved the mountain most of all. It just spoke to me. I've spent most of my life in a valley ringed by peaks of the Sierras, and I spent my newlywed and new parent years in a small town facing a large peak, but the one I refer to as "my mountain" is Shasta. I haven't been there for years, but she'll always be my mountain. I know exactly when she appears - or disappears - from view on any highway in her vicinity.

Small towns and summer meant freedom. I'm probably the last generation that had their parents feel safe turning them loose and saying, "Be back before dark." We rode my cousins' three wheelers, we fished, we went down to the general store and played pool or bought ice cream.

One year, the boys wanted to take us through "the ice caves," lave tubes that had ice in them year round. We thought this was a great idea. Our moms were onboard. My dad was not.

My dad was a pretty typical macho man with chauvinist tendencies. Had we been sons, he would have agreed in a second. But, we were girls, and therefore too delicate and incapable. He was terrified that we'd be hurt, by anything. We weren't even allowed to wash dishes - "Something might break and cut you." Dad put the "over" in "overprotective."

This was maddening to me. I felt perfectly capable of handling anything that the boys could. And the caves sounded really cool - the boys once found an antique gun and a lizard frozen in the ice.

So - kids, don't try this at home - our mothers conspired with us to let us go. We would smuggle our coats and gloves out of the house, and just neglect to tell Dad where we were going. We could put on our outerwear just before we went into the caves. Our moms knew where we'd be and when we'd be back.

The age spread was about 5 years from oldest to youngest. June and my cousin Joe were 3 years older than me, John, 2 years older, little George ("Georgie") was my age, and Chris was two years younger. Georgie was at his mom's for the week this particular summer. Joe was down the street helping Spence, one of the year round residents, reshingle his house. (Joe was hitting the age where he'd rather make money than spend time with "the little kids.") So, four of us set out to walk to the caves. I've always been bad at estimating distance, but it was probably about half a mile, out of town and past the campground.

The caves were great. Most gave us plenty of room to walk upright, although some were narrow enough that we had to go single file. It was cold; we needed the coats. Sometimes, we'd have to duck through an opening. We didn't find anything cool frozen in the ice, but we had fun.

Then we came across a cave that the boys hadn't previously been through. The only opening we could find was one that we'd have to crawl through, and I for one wasn't keen on that. We'd had to climb down a steep incline covered in loose rock to the cavern where we were sitting. There was a log that I was using as a bench, and several small holes in the rock that let us see through to what looked like a large cavern. It was bright enough inside that it had to have large openings somewhere, but we couldn't find any.

John was on his hands and knees, trying to see if we could all fit through the hole that only appeared to be about 18 inches tall. We were starting to get antsy, and complain about how long it was taking. "Let's just go on to the next one." "Hang on, I think I'm almost there." I went over to check an opening above John, one only a few inches across. I wanted to see where we were headed. It looked like the cavern below me was huge - I thought of a ballroom - with stones littering the floor. Still, I could see no way in. I sighed and sat back up.

Now June was getting ready to follow John. "It looks like we only have to crawl for a few feet."

"I'm not squeezing through there!"

"If we can fit, you can fit."

Suddenly, John started yelling. "Back! Back! Go back! Get out!" June sat back and John scrambled out of the hole. The rest of us were saying, "What? What?" when we all heard it - a sound, a roar, from inside the cave.

Panic ensued, total panic. All four of us tried to run up the slope at the same time, sliding and stumbling. Behind us, the sound seemed to repeat, to get louder. I was the slowest, and I was quickly behind the others. "Wait! Wait!"

"CATCH UP! Hurry!"

And then, I fell. I slid backwards, yelling for help, and everyone else hit the top of the incline and scrambled out. I crawled the last few feet as everyone yelled at me to hurry, and lurched to my feet as they took off running. "Wait! Wait!" I limped. "My foot! I hurt my foot!" We ran - OK, I hobbled - until we hit the road and stopped to breathe.

"What was that?" With the moment of panic over, we turned to John for answers. We'd all heard the noise, but we wouldn't have panicked without John panicking.

John explained that he was head and shoulders through into the cavern. "And then, the entire back wall moved."

"Something moved?"

"The whole wall moved! The whole thing!"

We didn't know what we'd run from. It could have been a landslide, a bear, Bigfoot, the little people Native American legend said lived on the mountain and caused hikers to disappear, a rift in the space/time continuum, an earthquake - it all seemed equally plausible and impossible.

We still had plenty of time before we had to be back, but we decided to cut the day short. "We can't go running home scared. We have to act like nothing happened." I mean, all we needed was for my dad, with his temper, to hear that we'd actually been in the presence of something dangerous. We all knew that situation would get ugly fast. We decided to just casually stroll home.

"You can't limp like that."

"It hurts!"

"Well, we can't go home with you dragging your foot that way!"

My big toe throbbed. "I think I broke my toe."

"You did not."

"It'll be fine."

They were right, though. I couldn't let my dad see that I'd been hurt. He'd never let me out of his sight again.

I'd pretty well perfected the casual walk by the time we hit the edge of town. It hurt, but so did limping. We stuck our hands in our pockets and strolled, ever so casually, into town.

We were coming up the street towards Spence's house, where we'd turn left and go up to the cabin. We could see Joe and Spence on the roof, ripping and hammering. Joe had peeled off his shirt in the midday summer heat. He was hot and sweaty, wearing only a pair of short cutoffs and his shoes. We were still a couple of blocks away when he looked up and saw us coming. He stopped work and stared. Then, he called Spence over - we were too far away to hear the words - and Spence stopped and stared. They wiped the sweat with bandanas and just watched.

"Are you still limping?"

"NO! Look at me! I'm fine!"

We continued our casual stroll up the street, trying to look innocent. As we came up to the house, Joe leaned over. In his best deadpan, casual voice, he said, "Cold out, isn't it?"

THE COATS! We were all still in heavy coats and gloves! The boys had hats on! In the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer! Within sight of the cabin! OHMYGOSH!

"Not really. We were just..."

"It was colder earlier..."

"It's hotter up there."

Joe was not interested. "Uh huh," he said, and went back to hammering.

We peeled off all of our outerwear in a flash. I don't remember where we stashed it - maybe in one of the cars. Then, trying again to project casual innocence, we strolled back into the cabin.

Both moms were surprised. "You're home early."

John did the talking. "Yeah. We just decided to come back early." He may have offered an excuse - hunger? fatigue? - but I don't recall. We waited until my dad and George went somewhere - maybe on a firewood run - and then told the story, with lots of dramatic gesturing.

Neither Lynne nor Mom was particularly concerned. We heard a noise, we ran - not a big deal. Both were very sensible, capable women, trying hard to raise sensible, capable children.

"I think I broke my big toe," I said. Instead of getting better, the pain had actually gotten worse.

"Does it feel like it's bleeding? Should we take a look now?"

"No, no, it's not bleeding. We can check it at bedtime." Again, hiding it was more important than risking Dad seeing it.

That night, while I got ready for bed, Mom and Lynne checked my foot. My toe had swelled dramatically into a tiny purple barrel shape.

