This is silly – this post (I thought I’d published last night somehow didn’t take) is really not that big a deal, so reposting to you  – it’s like when you make some little comment half under your breath, just some little thing, and somebody says, “What did you say?” and the moment has kind of passed and you say, “Nothing.  Just – I really didn’t say anything.”  And they say, “No.  I want to know what you said.”  And suddenly you’re sitting under this cone of light in a dark room and the world is focused on you, and they put the mic to your mouth – and – all it was was some happy little chirp that had only had value right in that moment . . .

Anyway.  I just wrote this in a happy glow last night.  Sorry I made everybody come to see, and there was nothing to see.  And now here it is, and you’re going to say, “For this, I came here twice?”

And a little background: twice a year, in April and in October, the LDS church has a huge series of quiet but powerful meetings we call General Conference.  It used to be that people came to Utah from all over the world – they flew for hours, drove for days, came across mountains and prairies, over oceans and difficult times, to gather together for this event at Temple Square.  The Tabernacle, a building that was an architectural miracle in its time, never had enough seats for everybody.  So a few years ago, they built the Conference Center, another miracle of its time – with seats for at least 35000 people and acoustics to die for.  But above that, all those people all over the globe – Africa, Europe, South America, Australia – everywhere – now they gather around in the glow of LCD screens, ring side seats for what is an intellectual, spiritual and philosophical feast.

I went to a Church of Christ revival once with my friends.  This is nothing at all like that.  Just a quiet convocation with gorgeous music.

In October, when I watch, I make little things with my hands.  I love doing that.  Little Christmas ornaments and gifts for the coming holidays.  But with my heart?  Open like a cup, for all the reassurance and comfort and advisement that comes.  I can’t explain why I love it – but last night, I tried, I guess:

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When I was your age, there were three days of conference.  Friday, too.  And the welfare meeting at eight in the morning.  I remember being a little kid in LA and having to sit through the one session we got on TV.  I hated it.  Holding still.  People talking and talking.  Me trying to keep my brain going by tracing the Early American designs on the TV table in front of me.

Then I grew up.  And all of those sessions?  When I was in college, I started watching them for real.  And I found out that i LOVED THEM.  LOVED< LOVED<LOVED.   The welfare session is where I learned that the brethren didn’t want us to be in debt for anything but a house – and maybe a car – but that we should get rid of even that debt as soon as possible, and that little bit of advice has underpinned my entire adult life.

For six months, I look forward to conference.  And October is always my favorite.  I heard somebody call it “pajama church,” and that, it is.  And do things with your hands so you can hold still and listen church.  But mostly, it’s beautiful, intelligent, deep-hearted, soul-satisfying church.  And in the past two days, I have been told in the warmest and most lovely of terms that there certainly is a God, and a plan, and that Christ loves us and has saved us from sorrow and isolation and that, in a time when everything seems to be spiraling out of control, I have the power to control my own self, to offer love, to offer service, to change the world, if only in one moment for one person in one situation at a time.

Yes, it’s people talking and talking and talking – but beautiful, dignified men who speak with quiet voices, good sense and their hearts and the truth and I am strengthened and refreshed and braver and more patient (even with my swiss cheese little self).  So YAY and WHoopY!!!  

And what’s more: only ONE MORE CONFERENCE before my baby comes home!!!

Yes.

  For like the last week, our local weather guys have been rubbing their hands together with glee, predicting a HUGE change in the weather for this week.  For today, specifically.  “Wait till you find out what’s coming,” was the teaser I heard about three dozen times.  We’ve been warm.  Unusually, almost unpleasantly warm.  Ninety degrees in September.  Not like home.

I remember when I first came up to BYU from Texas (where there is no weather – okay, sometimes there’s weather, but not while I lived there), how deeply thrilled I was when I first saw white on the mountains.  Immediately I was washed with images: crisp apples, fire in the fireplace, warm and totally cool sweaters, parkas, friends, food, football.  And I love all that, starting in about mid October.

I didn’t really believe this predicted storm was going to be significant.  They always tell us about interesting weather coming our way, and it usually splits right above the valley, leaving us with same-old, and sometimes smog.  So part of me paid no attention.

But the other part, the part that runs my life, got it into its (her) section of my head that somehow Wednesday was going to be the END.  Winter coming down hard.  The end of autumn and riding, and dry arenas.  Like a door, slamming on any chance of Indian summer, or even a normal October.  So I started playing squirrel, rushing around battening hatches and taking in hoses, and worrying over what would freeze in the tack room.  Then Guy said, “It’s going to be 55, for heaven’s sake.  In spring, you think that’s sweltering.”  And I was comforted.

