Jim - an excellent  wedding photographer - gave me the best photography tip EVER.  When I was in Pennsylvania we had to take the requisite family pictures. 

"I'm sorry, but my eyes are always closed in pictures.  I try not to blink to no avail." I apologized in advance.

"Here's what you do." Jim replied. "I will count to three and you blink on two.  Your eyes will be open in every picture."

It works!  Blink on two.  Profound!  Have you heard of that? 

Now if I could only learn to shut my mouth.

My six sibs and me

Science is my nemesis.  I never got it.  I didn't get the sparks, the aha! moments, the passion. 

My dear friend, however, almost chirps - she waves her hands and rocks up on her toes - she's that excited about science! When her kids were young they would pulse with recognition: "Look, Mommy!  It's a dicot!" 

As a young homeschool mom, I overbought science enrichment materials in an attempt to compensate for my deficiencies.  They mostly stayed on the shelf. Fortunately, we had co-op teachers who lived and breathed science, whose heart beat faster when they contemplated quarks.   

I wasn't happy about my Science Idiot status. But it paled in the light of feeding four males, keeping them shod and clothed and breaking three of them of saying, "Me and Josh are going to the park."  

Then I had an epiphany. 

I read Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel.  It was an incredible story, well-written, absorbing page-turner.  Not until I was finished did it occur to me that I had just immersed myself in.....science! 

And that, my friend, was an AHA! moment.  My path to scientific knowledge (a redundancy since science means knowlege, learning) was through literature.  What rebounded off my brain in a textbook, had a chance of sticking if it was couched in a story.  All-righty, then.

I followed Longitude with another Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, which was wonderful and textured and satisfying and fabulous.  (It begins with one of my favorite letters of condolence ever.) 

I thought, perhaps, that I was on to something.  Paul de Kruig's Microbe Hunters was an excellent read aloud bit of science history that took us from Antony Leeuwenhoek's first microscope, Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur (who wanted to learn how to make good beer) to Walter Reed.  I also enjoyed The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. 

I tried Kepler's Witch: An Astronomer's Discovery of Cosmic Order Amid Religious War, Political Intrigue, and the Heresy Trial of His Mother; I actually raved about the first third of the book.  Then I lost interest.  There are other books and authors - John Muir for instance - whom I read with such enjoyment that I don't think about the stuff I am learning along the way.  I've read several adolescent biographies of scientists like Ernest Rutherford.

My dogpile of books to read includes Lewis Thomas' Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher and Philip Yancey's Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. 

And that's the extent of my remedial-science journey.  As my responsibilities of teaching my sons are coming to a close and my learning and reading is not curriculum-driven, I want to begin "filling in the potholes" of my learning. I'm making a list of stuff I want to learn and a plan on going about it.  

I would be very grateful. No textbooks. Biographies, narratives, non-fiction.  Books that make your eyes light up; books that make you suck in the air and hold it without knowing you are doing it.

Bonus:   If you have a title that makes physics even remotely accessible, I would write a post with your name in it forty-five times.    

1.   I still regard air travel with wide-eyed wonder.  That we could wake up in Pennsylvania and go to sleep in Oregon is in the realm of miraculous.  My favorite part of flying?  The thirty seconds before the air leaves the ground...feeling those g-forces, oh yeah!

2.   Relaxed brides are a blessing.  I quote my niece Faith:  All I ever wanted was a Cinderella dress and Gerber daisies.  She got that and a whole lot more beauty.  Photos (and flowers) by Tiffany, the wedding coordinator.  One of the pleasures of playing the piano for weddings is a clear view of the groom's face as the bride comes down the aisle.  This groom's smile was wider than the Mississippi. 

3.   Small world stories are more fun than bubble wrap and your very own box of sparklers.  We made a rip-roaring, over-the-moon connection this weekend.  Our old family friends were in my small town -unaware that I lived here- last summer to see their friends in the region that belong to me too!  Did they [mutual friends] know you were a Harper?  Um, no, I don't normally go around announcing my maiden name.

4.    Our hotel was next to the cemetery where my niece is buried.  Ellie's journey on earth was too short, one brief day in 1985.  A group of us hiked up the hill to see the heart-shaped stone above her grave.  I love the impulse of my siblings to mark and share that loss.  I wish dear Ellie were still with us.

5.   A delightful surprise was an impromptu drum recital (!) given by my sister-in-law, who surely gets the Lifetime Learner Award.  At sixty, she's acted on a desire to learn to play the drums.  You know: the whole drum set thing.  My brother drops her off for lessons and they have a date night afterward.  How cool is that?

6.  My sister and her husband made heroic efforts to be with us.  Limited mobility and chronic pain are part and parcel of her life.  Yet you will never hear her complain.  She amazed all of us with her determination and gumption.

7.   My nephew shared his pictures from a trip he took with his sister (my niece) to eastern Turkey.  I was amazed at the Armenian Cathedral ruins at Ani.   

check out the story of Jonah and the whale

8.   As a large family whose parents are gone, we don't have the best track record for staying in touch.  After such a great time together we have renewed intentions to meet again...sooner than later.  The older I get, the more I understand the Jewish words of parting: next year in Jerusalem.  Our Jerusalem may be St. Paul, MN, and we hope it might included a performance of Prairie Home Companion.  

Also file in the Renewed Intentions File: trip to NYC to see my nephew, an Art History major, for a few days of art museums; The Sturdy Shoes Trip (what my sister-in-law and I call our dream of a children's literature tour of the UK). 

Airline tickets:  $430
Motel: $360

Two hours with my father's friend and colleague -- all of my siblings and spouses, and several of our kids -- listening to stories about my dad and mom....priceless.  Dr. Smith worked with my dad from 1959 until his death in 1987.

The wedding was beautiful, the reception was lovely, and the music went swimmingly. 

But the hallmark of this trip, I believe, will be those hours of laughter, tears, questions, revelations.  The winks and nods and fingers lovingly pointed by the spouses when a certain trait of my father's was described.  That's you, babe.

Priceless.  Unforgettable. 

A gift.

Bonus: my husband and oldest son shared the experience. 

Isaiah, the young man we've been praying for

Today we got an opportunity to visit with Isaiah, our young friend who has survived a 350 foot drop in a car crash, has waken up from a coma but has experienced some brain damage.  He has been making *remarkable* progress, ahead of every expectation.  What an encouragement to hear him say, "cool" when we told him how many people have been praying for him. And to nod his love back and grip hands when we told him we loved him. His mom was a gracious mediator, drawing out responses from him and encouraging us with her steadfast love. 

I asked Isaiah if I could take a picture to document his "celebratory" status, and he gave a sweet smile.  Of course, my camera futzed and missed the smile.  He is scheduled to come home in June and continue his work relearning functions like writing and speaking and walking.  This is such a praise.  Such a glorious work.  We continue to pray.  It is a marathon, not a sprint.

Thanks be to God.  And thank you for your prayers, my friends.

"This time, however, it felt very different. I wasn't just pruning and thinning here and there. This was "biblio clear-cutting." I committed to keep only those books that I truly cherish, really want to read, or have some prospect of using in my post-teaching career.This hurt. I said good-bye to hundreds of books. But I also found that radical downsizing of a personal library can be instructive."

I am always impressed - favorably - by friends, people who love and cherish books but are able to let go of them with such grace and little angst.  I keep telling myself that I should be combing through my shelves regularly, systematically.  But it goes in spurts, and I keep receiving more than I cull.  But they are really good books, ones I will love, I'm sure!   

*If only proper names could be used in Scrabble!  We know a couple, Zane and Quinn, whose names could win you a Scrabble game.