"Can you bend it?"

I flexed just enough to move the toe. "Ow!"

"OK. If you can bend it, it's not broken. You've just burst all the blood vessels. It'll hurt like hell for a few days, but you'll be OK," Mom said.

Allow me to pause here to, in effect, sing a love song to my mother. This exchange is really indicative of her parenting. When I grew up and started devouring child development texts, I discovered that the way my mom behaved - apparently instinctively - was what experts recommend. If a child is hurt, physically or mentally, you shouldn't ignore or minimize it, but you also shouldn't allow the child to either panic or wallow (or do so yourself). You acknowledge the hurt, let the child experience and express the fear, pain or both, appropriately, but reassure them that it's temporary and that they can handle it. Then you send them on their way and let them handle it. That was the way my mother operated, all the time.

She checked it for me, acknowledged that it "hurt like hell," but also reassured me by using the word "just" before the scary description of "burst all the blood vessels." And, she reinforced that I would be OK. A brilliant woman, my mom. I try very hard to measure up to that standard.

"Do you want to wrap it?"

"No, no, that'll just make it bigger and more awkward. It should be fine." I cringed when I put my shoes on the next morning, since the swelling made it a tight fit, but it wasn't too bad.

We went back to check the cave - with our mothers' permission - to see if we could figure out what had happened. The whole thing actually got creepier at this point. There had obviously been a rock slide of some kind. Most of the access holes, including the one I'd been looking through and the one John was crawling through, were blocked from the inside. A huge rock had dropped onto the log - cliche' as it sounds - exactly where I'd been sitting the day before, smashing it. The incline into the cavern looked steeper - or maybe we were just freaked out.

We never agreed about what it was - animal, geology, volcanic vent - and we didn't discuss it too much, either. I think that John was simultaneously embarrassed about having caused a scene, and firm in his conviction that running had saved us. I think we all were. We told our moms what we found, and their best guess was some kind of volcanic burp, if you will, from the mountain - some kind of tremor that triggered a rock slide. I held out for the Bigfoot theory.

We never went back to the caves, though. On at least three more summers, we explored everywhere but the lava tubes.

A day or so later, someone tripped over my foot and I yelped. "What is it?" my dad asked.

"I fell the other day, and hurt my toe. She just tripped on it," I said.

"Oh," said Dad, and went back to what he was doing.

I like to think that I'm my mother's child - describe the situation truthfully, but without too much detail or drama. Just the facts, ma'am. You don't have to remember a lie, and it keeps those around you from panicking.

Maybe that's the moral of this story.

Well, that and the fact that you'll never look quite as innocent as you think that you do.

"Discover Your Nevada"

A friend works for our state's tourism commission. They're holding a contest, currently, asking people to send in stories of "adventures" in order to choose ones to be featured in a magazine.

He let his writer and/or photographer friends know about the contest, and reminded us several times of the deadline. Still, I let it slide, because I was both indecisive and busy.

I mean, I could write about petroglyphs, the Pony Express fort, the old West mining towns, camping, homeschool field trips, photo spots, beaches, things that we do with visiting relatives - so many choices! How would I decide? What did people want to hear? A local's view of where I live, or exotic places? The popular spots or the unknown?

In the end, I went with, "What can I write on virtual autopilot?" On the very last day submissions were accepted, I was having bone surgery on my foot, and spending the rest of the day doing nothing but pain management and sleep. I didn't have a lot of time or mental energy to spare.

So, instead of being witty or amazing, I went with easy. I wrote about museums. My family loves museums. We love big ones, small ones, expensive ones, free ones - museums are fantastic.

If you're so inclined, here's the link for voting. If you want to vote for a piece besides mine, that's great, too. You can vote once every 24 hours.

http://discoveryournevada.com

Note: The contest is over. I didn't win. That's OK. :)

Rosencrantz Was Right

Rosencrantz: Did you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?

Guildenstern: No.

Rosencrantz: Nor do I, really. It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never *know* you were in a box, would you? It would be just like you were asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you. Not without any air. You'd wake up dead for a start, and then where would you be? In a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it. Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that. I mean, you'd be in there forever, even taking into account the fact that you're dead. It isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off, "I'm going to stuff you in this box. Now, would you rather be alive or dead?" naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well, at least I'm not dead. In a minute somebody is going to bang on the lid, and tell me to come out."

[bangs on lid]

Rosencrantz: "Hey you! What's your name? Come out of there!"

Guildenstern: [long pause] I think I'm going to kill you.

-Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard

I was supposed to have an MRI at the hospital.

I've had them before. This is, I think, number 6, but I can't be sure. Anyway, it's not a new experience. I had the first one well over 20 years ago.

It's fairly miserable, but doable. I mean, it's not fun, but on a scale of "inconvenient" to "please make it stop," it should be in the "I can handle it" range.

(Now for more medical information about me than you really need or want. It's backstory. I'm big on full disclosure, and annoyed by deliberate mystery.)

We had our first two babies so quickly and easily (two babies in two years of marriage, while using birth control) that we figured, hey, I'm one of those super fertile women who would make a great surrogate. Then we started trying to have Baby #3, and - nothing. No baby. So, we went to the doctor, then to a specialist, who determined that I'd need "aggressive" treatment to get pregnant again.

It seems that my hormones were off. My youngest was approaching 3, I hadn't breast fed since she was 8 months old, and my body was still producing both breastfeeding hormones and pregnancy hormones. This chemical "no vacancy" sign is what kept me from getting pregnant.

The culprit, it seemed, were three pinpoint tumors in my pituitary gland. I was supposed to get an MRI every year, to make sure they hadn't grown.

The treatment? None. "If you're not miserable now, you will be if we start messing with your hormones, guaranteed. Eventually, it'll get bad enough that you'll want treatment. Now, we'll just leave well enough alone," said my gynecologist. OK. Works for me.

I had maybe 3 MRIs before I skipped it for a good 10 years. Our insurance company changed 3 times in 3 years, everything had to be authorized anew, and it was a pain in the butt. I finally got one more, then skipped another 5 years or so. Save the lecture. Anyway, on the last scan, with a new doctor treating me, the original scans and diagnosis lost and the gynecologist retired, they found "no evidence of tumors." In fact, the doctor looked at me like I was a hypochondriac or suffering from Munchausen Syndrome, and was wasting time and money on unnecessary tests in order to gain attention.

No more tests works for me.

Now, though, years later, almost two years into hormone treatment brought on by thyroid disease, I'm back getting an MRI. Roughly 24 years after the original diagnosis, my blood tests show that my pituitary hormone levels are unnaturally elevated.

(The doctor wasn't kidding about the misery thing. Trying to regulate the meds, keep me happy, keep the doctor happy, and keep the insurance company happy is a painful and complicated dance, and it makes me grouchy just talking about it.)

Has anyone checked my pituitary levels in over two decades? I don't know. I've had gallons of blood drawn, but it appears that they only run this test if they think there's a need, and there's usually not a need.

Anyway, they want pictures of inside my brain, again.

