Motherhood – Page 31 – Letters from Home

Refinishing the Piano

Refinishing the Piano, 1998

A recurring theme in my journal from my years of marriage is my desire to be accepted by my mother-in-law. She has been welcoming and generous to me, but any suggestion she has made has sunk deep into my soul.

“You should refinish that piano,” she said, when she saw the piano in our apartment in Provo, just months after Richard and I were married. She told me about her experiences refinishing pianos and other pieces of furniture. My mother-in-law’s laundry room was full of paints, stains, chemicals, and potions for the application and removal of anything.

The piano was a nearly 100-year-old Kimball, tall and heavy, that my dad acquired when I was a teenager. For many years, my dad loaned it to families in the neighborhood so their children could have an instrument. When I was married, the piano came to me.

It had a deep cherry stain but no piano bench. Years of sitting in homes without a bench left it with some chips in the finish below the fingerboard where chairs had been pushed against it. Richard’s mother gave us the piano bench that Richard made for her in high school and pushed it beneath the keys.

On a later visit, Richard’s mother showed me how to take apart the piano in a further effort to convince me to refinish it. My over-active self-doubt and desire to please her haunted me as we finished college in that apartment. I had no time to refinish a piano, but its chipped surface and the idea that I should fix it really bothered me. We had our baby shortly after I graduated from BYU, and now I really felt I had no time to refinish a piano with an infant to care for and Richard finishing a graduate degree and working in a lab.

We moved to Texas in 1997 and Richard began the first job of his career at National Instruments. I felt the stretch of motherhood at this time pretty fully. I had had my first exposure to the antics of a 15-18-month-old during that first year in Texas, far from family and among uninitiated friends. It’s been true for most of my children: at age 15 months, they begin whining, become more demanding, and make a lot of trouble for the next several months.

In my frustration, I turned to religious music. I took Paige on walks and blew lots of bubbles and built block towers, but she was still whiny and destructive. I decided that having only one focus (my baby) wasn’t working. I decided to refinish that piano.

The hardware store had low-fume chemicals to begin the process of taking off the finish. I decided not to worry about the mess and the fact that I had a toddler to entertain. The winter Olympics were on and I spent days with the television turned to winter sports as I worked during Paige’s naps and beyond. As I focused on scraping the old finish from the wood, she learned to entertain herself. She liked playing on the piano and seeing what it looked like inside. The sliding door of our apartment was always open that winter during the project to vent out the fumes. I grew to love a warm Texas winter.

Next time you see a piano, take some time to study it. There are so many pieces. Some you can remove. Others you can’t. Count the crevices and indentations. This project took me a long time. For months, we had a partially dismantled, partially bare wood piano. I can still hear the sickening slap of the brush applying the noxious chemical stripper to the wood. I can remember the bubbling of the stain as the chemicals seeped in. I wore long rubber gloves as I scraped the red finish off with a putty knife and collected the bacon-like strips of the old stuff in my hands. Bag after bag of soggy, orange-red paint and stain exited our apartment during those months. When Richard left for a week-long Scout camp in Tennessee that summer, I spent the nights pushing myself to finish the project. When he walked in the door a week later, the piano was finished; no longer cherry red, and showing a beautiful wood grain.

The refinished piano moved with us three times, to a house in Texas, a house in Arizona, and another house in Arizona. After we bought a grand piano in 2007, we sent the old Kimball to my sister Susan. I tried to plant a seed as I said to her, “Make some kind of improvement on it before you pass it on. Perhaps you could start by replacing the covers on those chipped keys.” I am not sure if my words haunt her, but I know she will be glad if she makes a couple of improvements to it.

In the end, I didn’t refinish the piano to please my mother-in-law. In fact, I don’t remember what she said when she saw that I had done it! I refinished the piano for myself. I have my mother-in-law to thank for the idea and some guidance. I learned a skill and a life lesson: be creative. Always be building or making something. Don’t give yourself to your family so much that you forget to create. Perhaps she wanted to teach me the satisfaction of such a project. I am a better mother and wife when I have something to work on outside of childcare and house work.