I shouldn’t have listened to him.

The part of me that thinks it’s in a small sailboat, and was steeling up for a perfect storm?  It disturbed my night, breaking my sleep with listening.  Waiting.  They were saying the front would come through between one thirty and two thirty in the morning—roaring wind ushering in freezing nights and soaked days.  At ten thirty, it was lovely outside – you could see the moon and one planet (which one?  Not Mars – wasn’t red).  No ring around the moon.  We took a walk in the dark – it was perfect, just that little tang of autumn.  Exhilarating.  Even so,  when I came inside, I disengaged all my auxillary drives and shut down my complex programs.  Nothing like hunching over a shutting-down computer, urging it on with bad language as it tries to deal with Photo Shop – while thunder shakes the house.

I woke up an hour after I’d gone to bed, alert.  I decided to do my workout for the morning so I wouldn’t have to wake up for it later (yeah?).  As I hit the treadmill I was listening for the wind.  My windows were open.  It was still warm and lovely.  The dog had to go out – I let him out but made him come right back in.  By then, it was one thirty and there was no sign of storm.  It was only what I’d expected.  I watched Skye trot across the lawn in the light of the moon.

Then I went to bed.

Two-thirty: I woke up.  Sitting up already.  Saying, “Wow.”  The trees outside of my window were twisting and lashing.  The wind had hit us; like a train it had hit the house.  I was glad we’d already made a formal request of Heaven about keeping the barn on the ground.  For the next hour, we slept fitfully – had to close the windows so the doors in the house wouldn’t bang around.  In a way, it was cozy.  Except for worry about the barn turning into a giant kite, it was cozy inside.

At five thirty I woke up again.  Sitting up again.  Thunder.  Lightening. AT THE SAME MOMENT.  Crashing wind.  Worried dogs.  One dog who needed to go out – till I opened the front door for him.  Two twitches of the nose and he changed his mind.  And the sprinklers were on.  Rain pouring down and the flipping sprinklers turn themselves on.

When it was finally day (can you count it day when it’s noon and I’m still turning lights on in the house so I don’t fall over things in the dark?), I got up and threw on my nor’easterner (raincoat, in other words), found some shoes I could wade in and headed for the pasture.  The horses had been out in that lashing wind all night – but it was from the north, and that’s why the open part of the barn faces the other way.  Still, the great blue barrels I use for riding around were all over the place – it must have been a really fun night out there.  Standing water in the back of the arena – and I could hardly get the barn door open against the wind.

You know the words “tizzy” and “hissy fit”?  Well I now know what they mean.  Because that’s what the horses were throwing.  They were pretty dry, having huddled under the barn roof all night (that takes cooperation), but now they were exploding: there were heads in the air, manes tossing, front feet off the ground, then butts and heels, then both – running, spinning, pretending to kill each other, backing in for the kill – this absolutely mute power play going on, as if they were one thing with the wind, streaming in all directions, colliding and spurting into frantic fountains.

I did not dare get in there with them; they were nuts.

So I climbed the fence, wading through the muck, and opened the gates from the outside, jumping up onto the fence as they thundered out, tearing great muddy gashes in the turf as they went.  I let Jedda out of the jail last. She ran towards the gate, which had closed itself, then turned around and came straight back at me at a dead run.  First time I’ve ever seen death face to face.  I jumped up on the fence again and ran to get that gate open.  She took it, a ninety degree turn, at sixty and accelerated to about eighty five in the turn onto the grass, then flattened out, catching up with the others.  I spent a rapidly moving ten minutes in the arena after that, freezing, hunched into the wind, dealing with manure.  Then another five throwing apples to the crazy people who were still chasing each other around, a bunch of playful/freezing locomotives.

By the time I was finished, my ears were aching on the inside, and I was chilled to the bone.

Now I’m home in my dark den of a house.  The wind whirls around the house; I can hear its phantom singing.  But inside, it’s almost warm.  The air is still.  Today was to be a reading day anyway, and I like sitting in a brave, satisfied puddle of light.  I have a screen play to get through and a manuscript I’ve been sidestepping.  And glass bird tails to cut and a last Disney blog to put up.  Not to mention the screaming for attention house, which we will not mention.  Did I mention that I wasn’t mentioning it?  Because I’m not.

I’m going to take a shower and then dress for the day – something with long sleeves (I look SO much better in long sleeves), and maybe a hooded sloppy sweater.  This could be good.

As long as the dogs don’t have to go out and the barn stays put.