The last time I had an MRI, maybe a year and a half or two years ago, it was to look at my neck and shoulder. I periodically need treatment for a pinched nerve, and after repetitive, recurring treatment, they wanted to see why. Turns out that my mild scoliosis pinches the nerve.

Anyway, I was sent to the facility where I'd gone before. The test isn't new, isn't, to my knowledge, different, but that time I felt like I was sausage meat being squeezed into a casing. My chest, my shoulders, my stomach, everything pressed against the inside of the stupid tube they slide you into in the middle of the MRI machine. My arms wedged tighter and tighter, since I couldn't put them next to me or on top of me, because there was no room either place.

They give you a microphone and a panic button, and I used both. "STOP, STOP, STOP!" They did.

Those slabs they put you on adjust up and down. I assumed that they'd just put it up too high, and they'd drop it down so I'd fit. Nope. The - what is she, a nurse? a technician? - appeared peeved, and said, "We'll have to send you to our sister facility. They have a machine there that will handle larger patients."

Wow - way to deliver that "you're too fat for an MRI" message with tact, honey. I'm not particularly touchy on the subject, but you managed to be "fat shaming." Thanks.

So. New appointment, new facility. It went just fine. Again, it's not comforting or fun, but it can be handled. You're cramped, but you expect to be cramped. It's loud, so loud, and you can't scratch, so everything itches. You can't cross or uncross your feet, even though they're outside the machine, and it's best to keep your eyes closed so you don't blink. Blinking counts as movement, and you have to be absolutely still. You can't even sigh - that, too, is movement. Heaven forbid that you have to sneeze or cough. It was OK, as medical procedures go.

This time, they sent me to the hospital closest to my house. I go where they tell me to, really - I don't have particular loyalties. If the insurance pays for it, I go there.

I was hopeful, because the first machine I saw was only about 18 inches deep - just a circle around your head. They're only looking at my brain, right, so I'll get that one, I thought. Woo hoo!

Short lived euphoria; I was ushered into a room with the familiar hulk of a regular MRI machine.

"It looks pretty small," I said.

"Oh, don't worry. It's not. I've fit really enormous people in there, people much larger than you."

They always ask if you're claustrophobic. I always say "no;" I don't feel claustrophobic. As a child, I built my blanket fort under my mother's built in desk. I was dragging a miniature TV under there into my teens. I don't worry about the things they strap you into for "Mission: Space" at Disney World, where they close you up in a capsule and put the screen and controls inches from your face. Inside cabin cruise ship bathrooms don't bother me.

But, as I said, MRI machines are uncomfortable anyway. You lie flat on your back on a plastic table. They try to make it comfortable, by doing things like putting a pillow under your knees, but it's not great for me. Staying that way too long hurts my back. And, because I'm in a bad mood, I'll admit out loud that I think unkind things about anyone who ever told me that my discomfort was weight related. My skeleton is twisted. Things that feel OK for "normal" people hurt me.

They put your head and shoulders in a little frame that's light bulb shaped and holds you immobile. They have to - I get it. It's not awful, but it's not pleasant. Then they strap what I refer to as "the hockey mask," a big plastic cage, over your face. Again, I know why. Again, that doesn't mean that it's great. Normally, I close my eyes, not only for the blinking factor, because nobody wants to stare at a cage over their face. This time, she put that thing over me and snapped the latches - KA-CHUNK! - and everything went dark, and I wasn't even inside the machine yet. Normally, there's open spaces over your eyes, but not in this thing. The open parts were over my forehead and cheeks.

"Oh, wow," I said.

"There's a mirror in there. You can look at that," the nurse/technician said.

A mirror? Truly? That's supposed to help? I don't get it. "Let's close your head up in this plastic bubble, but you can check your own eye makeup, if you want." I mean, I assume that they do that because it does help some people, but it doesn't help me. How is staring at my own eyes going to make anything better?

"Can we just take it off for a minute?"

She did. I adjusted myself up slightly - about an inch - and said, "OK, let's try again." Given a moment to prepare, I was OK. If I know what to expect, I'm OK. The unexpected is not my friend.

"It's going to squeeze your shoulders, OK? It's going to feel tight." She was sweet, really, and trying hard. She noticed, for instance, that I need a moment to prepare. So, I was ready for it to squeeze my shoulders. It didn't, but the "hockey mask" extended so far down that it was biting into my breasts. It didn't hurt, but it surprised me - how far down does the mask need to go? I said something about that, and she said, "Well, God has certainly blessed you."

Again, she was trying to be light and upbeat. It's not like I'm unaware that my breasts are large; I pack these things around every day. But when someone says something like that, saying, "Thank you" or, "I know" or anything of the kind smacks of bragging, and saying something self deprecating sounds like complaining (which is generally unpleasant, and goes over especially badly with the flat chested). So, I went with factual.

"I can't exactly take them off and leave them at home in a box." I mean, if I could, I'd fit into a heck of a lot of things.

You know what else I can't take off? My arms. Moving me into the machine, we encountered the arm problem again. I couldn't put them at my sides, and I couldn't rest them on my ribs or tummy. She tried hard to adjust them, but only succeeded in crowding my breasts further, and pinning my elbows to my ribs, with nowhere for my forearms to go.

"You're doing fine. You have plenty of room," she said.

DEFINE "PLENTY!"

How can there be no room to put my arms next to myself or on top of myself, but there be "plenty of room"? There wasn't "plenty" of anything! I felt like a sausage again. She stopped feeding me any further in, but kept saying nonsensical things like, "You're almost there!"

We're looking at my brain! Why do I need to be stuffed into this machine up to my freakin' knees?

"It's pinning my elbows."

"It's going to do that."

IN "PLENTY OF ROOM?"

"We can try later, with sedation."

"No, we can't. My veins are so difficult that, last time I had surgery, they sent me home after trying to run an IV for 45 minutes. They went up and down my arms, my legs, my feet, and couldn't get a needle in."

"We can reschedule."

"The doctor's office has refused to renew my prescription, on the medication I'm supposed to take every day, for the rest of my life, until they get these test results."

This is the point at which I started to melt down. The PA at my doctor's office had come totally unglued when she saw my last blood tests. She freaked out. Normally, I like her, but she didn't let me finish a single sentence, and she said things like, "You'll HAVE to return to (the office of a specialist that I dislike)," even though my primary care doctor had assured me that I DON'T need to go there. "I don't know how to treat you."

"Can I just stay on the dosage that works for me?"

"It's not working! These numbers are terrible!" Doctors keep trying to return me to the chemical levels that I had back when the thyroid disease was diagnosed. (See "Illness, Part 8: Meds.") It's an ongoing battle. How can the levels I had while battling disease be a reasonable goal? When the numbers get anywhere near there, I sleep for 18 hours a day, and they tell me how good I "should" feel.

Last time, the PA only conceded to a shortened order of medication, and made any further refill conditional on the results of the MRI. When I picked it up, the pharmacist said, "Um, I have here a note that says that we can't refill this until you've had a visit with your doctor. Are you aware of this?"