Some quotes and funnies

The Stroller and as much of a dropping-off-at-BYU post as I can write

1-DSC_3660 — Sparky hoped to stow away to college

1-DSC_3662 — The dorm room, not decorated, but fantastic.

The stroller

Spring of 1998 was the first time I watched the Texas bluebonnets bloom along the roadways. We were building a new house. I had time to do projects and I spent some of that time sewing clothing for one-year-old Paige. I bought cheerful flowered fabrics for play clothes and a gauzy organza fabric for her Easter dress.

This time was the beginning of a focused effort to acquire toys for our little girl. I didn’t know then that toys are something you only need to buy for a few years. Once you’ve got a good collection, they seem to multiply magically in the closets and bins.

One day I drove Paige to the mall in Cedar Park to visit the toy store. Paige picked out a pink doll-sized stroller, a perfect size for her to push. She was so excited about it that I let her push the stroller through the mall. She began to move ahead of me and I was left to follow her. I watched her bob ahead of me with her cute short haircut, hot pink sandals, and handmade pink dress. Because I was a few steps behind her, I saw the smiles from shoppers as they noticed this little woman walking so confidently with her stroller.

I can still remember the rattly-scraping sound that the wheels made on the floors and sidewalks. I will never forget the print of her pink dress nor the love she granted to each of her dolls that rode in the stroller.

I don’t know why certain memories stay with me while others are lost. Perhaps this memory of Paige pushing her stroller stays because her little form, pushing forward on her own, became a glimpse of what I would experience again and again, observing her become more independent. I couldn’t have appreciated at the time that this scene was the first of many, where I would watch our children move beyond our reach to become who they are.

Just as I watched the smiles of strangers that day, I’ve seen the delight that my children’s reaching has pulled from observers. I’ve been blessed with friends who have loved our children and doted on them and shown support for their dance, baseball, and piano feats. The feeling I have at these moments when my children perform or move to the next phase is full, sometimes painful, and expansive. My heart races to catch up as my children move ahead with strengths I couldn’t imagine for them.

It’s when I give them the freedom to move out of my reach that I’ve had better perspective of what they can become. But, oh, the ache that comes with my smile!

Last days of summer

1-DSC_3637 — First day of 7th and 10th grade

1-DSC_3643 — First day of 4th grade. Flip flops are allowed in home school.

1-DSC_3644 — We were not sure we would survive this.

1-DSC_3647 — Mark’s school room looks like this.

1-unnamed — The boys climbed a tree at the company picnic

Milestones at our house mean that you get your picture taken at the front door. We had some big days last week. A 19th birthday, the first days of school, and a piano recital.

Our power was interrupted all day on the last day of summer break. We braced ourselves for the “hardship,” and loaded our cooler with food so we didn’t have to open the refrigerator and we turned off the computers. We cooled off the house in the early morning hours. Then the power went off, and along with it, our internet, phones, and our appliances for 7-8 hours.

We got so much done!

Daniel, Mark and I finished assembling my new bed. I sat down and worked on an important project for four hours, uninterrupted by phone calls, social media notifications, and squabbling over the computer. I couldn’t do laundry or cook, so we ate a simple lunch. Daniel cleaned out his room and we had several conversations. I repeat: we had several conversations. The weather stayed cool, so we were never too warm, and this was important.

Mark read books through the afternoon. I could hear him singing to himself from the hammock outside my window and from his bedroom down the hall. There was no hum from the refrigerator and air conditioner to block out his voice. So I sat, with my boys, my project, and the quiet. This time in our dim house wasn’t a hardship! It was a gift as our summer break came to an end. It was a reminder of how much we miss when we are too connected to our screens. Seven hours of living life unplugged left me feeling happy and connected to my family. What an easy remedy for feeling stressed out, stretched, and disconnected: put down the phone, turn off the screens, gather, work, and talk.

In the afternoon sun

We are busy. Our family is enjoying the last hours of summer vacation from school. I don’t want to give up this blog, but I struggle to find the time to write. Here is something I wrote last spring.

Changing Sheets

The afternoon sun is my only companion as I step into each of my children’s bedrooms to collect their sheets. Their absence from home persuades me to linger in their rooms to reconnect with them. Today the warm sun sets their kingdoms in a glow.

