origin of the species

October 4th, 2010
Mormon

Mormons are named for the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon is named for the prophet/historian Mormon.

The prophet/historian Mormon was named for the land of Mormon.

The land of Mormon was named by a malevolent king.   Read more »

Life, the universe, and disability

September 26th, 2010
Disability, Family, Mormon, Mothering, News, Rants, Thomas

A person’s reaction to the news of retardation is usually a distilled manifestation of his or her view of the universe. (Martha Beck)

That has certainly been true in my case. Hear all about it in this three-part podcast which explores how Mormons, parents, and other human beings approach the complexities of disability, and also delves into other topics from the dynamics of grief to the risks of rewarding academic achievement to the limitations of religious determinism.

Many thanks to my partner in conversation, Heather Olson Beal, and to Mormon Stories mastermind John Dehlin for this chance to rant for two hours straight. Okay, so it’s more like three hours. Y’all love me enough to listen for that long, right? (Don’t answer that.)

A river in a time of dryness

September 23rd, 2010
Marriage

Updated from its first iteration, January 12, 2006.

I used to think that one of the downsides to being in a stable marriage is knowing you’ll never fall in love again. I mean, really, passionately in love. When your every cell is supercharged with life, and the whole earth feels renewed with promise.

Truth be told, I didn’t even experience that kind of heady power before I got married. At least, not to the extent that I knew was possible, in fabled theory. Happy as I was after the big “yes,” part of me felt that I had missed out on the stuff of legends. Period.

Thankfully, I was wrong. Read more »

Wonder twin powers, activate!

September 9th, 2010
Musings

The first day I met Angela Hallstrom, I got lost.

Well, kind of. She’d just moved from Minnesota to SLC, and on this given morning she was following my van up I-15 en route to Sugarhouse Park, where we and a mutual friend planned to entertain our various preschoolers. All I knew about her was that she had an MFA, a finished novel manuscript, and an elegant name. Impressed by all three, I determined to impress her in return, starting with my caravan-leading skills. But on the freeway, while talking a manic streak with the aforementioned friend, Darlene, who was riding shotgun in the van, I missed the exits to I-215 and I-80, and had to backtrack to the park by taking 21st South. Road construction clogged the way, causing a near standstill. Five minutes passed. Ten. Embarrassed, I checked my rearview mirror and spotted Angela behind me, looking vaguely amused. Five more minutes. Angela’s son was squirming. I feared for my fledgling reputation, then reminded myself that a midwesterner would likely have no clue that we’d taken a maddening detour. Half an hour later, when we finally parked by the geese-laden duck pond, I apologized just in case. Angela smiled benignly and didn’t mention that she’d grown up in the valley. This is one reason to like her.

There are many others. In fact, over the 3+ years since the park debacle, Angela has become one of my most-decorated friends. She’ll kill me if I wax rhapsodic, so I won’t, but there are a few things I must mention: her heart is as expansive as her mind, and that’s saying something.  Her exceedingly good nature charms everyone, including, notably, my misanthropic husband. And she’s one of the few people who can tell me hard things in a way I can hear them; one of the few people who can cue me that, for a minute there, I lost myself. Read more »

happy anniversary

September 9th, 2010
Mormon, News, Spirituality

Behold, Segullah‘s fifth anniversary issue.

We’re giving away a thousand copies to readers who begin or renew a one-year subscription to the print edition of our journal. Don’t miss this double-length collection of personal essays, poetry, feature articles, and (for the first time) short fiction that illuminates the concept and experience of marriage from dozens of different angles—some from within the bounds of its rewards and challenges, and some from without. Highlights include essays from Mormon lit mavens Linda Hoffman Kimball and Tessa Meyer Santiago, a short story from award-winning fiction author Angela Hallstrom, and an article by LDS sex therapist Natasha Parker, plus winners and other honorees from our most recent personal essay and poetry contests.

Very Greek.

September 6th, 2010
Family, Photos

Andreas Ioannis Kostakos + Ekaterina Pappas + Georgios Petro Linardakis + Christina Kallianes = me, almost 39.

or is it everything?

September 3rd, 2010
Food, Marriage, Music

There’s pizza, and there’s pizza from The Pie.

There’s eating pizza from The Pie, and there’s eating extreme veggie pizza from The Pie. (redonionsmarinatedtomatoesartichokeheartsfetacheesefreshspinach)

There’s eating extreme veggie pizza from The Pie, and there’s eating extreme veggie pizza from The Pie with your favorite person on earth.

There’s eating extreme veggie pizza with your favorite person on earth, and there’s eating extreme veggie pizza with your favorite person on earth sitting outside on one of summer’s last evenings perfectly warm in the shade.

There’s eating extreme veggie pizza with your favorite person on earth sitting outside on one of summer’s last evenings perfectly warm in the shade, and there’s eating extreme veggie pizza with your favorite person on earth sitting outside on one of summer’s last evenings perfectly warm in the shade with the sound of rushing waters in one ear (plaza fountain 10 feet away) and the sound of Thom Yorke in the other (uncannily, singing the track that’d been in my head all day).

Let’s go down the waterfall
Have ourselves a good time
It’s nothing at all
Nothing at all

Doors of perception

July 9th, 2010
Musings, Spirituality

Mormons are familiar with this concept of a greater reality being blocked for certain purposes. We believe that our minds are extensively veiled, unable to access the vast majority of what we know (i.e. everything we learned and experienced during our premortal eons of existence). Brigham Young even taught that the spirit world–the intermediary sphere of postmortal existence–exists right here, as part of the boundaries of this earth. We just can’t see it, because it’s veiled.