"Yes. I'm aware."

Now, the only medication that lets me function reasonably, and which I need for the rest of my life, is being held hostage until I stuff myself into this plastic tube that is constricting my chest, ribs, tummy and arms.

For crying out loud, it's not like these are narcotics or anything. It's dried pig glands.

"Just give me a minute or two. I'm sure I can handle it." Yeah, that sounds convincing when you're on the verge of tears. I can't breathe in this thing.

The nurse/tech levels with me. It will take an hour or more. I need ten, TEN (!) separate scans. Then, I'll be wheeled out of the machine, given a dye injection, and all TEN tests will be run AGAIN. "Look, we're talking about a minimum of 50 minutes in the machine."

I didn't ask if that meant 50 minutes total or, heaven forbid, 50 minutes both before and after the dye.

"Oh, no. No, no, no." Ten, fifteen, even (gulp) twenty minutes, maybe. AN HOUR? No. Not possible.

"It's OK," she says repeatedly. "I'm claustrophobic. I know how you feel."

As I get ready to go, and cry, she assures me that there are "open MRI machines." "They have a crescent top and a crescent bottom, but the sides are open. There's at least two in town. One is right down the street."

Fine. Whatever. I am so miserable; we've added another medical visit to my calendar. This week alone, I need a blood test, a PICC line installation, and surgery in which they'll saw my bones in half and then screw them back together in a new configuration.

And my husband wonders why I'm hoping for menopause instead of having my fibroids removed.

From now on, when they ask if I'm claustrophobic, the answer is, "YES. Very. In fact, this room is too small." Put me in the "open" machine.

I know that this is a first world problem, no big deal, small potatoes. And yet, I'm miserable. Does it make sense to take a woman with a documented hormonal imbalance, and try to stuff her in a misery inducing box?

The poor nurse/tech tried so hard to console me, offered me water, walked me to the elevator. It was so nice of her, and yet I wanted to be totally alone. I don't generally handle being consoled well.

Now I have to wait for a phone call from whatever facility specializes in portly, panicky patients.

I have no moral or message here. I'm just grouchy.

Rosencrantz: In a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it.

You and me both, brother.

I (Don't) Feel Pretty

I'm thinking about prettiness.

I wonder sometimes about what it feels like to be pretty. I'm considering it in a purely theoretical sense, like wondering what it would be like to live in a colony on Mars. I have no real experience in this area.

Now: STOP IT. Every time I say something like that, people leap at the opportunity to tell me how tragically low my self esteem is. They say, "You're just beautiful!" They're sure that I'm sad, or angry, or depressed. I'M NOT. I have no experience in being European, or redheaded, or speaking Portuguese, either, and none of that affects my self esteem. I've already covered this ground ( in "I'm OK, You're Mistaken"). I am fabulous. I am bright, talented, capable and many other wonderful things. I value all of those things much more than I value "pretty." In the right culture and/or time frame, I would be considered very pretty. I know this. PLEASE, for heaven's sake, let's ALL move past this idea that a woman cannot be whole unless she feels pretty. I am happy with myself.

Ironically, that attitude - that women NEED to be/feel pretty - is what leads me to contemplate it.

Of course, I've wondered what it would be like. I've concluded that it would probably be nice, at least most of the time. I've also wondered what it would be like to have nearly unlimited money - I'm talking the "burn my crumpled bills" kind of obscene wealth. I've concluded that it would probably be nice, at least most of the time. Yet, I have never factored it in to my day to day living, never figured that my life would be empty and unfulfilled without it. I do not feel that I have "settled" or given up or any other such drivel. It's an unnecessary outcome.

Talking to other women can be alienating. One of my dearest friends confided in me, long about the time we hit our 40s, "Every head doesn't turn when I walk into a room any more." She was in actual pain, I could tell. She was hurt. I should have been sympathetic, should have assured her that she remains beautiful (because she always has been). I should have helped her feel valued. Instead, I was entirely unsympathetic.

"Welcome to the real world! The rest of us have been living here for years."

Another friend once said, "Remember how it was in your 20s, when guys constantly hit on you, no matter where you were or who you were with?" No. I never experienced such a thing. Guys hit on my friends, sure. But aside from the fact that I've been married practically since childhood, most of the times that anybody hit on me, it tended to be the "you have girl parts; therefore, you'll suffice" kind of attention. It had nothing to do with me, personally.

You know how, in a lot of movies, TV or even books, a guy will have a female friend who's funny, loyal, great to be around and clearly adores him, but he never considers her female until he sees her dressed up for some fancy occasion; then, he'll suddenly realize that he loves her, because he realizes that she's pretty? I hate that convention. I hate those scenes. SO shallow. You can tell me all you like about how men are hardwired to respond to visual stimuli, how it's natural selection at work, how you can't fight biology, blah, blah, blah, and I'll still find it shallow.

The only time I watched one of those scenes and really applauded, it was on "Dawson's Creek." Joey (who is female, by the way, in case you never saw the show) has had a crush on her best friend Dawson for years. She's been trying and trying to get his attention. Then, she enters a pageant; she needs scholarship money for college. Dawson, after blowing off her advances, sometimes very rudely, sees her in her evening gown, with her hair and makeup done, and he swoons. He compliments her. He makes a pass at her, finally. Joey's response? "This is just a dress. This is makeup. It washes off." She wants nothing to do with his newfound intentions. She blows him off - not to make a point or teach him a lesson, but because she's not interested if all he's attracted to are the trappings.

Only once in my life did I ever have something even remotely similar happen. I was 17 or 18; the "Dawson's Creek" kids wouldn't be born for years. I had a lot of friends in the theater departments of other high schools, because theater kids tended to know one another and stick together.

I was visiting my sister at her apartment. I went out to the pool by myself; she was doing something, and was supposed to come join me as soon as she finished whatever it was. The pool was empty, which was great. I like to be alone.

Then, a kid that I knew appeared out of one of the apartments facing the pool. He seemed delighted to find me there. I'd known him for about a year and a half. He'd never spent time with me alone, never given me his number or asked for mine, never invited me over, even in a group, never treated me any differently than you'd treat a distant relative that you saw every few months (definitely friendly, but not seeking you out), but suddenly he was acting like he was my best buddy, and he'd missed me so much since the last time we saw each other. "Do you live here?" he wanted to know; then, "Which apartment is your sister's?" ("Um - I forget the number. (That was a lie.) It's over there" - wave of my hand in a westerly direction.) He asked me to a party at his apartment that night - asked repeatedly and rather forcefully, when I responded with a vague, "I dunno. Maybe."

I did not feel pretty. I did not feel desirable. I did not feel noticed or wanted. Maybe I was too hard on the guy, but the only way that I could interpret this behavior, this change in established behavior, was, "I, myself, am a fan of breasts, and I couldn't help but notice that you possess some."

I did not attend his party. I did not take him up on the "call me sometime" invitation. I fled the pool.