I begin in the cave, fifteen-year-old Daniel’s basement room, which always has its curtains drawn. I pull them open and the sunlight illuminates the corners. I pause to admire a machine he’s designed and created. There are candy and snack wrappers strewn on the otherwise unused desk. It’s clear that his rug and bed are his places of study. I notice that he’s reading Les Miserables. I pause at his mirror where old medals hang from one side, drawing my eye downward to his shelves, once occupied by collections, now occupied by more food wrappers and clothing he’s outgrown. The cluttered corners of his room are evidence of a young man in transition; childhood toys are no longer a pastime, but a few remain in sight. I smile to see that I can still count on him to hang up his church shirt. I sweep a few wrappers in the trash and slip the white shirt from its hanger into the hamper. I’m thankful for this young man in my home.

Twelve-year-old Timothy’s room, unlike Daniel’s room, is bright and warm from the sunlight coming through his blinds, which he never closes. Here, his treasures are also in ready view and they are unique. A Halloween wig and beard are displayed, a remnant of the work he and I go through every year to make just the right costume. He doesn’t have cluttered corners. His shelves display small toys earned at school and baseball trophies. After changing his sheets, I pause to admire the Lego Star Wars Clone Troopers arranged on the window sill in formation. Timothy’s methodical placement of toys is evidence of the gift of precision that he shows in most activities in his life. His Lego figures posed in silly scenes remind me of his humor, too. I tell myself that next time I need to correct him, I should use more humor. He’ll respond to that.

Eight-year-old Mark’s bedside shelf is piled high with books; books he’s inhaled, re-read, and will read again. Among the Harry Potter and Creature from My Closet books is a 1000-page Archie comic book. His bedding is a mess because the dog likes to nest in it. I’ve allowed it because Mark needs the dog’s company. This room, too, displays important treasures: postcards from a special Sunday school teacher’s travels, space ships, robots, and stuffed animals. This room houses my most affectionate child. Thoughts of him playing with his toys in this room wrings my heart. I’ve learned that little boy days are so brief. I step over a rumpled rug and smooth his suit, hung hastily in his closet and move to the next room.

Objects aren’t the only clues to a person’s activities. As I walk into eighteen-year-old Paige’s room, my busy thoughts are hushed in this somewhat cluttered place of intense study. Her quiet ways seem to have embedded themselves into the mood of the room. She is religious: her scriptures at her bedside and her art choices on the wall show me what she chooses to look at. She is busy. Her school papers are accumulating on a shelf. Some stacks are months old. She displays beautiful things: paintings, photographs of friends, and favorite books. I take a minute and sit on her bed before I change her sheets. I notice her closet, arranged by color, and her palette and paints on her desk. I try not to think about the short time she has left at home, but the days march forward in a relentless rhythm of lasts: last Christmas, last youth activity, last everything. Tears crowd me as I realize that we won’t hear her step in the hall and her hands on the piano in the autumn. The upcoming change makes the air feel tight in moments like this when I am alone. I sigh, brush away my tears, and hope that I cherished our time together enough. Then I get back to work.

In the afternoon sun, I do a small service and change sheets and discover my family. My children probably won’t remember that I changed their sheets, but I hope they will remember that I knew about their lives and loved them. This is one of the ways that I accomplish this. Someone once wrote that a homemaker makes something great out of that which is small. Changing sheets is no exception.

Frontier living

We’re living frontier-style with our bed in the living room while we paint our master bedroom. It’s like Little House on the Prairie here as I awake to find the kids pouring cereal in the kitchen, just feet away from me. Our new foam mattress arrived this week in a very compact box. As we pulled away the plastic, it grew to normal size in half a minute.The mattress on the living room floor is so much nicer than our old mattress that we have made up the bed and go to sleep to the sound of the dishwasher each night.

I took pictures of the “still” times that our family enjoyed this week. Mostly, though, it was all go. The evenings after we finished our activities were precious. One night we pulled out Scrabble. Other nights we walked. For Family Home Evening, we played a version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire that Richard and I made with Book of Mormon trivia questions. One night we entertained my mom and my brother Matt’s family.

