Meg March Loses a Lock Before Breakfast
Dear family and dear friends 20 April 2009
Today is devotional day at BYU. I don’t know if they will air one today, as this week is finals week, but I cleared my Tuesday morning so I could peer for Kristen and friends in the massive Marriott Center and listen to something unusually uplifting to share. A few weeks ago, out driving, I had forgotten it was Tuesday but serendipitously turned the dial to BYU radio to hear a Dr. Martin Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania explain that after spending much of his life studying suicide, depression, and schizophrenia, he wondered if there might be a way to study psychology in the way of helping regular people simply be happier. (You may have seen the January 17, 2005 issue of Time Magazine, titled The Science of Happiness, where Dr. Seligman and his work were featured.)
The premise of his talk was that well-being (a more rounded version of “happiness”) could be taught, would do wonders with youth, and could empirically be proven a benefit. Traveling to China, Australia, and the United Kingdom, Dr. Seligman has worked with teachers to help youth of varying social classes understand personal well-being, (when you are happy, learning happens more easily), find their talents (when you learn something that you are good at, you tend to want to get better, life becomes more interesting, you experience “flow”), and finally find a way to share these talents (life has more meaning when you find a way to make a difference.) What the teachers and researchers learned, in double-blind placebo studies, is that the youth who participated in this learning slashed their depression rates to half, grades were markedly improved, as were other outward behaviors. Dr. Seligman encouraged listening students to view his website at authentichappiness.org, which I looked up and here is the exact link that I found: http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx. I did this, and have been pondering some of the examples he used to show that it is possible to celebrate with one another the good things in our lives…and savor some of the pleasant feelings. One of the methods that apparently had lasting effects (of the various ideas they tried) was to keep a gratitude journal. If each night you choose to write a few things that made you happy and why, you tend to be happier. I have a journal, and I am working at writing a story alluded to by this letter’s title. My only problem is that I tend to write at least once every two months, whether I need it or not!
So, welcome to my gratitude journal. And now that I have spent 2/3 of a page introducing…come along with me, to experience a visit with nearly two year old Eleanor, baby Thomas, April and Tom, visiting the end of March. A glorious visit…never has a week flown so quickly by!
After their little family returned from visiting Zion’s National Park, viewing its grandeur, hiking and photographing its peaks,
they returned for one last morning to walk and color and eat with “Grandpa” or (“Bumpa.”)
Five month old Thomas giggled on demand, and as my sister had previously primed us with a whole page of toddler activities, we engaged Eleanor in play dough, gluing collages, and spaghetti art.
Reflecting on how Ellie likes table play, April decided that someone found Eleanor’s button—you know, the “craft” button. But Ellie knows all about buttons and immediately stopped to look to find Ellie’s belly. I think finding “buttons” is what Dr. Seligman means by “flow.” Isn’t it great to find our buttons?!
Another visit happened about General Conference time, on the first weekend of April. Kristen had something hurting, not sure what, near her last lower left molar. Dr. Brian Call, our dentist, gave advice over the telephone, but suggested that if the issue did not resolve itself to call him by Saturday and he would schedule an emergency visit. She tried the advice, continued to be in major pain, called late Saturday, and an appointment was set for Sunday, 8:30 a.m. (If we timed it right, everyone could see Music and The Spoken Word at 9:30 a.m.!) Kristen and Archie arrived at 10:30 that night, drank apple cider tea and (Kristen) gummed clam chowder before requesting scriptures and retiring in separate quarters.
Up early, I arose briefly intending to catch a few more winks, but thought I heard something musical, something indistinct. Was it the stereo player? Val listened and affirmed that, it was singing. I ventured closer, and decided that it was a kind song to help overcome Kristen’s pain. Agony, however, was winning the race for attention. Archie’s song was promptly replaced with the novel Kristen had started a few days earlier. From the corner of the family room came an animated dramatic reading voice (you must remember, Archie is still majoring in Drama, even if it is dramaturgy) as we heard remnants of the story of Josephine March from Little Women, where Jo helps her sister Meg get ready for the neighbor’s ball--the part where Jo forgets to remove the curling iron, and Meg loses a lock of her hair. “No matter,” Jo assures!
I never imagined my hearth being so alive and tender during moments of pain. What we are grateful to realize, is that home ever welcomes nurturing. We love that Archie loves Kristen, enough to entertain Louisa-May-Alcott-style before breakfast. We are grateful for a dentist willing to interrupt his Spring Break morning to remedy acute “operculitis”. Glad that the months of school are shortening—two left for Amber (twelve for Archie and Kristen) and only three more years and two months for Maria…but there are ever adventures beyond! Maria will represent Libya at model United Nations next week. Amber and Maria are tread milling through AP practices. Amber has joined her cousin Michael, finished with BYU-Idaho on an all-out summer job hunt. Kristen, wearing a real ring, warns us wedding announcement time is approaching.
Grandpa Gee, upon having his heart doctor request a treadmill test, promptly missed a step on his basement stairs, carrying home repair equipment. His garden seeds are planted, but three torn ligaments may delay prescribed exercise or active escapades for six weeks. Grateful, we are when calling for sympathy from his son, my brother, David Gee (the morning we read that Utah has lost one of its former congressmen to a recent ATV accident) that David has joined the misery merely with a faux pas, or false foot, and it is actually a booted foot, though broken. We still have both dad and brother with us, even if they are recuperating! Happy that the rest of us can walk, that the sun has warmed the field and ponds enough to permit it, and that we can take ten minutes to jaunt up the street breathing in colors of dusk, dawn, and twilight on our way! Thankful to have someone to tell about the goodness that continues to shower our days—I am learning that friends help us rejoice (you know, have the joy twice!) Happy wrapping up of April and peering into May! Love, the Starkeys