If you would have asked people who knew me what my best physical feature was, the answer would be divided along gender lines. Most girls would have said it was my hair, long, thick and wavy. (It started to fall out - or at least, I started to notice - when I was 16. It's been less impressive ever since.) Guys, I think, would have said my breasts. They were larger than most other girls' breasts, and kind of obvious. Plus, teenagers are hormonal. I knew that people noticed, but that's a far cry from feeling pretty. I was the girl with the "great personality."

This is my favorite photo of myself from high school. It's not exactly "me," though, even though those are my clothes, on my body. This is Gwendolyn, a character I played as a high school junior.

I'd been acting for five years at the time, and it was the first time I'd ever been given a role that had a smidgen of sex appeal. I was always cast as the spinster aunt, grandmother, or mother. That's kind of ironic, when you think about it; how do women become mothers if they're lifelong celibates? Still, mothers were not sexy or attractive in any way. Gwendolyn may not have been outright sexy, but she was somebody's date, and that was new for me. Having a director decide that I was capable of portraying that was new and unexpected and wholly delightful. (Thanks, Andy.)

I was grateful for the role, and I worked hard at it. I felt capable of projecting the idea that someone would find me desirable. In one scene, I walked into a poker game, and the poker players were supposed to gape at me. They were all my friends, we were all in character, so it was fine. I got comfortable with the scene. When we started working in costume, though, one of the guys continued to look at me as though I was a steak dinner and it was two hours past his dinnertime, even after the director called "cut" and stopped the scene to iron out problems. That was deeply unnerving. Not because I didn't like him - I did; we were very close. I just didn't know what to do, how to react, how to be someone's steak dinner. Gwendolyn could, but I couldn't. I was glad when I got to put my regular clothes back on and be myself.

When this photo was taken, I liked it, but all I could see were "flaws." My stomach is rounded, and I have round "saddlebags" at the top of my thighs, even in control top pantyhose. My eyelids droop. My chin recedes. It took years to be able to say, "Flaws are OK. A person can have flaws and be pretty." Still, I did not personally feel pretty.

I did not date in high school. I was actually asked out only once, when I was too young to date. Nobody else bothered. I was not gorgeous, I was not promiscuous, and I was therefore off the radar.

Very occasionally, I would recognize flirtation. A bisexual girlfriend once said, "Look, if you're ever curious or bored and you just want to know how the other half lives, call me." I actually found the straightforwardness of that to be very sweet; no code words to decipher, no pity, no game playing, just a sincere offer. If, indeed, I wanted to date women, she would have made a lovely and considerate partner. I just wasn't interested.

Knowing that she meant it was nice, though. It was, and is, important to me to feel attractive and desirable. I just never thought that "pretty" was a prerequisite. Plenty of people are deeply attractive and very desirable without being lovely to look at. It's a whole "different ball of wax," as the saying goes.

I was about to list certain actors to illustrate my point, but that would be rude. "Look at (Name Censored). He's hideous physically, but he's still incredibly attractive." Instead I'll try to explain what I find "attractive." To me, it means, "This person possesses qualities that make me want to spend time around them." "Desirable" is close, but more specifically romantically oriented - "This person would be a great partner."

What's attractive? Talent. Oh, good heavens, talent. If you're good at anything - performing, writing, building, programming, gardening, I don't care what - it's swoonworthy and deeply attractive. There are a few plain to ugly men that I would have no trouble at all casting or watching as Prince Charming, because I would totally buy it. I would be convinced that they were both royal and The Perfect Man for the princess. Talent also tends to increase my estimate of your physical features. I may have once thought you were plain, but then I saw what you're capable of, and now you look lovely indeed.

If I was ever to be a groupie of any kind, or if I was ever to decide to be promiscuous, fame, status and money would not interest me at all. Talent would.

Any quality that you'd list if asked, "What makes a good friend?" is attractive. Sense of humor, fun to be around, honest, supportive, spiritual, trustworthy, brave, hard working - all attractive.

Loyalty tops the list of what makes you desirable. I have no interest in, or time for, people who can't handle monogamy. Don't waste my time. All the above qualities help, too. "Desirable" speaks to the long term.

Occasionally, it would seem that someone found me to be either attractive or desirable, even though I was not pretty. I think that's as it should be.

One of my best friends said to me, when I was roughly 18, "If no one else ever marries you, I will." We were in a group at the time, and I gave him major grief for the awkward wording of that compliment.

"Oh, gee, every girl wants to hear that. I feel warm and fuzzy all over now."

"No! No! I meant it! I just mean, well, you'd make a good wife."

I ribbed him pretty hard, which wasn't very nice of me. Chalk it up to teenage angst. At the time, though, and more and more as I got older, I knew that his actual sentiment looked something like, "I've noticed that you're good wife material. I'd be happy living with you." I'll take that compliment. I'd much rather have that than be pretty.

There was one time when I was growing up that I felt not only attractive and desirable, but cherished. I was comfortable being affectionate with my friends, but there are levels of physical affection. Some are fine no matter your age, gender, marital status or familial ties. Some are a little more exclusive. Some are romantically motivated - those can get iffy. Some just say, "I like you," some say, "I love you," and some carry other messages.

Most romantically motivated affection, at least when you're young, is geared around what you, personally, want. You want to behave in a certain way because you enjoy it, or because you think that it will lead to things that you enjoy. It's rarer to do something just because you know that the other person would enjoy it. (Are you rubbing her feet because you have a foot fetish, or because you know that she enjoys it? Are you happy with just her gratitude, or do you hope that she'll express that gratitude by doing something for you that you enjoy?)

Someone expressed physical affection toward me in a way that probably carried no reward for him. It doesn't come with bragging rights or rank anywhere on the "bases" list. Yet he did it not only unprompted, but willingly. It also carried the message, "I am so lucky to be here, with you." It was - delightful. Sometimes, when I need a pleasant memory, I call that one up. If I'd known how rare those moments are, I would have enjoyed it even more.

It took a long time for me to learn how and when to express any interest in someone. People asked me, when I was a teen and long afterward, "Why didn't you take the initiative and ask someone out?" My usual answer was, "If they wanted to go out with me, they would have asked." I was not about to put some guy on the spot, and risk either a pity date or rejection.

The first time I chose to make a pass at someone, it was someone who'd already kissed me in a non-platonic fashion. That made it safe, I hoped - I had no wish to have him be horrified.

I don't think he was horrified, but he said, "I think we should stop." Ouch. It wasn't any behavior that was morally objectionable. Neither of us was cheating on someone or touching forbidden places or undressing. Man, rejection stings. It was very painful. Everyone has to learn how to deal with it, but it doesn't make that first time any easier. Or, any subsequent time.

I never want to date again. I am not just the marrying type, I am the married type.

Which is good. I've spent more time married than I spent single. I intend to stay that way.

Sometimes, though, I still wonder about being pretty.

One friend told me that it's tedious and predictable. Another told me that it's a great tool for getting what you want. Another said that it means constant fear that you'll lose it.

I don't know. So, I wonder. Not that it matters.

And there's life in that Martian colony to consider.

The Pirate Bathroom

"I'm going to decorate my downstairs bathroom in a Pirates of the Caribbean theme," I said.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then my daughter said, with hesitation, "You're kidding... right?"