I feel like I am coming out of a Relief Society trance. It’s all I have been able to think about or do for the past five weeks. But now that I “know” the visiting teaching routes and I am getting into a schedule of visits and meetings, I can manage my time better. And wow, do I need to do that. I forgot to write Mark’s talk for Primary. I forgot that summer is ending. The boys start school next week. Paige moves out the week after that. What?

We went to the book store and Paige and Daniel didn’t spend much time in the fluffy literature section. I found them camped out in the college prep section. It’s like I saw their childhoods flutter away at that moment. I shook my head and walked back to the children’s section where I could reminisce about the days when we read picture books together. Then I bought myself a coloring book.

Today I’m remembering that it’s the 3rd anniversary of the day I drove the kids to Utah, saying goodbye to our home and friends in Arizona. I miss a few things about Arizona, but I have never regretted moving here. The house projects move at a snail’s pace between errands, but we are getting it done.

Art, Science, Wildflowers & Family

It was a social week for us, with house guests in many corners, a science camp, an art camp, full evenings, and a family reunion. I ate a burrito from Freebirds with Richard and Nancy. Mark and I were stung by wasps and Richard and Daniel came to the rescue, vacuumed them up as they flew around their nest, and sealed up the entrance to their nest beneath our house.

My knowledge and interests have expanded over the years as I have waited in my van for kids at music lessons, school, church activities, and ballet. This week I read a lot at the University of Utah while I waited for Timothy at science camp. My van is almost the only place I could read this week. At this rate, I should finish my book by Christmas. Something I did for myself was attend the New Testament Commentary Conference at BYU on Friday afternoon to hear my friend Julie speak. I stole the photo of Julie from Facebook.

A favorite moment was with Paige and Richard when we took a drive to the Albion basin to see the wildflowers. At sunset, a bull moose emerged between the trees. Its long legs made its leisurely walk as fast as our truck as we moved along the road trying to get a blurry photo. That evening I saw flowers; Richard saw the slopes he normally visits on his skis. We wove two separate themes as we talked. “Oh, look at that shade of pink…and those purple flowers! I’m dying.” To which he replied, “I can’t believe I ski over all of those boulders!” spoken with an equal sense of wonder.

Another adventure we had was weeding and planting carrots at the Church garden. The missionary in charge of the carrots kept handing us carrots for breakfast. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, we rinsed them with our dirty hands in the sprinklers and munched as we weeded. “They taste like carrots,” Richard said. We spent two hours with our whole family, working and laughing together, so I was happy.

The kids enjoyed time with 20 cousins this week, bouncing, splashing, and running. Ours is a family with cousins in perpetual motion. In the kids’ cubbies at Spring Lake, we found notes that Grandma had encouraged the Sanchez cousins to write to one another. Here are a few:

Dear Paige, I love you.

Dear Mortiky, Hi, I’m David. I love you!

To Timothy [puppy drawing] signed DAVID

A top secret note from Hogwarts School, sealed for Mark

Dear Paige, I love you. You’re my buddiey.

Dear Daniel, I painted you a picture. You’re welcome. <3 Paige

We watched the most lingering sunset ever on Saturday night. As the late summer evening darkened, the Payson temple began to glow. Watching this heavenly Changing of the Guard in silence, the light source changing from sun to temple, fed my soul.

Art and Memory

As I have worked on the story of our family I’ve read journals, handled baby clothes, played music, and sifted through gifts from my children to awaken memories. I have seen how the arts have a power over memory that my conscious efforts don’t. I listened to an album from Paige’s childhood and the music didn’t bring back many concrete memories, but a yearning and a sweet ache. Feelings aren’t always nonsense. They can teach things that concrete objects can’t. My history isn’t just a chronology, it’s also emotion and motives not easily explained.

Music reminds me that there is a reality beyond memory that is sweet and real. Many details of motherhood are lost to me because I was tired and I didn’t write everything down. Music helps me remember what my mind cannot: how it felt to draw myself out to my children. It reminds me of unfiltered vulnerability and sacrifice, which are some of the ways I have loved.

