Grimy Window

Mesquite Trees

When I saw on CNN yesterday that the boy scout in Utah had been found alive, I got very teary and choked up. I imagined how the parents must have felt when they heard. During the four days their son was gone, they must have begun to let the thought creep in that he might be dead. And then to be reunited. I am teary again just thinking about it.

Then the mother made the statement that God had answered her prayers and brought her boy home. I understand why she felt that way. She had spent the last four days urgently pleading with God to find her boy. And then, her boy was found walking on a trail.

But doesn’t she realize how insensitive that is? What about the other children? What about the children who get lost and never come back? What about the children who get blown up, whose parents die, who have horrible diseases, who get abused and tortured? Does God not care about them?

To say that he found one child means that in the other cases he didn’t intervene. He wanted the child to freeze to death in the woods. Or that the prayers of those parents were less valid or powerful. What a horrible God that would be, saving some kids and letting others suffer and die. The boy scout’s parents would probably say that there is a plan and God wanted their boy to stay alive, but letting the others die was part of that plan. What bullshit that is!

My parents do the same thing. They always talk about how “blessed and protected” they have been. How none of their children have been seriously ill or in terrible accidents (or lost in the woods!) Don’t they realize how elitist and insensitive they are? God protects their family but doesn’t give a shit about all the kids starving and dying?

They were just lucky

People are shocked when I tell them I love the weather in southern Arizona. Most people think that the weather is a reason to stay away. No so. No where else in the country (except for Southern California where we cannot afford to live) has better weather. Most places have hot summers and cold winters. We have beautiful sunny days all year round. The secret to the summer is having enough money to keep our house as cool as we want it and having cars with frosty cold Arctic air.

When I was a kid, I thought that as soon as I could leave my blistering, dusty hometown, I would sprint, not looking back. But it wasn't about the weather. It was economics. One of the reasons it was so bad as a child/teen was that I was always riding around in an old station wagon without A/C, packed tightly with many children, and my mother refused to turn on the A/C in the house until June. Even after that, the thermostat was forbidden territory. To go near it, or worse to touch it to try to lower it just a bit, was pure evil. I remember getting my sheet damp and laying under the fan at night to stay a little bit cooler. Now at night, I use a blanket, even in the middle of the summer because my house is very cool.

I love the weather here. My kids can play outside everyday of the year (although admittedly in the summer time it is in the afternoon/evening or with water.)

First, a flood of feelings about my mother. She was probably clinically depressed, plus she had so many children, no disposable income, and my father was never home (he was either trying to earn money to support his mob, or being a bishop or some other time consuming church calling). We got no nurturing at all. It was all about crowd control at my house. One was lucky to have semi-clean bedding or be able to find clean underwear (acceptable clothes were very low priority - maybe that is why I compulsively buy t-shirts and underwear for my children). And all with the backdrop of the repressive religion. It was all about guilt and fear and indoctrination. (I keep thinking I have a book-length semi-autobiographic thing inside just waiting to come out). This all sounds very negative towards my mother. We of course had many good moments and I don't really blame her looking back. She was very much a victim of the system which told her to pump out children whether or not she was emotionally able to have them, a system which told her that she was supposed to be perfect. So, I do feel warmth toward my mother, but our personal interactions are limited (I see her in the large group/whole family setting, but we don't have much to say to each other one on one). Now, especially with my "apostasy," our relationship is strained. There is nothing left to talk about. My parents are not even that interested in their grandchildren. They like them, like to look at them and count them, but they don't spend much time with them. They like to gather as a large, outwardly wonderful mormon clan, but don't want to interact one on one.

Why do some people figure out how to put their kids to bed at a reasonable hour, and then more importantly why do these same kids stay in bed all night?

It is a mystery.

My kids are three and six, and I am a horrible parent. At least when it comes to sleeping.

Every night, my husband and I go to bed alone. And every night we are mysteriously joined by two warm bodies, and let me tell you that even with a king sized bed, that is a lot of people in bed with me.

Every morning I wake up aching from sleeping in strange contorted positions, and with enough space between me and my husband that I have to wave to him from my side of the bed.

In the last six years since we had our first, we have had one night, I think, of sleep where no one joined us in bed.

I have read recently with interest about the goings-on in Colorado City, Arizona. It is a community of fundamentalist Mormons who are polygamists. Recently there have been stories in the news about the boys who have been "cast out" from their community.

I always got a sick feeling deep in the pit of my stomach when I was a Mormon and someone said something about polygamy. The early Mormons, of course, were polygamists from 1840 until 1910 or so depending upon who you ask. I always felt sick thinking that I the "God" that I believed in thought women were inferior, that he would take the one of the things that many women want desperately - a loving intimate relationship - and pervert it, turning us into harem girls, basically.