My oldest daughter is stylish, chic, elegant, appearance conscious - all adjectives that do not apply to me. Her home is tasteful and coordinated, with mostly new furnishings. My downstairs bathroom has been out of commission for years, and the idea of having it redone delighted her, but the idea that her mother, a grown woman, would deliberately choose a theme park ride as decorating inspiration did not sit well with her.

"No, I'm not! I'm serious! It'll be great! I'm already shopping at thrift stores for decorations!"

"Oh, Mom."

This bathroom is now my favorite room in the house. It makes me very happy.

(It is also a point of pride with me that Pirates was one of my favorite rides going back to the early 1980s. While it's fun that pop culture is embracing them, some of us loved the whole idea before it was cool.)

Our house was built in the early 1970s. It originally had 2 bathrooms, one downstairs and one upstairs. The original owners added onto the house, so we now have, among other things, a 3rd full bathroom off of the master bedroom.

A few years after we moved in, the downstairs toilet started to leak, so we stopped using it. Then the sink leaked; we stopped using it. Finally, the tub started to leak. We just closed the door and ignored the room for years. Hey, we had two more full bathrooms. We had limited money and a house full of children. Don't judge.

Eventually, we started tearing things out. We did it bit by bit until we hit a real stumbling block - the tub. It was a cast iron tub/shower enclosure. It had been set into place before the walls were built, and it was too large to fit through the doorway. We were stumped - how did we replace a tub that we couldn't remove? We closed the door again, and pretended that the room didn't exist for several more years.

Then, my feet needed operated on. OK, they'd needed it for a long time, but we finally had youngest children who were teens capable of taking care of themselves and me. When my doctor first suggested it, my oldest kids were in elementary school, and I had a one year old; bed rest was not going to happen. The younger kids were now also homeschooled, so we'd rarely need to leave the house while I spent the projected 4 to 6 weeks off of my feet.

But, that meant a working bathroom on my ground floor, since going up and down my stairs would be next to impossible while I recovered. We had to get the bathroom up and running before I could schedule surgery.

We finished demolition, including sawing the old tub and shower in half. Yeah, that was interesting. We tore out the water damaged drywall. Finally, we tore up the rotted, splitting floor. The room looked like this:

My husband intended to do most of the work himself, but between his 12 hour shifts and life in general, this was not a good plan. A friend helped us get to the point that we then hired a pro to install everything and finish the room. Instead of a tub, we went with a handicapped accessible shower.

God bless talented contractors!

I was in such a hurry to paint it. Of course, "hurry" is a relative term. My almost 15 year old had never used the bathroom. Then my husband installed the flooring.

Normally, I like white walls and white blinds, maybe with white curtains over them. I know, very institutional and bland. I like it anyway. It's restful. If I add colors, I want to add blue, any shade but navy, and other pale colors. My daughter's room is a pale pink and my son's is a pale gray. Both are so light that they're almost white. The upstairs bathroom is white with blue and green sponge paint, and an ocean theme, with my collection of beach sand in decorative jars (yes, I collect beach sand), shells, and a shower curtain with dolphins and palm trees.

Downstairs in the new bathroom, I went with a totally uncharacteristic color palate. I wanted amber, ruby and deep brown. I wanted it to look like it could belong below deck on a pirate ship, or in Disneyland. I wanted the feel of a storage room heaped with treasure.

I'm a competent stage technician in many jobs, but my area of expertise is set dressing and prop making. The last show that I got to "dress" was A Christmas Carol, and I loved it. When my kids have had proms to attend, I dress the photo backdrop in our bedroom studio to match the theme. I've done "Arabian Nights," "A Night to Treasure," "A Night at the Museum," "A Night in Paris" and more with things I have on hand anyway. I'd also been collecting things specifically for this bathroom for a long time. That ring of iron keys is one of my favorite purchases.

There's a lot of memories in here. The beads are from trips to Disneyland, Disney cruises, and my niece's 20s themed wedding. The ornate silver piece holding the coins and gems belonged to my mother. So did the silver goblet. The amethyst is from my rock and mineral collection; so are the onyx goblets and the marble globes. The egg shaped boxes were gifts from my oldest daughter. The jade elephant is a childhood gift from my brother. The shiny rock behind it is my sample of silicon that I used while teaching K-3 geology. The Egyptian figures were things I bought just because I liked them, and they ended up being used in my son's archaeological dig project for our homeschool co-op. I bought the carved parrot in Nassau.

I don't have a medicine cabinet, so I use the cute box.

I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy unless I have to be, so this room isn't a period piece. If it was, I wouldn't use my son's Lego set, or the photographs we took in the Disney ride. (Those are printed on metal, to keep the humidity of a bathroom from being an issue.) The print of a pirate ship was a gift from my middle daughter, as was the plaque with words on it. She used the metal trays when she catered a dessert buffet at a wedding.

I originally wanted an oval mirror with an ornate, gilt frame, but the mirror came in a set with the vanity and sink. I'm OK with it.

I love this bathroom. I love that it allowed me to get the operation that I needed, but I also love just looking at it.

A pirate's life for me.

Backwards

I think that I have some sort of Benjamin Button thing happening. Heaven knows that I'm not looking any younger, and I've never felt young, but I seem to be experiencing a lot of things backwards.

As a kid and a teen, I deeply resented the stereotype that kids felt immortal and invincible. I never felt either. I was always the kid saying, "But someone could get hurt!" I was not a risk taker or a thrill seeker. I was acutely aware that death, dismemberment, pain or scarring were very real possibilities. I worried, I fretted, I avoided risk and danger as best I could. I've never "bailed out" of swings or jumped off of a diving board. (Really.)

Describing my behavior as a child to my middle daughter recently elicited The Look and the verdict, "So you were a wet blanket." The wettest, thank you very much.

Said child, in contrast, had no fear as a child. None. I remember clearly having to repeatedly grab the back of her swimsuit and haul her into the shallows at age 2, because she'd just keep walking into the water, even after it was over her head. Not just once, mind you, but over and over. It never occurred to her, in any situation, that she might get hurt or experience an unpleasant outcome. She looked at people as though they were crazy or unintelligible if they warned her. When she did get hurt, she brushed it off like Monty Python's Black Knight - "It's only a flesh wound."

It wasn't until her 20s that it started occurring to her that she might get hurt, and that hurt was bad. Facing situations that she'd never given a second thought to suddenly had her realizing, "Someone could get hurt." Slowly, she noticed that situations caused her worry, and that she was being more cautious.

"This is how the other half lives," I told her. "Welcome to adulthood."

"I hate it! How do people function like this?" she wanted to know.

I, on the other hand, am slowly growing into feelings of invincibility.

More and more, I find myself mentally spreading my arms and saying, "Bring it on. I've got this." Fear of water? I'll go in a submarine, and then across the Atlantic on a ship. Fear of being disliked? Recently I ran into a kid I'd gone to high school with, a kid who was so much cooler than I was that I spent all of high school awed and intimidated. I may have spoken three sentences to this kid during the entire four years we went to school together. Now that I'm much older, twice my high school weight and going gray (and, unfortunately, bald), what did I do? Run up and say hello, then hug him/her.