Words, harnessed and molded, also help me understand my blessings. If I capture moments in words, they become objects of gratitude. Blessings multiply before my mind as I record Mark’s funny quotes, or the times when Timothy walked around the pool talking to the plants when he was a baby. Blessings take the form of the sparkle in Paige’s eyes when she danced and showed us her magnificent spirit on stage, or when Daniel, completely disarmed after a week away from home, gave me a long hug when he returned. These little things become pillars of memory as I take time to record them. It’s not just the big events that matter. Now recorded in words, these little memories are a testament to the blessings of having children; of the blessing of being alive.

Why make the effort to write? I want to be a voice that champions family. I want my family to know they are my favorite people.

Mothering was something I always wanted to do. It’s satisfying to me. It involves pain, worry, and frustration, too. It’s the role I cling to, but must find activities apart from, in order to be successful. Music and writing are those activities, yet they also bring me back to my family. I have an identity outside my titles, roles, and errands, but my role in the family has helped me in every way. I’m so thankful to be a daughter, sister, wife, and mother.

Daniel on Pioneer Trek

Daniel is off to Pioneer Trek this morning. If you see me with a distant look this week it’s because my thoughts are in Wyoming as I weave a long prayer for safety and strength for these kids. Or it’s because I’m choosing not to think and not to worry. This sendoff is a hard one for me. I try to send the kids off for adventures because it’s the right thing to do. I have raised our kids in a world that looks down on parents who let their kids out of their sight. It’s hard not to be affected by that paranoia. Plus I had heat stroke when I went on trek 3 years ago and I don’t want that for anyone.

I’m convinced that worry is the opposite of what God wants us to do with our thoughts. So this week it’s prayer and work and zoning out, but not worry for me. Because even in my worst experiences in life, I have been lifted. Daniel will be lifted, too.

Quiet Paige is Formidable

As Paige is graduating this week, I thought I’d share one of my essays about her from my memoir project.

Quiet Paige is Formidable

When Paige was four or five years old, she was part of a class of children in church with two darling teachers, Katrina Kuriplach and Lisa Stott. One day during the lesson the children were challenged to pick up a penny without using their thumbs. This task was designed to be impossible, perhaps to point out the amazing design of our bodies. Children took turns coming to the front of the room and tried to pick up the penny with only their fingers, but each failed. Quiet, hesitant Paige surprised them all when she walked up to the penny, brushed it off the book without using her thumbs, and caught it with her other hand when it fell.

When Paige was three, she dressed up for Halloween as Mary Poppins. Our neighbors’ daughter Kaitlyn was her best friend. We went trick-or-treating together as families and watched our little girls run ahead of us to the next house. Kaitlyn’s mother took the opportunity to tell me that Kaitlyn had tried to get Paige to dress in a coordinating costume. Kaitlyn was a blue dog, and she wanted Paige to be the pink dog. (Blue and Magenta from the show, Blues Clues) However, Kaitlyn’s mother said that Paige would have nothing to do with the idea. “Paige is independent and strong-willed,” she told me. I had worried that Paige’s silent nature might mean a life of getting pushed around by others, and this was a welcome insight!

I have learned from having a quiet child and being quiet myself that it’s possible to have strength, resilience, and ingenuity while being quiet. It is an important day when someone will acknowledge that.

At age eight when Paige was interviewed by our bishop for baptism, I received a call from the bishop telling me that he had been impressed by Paige’s answers to his questions about the gospel. He told me that it was a “Charlie Brown” moment in his life. He had become the adult whose words were muddled and unimportant as Paige’s clear and profound answers became the focus and highlight of the conversation. Many years later when we were living in Arizona, this bishop wrote to me,

Paige remains the most amazing baptism interview of my Bishop career…she left an indelible impression of goodness and purpose… Her light reflects her intrinsic beauty, value and a maturity far beyond her mortal years… Her understanding of and her insight into our Father’s Plan of Happiness leaves her untroubled with the ‘Do’s and Don’t’s’ of the commandments… While I may no longer recognize her in a crowd, I will love her forever.