That elusive expanded reality has been haunting me for months now, especially this week, as my probability drive implodes. I needed the right music to breathe–after a long stretch of raw, scrappy Pixies it was time for something more contemplative. We Shall All Be Healed was on continuous loop for several days early on, John Darnielle being the ideal frontman for resigned, matter-of-fact states of pain, but then I was at a loss. Louder Than Bombs filled the gap until I hit upon the perfect dark horse: Ride’s album nowhere, the melodic wall of dream-noise that dominated the summer of 1991, when Reed was working at DV8 and I’d sit at the bar for hours, amused by various men trying their luck with me, while Reed hauled kegs and tried not to fume. Wonder what we would’ve said if someone gave us a quick peek into our lives 19 years down the line. Now playing, as I sit in the dentist’s reception room while the kids get manhandled by hygienists: Seagull.

You gave me things I'd never seen
You made my life a waking dream
But we are dead
Falling like ashes to the floor
Falling like ashes to the floor.
Definitions confine thoughts, they are a myth
Words are clumsy, language doesn't fit
But we know there's no limit to thought
We know there's no limits.
Now it's your turn to see me rise
You burned my wings, but watch me fly
Above your head
Looking down I see you far below,
Looking up you see my spirit glow.

I don’t know what to make of it all, and at this point I’m not even going to try. I’m realizing more and more that my distress comes from wanting to define the undefinable, pin down what can’t be pinned, decide what can’t be decided, and understand what can’t be understood. Two mutually exclusive realities coexist, and choosing in harmony with one tends to disrupt the other, and no certainty exists except the certainty that both are essential. I’m learning, the hard way, that simultaneously navigating both requires the strictest integrity—the two planes intersect along the thinnest of lines, and even one step out of place lands you in exile. And right steps require right thoughts and right intents and right desires, and while I know and love the taste of rightness, it’s not always what I’m drawn to and drawn by. So the price of living in an expanded realm, of inhabiting and exploring a cube instead of a square, is rigid resistance of the most compelling and magnetic distractions. It’s all yours, God says, iff you play by the rules. Iff, the philosopher’s abbreviation for if and only if.  What I’m so slow to accept is that the rules aren’t arbitrary lines to toe, but incontrovertible laws, determined through the physics which govern the evolution of souls. There are no loopholes. God doesn’t wink from the corner. Consequence is embedded in my choices, and my choices often suck.

But I wouldn’t be where I am, wouldn’t have these doors open, if I were incapable of walking aright.

A perfect waking

July 5th, 2010
Family, Musings

Light breezes from the open window and the ceiling fan, air completely dry and silken-gentle. Beneath and on top of the sheet, room temperature resting at the pitch where skin fully relaxes. Sunlight glowing bright, too thin to be hot. Reed got Andrew off to camp at 6 and changed T’s poopy diaper at 7; I opened my eyes and stretched my legs and rolled over and dozed off again. Made that kind of love that only unfolds in the morning hours, still half-dreaming, when pleasure lies right next to you, there for the taking, and the taking is easy, unencumbered by heavy layers of the rational and the daily. Barely escaped the veto of Thomas pounding on the locked door with dismay; we laughed at his victorious chuckles upon admission to the inner sanctum. I might’ve been disappointed at finding myself fully awake if it weren’t for the air on my legs–just a touch too cool–as I walked out of my bedroom, and the half-slice of lemon-sour cream pound cake leftover from last night, and the lingering delight of driving I-215 at sunset with the boys belting out “Fortunate Son,” having just seen my husband in the company of his closest friends, his happiness unfurled like the colors lining our neighborhood streets, tethered to flagpoles so they won’t dissolve into light.

Holy Spirit

June 24th, 2010
Spirituality

It often starts behind the sternum, the heat and the light; sometimes across the shoulders or atop the crown of the head, but usually right there in the center of the chest. Burning. A fist-sized circle glows orange and red and then bursts into flame, like a gas burner igniting in slow motion. Then comes the steady expansion throughout my torso, gas burner on high, orange flames topping the blue, licking my shoulders. The sensation comes in waves, wide as the curves which chart the deepest sound, broad enough to feel the peaks and troughs as they pass. In Eastern art, the lotus flower blooms red-orange squarely above the seeker’s heart. Enlightenment. And this is the form of the lesser power–a gentle blossoming, stable enough to remain through time and space. But when the petals combust they cannot last, only for minutes at a time (lest the heat utterly consume?)–long minutes, though, and sometimes many strung together. The fire clings when I walk, but fades more quickly with movement; in stillness, it remains for as long as it will.

The heat from above and behind feels weaker at first, thinner, originating beyond me instead of within, sometimes topping the joints like electric hands gripping my shoulders; sometimes centering at the top of the spine, sometimes traveling its length. The mantle spreads, sunlight on a turned back. At full strength it fills the limbs and digits and dissolves the membrane enclosing the self, granting deliverance for a few bright moments, a token of things to come.

And every now and then, the heat touches the head first, as if unseen hands are pressing my scalp. As it burns white, I wonder who, or what, is standing behind me, and whether its feet touch ground.