Kids are supposed to be the dreamy ones, too, setting ridiculous life goals like, "marry a prince." I was such a practical kid. My goals were things like, "be able to afford groceries." I was clear that I could choose any one of hundreds of paths through life, could be a doctor or teacher or lawyer or painter - but I never imagined, or wanted, the usual things kids covet: obscene wealth, fame, privilege. I still don't, but now I see no barriers to pie-in-the-sky plans. If somebody had told me when I was 18 that they wanted to be something ridiculous and impractical, I would have given them the "It's really difficult to make it" speech, and meant it. Now, I'd give them the "Go for it!" speech, and mean it. Sure, it takes hard work and more than a little luck, but it's not impossible. Knock 'em dead, kid. You can do it.

As a kid, I was easy to psych out or intimidate. I know that there were times that I lost competitions just because I let the other guy(s) get to me. Not any more.

Children are supposed to be trusting; I had severe trust issues. OK, I still have some, and there's good reasons for them, but I no longer feel that I have to do everything, or that something is doomed to failure if multiple people have multiple jobs to do. I only have to do my job, my little part, and not worry, or even necessarily think about, anyone else's job. (Sometimes you carry The One Ring and sometimes you kill the Orcs - am I right?)

I never was young, and I never will be, but that's OK. I may have the best of both worlds.

Let Me Explain

Just so we're all on the same page, I want to point out, again, that I share my opinions so that others will understand me, not so that I can change their minds.

Compare it to someone who refuses to eat breakfast until they've made an origami flower for the table first. You, especially if you're the caregiver, maybe of an elderly relative with this trait, find it to be an aggravating waste of time. But, when Granny explains that this is her good luck charm, and that her days just seem happier and more successful if she has that flower on her breakfast table, you can understand her, and maybe even help her make it. You still don't think that the flower affects anything, but that's not as important as understanding Granny.

Also, people who might already agree with me can feel supported, and not quite so alone. That's important, too.

Now - let's discuss religion.

I belong to a religion. It affects everything I do, every day - what I wear, say, watch on TV, eat and drink; it's important to me. I realize that others live differently, and I'm OK with that. Free will is the most important thing that humans possess.

Whenever someone shares why they left their religion, especially if it's my religion, I always hear a chorus of voices in agreement - "Me, too!" "I thought the same thing!" "That's why I left." Nobody seems to want to hear a dissenting voice, one saying, "I think that's a mistake." Those comments are deemed rude. So, in case anyone wants to peruse, at their leisure, what I may be thinking when I hear or read those reasons and/or comments, I've written them down here.

The thoughts or reasons will be like this, in bold type.

My thoughts will be below that, in regular type.

I just have to live my own life and make my own decisions.

Well, that's a good thing. As I stated, free will is the most sacred of human rights.

I do find, though, that overwhelmingly, people say this when they are disagreeing with their family, and/or the way they were raised, and very infrequently when they are disagreeing with their friends or mentors. Very rarely does anyone say, "I have to make my own decisions, and that's why I do things differently than my friends/classmates/mentors do."

People tend to pat someone on the back for being "brave" and "independent" and "free thinking" when they disagree with their parents. Keep in mind, though, that if I was brave for, say, leaving my parents' Christian faith to become an atheist, then my children would be brave to leave what I had taught them, and become fundamentalist Christians. I know many people who congratulate others for leaving any faith, but say to someone who's joining one, "Are you sure you've thought this through?" They say that they will support whatever their children decide, "provided that they've really thought it through," but would be horrified if their child converted to Islam, or became a Buddhist monk or a Catholic nun. ("I raised you better than that! How can you turn off your brain that way?")

The problem here is using the thoughts and decisions of others to determine what YOU, yourself, think and do, and why. I understand all of the built in human needs to be part of a group, to feel accepted and protected. I understand, too, the necessity of differentiating oneself from one's parents. I just find popular, or unpopular, opinion to be a very unreliable way to make important life choices. That's NOT thinking for yourself, that's a herd mentality. "Others that I admire are doing it this way. I feel protected and accepted when I am like them. Therefore, I must believe what they believe." Or, "Because most people think this, and I am more intelligent and educated than they are, I cannot agree with them." I just can't understand someone seriously thinking that the best way to decide what you believe is to gauge what others believe - or how well spoken those beliefs are.

This church leader (or church member) is someone I don't like. They've done things that upset me.

If an individual hurts, upsets, annoys or confuses you, that's normal. That's OK. It's about them individually, as a person, though (even if what they've done or said is based on their understanding and practice of their religion). Using this to dismiss an entire religion is like saying, "Because no human being is perfect, I don't think that truth exits," and that should be an obviously flawed conclusion.

I've seen them make mistakes (or do something hurtful).

See above answer.

The church leaders seem to be wrong on scientific issues.

In my case, people have frequently pointed out to me that one of my church leaders said publicly that he didn't think men would ever reach the moon; he said it only a handful of years before men did land on the moon. People love to crow, "How could he talk to God and not know that?"

Simple. Did Moses invent the internal combustion engine? Did Abraham understand molecular biology? Did the Apostle Paul invent the airplane? No. I don't go to my accountant to fill my cavities, or my surgeon to repair my home, or the guy who built my deck to do my taxes, either. People have areas of expertise. Religious leaders are inspired to tell the people about how God wants them to behave. These are the things that will do the most good on Earth, and bring us the most happiness after this life. Those things - be honest, be kind, be hardworking, be compassionate, be trustworthy - are the same whether we're living in caves and just discovering fire, or building a self sustaining colony on Mars.

There are huge worlds of knowledge and accomplishment for humans to discover on their own, because learning on our own is what best benefits us, but the religious basics will never change. And unless a religious leader is a doctor, I won't ask him/her about medicine. It's not in their job description.

I think that their youth group (or Scout) activities are lame.

I'm not making this complaint up. Sincerely, folks? If you were talking about leaving a club, or skipping your neighbor's next party, I'd be with you. I think, though, that you're missing the point of religion. You're going to decide what you think that the creator of the universe wants you to do for the eternal salvation of your soul based on whether or not you thought that a group's youth activities were lame? I'm sorry, I have a hard time taking that thought process seriously.

There's no evidence for it.

There's no "evidence" of most of my ancestors. There's no birth certificates or death certificates; even when they were "recorded," that meant that it was hand written in a family Bible. Go far enough back, and there's no military service records, employment records, bank accounts, census records. Yet, because I am here, they obviously existed.

For most of human history, "recording" something meant that the community leaders memorized it. The idea that everything important can be verified to the satisfaction of most people is a very new (in terms of human history) idea. And, for crying out loud, if we can't agree on whether the moon landing was real, whether OJ Simpson is a murderer, whether the Holocaust happened or whether the trails left by airplanes are part of a sinister plot, despite those events being recent and the fact that we have pages and pages and volumes upon volumes of scholarly research and conventional, modern documentation on the subject, there is NO way that we will agree on things that happened long ago, or that defy conventional documentation.