I used to argue about this with people. My biggest argument was that polygamy could not possibly be the way that humans were intended to lives because the birth ratio of males to females is basically 1 to 1. So, even with a higher mortality rate in males, the math doesn't add up. If some men are marrying 2 plus women, that leaves others without women - a subclass of male cast offs. Of course, this idea was "pooh poohed" by everyone I talked to. Or met with blank stares.

Now we read about Colorado City, where boys are being abandoned, and some male teenagers are being banned from the community. They are a threat to the older guys who want to marry the younger girls. Sick bastards.

It is disturbing. And I was right. Any Mormon would say at this point: "But those people aren't Mormons. They don't have any affliation whatsoever with Mormons."

Even if this were true, which it isn't, it is true that this is where Mormons would be right now if the government hadn't made them stop being polygamists a hundred years ago.

Last night I sat outside on a lawn chair watching Harry and Rachel spray themselves with the hose, I had a thought: I am living the good life! We live on two acres in the middle of the desert, and I love the desert. We sit out on our back patio in the evenings sipping wine or coronas with lime and watch the mountains change color as the sun hits them in different ways. Birds fly over, one particular kind always coming in pairs, calling to each other with cooing sounds, circling in a dance around our trees. As the kids run around riding their bikes or spraying themselves with the hose if it is warm, my husband and I have leisurely conversations about everything and nothing.

Yes, life is good.

As I say in my profile, two years ago, I left the Mormon church and I am just getting to know myself. Sometimes I feel like I have just stepped out of the cave and I am squinting at the bright light. So much of what I thought I was has changed COMPLETELY. Even the way I vote, speak, spend my free time, THINK. So some of what I want to include in my blog are thoughts about my upbringing. I need to reprocess it all.


Dirty, that is a good word to describe the pack of children growing up at my house when I was a kid. Not so much visible dirt, like peanut butter smeared around mouths or soil under ragged fingernails. Indeed, there was plenty of that, but this dirt was not that type. It was a more of a smell actually, a staleness caused by underwear found in the corner of the bedroom and put back on because there was none in the drawer. It was filmy, sticky teeth, slightly yellowed from many evenings of falling asleep anywhere that no one would stumble with no reminder to: “Brush your teeth, dear.” And stains, still visible after many washings on the clothes that were already used when the oldest began wearing them years ago. I can remember what it felt like to be in that group, hanging out the back of an old station wagon, or wiping my nose on the back of my arm. I remembered the smell of unwashed clothes, sweaty brothers, and beans cooking. I remembered the shouting and the preaching. Oh yes, the preaching.

Monday night was the regular night for gathering the children for the indoctrination. We all went to church, of course, but then on Monday, my father gathered us all together for additional instruction. All seven children, even the tiniest, were required to sit quietly and listen to my father. He often started with a nice story, or even a picture. He asked us to sing something. The first fifteen minutes were usually bearable. But he couldn’t stop there. The more he spoke, the more agitated he became. His voice got louder, he was more cross with the younger children as they fidgeted and jabbed each other.

“This is important,” he shouted. “Sit down and shut up.”

Thus, at very young ages we were all scared shitless of a loving God who wanted to punish us and separate us from our families.

My parents met at Brigham Young University when they were both eighteen. My father looked like James Dean with his slicked back hair, strong features, and cool khaki trousers. My mother, though beautiful, did a poor job of showing her beauty to the world. Her flawless velvety skin, dark hair and eyes, and long graceful fingers were concealed by layers of clothing, a down turned head, and an ability to blend in with a crowd and avoid the slightest bit of attention.

My mother’s first impression of my father was that he was cocky and unattainable. My father simply remembered my mother as the fat girl in the green coat. However, in spite of this shaky start, they ended up together and eventually produced nine children. Yes, nine children ranging in age when the youngest was born from zero to twenty.

A few months after the first meeting in class, my father agreed to go on a blind date. His social life had been suffering because all of his money was spent on rent, food, and school expenses. It was difficult to ask a girl out and then suggest that she pay or that they go for a walk. I am not sure how the date went, but I do know that my father had a vision from God that she was the woman he was meant to be with. I don’t know if along with the vision came love and attraction, perhaps that came later. Before they could be together, however, my father wanted to work as a missionary. He wanted to convert the heathen, preach the word of good ol' Joe Smith, and save souls. He wanted to walk through rural areas, live in shacks, and spread the good news.

I read yesterday that writer's write daily, that inspiration does not come before writing but during, that thoughts become clearer when written.

Now, I am not a writer, but clarity can be an elusive commodity.

So, here's to inspiration, productivity and clarity which may or may not manifest themselves here.