("But only people who are being deliberately ignorant disagree with me on those things!" people say to me frequently. They disregard the fact that the opposite side says exactly the same thing about them.)

Does it matter to me whether we have the actual stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, or if we can examine Noah's Ark? Not in the slightest.

I've had doubts for most (or all) of my life.

OK. Doubts are legitimate. Still, you need to allow for the fact that reality is not shaped by opinion, yours or others. When the best and brightest scientific minds on the planet thought that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around us, it didn't affect the actual shape of the planet or the orbits of heavenly bodies or the laws of physics or anything else.

Look back at law enforcement during my early lifetime, and I'm not even out of my 40s. Science could only determine a person's blood type if they were a "secretor." DNA identification was impossible and unheard of. Almost every year, a discovery is made that "changes everything" in a certain field.

The brightest and most educated humans tend to be the ones who know that we as a species have hardly scratched the surface of the knowledge that's out there. Believing that you, personally, hold all the possible knowledge in the universe, or that everything can, and should, be explained to your personal satisfaction is just arrogance. You don't have all the answers because no one ever will have all the answers.

I don't understand/agree with certain principles.

See above answer.

The meetings are boring.

Again, this strikes me as self centered. "Because I am not entertained, this can't possibly be true." Churches could, and sometimes do, dress up meetings with rock music, dancing and any number of other efforts to be engaging. If they offered alcohol, snacks and scantily clad dancers, they'd draw bigger crowds, and the people would be more enthusiastic. Would that be "success"? I do't think so, because it would have zero effect on whether the message was true.

I feel uncomfortable (or like I don't belong) in church (or in this congregation).

See above answer. Truth is unaffected by whether you're having fun, or even understanding something, or whether other people are "nice." Again, I assume that you're searching for a religion, not for a club or for entertainment.

God can't possibly punish me for doing my best.

This assumes that God's primary purpose is to punish, which I think is flawed thinking, but look at it like this: the world is a classroom. In a classroom, each child can try their very hardest, and stretch their very farthest, but only some will do A work. Should everyone else be handed an A, on the theory that it's "unfair" otherwise? Are the kids getting Bs or Cs (or even lower) being punished, or picked on by a teacher who hates them? No.

If you are working hard, and doing what you believe is right, you will receive rewards, whether you recognize them or not. This is especially true if you actually are doing what's right. Does that mean, that in the interest of fairness, every person who ever existed should get exactly what you get?

If God existed/if this church were true, the teachings would make sense to me.

Remember that God is a parent. He has lived longer than we have. He has more experience and knowledge. He wants what is best for us. This means, almost by definition, that He will occasionally ask us to do things, or give us information, that makes no sense to us. That doesn't mean that He's non-existent, or cruel.

Every day, especially when they were young, I told my children things that confused, annoyed, frustrated, baffled or angered them. I insisted on behavior that they thought was "stupid." I gave them unpleasant tasks, and unpleasant consequences when they broke the rules. Is that because I'm mean and I don't love them? They sure thought so, many times. Instead, it was a reflection of the fact that I knew more than they did, I had more experience than they did, and I truly wanted them to be happy. Sometimes, that meant not caring how they felt about me or my rules.

Plus, there's that whole, "My judgement is infallible and all knowing" thing again. There are some things you personally don't know, because there is no person who has all knowledge.

A loving God would never want some of His children to be separated from Him eternally.

God's been pretty clear on this subject; He loves us all. He wants us all to return to live with Him eternally. The things that will make this possible are available to everyone who ever lived or will live. God has said that the requirements can be met by the weakest and most rebellious of us. The choice is up to us, and it pains Him when we make choices that separate us from Him.

Think about being a parent. Do you say, "Because I love you kids more than life itself, because I want you to be successful and happy, there are no rules. It is not possible for you to ever do anything wrong. There will never be any punishments or negative consequences." Of course not. God doesn't say that to His children, either.

I don't agree with the church's stance on this issue.

Here you have two main options. You can decide that the religion itself is valid, and therefore, you might be wrong about this issue. Or, you can decide that disagreement on one issue will cancel out every agreement on every other issue, and that therefore, the entire religion has no merit.

For me, I again have to allow for the fact that I do not possess all the knowledge in the universe, so there may be a part of the big picture that I don't see.

I think that the church asks too much of us/you.

Nothing worthwhile is easy.

The Bible describes the same event differently in different books.

Of course - they were written by different authors. Think about the family stories your family has. Will it sound different if you or Uncle Bob or cousin Cyril tells the story? Do those differences mean that it never happened, or that you're being deliberately deceitful?

The Bible never mentions this subject. How can this rule about it be valid?

Imagine, again, that you're a parent. You go out for the evening, leaving your oldest in charge. You say something like, "Be good while we're gone!"

When you come home, and discover chaos, how will you feel if your child says, "You never said that I couldn't tie Timmy up and leave him in the closet. You never told me that I couldn't use your coin collection for the ice cream man. You can't be mad, and you can't punish me."

The best rules are broad enough to be applicable across many behaviors, time periods and eventualities. Just because the Bible never tells us not to sell national or company secrets doesn't mean that it's OK to do so.

All of the above arguments are pretty standard, no matter what your religion, although a couple of them are specific to Christianity. There's a couple more that I hear frequently that are peculiar to my specific religion. These include:

There are scriptures in the Book of Mormon that are identical to scriptures in the Bible.

Of course there are. If something is important, you make sure that you repeat it to every group that you speak to. Think about any story that you tell over and over. Think about instructions that you give, and methods that you use to teach. You will say the same things over and over. Others telling the same story or teaching the same subject will do so, as well. To me, this simply shows that the source - God - is the same.

I'd be worried if the Book of Mormon said, "That whole 'love your neighbor' thing? Forget it. And baptism isn't necessary any more."

I don't believe that the leaders in Salt Lake are prophets. What are the chances that most of the modern prophets would be old, white American men?

Do you believe that there were prophets in the Old World? Well, what are the chances that God would have chosen only people from the same race and the same geographic area?

(Plus, we're taught that there were prophets across the earth, and on all the "isles of the sea," in antiquity. We have the writings of only a few. Plus, if anyone missed the chance to hear the message on Earth, they have that opportunity later. Each community no longer needs their own prophet in order to receive instruction, because ideas can be so widely distributed in written or transmitted form.)

The church has too much money/I don't agree with tithing.

I'd worry more about this if we had paid clergy. We don't. Leaders, teachers, organists, cleaning crew, nursery staff - we're all volunteer. You won't find us going on TV to plead for people to send in additional offerings, only to have it go toward buying a new Lexus for the bishop.

Of course there are many more complaints, and many more answers. I'm not trying to Create the Final Word or mold official doctrine. As I said, I'm just writing it down because I hear these things so often, and I've been told that it's rude or intolerant to reply.

That doesn't seem OK to me either. If it's OK for someone else to tell why they think one thing, it's OK for me to say why I think another.

Thanks for listening.